A Question of Control (Video Games & Computer Entertainment - August 1989)

Here's an article from Video Games & Computer Entertainment all about game controllers in 1989. Back then there were a large variety of of joysticks being released, especially for home computers. Today most games play best with a gamepad and PC gamers can be found using the latest PC compatible Xbox and PlayStation gamepads. There are a lot less third-party controller manufacturers these days too, resulting in the most popular gamepads being from Microsoft and Sony. The one drawback of this article is that it does not have enough photographs. More than 20 companies/controllers are mentioned but only six images are included. I've used a few of these and that first image of a joystick from Wico is one of them. While I didn't own any Wico products, my neighbor had some for his Commodore 64 (C64). I did own a couple wireless Freedom Sticks from Camerica for my C64 but I think they both broke from the rapid back-and-forth movements needed to run fast in Epyx sports titles.

Kenner's Starting Lineup (White's Guide to Collecting Figures - November 1996)

This is a rather late post that sort of ties into the Super Bowl that airs in a few hours. I couldn't come up with anything else and I didn't have time to play a football video game for the YouTube channel so I scanned a couple magazine articles from White's Guide to Collecting Figures about Kenner's Starting Lineup toys. I'm not sure if I'd call Starting Lineup toys action figures since they aren't very poseable; they are simply mini plastic statues with moveable arms and heads. They launched in 1988 and I collected them for a while, maybe even a decade, though I did open them for a couple years. As the second article below mentions, they were a hot collectible back then, selling for double or more than the MSRP on the secondary market initially, but I don't think they do today. I've not looked too deeply into the current market so perhaps there are still some standout pieces, however, I believe most sell in the $5-10 range which is what they would have been priced at 30 years ago. Trading cards were included with the toys and at least one year they came with coins too. Previously I mentioned the figures and have a photo of a few baseball athletes in the Starting Lineup Talking Baseball post.

The first article is about the 1996 football series that focuses on the players appearing for the first time in "action figure" form. Some of those first-timers didn't succeed in the NFL, some had decent careers, and Isaac Bruce was the most successful of the bunch.

That was my weak tie-in to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, there aren't any Chiefs or Eagles mentioned and it's not the most interesting of articles so I also scanned "Starting Lineup's Greatest Moments" in the same issue where the magazine details the top ten most significant happenings for the toy line up to that point. Joe Montana in his Kansas City Chiefs uniform does make an appearance. That was a convention piece which I don't have as I never attended conventions. The 9th entry is about the collector's club that I did join for a few years. I also remember the Grant Fuhr figure being a big deal but cannot recall if I have one or not. 

I'm planning on watching the Super Bowl and have made a few predictions on the blog in the past in other toy and video game Super Bowl-related posts. I'm usually wrong though and I'm not a fan of either team but here is a guess: Chiefs 38-34.

Phantasy Star Series Reviews

Below are scans of magazine reviews and one preview covering the first four games in the Phantasy Star series. However, most of the coverage is of parts two and three as I've only got one review for the first game and one for the fourth. It's a significant series for Sega and the early days of Japanese role playing games (JRPG), specifically the first one that features a female protagonist. Phantasy Star is often overshadowed by similar games from the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) series that appeared on the more popular Nintendo consoles.

Personally, I've only completed Phantasy Star II which I did a couple times in the early '90s. On the Master System I never had Phantasy Star because it released around the same time as Miracle Warriors, another Sega RPG that I got instead. While I also own Phantasy Star III on the Genesis, I never completed it and the fourth game released during my college days when I wasn't spending much time or money on video games. There were a couple of Game Gear Phantasy Star games too but those only released in Japan and one was not a RPG like the others: Phantasy Star Gaiden and Phantasy Star Adventure. After Phantasy Star IV Sega moved away from the single-player only format to Phantasy Star Online during the Dreamcast era.

Some of the reviews had to be edited to fit on one image. Video Games & Computer Entertainment's reviews can sometimes be split between multiple pages and with Electronic Gaming Monthly I like to line up the "Review Crew" next to the review (otherwise it only appears at the start of the magazine's review section). I'm also adding a video on the YouTube channel this week that looks at the Phantasy Star II package and the opening as well as the ending of the game. 

Phantasy Star

Phantasy Star II

Phantasy Star III

Phantasy Star IV

Year 7: January Update

A popular new year's resolution
is to shape up! Yo Joe!

Last year was a rather slow year and even though I didn't expect to do a lot here, I had hoped to post more than I did. Most months only had 2-3 posts and it's been months since I recorded a video. I'd wanted to get a video of Golden Axe done which I didn't do but I did finally cover SimCity. I've no idea what 2023 has in store for the blog or my personal life which I rarely mention here outside of talking about the past. One thing I did change recently was my Instagram account. Originally I created it for the blog, however, that was when I didn't own a smartphone and it was impossible to add photos via a computer. Two years ago I got my first smartphone and now you can post on Instagram using a computer but I decided I wasn't likely to post much there related to the blog so I converted it to a personal account. I briefly put it on private and removed the people I didn't know which I shouldn't have done, sorry about that! It was maybe three people as the majority of the very few followers I have are family. Feel free to follow again even though I probably won't post about the blog often and my life isn't very interesting: sutyak75.

When I was in Canada a few weeks ago I was a bit bored in between the curling matches I went to see and I decided to start following some of the athletes and write about that event which is why I suddenly started using the Instagram account again. Facebook is still my primary social media account as it is the easiest for keeping up with family (I don't live close to any of them, unfortunately) and there is still a blog-related Facebook page. Social media is something I'm not great with so I've never promoted the blog very well. The Twitter account never gained traction either and that platform declined quite rapidly last year. Since I don't have a lot to say today, let's take a look at a few all-time blog statistics. There is really only one stat I find interesting which is where the views come from but I'll start with the lesser stats: the browser and operating systems people use, and how they reached the blog. It's not surprising that Chrome and Windows are at the top which is what I use when working on the blog. Google and then Blogger (this website) are the top two referrers, also to be expected. YouTube is third and rather small so I guess people generally don't click on the blog links in the video descriptions which is too bad because I feel like the blog posts are better than the videos. 

The pageviews by country is unusual as France is by far the leader, more than tripling second place United States. I'm not sure why that is and I don't see a way to access which posts are being viewed most by each country. Maybe it has to do with the game ads about some popular French companies? I'd have expected Japan to have more than a few hundred views seeing as how I primarily post about video games, especially Sega, and have some posts about Transformers toys, as well as Japan-based Tomy. Following France and the U.S. are Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Canada, and Sweden as the only countries with more than 10,000 views. Obviously, the blog isn't exactly popular as I'm under 400,000 total pageviews after six years.

Thanks for visiting, especially the people of France for providing a third of my pageviews! Before I go how about some "Sentence Nonsense" from Tomy to kick off 2023:

Happy New Year!

-Jonathan

Dangerously Cheesy!

When I was scanning game ads quite a few years ago before ever launching the blog I happened to notice Frito-Lay's Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah nabbed two video game magazine covers in the same month. Atop his motorcycle, the cool cat is impersonating Santa Claus on the December 1992 issue of GamePro and replacing Rudolph on the November/December 1992 issue of Game Informer so this is sort of a Christmas post, even though the game has nothing to do with the holiday. Platform games starring mascots were quite popular during the decade and they weren't all original characters as there were a handful of food mascots that made the jump to video games, including The Noid from Domino's pizza and even Spot, the red dot from the 7UP logo. 

Chester actually starred in two titles, both 16-bit side-scrollers. Kaneka USA published Too Cool to Fool in 1992 and Wild Wild Quest in 1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis consoles. I've scanned reviews for both games, though I didn't actually see any from GamePro as the issue above only has a preview which I did also scan. From Game Informer are a review of Too Cool to Fool and winners of a Chester Cheetah contest. There are also reviews for each game from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and as I tend to do with that magazine's reviews, I edited the pages to line up the review crew next to them which is why those scans look off. Normally the reviewers are only on the first page of reviews next to the game of the month (Mike Weigand is not part of the scores for the second game). 

 

Toys "R" Us Canada

Last week I visited Canada where Toys "R" Us stores actually still exist so, of course, I checked one out. Back in 2018 when the U.S. stores began closing I wrote The Time of Toy Stores post about that and my time working at a couple stores. There are now Toys "R" Us-branded departments in Macy's stores but it's certainly not the same as wandering around a store overloaded with toys. I took quite a few photos as I covered most of the Oakville, Ontario store and did my best to avoid the customers. These were all taken on a phone which is something I rarely use for photos but I didn't want to stand out carrying my regular camera.