['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

Happy post-holiday malaise! I'm feeling it in full force, and so is my postmaster, apparently, because he only gave me three mags to write about in this installment. Let's get straight down to business, the three mags that hit newsstands in the past two weeks:

PC Gamer February 2009 (Podcast)

pcgamer-0902.jpg

Cover: Diablo III

Staff-shuffling time at PC Gamer! EIC Kristen Salvatore is stepping down (but apparently "moving to a different spot on the masthead"), and in her place is coming Gary Steinman, formerly of PlayStation: The Official Magazine and also, coincidentally, my ex-boss at Newtype USA. Joy! I look forward to tormenting him endlessly about PC topics instead of PS3 topics in the future.

A pretty basic 2009-preview issue, one spiced up by MMO Extra, a four-page advertorial that I presume replaces Future's occasional cell-phone section. There's also a very nice bit on the Russian game development scene, not unlike the one PC Zone did a bit ago...or was it PC Gamer UK? Either way, it's written by UK freelancer Jim Rossignol and pretty fun to read.

Play January 2009

play-0901.jpg

Cover: Ride to Hell

Play's copy editors (?) took a vacation this month, letting game titles like "Cooking Mamma" and a massive think-piece essay feature titled "What compells [sic] us?" seep through to the final print-ready version. There's a lot of interesting things to read in that feature, though, ranging from the importance of the game's world setting to why people still argue about Shenmue eight years after its release. Ride to Hell certainly isn't Play's typical content, either, but as always, the massive amount of neat art makes the feature worth looking at.

Girls of Gaming Vol. 6 is also out sometime approximately now, but I haven't seen it around yet.

CVG Presents Volume 5

cvgpresents5.jpg

Ohhh, am I embarrassed. After all the platitudes I draped upon the first four issues of this bimonthly-ish UK special, they go and make their fifth edition a strategy guide compilation. Nooooooo! Why me?! It's an immaculately designed strategy guide compilation, at least -- no random mishmash collection of screenshots here; it's all lovely to look at and just as nice as any other CVG Presents issue. But, it's all strategy. Noooooooo.

[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.]