Them's a Doings a Transpirin'
Written: Mar 31 '01
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Pros: They used to rock
Cons: 6/10 Games are Mediocre, 8/10 games are excellent...
The Bottom Line: CHEEEEEEERIO, mylo, I can't say QUEEEERIO, silo, because I am MAGERIO!
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| xeno3998's Full Review: PSM-100% Independent PlayStation Magazine |
PSM was truly sensational magazine way back when, in the good old days of 1998, 1999, 2000 right up to their September issue. Until then, they gave honest reviews to games and delivered a highly-quality magazine at a fair price. Now though, things seem to have gone downhill, which can only be one side-effect of the humongous Future-Network erupsion, that's poised to kill PSM off eternally.
Before I go off and slam the magazine that is being read nowatimes, let mepoint out somethings that I appreciated about PSM overall, before the new design.
1. They're an honest, and completely reliable single-platform gaming magazine
Though by 'completely reliable' I most certainly mean that you can 'completely rely' on them never giving you anything short of their brutally honest opinion on something. This doesn't mean that you will agree with them; hell, I think pretty much everyone disagreed with them on their giving the unlawfully rancid Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol the highest score of any game a few months ago. At least they were honest there, and didn't follow the masses and bash something which they somehow liked.
2. Their covers are the absolute best in the Game Magazine Industry
Who can disagree with me on that? Look at the incredibly talented artists they hire to customize an animation for their cover! Some of it looks even better than the gone-but-not-fogotten GameFan covers, and it certainly rises above and beyond the generic and utterly tasteless animation plastered on the covers of every other Future Network Magazine (Next-Gen, ODCM, Total Games, PCGamer and Pocket Games).
3. They hype some games through the roof GOOD/BAD depending on the situation
Alright, here's where I get irritated. Whoever disagrees with me on this point will get a letter bomb from me personally. You must be a moron if you don't think they didn't hype Final Fantasy VIII through the roof. It was on their cover 3, that's right, THREE DAMN TIMES!! They had it on their top ten most wanted list for at least half the magazines they churned out prior to September '99 and looking back, and I can't find a single issue where they didn't preach magnificence of the game. What did they end up giving the game you ask? 4/5, that's right, 4/5. Not 5/5 or 4.5/5, but 4/5. This score for a game that they blathered about endlessly? And the worst thing is, even though they scored Lunar: SSSC and Suikoden II higher than they did FFVIII, they still had the f**king gall to say it is the best RPG on PSX. Even better than Xenogears, a game which they gave perfect to? Bah, I'm ranting now, sorry.
They have been doing this recently as well. Solid "Xeno still doesn't know what a mullet is" Snake has appeared on their cover at least twice already since the magnificently overhyped Metal Gear Solid 2 was first announced back in E3.
The same goes for Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which is another 4/5-er which they ballyhooed relentlessly through it's billions of missed release dates. This is most obviously a pattern they have going, where companies like Capcom pay them notorious amounts of green cheese to help support their dying paper pile, and then Capcom gets screwed over with an honest review of say, Onimusha, which they gave 8/10 to.
Another problem I have with PSM is their inane sense of 'humor'. Now I tend to laugh at just about anything (remember AnimeMovieMan's insult on my Valkyrie Profile review; Xeno is Kettle Garbage? I guffawed at that for days), but the so-called 'humor' in this magazine is either intended to p*ss people off, or is an actual attempt to make someone laugh. How they plan on accomplishing this task is beyond theXeno.
Simply comparing their stupid 'April Fools Joke', the Dreamstation *snore*, to the hilarious (as always) Game Infarcer that GI cooked up. Even EGM's somewhat funny Sega Neptune console joke was funnier than their 'Dreamstation',
which makes them look more like 'LamePro' than an actually funny parody.
Do random injections of brilliant humor make or break a magazine? Yes. Just look at Game Informer. These guys would probably be producing the most generic and pointless magazine in the biz if they didn't make the reader die of laughter every time he/she reads one of their Game Boy Color bad game reviews (Action Man's insane action!!!).
However, I won;t bash PSM because of thier uninhibited humor spasms, instead, I will give them a fair chance where magazines tend to succeed most: The core gaming content.
And even though I am being fair, PSM still manages to screw everything up, in typical Imagine Media style.
Though I mentioned previously that I love their old reviews, I am disgusted by them now. First of all, just why is Tokoya (read: Chet Barber) reviewing games for the magazine? He constantly complains and complains about games being too difficult or too easy. He said that Lunar 2's beautiful 2D visuals 'suck' and his only REAL complaint against THPS 2 was that it's too difficult. How was it difficult Chetty? I really don't like the game, but I didn't in any way find it overly challenging. Maybe if you played the game for more than five minutes, and mastered the layout of some of the levels, you would see what I'm talking about. Alas, that is much too daunting a task to ask of someone with his intelligence.
Oh yes, the 80% fiasco needs particular recognition as well.
Here's the deal: Xeno3998 understands the idea of being harsh and supremely objective during the process of reviewing games, but I do not approve of being THIS objective. When Chetty ol' boy called a 6/10 - Okay - Game 'mediocre', I truly saw the holes in PSM's review cheese. In that same issue, the witty and genius mind of Chet Barber
also unabashedly called an 8/10 game, think it was FE2, 'great'. Between 6/10 and 8/10 there lies only a single other rating, which is obviously 7/10. So is a 7/10 game average then? Why do you people call it 'Good'? Have I lost all my readers by this point? I'm sure I have, because all of this is very confusing, even to me, and so, I may have bored you by now.
But here's the gist of it: PSM absolutely HATES giving out scores like 10/10 and 9/10 to games, and they rather prefer 8/10 and 7/10 when they score the latest release/rehash. But when it comes down to rating something 6/10, which they call an 'okay' game, nowadays, they usually insult it and say it isn't worth your time. Just compare the Driver II and Dino Crisis 2 Reviews, both of which are games that scored 6/10, to any 8/10 review they produced after their redesign issue. I need not say anything further, for it should be obvious that they're scamming against game companies and being far too objective at times, and far too lenient in others.
Down the drain goes the aforementioned reliability.
Moving onto other things, that people who haven;t read the magazine will actually understand.
The layout of PSM has evolved slighly past the comic-cook ish style of the first design, to the more Next Generation styled, unattractive block of a magazine. Yes I said 'evolved', because the first layout was ugly as hell to look at, and anything's an improvement.
The writing style of PSM has always mirrored mine, at least when I give my opinion on games. I say 'though' a lot, have ya noticed that? Well, I picked up that stupid trick unintentionally from reading one too many glowing 8/10 reviews, where their bottom lines usually fill to the brim with grade school vocabulary such as that.
Here is my complete analysis of all their sections, which is basically the core of the magazine review.
Start
Average fare Editor's Note stuff. A run down of the PSM cast as well as some descriptions of their obviously fabricated 'hardcore gaming lives'. You will also find information about the latest games straight froom Chris Slate, the EIC, and info about the game's cover etc.
Monitor
Monitor is PSM's news section. Randy Nelson does a decent job of summarizing the latest game-related information from
various gaming sites, and reprints in in the 'Monitor' area using his own style. Unless you don't have internet acccess, which you do if you're reading this review, or don't read any of the other publications, you're likely to find nothing new here that you haven't read somewhere else.
The Monitor section also includes 3 seperate Best Selling Games lists, some Hits + Misses ala GI, their Top Ten Most Wanted List, Peripheral reviews and Q and A with developers/publishers. All of these are basic, and you pretty much get the jist of what to expect from the title.
Overall: everything in the Monitor section is generic as death. I usually stay away from it, you should too.
Reviews
Skip up a little and find my comments on the Reviews section.
Previews
Here is where PSM gain notoriety for hyping up some piece of garbage like The Bouncer then bashing its head in with a low low score of 4/10 or something similar. They previewed FFIX and FFVIII about three times each, and provided ZERO original information about the game that anyone who had the common sense to import didn't know already. They do this because companies pay them to; I know that for a fact. Why else pray tell, would a group of journalists preview the same game two months in a row, using a two-page format?
Basically: I don't bother with their previews of anything, it just boils my blood moreso. I highly recommend you don't read any of this either, magazines such as EGM and even OPM do a much better job at previews.
Strategy
A fairly competent strategy guide section which has been more than helpful to me on numerous occasions. Though I hate how little space they devote to their guides, as it's easily the best part of their magazine.
Codes
If you've never read a game magazine before, a Codes section is where one magazine posts a breakthrough code, and all the others post it in theirs too. This blatant plagiarism is seen in pretty much every console magazine, so I won't single PSM out on this one.
Letters
Letters is generic, as you would presume. Some BillyBob in Texass or wherever mails in asking a question about something that interests him and him only, and gets an over-zelous response by one o the burnout teenaged editors of PSM. Whether it's about a particular stereo system not working with a particular system, or something about the territorial lockout, PSM always seems to dull everything they reply to. And another thing: Can you PLEASE post some flames? Pretty much every magazine posts criticisms and flames about them to mock the readers, and then replies intelligently. Though this might just make sense, because after reading PSM's magazine, they'd probably end up looking inferior to those who would p*ss on their graves if they had the chance.
This is an overall terrible magazine. I don't recommend it to ANYONE. Though their old design under the Imagine Media label (which now has changed to 'Mediocre with a Passion' Future) provided readers with a stellar magazine, the new design and overall lack of staff integrity, has placed PSM on my temporary Loathe-List. Until I tell you to, don;t buy any issue of their magazine, or you'll regret it. If they ever change their design, or bring back some of the gaming spirit the magazine once had, long ago, I will enthusaistically rereview PSM. Though this will not happen, I can always hope...
Recommended:
No
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xeno3998
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