Well, I'm Sad Now

Apparently Nintendo Power is finished. The last issue will run in December and after that, a twenty four year long era comes to a close. I dropped my subscription about thirteen years ago sometime in 1999; at least I think, it might have been sooner. After that, I subscribed to EGM for a bit then wound up with a free year of Game Informer that I didn't want a few years back. Gaming magazines had become completely irrelevant to me sometime around 2001-2002 as I had found Gamefaqs. I didn't need them anymore, so why am I sad? Simple, I was three years old when I got my first glimpse of Nintendo Power and it started a chain reaction that probably kept me a gamer.

My uncle was a gamer back then and had a subscription to the magazine. I remember seeing a small stack of the magazines at my grandma's house and the cover of the one at the top of the stack was some kind of clay art picture of Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario Bros. 2, I don't really remember. Fast forward two years to 1990; I'm five years old and I occasionally flip through my uncle's issues, but don't know what the hell they're about. Then he pops Super Mario Bros. 3 in his NES. I instantly recognize the stout mustachioed man on the screen; it's the guy from the book! So, I sit and watch and watch and watch. I just watched my uncle conquer that game. Now I know the importance of those magazines; they contain vital information relating to video games.

Skip ahead about five or six more years(memory's a tad hazy); I'm a young gamer, with a subscription to NP. I've read Howard and Nester, I had the issues with the Super Metroid comics and the Link to the Past comics. I've read the columns, the reviews, the letters and the cheats. Much of my taste in videogames has been shaped by this wondrous publication.


...In about five years I would drop it like a rock and move onto to EGM. I kept the issues I had built up, though; I think. I got rid of a lot(read: plastic storage tub full) of my old magazines a couple of years ago. After this, it was Gamefaqs and then multiple other websites. If I hadn't laid eyes on that magazine over twenty years ago, I might not have become a gamer and now that magazine is going to end in December. At least I have the memories.