Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is the cover this month, a tie-in to the movie starring Kevin Costner. Wikipedia notes that the issue was "notorious" for advertising the game months before it actually was released (delays), though their only reference is this page for some reason. It also points out that for a game based after a movie, it's original artwork. Batman back on Volume 10 depicted Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson as Batman and the Joker, respectively, while Volume 42 (later) depicted Darth Vader, but there's just not many examples to go on since few licensed titles based after a movie even made the cover feature. Michael Keaton as Batman would once again grace the cover of Volume 48, and Pierce Bronson as James Bond in Volume 99, and that was it all the way until Volume 196 with Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter when it featured Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and even the cover was basically the cover of the game.It is based on the 2005 film of the same name, and when you exclude wrestling and sports figures (Tony Hawk made the cover twice) that was it for live people.

Player's Pulse features the famous Game Boy that lived through a fire in Iraq appears in this issue. For some years it was displayed at the Nintendo World store in New York, where I saw it, running a demo of Tetris. And of course, the A and B button were basically inoperable without cutting at them with a knife. The "Desert Storm" Game Boy is often held up as an example of the indestructible "Nintendium". The magazine ran a picture but you can see another picture here.

As far as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves goes, we talked about Arcadia last month and this month, despite being Arcadia in the "Game Pak Data Box", it's referred to as Virgin Games in the article itself. (It was published as Virgin Games when it was finally released). Sixteen pages follow. Nester's Adventures is...not Battletoads but rather The Hunt for Red October (is it the Game Boy game or the NES game?)...and the second runner-up to the cover this month is Rockin' Kats which I do have a page for on this website. There are eight pages but only maps for "Channel 3" and "Channel 4" (two of the four levels you have access to, "Channel 5" is the unlocked upon beating the first four, and then there's a secret channel after beating Channel 5).

For Classified Information, there's Little Nemo: Dream Master (oh yeah, I forgot about that game), The Lone Ranger, The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, Dragon Warrior II, Low G Man (a full page), WWF WrestleMania Challlenge, and more Silver Surfer passwords.

Capcom's latest Disney game, based on The Little Mermaid, only gets four pages, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure follows. Unusually, there's a small box for text explaining its relatively low scores for a featured game, which almost never happens. After six pages of that, we get to another Super NES feature with its features on a technical level but also screenshots of 29 games that were released in Japan or upcoming, claimning that they "may make their way to the Super NES". This is the first time SimCity shows up as a Super NES title, and I looked into the games. Most of them made it over, even if the names were different (Zelda III of course became The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and "Darius" is actually Twin Darius). "Augusta Golf" (Harukanaru Augusta) didn't, nor did SD The Great Battle, Battle Dodge Ball, or "Gadulin" (Gdleen).

The Game Boy section has some very suspect-looking game art [link]...just after thanking the whistleblowers over bootleg cartridges. The Game Boy section grows larger with six pages for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Capcom), five pages for GameTek's "InfoGenius" line (I bought the Travel Guide cartridge for dirt cheap at a used games shop, it was extremely limited for what it was; it sucked; you should've bought the books), Sneaky Snakes (Tradewest, one page), Navy Seals (by Ocean, based on the film, four pages), Dick Tracy (I guess it was on video now, this has two pages, Bandai), Altered Space (four pages, Sony Imagesoft), Blades of Steel (Ultra) with two pages, and Game Boy Classified with Mercenary Force, Lock 'n Chase, and Burai Fighter Deluxe.

When it comes to Game Boy Now Playing, it lists all of those EXCEPT the InfoGenius French Translator (an "X" is given for InfoGenius' "Challenge" rating) and Altered Space. It does have The Punisher (LJN) and Torpedo Range by Romstar, however. The Coming Soon refers to Sony Imagesoft as CSG Imagesoft, and still has a reference to Arcadia when it came to the upcoming Game Boy port of Prince of Persia. The Game Boy Top 10 has movement this time. Super Mario Land retains #1. The Final Fantasy Legend moves up to #2 (from #4) with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan forced to #3, and Dr. Mario forced to #4 in turn. Tetris retains #5. F-1 Race appears at #6, Gargoyle's Quest has improved slightly to #7 (from #8), Operation C moves up to #8 (from #9), Castlevania: The Adventure drops to #9 from #6, and NBA Challenge appears at #10. This means Paperboy is off for at least the second time, and Alleyway is gone as well.

In the real (NES) Now Playing, there's coverage for Tradewest/Rare's High Speed, Bandai's Legends of the Diamond, Hot-B's Over Horizon, and THQ's Videomation. The final Now Playing list includes Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure with the lowest score (it is of course, published by LJN), High Speed, Legends of the Diamond, The Little Mermaid, Rainbow Islands (a somewhat modified port of arcade game Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2), Romance of the Three Kingdoms II, Videomation, and Rockin' Kats. Over Horizon isn't listed for some reason.

For the third anniversary of Nintendo Power, lots of prizes are given out. The Grand Prize has three winners, with the "Super Anniversary Grand Prize Package" getting a trip to Nintendo of America in Redmond, Washington and one of the first Super NES systems to reach the U.S. (which would include Super Mario WOrld as a pack-in), six winners getting the second prize (a Game Boy with Tetris), nine getting the third prize (a NES Advantage joystick), and 30 getting the fourth prize (the third version of the Nintendo Power jersey..actually a shirt, as "Version 2" is).

Counselor's Corner has three questions for Déjà Vu (they got the accents right), one for The Legend of Zelda, one for Faria (a full page), and two for Puzznic.

After Celebrity Profile (Marsha Warfield from "Night Court"), we find that there's barely any movement in the Top 30, just reorganizing: the ones that moved up are Super Mario Bros. 3 (#2 to their rightful #1 spot), Final Fantasy (#4 back to #3), The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (#5 from #6), Dragon Warrior II (#7 from #9), and Tetris (#8 from #10). The ones that moved down were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (#1 to #2), Mega Man 3 (#3 to #4), StarTropics (#5 to #6), Crystalis (#7 to #9), and Dr. Mario (#8 to #10). Other items to note, The Legend of Zelda is #12, Super Mario Bros. 2 is #13, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is #16, Maniac Mansion is about to drop at #27.

Pak Watch has a paragraph about Konami/Ultra and their games that are releasing, and they STILL refer to the upcoming game as "Where Is Carmen Sandiego?". Konami/Ultra promises more ports including Pirates! by MicroProse (mentioned last issue), King's Quest V, and Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (as it would be known) but the NES version was totally different than the computer versions, despite being developed by Interplay themselves.

Editor-in-Chief Gail Tilden finally talks (for at least the first time in a long while) in what used to be Howard's space. While she doesn't talk about the delays of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, she does discuss its development and issues with celebrity appearances. Let's just let her speak for herself.

Going back to the start of this issue's review, a lot of licensed games have bad reputations and unfit for a cover feature, but this also explains why live people are just so rare as Nintendo Power cover features to begin with. Tilden's picture even suggests that they had a cover mock-up with Kevin Costner on it but had to cut it fairly late in production time after Warner Bros. said no.

Return to Main Page | Return to Magazines Index | Contact Me

© 2026 Carbon-izer.com