LJN's Wolverine Reviews

Marvel's Wolverine released for PlayStation 5 today, so I decided to dig up some old magazine coverage of Wolverine's first solo video game. Wolverine is certainly one of the most recognizable Marvel characters today, thanks in part to Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the popular mutant on the big screen in many X-Men movies, as well as the third Deadpool film. The clawed mutant debuted in a 1974 issue of The Incredible Hulk where he battled the green goliath, and he later joined the X-Men in 1975. In 1989 the Uncanny X-Men received its first two games, one a computer game from Paragon Software, and the other a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game from LJN. In the very poorly reviewed NES game, players could select from six heroes, including Wolverine, and battle enemies from an overhead viewpoint. LJN then gave Wolverine his own title in October 1991, a side-scrolling platform game developed by Software Creations. Wolverine faired better than The Uncanny X-Men, and is known for being difficult, which is common among retro platformers.

I scanned reviews from the November 1991 issues of GamePro and Video Games & Computer Entertainment (VG&CE). The GamePro review shares a page with Koei's L'Empereur, so there is a bonus review to read of a completely different type of game. VG&CE's reviews tend to run across multiple pages as they are printed one after another throughout one big column. Just before the Wolverine review, you can see the end of a review for the Sega Genesis game Raiden Trad from Bignet USA. I also moved the end of the Wolverine review from its second page to have the whole review in one image. Something I noticed is that both magazines list the game's MSRP, but both have a slightly different price: $44.95 vs. $47.95.

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.

Paragon's Progress (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - October 1992)

This three-page article from Video Games & Computer Entertainment (VG&CE) features a visit to the office of Paragon Software a few months after it was acquired by MicroProse Software. Most of the discussion is about three games Paragon had in development. Mantis: XF5700 Experimental Space Fighter would release later that year as XF5700 Mantis Experimental Fighter under MicroProse's MicroPlay Software publishing label, as did Challenge of the Five Realms. However, MegaTraveller 3 was never released. Paragon only saw one more game published after Mantis and Five Realms, which was BloodNet in 1993.

Mickey Mouse Game Reviews

The animated short Steamboat Willie debuted on November 18, 1928 and so this day is considered Mickey Mouse's birthday. I scanned a variety of game reviews starring Disney's famous anthropomorphic mouse from issues of GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), Video Games & Computer Entertainment (VG&CE), and Sega Visions. Mickey has been featured in quite a few games so I opted not to include the "Illusion" series this time around as that would have been another 19 pages. Below you'll find coverage of Mickey's Dangerous Chase, Mickey Mousecapade, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, Mickey's Challenge, Mickey Mania, and Fantasia. Surprisingly, I only found a single review of Fantasia which comes from Sega Visions, and that magazine's reviews at that time were primarily descriptions with a little opinion at the end. Also, the EGM "Review Crew" for Mickey's Dangerous Chase is the same group of writers I attached to Magical Quest while Mickey Mania is the same as the writers for Mickey's Challenge.

Mickey's Dangerous Chase

Mickey Mousecapade

The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse

                                                     Mickey's Challenge                    Mickey Mania              

Fantasia

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.

The Making of Sunsoft's Batman (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - March 1990)

It's the third Saturday of September which means it's time for another Batman Day! This is the only post I have planned, though I will be posting some comic book and food product ads over on the Vault 1541 Facebook page today. These scans are from the March 1990 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment (VG&CE) magazine. It's a relatively short article about the development of Sunsoft's Batman game based on the 1989 movie starring Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger. Work on the game began in 1988 before the film actually released so Sunsoft had to work from artwork, photos, and storyboards. You'll see screenshots at the bottom left corn of each page which is explained on the final page of the article. This issue of VG&CE doubles as flipbook allowing readers to animate Batman by flipping the pages quickly.

Electronic Arts Takes on the Video-Game Market (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - August 1990)

Today Electronic Arts (EA) is a juggernaut video game publisher but it was strictly a computer game developer and publisher for eight years before releasing its own games for consoles. Before 1990, other companies had licensed and ported EA's computer games to consoles. This article from Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine was written shortly before EA's first video game releases for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis. Of course, we now know how significant EA's decision to make console games was and it entered the market at a great time, as 16-bit consoles elevated the gaming industry and EA's sports titles would eventually take the company to another level. One oddity about EA's Genesis cartridges is that they are about three quarters of an inch taller than the standard size and its earliest releases used cardboard boxes instead of the nice clamshell cases. That is likely a result of EA not actually having a Sega license at the time as is mentioned in the interview with Trip Hawkins at the end of the article.

Indiana Jones Game Reviews

Within the last hour I learned that July 1st is the birthday of one of the most iconic movie characters of all-time: archaeologist Indiana Jones. Although this is very last minute, I'd been scanning Indiana Jones game reviews when I came across them over the past few years so I already most of these ready to go for whenever I had a good reason to post them. Maybe I should have put a post together when the fifth movie released but I forgot to do that. Four of the eight reviews are based on The Last Crusade and five are from Video Games & Computer Entertainment  (VG&CE). Surprisingly, I couldn't find any Indiana Jones game reviews in my issues of GamePro and only one in Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), which is of Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, the game in the ad to the right. One of the VG&CE pages has a couple of other handheld game reviews I'm leaving in: Star Wars (Game Boy) and Pinball Jam (Lynx). The other two are from Sega Visions, however, the Sega CD game doesn't read like a review even though it's from the "Just Review It" section. 

Electronic Gaming Monthly & Sega Visions

Video Games & Computer Entertainment

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."

Story of a Nintendo Licensee (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - September 1990)

This article from the September 1990 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment is about Tradewest. It covers the beginning of the company business, its entry into video games, and how it found success publishing games on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). You can read more about the publisher in my ads post here: Tradewest. There is a third page related to this article, though it's not about Tradewest, just third-party NES publishers in general. I'll post that tomorrow alongside an article from Sega Visions. 

X-Men Video Game Previews & Reviews

During the '90s I read a lot of X-Men comic books and watched the animated series Saturday mornings on Fox. Disney is reviving the show, titled X-Men '97, on March 20th so I decided to put together some X-Men coverage leading up to its debut. I'll have at least three posts, maybe four, that cover some video games, television appearances, and toys. I scanned quite a bit of coverage from video game magazines but I'm only using some of it in this post.

The scans include a GamePro "ProView" of The Uncanny X-Men (NES), a preview and review of X-Men (Genesis), a preview and review of X:Men: Mutant Apocalypse (SNES), a preview of X-Men 2: Clone Wars (Genesis), a review of X-Men: Children of the Atom (PlayStation), and reviews of the computer games X-Men and X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants. For Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) reviews I place the review next to the writers that appear on the first page of the column to show who wrote each one. There is also editing on the reviews that appear across multiple pages and sometimes you'll see review scores and or screenshots for other games as well.

GamePro - March 1990

        EGM #44 - March 1993                              EGM #46 - May 1993

EGM #65 - December 1994

                                EGM #65 - December 1994                    Next Generation #40 - April 1998

Video Games & Computer Entertainment - September 1990 & June 1991