Tribute To Official Nintendo Magazine (#117)

So, along with Chuggaaconroy and Blog Buddy, one of my other 'inspirations' is a magazine that ran here in the UK for about ten or so years (I think) called Official Nintendo Magazine. I'm unsure because I only started collecting Official Nintendo Magazine (or ONM, as it's nicknamed) at issue 68. Well, actually I did get issue 58 or 59 about a year before, but I didn't really start getting every issue until I got 68 (except for two that I missed, which was #113 (the second to last), and around #103 or so). This is why I wish I could have subscribed). I remember when I started getting it. It was around May 2011, just after the release of the 3DS (I had gotten one for my birthday, April 25th) and my grandmother was in hospital at the time before she passed away in October. There was a WHSmith shop in the hospital, which was selling the magazine, and after getting that I had a ton of Nintendo-related enjoyment to look forward to each month. I believe that before ONM there was Nintendo Official Magazine and a couple others like that but ONM is the most recent and probably well known one. It was basically the UK's version of the US's Nintendo Power.

The first issue, long before I knew of the mag.

I say 'was' because, unfortunately, just like Nintendo Power, ONM stopped being published because of the fact that everybody uses the internet for news and monthly magazines are kind of extinct when it comes to being the first to deliver news. That includes me; every time a new issue came out, I already knew about pretty much all the new stuff that had been announced, like consoles, games and E3/Nintendo Direct news. But I still loved the magazine. There was more to it than just news; there were previews, reviews, features, fan mail (I even got featured in an issue once! It was a letter about ideas for Mario Kart 8 and I'll probably make a post about it sometime), and a ton of other stuff. I really enjoyed the relatable British humour that the magazine staff wrote (I forget all the team members but I remember Chandra Nair, Matthew Castle and a girl called Kate whose second name I forget, along with many more) and I really miss getting a new issue each month. There were even loads of awesome free gifts, such as badges, cutout dioramas (yes, really. I still have three on my wall, of New Super Mario Bros 2, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask and Nintendo Land) and especially the posters. I still have probably over twenty five posters of different Nintendo games that I love and I still reorganise them on my wall every so often, like this morning. ONM ended last October with issue 114, and the website and forums were taken down too. I wish they weren't.

But thanks, ONM, for making three and a half years of my life so enjoyable and even introducing me to over 20 internet friends that I made through your Facebook page and still talk to often. ONM was the main reason I decided to do my second blog, Hedgehog Reviews, even though I stopped, and if you're wondering where I learned to write reviews in that way then look no further than the reviews in that magazine.

This was the first issue I got, #58.

I didn't properly start collecting ONM until
this issue, #68.

Below I'll just post pictures of some of the issues I got, with the issue number in the caption.

Issue #94.

Issue #91.

Issue #70.

Issue #75. This issue featured a review of Zelda:
Skyward Sword, which scored 98%. This, along with
Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, was the highest score
given to a game in the magazine ever.

The last issue, #114.

Also, this is the second post like this that I've done in a row. I guess I'm just in the mood to talk about the people I'm grateful to for introducing me to the video game community and improving my tween years. Yes, tween. And teen years actually. I orginally wanted to do this for post #114 since ONM ended on issue 114 but I forgot because YOU KNOW HOW GREAT MY MEMORY IS GUYS.

In (semi) unrelated news, Super Smash Bros for 3DS came out one year and one day ago. Wow. Time seriously flies.

Sorry for extremely long post again. I can't help it. :(

Thomas