The year was 1993 and GamePro had an unexpected April Fools problem on their hands. Their nearest competitor, a scrappy and opinionated Electronic Gaming Monthly, had already come out swinging with convincing cheat codes -- one that unlocked Simon Belmont in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game and another that introduced Sheng Long to Street Fighter II. These immediately went viral and even got reprinted in foreign magazines, which was a big deal in the early 1990s. This forced GamePro to come up with their own April Fools series, and the result was LamePro.

That's right, LamePro. Instead of creating a simple parody review or cheat code, they set their sights bigger -- they decided to lampoon their entire magazine. I'm talking about a fake cover, fake new, fake advertising, fake previews and even fake letters to the editor. It was a popular feature that remained a staple of the April issues well into the 2000s. But instead of looking at the entire run of LamePro, I first want to chronicle the first seven issues. Today we're going to spend some time dissecting LamePro in the 1990s, from 1993 all the way up to 1999. These were the formative years, and I want to go section-by-section and answer the age-old question: Was LamePro brilliant satire or just plain lame? Let's find out.


And while you're just clicking on stuff at random, I suggest you head over to the Defunct Games YouTube page and subscribe to the channel. We're posting new episodes of Game Over: The Early Years every Monday, along with brand new game reviews throughout the week.