Mario in Four-Color Land (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - January 1991)

As I wrote last year on this day, Its-a-Mario Day. Every March 10th is Mario Day, not because of the day marking a special occasion but because of the abbreviation of March being MAR and 10 looking similar to "IO." Last year I went with a few magazine reviews of Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, and this year I've scanned an article titled "Mario in Four-Color Land." Although Mario is in the title, the story from Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine is actually about all the Nintendo-themed comic books published by Valiant from 1990 to 1991.

Year 9: February Update

Vault 1541 is now in its 9th year and I'm trying to post here twice a month as the YouTube channel continues to dwindle. One of my goals last year was to finally put together a video for Golden Axe but I failed yet again, sorry! However, it's very close to being done now. I started playing it in December and although it's a short and easy game, it still took me a while to relearn it and adjust to playing with a gamepad rather than an arcade stick. I played a fair amount even though I only completed it a dozen times or less, I just kept hitting the reset button when I'd mess up. Not that a few mistakes would prevent a game completion, I just wanted to reach the highest ranking of A+++, and most of the time I was only receiving A++ grades. There will be a blog post to go with the video so you can read more about it in about two weeks. 

There has been some significant video game news since I last posted an update which was in October. Nintendo finally confirmed the Switch 2. It looks similar to the Switch and should be backwards compatible with most Switch games. More details are coming in an April 2nd Nintendo Direct. Microsoft is actually going to publish Forza Horizon 5 on the PlayStation 5 in the spring. This surprised me quite a bit. I understand publishing games from Activision and Bethesda on PlayStation but Forza has been a flagship Xbox franchise for 20 years. The Forza Horizon series is my favorite Xbox exclusive, or I should say former exclusive, and I expect it will do quite well on PlayStation. While Forza Motorsport is the main competitor to Sony's Gran Turismo, the Horizon series is much less serious when it comes to racing. The most comparable PlayStation game to Forza Horizon would be Ubisoft's multi-platform title The Crew Motorfest. There are rumors of Halo making the jump to PlayStation as well. Financially it's a good move, though one has to wonder if there will ever be another Xbox console, at least one that plays physical media, as Microsoft has been pushing other devices as Xbox, such at PC, smart TVs, and phones, that can stream Xbox games. 

A Care Bears video game hit Steam back in October and will release for Switch on February 13th. There are also plans to bring it to PlayStation and Xbox platforms. If you're interested in my magazine posts, you'd probably like to browse the Video Game History Foundation's digital library, which launched in early access recently and is free for all. In video game and toy news, LEGO will release a Game Boy set in October. A brief video was posted on social media by Nintendo, however, no images or price point has been announced. Something I completely missed last year was a collaboration between the Masters of the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchises. There is a comic book from Dark Horse featuring the crossover, plus action figures from Mattel. There is also a deal between Hasbro and Super7 to revive the Micronauts toy line this year. 

One other note about Golden Axe is that the cartridge started acting funny last week and to make sure it wasn't the Genesis having issues, I put in Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf to test it. I'd not played that game in 30 years and certainly didn't remember much about the swing meter or what the maximum distances were for each club. I played the first hole which is a par five and the first shot was fine, second shot went into the rough, and the third shot dropped in the cup for an eagle! It's probably not too difficult to pull that off in this game but I was still pleased with myself, and here is a clip of it:

I did fail to stop the cursor before it hit the top of the meter a couple times, and then it just resets itself. If you're waiting to see the ball in motion, the game doesn't change the viewpoint until it hits the green, though you can see it moving on the overhead view along the left-hand side of the screen.

2/5/25 UPDATE: It turns out the Golden Axe cartridge is okay. Unfortunately, my Sega Genesis is the problem. I did some more testing and games freeze frequently. Zombies Ate My Neighbors even provided the message "Unexpected 68000 error!" so it's probably the processor which is a Motorola 68000.

Thanks for visiting,
Jonathan

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.

Year 8: July Update

I've been very slow to get any videos done this year and have been falling behind on blog posts too. Sorry! I rarely talk about my personal life, aside from the past in relation to toys and video games, but that's what will likely keep me from updating very often going forward. There isn't much to say other than I lost my long-time job earlier this year and am starting something new this month that will keep me busy. When I've had free time of late, I've been playing Marvel's Midnight Suns from 2K and Firaxis which was a free game on the Epic Game Store earlier this summer. Although it has tactical combat, it's not like Firaxis' XCOM games that I'm a big fan of. Players control a team of three in battle, drawing and using cards to perform most actions. Outside of battle players control an original character, interact with the Marvel heroes to gain friendship, edit card decks, explore their home and its grounds, and select poolside, casual, and battle outfits.

As I sit here after viewing the numerous digital press events from the past two months, I can't recall anything that stood out. Let's see, the Nintendo Direct announced Mario & Luigi: Brothership, Super Mario Party Jamboree, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. There are plenty of sequels and updates in development, like Sid Meier's Civilization VII, Gears of War: E-Day, and Age of Mythology: Retold. Unfortunately, my PC is on the old side and I don't have a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X so I probably won't be able to play the games I'd like to try later this year, such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Star Wars Outlaws, and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

                                        Mario & Luigi: Brothership                                      TMNT: Mutants Unleashed

Rumors appeared online in May about a Total War Star Wars game but there still hasn't been an official announcement. Also, two months ago Outright Games and Mattel unveiled a multi-year deal. The family-friendly game publisher will be releasing at least three titles based on Mattel properties this year: Matchbox Driving Adventures, Monster High: Skulltimate Secrets, and Barbie Project Friendship. Other upcoming games from Outright include Transformers: Galactic Trials, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed, and Nick Jr. Party Adventure.

In an unexpected move, Hasbro and Mattel teamed up to create a Hot Wheels Optimus Prime, and it does transform, of course. Optimus is exclusive to Mattel Creations and is currently sold out; I'm not sure if that's final or if more are in production. LEGO always has a lot of cool sets on the way but I'll only highlight a few: Great Deku Tree 2-in-1 from The Legend of Zelda series, the Transformers' Bumblebee, and Star Wars TIE Fighter & X-Wing Mash-up. With the Star Wars set you can create standard TIE Fighter and X-Wing ships or swap the wings between the two iconic starfighters.

Something unexpected occurred in video games as well. Back on May 23rd, Atari announced that it had acquired the Intellivision brand. It now owns the Intellivision name and classic game catalog, not the company Intellivision Entertainment (renamed Amico Entertainment) or its long-in-development console, the Amico which I'd thought dead on more than one occasion. The sale provides Amico Entertainment some much needed financial help but, surprisingly, it isn't ready to give up on the console yet. While it can still release games based on Intellivision properties for Amico, those will be under license from Atari. 

One final note before I sign off. Author Lewis Packwood contacted myself two years ago to ask for permission to use a Captain Power photo from the blog in his then upcoming book. I agreed and while I've not read his book, nor am I benefitting from its sales in any way, I thought it was worth mentioning as the subject matter will likely interest Vault 1541 readers. The title is Curious Video Game Machines: A Compendium of Rare and Unusual Consoles, Computers and Coin-Ops. There is a nearly 40-minute video about it on YouTube with store links in the description.

Thanks for visiting,

Jonathan

E3: The Show That Was (Next Generation #44 - August 1998)

While the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) has been canceled the past few years, last December the Entertainment Software Association not only announced that E3 would not happen in 2024, but that it was gone for good. Had there been an E3 2024, this would have been the week for it and many game companies are still using this time to hold presentations, as yesterday was the Xbox Showcase and earlier today there was Ubisoft Forward. I've always enjoyed the week of E3 and have written or posted about E3 many times since I started the blog in 2017. I'm not sure if this week will be my final posts in regards to E3 as I've got a stack of E3 show dailies that I could one day scan, and I might do at least something with some of them later this week. In any case, I think I am running out of E3-related magazine articles to scan. This article, appropriately (for 2024 at least) titled, "E3: The Show That Was," is part of Next Generation magazine's "Intelligence" column from issue #44 and it's not 100% E3, though I did scan all nine pages of the section. 

It's always interesting to see if games that made a good showing actually ended up being successful. Next Generation thought the 1998 exhibition had a lot of promising games and not too many disappointments. It viewed Trespasser, a Jurassic Park game, as one of the best of the show but when it came time to review the game, the magazine only gave it two stars out of five. 

A system likely long forgotten by now, there is a page about VM Labs' "Project X" which would not release until 2000 as Nuon. It also isn't exactly a platform per se, instead it is a technology that was incorporated into select DVD players that added game functionality. The company's CEO thought things were going quite well in 1998 with some strong interest from third-party developers. However, only eight games officially released for Nuon. Also, this issue was published a few months before the Dreamcast released in Japan, and there are a couple spots where an unnamed shooter is mentioned, even stating that it could possibly be a pack-in for the console. That shooter, later titled Geist Force, never released.

Nintendo & Sega Seals of Quality

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, below is the third page from the September 1990 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine's "Story of a Nintendo Licensee" article. It discusses what Nintendo's Seal of Quality meant and primarily focuses on the financial aspect of it. There are some things in the article that I thought were fact, at least now but perhaps not in 1990. For example, the writer is unsure if Nintendo enforces a quota on the number of annual releases from a publisher. I'm fairly certain Nintendo did which is why Konami created the subsidiary Ultra Software Corporation. It also states that Sega hadn't allowed third-party licensees until recently, however, that had to do with Nintendo having most of the third parties under contract, plus it did have a few third-party publishers on the Master System. Perhaps things were more secretive at the time and the press were unaware of what was going on. 

The second scan, about Sega's Seal of Quality, is from the April/May 1993 issue of Sega Visions. Whereas Nintendo's quality seal revolved around control of the manufacturing and distribution of third-party titles, Sega's seal did actually apply to the quality of a third-party publisher's game. Sega of America had a quality assurance department that played in-development games from other companies and rated them across ten categories, and sometimes a publisher would have to make changes before Sega would approve the games for release. I'd guess Sega wasn't too strict because there are plenty of poor quality games available on Sega platforms. Today Sega doesn't have a seal since it no longer makes consoles while Nintendo eventually dropped the word "quality" from its seal, with game boxes now displaying "Official Nintendo Seal."

Its-a-Mario Day!

The proper line is "it's-a-me, Mario," but "Its-a-Mario Day" works well enough, and today is indeed Mario Day. Abbreviate March to "Mar" and view the number 10 as "IO" and March 10th or "Mar10" becomes "Mario" and thus, it is Nintendo's Mario Day. I don't believe I've ever actually posted anything for this day in the past so I flipped through some magazines to find coverage of Mario games. Below are reviews of Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario All-Stars, and Mario RPG from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), and a review of Super Mario Bros. 2 from Video Games & Computer Entertainment. As I often do with EGM reviews, I copied the review over to page one of the reviews section so that you can see who assigned each score. I'm also including a preview of Mario & Wario, a Super NES game planned for the West that ended up never releasing outside of Japan.

As I've stated numerous times, I grew up with Sega platforms so I'm not too much of a Mario fan, though I did get a Game Boy in 1989 and own a variety of games where Mario makes an appearance, like Alleyway, Golf, and Baseball. Super Mario Land is the only Mario game I own and the only one I've completed, though I have tried quite a few others. If you're a Mario fan you might want to check out the Shigeru Miyamoto interviews post as well.

Reviews

Mario & Wario Preview (EGM #50 - September 1993)

The Nintendo World Championships: Dallas, Texas (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - June 1990)

In 1990 Nintendo of America held the Nintendo World Championships which took place in 30 cities across the United States and Canada with the finals hosted by Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. That's according to this four-page article from Video Games & Computer Entertainment's June 1990 issue that covers the first stop on the tour in Dallas, Texas. Wikipedia, not a 100% accurate source, states that it was held in 29 U.S. cities with the finals in Universal Studios Hollywood, and makes no mention of Canada other than to say it previously was host to the Nintendo Challenge Championship. I'm going to assume the magazine is more accurate since it was written in 1990 and the writer was at the even in Dallas. Either way, Nintendo's event took place around North America and is still remembered today, largely because of the cartridge used at the event. The cartridge features portions of Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris, and there are both gray and gold case versions. The gray cartridge was given out to finalists in each city and the gold cases were used for the finals which makes it quite rare. In 2015 the Nintendo World Championships returned and were last held in 2017.

Gaming Ads: Backfilling #17

Last video games ads post was September 2022  so it has been a while but I do have more and will hopefully continue getting them from time-to-time. One is fitting for the holidays as it's a Christmas-themed Game Boy ad from Nintendo. Two of them are retail ads from Target (Game Boy) and Walmart (Konami handhelds), and the last is a PC controller from Microsoft.

EGM's 1993 Super NES Holiday Shopper's Guide

Every year around this time I try to post an old holiday catalog of some sort. A few times I've posted Electronics Boutique catalogs and I might still do that but the one I've scanned is more than 80 pages and I still need to edit each scan before I can post it. This Super NES shopper's guide from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) magazine is much smaller allowing me to get it ready in a couple days. EGM polybagged this guide with an issue, something it did on occasion for things like this, as well as strategy booklets, posters, etc. Although I've posted the ads previously, I opted to include them here. From what I can tell, this guide is simply a list of games available for Christmas and doesn't actually take into account whether the games are good or not. I guess that's why it is a "shopper's guide" rather than a "buyer's guide."

I'm also considering scanning parts of a FAO Schwartz catalog but may wait until next year. Those tend to be 80+ pages too and not all of the products in it are interesting (like toddler toys) so if I do that I might just highlight some things. I wonder if people would want to watch a YouTube video of myself flipping through a catalog; would that be too boring? Let me know if that's something you'd want to see.