Has got worse and worse since it started (N64 Magazine)

Name: Murf!

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Product:	N64 Magazine
Date:	06/09/01 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Just about the best out there

Disadvantages: They fired all their good staffers, childish, hyped games get high scores by default

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful magazine called Super Play. Over its 47 issues, it gave good reviews by some of the best reviewers in the business, had a love of Japanese madness and culture (are the two distinct?) that seperated them - Animé coverage, a huge focus on Japanese RPGs, manga-esque covers every month, and articles on Japan - fantastic articles that enabled them to fill the magazine interestingly even when SNES (the console they covered) game releases were few and far between.

So, why do I mention SP here? Well, SP died when N64 was finally released in Japan, and then N64 Magazine was released at the time of N64's British release, the best part of a year later. The staff working for it were mainly ex-Super Play 'veterans', and very good they were too. I thought it might be a resurrected SP in all but name, but it was not to be, alas...

The problem was this: they just kept sacking their good staff. They started off with a few newbies amongst the SPers, but soon they were dominant. By issue 20, the magazine was purile. I stopped buying it around the time when they sacked Wil Overton, resident Japanese fanatic, good reviewer and awesome cover painter. Once he left, the magazine started to resemble ONM/NMS/NOM more and more. The reviews became more brainwashed by hype, they started saying badly-researched rubbish, and it was all evident from the letters the received. Back in the 'good old days' of SP, the letters were interesting and entertaining. There were proper debates, and well thought out views. Now there's NMS-style scheisse about Pokémon everywhere, and they, and the magazine, have started to do the NMS habit of calling rival consoles 'names'; Graystation and that kind of thing. They're dumbing down.

Unfortunately, there's no better available. They still give respectable, if badly written, reviews of games that they haven't been paid to give high scores (if it's Ninten
do/Rare, it's seemingly 90%+ by default). Ah well.

Summary: