PC Powerplay

PC PowerPlay is Australia's original and best-selling PC games magazine, with 100% Australian content. Its distinctive, informed and amusing style is widely respected. Offering a mix of games and hardware coverage, the magazine gives a complete picture for the PC entertainment enthusiast. Breaking news of new games, detailing reviews of upcoming games, and helping readers make sense of the array of hardware and tech products that hit the market each month. PC Powerplay doesn’t just promote tech, it benchmarks and analyses it to help gamers make the most intelligent purchasing decision.

PC Powerplay

PCPP 300: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US (AND YOU!)

The PC PowerPlay team

WHICH WITCHER? • NETFLIX GUY blames “Americans and young people” for dumbing down

BEAR DOES DAMAGE

NO KISSING FOR GNOMES

WARGAMING TURNS 25

Highs & Lows

The Spy • BUT WHO WATCHES THE SPY?

WIZARDRY'S LEGACY • Over 40 years old, the WIZARDRY series is still kicking

SIDE DUNGEONS • Four games that stay true to the Wizardry formula

PLAY IT FORWARD • Four games James has made trailers for

TRAILER SWIFT • Freelance video editor JAMES MCGREGOR on making a good videogame trailer

Incoming • THE BIGGEST GAME SON THE WAY

IN THE BEGINNING • There was PC gaming. Founding and current editor BEN MANSILL welcomes you to the 300th birthday party.

HOW TO MAKE A GAME MAG GREAT WINNING AND LOSING IN THE ART OF MAG CRAFTING. • Putting a games mag is easy. You start with news, then do some previews, add a feature or two, then some reviews, and wrap it all up with some tech. Ez pz. That was the template we started with, but from the get-go we used every precious square inch of the mag and every waking hour to fill it up with as much extra cool original bits and pieces that'd fit. This wasn't just information, we were here to entertain. Powered by a team of seriously talented writers whose stuff was a joy to read, we made PCPP great. For a period it was, truly honestly, the best damn games mag in the world. Let's remember some of our special moments, eh?

THE WHITE COVER ERA DAVID WILDGOOSE, OUR SECOND EDITOR AND AN ISSUE 1 ORIGINAL LOOKS BACK AT HIS TIME AS EDITOR, SPANNING 2000 TO 2012. • I remember feeling excited when Ben told me he was leaving Hyper magazine sometime in early 1996. At the time I had been writing freelance for Hyper, spending one day a week in the office reviewing whatever console games no one else wanted to review and trying (and, one fateful day, failing) to not blow up the import Japanese Sega Saturn. I was excited because I thought Ben leaving might mean more work for me. As it turned out, I was soon doubly excited when he told me he was leaving to launch a dedicated PC games magazine.

TECH MAKES IT TICK FORMER TECH HEAD AND DEPUTY ED BENNETT RING (2003 – 2006) IS ALL ABOUT THE HARDWARE, JUST AS EVERY TRUE PC GAMER IS. • The Dremel in my hand whirs to life, set to work cutting a large rectangular window through the thick steel side of the beige PC case. Two more holes are gouged out of the top, becoming the new home for 80mm fans to extract the heat caused by the overclocked CPU within. Once the metalwork is complete, I spray a coat of primer, then two of satin black, and my ugly monstrosity has become a black Obelisk of Awesome. The final touch is the installation of a piece of Perspex, hewn into shape with the sharp teeth of my handsaw, lined with an RGB strip posted from a boutique shop in Taiwan. A week after the beige case arrives, and my case mod is done, ready to haul to a LAN party along with my impressively large 21” 1600 x 1200 Sony CRT monitor. Carefully strapped with seatbelts into the back of the car, surrounded by pillows to ensure everything arrives intact, it's a far-cry from the mass-produced, laser-cut, LED-festooned...