Areala

The Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer showcased on page 128 is, hands down, the single best computer mouse I've ever used in my life. I got one back in 1999 and used it until it finally died in 2020. They're impossible to find now (Microsoft sells a new version, but they just don't 'feel' the same), but I keep hoping I'll stumble on one in a thrift store somewhere.

42 minutes ago, TresHombres said:

But please be sorry for maligning the amazing Waialae Country Club! (kidding haha...but I do own it...haha)

Hey, did I not say it was the real reason everybody bought the book? How is that maligning what is obviously the best-selling launch title for the SNES based on the sport of golf?

15 minutes ago, TresHombres said:

Download link redirects to Amazon

I...have absolutely no idea how that happened. I've submitted the file again, and it seems to have fixed things on my end. Let me know if it's still not working. I'm so sorry! 

In case anyone is curious, the answers to the quiz on page 54 are:

Spock: "I don't think so...sir?"
Quark: "You should be on Bajor with your wife."
Data: "It's green." (They got this wrong; Data doesn't use contractions, so it should be "It is green.")
Torres: "You'd let me go insane rather than help me."

This gratuitous display of full-frontal nerdity brought to you by Areala who, it should be noted, still loves her Lara Croft toys despite their, uh, 'facial anomalies'.

Every time I go to the doctor, I always get asked, "Have you done anything recently that might increase your blood pressure?" And I pause, I think about @kitsunebi and enjoying all the magazines featuring pretty young women that he uploads here, then I look my doctor right in the eye and say, "Nope, can't think of a single thing..." 

I love seeing these early issues of CGR! Thanks so much for getting this edited and uploaded, @MigJmz!  

I'm sorry, this still cracks me up even twenty-two years later. 

2 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

Like the excitement of catching sight of a boob while watching a late night movie on the free weekend preview of Cinemax back in the day[. . .]

( . Y . )

4 minutes ago, kitsunebi said:

I haven't bought a game in the last 20 years, but do they even have cheat codes anymore?  It seems like they would have lost their mystique now that everything's a google search away.  What made them cool back in the day was that they'd show up once in whatever your favorite mag was as a kid.  If you missed that issue, which was entirely possible because you spent your allowance on comic books that month, you'd never even know the code existed, unless maybe one of your friends got the code from another mag and you could excitedly scribble it down while passing the mag around after school.  It was their relative UNavailability that made them interesting.

Thanks to the largely online and achievement-focused swerve that video games have taken since the 360/PS3 era, cheat codes in games are largely a thing of the past. You'll also notice that you don't see peripherals like the GameShark or Pro Action Replay any longer, for much the same reason. Developers want you to earn those achievements/trophies, not just blast through the game using infinite ammo and health cheats.

I can think of only a handful of games from within the last, oh, fifteen years or so that included cheat codes. The usual trade-off for them today is that they either prevent you from saving your game, or they disable all trophies/achievements on your save file if you activate them. The last game I'm aware of that allowed you to input a cheat code without actively screwing you over in some way was Dead Space, which had some single-use codes that allowed you to refill your stasis meter, gave you some money, or added some power nodes to your inventory. No invincibility cheats or weapon/ammo codes though.

2 minutes ago, dablais said:

I just realized that page 198 is missing... just curious, was it because it was a blank page ?

It's always good to keep them in, so when you look the magazine in a two-page fashion, the numbering and page don't change.

Thanks again for this one!

I'm pretty sure if it was left out, it was because it was a blank page. I don't have the book any longer to check, sadly. I have to cut the spines off, and they get recycled after they've been scanned. Back when I was starting this, I had extremely slow internet so I was doing everything I could to keep file sizes down, and that did include leaving out blank pages. I always forget people like to use two-page mode for viewing, and yeah, that probably did disrupt the flow of the book, considering there are maps that stretch across the gutter.

I guess one could simply insert a blank page in the appropriate spot in the file...? Maybe I can figure out how to do that and re-upload the fix.

Wasn't that Miyamoto guy the one who created Sonic the Hedgehog for the TurboGrafx-16 and saved Squaresoft from bankruptcy by programming Streets of Rage in a single, epic, 48-hour binge? Yeah, he's probably doing just fine right now. Better than the poor tosser who invented Donkey Kong, that's for sure.

I shall stick with "Retromags Goddess", and continue to be worshiped as such.

I do download each of your releases. I can't say that I read everything since my Japanese comprehension sits comfortably at Kindergarten levels, but I love flipping through them, finding something that catches my eye, and straining my translation skill trying to figure out just what I'm looking at.

I just do what I can to be a friendly face. This is such a fun hobby with more history than I'll ever know, probably more than could ever be compiled in any one location, and I love being a part of that. To my way of thinking, acknowledging the hard work of everyone else who contributes is the literal least I can do.

I really can't thank you enough for all the work you do with these Japanese magazines.

I actually met Robert DeJesus at a small comic shop in Northern Indiana back in the 90's (he's an Indiana native, and wasn't there for a meet-and-greet or anything, just was hanging out with the owner of the shop he frequented), but being a shy, awkward teenager I managed to stammer out that I liked work he did for Antarctic Press a lot, shook his hand quickly, then darted away into the long boxes in the hope that he wouldn't realize how weird and nerdy I was. Didn't get anything signed, or a picture, or anything like that. 

S I G H . . . 

Speaking of Banzai Chibi-chan, when DeJesus joined Twitter, his handle was @Banzchib.

No, wasn't stalking him! Why would you even think something like that...? B-baka yarou! 

4 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

What is life, really, but one big eroge?  Making decisions of what to do and what to say in order to get laid?

Only without the Save/Reload feature that lets you go back and try again if you put your foot in your mouth.

Man, the walkthrough for 'Campus' took me right back to my college days... 

I will control my sorrow.

But would you truly be happy uploading files that small, instead of ones that are nearly a gigabyte in size?

14 minutes ago, dablais said:

Thanks @Areala for these old vintages books!!!  I really like them!

You're welcome! There's more where these came from too.

*huggles*
Areala

Just think about 200 issues of Dengenki PlayStation, where we'll have fifty pages of Tomb Raider coverage!

48 minutes ago, JimJam78 said:

Awesome.  Text adventures were a bit before my time, but they we're always kind of fascinating to me.  And now, a nice, handy guide to a bunch.

There are also a number of early graphical adventure games covered here too! It's delightful.

38 minutes ago, kitsunebi said:

I never played text adventures as a kid but I did play some of the earliest "graphic adventures," which were just text adventures stripped of 98% of the writing with some static pictures thrown in.

Big's game is almost too fancy to be real...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysvNjGyqsxY

My first PC game (well, Tandy) was Space Quest I, so it's the 3D graphic adventure genre that shaped my childhood.  Back then, for me there were no "adventure games" or "action games" or "puzzle games" or what have you.  There were only "Sierra games."

Though if I'd owned cluebooks to all of them, it would have robbed them of their magic, since I wouldn't have been able to resist looking up the solution every time I got stuck.  Pounding your head against the wall for months or years trying to figure out what to do was part of their charm.

I don't have that kind of patience anymore, though.  BRING ON THE HINT BOOKS!

You're in luck! This book contains a complete walkthru for Sierra's Softporn Adventure, so you can finally scratch that off your backlist.  

Quote

Croft Cover Chlamydia

Hey! You! Stop slandering my waifu.