anyone heard of these 90s gaming mags?

[qbertandernie]

i stopped by a garage sale today on the way home from a morning appointment, and saw a milk crate full of gaming mags. i was kind of looking through the top few(mostly EGM), when the proprieter told me (after asking if they were worth money) that i could have them - milk crate and all - for $1.

after i arrived home with my box of 90s mags, i found several ive never heard of. i only really got into gaming in 2000, and never had the money to buy systems, so wasnt really into the scene when these were out. just wondering if these are all mainstream magazines or if some are off the wall.

most are typical EGM and GamePro, but theres EGM2 (squared). was this like a bonus when buying EGM? each EGM2 seems primarily directed at a certain game, and only has that games name on the side.

P.S.X. - Playstation Experience Ive seen the official playstation magazine, but dont recall seeing this one before. its really thin, but i have the first issue! woo!

Game Players - this is issue 74, so it must have been fairly mainstream, but ive never heard of it.

In The Game: The Definitive Guide To Sports Gaming 95/96 - this is less of a mag than a promo for EA. This may have been included with something else?

NEXT Generation. This magazine is printed like a high quality guide book. i have some of the first years worth, but i cant expect a magazine of this quality could last long. Lots of pages(208), and retailed at $4.99

Video Games - theres a few of these, seems a ridiculously generic title.

Gamefan - apparently ran 3 years or more, and i think ive seen this one for sale in the past, but dont recall exactly. i expect this is the most common among the anomolies.

FLUX - this is a gaming and comic book magazine, seems mostly directed to games though.

PS*X - Not the same as the above P.S.X. magazine, this is 'The Players Monthly Guide To Sony's Playstation. first issue...

Ultimate Gamer - has US, Canada and UK pricing on the front.

and finally S.W.A.T.PRO - i have one issue, not labeled as the issue or volume number.

the coolest thing about these is most are from the pre- playstation days so have lots of launch title coverage, and several are asking what the delay in the ULTRA 64 is! My main focus is on this era, and theres a lot of RPG coverage for the SNES, and reviews of 3DO and Saturn games. My favorite aspect? Virtual boy screen shots and reviews, unreleased games that are hyped(rock and roll racing 2, anyone?) and ads for the Sega Channel!

[InsaneDavid]

but theres EGM2 (squared). was this like a bonus when buying EGM? each EGM2 seems primarily directed at a certain game, and only has that games name on the side.

EGM2 was the sister magazine to EGM. It later became Xpert Gamer and then GameNOW before dissapearing - at least I think it was discontinued, I quit reading it after most of the EGM writers began to bastardize the format. EGM2 and Xpert Gamer concentrated more on strategies for a handful of games in each issue and GameNOW followed the same format but shoved a lot of popular culture in there. I do miss Xpert Gamer and the early days of GameNOW.


Game Players - this is issue 74, so it must have been fairly mainstream, but ive never heard of it.

I have a couple issues, if I remember correctly it was a gaming magazine that began during the heyday of the NES.


NEXT Generation. This magazine is printed like a high quality guide book. i have some of the first years worth, but i cant expect a magazine of this quality could last long. Lots of pages(208), and retailed at $4.99

NEXT Generation has come and gone a few times. Personally I always felt it was a more mature gaming magazine, written more like an industry trade publication. I KNOW that's just me though. LOL

[Kitsune Sniper]

I'm pretty sure SWATPro was related to Gamepro, but it only focused on game codes...

I -know- I have an issue of Game Players. I bought one when I bought Final Fantasy III way back when.

GameFAN... if I recall correctly it was also absurdly expensive back in 1999. A friend of mine collected them during those days.

[s1lence]

I remember most of those. I agree David, Next Gen always seemed like the mature magazine compared to the others. I have a couple issues of EGM 2 somewhere in my basement along with my Next Gen mags.

[Chakan]

GameFan was a magazine tailored for the "hardcore" and importing crowd. I enjoyed it because they both covered different games than other rags and also held a different viewpoint usually.

GamePlayers... from the issues I bought back in the mid-90's, GamePlayers was pretty much like PSM. Lots of humor along with their coverage. I enjoyed these as well.

NextGen was, as everyone else said, high class stuff for the time. I don't recall a single phallic joke in the issues I read.

[BocoDragon]

P.S.X. became The Official US PlayStation magazine. PSX was ZD publishing's indepedant PlayStation mag, but when they got official status in 1997 they morphed into OPM issue 1. (very excellent in its early years, but kinda glossy today and focuses too much on celebreties, DVDs and music)

I also remember Flux... kind of a music/youth/games/cool shit magazine. I had the first issue.

[Steven]

Major awesome score, man. GameFan I think is overrated, but it's still quality. I just prefer 1992-1994 EGM, which IMO no magazine in the US could touch during that time period.

[7th lutz]

Gameplayers was around for a long time. They were around from the nes days to sometime in 1998 . There went from being kown as Game players to Ultra gameplayers. They gave Cosmic Race for the ps 1 a 0 on a 0 to 100 scale. If you went to a toy's R' Us in late 80's or early 90's, you saw it there. That was my experience from game playersbeing found in stores.

Swat Pro was part of game pro, but with their own mag as time went by. They started Swat Pro in the early 90's as a megazine. It seemed to a short lived megazine.

[scott21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_Magazine_(US)

i have issues 3/4

in issue 4 there was a contest to win 5 WILDCATS figures, i sent it in and won. still have the mags, figures, and contest winning paper. too bad none of its worth anything :P

[Matt-El]

Game Players was the sh**!

I had a subscription from the release of Mega man 5 to midway into the PS1 N64 era. Got tired though because the jokes and stupid stuff they did, and they misspelt my name when they tried to get me back into subscribing.


Dudbejoire? who's that?

[Push Upstairs]

Ultimate Gamer - has US, Canada and UK pricing on the front.

I have one issue of this magazine (Virtua Fighter 2 on the front cover) and i believe it was thier last issue. Seems the magazine only lasted about 6 months.

What i wouldn't give to read the issue with the "game girls" article...seems like it would have been funny.

[Mattiekrome]

and finally S.W.A.T.PRO - i have one issue, not labeled as the issue or volume number.


I remember that mag, it is probably my favorite of all time. IIRC, it didn't mess around too much with reviews and all, it was nearly a whole magazine of cheat codes... I still have a few laying around somewhere :)

[Anthony1]

If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure that Game Players went like this:


Game Players
Ultra Game Players
Ultimate Gamer


So I think Ultimate Gamer was the final version of Game Players, and it didn't last very long at all, only had a few issues and then that was it.

[Bratwurst]

I have the first few issues of Game Players and then a few Game Players published during the Mortal Kombat craze. Early Game Players was bad- real bad. Blurry screenshots, dull write ups and plain white pages from cover to cover. There are even a few Game Players VHS tapes covering NES game strategies but I remember the production values being as obnoxiously bad as the magazine.

I guess anything having to do with Nintendo back then sold well enough to subsidize the flashier Game Players of the 90s.

[dairugger]

anyone ever hear of Super Gaming ? i've got two issues of this.. i think it was made around the time of the superfamicom-before it became the snes, and dealt with 16bit gaming.. anyone?

Till this day i miss GameFan... Next Gen was also cool- it dealt with the hardware and technical aspect of gaming usually.

[MegaDrive20XX]

GamePlayers August of 95' issue was the shit...simply because it finally told me how to finish Demon's Crest LOL

[rolenta]

If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure that Game Players went like this:


Game Players
Ultra Game Players
Ultimate Gamer


Ultimate Gamer (7/95 - 1/96) had nothing to do with the other two (4-5/89 - 6/98).

Whoever has the third edition of Phoenix can see a 'history of US videogame magazines' in Appendix D.

[bangtango]

Game Players - this is issue 74, so it must have been fairly mainstream, but ive never heard of it.

Video Games - theres a few of these, seems a ridiculously generic title.

Gamefan - apparently ran 3 years or more, and i think ive seen this one for sale in the past, but dont recall exactly. i expect this is the most common among the anomolies.

and finally S.W.A.T.PRO - i have one issue, not labeled as the issue or volume number.

I hope this helps........

Game Players was a magazine known for having very lengthy reviews, probably longer than any other magazine. I first heard about the NES Game Genie, because Game Players did very good coverage of it before it came out. The magazine was around for quite some time and underwent a major style revision. However, the reviews still remained lengthy. Both the old version (the cover looked like the USA Today newspaper) and the new version (the cover looked like Gamepro) had very long reviews which gave a single score. Very good if you wanted to know everything good and bad about a particular game being reviewed but it sucked if you wanted a variety of opinions.

Video Games was known in the 1980's as Video Games and Computer Entertainment. It originally was a very serious and dry gaming magazine that most people thought was a little boring. They shortened it to Video Games sometime in the 1990's and the number of pages shrunk. Different writers took over and they spent their short existence running endless coverage for Mortal Kombat II (in contrast to EGM which was "paid for" by Street Fighter 2 coverage).

Gamefan was always made fun of by EGM writers who would waste total paragraphs talking about the so-called spelling errors in Gamefan.

The issue of SWATPRO that you have was probably the premiere. I think it may have had a ton of coverage on NES Maniac Mansion, including showing how to get all the endings. I have that one. I think it was intended only as a one-time special but it was so well received that it became a monthly (then bi-monthly) magazine for awhile, nothing but wall to wall tips and game strategies (ala Tips and Tricks today)

[smokehouse]

loved Gamefan magazine. I still have the first two years (missing that obscure first issue though, it was only sold locally in small numbers).

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/smokehouse/Game%20reviews/gamefanshot2.jpg

[Jorpho]

That blue thing is really creepy.

[c0ldb33r]

I haven't seen one in years, but I seem to remember GameFAN carrying alot of TG-16 info, so I really liked it :D

Also, I loved FLUX magazine, I only ever bought two copies then it disappeared around here :(

[diskoboy]

I have the June/July 1996 issue of P.S.X. Magazine. I didn't think it was a really good mag.

Probably why I only have the one issue.

[Ed Oscuro]

That blue thing is really creepy.
I know. What the hell's his story, anyway?

[dairugger]

monitour's the shit!

[Anthony1]

I love Monitaur. He has a custom blue Commodore 1084S-D1 on his head!

[j_factor]

I really liked Gamefan because they covered whatever they felt like, instead of whatever was the most popular. They would go out on a limb and be the only mag to hype a certain game. They always had a lot of enthusiasm and gusto. They were a little ridiculous sometimes, but they really lived up to their name, Game FAN, and I liked that. Hardcore Gamer Magazine is supposed to be its successor, but I've found HGM to be fairly blasé in comparison.

Next Gen was really professional and unbiased, with high-calibre writing. I really liked how much real information you could learn from reading it. A great mag for most of its run, but it sucked towards the end (circa 2001).

Game Players was pretty popular, but they were just okay IMO.

[scorch56]

Next Generation is my favorite game mag of all time. I bought the first four issues on eB awhile back. I wish I hadn't thrown away all my old ones. If it wasn't for that magazine.. and their preview of Mechwarrior 2 way back when, before it came out, I'd have never bought my first PC.. a 133MHz IBM! It's kind of funny rereading the first issues that came out before the Playstation was released. "Will it suvive?" "Can Sony deliver?" "Will it be better than the SNES and Genesis?".. gee.. I don't know. ;) .. Let's wait and see.

[2Dskillz]

Video Games was actually my first game mag subscription. The first place I had ever heard of resident evil. It was a fun mag from what I can recall.

[Kevincal]

I was really into videogame mags back in the early to mid 90's. I had subs to EGM and GamePro and I bought Game Players, GameFan, and Next Generation off the shelf. GameFan was my favorite. It just oozed quality and it was entertaining to read. EGM was ok but they were chock full of advertisements. I actually liked GamePro more than EGM. As for Game Players, the staff of that magazine actually does PSM magazine to this day.

[fennec fox]

P.S.X. - Playstation Experience
Game Players
In The Game: The Definitive Guide To Sports Gaming 95/96
NEXT Generation
Video Games
Gamefan
FLUX
PS*X
Ultimate Gamer
and finally S.W.A.T.PRO


P.S.X. (http://www.magweasel.com/wiki/P.S.X.) is the PlayStation magazine Sendai published. Ziff continued publishing it after buying Sendai before getting an official license from Sony and turning it into Official PlayStation Magazine.

Game Players (http://www.magweasel.com/wiki/Game_Players) went through all sorts of incarnations between 1989 and 1998. Its last hurrah was Game Buyer (http://www.magweasel.com/wiki/Game_Buyer), not Ultimate Gamer.

In The Game is probably a supplement to some EGM issue or another.

Next Generation (http://www.magweasel.com/wiki/Next_Generation) is pretty well-known, as is GameFan (http://www.magweasel.com/wiki/Game_Fan).

VideoGames and Ultimate Gamer were both magazines launched off by LFP after VideoGames & Computer Entertainment ceased. There was also Computer Player and Tips & Tricks from that era. I never really followed what Ultimate Gamer's editorial goals were, and neither did they, I guess, because there're only six issues.

PS*X is probably Dimension PSX, which was later renamed PSExtreme and lasted in assorted incarnations all the way until June 2006.

S.W.A.T.Pro was the tips magazine for GamePro. it launched as S.W.A.T. in 1991 and lasted until 1996 or so (perhaps later; can't remember exactly offhand). It was resurrected in 2001 as Code Vault, which was monthly for a period of time but now publishes seasonally to newsstands only.

[Aswald]

Yes, several.

Flux was, for the most part, pure 1990s drivel, except for two articles: One on how to get an actual arcade machine, and an amazing list of top games of all time (as of the mid-1990s). Space Invaders made the number 1 spot.

Intelligent Gamer tried to be different. That was its downfall.

[WanganRunner]

NEXT Generation. This magazine is printed like a high quality guide book. i have some of the first years worth, but i cant expect a magazine of this quality could last long. Lots of pages(208), and retailed at $4.99


I LOVED this magazine, it was so choice.

I started getting EGM again recently and I'm just damned disappointed in it. The issues are so small! 100 pages?? Late-90's EGMs were often 150+, sometimes even more!

[Push Upstairs]

100 pages? Wow that was like a summer month issue or something from the early 90's.

Winter issues were almost always 200+ pages.

[Steven]

100 pages? Wow that was like a summer month issue or something from the early 90's.

Winter issues were almost always 200+ pages.

Again, I feel EGM's 92-94 years were simply unbeatable. Like 80% of those issues in that time frame were 200 pages or more, with a couple breaking 350 or 400.

They were the best. I like GameFan, but do find it a TAD overrated. For me, 92-94 EGM is where it's at

[Push Upstairs]

They would be perfect if it weren't for the fact that they were in love with "Street Fighter 2".

But i do get a chuckle from reading letters where readers totally call them on thier bias only to have Ed respond with some horseshit answer.

They loved that game so much that any anwser other than "Yes we love this game so much it affects our scoring" or "Yep, we some kickback from Capcom" would be laughable.