"Remember ... don't say the N-word!" -Team Sega Newsletter (circa 1989)

"Remember ... don't say the N-word!" -Team Sega Newsletter (circa 1989)

Here's a rare advertisement for Electronic Game Player, the short-lived Steve Harris magazine that eventually led the way to the creation of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

By the time this advert was published in Team Sega Newsletter, EGP was already dead. The final two issues are in the ad.

Only $249.99 + shipping and handling.

When you open up the debut issue of the Team Sega Newsletter (published fall 1988), the very first video game you see on the very first page is ... Super Mario Bros.???

Yup, that new Parking Garage Rally Circuit DLC (European Tour) is a whole lot of fun. And there's a lot of content, effectively doubling the amount of tracks in the game. This continues to be one of the best racing games from the last few years.

Before they rushed into making a Street Fighter movie, they really should have made standalone films for all of the World Warriors. How will I care about Blanka's deep lore if I don't get a 3 hour back story? I need to see Zangief wrestling bears in the U.S.S.R.

I worked on the marketing of the re-release of R.C. Pro-Am II, so I'm biased. That first Rad Racer is, as the title suggests, pretty damn rad.

That's a shame. I actually hadn't heard anything about that. Almost all of the art that could have started out as A.I. is locked behind a battle pass, which you can't even buy right now. It's also oddly useless to the game. The game didn't really need any of that.

They say that because Nintendo refuses to bring Mother 3 to the U.S.

Shika-Q is a genuinely amazing competitive puzzler. Probably my favorite since Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Unfortunately, I have a hunch that its barebones package is going to scare a lot of potential fans off. I hope more gets added to it in the (near) future.

I've been saying for decades that The Crying Game needs to get a Criterion Collection release. I had to wait a long time, but it's finally coming out this July (during the B&N 50% off sale).

I could see SHIKA-Q having some cross-over success, because it's super-quick, intense and strategic in a really competitive way. And unlike most competitive puzzle games, it's all happening on the same board at the same time (no turns or anything). It's utter chaos.

I know that it's going to be at EVO Japan this year, so I would be curious to see some high level play.

Every single one of them saw it through to the end. I'm up 20 - 0 and haven't had a single quitter, which is nice. I assume they are taking notes on how to play.

Not sure if that's because I'm being matched up with people who haven't played the computer opponents or maybe all the truly great players are currently asleep. Either way, I got a real nice ego boost after those first three blow-out games.

I'm not the best at competitive puzzle games, so I have mainly been playing the CPU opponents in SHIKA-Q. Was able to hold my own at CPU level 5 and 5 (out of 10), so I figured that I would try my luck online ...

I'M ABSOLUTELY DOMINATING THE FIELD!! Three crushing wins in a row. Not even close.

Basically any Aimee Mann album could be turned into a feature-length movie with minimal effort (one essentially was). Every album paints such a rich and involving story.

Been playing SHIKA-Q and it's a really fun and intense competitive puzzle game using Tetris pieces in a whole new way (not falling from the sky). I'm holding my own against the computer opponents, but know if I take it online I won't stand a chance.

Based on the difference in quality between the two enevlopes, I think it's safe to say that they aren't from the same artist. I suspect there are probably more examples of copied evelope art, especially wtih so many different magazines. Cheat codes were often copied from one mag to another.

That time in 1993 when an Electronic Gaming Monthly reader (correctly) called out art plagiarism in GamePro.

Wait ... surely you mean that he was 41 a good twenty years before that picture was taken.

I think that's exactly what happened. I was going to do a refresh and wanted to know if I needed the long code (which is around here somewhere). I didn't, because even with a wiped hard drive, there's a serial number or something that remains the same.

Reading up about the history of InCider magazine has me craving apple juice for some reason.

It sure did have a lot of great games, though.

That said, for as much as I like seeing the American comics, I fear that one day the Rogansphere "assassins" will discover Taskmaster and want to take part. The last thing we need is Theo Von or Bert Kreischer stumbling through the tasks clueless and/or shirtless.

So excited to dig into the first new Taskmaster episode of the year. Great cast this year, too. I love that they keep roping American comics into the mix, and Kumail Nanjiani feels like the perfect fit. Can't wait to see if he does any better than Jason Mantzoukas.

News used to be better

In a roundabout way, Pac-Man is the first Tengen game to come to the Nintendo Switch Online.

For Kunio-kun.