There's something about this GamePro cover art that I can't peel my eyes away from. It has nothing to do with Star Trek or the incredibly creepy drawing of Data. And it's not the crazy amount of licensed games that get "Pro Reviews" in this February 1993 issue of GamePro magazine. Instead it's that bright pink sticker, poorly placed right over some of the cover art's most useful information.
The sticker in question is advertising a free Art of Fighting and World Heroes poster, an extra that miraculously still lives in my copy of this 16 year old magazine. And while I'm sure there are plenty of people that would buy this $5 issue specifically for that poster, it makes no sense why anybody would want to cover up their
Are you sure you even want an Art of Fighting poster?
cover story and the exclusive (and 32 page long) World Heroes/Art of Fighting strategy guide.
Stickers like this weren't uncommon in the early 1990s, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised to see an advertisement for an Art of Fighting poster covering up an advertisement for an Art of Fighting strategy guide. However, as I stared at this cover art I couldn't help but wonder if there was a better place for this bright pink sticker. To help demonstrate what I'm talking about, Defunct
GamePro TV proves that not only do all video game movies suck, but so do video game TV shows!
Games would like to offer GamePro a few suggestions of where they could stick that advertisement. See for yourself when you read about GamePro's Big Pink Sticker Conundrum!
News About GamePro TV:
At the very top left corner of this cover lies an advertisement for GamePro's own cable TV show, generically titled GamePro TV. It sits there covering up half of the "G" in the logo, but that's okay because everybody knows what it is. I suggest
What's worse than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the Game Gear? Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls!
GamePro get rid of that faux-ripped page and slap a large pink sticker over it. As somebody who not only watched GamePro TV, but was also featured on it (that's another story for another day), I'm here to tell you that it is not must-see TV. You're better off spending the weekend figuring out where you're going to hang your World Heroes poster than you are watching this piece of garbage.
Game Gear Reviews:
If the only Game Gear games you have to review that month are Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Sega's woefully inadequate Taz-Mania, then maybe you're better off leaving it off the cover (or at least putting a sticker over it). While I will freely admit that every other system has its fair share of licensed games (Alien 3, Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, Captain America and the Avengers, etc.), none of them are as pitiful as the Game Gear's offerings. There's not a man or woman alive that is going to buy this magazines simply for an Indiana Jones review, especially when they can see how bad it is without leaving the magazine stand.
The U-Force and Power Glove may have sucked, but at least they were interesting!
There's nothing wrong with having a hardware section in your magazine, especially back in the early 1990s when so many different first- and third-party companies were experimenting with all kinds of cool gadgets. But there's no reason to show a picture of Sega's oft-rumored mouse. This is only made worse by using an artist rendition of the ugly mouse. While the Super NES Multi-Tap may not have been the prettiest accessory on the block, at least it was real and necessary. GamePro would have been better off showing off a picture of the $80 arcade stick that serious Street Fighter fans should have been saving their money for. Instead they went with the Genesis mouse. Put a sticker over it!
The "Alladdin" System for the NES:
It may have been found in GamePro's "Cutting Edge" section, but that doesn't mean you should rush home, tear open the magazine and drool over the Aladdin System. The Aladdin System was the brainchild of Camerica, an unlicensed company that put out astonishingly poor games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original
From the people that brought you The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy ...
concept called for two different pieces of hardware, a base that would fit into the NES and a ROM that would fit into the top of the bas. Because you already had the more expensive base, the idea was that you could buy cheaper ROMs and just plug them in, bringing the cost of your average NES game down substantially. The problem is that by 1993 nobody was thinking about the original NES, so Camerica had a good idea that was simply too late. But oddly enough, that's not the reason why I think there should be a sticker over it on the front page. If they were to take my suggestion they would have covered up one of their more egregious spelling errors!
Anywhere That Doesn't Have Text:
With so much blank space on the cover, why would GamePro even need to block any of the text? There's a spot big enough just to the right of Data's head, plus another one where the Enterprise sits. Or, better yet, GamePro could have wrapped the whole magazine in plastic and put the sticker on the outside. There are so many better solutions, but apparently that's not the way GamePro thinks. They'll just slap any old sticker anywhere that it will fit ... even when it doesn't fit. Given how much of a bore this issue was, I'm more inclined to just scrap the whole cover and make a page that does nothing but promote Art of Fighting and World Heroes. Trust me, that would be more worthwhile than their useless article about hooking your TurboGrafx-CD to your SCSI compatible PC and Mac.
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