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PODCAST

FunFactor

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!

leisure video games

All Episodes

88:43

Intelligent Gamer 2 - Jumping Flash! 2 [S1E7]

FunFactor ·

2025/06/17

ISSUE LINK: Intelligent Gamer No. 2, July 1996A true trailblazer of a magazine, which Ty mistook at the time for a craven NEXT Generation ripoff. Instead, Ziff-Davis bought what might have been the world's first fully digital online games magazine and soon put its precocious editor at the head of a real, monthly, big-boy print equivalent. Besides giving Aidan and Ty an excuse to riff on the benefits and drawbacks of physical magazines in the modern era, this issue's super deep previews and reviews

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10:56

ULTRA Review Crew bonus TEASER - Demo Discs with Sean...

FunFactor ·

2025/06/10

Please enjoy this sample of a FunFactor ULTRA Review Crew bonus episode bursting with international flavor! With EposVox and Sean Seanson joining Aidan and Ty, we bridged three countries and seven time zones to go deep on our love of demo discs--the best (and sometimes only) way to taste the breadth of some old consoles' libraries and indie scenes. It's our first two-guest episode, and an absolute banger. Sean's most recent deep-dive video is all about the set of 7 PlayStation EU/PAL-region demo

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91:36

GameFan Volume 4, Issue 5 - Lufia II [S1E6]

FunFactor ·

2025/06/03

TODAY'S ISSUE: GameFan Volume 4, Issue 5 - May 1996This one's special -- we recorded it right before the Mollie Patterson bonus episode (which you should join the FunFactor ULTRA Review Crew to hear!), wherein she gave the amazing backstory behind some of the unique production and culture wrinkles that were evident in the final product of this unique mag.We talk about our connections to the seedy underbelly of order-by-phone import stores--one of which GameFan actually started its life as a catalog

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98:52

NEXT Generation 5 - Kirby's Dream Course [S1E5]

FunFactor ·

2025/05/20

TODAY'S ISSUE: NEXT Generation Issue No. 5, May 1995Whew, this one's a doozy. Not just diving into one of Ty's favorite magazines for the very first time, but the very first issue he ever picked up: A massive roundup of all the news and rumors ever about Nintendo's Ultra 64 project. Ty and Aidan also dig into console launches successful and -un, then and now, plus go long on journalistic responsibility when reporting "rumors." Of course, they review NEXT Generation's review of Kirby's Super Nintendo

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23:29

ULTRA Bonus 2 TEASER - Mollie Patterson of EGM &...

FunFactor ·

2025/05/13

Mollie Patterson's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mollipen.bsky.socialMollie Patterson's homepage: https://mollielpatterson.com/The EGM Compendium Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/egmbook/egmcompendiumFunFactor ULTRA subscribers are getting our full 91-minute interview with the great Mollie L. Patterson of EGM and GameFan fame, talking about her (very) early years as a 'zine writer, joining the rough-and-tumble world of GameFan, and graduating to layouts and editing at EGM--not

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58:20

EGM 74 - DOOM [S1E4]

FunFactor ·

2025/05/06

TODAY'S ISSUE: EGM No. 74 - September 1995Ty and Aidan dive into the super-edgy EGM ads, before flipping through one of the most fearless, innovative outlets of a fearless, innovative era. Then they dig into the four-way capsule review of the Super Nintendo port of DOOM, highlighting the strengths and faults of both the EGM review system and the game itself.As always, our Letters section features YOUR comments and reviews! So if you want to be read on the air, just rate or review FunFactor wherever

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44:27

GamePro 77 - White Men Can't Jump [S1E3]

FunFactor ·

2025/04/22

TODAY'S ISSUE: GamePro No. 77, December 1995 (Internet Archive)Ty and Aidan are two short white guys who don't play basketball--but do love sports, and sports video games. We've had quite few pleas from listeners to break down a good review of a bad game, and GamePro 77 has the goods.Of course, there are plenty of other things to talk about in the issue, from the letters and ads to the Jim Davis re-draw of the GamePro rating scale featuring Garfield's face??Here's that GDQ Virtual Hydlide segment:

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13:59

ULTRA Bonus 1 TEASER - Mike Drucker interview [S1B1]

FunFactor ·

2025/04/15

Mike Drucker's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mikedrucker.bsky.socialHere's a teaser of the very first FunFactor ULTRA bonus episode!It's our exclusive interview with Mike Drucker--the author of "Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games." We talk about the book, Mike's life as a gamer and writer for some of the most prestigious shows in TV (including Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Full Frontal, and Bill Nye Saves the World), and what it even means to be a critic or commentator

en

88:47

Game Players 75 - Chrono Trigger [S1E2]

FunFactor ·

2025/04/08

TODAY'S ISSUE: Game Players No. 75, September 1995 (Internet Archive)Ty and Aidan basically became friends over their shared love of Chrono Trigger, and everything it stood for as an artistic achievement in video games. Game Players was also their mutual favorite magazine--so Game Players No. 75, and its dual-writer review of Chrono Trigger, naturally looms large in the canon.Ty and Aidan flip through the rest of issue, freak out about the pen-pal section, and talk about the console-launch dynamics

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77:54

PSM No. 1 - Final Fantasy VII [S1E1]

FunFactor ·

2025/03/25

The very first issue of PlayStation Magazine went big on "independent" 'tude, and on Final Fantasy VII--including cover art, a massive walkthrough, and a five-star review of the game that would redefine a series, a genre, and arguably the top console of the 32-bit generation. Ty and Aidan go deep on the conflicting tensions inherent in independent and official publications, and what those terms even mean in 2025. They also, of course, flip through the issue, talk about the various sections, and

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8:23

Introducing: FunFactor! [episode zero]

FunFactor ·

2025/03/14

Professional authors, journalists, gamers, and critics Ty Schalter and Aidan Moher introduce FunFactor: an insightful and incisive look back at the retro video game magazines that inspired them to do what they do. In this trailer they play highlights from the first few episodes, discuss the passions that drove them to read about games as well as play them, and the impacts--positive and negative--they had on them as writers and people.-----Sources include the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our

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31 results

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