TOTAL! Magazine

I have a feeling this has come up before, but... someone remembers TOTAL! magazine don't they?

Of course, like all magazines in the early 90s, it now looks incredibly dated. It started off a bit "hey kids!", but settled down after a couple of years. Then towards the end it got a bit "whoah dude!" when it lost Future legends like Linda Barker and Frank "Bungie" O'Connor, and ended with possibly the most horrible re-design in the history of publishing. But there was a golden period between 1992 and 1994 where you actually learned about the wider spectrum of games, pre-internet. In retrospect I always wonder if I should've subscribed to SuperPlay, but it was a bit too Japan-centric in those days for me.

Also wanted to bring it up due to an NGamer reference or two: 1) Old Farmer Weaver started there, just before it closed and he jumped to Super Play. And 2) I just happened to open up the cheats page, Issue 42, June 1995 - completely by chance, to read:
SNES: THE LION KING - Go to the options screen and press B, A, R, R and Y for a level select. So says Kim Bissix from Bristol at any rate.

Jimbob wrote:

Future legends like Linda Barker

...what, her from the home makeover shows?

I stuck with TOTAL! to the bitter end and, by the end, it was pretty bitter. The best staff had left and it was clear that Future were putting their money behind Super Play (which I had subscribed to at the time, to be fair!) and its successor. Before that, in the early days of Steve Jarratt and Andy Dyer and the evolution after that, it was pretty decent.

I might scan in the contents page from the last issue, where the editor announces the art editor has redesigned it, and he's "all for it".

I wasn't aware of computer game magazines at all until my local Electronics Boutique started selling them in 1997. That's well after TOTAL! and Super Play, which is a shame, as I'd quite like to have read them.

DAMN MY YOUTHFULNESS! AND MY HANDSOMENESS, MY HANDSOMENESS TOO!!!!!

Honestly, I hadn't heard of either of these magazines until well into NGC's run, when Greener started doing those Timewarp spreads.

I should dig out my old GB Action magazines next time I'm back at my parents' house.

Phillips wrote:

I wasn't aware of computer game magazines at all until my local Electronics Boutique started selling them in 1997. That's well after TOTAL! and Super Play, which is a shame, as I'd quite like to have read them.

DAMN MY YOUTHFULNESS! AND MY HANDSOMENESS, MY HANDSOMENESS TOO!!!!!

Honestly, I hadn't heard of either of these magazines until well into NGC's run, when Greener started doing those Timewarp spreads.

This. Though I guess we're all lucky we got to experience the print era days (so much choice!), hard to believe Future would run a separate magazine for handhelds too (Planet Game Boy and Advance, respectively)...