Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Games That Go Bump in the Night! (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - November 1990)

If the title of this Halloween-themed article from the November 1990 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment (VG&CE) sounds familiar, it could be because it's very similar to the GamePro article I posted six years ago: Carts That Go Bump in the Night. GamePro's is a collection of console game reviews whereas this one from VG&CE is an overview of "scary" console and computer games.

Although the cover image features the fictional character Elvira, who is played by actress Cassandra Peterson, she isn't interviewed in the magazine, nor does she provide any insight on the games. She appeared in the computer adventure games Personal Nightmare and its sequel, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and VG&CE included a sidebar about her career that appears across four of the article's pages.



Sunday, October 27, 2024

Year 8: October Update

My last update post was in July and not much has changed since then as I still haven't done many videos this year. I actually haven't even played any games since July but I really should. Recently, I flipped through my comic book collection, something I've not looked at in quite some time. I was mostly looking for duplicates and recall what I have, and I did scan some ads from them. I'll have to do another video game ads backfilling post soon, probably for post #500 which I'm very close to. Vault 1541 began as a video game ads project so it's only fitting that I dedicate #500 to that. This blog update is post #497 and I'll have a magazine article scan for #498 this week.

A few months ago Hasbro announced a Transformer based on Knight Rider's K.I.T.T. Being a fan of both Transformers and Knight Rider, which ranks as one of my top five shows from the '80s, I think this is an awesome collaboration. However, the robot is named Agent Knight rather than K.I.T.T. It is set to release on January 10, 2025 for $49.99.


In other cool toy news, LEGO unveiled an X-Men mansion play set this month that releases November 4th for $329.99. Yeah, the price is a bit steep, though not unusual for LEGO toys. Despite the size of the 3,000+ piece set, the rooms in the mansion look rather cramped. Aside from the mansion build, it also includes a sentinel, Magneto, and nine X-Men mini-figures.


As far as video game news, Nintendo didn't announce a Switch 2 yet but it did show off an alarm clock which isn't software, it's an actual clock that is priced at $99.99! Unfortunately, one of the last video game magazines in the U.S. abruptly came to an end as Game Informer closed at the start of August. Last week I received an email from a video game website called SpriteCell that you might enjoy. The person that runs it asked if they could use some of my catalog scans, something the site specializes in. Finally, as I end every October update, here is the classic McDonald's Halloween sign:


Happy Halloween!

-Jonathan

Friday, October 11, 2024

Nintendo Family Computer (Electronic Game Player - July/August 1988)

Earlier this month Nintendo opened a museum in Kyoto that, of course, features the history of the company that began life as a Hanafuda card maker. It has many interactive exhibits and displays the numerous video game hardware that Nintendo has released over the past 4+ decades. To sort of tie into that, I scanned an article from the third issue (July/August 1988) of Electronic Game Player that originally appeared in The Games Machine, a U.K. magazine. It's about Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) that was brought to North America as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It's  an interesting read, especially if you aren't familiar with the Famicom as it has some unique differences that set it apart from the NES, namely a microphone in controller two and a disk drive with a built-in modem. I acquired this magazine second-hand and edited the cover image quite a bit to clean it up due its condition so it might not look too good.