I'm not concerned over how many visitors this site receives. Come to think of it, fewer visitors means this site is cheaper to host so I'm incentivized to reduce traffic. By all means though, tell your friends & family about stuff you found here. Share stuff on whatever link sharing site is popular whenever you're reading this. Except for just this once. Let's not help a certain giant media conglomerate find this page. I think everything here qualifies as fair use. If I receive a take-down letter from a lawyer I'm not spending one cent arguing that in court. So if you enjoy the scans on this page, and want others to enjoy them, then just keep it to yourself.
I don't recall how I got this catalog. The last time I was in the UK was after the peak of Phantom Menace madness and I also didn't go into any game stores then. I think I bought this in some ebay lot and forgot about it for a long time. Judging by the file timestamps I scanned these 9 years ago. Maybe I planned to post them on the 15th or 20th anniversary of The Phantom Menace? I have no clue what I was thinking. They're just something I found in my "stuff to post" folder while looking for something else.
So yeah, this is a catalog from late summer or fall 1999. As usual, click on the thumbnails for the full-size images.
I know it's all hip to dunk on the prequel movies but Phantom Menace really was a lot of fun at the time. Everyone acts like they hated it the first time they saw it but I know they're filthy liars. In 1999 they thought the pod race was fun, they thought the final lightsaber fight was fun. Now they claim all along they were deeply offended by the sterotyped characters and cringed at the bad dialog. Have you seen the original movies? These aren't supposed to be deep pieces of art, they're space action films, quit overthinking them.
Alight, the coupon is valid until August 31st 1999 so that would place this catalog closer to early summer. That's kind of a raw deal since on the same page they mention games being released a month later.
Star Wars Episode One: Racer might be my favorite Star Wars game. It's tough, I like Rogue Leader on GameCube an awful lot too. Part of it might be that Star Wars games were largely bad to barely alright up until then. Empire Strikes Back on the 2600 was a lot of fun for about 5 minutes. The platformers on Super Nintendo were below average for the console. Star Wars Arcade was about it for good Star Wars games up until then... and that only had a decent port on the 32X. So compared to all the previous Star Wars game, Racer was the best.
I don't think I've played this. Most polygonal PlayStation games don't hold-up well today. I suspect this was acceptable for the time and barely playable today.
After watching a video of this game, I'm sticking with my initial assessment.
That's a good deal for the N64 plus a new release game. I am of course assuming the 1999 UK<->US exchange rate isn't completely bonkers.
A strategy guide for a racing game seems kind of odd. Oh wait, I think I own this so who am I to judge?
The Darth Maul mouse is my favorite item in the catalog.
I can't comment on the card game either. I think whether or not you played card games like this is the dividing line between late-gen-xer and early-millennial.
"Owning Lego Mindstorms" is maybe an even better way to differentiate the generations. If these were released in like 1985-1987 I would have definitely been into them. In the late 90s I was past the marketing age for these while also too young to have kids to buy them for.
Looking at those figures makes me consider getting into them now. I suppose these sets go for some stupid amount today. There was probably a little window in 2003-2004 when they were on clearance for a nickel.
Rogue Squadron was a good Star Wars game at the time too. I played the N64 version recently and it's aged well overall.
Anyway that's it for this catalog, just 12 pages including the cover. I don't think I have any other forgotten scans on my hard drive so this will be it for a while.
Related
