Megalextoria

Super NES Buyer’s Guide was a relatively short-lived Super Nintendo specific magazine published by the same people who published EGM. It was very much a Super Nintendo specific version of EGM. However, you didn’t get very many pages for the price and at least some of the material was reused from EGM. The first issue was included free with an issue of EGM. The May 1993 issue includes:

• Feedback – Letters about Super Star Wars, video game mascots, sports games, mail order sales, release dates, batteries in games and more.

• SNES Hi-Tech – The Super Scope’s lack of sensitivity to the color red, and Nintendo lists all the reasons you shouldn’t play import games and plans encoding games to prevent simple adapters from working.

• Future Play – Coverage of future releases in the U.S. and Japan including R-Type III, G-2, Alien 3, Doremon, Septentrion, Super Air Diver, Y’s IV: Mask of the Sun, Art of Fighting, Neugier, Battle Royal, Bio-Metal, Air Management 2, Fatal Fury 2, Tekkaman Blade, Great Battle 3, Kamen Riders-SD, Super Godzilla, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Ren & Stimpy, Crash Dummies, Special Tee Shot, and Superman.

• SNES Tricks – “Tricks of the Trade” section including detailed instruction for how to find the black hole in StarFox, passwords for Tiny Toon Adventures, a stage select for Super Valis IV, secret options for Street Combat, a password to max out your abilities in Best of the Best, car customization for Test Drive 2, how to get 75 lives in Death Valley Rally, and more.

• SNES Review Crew – Reviews of The Lost Vikings, Family Dog, Mechwarrior (more fun on the PC if you ask me), Troddlers, and Dream Probe.

• Game Over – This section would show the ending of games. This month Firepower 2000 is featured.

• Special Feature – A detailed preview of Alien vs. Predator by Activision. There were a lot of unrelated games with this name. This one is a beat ’em up though it is not related to the arcade version by Capcom. There was also a first person shooter game with this name for the Jaguar. All of these were released around the same time period (1994).

• Super Reviews – More detailed reviews of games including Bubsy, StarFox (the first to use the SuperFX chip), Tuff E Nuff (yet another fighting game), Saber Run (never played this one but it reminds me of Strider on the NES a bit, and Mario is Missing (an educational game for kids).

• Super Previews – Previews, only more super… Games featured include Taz-Mania (you play the role of the Tazmanian Devil but this one plays like a racing game), Alien vs. Predator (the Special Feature above), Brawl Brothers (another mediocre fighting game), Rocky Rodent (an obscure side-scrolling adventure game by Irem), Rock & Roll Racing (an excellent racing game featuring a heavy metal sound track and originally developed as a sequel to RPM Racing. and with roots in Racing Destruction Set and R.C. Pro-Am.), Black Bass (seriously, just go fishing), Dracula (based on the movie), Super Baseball 2020 (a futuristic baseball game despite being a bit anachronistic now), P.T.O. (a World War II naval sim/strategy game), Caribbean Kawasaki Challenge (a motorcycle and jet ski racing game), and Wolfchild (a horror themed side-scrolling adventure).

…and more!