There once was a magazine called Launch.
Oh what a magazine it was. Launch was mainly a music publication, which offered a Macromedia-powered CD-ROM magazine in the 90s. It was an early form of convergence journalism, and we pay homage to them and their efforts.
Like just about every other good thing in the tech bubble years, it got bought out and bastardized, homogenized and repackaged. Today, Launch is unrecognizable as merely an Internet radio station incorporated into Yahoo! Music. Yahoo! paid $12 million for Launch in 2001.
But Launch CD-ROM did some great things back in the day, and one of the things they did pretty well was throw in video game reviews and game demos.
In Launch 11, which I believe was the February 1997 issue, they included a review and install program for a new action game called Tomb Raider.
To give you a sense of where we were back then, Launch 11 also offered an interview with Silverchair and reviews of cd’s from Bush, Branford Marsalis, Cardigans, Cake and Merril Bainbridge. Also featured, a review of the soundtrack from Romeo and Juliet (by the way, one of the best soundtracks ever made). They also reviewed Waverace 64, Grid Runner, Temptest 2000, Tobal No. 1, Mr. Bones and Drowned God.
The Tomb Raider review (read it here) is a classic early take on Tomb Raider.
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