Found : A stack of EGMs (my fav game mag, probably not saying much) mostly from the summer of 2000 - surprised to see I had not thrown them away, made an interesting snapshot of gaming/game media as it was in the year 2000...after a quick scan :
- The EGM’s are very thick have a ton of content. A half dozen of them are pretty dang heavy! The ‘heyday’ of gaming magazines??
-Unsurprisingly, the industry looks more or less the same - same hype for graphics (‘high resolution’ expansion pack N64 games like Madden, DK and Majora’s, tons of hype for Dreamcast visuals in reviews, mega hype at the looming launch of PS2 based on screenshots and FMV vids), Basically the same types of games you see now, a lot of the same franchises and some that I had forgotten and have died off. Hype of racing games, licensed sports games, fps over all.
-Complaining about Nintendo being kiddy, ignoring Nintendo as much as possible - 5 of the 9 mags I found have ZERO N64 reviews, and yet they reviewed dreck shovel ware PS games like Woody Woodpecker Racing, Sammy Sosa Softball, Expendables, etc, same story on DC - review every game, dreck or not, under the sun. (It’s no wonder us Nintendo fans are such prickly pears, eh? We have endured 15 years of this crap!)
-Overrated ‘classics’ - Bond :TWINE N64 : 9.5,8.5,9.5, Perfect Dark N64 :10,9.5,10 Ecco the Dolphin DC : 9,9.5,6, Sonic Adventure DC : 9.5,9,9.5,8.5
-PS2 (unreleased at this point) predicted to have a 10 year life span because of raw power - EGM calls B.S., new tech will come in around 2005 - well it did, but the 10 year life span looks accurate as well - interesting.
-Letter to the editor defending Nintendo for making a cute party game that focused on 4 player multiplayer fun - Mario Party 2! - and it wins letter of the month - LOL! Wait till you see Le Wii Sports, Mario Party SUCKS and has always SUCKED!
-Internet : Lots of praise for SEGANet on Dreamcast, and Dreamcast for breaking the ground. Mucho coverage of online DC games….PS2 not planning on launching with a modem cause whatever they could configure in development NOW would be obsolete when it launched - GC to have snap on broadband and 56k modems adapters on the bottom of Cube. Have not seen them yet!
-Foreshadowing : Motion Control - retro article about ‘LeStik’ for Atari 2600 - mercury motion sensing one handed controller with button on top - EGM surprised no one tried that again, and the ‘U-force’ motion sensing controller for NES, compatible with Punch-out. Preview on the upcoming Kirby GB Tilt and Roll motion sensing cartridge. Aslo, music peripherals : the first gaming guitar?? made for ’Guitar Freaks’ Will that catch on???
-Praise for Microsoft getting into the game industry, EGM editorializes it gives gaming ‘mainstream’ cred, just like have Uncle Sony - well, say goodbye to SEGA, then, DC lovers, and in the future you can seethe at Nintendo for being more mainstream in the GAMING industry than Sony and MS….(thats bad now - better to be hardcore!) They hope XBOX will not be loaded down with ‘quick and dirty’ PC ports, cause they consider PC gaming to be dreck city…
-In a general column on the subject of system launches - 4 of 6 ‘Final word’ columnists admit to selling their SNES collections to fund hype induced $700 purchase of 3D0 at launch-Most voiced disappointed in a later ‘Final Word’ column on the initial PS2 launch because they also fell for hype and believed it to be an ‘invincible machine’- and then saw fog in 2 player racing games! Noooooooo! I guess the PS2 ‘recovered’ though, eh?
-Article on Launch of GC and GBA - GC easier to program for then PS2 and N64, EGM concerned if an unknown studio name ‘Retro’ can handle Metroid and do it justice, RARE passed the project up…Mario 128 tech demo impresses, infamous Link/Ganon battle video. Hype for GC/GBA computability and game uses.
-Just think in 2000 Nintendo was STILL SELLING the ORIGINAL Gameboy and GBC... Wow! - How many GBA/DS units have sold since then???, seems like a lifetime ago, even the GBA did not launch with a back lit screen - unreal.
US Sales Chart June 1999 : 5 Gameboy games, 5 N64 games, 10 PS games, - top 6 all Nintendo. (earliest mag I found)
US Sales chart May 2000 : 5 Gameboy games, 4 N64 games, 11 PS games, 0 Dreamcast games, Nintendo has 5 of top 6
US Sales Chart August 2000 : 5 gameboy games, 3 N64 games, 11 PS games, 1 Dreamcast game,(World Series Baseball 2001) PS has 5 of top 7. (latest mag I found. December 2000 issue)
There you have it, if I find anything else of interest or if you do - post - and that’s the way it was….
