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Do any gaming magazines still exist?
Lord Jezo
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am getting tired of reading the final two copies of EGM on the crapper and need something new, but the problem is that everything I used to subscribe to has shut down.
Is there anything left in paper that I can get on a monthly basis to fill my toilet reading needs? The only one I don't want to subscribe to is that Gamestop one, but besides that I am open to suggestions for something to send my money to.
PC Mag is left but that one has grown pretty tiny in the past few years and doesn't seem to be as quality as it once was, and I think there is still Gamepro, but that's not news-ish enough.
Just sad faces?
Is there anything left in paper that I can get on a monthly basis to fill my toilet reading needs? The only one I don't want to subscribe to is that Gamestop one, but besides that I am open to suggestions for something to send my money to.
PC Mag is left but that one has grown pretty tiny in the past few years and doesn't seem to be as quality as it once was, and I think there is still Gamepro, but that's not news-ish enough.
Just sad faces?
I KISS YOU!
Lord Jezo on
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Can you get that in the US?
I KISS YOU!
I've seen it available at Barnes and Noble before.
I KISS YOU!
They do US subscriptions here
Though the quality is much reduced from it's early days
Yeah I get Gamestop's Game Informer and it is just as shitty as you would expect. Stay clear.
This. Nintendo Power is a surprisingly good magazine.
Edit: What put GI on the map was their online "blog" of sorts, before blog was a term, of WWF Smackdown. They kept a running diary of the various builds they got and used their created guy to show off the new features in the latest build. It was awesome, it was unique, it was entertaining.
Also, as a side note, I had all the issues of Incite (Insight?) that were sold and trashed them just a couple weeks ago when I moved out.
Really? My brother used to get NP a few years ago (from around '02 - 04, maybe?) and I remember thinking it was pretty horrible.
I only get that because it is free with the Gamestop discount card.
Their reviews and editorials I often disagree with, but other than that it's a solid mag.
They actually improved dramatically 4-5 years ago, and their review section is somewhat approaching objectivity now.
But other than that, the OP pretty much subscribes to the only U.S. magazine worth reading.
I still have the first ten years worth of Nintendo Power mags boxed up in my grandparent's attic.
All the issues I ever read points to no. Its a great idea of a magazine that caters to geeks with video games, movies and anime reviews and previews. But they are so skewed and get more hard ons for "arty" video games then the usual Penny Arcade G&T forumer that its not worth it. If a game has a nice color pallette or unique main character then its the greatest game they have ever played even though the gameplay truly sucks.
Yes, that is my situation as well. I must admit they do have big pages of screenshots which I somewhat appreciate.
That said, their previews are pretty great, and that makes for the best toilet-time readings. Since they're so often largely devoted to the developers words, there isn't a whole lot of space for the journalist to editorialize and spout on about his or her personal thoughts on the game.
Now, the reviews section is another matter entirely, but as has been proven time and again, if anyone is actually paying sole attention to what a gaming journalist says about "x" game without trying it out themselves (either via a demo or by renting it), they're already doing themselves a disservice.
In fact, sometimes I even find them too harsh about 1st party titles.
GamesTM has great features, like Edge, and great reviews, free of bullshit pretentiousness, unlike Edge.
I mostly read it for the various articles and previews anyways, because their reviewers don't usually have enough space to really flesh out the good and the bad of any given title, other than the really huge releases that actually merit a two pager. I tend to go to websites for reviews, not only because space isn't limited, but for the comments and such which can help to give a better picture as to whether a game is worth trying out.
I had that going. They were all in a gigantic stack on the floor next to our TV downstairs.
Then we went to our grandparents for a weekend and came back to a basement that had flooded with 1-2in of water.
They soaked up the water like a sponge. the top few copies were ok. The rest were destroyed except for one or two like the Link's Awakening issue that I painstakingly dried by carefully peeling it back page by page and placing a towel between each page.
This is every gaming magazine and site, not just GI, and is part of what is wrong with reviewers.
That said, I still enjoy GI, and the exclusives are usually awesome. This month's Assassin's Creed 2 info made me hard.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
The reviews are usually pretty solid and the previews / exclusives are really interesting to read. They don't usually fall into the trap of loving every big title and they do point out the major flaws in even the most successful of games.
If you want the best (most accurate) reviews, I think gametrailers.com is the only place to visit.
It's because of the way games journalism appears to work now.
If a company gives a magazine a sneak preview/exclusive, it's given with a certain intent in mind ie. that the impression will be good. The magazine, of course, wants to stay ahead of the competition, and if they wrote the wrong things about the game they wouldn't continue to get exclusives on it.
They carry this on until the Review stage, when they can say whatever the hell they like, because everyone else has the same thing as them.
Besides, I'd expect when they are allowed a preview the devs let them see the best, most polished parts of a game.
They still say positive things though, like "bla bla bla if it fixes these problems it could be totally awesome".
I'm exaggerating obviously, but it's the kind of thing that they do to ensure that the developers will keep on feeding them exclusives.
They recently did one on Assassin's Creed 2. I find their articles still informative, though I am disappointed that they lost their sense of humor.
You're probably right, but when I read that I basically see "This game is shit."