It’s fair to say that following the departure of the legendary Julian Rignall in the early 1990s, the world’s first dedicated videogaming magazine, Computer & Video Games, suffered badly. Despite the efforts of some well known editors and journalists, the magazine lost favour amongst its fans and they, like Rignall, departed for pastures new.
Step in Paul Davies, who, within a few short months, was able to gather a small team of gaming enthusiasts – who were also handy with the journalistic word or two – and revive the UK’s former leading multi-format videogaming magazine. This issue 174 from May 1996 is that team’s great re-launch and was the start of the magazine’s fantastic revival.
Besides a change in editorial, the design had changed drastically. Gone were the percentage ratings, which were the mainstay of many a magazine, and in were the “High Five” five star style scoring. There was also a superb Freeplay pullout section which contained news, charts, player guides, tips, and the superb Retro Computer Cabin. In fact, the magazine was filled page to page with enthusiastic writing throughout and the rising circulation figures reflected this. Now, retrogamers the world over can relive that landmark issue thanks to Out-of-Print Archive and meppi who meticulously scanned, edited and digitally restored the issue to its former glory.
The CVG issue 174 catalogue page includes editorial info, content list of the issue, as well as four accompanying online articles including a feature on the ACME 96 Show, review of Panzer Dragoon Zwei II (Saturn), review of Terra Nova (PC) and a preview of Sonic the Fighters (Arcade). And, of course, links to download the magazine itself in both iDevice or Full resolution edition.

http://retroactionmagazine.com/retro...ally-archived/