This issue is a bit special not for any particular reason (other than some fond memories of reading circa 2004) but it inspired the magazine review section of this site, with the original overview seen on my old blog, Blue Skies & Nintendo. Only a few of those scans from that page made it over to this one (many are from Retromags or re-scanned), though.

I may update this page when I do everything in order (as of this writing, I left off at Volume 39), but what I do is check the rankings of the games and see how they went up and down (before they get broomed a few years from now). At this point in time, the "Power Charts" are entirely reader-determined without the Pros or Dealers, so they don't move as much.

The Nintendo 64 charts lead with GoldenEye 007 at #1, 1080° Snowboarding premiering at #2, WCW vs. nWo: World Tour at #3 (previously #4), Yoshi's Story at #4 (previously #8), Diddy Kong Racing at #5 (previously #2), Super Mario 64 at #6 (previously #5), Star Fox 64 at #7 (previously #3), Mario Kart 64 at #8 (previously #3), Bomberman 64 at #9 (previously #7), and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter holding #10 (Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire is off the list). The top five in the Super NES category are The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at #1, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars at #2, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble at #3, Donkey Kong Country at #4 (up from #5), Final Fantasy III at #5 (down from #4), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest at #6, Chrono Trigger at #7, Super Mario Kart at #8, with #9 and #10 respectively being Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Star Fox (replacing the old #9 and #10, Final Fantasy II and Harvest Moon, respectively). The Top 5 Game Boy games (there's only the top 5 at this time, not 10) are in order The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, James Bond 007, Donkey Kong Land 3, Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, and Donkey Kong Land 2. The only difference from last month is James Bond 007 and Donkey Kong Land 3 switched places.

Going into the meat of the issue itself, we have a large section on the Rare-developed Nintendo-published Banjo-Kazooie (specifically finding trinkets like Jiggy Pieces, Jinjos, and Extra Honeycomb Pieces) which serves as the cover feature, another section on World Cup '98 by Electronic Arts, and a comparison of Mortal Kombat 4 for Nintendo 64 and its arcade counterpart (of course, this being Nintendo Power, you know which one wins...even if controls and graphics take a nosedive) before getting to Classified Information mid-issue. The games from this section from this issue cover Snowboard Kids, San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing, Star Fox 64, WCW vs. NWO World Tour, Top Gear Rally, NFL Blitz (unusually, this for the arcade version and not the N64 game, which hadn't yet been released), Goldeneye 007 , Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition (the only Game Boy title covered this issue), and NFL Quarterback Club '98. Continuing, we get six pages on the forgotten N64 game Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. (which has some ludicrous presence that only some mutant cyborg fights can bring the United States back together again, or something like that), Acclaim's All-Star Baseball '99, and then Forsaken 64 (a port of the PC game, with the strategy continuing on the reverse side of the poster for WWF War Zone.

We then get to the most interesting part of the issue, "1998 Guide to E3", which talks about games that are expected to be seen at E3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time headlines of course, but the section next, for Twelve Tales: Conker 64, is more interesting. Previously titled as Conker's Quest prior to E3 (as it was known in its E3 1997 premier), we all know that this got turned into Conker's Bad Fur Day eventually but the magazine reports that there were more modes of play, with a choice of playing Conker (action based), Berri (strategy based), co-op play (Conker and an owl), and a four-player mode, the last which did survive to the final game. Other than discussing EarthBound 64 and another title that would ultimately not be released, Konami's Survivor: Day One (see Unseen64), most of these aren't really worth talking about that much. They do talk about the upcoming Pokémon, the original Pokémon Pikachu digital pet, and the Game Boy Color.

There's a preview for World Grand Prix before the Counselor's Corner for this issue—the four games this issue are Bomberman 64, Yoshi's Story, James Bond 007, and The Final Fantasy Legend.

The Nintendo 64 games wrap up with Midway's Off Road Challenge and Chopper Attack...and speaking of helicopter incidents, the Player's Poll Contest is a trip to the Seattle area to see Kobe Bryant play against the Seattle Sonics (with two courtside tickets). And of course, this being Seattle (as they were the home team but rival to Kobe Bryant, not to mention taking the name of Mario's biggest rival), you got to check out Nintendo of America headquarters. You also got Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside for N64, as the 5 runner-ups got (except, instead of Seattle, they get an autographed basketball).

There was also Game Boy Camera "strategies" and a review (it scored 8.3 overall). The strategies were tips, including taking pictures of drawings, and splicing together a film. The example showed 8 panels of a clown being incinerated by a spaceship. And, if you were a good enough artist, you could win things like a DVD player or digital camera, which, being in 1998, was pretty expensive. Most of the Game Boy Camera stuff seems incredibly primitive for today's standards (even in 2008 it would be primitive), especially with the fact that if you wanted to share them on anything more than what was essentially receipt paper, you needed to scan them in to your home computer or other source. Still, it was one of a kind (for owners of Game Boy Camera, it was likely the first digital camera they ever owned) and expanded the Game Boy's use. The Workboy had never been released and the Game Boy's hardware couldn't use stuff like TV tuners that its competitors got.

The reviews for that month included both N64 and Game Boy games. The N64 games included Banjo-Kazooie (Nintendo, 9.2), Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. (Midway, 7.8), Offroad Challenge (Midway, 5.8), All-Star Baseball '99 (Acclaim, 8.1), and World Cup '98 (EA Sports, also 8.1). The Game Boy games this month included the Game Boy version of All-Star Baseball '99 (Acclaim, 6.9), Brain Drain (Acclaim, 6.3), International Superstar Soccer (Konami, 7.1), and the aforementioned Game Boy Camera (Nintendo, 8.3). There's also Final Fantasy Adventure (7.7), as Sunsoft had re-issued it.

Pak Watch this month talks about a few things like LEGO Racers (which would release in 1999, but was a bit of a let-down despite some awesome concept art) as well as Super Mario RPG 2, which already had the later aesthetic it would have as Paper Mario (still, this particular prototype hasn't been found in the wild yet)...but it seems to have that problem where you see screenshots and assume there's a bigger game behind it, like when I thought that Mother 3 was going to be better than it actually was or worse, when I was younger, assuming I could visit Johto and Kanto in Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire. Pak Watch also discusses a new site for sports games on the Nintendo 64, "NintendoSports.com", which is what's also advertised on the back cover.

The last page has a numbered list of N64, SNES, and Game Boy games, as well as future titles and systems (the numbers were for polling purposes, for contest submissions). The list for Volume 109 can be seen here, it really does that have that small text. The SNES list in particular is far from complete, with games that were either recent or still available in some form, so games from something like January 1995 showed up (Aaahh!!! Real Monsters by Majesco) or perennial favorites like Mario Paint (released August 1992) but not a lot of the games from the early years. Pilotwings wasn't there, and while the more recent The Lost Vikings 2 was there, the original title wasn't. Already you can see how the list was rigged...the more interesting part is the "Upcoming Releases and Other Picks", including systems and accessories themselves (the Nintendo 64 itself was listed, as was the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive, even though its market potential was rapidly evaporating by this point), as well as possibly hypothetical titles alluded to like Super Mario 64 2.

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