PC Play — Retro Gaming Reviews, Hardware Guides & Gaming News
PC gaming, guides, hardware picks & retro deep dives. No filler; just shoot ’em up & boot ’em up.
Best Buys & Gaming Hardware
Monitors, keyboards, mice, headsets, controllers and more — researched picks at every budget.
Resolution, refresh rate, panel type, response time — everything that actually matters, explained plainly.
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From budget picks to audiophile options — the headsets worth your money.
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DualSense, Xbox, 8BitDo and more — the controllers worth buying for modern games.
See our picks →How-To & Setup Guides
Step-by-step guides for getting set up, sorted out, and making the most of your hardware. See all guides →
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Families Guide to Steam
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Beginners Guide to Steam
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Steam vs GOG for Retro Games: Which Should You Buy From?
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How to Play Local Co-op Games Online With Steam Remote Play Together
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Adding Bluetooth Capability to Your Existing Turntable
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The PC Play Guide To (re) Buying Yourself A CD Player
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How to Modernise Your Retro Gaming Setup: Every Option from £5 to £1,300
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Best Prebuilt Gaming PCs UK 2026 (£700–£1,800): What to Buy and What to Avoid
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Best Gaming PC Builds by Budget 2026: £400, £750 and £1,000
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Discord Nitro — Is It Worth It?
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Beginners Guide of How to Set Up Discord for Gaming
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How to Build a Bartop Arcade Cabinet: The Complete Guide
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Gold? Gold!: The luxury gaming set up that stands apart
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Blue is the colour: Your guide to a cool & clean blue gaming set up
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Purple Game, Purple game..ing set up: How to build a bold & princely one
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How to build a red gaming set up
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White gaming set up: how to build your very own white gaming space
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How to build the ultimate black gaming set up
Old Games, New Ways to Play
Home computers, classic consoles, the games that defined a generation — and where to find them in 2026.
C64, Spectrum, Amiga, Atari — originals and modern alternatives covered.
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NES to Dreamcast — every major console, original hardware and modern alternatives.
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Digital and physical — the games worth your time and where to find them.
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From entry-level to tournament-ready — the best fight sticks available.
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No lore, four colours, one perfect idea: the detachable Force pod. Still one of the smartest mechanics the shoot-’em-up genre ever produced.
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The PS1 cult classic nobody asked for and everybody remembers. No emulator required.
Read more →The Monthly Retrospective
One game a month. What made it work, what it got right, and why it still matters.
History & Culture
The bigger stories — where gaming came from, and what it’s been tangled up with along the way.
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1989: The Year the Beat-‘Em-Up Grew Up
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Nostalgia’s Proven ROI & The Indie Gaming Industry
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Return of Retro (just like we said)
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Designed to Be Looked At: What Female Game Characters Tell Us About Who They Were Made For
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When Music Walked Into the Room: My Greatest Crossovers Between Gaming and Music
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The Machines That Built Modern Gaming: A Guide to the Home Computer Era
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Manchester: The City That Invented Modern Computing (And Some of the Best Games You Ever Played)
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Is Your Old Game Collection Worth a Fortune?
What’s Going On
Takes on gaming news, industry trends, and the things worth paying attention to.
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Blaster! Is Back: The Pol-etro Game Returns
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Thunder Hoop Is Getting a Second Life in Re-Release
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UrbX Warriors: Two Looking Back Legends Just Teamed Up
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September Gaming News – A Round Up
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Pixel Arcadia’s First Showcase: Review/Re-cap
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Nostalgia’s Proven ROI & The Indie Gaming Industry
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Return of Retro (just like we said)
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Designed to Be Looked At: What Female Game Characters Tell Us About Who They Were Made For