Poll: OXM

[Lost In The Void]

I suppose this can apply for any gaming magazine but do you believe OXM is just a game selling put out by Microsoft to make horrible games seem better or do they truly care about games and if they are good or not.

Edit: I updated the polls for all the haters

 

[mokes310]

I'm a XBOX guy 100%, but I don't take what OXM has to say as the be all to end all. I think they have some genuine reviews, but ultimately, I stick to third party reviews before I make my selections.

 

[bodyklok]

They sell out for the big budget games. I wouldn't trust them.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

I wouldn't trust any official publication that much. The UK version of OXM gave the truly dire Alone in the Dark 80%.

 

[Amisbro]

I tend to not trust ANY game magazine's reviews! The reason is that while most of the time the magazines can get it right with the reviews sometimes ya wonder whether or not they ride a company's jock too much.

Here's an example: The vaunted HALO was a game that Game Informer, Gamepro and OXM all stroked pretty hard. I dare say if they stroke it any harder its willy is going to fall off soon, but anways!

The game gets a 10 and the rest of the trilogy does as well. Why? Well from what people tell me the reason the game is popular is cos of its multiplayer, but honestly I know nothing about that because I devote my internet connection to...just that...the internet!

A game that got a lower score(much lower at that) that I enjoyed was "Sudeki" and about the only reason I can think that I still don't own it is because I needed the fundage for other games or else I'd still own it.

TES: Oblivion is another game that I don't quite understand why it gets praised by most magazines. Its pretty much a glorified "Ultima Clone"(God there's a reach) and its at best a game that should be played for...10 minutes or until a programme comes on that you enjoy, but other than that its..."eh"

A game that some looked at as "OK, but not great" was FPR(Fire Pro Returns) and that's mainly because it was like the second attempt at "Americanizing" a powerhouse series in Japan for us Yanks. I personally enjoy that game much more than I do the SD Vs. RAW series. This years game is a vast improvement over the previous years although the controls leave a lot to be desired, but it gets to the point where you should do with those games that needs to be done with Madden. Put it in the "Quickies" section and be done with it. I don't really care about Madden anymore and frankly no one could pay me enough to play that and review it for longer than the length of a Zero Punctuation review which is what 4 minutes max?

Bottom line for me is I don't trust game reviews. If I read a review and play the game and totally agree with it then I know the mag in question got it right, but usually after I sit down with a game for a period of time I can make my own judgments on a game.

 

[The Iron Ninja]

There's no option on the poll for what I think of them.
The Australian version is written by a bunch of pathetic, desperate, douchebags.
The only reason I've bought the magazine in the past would be for the disk that comes with it.

I tend to judge the merit of a game myself by watching videos of the gameplay.

 

[Lost In The Void]

There's no option on the poll for what I think of them.
The Australian version is written by a bunch of pathetic, desperate, douchebags.
The only reason I've bought the magazine in the past would be for the disk that comes with it.

I tend to judge the merit of a game myself by watching videos of the gameplay.

Wow that is alot of hate coming from you Ninja no me i trust most of their reviews again there is ones that they royally screw up i don't think the American branch is quite as horrible as the Australian though

 

[sirdanrhodes]

I wouldn't trust any official publication that much. The UK version of OXM gave the truly dire Alone in the Dark 80%.

I enjoyed Alone in the Dark...

 

[Mr_Cynical]

I have always been dubious about the reviews published in any official platform publication, especially if it is a game that has been developed either by the console's manufacturer or any of the dev studios they own. They rely too heavily on hype and hyperbole to increase sales of said games and further their own format, yet understandably so. Microsoft poured a shitload of cash into developing Halo, so of course they're going to pay people to bum it!

The thing about game reviews is that is is based on the opinions of the person reviewing the game. Obviously, any journalist reviewing a particular game has to be as objective as possible, but the final outcome will always have a personal tinge to it. Take a look at Yahtzee and ZP. While I enjoy his reviews, I don't necessarily agree with everything he says because he and I have our own opinions.

Personally, if I'm going to take a game review into consideration before buying said game, I am much more likely to trust a review from a multi-format publication, although I have my own preferences (EDGE magazine, I'm looking at you, you bunch of pretentious arseholes....)

At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and if it doesn't match those of a game reviewer's, who gives a shiny shite? (EDIT. See above!)

 

[Logan Westbrook]

I wouldn't trust any official publication that much. The UK version of OXM gave the truly dire Alone in the Dark 80%.

I enjoyed Alone in the Dark...

No you didn't, you just think you did. only internet nerds who have probably never played the game can tell you how you should feel about the game.

So I'm an internet nerd now am I?

 

[Aardvark]

So I'm an internet nerd now am I?

You're on the internet... and you are a nerd... a nerd... on the internet... some kind of... internet nerd... an internerd...

 

[Praelanthor]

yahtzee is the only reviewer i trust cus all he does is point out the crap bits of a game and when i watch the review i think to myself on the points he mentions "would that piss me off?" so if i think that the crap parts arent too bad and i think the game looks interesting ill pick it up.

 

[Novajam]

I wouldn't trust an official Xbox360/PS3/Wii/other magazine to help me decide on a game. IGN has led me the right way a few times, and the wrong a few as well. The User Reviews section here has generally been spot on.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

*sigh*

If you're going to take a pop at me Indigo, do it properly or don't bother.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the game Dan, but the general consensus was that is was pretty bad. Interestingly, the American version of OXM scored it much lower, only 55%.

 

[Rezfon]

I only bought one magazine, while at an airport, and the first review I looked at was shadowrun (one of my all time favourites). They placed all the images back to front and the actual reiewer was pretty shoddy. Then they decide to bash it.

 

[Fire Daemon]

There's no option on the poll for what I think of them.
The Australian version is written by a bunch of pathetic, desperate, douchebags.
The only reason I've bought the magazine in the past would be for the disk that comes with it.

I tend to judge the merit of a game myself by watching videos of the gameplay.

Wow that is alot of hate coming from you Ninja no me i trust most of their reviews again there is ones that they royally screw up i don't think the American branch is quite as horrible as the Australian though

He's right though, that magazine does suck. You can't find a more biased review in all the land.

 

[geldonyetich]

I generally trust magazines based on who owns them. Doing a little research, it looks like OXM is owned by Future PLC which does not seem to have any affiliation with gaming companies or Microsoft. That's a good start - there's a lot of gaming magazines out there that, if you dig deeper, you discover that they're actually owned by game retailers (e.g. GameStop). Since a gaming retailer's goal is to sell games, naturally they'll not rate anything low (at least nothing they've stocked well).

However, digging yet deeper, it seems somebody put this in the Future PLC Wikipedia entry:

Several Future owned magazines have come under scrutiny for their starkly gleaming reviews of games that otherwise garnered a universally poor reception. The best known incident of this was after the release of Atari's Driver 3, which was given a score of 9/10 by two Future plc publishings - OPM and PSM2, despite overwhelming disappointment within the general gaming community. Editors later conceded that a deal had been done with Atari's marketing department to grant the score in exchange for exclusive pre-released access to the game's unfinished code. Gamers have also noted Official Playstation Magazine's endless 10/10 streak for the Tombraider series, as well as the 9/10 given to the Phantom Menace.

Get me the link to the editor's concession, and we have our smoking gun, polls be damned. However, without that verifying reference, this could just be a crock and what we have in OXM's sporadic review is a simple opinion. (A link to a journalistic investigation [http://news.spong.com/article/7014/Atari_on_the_brink_DRIV3R_review_scandal_hits_as_massive_shipment_announced?cb=292] has been found by my Google-Fu.)

 

[Logan Westbrook]

*sigh*

If you're going to take a pop at me Indigo, do it properly or don't bother.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the game Dan, but the general consensus was that is was pretty bad. Interestingly, the American version of OXM scored it much lower, only 55%.

So now you're criticizing my ad hominem attacks and holding your opinion up as fact? I knew it.

Excellent, now we've established that your comment was an attack, can I remind you yet again that personal attacks against posters are not acceptable on the Escapist.

 

[L4Y Duke]

I trust them, to a certain degree. Their say isn't that influential, but it does influence me somewhat.

I'm talking the Australian branch, by the way.

 

[JaguarWong]

They got caught out reviewing Headhunter: Redemption without actually bothering to play it.

That may have been a good while ago but broken trust is a hard thing to repair.