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.

[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

[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).

[Jorpho]

That blue thing is really creepy.