Officially Nintendo (Nintendo Official Magazine)

Name: wob1001

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Product:	Nintendo Official Magazine
Date:	05/05/08 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great friendly reviews

Disadvantages: Available on the net

I am a big Nintendo fan and have been for much of my life. The problem with Nintendo is recent years has been third party games. It used to be the case on the N64 that games by developers such as RARE were great titles. In today's gaming world however there are many more game developers bringing out games such as movie tie-ins or completely new characters. It is therefore hard to judge if these games are any good. It seems you can no longer rely on developers as they release many rushed poor games onto the shelves to make money from the success of the Wii and DS. This is where the official magazine comes into play and helps gamers to make important gaming decisions!

The layout of the magazine is the same every week. There is always a big picture related to the main news on the cover. Then we have news and previews of games on early pages followed by actual reviews of recently released games! The magazine ends with helpful hints on games and the traditional letters section where e-mails sent to the writers by readers are published and commented on. There are also competitions and quiz's throughout the magazine.

The writing is very good. The reviewers know what they are talking about. Most have worked in magazines before and have had some input in the making of games. They usually are game programmers from English publishers such as Travellers Tales! I find them very witty at times and they write as if an adult is reading rather than a child. That's not to say a child wouldn't understand it, the writers simply do not dumb it down. Another plus is that you have many styles of writing from different reviewers. This helps me to keep interest throughout as in a sense it is like having a conversation with a group of people rather than just one. The reviews are in no way biased. Even though this is an official Nintendo magazine they are brutal if a Nintendo game is rubbish. They want to bring you a review that will give you a fair view on what you should buy!

The magazine always includes great screenshots of games. Sometimes if they have had to take a picture of a game at an event the quality suffers. This doesn't matter though as it least they are bringing you new pictures of eagerly awaited games.

I do have a serious problem with the magazine, all of the content in there can be found on the internet in one form or another. You obviously don't get the reviews by the same people but with the internet you have access to many reviews of the same game by different people. Also on the internet you get the information a month quicker. This is due to the magazine needed time to be compiled, edited and released. If a new game is announced it isn't new news by the time the magazine comes out.

The magazine is friendly however. I always get the feeling that people connected with Nintendo are much nicer than those connected with the other consoles. This may be due to the more family orientated direction Nintendo has taken. This family audience is perhaps not accommodated for in the magazine as well as it could be but I think more hardcore gamers are more likely to buy the mag so they would be silly not to aim the writing at them.

Summary: Buy one and see if it helps you!