FunFactor

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/69555def-0cd8-4b5a-b4d2-3d324c7863f4

Console exclusivity was the talk of this recent Summer Game Fest, and Aidan and Ty start off the episode with a discussion of their most badly missed-out-on exclusives from platforms they didn't have.

And then, the issue: With Future Publishing/Imagine Media getting the "official" XBox magazine tag, Ziff-Davis launched an "independent" one--and they poached Simon Cox from Future/Imagine to lead it!

The result was an ambitious, artistic, NEXT Generation/EDGE-looking publication that (perhaps a decade or two too early) pivoted towards a quarterly launch schedule, more original art and photography, and more rare and in-depth features and interviews--like the one anchoring their massive preview of Panzer Dragoon Orta, the capper of Aidan and Ty's discussion.

And then...a review of World Series Baseball from actual-factual baseball writer of the time, Jeff Pearlman?? Of Sports Illustrated?? Who since written a ton of book and the Amazon series "Winning Time??" How would this non-games-writer do writing about games in 2002??

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Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-105-january-2002

(sped-up audio was Ty's fault; it's been fixed!)

FINAL. FANTASY. X. After the final PS1 release was a mechanical, graphical, and literary callback to the deepest roots of the series, the first PS2 release set the tone for what this series would look–and, to an extent, play–like for the next quarter-century of HD video and streamed digital audio.

We also check out how Game Informer has continued to grow and change since we last looked–years away from it being a glorified store catalog, but also years from it being the best magazine in the business. The seeds of the final form are present in here; are there seeds of the former?

Aidan and Ty kick it all off with a surprisingly timely-for-Bluesky discussion on which super-popular games they’ve disliked, why, and what it means when that happens.

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Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!

NICK’S PATREON: PandaMonium | creating a Sega Saturn documentary series. | Patreon 

GREG’S PATREON: Greg Sewart | creating Generation 16 | Let's Read Videos | Retro Game Streams | Patreon 

Please enjoy this snippet of our first Season Two ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode, where we're throwing it back to, um, the disastrous 1995 surprise launch of the Sega Saturn in North America??

That’s right–thanks to a production whoopsie by someone very silly (Ty), we very nearly lost this amazing bonus episode. But thanks to a crucial save from our guests, a little bit of elbow grease, and a couple of months of Season Two launch stuff coming first, we managed to get this incredible conversation cleaned up and in your ears.

We’re joined by two *incredible* guests: Greg “Stewy” Sewart, a former editor at EGM, and Nick “PandaMonium,” perhaps the Internet’s foremost Sega Saturn documentarian. We ask all the hard questions: What went wrong? Who’s fault was it? And–perhaps most importantly–could Sonic X-Treme have saved everything?

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Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!

ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/official-xbox-magazine/official-xbox-magazine-issue-2/

XBOX OFFICIAL MAGAZINE: MAGAZINES EVOLVED.

We had to stay in January 2002 for one more episode this season, because we just couldn’t overlook XBox Offical Magazine’s massive walkthrough for Halo: Combat Evolved. We also couldn’t overlook the fact that Imagine Media/Future U.S. Publishing launched this magazine at the same time they were sunsetting NextGen–and there was plenty of overlap between the two staffs.

Goodbye to think-y features for (real and aspiring) grown-ups, hello to world-exclusive previews, reviews, and digital assets obtained via first-party licensing.

For everything XBox Official Magazine did well, though, we were rubbed very much the wrong way by its unholy union of Ultra Game Players’s 100-point review scale and NextGen’s five-star rubric. Even still, we came away (mostly) very impressed with eventual editor-in-chief Francesca Reyes’s review of the idiosyncratic Munch’s Oddysee.

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Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-150-january-2002/mode/2up

January 2002 was all killer, no filler! EGM kicked off the new year by revisiting their Top 100 games of all time, and we take a look at the changes since their last attempt (which we covered last season)!

But EGM also ranked their worst 20 games of all time, thanks to freelancer Seanbaby, and we start the episode with a discussion of the worst games we ever bought.

We go back to the best-of-the-best with the review, though, as three EGM editors do a fantastic job with Metal Gear Solid 2–and as an extra-special surprise, the previews editor of the magazine at the time (and FunFactor ULTRA member) Greg Sewart jumped in mid-episode to share some incredible behind-the-scenes stories of how the MGS2 review came together!

And, as always, we streamed this recording session live to FunFactor ULTRA members–so if you’d like to get in on the fun, just sign up at https://funfactorpod.com/! We'll see you on the Discord, and you’ll see us when we next go live!

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Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!