This just showed up in my mailbox one day. I read every page.
>>10867010It was my favorite game magazine. Got to see Sega and TG16. Young people will never know the joy of experiencing games through a magazine that they can never afford.
>>10867036>It was my favorite game magazineFor me, it was VG&CE
For me it's Top Kids N°7
>>10867010>This just showed up in my mailbox one day. I read every page.I never subscribed to game Pro. GamePro was the magazine I would buy the odd issue of if I liked what I saw. They were fine as far as Game magazines go. I would also pick up the odd EGM too. Had a subscription to Nintendo Power between 1994 and 1996. I also had a subscription to GameFan Magazine for three years. I also had issues of Videogames and Computer Entertainment. Which went through a name change to Video games: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine.
>>10867010Gamepro wasn't my favorite magazine, a lot of the reviews read like ad copy and they had horrible grade inflation... but they definitely had the best fighting game coverage of all the mags and you could tell that they generally knew what they were talking about. Good strategies, combos that actually worked, the first tier lists I ever saw and even tournament coverage and interviews with top players. The exploding head review scale was always good for a laugh too.
>>10867010I had this issue as a kid. I read it obsessively. The EGM MKII issue, too
Gamepro > EGMdiscuss
>>10867010>>10867036>>10867036>>10869298FaggotGamefan > Tips and Tricks > EGM2 > Huge power gap > Gaypro
>>10867010I had this issue. Mk2 and SSF2? And NBA Jam? My 11 year old self was sold. Probably read it 1000 times
>>10869298While EGM was the better magazine contemporaneously, going back and looking at them now, Gamepro captures the zeitgeist of the "EXTREME!!!" 90's much better in a fun, endearing way.
>>10869632That's a kind of roundabout way of saying "it was for kids"
>>10867010Mail it back, Tyrone.
In other vr mag news, Gamefan legend Nick Rox's steady decline has finally bottomed out, with his multiple felony arrest with million dollar bond for grooming a 13 year old boy over the Internet occuring after the kids Dad discovered one of several boxes of dildos/sex toys Des Barres had mailed to his son from Amazon after meeting him on a game. That mugshot is something else, jeez. Guess there goes our hopes of a Gamefan reunion...hope his cellmate isn't a 300lb Sega fanboy still pissed about the whole "blue shadows" incident. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/03/games-industry-veteran-nick-des-barres-accused-of-sexual-exploitation-of-13-year-old-boyhttps://news.yahoo.com/popular-video-game-journalist-accused-184452617.html
>>10870357they all were. no adult publicly admitted to playing vidya until like the ps2 era
>>10871528guess all those strip poker games were marketed towards children then
>>10871489>charged with solicitation of child by computer, seven counts of disseminate obscenity, three counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, three counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, and one count of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.Fuckin oof. He even had the kid groomed to send lewd pictures to Rox. Shame, dude did some good layouts for Gamefan. idk man, I feel like the furry shit on his twitter was a cry for help. https://retro-replay.com/gaming-journalist-and-jrpg-localizer-arrested-for-sending-adult-toys-to-teen-also-a-self-proclaimed-furry/
>>10871528I mean...read an EGM or a Gamefan or something. The majority of the letters seemed like they were from old teenagers or adults.
>>10871489>>10871660I knew Nick Rox had fallen on some tough times and was always a bit of a weirdo but I always gave him the benefit of the doubt.Why's this kind of thing so common with this weeb types? It's a tragic story all around, from what I've heard about the guy, his parents really supported his interests in Japanese video games and let him indulge them. Would he have been better off if his B-actor dad just said "nah son...you're going to just play football instead of learning Japanese so you can play early 90's PC Engine RPGs."He really did set the tone for Gamefan and his opinions are always what I associate with the magazine. He was my first exposure to that weeby fanboyism that became so rampant on the internet later.
>>10871836He seemed to get some serious bad breaks even all his parents connections couldn't help - must have sucked to go from auditioning for Anakin in the SW prequels at Lucasfilm to literally living in his Mom's basement like he said in some of his last tweets. The weebery was like his gateway drug that led to become a furfag and worse degeneracy so I kinda agree - he was really hung up on translating games even after the industry treated him like shit in terms of pay etc. Maybe he would have manned up and went back to school or tried to leverage his Dad's connections more effectively in Hollywood instead of weebshit where he had no pull. He really was an early weeb looooong before anyone knew what it was, kinda like being an undiagnosed aspie before Aspergers entered the DSM or shit his parents had no idea of what they were dealing with and indulged his interest in Japanese stuff for better and worse. He really needed an intervention based on the later tweets.
>>10867036EGM was the magazine I liked. They usually had more extensive coverage and I loved they had multiple people review a game so you got to see varying opinions. Gamepro was also way too lenient with a lot of their reviews.
>>10871836>He was my first exposure to that weeby fanboyism that became so rampant on the internet later.This predates Rox but I think my favorite example of this is GF giving the Japanese version of Sonic CD a 100% score and docking the US version like 30 points over the new soundtrack.Also, the countless shitty anime fighting games they'd rave about. People overrate import games to this day but with GF it makes sense considering they were running a chain of game stores lol
>>10872076The whole Game Cave/DHGC thing was fascinating - they had the best ads full of exotic, expensive imports and anime merchandise. Like FM Towns Marty tier even - I remember a post here by a dude who's friend had a fucking Marty bitd and man talk about rich kid proto-weeb demographic. On Nick Rox, it turns out he's charged with 15 felonies spread out over three separate cases, was arrested as a fugitive in CA back in Nov before extradition to NC and is currently behind bars there on the prisoner lookup (guess the million dollar bond was too much for his minor celeb parents to scrape together). https://www1.aoc.state.nc.us/www/calendars.Criminal.do?county=480&court=CR+&defendant=Des+Barres&start=0&navindex=0&fromcrimquery=yes&submit=SearchIt gets worse and worse, as it seems he was connected with some kind of furry bestiality pedophile grooming ring as well based on his mom trying to contact a twitter account associated with a degenerate in the dark underground of this shit.
>>10872385>The whole Game Cave/DHGC thing was fascinating Image related is from my old collection of Game Fan and Gamers Republic issues. The earliest issues of Game Fan were called Die Hard Game Fan and were heavily affiliated with the DieHard Gamers Club. Which advertised in the back of each issue. DHGC was an import shop located across the US and GameFan would cover a lot of things sold in the mail order section. Later Game Fan issues dropped the DHGC affiliation and switched to GameCave. Once they moved to GameCave, GameFan started covering anime and other media. GameFan always felt like the punk rock of NA gaming magazines. It was a magazine where Halverson tried to make it look as professional as possible, but the editors would give the magazine a weird fanzine vibe. With a lot of fanboyism across the boards. But they were pretty good at promoting all of the consoles. GameFan from 1994-1995 went really hard in promoting the 'Gen32" (as they would call it) generation of consoles. I also think GameFan really was one of the first magazines to heavily promote the PSX. I think it had to do with their extensive coverage of the Japanese scene. The early Playstation 1 advertising from Sony would continually quote GameFan Magazine. The Magazine really lost a lot of steam around 1998, when most of the original editors abandoned ship and formed Gamers Republic, while ECM took over GameFan. Gamers Republic was halversons second stab at a gaming magazine. This one had a slicker look that was kinda aping the Designer Republic look. It was more cross media heavy, covering movies and hollywood, as well as anime. game Fan was not always perfect. I suspect there were times when Halverson was boosting review scores sometimes to help sell the odd game from DHGC/ CG in the back pages. Plus they were notorious for the 70% and up review score system.
>>10872470The really oldschool layouts are so psychedelic and bonkers, becoming practically illegible at times with so much going on and all the colored text and it was a really punk thing that pissed on all the rules. Post Gamers Republic Halverson projects got really tenuous even by Dave's standards. Play was cool and I remember really regretting not buying the one with the very...tentacley...Muramasa cover original art that was the kind of stuff mags just didn't do anymore. Tried to order the backissue on the Play site right as it folded and in a classic Halverson moment they tried to keep my money with no mag before I disputed it on the cc...so that's my little taste of the "Halverson-ism" like all the writers racing to the bank for their paycheck haha (finally bought a copy on eBay). The last iteration of Gamefan had a spotty few issues with Dave trying to add movie reviews etc. (with the dubious "read from the back!" gimmick for the section) as if that stunt worked when other mags tried it bitd and I found a few on the newstand and appreciated Dave's glowing review of Deathsmiles 2D glory as it was an appropriate end of sorts to Halverson in print and the whole Gamefan thing.
>>10872598I missed out on Play and the Game Fan revival. I think I didn't care about gaming magazines at that point, because of the internet. But Game Fan was pretty fun read in its' prime. Again. Dave Halversion, seemed to be a sticker for trying to make a quality mag, and I have heard stories that he would fuss over little things like glossy paper stock quality. To be honest, they must have had some good capture equipment back in the day too. Because their screenshots were usually some of the best from the western mags. They were good at putting pixel art all over the pages. But the somewhat amateur-ness of the mag came from the wacky behind the scenes stuff and the editors getting over dramatic and fanboy(and girl)-ish over things. Nick Rox was the most extreme. But he brought an energy to that magazine. I did like Gamers Republic though. As it felt like a continuation of the 'old' Game Fan staff. Also Gamers Republic would post NPD's in their top ten's section. I also remember the GameGo debacle. That only lasted one issue. ECM really didn't do as well as Halverson. Halverson had his failures too, but he did launch like... four or five different game magazines. With varying degrees of success. I do kinda miss getting physical magazines in the mail though. But it is hard to do a modern gamer magazine with 'exclusives' and first looks. I feel like with the over saturation of online content, maybe people would be interested in subscribing to physical media? I think things previews/ reviews, opinionated pieces and user feedback articles could work. But maybe on a bi-monthly level. It is impossible to do 'exclusive news' unless you really find a way to lock it down. As soon as the magazine goes to print, the info is already out there on social media/ youtube.
>>10867036>the joy of experiencing games through a magazine that they can never affordFor me, it was the Neo Geo. I might not have been able to afford every system but I almost always knew someone who had the consoles I didn't. But the Neo Geo was the holy grail. It was so hilariously unaffordable no one had one. Never saw one in the wild. But it was there in the magazines, mocking me
>>10872838>For me, it was the Neo Geo. I might not have been able to afford every system but I almost always knew someone who had the consoles I didn't. But the Neo Geo was the holy grail. It was so hilariously unaffordable no one had one. Never saw one in the wild. But it was there in the magazines, mocking meFor me, I would always gloss over the 'Chips and Bits' mail order stuff that would appear in just about every gaming magazine back in the day that wasn't Nintendo Power. And just look at those Neo-Geo cartridge prices at $150-$200 and realize I will never own one as a kid. This ad is from November 1995 issue, when the Neo-Geo CD was available, and you can see the big price difference between the Neo-Geo AES and CD systems. Plus Chips & Bits always had listings of announced games, or games that would get canceled. Here' there is a listing for Sonic 4 strategy guide for the Sega Saturn...
>>10872887Chips & Bits from 1994. EGM this time. Chips & Bits inc, Tommo, GameDude and a few others were the usual suspects in every gaming magazine for mail order games. To be honest, this was the only way I knew of to purchase a Neo-Geo AES in my area of the world. I have never seen an AES in a retail outlet.
>>10872887Tommo ad from Electronic Gaming Monthly. Honestly, that was a good price for a US Saturn. Import systems always cost more.
>>10872887Die Hard Gamer Club ad in Game Pro 1993. Die Hard Gamer Club wasn't exclusive to GameFan. But the early "DieHard Game Fan" issues had some deal with DHGC to promptly feature them more.
>>10871528>no adult publicly admitted to playing vidya until like the ps2 eraSure, adults didn't talk about vidya in public with normies like today, but they absolutely were an audience and you can tell magazines like Next Generation weren't aimed at young kidsThere's tons of Gen X people born in 1975 who played Quake at launch when they were 21
>>10871489>>10871660>>10871836>>10871916>>10872385And to the surprise of absolutely no one, Shidoshi trooned out.
>>10869632>Chun Limore like Flat Li! she's a real plank!
>>10872931THIS hits my nostalgia buttons hard. One of the best parts of mid-90s gaming mags was the Import sections, with weird peripherals, strange Japanese exclusives and rare anime/manga products. Gamefan in particular was my introduction to anime. This was pre-Pokemon 90s anime, which was cool and exotic.
>>10872931Those import sections at the back of magazines were great. I remember those DBZ Super Battle Collection figures being advertised and wanting them so bad. One of the cool things about gaming back then is that the import scene in general. There was just this other universe of cool games out there we never might see.>>10873050I'm old enough to really remember the first round of emulation era websites where people would just download weird old games and write humorous articles about them. I'll check in on some of these people occasionally and a huge number of them are trans now.
>>10873282Will you give up your emulated games, or your gender identity? Choose wisely
>>10873050>ShidoshiWho?
>>10874009Gamefan writers. Fellow GF alum ECM (RIP) was apparently a /pol/ approved sort based on his views and quotes on his memorial site at https://ericmylonas.com/ which is an interesting thing thrown in the GF mix.
>>10867010I love how stuffed with content these magazines were. More text on one page than you would get on 15 articles online today. Also real reviews, no shit given about publishers, some wild publicity and arts. Letter section was its own
>>10867010For me it's Action Games, my first magazine.
>>10873050>>10873282Overconsumption of media. People like that just stop living in reality eventually, their entire world view is based on the fiction they're immersed in 24/7.
>>10874140The Gen X cohort of game journos seem to have a greater a variety of views...at least moreso than their younger counterparts. Probably an effect of coming of age in a much less politics-obsessed country.
>>10873072>THIS hits my nostalgia buttons hard. One of the best parts of mid-90s gaming mags was the Import sections, with weird peripherals, strange Japanese exclusives and rare anime/manga products. Gamefan in particular was my introduction to anime. This was pre-Pokemon 90s anime, which was cool and exotic.>>10873282>>>10872931 (You)>Those import sections at the back of magazines were great. I remember those DBZ Super Battle Collection figures being advertised and wanting them so bad. One of the cool things about gaming back then is that the import scene in general. There was just this other universe of cool games out there we never might see.I loved seeing the pre-orders for 'new' consoles that were just getting released in Japan. Like this two page mail order add from November 1994 (technically October 1994) , for the Japanese releases of the PS-X and the Sega Saturn. Also, the PC-FX.
>>10875049here's a 6-page advert for Game Cave, which replaced DHGC in the back pages of Game Fan Magazine. I think this is April 1997. Here we have resign models for Evangelion, Virtua Fighter, Battle Arena Toshienden, a fully painted resign model of Goro from Mortal Kombat. game music CD's, wall scroll posters. Etc. https://archive.org/details/Gamefan_Vol_5_Issue_04/page/n117/mode/2up?view=theater
>>10871489This is pretty insane, overall. But he always came off as insane, reading his reviews in GameFan back in the day. But I also accredited that to Nick Rox being really young too. His layouts always looked great, though. I wonder if he asked the kid to wear blue eye shadow?
>>10867491I also have it.Y el muñeco de Reptile tirado en alguna caja.
Computer Gaming World and Strategy Plus for me.
Another classic Gamefan moment - the "jap bastards" incident.
>>10875551
>>10871489Why does anyone do this shit? Is getting off worth this? Why fuck up a kid so you can jack off? I wanna get laid too but fuck throwing my life away and embarrasing my family.
>>10875661It makes no sense and you really have to think like a degenerate to understand the logic. For all his online bitching about not having work in the localization industry, boo hoo, Rox still had a comfy enough basement pad in his Mom's million dollar Reseda house, tweeted about digging out his old PC Engine, supergun, etc shit to play, and had survived falling out of a hotel balcony, shattering his spine, and almost dying of a recurring infection. So it's like God had let him live for a reason, to somehow rally and make a comeback and make retrogaming reviews great again or something and Nick throws it all away on utter degeneracy, like codeword calling underage victims fucking "cubs" tier degeneracy. Like, dude, WTF? Like the meme about the furry kid with ashamed parents who had "the Devil driven into him" by the Internet and left totally insane. I mean, on here there's lots of weebs and waifus and odd autistic shit for every kind but he went beyond it all and somehow decided Buffalo Bill or shit was a rolemodel instead of a warning. His rich parents would have sponsored him for the rest of his life playing weeb games, watching anime, seeing Yoshiki shows live, and shit in So. Cal comfort and now he's been extradited from the dream to a living hell of being a Yankee pervert in a North Carolina cell...Jesus.
>>10874461>For me it's Action Games, my first magazine.100% sure that image related was the first Gaming Magazine that I ever purchased. I was like eight years old too. I always thought this was a pretty solid game magazine too in retrospect. It has some pretty good articles.
>>10875661it's basically this
