16/September/2012
ONM Remembered - #31
"Where's the moustache, Charles?"
This cute little recognition of Charles Martinet was crammed underneath an
"events in the coming month" calendar, with no apparent attempt to make it tie
in. They just needed space to fill, I guess?
I've chosen it for today because Charles Martinet's birthday is
tomorrow. How about that! Have a good'un, Chuck.
18/September/2012
ONM Remembered - #32
"Get your thinking caps on."
One notable feature of the Club Mario letters page was Ultimate Warrior. Readers were called upon to take the best parts of any Nintendo character they could think of, and mash them together in the name of creating some new unstoppable juggernaut / abomination against God. And if they liked it, you won a free game!
Some entries put a lot of thought into creating a coherent monstrosity, while some looked like they escaped from a clown's nightmare.
20/September/2012
ONM Remembered - #33
"The third coming"
JESUS.
Well, that's one way of promoting a sub-par Earthworm Jim game.
It's also one way of gaining admittance to the nearest trauma ward.
23/September/2012
ONM Remembered - #34
"I tried wiping my backside with one controller, but it hurt too much and I came out in a rash."
Oh, boy! Console wars! Don't you just love petty medium-based arguments? Hold on a second while I finish smashing someone's face in for daring to say cassette players are better than gramophones.
The hip thing at the time was to be a total asshole towards other consoles,
and Sony's PlayStation bore the brunt of the wrath. It got nicknamed the "GreyStation",
or was partially 'bleeped'. The letters pages were deluged in people arguing
over the merits of the N64 versus the PlayStation. The magazine's staff rewarded
its readers for property damage, and would gladly smash any object they sent in.
Property damage can be fun once in a while (as I can attest to
when smashing worthless discs for over-produced football game), but after
a while all the hatred and spite just gets tiresome. Remember those guys who
were making an effort to seek and destroy all known Shaq-Fu cartridges in
the world? It was funny the first time I heard it, but then you realised they
were still doing it months, if not years later. It's like, jeez, buddy, get a
hobby. ... no, get a new hobby.
I suppose it was an attempt to be seen as "edgy" or "mature", especially when
Nintendo's reputation as a 'baby company' was becoming the go-to insult, but
lashing back was no more mature than a twelve year old gelling their hair,
smoking cigarettes and tipping over bicycles.
I never picked up any PlayStation Magazines during this period (I
was an anti-Sony fanatic at that point, I'm afraid), but I picked up a
couple around 1999/2000, and their image came across as relatively more
professional. They dabbled lightly in topics outside of gaming
(like movie and music reviews, and, of all bloody things, lessons on Japanese
weaponry), the style was slick and clean without being drab, and perhaps
most importantly, they didn't plaster the grinning mugs of their editors all
over the magazine.
That's why I liked ONM, though. What other magazine lets you see every damn pore of the people behind it?
25/September/2012
ONM Remembered - #35
"RAID THE SHOPS!"
from Nintendo Pro issue 33 (2000)
Of all the gaming magazines I've collected, Nintendo Pro is easily one of the
crummiest. Unremarkable reviews; a bright and cluttered kid-focused graphic
design that leaves little room for text; and a general lack of polish. I've a
feeling the only reason I got it was because it was the only game mag Belfast
Airport had to offer during a visit.
The mag was originally known as N64 Pro (before reformatting
itself when the Game Boy Color became big), and in those days it was a
bit better, but it lacked anything that made it stand out. Oh, boy, did
they find a way to stand out. How do you like being swamped in bad captions
and speech balloons? It's like the Transformers Wiki on a bad day
(zing! no, seriously, the Transformers Wiki is pretty rad).
I've highlighted this review because, good gravy, it cannot go a single sentence without reminding you of how much it fancies Lara Croft. "Sexy Lara Croft" is listed under "pros", for crying out loud! She's not even fifty pixels tall and barely has a face!
THIS IS NOT A SPRITE TO GET EXCITED OVER
The whole page makes me angry. The crappy review, the unashamed lusting, the needless speech bubbles ("COME PLAY WITH ME!"), the stupid photoshopped caricatures of the staff. It's like the worst staples of gaming magazines came together and staged an intervention, for the sole purpose of making you ask, "why do I spend £3.50 every month on these things?"
The one good thing? F'real Seal. I wonder if he and ONM's Seal know each other.
27/September/2012
ONM Remembered - prelude to PSM
"If Lara is searching cupboards and filing cabinets, she'll be able to pull stuff out of them"
(from PlayStation Magazine issue 62, September 2000)
Oh, you lucky people! This Sunday will mark the start of PSM Week: every day of the week (that's right, EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK!) I'll be highlighting bits and pieces from the September 2000 issue of Official UK Nintendo Magazine's biggest rival... Official UK PlayStation Magazine! Should be worth a chuckle, at the very least.
30/September/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 1
"Imagine being able to drop into Egypt clutching a pair of Croft's Colts, or bantering with Barrat and the gang in Final Fantasy VIII, or actually being Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid."
from PlayStation Magazine issue 62 (September 2000)
Giddy with excitement about the imminent release of the PS2, this issue of PlayStation Magazine kicks off with a look at the future of gaming - putting yourself inside the game!
Okay, this early stepping stone consists of making a blocky polygonal skin of yourself to dump into Quake III, but imagine where we could go from there! Voice communication with the in-game characters! Your physical movements being emulated by the in-game player! And maybe at some point all the motion capture bullshit can be chucked out in favour of true, in-depth virtual reality!
There's something incredibly charming about the mag's unbridled optimism, but frankly, I think virtual reality is what folks really want, and I seriously doubt we'll ever accomplish it. I mean, virtual reality would be pretty friggin' sweet, but there's so many huge expectations and would require such an enormous feat of technological wizardry, there's no way it would live up to the imagination. Besides, you see those slick ads for touch-screen mobile phones, and then you try them for yourself and it turns out they're wonky pieces of shit. If we can't master touch screens, how ever can we master virtual reality? Case closed, am I right?
Mind you, if we ever did get a true virtual reality game, I hope the physics will be as broken as Skate 3. I'd love to experience clipping through the core of the earth for myself.
01/October/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 2
"The game operates as a 3D scrolling beat-'em up with tricky puzzle games, such as Where's My House and a PaRappa The Rapper-style Look, I Am The Greatest Dancer In The World."
from PlayStation Magazine issue 62 (September 2000)
Drunk In The NYPD, a game idea submitted by a
loveable scamp called Ronan Murphy.
I love it when game magazines embraced the idea of people sending in ideas for
games. Do movie magazines ever accept letters from people detailing their grand
ideas for films, or music magazines with people outlining out their great music
ideas? "I've got a sick idea for a song: I'd play some sick guitar for a few
shreds, and then my mate Joey would get a bangin' drum solo for about five
minutes, then we'd record some jets flying overhead and segue into a zebra
walking along a scaled-up xylophone. It's gotta be a zebra, it's essential to
the song's message."
I adore how Ronan has such a clear vision for his game idea. There is no grand ambition for a deep, multi-tiered game, one with a deluge of features or attempts at targeting multiple audience. It isn't aiming to be a universal drunk simulator - a to-scale world where the drunk roam free, doing what the drunk does best. No. He doesn't want to play a free-range drunk. he wants to play an angry drunk.
I'm also reminded of something my main man Rage Quitter 87 talked about on the site at one point - The Melting Pot! A feature in the old Computer & Video Games magazine, he highlighted some of the goofiest game ideas available. It wasn't people going "I wanna play a Mario game but it's LIKE THIS" or "it'll be an FPS but this time the guns are purple". These guys had unique ideas. Totally unmarketable, but I hold heaps of respect for their sheer originality. Okay, they're not exactly innovative - I like to play video games for the fantasy can't-do-this-in-reality aspect, whereas you look at a typical night in Belfast and most folks are already playing a lite edition of Drunk In The NYPD. But, damn it, this guy wants a game where you play a drunk, and I want to see it happen.
The scan is a bit wobbly, so I've transcribed the text below for anyone who wants to soak it in.
-
THE CONCEPT
You play Jimmy The Drunk, a former police officer who's trading in his empty
bottle for a broken one in his quest for justice. Jimmy waskicked out of the
force for boozing on duty, and now, he's really mad. The game operates as a 3D
scrolling beat-'em up with tricky puzzle games, such as Where's My House and a
PaRappa The Rapper-style Look, I Am The Greatest Dancer In The World. You battle
through 26 levels, drinking as much beer as you can and picking fights with
police officers, passers-by and the occasional stationary object.
THE PITCH
An ad man's dream - think of the product tie-ins. Jimmy will get a bonus life
(Represented by a bottle of Smirnoff that drains as your energy diminishes) for
every 20 bottles of Budweiser he successfully collects and drinks.
For the player, there will be the opportunity to collect one of 62 weapons,
including broken bottles, knives, guns and even a telescope. What's more you can
also possess an alarming armoury of wrestling moves, and, if you pass enough
urinals without watering the ceramics, you can perform your special move -
peeing violent in the spin of wee death.
THE VERDICT
Jimmy is not only a drunk, but gets in lots of fights so expect plenty of
action. The added bonus for over 18s is that if you play the game while drunk,
Jimmy will appear to walk in a straight line rather than pinballing down the
street, bouncing off obstacles. A winner for anyone who plays games like their
hands belong to someone else.
02/October/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 3
"There's just something so pleasing about deformed metal..."
(from PlayStation Magazine issue 62, September 2000)
I hadn't intended to scan this due to knowing nothing about
(or giving a toss about) the Driver franchise, but it's not a bad
little interview. The impression I got is that Martin Edmondson seeks to build
something that's half "car destruction simulator", and half "all the shit you
see cars do in the movies simulator". It ain't a grand ambition, but I can't
help but respect simple pleasures like that.
The man presents a good brief argument on replay value, too - it doesn't matter
how many hours of gameplay the main campaign offers, it's the quality of
those hours that matters. Can't say for myself how well that's carried across in
his game, but it's always nice to see developers say they're more
interested in presenting a good time rather than milking the life out of their
players.
03/October/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 4
"You do realise, sir, that it is an offence not to own... PoliceStation!"
from PlayStation Magazine issue 62 (September 2000)
"With the upstart PlayStation 2 set to swipe much of the gaming glory from his elder brother, Sony is redesigning the PlayStation into PS One: a more portable, on-the-move, CD walkman type-thing. But why stop there? Why not tailor the old grey slab to more specific lifestyles? Eh? PSM's R&D men present a future where everyone has their custom consoles!
WORDS: Andy Lowe / ILLUSTRATIONS: David Lyttleton"
A strange feature apparently meant to mock the redesign of the original PlayStation. I admit scanning these pages was the first time I'd ever read the introductory paragraph. I suppose in hindsight I never quite knew what prompted such bizarre reimaginings of the console, but what the hell, I think it's an amusing little feature, if entirely pointless. Not that I'm complaining. I love it when games journalists say "fuck journalism" and just do stuff like this for kicks.
04/October/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 5
"So how did you feel when you were called into the office and told you were going to be making another Tomb Raider?" "Extremely pissed off."
from PlayStation Magazine issue 62 (September 2000)
A few days after we first got this issue of PSM, a bunch of friends were
coming over for the weekend, one of whom was a complete Tomb Raider
fanatic. My brother attempted to hide the magazine from her, but to no avail -
she was nose-deep in it for the entire stay. I can't argue for sane
human beings, but for Tomb Raider fans this must've been captivating
reading! (totally unnecessary burn - no harm to ya, Em!)
It's probably more of a tease than an interview, though. You learn a bit about
the upcoming Chronicles, and the technical side is explored a little, but
so many questions are answered with, "we can't say." It's definitely an
intriguing read, but I couldn't help but wonder afterwards, "what exactly
did I learn?"
It's refreshing to hear that the developers weren't too pleased at being dragged back to make another game, especially when they wanted to shake things up a little with their PS2 debut. It's almost amazing how much stuff was going on in the Tomb Raider franchise at this point - they had the top seller games, big budget action movies were in development, a line of action figures on shelves, really terrible comic books (with comic book crossovers, no less!)...
Now, however, I can't help but get the impression that nobody's quite sure what to do with the franchise. Are modern audiences still interested in the whole 3D exploration thing? Tomb Raider Legends and its two sequels seem to sell pretty well, but the fact they came out on a yearly basis probably killed any attempt to stretch out hype for them (Underworld just showed up on shelves one day and I thought, "oh, where did that come from?). Then that Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light game seemed to suggest that we'd see Lara in other genres... but nothing came of that, I guess. Also, man, playing that game on my own is torture. I am not picking it up again until I can shanghai someone to co-op with me.
And those woes are just for the franchise - what about Lara herself? If I actually knew a thing about the series I'd probably warble a little about the big debacle surrounding the upcoming game before drowning in my own verbal incompetence, but Peter Paltridge of Platypus Comix spares me that indignity with this great page on how to treat the character properly.
05/October/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 6
"Sadly, the result is another load of sub-standard toss for the 16-bit gaming wastebasket."
I admit I scanned this simply because it was another source of spite being hurled towards Blaster Master Blasting Again.
But it does remind me of what I find so captivating about the PlayStation - its library is goddamned huge. I think it's really easy to underestimate how many games most consoles have. I mean, the Xbox 360 is still active and it's got a whole ton of games, both disc and download, but I look at the shelves of a game store and I think, "I've seen these all before." It doesn't really help that there's not exactly much variety on shelves. If you care to be cynical, once you've seen one Shooty McGunGun or Sporter Goalson game, you've seen them all.
But what's amazing about the PlayStation (and PlayStation 2, I guess) is both the sheer quantity of games, and sheer variety. Do you want to play a game where you design a town by shooting buildings from a cannon? There's a game for that. Do you want to play a game where cute but vulgar little blobs annihilate each other with realistic firearms? The PlayStation's got you covered. Hey, want to play as a living domino? Scuba dive for treasure? There's so many game concepts out there and I've barely played any of them. I can't imagine many of them would be my cup of tea, but I earnestly admire the variety.
I think going back to simple concepts could make a winning design for a game.
I always thought a game where you play as a bird would be particularly cool. Not
like a bird of war or an undead bird or whatever... just a regular bird, y'know?
Fly around and scoop up somebody's chips and make a nest and crash into windows
and fly around to your hearts content, in a big, big world.
But nah. Dudes need more shoot-guns.
06/October/2012
ONM Remembered - PSM Week, day 7
"SOCIAL LIFE SUPPORT"
PSM Week draws to a close, with the image PlayStation Magazine issue 62
chooses to end on. For everything it does better than its Ninty rival, it does
plenty of things worse.
Keep it classy, PSM.
We're back on our regular schedule tomorrow, with more dumb Nintendo rubbish to churn out commentary for. I hope you enjoyed the brief little change of topic!
07/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #36
"When the game finally arrives, it'll be like watching a movie!"
An excerpt from the Nintendo coverage at Space World 2000. Hey, remember when the GameCube was first shown off and they had all these tech demos, except most of them were just flashy cinematics with no hint of gameplay, and the final product didn't really resemble the preview movie much at all? Man, wasn't that just SO HYPE?
Peeps always remember the Zelda trailer, it seems if just to whine and cry about how it never came to be, and they got lumped with the kiddy game Wind Waker. I could discuss that further, but the Zelda fandom makes my butt boil. They got their cel-shaded supposedly light-hearted game, and they got their more realistic allegedly dark-and-gritty game, too. Are people still raising a fuss over it?
I could rant about how a lot of this little GameCube preview basically boiled
down to the staff singing praises over "our games are gonna look like movies!"
Do we want that? Okay, popular consensus seems to suggest we want that, but I
find it an uninspiring path to take.
I'm the last person to suggest video games are art (I PLAY 'EM
FOR THE BLEEP-BLOOPS), but shouldn't video games be aiming to develop a
unique identity? Films, books, comics, plays, poetry, radio... they all have
their own identity, y'know? An exceptional piece of work works in the medium it
is made for. Video games just seem to keep trying to pass themselves off as
movies, and to me, that kind of dilutes its attempts for respect.
Also, jeez, I can't look at Ganondorf without cracking up. I admit I thought it looked cool back then, but now every time I look at it he looks like a terrible racial stereotype who escaped from a bad political cartoon.
09/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #37
"Admit it, I'm the master."
SPONTANEOUS DANCING!!!
I'm no fan of the sport, but I lap up every amusing freeze frame I find in these mags like a comedy-starved mule.
11/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #38
"And that, really, is it. That's all you do. That AND NOTHING ELSE."
One of N64 Magazine's claims to fame was its dedication to reviewing and previewing import games. Most of the found a UK release over here anyway, and of the ones that didn't... well, you didn't exactly lose sleep over not getting to play them.
Tim Weaver shines a spotlight on the culturally-baffling world of Pachinko;
he's a man you can count on to make an amusing read out of a dreadful game. One
might wonder why on earth they would dedicate themselves to reviewing import
games, and then review ones that no one in the UK would remotely be interested
in playing. My only guess is that import stores wanted stuff like this off their
hands real fast, and would sell them at a discount; places like Play-Asia can be
seen doing this on occasion. So for someone who's just
dipping their toe into import gaming, they probably wouldn't want to splash out on
their first purchase. Pachinko World 64 sounds like the title of a
strange and quirky 3D platformer, doesn't it? Let's give that a try, then! Oh, the tears that were shed.
Either way, it's an amusing review.