Edge September 2008

Cover: Xbox 360 reinvented

Edge loves doing "big picture" game-industry cover stories; this is well documented. Sometimes they are fascinating, sometimes they aggressively polish a turd, but they're always readable, at least. This month's piece on the new Xbox Live is somewhere in between -- the extensive coverage of Microsoft's Mii ripoffs is a bit silly (so, what, they're revolutionary because you can put clothes on them?), but the rest of it is very fascinating and reminiscent of the gee-whiz stuff written way back before the original Xbox came out.

The "theme" piece on the design of main menu and option screens that follows is classic Edge -- nice design theme, and while the text reads like someone's term paper from Game Design 401, it's still engaging somehow. That, in turn, is followed by eight pages on the Funspot arcade in New Hampshire, which is about 6 more pages than any US mag would ever give it.

GamePro September 2008

   

Cover: Fall Preview Guide

Two major changes (again) happening in GamePro land. First, they are experimenting with separate covers for the newsstand and subscriber editions, like OXM did for a few months last year and other mags have messed around with in the past. The newsstand version is coverline-laden, while the subscriber edition concentrates on nice art instead. More immediately noticeable no doubt is the logo, however -- the first time the logo's been redone since the inaugural issue 20 years ago. I'm not sure I see the point -- unlike EGM's large revamp from a while back, this logo is just different enough to confuse, but just similar enough to make you wonder why they instituted a change in the first place. "Design by committee," sorta thing.

Anyway, your typical fall preview issue, nothing too special to report.

Game Informer September 2008

Cover: Batman: Arkham Asylum (2 covers)

Bucking the general trend of US print mags, Game Informer totally blows out E3 this issue, with page after page of interviews and previews. This coverage is in the Connect section, which makes Connect easily the largest part of this mag, not ending until page 60.

Be sure to check out GI Spy on page 12 for a shot of Andy McNamara leering at the camera so hard, so sharp, so killingly that I got a paper cut on my forehead just looking at it.

PC Gamer October 2008 (Podcast)

Cover: Diablo III

Between the cover and the big hands-on feature for Warhammer Online, this is one chaotic issue. An oddly text-heavy one too -- the Steam piece touted on the cover is basically a spread of plain text.

The Others

   

Guitars and Gaming is one of the better Future specials of recent memory. They're almost always good when they're mostly original content, of course, but this one is special -- an entire mag on music games, with the video-game bits (over half the innards) written by OXM's Dan Amrich and the rest done by the folks at Guitar One magazine. Pretty obviously an attempt to squeeze some ad bucks out of the advertisers from Future's guitar mags, but still quite impressive and extensive if you're into the topic.

Play Magazine Presents Girls of Gaming Volume 5.5 is about what you'd figure. Quite, uh, impressive and extensive if you're into the topic.

And, of course, Game Developer is always over my head but rad. Hirokazu Yasuhara has worked on more platform games than you have ever played (not true, but almost so), and reading him pontificate about game design is kinda neat.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]