Guide books, magazines, and "mooks" thread

[Cu-Neo]

I used to read a lot of Club nintendo. It was basically the monthly nintendo magazine in latin america. There was a lot of reviews to read (my favorite part was "pasacartas' in which you sent a question and they would answer back your question). Sometimes they would release a special edition dedicated to some nintendo characters like the Donkey kong one that I have in which they spoke about the character story and the franchise evolution. Sadly the magazine died in 2018 because they couldn't get sales on the "digital market". And also Televisa cut all the budget and that was the main reason of why the quality of the magazine became worse.

 

[ATenderLad]

This dumb thing.

Read a lot of that and EGM in the mid-90's, pretty fun reads back then.

 

[frankie_santana]

I recomend https://revistareplay.com.ar/
Its in spanish

 

[DanCalibur]

For me it was Nintendo World, the official nintendo magazine in Brazil. It was a joy to read for it's first 5 years or so. It was like playing the games I couldn't buy in my head?

 

[ATenderLad]

While digging through old comics, I found a few crumbs of gaming magazines, time for a journey without value!

Lord but what was that Sub-Zero design supposed to communicate, he has suspenders that double as a life preserver.

(No, I won't tell you the Ultimate Kombat Kode. I *can't*. It'll only pass from my lips as a death rattle, whispered in the ear of my slayer. Your blood for my blood, may it please the gods we curse.)

Very normal people, goodbrained, the lot of them.

Presumably they were all put to death to hide how terrible this port was, a grim foundation of bones and regret for the throne of lies.

True story, I was the first person to be struck in the head by a penny thrown off the Empire State Building, and I've been in a coma since the 90's. Was the Nomad everything they promised?

Hahahahahano no no, you don't have to tell me this one, I know this shit didn't work.

"Prepare to be Romanced!" Sometimes, you just don't have a second idea.

Street Fighter Alpha looks sick as fuck, y'all.

Seriously, don't cross it.

Eat shit, 32-bit systems, your polygons will never catch on. Godless, many-angled heathens.

Little known fact, Ari Aster cut his teeth in print, before hot-stepping it to Hollywood.

The kid up the street had some pictures of Tapion he'd printed out, he convinced me this was a Dragon Ball spinoff.

You think anyone's ever called Kirby "cute" and lived to tell about it? I won't be the first to try, I'll tell you that right fucking now.

Y'all, gaming magazines were so stupid, and I miss them something fierce.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

I used to read a lot of Club nintendo. It was basically the monthly nintendo magazine in latin america. There was a lot of reviews to read (my favorite part was "pasacartas' in which you sent a question and they would answer back your question). Sometimes they would release a special edition dedicated to some nintendo characters like the Donkey kong one that I have in which they spoke about the character story and the franchise evolution. Sadly the magazine died in 2018 because they couldn't get sales on the "digital market". And also Televisa cut all the budget and that was the main reason of why the quality of the magazine became worse.
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Lmaoo DK’s deadpanned face really caught me offgaurd.

 

[Cu-Neo]

Lmaoo DK’s deadpanned face really caught me offgaurd.

There's one of Mario too

Imagine waking up and seeing mario looking at you like that ?

 

[Yousef Yousef]

There's one of Mario tooView attachment 4679
Imagine waking up and seeing mario looking at you like that ?

“¿El mundo de Mario? O el mundo de tus pecados!”

 

[TheGamesArchivist]

GamePro (long live the cheat-related spinoff, Code Vault), GameFan, Tips & Tricks, Nintendo Power, EGM...think that was about it.

 

[MyNameIsJeff]

Sometimes one of my classmates would bring in their copy of Game Informer during a class where nothing was happening and we would read it. We played this game where whoever had the book would get punched in the leg repeatedly until they gave up and passed the magazine on...we were dumbasses. Also, since I didn't often have internet at home, I relied on G4 a lot. The existence of shows specifically for videos games and nerd culture blew my mind as a preteen....only for G4 to be shut down a few years later. I didn't exactly catch the channel during it's 2000's golden age.

 

[FedexHollow98]

Here in argentina i read some local magazines like Xtreme PC, Next Level and Loaded

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Although sometimes other friends from school had others like Club Nintendo, Club Playstation (being summarized in later installments as "Club Play") and Hobby Consolas (that one was imported by magazine stores)

View attachment D_NQ_NP_893485-MLA75487535260_042024-O.webp View attachment revista-hobby-consolas-n-118-tekken-4.webp

 

[Mecharocca]

I used to religiously read GMR Magazine (a Ziff Davis spin-off featuring the 1UP peeps).
It was just one of those moments back in the day, like with TV Shows where you happened to luck out and catch it when it first started and kept a following of it.

It didn't last long, but I did purchase every single one and on the mags anniversary, messaged some of the creators on Twitter and they answered/were pretty nice. I sold a lot of my game collection but I still keep each and every single one of these mags. They felt like denser, more zanier/cooler versions of EGM, so I appreciated it for that.

 

[Boo Man]

 

[newageretrohippie]

This dumb thing.

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Read a lot of that and EGM in the mid-90's, pretty fun reads back then.

Diehard gamefan was my favorite. Evidently, most of the staff was in high school or middle school in agoura hills, ca at the time!

really puts it in perspective once you know that.

i only have 2 issues left. i wish i had them all!

 

[What's His Face]

Unlike a significant portion of my classmates, I did not sign-up for Nintendo Power when they were giving away Dragon Warrior for free, but waited for the next special offer of some free game guides (NES Atlus, Game Boy Players Guide, Mario Mania, and Super NES Players Guide)...though my memory says the offer was for 4 of those things I also somehow wound-up getting The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Top Secret Passwords Players Guides in the mail (maybe from re-subscription?).

I also subscribed for a time to EGM, Game Players SEGA Nintendo (and later Playstation Monthly/PSM (most of the same crew), and of course Game Informer. While I never subscrtibed to Die Hard GameFan, I did buy several issues of that magazine. I mostly shied away from GamePro - something about their print style just was unappealing to me.

I miss print gaming magazines. They were so nice to have available whenever I needed to take a dump. It's just not the same with a tablet/phone.

 

[newageretrohippie]

Unlike a significant portion of my classmates, I did not sign-up for Nintendo Power when they were giving away Dragon Warrior for free, but waited for the next special offer of some free game guides (NES Atlus, Game Boy Players Guide, Mario Mania, and Super NES Players Guide)...though my memory says the offer was for 4 of those things I also somehow wound-up getting The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Top Secret Passwords Players Guides in the mail (maybe from re-subscription?).

I also subscribed for a time to EGM, Game Players SEGA Nintendo (and later Playstation Monthly/PSM (most of the same crew), and of course Game Informer. While I never subscrtibed to Die Hard GameFan, I did buy several issues of that magazine. I mostly shied away from GamePro - something about their print style just was unappealing to me.

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I miss print gaming magazines. They were so nice to have available whenever I needed to take a dump. It's just not the same with a tablet/phone.

That dragon warrior guide was trash, anyway. They had based it on a preproduction cart and literally every stat was incorrect to the cart i owned

 

[RebelofDaNeonGod]

These four magazines (especially Expert Gamer), without exaggeration, changed my entire being and taste. I was poor as hell, so I never could afford a subscription to any of these magazines, not only that, it was like 2008-2009 (I was around 8), so many of these magazines were just gone. I didn't know a single thing about these games, or had any interest outside of the few games I had (gamecube, n64, ps2). One day, while my Ma and older brother were taking a walk in the neighborhood, they found this big box of magazines, shit had to weigh around 50ish LBS. Inside was just a massive amount of these exact magazines with some Nintendo Power and car magazines thrown in. Over the next 3 years, I would pour over every single one, marking which game I wanted to play. It lead me to emulation and now here I am, still fawning over old ass video games years later, still grinning ear to ear when a game gets a translation.

 

[pressyturny]

My gamestop membership had a free game informer subscription, so I read that front to back. I used to cut out the pictures and put them up in places bc holy moly gaming is in the REAL LIFE?!?! I read one from 2017 again recently and what a trip. I guess I know where my interest in gaming really started.

 

[Lena CE]

I miss printed news media, been thinking about it a lot lately. The last magazine I subscribed to was Vita Mag, it was a lovely independent publication that - as the name implied - just centered around the little handheld that could. Prior to that I was subscribed to Game Informer and I'd pick up whatever magazines I could find at garage sales and what not.

As far as current stuff goes, are ya'll into anything? I know pretty much every major publication has bowed out of the space or switched to all digital but that a handful of retro-focused independent magazines exist. Anyone know if they're worth a damn?

 

[Stookymalarkey]

I haven't seen any on the magazine rack here in Canada in years. I didn't even know there were still some independent ones out there. The internet's ability to get articles out ASAP for info craving games has taken a lot of the luster from print media for better or worse.

 

[INTIMIDAT3R]

Gaming magazines I miss...

MEGA Play
Electronic Gaming Monthly
GamePro
GameFan
Game Informer

 

[RGM4646]

The app name 'Readly' (IOS and Android) has a few decent magazines. Not printed but still decent

 

[RageBurner]

Here we had a curious case: the 16 bit wars raged ferociously, as it did everywhere else, and with the Mega Drive/SNES divide that existed, so too there were two famous specialist magazines back in the day, Super Game (Sega) and Game Power (Nintendo).

Growing up with Sega, obviously Super Game was a common read for me, but as time passed, the two magazines combined into Super Game Power.

The coverage became wider, but I hated the merger because the reviews had an obvious pro Nintendo bias from that point on.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I miss reading magazines, but I believe their time is long over.

People would subscribe to weekly (or even monthly) publications with the expectation that that info couldn't be found anywhere else, and that's simply no longer the case.

 

[χKai]

I haven't read gaming mags since EGM was called Electronic Gaming Monthly.