Well, Nintendo Power has begun its second year, and it’s starting off rather nicely, with a Mega Man II cover story, with some rather nice sculpture work on the cover. The magazine is still bi-monthly though, and it’s also significantly shorter than the past few issues, with it only being 100 pages long-ish.
Mailbag: Of note this issue is a leter about hard working gamer who put built his own arcade cabinet using at TV, a NES, two NES Advantage sticks, and, of course, his own arcade cabinet framework. He even painted the sides. Very nice. They’ve also moved their Power Players spotlight to the front, but as it’s basically people hyping how awesome a gamer they are, I’m skippingthis. I really don’t need to cover people showing of their E-Wangs (which is the same reason, basically, why I don’t cover high score lists as well). Read more
Next up on the EGM Recaps is issue #40, for November of 1992. The cover story for this issue takes us a long time ago, to a galaxy far, far away, meaning Super Star Wars for the SNES. This issue is pretty big, weighing in at (approximately) a whopping 277 pages long (not including Electronic Boutique’s catalog, which I’m skipping). Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novel The Summer of the Danes is shorter than that (224 pages). Our first ad of note in the issue is for Contra Force, the last NES Contra game.
Insert Coin – Editorial: Well, the topic of the issue this time is Video Game Piracy. Thanks to new accessories that allow you to copy game information right off the cartridge, piracy has moved form the PC realm to the Console realm as well. However, EGM is taking a stand against piracy, and if you come across a retailer selling the hardware used to pirate games, send the information to EGM at a certain address, and they’ll do something unspecified. Now, as I’ve mentioned, most of my Quality Controls are recorded using an Emulator. Basically, my stance on emulation is this – if you can get the game legally, at a price you can afford, then do it. I don’t have a Wii, so Virtual Console is not an option for me. If I did have a Wii, I’d be using Virtual Console for any game on Quality Control that’s listed on Virtual Console, and I’d be recording the video using a capture card. But I don’t have a Wii, so I can’t. So, that said, buy the cartridge, if you can find it. You’ll be supporting your fellow gamer in this tough economic times, and it will also (hopefully) build the market for 3rd party retro console machines like this baby from Think Geek, that lets you play both NES and SNES games. Who knows – if this sells well, once the patents expire we might get a similar gadget for the TurboGrafx-16 (& CD-ROM), and Sega Genesis (and Sega CD, and 32X). 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
Moving on to our next issue of Nintendo Power, issue number 6, for May and June of 1989, bringing the magazine’s first year to a close. Our cover story is a 10 page feature on the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game. Being that this issue is 119 pages long, that’s not insignificant. We’re also getting additional coverage of Bayou Billy, more coverage of Ninja Gaiden, and the results of the Nester Awards voting.
Letters: Not as much of interest this time, though we do get a compliment for the excellent service from the Nintendo Game Councelors. Read more
Well, I’ve got another gap in my GamePro issues, with our next issue being 8 months ahead, with issue 18 (or rather Volume 2 Issue 6). This issue was published in January of 1991, and weighs in at about 148 pages long. This is their annual sports issue, though their last one was about 11 months ago. I guess they either didn’t want to wait until February and possibly miss the super-bowl, or all the big sports games were coming out this month, and they didn’t want to be behind the curve – reasonable.
We get a pair of similar ads for a couple of fantasy RPGs for the NES – Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements from Taito, and Swords & Serpents from Acclaim.
Editorial: GamePro’s looking for a few good critics, and by a few I mean 250 new staff members. These staff members will be asked several times a year to evaluate games based on their rating system of Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, Challenge, and Fun Factor. In return – you get GamePro swag. Uh-huh. Read more
So, we move on to Nintendo Power’s 5th issue, for March and April of 1989, with the cover game being Ninja Gaiden. I must admit the cover image isn’t as good as the images of the past 4 issues. It’s a guy in stereotypical Ninja black pajamas holding – I’ve got no freaking clue what he’s holding. If anyone who worked on this issue of Nintendo Power is reading this and you know what he’s holding, please let me know in the comments. This issue weighs in at about 106 pages, with a new section related to game previews in addition to the “reviews” (aka Strategy Guides) we’ve gotten previously.
Mail Bag: Well, as we reach the end of Nintendo Power’s first volume, we’re coming to one of our first notable changes in the magazine, one that I would say brings it more in line with most other video game magazines – they’ve moved the letters column to the front of the magazine. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it does a have a psychological impact – putting the focus early on to reader feedback, and their responses to the feedback. There are a lot of letters here from parents, and from senior citizens as well. Again, let it not be said that Nintendo consoles have, in the past, been unable to appeal to the moms and grandmothers demographic through hardcore games. We also get an letter from an honest-to-god educator (Steve Gibbs, an English teacher) praising Nintendo, particularly Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2) for promoting critical thinking skills. Read more
So, as some of you may have heard, EGM, like the Undertaker, cannot stay dead for long (which is, by the way, a good thing). Steve Harris, former EIC of EGM during the era of the magazine which I am currently recapping, has got EGM back from Ziff-Davis, and will start publishing new issues later this year. Does this mean I’ll be stopping my recaps, which I started in remembrance of EGM? Nope, because there’s a lot of history to cover, and, frankly, I like to think this recap series has branched out into something bigger, focused on the history of video game journalism in general. So, with that in mind, we move on to EGM issue #23, for June of 1991. This issue is about 133 pages long, and our cover story is a preview of the upcoming Hudson Hawk licenced game, with Bruce Willis getting his first appearance in a video game. Read more
Today we move on to the fourth of our GamePro recaps, skipping over a couple issue (since I don’t have that issue) to issue number 10, for May of 1990. This issue has some horrifically fugly early 90s-late 80s cover art, which almost made my eyes bleed. I really hope that GamePro’s cover art improves soon. The issue is about 100 pages long. The cover boasts 14 new game reviews, and I sincerely hope that they actually are reviews this time, instead of just glorified previews, which are incapable of taking a stand on a game and saying whether or not the game actually has problems.
Editorial: The editorial staff has learned that adults are playing video games as well, and thus they would like to welcome them to the magazine, and as they run a tips and tricks column (and as adults are apparently using lots of the pay tip lines), they feel confident that their more mature readers will find them helpful. Well, if their reviews and other content don’t improve, adults are probably going to drop them like they’re hot, and go to EGM instead. Read more
This week we move on to the fourth issue of Nintendo Power for January & February of 1989. Our cover story this issue is their coverage of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. According to the cover there’s also an feature about 3 upcoming football games, and the Captain Nintendo fanfic (I’m not going to dignify it as “serialized fiction” continues. This issue clocks in at, about, 110 pages, same as last issue.
Wrestlemania Strategy Guide: We’re starting off the issue with a strategy guide for WWF Wrestlemania, featuring basically most of the really major wrestlers from 1989’s Wrestlemania event (Wrestlemania V), and by really major I mean Bam Bam Bigelow, Andre the Giant, Honky Tonk Man, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ted DiBiase. Okay, not most of the really major wrestlers, but a lot of characters for a game on an 8-bit system. They have different power-ups for different characters, like Ted DiBiase’s money, Hogan’s crucifix (which is referred to as an “Golden X” because we can’t offend people with Christian imagery), and so on. Each characters also have their own different move lists, all of which have their own differences, that generally fit with the real-life wrestlers styles (Andre not having any top rope moves for example), through there are some odd elements like Hulk Hogan being able to do drop kicks but not having any leg-drops, Bam Bam Bigelow not having any front grapple moves, and so forth. Also, there aren’t any signature moves in this game, and no way to win by submission or knock out (which there was a precedent for at this time in the WWF – Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Dream). Read more
Alright, we continue with our EGM recaps with issue 37, for August of 1992. And our cover game for this issue is a biggie – Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Plus the list of previews for a boatload of other games. The issue clocks in a slightly more reasonable 149 pages – though fear not, this will later skyrocket to an old-school Computer Shopper level tome in the future. Our first ad of the issue is for the NES port of King’s Quest 5. I’ve played the NES’s more seminal adventure game (Shadowgate), and I have to say that adventure games don’t work too well on the NES, particularly ones like King’s Quest where you can die over, and over, and over again. This issue also features the debut of it’s Game Doctor column.
Insert Coin – Editorial:Our editorial column for this issue is discussing the system war. Oh, and they actually call it that, a System War. On the one hand, Sega’s price point for the Genesis is currently a little lower than the SNES’s price point, after a long series of price slashes by both sides, which is probably annoying the crap out of retailers – or to be specific, the clerks in the stores who have to re-mark the price over, and over, and over again. As of the printing of this issue the SNES runs $99.95 ($151.91 adjusted)It doesn’t help that both sides are over-estimating their sales figures, and since we don’t have the NPDs yet to give an actual verifiable figure, any estimates coming out of anyone has to be taken with a grain of salt. I don’t recall if Babbage’s had started putting out sales figures at this time. Read more
This week we’ve got GamePro Issue #8, for March of 1990. Our page count has dropped a little bit to 85 pages. On the bright side, the cover art isn’t total crap anymore. Nothing new on the opening ads – just the same ad for Demon Sword we had last issue.
Editorial: GamePro’s Editorial columns are still, well, less talking about the state of the industry, or what they will be doing in the future, but instead telling you things you could have learned if you paid attention to the Table of Contents. I must admit that I always found GamePro to be inferior to EGM in most respects. Read more
We move on to Nintendo Power’s third issue, and it’s first holiday issue, for November and December of 1998. Our cover story for this issue is Track & Field II, and the page count has come back up to about 110 pages. As always, the magazine moves straight to the features and strategies from the page after the table of contents.
Track & Field II Strategy Guide: Well, right off the bat, the game’s got a bunch more events than the original Track & Field. For example, we’ve got fencing, archery, swimming, pole vaulting, high-dive, shooting, horizontal bar, canoing, and taekwondo. The controls of the game look fairly simple, for example, in fencing one button controls attacking, one controls defending, and then the D-Pad handles movement and combining one direction with a button performs a certain attack or defense. It isn’t exactly Street Fighter, but it’s got a bit of complexity to it. Anyway, we get strategies (and the controls) for each event. Read more
This week’s installment of the EGM reviews takes us forward to Issue #36 for July of 1992. Our cover art for this issue is Michael Keaton as the Dark Knight in Batman Returns – new Batman movie, new licensed games. A trend that would continue until The Dark Knight, which didn’t have any licensed games on consoles (phones don’t count). Our page count (for this issue) is 133 pages, though on the cover they bill “over 160 pages” – so unless my copy is missing an ad-insert, something is up. If anyone knows if my copy is missing pages or if it’s a misprint on EGM’s part, please let me know.
Anyway, our first ads are for Super Castlevania IVagain, and then an ad for the Toxic Crusadersgames (as in the film by Troma) for the NES, Game Boy, and SNES. What I want to know is this – with Nintendo’s draconian licensing policy for content in games, how the helldid a game based off a Tromamovie get on a Nintendo console. They became famousfor their use of over-the-top gore to the deliberate point of comedy, as well as grotesque character designs. Read more
For our next issue of GamePro we skip ahead a few months to issue #7 for February of 1990, billed as their “Insane Sports” issue, which, as you can tell from the cover art, has the dumbest cover art in the history of video game magazines. The issue is about 100 pages long. Our first ad for the issue is for Demon Sword, a Swords-and-Sorcery style adventure game, with one of the most absurdly stupid swords I’ve ever seen in the history fantasy art. To counter act it, we have an ad for Wizards & Warriors II, featuring Fabio on the cover! All things considered, this cover art isn’t too bad. Oh, and we get ads for Operation Wolf, Goal (Jaleco’s soccer game), Stealth ATF another NES Flight Sim, and a 3 page Genesis ad. That’s 8 pages of ads before the actual magazine has started. Read more
We continue with our Electronic Gaming Monthly reviews with EGM #16, to fill some of that rather large gap we’ve got between issue #6 and issue #25. This issue, which came out in November of 1990, and is significantly shorter than the issues from #20 on – only about 97 pages in this issue. The cover art for this issue is for Super Mario World for the SNES, which currently has a working title of Super Mario 4.
Our first ad for the issue is for Pac-Mania from Atari/Tengen, which looks lot like Pac-Man with an isometric camera angle, different environments, and jumping. Tengen really seems bound and determined to run the Pac Man brand to the ground. We also get ads for the game Skull & Crossbones, where you play a pirate trying to rescue a princess from a wizard and his undead warriors. Read more
So, as part of my continuing mission to chart the path of the early days of gaming, and hopefully put those titles available through the Wii’s virtual console or on the shelves of your local game retailer that sells classic games (or available on eBay), I’m also expanding my magazines I’m recapping to GamePro. GamePro is, at present, the only video game magazine on the market that isn’t attached to a retailer (like GameStop and Game Informer). GamePro’s first issue came out in May of 1989, the same month that EGM’s first issue came out. Unlike EGM’s first issue though, the cover art doesn’t specify any particular game, and the magazine is only about 65 pages long, which is a little shorter than EGM’s first issue, but not by much. Our first ad of the magazine is an ad for Atari’s first-party fan club, the Atarian Club. The ad in general looks really dorky – complete with an ultra-scrawny Atari-themed superhero (with cape and Atari-Shield) holding up a moon. The next ad, for Bubble Bobble from Taito, is a step up. Read more
So, I’m going to expand on my Where I Read threads some. Basically, throughout my EGM recaps, I’ve tried to contextualize the content of the magazines with my knowledge of gaming from what was going on in the world around that time, as well as what has gone on in the world since then, and general things that we, as gamers, have learned in hindsight. However, what I’d like to is to expand on that even more, by contextualizing the magazines, even further, it helps to read more magazines. So, to play off this theme, I’m going to basically add a few more gaming magazines to my recaps, not all at once, but slowly over time.
To give you an idea of how I’ll be including these recaps – EGM will be my “lead” magazine – I won’t recap any of the other magazines I do any further than I’ve progressed with EGM. If I haven’t reached the first issue of another magazine yet, I won’t start recapping it until EGM gets there. Oh, and one more thing, I’ll be including “House Organ” magazines in my recaps – Nintendo Power, as well as official Sega magazines as well (if I can find them). For each of those recaps, I’ll be doing a side feature which I’m going to refer to as Quality Control. The purpose of this feature will be to find a game that was previewed in that month’s issue and play it, and see if it lives up to how well the magazine hypes it. The game chosen will be selected by 3 criteria, of which it must fit at least 2.
I must not have played it before.
It must not be a “classic/landmark game” – one which is universally known as being good-to-perfect. None of the first 3 Sonic games, not the first Castlevania game, none of the core Mario Brothers games, not the first Final Fantasy.
It must be interesting.Specifically, it must catch my interest.
I will then play the game, (though I don’t have to beat the game), and then I’ll give my thoughts on the game, and whether the game the magazine in question was full of crap or not.
The first magazine I’ll be recapping is Nintendo Power #1. The first issue came out in July of 1988. At this time, Nintendo Power was a Bi-Monthly magazine, and it’s first issue was only about 114 pages long. It’s first cover was a nice looking clay Super Mario Bros. Diorama, which also got Mario’s hat’s color wrong (on the picture it’s blue with a black M in a red circle – in the games it’s red with a black M in a white circle. It’s a nitpick, but it makes the picture look off. The game getting top billing in the magazine is, no surprise, Super Mario Bros 2, a.k.a. Doki Doki Panic, with the playable characters from that game changed to be Mario, Luigi, Peach (who is getting a name for the first time), and Toad. Read more
We continue onwards with our EGM Recaps, with our review of EGM #35. I’ve also gotten EGM #15 as well from Retromags, but I’m going to hold off on that one for my next recap (as I’ve already unzipped this issue). Our game on the cover this issue is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 – which has yet to received it’s subtitle of “Turtles In Time” though the time travel element is already evident in the cover art. Our page count for this issue is up from last issue, at about 180 pages. Our first ad of the issue is for Super Castlevania IV, and another ad for Hook for the NES. Now, before I get on to the articles, I just want to mention one little thing that either is an error on Sendai’s part, or a practical joke they did late – on the page for the editorial (Insert Coin), they have the credits for the magazine. For this issue, the credits are mirrored. Now, this issue is for June not April, so it’s not their prank. So, I have no idea what they’re doing here – hopefully they’ll explain later. Moving on…
Insert Coin – Editorial: Our column for this issue is by Steve Harris, about the upcoming Summer CES, which is for the first time open to the public. To Steve’s credit, he does not approach the news with the dread that you’d expect among modern game journalists, that the unwashed (sometimes literally) masses would flood upon the floor, and keep them from doing their job and playing the upcoming games so they could cover them (which is the train of thought that lead to the death of E3 in the first place). We’ll see the EGM editorial staff changes their tune. Read more
So, we continue with our Electronic Gaming Monthly recaps and reviews with issue 34 – the issue after what was, perhaps, EGM’s most famous April Fool’s Joke Ever! Did anyone get the joke, or did people around the world feel the wind rustle through their hair and wonder what that was?
Our cover art this issue is for Super Double Dragon. That’s right, the founding brothers of the beat-em-up are back, and now in 16-bit. Can the Double Dragon franchise (one which is, as of this writing, dead, beheaded, and buried at a crossroads with a wooden through its heart, a holy wafer in its mouth, and a crucifix pressed into its cold hands – right alongside the Battletoads. This issue is about 148 pages long, smaller than last issue. Our first ad is for Ultra Golf, for the Game Boy – from Ultra (which isn’t apparently, as dead as I thought it was last issue). Read more
So, continuing with my EGM Recaps, I move on to Issue 33, for April of 1992. For those whose calculators are broken, that would be a 6-issue gap from Issue 27. Once I get issues that will fill any of these gaps, I will fill them. This is, currently, the first Street Fighter 2 cover for any issue of EGM I’ve done thus far. Not too surprisingly the art is provided by Capcom. As an interesting touch, it shows Chun-Li fighting Blanka, with Ryu knocked out cold in the foreground. I say that’s notable, because most of the other Street Fighter games after Street Fighter 2 have featured Ryu standing triumphant, as basically the mascot for the franchise. The issue is about 165 pages long which is a bit of a step down.
Our first ad for the issue is for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Project – which is the first TMNT game to be put out by Konami, as Konami, rather than through the Ultra brand, which Konami used as, basically, a shell company/label to get more games out through Nintendo’s draconian licensing projects (which I’ve discussed at length in previous reviews). We get another ad shortly afterwards which is notable in a different respect. We have an ad for M.C. Kids, from Virgin Interactive – which is ignoble because it is a McDonald’s licensed game for the NES – we are reaching that point in the NES’s lifespan where, basically, the development teams that made the Castlevanias and the Legend of Zeldas, and the other classics of the 8-bit generation, have moved on to the 16-bit machines, which is what needs to happen if the 16-bit generation is going to thrive. Well, you know it’s April, because they’re fucking with us already on the “Insert Coin” page – the staff list is entirely in Japanese. Not all Kanji (I’m seeing what I think is Katakana), but all Japanese characters. So, if there’s anyone new this issue, you’ll have to tell me. So, let’s move on to the actual content, shall we? Read more
Moving on with the EGM Re-Cap to Issue 27. The cover of this issue features “Super Mario Brothers 4”, which would be later released as Super Mario World, as well as screen shots of Terminator 2 Arcade and the Lucasfilm Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back games (Lucasarts hadn’t officially been formed yet). Our page count for this issue is taking us to the 200 page area.
The first ad of the issue is Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge for the Game Boy. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, this is one of the Castlevania games that has been removed from the canon, followed by an ad for F-15 Strike Eagle for the NES – most of my prior experience with actual fight sims on the NES demonstrated that the NES didn’t work for that genre at all. We get an ad for “Treasure Master,” another NES game – with one of the hooks for the game is that if you beat the game you get a password you can use to enter in a drawing to win fabulous prizes like tickets to a concert or sporting event of your choice, a fully outfitted entertainment center (which, going by the description, would have been pretty good rig up until HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, at which point you’d have to replace the TV with one that had HDMI connections)
I’ve gotten ahold of one of the issues of EGM within the 21-issue gap – Electronic Gaming Monthly issue #6. This issue is about 90 pages long, including the covers. Our cover art this time is in-game art from the Batman game for the NES – and it looks pretty good, considering how much it’s been blown up. I’m going be mentioning more ads this time around, though I’ll try to limite them to either ads for specific games that I haven’t seen before, or notable ads that I may have seen before, but are notable because, say, the game got a bad review.
Judging from the list of articles on the cover, coverage of the Mega-Drive Genesis is expanding to include more game reviews. As yet, as mentioned on issue #25 – the SNES is not yet out.
Our first ad of the issue is for WCW wrestling for the NES, featuring the wrestlers of the NWA – that’s right, Billionare Ted hasn’t bought out Jim Crockett Promotions and split it off from the National Wrestling Alliance yet. Aside from the historical curiosity though, the game does have notable thing behind it – it’s the first wrestling game that let you win matches by submission, and the first wrestling game to have finishing moves.
We also get an ad for Fester’s Quest – no “Critics are raving” quotes – either they’re covering their ass, or they’re not reading the reviews.
