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 enlarge | Publisher: Fusion Publishing
Category: Magazine
Buy New: $19.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 413
Format: Magazine Subscription
Type: Trade magazine
Subscription Issues: 12
Subscription Length: 12 Months
Issues Per Year: 12
First Issue Lead Time: 6-10 Weeks
ASIN: B0000AFQQY
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 months
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| Customer Reviews:
 Best gamer magazine out there. May 8, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Best unbiased game magazine around. With a hint of Jap Anime, its a brilliantly vibrant magazine. Great reviews of games and previews of new games. I prefer this over EGM, PCG, all the big name magazines.
 Meh December 10, 2006
4 out of 13 found this review helpful
Getting this magazine made me realize a few things.
1) It's nice to look at... and that's about it.
2) I wish I had my $20 back.
Beauty without substance November 28, 2006
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Yes, this magazine is pretty. I got sucked into subscribing to it based on the sheer prettiness of it. The glossy pages are covered in color drenched screen shots and concept art. The actual content, however, is another matter entirely. The reviews are, to put it bluntly, the worst representation of a game's merit that I have ever seen. They overrate so many games (indeed, i think i would have trouble finding one that wasn't) and to such extreme degrees it is laughable. They throw out perfect 10s so often and on such mediocre games that it is impossible to give any credence to any of the reviews. The last issue I got had Sonic the Hedgehog on the cover. I will return to the cover status in a bit, but first the scoring must be examined. PLAY gave Sonice for the 360 a 9.5 out of 10. The review gushed about how wonderful the game was. Gamespot, on the other hand (who I consider to be a very reliable reviewer of games) gave Sonic a 4.4 out of 10 ("poor") and even describes the game as "broken". Similarly, Gamespy gave the game a 1.5 out of 5. Oh, I could go on, but i think you get the idea. As for Sonic being on the cover, one needs to consider the other games and events ocurring in the month covered by the magazine. Gears of War, arguably the biggest game so far for the 360, was released. Viva pinata hit store shelves. The PS3 and the Wii launch were rapidly approaching. Yet they had SONIC on the freakin cover??? The editor gave some lame excuse that the developers would not give them copies of the game. if this is true, I think it is testament to the fact that developers do not consider PLAY to be a serious gaming publication. Other magazines, after all, do not seem to have this chronic problem of not being able to cover the biggest games. The Wii saw absolutely no coverage. The PS3 did get a launch section, but get this: One of the pages was UNREADABLE. The print was all blurred together. The part I could read read like a Sony ad. There was no serious discussion about the pros and cons of the system, just plain gush gush gush. I recommend looking elsewhere for you gaming news. I highly recommend Game Informer, whnich is both beautiful and skillfully and professional written.
UPDATE:
I just recieved my latest issue of PLAY, in which the editor defends his review of Sonic as a 9.5 game. He claims that the errors in it that make it so frusterating and difficult to play give it a "charm", and that the media gave it bad reviews because no one likes difficult games anymore. He brags that he is more in tune with the general public than the other media outlets who reviewed the game, citing the positive player reviews. The problem with this is he ignores the fact that with a game like Sonic (that is, a large franchise game that has proven to have serious flaws) the vast majority of people who buy it are buying KNOWING about the flaws because they love the franchise so much that the same flaws that would ruin the game for anyone else are not an issue.
He likes the game. Fine, I have no problem with people loving different games, or even people loving fatally flawed games. The problem with the magazine is that the reviewers are unable to objectively review the quality of a game. When games like Sonic are given 9.5s based on the reviewers love of the franchise and of playing in that particular universe rather than on the game's independent merit, it prevents truly exceptional games from being recognized as such. Games like Zelda Twighlight Princess, which is being called one of the best games of all time, and Gears of War end up scoring the same as these mediocre games. That's the problem with throwing out 10s all over the place; there is no where higher to go. Reviewers should not give a game a 10 solely because it quenches their fanboy thirst, but because it truly stands out among all other games as one of quality that will appeal to not just fanboys.
Once a great magazine-Now its better then average July 16, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Ive been a reader of Play for three years or more. During this time Ive watched format changes, review changes, and content changes come and go. Ive watched them change their rating system a couple of times, partner with corporates to make it a more finacially viable magazine, and Ive watched them dish trash and heap compliments on other media.
Play magazine is still one of the better electronic entertainment media magazines out there. The only other I would put close to them is game informer (and Ill come back to that in a moment). They usually have a wide coverage of systems, the have an old school perspective (meaning that game play comes first in a lot of their reviews), and they get a lot of good insider comment, interviews, and news.
But like any thing great that seems to work well, they have to mix it up a bit. They shortened some sections (dvds, anime) and removed some (when did gadgets really get any play in play in a long time?) and added some that really you have to question (japan? Sure, some of us import, but why would we turn to play for the 6 page spread on life in japan?).
Additionally, in trying to figure out their review system, they decided to go with a 10 point scale, the problem is that every game gets a 4 or better, with the average being in the 7-8 range. Their justification for this is that it is similar to the percentile ranking used in school, 90/80/70/60... BUT it leads you to believe that any game ranked 7 is a good game, if the scale is on 1-10. IF you want to grade on a percentile, then use letter grades, Then we know that 7 means average, and a 10 is the impossible.
Aside from these issues, the magazine is a great magazine. Sure its turning corporate. You cant have a corporate sponser and give time for dell (oh, im sorry, alien ware) to do Q&A and not have some blind spots. IM not saying this is bad, Im saying that its a good magazine besides this. IN fact, after spending a year reading ALL (and I mean all) the trade magazines for electronic entertainment, this is still one of my favorites. Game informer gets a close second in that its news is a little more up to day on release.
I would highly recommend play for a subscription if you need an electronic entertainment magazine.
the best gaming magazine ever created....period November 11, 2005
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
are you sick of those annoying game magazines that give only opinionated b.s instead of real reviews? are you sick and tired of having a game magazine latch on to one console and ignore all the others? are you sick of overrated games getting good reviews simply because they are hyped up? well so was I and I can honestly say that play delivers. you can tell when your reading a review that the reviewer actually played the game.I also applaud play for saying that grand theft auto is overrated (duh ive been saying that for 2 years) and I havent even gotten to the anime section..yes the people who write these reviews write them just as well as the game reviews. they treat anime as a serious form of art which is something I appreciate
all in all if you want a game zine that rates games based on how good they actually are...then here you go
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