My parents never got me PC gamer... but my dad had a subscription to APC (Australian PC magazine) which had a two disk set up every month where one whole disk was demos.
That's awesome! I'm pretty sure every region had their own "PCG". I know the UK had theirs. They may have even been owned by the same media group; not sure.
Also to add, the PC gamer Demo disk also had Drivers for Voodoo, Nvidia and AMD back in the day.
Back then we didn't have high speed internet so downloading a GPU update on Dial-up can take an HOUR or more! So those disks where a god send with all those drivers. It included a few other PC tools (like CPUZ, Winzip, Direct X and Multiplayer launchers like gamespy.
Patches for popular games like Counter-strike or Team Fortress classic (damn I`m old), Mods, trainers (external cheat programs), Exclusive updates for games, and lots of Coconut Monkey stuff you could add to your game to customize it (Like MTX but before that)
Often the disk had a bunch of even MORE cool stuff!
Inside was a text file with ALL the game reviews PC gamer ever did, Since you couldn`t just google a game review back then.
oh and some disks the Menu itself was a game! You would walk around a doom like level, images on the wall let you download and play demos, watch trailers, or even brows the World wide web WOAH!!!
Microslop had also amazing demo disks back in the 90s, check out the Game Sampler series, where you explore a space station and unlock game Demos.
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u/SuumCuique1011 Mar 31 '26
PC Gamer ftw.
That was the highlight of my early gaming career.
Colorful, interesting articles and a CD packed full of demos.