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['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.]

What's the most scathing video-game review you ever read? I don't mean Angry Video Game Nerd-type stuff; that's meant to be comedy. I'm talking about the sort of review that rips the game completely apart from end to stinking end, one where you can feel the seething resentment from every letter of every word on the page. Roger Ebert's good at writing movie reviews like that, but surely we've got someone like that for us in our industry, don't we?

I'd argue that the closest we ever got was Scorpia. I'm not going to call her the best game critic ever, but when she didn't like a game, she really didn't like it.

I bring this up because I was thumbing through some old Computer Gaming World magazines and came across her review of Ultima VIII, released by Origin in early 1994. She wrote about...ahh, how about I just let you read it for yourself? It starts on full blast and didn't stop until three pages later. (Despite her opinions, she still wrote three more pages of strategy coverage for Ultima VIII in the same issue. It must've been a hard month for her.)

CGW, as I've written about before, was an extremely well-written magazine...or, at least, a very densely-written one. Reviews of big games would often go into the thousands of words, analyzing every little detail of the RPGs, adventures and simulations of the day. In the very early issues -- back when Scorpia was still writing under her real name -- you would have these incredibly complex rundowns of strategy and computer intelligence in games that were literally written in Applesoft BASIC. No American magazine gives a more intimate view of what the industry was like in the '80s, and no writer does a better job than Scorpia in representing how the hardcores saw computer RPGs back then.

That's probably why her review of Ultima VIII wound up the way it did. In a way, U8 is symbolic of what happened to the computer game biz in the early '90s. After technology began to get cheaper Wolf3D and Doom made the industry semi-mainstream, games beefed up their visual displays to dizzying heights in the course of only a few years, going from staid EGA Sierra adventures to the dazzling 3D showcase of The 7th Guest. Ultima was an RPG series that built its name over many, many years with a small but dedicated fanbase; when Origin took on a movie-like approach to game design with titles like Wing Commander and Strike Commander, Ultima tried and failed to play along.

U8 is really not that terrible a game, in my opinion. Buggy and unfinished upon release, yes, but lots of PC games are. I'm not alone with that take, either -- among others, PC Format gave U8 a pretty stellar review. It just shouldn't have been called Ultima. To Ultima fans, the idea of an RPG where the Avatar had to jump from tiny platform to tiny platform was sacrilege -- and I think you can see that shine through in Scorpia's review all too well.

Do you have a past review you remember for its nastiness? Why not share it with me in the comments? I'd like to read some more like this one.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

['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.]

I never miss an issue of Future UK's PC Zone. Sadly, sometimes PC Zone misses me...and, for that matter, the state of Texas entirely, it seems. I hadn't seen an issue on sale locally for months until a single copy of the Xmas '09 edition (above) popped up at the local Micro Center.

Over in Britain, Future decided as of last year to announce its magazine stable's official ABC-audited circulation figures once a year, as opposed to once every six months like before. The move put Future in line with other game-media outlets, but it also served to hide the fact (for half a year, anyway) that every mag but Edge lost readership in 2009.

The biggest loser: Sadly, none other than PC Zone -- already the lowest-circ game mag that Future released, it took a 40-percent dive down to 11,357 copies sold per month, on average. Eesh. I think Computer Gaming World had higher circulation in 1987.

And it's really a shame, I think, because the mag's consistently the one that makes me laugh the hardest and most often. It's one thing for editors to attempt to write a funny game mag -- many try, to some extent -- but it's another to do it well, and so consistently.

It's for that reason alone that I keep spending $15 an issue on this mag, something I often feel a little silly about afterwards. I suppose Future figures that the mag would go belly-up instantly if they removed the pricey DVD from the package. I can't blame them for thinking that way, either, but as their (probably) sole fan in the U.S. Gulf Coast, I will say that I wish it were cheaper. And available a little more consistently.

(The pragmatist in me wants to say 'Why doesn't Future can the print mag if it's a money-loser and have the editors try starting a humorous game blog, like Old Man Murray or something?' However, I've a feeling that Future's advertising department already has an answer to that question for me, and it wouldn't be a cheery one.)

Regardless, after a false start last week, a great many new mags have hit my mailbox now, and here's what I think of 'em:

Edge March 2010

Cover: Crysis 2

It's almost as if Edge and Game Informer swapped covers this month -- GI (below) has the artistic-looking set piece, and Edge's got the "space marine" with guns a-blazin'. The piece inside is the sort of cover story GI would do at its best, too. It's not about Crysis 2 the game so much as Crytek the company, an outfit trying to reinvent itself as a pioneer on all platforms (not just PC) with this project.

Also worth reading: The interview with Ed Fries, one of the Xbox's founding fathers, whose current play at a big business venture is...manufacturing 3D figures of people's World of Warcraft characters. Hmm.

Game Informer March 2010

Cover: L.A. Noire

This cover story was a must-read for me on a purely personal level. Not to sound sycophantic and...well, like a game journalist, but I've always been a fan of L.A. Noire director Brendan McNamara ever since I conducted a nice, long, extended interview with him for GamePro back in 2003, just before The Getaway hit America. I remember him as a huge "ideas" man, sort of like Molyneux but perhaps without as much of a big mouth, and the feature shows me that the years haven't changed him much -- it's mainly McNamara talking about how L.A. Noire is where he's really, finally making his vision come to life, unfettered by hardware restrictions or whatnot.

I'm not sure I'm 100% ready to believe him -- he said all the same things about The Getaway eight years ago, after all -- but the feature's a really fascinating peek into his mind nonetheless.

The rest of the mag is business as usual, with nothing really grabbing me in the Connect section. One exception: a nice two-page look at the legal status of the Duke Nukem franchise, complete with tons of commentary from a real-life intellectual property attorney.

Nintendo Power March 2010

Cover: Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

My copy of NP was both late and fairly dinged up in the mail. It's also, sadly, bereft of really hot content -- I've the feeling most Pokemon fans already know most of what's discussed in the cover piece, since the game's been out in Japan since September and is now throughly dissected by fansites on the net.

A lot of space is also taken up by a "best games of the decade" piece which is, in my mind, a bit repetitive after the "250 reasons to love Nintendo" blowout in January.

Mark Turmell's always a great interview, though.

Retro Gamer Issue 73

Cover: The ultimate hero

RG is put in the delicate position of writing a big cover piece about the Ultimate Play the Game era of UK developer Rare without having access to Tim or Chris Stamper, the company's founders and main game designers all through those years. It's a nice little piece nonetheless, if nothing new to dyed-in-the-wool retro fans.

Much neater is a 4-page chat with 87-year-old Ralph Baer about his invention Simon, one of the biggest electronic toy fads of the early '80s.

Tips & Tricks Codebook May 2010

Cover: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

T&T continues to rock its little corner of the industry. This issue devotes large amounts of space to longform strategy guides and surprisingly little to code listings -- there's 67 pages of the former and only five of the latter. I think it's a smart move, even if it means T&T can't print that "Over 7,000 Tips!" burst on the cover any longer.

The mag's multipart poster antics continue as well. This issue's packed with part one of a New SMB poster that, when matched with its partner next issue, is claimed to span over five feet across your bedroom wall. Yow!

Game Developer February 2010

Cover:Borderlands

I loved the postmortem for Trials HD in this issue for two reasons: one, I love Trials HD; two, Finnish game programmers are crazy.

GamePro Spring Special Issue

Now that Future US seems to have wound down its newsstand one-off output (I don't think I've seen any specials from them since early fall), GamePro and its $4.99 seasonal are about all that's left. This issue, sadly, appears to be entirely reprint content -- previews, reviews, and a two-page snippet from BradyGames' guide to Darksiders. Ho hum. At least the cover's pretty.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

['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.]

Simon mentioned to me the other day that The Newsfield Years, a video documentary of one of the most influential game media companies in history, has been released. The 23-minute video, replete with tons of interview footage from Oliver Frey (above, right), Roger Kean and the rest of the main folks behind British titles CRASH, ZZAP!64 and so on, costs £2.49 to download.

I haven't seen the whole thing yet (a bit busy with work this weekend), but I intend to as soon as possible. One passage from the preview video sums up Newsfield's contribution to the industry really well, I think: "In 1983 Newsfield started production of their first reviewing magazine [...] CRASH. The first issue was published in January 1984. Newsfield took the innovative decision to use local teenage gamers to write the reviews. However, for software developers, teenage gamer reviewers presented one big problem...they told the truth."

To put it another way, CRASH and the rest took game coverage out of the hands of computer-mag editors and other "professionals" and gave it to gamers themselves -- a philosophy that still pretty much survives in nearly every media outlet today, for better or worse. For that alone, Newsfield's definitely carved out its place in history.

Let's go back to modern times for now, though. Click on to check out all the mags that have crossed my desk the past fortnight.

Edge February 2010

Cover: Halo: Reach

I am proud (for no good reason) to say that this month's Edge has a huge profile of the game development scene in Texas, covering outfits like id, Arkane, Sony Online Entertainment, and my hometown heroes at TimeGate Studios, just down US-59 a ways from my house. Even if you aren't in the business, the roundtable interview inside is pretty neat, featuring folks from SOE, BioWare, and others shooting the industry bull for eight pages -- no real theme to it, but fun nonetheless.

The cover piece, meanwhile, extends a bit on Game Informer's by framing itself more as a state-of-the-union on Bungie as the studio takes one final shot at Halo before moving on to the next big thing.

Along similar lines are the bits on Game Republic (Yoshiki Okamoto's company) and Tecmo's Quantum Theory, a game nobody treated seriously upon its debut -- a topic that the devs aren't afraid to tackle in the text -- but is actually getting some decent press these days.

GamePro March 2010

Cover: Medal of Honor

The second issue of GP's redesign picks up where the last one left off, with one slight addition -- a few more columns up front from folks like freelancer Robert Ashley and Japanese game-localization guy (and, in the interest of disclosure, my frequent boss) John Ricciardi. The effect's sort of like the monthly columns in the back of Edge, and I like it.

The mag's new emphasis on dev interviews and commentary is sharp as always, and I really enjoy it -- sort of like Play in that respect, but a great deal more focused and better written. The cover piece is the best one out of the lot this week, focusing on Mr. Davison's interview with three "Tier 1 Operators" and the goofy security hoops he went through to nab it. (The fact that real special-forces guys are so gung-ho about this game probably says a lot about EA's dedication with rebooting this franchise.)

Another piece -- "Digital Discrimination," an article about how video games have treated the concept of racism in their stories -- all but confirms the Edge-ness of the new GamePro. Neat, if extremely cerebral.

PlayStation: The Official Magazine March 2010

Cover: Crysis 2

The cover may say "PlayStation," but I'm getting flashbacks to the late, lamented (by me) Xbox Nation, what with Greg Orlando writing the cover story and Evan Shamoon contributing a piece on Yakuza 3 and a couple previews. Both features are nice, especially the latter with its crisp visual style.

Doug Perry puts in another PTOM appearance this month, too, although it's just a quick preview of Dante's Inferno.

Official Xbox Magazine March 2010

Cover: Lost Planet 2

The cover piece is a long preview feature -- one very similar to the roundups EGM did around the mid-aughts, right down to the fun little icons classifying the games being covered. I'm always a little bored of pieces like this, but the companion feature -- a basic "40 things we love about the 360" -- is quick fun.

Otherwise, the main draw of this issue is likely the BioShock 2 review.

PC Gamer March 2010

Cover: Mass Effect 2

I'm not exactly sure what's meant by calling the ME2 review "uncensored" -- I think that's just a way of saying it's a bit spoiler-y if you're worried about being absolutely virgin before playing. I was hoping to see the F-word in PC Gamer and everything, too. Aw, well.

Otherwise, it's a pretty typical issue, replete with a BioShock 2 review and a (kind of late) game-of-the-year roundup.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

['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.]

It's January! And, largely, that means the game industry is still recovering from Christmas and hasn't built up the steam to start beating the E3 drums quite yet.

I'm taking advantage of this lull to go on vacation. By the time you read this, I'll be the guy depicted above, dodging trees and scoring all kinds of 1000-point bonuses over in the Sierras. Until I return, magazines will be the furthest thing from my mind!

That's then, however. This is now, of course, and I have a big stack of magazines to recap:

Game Informer January 2010

Cover: Halo: Reach

A very solid issue that goes a further distance toward making GI into the Edge-ish "industry journal" it seems to be angling to become. There's a very good interview with Activision's Bobby Kotick that successfully makes him seem like a decent, intelligent executive instead of the evil overlord some parts of game-dom see him as. The Halo: Reach piece is standard for GI cover pieces, but the bit that follows it -- an overview of Irrational Games -- is straight-on challenging Edge at their own game, and I think they made a decent success of it.

A best-of-'09 roundup isn't quite as enthralling as the 200th-issue spectacular two issues ago, but the vast amount of space given to The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (5 pages out of 100!) is extremely well-used.

It seems to me that GI has changed their paper stock to something a bit flimsier and less glossy starting with this issue. If it's true (and not my imagination playing tricks on me), they likely did it to lighten the mag and thus save on postage. They wouldn't be the first publisher to do this, either -- Future prints the subscriber editions of the mags in lighter stock than the newsstand versions, and I remember there being all sorts of pressure along similar lines back during my GamePro days. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I hallucinating?

Edge January 2010

Cover: The best of 2000-2009

The cover was washed out a fair bit by my scanner; apologies about that. It touts an internal feature that should've been just another boring game roundup, but shines a fair bit thanks to its choices (World of Warcraft winning "game of the decade") and to the industry folks they tapped for their opinions.

The other main features, including a preview of Metro 2033 (a bit more in-depth over GamePro's last month) and a look at motion-capture tech that's basically a slightly friendlier take on a Game Developer article, are solid if not blockbuster.

It being January, this month's Edge comes with a massive 2010 calendar poster, this year themed around Zelda: Spirit Tracks -- timely, because there's a long interview with Eiji Aonuma between the pages too.

Nintendo Power February 2010

Cover: NBA Jam

64 pages of this issue are devoted to previews of 2010's Wii and DS games. Is NBA Jam the hottest game to lead with? Well, I think so, but then again I was squarely in the target audience for the original arcade game, so nostalgia's undoubtedly having an effect on me there. The coverage is all great in the feature, remarkably enough, and even includes a cameo visit from Ken as portrayed in the NES title Street Fighter 2010 (timely!).

Folks who can't stand preview roundups like this one may be a bit disappointed by the issue, but don't blame NP -- they've got only four non-downloadable games in the review well this month, requiring them to do stuff like give a full page to The Glory of Heracles.

Official Xbox Magazine February 2010

Cover: Mass Effect 2

It's a slow review month in Xbox-land, too, and OXM makes up for it by devoting 13 pages to coverage of Mass Effect 2 and BioWare -- stuff you'll eat up if you're a fan. The following piece, a speculative article on what Halo 4 may be like, reminds me quite a bit (in a good way) of the way, way early Halo 2 cover EGM did a long time ago.

Otherwise, much of the mag is previews, along with a "2009 game awards" piece that doesn't jump out at me quite as much as Edge's similar feature.

Play January 2010

Cover: Mass Effect 2

Best part of the issue, bar none, is the three-page art spread of old video-game platform mascots, further expanded from what they did in the November edition. In my opinion, anyway. Apologies to Doug Perry, who wrote 10 pages on Mass Effect 2 that goes into a great deal more depth on the machinations of the game than OXM did (although it's not a review).

Retro Gamer Issue 72

Cover: Gradius

I did not realize that the ZX Spectrum port of Gradius was "infamous" -- I thought "bad" would've been a more appropriate term for it. However, Gradius's flyer art makes for a pretty awesome cover, and the full-on look at the arcade game inside is pretty well worth reading. (To answer my question: Among other things, the coders based their port on the MSX version for some reason.)

Beckett Massive Online Gamer March/April 2010

Cover: World of Warcraft

MOG has more pages than Play this month, as much as that fills me with chagrin. I can't argue with success, however (or survival anyway), and this issue has all the usual in-depth coverage of what seems like a million MMOs. And a poster!

Game Developer January 2010

Cover: Aion

Speaking of which, here's a postmortem on an MMO now! The Aion piece is up to GD's usual level of enthrallment, filled with neat details and tales of woe ("development was part soap opera, part meatgrinder").

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

['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.]

After a bit of a difficult birth (it faced delays and changed editors-in-chief before anything had been published), Future's heavily hyped subscriber-only WOW mag is finally hitting mailboxes in the US. The verdict? Well, like with EON, it's a little hard for me to gauge, since I'm not particularly familiar with the game in question.

One thing I can say with reasonable confidence, however, is that WOWOM (is it safe for me to call it that?) is generating remarkably positive buzz among WOW players on Twitter and the relevant forums -- and Future can't be sad about that, 'cos it seems like that was just what they were aiming for.

Like EON, this mag is meant for dedicated enthusiasts to its core subject. I hesitate to use the word "hardcore," but this sure ain't for newcomers, either. It's straight-on content for the fanbase from start to finish, from the requisite interview with Blizzard's CEO to tactical articles on this battleground or that player type. There's also a fair bit of community content, but not so much that it seems like the focus of the mag, a pitfall Beckett MOG can sometimes fall into.

Design-wise the mag is top-notch. Future's obviously spending a lot on printing this mag, going for fancy paper and a book size that's identical to the one Edge uses. The articles inside are all immaculately designed and illustrated, and the only real quibble I can find is that features seem sprinkled willy-nilly throughout the mag instead of being organized into themed sections.

Either way, it's a great effort, and now all that remains is to see how many WOW fans get hooked on it.

Click on to check out some of the other mags that have crossed my desk so far in 2010.

PlayStation: The Official Magazine February 2010

Cover: Gran Turismo 5

Mr. Steinman hasn't been leading PTOM for too long, but already you're beginning to see his mark on the mag. The streamlined, exremely Sony-like visual style is still there, but many pages -- particularly the look at Uncharted 2's online play in the back -- are packed with little box-outs and sidebars and other little diversions that you didn't see much of before. It's not like there was a lot of excess waste in PTOM before now, but in a 100-page mag, every inch is important.

The content itself is pretty nice. Features on racing games have a reputation for being really boring (especially when they're cover stories), but the Future-y design on the GT5 bit keeps everything bite-sized, avoiding GI-style text narratives that outlast your attention span. The best-of-'09 feature that dovetails it is also engaging, thanks to its refusal to give out awards in any of the usual, boring, VGA-style categories.

PC Gamer February 2010

Cover: Crysis 2

PC Gamer has a typical sort of "top games of '10" preview roundup occupying a few pages. If you're expecting a Crysis 2 blowout, prepare to be disappointed -- the content inside involves a simple two-page preview spread with a couple of detailed but unexciting screenshots.

The "Top 100 Games of All Time" feature that follows, meanwhile, is a lot more fun. A combo effort between PCG's US and UK editions (along with a few people from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it manages to stay succinct and readable while saying something palpable about all 100 of the games profiled.

Retro Gamer Issue 71

Cover: After Burner

I recently had the honor of renewing my subscription to RG, a feat made a fair bit cheaper by the current exchange rate and the still-valid "YOUTUBE" discount code. (If that doesn't work for some reason, you can type in USA instead to get 13 issues for $80 instead of £80.)

I'm glad I did, because the cover piece is brilliant -- the way the RG editors disassemble arcade games is one of the best running things they've got going right now.

Tips & Tricks March 2010

Cover: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Poster maniacs be alert -- this issue of T&T has the second half of the Halo Legends poster, the partner of the first half included in the February '10 issue. "Use a butterknife or similar utensil to open up the staples in the center page," the editors write. "It should come out pretty easily. But don't forget to bend the staples back to their original positions after you remove the poster, or you might end up with loose Codebook pages all over the house!"

Something about that paragraph gave me the oddest flashback to late-'80s Nintendo Power for some reason. The strategy guides inside are more '90s NP in style, of course, and you can't complain about that, eh?

It should also be noted that the eight-page guide for Ubi's C.O.P. The Recruit inside is arguably the most coverage that DS game has ever received in any game-media outlet.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

['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.]

My dog and one of my ferrets would be happy to wish you a merry Christmas and happy second-half-of-December. They would, that is, if they knew what Christmas, December, or "merriness" was, or were even paying attention to you, which they sadly aren't.

This will be my last column of 2009, since I'll be home with the folks next week and generally not thinking about video games for a little while. Things in print mag-dom this year have been largely the same as last -- low page counts, gamers proclaiming their imminent demise, the usual. It's an encouraging sign, though, that nearly every outlet is actively trying new things, from Game Informer's redesign to GamePro's campaign to shed its kiddie image once and for all. The really big efforts, the EGM remake and Future's WOW: The Magazine, both got delayed to next year, but at least we're ensured something to talk about in '10, right?

That said, click on to check out all the game mags that crossed my desk over the past two weeks. Enjoy the rest of December!

Nintendo Power January 2010

Cover: Mega Man 10

One of the more impactful subscriber-only covers we've seen on an NP, yeah? For once, it's a lot better than the newsstand version, which is a simple clip-art collection of Nintendo icons with some neat captions. It advertises a "250 reasons to love Nintendo" 24-page feature that's packed with neat stuff, although it's a little pedestrian in design.

The reviews section takes it in the chin a little bit as a result of this, but I'm not complainin', especially because of the MM10 coverage and the three pages the editors spent interviewing Takahashi-meijin, the sort of cross-generational hero that I only wish I was.

Game Informer January 2010

Cover: Dead Space 2

If last month's GI was a celebration of everything that's great about print mags, this month's is a reminder of the industry's problems. The book size went from 132 to 104 pages in a single issue now that Christmas is "over," and GI has a house-ad spread for their website on the inside front cover (some of the most coveted and costly adspace in a magazine, after the back cover) instead of a paid advertisement.

Now that the 200th-issue celebration is over, Issue 201 goes back to the more familiar GI format of feature, feature, feature, previews, reviews. The features were the bit that changed the least with the redesign, and like traditional GI articles, they take the kitchen-sink approach. It suits them, though, and if you're into the subject games, they're engrossing.

In the letters page, GI confirmed that retro reviews are a thing of the past in the print mag, as well as editor bios that showed each contributor's likes and dislikes. I can't say I will cry over either omission too much, although Lord knows I slaved over the 50-word bio I got in EGM when I freelanced there half a decade ago. There's a game trivia quiz in the back page again, too -- "The Game Over section will now have a few different rotating features to change things up," GI writes, "so you'll still see an occasional quiz on the final page." Hmm. I dunno. That sort of thing, I wonder if the few dozen people (ballpark guess here) who complained to GI about the quiz's absence are the only ones who actually read it. Wishful thinking on my part, maybe, but...

Official Xbox Magazine January 2010

Cover: Splinter Cell: Conviction

Hey, Conviction's back on the print-mag circuit! The feature inside is classic Future -- big, flashy, packed with eye-catching sidebars and such. It's almost to the point, in fact, where you have to hunt for the main body-text. Almost.

Besides the MW2 blowout and Bayonetta on the disc, the main draws are a couple of funny quickies -- a profile of four annoying gamer personalities and a concept for a Toyota Tacoma designed to be a Pimp My Ride-style portable Xbox lounge of sorts.

PlayStation: The Official Magazine January 2010

Cover: 2010's hugest games

Gary Steinman starts next month (former EIC Eric Bratcher is at Games Radar now), so nothing too drastically different this issue -- just a lot of previews, mainly. The vast cover-touted roundup is bookended by more MW2 mayhem and a bunch of quick, humorous one-off pieces like "the worst water levels in PlayStation history."

Game Developer December 2009

Cover: Brutal Legend

Did you know that Brutal Legend cost $24 million to make? Yow! Just one of the things I learned reading this cover feature. Another: If I want to keep my sanity, I probably better not angle for a job at Double Fine anytime soon.

There's also a long, technical piece on character creation that blew most of my mind to pieces and immensely fascinated the surviving remainder of it.

Videogames Hardware Handbook Volume 1

Ah, the final magazine of the year! Adios, 2009! This is simply a collection of hardware-oriented features from the pages of Retro Gamer magazine -- 255 pages of pure content for $20, covering everything from the NES and 2600 to more obscure byways like the Konix Multi-System. Useless if you have the individual issues, of course, but man, this volume really packs a presence on the coffee table. (It's an excellent cheapo Xmas gift for a gamer friend, come to think of it. I shoulda thought of that before the local B&N sold out of copies.)

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

['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.]

It's December, and an extremely unlikely bout of snow in Houston has made me yearn for some idyllic age when it was just me, my dog, some hot chocolate, and a stack of Nintendo Powers by a roaring fire. I have only a couple of those things handy (I'm too afraid to actually try using my fireplace, which has been empty for about a decade), but my attention is diverted right now anyway with all the big and important things going on with modern game mags.

For one, this week marks the debut of the John Davison-run GamePro, which released both its January '10 issue and a winter buyer's guide a few days back. Davison is quick to warn that the real changes to the print mag are reserved for next month, but already you can see some of his trademarks: features that put developers front and center; reviews that treat video games as forms of expression and rate them more seriously in realms outside twitch playability; that sort of thing. (That and, of course, the classic Euro-mag "sticker peeling off" cover graphic on the buyer's guide. I haven't seen that one lately.)

I like what I see in GP's BioShock feature, and if Tae Kim's MW2 review that Davison's touted both online and off is any indication, than the age when hardcore gamers finally read GamePro for non-ironic reasons may be pretty close at hand. Davison faces a pretty unique challenge among modern editors, though, since GP (at 94 pages this month) is the smallest of the U.S. print mags. If he can find a way to make GP's print side unique despite that disadvantage, I'd call him brilliant -- and I think he's up to it.

Click on for a look at the other game mags of the past fortnight.

Game Informer December 2009

Cover: 200th issue (8 covers)

The second issue of GI's big redesign is also the 200th overall, something they've been celebrating over on the website a fair bit as well.

They did not screw around with the cover feature. There are no game features and no retro section in the back of this edition; instead 48 out of the 140 pages are devoted to 200th-issue festivities. Most of it is a "best 200 games ever" roundup which is entertaining but a little predictable -- though I'm admittedly jaded 'cos lots of game mags have done features like these over the years (I helped with EGM's once). The second part, a collection of stats and famous quotes from GI's past, is far more interesting to me, a treasure trove of insightful quotes and hilarious excerpts. (Did you know that GI called the hero of Halo "super trooper Master Sergeant" in their 2001 review?)

Other neat bits include interviews with Penn Jillette and the folks behind Spike's Video Game Awards, both of which are on the site now.

PC Gamer January 2010

Cover: Star Wars: The Old Republic

I didn't get the Holiday '09 issue of PC Gamer in the mail for some reason, and I failed to notice until it was too late to buy a copy at the bookstore. Whoops!

But I didn't put PC Gamer near the top of this column just to whine. As officially announced on Saturday, EIC Gary Steinman is moving from PC Gamer back to his old stomping grounds at PlayStation: The Official Magazine, where he'll be EIC. I'm not enormously surprised by this -- it always seemed to me that his true passion lies with the consoles anyway. But he's really reinvented PCG during his tenure, showing how a computer mag can still be engaging and enthusiastic in an age when no computer gamer isn't on the Internet. I hope whoever takes over PCG continues that tradition, and I hope Gary's tenure at PTOM is long and fruitful -- as it should be, 'cos it seems like 2010's really going to be the year of the PS3 (finally).

Anyway, this issue is mainly a wrapup for '09 reviews, with two extensive features that both are pretty engaging, although (as even Gary admits) there isn't anything all that original about The Old Republic. The issue's also packed with an Old Republic poster that I'll be putting on my mag-room wall, like I always do with freebie calendars. (The wall's getting a bit cluttered now. It's probably time to pitch the old ones.)

Tips & Tricks Video Game Codebook February 2010

Cover: Halo 3: ODST

This is the first issue since T&T announced it was segueing to eight-times-per-year publication, and as promised, there are now three strategy guides per edition (ODST, Scribblenauts and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2) instead of two.

The mag also comes with a poster for Scribblenauts and one-half of Halo Legends. One-half? "You'll have to pick up our next Codebook to get the other half," says the editor letter. "It'll be worth the wait, though, because when you put them together, the result will be twice as big as the Scribblenauts poster...and there will be another complete poster on the front!" It's...an innvoative idea, I'll give them that.

Edge Christmas 2009

Cover: Dust 514

I had read a bit about this cover game in EON, the Eve Online-exclusive mag I mentioned last month, but Edge's approach is a lot more interesting, showing how CCP is going between Iceland and China with the dev team and how the game will connect meaningfully with Eve.

The feature dovetails with the Region Specific section in back devoted to game developers in Iceland, someplace you wouldn't really expect to have a lot of game action, and it's certainly a fascinating place.

An extra bit of trivia: The review section brings Edge's first 10/10 of the year, awarded to Bayonetta -- we've had a bit of a decline in scores after the mag gave 10's to three titles in 2007.

Play December 2009

Cover: Darksiders or Reflex: MX vs. ATV (2 covers)

Both cover features are review/interview packages written by Mr. Halverson. Both are classic Play. Not much else to say about this one.

Retro Gamer Issue 70

Cover: Monkey Island

A massive roundup for the series is the top offering this month, complete with a few words with co-creator Ron Gilbert.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]