Play Ball! (Collecting Toys - June 1995)

The 2022 MLB season started a week ago and I forgot to put together a baseball post so here one is now. This is an article (which shares its title with a previous blog post) scanned from the June 1995 issue of Collecting Toys magazine about old baseball toys author Earl Shores played with as a kid. They're all from the '60s and '70s, and I'm not familiar with any of them as they predate myself a bit. Before I had electronic games I did play a baseball board game that included trading cards and at the Funspot arcade during the '80s I'd play the classic pinball-style baseball games which, unfortunately, the arcade no longer had on display when I visited in 2018.

Electronic Gaming Monthly #72: E3 1995

The past three years I've put together Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) coverage that often includes some magazine scans and my predictions. Unfortunately, there is no E3 this year due to the virus which makes show predictions impossible. I could do some for general announcements as press outlets and individual publishers will be holding digital events over the next month but I'm unlikely to do that. For this year I have old magazine coverage and I also played a trade demo of SkyGunner. Although I've no idea if it's a demo that was distributed at an E3, it's something a little unique that ties to the press so I figured it is sort of E3 themed. As the title of this post exclaims, the scans below are from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) issue number 72 from July 1995.

In May 1995 the very first E3 took place in Los Angeles and EGM's editors picked some of their favorite games of the show to highlight. As the article states, these are not the best games of the show and the "Review Crew" was not involved in making these picks. The first E3 took place when the industry was transitioning from 16-bit to 32-bit, and these were also the early days of 3D graphics. While I don't typically show M-rated games on the blog, at least not modern ones, I should point out that the scans do include games like Mortal Kombat 3 and Killer Instinct. Of course, 25 years ago the visuals were not realistic and I don't believe the images are too graphic.

If you read the EGM cover image above you might be thinking you'd rather see the Ultra 64 and I won't leave you hanging. It's actually only one image and we already know what the N64 looks like but the whole Press Start section is interesting as it covers the Saturn launch and PlayStation pricing as well. There is also a rumor mentioned that SquareSoft could be bringing the much anticipated Final Fantasy 7 to the Ultra 64...