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[SonicMegaDrive]

anyone remember those consumer guide code/game books that you'd get thru scholastic books back in elmentary school? those were cool too.

Yep. I still have a few of those. They were absolutely useless when it came to hints and strategies though. :/

 

[Liquid]

were they called consumer guide or was it consumer review? i'd like to dig up pics of some of those old guides.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

were they called consumer guide or was it consumer review? i'd like to dig up pics of some of those old guides.

Lemme check on that.

 

[The Prime Director]

Were'nt the characters from DokiDoki Panic based on some children's anime or manga anyway? I'd think that's the main reason why they chose to change it into a Mario game.

The guy was a turban-wearing arab - obviously, a Muslim Jihadist.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

anyone remember those consumer guide code/game books that you'd get thru scholastic books back in elmentary school? those were cool too.

i got the unlimited lives code for Double Dragon on Sega Master System from one of those. Was finally able to beat the game like 2 years after i bought it. I remember it was something like "Jump 30 times at the beginning of the last stage", which wasn't as easy as it sounded, because jumping in that game was a pain in the ass.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

I've got 5 of them.

These are actually those companion guides released by Consumer Guide.

They are: "Winning Tips for Nintendo - Newest Game Strategies"
"More Tips for Nintendo"
"WInning at Nintendo - Hot Tips for the Coolest Games"
"More Strategies for Nintendo Games"
"Strategies for Nintendo games"

 

[Warm Machine]

Super Mario 3 was in a Playchoice arcade machine many months before it ever came home. When was it actually released anyway? First time I ever saw it on store shelevs was January of 1990.

 

[SKOPE]

Unless you read EGM--which was difficult to find before Warner Books purchased its then-publisher Sendai--you didn't know anything Nintendo and Sega didn't want you to know. The other game magazines were more interested in pleasing game publishers and advertisers than in informing readers.

I didn't even know SMB3 was released in Japan two years earlier until very recently. It must have take a long time to translate all that Tolstoy-esque text.

Nice work Nintendo.

Nintendo had an English-language version ready more than a year in advance. It chose to wait as long as it did to release it to build up hype. And it worked.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was released as part of Nintendo's Play Choice arcade series several months before the home version (again, to build up hype).

 

[brandonnn]

The Nintendo World Championships were in 1990 and the competition games were Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer, and Tetris. Not Mario 3.

Which is why he said the event "also" had playable demos of games like SMB3.

But 1990 sounds righter than 1988, and would explain why I feel like I saw the Wizard first.

 

[ocelittle]

BTW, the first place I saw SMB3 was in late 88 in a skating rink. There was a mutli-game Nintendo cabinet like I have never seen before or since, and I'm pretty sure that each of the first 2 Mario's were included (along with some stuff like Kid Icarus if memory serves). I was completely awestruck when I discovered that SMB3 was a) real and b) playable. I ran and grabbed my other friends to show them and none of us could believe it. It was a sensation that can never be duplicated, because with the way todays gaming world is set up, no game could fly under the radar all the way up until its release, which is both a blessing and a curse.

That's funny, first time I saw it was at an arcade at a mall...and then I went to a swimming pool a year or so later and saw a guy with a plastic rental case with the game in it. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.

Great fun.

 

[DDayton]

The FidoNet VG forum was pretty handy back then.

 

[Pimpbaa]

I was quite pissed at that movie when it came out. They were making a big deal about SMB3, about how it was never seen before, while me and my friends were playing an imported japanese version rented from a rental place here for months before the movie.

 

[Liquid]

pissed eh?

 

[Ninja Scooter]

I was quite pissed at that movie when it came out. They were making a big deal about SMB3, about how it was never seen before, while me and my friends were playing an imported japanese version rented from a rental place here for months before the movie.

 

[teacupcopter]

Even if they pulled something like that today people would still be surprised. Us Internet gamers are in the vast minority when it comes to being informed about gaming.

 

[speedpop]

Imagine a world where magazines were your first absolute peek into what was coming out or seeing games for the first time. Imagine not having release dates to go by but vague mentions of a game being out in a certain month and stopping into your local Toys R Us every week in hopes that the game was finally out.

The memories! Dear lord.

 

[gblues]

Which is why he said the event "also" had playable demos of games like SMB3.

But 1990 sounds righter than 1988, and would explain why I feel like I saw the Wizard first.

Yeah, my bad. Google has proven me wrong. It was 1990.

Nathan

 

[distantmantra]

Super Mario 3 was in a Playchoice arcade machine many months before it ever came home. When was it actually released anyway? First time I ever saw it on store shelevs was January of 1990.

I had known about SMB3 thanks to that EGM (wasn't it the very first issue?) and The Wizard, but my first time actually playing it was at Crystal Mountain ski resort on one of the Playchoice Ten arcade machines. Suffice to say, my best friend and I didn't do any skiing that Saturday.

Did anyone else go to the Nintendo Power Fest back in 1990? I can't remember if it was a nationwide tour or if it was just in Seattle. Basically Nintendo cleared out the Kingdome and had tons of NES and Gameboy kiosks for people to play. I remember it was the first time I ever heard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Gameboy. My friend's mom was nice enough to take us to it, I wonder what she did that day while we went crazy... that day was serious stimulation overload for a nine year old kid.

 

[argon]

I had known about SMB3 thanks to that EGM (wasn't it the very first issue?) and The Wizard, but my first time actually playing it was at Crystal Mountain ski resort on one of the Playchoice Ten arcade machines. Suffice to say, my best friend and I didn't do any skiing that Saturday.

Did anyone else go to the Nintendo Power Fest back in 1990? I can't remember if it was a nationwide tour or if it was just in Seattle. Basically Nintendo cleared out the Kingdome and had tons of NES and Gameboy kiosks for people to play. I remember it was the first time I ever heard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Gameboy. My friend's mom was nice enough to take us to it, I wonder what she did that day while we went crazy... that day was serious stimulation overload for a nine year old kid.

I think Power Fest was nationwide.. I went to it in Universal Studios here in southern california. It was awesome... I really can't remember the new games I got to play, except Deja Vu and some Wolf side scroller game.

 

[Megafoo Chavez]

i saw the japanese version of smb3 in a gamepro before the wizard came out. smb3 changed my life.

i swear....

i get so emtional talking about nintendo

countless nights skid marking my hane's up with this dirty ass while finding warp whistles.

each fucking whistle, no matter how many times i found it, felt like i was finding the super hidden gem to unlock life. it still does. god damn you warp whistle, god damn you.

In whistle we trust.

 

[etiolate]

Information flow hit a new speed with the internet. Magazine info just wasn't fast enough and the flow at which they got things was much slower as well it seemed.

 

[papercut]

When that movie came out, I didn't even know there was a Japan.

 

[CarlosX360]

Back then, the only ways to build hype is:

Magazines

Ads

and commercials.

There was no internet.

Looking back, it'd be HARD to advertise a product...its still relatively hard with the existance of the internet. But nothing as hard as having limited choices of building hype, and getting the word out.

 

[Javaman]

"Luke, *I* am your father."
"You're not my father!"

 

[DJ_Tet]

i saw the japanese version of smb3 in a gamepro before the wizard came out. smb3 changed my life.

[/IMG]

In fact, it was the very FIRST Gamepro, which featured a write-up of sorts on the japanese version of smb3, including several pictures. I don't believe the magazine was ever "for sale," I got mine free at Toys R Us when I bought a game that summer.

 

[xemumanic]

Speaking of not knowing, it pretty much all changed after SMB3 was released. Magazines like EGM and GamePro got more popular, and they stole some of Nintendo Power's thunder because there was more than just the NES worth having to play games on (sorry Master System fans, but that's how it was).

So gamers started hearing about the Super Famicon from the pages of EGM and GamePro. But to show you just how cray it was back then, ABC's TGIF lineup was a staplehood of American TV watching. And ABC's newest Saturday morning cartoons, which aired the next morning (TGIF aired on Friday 'Thank God/Goodness Its Friday', get it?), would get a preview every new TV season the night before on TGIF every year. Thats when I first saw the Super Nintendo. I had NO idea the sfami would come to the US so soon, and the commercial was simply..........I dunno how to describe how I felt as a 10 year old kid then. Seeing Bowser on his air car from the end of SMW zoom into the screen with thunder going off in the background was just jaw droping.

"Now you're playing with power.......SUPER POWER!" That just blew me away.

 

[mightynine]

I have to admit, I do miss the days when I anxiously awaited the arrival of a new Nintendo Power, and soon after that, EGM. I mean, EGM was killing whole forests for those Christmas issues in the 90s, and I must've read them...who knows how many times.

Good times, good times.

It is funny to see a whole slice of gaming who never ever has experienced that wait for info about a game. It's hard to believe it wasn't that long ago either.

 

[xemumanic]

I have to admit, I do miss the days when I anxiously awaited the arrival of a new Nintendo Power, and soon after that, EGM. I mean, EGM was killing whole forests for those Christmas issues in the 90s, and I must've read them...who knows how many times.

Yeah, their fall issues are still the thickest ones, but issues of EGM were FAT, even during the summer issues. GamePro as well, but not as much as EGM. EGM was what everyone upgraded to after Nintendo Power. Then we true believers went to GameFan.

 

[Ristamar]

BTW, the first place I saw SMB3 was in late 88 in a skating rink. There was a mutli-game Nintendo cabinet...

Same, although mine was at a local arcade. The multi-game cabinets were not uncommon in our arcades.