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. Read more

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. Read more

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.”) Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

For this week’s EGM Recap we’re going to take a step back to fill another gap in the archive (hopefully I’ll be able to alternate these until all the gaps are filled). This issue I’m going back to April 1993 for issue #45 of Electronic Gaming Monthly. This issue’s of average size, about 183 pages, and our cover story is the game adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppela. Of all the Coppela films to get a video game adaptation, this is the one that needed it the least.

Editorial: Ed Semrad gives his thoughts on Winter CES, and he’s going to be a little outspoken here – you see, his game of the show isn’t Starfox, which was a cover story the previous issue, it’s Slipheed for the Sega CD. Read more

Once again the EGM Recaps are going forward once more. The issue we’re covering today is issue #57, for April of 1994. Our cover story is (*ugh*), Beavis and Butthead. I grew up when that show was on the air, and I never found it funny. Anyway, it’s getting video games based on it, and if the history of comedy TV show to video game adaptations is any sign of the future, this is going to suck too. Anyway, this issue’s kind of long, at 212 pages, so we might as well get this over with.

Editorial: The price point of the N64 (still known as Project Reality) has been announced, and it’s going to cost $240. This leads to Ed’s editorial about how, basically, video game systems are expensive toys, and at this point in it’s history, I wouldn’t dispute that. I’d say the point where video game systems started to jump the gap from a “toy” to as much of a part of your home theater system as your stereo was, possibly, with the PS2, and it’s ability to play DVDs. Considering at the time the DVD format was pretty new, this helped get a lot of DVD players in people’s homes, in the same sort of way the PS3 helped get people Blu-Ray players. Read more

We’re taking another slight step back with the EGM recaps to fill another hole in the archive. In this case, we’re covering Issue #46 for May of 1993, with a cover story of Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition for the Genesis.

Editorial: Our editorial this week comes from Ed Semrad, and covers Review Scores, and basically re-iterating that they stand behind their review scores, even though various publishers won’t necessarily be happy with them, and that they will say what they think in their editorials, even if game publishers and developers won’t like it, instead of re-iterating the table of contents (take that GamePro).

Letters: So, the first question of the issue is “Is Street Fighter 2 coming out for the Genesis?” Well, if someone ripped the cover off your copy of this issue, yes. We also get letters saying how awesome Starfox is. Oh, and apparently their April Fool’s day joke the issue prior was a mock schedule for Atari Jaguar games (including Virtua Pong and Yar’s Revenge 2). We also get more letters in response to Phil Mushnick’s letter (this would be the Rupert Murdoch-owned NY Post’s Phil Mushnick) in the April issue. I still haven’t found the April issue, so I don’t know what he said, so I can’t re-but it on my own. However, apparently Muschnick’s main targets appear to be EA and the Madden games, and also appear to be from the perspective of someone who had never played a video game before (particularly considering the responses we get this issue all reiterate that last point). Anyway, Muschnik’s letter made the “Psycho Letter of the Month” column (which I usually don’t cover). Anyway, one of the other points that I’m picking up second hand from this column is that Muschnik feels that the Madden games encourage kids to be violent in sports – considering the enouragement given in terms of “sick hit” football videos that I recall from Middle School and High School (including ones featuring prominant ESPN broadcasters who, let’s just say, thought they were “Awesome Baby”) I’d say that it’s not Madden’s fault, or EA’s fault, but the sports media’s fault – which Muschnik is part of. Oh, and we get another letter about the changes between the Japanese Ranma 1/2 game and the US Street Combat game, a question about mature content in Japanese games being carried over to the US (particularly nudity), and the RPG Dark Wizard for the Sega CD, which is apparently supposed to come out July ’93. Read more