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FunFactor: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Ty Schalter & Aidan Moher
Ty Schalter (VICE, FiveThirtyEight) and Aidan Moher (WIRED, Vulture) review what rocked and what sucked about the classic video game magazines that inspired them to become professional journalists, authors, and critics—and what they can tell us about today's digital media and games.New episodes drop every other Tuesday!
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 1 weeks ago1h 52m
Sly Cooper - Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine 62 [S2E13]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/1eeeedc8-3737-4c48-894c-cd7950503a5a/pdf?token=70ff7124-8104-4ed1-bdd3-bdfb536b8177&length=167296037OLD GLORY GAMING/MUSIC/SPORTS APPAREL, USE PROMO CODE “FUESDAY” FOR 15 PERCENT OFF: https://oldglory.com/With just a handful of active consoles, and a dearth of post-launch games for both XBox and GameCube, 2002 might have been the most difficult year in gaming history to completely miss the release of a first-party critical darling.Yet that’s just what happened to Ty with Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus—which despite leading the reviews section of this issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine with a perfect 5.0 score, is basically not mentioned anywhere else in a mag stuffed full of exclusive Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City content, S.O.C.O.M: Navy Seal mentions for some reason, and John Scalzi columns??Aidan and Ty start off with a discussion of “discoverability crises” current and past, and find so much to talk about in this issue they literally can’t get into it all!———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- 3 weeks ago1h 58m
Hyper 110 - Morrowind (The Elder Scrolls III) [S2E12]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/51f1d648-0b56-44d4-bb79-24f453cbfa0e“What Happened to Hyper Magazine” at Forgotten Worlds: https://www.forgottenworlds.net/hyper-magazine-part-1Alice Ruppert on Bluesky starting a Romance novel/Visual Novel discussion: https://bsky.app/profile/malicedafirenze.bsky.social/post/3mvac2sw6b22qTube Cody’s “Defying Gravity” in Roller Coaster Tycoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNty2y0DQN8 Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi—we finally review an issue of the decades-long-running Australian games magazine, Hyper!Don’t judge the mag by the cover of issue 110, which featured a very young Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a Ford Escort World Rally Car, and a bunch of other stuff that’s not really video games. Hyper had art design and editorial content that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the best mags on any continent. But Ty and Aidan were, um, more than a little surprised with the treatment the Xbox port of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind got in their review section.Our opening discussion? Why, it’s about PC/console crossover and cross-pollination—and we genuinely had one of our best opening chats ever.———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- Sep 23, 20261h 40m
GamePro 170 - Super Mario Sunshine [S2E11]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/51f1d648-0b56-44d4-bb79-24f453cbfa0eRAVNIR “VIKING MUSIC:” https://ravnirmusic.com/TALES FROM THE BACKLOG’S QUEST 64 EPISODE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcoIOr8n8OwTALES FROM THE BACKLOG’S “DO GAMES ‘HOLD UP’” EPISODE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WIYcO82qRAAre critical re-evaluations “overlooked hidden gems,” or revisionist history? Super Mario Sunshine got a rave review from GamePro in this issue—but the 3D Mario game almost universally remembered as the bad one got rave reviews from almost everyone else, too.Aidan and Ty start off with a discussion of how critical narratives morph over time, and how younger gamers growing up to decide the grown-ups got it wrong the first time happens, well, all the time. Then they get in to GamePro issue 170, and find several really cool interesting features amid the middling art direction (and a ludicrous amount of ads).———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- Sep 11, 20261h 31m
What Killed the Sega Saturn? - Greg Sewart & Pandamonium UNLOCKED [S2B1]
NICK’S PATREON: PandaMonium | creating a Sega Saturn documentary series. | Patreon GREG’S PATREON: Greg Sewart | creating Generation 16 | Let's Read Videos | Retro Game Streams | Patreon Free ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode?! That's right: Aidan and Ty had holiday and start-of-school stuff get in the way of recording last week, so we decided to re-start our content pipelines by giving everyone a taste of what our top-tier members get: An awesome deep-dive into the disastrous 1995 surprise launch of the Sega Saturn in North America.We’re joined by two *incredible* guests: Greg “Stewy” Sewart, a former editor at EGM, and Nick “PandaMonium,” perhaps the Internet’s foremost Sega Saturn documentarian. We ask all the hard questions: What went wrong? Who’s fault was it? And–perhaps most importantly–could Sonic X-Treme have saved everything?———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- Aug 25, 20261h 46m
PSM 63 - Kingdom Hearts [S2E10]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/28f939d8-b160-47f0-92c6-e885159b5156THE KINGDOM HEARTS GOOGLE DOC: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQgJT19xfHJtEnIiZ-c55ClvAXn95ODUQBDYFtWF8GtPzHvTUTQhbH3brFk290zaQ/pubTHE KINGDOM HEARTS PRACTICAL COMPLETE ORDER (by Jackson from Abnormal Mapping): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eQpUmDR18WWFRpzyPjh8Ivv8gAE4IzVdxY1bgbm7YgM/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.iqj61wtvro5dKingdom Hearts! Grand Theft Auto! This episode’s issue of PSM is stuffed with incredibly topical retro games, and Aidan and Ty dig right in to a preview and review of two very different games that had very, very different expectations and receptions—but mutually enormous commercial and creative legacies.But first, they expand on last episode’s discussion about IP tie-in games, and the best ones throughout the years. Plus, as always, answer your questions in the Letters section!———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- Aug 12, 20262h 2m
Edge 113 - King of Fighters EX [S2E9]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/Edge_Gaming/Edge%20Gaming%20Magazine%20113/mode/2upPIXELS & POLYGONS QUARTERLY + ANNUAL COLLECTION: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darrenhupke/pixels-and-polygons-quarterly-2026-q4-and-annual-collection?ref=3opks3LIE OF CAELUM: SPIRIT KICKSTARTER: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lieofcaelumspirit/lie-of-caelum-spiritBEL’S FANFARE KICKSTARTER: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chibig/bels-fanfare/RETRO GAME FORGE KICKSTARTER: https://popgeeks.com/retro-game-forge-a-potentially-all-in-one-homebrew-development-kit-launches-kickstarter/Edge was doing it like no one else in 2002, and so we had to go longer than we ever have to talk about all of it!Before we review Edge magazine’s eyebrow-raising review of King of Fighters EX for the Game Boy Advance, we looked through all 130 pages of neutron-star-dense levels of thoughtful editorial—perhaps most notably so, an interview with Tecmo director Tomonobu Itagaki about pet project, Dead or Alive 3: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Edge rightfully presses Itagaki on why he didn’t include any of the male characters, how much care and consideration was given to volleyball game mechanics, how it compares to other volleyball games, etc., and Itagaki just keeps artfully rephrasing the same admission: he just really wanted to make a boobie game to look at boobies.We also brought back our Letters section, answering questions from our awesome Discord members! GET ON THE DISCORD so you can join in next time!———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- Jul 28, 20261h 43m
Pocket Games 7 - Mario Kart Super Circuit [S2E8]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/ebc34b2b-4088-4e7c-bc69-12e3a7a9f129Stop Skeletons From Fighting’s “My 2 Year Journey to Solve the 30-Year Myth of Faceball 2000” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2AG-gAuS-U&t=6058s Aidan’s back in the saddle, and he’s got takes about what Ty talked about with last episode’s guest-host Jess Voidburger–but not Sonic the Hedgehog, handheld games!Aidan talks about how well portable systems fit into his life as a tween and teen, and this issue of Ziff-Davis’s Pocket Games magazine shows just how deep and rich Nintendo’s handheld scene was in the spring of 2002, even while the AAA console tides had gone way, way out between Christmas 2001 and the following summer.In an issue full of reviews and previews of absolute bangers, we looked at Pocket Games’ review of Mario Kart Super Circuit–what it does well, what it doesn’t, and whether we agree. ———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
- Jul 14, 20261h 5m
Nintendo Power 154 - Sonic Adventure 2 Battle [S2E7]
ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/a8041ebf-095f-4bb9-b2bd-57702a22aff0SONIC ON THE COVER OF NINTENDO POWER??Special guest host Jess VoidBurger joins Ty to revisit Nintendo’s legendary in-house publication during its awkward tween years: still clinging to some of the looks and features of its 16-bit glory days, but starting to evolve to compete with the super-professional, grownuppy output of the Ziff-Davis and Future/IGN publications.With Sonic the Hedgehog on the cover and longtime “Publisher” (Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa) announcing his departure in the News section, Ty and Jess get whiplashed by the old-school/new-school dichotomy–and flummoxed by just how few games there are being released in spring of 2002.They discuss how it’s much like today, with AA and AAA publishers constantly scaling back release schedules and focusing on key franchises. But unlike today, reviewers back then didn’t have a robust indie scene to cover.And speaking of reviews, have Nintendo Power’s reviews gotten any more ‘independent’ or ‘unbiased’ since the last time we looked?———Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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About FunFactor
Ty Schalter (VICE, FiveThirtyEight) and Aidan Moher (WIRED, Vulture) review what rocked and what sucked about the classic video game magazines that inspired them to become professional journalists, authors, and critics—and what they can tell us about today's digital media and games.New episodes drop every other Tuesday!
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FunFactor publishes biweekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
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FunFactor covers topics including Leisure, News, Arts, Books, Games, Video Games. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
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