Weird Gaming Bits from Old Magazines

[Hirst]

Hello. Sometimes I love to go down a rabbit-hole when searching for information and end up searching through old scanned game magazines for hours. Every so often I find stories that are interesting - games that never happened, things that ended up different. Usually I end up keeping it to myself but I thought maybe I'll stick them up on here and see what everyone reckons. This one came from me trying to figure out why Beast Warriors/Beast Wrestler on the Mega Drive never got a PAL release. I always assumed it was that it was just the fact it was a bad game, but it seems like the whole thing was part of a big deal that ultimately fell through. I've re-typed the article so you don't have to get your reading glasses out.

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Mega-Tech, Xmas 1991



French software publisher UbiSoft have just announced a deal whereby they will be officially releasing titles from Renovation and Bignet, which were previously only available on import. Among the first batch of releases are Raiden Trad, Vapor Trail, Junction, El Viento, as well as Arcus Odyssey. All of these should be available in your local game boutique as you read this, along with Master of Monsters, Heavy Nova and Beast Warriors.

UbiSoft hope to have 25 titles on the shelves by Christmas. Lined up for future release are Syd of Valis, Exile, Traysia, Valis, Solfeace and there are even some Mega-CD titles scheduled early next year, which will include the chain-swinging adventures of Earnest Evans. Watch out for more news and reviews next issue.

UbiSoft are also planning to release repackaged Japanese games, such as Gaiares and Granada X with translated instructions AND a Japanese-to-British cartridge converter in the box for £34.99 - a bargain, especially considering the high quality of the games.

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Can't remember this one happening at the time and it's unclear what actually happened in the end. I can't imagine that Sega would have been pleased about the last paragraph with the repackaged Japanese games and cartridge converter, especially being that they were grappling with import shops at the time. As it stands, it looks like UbiSoft actually didn't end up having anything to do with the Mega Drive until Street Racer in 1995. Wonder if Sega scared them off? They didn't get involved with Sega again until the Dreamcast, where they were suddenly best mates and knocking out all sorts.

Interesting to see that nobody else seemed to pick up these games, leaving them outside of PAL territory. Unless I'm mistaken, the only exception I can see is Sol-Feace which ended up bundled with Cobra Command on the Mega CD. I think that PAL release was published by Sega.

Still, nice to know that UbiSoft were still spoiling things for me even as far back as 1991.

[Yakumo]

I honestly do remember that article. The fact that Ubisoft were going to import Japanese games with a cart converter always stuck with me. Even now I remember the story. That had to be from Mean Machines.

[Hirst]

My memory is awful at the best of times so if I did see this, it's lost in the system somewhere along with half my computer passwords.

I remember the cart converters themselves well though, they were all over the place in the early days of the Mega Drive. One of my earliest Mega Drive memories was going over to my mate's house who I swapped games with and seeing him play the Japanese version of Bonanza Bros via converter on his black and white portable.

[Yakumo]

Oh, never mind. I see the article was from Mega Tech. Another Mag I had all copies of. Great mag that sadly didn't last too long.
I think the main reason I remember that article is because Gaiares was one game that I wanted but could find on import at the time.

[dyer60]

Great find! And what a Mag by the way.

This did happen in the main although not sure it was Ubi Soft that ended up doing it…..These are still floating about out there!

[dyer60]

[Baseley09]

How interesting, it is odd that the telenet/renovation catalogue didn't make it over here fascinating line up of games and obviously Valis III among the greatest since civilisations began.

[Hirst]

This isn't from a magazine, but it'll do for now. As well as looking at ancient gaming magazines, I also love to scour old video footage of places I know to see what's changed. Lately I think I've consumed every single piece of video that exists for the Sheffield shopping centre Meadowhall (where I still visit every month or so), but found a right video here of somebody visiting in August 1991.



Microbyte! This is a place where I've definitely been, but I can't honestly say I remember it. I could find some reference to it being a small chain that existed at least as far back as 1989. But what we're interested in here is in the window...



Being that it is 1991, Sonic is a very big deal. But what's unusual here is right in the bottom left, it reflects that weird transition period where the Mega Drive was being sold officially but it was still fairly common to find Japanese or Asian models being sold too - apparently even in a big shop in a shopping centre. The Game Gear is also being advertised, which is no surprise as it had just been launched here about 3 months back. I can tell from the fonts that they're using the official promo material for Europe in that case.



Leaving the attract sequence of Sonic 1 running was a guaranteed sales tactic back then, it just looked amazing. You can just see the white Japan/Asia MD box down there too. Wonder if it's running on 60Hz via Scart? Could just be a 50Hz Asia one though. I'll find whatever shop is still there and ask if they know. It's probably a clothes shop or something, but they might remember.



But that's not all - remember Virgin Games Centre? It's here for all to enjoy! I think by this point it had pretty much transitioned to mostly selling computer games, gradually shrinking down the range of board games and roleplaying type stuff.



Through my special powers of squinting at low-quality artifacted videos for years, I can tell that's a copy of Hyper Lode Runner that he's holding up.

The entire video is here, one of the kids in the video says something incomprehensible about Woody Pop on the Game Gear at 2:20, let me know if you can figure it out over all the crowd noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOKa3OWmsz8

[Atticus]

There was a Microbyte in the Hill Street Centre in Middlesbrough ... I remember buying the US import Contra III from there.