Jump to content

Official Nintendo Magazine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Zooba (talk | contribs) at 17:41, 30 April 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

What is it?

The Nintendo Official Magazine (called NOM by many readers, and by me for the rest of this article) is the UK's official Nintendo magazine. Started on October 1st 1992, it retails for £3.99. Every issue includes a free gift, with the more original gifts including:

  • a Chain Chomp beachball
  • a Nintendo DS cloth case
  • a 'Donkey Kong - Greatest Hits' CD &
  • a Paper Mario mousemat

What's in it?

Well, being a games magazine, it has inside stuff about... well... games. In Issue 153 there was a massive make over resulting in a new layout, so the following includes a description of the magazine in chronological order at the time of writing (Issue 153):

Welcome Page - this is, as its name implies, a welcome page. It also is home to all the contact information for NOM.

DK's Big Bananas - this page is just here to show off something big, new or both.

Contents Page - again, you probably know what a contents page is. It does though have a 'Ten Things We Didn't Know Last Month' thing, which is a basic summary of the most important stuff in the issue.

Special Preview/Review - this is basically the main story of the issue. The top banner is in gold, and it is the longest review/preview of the magazine, lasting four, six, eight pages or more.

The World of Nintendo - these pages are full of the Nintendo news that happened inbetween this issue and the previous. That includes:

  • announcements about games, consoles and accessories (the playing of the Mario Kart aracade game)
  • special events (the opening of the Nintendo store in New York)
  • a 'Pokémon center' with information about Pokémon (shock horror)
  • the 'We Can't Wait For' section consisting of very early little tidbit previews of games that NOM is hyped about
  • compettions
  • an Animal Crossing newsletter informing you of in-game events &
  • the Club Seal, a page devoteted to taking the mickey of games and things generally associated with Nintendo.

The banner sums this all up by saying '>News >Products >Events >Opinions >Competions'.

Big in Japan - everything in here is, of course, big in Japan. This section comprises of Japanese game releases, posters and events; Japanese give-aways and the Japanese Nintendo top-ten chart. It also includes a 'review' of the Nintendo games taht are rocking the Japanese world.

Previews/Reviews - yeah, I'm counting on you to know what a preview and a review is. Pretty explanitory stuff, but I'll give you info on how these sections are formated. Firstly, they may be done in a special way (e.g. the preview of WarioWare: Twisted! had the text spiralling around the page, whilst the review of Polarium had the columns of text changing the direction the face), but now, onto the more technical side.

The previews give you, literally, 'the Essentials' after the main preview. This includes the Developer of the game, what they are known for, whether the game has mulitplayer, who is publishing it, when it will be releasedm and when the review is coming. It also gives it a predicted score and a small summary at the end that sums up NOM's views on it. Lastly, they have a 'Phila of Completion', just to give you an estimate of when it's due.

The reviews though, have somewhat more. At the beginning of the whole setion they explain there scoring system and who are the reviewers. Then, at the beginning of the seperate reviews, there is the Game Info, which is when the game is out, its price, its publisher and how many players can play it simoultaneously. The end score is based upon the game's graphics, sound, gamplay and value, each given a core out of ten, although the final score is given as a percentage. There is a small comment ('The Verdict') amd there is a 'Marios and Warios' section which outlines the good and bad points of the game.

Both the reviews and previews are 'interupted' by little boxes that contain chosen info or something else relevant about the game, whcih also includes interviews. Lastly, the reviews offer a 'Superstar' and 'Poison' award for the best and worst games of the issue, and there are often 'Mini-Reviews' which are reviews of games that aren't important enough to recieve a whole page devoted to them. Most of the time, the games fieatured in the 'Mini-Review' section recieve the 'Poison' award.

Features - although these appear throughout the magazine in different places, I thought I'd place it here. What the 'features' are vary, but they seem to be mostly based around the history of a game series e.g. the history of the Starfox series, or all the Star Wars games that appeared on Nintendo's consoles. At other times though, you get stuff like 'Dr. Mario Career Advice' which is blatantly career advice and how to get your way in to the world of games etc.

Mario's World - [see further down]

Next Month & [blank] Classic - this is bovious, so I'll end it quickly. The 'Next Month' section is a double spread with a show of what the next issue will be like. The '[blank' Classic' is a look back on a classic game, in Nom's opinion. The [blank] is there as the page has a different title depending on who made the game.

Mario's World

Introduced in Issue 135, this is easily the biggest section. It united pretty much 20 pages of the magazine under one roof, and gave it a big Mario make-over to look. Here's what it includes:

Toad's Tips - a tip section that, strangely enough, is not merged with the cheats. So far, it contains walk-throughs of games.

Wario's Cheat - NOM's cheats and reader's sent in cheats.

Subscription Page

Peach and Bowser's Royal Mail - a letter column with an odd competition or two, an art section, and 'Game or Lame' where readers send in their game ideas.

Luigi's Prize Pit - the main compettion area.

Chain Chomp's Challenge - a challenge area where people send in their high scores. Every four months there'll be a new league and the winners of the old one get invited to NOM to battle for a final mystery prize.

Boo's Brainer - a puzzle double page spread with cross words, word searches, quizes and other time wasting items.

Important Dates in the History of NOM

'This list has been taken from Issue 150 of NOM

Issue 1 - NOM starts under the name of Nintendo Magazine System on October 1st 1992 Issue 40 - First ever pictures of the Nintendo 64 Issue 54 - Name changed to Nintendo Magazine Issue 57 - World Exclusive: Starfox 64 Issue ?? - Name changed to Nintendo Official Magazine Issue 97 - World Exclusive: Game Boy Advance and Gamecube revealed Issue 99 - Majora's Mask reviewed Issue 100 - NOM's 100th Issue Issue 105 - NOM rveiew the Game Boy Advance Issue 116 - NOM gets a new look and the Gamecube reaches the UK Issue 150 - NOM's 150th Issue - NOM is the oldest running games magazine in the UK Issue 151 - Nintendo DS UK launch issue Issue 153 - NOM gets another make over

Resources

Nintendo Official Magazine

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Official_Nintendo_Magazine&oldid=13037741"