The Nintendo Kid

[A Black Falcon]

I was subscribed from vol. 47 (some time in 1992, had the SNES Star Fox on the cover) until possibly 150-something. As far as I'm concerned it started going downhill around vol. 80 - about the time they took out the Manila-folder design for Classified Information Considering the amount of noise people made about it I'm surprised they didn't change it back, but IMO that wasn't their biggest error. The redesigns just made the mag way more confusing and less coherent. Originally you had columns that told you: 1) what the best games are, overall; 2) all the games that are coming out this month, in a list from the best to the worst; 3) all the games that are coming out in the future, in a list from most to least anticipated. After they lost all that and got into "objective" reviewing and gossiping, I just couldn't be bothered. I don't know that they're up to these days, but when I stopped getting the mag they were trying (and failing) to be like a game website or something.

Yeah, one of NP's perennial problems is that they historically haven't structured it like the other "normal" gaming magazines -- they haven't had the giant, in-depth review section that is the core of most gaming magazines, for instance... instead they've always had the "mini-strategy-guide-slash-advertisement" section instead. With level maps for early game levels, in the 2d days. :) (I remember that they tried maps of 3d games in the first issue with N64 games, for Mario 64 and Pilotwings... it didn't work well, and they mostly went away. :)) It was different, and it worked... but yes, with time they've been trying to make it more 'conventional' but not going all the way so it just hurt the magazine. Giving some kind of real score to the games was an improvement, but their latest review system (before this redesign) wasn't so good... let's hope it's improved. I'm just hoping for a better gaming magazine, at this point. It'll never go back to the way it was in the early '90s and I don't know if it could, with todays different gaming climate...

Oh, and too bad you missed issue 44 (Jan. '92), it had a paper-model Arwing in the Subscriber's Bonus section... among other cool stuff. :)

Nintendo Power had a purpose back when I got it, because internet game web sites didn't even exist at the time. (The internet was a huge BBS system wherein you first had to find out the phone number for the BBS you wanted access to, then in a DOS style you would view a large text file with COLORS, and then type in the download command if in fact there are one of those... things you can download... like the latest Commander Keen demo... at 8 baud....)

That was BBSes, DJ. The Internet is different, in that it uses a browser... the internet didn't really become usable until the invention of Mosaic in 1994, and it took a couple years for most people to discover it. By 1997 for sure, however (and starting in '95 really), the internet was fairly popular...

Cooincidentally, the two years I subscribed to NP were early '95 to early '97. :) Oh, I also have the Dec. '92 and Jan. '93 issues... the mag was so great back then, I wish I had more of them. Oh, it was still good in '95, but was it quite as good as it was in '92? I'm not so sure...

But anyway, I realize now that even then it was painfully biased. Occasionally they would take time out of their busy review schedule to tell the readers why the Genesis SUUUUCKED, and with little comic asides drawn in the style of a political comic...

But Nester was great! Removing him was another bad thing they did as the years progressed. Along with ditching the regular monthly serial comics...

Anyway, I didn't care about them changing the look, but I did love the Epic center when that finally arrived, right about the time I was really getting obsessed with the SNES's great strength, a billion RPGs. It was nice to have this huge list of hidden one time only items for this RPG or that.

Agreed, Epic Center was a great addition. Though remember how, in the N64 days, for a while it got ... suspended... for months at a time because of how few games that it would qualify to cover were being released? :D

In conclusion, there was a time when this stuff actually was nice to have around. Today though, I can get all the upcoming game data I could want, in fact too much, for FREE. I have no reason to get the slow drip from a game magazine that's almost always behind the times. Magazines today aren't giving up the ghost either. They hang on for dear life by offering things like demo disks. I don't care about demo disks though. Now, one in paticular offers something that actually would be motivation for me, exclusive extra game content for certain XBox games. I do think that's a little rude though. All that content is probably downloadable on XBox Live by now though, or at least eventually. They'd be stupid not to do that...

They're nice to have because there's nothing quite like having that information on actual paper... I've been getting a free subscription to CGW for the last six months or so, and it made me remember how much I liked PC Gamer for those five years I got it... (CGW's not as good as PCG, though, so it made me wish for PCG more than anything... but the PCG of five years back. The PCG of the last five years ... well, there's a reason I stopped subscribing, and it's not just "faster internet connection"... it's not awful now, but it's a pale imitation of its old self.)

And about a third as long on average as it was in '97 or '98 too...

For that, player's guides, and EVERY SINGLE GAME has them now (used to be only the very best selling games had the privilage of getting a player's guide), are the thing to have. Not only that, there's not just the one by the makers of the game, there are 3 others by companies like Prima and so on you have to pick from.

But why would anyone ever buy one when Gamefaqs is 98% as good (just missing the maps, usually, as you say), and doesn't cost anything? Magazines I understand wanting to own, but player's guides... only for a game I really, really think I need the help in. (the few player's guides I own meet that criteria -- Caesar II, SimCity 2000, and a couple of others... the player's guides were fantastic help for those games. And besides, Gamefaqs wasn't around yet back then... :))