October 1992 - Enter the SNES

It's October 1st, 1992.

You've spent the last few weeks settling back in at your local primary school, envious at your pals that had birthdays this year and got SEGA Mega Drives - the bastards! The most recent Argos catalog left you uninspired, I mean, Sonic looks cool but I want to know more about this new Nintendo system that's coming out soon.

Argos Catalog 1992:

What's that you spot on the shelf at your local John Menzies - it's a strange Japanese comic, surely? Nope, that's just Wil Overton slapping you in the face with vibrant anime-inspired artwork. Super Play has landed and spawns the finest line of videogame magazines the world did ever see. Your young mind is never the same again, immediately hooked on this new world of wonder. The mystery of Japan is rampant, and you cherish every word of your new-found interest.

Page 6 - News!:

Page 7 - More News:

Charts:

Reviews (UK)

Addams Family:

Dragon's Lair:

Final Fight:

F-Zero:

Pilotwings:

Street Fighter II:

Super Castlevania IV:

Oddly, there is no mention of Super Mario World, other than this tiny summary in the "What Cart?" section at the back. Very odd.

Super Mario World:

Super R-Type:

Super Smash TV:

Super WWF:

I found this Reader's Survey particularly amusing, giving us a heavy hint of what's to come as far as humour goes.

Readers Survey:

A nice little glossary for all the new terms you'll need to know...:

And that's more or less it. This is what's coming next month...



If you're interested in playing any of these titles, these are your best bets:

SNES Mini/Virtual Console

• F-Zero
  
• Final Fight
  
• Super Castlevania IV
  
• Super Mario World
  

Virtual Console

• F-Zero
  
• Final Fight
  
• Pilotwings
  
• Street Fighter II
  
• Super Castlevania IV
  
• Super Mario World
  

The rest
Addams Family, being licensed, is only available on the original hardware. The cart is £8 in CEX.
Dragon's Lair is available in various guises, but the SNES version is more difficult to track down. Best bet is eBay, but let's be honest, it's not a great game!
Smash TV is available in the Midway Arcade collections - one was released on the Gamecube.
Super WWF ended up here as Super Wrestlemania, and is dead and buried on the SNES, but carts are available for only £4.
Super R-Type was released on the Wii Virtual Console but was removed in 2013, so, unfortunately, it's cartridge only at this moment in time. £12 which isn't too bad.

Ace post there!

I'm going to take some time to get through it and appreciate it properly. A couple of notes from the first set: I love them staff profiles, although look at all them singletons! Poor fellas/lasses. Look at the self-consciously quirky art editor. Also, young Jonathan Davies! He stayed the course, he really did. I started with issue 1 of N64 Magazine, so I have a soft spot for him.

Good to see EA was already crap back then.

That's an outstanding effort gjones - thanks for sharing this, and thanks for your buying advice too. I'm reading this through over the course of a couple of bus journeys, it's excellent entertainment. Another first impression is that there's a la k of those signature baw-bootins that this line of magazines used to give (though to be fair, that's a mostly brilliant line-up of games).

Anime next week, woop

I really like the buyers guide, also anyone ever owned a super famicom?

Mr. Jones you've done it again! Yeah, it's nostalgia time!

I remember reading the parallel reviews in Total! magazine, and, on average, Super Play seemed to sum up their thoughts a bit better (although F-Zero and Sim City have got to be 90%+ers, surely? I still subconsciously think about the latter). And I'm glad they linked the Addams Family - that's alright that is.

And I love the glossary! Maybe I just assume everyone's familiar with all of those things already, so it seems a bit unnecessary (scrolling?); having said that, sometimes I could do with a glossary for all the abbreviated genres that people seem to have come up with now.

Jimbob wrote:

Mr. Jones you've done it again! Yeah, it's nostalgia time!

I  remember reading the parallel reviews in Total! magazine, and, on average, Super Play seemed to sum up their thoughts a bit better (although F-Zero and Sim City have got to be 90%+ers, surely? I still subconsciously think about the latter). And I'm glad they linked the Addams Family - that's alright that is.

And I love the glossary! Maybe I just assume everyone's familiar with all of those things already, so it seems a bit unnecessary (scrolling?); having said that, sometimes I could do with a glossary for all the abbreviated genres that people seem to have come up with now.

There's definitely the impression that importing games is a new thing, which Super Play are pushing heavily. Makes sense to be inclusive in the first issue.

I do find it odd that Super Mario World isn't a big deal in the first issue, but then it's October 1992 and the Super Nintendo had been out since April.

I've flicked through it, and did enjoy some of the humour: you can definitely see where it's going to end up! But yes, it's yet to properly evolve into N64 Magazine's harshness.

Comparing the NES to John the Baptist is the best thing I've seen all day though.

Great post gjones! I really enjoyed reading those reviews - I'm also surprised at how much of a focus there is for importing games in this debut issue. Import reviews made up a big part of early NGamer, so it's neat seeing the DNA of that magazine coming into play here with Super Play. Thanks for putting this together.