RetroDefense

So yeah, apparently this is officially happening. Mega Drive Megatron. As a video game and Transformers nut, I'm excited beyond all reason. http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/japanese-transformers-40/wonder-festival-2014-coverage-takara-tomy-arts-mega-drive-megatron-announced-179260/

Google Translate may be able to help with this kind of thing, Phillyman. Certainly isn't perfect, though. http://translate.google.com/

Course I'm not familiar with the site's infrastructure, but would it be possible to leverage the existing Gallery Member's Album functionality? Perhaps create an album for any magazine with variant covers and/or supplements/posters/CDs? In the frontend, you could add links to these albums in a magazine entry's Information block. Or maybe embed a thumbnail gallery of the album after an entry's Content block. Really all depends on how you'd like to manage page load times and bandwidth, I suppose.

Scanned & uploaded the cover of Game Informer #123 to replace the unsightly "Photo Coming Soon" placeholder.

Congrats TheRon, and welcome to RetroMags!

So the first 1/2 million were labeled Free Sample and the rest Free Poster? For me, "Free Sample Copy" seems to better state that, hey, this is a freebie, and you'll have to pay for future issues. But my wife says I'm wired differently, so what do I know? I compared the Super Mario Bros. 2 feature between the two magazines, and sure enough, they're identical in every way. My guess is, whomever put together the text copy for the Free Sample print run didn't count the SMB2 2-page art piece found in the article, which - granted- is decidedly out of place. These pages must have been counted when the text copy was prepped for the Free Poster print run.

From the outside looking in, I'd say it would be a matter of adding a new database field, then updating the Wiki form with a new text field. Probably the easiest way to handle the data - and staying consist with the current way of associating images - is to request a comma delimited list of cover IDs. Then just verify this data with form submission (is number, is valid list, do covers actually exist, etc), write to dbase, and you're golden! A rotation would be nice, but personally, I'd really like to see them displayed side-by-side, just to compare. But a rotation fader would be cool with some variants - have everything aligned just right and the EGM logo would look like it was changing before your very eyes.

Hi all, Having been indexing the Game Players portions of the database lately, I found a couple magazine scans with missing pages. Is there any formalized way of reporting these? Do I leave a note in the entry's comments section for each respective magazine, or just mention it here in the Help forums? I made a cursory look for a rescan discussion but didn't find anything - maybe a thread can be pinned for this type of thing? As for the incomplete scans: Game Players Nintendo Guide Issue 2 (page 103 missing) Game Players Nintendo Guide Issue 11 (page 70 clipped; pages 71-74 missing)

With all the variant cover talk here lately (Nintendo Power #1 and the four EGM anniversary covers), I thought I'd suggest associating variant covers with their database entry. Would this be possible? Kind of like the planned association of supplements, posters, etc. I know it's possible to upload variant covers to the gallery, but it'd be cool if these would show up when viewing the issue's database entry. Maybe a thumbnail cover gallery or something similar?

Denim!? Naw. I made this look good.

And here I thought I was the only person who liked to index magazines while wearing stone-washed jeans and loose-fitting high-tops. That's right. Bringing it back, baby. #80sFTW

This is my thinking, too. I was always under the impression the entire 1st print run of NP #1 was given to Nintendo Fun Club subscribers. But if this wasn't the case, I can understand why Nintendo would want to emphasis the "Free Sample Copy" message for the subscriber giveaway issues. This would be easy to semi-confirm if anyone purchased NP #1 off a retail magazine rack way back when. I recently won the non-variant NP #1 thanks to RetroMags' current contest (thanks again, Phillyman!), and thought I'd share some more differences I found when comparing the two covers. The variant is labeled "PREMIERE ISSUE 1988" on the cover and "PREMIERE ISSUE 1988" on the spine. The non-variant is labeled "July/August 1988" on the cover and "JULY/AUGUST 1988" on the spine. The Nintendo Power logo and logo trademark symbol ™ are larger on the non-variant. Thanks in part to a narrower footer bar, the non-variant displays slightly more artwork vertically. The variant displays more artwork horizontally. This may be related to the poor condition of my variant copy, but it appears the non-variant features better coloring - the background gradient is more teal than light-blue, allowing the foreground objects (especially Mario) better definition. Also, Mario's face has better flesh-tone. Perhaps most interesting, the cover's Super Mario 2 sub-text reads "18-Page Spectacular" on the variant, but "20-Page Spectacular" on the non-variant. I'll probably compare the contents of each issue sometime, as the 18 vs. 20 page difference has me intrigued. Probably just a typo/correction, though. Here's a comparison of the two covers. (I know Retromags already has a scan of non-variant NP #1, but I thought everyone would like to see the differences when the covers are scanned with matching scanner hardware/image compression.)

Did PSM readers actually use those lid stickers!?! Very glad to have a nice, readable copy of Nintendo Power #1! I'm a big Nintendo fanboy & NP is one of the few magazine series I'm hoping to collect in its entirety, variant covers and all. I own the NP #1 variant already, but it's in really rough shape - to the point where I'm almost afraid to read it. Thanks, Phillyman - you've put me one step closer to my goal! I think there are two more Nintendo Power issues in the contest I'd like to win - fingers crossed!

Ladies and gentlemen, Nintendo Power #1!!!

Yeah, after noticing how the issue #21 insert seems to fit the missing content in issue #20, I'm fairly certain this is what happened. It wouldn't be the first time an early EGM issue made a page numbering mistake - their Table of Contents were almost always an exercise in frustration. I have a synopsis ready for issue #20 - I'll add it to the database with a caveat pointing out the page numbering issue.

Thanks, E-Day - really looking forward to reading this! As I mentioned in the Shoutbox the other day, early Game Players are something of a guilty pleasure of mine. I know the screenshots were horrible and the commentary was never very critical, but they'd cover a lot of games in that thin newsprint and had a real knack for covering the less popular, sometimes obscure games with equal indifference.

A quick follow-up. Looking at EGM #21, perhaps the notorious Atari Adventure insert found in this issue was originally intended for issue #20? It includes Lynx remodel coverage and closely matches the missing page count. Wouldn't surprise me if EGM bumped the insert at the last minute, wanting to add insult-to-injury by complimenting it with a Cyberball cover.