The first EGM previews of Curse and Thunder Force III

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 6:54 pm

These are hilarious. I happen to like the old Your Sinclair reviews (here's the archive). I made a halfassed effort at doing a Jonathan Davies parody review yesterday, but eventually decided against it.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:01 pm

Ready for more? This covers the shmups and borderliners from EGM #31, to #40 (including the 1992 buyer's guide)...

Aerial Assault (GG)
Air Zonk (TG-16)
Andro Dunos (Neo-Geo)
Axelay (SNES)
Bee-52 (NES)
Cal. 50 (Gen)
Dragon Strike (NES)
Gate of Thunder (TG-16)
Gradius: Interstellar Assault (GB)
Last Resort (Neo-Geo)
R-Type (GB)
Sagaia (Gen)
Sol-Deace (Gen)
Soldier Blade (TG-16)
Space Megaforce (SNES)
Smash TV (NES)
Strike Gunner (SNES)
Super E.D.F. (SNES)
Super Smash TV (SNES)
UN Squadron (SNES)

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:27 pm

The Coop wrote:Ready for more? This covers the shmups and borderliners from EGM #31, to #40 (including the 1992 buyer's giude)...

Aerial Assalt (GG)
Air Zonk (TG-16)
Andro Dunos (Neo-Geo)
Axelay (SNES)
Bee-52 (NES)
Cal. 50 (Gen)
Dragon Strike (NES)
Gate of Thunder (TG-16)
Gradius: Interstellar Assault (GB)
Last Resort (Neo-Geo)
R-Type (GB)
Sagaia (Gen)
Sol-Deace (Gen)
Soldier Blade (TG-16)
Space Megaforce (SNES)
Smash TV (NES)
Strike Gunner (SNES)
Super E.D.F. (SNES)
Super Smash TV (SNES)
UN Squadron (SNES)

Great job man, I remember every one of these reviews. I don't think I have them all anymore. Really takes me back to the days when there was a "shooter glut" when the market was flooded with shmups. Bring those days baaaaack.

I still always think EGM previews (International Outlook, Next Wave, CES and TGS previews, etc) were the best reason to read EGM.

Coop, do you have the 2-page EGM Fact-File of Gaiares where they use the word persistance, or more likely, the word perseverance regarding the fight against that huge Gold Dragon?

I found it, it's in EGM Number 19, Februrary 1991, page 113.

They also review Arrow Flash in that issue.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:39 pm

I can't tell which categories they're scoring in the Cal .50 review.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:40 pm

I might. Not sure though. I'll check after dinner.

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:43 pm

The Coop wrote:I might. Not sure though. I'll check after dinner.

Cool, thanks.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:43 pm

"Your fighter crashed into enemy territory twenty years ago"

*spits out drink*

I had no idea that game's premise was so epic.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:52 pm

gigadrive32 wrote:I found it, it's in EGM Number 19, Februrary 1991, page 113.

They also review Arrow Flash in that issue.

Well, you'll have to handle any scans from that issue, as I don't have it. As I said in a previous post, my earliest issues are 11, 12, 14, the 1991 Buyer's Guide, 16, 18, and 20. From 22 on, I have nearly every issue up to 68 (I'm missing only some buyer's guides).

If you'd tackle issues 1-10, 13, 15, 17, 19 and 21 for any shmup and borderliner review scans (or at least the issues from those you still have), that'd be cool. I'd like to see the Arrow Flash review myself

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:01 pm

Hey Coop, I went ahead and scanned it

Gaiares Fact File part 1 part 2

I'll try to find what shmup reviews I have left, of those issues that you don't have.

Arrow Flash

Thunder Force II

That Thunder Force II Fact-File / Review is from EGM Number 5 - December 1989 - The 1990 Video Game Buyers Guide -
It's one of the rarest issues along with #8. Even Magweasel.com doesn't have a proper scan of #5's cover but, I managed to find a pic:

I have most of that magazine but the cover is long gone :/

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:05 pm

Bill wrote:"Your fighter crashed into enemy territory twenty years ago"

*spits out drink*

I had no idea that game's premise was so epic.

The arcade game makes it apparent in the attract :D

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:14 pm

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:16 pm

Ha, that's very cool.

Never got around to playing that game.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:19 am

Go for it! The dial speed seems fixed in the latest MAME (124), so you can actually play the game now.

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:36 am

The first time I saw Caliber 50 was on like the last page of the 2nd full issue of Mega Play. They showed 6 cool looking games and the arcade version was one of em.

here it is

Cal 50 is the upper left (well duh, but i didn't wanna confuse someone that might be easily confusable).

Doesn't that small pic of Cal 50 make you wanna play it?

For a long, long ass time, I could not figure out the what the games in the upper right (Willow, arcade)
and lower-middle (Darius II, arcade) were.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:33 am

Another set. This goes from EGM 41-50...

After Burner III (Sega CD)
Bio-Hazard Battle (Gen)
Dead Moon (TG-16)
Desert Strike (Gen)
Desert Strike (SNES)
Firepower 2000 (SNES)
Jungle Strike (Gen)
Lords of Thunder (TG-16)
Pocky and Rocky (SNES)
Robo Aleste (Sega CD)
Star Fox (SNES)

With issue 50, EGM changed their format. The review columns got narrower, and they started printing little blurbs about other games along the edges of the pages. It was a neat way to add more reviews, but you got even less info than the normal reviews since it was three sentences with numbers underneath them for each reviewer. Basically, one small paragraph to sum up everything for five reviewers' scores. Regardless, I didn't include them...

Desert Strike (Lynx)
Grind Stormer (Gen)
Novestorm (3DO)
Raiden (Jaguar)
Ranger-X (Gen)
Silpheed (Sega CD)
Space Invaders (GB)
Star Wars Arcade (32X)
Sub-Terrania (Gen)
Super Air Zonk (TG-16)
Terraforming (TG-16)
Total Eclipse (3DO)

And then, yet another change...

In The Hunt (PS1)
Kolibri (32X)
Solar Eclipse (Sat)
Vertical Force (VB)
Viewpoint (PS1)

... and one more change...

Raystorm (PS1)
Xevious 3D (PS1)

And that brings me up to issue 100. If anyone happens to have EGMs 69-75, 77, 80-90, 92, 94-95, and 98... wanna scan the shmup reviews they contain for us?

For now, I'm taking a break

Edit: Fixed the Genesis and Lynx links for their respective versions of Desert Strike.

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:51 am

You've gone far above & beyond the call of duty on EGM reviews, Coop.

I must admit I just don't have the passion for them like you do, except for the very old 1989 stuff. I never based my decisions on EGM reviews even though they were decent. I usually went more by their previews because of the screenshots.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:35 am

Thanks.

It's not so much a passion for them, but rather just the idea of digging through the issues again, looking for reviews of specific types of games. I figured I'd try and get it up to issue 100, where most people would be more likely to be familiar with the magazine. Plus, after issue 100, their reviews started getting longer, and the quaintness of their cramped comments began fading away as they got more space for commentary.

Hopefully reading through the scans I posted gave some of you guys a chuckle. And with any luck, some will have shmup and borderliner reviews from the issues I don't own.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:30 am

gigadrive32 wrote:You've gone far above & beyond the call of duty on EGM reviews, Coop.

Definitely - great job guys, thanks for efforts such as these, those scans may be archived for posterity as part of shmup history.

These days we can't even expect the publishers to keep their archives, so stuff like this could actually get lost in time otherwise. It's been confirmed that EGM publisher Ziff Davis recently performed a corporate purge of all their games mags back issues archives including EGM - apparently to save office space storing them, so they trashed it all.

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:59 am

Thunder Force wrote:
gigadrive32 wrote:You've gone far above & beyond the call of duty on EGM reviews, Coop.
Definitely - great job guys, thanks for efforts such as these, those scans may be archived for posterity as part of shmup history.

These days we can't even expect the publishers to keep their archives, so stuff like this could actually get lost in time otherwise. It's been confirmed that EGM publisher Ziff Davis recently performed a corporate purge of all their games mags back issues archives including EGM - apparently to save office space storing them, so they trashed it
all.

That really makes me sad. It seems Ziff-Davis has no regard for the history of the magazine they bought in 1995 or 1996.

Before ZD bought Sendai Publications sometime in 1994 or 1995, I ordered as many back issues as I could.

At the time, Sendai did not have EGM #8 or a few of the other rare issues but I got the 1989 Video Game Buyers Guide (1st #1) and
May 1989 (2nd #1). For me, the most important EGM is #2, July-August 1989 "16-bit Gaming Explodes, that was the first EGM I ever picked up and it made into a gamer because of the 16-bit systems.

I did not even know of Electronic Game Player from 1988 which was EGM's forerunner. 4 issues IIRC. And before that there was a Top Score Newsletter. (Oddly enough EGM #7 is called Top Score)

The 3 rarest EGM issues seemed to be #5, #8, #11 but that was back in the 1990s when collecting was still relatively easy. Now a decade later things are no doubt much harder.

It would be amazing to own complete collections of VG&CE, EGM, GamePlayers, GamePro, Famitsu, Beep! MegaDrive and all the other U.S. and Japan magazines.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:21 am

Thunder Force wrote:It's been confirmed that EGM publisher Ziff Davis recently performed a corporate purge of all their games mags back issues archives including EGM - apparently to save office space storing them, so they trashed it all.

Garbage in, garbage out - I think that sums up what happened nicely. :P

They really shouldn't have trashed those...argh.

gigadrive32 wrote:http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/9899 ... 1454jw.jpg

Good god, that layout is unredeemably bad.

I know two of the games by sight (last one is Midnight Resistance) but the layout doesn't help at all.

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 10:28 am

Andro Dunos got a better review than Last Resort??? Boy what a bring down...I don't remember that.

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:20 pm

EGM reviews were never to be trusted IMO. They gave Herzog Zwei a terrible score- That game was better than Thunder Force II, III and IV combined (IMO) even though it wasn't a shmup.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:25 pm

Ed Oscuro wrote:
gigadrive32 wrote:http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/9899 ... 1454jw.jpg
Good god, that layout is unredeemably bad.

I know two of the games by sight (last one is Midnight Resistance) but the layout doesn't help at all.

top middle is Gaiares, bottom left is Shining in the Darkness

edit: i suppose that is obvious though. i didn't read the captions

mikwuyma · Post by **mikwuyma** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:50 pm

The best line is in the Vertical Force review.

"Also Try: D-Force---Super SNES"

:lol::lol:

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 5:55 pm

Thanks Coop! Great job!

gigadrive32 · Post by **gigadrive32** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:58 pm

The one with the dragon spewing flame (upper right) is what had me stumped for literally years, more than a decade actually. It was sheer dumb luck that I stumbled on a website that had pictures/flyers of Capcom arcade games, and I recognized it..... Willow.... lol.

Back to shmups, I found the EGM preview for Raiden Project. This one convinced me to pick the game up at PS1 launch.

This is from EGM Number 65 - December 1994, their largest issue ever @ over 400 pages.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:52 am

MORE!

Asteroids (PS1)
Armada (DC)
Army Men: Air Attack (PS1)
Einhander (PS1)
Expendable (PS1)
G-Darius (PS1)
Giga Wing (DC)
Giga Wing 2 (DC)
Gradius 3 & 4 (PS2)
Mass Destruction (Sat)
Mass Destruction (PS1)
N20 Nitrous Oxide (PS1)
Nuclear Strike (PS1)
Omega Boost (PS1)
R-Type Delta (PS1)
R-Types (PS1)
RayCrisis (PS1)
Silpheed: The Lost Planet (PS1)
Space Invaders (PS1)
Star Soldier V.E. (N64)
Strikers 1945 (PS1)
Thunder Force V (PS1)
Vanark (PS1)

And now, some mini reviews...

1942 (GBC)
Army Men: Air Attack 2 (PS1)
Asteroids (GBC)
Bangai-O (DC)
Expendable (DC)
Galaga (PS1)
Galaga (GBC)
Mars Matrix (DC)
R-Type DX (GBC)

And finally, an oddity from some expo EGM did for the GBA launch titles...

Iridion 3D (GBA)

With that, we finish with EGM #150, and the borderliners and shmups that reside within.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:55 am

BLASTATHON

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:17 pm

Revelation of the Genesis cover:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115840

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:42 pm