NGamer

NGamer is a third-party Nintendo-focused magazine, published in the United Kingdom and translated for distribution in Spain, The Netherlands and Brazil.

The magazine began publication in the early 90's as Super Play, which focused upon the Super Nintendo and Game Boy systems. When the N64's launch was imminent, the name changed to N64 Magazine, and when the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance were approaching release, it changed again into NGC Magazine. The name NGamer was adopted shortly before the launch of the Wii console, and remained until the January 2012 issue when it was renamed Nintendo Gamer. The magazine is published 13 times per year at 4-week intervals, assigning one issue to each month, then releasing the remaining one for Christmas. The staff work at Future Publishing UK, which since 2003 has also been the home of the UK Official Nintendo Magazine ever since Nintendo stopped publishing it themselves.

The magazine is by far the longest-running unofficial UK publication that focuses primarily on Nintendo, surviving through a combination of market niches and high-quality writing. Ever since their inception, the magazine has had a high focus on import games (at least half of which never reach the British market, although they give a re-review and score if/when it becomes available locally), has consistently written news and reviews with a density of snark and honesty almost never seen in their market (made possible because they don't have to tote the company line), frequently features bizzare ideas for 'feature articles' and 'characters' to add to their aesthetic, and seems to consistently hire individuals who can combine quality work/writing with British humour. It is for this reason that their fanbase has become so tenacious without becoming unpleasable, staying with them despite their routine name/design/staff overhauls and the state of Nintendo's games market share. However, these defining traits seem to have diminished over time.

The following tropes apply to the entire line of magazines, unless stated otherwise.

Tropes used in NGamer include:
  • Bald of Awesome: Jes Bickham
  • Broke the Rating Scale: Types 1, 3, 4 and 5 have all shown up, with games getting ratings that include -47%, :-(, Eh?, and No. Type 2 also shows up in the previews section: their anticipation for each game is rated out of five, with the unit relating to one of the games being previewed.
    • In their past as NGC Magazine, they once gave Giftpia and Get A Love Panda Love Unit a ?? rating each, having absolutely no clue whatsoever what was going on due to the fact that both, especially Giftpia was Japan-only complete with entirely Japanese text. Despite this though they gave 8 and 7 to the former's graphics and sound, reckoning that "There's clearly a quite brilliant game lurking beneath the realms of the Japanese text."
  • Brutal Honesty: The key trait that separates the magazine from any comparable rivals. It even has a dedicated section on The Other Wiki.
  • The Cast Showoff: Wil Overton was an accomplished Manga-style artist, who often provided the magazine with coverart until his subsequent poaching by Rare.
  • Evil Counterpart: Mark Green was frequently tormented by his sinister alter-ego Dark Mark.
  • Footnote Fever: Used and parodied repeatedly, for example one review featured a mention of Alien[1]
  • Mood Whiplash: From their scoring policy: 29-0%: TERRIBLE. Like finding out your new neighbour likes playing loud music at night. And is Hitler.
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Martin Kitts, repeatedly depicted in one way or another as some form of inhuman sociopath.
  • Note From Ed: Up there with Amiga Power. At least one fan jokingly asked why "Ed" was never listed as part of the staff.
  • Only Connect: The then-editor of the magazine appeared as a contestant on this show in 2011.
  • Running Gag: So many that there's almost no chance of compiling a full list. One recent example is Ninja Cat, an item from Tenchu 4, which is their equivalent of the Chuck Norris jokes.
  • Solve My Maze: The infamous Lex Luthor catchphrase from Superman 64's first level was the staff's favourite aspect of all the sub-20%-scoring games they had reviewed, so for a stretch of issues following their conversion into NGC Magazine, they licensed an image of Lex Luthor and added a 'Solve My Maze' cut-out-and-keep footer to one page per issue, in a similar manner to child-level puzzle publications. The puzzles themselves were often nonsensical and impossible to solve. On the last month of the license period, the segment changed to 'Solve My Murder', giving the Luthor image X eyes and providing an open-ended puzzle to determine the murder weapon.
    • One of the forumites has adopted the phrase as his username.
  1. ↑ With a footnote explaining that the superscript 3 is part of the title and thus you shouldn't be reading this footnote.
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