It's all over...
Every month, after the staff has worked tirelessly to fill the magazine full of fun, interesting features, exciting new games, and never-at-all-controversial review scores, we remember we also need to make the page. The joke page.
Called 'All Over', the page is usually written the day before deadline—generally in a desperate panic as we try to to come up with a hilarious idea about something that appeared in that issue. Results, as you might imagine, are mixed.
Here you'll find the entire run of 2018's magazine back pages, with commentary from the team who barely remember making them. If you want to track our progress, you can also browse the back pages of 2015, 2016 and 2017.
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February 2018: The 2018 Preview
Phil: I've always tried to resist "what if this feature, but it's the future" back pages, but it was the day before deadline and we had nothing. And so, at 3am one morning, I wrote "what if the 2018 preview, but it's the future".
Samuel: Oh good, my first full year off the magazine, which means I get to give the magazine team the kind of miserable 'I don't get it' reaction I received to most of my All Overs as editor. Phil, I see you went with the quantity of jokes approach here, which is a common tactic in making a back page gag when you lack one super great idea. While it's a mixed bag overall, the Football Manager paragraph is strong.
Phil: Thanks. I think?
Pip: I don’t remember this at all. I’m now afraid I just proof-read it as if it was a normal page of the magazine. It must have been the reassuring post-its...
March 2018: Cultist Simulator
Phil: This is a back page about deadline, in case you were wondering how bad things were when it came together.
Samuel: This is very inside baseball, yet I am inside the baseball, so I have had a good time. You missed the part where the editor eats terrible fast food just to mentally survive the process. Deadlines on PC Gamer added four inches to my waist.
Phil: It didn't help that we took screenshots from an early build of the game before all the art had been added, and our own art editor was too on deadline to add our custom icons, and the server was acting up so an older version of it was uploaded. Frankly it's amazing this magazine even happens every four weeks.
Pip: I think I might be largely responsible for this one. It’s basically a liveblog which accidentally got incorporated into work and might be better read as a cry for help?
Phil: *gestures vaguely at the entire magazine*
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Former Valve exec says the company struggled to sell Half-Life until coming up with the ultimate 'one simple trick' of marketing manoeuvres: slapping a 'Game of the Year' sticker on the box
