NGC Magazine
NGC Magazine was a British magazine specialising in Nintendo video game consoles and software. It was first printed in 1997 and ran until 2006. Until issue 60 in 2001, it was named N64 Magazine. N64 Magazine was the successor to Super Play, a magazine that ended in 1996. Many of the staff and the style of that publication persisted at N64 Magazine. In November 2000, N64 Magazine merged with Nintendo World, a magazine that was published by the same company, Future plc. NGC Magazine ceased publication in 2006. Its successor, NGamer, was renamed Nintendo Gamer in January 2012, until publishing its final issue the following September.
NGC Magazine was at the time of its closure one of the longest-running gaming magazines in the UK. It was on many occasions first for news, due in part to having no official connection to Nintendo and therefore no restrictions on what it could report. The magazine gained a reputation for honest and mainly accurate reviews and a reputation for good humor. It had a very large fan base in the UK and Europe.
The Staff
The staff of NGC Magazine varied over the years. Memorable staff members included Jonathan Davies, James Ashton, Jes Bickham, Dan Geary, Tim Weaver, Wil Overton, Mark 'Greener' Green, Martin 'Kittsy' Kitts, Andrea Ball, Dr Mark Cousens, Zy Nicholson, Geraint Evans, Justin Webb, Miriam 'Mim' McDonald, Steve Jalim and .The magazine took usual light-hearted digs at each of its own staff; Jes was regularly lampooned due to his bald head; Mark Green had an evil alter-ego named Dark Mark; Andrea Ball was apparently permanently covered in grease and fake tan, and also had a reputation for carrying a constantly trademarked "Big Stick™"; Dr Mark Cousens was mocked for his apparent lack of a Nintendo Entertainment System console; Tim Weaver was famed for his patented Emotionless Stare; and James Ashton was ridiculed mercilessly in the magazine's pages for continually failing to pass his driving test. To this very day, he drives his Ferraris on a provisional license. Geraint was often also the subject of jokes, due to his Welsh origins, with regular pokes at him and his culture and lifestyle.
Thematic humour
The many popular, satirical, running gags revolved around:- Nintendo executive and design staff - Shigeru Miyamoto, Hiroshi Yamauchi, Satoru Iwata, David Gosen, and Reggie Fils-Aime.
- Having the readers send in weird things to win stuff: Luigi papier-mache statues, photos of people dressed up as game characters, and pieces of alternative wisdom known as 'Sense Talks'. One famous competition asked readers to send in "" of their own in exchange for over £1000s worth of tat from the N64 offices. Among the N64 tat was a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Turok, star of several N64 games, along with two wigs that apparently belonged to Jes Bickham: the caption read "Make no mistake: when you see Jes striding down the street in his size threes wearing these hairpieces, you know he means business". This competition was repeated when NGC later reached its final issue.
- Random nonsense on popular love/hate-relationship characters: Toad, Luigi, Sonic, Tingle, Diddy Kong, Krystal, Lex Luthor, Yoshi, Kirby, Jango Fett, and Jar Jar Binks.
- 'Bonus Letters'. This could also include the titles at the top of fully printed letters, which took certain amusing words from the body of the letter and printed them in large, bold text to draw the reader's attention. This tradition, and the one above, have been continued in NGC's successor Nintendo Gamer.
- Made-up and ridiculous words such as "blork", "grackler", "interweb", and "wah!". "Grackler" is particularly infamous; in response to a competition in issue 16, a ghost story was received, part of which read "one nit when i was sleppin a grackler cam". The entire sentence became part of N64 tradition, and it was eventually decided that the term should be used as a noun when referring to an exceptionally ugly person. For example, when the football game FIFA '99 was reviewed, a picture reference was made to the extremely horrible texture-mapping on the players' faces, with the caption "Grackle Vision, Gr-Grackle Vision, Grackle-Grackle Vision," in reference to the popular UK children's TV show "ChuckleVision". "Wah!" is based on Wario's exclamation upon being hit by a shell in Mario Kart 64.
Wil "FuSoYa™" Overton
As a measure of this eccentricity, he was also known by the pseudonym "FuSoYa™". FuSoYa was a wizard character from the game Final Fantasy IV, and Wil, devotee of Final Fantasy that he is, added a ™ symbol to the character's name, and a legend was born: FuSoYa™, Wil's "beardy, RPG-loving alter-ego", as N64 Magazine described him. FuSoYa™ appeared sporadically, sometimes to promote a competition, other times in response to queries in the magazine's letters section; his monstrous visage was a comforting sight to many.
Wil Overton eventually moved to Rare, where he worked as an artist for several years. He later returned to do some character design artwork for NGamer, including the cover of the final ever issue
Regular features
Listed below is a set of NGCs recurring features:Top scored games
These are the top games that the magazine rated where the 100-point system was used. Ratings reflected are the last printed in N64/NGC Magazine before it finished.| Score: | Games: |
| 98% | - Issue 24 |
| 97% | Resident Evil 4 - Issue 104 - Issue 81 Metroid Prime - Issue 79 |
| 96% | Super Mario 64 - Issue 1 Perfect Dark - Issue 42 Super Mario Sunshine - Issue 71 - Issue 49 |
| 95% | - Issue 21 Advance Wars - Issue 61 - Issue 110 |
| 94% | GoldenEye 007 - Issue 9 - Issue 101 Golden Sun Mario Kart DS - Issue 114 - Issue 64 |
| 93% | Mario Kart Double Dash!! - Issue 88 Donkey Kong 64 - Issue 36 F-1 World Grand Prix - Issue 20 Jet Force Gemini - Issue 34 Shadow Man - Issue 32 - Issue 59 |
For two stints, first from 1999 to 2002 and then all issues dated 2005, the Magazine ran a 5 out of 5 scoring system for portable games. This list is all games which scored the perfect five, and thus do not fit in well with the above list.
| Score: | Games: |
| 5/5 | Sonic Rush - Issue 114 - Issue 113 Gunstar Future Heroes - Issue 113 Nintendogs - Issue 112 Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan - Issue 112 Meteos - Issue 108 Wario Ware Twisted! - Issue 107 Wario Ware Touched! - Issue 105 - Issue 66 Pocket Music - Issue 65 Super Mario Advance 2 - Issue 64 Doom - Issue 62 Wario Land 4 - Issue 62 - Issue 57 - Issue 57 GT Advance - Issue 55 Kuru Kuru Kururin - Issue 55 Chu Chu Rocket! - Issue 55 - Issue 55 Pokémon Puzzle Challenge - Issue 55 Pokémon Gold and Silver - Issue 54 Mario Tennis - Issue 51 Kirby Tilt and Tumble - Issue 50 Pokémon Trading Card - Issue 50 Cannon Fodder - Issue 49 Donkey Kong Country - Issue 49 Warlocked - Issue 48 Legend of the River King 2 - Issue 47 Harvest Moon 2 - Issue 47 Pokémon Pinball - Issue 47 O'Leary Football Manager 2000 - Issue 46 Perfect Dark - Issue 45 Pokémon Yellow - Issue 43 - Issue 42 - Issue 41 - Issue 41 BC Kid 2 - Issue 40 Kirby's Dream Land - Issue 39 Balloon Kid - Issue 39 Dragon Warrior Monsters - Issue 38 Mario Golf - Issue 36 Stranded Kids - Issue 35 Pokémon Red and Blue - Issue 33 R-Type DX - Issue 32 Legend of the River King - Issue 32 Conker's Pocket Tales - Issue 31 Super Mario Bros. DX - Issue 30 Wario Land 2 - Issue 27 Harvest Moon - Issue 27 - Issue 26 Tetris DX - Issue 26 - Issue 26 |
Controversial Reviews
The magazine handed out some controversial scores in its N64/NGC years, mainly with some fan backlash found in the letters pages, a couple of examples are:- : 70%
- Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon: 69%
- Star Fox Adventures: 72%
- Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut: 38%
- Kirby Air Ride 51%
The Famed "Bad Reviews"
- ClayFighter 63⅓ : 24% - Was described as being "as painful as... having red hot needles shoved into your eyes"; the Top Tip section revealed that "Breaking the cart open reveals several chips of varying thickness. Stack them together to prop up wobbly chairs, etc."
- Cruis'n USA : 24% was described, simply, as "dump".
- : 22% - Declared an "utterly rancid arcade yawn-fest".
- Trump World : 21% - To give it the full title, "Alice's Waku-Waku Trump World", an unfathomable Alice In Wonderland-themed card game, was deemed "nose-achingly pungent" and "a real Lennie Bennett of a game".
- Wheel Of Fortune : 17% - Another US quiz show port, this was found to be "worse than accidentally falling off a cliff. And surviving".
- Castleween : 16% - This platformer's attempt to attract the younger generation of gamers was described via "Although it's aimed squarely at the ultra young market, we can't imagine many small children having the patience to endure an 'entertainment' experience as arduous as this. Not when pushing lolly sticks into dog turds offers so much more long-term excitement, and is a good £40 cheaper".
- : 16% - A "miserable excuse for a fighting game".
- : 15% - Jes described as "Like having the skin flayed from your fingertips". Later when Batman Begins was mentioned on the cover the magazine asked the rhetorical question: "Can it beat Batman: Dark Tomorrow? Well, it wouldn't be hard..."
- Superman : 14% - was initially viewed as 'an utterly hopeless, consistently appalling leper of a 'game'...bordering on the illegal'. Superman became the butt of all jokes after it was reviewed, and described in Issue 100's hall of shame as 'A game of legendary-so-bad-it's-almost-goodness'. Features the legendary level where Lex Luthor asks Superman to 'solve my maze' which later was a small competition segment in the magazine, the last of which was named "Solve my murder" and had three ways in which Luthor was killed.
- AeroGauge : 10% - Was ridiculed severely, and a "Top Tip" provided with a quick-reference review in the magazine's "index" section read "If you handed over good money for Aero Gauge, 01*** ****** is the number to ring to complain". Further, the sound was described as being "what your TV's mute button was designed for".
- : 10% - Was referred to as being "scat-encrusted", in the Mastery section it was stated that "the only thing this game has mastered is total crapness" and Kittsy said: "It's rubbish. Really rubbish. Honest, it's crap". In later issues the game's summary within the magazine's review directory read "For £20, we will come to your house and cheesegrater your eyeballs. It's more fun and lasts longer than this frickin' spinning top sim".
- Jeopardy! : 9% A US Import only, was described as "less a game, more a vile disease". Apparently "so ugly that, if you look at it, you'll turn to stone".
- : 9% - Possibly the most despised game of NGC Magazine's history; the price was stated as "£Too much", the mini-review stated that "This could only be less enjoyable if it squirted sulphuric acid into your face," and the staff's frustration with the game's mechanics was revealed in a tip section: "Creep along in that sideways spider fashion and then GET CRUSHED BY A PILLAR. Place your fist into TV screen".
- Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue : 9% - Described by Greener as "60 of the most bitterly tedious minutes" of his life. Was also described as "constipated puppet men jerking their way around Lego-built cities".
- : 8% - Was the lowest rated from 1999 until the end of 2004, and was described as "brain-meltingly awful" and "a shocking travesty": players were instructed, if they saw the game in the shops, to "take it off the shelves, rip up the box and throw the cart repeatedly at the wall until it breaks";
- Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Second Edition : 5% - The worst score in NGC's history. "You'd be better off staying as far away from this lazy slab of plastic as you can. So it's getting 5%. For 'existing'. And that is generous."
- Lego Island 2 The Brickster's Revenge : 3% - "And you think that Clayfighter was bad? Wait til you see this. It is THE worst game on the console, except for a game which actually throws up instantly without any further ado. Avoid like the plague." Top Tip Section: "Press all the directional pad buttons and then LOSE in the rocket ship test, then pull the cartridge out and play baseball with it in place of the ball." The magazine decided to cancel the port in anger.
- Getter Love!! Panda Love Unit : ??% - The strangest game ever reviewed for NGC Magazine, and as such, a score was impossible to award. The decision reached was ??%, and the review read thus: "Impenetrable Japanese girlfriend simulator. No, hang on, that came out all wrong..."
- Giftpia : ??% - Awarded the score for the fact that it was so heavy in Japanese that they didn't have a clue what was going on in the game and thus didn't feel they could award a score. However, the review was not unfavourable to the game's graphics and sound, giving them marks of 8 and 7 respectively, and even making the comment that "There's clearly a quite brilliant game lurking beneath the realms of the Japanese text".
External Links
on the Internet Archive