PSM December 2006 (Podcast)

   

Cover: PS3 launch guide (newsstand) or GTA Vice City Stories (subscriber)

I'll need to confirm this with someone who works at Future (if there was a public announcement I missed it), but it seems like PSM now makes it a regular habit of featuring different covers in its subscriber and newsstand editions.

You can see the difference in the two covers above. The sub edition is mostly art and very small coverlines (and looks much prettier), while the newsstand version has the new PS3, the RIIIIIIIIDGE RAAAAAAACER lady, screenshots of a bunch of titles, and a big number on the top-right. This doesn't look as pretty, but -- in theory, anyway -- attracts the eyes of more customers. (One of the great rules of thumb in magazine design: Printing a number on the front cover really big (e.g. "24 PS3 Games Judged!" or "1500 Codes Inside!") helps lure in bookstore browsers. It doesn't even have to be a very large number; the mere presence of a number is good enough.)

Inside: The two editions are same, and as you'd expect the emphasis is on PS3 previews, including 3 pages on Devil May Cry 4 and six going over all the titles they've been able to nab hands-on time with.

Launches like these are always tricky for long-lead-time publications to handle. Since there usually isn't debug hardware freely available to media outlets until several months after a system launch, if a mag wants to play a PS3 or Wii game, it must either visit the publisher and play it there, or beg the publisher to lend them a system along with the game. (I remember how painful it was to get reviewable GameCube games from launch until mid-2002, when Nintendo finally allowed mags and websites to buy debug consoles from them.)

As a result: If you're expecting reviews of PS3 games in this issue, you'll be disappointed. The top review is GTA: VCS, spanning five pages and billed as an exclusive -- Hardcore Gamer gave the game an equally huge feature this month which did everything short of assessing an actual score, and therein lies the difference, I suppose.

Scandal: The hot topic of this month's mail: The lack of a "swimsuit issue" this year -- something sane people are probably dancing in the streets over, but many of PSM's stalwart subscribers seem disappointed with. ("That was the one thing I was looking forward to, & you guys took it away," writes one.) As EIC Chris Slate explains, the decision came due to a lack of "new" women to draw, the fact that the feature didn't really gibe with PSM's new style, and, of course, a yearly round of complaints. Hooray for reason!

Official Xbox Magazine December 2006 (Podcast)

Cover: Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Vegas

Pretty straightforward issue this time around. The first half of the mag is previews and news, mostly from X06 (Halo Wars and so on), plus six pages on RS6: Vegas.

The neat thing: Is the seven-page excerpt in the middle of the mag from Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, the fourth Halo novel and one purported to bridge the gap between the second and third games. It's neat because the last time I saw fiction in a video-game mag, it was 1989 and I was reading good ol' Captain Nintendo in Nintendo Power. Remember that bit where the NOA secretary or whomever fended off a Darknut with a letter opener? Classic adventure, I'm telling you.

Reviews: The top one is for F.E.A.R., and it sets off a largely hit-laden reviews section, with only a bit of budgetware junk (i.e. WWII Combat: Iwo Jima) scoring below 7.

The disc: Is packed this month, actually. The Vegas demo gets top billing, but Xbox 1 owners aren't left in the cold either, considering they get NFS: Carbon and Destroy All Humans 2. Stuck in the way bottom of the disc is an Xbox demo of Eragon, a game which I know is gonna be superb 'cos it's got the talented Stormfront Studios behind it, but man, I'm not touching that film with a 100-foot pole.

Computer Games December 2006

Cover: Hellgate: London

As is usual with Computer Games, the most eye-catching section is the long feature on game trends -- in this case, the "invasion" of policians and political campaigns into games. That's not to short-sell the nine pages on Hellgate, which features Bill Roper's smilin' goateed face and a lot of dark screens. Add in the usual holiday gear guide and some reviews, and that about covers it.

CGM proves its worth: With a page about old Sierra adventure games. Though I have to disagree with Steve Bauman when he states that King's Quest is the "crown jewel of these releases". That's the sort of thing I'd say to my mother while, after everyone was in bed, I was playing through LSL3 for the 20th time.

Letters: CGM wants 'em. "We get less feedback today than we did 10 years ago," the editors write in this month's letters section, "when we had half as many readers and people who wrote in had to use snail mail instead of e-mail. (We also walked uphill to work in the snow, and we liked it.)" I can attest to the fact that mags get a lot less reader mail than you think they would. CGM also has a "Speak Out" page which is essentially an 800-word editorial from a lucky reader, so if you want your name in print and can string a sentence together, there's your ticket right there.

Beckett Massive Online Gamer October/November 2006

Cover: World of Warcraft (as I guess it'll be for most issues)

This is the third issue of Beckett MOG. I completely missed out on Issue 2, sadly, which didn't make it to newsstands here and was out of circulation before my subscription began. If anyone reading this happens to own a copy and would let me have it for less than the $5.99 Beckett wants, let me know.

Anyway, although Issue 3 is written on the same cheapo flimsy paper stock as all the Beckett mags (why is this $5.99?!), I have to admit that the content and presentation has improved a fair bit. The mag's still text-heavy and hardcore-oriented to the extreme, but the design's improved remarkably (kinda reminds me of CGM several years ago actually) and the content seems much more information-packed than the fluffy articles of Issue 1.

MASSIVE's still the clear winner so far, though.

Beckett Spotlight: Cheat Codes December/January 2007

Cover: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Well, this is odd, eh? Being a cheat/strategy magazine and putting a game on the cover that isn't out yet and therefore cannot have a strategy guide written about it? I can't help but wonder if younger readers (or the moms who buy this mag for 'em) will be rather angry to find that no, there's no Zelda strategy in this issue after all -- just a three-page preview with no particularly new info or insights.

No, Beckett CC is purely a cheats mag, with straight-out cheat lists in the back and the usual game-mag-style features and previews up front. Strategy, schmategy. There's also a page (a new feature, maybe?) billing itself as a "video game price guide & checklist", similar to Beckett's more collector-oriented mags. Hopefully this is still in the experimental stages, though, because I really don't think Excitebike is worth between $100 and $200, or Donkey Kong Jr. $150-240. Yes, I know that certain hardcore NES collectors go insane over the shrinkwrapped stuff on eBay, but c'mon.

Saving throw: The "Xbox Games We'd Love to See" feature in the middle, which uses the XNA toolset news from X06 as an excuse to come up with such hot game ideas as Jack Thompson: Attorney at War, Curling '07, and uh Snakes on a Plane. Oh dear, this doesn't sound encouraging, does it? But really, it's kinda funny when you read it. Trust me. Please!

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He's also an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]