Counting the Dead: How Many Did Next Generation Magazine Kill?
72If you've looked online or checked twitter, then you already know that today is April Fool's Day. It's the day when fake news infiltrates our feeds and everybody suddenly thinks they are pranksters. But not at Defunct Games. Over the past few years, we've used this opportunity as a chance to chronicle the history of April Fool's gags and popular funny bits from classic magazines.
For example, a few years ago, we took an exhaustive look at all of the April Fool's jokes published in Electronic Gaming Monthly, including the infamous Sheng Long code in Street Fighter II and the more mature version of The Wind Waker. We also checked in with GamePro's annual prank -- LamePro. We recounted every single LamePro joke published in the 20th century. It's epic. As was our ode to EGM's What If section, where I read hundreds of What If jokes while you groaned and probably gave the video thumbs down.
This year, I wanted to take a look at one of the goriest and most sadistically violent periods in video games journalism. That's right, we're finally going to address the many people murdered, maimed and tortured by Next Generation magazine. For those who don't know, this was America's version of Edge and ran for 85 issues between 1995 and 2002. In that time, they instituted a very strict policy that demanded absolute perfection. Editors who made a typo or mislabeled a game would often have their fingers chopped off or be tortured in solitary confinement.
In order to get a sense of the bloodshed and injury, I wanted to chart the violence and answer the age-old question: How many editors did Next Generation kill? In order to answer that question, we're going to go through every blood-soaked issue and count up how many times an editor was killed, seriously maimed or tortured. We're also going to look at some of the reader push back and how it affected Next Generation's murder spree. Join me for a true crime mystery unlike anything else on the internet. Today we're going to put a number on Next Generation's body count.
Electronic Gaming Monthlys Best Worst April Fools Jokes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Ts2kcssGU
LamePro in the 1990s A Comprehensive Look at GamePros April Fools Pranks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kHR3t3SlNM
All 286 What If Jokes Published in Electronic Gaming Monthly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWopLIeVjWE
Join our brand-new Discord Server: https://discord.gg/6pCvtET
Defunct Games is on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/DefunctGames
Defunct Games is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/defunctgames
Defunct Games is home to thousands of reviews, articles, comedy pieces, podcasts, features and more:
www.defunctgames.com
#NextGeneration #Magazine #AprilFoolsDay