Where to buy Edge in Dublin

crybaby

anyone know anywhere in town I can pick a copy of this up? Use to get it in HMV but they dont seem to have it anymore

tHE vAGGABOND

edge thinks that you would pick up the second rate games magazine edge inside most good newsagents..

That said, edge thinks that you should think again, and get a good magazine instead

johnny_ultimate

Easons on O Connell St is the place to go.

evad_lhorg

ya any easons will do ya

monument

Over priced and don;t buy the 'Vat rate Ireland' crap for mags - it's the same as most of Europe and Irish newspapers at 12.5%.

Earthhorse

I usually see it in Tower too.

super_furry

Pretty much any major newsagents stock it - Easons, Reads, etc. I think it's gone downhill in a big way over the last few years, but their retro mags are still solid and the recent early magazine compilations have been very good.

Still think Games TM is pretty much untouched though.

Zonko

Second rate? I think for games magazines that aim at the more 'hardcore' and dev market it's the only big one on the market.

Retr0gamer

Other than some awful articles about the Games industry (snoozefests about MMOs and AI and the like) Games TM is a superior magazine. Edge are notorious for getting reviews incredibly wrong (7/10 for gunstar heroes, they must have been playing a different game) and is full of awful boring up their own arse articles. Retro gaming sectionsare good however.

I long for the return of games magazines that didn't take themselves seriously and knew gaming was just about having fun. I miss you Superplay, Sega Power, etc.

Isn't NGamer meant to be rather good just like the early 90's magazines? Pity it isn't multiformat.

monkeyfudge

Retrogamer magazine is good too... Lovely feature on the Last Ninja games this month.

K.O.Kiki

But that's about old games only. I like finding out about NEW games, too. *(engage "retro=better than today's games" thread)*
While I don't read the reviews that often anymore (thanks internet!), the interviews they give are very good; and their retrospectives & articles are usually of a high quality.

Anyway, buy early in Reads (€7.20 instead of €8), and curse the Germans for getting a word-for-word translated edition... for ~€4.

Retr0gamer wrote:

Edge are notorious for getting reviews incredibly wrong (7/10 for gunstar heroes, they must have been playing a different game)

Firstly, that was over 10yrs ago, and the current editorial staff rate it a lot higher. Besides, ever heard of personal opinion? All reviews are tainted with subjectivity, so just because *you* don't agree with a score doesn't make it "wrong". At least they aren't one of those mags which let marketing direct their scores.

RE*AC*TOR

Edge is a decent magazine, I prefer GamesTM, but I buy both.

For people above the age of 18 who want a games magazine with any depth there are only two magazines on the market worth buying.

crybaby

thanks for the feedback, amusing to see edge sparks such a reaction, i havent read it inawhile but i remember liking its articles and features alot more than its reviews, ill also check out Games TM while im at it

damiennolan

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Edge is a decent magazine, I prefer GamesTM, but I buy both.

For people above the age of 18 who want a games magazine with any depth there are only two magazines on the market worth buying.

Big fan of GamesTM myself. Its not as far up its own a*se as Edge.
Small but sufficient retro section as well for those of us that don't have time to be hardcore next-gen gamers as well as retro gamers!!

TheAlmightyArse

There's love in NGamer, but being a Nintendo-only mag really, really works against it. And it needs more features, and fewer six-page previews of Scarface.

I find Games TM and Edge frustratingly bland. Edge especially, which isn't helped by the way it refers to itself in the third person as some sort of vaguely self aware magazine robot. And it has the added crutch of having mad reviews written by the inept and hopeless. See the Gunstar Heroes review Retr0 was talking about: "Lovely, gorgeous, creative, best fun EDGE has had in ages, excellent game, a bit short, 7/10". And then again for the sublime WarioWare.

Vyse

Retr0gamer wrote:

Other than some awful articles about the Games industry (snoozefests about MMOs and AI and the like) Games TM is a superior magazine. Edge are notorious for getting reviews incredibly wrong (7/10 for gunstar heroes, they must have been playing a different game) and is full of awful boring up their own arse articles. Retro gaming sectionsare good however.

I'm pretty sure that they gave it 6/10:eek: I have the review at home.

ObeyGiant

Retr0gamer wrote:

Edge are notorious for getting reviews incredibly wrong

Reviews are just opinions, so how can they be wrong (much less incredibly wrong)?

I am, and always have been, a massive Edge apologist. And as such, I'd say that if you're finding that Edge's articles are too serious, too boring, or too pretentious, then you should realise that you're not their target audience and that not all videogame magazines are created equally. You should quit moaning that the magazine is to blame and realise that it just isn't to your tastes.

TheAlmightyArse

ObeyGiant wrote:

Reviews are just opinions, so how can they be wrong (much less incredibly wrong)?

But Edge doesn't treat its reviews as mere opinion. There is no writer's credit on an Edge review; it is Edge's authoritive judgement, there is no human folly and that number at the bottom is the gospel according to Edge. Look at the ludicrous reverence with which it treats its "perfect" ten score.

Besides, the Gunstar Heroes review simply doesn't make any sense. Edge gushes for most of it, mentions that it's a bit short (when it's typical run-and-gun; reasonably difficult and designed to be completed in one sitting) and gives it a slightly-above-average six. That doesn't add up.

ObeyGiant

TheAlmightyArse wrote:

But Edge doesn't treat its reviews as mere opinion. There is no writer's credit on an Edge review; it is Edge's authoritive judgement, there is no human folly and that number at the bottom is the gospel according to Edge. Look at the ludicrous reverence with which it treats its "perfect" ten score.

(Drifting off-topic here)

First off, taking your reviews and opinions seriously does not change them into fact. Even Edge knows this.

Second, very few games magazines actually credit their writers with particular reviews. Of the few that I actually read (Edge, GamesTM, OXM, EGM) only EGM actually puts a 'name' to the review, and from all the games magazines I've read over the years, I'd say that having 'anonymous' reviews is more common than not. I don't know why this is, but you can't single Edge out for this.

Third, Edge is the only games magazine that I know of that has actually printed an issue without any numbers at the bottom of its review (other magazines may have done this, I'm just not aware of it). As I recall, they did this because they wanted to escape the idea that the 'score' was the important part of the review, when they actually felt that the words and opinion were the important part of the review. So - they can hardly be described as treating the number at the bottom as "gospel according to Edge".

Retr0gamer

I hate the way that EDGE will always stand by their review score no matter what even when they are clearly wrong. They completely overrated Halo and gave it a 10 but still go on about how brilliant and innovative the game was as if it was another revolution like Mario 64 or something.

A 6 for Gunstar Heroes is just plain wrong. I don't know how anyone could not love it.

I understand EDGE is aimed at the industry more than the casual games player but the articles still bore me to big fat salty tears and thats my personal opinion.

projectmayhem

Retr0gamer wrote:

They completely overrated Halo and gave it a 10 but still go on about how brilliant and innovative the game was as if it was another revolution like Mario 64 or something.

are you seriously trying to tell us that edge overhyped halo? no, everyone overhyped halo. edge are victims of the hype as much as everyone else. but when i read the review back then, i agree'd with every word of it. not anymore, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

i find edge really good because of the articles. for reviews and news i have this new fangled thing called teh internets. everytime i pick up gamesTM to flick through i find their news to be incredibly out-dated, and their articles too "meh" for me to care enough to actually pull some cash from my wallet.

Trode

TheAlmightyArse wrote:

Besides, the Gunstar Heroes review simply doesn't make any sense. Edge gushes for most of it, mentions that it's a bit short (when it's typical run-and-gun; reasonably difficult and designed to be completed in one sitting) and gives it a slightly-above-average six. That doesn't add up.

That whole period of Edge's history is infused with hilariously epic wrongness. Check out the File retrospectives of a year's worth of Edge that are out now for some comedy.
"RISE OF THE ROBOTS is TEH FUTURE OF GAMING!!"
"Doom probably isn't*."
"FMV is a revolution in interactive entertainment!"
"The 3DO is considerably more worthy of time and attention than the any of the 16-bit consoles"
Funny, funny stuff.

* If only you could talk to the monsters. Then it would be interesting.

Retr0gamer

Well EDGE was originally brought out to cover the new 32-bit consoles so you can forgive them for the 3DO comment.

I agree with you projectmayhem but the point I was making that even with the benefit of hindsight EDGE still to this day go on about how 'perfect' Halo is as a game and continually call it a masterpiece as if saying so enough will make it true. It seems they can't admit their mistakes.

ambro25

projectmayhem wrote:

everytime i pick up gamesTM to flick through i find their news to be incredibly out-dated, and their articles too "meh" for me to care enough to actually pull some cash from my wallet.

Seconded.

Tripled if I take my entire (complete) EDGE collection into account, bought monthly since 1994

EDGE isn't any more authoritative about game reviews/scores than any other magazine, only playing the actual game is. For anything else, they are by a country mile the most pleasurable read about industry going-ons and perspectives. And have been for over a decade...for adults, that is.

I'll gladly forgive them the 3DO hype, the Halo score, the Gunstar Heroes score, for the minute drop these represent in the ocean of quality writing and reporting since 1993. They're no more guilty of hyping systems and games than any other specialist publication you care to name - but, to their credit, and with ref. to system releases, they consistently tend to obtain and print the third party views (good and bad) before the first party views. Did for 3DO, for Saturn, for PS1, for DC, for N64... f*ck, for every single system since before the 3DO! So, you can accuse them of hype, but not more than the rest... and certainly not accuse them of bias!

BTW - Gunstar Heroes was mis-scored by their own acknowledgment, and for the one misscore at the bottom of the one review in 199-whatever, they must have printed at least 500 times how sorry they were about it ever since, in one article, review or feature or another in every other issue.

You think the features are boring?! You should get hold of one of the very early 1993-1995 issues, where there was still actually very little game content (proportional to size of market, one would say) and all to do with dry-as-bone Silicon Graphics workstations architecture commentary, because that's allegedly what would be the basis for the N64... etc.

Pity about Arcade, they were getting close. GamesTM just isn't Arcade.

Star Lord

My fav games magazine evar...

CiDeRmAn

Every time Edge is mentioned in a thread it degrades into a bashing of Edge and the attempted beatification of Games TM, now there's a second rate mag if ever there was one!
I've bought Games TM on several occasions and found the news normally 2 weeks behind Edge as its issued before GamesTM, nevertheless I find the writing style juvenile and the only thing worth buying it for is the retro stuff, but as a long standing player of games, know most of it already.
Nope, prefer Edge, Mr. Biffo and Jeff Minter tell it like it is and are not afraid to disagree with the mags editorial line, so showing some proper objective journalism, lovely jubbly.

K.O.Kiki

Damn, I miss Toshihiro "Whiskey" Nagoshi & the ever-callous RedEye. Great columns they were.

Oh yeah, and it *is* damn funny how every Edge-mention turns into

• Edge rules!!!
• Nu-uh, GamesTM is teh bestest!! Edge is up its arse!!!1
• Edge is fur adolts!! :mad: STFU!!!
• etc.

Fanboy wars are soooo much fun!

TheAlmightyArse

ObeyGiant wrote:

First off, taking your reviews and opinions seriously does not change them into fact. Even Edge knows this.

No, it doesn't. I never suggested it did. It's an admirable thing to do.

ObeyGiant wrote:

Second, very few games magazines actually credit their writers with particular reviews. Of the few that I actually read (Edge, GamesTM, OXM, EGM) only EGM actually puts a 'name' to the review, and from all the games magazines I've read over the years, I'd say that having 'anonymous' reviews is more common than not. I don't know why this is, but you can't single Edge out for this.

Being common practice doesn't make it good practice. Of course I can single out Edge for it; I'm talking about Edge. It doesn't simply leave its reviews anonymous, it attributes them to Edge. And never makes any admission that Edge was possibly wrong. And throughout, it refers to Edge not as a magazine, but as if it's some seperate sentient power. Pretentious guff? Pretentious guff.

ObeyGiant wrote:

Third, Edge is the only games magazine that I know of that has actually printed an issue without any numbers at the bottom of its review (other magazines may have done this, I'm just not aware of it). As I recall, they did this because they wanted to escape the idea that the 'score' was the important part of the review, when they actually felt that the words and opinion were the important part of the review. So - they can hardly be described as treating the number at the bottom as "gospel according to Edge".

If they want to escape the idea that the score was unimportant, why leave it
out for one issue and then bring it back? Why treat the Edge ten as a holy grail? That example of the token issue is a really stupid idea and smacks of the kind of pretention that gets me wound up about Edge. It's a slick magazine that looks like it knows what it's doing, and only close inspection will reveal that it full of insubstantial puff slung about by muppets who don't know they are.

I'm not some apologist defending Games TM (which I simply think is poorly written), or a joyless cynic or anything. To my mind there aren't any entertaining or respectable games magazines being out at the moment, even though I really, really want there to be. We need another Arcade, N64, Digi or Amiga Power. If only there was a Consolevania I could take home every month, read on the couch and the loo, and keep in a stack behind my bed.

thelordofcheese

DamoElDiablo wrote:

My fav games magazine evar...

ahh memories...... they don't make 'em like that anymore.

Star Lord

Ah I know, classic stuff there, and I passed a few hours upon finding that site! Good judgements on the games, not afraid to say what they think, or to have a bit of a laugh and not take themselves too seriously. No wonder it was the top games magazine in its time!

The main thing that's passed on from it is... cover gifts/stickers... At least the MM ones were funny looking. (And some glowed in the dark! Ooooooh! )

ObeyGiant

TheAlmightyArse wrote:

No, it doesn't. I never suggested it did. It's an admirable thing to do.

I'm sorry, I just didn't know how else to interpret "But Edge doesn't treat its reviews as mere opinion". If something isn't opinion, what is it?

TheAlmightyArse wrote:

And never makes any admission that Edge was possibly wrong.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here - these are opinions, so there should be no need to make any such admission. By their very nature, opinions cannot be wrong.

But having said all that, the power of a public outcry is something not to be trifled with (as GFW/1up found out in its Neverwinter Nights 2 review). Ambro25 pointed out further up this page, "Gunstar Heroes was mis-scored by their own acknowledgment, and for the one misscore at the bottom of the one review in 199-whatever, they must have printed at least 500 times how sorry they were about it ever since." There has been a similar reaction to the Halo 10/10 - Edge use that as a touchstone for all their 'controversial' decisions and refer to it constantly as such.

TheAlmightyArse wrote:

If they want to escape the idea that the score was unimportant, why leave it out for one issue and then bring it back? Why treat the Edge ten as a holy grail? That example of the token issue is a really stupid idea and smacks of the kind of pretention that gets me wound up about Edge.

They explained this at the time. The 'scoreless' magazine (actually, the scores were printed towards the back of the issue) was an experiment designed to get people thinking about the review rather than the score. They acknowledged that this was was not, and could never be their 'standard' format simply because a large portion of their readership have been conditioned to glancing at the review score before actually reading the review and without the score, they could not decide which reviews to read. And naturally, they didn't want to alienate any part of their readership (especially since Future was in financial trouble then).

(Incidentally, on a recent 1up podcast, John Davison (head honcho of EGM) said they had toyed with the idea of making the magazine scoreless as well, but wasn't sure if the idea would work.)

As regards the "Edge Ten"... maybe it's just the fanboy in me (or maybe it's the reason I am an Edge fanboy), but I do think that there should be some scores that are reserved for the truly exceptional games. It's nice to have some distinction between the "very good" and "spectacular." For example, Okami is a lovely game, but is it really worth Eurogamer's 10/10? Dishing these scores out to games that are 'only' very good dilutes the meaning of a 10/10 score.

CiDeRmAn

Hmm, Halo didn't deserve 10, well, yes it did, given the changes the title heralded in how we play games and how much we expect for FPS titles.
I'm sure Sony wish that they had got Killzone out before Halo so as avoid all the unfavourable comparisons.
Perhaps some interior environments were reused a little much but there is no escaping the delight of crossing a bridge teeming with covenant, with following the twittering guilty spark through the library, with getting the shotgun and kicking Flood ass, nice1 And that run along the spine of the Pillar of Autumn at the end, yup, for all those moments it deserved a 10.
But by that reasoning so did Half Life, Half Life 2, and so on.
To say 10/10 is to say that a game is perfect, a hard thing to say about so many great games, that torch in Doom3, the sailing around in Zelda WW and so on, very difficult to rate something so highly, surely Mario64 is perhaps the only true 10 to have stood the test of time?
Edge themselves have wanted rid of the convention of scoring, rather to encourage the reader to hear the reviewers impression and then the prospective buyer can make an informed decision on a title, but there will always be those who will haggle over one game getting 8, another 9 and so on, the nonsense of marks out of 100 where one title is worth 96 and another 93 should be frowned upon.
No the scoreless magazine should have become the norm, assuming its readers have a modicum of intelligence.
I have bought 7/10 games and had more fun than with a 8 or 9/10 game, so scores are misleading and one should keep ones own counsel when choosing a game, keep in mind that even if a reviewer likes a title and that genre has always left you cold, this title isn't likely to change that for you.

johnny_ultimate

I think its unfortunate that many people live by the score. In essence, the numbers at the end of a review are merely a soundbite - something for fans to boast about, or often complain about.
Its important that people do not consider the final score the ultimate reflection on a games quality. I never read the Gunstar review mentioned above, but as someone said the review praised the quality of the title, even if the score didnt reflect this. So ignore the score and read the review instead - thats where the real view exists.
Unfortunately there are moaners around who simply take the score as Bible. As a reader of Gamecentral on C4 text, they often bemoan people writing in giving out about their 7/10 scores, when in fact the review was quite positive. Just because a game doesnt get an 8,9 or rarely, a ten, that doesnt mean its not worth buying - it is just that alot of people these days think that if a game gets 7 or lower it is subpar, when in fact it could just be a couple of technical / gameplay problems that make it slightly less successful than the higher scorers.
As Ciderman said above, scoreless magazines are usually the most effective. They let the review speak for itself, and don't have to try and sum up everything in a final one number summary.

CiDeRmAn

Hi, my name here is ciderman and I'd like to make a confession, I don't like Gunstar Heroes, now, yes I feel a lot better now everyone knows my guilty secret, while I'm at it I also don't like Final Fantasy games or Contra on the Snes, yes, all that weight off of my shoulders! Feels good!
I guess there's a couple of highly rated titles that If I was asked to review I would say suck, and in a big way too, yet the consensus is that they are bonafide classics, hmmm.
And as said, the problem with no scores is it requires the buyer of a magazine to actually read and, shock horror, understand the review, not just skim the points of interest until they reach the score, those mini reviews some muck mags have where you just know the reviewer probably gave a game a hour or so then passed judgement, probably based on what the editorial line of the mag on a certain publisher happens to be.
to see what I mean, check out who has the major advertising on the first few pages, usually a doulbe page spread and glossy, thats the most expensive spot in the mag, then check out the score given in that games review in that mag, you usually find that game has been given a glowing review, showing, but sadly not proving, the link between advertising revenue and review scores, a nefarious business indeed!!!

Zombrex

I think people sometimes miss the point of the way EDGE reviews games

If EDGE give a game a 6 or 7 they consider the game to be quite good. If they give it an 8 that is very good. A 9 is a brilliant game. A perfect 10 means the game is just out of this world.

I'm not saying I agree with EDGEs reviews all the time (Halo is not a perfect 10, far from it). But EDGE giving a game a 6 out of 10 is not really the same as a mag such as PC Gamer giving a game 60% (ie its crap don't bother with it). In a mag like PC Gamer half the games reviewed score in the high 80%s and 90%, so the curve is different.

After reading EDGE for years now the way I work out how they review their games is roughly as follows -

EDGE Other Mag (eg PC Gamer)
5/10 60%-74%
6/10 75%-79%
7/10 80%-89%
8/10 90%-94%
9/10 95%+
10/10 97%+

Dont be at yourself

Halo didnt deserve a 10. GTA III didn't deserve a 6. (or a 7). EDGE is up its own arse. All true. And yet: it's still the most informative magazine on the bookshelves.