The June/July issue, released in May. From this issue on, the writing team was expanded to 3 people: Boris Schneider, Heinrich Lenhardt and Torsten Oppermann. Their workload in this issue seems to have been relatively uneven though. Heinrich Lenhardt’s name is signed under a lot of the reviews, with Boris Schneider following second (though quite a few less). Torsten Oppermann only had relatively few articles to his name here.
Cover
Content
(Note: frequently used abbreviations: MD = Mega Drive / Genesis, MS = Master System, GG = Game Gear)
News
There’s 3 pages of news items in this issue, with blurbs about Wonder Boy in Monster World (MS), Rampart (MS), Mega-Lo-Mania (MD), Tom & Jerry (MS), Powermonger (MD), Holyfield Boxing (MD), Tin Tin on the Moon (MS), Arcade Smash Hits (MS), Chuck Rock (MS & MD) and World Class Leaderboard (MD). There are 2 non-game blurbs as well: One for a “Greatest Hits” CD with tracks from some Japanese games and one for the Wondermega from JVC (a console that combines the Mega Drive and Mega CD). The “Ultrashort” segment contains a rumour about the release date for Sonic 2, an announcement that Microprose is going to be developing Mega Drive games and an announcement that Sega has hired Doug Glen away from Lucasfilm Games for their CD-ROM department.
At the end of the news pages there’s a box reporting on the legal trouble going on between Sega and Accolade. In short: Accolade reverse engineered Genesis software, so they could publish game without licensing from Sega which Sega sued against, but ultimately the reverse engineering was deemed to be protected under fair use. You can find more details on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade).
Report
The issue contains 2 pages on the ECTS in London. The trend was obviously shifting towards the Mega Drive, so most of the shown titles were on that system. Sega was still holding back with the European release of the Mega CD, waiting for more titles to be available. On the second page they added a box with mentions of non-Sega news like Ultima Underworld for MS-DOS and a bit on the CD-I.
Previews
As a first for the magazine, this issue features dedicated preview articles for a few games. This time it is for James Bond (on the Mega Drive and Master System), Taz-Mania (for the Mega Drive) and New Zealand Story (for the Master System).
Complaints Corner
This time the complaint is cheap manuals, namely the cramming in of multiple languages into one manual, with each language just taking up a column per page. And, despite the price of games, the manuals weren’t even in color. To add insult to injury, the translations frequently lacked quality.
“On Topic”
Two special asides this time, one for the Olympic games for the release of the “Olympic Gold” titles, the other one for the Simpsons cartoon, accompanying the title “Bart vs the Space Mutants”.
Reviews
Rating spectrum: 1 (best) to 6 (worst), with possible + and – modifiers
Mega Drive
Olympic Gold: 2
Wrestle War: 4
Arch Rivals: 2-
Jordan vs Bird: 4
Ayrton Senna’s Super Monaco GP 2: 2
Bart vs the Space Mutants: 3
Desert Strike: 2
Pit-Fighter: 4-
Two Crude Dudes: 2-
Art Alive!: 4
Dragons Fury: 2
Empire of Steel: 2-
Burning Force: 3
Fire Shark: 2-
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun: 2-
Traysia: 3
Master System
Olympic Gold: 2-
Ms. Pac-Man: 4
Champions of Europe: 3-
Ayrton Senna’s Super Monaco GP 2: 2-
Putt & Putter: 3
Bart vs the Space Mutants: 3
Super Space Invaders: 2-
Ninja Gaiden: 3
Air Rescue: 3-
Klax: 2
Game Gear
Wimbledon: 2
Factory Panic: 3
Spider-Man: 2-
Marble Madness: 3-
Alien Syndrome: 2-
Ax Battler: 2-
Wonder Boy: Dragons Trap: 2
Devilish: 3
“Unter der Lupe” / “Closely Examined”
Though the “Game Genie” is an often-referenced cheat module, there was also the “Action Replay Pro”, which this article takes a look at, specifically the Mega Drive version, though going by my past experience with the Game Gear version, there aren’t many differences between them. The article describes how these cheat modules work and gives an example on how to use it.
The Rest
Several pages of tips & tricks for games, the “Nice to Have” and “Music” pages return, but there’s a newcomer: an “encyclopedia” section, going through older Sega titles in alphabetical order. The issue starts out with 2 pages on that, each entry taking up half a page, containing a screenshot, a short review of the game and the score box. The titles this time are all from the Master System (review score in brackets after the name): Afterburner (4-), Action Fighter (3), Aerial Assault (3) and American Baseball (3).
Preview
The next issue is announced for the 19th of July, 1992 with topics like a Joypad/-stick comparison test, the continuation of the “encyclopedia”, a report on Factor 5 (a german developer) and the upcoming CES in Chicago. Games planned for the issue are Rampart (on the Master System), Tom & Jerry (Master System), Indiana Jones (Game Gear) and Evander Holyfield Boxing (Mega Drive).