Games Freezer | Retrogaming, Indie Games and Games Culture: 📕📘 Lock On Gaming Journal | Issue 1 | "A Luxury Piece Of Gaming Journalism" 📕📘 @LostInCult #LockOn

I’ll level with you immediately. I am a self-confessed video game magazine geek. Physically holding a magazine and even smelling its pages are more of a thrill to me than just digesting web pages and half reading video games related emails and press releases.

Owning a video game magazine collection for me allows me to fulfil that fantasy of having my own library of video games related literature. In the last 5 years or so I have begun to fall for the various video games coffee table style books such as Bitmap Books’ Visual Compendium series or their beautiful one-off books like The Art Of Point and Click Adventures. These are the kind of books you can flick through and soak up the nostalgia as you turn each page and transport you back to another time and place where the video games magazine ruled the world.

My favourite video games magazines have to be the Mean Machines run of magazines that were headed up by Jaz Rignall. The original run of magazines only lasted 24 issues before it split into a SEGA and Nintendo variant but those first 24 are ingrained into my psyche and greatly influenced the way I think about games critique and how to have fun with video game writing.

More recently I’ve also had the pleasure to look at a cool magazine called Ninty Fresh which went through Kickstarter very successfully and is now into a run of issues each being funded by Kickstarter backers.

With all this in mind, it feels like there is something of a renaissance of the written word in physical form within the video games world which for me is a great thing and leads me onto the journal which has been absorbing my time lately.

The lovely people from Lost In Cult have just released their first gaming journal entitled Lock On and I was approached to take a look at this beautiful video gaming tome just before I went on my hols to the Isle Of Wight.

Perfect holiday reading was my first thought.

The package from Lost In Cult arrived through my letterbox just before we were due to travel to the Wight Isle and as soon as I opened the packaging and felt that beautiful book in my hands I knew that this was something special. The journal wafted a smell that reeked of love for the genre and love for the video games culture that we all immerse ourselves into on a daily basis.

The pages are made of some of the highest quality paper that I have ever had the pleasure to hold in my hands and it felt like I had discovered some kind of lost artefact from the world of video games as I carefully removed the bright orange paper ribbon from the front cover that kept the journal from opening (its also worth noting that the version I was reviewing was the softcover version, I can only imagine how amazing the hardcover version is to hold!)

Once opened I delicately leafed through the pages to get a feel for what was on offer in this magnificent video gaming bookazine/journal/magazine. The first thing that hits you as you work your way through this is the artwork that has been curated for Lock On. It is of the highest quality and is artwork that you will probably not have seen anywhere else. It often has the feel of those beautiful pieces of concept art from the initial stages of video games design which I adore to gawp at on a regular basis whilst in GF HQ.

This particular issue has a Playstation theme running through it and the inside covers are adorned with a mesmerising set of Playstation logos which I must have gazed at for a good ten minutes whilst repeatedly smelling the pages (I know I’m a freak but hey we all have our vices right?)

Once you get past the visuals and you begin to read the essays contained within the pages you then realise you’re in for a treat as the series of articles range from game retrospectives to technical discussions on the finer points of retro technology and how to get the best out of it. It feels like the curators of this journal have taken some of the most interesting video game forum topics and got talented writers to both refine them and polish them up ready for consumption into this wonderful piece of gaming literature.

Sat on Shanklin Beach with the sun blazing down on me I was transported through a wonderful world of words all devoted to my favourite pastime of video games and each article and essay that I read was speaking directly to me or enlightening me on an aspect of video games or a video game that I had never even considered before.

During my 5 days away I was absorbed by Lock On and at any opportunity that I was able to take a moment to read it, I did so eagerly. The journal requires you to invest time into it in order to read it as it's a lovely long read style of magazine that you feel the need to read from cover to cover (much like I used to do with issues of Mean Machines on Saturday morning till early afternoon)

Overall it feels like Lock On is delivering a premium gaming journal that looks to promote thought-provoking articles, essays and stories with the accompaniment of beautifully presented artwork. It has a weighty luxurious look, feel, and smell which also transposes itself into the way the typography is lovingly displayed on each page.

I for one cannot wait for issue two to be released so that I am able to put aside a whole day to myself just to read the second instalment of this amazing journal series from cover to cover.

You can head over to Twitter and follow Lost In Cult to ensure that you keep up to date with what these beautiful people are doing to push the medium of video games writing forward and you can also head over to Kickstarter to ensure that you back the Kickstarter for issue 2 of Lock On.