pablumatic

Pretty amazing how good that magazine looked in 1986 compared to what I was reading in 1989 with EGM. The stage maps pictures they took back then looked perfect. I remember a lot of American magazines have a lot of difficulty achieving that seamless look. The layout in general looks far beyond what I was seeing early on. Its at least 5 years ahead of its western counterparts and its the first issue.

Its hard to find good quality scans of old game instructions online. Any action taken towards addressing this is fine by me.

Ideally I'd prefer all my games to have physical copies. The only time I do get digital copies is when I have no physical release alternative.

I use DOSBox to almost exclusively play the original X-COM and DOOM and its variations.

I remember Zanac having crazy cheat codes. The North American version's debug mode required you to have a Zapper plugged in, and then you had to very gently eject the game until it got to the right state. I don't remember the exact combination for it now, but it was the weirdest. Zanac also has a level select where you need to press reset on the NES 13 times. Somehow the game can count reset presses.

My favorite childhood activity was going around my town playing the various arcade games at the gas stations, restaurants, and grocery stores. Back then there'd be new ones in most locations every six months or so. My mother refused to let me go to the local arcade in the mall. It was too dark for her and she feared drugs were being sold in there or something. So I obeyed her and went everywhere else arcade games were located.

I want to say Electronic Gaming Monthly #2 was the first gaming mag I got, but more than likely its NIntendo Power. I don't really know because I did get NIntendo Power for free for at least a few months in 1988 when it started. NIntendo must have gotten my address from mailing in a registration card. The free subscription probably ended and my parents had already subscribed for me before I got EGM #2. Self-purchased first gaming mag was an issue of Diehard Gamefan.

Got a "New" 3DS XL Having used it for a couple weeks I've noticed I did not need to upgrade from my old 3DS XL at all. The screens are the same to my eyes and nothing I play uses the new buttons. Its even slightly more annoying to use because you have to use a tiny screwdriver to dig out the microsd card if you want to replace it with a higher capacity one.

For dedicated handhelds all I play these days are a New 3DS XL and (rarely) Vita. I do game with my smartphone sometimes, but since its touchscreen only I limit gaming on it to turn-based RPGs and Pac-Man variations.

Removal of random encounters sounds like it would only help speed along the game if you were already at a high enough level to beat boss encounters. So I don't mind the inclusion. Players would not get very far without eventually turning them back on to raise their levels through grinding.

For scan viewing on a desktop I use Irfanview. For my Ipad I use the app called FileBrowser. FileBrowser lets me view Windows file shared folders and view magazine scans wirelessly rather than keeping them on the Ipad itself.

I subscribed to Nintendo Power up until the Nintendo 64 era. Early issues of Nintendo Power were great. That was when Nintendo had every game I wanted to play. Basically as soon as Sony swept up third parties with the Playstation I began to lose interest in Nintendo Power's more first-party focus content.

Longtime classic video game fan here. 39 years old. Looking for issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly and it seems I'm in the right spot.

Electronic Gaming Monthly would be my pick. They seemed to have all the scoops back then. Diehard Gamefan came a little later and while I liked the quality of Gamefan more than EGM, the difficulties I had in getting issues I paid for via subscription soured me a bit on it.

GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and Video Games & Computer Entertainment were the three gaming mags I read religiously in the early 90s. GamePro was my second favorite next to EGM, but I did like Gamepro's cover art a lot better than the slapdash designs EGM put out to scoop everyone else.