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  • VideoGames & Computer Entertainment (July 1990)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, July 1990

    VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, while not quite as popular as some other magazines of the time like GamePro and Electronic Gaming Monthly, was always my favorite. It featured the writing/editing of Arnie Katz, Bill Kunkel and Joyce Worley who were involved with the original Electronic Games magazine.

    Sadly, Bill Kunkel died back in 2011 and Joyce Worley in 2016 :(

    The contents of the July 1990 issue include:

    Features

    • VG&CE’s Game Boy Buyer’s Guide – The Game Boy had only been around for a matter of months at this point. This guide covers many of the games available. Games overviewed include Shanghai, Alleyway, Tetris, Revenge of the ‘Gator, Bases Loaded, Baseball, Batman, Spiderman, Space Invaders, Hatris, Miner 2049, Kwirk, Castlevania – The Adventure, Motocross Maniacs, Daedallan Opus, Days of Thunder, Gauntlet 2, World Bowling, Wheel of Fortune, Boomer’s Adventure in Asmik World, Boxxle, Nemesis, WWF Superstars, Fist of the North Star, Hyper Lode Runner, Paperboy, NFL Football, Heiankyo Aliens, Monster Master, Heart Attack, SolarStriker, Kung-Fu Kid, Wizards & Warriors X: Fortress of Fear, Tennis, Flipull, and Pipe Dream.
    • The TurboGrafx-16 goes into the Shrinking Machine – Amazingly, NEC managed to get their new 16-bit system into a portable form factor. And it was pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t battery friendly and cost an arm and two legs. Also, since games weren’t necessarily made with the smaller screen in mind, not every game was ideal for portable use.
    • Batman Strategy Guide, Part II – Part 2 of 2. This part provides a guide through the final levels of Batman for the NES. Still my favorite Batman movie and probably my favorite Batman game (though that isn’t saying much).
    • The Quest for Sky Castle: A Player’s Guide to Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle – A detailed guide through this Alex Kidd game for the Sega Genesis.
    • Around the Bases: A Survey of Electronic Baseball – A bit of history of baseball video games and a look at the various baseball games available throughout the years. Games covered include World’s Greatest Baseball (Epyx – Commodore 64), Earl Weaver Baseball (Amiga, DOS), TV Sports Baseball (Cinemaware – coming soon), Computer Baseball (SSI), Statis Pro Major League Baseball (Avalon Hill), APBA Major League Player’s Baseball (Random House), MicroLeague Baseball (MLSA), MicroLeague Baseball II (MLSA – Atari ST, DOS, Macintosh), Championship MicroLeague Baseball (MLSA – Commodore 64), Pure-Stat Baseball, Full Count Baseball, Major League Manager (UXB/Spinnaker), Baseball Stars (SNK – NES), Interactive Major League baseball (LJN – NES), RBI Baseball (Tengen – NES), Baseball Simulator 1.000 (Culture Brain – NES), Reggie Jackson Baseball (Sega Master System), Tommy Lasorda Baseball (Genesis), and World Class Baseball (NES – TurboGrafx-16).
    • Stepping Forward, Jim Nangano Gets Ready for the Big Time! – An interview with Jim Nangano by Bill Kunkel. Jim Nangano was involved in the creation of many home computer games including games by MicroLeague, Flip & Flop for the Atari 400/800, the Commodore 64 conversion of Spy vs. Spy, The Omnicron Conspiracy, Spy vs. Spy 3: Arctic Antics, Millennium Warrior, MicroLeague’s WWF Wrestling for the Amiga and DOS, and more.
    • Computer Game Strategies – Some strategies to help you through Bruce Lee Lives (DOS), Mean Streets (Amiga, DOS, Commodore 64), and Bubble Bobble (Amiga, Apple II, Commodore 64, DOS).

    Reviews

    • Video-Game Reviews
      • Air Diver (Genesis) – Sort of a combo between something like After Burner and a flight sim.
      • The Mafat Conspiracy (NES) – The second Golgo 13 game for the NES.
      • RBI Baseball 2 (NES) – A decent baseball game for the NES.
      • Target: Renegade (NES) – A not so great sequel to Renegade.
      • Bad News Baseball (NES) – A Little League baseball game that is more fun to play that most of the ‘professional’ ones.
      • Psycho Fox (Sega Master System) – A Super Mario Bros. 2 influenced platform game. It gets a bad review here but I didn’t think it was THAT bad.
      • Crater Maze (TurboGrafx-16) – Sort of a modern take on Pac-Man.
      • Cyber Core (TurboGrafx-16) – A decent vertical shooter.
      • Rad Racer II (NES) – Not the most original game by this point but I had a lot of fun with the Rad Racer games.
      • Super Hydlide (Sega Genesis) – The ads always made me want this action/RPG. The review makes me glad I didn’t get it. I still kind of want to play it though.
    • Computer-Game Reviews
      • Battle Squadron (Amiga) – An excellent vertical shooter.
      • Keef the Thief (Amiga, Apple IIgs, DOS) – An adventure game in which you try to make your way up in the world starting as a thief.
      • Mechwarrior (DOS) – The mech game that started it all. I played a little of this one but much more of MechWarrior 2.
      • Arkanoid II: The Revenge of Doh (Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, DOS) – Breakout taken to its limits.
      • Nuclear War (Amiga, DOS) – If nuclear war were waged via Monty Python…
      • Gunboat (Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS) – A PBR sim that is quite good.
      • Living Jigsaws (DOS) – 15 Jigsaw puzzles that each create an animated scene when completed.
      • Harpoon (DOS, Amiga, Atari ST) – Play the commander of NATO’s North Atlantic Task Force or Russia’s Norther Fleet in this NATO/USSR war game.

    Departments

    • Editor’s Letter – Andy Eddy talks about the TG16 portable, reviews vs. advertising and more.
    • Reader Mail – Readers comment about the Konix Multi-System, the Super Famicom, Nintendo’s licensing stranglehold and the effect on the TurboGrafx-16, and more.
    • New Bits – Acclaim buys LJN; Fujitsu shows off FM-Towns computer; Seismic plans Genesis games including Super Hydlide, Air Diver and R.C. Grand Prix; “Rad” manages Activision BBS; The Lord of the Rings coming from Interplay for DOS and the Commodore 64; BLD denied license to make NES portable; and much more.
    • Tip Sheet – Tips for Kenseiden (Sega Master System), R-Type (TurboGrafx-16), and Alf (Sega Master System).
    • Easter Egg Hunt – Codes to access secret features in Super C (NES), Super Hang-On (Genesis), Crater Maze (TurboGrafx-16), Xexyz (NES), Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts (Genesis), Tommy Lasorda Baseball (Genesis), Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16), and Tetris (NES).
    • Gaming on the Go – A detailed look at the Atari Lynx portable game system and a few of the first games.
    • Destination Arcadia – A detailed look at Snow Brothers: Nick and Tom, new in arcades.
    • Inside Gaming – A brief look at the latest in fanzines, including Turbo-Pro #1, cyberDrome #1, Video Wars #1, and The Altered Beast Vol. 1 No. 1.
    • Game Doctor – Questions answered about the technical specs of various game systems, the Power Base Converter, and the future of game systems.

    …and more!


    📂This entry was posted in Computer Arcana Retro Games 📎and tagged

  • GamePro (March 1997)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    GamePro, March 1997.

    Cover of the March 1997 issue of GamePro

    Along with Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro was one of the most popular gaming magazines of the 1990s. Personally, I preferred the slightly less popular VideoGames & Computer Entertainment and later, Next Generation but they were all great. At the time, there really wasn’t any other way to learn about up and coming gaming stuff. Today’s instant gratification is great and all but there is something to be said for anticipation. The March 1997 issue of GamePro includes:

    Special Features

    • Cover Feature: Doom 64 – A story on Doom for the Nintendo 64. This Doom game was not really a port but a sequel. The graphics were redone, the levels are different and new weapons were added among other things. Still, to me nothing beat Doom and Doom 2 on the PC and this game came out at a time when every system was getting ports of the PC version (none of which were as good).
    • GamePro Readers’ Choice Awards – No awards in this issue but a list of games for readers to vote for. Best 32-Bit or 64-Bit Game had 6 categories including Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Fighting Game, Best First-Person Shooter, Best Racing Game, Best Sports Game and Best Vehicle Shooter. Best 16-Bit Games had only two categories, Best Action/Adventure Game and Best Sports Game. Then there were categories covering any system including Best Role-Playing Game, Worst Game, Best system, and a ‘Which Death Angered You Most?’ question referring to systems killed in 1996. there were a bunch.
    • Nintendo 64 – A whole special section on the Nintendo 64
      • 1997: The Year of the ’64? – This is an overview of all of the recent and upcoming Nintendo 64 game releases with release dates, games in the development in the U.S. and games in development in Japan.
      • The 64DD Gets Real – Except it never really did, at least in the U.S. The 64DD was a strange hybrid disk drive for the Nintendo 64. It accepted special cartridges that contained some kind of magnetic disk that had a 64 MB capacity of which 32 MB was rewriteable. It was a little larger than a 3.5″ floppy disk. This ended up never being released in the U.S. More than 60 games were originally announced for the 64DD. Nearly all of them were either cancelled, released on cartridge, or ported to another system instead. Things were far more optimistic when this article was written.
      • Nintendo 64: An Expert’s View – An interview with Shigeru Miyamoto about the Nintendo 64. He was the creator of some of Nintendo’s most famous games including Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda among many others.
    Table of Contents from the March 1997 issue of GamePro

    SWATPro Strategy Section

    • Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Nintendo 64 ProStrategy Guide – If you were a Nintendo fan and a Star Wars fan then this was a game you wanted. This was a strategy guide to help you get through it.
    • Game Enhancers – A bunch of codes for the Game Shark and Game Genie. These were devices that plugged into the cartridge port of a game system and acted as a pass-through. You could enter codes that would change game functionality like different colors, invulnerability, more lives, etc. If you are familiar with the Commodore 64 then it would be the equivalent to entering a POKE command that changed the value at a memory location.
    • The King of Fighters ’95 (PlayStation) – A guide for The King of Fighters ’95 that includes special moves for all of the characters among other tips.
    • SWATPro – GamePro’s tips and tricks section. Games featured this month include Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the Nintendo 64, Killer Instinct Gold and Pandemonium though there are plenty more.

    ProReviews

    • PC GamePro – Reviews of Diablo, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Ecstatica 2, and Rebellion.
    • PlayStation – Reviews of Soul Blade, Spider, Tigershark, Codename: Tenka, Hexen, Carnage Heart, Super Puzzle fighter II Turbo, Nanotek Warrior, Batman Forever, Space Jam, Crusader: No Remorse, Command & Conquer, Rebel Assault II, Psychic Force, Namco Museum Volume 3, and Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1.
    • Saturn – Reviews of Black Dawn, Command & Conquer, and Hexen.
    • Super NES – Review of Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (a $60 game!) and some re-releases.
    • Sports Pages – An article on NHL’98 plus reviews of NHL Open Ice (PlayStation), NBA Hang Time (Super NES), NBA Jam Extreme (PlayStation), Cool Boarders (PlayStation), VR Soccer’ 97 (Saturn), VR Golf ’97 (Saturn), PGA Tour ’97 (Saturn), Grand Slam (PlayStation), and College Football USA ’97 (Super NES). Also included are previews of Rally Cross (PlayStation) and NCAA Basketball Final Four ’97 (PlayStation, PC CD).
    • Role-Player’s Realm – Reviews of Dark Savior (Saturn), Pacific Theater of Operations II (Saturn), and Chronicles of the Sword (PlayStation).
    Table of Contents from the March 1997 issue of GamePro (continued)

    Departments

    • Head-2-Head: Letter from the GamePros – This month’s editorial compares video game commercials trashing the other guy to negative political campaigning.
    • The Mail – Readers comment upon the system wars and Time Killers.
    • Art Attack – Mortal Kombat, Looney Tunes and other artwork from readers.
    • Buyers Beware – Questions answered about the dangers of leaving a PlayStation plugged in, Mortal Kombat 3 freezing, sound problems with Power Move Pro Wresting and problems with Populous on the Genesis.
    • ProNews – News about system sales for the PlayStation, Saturn and Nintendo 64 and more about Congress trying to censor video games, and more.
    • NetPro – An article about online gaming services, focusing on Mplayer, a service through which you could play against others in games like Quake, Command & Conquer, MechWarrior 2 and plenty more.
    • GamePro Labs – A special on the 64DD, see the Nintendo 64 section above.
    • Overseas Prospects – An interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, see the Nintendo 64 section above.
    • Sneak Previews – A look ahead to future releases including Doom 64 (Nintendo 64), Nightmare Creatures (PlayStation), Need for Speed II (PlayStation, Win 95), War Gods (PlayStation), Crypt Killer (PlayStation), Barb Wire (PlayStation, Saturn, Win 95, DOS, Mac), Propaganda (PlayStation), Sentient (PlayStation), Swagman (PlayStation, Saturn), Wing Commander IV (PlayStation), Crow: City of Angels (PlayStation), Independence Day (PlayStation, Saturn, PC CD), The Incredible Hulk (PlayStation, Saturn), Brahma Force: Assault on Beltlogger 9 (PlayStation), Battlestations (PlayStation), Soviet Strike (Saturn), Rebel Moon Rising (PlayStation), and Thunder Truck Rally (PlayStation).
    • PC GamePro – See ProReviews section above.
    • Hot at the Arcades – Features popular new arcade games including Cruis’n World and Samurai Showdown IV.

    …and more!


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