Deftones

It's been bad since it's inception. The reviews have always been pitiful and the content always seems to be a month or two behind the great mags like EGM.

DARTH GAMER

Have any of you ever read PLAY. IMO this is the best mag for games. Plus it has DVDs and a little Anime section. It's a very well put together mag with good paper stock. Plus, my favorite thing is it's very artsy. (I'm an art teacher) It will have sketches of characters and their development sometimes and every mag will have some sort of poster in the middle of a character, usually one from one of their featured games that month. The screen shots look great and they are not 1 inch big either. Anyway, Great magazine. pick one up if you have'nt yet.

jrutz

I was drawn to Play initially because of it's design and in-depth interviews, but then I actually read one cover-to-cover and thought it was completely boring. Their stories are pretty much clones of eachother, with the interviewers asking the same questions and developers giving much the same answers across all articles.

Game Informer is my favorite right now, with GMR and XBN right behind. I liked what I saw of Polygon - it looked to be what Next Generation used to be back in the day - but unfortunately it just folded as of the current issue.


Jeremy

young

same w/ me for Play. very slick and nice layout but the content is weak - often gratuitously written. halverson seems like he writes most of the articles and while they're facile, they're also pretty superficial.

the dvd section is a waste of space, imo.

their anime section is pretty decent though b/c it has introduced me to new stuff that i didn't really know about. eg Last Exile. last issue raved about Magical Mystery Shopping Abenobashi (?) something like that. based on that, i actually bought it and i'm looking forward to it.

still, that's not enough for me to continue to pay.

there are no game magazines i like anymore... even if they're free. online is pretty much my source of reviews and info.

Josh H

It is dreadful. I get it, and OXM, free and rarely read anything in either. I'm not sure which is worse.

Both have terrible writing. Gamepro is skewed toward a younger audience, while OXM is aimed (like all official one console mags) at the featured consoles fanboys. OXM is particulary bad at bashign the competition though.

Gamepro's reviews are ridiculous as well. With no overall score it's tough to judge a game. I see games get perfect 5's on fun factors (which many people treat like an overall score) that were getting 7's and 8's in other mags.

I mainly stick with EGM for my gaming reading. It's not great either, and certainly isn't all that well written. But it is aimed at an older audience than Gamepro, and doesn't have the bias of the console-specific mags. Most of all, I generally agree with their reviews. I'm very critical of games, and they are as well. They don't pass out 9's like candy like many mags do.

Young Vito

wow...sounds like EVERYONE hates this mag...ive felt the same way as all of u for a while now...with so many pictures and lame previews which tells us nothing new about a game..seems like its aimed at like 7 yr olds.

maxpower

Does anyone actually pay for this mag?

Snow, you have surpassed the use of the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" saying. One use per week please.

balancer

Like most, I think Gamepro is garbage.

For anyone who doesn't know, Play magazine is done by Dave Halverson who used to do Diehard Gamefan in the good ol' days. Play isn't perfect, but it is written in a more mature style than any other console gaming mag (they dabble in pc also). I suscribe and pay for that one.

Also I just got my first issue of my free sub. of EGM that I learned of on this board, and it's pretty good too. Thanks, board.

KingSmoth

I too have a free sub to Gamepro, and it is utter crap.
My favorite mag is Game Informer, which I started getting about two years ago I believe. I also get GMR, EGM, and Nintendo Power(only got the subscription for the Zelda disk, blah).
My favorite mag of all time was PCXL...

mr.snowmizer

Damn you, maxpower!

That was fresh material in this forum (and completely accurate for my GamePro description), so leave me alone!

Gromit

I let my free subscription to GamePro lapse and didn't bother trying to renew it (for free). That magazine made me feel guilty about the trees that died for each issue.

OXM bothers me because it could be a really good magazine. There's so much potential. XBN isn't perfect, but I prefer it to OXM.

DeanoBKN

Since I get them all for free, I tend to read as many video game magazines as I can. I agree with pretty much all of you, Gamepro is CRAP. Mostly because their reviews tell you nothing about the game, and it's very hard to rate the game with their terrible review system.

Play is cool if you enjoy the artsy side of games. Problem with them is, their reviews are VERY short and they all look the same (Tally up the scores of the games they review, about 80% are A's or B's)


EGM is probably my favorite of them all, because they seem to have alittle of everything, and they give honest reviews. A game really has to be good to be recommended and given a silver, gold, or platinum score. Not only that, every game is reviewed by 3 different people. I like getting different opinions and scores.

OXM isn't that bad either, but I really hate how they mention Halo 50 times an issue, and love to bash PS2 and GC alot. Is the magazine run my children, who lived in the day of "Super Nintendo is better then Genisis. Nah nah nahnah nah" Believe it or not, most people own more then 1 system. Hell I bet most of them own PS2's also.

Gromit

I renewed the non-disc version of OXM a while back for free. I noticed in the latest issue last night that they have toned down the childish "PS2 sucks" comments. It used to be that they wouldn't mention the PS2 without getting in a stupid comment but I think they are moving away from that though. Good for them.

There's just something about that Mike Salmon guy. His picture alone pisses me off. I don't know anything about him but he just seems like a "check me out ladies, I'm a videogame magazine editor" kind of guy. I guess that's not fair at all, but that's my perception.

J_J

Got it for free, threw it out.

Breakfast with Girls

Ha, "get"? It's always been bad, sister.

I got it for a year (for free, natch), but after maybe the first few issues, I just started tossing them directly into the trash and didn't bother to renew the (free) subscription. I really should have called to cancel to save the rainforest, though.

Mr. Cinema

So what's the best overall magazine to get excluding the official PS2, Xbox, and GC mags? EGM, Gameinformer, ???

DeanoBKN

I love EGM magazine. Out of all the magazines, they tend to be the hardest on reviewing games. They grade on a 10 point scale, and VERY Rarely do you see games get a 9.5 or 10. Also 3 people review each game, something no other magazine does. I like getting different opinions.

tidwell

I get Gamepro for free (thanks to this forum) and I truly believe that it is completely worthless. Seriously, this month had the worst cover/content ever. Nobody actually pays for this, right?