Ah, sweet propaganda!

Honestly, how responsible do you think a magazine can be when it's published by the people who make the console? Nintendo Power, Sega's old magazine, Playstation magazine, they all exist purely to shill for their own systems. And, Microsoft, god of the computer kingdom, must surely be worse than all the others.

But, really, what's wrong with that?

Not a whole lot apparently. On xbox's website, they don't have really much good coverage of upcoming games, previews, reviews, or anything like that. For such resources, you need xbox's official magazine. It seems silly, self-serving, so many things wrong with it, but it's still a pretty good magazine, so long as you don't buy everything they're selling.

The only thing that really bothers me is every month they have a one page feature that's about how much greater they are than gamecube and PS2. The last few months they've been focusing on xbox live, the online service, and how there's is ready to go, and great, and PS2 and gamecube haven't even released the statistics on what their services will be like. This bothers me.

Leaving that out, the magazine is pretty good. The columns and letters are entertaining. The previews and reviews are shockingly thorough, and even xbox games get reamed here fairly often. Xbox is just entering the phase that PS2 was at six months after it's release where there is a lot of crap available. Many lousy games, a few good ones, the market is starting to swell. While I would never suggest any game they say is good is automatically good, I'm inclined to disregard games they rate low. It's entirely possible that they take bribes or compensation to plug specific games, but if you're choosy and smart, it shouldn't affect your game purchasing.

The magazine has challenge sections, where you can try to compete with people around the country for glory points showing how great you are. They range from darn hard to god-like and impossible. It has tip sections on hidden sections in video games, things you wouldn't know about otherwise. They have sections on 'easter eggs' on the games, and how their versions of, say, Metal Gear Solid 2 will compare to the PS2 version.

To be honest, I'm fairly open minded about systems, just like I am about computers, I just like games, I'm not a zealot about one system or another, so I can disregard the propaganda, and stick to reading the little witicisms they put on the bottom of each page under the articles in tiny letters. Sometimes they make fun of the games, sometimes they make fun of themselves, and every issue makes me laugh aloud at least once.

The last issue I read had a preview for an Indiana Jones game coming for xbox, and I got really excited. I would have missed out on that otherwise, since there doesn't seem to be (at least not as far as I can find) a one stop shop for upcoming video game buzz like Aint It Cool News for movies.

To top it all off, I would never EVER buy this on a newsstand, because cover price is outrageous for any magazine. But when you buy an xbox you get a subscription for free, and it's worth it. I'd even pay ten bucks a month for this, for the humor, the preview disc, and the shortcuts I wouldn't find otherwise. Self-serving they may be, but everyone else is to, and at least they do it with style and entertainment value.

Worth it on the cheap or for free, but don't pay full price. For anything. Ever.

Thanks for reading.