The Gamer's Quarter

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

In case anyone was interested the first issue of HCG has become available for DL: http://www.hardcoregamermag.com/download.html

I am reading it now.

It puts our design to shame. It also suffers from being far too cluttered.

I like our design.

dhex · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 9:33 am Post subject:

jesus...24MB? it must be hooooge.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Well, it was not bad. The cover story was pretty good for the half that I read of it. The problem was it was about a game that has no interest to me. Pretty standard fare stuff, but the history of the company was the most interesting thing.

The Sparkster article was not bad. A little bland, and obviously written by a SNES fan, but well informed and covers most angles.

The reviews and previews could be tossed. Some were poor others were ok at best. There is a section about an E3 .... preview. Yes. Anyways, one of the downfalls of a magazine over a website. I am guessing that they tried to get this out before E3 and missed.

I read over the hacking a game article and the mame thing from their preview issue. Not bad, just I have no interest in it so I skipped it for now.

The SBO article. Well, I wanted to like it. It loses focus I guess. Perhaps it does not set us up well enough. I thought it would be a story either about the Tournament, or about the US Team, or perhaps about the experience of it all. The problem is that it ends up all three things at the same time. We are also talked to like we know not only what games are being played for what tournaments, but we know what the tournament is, and all the technical jargon that is spoken. A bit unfortunate.

The cos-player article was actually the highlight of this. It was not only informative, but delt with a topic you don't normally see get so much attention in the video game community. It is a little dry and I wish there was a much larger image of the coffin, but overall good.

Then there is some anime review in there that just does not fit at all. There is also some exerpts from Prima online strategy guides... which would almost fit if there was a lead in, an end, or even the title for all the games it is a section of.

Oh I take back my previous statement, the layout is good (cover story) and poor (Sparkster) all at the same time. So, yea, ours is not as pretty, but theirs is not faultless either.

Overall not a bad magazine, much better than a lot of the stuff you can buy over the counter. Their 1 or 2 sentence second opinon for the reviews either needs to be dropped or expanded upon. As it is it just makes a mess of their 5 point scale and offers little to a confusing amount of insite.

EDIT: For being a PFD they should have taken advantage of the bookmark feature. The load times for some of these pages makes flipping through and scrolling quickly a pain in the ass.

Sushi d · Moderator Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 239

so i downloaded it with me being on 56k and all (yes it hurt like hell.) and read all of it..

there were many portions where i felt it wasnt worth it.... (i wont name names or point fingers but they are oh so painfully obvious)
but there were many good points which struck a nice cord... mostly with the gaming culture related articles such as the one about cosplaying, the fan arts and the SBO doc....

what i noticed is that they have more 'space ' (H&W wise) than we do.. but in some points they spend most of it on graphical flashyness rather actual article-ling... i kinda likes TGQs minimalistic approach...

as shaper said its alot better than most of the filth.. but it could do with some tweaking...

also... the advertising somehow gives it a kind of.... ligitimatizing effect to it...as in other groups recognize it as 'official'.. its probably due to being assaulted by ads all my life..

hmmm.. it has given me ideas and has reminded me of others....i should put some of them into action.... although it may be a bit too late for this coming issue..

also.. i've just noticed that the first issue of TGQ is somewhat sloppy....yet comforting somehow....
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dhex · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:42 am Post subject:

1. someone has to teach them how to web-optimize their pdfs. i have a gig of ram on this bitch and it's still choking.

2. the layout is gross. the only thing missing are skateboarders and maybe a lowrider. and some mountain dew. it's XTREME!

3. the rom hack article is good. not sure why they'd put in a graphic "rom hack in progress" but art direction is a lot like masturbating - everyone has a certain style they prefer and find it very difficult to work any other way. but it was a neat overview for someone who is never going to hack roms in his life, ever.

4. the graveyard feature is interesting, but far too long. (Actually, i think that's a problem with all video game writing. i will someday go on to invent "minimal games journalism")

5. is this going to be printed? i assume so, yes?

6. their cover story is in the middle of the magazine? wtf?

7. the cosplay piece was good, but mostly continued to convince me that cosplayers need to be nerdocided our of the dorkwad gene pool. goddamn they fucking scare me. so good job on that.

8. 2 bucks an issue, sub wise. not bad. means they're doing at least a 6k run.

9. good luck to them. not my thing, but good luck to them.

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

Finally got around to downloading this. It's not bad, their features and the cover story are the best parts, the anime part at the end is kind of out of place, and the reviews are a little too concise at times. Presentation is nice and flashy, screenshots are good, I like the layout though sometimes it seems to take precedent over the actual content like the writing(I'm thinking of the previews/reviews section here.) Speaking of which, it's pretty good in the features and cover story parts, not so much in the previews/reviews parts. I expect it will get better as it goes on, which I expect it to. These things usually work that way, unless you're GameGo! or something.

Though I think it's more suited for the newstands than online, as the layout and general content would suggest. Not to mention its monthly schedule and the general shittiness of Adobe Reader, but who are we to complain about that. There really isn't that much there that I couldn't already find on the shelves, just that here it's a healthy smattering of everything you'd get(reviews, features, strat guides, interviews) in a kind of all-in-one package, which works for the most part given what they're trying to do. Though they could stand to dedicate a bit more space to go more into depth on things like the reviews. In all it's put together very well, that's for sure. I wish them luck in the future.

Overall Score: 3.75/5

SuperWes · Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 2:58 pm Post subject:

Having not actually read any of the mag, but having looked at the layout I have a few comments:

-The previews have nice layouts, but there's not enough of a unified design. They look like they may as well be ads for the games.

-The E3 Preview sections feels almost too concise, and the layouts are done so that when two companies appear on the same page you can't tell which games are from which company. And the order of companies is offensive. Why are EA and Activision first and Sony, Namco, and UBI Soft last. It's like they're going directly after the casual gamer with a mag that has nothing to offer them.

-The Cameo's feature is neat, but it's a filler-style article in the center of a magazine without much content to begin with.

-The hacking article is cool, but it's more something that belongs in the back of a magazine, not the front.

-The Sparkster Article seems awesome and has a cool layout, but what's it doing pre-empting the cover story?

-Sign up for the contest to win a PSP game. I'm guessing that few will enter, 5 will win. Unless they got paid for it, this contest is a waste of an entire page.

-I like the reviews entry page, but again, they don't need an entire page for that.

-The individual reviews for each game don't feel like ads, but this time only one of the reviews is given its own layout. Why give God of War its own layout when the rest share a common "review" layout? Wierd.

-This section of two-page spreads from Prima Guides makes since given the magazine is using Prima's money, but shouldn't they mention what this section is for, and show the title of the game on each page? Right now it just seems out of place.

-The third party hardware section is a good idea for the bottom section of a page in the back of a thick magazine, but in such a sparse mag it just feels like filler.

-This Super Battle Opera article looks like something that Gamer's Quarter would run. I'm not sure it has a place in this magazine, but it looks interesting.

-A review of a single anime can hardly be considered an Anime section. I'm not sure why they even need it.

-Ugh. Two pages of middle school quality Fan Art. Why?

-The Cosplay article feels like more filler. The best part is the "HGM Exclusive!!" in the corner. Of course it's an HGM Exclusive! Who else would print that?!

- I like that they're running comic strips in the back, but I don't like that they felt the need to plop them on top of a gaudy layout, and I really don't like that they're illegible in pdf form.

-Hmm. I never knew EntDepot.com was an affiliate. I wonder what that means?

-Note to self: Atlus advertises in pdf files...

Despite my scathing criticism, I actually think the mag isn't too bad. By biggest complaint is that the content that is there either takes up too much space or feels like filler. It seems a lot like Gamer's Quarter in places and too much like EGM in others. Oh well. I got a subscription in order to support them, so I'm hoping subsequent issues do well. So far I feel like GameGo was a much better Gamefan replacement...

-Wes
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Pootivic · . Joined: 18 Jun 2005 Posts: 15

The reviews are just like any other magazines game reviews. I've always wondered why game magazines that claim to appeal to the hardcore dont have a more biting review section.
The best part of EGM is Sean Baby's review section. It would be nice to have a magazine that balances highlighting the good games (be them mainstream or not so mainstream) and also taking a critical eye at more mainstream titles that get alot of attention.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

SuperWes · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 7:17 am Post subject:

I think they made him part of the regular staff for a while. He may actually be there actually. Seanbaby is alright, but I always feel like he's saying things just because they're funny without any thought to whether or not they're true. I'm not a fan of that.

-Wes
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

nICO · . Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 120 Location: WVUSA

He still hasn't topped the 15 Worst Games feature that broke his career. I still laugh every time I read that. I can't say the same for some of his new stuff, even if it's still kinda funny.
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Brauner: Damn you, humans... You selfishly start wars and despoil the earth. Perhaps justice wasn't on my side but I will never admit that it was on yours.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Free 6 month subscription.

http://www.hardcoregamermag.com/survey.html

SuperWes · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:30 am Post subject:

Also their second issue is out. Lets see how it compares with ours!

-Wes
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Blazehedgehog · . Joined: 11 Mar 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Colorado

Speaking of GameGo!, a project I was working on (not my own, but I was a part of it) was going to be featured in their second/third issue. It's just too bad GameGo! never made it to it's second issue. Confused

Thumbed through part of this. On my puny 256mb of RAM and 27k/s download rate, I had to often wait 45 seconds+ for some pages to load, and scrolling was a choppy mess. Just skimming took me a good 20 minutes to get through half the magazine, and it was about that time I gave up and decided to sign up for the free six issues. From what I saw, this did greatly remind me of GameFan in terms of general page layouts, which I kind of enjoy, even if they are haphazard. Once I finish my free issues, I might actually - gasp - pay for a subscription; a truely rare occurance for me. (seriously, for the last two and a half years I've been recieving free issues of EGM thanks to the generosity of the internet and "Six months free!" offers)
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disneyland · . Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 131 Location: Shinsei