Well, we continue with the GamePro recaps with issue 34, for May of 1992. Our cover story is Splatterhouse II for the Genesis (though they forget the Roman numeral). The issue is pretty short, about 100 pages long.

Editorial: actually has some content, in this case regarding Nintendo’s decision to increase the amount of carts they’re letting their licencees put out for the SNES, with, basically, GamePro’s editorial staff saying this doesn’t matter, because it’s still not providing variety, with multiple, for example Golf carts coming out the same time (which is, by the way, a horrible example – these different golf carts often have a variety of courses with no overlap between them. Frankly, in my opinion, different genres of games have different thresholds for overkill. For example, you can probably get away with 2-3 different football (or soccer, for that matter) series, and I’d say that having that variety is a good thing. By having multiple football franchises, the developers have to work to make their game different, and generally work on improving their game, and working to build a better football game. When that happens, everyone wins. On the other hand, I’d say that the games market can support 7-8 ninja based action-platformers, because there’s a lot of different ways you can use ninja in your games. You can tell a post-apocalypic story, you can have the modern vigilante ninja, the urban fantasy demon-hunting ninja, the Sengoku/Jidagaki period ninja, etc. I’m not saying all these games will be good, but I am saying that the market can handle this many games without hitting saturation. Read more

Well, the streak of GamePro issues continues unabated. The next issue of GamePro is issue 33 for April of 1992, featuring Michael Jordan (who is not wearing a number on his uniform in this picture) on the cover. This issue is, again, fairly short – about 100 pages long.

Editorial: Finally we get some actual journalism in the editorial, relating to responses to questions posed to Nintendo of America regarding the SNES. First, related to the lack of backwards compatability, and whether or not an adapter will be shipped to allow older NES games to be played – they consider it inappropriate to sell an add-on adapter, instead we include all the cables necessary to play both (thus, if you sold your NES to upgrade to the SNES, and hoped for backwards compatibilty like the Genesis or TurboGrafx systems, we can make more money off you when you buy a new NES.) Also, some SNES games around launch have been experiencing slowdown and other framerate drops – this is because of the systems 4 CPUs working togeather to provide a superior graphical experience (in other words, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature – I thought Nintendo had actually learned something from the last video game crash, and all the crappy, buggy games being put out by companies like Intellivision, which is the company that coined the phrase). They also hype their CD-ROM add-on, which never comes out. Now, they don’t do the next step here, which is draw the necessary conclusions (Nintendo of America is an asshole), and respond as appropriate – Nintendo hasn’t changed their tune, in spite of their settlement with the FTC. However, from what I understand, the Debug systems that they use to review the pre-release code for games are basically property of Nintendo, so if they do say thing negative, in theory Nintendo could pull the consoles, and they wouldn’t be able to review games until months after they’d hit shelves, potentially killing them. Read more

Well, while our EGM Recaps are getting broken up, our GamePro streak is, fortunately, continuing unbroken and unabated with issue 32, covering March of 1992. Our cover story is, not surprisingly for this period in game history, Street Fighter II. Unsurprisingly for this magazine, their cover art of Ryu, Guile, and Chun Li, which is done in-house, is god-freaking-awful. I’m looking forward to when Nintendo Power covers this period, as their in-house art has been, thus far, excellent, and I’m looking forward to their coverage of Street Fighter II (if there is any – I hope there is). This issue’s actually pretty short for gaming mags of the early 90s, only 98 pages long.

Letters to the Editor: We start off with a letter asking if there are plans to put out something similar to the Game Genie for the Genesis. Why yes, there is, it’s called the Pro Action Replay which, unlike the Game Genie, is still around. The Game Genie, on the other hand, didn’t survive the 16-bit generation, and was replaced by the GameShark – both of which are now obsolete, with now replacements, meaning that if you can’t beat a controller-breakingly hard game – tough rocks. We also have questions about what you can spend the $5 rebate you’re getting (as part of the weak-sauce damages that Nintendo has to pay out) on – you can only spend it on games. Which makes it even more pathetic. I’d bet that the $5 damages would probably cover not the licencing fees that Nintendo gets from the publishers, but rather the cut the publishers would be making on the game sales. We also get a letter asking when any winter sports games will be coming out for the Genesis or TG-16, mentioning specifically snowboarding. I don’t think we get a Snowboarding game at all until the 21st century. Read more

We continue with our GamePro recaps with issue 31 for February of 1992. Finally, we get 3 consecutive issues in a row. Hurray! May the streak be long and fruitful. This issue is fairly short – about 140 pages long, with a cover story of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III for the NES, which will hopefully get a bit more coverage than Hook got last issue (as a reminder, Hook got about 2 pages last issue). We also get an ad for Golden Axe II featuring a painting by Boris Vallejo, which is nice looking.

Editorial: No specific topic for the editorial column this issue, just a list of things that are to come and may be to come in 1992. They don’t really go into too many specifics, just a list. Meh. Read more

Alright then, on to our next issue of GamePro – issue 30 for January of 1992. Our cover story is for the Hook licenced game. Being that movie licenced games tend to suck, I’m wondering about this game more than a little bit. I also recall that GamePro also did a cover story for Enter The Matrix. Hopefully, if the game sucks, they’ll have the guts to give it an appropriate score. Anyway, this issue is about 178 pages long.

Advertising wise, we start off with a 4-page gatefold ad for Konami games. Whew, there’s something you don’t see in gaming magazines anymore. Maybe a 2-page gatefold, but not a 4-page gatefold – which is actually a bit of a shame, because in this era of gaming magazines, we had a lot of decent ads, at least, jus t going from memory they had a lot of decent ads. We also get an Genesis vs. SNES ad, hyping the Genesis’ larger game library, compared to the SNES’ game library – which isn’t entirely fair, as the Genesis has been out significantly longer than the SNES. Read more

Continuing with our GamePro recaps, I’ve got another substantial gap in the archive, this one 11 issues wide, taking me from issue 18, to issue 29, for December of 1991. Our cover stories this issue are GamePro’s upcoming TV show and Bart vs. The World for the NES. This issue’s also 173 pages long (approximately), shorter than contemporary issues of EGM. Though, if I keep getting gaps like this, I’ll end up risking getting ahead of EGM. Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. So, as quick historical note – over the course of this 11 issue gap, the SNES came out, taking the 16-bit console war from a 1-on-1 competition between NEC’s TurboGrafx 16 and the Sega Genesis to a 3-way dance. Further Tengen and Nintendo’s differences had become irreconcilable, with Atari/Tengen leaving Nintendo forever, in favor of the Genesis and Game Gear. Read more