Alright then. We’re going back, after a long hiatus, to my Electronic Gaming Monthly recaps. This time we’re skipping ahead some to issue 75, for October of 1995. Our cover story is Mortal Kombat III for the Sony PlayStation and… Street Fighter: The Movie – The Game for the Sega Saturn. I can tell you right now which one I’d rather play.

Editorial

Danyon Carpenter has this issue’s editorial column. As the 16-bit generation comes to an end, it’s going out with some pretty impressive games. Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, among other games for the SNES. The Genesis on the other hand is getting Vectorman, Comix Zone and other good games. So, Danyon advocates hanging on to those soon-to-be oldies-but-goodies for your 16-bit systems, something that I can definitely agree with. Continue reading →

This week’s issue of EGM, #64 for November of 1994, is a doozy – 398 pages (including the cover), just short of 400 pages. We’ve also got one heck of a cover story, the 32X version of Doom. Now, due to the length of this issue, I may end up skipping a few games if they’re games that just don’t interest me. In particular, I’m going to skip the sports section entirely, and for the system specific coverage I’m going to skip games that were reviewed earlier in the issue (and possibly games that don’t interest me).

Editorial: Since this is, basically, the second-to-last issue of 1994, it’s time once again to speculate at where the video game industry is going, particularly considering that the game industry going to enter the 32 bit era soon. Continue reading →

This week we continue with our EGM recaps with issue 63 for October of 1994. Our cover story for this issue is Donkey Kong Country for the SNES, one of Rare’s latest games.

Editorial: Well, last issue, Steve Harris teased an announcement this issue about Capcom’s responce to their lower review for Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Well, this issue we learn Capcom’s response – they blacklisted (at least where Advertisements are concerned) EGM to “make a statement” in the words of Capcom’s director of marketing. Steve Harris says that the only statment coming from Capcom here is that they don’t have faith in their products, and I can’t help but agree. Further, I’d expand on that by saying that any game publisher or developer who engages in the journalistic equivalent of the Tarkin Doctrine only succeeds in making them look like the bad guy to the gaming press. If they blacklist a blogger or web site, then they’re picking on the little guy. If they’re blacklisting an established bastion of games journalism, then they’re making a Nixon-esque enemies list. Further, this is only aggrivated when they’re doing the blacklisting for a review that isn’t particularly bad. The Street Fighter II series had been pushing perfect scores in EGM for most of its run. This is the first game that didn’t, and thus they get upset over it. Continue reading →

The EGM recaps continue with issue #62, for September of 1994. Our cover story is, of all things, Primal Rage. I mean the game looked good, but it wasn’t that good.

Editorial: The internet… it’s spreading. Okay, that isn’t specifically the topic of the column this issue, which is from Steve Harris, returning to the editorial pages one more time. The topic this time is the response on internet message boards to the the editorial column from last issue, about the constant reiterations to Street Fighter being too excessive. To be specific, the internet fans defended Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and felt that the Game Boy game that recieved honors as the Game Of The Month last issue was unworthy. It goes to show that you can’t please everyone on the internet. That said, we don’t have the specific content of the posts, and since this is 1994, when internet use wasn’t as wide spread (and generally required dial-up), it’s likely that the posters used proper grammar, and didn’t resort to some of the more childish comments that you see on the internet these days (in part because you wouldn’t have had as many immature kids online in the US). Oh, and apparently Capcom did something in response to the reviews as well, which they’ll get into next month. Capcom USA didn’t blacklist them for failing to be appropriately deferential at the altar of Street Fighter, did they? Continue reading →

Okay, our EGM recaps continue with issue number 61 for August of 1994. Our cover story is Super Return of the Jedi, and this issue weighs in at 181 pages in length. Well, then, let’s get started.

Editorial: Our Editorial this issue is from Ed Semrad, and covers the latest incarnation of Street Fighter II. The general consensus is that in the EGM offices the thrill is gone out of the relationship with Street Fighter II. Nobody’s playing it in the EGM offices anymore. To be fair, there aren’t particularly any new characters in the game, the stages are pretty much the same, and the moves are pretty much the same. All in all, they don’t think it’s worth the $70-80 it would cost (in 1994 dollars) to get this game new, and for future reviews, they will be taking into account re-releases of the same content with a fresh coat of paint – like with the Street Fighter II re-releases. Continue reading →

We’re now at EGM #60 for July of 1994, with our cover story being more stuff on Mortal Kombat II. I have to say that the art isn’t fantastic. It’s great – but not fantastic. The issue weighs in at 194 pages.

Editorial: This issue’s editorial is from Danyon Carpenter, eulogizing over the death of the last 8-bit console system, the NES, as well as contemplating the glut of systems on the market.

Letters: Speaking of gluts, we have a letter about the growing glut of bad games on the market as we come to the end of the 16-bit generation, and the dawn of the 32-bit generation. Though, as a general rule of thumb, while we get some good games in the transitional period on occasion, a lot of times major developers have their best teams working on the launch titles for the new upcoming hardware, so they can try and get something good out of the new system. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Meanwhile, the developers and teams who aren’t putting out launch titles (and thus don’t have dev kits for the new systems) can’t be necessarily quite as ambitious, as whatever they put out won’t necessarily do as well on the market once the next gen starts building up steam. Oh, and then there are companies like LJN which put out shovelware on a regular basis anyway. Continue reading →

Our EGM recaps continue this week with a recap of issue #59, for June of 1994. Our cover story is what will become the first 3D Fighting game, Virtua Fighter – currently in arcades, and later for the Saturn. This issue is clocking in a 229 pages.

Editorial: The European Computer Trade Show has come and gone, and EGM has left with the award for best US game magazine, a reward that is well deserved in my opinion. Of the game magazines I’ve recapped thus far, EGM has been the better of the three. Now, once I finish EGM, GamePro, or Nintendo Power, I’ll have to move on to something else, and that could change things up some, but anyway, let’s move on.

Letters: We get a letter asking about the US release of Final Fantasy V, and apparently, according to their sources in Square, it will be getting a release outside of the Final Fantasy name, with Final Fantasy VI getting the US release as Final Fantasy III. Though, ultimately, Final Fantasy V doesn’t get released in the US as anything other than Final Fantasy V, and gets its first legitimate release as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology for the Playstation. Also, unfortunately the Duo is basically now dead. They’re not selling new systems anymore, and only selling new games in mail-order. If you can’t increase your install base, you’ve stagnated your market share. You’re dead, Jim. We have requests for more RPGs for the Neo-Geo and more RAM for the Genesis (to which I say, to quote Shane Bettenhausen, “It’s nice to want things.”) Continue reading →

We move on to issue 58 of EGM, for March of 1994. Our cover story is Super Street Fighter II Turbo. The cover art is great, except for the face, which doesn’t quite work based on the perspective. The issue clocks in at 232 pages.

Editorial: This month’s editorial by Ed Semrad is around, basically, the growing pains over the upcoming rating system for video games, with Sega and Nintendo fighting over whose system they would use. Sega’s is modeled after the ESRB’s ratings and would have both system’s games come out evenly. Nintendo’s appears to be designed in a more convoluted fashion, and would make just about every single game on the Genesis look awful. Ed describes this as being over “the most trivial of things” which, due to 20/20 hindsight, and California’s law over the rating system going to the Supreme Court, and Left 4 Dead 2 being banned in Australia, I’m having a bit of a chuckle at that phrase. To be fair though, Ed probbly couldn’t see this coming. Though, considering the outrage over Night Trap and Mortal Kombat, he probably should have seen this coming. We all should have seen this coming. Continue reading →

Another week, another hole I’ve discovered I can fill in my EGM Archive. In this case, it’s issue #52 for November of 1993. This issue is quite epic in its length – 324 pages long, and our cover story is Sonic CD. Oh, and there’s a Super Street Fighter II Strategy Guide that will probably pad this issue out a little.

Editorial: Christmas 1993 is coming up. So, there are so many consoles out, how do you decide? Basically they do a run-down of all the consoles on the market, and pick them all apart except for the SNES and Genesis. Not much else other than this.

Letters: Well, we get people not happy with Major Mike being off to the side for his reviews. We also get more letters about Project Reality (which the EGM staff dismisses as vaporware), Nintendo has a new top-loading version of the NES, which they also poo-poo. Personally, I like the Top Loading chassis, as that way I don’t have to worry about the pins getting bent as much. We also get a letter from a producer at Sunsoft covering issues with the World Heroes games, with the original letter being 3 pages long, and they had to shorten. I wonder what happened to the original letter. If Ed Semrad or Steve Harris reads this (as he was still the EGM publisher at the time), and they know what happened to the original letter, and want to do a full rebuttal to all the points in the letter that aren’t in their response here, please let me know. In the course of their response, they do take a moment to slip a shot in at GamePro and their frequency of Perfect Scores (across the board 5s), which I can’t argue with in the slightest (nor the lack of criticism in their critical reviews). As far as their criticism that the scores were two low, they refer them to Famicom Tsushin’s score, which is an overall 24 (7, 5, 6, 6), which is lower then their score. Continue reading →