Retro|Spective 205: Gaming Magazines

[Neon Ignition]

1991 - Amiga Power
One of the magazine's most notable factors compared to its peers was that it held a dogged belief that the percentage system used in its reviews should accurately utilise the entire scale meaning that an outright average game would score 50% rather than the 70-75% typical in other publications. This led to a reputation for being harsh with their scoring and publishers attempting to court higher scores from the magazine. It folded its last issue in 1996 as the Amiga itself drifted away.










What would you score Amiga Power?

[QualityChimp]

Ha, what a great final cover!

[Tobal]

Mean Machines (then MM Sega) was my main go to magazine every month through out the 16bit and some of the 32bit era, occasionally reading Super Play my friend got (as he had a snes, to my MD).

Outside out that, i had a few Crash magazines and still have one tattered Crash magazine with big review of Gazza 2 (Kick off clone).

I'm sure these will get listed eventually

OPM mainly for it's demo discs, a life line for a kid with very little money living on rentals and demos. Still its quality covers and paper did help it stand out, much like EDGE did

EDGE collected so, so many, years without missing a beat, but eventually drifted away as they seems quite anti fun against alot out titles i enjoyed during the 360/Ps3 era. Dumped nearly a hundred of them but still kept some key issues (Mario64, Z:OoT, Halo1/2, Gran Turismo 1, that GTA3 review etc, etc)

Maximum still have my 5 issues stored away, loved the deep dive in Arcade/japanese and Neo-geo games.

PC Gamer and PC Zone- again like OPM, got which ever magazine had the best demos on it that month, at time when downloading on 56k wasn't feasible and even when i got (slow by todays standards, but sod me 20-100 pings on TF2C and Counterstrike was the bee's knees) cable in early 00's, i wouldn't have the HDD space to make room for everything, to delete and then redownload, when you could pop in a disc.

[Neon Ignition]

1992 - Mega
Aimed specifically at the Mega Drive era of hardware, the magazine proved to be a hit very early one using staff from several successful magazines of prior years from Future's publications. In 1994, the magazine was in full swing and suddenly Future decided to sell it for reasons unknown (presumably sensing it had a shelf life due to being format specific so they could cash in before a decline) and the new owner very quickly ran it into the ground with the last issue releasing the next year in 1995.











Was Mega Mega?

[Asura]

1992 - Mega
Aimed specifically at the Mega Drive era of hardware, the magazine proved to be a hit very early one using staff from several successful magazines of prior years from Future's publications. In 1994, the magazine was in full swing and suddenly Future decided to sell it for reasons unknown (presumably sensing it had a shelf life due to being format specific so they could cash in before a decline) and the new owner very quickly ran it into the ground with the last issue releasing the next year in 1995.
Was Mega Mega?

I have a very strong memory of a Sonic-covered issue, that I think heavily featured Sonic 3.

[Neon Ignition]

1992 - Total!
Lasting 58 issues, the magazine was focused on Nintendo platforms with it covering everything up to the Nintendo 64 over the course of its life. Total! was set up by Steve Jarratt who would go on to launch Edge later. Reasons for its cancellation are unclear, the magazines final issue very clearly expecting it to continue the next month.










Was it the Total! package?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Total! is another one of the fondly-remembered names from the 1990s gaming mag golden-age of my youth, even if on reflection it wasn't as polished as Mean Machines/NMS and/or Super Play (the other major Future Publishing indie Nintendo magazine of the time which likely usurped it and hastened its demise).

[Neon Ignition]

This was pretty much alongside Mega as my first go to's but similarly whilst I have very strong memories of the early issues I drifted off fairly quickly. My main memory was getting a cheat published in it for Earthworm Jim 2

Not so amazing a feat though as I stumbled on it by entering a code that works in Earthworm Jim 1 and they had happened to reuse it in the sequel

[Anpanman]

Used to get Zzap 64 and in the Amiga days it was Amiga Format and Amiga User International, AUI tended to cover more 'serious' stuff like digitisers, hardware bolt-ons and software other than games.

[Neon Ignition]

1992 - Nintendo Magazine System / Official Nintendo Magazine
Originally launching under the former name before switching to the latter, this was Nintendo's official magazine and lasted for 114 issues with the shutter coming down during the WiiU's second year.. The magazine started life as the Nintendo based offshoot of Mean Machines magazine before becoming officially licensed necessitating the name change.











One of the best Official magazines?

[QualityChimp]

I've always had a distrust of official magazines as they always seem to lack objectivity, but it was a good way to hear about exclusives first.

[Asura]

Nah. Sega Saturn Mag was better 🤣

[Nu-Eclipse]

Nah. Sega Saturn Mag was better ��

That's hilarious.

NMS was easily the best mag to come out of the Mean Machines break-up by far and it wasn't even close (bar Mean Machines Sega on a good month).

Went downhill when official licensing was involved and was all but dead when Future got ahold of it to make it ONM.
.

[Neon Ignition]

1992 - Super Play
Running for four years, Super Play was a SNES focused magazine that placed a heavy emphasis on American releases alongside JRPG's and anime. Standing out on shelves due to its artwork its life was cut short by the decision to instead launch a new title to focus on the arriving N64. In 2017 a one off additional issue was released focusing on titles such as Star Fox 2.












Did the specialist focus of the magazine draw you in?

[QualityChimp]

I didn't even own a Nintendo at the time, but was definitely targeted by the amazing cover art by Wil Overton, that totally captured that anime/manga look and it totally set it apart from any other magazine on the shelves.

Love that Wil is still producing art for gaming books because of the impact these covers had, BITD.