The 40: March 1985
In March 1985, Tilt decided to dedicate a feature to naval wargames. This genre has always attracted a niche of enthusiasts and has the significant advantage of requiring very few multimedia resources, so it was already well represented 40 years ago. Also noteworthy is the presentation of the latest games for the Mattel Intellivision console, which ceased production in 1984 and was part of the first generation of home consoles (along with the Atari 2600, Colecovision, and Vectrex) that reached the end of their cycle with the crash of 1983. But new beginnings are on the horizon: at CES 1985, Nintendo presented a prototype of what would become the NES, the Western version of the Famicom, and Tilt anticipated its success. Then again, they also predicted the success of the Lansay 64 (better known as the Enterprise 64), an 8-bit microcomputer that would only be manufactured in about 80,000 units before disappearing into total oblivion. Let’s not forget the centerpiece showing lines of code to be meticulously copied to “program” one’s own game: this practice was common in the 1980s and early 1990s, before the advent of demo CDs. I’ll have to try following one of these guides someday…
The 30 : March 1995
Although announced with great fanfare in January, the new 32-bit systems still aren’t making waves in French news, while news about the 16-bit systems is slowly drying up… Thus, Consoles + needs to show some ingenuity to fill its pages and offers a comparative article between two new systems that foreshadow platforms like Steam and systems like Game Pass. For Nintendo, it’s the Satellaview, which allows downloading games (the idea isn’t new; the Famicom’s Disk System suggested doing this, but you had to leave home to find a download kiosk). For Sega, it’s the Sega Channel. The former will never leave Japan, while the latter did reasonably well in the U.S. but wasn’t very developed elsewhere (not at all in France!). The game of the month is The Story of Thor (Beyond Oasis in the U.S.), an action-adventure game I absolutely don’t remember, but it looks fun (time to fire up the emulator!). The Game Gear welcomes Sonic Drift 2, a Mario Kart killer. Or maybe not…
Joystick, more focused on PC gaming, doesn’t suffer from this slowdown. The motion capture technology developed by the Brits at Gremlin Interactive, named HiRES, is introduced. I don’t know if the section left a mark on readers of the time, but it’s a significant advancement in game production, although Gremlin didn’t really benefit from it: a major player in the 90s, the group didn’t survive the 20th century. Next comes a lengthy article on Brigitte “Live,” a game—emphasized by the magazine as such—that allows you to view titillating movie scenes featuring France’s very own Brigitte Lahaie (for the young and foreigners, it’s worth noting that Brigitte Lahaie was the first French pornographic actress to gain some fame between the late 70s and early 80s). Meanwhile, considering a CD-ROM video in 1995 was probably 320×240 in 256 colors, the “game” was likely more of an ode to imagination! The game of the month, featured on the cover, comes from another galaxy: Star Wars. In the long list of adaptations of the famous space opera, there have been some real flops, a bunch of decent games, and a few gems. Dark Forces, where a recurring game character, Kyle Katarn, makes his debut, belongs to the latter category. An FPS with an inspired storyline, it relies on the Jedi Engine, a top-tier engine for its time (we’re talking one year before Duke Nukem 3D and 18 months before Doom II!). FPS games—often called doom-like back then—were gaining popularity: the game Heretic, an instant classic based on the Doom engine, is reviewed in the same issue. Regarding consoles, there’s the announcement of the Neo Geo CD, which never really made a splash with the general public. Finally, I enjoyed the article on the cars of the future, which featured Volvo’s GPS navigation system, likely one of the very first!
The 20 : March 2005
If Joystick got it right with its cover on Dark Forces, it missed the mark a bit with Boiling Point: Road to Hell, a promising FPS that unfortunately released riddled with bugs and failed to deliver on its promises. A completely forgotten game, unlike GTR, the game of the month, remembered as a benchmark car simulation on PC, which at the time wasn’t familiar with Gran Turismo. As for other games, nothing noteworthy except perhaps the release of KOTOR 2: every month seems to have its Star Wars game! In its technical articles, Joystick announces the transition to Windows 64 bits. This announcement might seem unimportant now, but it’s a major advancement in the computing world, with C_Wiz wisely predicting that it would stick around for a long time: twenty years on, our systems are still 64-bit. Another article explains the basics of 3D, and another showcases Wi-Fi routers, using an illustration of a PC Card I once owned. Ah, memories…
Consoles + takes advantage of Resident Evil 4’s release on GameCube to run a retrospective on Capcom, which does have quite an impressive number of hits in its catalog (still true today…). The release lineup is pretty solid: Gran Turismo 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Doom 3… Admittedly, a lot of sequels. But what games! For something original, you could always try the chainsaw-shaped GameCube controller for Resident Evil 4! Not a joke: I frequently saw it in stores back in the day!
The 10 : March 2015
Canard PC commendably presents its two monthly issues. What stands out from this early spring 2015? Besides the release of World of Warships, a free-to-play that graces the cover but never reaches the heights of its predecessors World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, there’s an article on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which gathered nearly 400,000 players nightly in January 2015, a figure enough to earn Netsabes’ admiration. What would he think of today’s numbers: over 900,000 players per night in January 2025! (source: steamcharts.com). Canard PC then demystifies the Desert Eagle .50, a staple in video game worlds with a snappy name, but underwhelming in reality! March 2015 marks the release of Cities: Skylines, initially seen as a successful SimCity-like while awaiting the return of the king, and now the king of city-builders itself, as SimCity never recovered from Electronic Arts’ missteps… Hotline Miami 2 features a cover illustration by Couly, and it’s well-deserved! Finally, March 2015 is also when Make Something Horrible 2015 is announced, the first Game Jam I participated in. Didn’t win: participated.
On the console side, it’s a busy month: The Order: 1886 and Evolve, two games heavily hyped since 2014, are released and turn out to be damp squibs, completely forgotten since. The game of the month, Dying Light, is remembered as a quality survival horror, the first in a series whose third episode is announced for 2027. The same issue announces The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D, a remake of one of my favorite (yet also most divisive) entries in the series. Finally, the cover highlights Lara Croft, brought back from the dead with a fantastic 2013 reboot, the first episode of a trilogy for which Rise of the Tomb Raider, the subject of the special feature, is the second opus. Noteworthy “big” news of the month includes Notch buying an extremely expensive house; he’s the happiest Swede in the world, having made over two billion euros by selling Minecraft to Microsoft. Also featured are the first glimpses of Star Wars Battlefront (every month seems to have its Star Wars game!), and Microsoft’s VR headset. All in all, a packed month!
The 0 : March 2025
The big PC release of the month is the 7th installment in the Civilization series. This series has been thriving for 35 years, with a new release every 5 years on average, each time bringing a few innovations but no complete overhaul. A beautiful success story! In 2015, Canard PC praised modern city-building, and in 2025, they are highlighting the construction of medieval towns with the review of Foundation, an apparently very successful ancient-era city-builder. Besides the reviews of the month that can also be found in Jeux Vidéo Magazine, Canard PC reflects on the social movement that hit the French video gaming industry over the winter. With the end of the “job-as-passion” illusion, the economic difficulties of the sector, and the re-evaluation of unhealthy “company cultures,” the video game industry is in crisis, leading Ivan Le Fou to wonder if it can take off again in 2025.
The topic is significant enough for Jeux Vidéo Magazine, typically less focused on political subjects, to allow a commentary on GG25, the General Strike of February 13, 2025. Still, the cover remains dedicated to games, specifically open-world games planned for 2025. The reviews cover the same games as Canard PC: Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Civilization VII, Monster Hunter Wilds, Avowed, and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. There’s quality but less originality, and no revolution at all. JVM also offers a feature on David Lynch (who passed away in January) and video games, and tests… a guitar for playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band, in a style of gameplay that has been missing for a good fifteen years!
