PC Format – A Whole Lotta Reading (PC Format)

Member Name: paddywak

Product:	PC Format
Date:	24/02/01 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent articles. Good cover discs. Easy to understand articles. Range of articles.

Disadvantages: Pricey (£4.99) but worth it

PC Format ---- Love it or hate it! Why should I part with my hard-earned cash for just another poxy PC magazine?

PC Format is certainly no ‘poxy PC magazine’! It’s more like a great read with loads of really interesting content. What’s so different about PCF? I’ll try to do the magazine justice with my review of it but… everyone’s opinion is different! I’ll try to give you the feel of this magazine & not bore you to tears at the same time.

I’ve been buying PC Format for just over two or so years & have never missed an issue…yet. The cover price is £4.99 for the CD edition & £5.99 for the DVD edition. I enjoy every issue & feel that it’s money well spent. In all you get a whole lotta magazine for your money & hence the title.

On with the review!…..There’s a heck of a lot in PCF & I’ll cover some of them, but remember….. there’s loads more on offer than I’m going to tell you!

INSTALL: Here’s the section that’s dedicated to ‘What’s on the cover discs’. Like most PC mags (the one with CD’s) there’s a great selection & mixture of programs to be found on the discs. These programs range from games demos, utilities, patches & of course…. full programs, which are, FREE (my favourite word!). The ‘Install’ pages give thorough descriptions of all the software that’s on the disc(s) & you normally get detailed tutorials for the main program. This teaches you how to get the basics out of the program & more besides.

GAMEPLAY: PCF’s reviews of all the latest & greatest games that you can buy & the ones that are still being developed. You generally find very detailed reviews of the featured games, screenshots, tricks, tips, tactics & the pros & cons of the games. There’s always a good mix of the different types of games. They try to cater fo
r all types of games & gamers. Finally, you will find the cheats section, which gives you cheats for dome games. This mix of games & game types should hopefully keep most people happy!

TRIED & TESTED: It does what the title says. Basically this is your chance to see how a lot of new products stand up to various tests. I remember one issue, which was reviewing laptops! They dropped the laptops off the back of bikes, drove over them, submerged them in water & loads of other nasty tests! That was a brilliant issue, one that I’ll never forget!
PCF try to test as wide a variety of products here as possible & it’s always worth a read, even just to see a laptop destroyed!

NEWS: All the latest news & gossip from the world of computing. It was the latest news when the mag went to print, but may not be so current by the time that you buy the mag. Some of the news stories are weird & wonderful to say the least. Others are really informative & give you some really interesting information. Again, this is a good read.

HOW TO: Guess what this is about? Give up yet? Ok then, this is where you get helpful tutorials from PCF. These tutorials can coincide with the featured program on the cover disc or could be about hardware or software.

SPACE MONKEY’S GUIDE: This is where the little banana eater tries to teach you about a range of topics. Each month he features a new topic, which covers a different product. It ranges from hardware & software to Internet programs & utilities. Quite an interesting read most of the time.



You have plenty of other great features to read & enjoy in the magazine. There’s the good old ‘Readers’ letters’ section, the ‘Help’ section & loads more on top of that.

Hopefully that’s enough to wet your appetite & not bore you to tears. My last bit of advice is that you have a look through PCF whilst it’s on t
he newsagent’s shelf. If you like it….. BUY IT! If you don’t like it…DON’T BUY IT!

That’s it folks & thanks for your time!

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