14/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #39
"POSTER"
No words today, I'm afraid. How would you like a scan of a poster instead?
A poster that can't even be neatly plucked out of the magazine to put on your
wall, but must be cut out?
A scan that is now rendered pointless as a poster, as unless you do some
guerrilla printing, no place will allow you to print it out without acquiring
the rights to produce reproductions?
A scan that is also rendered pointless as a poster because I've shrunk it down
to convenient web size, but inconvenient poster size?
... yup.
Happy poster day, everybody!
(no, I won't make a bigger scan)
16/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #40
"Great Vargon! The Emperor's son is dead!"
Oh, hell yeah, the F-Zero X website!!
You might have gathered that I absolutely love internet history, as
evidenced by my foolish attempt to backup every goddamned Bomberman site
in history. It's a dumb little obsession, but when you have amazing things like
AN OFFICIAL F-ZERO WEBCOMIC forever lost to the ages, can you
forgive me for being a little torn-up by it?
Sadly, I can't say "aw yeah, I checked the website every week, it was so
boss!" or "that one story arc where Jody Summer and Octoman were trapped inside
a boobie-trapped port-a-potty was just unmissable!" I checked it out once or
twice, but I can't remember any of the events in the comics I read.
All I remember is that the site had a nifty page with bios for all of the game's
racers, complete with that nifty artwork. I think a few of those bio
pages are still accessible in the Internet Archive, but the comic is long-gone.
Sadly, since the fzerox.com domain became a redirect for Nintendo's main site,
you'll have a tough time trying to find anything relevant if you decide to thumb
through the file directory.
It's been nearly fifteen years and I've never seen anyone suddenly appear with an archive of the comics, so I can safely say we'll never be seeing them again. What I would pay for a little hindsight...
18/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #41
"Like trying to read a Japanese book!"
You know how I said the old Ninty mags highlighted and reviewed Japanese
games on occasion? Yeah, I never said they were all good reviews.
I admit, I gotta admire them for having the gusto for picking up and reviewing
endless Mahjong games, seemingly in a futile quest for one that magically made
sense to us baka gaijin.
I do wonder, though: In the olde days of the anime and manga fandom, before
scanlations and fansubs, people would produce translated transcriptions of the
stories for readers or watchers to look at while reading or watching whether it
was they were reading or watching. An unsophisticated but passable method of
translation.
Did import gamers ever attempt such a thing back in the day? Nowadays, of
course, we've got translation patches, and at the very least, GameFAQs
occasionally has quick translation guides for easy gameplay accessibility... but
this was 1998. How many resources were there? You'd have to be pretty dedicated
to shell out mad cash for these games that might totally and utterly
impenetrable to English speakers.
Food for thought.
And because I've startlingly little of worth to say today (what else is new?), let's get some plugs in here! Subatomic Brainfreeze, alongside some great anime, video game and general fandom writings, has some good lessons about Mahjong. It's all Greek to me, but I dig the man's dedication.
Hardcore Gaming 101 has a page on Wonder Project J, but amusingly enough, it has a scan of the review that N64 Pro is making fun of. How about that!
21/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #42
"I'VE GOT THE POWER"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 68 (May 1998)
YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME SON
THIS FOOTBALL'S TRYIN' TO KILL ME
AND MY STEELY GAZE IS THE ONLY THING KEEPIN' IT AT BAY
TAKE THE DOCUMENTS I'VE STUFFED IN MY SHIRT AND RUN
BOY
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
...
I CAN'T STARE FOREVER YOU KNOW
23/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #43
"SHOW ME YOUR MOVES SOMETIME"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 68 (May 1998)
Did you know that Goldeneye wasn't the only offering of James Bond on a Nintendo console? Why, on the dinky little Game Boy you could wrap your paws around a micro-sized non-descript 007 adventure, all for the low low price of [TBA]!
Like pretty much every game featured in this column, I haven't played it and thus can't speak for its quality (though I can link to this video for no reason other than I got a laugh out of it), but the review's description of it is really charming. A globe-spanning, crime-busting, lady-killing adventure, all in a single Game Boy cartridge! With really adorable old-fashioned graphics! It actually reminds me of the Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon game for Game Boy - which was spectacularly crap, but at least had that quaint top-down Game Boy look that I love so much.
Retro homage or not, we won't be seeing licensed games looking like this anytime soon. Shame.
25/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #44
"(this is called 'quantisation', jargon fans)"
from N64 Magazine issue 7 (October 1997)
I've praised N64 Magazine before for its great page design, its dedication to import reviews and its sheer barminess, but one aspect I'd completely forgotten about were its great monthly features. Around six to seven pages at the end of each issue were dedicated to whatever interesting topic they had in store: Some were typically 'game-y', some were crazy technical, and some barely even about games at all. Whatever the subject, they were always entertaining and made for good ol' fashioned reading material. Any game mag can give you reviews and letters from eight year olds, but where else would you find a page dedicated to how you can make an edible Shy Guy out of cake frosting?
Tim Norris and the fine fellows at DMA Design give the readers a sneak peek into what it takes to make a 3D video game on 64-bit hardware, showcasing some of their development tools in Space Station Silicon Valley as examples. It's all Greek to me, I'm afraid, but seeing the tools and effort required to make a game, especially one from fifteen years ago, always frightens and fascinates me.
While I'm speaking the world of N64 Magazine, let me link you to Gaming Hell's dedication to it! It's not only a well-written piece on why N64 Magazine was tops (featuring scans from long after I stopped collected the magazine), but the entire site is cracking stuff. If you've read Random Hoo Haas and you haven't read Gaming Hell, then, jeez, you deserve some quality in your life! My power over words may not be adequate enough to convince you, but damn it, those blink tags will!
28/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #45
"Banjo-Kazooie will arrive in November at the surprisingly low price of $59.95."
This page has a bit of everything, hasn't it?
The "Spice Game" (by the mag's staff this time around) isn't terribly inspiring, or terribly well-explained. Trying to sell a game idea with totally foreign terms like "puzzle tree" don't help your case, buddy.
Banjo-Kazooie makes an appearance, with some of those oft-trod-out early screenshots. Always loved that big spooky door. Also, Christ, $59.99 is cheap? If there's one thing that always makes me squirm, it's the prices in the old mags. As much as I unjustifiably love Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, I don't know if the entertainment I've got out of it was worth over £70.
There's also a Mario Kart 64 contest bus, and more importantly, a Mario Kart poster! I believe it came with one of the later issues, and it was a real beaut. It was on my wall for a long time. I actually found it among my old magazine boxes, but... it had not survived the last fifteen years very well. It was sticky and torn and for some godforsaken reason I'd put stickers and crap all over it. I would've loved to have scanned it in (if there's one poster I'd present at its highest resolution, it'd be this one!), but with all the damage and crap slathered over it, you wouldn't get anything worthwhile out of it. Frustration!
30/October/2012
ONM Remembered - #46
"DANGEROUSLY ENTERTAINING"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 94 (July 2000)
God, it's like the barest ad there is. No gripping imagery, no dumb
jokes... it barely even has a sales pitch! It's not even "buy Perfect Dark
because it's a good game, probably", it's "buy Perfect Dark because we're
throwing prizes around like we don't give a crap."
It's boring and inoffensive enough... until you see that that they just had
to throw in a knob joke.
"You'll go blind", it says, next to a suggestive image of a
hand gripping a joystick.
You'd think the magazine had a quota for dick jokes or something.
01/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #47
"Who could ever forget her Flik Flak?"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 68 (May 1998)
Are we sure this is an Ultimate Warrior and not just an analogy for the stunted sexuality of gamers?
04/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #48
"Wait while I consult the Eye."
In the middle of some humdrum coverage of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, there's a half-page Q&A dedicated to the particulars of multi-player accessibility. In the eyes of the ONM editors, that's as good an excuse as any to bust out the robe and wizard hat.
See, stupid stuff like this is why I like the mag. They're all too happy to talk about games in-depth and professionally, but they're also totally willing to be complete goofballs. It's probably an unfortunate contribution to the whole "video game journalism isn't taken seriously!" plight, but ask yourself: Do you give a damn? I'd sooner watch a grown man prance around in a star-spangled magic dress.
06/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #49
"Fiddlesticks, I've been shot down by some alien extra-terrestrial bounders."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 58 (July 1997)
Excerpts from an otherwise unremarkable preview of Duke Nukem 64. Highlighted are some concept art of the game's new weaponry, and translations of Duke's dialogue for the vulgarity-impaired.
08/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #50
"It'll scare you to death!"
I've always been fascinated with this image. There's barely anything to it - it's just a discoloured CGI dude in a body bag, but it's captured so well and is so darned spooky that I gotta respect it. I won't deny that as a young'un this gave me the willies. The grisly head wound with exposing the brain and flesh tissue is obviously gross, but even the piercing eyes and vein-y discolouring from the nose upwards plays up the chill factor. It's a beautifully grim concoction.
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I always interpreted
the brain as a bizarre and monstrous set of teeth; like a circular mouth with
fangs on all sides that just close in around the centre. Given the freaky freaks
the Resident Evil series made itself famous for after zombies got passé,
it gives the image a great twist.
Mind you, it doesn't look half as threatening viewing the image right-side up.
It looks more like a really dweeby kid poking his head in through your window
and asking if you want to come over and play Bayou Billy. He better have
saved the receipt!
11/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #51
"Fight masses of enemies with a variety of techniques, including magical rune attacks!"
What is this? Can you tell me what this is?
Is this an advert?
Don't lie to me, buster. Where's the dick jokes? Where's the untamed
innuendo? There's no gross sexual content to be found at all! Thanks for
pitching the draft to me, but--
... this is your finished ad?
GET OUT OF MY OFFICE. We have standards here,
y'know!
13/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #52
"FUGINELL!!!"
from 64 Solutions volume 2 (11 December 1997)
Here's Toby!
This aggressive adolescent and his oddball antics were responsible
for advertising Computer Exchange (now known as CEX) in the pages of 64 Magazine
and 64 Solutions. I totally loved this stuff, and it was worth the price of
admittance of the otherwise unremarkable magazines - when's the last time an ad
for a gaming store was a fully-fledged comic?
It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that cynical bastard responsible for
such bitter and despicable comics is Charlie Brooker. You know, that
bloke from Newsswipe? 10 O'Clock Live?
That column in The
Guardian? That guy. He's a funny fella.
15/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #53
"GAMING LIVES"
Well, isn't this a surprise - a quick interview with John Pickford, of Zee-3 Digital! I... er, wish I could say I'm familiar with him and his brother's work, but I best know them for working on Wetrix, through their great little website, and for rocking a fine beard. His beard is sadly absent from this photograph, though.
Also, it's not exactly an interview - it's just NOM hurling random
fanboyish Nintendo questions at someone, and the someone just happened to be a
guy in the game's industry. There's no questions on what he's up to what he's
done, that sort of info is just tucked into a very impersonal box beneath the
photo. I could gripe further, but that'd just be needless whining on my part.
It's not like it's actively malicious or anything - a Nintendo magazine's gotta
ask Nintendo questions! If the magazine were trying to be actively malicious,
they would have printed a photo of the man and captioned it in block letters,
"JOHN PICKFORD? FUCK YOU!"
And that would just be uncalled for.
We love ya, John.
18/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #54
"Yoshi strikes back. Thanks Yoshi."
I don't get it.
20/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #55
"HEH HEH!! Take it in the FACE ya lunks!"
from 64 Solutions volume 1 (2nd October 1997)
More Here's Toby!
This dog character apparently showed up in another of Brookah's
comics, Muttworld... which, sadly, appears to be lost to the ages,
outside of a mention on
this old page, which was also almost lost to the ages.
22/November/2012
ONM Remembered - #56
"STRANGE BATTLE CODES"
An excerpt from the Nintendo Tips Centre.
I have included this for the sole purpose of being as obnoxious as possible and
stating that they have used the WRONG IMAGES. Honey and Kotetsu did
not appear in the Super Bomberman series until Super Bomberman
4, and Cutie Bomberman is from Bomberman GB3, a freakin' Game
Boy game!
WHO DO THESE BOZOS THINK THEY ARE USING THE WRONG IMAGES
WHY I OUGHTA SHOW THEM A THING OR TWO ABOUT BOMBERMAN
OHHHH I OUGHTA I OUGHTA
Okay I'm done.