Topic: Nintendo Power

[Uglydot]

This magazine is horrible, slanted and such.  But it makes me want to buy games.  I hated 1080 on N64 and had no plans to buy it for GCN, but now I do.  Normally I don't pay any attention to commercials or anything, but this damn magazine...  Does anyone else get poisoned by NP?

[SearanoX]

It's not a horrible magazine.  They are substandard, but they do have the occasional interview.  Their articles are heavily biased, though, which makes them not worth reading.

I'm never convinced to buy a game by a review only.  The only opinion I take is my own.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

No, but I can be suckered by a good trailer.  

[KnowsNothing]

NP is biased ++

I thought there was a way to get a backorder of an issue  that you've already recieved (for free).  You could back order a maximum of two issues I think.  Can you still do that?  I can't find it on the website.....

[Bill Aurion]

Well should the official magazine bash their own games?  

They rarely give a game all 5 stars, so the bias is hardly exaggerated...I was actually surprised that Mario & Luigi didn't get all 5 stars in their review, because that's what I give it...

[kennyb27]

The one major problem I have with NP is that the reviewers opinions are little one sentence clips.  They need to put more opinion (pro/con section for each reviewer) into each review.  

[joshnickerson]

I used to love Nintendo Power, but lately I've been sort of drifting away from it. I used to only resubscribe for the perks, like CDs and trading cards, but even that is starting to get lackluster. Last year's New Years Bonus exclusively for subscribers was a Smash Bros Concert CD. This year it was a lousy Kirby e-Reader card that they're also giving away in their newstand edition. It's also available in other magazines and at Gamestop. I'm thinking if they don't improve their magazine, or at least start including an occasional demo disc, I won't be renewing my subscription.

[Michael8983]

I don't think it's fair to call NP biased. Sure it may give most of Nintendo's own games great scores but so does just about every other magazine and there have been plenty of cases where NP has actually scored a Nintendo game lower than most competiting magazines.
Anyway, NP obviously realizes most people won't take its reviews too seriously which is why it devotes so little space to them.

[kennyb27]

Quote
Anyway, NP obviously realizes most people won't take its reviews too seriously which is why it devotes so little space to them.

For some reason, I don't find this very logical.  Mind explaining it a bit more?

If a magazine doesn't think something would be taken seriously then why would they (A) give it good reviews or (B) put their opinions at all?

[manunited4eva22]

Come on now, I remember when they gave OoT a friggin 9.3! It got aced by more than a few other magazines, including famitsu, and honestly at that time they WERE harasses.  They changed slowly and their reviews went down hill.  The 5 point system never worked too well, and the stars, wow what a joke.  When you don't even review Eternal Darkness, a second party game, and just tend to ignore that mature games exist, how are you fighting the stereotype of being teh kiddeh?  I haven't subscribed for about a year now, but when I saw across the board atleast 4 stars, I just couldn't take it anymore.  adhfasdf I can't even think about it anymore.

[Michael8983]

"When you don't even review Eternal Darkness"

I'm pretty sure NP did review ED. Gave it a 32 out of 40 if I recall correctly. Seems like NP does review "M" rated games if it's just violence.
Conker was different because it had other reasons for being "M" rated.

[KnowsNothing]

NP give crappy games good scores.  That I can't stand.  

5 = Excellent
4 =  Great
3 = good

Hulk -   4.5, 4.5, 4.5, 4.5, 3
Enter the Matrix -  4, 4.5, 4, 4, 4
Finding Nemo - 4, 3, 4, 4, 4.5
Wolverine's revenge - 3, 3.5, 4, 4, 4

Those are just a few I just found.  Hopefully we have enough common sense not to buy most of those kinds of games (liscensed crap)

[Oldskool]

It would be nice if NP actually gave a bad game a bad score. They go way too easy on bad games... It took me 3 years to stop renewing my subscription, and then I found that the US has virtually no big unofficial Nintendo magaznes, while Britain (I visited it recently) has like 5 unofficial ones!

[KDR_11k]

Not enough giving bad games good scores, they gave some good games bad scores!

[Mario]

Australia doesnt have any cube magazines anymore.

No official one, not even any unofficial ones. Oh well, i can live without them.