August OXM contents?
 

It's that time again, anyone got the new Offical Xbox Magazine yet, and if so what's on the disc?

Playable Demos

Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter
Ghost Recon: Island Thunder
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

Features

Alter Ego
Enter the Matrix
Halo 2
Midtown Madness 3
Top 10 plays

Video Showcase

Alter Ego
Armed & Dangerous
Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2
Midtown Madness 3
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War




That's about it.... there's easter eggs too with a few more trailers... if anyone figures them out let me know... the hint in the magazine said that you have to hold L at the title screen and input a 7 button sequence...

I thought this issue was supposed to have the extra mission to Splinter Cell. What gives?

They said it was "missed or forgotten" but it'll be on the next issue for sure.

@ss monkeys. :mad:


at least I didn;t buy it....

This isnt a bash but, does anyone else feel the mag is a little biased. Yeah I know its a OFFICIAL XB mag but I really dont enjoy reading it, well not that I even pay for the mag to beign with but on the whole it just feels like this mag is trying waaay too hard to be like everything else on the news rack.

It's nowhere near as biased as the Playstation magazine... and PSM is under some sort of haze of dillusions. OXM seems normal to me for a console mag... maybe even a little humble. It's not the best magazine out there, but it's readable for me and not written to 10 year olds like most console magazines. GamePro is garbage - Dragonballz on the cover half the year and stupid kid envelope art. I wish my free subscription would end.

I find the opposite. XBM is almost unreadable. It's a corny XBOX commercial. My favorites, in order:

1. Game Informer
2. GMR
3. EGM
4. GamePro
5. Nintendo Power
6. OXM

I've ordered but haven't received yet: PSM, OPSM, and XBN so that list may change.

This is what they had to say about Halo (paraphrased): MS had to feel scared going into the console business and what a good choice they made going with unknown Bungie.

Which is true, but they're still saying it over a year after it came out. Aren't there any other good games they can talk about?

They give a lot of high marks to games which other consoles bash and focus mostly on graphics instead of gameplay.

They do talk about other games... Halo just happens to be their biggest selling exclusive title - and with Halo 2 coming up, mention of the word Halo is gonna increase a bit. I've found that their reviews are fair and somewhat reliable. Unlike EGM or Gameinformer which favor anything but the Xbox versions of games that span all 3 consoles. It doesn't make sense to do that because typically - all things are equal except that xbox versions usually have extra content and better graphics and sound. I can agree that they sometimes seem to focus more on graphics than gameplay, but that's usually with multiconsole titles - and that's only because graphics are the Xbox version advantage over other versions. I'm not saying it's the best magazine out there, but it's far better than average I think. PSM rarely gives out low scores it seems... I haven't read Nintendo Power since I was a teenager and back then I thought it was written for little kids and wasn't interested. I don't know what GMR is.

Here's my breakdown...

1. PC Accelerator (no longer in print)
2. Maximum PC (formerly Boot)
3. PC Gamer
4. Xbox Nation
5. Computer Games Magazine
6. OXM
7. Play
8. CGW
9. GameInformer
10. PSM
11. EGM
12. Nintendo Power
13. GamePro (lowest of the low)


There's more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I used to love Next Generation, it's a damn shame they went out of business.

One more thing on this sentiment... Are you telling me that Nintendo magazines don't have Mario or Link plastered all over ever issue? Or that every single issue of PSM doesn't mention GTA3 on every other page? Every console has their mascott... Sega was all about Sonic. I agree that it gets a bit tedious reading the word Halo over and over, but I'd say there's enough content to to make it worth looking past... plus, there's less Halo saturation in OXM than Mario saturation in anything Nintendo I've seen.

GMR is the EB magazine you get with the $10 package (mag sub/discount card). I like OXM, been a little unhappy with the cover disc lately but the mag itself is fine.<BR>I pick up a euro one called XBox Gamer at B&N it comes with a DVD of videos,reviews, and more along with other special pack ins (Halo, and Splinter Cell full hint books). I just subscribed to Game Informer this last weekend at a Gamestop so I'll get the next 10 issues of it to check out.

Yeah, a lot of people notice it. All the official magazines tends to be a little biased though. But OXM tends to be more fanboyish than other mags with their attacks on other consoles. It rarely happens in NP, and I can't speak for PSM since i've never touched it. I know they are trying to be funny when they do it but it makes them sound so immature. The editors for OXM are from some canned Dreamcast magazine that I recall was pretty horrible. This was the first year of issues so I don't know if it changed since.

Eitherway, the only worthwhile part of this magazine is the free demo disc :). XBN is a lot better for actually reading.

Just checked out the disc...

Mace Griffin - I really want to like this - I hope the final game is better. It's so ambitious and yet it doesn't really seem to accomplish anything it set out to. Enemies are boring and weapons are nothing special. First person controls are mediocre and flying controls are decent. I'll pick it up used if for nothing else than Henry Rollins.

Soldier of Fortune 2 - crappy... the PC version is much better (duh) and it came out years ago.

vids - highlights are a Midtown Madness spoof which is kinda funny and some clips from True Crime and others. Midtown Madness looks kinda blah. Alter Echo looks terrible... so does Dino Crisis 3 and whatever else. Nice Wolfenstein trailer - but so what.

Haven't played Ghost Recon yet, but I will - can't imagine it sucking.

I get a ton of magazines for free but I've actaully paid for this one. They really need to beef up the demo disc and give us some decent stuff.

I'm pi$$ed that they are gonna take up space on the disc with the "downloadable content". I'm sorry that not everyone has XBOX Live but that's not really my problem. I imagine that the months that they give you all the content you want.....the rest of use won't get nearly as much on the demo disc. And as you can see it's already very thin.

I'm certainly not gonna renew. It's a waste.

Putting downloadable content on the discs isn't what's keeping other cooler things off the disc. There just aren't enough cool things to put on the discs every month. Sometimes there are and other times no. Heck - they put that crappy timesplitters 2 demo on 3 discs in a row. I guess I'd rather they put some video reviews on or just more trailers at least. Maybe a review index so you could look up the scores they gave each game - text based of course. The downloadable content isn't so bad though - it's kinda cool that people without broadband eventually get the content. No sense in punishing them for not having broadband.

Im glad Im not alone in this, hell I told my boss how I felt and immediately I was labeled a "hater". The magazine to me feels like a big "me too" book. Just because an EGM reviewer hid behind a logo (Sushi-X) doesnt mean this mag needs one in theirs(that lame Granny thing). Sure there are others like Sushi out there but as far as I can tell he was the first, and the only one still around. I dont really trust the mag as far as reviews go since it hailed Superman: Man of Steel "The greatest super hero game ever made." It plays like crap.

I just popped in the disc this morning and Mace Griffin wasn't bad although I'm not very good at space flight/combat I like the smooth trasition between space combat and FPS. Xplay reviewed this the other day and gave it 4 out of 5 which by thier standards is pretty good.<P>
Soldier of Fortune II wasn't bad either (but I never played the PC version) seemed dark, but I liked the targeted shots blowing peoples heads and legs off.<P>
Ghost Recon:Island Thunder I didn't try, evidently I'm in the minority but I don't like squad based games.

Like someone else said here, i find this magazine totally unbearable at times. Its ridiclous how much bashing takes place in that magazine, i mean, sometimes its really uncalled for. I buy it only for the demos but i guess im gonna stop that soon becuase lately the demos have been been really dry.

Maybe I don't see all this "bashing" in OXM because I just think they're telling it like it is most of the time. I rarely even see them mention other consoles - only if it's a newsworthy blurb or they're doing a review of a multiconsole game and saying that the Xbox version has more this or better that or whatever - which is typically true. PSM bashes more than OXM does... take any PSM and OXM and count all the mentions of the rival's console. PSM will no doubt have more...

Let's look at this month - there's an article about the PSX... it's news (sort of)... of course, they compare it to the Xbox's features. Big deal. Who cares? They could say the PS2 is a lump of ****** and I wouldn't care. They could say the Xbox is better than my mom and I wouldn't care. You don't have to read every article. Every console magazine is gonna tout it's own console - duh... Are they supposed to go "well, the other company's console is better than ours and they have better games and stuff... waah."?? I don't get offended when PSM rags on Xbox or microsoft for being huge or stupid or whatever... it means nothing to me. The main reason I don't like PSM that much is because I'm not that into PS2 games. All official console magazines lie and give padded reviews and talk trash. None of them are all that fascinating to read anyway.

i will have to agree with trigger, pcxl was a great rag because it didn't take itself or the gaming industry all that seriously. I think that's why they were able to poke fun of themselves and the industary that was paying their pay checks.

Really who cares what X mag says about X console....for me it's entertaining because they tread that thin line between dedicated gamer and the dreaded fan boy ahole....a little trash talking among competitors always added a little more flare and flavor to their articles...last thing I want is to pick up an EGM and end up reading a business report on the gaming industary.

But anywayz, do any of you guys really read through your gaming rags anymore? I mean I still subscribe to EGM but the only time i touch the thing is when I 'm on the can....i dunno i guess with the net the info found in rags just seem kinda old.

I couldn't take anymore OXM. The "Xbox rulez" attitude was bad enough, but on top of that, the articles are just *bad*. XBN feels more like a magazine with content, OXM just seems like lightweight fluff.

I think I would prefer to read a business report on the gaming industry vs. more Halo worshipping.

XBN is good except that all the info is 2 months old.

I noticed that I prefer Future Networks (formerly Imagine Media) publications more than Ziff Davis publications.

XBN is decent sometimes (aren't they bimonthly now) -- good content, interviews and the like. Sometimes I just shake my head at their reviews though. 4.0 for Sega Soccer Slam -- did they even play the game? Stuff like that -- it's not the only one -- seem really weird. Still I read it for free in the store where I work, so I'm not really complaining.

hahahah, i'll agree gromit, OXM is a pretty bad rag and is but a shadow of what PCXL was (cuz mike salmon was editor of both)..that's why i let my subscription run out...but anyway I wasn't really commenting on OXM specifically but gaming mags in general. A little fluff and "attitude" here and there simply keeps things a little fresher and more interesting.