Electronic Gaming Monthly was one of the most successful gaming magazines and one of my favorites. I never subscribed but did buy issues frequently and bought pretty much every issue in a span between 1990 and 1993. By 1998 I was rarely buying an issue. I'm not sure why really but I guess like everybody else, I was starting to get more content online. Contents from the September 1998 issue include:
Features
- Metal Gear Solid - Nothing had been seen from the Metal Gear franchise for the better part of a decade. In fact, it couldn't really be called a franchise at that point. But it was back in a big way on the PlayStation in 3D glory so of course EGM had a story on it.
- Hurry Up and Die So I Can Play - This is an article on female game designers and sound engineers. Why sound engineers specifically vs. graphic artists or other game designers? I have no idea. Anyway, this article goes into how female game designers and sound engineers feel about current (at the time) female characters in gaming.
Table of Contents from the September 1998 issue of Electronic Gaming MonthlyDepartments
- Editorial - This editorial is about making gaming a little more grown-up instead of something targeted at adolescent males.
- Letters - The Letter of the Month talks about how Sony made the PlayStation a success with their marketing despite it being technically inferior to the Nintendo 64. It foreshadows the failure of the Dreamcast with a warning to heed the lessons of the PlayStation vs. the Saturn.
- Press Start - EGM's news section. The feature story was about violence in video games and Florida's latest attempt at censorship (which fortunately failed).
- Gaming Gossip - A regular column featuring rumors and gossip in the gaming industry. This month the Dreamcast, Game Boy Color games, and Saturn's Virtua Fighter 3 were the topics.
- Review Crew - EGM's regular reviews section. Pocket Fighter, Banjo Kazooie and Shining Force III were the featured games though there were many other reviews.
- Previews - EGM's regular previews section. It is similar to the reviews section except it looks at unfinished games with an uncritical eye. For the Nintendo 64, Twisted Edge SnowBoarding, Bomberman Hero, Madden NFL 99 and Wipeout 64 were looked at among others. For the PlayStation Bust-a-Groove, Parasite Eve, Tenchu, Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, and Colony Wars: Vengeance were featured. For the Saturn, Castlevania was the featured preview. There were arcade previews too (big name arcade game were still being made in 1998) including Street Fighter Alpha III, Daytona 2, Soul Calibur and Gauntlet Legends.
- Jump Start - This is what EGM was calling their strategy section. This month's featured strategy was on Vigilante 8.
This and the Nintendo Magazine were my life every weekend, then I realized that it was just an advertising strategy of the big companies
Nintendo Power was owned by Nintendo and was an official publication so it tended to be more advertising than editorial. EGM always seemed to be pretty honest to me though. Before the Internet, gaming magazines were the only way to get information about games.
The magazines from the 1990s and 2000s had an exceptional graphic style. Spectacular.
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