Computer Gaming World - Content

Content

CGW featured reviews, previews, news, features, letters, strategy, and columns dealing with computer games. While console games are occasionally touched on, these are primarily the territory of CGW's sister magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly.

In 2006, two of the most popular features were "Greenspeak", a final-page column written by Editor-In-Chief Jeff Green, and "Tom vs. Bruce" a unique "duelling-diaries" piece in which writers Tom Chick and Bruce Geryk logged their gameplay experience as each tried to best the other at a given game. "Tom vs. Bruce" sometimes featured a guest appearance by Erik Wolpaw, formerly of Old Man Murray.

For many years, CGW never assigned scores to reviews, preferring to let readers rate their favorite games through a monthly poll. Scores were finally introduced in 1994. However, beginning in April 2006, Computer Gaming World stopped assigning quantifiable scores to its reviews. In May of the same year, CGW changed the name of its review section to Viewpoint, and began evaluating games on a more diverse combination of factors than a game's content. Elements considered include the communities' reaction to a game, developers' continued support through patches and whether a game's online component continues to grow.

The reviews were formerly based on a simple five-star structure, with five stars marking a truly outstanding game, and one star signalling virtual worthlessness. On very rare occasions, immensely abysmal games have been reviewed: Postal² by Robert Coffey, Mistmare by Jeff Green, and Dungeon Lords by Denice Cook, three games which "...form an unholy trinity of the only games in CGW history to receive zero-star reviews."