Magazines

projectmayhem

just wondering, what magazines do you read? obviously only talking about game-related ones. started reading EDGE a few months ago, love it to bits. i also read the official ps2 magazine. they're the only 2 i buy though, i flick through anything else in easons.

bought the "award winning" gamesTM last month because i had a bit of extra cash in my pocket. dunno how they won an award. their news is at least 2 months out of synch with the rest of the world

sprinkles

I read edge and games TM but haven't bought them in a while. I generally stear clear of console dedicated mags, ie Xbox mag etc..cause they tend to be very biaed in their reviews.

ObeyGiant

I tend to stick to just Edge, although I've been buying Game Informer more and more frequently.

I buy GamesTM whenever it's got something that looks reasonably interesting going on. But I almost always regret buying it - it's so badly written. Apparently their publisher is going down the toilet, too. Which is unsurprising.

Ri_Nollaig

i only like pc ones: pc gamer, pc zone and sometimes pc format

Retr0gamer

I always stay clear of 'official' magazines. Wouldn't wipe my arse with them. I usually buy Games TM. Their retro section is excellent but the rest has gone downhill lately. Some of the silly mistakes they make are dreadful. Can't stomach Edge. Really boring and pretentious. I get it the odd time though. Probably the best magazine you can get if you are in the industry, but not if you are only really interested in the main news and games. I used to like EGM. Excellent american magazine that had the same tastes as I did and an unholy appreciation of Street Fighter 2. They aren't as good as they used to be and the magazine is 50% adverts. NGC is a great nintendo magazine. Unlike all other console specific magazines they aren't afraid to talk about the faults of the consoles they deal with and give Nintendo some awful abuse over the treatment of europe.

Rabies

Years ago I would buy GamesMaster and Computer & Video Games mags.
Now its mostly Edge and Games TM. Only buy a magazine about once every month or two.
Online its usualy eurogamer.net, don't like IGN.

The Free Man

same here, years ago it would be gamesmaster or cvg.
i dont bother buying anymore, but if i were, it would be pc format.

Creamy Goodness

use to buy CVG and pczone ages ago, now with the internet i don't feel the need to and now again with broadband i don't need to buy them for their demos as i can just download them.

December Son

Only magazine that mattered was ARCADE...but its gone a long time now

Retr0gamer

Arcade was excellent. Loved Sega Power and old school Gamesmaster, both had practically the same staff and worked together. Sega Zone was also a great magazine. Stuart Campbell is always a joy to read. He's like the Scottish Sean Baby.

What I miss about the old magazines was the humour in them. Arcade had some but was the last nagazine with any. Edge takes itself way to seriously and GamesTM tries to take itself seriously. I miss when it was mostly about the games and when you could tell the writers enjoyed their work. I remeber Sega Power used it have the chimp count and hen the entire staff got in trouble when the daily mail put them on the front page because of so called pornographic stories in an issue given away for free with pizza hut (a reviewer said he wet himself the graphics were so good. daily mail of course took it cmpletely out of context). I miss stuart campbell giving average import games 0-5% because better games were available and you weren't going to buy it anyway. I and want more reviews written as a conversation between the reviewer and a dodgy cockney used car sales man.

Tusky

GamesTM is by far the best in in my opinion.

Kristok

Another vote for Games TM, its got a good balance of formats and the retro section is good too.

Laguna

The odd time I do buy one, it's either PC gamer or Gamesmaster. Official magazines are crap, especially the PS2 one, mediocre games are sure to get at least a 7/8, especially the in house developed ones.

CiDeRmAn

Love Edge, nice for a magazine to treat its readers like informed adults. Tried GamesTM and don't like it at all, something about the writing style just gets under my skin. Official mags with demo disks are overpriced pap, and i avoid any mag that has ringtone adverts or ads for porno wallpaper for the phone as a rule.
The greatest mags ever were Crash (i was a speccy owner), Your Sinclair, C&VG (back around 84-88) and more recently Maximum (94, only ran for 6 issues or so but was so good).
I may have bought a few Dreamcast magazines in my time, although those demo disks were rather good.

As a rule, check the review score for the game getting the double page advert in your magazine of choice, US mags are really guilty of this, they usually score very highly, why not, the publishers are paying for it!

Lemlin

Anyone old enough to remember Games X? It was an old Amiga mag, I used to love it.

In recent years, I used to read Play, GamesMaster and Computer and Videogames. Don't really read any now though. They're too expensive and you can just read the reviews on the web anyway.

Winning Hand

Mean Machines was the $hit

Linkdude

I generally buy NOM UK, but I never buy it for reviews, usually for some of the funny humour I find in it ( Though, I wouldn't realyl expect everybody to like it).
I've gotten NGC a few times before, and I liked it, but my local newsagent doesn't stock it. I've gotten GameTM before, they weren't my favourite. Cube is probably the worst Nintendo magazine I've ever come across, it's filled with crap imo.

I only really get Nintendo based magazines as I don't have an Xbox, amn't much of a PC Gamer, and my brother took the PS2 when he moved out so, that's all I really have.

robinph

I haven't got any specific games magazines in years.

I used to get Computer & video games years and years and years ago though, but that was when they had the program listings for some basic games in them that you had to type in yourself, and as my mum never gave me enough pocket money to actually by any real games it was type it in yourself or go without.

I think that means that I'm getting old now then?

Lord Oz

Used to buy PC Gamer, but if you have bb it's kinda pointless.

jonski

PC Zone

Retr0gamer

PC Gamer went downhill years ago. Anyone remember Zapp!64 and Commodore Format. Two fantastic magazines.

rainbow kirby

Used to read NOM all the time, but I got sick of them writing like they were writing for 10 year olds. Now mostly Edge or GamesTM, oddly enough with a slight preference for Edge despite the fact it can be a little pretentious.

strangeloop

zzap64 was good, although the reviewers were full of themselves. GamesX was great. IMHO the best magazine from that era was ACE.

falipo

workin in a shop i see them all and the best are the pc gamer 1's the english and american and egm's good for consoles and theres a really good 360 1 i cant remeber the name of

FranchisePlayer

Usually I'd buy gamesmaster or gamesTM in the offical magazines every game is GREAT!

Lemlin

strangeloop wrote:

zzap64 was good, although the reviewers were full of themselves. GamesX was great. IMHO the best magazine from that era was ACE.

Woohoo, someone else who remembers Games X. It was a great mag but then it just disappeared. It was only 50p or something.

Tank Top Fever!

Bought NOM for years, then I grew up. They write for children. Calling the playstation the poostation, things like that

projectmayhem

Tank Top Fever! wrote:

Bought NOM for years, then I grew up. They write for children. Calling the playstation the poostation, things like that

teeheeheeheehee

sorry.

Jimi-Spandex

Edge, GamesTM

I do find edge gets a bit pretentiousy, but at least it's written for adults. It does need a bit of sense of humour though. They do have the best covers though.

I used to read PC Gamer religiously. From about issue 28 or something like that. I just stopped about three years ago because it got really, really crap.

ambro25

Bought and read cover-to-cover every EDGE since Issue...mmm...#42 I think it was.

- I went a bit Pokemon and now nearly got them all (missing the famed issue #0 and a handful, about 5-ish, between issues #7 and #22).

It's not what it used to be and is slowly getting worse, but there's still nothing better. You grab, say, issue #5 and the latest and compare, and it's quite sad to witness: in the earliest, there's still talk of SGi workstations, in-depth articles about rendering techniques and the like, test of SFII on SNES or MD actually written for and by adults, etc... in the latest, the cover blatantly proclaims 'why 360 is better than PS3' (the end is nigh, you ask me :mad: ).

Arcade used to be 'it' until they went bust. GamesTM, which started like a good replacement for Arcade, never really got there though, and I just don't bother now with anything else but EDGE.

ObeyGiant

ObeyGiant wrote:

I buy GamesTM whenever it's got something that looks reasonably interesting going on. But I almost always regret buying it - it's so badly written. Apparently their publisher is going down the toilet, too. Which is unsurprising.

*flush*

According to gamesindustry.biz, Highbury (the publishers of GamesTM, Play, X60 and Cube magazines) has just been put up for sale. Byebye GamesTM.

satchmo

Used to buy Amstrad Action then PC Format, but I stopped buying magazines altogether a good while ago and just rely on the net now.

projectmayhem

ObeyGiant wrote:

*flush*

According to gamesindustry.biz, Highbury (the publishers of GamesTM, Play, X60 and Cube magazines) has just been put up for sale. Byebye GamesTM.

not necessarily. if their sales are anyway decent (and i suspect they are), they'll pick up another publisher. of course the other route is that whoever buys highbury will continue the current output, as the mags you listed are all well known, and as such, probably make some profit.

ObeyGiant

projectmayhem wrote:

not necessarily. if their sales are anyway decent (and i suspect they are), they'll pick up another publisher. of course the other route is that whoever buys highbury will continue the current output, as the mags you listed are all well known, and as such, probably make some profit.

Why do you suspect their sales are decent? I'm no economist, but I'd guess that if the sales were decent, they wouldn't have reached a level of debt that couldn't be recovered.

Future effectively owns the market. I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough (or brave enough, or philanthropic enough) to tackle them. Although, that said, I'll be pleasantly surprised if GamesTM does live on. As much as I dislike their writing, I do like to have a choice in magazines.

projectmayhem

ObeyGiant wrote:

Why do you suspect their sales are decent? I'm no economist, but I'd guess that if the sales were decent, they wouldn't have reached a level of debt that couldn't be recovered.

true enough, but given the popularity of gamesTM, play and what not, i'd be fairly sure they make some sort of money. the company as a whole could be going down the tosser for any number of reasons

ObeyGiant wrote:

Future effectively owns the market. I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough (or brave enough, or philanthropic enough) to tackle them. Although, that said, I'll be pleasantly surprised if GamesTM does live on. As much as I dislike their writing, I do like to have a choice in magazines.

maybe future'll take on gamestm? though that would conflict with a number of their publications... hasn't stopped them in the past

redmosquito

Bought CVG religiously every month from bout mid '93 till sometime around 2001, same with the official Nintendo for about five years. Used to pick up various others other mags aswell (Gamesmaster especially) a good lot of the time. I have about 500 old magazines up in my attic at the minute.
I could count on my two hands how many magazines ive bought in the last few years though, maybe the odd one here and there.

Zombrex

I really like Edge, but they have gone a bit down hill in the last year or so, especially after there "re-vamp". It is one of the few magazines that actuall treats gamers as adults and games as more than reviews and advertising. It is a bit too console orientated for my liking though (eg. loads on Halo 2, little on Half Life 2), and some times they just get it completely wrong (10/10 for Halo, do not think so), but it is still light years away from most of the stupid "Offical Lick Arse" mags out there.

I loved Arcade!!!, I actually remember being angry when it was cancelled. Silly to be angry over a games magazine, but it was such a class magazine ... *sob* ..

Sometimes by PC Gamer but that has got a bit sh*t recently, and as anyone noticed that it doesn't seem to be nearly as big as it once was (I mean content wise)

honru

EGM used to be a fantastic magazine (and they stocked it in Easons too.) About three years ago the writing, among other things, just became... bad. Really bad. It's a shame that I can't actually enjoy reading it now... it's awful stuff.

Got a free subscription to Game Informer a year or two ago, it's not the worse but not great. They seem to like skewing reviews alot.

Out of them all, I like Edge the most, although I do find it takes itself a tad too serious most times. Still, got 50 issues or so off here for nothing and reading back over some of the special features makes a great read.

Moriarty

PC Gamer here. For years and years.