ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/NEXT_Generation_31/mode/1up

Great jumpin' ray guns, or some similar 1950sesque exclamation!

Captain Blasto, everyone's favorite James Bond-meets-Inspector-Clouseau-meets-Flash-Gordon, except make it a parody, and also it's Looney Tunes, superhero got a big, splashy cover and a huge preview spread in this issue--and why wouldn't it? A bold, new, original-IP action platformer from Sony's top U.S. studio, led by legendary programmer Dylan Cuthbert. 

Except, well, it didn't turn out great--and the seeds of why it didn't were right there in the preview. How did they handle it? And how did WE handle how they handled it?? Listen to find out!!

We also go long on journalists' role in the PR hype cycle, then and now, as well as dig in to NG's big interview with Sid Meier, and super-ambitious feature declaring the six essential elements of great game design.

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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.en

Other 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!

ISSUE LINK: Computer Entertainer, Volume 5, Number 3 | Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital Archive

VHGF HOME: Home | Video Game History Foundation

BONUS 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.en

Other 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!

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.

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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!

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. 

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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!

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-47-march-1997

ANDY MCNAMARA ON MY PERFECT CONSOLE: https://shows.acast.com/my-perfect-console/episodes/andy-macnamara-former-editor-in-chief-game-informer

MATT MILLER ANNOUNCING GI'S RETURN: https://gameinformer.com/letter-from-the-editor/2025/03/25/game-informer-is-back

We'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!
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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!

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. Foley

We 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.

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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!

ISSUE LINK: Tips & Tricks - Volume IV Issue 1 

GAME LOSERS T&T ARTICLE: A Comprehensive Oral History Of Tips & Tricks – The #1 Video-Game Tips Magazine | Game Losers

We're the Tomb Raiders! Aidan and Ty teased Tomb Raider takes last episode, and here they finally are--and so is our look at a very popular game magazine that didn't (quite) have reviews at all, Tips & Tricks.

Our hosts explain the appeal this magazine had (or didn't) to them at the time, flip out about the masthead featuring a very diverse staff working under Larry Flynt, and flip through the unique combination of in-depth strategy reference material with little-to-no traditional editorial.

And then: we review their walkthrough (?) of Tomb Raider, and talk about how the game itself might have impacted it.

-----
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!

ISSUE LINK: Computer Entertainer, Volume 5, Number 3 | Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital Archive

VHGF HOME: Home | Video Game History Foundation

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 are 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.en

Other 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!

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/Edge_Gaming/Edge%20Gaming%20Magazine%20016/mode/2up

We're going back to the future of interactive entertainment! EDGE magazine, the UK-made precursor to/sister publication of NEXT Generation, revolutionized games media way back in 1993. But the revolution wasn't televised, so to speak, in North America, and Aidan and Ty were barely aware of its impact until they were well into adulthood.

But as much as Aidan and Ty love this magazine's quality, ethos, and production values, their year-and-change late review of Final Fantasy VI raised more questions than it answered.

-----
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!

ISSUE LINK: Ultra Game Players No. 92 - Christmas 1996

Mike Salmon's shot-calling review of NBA Live '97 stuck with Ty for almost 30 years—and it cuts to the heart of everything our podcast is about. 

For the first time ever, we revisit a magazine: Game Players, right after the "ULTRA" makeover that inspired the name of the very premium tiers you subscribe to! We take a hard look at the makeover, their 1996 year-end reviews, and Mike Salmon's refusal to give a major publisher's release a score it didn't deserve.

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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!

ISSUE LINK: The Duelist No. 21, January 1997

ALLISON MCKENZIE'S TERRA PRINT: FFVI - Terra and Mog Print

It's a bonus BONUS! Ever since the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy set dropped, our Discord's hottest channel has been #ttrpgs-and-card-games. Aidan and Ty decided that if it's all they could talk about, and all our most engaged listeners could talk about, then heck why not interview Magic: The Gathering design lead Gavin Verhey, who was the design lead for the FF set as well? 

Then Aidan dropped a bomb on us: A contemporary review of Final Fantasy VII in Wizards of the Coast's classic Magic mag, The Duelist! 

We not only had an amazing interview with Gavin, we had a great discussion afterwards reacting to everything he said, and discussing all the fun we've been having playing Magic--and in a sense all our favorite Final Fantasy games--at the same time.

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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!

ISSUE LINK: Nintendo Power 88, September 1996

Gamemaster Classified book KS page

"Fun" & Games Podcast home

The episode so many of you have been waiting for: Our first look at Nintendo Power!

And boy, is it ever a big one--the debut of Super Mario 64, the game that would define the Nintendo 64, and the company itself, for the entire console generation (and, arguably, beyond). Packed with tons of incredible original art and exclusive assets, it's also got a very...interesting...review of the game itself.

What's our review of their review? And, does reviewing what amounts to in-house advertorial content even matter?? Listen to find out!

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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!

Mollie Patterson's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mollipen.bsky.social
Mollie Patterson's homepage: https://mollielpatterson.com/
The EGM Compendium Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/egmbook/egmcompendium

UNLOCKED AND FREE FOR ALL LISTENERS: A FunFactor ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode!! We talk with the great Mollie L. Patterson of EGM and GameFan fame about her (very) early years as a 'zine writer, joining the rough-and-tumble world of GameFan, and graduating to layouts and editing at EGM.

Of course, we also talk about the state of games media, the EGM Compendium project, and how some of the retro stuff we loved has stayed relevant today. 

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.

-----
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!

ISSUE LINK: Intelligent Gamer No. 2, July 1996

A true trailblazer of a magazine, which Ty mistook at the time for a craven NEXT Generation ripoff. Instead, Ziff-Davis bought what might have been the world's first fully digital online games magazine and soon put its precocious editor at the head of a real, monthly, big-boy print equivalent. 

Besides giving Aidan and Ty an excuse to riff on the benefits and drawbacks of physical magazines in the modern era, this issue's super deep previews and reviews give them plenty to chew on.

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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!

Please enjoy this sample of a FunFactor ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode bursting with international flavor! With EposVox and Sean Seanson joining Aidan and Ty, we bridged three countries and seven time zones to go deep on our love of demo discs--the best (and sometimes only) way to taste the breadth of some old consoles' libraries and indie scenes. 

It's our first two-guest episode, and an absolute banger. Sean's most recent deep-dive video is all about the set of 7 PlayStation EU/PAL-region demo discs, while EposVox has been creating genius-tier content on retro tech and gaming hardware for years and years.

As always, we thank all of you so much for supporting the show. If you dig it, please join FunFactor ULTRA at the Review Crew tier to unlock these episodes--and then tell people about us! 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.

-----
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!

TODAY'S ISSUE: GameFan Volume 4, Issue 5 - May 1996

This one's special -- we recorded it right before the Mollie Patterson bonus episode (which you should join the FunFactor ULTRA Review Crew to hear!), wherein she gave the amazing backstory behind some of the unique production and culture wrinkles that were evident in the final product of this unique mag.

We talk about our connections to the seedy underbelly of order-by-phone import stores--one of which GameFan actually started its life as a catalog for (!).

For the review, we go back to our JRPG roots with an underrated-at-the-time classic of the late 16-bit era, Lufia II! 

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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!

TODAY'S ISSUE: NEXT Generation Issue No. 5, May 1995

Whew, this one's a doozy. Not just diving into one of Ty's favorite magazines for the very first time, but the very first issue he ever picked up: A massive roundup of all the news and rumors ever about Nintendo's Ultra 64 project. Ty and Aidan also dig into console launches successful and -un, then and now, plus go long on journalistic responsibility when reporting "rumors." 

Of course, they review NEXT Generation's review of Kirby's Super Nintendo debut: Kirby's Dream Course, a sparkling little gem of a golf/pool/puzzle/marble game. Yes, really. They also can't help but review the review of Fight For Life on the Atari Jaguar on the way.

Oh, and uh...the outtakes are pretty good this time. And very long!

Finally, please consider supporting us directly by becoming a member of FunFactor ULTRA at FunFactorPod.com!

-----
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!

Mollie Patterson's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mollipen.bsky.social
Mollie Patterson's homepage: https://mollielpatterson.com/
The EGM Compendium Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/egmbook/egmcompendium

FunFactor ULTRA subscribers are getting our full 91-minute interview with the great Mollie L. Patterson of EGM and GameFan fame, talking about her (very) early years as a 'zine writer, joining the rough-and-tumble world of GameFan, and graduating to layouts and editing at EGM--not to mention the state of games media, the EGM Compendium project, and how some of the retro stuff we loved has stayed relevant today. 


But we wanted to make sure all our listeners got a nice, meaty taste of the full-course meal, as well. To hear the rest, just go to https://www.funfactorpod.com and join the Review Crew! You'll also get exclusive input on what we cover in Season Two of the main show.

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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!

TODAY'S ISSUE: EGM No. 74 - September 1995

Ty and Aidan dive into the super-edgy EGM ads, before flipping through one of the most fearless, innovative outlets of a fearless, innovative era. Then they dig into the four-way capsule review of the Super Nintendo port of DOOM, highlighting the strengths and faults of both the EGM review system and the game itself.

As always, our Letters section features YOUR comments and reviews! So if you want to be read on the air, just rate or review FunFactor wherever you're getting your podcasts.

And, hey: please consider supporting us directly by becoming a member at FunFactorPod.com!

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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!

TODAY'S ISSUE: GamePro No. 77, December 1995 (Internet Archive)

Ty and Aidan are two short white guys who don't play basketball--but do love sports, and sports video games. After quite a few pleas from listeners to break down a good review of a bad game, GamePro 77 delivered.

Of course, there are plenty of other things to talk about in the issue, from the letters and ads to the Jim Davis re-draw of the GamePro rating scale featuring Garfield's face??

We also drop our first-ever Letters section, featuring YOUR comments and reviews! So if you want to be read on the air, just rate or review FunFactor wherever you're getting your podcasts.

And, hey: please consider supporting us directly by becoming a member at FunFactorPod.com!

-----
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!