Playing With Power

Playing With Power – Nintendo Power #2

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2015 and issue 2 of Nintendo Power!  I’m slightly changing the set-up of my posts.  In my first few posts, I’ve been commenting on certain pages of the magazines if I notice something interesting or noteworthy but that worked when the issues were only 30 or so pages.  Now the issues are going to be 100+ pages so scrolling through all the pages to find the comments will be difficult going forward.  Also, I realized that this will be the first time many of you will be reading these magazines and I would much rather you enjoy the issues for what they are without my comments interfering with your enjoyment of the magazine.  So for that reason, I will keep my issue notes and comments to the paragraphs.

So for issue 2, the cover was quite the controversy for the time.  Video games were still a kids hobby so a picture of a severed head on a magazine that was aimed at kids did not go over well with parents in America.  Looking at it now, it’s a very dramatic cover and another cover like this wouldn’t grace the magazine for a long time.  Beyond Castlevania 2, more NES classics like Bionic Commando, Life Force and a further in-depth look at Super Mario Brothers 2 are all highlighted in the magazine this month.  They all can’t be great though so we also get a look at Renegade and Golgo 13.  The number of pages dedicated to each game in the early issues of the magazine was incredible and you can easily see why these games were drooled over by the readers.

In another part of the magazine, Counselors Corner is giving tips on Metroid, Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.  At first I was surprised they were spending time giving tips on games that had been out since early in the system’s life but then I realized that they probably had so many new subscribers coming on to the magazine that many of them may not have seen these same tips in the Nintendo Fun Club News in previous years.  A big announcement was slipped in to the Pak Watch section with the news that Zelda II would get a very limited release in 1988 but would see full release in 1989.  We got a look at Rare and the two brothers who started the company and every kid dreamed of doing the same thing.  Finally there was a pretty cool calender included with some interesting dates including October 11th being Mario’s birthday!

I hope your enjoying the magazines as much as I am enjoying sharing them.  Do you have any memories of reading the magazine or getting any of these games as a kid?  Post in the comments and let us know! Enjoy the magazine and stay tuned for issue 3….Play with Power!