Old EGM Magazines

[Rev. Rob]

I recently bought a few on eBay. I am holding one right now that's from 1994 and has 310 pages. There are imports, walk-throughs, comic book info, movie info, a "lifestyle" section... really, all kids of shit. I missed this. Sure, we have the internet, but the physical magazine is cool, especially given how massive it is.

 

By the time they died, man they sucked. Awful humor, terrible reviews, <100 pages.

[the.golden.ax]

... and sticky pages.

 

AX

[CGQuarterly]

I agree completely. I collect EGMs and GamePros from the late 80's into the mid 90's, and they are great fun to read. I think the internet was what killed off the game mag, but they were awesome while they lasted. Not only are gaming magazines no longer relevant, but they cater too much to the mainstream as gaming has become more mainstream. Those old EGMs were targeted specifically at young video game geeks, and that's what made them awesome.

 

Chris

[SoulBlazer]

I agree completely. I collect EGMs and GamePros from the late 80's into the mid 90's, and they are great fun to read. I think the internet was what killed off the game mag, but they were awesome while they lasted. Not only are gaming magazines no longer relevant, but they cater too much to the mainstream as gaming has become more mainstream. Those old EGMs were targeted specifically at young video game geeks, and that's what made them awesome.

 

Chris

 

Nintendo Power used to be a great magazine, as long as you accepted that it was the mouth piece of Nintendo, from the late 80's to the mid 90's. You're right about the internet really dealing a blow, but it wasn't the only blow to magazines. I look at some old issues now and go 'man, this is TERRIBLE writing. All these facts are wrong, the walkthroughs are not good at all, and the editing is terrible'!

[Emehr]

I kept all of my mags from the late-80s to mid-90s. Great stuff. EGM was my favorite to read but I also liked VG&CE, Electronic Games (for the short time it came back), and Nintendo Power. GamePro was a little too sugar-coated for me. Plus, I couldn't stand the artwork.

 

When I think of EGM I think of the great anticipation for the Sega CD, Mario vs. Sonic, Street Fighter II (lots of it!), that NEC advertisement with that TurboDuo mascot (Johnny-something-or-other ), and the ginourmous issues. I remember being disappointed when they stopped reviewing Lynx games (since EGM is where I first heard about the Lynx). Their reasoning seemed so contrived, too. "Uhh, Atari wanted the machine back that let us take screenshots. Without that, it's impossible to review the games!". Umm, sure, whatever.

[kevincal]

I was in elementary / middle school when those MASSIVE issues of EGM were coming out. They were the talk of the class. We would all read them when we were supposed to be studying school crap. Ah, life before the internet...

 

PS - I'm selling a BOATLOAD of gaming mags, my entire collection, on ebay. Including these old EGMs... http://shop.ebay.com/kevincal20/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

 

PPS - But GameFan was the best gaming magazine there ever was. With Next Generation being 2nd best. All the rest are tied for 3rd imo (EGM, GamePro, Game Players, Nintendo Power, EGM2, SWATPro, VGCE, Electronic Games etc etc.. )

[CGQuarterly]

PPS - But GameFan was the best gaming magazine there ever was.

 

My friend Anthony says the same thing. I have a few issues, and they don't do as much for me as they do for some people. I think part of the reason I like EGM and GamePro so much is that they come with a healthy dose of cheese and over-excitement. Plus I don't like GameFan's layout. Some of the pages make my eyes bleed.

 

I would never say that the old EGMs and whatnot were good magazines from a journalistic standpoint. I just think that they were and still are very fun to read. Gamers in general I think were less jaded. The magazines were upbeat and positive about games, and got you excited to play them even if they ended up being mediocre. I just don't get that feeling reading newer mags. The lack of the internet back then also made those magazines our primary source for new rumors, and news about stuff going on overseas. Remember that back then (and up until the last generation of systems), systems were released in Japan before coming out here, and unless you had a friend who imported that stuff, you read the magazines to find out what cool new stuff the Japanese were playing.

 

Soulblazer, yeah the writing was definitely not good. Those magazines lacked the polish of more journalistic periodicals, but I that made them more approachable to young people because that was their primary audience (whereas game magazines today are trying to attract those same people, who are now adults.) Nintendo Power was and definitely still is the mouthpiece of Nintendo, but again it got you excited about games and about being a NES owner. I still read through the list of people who sent in high scores to see if I can find anyone I know. Frankly, if I'm in a bit of a gaming funk, all I have to do is open one of those old magazines and start reading, and before I know it, I'm digging through boxes of games looking for something that I read about because I want to play it.

 

Chris

[pinball22]

Somehow game/computer magazines were never as exciting for me after the 80s... nothing ever felt as fun later as new issues of Electronic Games or Ahoy! did. The last one I read regularly was Computer Gaming World, and I stopped getting it in about 1993. I periodically had free subscriptions to EGM and Game Informer after that, but they just didn't seem that interesting. Some of that is probably that in the early 80s I was a kid and everything was exciting, and part that with the tons of game coverage on the Internet game magazines seem inadequate. But I think to some extent more recent magazines just haven't been as fun/interesting.

[Emehr]

I think to some extent more recent magazines just haven't been as fun/interesting.

I feel the same way about current game magazines. I briefly subscribed to GameInformer and the Official PlayStation mag a couple years back. Each one bored me to tears. If you've seen one first-person shooter set in a crumbling city you've seen 'em all and, frankly, I got tired of flipping past the pages that featured them just to read two or three pages of something vaguely interesting.

 

While my old Nintendo Powers, EGMs, and VG&CEs are fun to read after 15 - 20 years (man, I feel old) and will stay with me, the Game Informers, Official PlayStation Magazines, Ziff-Davis EGMs, and some other rag I forget the name of sits in totes waiting to be sold, trashed, or whatever.

[Ze_ro]

I have a fairly extensive video game magazine collection (probably over 400 magazines), and I actually still subscribe to Nintendo Power and Official Xbox Magazine. Magazines really aren't what they were back in the days... you almost never see any strategy or hints, and never any codes or secrets. I'm not sure why either. They seem to focus on reporting information about new games, but they surely know that they're always going to be behind the times on such information (at least, when they haven't paid for early/exclusive information).

 

Nintendo Power's reviews are awful and incredibly short... and even their previews are lame. One of my major pet peeves about NP is how on reviews and previews, they try to come up with some clever joke for the article title, and leave the actual name of the game as the subtitle... it seems really juvenile and stupid to me. With the popularity of Virtual Console games on the Wii, I would think they'd reprint some of their older articles, but they never do. OXM is a bit better, with some relatively in-depth reviews, but still no real information on PLAYING the games. I think it's a big waste of time when these magazines try to present information on televisions, music or movies... if I wanted to read about that kind of stuff, I wouldn't be holding Nintendo Power! And naturally, all the magazines these days are something like 60% ads.

 

Ultimately, I like the fact that I can flip through a magazine without having to sit in front of my computer, which I do enough of already. Being able to see screenshots and info while lying in bed or while sitting on the toilet is worth the price of subscription to me.

 

--Zero