NGamer 10th Anniversary

OK. So August 2016 marks ten years since NGamer officially launched (incorporating NGC, natch). I picked up the first 15 issues recently, as I never read the magazine at the time, and thought it would be cool to immerse myself in to the early years of the Wii and DS.

Now, I don't know how many people on here still have their issues of NGamer, but it would be great to re-live the magazine, ten years on, with others who may or may not have followed it from the start.

It may just be a case of playing some of the games they review, or sharing fun tidbits of content.

Would this be of interest?

Yes. Yes, it is of interest. Exceedingly so, almost.

The only NGamers I have left are actually the last five Nintendo Gamers; great mags all, but not as good as NGamer in its heyday.

Still got almost every issue of NGamer and ONM under my bed. A lot of great memories under there. At the very least, I might share the various issues I was in.

You're supposed to make great memories on the top of the bed.

I used to buy loads of magazines, and I bought at least eight a month for almost fifteen years. But I had a clear out a couple of years ago, and my N64/NGC/NGamer/Nintendo Gamer magazines were the only ones that I kept every issue of. People might ask why I'd need old magazines; I kept them because I enjoy reading them. As I've said before, in it's first twelve-eighteen months it was the best games magazine ever.

I like the idea of having a few Let's All Plays attached to the idea of playing some of the games they reviewed. I guess it could sort of be like a book club of sorts, in that we discuss the original review text from NGamer (which I could find, as I'll have those issues somewhere), consider our own perspectives then and now, and compare and contrast amongst ourselves. Off the top of my head, we could play some of the stuff that was really innovative and acclaimed at the time, like Eledees, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.

~

As a side note, the idea of the Cr@p Games Reviews thread in the first place was going to be that I kept it ticking over until a final 'mystery' game on the tenth anniversary of the Wii in late 2016. That game, of course, was going to be Red Steel. I definitely think that if we're marking the tenth anniversary of NGamer, we have to do something with Red Steel (and finally settle the decade-long debate: was 90% too low a score?).

Didn't someone share a site a while back with a lot of NGamer magazine scans? Or am I imagining things?

I think revisiting Eledees and Red Steel would be a laugh. Eledees is something I remember being considerably hyped up in NGamer, and of course, Red Steel's tie to the magazine is infamous. I might see if I can dig out some of the old NGamer DVDs - there must be hours of content of them talking over shite game trailers.

Red Steel was a slice above the rest.

At the time I fully agreed with the 90% for Red steel, loved that game even though sometimes the default sensitivity was too high and you could accidentally start spinning on the spot.

Maybe that should be the next "Lets all play"? I think you can find it for about £4.

I've definitely seen Red Steel in GAME for 49p. CEX have it for 75p, but you'd better snap that up quick as they're down to 464 copies for sale online.

I think I traded my copy in, sadly. I don't remember much from that game besides its lovably shite multiplayer mode and a level where you battle up a ski slope and Power Ranger knock-offs were involved.

Oh, man, I'd forgotten that! It did get wonderfully bonkers, didn't it?

Definitely. Surprising too, considering it seemed to be standard Yakuza fare at first.

Drunka in NGamer!

Awful email about awful Mario War of the Worlds video, since removed from Youtube:

Bomberman!:

My GCSE Art project (which I still have):

Super Fan:

Biscuits:

Drunkalilly wrote:

Maybe that should be the next "Lets all play"? I think you can find it for about £4.

I still own my copy so I'd definitely be up for doing that.

Saw Drunka's stash pic and had to copy (I want to be one of the cool kids)

I had to move the ONMs and GamesMasters out of the way for that. Oh, and bottom-right? Acorn Electron instruction manual.

Was going to write a 10th Anniversary piece for Gintendo, but simply haven't had the time to do it justice.

I noticed that NGamer Issue 1 was scanned over at Out of Print Archive a few days ago to mark the 10th anniversary. You can find the link here http://www.outofprintarchive.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.165

There's mention of more issues in the coming weeks!

Issues 1 and 2 are the only ones I don't have. I've been keeping an eye on ebay, but if not I'll give up and go there.

gjones wrote:

Was going to write a 10th Anniversary piece for Gintendo, but simply haven't had the time to do it justice.

I noticed that NGamer Issue 1 was scanned over at Out of Print Archive a few days ago to mark the 10th anniversary. You can find the link here http://www.outofprintarchive.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.165

There's mention of more issues in the coming weeks!

That's ace! I own that issue, but I've no idea where it is. I'll download that and give it a read.

Unless Nintendo goes around taking them down

I bang on about it more than most people would about a ten-year old magazine, but that first issue of NGamer was just so brilliant. You could tell that everybody involved was really excited about the magazine itself as well as the upcoming DS Lite and Wii. That new console excitement was sorely missed when the Wii U came out. NGamer was almost on it's arse when the 3DS came out, only mustering shitey half-page reviews for the launch games and more or less summarising that everything was 'okay'. That was a bit keech. But NGamer's build up to the Wii from summer 2006 to Christmas that year was something else. Magical, almost.

The footnotes on the bottom of each page were a game-changer - more special and revolutionary than Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy put together. But there was tons of other little things that made NGamer's first issue so great. I'll have to download that link.

Nintendo have no business taking magazine scans down - NGamer and its entire lineage were independent. Future Publishing might get involved - stranger things have happened - but they better ruddy hadn't.

Can only echo what Cappa said: NGamer was a mighty special thing. I only got on board for issue 8, so I'll be getting my peepers on those scans as soon as I'm able. I can't wait: it's still not over! There's new (to me) NGamer content out there!

I've read it a while ago.  All but forgotten it.  Downloading as I type. Perhaps we can have some NGamer chat, like back in the old days?

They took all of Nintendo Power on the same day they took down AM2R along with other things but of course NP was from Nintendo unlike NGamer.

Balladeer wrote:

I've read it a while ago.  All but forgotten it.  Downloading as I type.  Perhaps we can have some NGamer chat, like back in the old days?

I was thinking of suggesting a thread where, month-by-month, we discuss the old NGamers in order. From #3 onwards, I have the physical mags, so I'd be happy to take point.