ULTRA Review Crew Bonus UNLOCKED - Computer Entertainer reviews Super Mario Bros., featuring the Video Game History Foundation [S1B5]
ISSUE LINK: Computer Entertainer, Volume 5, Number 3 | Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital ArchiveVHGF HOME: Home | Video Game History FoundationBONUS UNLOCKED!! This week, for our six-month anniversary, we're making one of our favorite bonus episodes available for everyone--one featuring a pair of guests we've been dreaming about landing since before we launched the show: Frank Cifaldi and Phil Salvador of the Video Game History Foundation They're two of the highest authorities on the planet on retro games, games media, and the culture around it all.The VGHF recently acquired the copyright to the 1980s game mag Computer Entertainer, and their contemporary review of Super Mario Bros. for the NES might be the only such surviving American professional written critique of one of the pillars of console gaming history.Unusually for one of our bonus episodes, we--as well as Frank and Phil--review it!As always, we thank all of you so much for supporting the show. If you dig it, please tell people! We'd love nothing more than to get more cool people in the ULTRA Lounge of our Discord server--and have the support we need to keep doing this show we love.-----Computer Entertainer images and information are sourced from the Video Game History Foundation, under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.enOther sources include 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!
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ULTRA Review Crew TEASER - Matt Leone's Design Room [S1B6]
DESIGN ROOM DOT SITE: https://www.designroom.site/Matt Leone, formerly of Polygon, EGM, and elsewhere, has launched a new subscription-based site that gets right to the heart of everything Ty and Aidan love about games media: oral histories of classic, beloved and/or interesting old games.Not only do we get deep into how and why Matt launched the site, we also look back on some of the vital work Matt did at some of the mainstream games media outlets we've covered--and it inspired and guided Aidan's own work in games-history storytelling.Matt was super generous with his time on the eve of the launch, and we had a great conversation.-----Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, 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!
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Game Players 83 - Resident Evil [S1E15]
ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/game-players-1993/game-players-issue-83/Here come the RPGs...sort of. Aidan and Ty revisit Game Players yet again, as the drumbeat for more RPGs gets louder across 1996 and 1997. The splashy cover art of Beyond the Beyond's Finn helped rook a young Ty into buying one of the most disappointing and frustrating games he's ever played.But the review is actually for the seminal Resident Evil, with the GP crew doing its level best to review a genre-shattering, brilliantly innovative game with a couple of truly nasty flaws. -----Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, 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!
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Game Informer 47 - Carnage Heart [S1E14]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-47-march-1997ANDY MCNAMARA ON MY PERFECT CONSOLE: https://shows.acast.com/my-perfect-console/episodes/andy-macnamara-former-editor-in-chief-game-informerMATT MILLER ANNOUNCING GI'S RETURN: https://gameinformer.com/letter-from-the-editor/2025/03/25/game-informer-is-backWe've been grinding XP and saving up MP for this one: Our first issue of Game Informer--though in 1997, the mag is years from its dominant Aughties peak, and decades from its shocking 2024 closure and its thrilling 2025 revival.Ty comes clean about his lack of history with the magazine, Aidan discusses having written for it; they both talk about how the PS1 library was chock full of brilliant, groundbreaking, unconventional, and nevertheless first-party (or AA/AAA-level funded) experiments of the kind that are so hard to get greenlit these days.And then...Carnage Heart.It was Ty's bizarre obsession, Aidan had never heard of it, and it was (and is) one of the most unusual, tough-to-talk-about games of all time.How did the GI staff handle it? Listen to find out!-----Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, 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!
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PC Gamer Vol. 4, Issue 3 - Diablo [S1E13]
ISSUE LINK: Video Game History Foundation Library | Collection: PC GAMER (US)More info on "Free Speech and Magic Money," Jillan E. Foley, PhD's forthcoming book from Harvard University Press: Book – Jillian E. FoleyWe enter the dangerously Adult world of PC gaming: Mail-order explicit games, game-deletion utilities to keep people from finding out you play explicit games, politicians fear-mongering about games being a "dirty, dangerous" gateway to Hell--and a very thorough and excellent review of Diablo!You know, a game about going to actual Hell!For one of our most-requested mags, PC Gamer, Aidan and Ty get personal about their history with PC gaming, the thrill of the illicit, and late-stage AOL's idealized business model.-----Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, 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!
Ty Schalter (VICE, FiveThirtyEight) and Aidan Moher (WIRED, Vulture) review what rocked and what sucked about the classic video game magazines that inspired them to become professional journalists, authors, and critics—and what they can tell us about today's digital media and games.New episodes drop every other Tuesday!
Netherlands