23/December/2012
ONM Remembered - #69
"To DD or not to DD. What was the question?"
from N64 Pro issue 6 (April 1998)
Oh, the 64DD. So much hype and so much build-up, and it disappeared like it never existed at all. I've ragged on about it before, but for those of you who never knew about it, here's a multi-page feature that lays down the dirt.
N64 Pro offered a relatively grounded look at the 64DD and its promises, and was bold enough to state that it might actually be a big flipping catastrophe (pro-tip: it was!). It was an ambitious project with some neat-sounding tech, but that was kind of the problem - the N64 wasn't winning crowds in Japan, and add-on peripherals are always a skeezy business. The promises are grand, yes, but how do you know anything would come of it?
Official Nintendo Magazine were not so restrained, and hyped the add-on like some sort of mythical, turbo-charged peripheral that could create graphics, process a million things at once and probably make toast, too. And not just for one issue, they kept plugging it for several issues if just to remind people of how awesome it would be. Then they shoved it under the carpet and only mentioned what happened to it in the letters page two years later.
But you wouldn't believe the way they talked about it. It was hyped like some kind of magical gaming super computer! With this baby, any and all game ideas you had could be made real in a snap! GAMES CREATION HERE I COME. I can't even explain how excited I was. I barely even understood what the heck it was, but any old fool could be won over by all those incredible features being touted and glamorous screenshots shown off.
After a whole bunch of delays, Nintendo released the stupid thing
in limited quantities before dropping it entirely. Only nine titles were
released, despite dozens of games being announced for it. Worst of all, we never
got Mario Artist: Game Maker. All that excitement for nothing! Nintendo
learnt their lesson, and never dabbled in the foul realm of wonky add-ons ever
again.
... except for the Game Boy Mobile Phone Adapter.
... and the GameCube Broadband Adapter.
... and the Game Boy Advance e-Reader.
... y'know, I've got a sneaking suspicion that they learnt nothing.
25/December/2012
ONM Remembered - #70
"Is your card a Mega Mario or an import also-ran...?"
Last week I talked about the source of the Nintendo All Star Battle Cards... now here's the source of the other Nintendo All Star Battle Cards!
It wasn't just the cards themselves they put love into, there's a lot of text
and colourful graphics here for a game that basically amounts to "compare
numbers." Heck, they even used the cards as an incentive to get people to
subscribe! Oh, foolish readers of the mid-90s. How they believed they would ever
get a free gift as memorable and as treasurable as this! Enjoy your crappy tips
and tricks books, suckers!
(or were those from N64 Magazine? gosh, i can't remember.)
What I'm surprised to see is that the magazine accepted comments and critique
on the cards! I shouldn't be surprised, given how much love and fun the magazine
gave to reader submissions during this period (before it devolved
into sensible things like asking for release dates), but I think that's a
really sweet gesture. I sincerely wish I knew about this when the cards
weren't fifteen years old. Holy shit I'm suddenly depressed.
I played the heck out of these cards, wouldn't you know, and I would've loved to
have had more variety. Even just sending them a "THANX VERY MUCH!" letter in
scribbled crayon would've been enough to convey my gratitude.
Although once in a while ONM Remembered covers something that legitimately stuck in my mind ever since I read it all those years ago, more often than not it's just something daft that caught my eye as a cynical adult. For all my snarkiness, bitterness and I-can't-stand-this-Ragey-fucker-ness, I just want to say that I really appreciated these cards. I got a lot of play time out of them (but I couldn't have done it without my good ol' dorky friends!), and they're still sitting on the shelf next to me as I type this.
Thanks very much, Official UK Nintendo Magazine, and Merry Christmas.
27/December/2012
ONM Remembered - #71
"The only thing more shocking was when I saw Orko without his hood on."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 148 (January 2005)
Don't you just love this? The re-release of old Nintendo titles on the Game
Boy Advance, presumably combined with fat stacks of liquor, prompts the ONM
staff to review games while masquerading as 1980s pop culture icons. As reviews,
they're rather uninformative and barebones, but as an excuse for Mr. T to talk
about the size of his hands and Michael Jackson to describe the special
faeces-protected GBA he got for his monkey, it's fun reading.
This is the sort of insane nonsense that'd make anyone leap at the chance to get
into games journalism: so you can walk around and say to anyone within earshot,
"I got paid to pretend to be Roland Rat and talk about Ice Climbers."
30/December/2012
ONM Remembered - #72
"AAIEE! IT'S A SEALASAURUS"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 58 (July 1997)
More letters to Seal! This is the sort of stuff you'd come to expect every month - scribblings of Seal terrorising the editor, traced fanart, and Seal demanding more of the same. It got a little bit tiresome, to say the least.
The letter and best damn image on the page are credited to David Upchurch, editor of the magazine during its Nintendo Magazine System days. Any and all in-jokes it refers to are lost on me, though.
01/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #73
"TWIX is a registered trademark of Mars."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 63 (December 1997)
Oh boy, it's Norm! You remember Norm, don't you? Or, more
accurately, you remember the punk rockin' teen who characterised the nineties in
just one small inset? They're back, and they're rockin' the casbah. Or the
beach. Either or.
It's nowhere near as '90s as the first image, though. Unless the neon yellow
beach counts. Were beaches given dye jobs during the nineties? Write in and let
me know, I could do with a reminder.
03/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #74
"Could get to: a better job"
from N64 Magazine issue 17 (July 1998)
As a kid, most media jobs seemed pretty easy to understand. If you
wanted to be a musician, you banged on instruments inside a white room. If you
wanted to star in films, you did stuff in front of a camera and lights
(and if you wanted to make films, you'd stand behind the
camera and lights). But if you wanted to make video games... jeez, how
did one begin to understand how that worked? What sorcery do you have to
practise so this funny little plastic cartridge will create magic the moment you
plop it in that big grey box?
Then I found out that they're programmed by people who stay parked in front of
computers all day and night and never see their families. Kind of loses the
magic, doesn't it?
It's not quite the decent reading material most N64 Magazine features were, but it's an intriguing glance at the games industry of the nineties. It's almost bittersweet reading the remarks comparing and contrasting it to the film industry, and how that's all changed. I've got plenty of opinions on that subject, let me tell ya!
06/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #75
"Time to take sides"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 118 (July 2002)
What a strange way to promote a Sonic game. It's not enough to just say "play as a good guy or bad guy!", they turn the thing into some sort of strange religious parallel. Don't give the fandom ideas, fellas. you wouldn't believe the shit they'd run with.
08/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #76
"My Nintendo question is..."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 68 (May 1998)
TELL WARIO TO STOP STARING AT ME LIKE THAT IT'S
FREAKING ME OUT
I DON'T CARE HOW MANY TIMES HE SAYS "OBEY WARIO" IT AIN'T GONNA WORK
10/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #77
"The realism is set to break football game barriers."
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 86 (November 1999)
"Hello. I'm Michael Owen. You might know me from football. What
you don't know is my eyeballs have the concentrated power of fourteen
bulldozers. In between games of footie, I'm blast-gazing my way into bank vaults
and fighting the X-Men.
Thought you'd like to know."
For the longest time I thought this was a snooker game. I
interpreted a big chunk of the black space as a black jacket, and the white bit,
his uniform, as a dress shirt; y'know, like a really poncey snooker player. I
must have the strangest eyes, though not as scary as Owen's.
It's bad enough having this as a full-page spread, but it seemed to be a popular
prize in the letters pages. You wouldn't just be seeing his bloody face staring
at you next to some kid's grand idea for a Goldeneye sequel - you'd be
seeing lots of faces.
MICRO-SIZED FACES.
13/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #78
"Lady Sia"
LET ME SHOW YOU MY "O" FACE
15/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #79
"A SIMPLE CALL AND YOU'VE GOT THE CHEAT!"
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 89 (February 2000)
Although this scan is from a Nintendo mag, these Cheats Unlimited ads showed up in Official UK PlayStation Magazine, GamesMaster and just about every other game-related paper product at the time. Back in the day when if you wanted a walkthrough or a cheat, you had to actually telephone people! Or buy books! Or hear it from word of mouth!!!!
I miss cheat codes. When was the last time a big-name title offered
you an honest-to-goodness level select? Or the ability to give everyone massive
noggins? I never thought I'd see the day when cheat codes disappeared, but I
can't remember the last time I could get unlimited ammo just by pausing and
punching in an obtuse button combination! Never mind "messing with your
intricate game design," I think it's really upsetting. I miss cheat codes.
I suppose their disappearance has to do with how games no longer treat
themselves as plinky-plonk challenges, but as experiences. You're not
just shooting these dudes in the face for something to do, you're shooting them
in the face to EMBRACE THIS RICH NARRATIVE. I suppose daft ol' cheats
would spoil the atmos'. You'd never catch a film giving you the chance to debug
mode into them and screw around with important events. I tell you, Bridge to
Terebithia would be a different film if you could just lock that girl in her
room for a couple of hours. It'd be for her own good, man, there are better ways
to cram a coming-of-age story down our throats!
Also, man, I love how everything had to have a mascot back then.
The Cheatmaster and the Cheatmistress! I'm trying to remember if I
considered these characters 'cool' when I saw them in the mags years and years
ago. They just seem tailor-made to try and appeal to little dorks of the
nineties - the sunglasses, the trench coat, the shirt with his name emblazoned
it. These two totally did trench coats and spandex before The Matrix made
it cool.
The Cheatmistress doesn't exactly have much of a design, though. Tank top, spy
pants and a nerf gun. Easiest cosplay ever. I'm disappointed her name isn't
printed on the gun, though. Also, jeez, I never noticed how freaky her face is
before. It's like her eyes and her lips are in a desperate battle to consume her
entire head. I bet underneath his glasses the Cheatmaster has the same ludicrous
faux-anime eyes.
Food for thought: With mascots this bodacious, do you think kids were too embarrassed to phone up? I mean, you wouldn't want a cool dude like that to know you were stuck on level 3 of Pocahantas.
17/January/2013
ONM Remembered - #80
"As soon as we saw this place, we fell in love with it. We were coming up the driveway and it just sort of emerged from the fog."
from N64 Magazine issue 41 (May 2000)
And then there was that one time the last page of N64 Magazine was dedicated to looking at Joshua Fireseed's lovely house.
ONM Remembered will be going on hiatus for a little while, and when it returns, you can expect all the same kind of stupid crap that you've been tolerating for so long!