Excellent magazine, but you'd be crazy not to get the disc

I am a true gamer, owning all major consoles and not being a fanboy about any of them. That said, this is by far the best console-specific game magazine available.

However, I can't see why anyone into gaming enough to get a game magazine wouldn't sport the extra($)for the Xbox magazine that comes WITH the demo discs. For an extra ($)/year you can demo a whole lot of games and it could pay for itself by saving you one bad purchase or turning you on to a good on you might not have otherwise considered. There's also video previews, some exclusive, which give you a good look at some anticipated titles.

As for the magazine itself, the reviews are good and surprisingly fair for an affiliated magazine. There's lots of good content too. So, ask yourself: is ($) more worth it for 12 demo disks loaded with extras?

Lame Magazine without the Disc

I can't say I really like OXM or look forward to it's arrival every month. The writing is rather bland and boring, despite their attempts at humor. (Editor-in-Chief is Mike Salmon, former editor of the late great PCXL magazine, but his insanity has been tamed for this mass-marget publication.) I like reading trying to pick out the actual facts from the fluff in their previews - it's pretty thin! You'll find juicy info on Microsoft games and close allies like Ubisoft, but otherwise there's not much goodness here. The screenshots are usually so-so and low in number, and the copy is printed in such large size I feel like I'm reading a kid's book. The magazine is thin enough as it is.

The demo disk is the main draw of the magazine, and since the Xbox still isn't as big as PS2, there are a few months when the demos are rather sparce. To be fair, though, sometimes the offical PS magazine has a lame demo disk, too. They make good use of the Xbox hard drive, though, with plenty of great downloads each month - maps, missions, uber-saves, cheats, etc. One major rip-off is that they don't give subscribers the plastic thinpack DVD covers, but instead a boring old cardboard cover. You have to pay $20 extra to get the plastic covers, driving the cost to almost $40! Don't get this mag without the demo disk. Check out XBox Nation instead.

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