|
Still have all of mine, most of them are arranged in binders on bookshelves like a little library. I have great memories of collecting and reading them growing up.
First one I ever owned, I believe, was an issue of Game Players. It had Super Mario World on the cover and I believe a mini-strategy guide inside of it. There were also sections on the NES version of Hook (alongside a little preview section for the movie) and Batman: Return of the Joker for NES.
I have a few other issues of Game Players; for some reason, at that time I didn't get as many GamePro's even though that was the more "high-end" magazine. I did get some more GamePro's in the late-90s but it wasn't my favorite one. I never got Nintendo Power, either; I think I asked my parents to subscribe but they couldn't (or wouldn't) afford it, or something.
Electronic Gaming Monthly was always my favorite. They always seemed a lot more "legit" and less like advertisements than most other gaming magazines did, and I liked their review system. The individual reviews were short but I loved getting a cross-section of reviewer opinions; in most magazines, the scores were given out by One Guy and thus everything was highly subjective. In EGM, you'd get four (and then three, and then sadly just two) opinions per game so the opinions would be a LOT more diverse. If they were all positive, you pretty much knew you had a real winner. But even within those who though it was good, you'd get different reasons as to Why. If you had a dissenting opinion, it was always worth seeing what their issue was compared to the other guys', even if you didn't agree.
Plus, they spent a lot more time on putting the personalities and preferences of their staff right out there for the reader to see, so you could generally tell whose opinions aligned with yours and go from there. You knew who the sports guys were, the RPG nerds, the fighting game experts, the Star Wars fanatics, all of that, so you knew what the biases were but also who knew their sh*t on This or That and who was just a neophyte. Like if the sports-obsessed reviewer gave a sports game a great review, that was one thing; if the RPG nerd who hated sports ALSO liked it, that was a huge endorsement because it meant you didn't necessarily have to be a fan of the "source material" to like the game. That was huge. I trusted the EGM review system more than any other magazine's and they never steered me wrong once. Plus, they had some awesome posters, and their writing staff was just plain entertaining.
I was so upset when they went under, but even around 2008 or whenever it was print magazines were dying. I was happy when it came back but it just wasn't the same, and none of the places I used to buy it from carried the relaunched version, so I only ended up getting a few issues before (I assume) it went under again. I was sad to see it go but more than most other media the internet really eliminated the entire point of a video game magazine. If you can get video of an upcoming game the same day as E3 then waiting a month or two for a screenshot and a description is redundant. I get it, it just makes me sad because so much of my teens and young adulthood was about reading those magazines, specifically.
I have more Game Informer than anything, simply from being a FuncoLand/EB Games/GameStop member since 1998 or so, but they were honestly never my favorite. Their scores seemed to be all over the place and sometimes it felt like their reviewers barely spent enough time on the games they were reviewing. A lot of times they were really harsh on a game I liked a lot, and their reasoning would be very flimsy to me, and since it was usually only one person's opinion (although sometimes there were two) it just always seemed to be a lot more subjective and a lot less informative than EGM. Plus, being as how it was inherently linked with a video game store, a lot of times it seemed a bit too fluffy and commercial, like they were trying to sell you product whereas EGM was objectively just telling you what games were worth your money. I was always just a bit suspicious of Game Informer for that reason; what are the odds they're going to give a bad review to a game that's supposed to be a huge seller and send millions of people running to GameStop? Regardless, I have a ton of issues anyway, and I did have a lot of fun reading them. They were just never my favorite.
Now and again I still love to go through some old issues for fun. It gives you a good sense of perspective; a ton of games you never thought would have been huge turned out to be, a lot that were supposed to be underwhelmed, and seeing what people thought in the Before, During and After is always really fascinating. It also still helps me figure out which games I ignored for whatever reason Back Then I should maybe give a chance to Now. Believe it or not, an EGM review of a game from 1993 absolutely still affects my decision-making on what I might play Today or Tomorrow.
Some awesome memories. Sadly, it was an era that can never be again and there's just no real way for anyone under a certain age to understand what it was like.
|