YMMV / Electronic Gaming Monthly

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: at least one issue in the 2000s featured a full page PSA “ad” which featured the mug shot of a criminal he had been selling bootleg video game consoles at shopping malls. Allegedly, this was done to show people that no one was above the law and it informed everyone that he had been arrested and deported back to the Middle East.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: Fans would often complain if one reviewer's score kept a game from a higher award. One notable example was the criticism of Mark McDonald when he gave The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker a 9.5, keeping the game from a Platinum Award as the other reviewers gave it a 10. He addressed this in a letter section, pointing out A) the editors don't see each other's scores until print, so he wasn't influenced by what the others gave it B) the valid criticisms he had with the game (a bit on the easy side and tedious ocean traveling) and C) the writer was complaining about a score for a game he hadn't played since it was not yet available in stores.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of the magazine's April Fool's jokes was called Mushroom Kingdom Hearts, a hypothetical crossover between Kingdom Hearts and Super Mario Bros. with a fake release date of 2008. Many years later, Sora would actually crossover with Mario in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, bringing the joke crossover to mind.
  • In 2002, the magazine released an infamous April Fools' Day prank article showing that Sonic and Tails were hidden as unlockable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and had to be unlocked by getting 20 kills in Cruel Melee^note Players that did beat this herculean challenge and had proof sent to EGM would get free copies of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle to make up for this trickery.. Come six years later, and Sonic really would become a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and even its subsequent sequels, with Tails also appearing (albeit as a trophy, and not playable).
• Retroactive Recognition: Several of EGM's writers and reviewers went on to work with some of the biggest games and studios in the business:
  • Luke Smith left EGM and 1UP, its sister site, for Bungie, where he ascended into writing for Halo 3, lead designer for Destiny, and director for Destiny 2.
  • Mark MacDonald is currently the vice-president of production for Enhance Games, who published Tetris Effect.
  • Bryan Inithar is the creative director at Insomniac Games, notably heading up Spider-Man (PS4).
• So Bad, It's Good: They also consider some of the covers to be this, such as the legendary cover with Fabio, meant to tie into Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II.

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