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Anyone remember Electronic Games magazine???


BIGHMW

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I was both a loyal reader and eventually subscriber to EG from July 1982 until it ceased publication in the mid-80s and eventually merged its way into sister publication Video magazine.

 

Arnie Katz, Joyce Worley, and Q & A with The Game Doctor, I learned so much about gaming and always loved reading their honest reviews on everything, home videogames, computer games, stand-alone games, arcade games, and other items of gaming interest. I found out tons of info about what eventually became my first gaming unit, the 5200, in which I got for my 17th Birthday in 1983 (on the 19th I will turn 55, going on 25).

 

Things have changed over the decades, but one thing stands out...... ATARI!!! I am now proud to own an array of units, 2600, 5200, 7800, XEGS, and a 65XE home computer.

 

How many of you remember this great magazine, both it and Starcade as well as wrestling on TV every Saturday were a huge part of my life as a young man who just happened to be hitting the books at Erikson Center with THE one and only Cindy Margolis back in 1983.

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I still have a small binder, with clippings from old magazines, I bought and took apart.  Contains previews and reviews of all my old console / Amiga games.  I am pretty sure one from EGM is among them.

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EG was awesome! One of the first things I looked for when I got back into collecting. I remember buying them at 7-11 along with a slurpee and sitting out front of the store and reading it cover to cover. 

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Yeah I used to read that (and others) all the time.   I remember once in class in 9th grade, we had a short quiz and afterwards we could read if we wanted.  I broke out a video game magazine and got so into it I didn't hear the teacher assign a whole new assignment...I looked up and everyone else was working on something.   I had to quietly ask around until I figured out what was going on haha...

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There were 3 magazines that I picked up frequently back in the day; Electronic Games, Videogaming Illustrated, and Electronic Fun with Computers and Games.  To me Electronic Games was the top mag of the decade.   It is absolutely iconic.  One of the things I’ve picked up over the years as a side collection are these mags.  I’ve finished a complete run for EG and Electronic Fun.   Only missing a couple Videogaming Illustrated.  I love flipping through these and reading about games that ended up being vapor ware.  

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42 minutes ago, Atari_Bill said:

There were 3 magazines that I picked up frequently back in the day; Electronic Games, Videogaming Illustrated, and Electronic Fun with Computers and Games.  To me Electronic Games was the top mag of the decade.   It is absolutely iconic.  One of the things I’ve picked up over the years as a side collection are these mags.  I’ve finished a complete run for EG and Electronic Fun.   Only missing a couple Videogaming Illustrated.  I love flipping through these and reading about games that ended up being vapor ware.  

Funny you say that,...When I was reading that magazine in class (I don't remember which mag) and got lost in it,  one of the things in it that I clearly remember was a mention of Bally getting the rights to make a Conan the Barbarian game (presumably for Astrocade), but that never came to pass...

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EGM and Saturday Morning Cartoons were the top two ways we learned about new consoles and cartridges. And it was pretty neat. There wasn't a lot of vaporware advertised in either medium. But eventually print fell victim to generating oohs and ahhs with v-announcements.

 

Today a lot of these pulp magazines are unaltered records of what excited the consumer back then.

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Depending on which side of the world I was on at the time, I'd either be picking up Electronic Games or Computer and Video Games.

 

EG was great, and I can remember getting it from the magazine rack of an Alpha-Beta supermarket in Burbank, CA.  Always enjoyed it, and swapped it on a few occasions for the UK magazines when I was there.

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Archive.org, Digital Press and a few others have every issue archived in PDF form.   I read EG RELIGIOUSLY.  Even after the video game crash of 83, I still would keep reading and drooling, never realizing that I would have all the old consoles and computers mentioned in there (with the exception of the Apple 2), I have everything else in real hardware, and emulation.   LOVE IT.

 

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For me it was Electronic Games and Compute's Gazette. CG was the Commodore-centric one. I also had an Atari Age subscription. Fun times. If it were not for all the content online, these mags would still probably be a valid medium. I pick up a copy of Retrogamer once and a while...

 

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I remember looking at the mail order listing of all the games and there were 'coming soon' or something in place of the price and that was where I got my new games info from. It turned out that some (possibly a lot) of those titles never saw the light of day.  It's where I had my dad mail order a copy of Donkey Kong for the VCS.  It was the only title I ever got via mail order as a kid.

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13 hours ago, BIGHMW said:

...who just happened to be hitting the books at Erikson Center with THE one and only Cindy Margolis back in 1983.

You lost me- so you went to college w/ Cindy Margolis?

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1 hour ago, RJ said:

You lost me- so you went to college w/ Cindy Margolis?

No, high school. The notorious Erik And Joan Erikson Center was a high school for adolescents with mental health issues, with both residential and day treatment options, but Cindy seemed so OK to me, no baggage to be found on her, but yes I DID happen to have the good fortune of having her as a classmate of mine (Feb. 1983-Feb. 1984, graduated), we were even in the same homeroom too.

 

BTW I myself attended from October 1982-June 1984 (in day treatment) and graduated there as well. :) 

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5 hours ago, high voltage said:

In Germany I read ASM (Aktueller Software Markt), Happy Computer.

In UK, numerous, never seen so many Gaming magazines, it was gaming heaven (Especially after Germany wanting to ban video games)

EGM was to be found sometimes in the UK, but at least Antic was always available.

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Loved it. I still have a few old tattered copies here from '84 and '85, along with an old copy of "Electronic Fun with Computers and Games". Both were great publications and some of the best sources of information we could get about new games and systems during that time.

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Electronic Games was amazing! I too remember drooling over the new games and hardware coming out. The Christmas Buying issues were always incredible. So much to look at/want. I should download some of the PDFs and take a trip down memory lane. 

I remember Antic magazine too. An Atari 600XL was my first computer and these magazines had so cool articles and games in them. I'd always buy them at our local Waldenbooks or Dalton book stores at the time. 

I currently have an Atari 800XL, 7800, and a few Atari VCS consoles.
I also owned an Atari ST & an Amiga for awhile in the early 2000's. Seems like it was all before people started making really cool add on boards & SD card add ons. Felt like they were taking up too much room at the time & gave them both to a friend. :)

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1 hour ago, the4thman said:

Electronic Games was amazing! I too remember drooling over the new games and hardware coming out.

Yup. I remember soaking up all the "tech" articles. They rather explained things on a simpler-than-layperson's grade level. Perfect for a kid.

 

1 hour ago, the4thman said:

The Christmas Buying issues were always incredible. So much to look at/want. I should download some of the PDFs and take a trip down memory lane.

The December '82 issue sported something called "System in a Suitcase". This where they stuffed a 5" TV, some assorted cartridges, and an Emerson Arcadia console into a suitcase and set it all up. Can you imagine lugging that around? One wrong bounce and the whole shebang goes bang!

 

But such a thing appealed to me on many levels as I always wanted an All-In-One to take everything with wherever I went. Fast forward 40 years later and we can stuff 30 consoles, their entire libraries, and hundreds of arcade games into a tiny 4x4x2 box. Or smaller.

 

1 hour ago, the4thman said:

I also owned an Atari ST & an Amiga for awhile in the early 2000's. Seems like it was all before people started making really cool add on boards & SD card add ons.

Indeed. Had these been available I may have kept the Amiga. Hard to say.

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EGM was where it was at!   I think I either had a subscription or bought it regular out of Fry's (RIP).

 

I enjoyed their reviews.  Sega vs Nintendo was happening, and always checked the details to see who was moving ahead.

 

Was this the magazine that started the April Fool's joke about Shang Long in Street Fighter II?

 

Might have been GamePro.  But I think it was EGM.

 

Anyway, since I was the editor of my middle school newspaper, I put in an article about how to do the Chun Lee Blanka Head Chomp. This was influenced directly by EGM's April fool's joke.

 

It was a totally fictional SF2  secret I made up... I think I wrote you had to beat several characters in sequence as Chun Lee, and then mid jump you had to push all the action buttons and the 2-player button, and Chun Lee would perform Blanka's head chomp move on the other player.

 

After publishing it, I heard from several students claiming to have performed it.

 

Never made it into Wreck-it Ralph graffiti, but for a minute the Chun Lee Blanka Head Chomp was a thing in Belmont, California.

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