UK Neo Magazine Scans

[xb74]

These pages bring back some good old memories. Thanks!

 

[Superdanx]

Give me my mags back! I wondered where they went... Thanks for the Mamaries

 

[StevenK]

These old CVG reviews, in particular the King of the Monsters review, are basically the reason that I've spent the last 7 years and 80% of my salary collecting games for a console that I never once even saw in real life while it was still in production. The days of Jazza Rignall, Ed Lomas's pink floyd obsession and Noob Saibot fake Mortal Kombat characters will always be something I remember with hopelessly rose tinted specs.

I also remember trying to get one of those 'cheap, fake video games in the far east' companies that advertised in the mags to give me their contact list for free, and when they refused, phoning up FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) and grassing them up. What an utter cunt of a ten year old I was...

 

[K1ngArth3r]

Really enjoyed looking through those scans...

Also thanks for including that bonus SNES advert :-)

The games look so much better when looking at them in the magazine! Just by reading the review on Burning Fight and looking at the pictures makes me want to go and play it through :-)

 

[frazer99]

Yeah the neo got some pretty bad reviews in those early days. I loved CVG back then, pretty much every month you were guaranteed a neo geo review.

 

[Kef9]

Thanks for the scans. Like some others I never saw the neo when I was a kid but someone in my class had one although I wasn't really his freind which sucked.

Those early games got panned but its easy to see why. If only they were to see the future glory in games like Garou and Last Blade 2.

I've got a review of fatal fury 3 soemwhere in my collection from an american mag (EGM or ESM, can't remeber which). I remember reading it thinking I wish I was an adult with money!

 

[N30_G30_speed]

thanks everyone for sharing, really nice scans worth watching/reading for the sake of neo's history.
Does anyone have a scan for a Top Hunter magazine review? if there ever was one of course...

 

[Mero]

Thanks for the scans

And yeah, I remember those ads with scantily clad women posing with consoles and games, there was one with a topless woman holding up a Game Gear to cover her modesty, circa '92 I think.

 

[Henrythefirst]

Thanks soo much. Hard too find something beside neo geo freak magazine.

 

[SNK_Pro]

Man that brought back some great memories, I owned all these mags way back when. It's weird how I can recollect the layouts and stuff for all the reviews!

 

[MtothaJ]

Enjoy.....

More to come soon.

Frazer99

I know I am digging up a dead body, but just found the thread - these scans are absolutely fab
I totally remember reading these reviews back in the days and drooling over the Neo Geo screen shots. It also shows that information regarding Neo Geo in the UK was featured in multi-format video games mags with high readership figures - so despite no internet its not like information about the system and games was unavailable to the general public. Also CVG was quite harsh in terms of ratings with regard to some of the reviewed Neo Geo titles but overall I guess the angle here is they are reviewing the games as home console titles rather than arcade games, hence rightly so they are looking also at lastability / replay value especially given the price of the carts.
Its also interesting to note that the price of the console dropped later on to 290 GBP and the games to 120 / 80 GBP which to be honest were pretty reasonable prices - not taking into account inflation the system was less than the present price of a PS4 and while e.g. 80 GBP in still high for a game, its not that much of a world away from the 65 GBP that was charged for SF2 on SNES.

 

[Lee Gray]

I remember when cvg reviewed art of fighting 2 and gave it a score of 95 and that it was better than street fighter II. As was a huge neo fan back Then, loved it when neo games got high scores

 

[everyone]

I remember when cvg reviewed art of fighting 2 and gave it a score of 95 and that it was better than street fighter II. As was a huge neo fan back Then, loved it when neo games got high scores

They must have been reviewing the AES version of Art of Fighting 2, not the SNES version, to have said it's better than Street Fighter 2. AOF2 is not as good as a decent port of SF2. The gameplay of just about all Neo ports on the SNES and Genesis was way worse the AES version. So people didn't know how good the original versions were.

 

[MtothaJ]

They must have been reviewing the AES version of Art of Fighting 2, not the SNES version, to have said it's better than Street Fighter 2. AOF2 is not as good as a decent port of SF2. The gameplay of just about all Neo ports on the SNES and Genesis was way worse the AES version. So people didn't know how good the original versions were.

Don't recall that particular review - maybe they were comparing AOF2 to the standard World Warrior and not CE/HF versions. World Warrior is still a great game but the gameplay even back then was just too slow and not that many characters to choose from.
Given a choice, I would go with SF2 or MK over the majority of Neo Geo fighters - never really got hooked on any of them the way I did with the mentioned two games.

 

[everyone]

Don't recall that particular review - maybe they were comparing AOF2 to the standard World Warrior and not CE/HF versions. World Warrior is still a great game but the gameplay even back then was just too slow and not that many characters to choose from.
Given a choice, I would go with SF2 or MK over the majority of Neo Geo fighters - never really got hooked on any of them the way I did with the mentioned two games.

I prefer just about any of the fighting series on the Neo over Mortal Kombat. MK had fighters that were virtually the same as each other in terms of fighting mechanics (hit detection/range, etc). A jumping kick with one character is the same as a jumping kick with the other. So it's like there's really just one character to chose from, instead of 7 or 12.
World Warrior was even slower in the PAL version compared to NTSC, as it's 50Hz vs 60Hz. So the PAL Turbo was a big improvement, speed wise.
The arcade version of SF2 Champion Edition actually had a slight speed improvement over the arcade World Warrior, that's why it was called "SF2 Dash" in Japan. But not many people know that.

 

[MtothaJ]

I prefer just about any of the fighting series on the Neo over Mortal Kombat. MK had fighters that were virtually the same as each other in terms of fighting mechanics (hit detection/range, etc). A jumping kick with one character is the same as a jumping kick with the other. So it's like there's really just one character to chose from, instead of 7 or 12.
World Warrior was even slower in the PAL version compared to NTSC, as it's 50Hz vs 60Hz. So the PAL Turbo was a big improvement, speed wise.
The arcade version of SF2 Champion Edition actually had a slight speed improvement over the arcade World Warrior, that's why it was called "SF2 Dash" in Japan. But not many people know that.

I had a PAL SNES back in the days so unfortunately got to experience the slow gameplay and big black borders on SF2 first hand. I still have a PAL machine now but modded for 50/60hz - World Warrior on 50hz setting just seems ridiculously slow – almost as if they are fighting under water - but back then it really seemed ok. I guess its all a question of comparison (or lack thereof) back in the days.
As for Mortal Kombat – I guess each to their own. The later instalments made each character more individual but for me you just can’t beat the overall atmosphere and freshness of the first game. In fact its one of the only reasons (aside from the occasional game on SSF2HD Remix) that I fire up the PS3 to play the MK Arcade Trilogy - even though its not the best of ports the CRT / scanline mode is very well done and there is the option of online play.

For the Neo fighting games (and there are loads) I find that in general a lot of these look a whole lot better than they play. On the other hand soemtimes its a question of actually spending time on a game, learning the strategy etc. before you begin to appreciate the gameplay mechanics so maybe I just need to spend more time with some of these titles.

 

[everyone]

I had a PAL SNES back in the days so unfortunately got to experience the slow gameplay and big black borders on SF2 first hand. I still have a PAL machine now but modded for 50/60hz - World Warrior on 50hz setting just seems ridiculously slow – almost as if they are fighting under water - but back then it really seemed ok. I guess its all a question of comparison (or lack thereof) back in the days.
As for Mortal Kombat – I guess each to their own. The later installments made each character more individual but for me you just can’t beat the overall atmosphere and freshness of the first game. In fact its one of the only reasons (aside from the occasional game on SSF2HD Remix) that I fire up the PS3 to play the MK Arcade Trilogy - even though its not the best of ports the CRT / scanline mode is very well done and there is the option of online play.

For the Neo fighting games (and there are loads) I find that in general a lot of these look a whole lot better than they play. On the other hand sometimes its a question of actually spending time on a game, learning the strategy etc. before you begin to appreciate the gameplay mechanics so maybe I just need to spend more time with some of these titles.

I think the first MK was more of an "indie" MK game compared to MKII and MK3. It felt more freewheeling and "anything goes". The second and third games were more commercialized and contrived. The programmers had ideas about what things to focus on, which weren't necessarily things that made the first game fun. In MKII, you had to learn more special moves and fatalities (which were also harder to pull off in some cases). And you had to learn specific fatality moves for specific stages. Whereas, the first MK just had one fatality for each character, and one fatality stage (the pit) where you just did an uppercut to do the stage fatality.

 

[MtothaJ]

I think the first MK was more of an "indie" MK game compared to MKII and MK3. It felt more freewheeling and "anything goes". The second and third games were more commercialized and contrived. The programmers had ideas about what things to focus on, which weren't necessarily things that made the first game fun. In MKII, you had to learn more special moves and fatalies (which were also harder to pull off in some cases). And you had to learn speficic fatality moves for specific stages. Whereas, the first MK just had one fatality for each character, and one fatailty stage (the pit) where you just did an uppercut to do the stage fatality.

I agree. The first MK was a game was very easy to pick up and play - there were a few special moves for each character and a fatality but otherwise you could do a lot of damage with just the basic moves - uppercut, jump kick or repeated punches up close. The speed was a lot faster and it was more aggresive 'fast and furious' experience with juggling / cheap shots. In comparison SF2 was slower, more strategy based and at times less exciting (e.g. two players standing at opposite sides of the stage and throwing hadoukens which cancel each other out for the entire duration of a round).
I thought MK2 was also really good as it basically improved in all aspects on the first game (admiteddly there were more moves to learn etc. - thats the price one pays for more depth in the gameplay).
Kind of tuned out after MK3 - didn't really like the robots and the background lcoations - it kind of lost the 'Shaolin temple' feel of the first and to an extent also the second installment.

 

[benimaru7]

I'm lucky enough to have most of the mag cuttings from the 90s, I'm sure I have the CVG review of Art of Fighting 2 and a US review of Top Hunter, will have a dig around and post some up for you to read over the holidays!