The 90's 'tude and constant sexism is just dripping off every page in these old gaming mags
this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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This is the issue (Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, Volume 1, Number 1, Issue 1) if anyone wants to read it:
https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/28d63139-e6a9-4488-8501-31fe31c4913a
Searching "Crystal Dynamics" will take you right to the page—the Video Game History Foundation developed a custom OCR solution specifically tailored to video game magazines so the accuracy is excellent. Really great resource if you ever want to find stuff in old magazines, and they also have other categories like trade publications and convention materials.
edit: PaRappa and I.Q. on the same demo disc? Hell yeah. Okay, I haven't actually played either of them buuuut they both have great aesthetics. The I.Q. soundtrack is magical (shoutout to Dunkey for introducing me to it).
You know what? I'm gonna grab that demo disc and check 'em out
edit: ...I feel so fucking stupid, I have no idea how to play PaRappa. I looked at the explanation in the magazine and at the manual and I'm still at a loss. I'm good at rhythm games, so it's not a rhythm issue, but I genuinely have no idea what the game is asking me to do.
The first thing that's throwing me off is that the usual rhythm game paradigm is to have notes advancing towards some single zone, and you hit the corresponding button(s) exactly when the note reaches that zone. But in PaRappa, you've got notes going from left to right, and what I perceive to be that zone is almost all the way to the left, so clearly that's not how it works. The bar appears to have small sixteenth note subdivisions and larger markers on the quarter note beats, so I tried pressing the indicated button on said beats, but I can't even tell if my button presses are registering--I don't see a "miss" icon or hear a sound or anything. If my controller weren't working or the bindings were off, I wouldn't have even been able to start the game, and when I tried Ace Combat 2 it worked fine. What do
(also I know that I could just look up a video or whatever, but I'm going for the authentic pre-internet experience of just asking someone at school).
Okay, so I tested it out with the full game and it turns out my inputs weren't being registered...very strange. Also, the timing is still kinda weird, but at least I can actually play. My inputs also didn't register in I.Q., but they worked fine in Fighting Force, so I have no idea what's going on
I am a PaRappa fan - the first game is good BUT the inputs are notoriously fucked up on that game. The timing is incredibly off, it's not just you. One thing that helps is to freestyle and/or just not look at the timing that is presented on screen and just press buttons to the beat, which can be counterintuitive. They fixed it in PaRappa 2.
It was one of the first rhythm games ever made, so I'll cut them some slack. The only way I am able to play it these days is because I have all the goofy timing and buttons memorized because I've been playing it for two decades
Okay, I don't feel so bad then! I might just play PaRappa 2, then, because it's hard for me to play a rhythm game without getting that satisfying feedback.
This is the second time in a week that Hexbear has made me wonder about doing a romhack that's way above my ability. I mean, the fact that no one's done it by now speaks volumes—sound code can be pretty gnarly by itself, and this wouldn't just be playing music but trying to adjust how the music syncs with the visuals and how input is evaluated...but it would be so cool! Maybe someday. At any rate, it sent me down a mini rabbit hole of poking around in the ROM, doing a bit of binary parsing, and learning about the PSX debugging tools, though, which is something I've been interested in!