Devoid of Ideas and Generally Uninformative (PC Gear)

Name: wampyrii

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Product:	PC Gear
Date:	10/04/01 (59 review reads)
Rating:

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I had never seen this magazine before I stumbled across it at a railway station newsagent on a trip up to London. A quick flick through the pages didn't look particularly promising but, I hate train journeys and thought I might as well check it out in order to waste a bit of time on the way.

PC Gear is a pretty general magazine, which doesn't focus on any one aspect of computing in particular, but rather covers a wide variety of the things which are of general interest to computer users. It covers a wide range of issues, reviews, hints, news etc. and as such its appeal should be universal among computer users, but only if the quality is there...

~~sections~~

~~News~~

The news section of this magazine is probably the most interesting part. Being a more generalised computer/gadget oriented magazine there is obviously more news to draw upon rather than with those magazines which concentrate solely on games etc. As a result they have a wider subject area to choose from which means that the stories they pick are the most interesting and appealing to the readers rather than having to fill up space with rubbish and pointless industry speculation. The articles are also more than just snippets as well, often around 1/2 page or more of text for each story, so you get a more rounded in-depth view of a particular subject than in many other magazines which just give you little tid-bits of information.

~~Games~~

The games section is split into two area of previews and reviews. The previews section is actually quite bad, saying very little about the game itself that you probably couldn't have guessed from either previous versions if it is a sequel or from reading the back of the box when it comes out. Unlike other magazines who either seem to gain more information through interviews with the software house and development team or gain more hands on experience through playing beta version software, this one gives
little more information than comes with an average press release. That said, they usually have a lot to say about the product - half a page or more, yet most is hot air and waffle. I wonder why they even include previews...

The actual reviews section is better, although once again there seems to be little actual information in the reviews which could aid you in making the decision as to whether to buy the game or not. You get a lot of waffle again with a run down of what the game is about, but whereas other magazines compare the game to similar ones, or really get down to the nitty gritty of where the problems lie or how the game excels in a particular area this one just feels so pithy and uninformative. Each review is neatly laid out with screen shots at the top of the page and the body of the review below, but this template format gives the section a somewhat sanitised boring feel which is not helped by some pretty lifeless journalism and a complete lack of humour.

~~Gadgets~~

A section devoted to all the latest gizmos and gadgets - the kind of thing you would see in the lads magazine Stuff or Loaded - you know the thing. This could and should have been more appealing as I love gadgets, but is simply useless as all you get here is a picture of the product and a review of around 100 words or less which basically describes what it does - again, surely I could find this out from reading the box? As it stands, rather than being a highly informative and supremely entertaining section, this is simply so...'nothingy' that its purpose is highly questionable - perhaps just to say that the magazine covers it on the front page...

~~Internet~~

This section is devoted to the internet(no really?!?!) and rummages through the hoards of trash out there on the web to bring you some...well more trash actually. What you get here is several pages of websites collected together under a general theme and a brief description of each. W
hilst this all sounds very useful, because we all love to be informed of a new interesting, useful or just damn weird website to go and have a peak at, the selection they offer here is particularly uninteresting and supremely dull. With a medium such as the internet with all its bizarre nooks and crannies its amazing that all the boys and girls at PC Gear can come up with is things like www.barrywhitemusic.com which is Barry White's fanpage and www.stephenking.com (work it out) as being amongst the best they could come up with in a particular month. This is not what I would image most people want from a section devoted to the internet and if this is the best they can come up with then surely it would be better to scrap it altogether.

~~Labs~~

This is the best part of the magazine, testing and reviewing software and hardware and performing a comparison test on a selected range of peripherals in a lab test - you know the drill. At last you actually get some decent reviews here - now that you are over 100 pages into the magazine but the problem I have is that with the quality of everything which came before I have little faith in just how accurate and reliable their opinions are here. They are however, worth reading now at least if still a little too much waffling as opposed to offering technical information - or just information in general! The general hardware and software labs offer a review, below a selection of pictures again, with a summary box containing the high points and low points of the product together with the final score achieved out of 10 - or in other words the kind of thing you will see in just about every other PC magazine. The group test chooses a particular type of product, for example monitors, and plays them of against each other in a mass comparison test, grading them again out of 10, but with a much shorter review section. Whilst this is undoubtedly useful, again a little more info may have helped.

~~Other Stuf
f~~

As well as the above sections there are also the usual letters pages, subscription offers etc. seen in all other magazines as well as a section devoted to offering tips on troubleshooting various situations which is quite good should you ever come across the same situation - the likelihood of which seems minuscule but you never know...

~~General Comments~~

I wouldn't say that I hated this magazine, its just that it is quite poor in the face of the competition. It seems that they really haven't worked out exactly who they are trying to appeal to and as a result fail to strike a chord with their readership. The magazine is laid out in some sections as you would expect to find in a more serious computing magazine, yet the glossy pages and subject matter tell a different story. When reviewing computer games, gadgets and gizmos, you would expect to find some critical but 'fun' journalism not a starchy run down of the plot and some of its features as that is simply boring. Is it meant to be a serious technical magazine or a bit of pithy fluff? The journalism says its serious, the subject matter and lack of content says otherwise. Quite simply it doesn't work.

Returning to the content, there simply isn't enough information given about the products etc. in here to make it worthwhile reading it. When reading reviews of digital cameras etc. you expect a little more than 100 words on the subject and that half of the content will not be devoted to introductory piffle - you expect to read a useful, informative review and perhaps have a comparison guide or at the very least a rating out of 10 for the product's quality. Try writing a review here in 100 words and see how informative it is - just doesn't work and there is no way you'd be willing to pay £3.99 for pages of reviews just like these now is there?

The magazine seems to be completely devoid of ideas, spreading itself over a wide area and
saying little of any real use about any of them. Perhaps they should scale down their points of interest or take on more/decent staff members and then there might be a magazine worth reading to arise from the ashes. As it stands what you get is pretty mediocre to say the least, the sort of thing you might flick through at a dentist's surgery, but not something you would choose off the newsagent's shelf. Take my advice and give it a miss.

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