Exor's Dungeon - Magazine Reviews - Nintendo Power Volume 48

Player's Pulse this month covers the contest winner's trip to Vernon, New Jersey a few issues back, how to remove any sticky residue from your controllers if you decide to remove the controller decors that were included with the subscriber's version of Volume 44, and some new reader-submitted contest ideas that were decidedly more grounded than the ones back in Volume 28, but I'm guessing that Nintendo Power didn't print the sillier ones.

They're not called "The Lost Vandals", dummy.

The Lost Vikings is the first game covered this month. There's an overview of one level from each world, before moving onto Super NES Sports Games, a second run at what we saw back in Volume 44 in the same format (but not a regular feature). This time, they cover Tecmo Super NBA Basketball (Tecmo), Super NBA (Tecmo), Magic's Super Slam Dunk (Virgin Games), American Gladiators (Gametek), The Duel: Test Drive II (Accolade—the original never saw a release on a console), Battle Grand Prix (Hudson Soft), Super High Impact (Acclaim), Football Fury (American Sammy—they forget to actually put the title of this game in the article), and NFL Football (Konami). Continuing the "newspaper sports section" theme, there's also a few fake ads sprinkled in like for inflatable football airbags (and by a "few" I mean two).

Shadowrun, based after the FASA role-playing game, has eight pages. It's set in Seattle in 2050 and talks about giant mega-corporations holding all the power. What if even in the year 2026 there was a mega corporation who had huge control of Seattle in particular and built giant warehouses across the country and had an enormous reach in server solutions and tech and owned grocery stores and movie studios and its multi-billionaire CEO looked like Lex Luthor? Too far-fetched?

Finally, we get Batman Returns, which has a poster for Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind on the reverse side.y that the "Super NES version is so much better", which might be technically true but the NES game was one of the best-looking games for the system). Nester's Adventures, signaling the end of the section, covers MechWarrior.

Before we get to the rest of the magazine, there's the results for the Nintendo Power Awards '92, which had the nominations in Volume 45. There are other Nintendo Power Awards where I think some games got screwed just because they were released in heavy competition. I think The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past deserved better in some of these, only winning Graphics & Sound (SNES), Challenge (SNES), and Best Hero (with Link). Street Fighter II: The World Warrior won Theme & Fun (SNES), Play Control (SNES), "Best (Worst?) Villain" with M. Bison, and Best Overall (SNES). Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins destroyed the Game Boy categories, winning Graphics & Sound (Game Boy), Theme & Fun (Game Boy), Play Control (Game Boy), and Best Overall Game Boy, but not Challenge - Game Boy (which went with Mega Man II). It didn't even place in the top three in that category...Super Mario Land 2 is an EASY game. Mega Man 4 got Graphics & Sound (NES), Theme & Fun (NES), Play Control (NES), and Best Overall NES. Other winners included Mario Paint (Most Innovative), Dragon Warrior IV (Best Challenge NES), and NCAA Basketball (Super NES Sports).

After Power Player's Challenge, Classified Information covers R.P.M. Racing, Star Fox, Super Buster Bros., Super Star Wars, Space Football: One on One, Bomberman II, and Kid Klown in Night Mayor World, the last two being NES games (the rest were SNES games).

The Star Fox comic continues with General Pepper telling the story of why Fox is so passionate about defeating Andross complete with a great pun before we get to the Game Boy section featuring a preview of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, then strategy for Zen: Intergalactic Ninja and Ring Rage, as well as Great Greed, an RPG with a "save the environment" theme.

It's stuff like this that makes me think that people don't give Pokémon enough credit for its "less commonly used colors" theme for its towns.

Counselor's Corner has Prince of Persia (SNES), Equinox (SNES), Ultima: Runes of Virtue (Game Boy), and Mega Man 5 (NES), while there's also four pages on the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, a film that was considered a financial and critical failure that the Bros never showed their face on the silver screen for decades, and ironically, that blue hedgehog giving Nintendo grief during this time would later show that these sorts of things could be done, and could be profitable. That's all later.

The NES games covered this month include Kirby's Adventure, The Incredible Crash Dummies, and Super Turrican. The Incredible Crash Dummies has maps, but while it got a European release first in September 1993, it wouldn't hit North American shelves until August 1994, making it one of the last NES games released in the region. It's not a great game, but it features the talents of Tim Follin, composer of a number of rockin' NSF tunes.

While Wave Race 64 Kawasaki Jet Ski is just three years away (read the Exor's Dungeon review!), there is Kawasaki Caribbean Challenge, and that's what the contest is about this month. The Grand Prize winner gets a Kawasaki TS JetSki, a Kawasaki JetSki flotation vest, Neoprene boots and gloves, and the game. I noticed that the poll card (not in every scan I have) asks the question of "Which of the following Grand Prizes do you like best for the Player's Poll Contest?" with one of the answers being "Special trips like this month's prize", except that there wasn't a trip for this one. It's just the jet ski and related prizes. The second question asks "Which Player's Guide would you be most likely to purchase?", with the answers being "Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 2--6 Golden Coins", "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening", "Mario Paint Stamp Album", "Street Fighter Ultimate Fighting Guide", and "1993 Buyer's Guide to software for all 3 systems". Mario Paint got a Player's Guide (it wasn't called "Stamp Album") as did The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, but those others didn't exist. I wonder if they were planned or under consideration.

Anyway, the second prize got "Team Kawasaki" jackets and the game, with the third prize being the Nintendo Power shirts (called jerseys again).

While The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past gets pushed down to #3 once more by Super Mario Kart (which bests it by 1,500 points), Street Fighter II: The World Warrior's time is starting to run out, just 2,400 points from Super Mario Kart. Star Fox and Mario Paint hold #4 and #5 like last month. Super Star Wars shot up from #15 to #6, forcing NCAA Basketball down another slot (now at #7). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time maintains #8, Final Fantasy II is back on the top 10 at #9 (#14 last month), with John Madden's Football '93 taking #10 for a second time. While SimCity was at risk last time, it went to #13, though F-Zero fell from #12 to #20 (it was on the top 10 just two months ago). As Super Star Wars and Final Fantasy II made triumphant returns to the top 10, it meant Super Mario World had to go (#9 to #11) as well as NHLPA Hockey '93 (#7 to #15).

Buoyed by the success of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Super Mario Land sends Metroid II: Return of Samus from #2 to #4, with it taking #2 (from #4) and Kirby's Dream Land taking #3 (from #8). Dr. Mario holds #5, Tetris is pushed to #6 (from #3), The Ren & Stimpy Show: Space Cadet Adventures premiers at #6, Game Boy Battletoads go from #9 to #8, Game Boy Mega Man III drops from #6 to #9, and FaceBall 2000 goes from #7 to #10.

Tecmo Super Bowl finally comes down to earth by crashing from #1 to #3, but Super Mario Bros. 3 is still #2. #1 goes to The Legend of Zelda, an achievement that really hadn't been seen since the earliest days of the magazine (it took #1 back in Volume 1). Mega Man 5 is at #4 ("The little blue robot warrior has blasted up the charts to number four this month) but it was #4 last month, too. Dr. Mario still holds the charts, going back to #5 from #11, Final Fantasy goes from #5 to #6, Metroid also benefits with a huge leap (#19 to #7), Mega Man 4 going from #6 to #8, Tetris going from #8 to #9, and Battletoads from #9 to #10. Battletoads is clearly on its way out, but it's got one trick up its sleeve. The same can't be said of the Turtles...Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project plummeted to #14 from #9. This may be the first time since they first showed up back in 1988 that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game didn't make top 10 (am I wrong about that?). Mega Man 3 went from #10 to #16, the other game to be eased out of the top 10. For what it's worth, all five games made the top 20, with the lowest being Mega Man II in #19.

Looking at the Now Playing list and comparing them to the sports games article, not all of them got listed on Now Playing, and some of them got additional paragraphs. During this time, if it wasn't a preview, even if it got a full article, it still got a mini review in Now Playing, that seems to be the general rule.

* American Gladiators (Gametek) was listed but didn't get a mini-review.
* Batman Returns (Konami) got a mini-review.
* The Blues Brothers (Titus) is only covered in Now Playing. Unlike Wayne's World, this game just licenses the SNL property (outdated by this time), and not even the film based after said SNL property (one of my personal favorites), all for a generic platformer. I don't think Jake and Elwood ever got an actually decent video game.
* Bizyland (Seta) was only covered in Now Playing.
* Football Fury (American Sammy), like American Gladiators (Gametek) was listed but didn't get a mini-review.
* Kendo Rage (Seta) was only covered in Now Playing.
* Lethal Weapon (Ocean), based after the 1987 film was criticized (the graphics, anyway), with Mel Gibson's character looking "like a fat, mean elf". I should also point out that by this time, they already released Lethal Weapon 2 and Lethal Weapon 3.
* The Lost Vikings (Interplay), along with Batman Returns, were the only two games to crack over a 4.0 in any category.

There's also Bizyland (Seta), Football Fury (American Sammy), Kendo Rage (Seta), Outlander (Mindscape), Shadowrun (Data East), and Tom & Jerry (Hi-Tech Expressions), which all got mini-paragraphs.

For the NES games, Hit the Ice (Taito) has a mini-review and in the list, but they did it last month! The Incredible Crash Dummies (Acclaim) was expected to be released in April 1993, I wonder what the delay was. It also ended up being published under the LJN label, as well. Also in this section—Kirby's Adventure (Nintendo), Pro Sport Hockey (Jaleco), and Super Turrican (Seika).

Game Boy just has Great Greed (Namco) and Zen: Intergalactic Ninja (Konami).

SimAnt, the third Sim game, shows up in Pak Watch as a SNES port. This time around, it would be developed by Japanese developer Tomcat Systems but published by Maxis itself for the North American SNES release. Sadly, it would be the ONLY Maxis-released game on the SNES, no more ports by them, they didn't even do the SimCity 2000 port later on, no more ports (no SimFarm on the Nintendo), and nothing after that. They mention that Monsters (from LucasArts, back on Volume 44) was purchased by Konami. This would ultimately turn into Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

The Battletoads are down but not out, as Nintendo Power promises a "Battletoads Extravaganza" for Volume 49.