Growing up around video games in a time before the internet took over EVERYTHING, we had to get our gaming information from magazines. And I remember there being two that was really worth getting: Nintendo Power, and Electronic Gaming Monthly. They weren't the only two around, though - Sega had its own magazine, and there was Gamefan and, easily one of my least favorite publications ever made in history, Gamepro. Protip: proofread your articles to check for spelling and grammatical errors, you tools.
Electronic Gaming Monthly covered a lot of ground since it began in the late 80's, especially with the Street Fighter series. They had elaborate April Fools' jokes, from playing as Sheng Long in Street Fighter II to being able to play as Sonic and Tails in Super Smash Bros. Melee. They covered a Game of the Year each year, and had a rating system including bronze, silver, gold, and the rare platinum title, in which only fifteen games had ever received the honor.
It was a sad sight to see the magazine had ended last year. My trips to Wal-Mart late at night and scouring the magazine aisle was now left with Nintendo Power, which would often times go missing on shelves and is nothing like it used to be, Playstation magazine, and the vomit-inducing Gamepro. I remember thinking, "Why did it have to be EGM? Why couldn't it have been Gamepro...?"
Another sad trip to the magazine aisle last week made my sad half-open eyes widen as I saw a familiar logo - the classic Electronic Gaming Monthly logo, with a blue tinted picture of Ryu on the cover. EGM had returned, and offers plenty of promise in its issue. For starters, they have a new feature called EGMi, a digital magazine that can only be retrieved through purchase of the magazine, or is sent to your email upon getting a subscription. The digital magazine has information, reviews, and videos that can only be seen through it, and does not include the same content as its paperback counterpart.
I will not give away too much, as I support the magazine and would love to see its return. Giving away word for word what the magazine talks about would defeat their purpose in returning, as the magazine doesn't run on smiles and compliments. But the magazine does offer articles on Metacritic and similar review sites, the new take and look at on-line streaming gaming with services like the upcoming OnLive, the motion control features of the Playstation Move and Microsoft's Project Natal, a huge piece on Super Street Fighter IV including interviews with other fighting game creators and how SF influenced them, the return of retro gaming with titles like Sonic the Hedgehog 4, the good AND BAD sides of downloadable content in games, and a look at Alan Wake, Hunted, Naughty Bear, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Mafia II, Civilization V, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The magazine also returns with its list of release dates, it's reviews section, interviews, and Seanbaby's "Rest of the Crap" as well as several other segments and monthly features. They've also managed to get a load of other editors from everything like IGN to Crispy Gamer, and having been a fan of Mark Bozon on IGN, it'll be nice to see more of what I like. Now, to save up some money so that I can get a subscription...
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