FunFactor

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/1eeeedc8-3737-4c48-894c-cd7950503a5a/pdf?token=70ff7124-8104-4ed1-bdd3-bdfb536b8177&length=167296037

OLD GLORY GAMING/MUSIC/SPORTS APPAREL, USE PROMO CODE “FUESDAY” FOR 15 PERCENT OFF: https://oldglory.com/

With just a handful of active consoles, and a dearth of post-launch games for both XBox and GameCube, 2002 might have been the most difficult year in gaming history to completely miss the release of a first-party critical darling.

Yet that’s just what happened to Ty with Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus—which despite leading the reviews section of this issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine with a perfect 5.0 score, is basically not mentioned anywhere else in a mag stuffed full of exclusive Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City content, S.O.C.O.M: Navy Seal mentions for some reason, and John Scalzi columns??

Aidan and Ty start off with a discussion of “discoverability crises” current and past, and find so much to talk about in this issue they literally can’t get into it all!

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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.gamehistory.org/item/51f1d648-0b56-44d4-bb79-24f453cbfa0e

“What Happened to Hyper Magazine” at Forgotten Worlds: https://www.forgottenworlds.net/hyper-magazine-part-1

Alice Ruppert on Bluesky starting a Romance novel/Visual Novel discussion: https://bsky.app/profile/malicedafirenze.bsky.social/post/3mvac2sw6b22q

Tube Cody’s “Defying Gravity” in Roller Coaster Tycoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNty2y0DQN8 

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi—we finally review an issue of the decades-long-running Australian games magazine, Hyper!

Don’t judge the mag by the cover of issue 110, which featured a very young Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a Ford Escort World Rally Car, and a bunch of other stuff that’s not really video games. Hyper had art design and editorial content that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the best mags on any continent. 

But Ty and Aidan were, um, more than a little surprised with the treatment the Xbox port of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind got in their review section.

Our opening discussion? Why, it’s about PC/console crossover and cross-pollination—and we genuinely had one of our best opening chats ever.

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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.gamehistory.org/item/51f1d648-0b56-44d4-bb79-24f453cbfa0e

RAVNIR “VIKING MUSIC:” https://ravnirmusic.com/

TALES FROM THE BACKLOG’S QUEST 64 EPISODE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcoIOr8n8Ow

TALES FROM THE BACKLOG’S “DO GAMES ‘HOLD UP’” EPISODE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WIYcO82qRA

Are critical re-evaluations “overlooked hidden gems,” or revisionist history? Super Mario Sunshine got a rave review from GamePro in this issue—but the 3D Mario game almost universally remembered as the bad one got rave reviews from almost everyone else, too.

Aidan and Ty start off with a discussion of how critical narratives morph over time, and how younger gamers growing up to decide the grown-ups got it wrong the first time happens, well, all the time. Then they get in to GamePro issue 170, and find several really cool interesting features amid the middling art direction (and a ludicrous amount of ads).

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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 

Free ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode?! That's right: Aidan and Ty had holiday and start-of-school stuff get in the way of recording last week, so we decided to re-start our content pipelines by giving everyone a taste of what our top-tier members get: An awesome deep-dive into the disastrous 1995 surprise launch of the Sega Saturn in North America.

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://archive.gamehistory.org/item/28f939d8-b160-47f0-92c6-e885159b5156

THE KINGDOM HEARTS GOOGLE DOC: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQgJT19xfHJtEnIiZ-c55ClvAXn95ODUQBDYFtWF8GtPzHvTUTQhbH3brFk290zaQ/pub

THE KINGDOM HEARTS PRACTICAL COMPLETE ORDER (by Jackson from Abnormal Mapping): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eQpUmDR18WWFRpzyPjh8Ivv8gAE4IzVdxY1bgbm7YgM/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.iqj61wtvro5d

Kingdom Hearts! Grand Theft Auto! This episode’s issue of PSM is stuffed with incredibly topical retro games, and Aidan and Ty dig right in to a preview and review of two very different games that had very, very different expectations and receptions—but mutually enormous commercial and creative legacies.

But first, they expand on last episode’s discussion about IP tie-in games, and the best ones throughout the years. Plus, as always, answer your questions in the Letters section!

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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!