ONM Remembered – #04
“HERE’S WHY WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN THE UK’S BIGGEST SELLING NINTENDO 64 AND NINTENDO MAG”
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 95 (August 2000)
For a good few years, this was what greeted you at the start of every Official UK Nintendo Magazine – the crew behind the magazine mugging for the camera and acting like bald-headed buffoons.
I loved it.
It gave the magazine a great sense of “chumminess”, y’know? These guys weren’t cold and analytical reviewers… they were fun-loving gamers! They weren’t hoity-toity philosophers, they were right blokes! They covered Japan-only Mahjong titles and other obscurities, but they made sure to write up about every footie game under the sun. Not a point I’d agree on, personally (MORE MEMORY CARD REVIEWS), but they catered to all audiences and brought a great sense of fun and light-heartedness to it all.
Their ugly mugs would show up in various parts of the magazine, either to highlight some fancy product like the Game Boy Camera, or just to show whose opinion was coming out of whose gob. I personally think it added a lot of charm and character to the mag, but it did come across as pretty unprofessional. If you hated looking at these people, you’d probably have good reason to outright loathe them by the end of one issue.
When Official Nintendo Magazine was given a once-over around the GameCube era, they cleaned up their act and began sporting a more professional design. The introduction and contents page would still feature a quick run-down of the good ladies and gentlemen behind the magazine, albeit in tiny, individual, dignified portraits that emitted a vibe more akin to, “oh, hello, you caught me while I was working on this forty page thesis on why Seiken Densetsu 3 is the greatest thing to have been produced from O Holy Nippon”… rather than the oh-so-loveable “WAHEY GROUP PHOTO EVERYONE YOU BETTER SNAP US QUICK BEFORE WE DROP OUR TROUSERS LADS”
The magazine got a bit boring after they did that.
I always remember that bloke Tim from the mags. Although I don’t know if it was a fascinating or fearinspiring vibe I got from him, maybe a combination of the two? Looking at him now though I can tell you he downright terrifies me.