I'm sure many of you used buy video game magazines back in the 90's and 00's and I thought I'd make this thread to look back at some of your favorite video game magazines you used to read growing up.
I used to read a ton of magazines, most of them Nintendo related (although I did buy Sega Power for a while simply because it was hilarious to read). I still have most of the magazines I bought and the cover/free gifts that came with them. Here are some of the magazines I used to read pretty much religiously:
Nintendo Magazine System
This was the official magazine for Nintendo all through the 90's and half of the last decade. It was a spin-off from a multiformat magazine called Mean Machines when EMAP (the publishing company that ran it) bid for the rights to make the official magazine. MeanMachines was split into two; Nintendo Magazine System and Mean Machines Sega were born.
During its first 2 or 3 years when it covered the SNES, NES and Gameboy it was an absolutely solid well written magazine. Dispite being the official magazine, its reviews seemed very honest and fair. The editorial staff for the magazine (Julian Rignal, Gus Swan, Gary Harrold, Tim Boone to name a new) brought a good personality to the mag.
I rememeber the magazine came with some really amazing cover gifts in the first couple of years, which included A CD soundtrack for Street fighter 2, a VHS tips video for the same game, issue 1 came with a miniature key ring gameboy with the time displayed on it's screen. When Street fighter 2 turbo was released they released a massive SF2T poster which they had to split into two parts and give one part per issue. I had the poster on my wall for years lol
Sadly by the time of the N64 era, most of the original team had left and the staff that had replaced them, made the magazine truly awful. Maybe the constant delays of the N64 and then it's lack of software once released, could be partly to blame (as they didn't have much to cover), but a lot of it was to do with how the magazine was written.
For example, they would refer to the Sega Saturn and Playstation as the "Sega Sad turn" and "Greystation" to give you some idea. They spent far too much time with imature unfunny insults like that and the reviews where just plain biased and unreliable (Donkey Kong County 3 got 99%).
I felt like the magazine improved towards the end of its run when it was covering the Nintendo ds and preparing for Wii coverage. It seem to be a fun magazine again. Sadly just before the Wii's launch, the licence switched pubishers and the magazine was closed as a new Official Magazine was started (ONM).
N64 magazine
This was the follow up to a great Super Nintendo magazine called Super Play, written by most of the same staff, it was a very funny well written magazine with a great sense of humour that went around its reviews. I especially liked when they reviewed a bad game like Superman 64 or Mortal Kombat Mythologies. from wikipedia:
The magazine was really reliable when it came to reviews (for the most part) and the great sense of humor the mag had made it enjoyable to read. I found myself reading pretty much everything in every issue because so much about it made me laugh.
It seemed like they had fun making it, always doing crazy things like Nintendo inspired recipes and a parody of romantic novels with Nintendo characters taking the lead roles. They also did some competitions along the way, holding a Mario Kart tourney for a huge trophy and another for Goldeneye.
Super Play
There's not much I can say about this that I have not already said about N64 magazine as it was pretty much the same people and same mag only covering the Snes.
What made Super Play very unique at the time was its heavy influence from Japan. It had a small section covering anime, which at the time very few people were interested in. they also seemed to spend a lot of pages focusing on RPG's and their guides were mostly for them too. There is a great recent 'making of super play' article with interviews from it's staff here:
http://retro.nintendolife.com/news/2011/05/feature_the_making_of_super_play_magazine
I'd written a bit more about some other magazines I used to read ( Cube Magazine, N.Revolution, NGC, Sega Saturn Magazine, Dreamcast magazine,Gamesmaster and CVG) but my browser crashed so I'll update this post with more later. I have a few links to sites about older mags in the meantime
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/index.php
http://www.transformationsequence.com/super-play.html (Will overton, Super Play/ N64 magazine cover artists site)
http://www.outofprintarchive.com/magazine_catalogue_UK.html (Scans of older magazines)
http://www.gamesmastertv.net/reviews/issueone.php
I'm sure many of you used buy video game magazines back in the 90's and 00's and I thought I'd make this thread to look back at some of your favorite video game magazines you used to read growing up. I used to read a ton of magazines, most of them Nintendo related (although I did buy Sega Power for a while simply because it was hilarious to read). I still have most of the magazines I bought and the cover/free gifts that came with them. Here are some of the magazines I used to read pretty much religiously: Nintendo Magazine System This was the official magazine for Nintendo all through the 90's and half of the last decade. It was a spin-off from a multiformat magazine called Mean Machines when EMAP (the publishing company that ran it) bid for the rights to make the official magazine. MeanMachines was split into two; Nintendo Magazine System and Mean Machines Sega were born. During its first 2 or 3 years when it covered the SNES, NES and Gameboy it was an absolutely solid well written magazine. Dispite being the official magazine, its reviews seemed very honest and fair. The editorial staff for the magazine (Julian Rignal, Gus Swan, Gary Harrold, Tim Boone to name a new) brought a good personality to the mag. I rememeber the magazine came with some really amazing cover gifts in the first couple of years, which included A CD soundtrack for Street fighter 2, a VHS tips video for the same game, issue 1 came with a miniature key ring gameboy with the time displayed on it's screen. When Street fighter 2 turbo was released they released a massive SF2T poster which they had to split into two parts and give one part per issue. I had the poster on my wall for years lol Sadly by the time of the N64 era, most of the original team had left and the staff that had replaced them, made the magazine truly awful. Maybe the constant delays of the N64 and then it's lack of software once released, could be partly to blame (as they didn't have much to cover), but a lot of it was to do with how the magazine was written. For example, they would refer to the Sega Saturn and Playstation as the "Sega Sad turn" and "Greystation" to give you some idea. They spent far too much time with imature unfunny insults like that and the reviews where just plain biased and unreliable (Donkey Kong County 3 got 99%). I felt like the magazine improved towards the end of its run when it was covering the Nintendo ds and preparing for Wii coverage. It seem to be a fun magazine again. Sadly just before the Wii's launch, the licence switched pubishers and the magazine was closed as a new Official Magazine was started (ONM). N64 magazine This was the follow up to a great Super Nintendo magazine called Super Play, written by most of the same staff, it was a very funny well written magazine with a great sense of humour that went around its reviews. I especially liked when they reviewed a bad game like Superman 64 or Mortal Kombat Mythologies. from wikipedia: The magazine was really reliable when it came to reviews (for the most part) and the great sense of humor the mag had made it enjoyable to read. I found myself reading pretty much everything in every issue because so much about it made me laugh. It seemed like they had fun making it, always doing crazy things like Nintendo inspired recipes and a parody of romantic novels with Nintendo characters taking the lead roles. They also did some competitions along the way, holding a Mario Kart tourney for a huge trophy and another for Goldeneye. Super Play There's not much I can say about this that I have not already said about N64 magazine as it was pretty much the same people and same mag only covering the Snes. What made Super Play very unique at the time was its heavy influence from Japan. It had a small section covering anime, which at the time very few people were interested in. they also seemed to spend a lot of pages focusing on RPG's and their guides were mostly for them too. There is a great recent 'making of super play' article with interviews from it's staff here: http://retro.nintendolife.com/news/2011/05/feature_the_making_of_super_play_magazine I'd written a bit more about some other magazines I used to read ( Cube Magazine, N.Revolution, NGC, Sega Saturn Magazine, Dreamcast magazine,Gamesmaster and CVG) but my browser crashed so I'll update this post with more later. I have a few links to sites about older mags in the meantime http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/index.php http://www.transformationsequence.com/super-play.html (Will overton, Super Play/ N64 magazine cover artists site) http://www.outofprintarchive.com/magazine_catalogue_UK.html (Scans of older magazines) http://www.gamesmastertv.net/reviews/issueone.php