Retro Gaming Australia

As you may already know, we have a Google spreadsheet with a list of scores awarded to computer and video games by magazines published in Australia, stemming back as far as about 1992. We call it the Australian Video Game Magazine Score Archive – you can find it under our Resources section up top.

We’ve had an update in the works for a long time, and now it’s up.

So what’s in the latest update? Almost 400 new scores, taking our total up to just under 8,000. New to the score list is the much loved PC oriented magazine Atomic – we’ve got the review scores from the first 50 issues of the magazine in there. We’ve also added scores from half a dozen issues of the Derwent Howard version of Official PlayStation 2 Magazine.

While moving house, we found another stash of old magazines. One of those mags happened to be Hyper #160, which had a list of every score from the first 159 issues. Like anything Hyper, there were a few mistakes so we couldn’t completely rely on it, but it has plugged a heap of gaps in the Hyper section of the scores list. As far as I can tell, we’ve got the vast majority of Hyper scores up to January 2008.

The Australian Mag Scores list now features 7,500 review scores from 20 years of Australian gaming magazines. We’re still a long way from finished however. In particular, we need scores from the following issues (issue numbers may not be accurate):

Hyper
2006: March (149)
2007: March (161)
and everything from February 2008 on (172-207)

Gamestar
1994: September-December
1995: January-March, May-June

Australian GamePro
All issues

Edge Australia
All issues

Megazone
1989-1991: All issues (1-18)
1992: Jan/Mar (20)
1993: September (31), December (34)
1994: February (36), March (37), May (39), June (40), July (41), November (45)
1995: February (48), March (49), June (52), July (53), August (54), September (55), October (56)

N64 Gamer
While we have scores for N64 Gamer, we have not looked in most of the magazines to see the actual scores. Given the inconsistency of the scores section in the back of each issue, we’d prefer to have the breakdown of scores taken from each individual magazine.
1998: March to December (1-10)
1999: February (12), March (13), May (14), June (15), July (16), August (17), September (18), October (19), November (20)
2000: March (24), April (25), May (26), June (27), August (29), September (30), October (31), November (32), December (33)
2001: January to July (34-40)

Nintendo Gamer
2001: July-November
2002: January-June, August, November

Nintendo Magazine System
All issues except April 97

Official PlayStation Magazine
All issues except June 2001

Official PlayStation 2 Magazine (both versions)
All issues except January 2001, March 2001 and November 2002

Australian Station
All issues

PlayStation World
All issues except September 2002

PC Powerplay
1999: June (38), August-December (40-44)
2002: February (46), April (48), September-December (53-56)
2003: January (57), February (58), April (60), June (62), July (63), September-December (65-68)
and everything from 2004-2010 (69-185)

GBA World
All issues

Total Gamer
All issues

Official Xbox Magazine
All issues

If you can assist in any way, comment on this post or contact me through email or the forums.

Today sees the launch of Retro Gaming Australia’s first major new feature: the Australian Video Game Magazine Score Archive. The list currently contains over 4,000 review scores awarded by popular Australian computer and video games magazines such as Megazone, Hyper, PC Powerplay, N64 Gamer and the Official PlayStation Magazines.

In the Australian Video Game Magazine Score Archive you can search for the review scores for your favourite games, or witness infamous faux pas from our friends in the gaming press. Did you know Hyper gave the illustrious Alien Soldier a mere 50? Or that Shaq Fu scored a respectable 77? What about the ridiculous 101% awarded to Perfect Dark in N64 Gamer? You’ll find it all in here.

The Australian Video Game Magazine Score Archive is currently in an alpha state, but fully browsable. Specific entries can be found using the search function of your browser. For answers to common questions about the list, please click the more link. (continue reading…)