Scans from Old Gaming Magazines

[SaurusX]

I mentioned a few months back that I discovered my old stash of gaming mags at my mom's house over Thanksgiving. Anyone have any interest in seeing any select scans of these? Of course I'm not going to scan everything, but just some choice stuff. Articles, reviews, ads, etc. It's an interesting window into the gaming world at that time.

The magazines I have are mainly from the 16-bit era with a small smattering from the 8-bit days and then some from the later PSX, Saturn, N64, 3DO days. What I find most interesting are the speculative articles. One of the most guffaw-inducing ones was from GamePro talking about how the N64 (the Ultra 64 at the time) was going to essentially be a SGI workstation producing movie-quality graphics at 30 fps.

Like I said, just let me know if there's interest.

 

[mmntech]

One of the most guffaw-inducing ones was from GamePro talking about how the N64 (the Ultra 64 at the time) was going to essentially be a SGI workstation producing movie-quality graphics at 30 fps.

Lol. Though IIRC, the N64 was technically more powerful than the PlayStation. However, it was severely bottlenecked by the limited storage space on the ROM cartridges.

 

[Chapbass]

Hah, I'd be interested in seeing some.

 

[blurredvision]

I'd be interested in seeing some too, not specific requests though, just whatever.

 

[Wingznut]

I'd be interested in seeing some too, not specific requests though, just whatever.

Same here. But I'll go ahead and make a request... Got anything from the Desert Strike series? Loved, loved, loved those games!

 

[ShadowVVL]

Vary interested as it would really bring back childhood memories of the 90s. I miss gaming in the 90s it was much more exciting then today.

The future of gaming became meh after 2004.

 

[SaurusX]

Here's the first batch. Slim pickings from these two issues, imo.

EGM 69, April '95

 

[SaurusX]

EGM 71, June '95

some Nintendo agitprop:

Atari's desperation begins to show...

I always liked this game for the Itchy & Scratchy-like ultra violent deaths.

 

[SaurusX]

EGM 68, March '95

Continuing to work my way backwards in time. A lot of good stuff in this ish. Hardware speculation and sneak previews as well as some good game reviews.

The gossip column. Loved these as a kid and just re-read them over and over.

The Apple Pippin??? What? Could have been bigger than the iPod. LOL!

Nintendo Virtual Boy preview. It's gonna be huge, I tell you! HUGE!

Mega Man VII review for the SNES. Now commands some of the biggest prices for retro collectors.

The Adventures of Batman and Robin on the Sega Genesis review. Some of the best graphics on the Genesis, which I heard is due to the programmers being from the old PC demo scene.

Mega Man X2 ad. The Mega Man X games are some of the most desired SNES titles. Currently this one goes for $60 minimum on eBay.

 

[SaurusX]

continued...

Atari Jaguar keeps on trying with their CD-ROM add on. Sad.

 

[exdeath]

Damn even the magazines where more awesome back in the day. The Megaman VII pages made me all warm and fuzzy.

Now days gaming mags double as Soldier of Fortune mags and everybody pulls the politically correct every game and its 20th sequel gets 9s crap.

Dunno just something more fun about that generation of games that still look and feel like video games. I mean I was a total graphics whore too at the time but honestly I'm kinda sorry I ever wished for "ultra realistic graphics".

Now its here and meh. Real life is too bland.

 

[cantholdanymore]

WARNING: Extreme Cartoon Violence

LOL

 

[Chapbass]

LOVED the Chrono Trigger piece. What an incredible game. If I have to show my kids one game from "back in my day", its going to be this.

 

[Tweak155]

Great scans.

 

[mmntech]

I'll have to scan the old EGM I have that profiled Rogue Squadron. Will try to do it this weekend if I can borrow my dad's scanner. Sadly I can no longer find working drivers for my old Canon.

 

[Doppel]

Neat scans but wish you'd make them a touch larger

I rented that virtual boy. It's amazing they even greenlighted the project. It really was an awful device.

 

[KeithTalent]

Love seeing the Jaguar stuff. I so wanted to try one of those back in the day, but I never got a chance to.

KT

 

[SaurusX]

Neat scans but wish you'd make them a touch larger

I rented that virtual boy. It's amazing they even greenlighted the project. It really was an awful device.

It seems to be a Photobucket issue. The original scans are hugemongous and that's how I uploaded them.

I also rented the VB back when it came out and wasn't impressed. I remember when I looked away from it after playing that it felt like my eyes had been burned out of my skull.

 

[mmntech]

Even before it came out, they knew the VB was going to suck. It's real downfall was just how stupid difficult it was to use. It only took Nintendo 15 years to get 3D gaming figured out.

And the Jaguar CD. The addon to the console that nobody had, that didn't even work. I guess it had a lot of quality issues as well, that making working ones pretty rare today. James Rolfe finally got one and did a review of it (not as the AVGN) and the games looked pretty awful. Sort of like those early shareware games for PC that came on a CD stuck to the back of a magazine. The whole irony of the Jaguar was despite it being "64-bit", it wasn't much more powerful than the SNES.

 

[SaurusX]

The last one from issue 68. StarFox 2! Never released by Nintendo. The game was done and they...didn't...release...it.

 

[exdeath]

Hmm wonder if that will play on a SDSNES when SFX support is complete.

 

[JeffMD]

Lol. Though IIRC, the N64 was technically more powerful than the PlayStation. However, it was severely bottlenecked by the limited storage space on the ROM cartridges.

I owned both, the ram is not a bottleneck in any performance aspects, it simply was a factor of games being on cd and cartridge. The 3d geometry and textures used on these consoles were pretty small so the N64 had no problem bringing the 3d with games like sky fox and zelda. It was just that you had no FMV shortcuts for cinematics, and music had to be realtime.

Performance wise I would say they were dead on the same but that the N64s texture smoothing and perspective correction did actually reduce the on screen poly a little. Despite the loss of polygons however these 2 3d functions made games look infinitely better. The lack of perspective correction drove me nuts on ps1 driving games.

 

[mmntech]

I uploaded some of my own images from the October 1998 issue of EGM. I'll add more to this album eventually.
http://imgur.com/a/0Dk73

I owned both, the ram is not a bottleneck in any performance aspects, it simply was a factor of games being on cd and cartridge. The 3d geometry and textures used on these consoles were pretty small so the N64 had no problem bringing the 3d with games like sky fox and zelda. It was just that you had no FMV shortcuts for cinematics, and music had to be realtime.

I remember reading that it was capable of higher resolution textures but storage space was also a limiting factor. With the expansion pack, it had double the RAM of the PlayStation, but 64MB cartridges weren't big enough to make use of it. The N64 did pioneer 3D games using in engine cinematics, which is arguably a lot better. Especially today.

 

[HeXen]

You guys realize you can download lots of old game mags from retromag.com right?
I have 78.67 GB's of old game mags in PDF form. Unfortunatly retromag lost a ton of them back when megauploads went down, so now they only have a small fraction left but plenty of good ones still.

 

[HeXen]

Here's links to a few random gaming mags from my collection in PDF form. Hopefully Filedropper works for you guys

Here's EGM issue #2 PDF http://www.filedropper.com/egmissue002
Here's Electronic games 1984 http://www.filedropper.com/electronicgamesjan1984
Nintendo Power! http://www.filedropper.com/nintendopowerstrategyguide-supermariobros3nintendopower013

Also if you guys like nostalgia gaming, you should check out a newer magazine called Retrogamer. It's basically a modern take on old games with reviews, pics, history..etc. Good quality stuff http://www.imaginesubs.co.uk/subscribe-to-retro-gamer