a TATE review! (let's talk about games magazines)

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:55 am

"Game Power", it was one of the greatest games magazines we had here in Italy during the 16/32 bit era. When Raiden Project was released on Playstation, the whole tate thing was relatively new. There was only one way to do the game justice... Pretty neat, isn't it?

What about your countries? I am interested in games magazines, paper printed stuff: how were yours? Do you have any fond memories of any mags? Did you like the silly humour, the absolutely badly written and not informed articles, the ratings that used to be all between 75% and 100%? What is the last time a magazine put a shmup on its cover? I remember X2 gettin a cover here, must have been one of the last ones.

Do you still care for magazines in the net age? What is your ideal, something in the lines of Edge, Famitsu, or what else?

Hey, look. Turrican saves the day with an intelligent thread. Now be nice and share your mag memories. ^_^

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 9:22 am

So why aren't the pictures tated?

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 9:30 am

mannerbot wrote:So why aren't the pictures tated?

lazy editors?

Post by **system11** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 9:45 am

The UK had a great range of magazines back in the 8-bit days, including Your Sincle, ZZap 64, Commodore User (later CU Amiga), Sinclair Programs (YEAH!), and others for the fringe systems like the Amstrad. They varied in quality from standard shelf stuff, to things barely better than a fanzine.

Sinclair Programs was the first to die of all of them, but also one of the best. This was back in the days where a small game could be distributed in code form. Sinclair Programs was just that - listings for games and utilities in basic and hex. You had to type them in (remembering to save to tape regularly) to play them! Of course - printing errors were frequent, so the games from one month would usually only work the next after a printing correction

Amiga Format is where the rot started, that was very much aspiring to be a PC magazine. In terms of more recent publications, I've always liked PLAY for Sony coverage, and I read XBM each month. I get the official Xbox mag sometimes, depends what demos are on the coverdisk.

crithit5000 · Post by **crithit5000** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:12 am

That Raiden article reminds me of the Gunbird 2 review in GameFan that was tated (including the screenshots). I'd scan it, but I'm lazy as all hell to actually hook up my printer.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:13 am

Hey Bloodflowers, we had Zzap! too! It lasted 72 numbers iirc. It covered 8bits, with C64 being the main system.

Then came The Games Machine, that it is published even these days. The first 80 or so numbers covered the Amiga, then it became almost all pc stuff and I abandoned it.

Another UK magazine that got an Italian version was C+VG. It was good because it covered most systems, even the most obscure ones.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:57 am

Anyone in the UK remember Maximum magazine? Only ran for six or so issues, but that was some seriously impressive shit. Talk about in-depth reviews.

Mean Machines was another favorite of mine, until it split into seperate magazines for Sega and Nintendo, then it went downhill.

And of course, no Super Nintendo owner was complete without the latest copy of 'Super Play'. Now THAT was a magazine.

sjewkestheloon · Post by **sjewkestheloon** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:09 pm

ok i know it's off topic but i'm currently a big fan of games tm in the uk atm. it reports on a lot of different stuff and i love reading the retro section. it seems to actually be written with an intelligent person in mind, as i find most multi-format mags to feature articles of less then 100 words... i like to get a bit of bang for buck and if i can read the mag from cover to cover in half an hour it just irritates me.

Sly Cherry Chunks · Post by **Sly Cherry Chunks** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:26 pm

(@ Marc) As well as gaming, Super Play had a lot of anime coverage, which was great back when anime was still new and interesting. I still have the Star Fox and Ultra Parodius issues.

Magazines I remember:

The One Amiga - Dedicated to amiga gaming, it was kinda crappy but was full of dumb humour that I kinda liked back in the early 90's. You usually got two demo disks per issue too.

Official UK Sega Magazine: I bought this for a long time. I remember the first issue with the Sonic 3 supplement. All the screenshots were from a pre-release version of the game which looked much better IMO.

CVG: More childish humour. I would buy this during it's 'centre section printed on brown toilet tissue' period. I kinda enjoyed the crappy fanart they used to print. The magazine was clearly targeted at the under-nines but they did used to report on what was coming out of Japan. I saw previews of SFIII and Marvel Vs Capcom in there. Nowadays the magazine is shit.

Currently buying:

OPM: More like a titty-mag now. Utterly shite. Passes a dinner hour though.

Edge: A great read all round. Less so without Redeye. I've been told that there are some European mags that 'piss all over Edge' in terms of quality and content. Well, whoopy-fucking-doo.

Retro Gamer - I never read it but I work at the company where it is printed. Occasionally I'll walk into the factory and see someone printing something about Gunbird II or something. Which is kinda nice.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 1:35 pm

(@ Marc) As well as gaming, Super Play had a lot of anime coverage, which was great back when anime was still new and interesting. I still have the Star Fox and Ultra Parodius issues.

Yeah, that's what I liked, it seemed to be reasonably intelligent and well-researched as opposed to the 'Oh look at those bonkers Japanese and their funny culture and games etc...'

Edge: A great read all round. Less so without Redeye. I've been told that there are some European mags that 'piss all over Edge' in terms of quality and content. Well, whoopy-fucking-doo.

Finally, someone that understands. I fucking loved RedEye's articels, even when I didn't agree with them they were so well-written and enjoyable to read I could respect the viewpoint. Restricting them to a side bar is a sad loss.

And as far as irrelevant and childish humour goes, no-one has ever, or will ever manage to beat Sinclair User.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:26 pm

Marc wrote:Anyone in the UK remember Maximum magazine? Only ran for six or so issues, but that was some seriously impressive shit. Talk about in-depth reviews.

Yeah, they dedicated like 10 pages to a new street fighter game one issue! I seem to remember it being rather glossy and expensive as well

Your Sinclair is probably my fondest memory though, easily the funniest magazine ever made (I remember some of my friends at the time buying it who didn't even own a speccy)

These days gamestm and edge are the only ones worth bothering with, even though their a little dry and serious

D · Post by D » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:54 pm

freddiebamboo wrote:
Marc wrote:Anyone in the UK remember Maximum magazine? Only ran for six or so issues, but that was some seriously impressive shit. Talk about in-depth reviews.
Yeah, they dedicated like 10 pages to a new street fighter game one issue! I seem to remember it being rather glossy and expensive as well

Your Sinclair is probably my fondest memory though, easily the funniest magazine ever made (I remember some of my friends at the time buying it who didn't even own a speccy)

These days gamestm and edge are the only ones worth bothering with, even though their a little dry and serious

"Your Sinclair" or was it "Spectrum User"?
One of the above had hilarious mailbag columns.
Readings asking (somewhat stupid questions would get butchered here.
If we do this no on this forum we might get banned or something.
Some of you WILL know what I'm talking about.

I used to read EDGE alot, now I'm mad at them and every other magazine for bashing the Saturn.
They never mentioned anything about framerates and in particular the framerate of Sega Rally on the saturn compared to Ridge Racer on Playstation. The Saturn has a very smooth frame rate with the Playstation I don't know what is going on with the frame rate.

To me Frame rate is very important It SHOULD allways be 60 FPS without shocking or dropping framerates.

Wait,....... I'm digressing.......
EDGE to this day is the most beautiful magazine the more than now but oh well......masterpieces they are

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 3:51 pm

HeHeHe.. that was Sinclair User with its 'Wonderful World of Speccy' column. Fucking fantastic.

And the free audio cassette, 'Hold My Hand Very Tightly (Very Tightly)' if I remember? So fantastically shit it was untrue.

Yeah, they dedicated like 10 pages to a new street fighter game one issue! I seem to remember it being rather glossy and expensive as well

Yep, certainly was. Could do with another magazine like that, would probably never get past the starting post these days though.

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 5:57 pm

Marc wrote:Anyone in the UK remember Maximum magazine? Only ran for six or so issues, but that was some seriously impressive shit. Talk about in-depth reviews.

I still have all 7 issues of Maximum, which was my fave magazine of all time (closely followed by the offical UK Saturn mag). The only way i could describe Maximum, would be that it was like an english version of Arcadia.
20 page features and play guides for Pulstar, Street Fighter Zero 1&2, Tekken 2, Metal Slug etc, as well as covering console games. An amazing mag!

theevilfunkster · Post by **theevilfunkster** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:50 pm

Ord wrote:I still have all 7 issues of Maximum, which was my fave magazine of all time (closely followed by the offical UK Saturn mag

The official UK Saturn magazine was fucking ace and it had tons of shmup and Capcom/SNK fighters coverage.

Sega/Saturn power was a joke though. They seriously prefered Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter and listed Darius II, Gaiden and In The Hunt as the worst games on the system.

I get Retro Gamer and the official Xbox magazine at the moment.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 7:28 pm

Marc wrote:
Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:(@ Marc) As well as gaming, Super Play had a lot of anime coverage, which was great back when anime was still new and interesting. I still have the Star Fox and Ultra Parodius issues.
Yeah, that's what I liked, it seemed to be reasonably intelligent and well-researched as opposed to the 'Oh look at those bonkers Japanese and their funny culture and games etc...'

It's heartening to hear Super Play is still remembered and loved, as I just bought an entire collection of that on ebay. It costed me a fortune, but it was worthy, truly a great magazine. I already had some issues that strangely enough reached Italy. Those FF Forum must have been the most close and deep articles on FF VI ever written.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 7:31 pm

Aye, SuperPlay was obsessed with Yanma (am I right with the title?) a 2d beat em up in the sf2 mode

I always dreamed of playing that when I was young, but never got round to it

Sly Cherry Chunks · Post by **Sly Cherry Chunks** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 7:36 pm

^Ranma. I still have that issue.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 7:39 pm

They have quite a crush for Xandra's adventure, from what I can see.

Funny how magazines can push certain titles.