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Sweevo posted:1-5 is good in theory, but as soon as you allow half stars it becomes a de-facto 1-10 scale. Similarly magazines that use 1-10 really become 1-20 the first time something gets 8.5 instead of 8 or 9. As well as the 1-1000 scale they did a 1-10 scale for Graphics, Audio, IQ Factor and Fun Factor for at least a portion of the magazines run. I really liked the "Predicted Interest Curve" graph they added to reviews showing values for immediate, hour, day, week, month. Was a neat way to highlight if someone had no longevity or a steep learning curve.
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Sep 27, 2020 20:16
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I don't remember what magazine it was, but it was a 90's magazine. They didn't have scores but every game had a short blurb attached by 3 different reviewers. One was a fan of the genre the game was about, the second one someone who was interested in the genre or game and than a third random reviewer. It was nice and fairly clever.
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Sep 28, 2020 10:15
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A lot of magazines did that or something similar. I've got magazines from the 80s where all the game reviews are crammed into a few pages (gotta make space to review more spreadsheets!) and the reviews are just a few people giving their general thoughts rather than trying to assign scores.
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Sep 28, 2020 12:20
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Sweevo posted:1-5 is good in theory, but as soon as you allow half stars it becomes a de-facto 1-10 scale. Similarly magazines that use 1-10 really become 1-20 the first time something gets 8.5 instead of 8 or 9. Yeah, ACE's scoring system was, ah, unique. And I bet the writers and designers just loooooved having to justify their wacky numbers in detail with the Predicted Interest Curve for every single game they reviewed. Most games reviewers I've ever met resent just writing their own picture captions!
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Sep 29, 2020 20:48
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GamePro's review system would've been perfect if they just stuck with the faces, but they had to go and assign numbers to it. My favorite is 1.5, the sleepy guy with the thumbs up
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Sep 29, 2020 21:10
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There's a magazine I've been trying to remember for bloody years, I think I did a post about it in the white whale thread in GBS and didn't have any luck so I'll see if anyone here knows it. Gaming magazine, mid 90s, 16-bit era, definitely featured the SNES - can't recall if it covered any other systems. I'm Australian so we received a mix of American, UK and local mags so can't help much there. I distinctly remember that their reviews would have a main reviewer who wrote the article text, then one or two alternative takes from different reviewers included as small bubbled columns in the review. The reviewers all had cartoon avatars that were doing different things depending on what their opinion of the game was - for example one of them had a giant grin and double thumbs up for a game he loved, and was hanging himself for games he hated. I remember another one was a dude in a purple shirt and for games he hated he was drinking poison through a straw out of a black bottle with a skull and crossbones on it. I remember very little else about it. Please. Please help. This has been bothering me for about a decade now.
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Sep 30, 2020 01:02
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Coffee Jones posted:
oh man I remember reading about that "Cafe Eblana" website and wanting a computer SO BAD so I could visit it because I was a huge FF6 nerd in junior high. I would do anything to find an archive of it!
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Sep 30, 2020 01:51
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Is there a way to download a torrent of all the GameFan issues from Archive.org? Oddly enough, RetroMags does not keep scans of them because apparently someone who still holds the copyright to GameFan issues (WTF?) asked them not to or something?
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Sep 30, 2020 04:24
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Mode 7 posted:There's a magazine I've been trying to remember for bloody years, I think I did a post about it in the white whale thread in GBS and didn't have any luck so I'll see if anyone here knows it. I'm Australian too, I'm guessing Nintendo magazine System. Only other guess is Superplay, but I've never actually read those. Both handled SNES.
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Sep 30, 2020 08:42
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Mode 7 posted:There's a magazine I've been trying to remember for bloody years, I think I did a post about it in the white whale thread in GBS and didn't have any luck so I'll see if anyone here knows it.
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Sep 30, 2020 08:43
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the_lion posted:I'm Australian too, I'm guessing Nintendo magazine System. Only other guess is Superplay, but I've never actually read those. Both handled SNES. NMS was great and my go-to magazine, I had a whole bunch of them starting from issue...4? I think. I dropped off after they had their editorial change and the entire tone of the magazine shifted to a very dry and dull Nintendo mouthpiece. The humour that suffused the magazine before that change was generally extremely juvenile but that was fine! I was a kid! I liked juvenile humour! Super Play was utterly fantastic but I'd only ever get an issue here or there when my Dad would pick them up. I remember being absolutely stunned reading their review of Final Fantasy 3 (6) and desperately wanting it, and of course never, ever seeing it because I lived in Australia and was too young to really grasp the concept of imports. My gaming world was pretty much stuff I saw in magazines filtered down to "whatever the one shop I lived near actually had in stock". It's not either of those though, because it is in fact... Payndz posted:Super Gamer. Technically SNES, but threw in NES and GB as well. HOLY poo poo. YES. THANK YOU. Thank you so loving much. That's been bugging me for years and nobody I've asked in real life has ever had any clue what the hell I was talking about. I was even able to go on to the Internet Archive and find an issue I recall reading cover to cover over and over and over again. https://archive.org/details/super-gamer-08
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Sep 30, 2020 09:52
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Truman Sticks posted:GamePro's review system would've been perfect if they just stuck with the faces, but they had to go and assign numbers to it. I don't remember these .5 ones, did they add that later or something?
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Oct 3, 2020 17:02
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falz posted:I don't remember these .5 ones, did they add that later or something? Maybe, but I don't know. That was just the first image that came up when I googled "gamepro faces."
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Oct 3, 2020 20:06
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Has anyone found a place that has scanned issues of Game Players/Ultra Game Players that isn't archive.org? Looking for the most complete collection possible and manually searching through archive.org is a slog and I can't help but feel like I'm missing a ton of stuff because of how odd their search behaves.
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Nov 30, 2020 14:45
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Whoa EGM shows up on Halt & Catch Fire giving something a bad review. No mention of Sushi X.
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Dec 18, 2020 00:07
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Halt & Catch Fire is pretty great but they must've lost their tech consultant in season 2. There's a series breaking scene where duder is hacking away on a c64 and clearly the monitor isn't plugged in to power.
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Dec 18, 2020 01:01
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I have some early 90s issues of C+VG lying around that I should dig out. However, the magazine was printed on the flimsiest paper imaginable, so most of them are in tatters or have the cover missing.
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Dec 18, 2020 11:43
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Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:I don't remember why I thought Game Players issues were banned from Retro Mags. I must have confused it with a different, similar magazine. Maybe GameFan? Yep, Gamefan.
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Dec 18, 2020 16:00
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Truman Sticks posted:GamePro's review system would've been perfect if they just stuck with the faces, but they had to go and assign numbers to it. that's just orange cassidy
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Dec 21, 2020 21:14
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Tac Dibar posted:I have some early 90s issues of C+VG lying around that I should dig out. However, the magazine was printed on the flimsiest paper imaginable, so most of them are in tatters or have the cover missing. I remember early C+VG magazines being so poorly printed that it was virtually impossible to type in the C64 game listings. Have a vague recollection that the magazine was also cheaper than most of the single format magazines (although that might just be it was more available than those).
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Dec 24, 2020 05:29
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falz posted:Halt & Catch Fire is pretty great but they must've lost their tech consultant in season 2. There's a series breaking scene where duder is hacking away on a c64 and clearly the monitor isn't plugged in to power. Dang I missed that, but I don't know much about C64s. I did appreciate when they showed the EGM review it looked like a real article and they didn't just have a number on a page. I also thought their scenes Super Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat made sense with what the actors were doing, as opposed to just looping some YouTube game footage. Was interesting to read about the production after I finished the series, it was in an "The Americans" situation of being a fantastic show but terrible ratings, but we lucked out and kept getting seasons as the network was protecting it. Neat that happens sometimes.
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Dec 28, 2020 17:54
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Boody posted:As well as the 1-1000 scale they did a 1-10 scale for Graphics, Audio, IQ Factor and Fun Factor for at least a portion of the magazines run. I really liked the "Predicted Interest Curve" graph they added to reviews showing values for immediate, hour, day, week, month. Was a neat way to highlight if someone had no longevity or a steep learning curve. I read and re-read my brother's collection of old Spanish magazines (mainly Microhobby/Micromanía) and early issues used to have an "Addictionmeter" that did something similar. Reading walkthroughs of games we didn't have was great, I think I still have the Micromanía issue with the 3D map for Everyone's a Wally.
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Jul 14, 2021 20:40
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Traveller posted:Reading walkthroughs of games we didn't have was great, I think I still have the Micromanía issue with the 3D map for Everyone's a Wally.
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Jul 14, 2021 22:27
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Jul 15, 2021 04:40
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wish he would have stayed where he was
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Jul 15, 2021 16:28
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jak and daxter, as well as ratchet and clank, suck rear end
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Jul 16, 2021 10:07
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Shibawanko posted:jak and daxter, as well as ratchet and clank, suck rear end wrong b(tch well jak 2 is awful but
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Jul 16, 2021 10:22
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Digging this thread up from the dead because I have no where else to state: I now have a complete set of every Expert Gamer magazine (not including when they were called EGM2). Wasn't super into these as a kid but started picking them up the past few years for games I own. This was never my goal but I realized the other day I only needed a few more to complete the set so I went for it. Looking back at these it's extremely impressive what they (and other mags at the time like Tips and Tricks) were able to throw together in a few weeks time of getting a game, beating it multiple times, finding as many secrets as possible, taking screenshots, actually writing the guide, etc. I also find the Ziff Davis publications to be way better designed and written than other mags of the time. They just always had a feeling of being a proper adult publication without as much of the zany gamer stuff I see in other mags, especially now looking back at them as an adult. While I'm not one to follow a guide directly as I play a game, more so just for a little reference if necessary, I do for some reason like having these magazines to go along with my collection of games. Probably just another excuse to spend more money on this poo poo I don't need.
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Jul 6, 2022 14:21
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K-Flow posted:Digging this thread up from the dead because I have no where else to state: I now have a complete set of every Expert Gamer magazine (not including when they were called EGM2). Wasn't super into these as a kid but started picking them up the past few years for games I own. This was never my goal but I realized the other day I only needed a few more to complete the set so I went for it. Looking back at these it's extremely impressive what they (and other mags at the time like Tips and Tricks) were able to throw together in a few weeks time of getting a game, beating it multiple times, finding as many secrets as possible, taking screenshots, actually writing the guide, etc. I also find the Ziff Davis publications to be way better designed and written than other mags of the time. They just always had a feeling of being a proper adult publication without as much of the zany gamer stuff I see in other mags, especially now looking back at them as an adult. That's really cool. I wish I'd kept my huge collection of PC Gamer magazines. And we used to have quite a few Sinclair Users and Your Sinclairs around, I wonder if they're still about.
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Jul 10, 2022 22:24
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Whybird posted:
It was too good for this world. John F Bennett posted:No one read C+VG (computer and videogames)? Longest running video game media brand according to wikipedia. It was kinda lame in those early years but got a lot better from 87 onwards, then a few years later many of the ex-Newsfield crew moved over, launched Mean Machines began as a consoles section before spinning off into its own mag. Probably my fav period as games mags go. Plus C+VG's Aliens issue changed my life, so I'l always have a soft spot for it. Didn't they also do a competition for people to film their own version of Star Wars? I remember reading about one bunch recreating the trench run cars and bikes in a tunnel in the middle of the night shooting fireworks at each other like maniacs, sounded amazing. I think one kid got his dad to glue a set of Strepsils to his jacket to make him seem like an Imperial officer. Sweevo posted:1-5 is good in theory, but as soon as you allow half stars it becomes a de-facto 1-10 scale. Similarly magazines that use 1-10 really become 1-20 the first time something gets 8.5 instead of 8 or 9. OH GOD. Thanks for making me remember the Predicted Interest Curve, what a load of horseshit that was. I miss games mags. I had a hate/love/hate relationship with Edge for over a decade, it amazes me that it's still going. Dread to think how much an issue costs these days...
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Aug 11, 2022 14:21
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I was browsing through the CRPG Book Project and stumbled upon a quote by the designer of Alternet Reality: The City. It was a very nice quote about how making that RPG didn't make the guy a lot of bucks, but it made him feel great joy, relative to the high-paying job developing a combat flight simulator. Anyway the quote had a link and when looked up, I found Halcyon Days, a book of interviews with classic game developers that was published in 1997. I'd greatly prefer an ebook, but the whole thing is up on the web for free. Couple of nice rabbit holes for the evening.
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Apr 27, 2023 07:37
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Preferring to read the book on an ereader, I made a quick and dirty ebook of Halcyon Days, send me a PM if you want a copy.
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May 5, 2023 00:13
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i'm trying to remember a specific magazine but all i remember was one of the reviewers was named bill e: game players? maybe? Mr. Maggy fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jun 8, 2023 |
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Jun 8, 2023 03:57
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IIRC Bill Donohue was an editor for (Ultra?) Game Players, so you might be thinking of him I can't even tell you how I remember that
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Jun 8, 2023 17:01
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Wild going through this thread and seeing all the permas lol. I had gamepro but I'd read any of them at the grocery store magazine aisle
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Jun 8, 2023 19:47
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Rezzing this thread just to post that I made an unofficial strategy guide for PS1's Tomba, because it never got one. If you like magazines you might enjoy it. https://twitter.com/vgcartography/status/1739985266826481885?s=20
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Dec 27, 2023 13:27
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Electromax posted:Rezzing this thread just to post that I made an unofficial strategy guide for PS1's Tomba, because it never got one. If you like magazines you might enjoy it. I've never played Tomba but I just wanted to say that a) that's dope and b) I've been following your account for a while and I love the stuff that you do
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Dec 27, 2023 14:22
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Electromax posted:Rezzing this thread just to post that I made an unofficial strategy guide for PS1's Tomba, because it never got one. If you like magazines you might enjoy it. 
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Dec 27, 2023 15:34
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