FunFactor

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/e532c2cc-b34b-4383-96cb-2f0db39c5b68 OLD GLORY GAMING/MUSIC/SPORTS APPAREL, USE PROMO CODE “FUESDAY” FOR 15 PERCENT OFF: https://oldglory.com/ THE SIMS. It’s a striking cover—but the real story of this issue of EGM is what’s between the covers: from an all-star cast of contributors to multiple big, unique features, and a fascinating review of the Ga...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/1eeeedc8-3737-4c48-894c-cd7950503a5a/pdf?token=70ff7124-8104-4ed1-bdd3-bdfb536b8177&length=167296037 OLD GLORY GAMING/MUSIC/SPORTS APPAREL, USE PROMO CODE “FUESDAY” FOR 15 PERCENT OFF : https://oldglory.com/ With just a handful of active consoles, and a dearth of post-launch games for both XBox and GameCube, 2002 might have been the most diffic...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/51f1d648-0b56-44d4-bb79-24f453cbfa0e “What Happened to Hyper Magazine” at Forgotten Worlds : https://www.forgottenworlds.net/hyper-magazine-part-1 Alice Ruppert on Bluesky starting a Romance novel/Visual Novel discussion : https://bsky.app/profile/malicedafirenze.bsky.social/post/3mvac2sw6b22q Tube Cody’s “Defying Gravity” in Roller Coaster Tycoon...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/51f1d648-0b56-44d4-bb79-24f453cbfa0e RAVNIR “VIKING MUSIC:” https://ravnirmusic.com/ TALES FROM THE BACKLOG’S QUEST 64 EPISODE : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcoIOr8n8Ow TALES FROM THE BACKLOG’S “DO GAMES ‘HOLD UP’” EPISODE : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WIYcO82qRA Are critical re-evaluations “overlooked hidden gems,” or revisionist history?...

NICK’S PATREON: PandaMonium | creating a Sega Saturn documentary series. | Patreon   GREG’S PATREON: Greg Sewart | creating Generation 16 | Let's Read Videos | Retro Game Streams | Patreon   Free ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode?! That's right: Aidan and Ty had holiday and start-of-school stuff get in the way of recording last week, so we decided to re-start our content pipelines by giving everyone...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/28f939d8-b160-47f0-92c6-e885159b5156 THE KINGDOM HEARTS GOOGLE DOC : https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQgJT19xfHJtEnIiZ-c55ClvAXn95ODUQBDYFtWF8GtPzHvTUTQhbH3brFk290zaQ/pub THE KINGDOM HEARTS PRACTICAL COMPLETE ORDER (by Jackson from Abnormal Mapping): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eQpUmDR18WWFRpzyPjh8Ivv8gAE4IzVdxY1bgbm7YgM/edit?ta...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.org/details/Edge_Gaming/Edge%20Gaming%20Magazine%20113/mode/2up PIXELS & POLYGONS QUARTERLY + ANNUAL COLLECTION : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darrenhupke/pixels-and-polygons-quarterly-2026-q4-and-annual-collection?ref=3opks3 LIE OF CAELUM: SPIRIT KICKSTARTER : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lieofcaelumspirit/lie-of-caelum-spirit BEL’S FANFARE KICKSTA...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/ebc34b2b-4088-4e7c-bc69-12e3a7a9f129 Stop Skeletons From Fighting’s “My 2 Year Journey to Solve the 30-Year Myth of Faceball 2000” video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2AG-gAuS-U&t=6058s   Aidan’s back in the saddle, and he’s got takes about what Ty talked about with last episode’s guest-host  Jess Voidburger –but not Sonic the Hedgehog , h...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/a8041ebf-095f-4bb9-b2bd-57702a22aff0 SONIC ON THE COVER OF NINTENDO POWER?? Special guest host  Jess VoidBurger joins Ty to revisit Nintendo’s legendary in-house publication during its awkward tween years: still clinging to some of the looks and features of its 16-bit glory days, but starting to evolve to compete with the super-professional, grownup...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/ac4194d5-23d7-46fe-b6e2-0f364600532a Super Smash Bros. Melee is Nintendo’s tightest, deepest, most technically rewarding fighting game of all time, with an active playerbase and tournament scene still uncovering its secrets. But what did reviewers make of it in 2002, when “lets put all the characters and properties we own in one game” wasn’t an obli...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/69555def-0cd8-4b5a-b4d2-3d324c7863f4 Console exclusivity was the talk of this recent Summer Game Fest, and Aidan and Ty start off the episode with a discussion of their most badly missed-out-on exclusives from platforms they didn't have. And then, the issue: With Future Publishing/Imagine Media getting the "official" XBox magazine tag, Ziff-Davis l...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-105-january-2002 (sped-up audio was Ty's fault; it's been fixed!) FINAL. FANTASY. X. After the final PS1 release was a mechanical, graphical, and literary callback to the deepest roots of the series, the first PS2 release set the tone for what this series would look–and, to an extent, play–like for the next quarter-century of HD video an...

NICK’S PATREON: PandaMonium | creating a Sega Saturn documentary series. | Patreon   GREG’S PATREON: Greg Sewart | creating Generation 16 | Let's Read Videos | Retro Game Streams | Patreon   Please enjoy this snippet of our first Season Two ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode, where we're throwing it back to, um, the disastrous 1995 surprise launch of the Sega Saturn in North America?? That’s right–th...

ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/official-xbox-magazine/official-xbox-magazine-issue-2/ XBOX OFFICIAL MAGAZINE: MAGAZINES EVOLVED. We had to stay in January 2002 for one more episode this season, because we just couldn’t overlook XBox Offical Magazine ’s massive walkthrough for Halo: Combat Evolved . We also couldn’t overlook the fact that Imagine Media/Future U.S. Publishing la...

ISSUE LINK : https://archive.org/details/electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-150-january-2002/mode/2up January 2002 was all killer, no filler! EGM kicked off the new year by revisiting their Top 100 games of all time, and we take a look at the changes since their last attempt (which we covered last season)! But EGM also ranked their worst 20 games of all time, thanks to freelancer Seanbaby , and we st...

ISSUE LINK: NextGen issue 85 at the Internet Archive SEASON TWO: RISE OF THE CORPOS has arrived! We've skipped forward in time to the dawn of a new era - where the dorky world leader in business software, Microsoft, has dropped a massive black-and-neon-green bomb on a gaming industry. Likewise, the games media's shift to both an older target audience and parallel online coverage means a lot of bel...

Four people, five rounds, and all the best video games of 1995-1997!  Coury and Try from My Life in Gaming join us to snake-draft our way through the Generation Gap--building four 'teams' of five games each released across all game systems and regions during our first-season time period. The competition was friendly but fierce, with plenty of you-took-my-picks and even more surprise curveballs! We...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/NextGeneration38Feb1998 QUIZ LINK:  https://forms.gle/9cFPG8EsJesFAEB59 BILLY BAKER’S 2007 BOSTON GLOBE PIECE ON HIS WIFE SECRETLY BEING THE WORLD’S BEST TETRIS PLAYER: https://archive.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/08/19/bizarro_world/ Our Season 1 wrap-up extravaganza has never been more extravagant: Chris and Eric from Retrograde Amnesia joi...

We told you to ask us anything, and you did! Our Season 1 wrap-up continues with a special AMA/Q&A. From assembling our own ultimate mid-90s gaming mag Voltron-style to talking through how we handle offensive/problematic content, we answered all the questions you submitted via Discord and Bluesky! As an extra-special treat, Ty also reveals the (published!) letter he sent in to Game Players bac...

The grand finale of Season One is here! Our coverage of the 1995-1997 “Generation Gap” ends with a blowout review of (nearly) every (English-language print) review of Final Fantasy VII that we could find. Starting with a quick look back at the first year of FunFactor, and discussion of what’s coming next, we then re-looked at the magazine we debuted the podcast with nearly a year ago, PSM No. 1. ...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-53-september-1997/mode/2up EGM DOCUMENTARY BY MY LIFE IN GAMING & GAME SACK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E010OPY1Tzw Everybody’s favorite* N64 game ever is here: GoldenEye 007! But did Game Informer’s weird four-voice feature review system capture all the excitement at release? *if you didn’t have a PC capable of playing first-per...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/NEXT_Generation_36 It’s time to review…the consoles?? NEXT Generation issue 36 marks the start of the magazine’s third year–and they’re not only calling winners and losers of the console generation the magazine was named after, this issue has leaks and rumors of the specs of the next-next generation! And then, wonder of wonders, they declare *the PC* the bes...

ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/files/file/6814-pc-gamer-issue-037-june-1997 One of the world’s biggest, hottest developers took an unprecedented dive into the rich fantasy world of one of their beloved gaming IPs, and pulled strings to get its beautiful, hand-painted art onto the cover of PC Gamer. So why didn’t it ever come out? PC Gamer’s huge feature preview of WarCraft Adventures: War o...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/GameFan9700/GameFan%20Vol.%205%20-%2012%20%28Dec%201997%29%20Quest%2064/page/n112/mode/1up MOLLIE L. PATTERSON'S OLD LETTER TO DAVE HALVERSON (she's since said she's cooled down quite a bit, and they're on better terms):  http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/gamefan/fatbabies.txt Don't let the extremely long intro discussion on journalism, writing, and editorial...

ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/9e656342-878a-4098-9f49-0ca4dc313cb2 It's a huge episode for a huge issue: EGM No. 100!  Aidan and Ty go through the magic of Christmastime gaming, before settling in to a nice long trip through this 100-game time capsule of how EGM's staff viewed the history of games at the time. Some such lists were made before, and many many many made since--but...