FunFactor

Ty Schalter & Aidan Moher
  • 5.0 (25)
  • VIDEO GAMES
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

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!

  1. 4D AGO

    GameFan Volume 5, Issue 12 - Quake (Saturn) [S1E20]

    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/GameFan9700/GameFan%20Vol.%205%20-%2012%20%28Dec%201997%29%20Quest%2064/page/n112/mode/1up MOLLIE L. PATTERSON'S OLD LETTER TO DAVE HALVERSON (she's since said she's cooled down quite a bit, and they're on better terms): http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/gamefan/fatbabies.txt Don't let the extremely long intro discussion on journalism, writing, and editorial mentorship--something both Aidan and Ty are clearly passionate about--dissuade you from checking out our look at the December 1997 issue of GameFan! It's a huge one for the magazine, as it's the one where founding/longtime/iconic/controversial editor Dave Halverson steps down to make way for David S. J. Hodgson. There's some clear leveling up of GameFan's fannish production from the first issue we did, but there are still plenty of wild decisions being made in pursuit of cramming the most magazine the staff at the time could.  It's also a huge time for our show, as we're wrapping up the first season and getting your feedback on what we're doing and where we're going next! Get on the Discord and let your thoughts be heard: https://discord.com/invite/5VBpWGSuz6 ----- 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!

    1h 35m

  2. 12/16/2025

    EGM 100 - The 100 Best Games of All Time [S1E19]

    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/9e656342-878a-4098-9f49-0ca4dc313cb2 It's a huge episode for a huge issue: EGM No. 100!  Aidan and Ty go through the magic of Christmastime gaming, before settling in to a nice long trip through this 100-game time capsule of how EGM's staff viewed the history of games at the time. Some such lists were made before, and many many many made since--but the choices they made say a lot about both themselves and the industry at the time.  And once again, we recorded it LIVE and ON-CAMERA for FunFactor ULTRA members! The edited video version is up at our YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@FunFactorPod), if you want to check it out.  And if you want to attend a recording session? Well, we hook up everyone in #the-ultra-lounge, the members-only channel of our Discord, with the dates, times, and stream links. Join now and get in on all the benefits--including ad-free episodes and bonus episodes! https://funfactorpod.com/ ----- 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!

    1h 39m

  3. 12/02/2025

    The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine 2 - The Lost World: Jurassic Park [S1E18]

    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/official-u.-s.-play-station-magazine-volume-1-issue-02-november-1997 For the first time, we were ON CAMERA as we dug in to The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine's hard pan of The Lost World, a beautiful and ambitious mess from Dreamworks that barely connects to the blockbuster Jurassic Park movie sequel it's an adaptation of. Check out the video on our YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/DRaYBvpndkk  Are negative reviews like this one, as Ratatouille's Anton Ego said, "fun to write and to read?" As a Hugo Award-winning critic himself, Aidan has a lot to say.  We're working on a lot of the technical aspects of this, from getting zoomed-in shots of the content to getting Ty better framed in the video, but we'd love to hear your feedback! Join our Discord server and let us know: https://discord.com/invite/5VBpWGSuz6 ----- 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!

    1h 38m

  4. 11/19/2025

    GamePro 108 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night [S1E17]

    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/gamepro-issue-108-september-1997/GamePro%20-%20Issue%20108%20%28September%201997%29/mode/2up Grab your whip, your holy water, and your PlayStation 1, because we're reviewing GamePro's review of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night! We also get on one of Aidan's biggest hobby horses--2D graphics vs. 3D graphics, and whether the latter inherently beat the former--and ride. We had a ton of fun talking through the different biases that we (and different magazines, editors, and writers!) had when discussing the power of novel technology versus, and in the pursuit of, creative ideals. ----- 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!

    1h 29m

  5. 11/06/2025

    NEXT Generation 31 - Blasto [S1E16]

    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/NEXT_Generation_31/mode/1up Great jumpin' ray guns, or some similar 1950sesque exclamation! Captain Blasto, everyone's favorite James Bond-meets-Inspector-Clouseau-meets-Flash-Gordon, except make it a parody, and also it's Looney Tunes, superhero got a big, splashy cover and a huge preview spread in this issue--and why wouldn't it? A bold, new, original-IP action platformer from Sony's top U.S. studio, led by legendary programmer Dylan Cuthbert.  Except, well, it didn't turn out great--and the seeds of why it didn't were right there in the preview. How did they handle it? And how did WE handle how they handled it?? Listen to find out!! We also go long on journalists' role in the PR hype cycle, then and now, as well as dig in to NG's big interview with Sid Meier, and super-ambitious feature declaring the six essential elements of great game design. ----- Computer Entertainer images and information are sourced from the Video Game History Foundation, under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en Other sources include 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!

    1h 35m

  6. 10/21/2025 · BONUS

    ULTRA Review Crew Bonus UNLOCKED - Computer Entertainer reviews Super Mario Bros., featuring the Video Game History Foundation [S1B5]

    ISSUE LINK: Computer Entertainer, Volume 5, Number 3 | Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital Archive VHGF HOME: Home | Video Game History Foundation BONUS UNLOCKED!! This week, for our six-month anniversary, we're making one of our favorite bonus episodes available for everyone--one featuring a pair of guests we've been dreaming about landing since before we launched the show: Frank Cifaldi and Phil Salvador of the Video Game History Foundation They're two of the highest authorities on the planet on retro games, games media, and the culture around it all. The VGHF recently acquired the copyright to the 1980s game mag Computer Entertainer, and their contemporary review of Super Mario Bros. for the NES might be the only such surviving American professional written critique of one of the pillars of console gaming history. Unusually for one of our bonus episodes, we--as well as Frank and Phil--review it! As always, we thank all of you so much for supporting the show. If you dig it, please tell people! We'd love nothing more than to get more cool people in the ULTRA Lounge of our Discord server--and have the support we need to keep doing this show we love. ----- Computer Entertainer images and information are sourced from the Video Game History Foundation, under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en Other sources include 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!

    1h 19m

  7. 10/19/2025 · BONUS

    ULTRA Review Crew TEASER - Matt Leone's Design Room [S1B6]

    DESIGN ROOM DOT SITE: https://www.designroom.site/ Matt Leone, formerly of Polygon, EGM, and elsewhere, has launched a new subscription-based site that gets right to the heart of everything Ty and Aidan love about games media: oral histories of classic, beloved and/or interesting old games. Not only do we get deep into how and why Matt launched the site, we also look back on some of the vital work Matt did at some of the mainstream games media outlets we've covered--and it inspired and guided Aidan's own work in games-history storytelling. Matt was super generous with his time on the eve of the launch, and we had a great conversation. ----- Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, 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!

    9 min

  8. 10/07/2025

    Game Players 83 - Resident Evil [S1E15]

    ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/game-players-1993/game-players-issue-83/ Here come the RPGs...sort of. Aidan and Ty revisit Game Players yet again, as the drumbeat for more RPGs gets louder across 1996 and 1997. The splashy cover art of Beyond the Beyond's Finn helped rook a young Ty into buying one of the most disappointing and frustrating games he's ever played. But the review is actually for the seminal Resident Evil, with the GP crew doing its level best to review a genre-shattering, brilliantly innovative game with a couple of truly nasty flaws.  ----- Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, 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!

    1h 25m
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About

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!

Information

  • Creator
    Ty Schalter & Aidan Moher
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ty Schalter & Aidan Moher
  • Show Website
    FunFactor

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