Old Magazine Chat

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

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Balla is that you?

I thought that was a list of the Dreamcast's great games.

It is lacking now with Shenmue's on current gen but same goes for WiiU etc over the years

I was going to post new photos but I made a dick of it - I'll try again later 👌

Here’s something different and something that you’ve probably not seen elsewhere before! Presented in its entirety, this is free Official Nintendo Magazine brochure that I picked up in a Littlewoods all the way back in (I think) late 1997.

I remember enduring a agonising wait between February and December that year to get an N64 as a joint birthday and Christmas present. Between then, I’d spend ages pouring over the screenshots in magazines like Gamesmaster, the footage on programmes like, er, Gamesmaster, and previews like this one underneath. Everything looked brilliant here, and I have fond memories of looking through these pages when I was wee.

Sorry about the poor lighting and iffy photography, but I hope you enjoy having a look.

Another top Cappuccino find that's hit me right in the nostalgia feels. I remember the days when SM64 felt like it would always be the best game ever...

You can definitely see some of the stuff that I didn't like so much about NOM in there. Use of 'ya' and 'yer', and participles ending (sorry, endin') with apostrophes, felt like sorry attempts to get 'down wiv da yoof'. Definitely not 'words everywhere' either: so many pictures I can barely see the words! Also, some misplaced enthusiasm. MK Trilogy? Wargods? Clayfighter 63 1/3!? Christ...

Still some reasonably puntastic titles, though. One thing I don't remember from back then was that, erm, 'adult' Goldeneye comment. Surely nobody could have fancied the N64's polygonal Xenia, even then? Surely!?

Balladeer wrote:

Surely nobody could have fancied the N64's polygonal Xenia, even then?  Surely!?

Ha ha ha no, of course not! Good joke! Ha ha ha ha! (I was 13 at the time, give me a break)

What a bleddy line up of games are listed in that brochure; nice one Cappa. I'm almost excited to play those games again after looking through that (uses "Not You" meme on Yoshi's Story).

Yoshi's Story was the last good Yoshi game though...

In truth, EDGE Magazine #234 - from all the way back in December 2011 - isn’t going to go down in UK gaming magazine folklore. It’s got a nice cover, so credit to the art editor for that, but the content is a bit dull for my tastes. The cover sets the tone though - this is all about bumming up Skyward Sword.





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For me, it was likely one of those kind of issues of a magazine where I bought it, read it, and immediately asked myself ‘why did I buy that?’. It’s very skippable altogether, in my opinion. I’ve got to assume that NGamer was part of the 2 for £7 deal too.

The reason I’m putting up some photos of it is hopefully a bit more obvious though; it’s got some reviews of really popular games that I thought some of you might be interesting in seeing. Enjoy!



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I've always found EDGE to be a bit dry but well written.

Skyward Sword > Dark Souls, eh?  Well that's one for the forum to, er, discuss...

'Dry but well-written' seems to sum it up pretty well.  It's laid out more like a book than journalism, with only the two columns and two pictures (if that many) per page.  Everything's neat and tidy, with perfectly placed white space.  As a result it... all looks rather sterile.  What bits I've read read rather sterile as well.

Still, the point about pre-order gubbins isn't wrong.  It's only got worse since.

Edge can have a sense of humour now and then. Plus, when they're clever they are REALLY clever.
Skyward Sword and Darks Souls are two of my favourote games. I might actually argue SS>DS just to be a dick :p

Also, I think they went back and gave Souls a 10 much later.

The last time I bought EDGE was for a three hour bus journey in 2014. They reviewed Mario Kart 8 so well that it made me less excited for it. I left the magazine on the bus, dingying it well before I got to the end of trip or to the last page.

Are in-game preorder bonuses still a thing nowadays? I remember they were huge back when publishers were trying to figure out a way to put a kibosh on preowned games or to find a way to recoup some of the lost revenue in a preowned game, but I've not seen or heard as much about them for a while now.

Loads still do it, like I preordered Assassin's Creed Odyssey, so I get the blind king mission.

Urgh, thought that was becoming a thing of the past. It might be because I'm not buying your big AAA titles for the most part, which means I've missed most of the preorder nonsense recently.

Best way to be, Jay, best way to be.

JayMoyles wrote:

Urgh, thought that was becoming a thing of the past. It might be because I'm not buying your big AAA titles for the most part, which means I've missed most of the preorder nonsense recently.

I don't play them often (why I didn't both with a gaming PC) but does seem to be a thing like with WWE this year you get Ronda and Rey if you preorder, just my taste in games is the first party which I guess is AAA (Phil Spencer has alluded to some of Sony's to be AAAA), Japanese and indies but the guy who I game share with, is someone that I would say leans more to the likes of FIFA, COD (Why I'll have access to Black Ops 4), Assassin's Creed etc that I have seen the bonuses you get.

That come January a month I'm interested in 5 games, he#s likely interested in 0 of them because it's the likes of Tales of Vesperia.

That’s Gamesmaster Magazine done after over twenty years and three-hundred and thirty six issues. That’s a little sad, as it was the first gaming magazine I bought (with Tomb Raider 2 on the front, in mid-1997) and stuck with throughout the coming years. I stopped buying it in 2002ish, but I’ve still got the odd magazine at home. Like this one, Issue 113 from late 2001.



2001 was a stoating time for gaming - just have a look at those previews and reviews.



Like all gaming magazines of the time, they did the whole ‘Meet The Team’ thing. I liked these wherever they were published, as I felt that they added a lot of personality and charisma to the magazines. I thought they also made games journalism look like the funnest job in the world. Did anyone else want to be a games journalist when they grew up? There’s a few folk here that would be familiar to readers of N64 Magazine by the way...



The big news from Japan was that the GameCube just came out, with a launch that was “a little underwhelming”. Luigi’s Mansion and Wave Race were a bit overrated at the time, but Super Monkey Ball is a stone-cold classic. “The future looks bright” though…?



The ChartTrack charts look the same here as I imagine they do now. Driver 1 is still selling well, right? I love that it’s so obvious that British gamers loved a bargain - this was around the time of the PSone Value Series, where games would be re-released for a tenner. What in Greek buggery happened to Theme Park World last week though?!




Here’s an advert for NGC. It’s here that I remember that I’ve already put up photos of magazines from this time era - sorry about that, it’s just that I have tons of nostalgia for this time in gaming.



Kittsy from NGamer does the Mario Kart guide. It’s light on laughs though, aiming to be more helpful than humourous. I never really used any of these guides though, did you?



Nintendo had just wrapped up Spaceworld for that year, where they previewed all the newest games. Gamesmaster let it be known that Tekken Advance is better than SSX Tricky.





The big review is, of course, Grand Theft Auto III. Maybe they underrate it a bit here, 91% for what seemed like the most perfect game of all time at the time seems like quite a low score.





Just a handful of the other reviews do much to illustrate my point above that 2001 was an amazing time to be a gamer.

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Competition time, and what a prize this is by the way!



...and that’s you until October 29th 2001!



If you pick up a Gamesmaster Magazine today, you’ll maybe be surprised to see how little the format and layout of it has changed. Fair play to them though: they had a format that worked, and worked well, for a very long time. Cheery-bye, Gamesmaster!

Ach, it's sad thinking that GamesMaster has packed it in after all these years. I'm almost 100% certain that it would have been the first gaming magazine that I picked up - likely around this era too, thinking about it. What a reviews line-up by the way! Some bonafide classics amongst those games. It did get me thinking that Zelda always seemed to get absolutely bonkers scores - 96% for the Oracles games seems mindblowing in this day and age.

That prize... ooft! Was Terri even relevant any longer by 2001? Surely that's the era of Trish and Lita?

Aye a shame it will no longer be about, I always bought Gamesmaster here and there and I imagine it was the strength of the brand keeping it going when other magazines were being canned.

I used to get a sub for Games Master for Christmas for yonks and one year I won my first HDTV back in 2005.

Yeah, I just got the last GamesMaster in the post - which I was ported to after the last ONM - which I was ported to after the last Nintendo Gamer. It is a bit sad, as it was still a laugh - but nowhere near as much as N64/NGC/NGamer, or in fact, as Mr. Phillips has demonstrated, GamesMaster of old.
Cappa, you're right - working on a games mag always looked like great fun, and I would have loved to do it. I know I keep saying this, but what a bloody line-up on that Meet the Team page! Thanks again for this.

Old Magazine Chat~! Old Magazine Chat~!



Look everybody, it’s the “The Award Winning Multiformat Games Magazine Of The Future”! But not of this future, because Games™ wound up late last year. We’re here in January 2019, looking at a Games™ from January 2004, with a cover game from January 1843.



“So what does 2004 hold in store”? Bird Flu, mostly. We got GameCube Player’s Choice too, in the really nice silver boxes.



Give me the propeller hat over Starfox Adventures any day of the week.



You didn’t have to be Mystic Meg to know that online gaming was the future of, er, gaming. I’ve got fond memories of playing online for the first time - it was Rallisport Challenge on one of the Xbox pods in Gamestation on Union Street, pissing about with someone else from across the globe and turning it into a game of Destruction Derby 2. Online gaming peaked on the braw February morning, I tell ye.





Some updates from life in America and Japan, including a Teach Yourself Japanese section! I read on the Kirby’s Rumour Buffet thread that Buskalilly uses these as chat-up lines.



Early 2004 was a time when everybody was still excited about the totally dogshite Driver 3 (“Driv3r”). On that note, it would be remiss of me not to mention Guru Larry’s superb investigation into the Driver 3 scandal. British games journalism was so bent in the early 2000s…







Coming soon: Ninja Gaiden, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Collection, and “DONKEEEEEEY KONG-GAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”



The main review is for Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance, padding out this issue like it’s characters pad out Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The other games reviewed are mostly ones I’ve never heard of. Taking photos of them would have wasted valuable seconds.



There’s a good old-fashioned horsing for Sonic Battle, and a very middling score for NFL Street. Bring back the Street games! NFL Street, NBA Street, FIFA Street, ICC Street, Governance of Hockey in England Street, bring them all back!















Here’s the good stuff. In the days before Retro Gamer Magazine became it’s own thing, Games ™ hosted it’s own retro section. This - and the really nice cover, on which a book was definitely judged - is usually what made me buy Games ™ alongside NGC. It’s quite ironic that Retro Gamer outlasted Games ™ and all it’s peers from back in the day. I find it a little funny that nowadays you can get a dedicated magazine that has articles on Sonic Adventure, Jungle Strike and Space Station Silicon Valley. Though you cannot get one that has articles on New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes and the other five billion games that are out on Switch this month.



Games Trading Market! Some of those prices lads - I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!



The magazine ends with a Essentials directory. I trusted Games ™ back then, I put a lot of stock in their opinion.

I was sad to hear that Games ™ closed down a few months ago. I read it regularly in its early days, and I’ve still got a few of the early issues kicking about my house. But I stopped reading it, and that was the problem: loads of folk stopped reading it. Still, good memories.

Star Fox Adventures is a banger, players choice cases look horrible in a collection as they standout like a saw thumb and I wish I get some of those consoles for those prices.

Ohh if you could put up the other reviews even what they're and score would be cool