20 Years of Edge Magazine - The Bear and Badger

adkm1979

I know this isn't an Edge forum, but it was the Edge forum that brought most of us here, and it was Edge magazine that brought most of us to the various Edge forums, so it would seem odd not to acknowledge its birthday (despite the abundance of people here who have stopped reading it over the years).

I started reading at issue 101, after it caught my eye in HMV. It had a feature on the forthcoming Burnout, still one of my favourite games of all time, and one that I hotly anticipated at the time. I can't honestly remember if I'd noticed it before then, or if it's existence had really registered with me. I'd no doubt picked it up at some point, flicked through it and decided it wasn't for me. As soon as I picked it up, though, I was hooked. I read every single word for years. I've also been throu a few years of barely reading a word, but I've never missed an issue.

It's not been a stranger to controversy: the staff walkout, to the GTA IV score (or the Resident Evil 4 score, if you like), to the mythical cover-jinx, to this month's declaration that Microsoft have blown it.

What brought you to the magazine? Any favourite moments? Any that riled you? What made you subscribe? What made you cancel?

monkey

I bought issue one. Then none for about 10 years.

Blue Swirl

I bought it on and off from the age of 15, and then got a subscription around the age of 18. I only stopped subscribing around 18 months ago due to the move to NZ. I'll have to see if I can get an import copy from somewhere, I've been jonesing for some EDGE.

Blue Swirl

Oh, and while I did play with the idea of collecting every issue, I eventually gave them all to Lester. Except the ones where I was in Online Offline. Y'know, something to show the grandkids.

davyK

I was there at the start and I only really stopped reading it as I lost interest in current gen gaming. Always found it a good read - even when I disagreed with their opinion at least they usually explained themselves instead of just pouring on praise or criticism - it usually allowed me to make an informed purchase decision.

I still have hold of a few of their one-off specials and the "Edge File" issues for posterity.

stonechalice

Well I think the ' just given up on..' thread will tell you what most of us think of this mag these days.

In honesty, I've loved it over the years, but it's gone to shit lately. I was an avid reader, and I have every issue bar a couple. I even had a sub when living in Oz and NZ. My favorite times were the N64 days. That Ocarina of Time review, and Goldeneye, and Perfect Dark. And then when Halo came along.

Happy times. Sadly over now.

optimark_prime

I bought issue 2, because it was the only games mag left in the shop that I hadn't already bought.

Back then it was the only games mag that came in a sealed bag, was more expensive than Sega Pro, Mean Machines etc, so it was a risky purchase.

I really enjoyed it though, and ordered issue 1 through the back issues section of the magazine.

Although it isn't as enjoyable a read as I used to find it, I still subscribe and have every issue.

[Deleted User]

Started reading Edge when the PS2 dropped. Haven't bought it for a few years now though.

I find it an extremely pretentious magazine these days and I am not really interested in the industry like I used to be.

The only paper media I now enjoy is Retro Gamer and the occassional issue of FourFourTwo.

Blue Swirl

Gonzo wrote:

Your grandkids will be like, "a printed mag-azine?". Then they'll shout "Xbox: what's a magazine".

Oh god, that's terrifying. Probably right, too.

As for printed media, all I buy at the moment is White Dwarf (yes, the little plastic space soldiers) and the occasional issue of Guardian Weekly.

I do miss the late 90s, early 2000s, where I would get Official Playstation Magazine (demo discs! GASP. Teh futures!), C&VG (with the awesome yellow pages in the middle with people's high scores in), Zero Tolerance, Metal Hammer, Kerrang!, Official Nintendo Magazine ("stick this in yer '64!"), White Dwarf (and Citadel Journal and all the spin offs of that) and an infrequent copy of the Guardian.

Websites are a generally better medium for news distribution than magazines, but loading up a web page just doesn't produce the same excitement as a fresh copy of a printed document.

Moot_Geeza

I disliked their coverage of 16-bit games, and found many of their early reviews amateurish, and certainly not what I was looking for at the time, especially as a Sega fan. I've not been keen on many of their early reviews, on most platforms, whenever I've read them online. I started to buy it towards the end of the Saturn's life, and only stopped subscribing a couple of months ago. For a good decade after '98ish I trusted (and far more often than not, agreed with) their reviews more than any publication, in print or online. A dip in quality coupled with the new website debacle and gradually becoming less interested in modern retail games made me cancel my sub. Their features haven't interested me for ages, Redeye and Biffo were never satisfactorily replaced for the columns, I never read any of their developer sections towards the back, or the 'focus on...tits in gaming' style of articles. I doubt I spent longer than ten minutes reading/skimming a new copy in the past year.

It's a shame, but it was at the top for an extremely long time, and none of the current alternatives hold a candle to the mag in its prime, or in its current state for that matter, it just ran out of steam. It's the magazine equivalent of Paul Scholes.

Dinostar77

Still reading edge. Though the reviewing standard dropped a few years ago with a bunch of tens with six months of each other. I still recall when a ten from edge was a seismic event. Those days are gone.
Dont think the mag has gone downhill, it's just that the current gen has been longest in videogaming history

Blue Swirl

Dinostar77 wrote:

I still recall when a ten from edge was a seismic event. Those days are gone.

It's true. I can no longer name all the EDGE 10s any more, where as I used to have them all in my head. There was even a time when I'd completed all of them, but that was yonks ago now.

EvilRedEye

I don't think Edge is pretentious enough these days.

[Deleted User]

Yeah that's a good point actually. The hallowed 10 isn't that awfully rare occurance when reading EDGE now.

Swirl started the nostalgia trip so I'll carry on. My first gaming magazine purchase was Crash! I would also buy Your Sinclair on a monthly basis.

b0r1s

Had edge since issue one, even hunted around online for missing back issues over the years. Then about 6 years ago sold the lot to someone for a tenner when I split from my long time girlfriend.

I have since read it sporadically, and occasionally download it on my iPad.

I actually found the best bits not the reviews, but everything else in the mag. Like film reviews, game reviews are subjective, and I have such a broad taste that I wouldn't take a single review as gospel anyway.

I DO think edge are one of the few iPad magazines making more of an effort, and this could actually help them survive into the digital age.

weadre

I don't remember the first one I bought, but it was the issue after the one with the yellow GTA police tape stuck to the cover.

I used to like the music reviews too.

Blue Swirl

Plan M wrote:

Swirl started the nostalgia trip so I'll carry on. My first gaming magazine purchase was Crash! I would also buy Your Sinclair on a monthly basis.

Sorry.

My first gaming magazine love was Sega Zone. I still have my Game Gear in its carry case, festooned with stickers from that illustrious tome.

hylian_elf

I started reading roughly around the time Super Play ceased to exist in it's SNES only incarnation (and became some N64 mag I think). First issue I bought was the one with MGS on the front. Favourite cover was probably the Ferrari one that came in a lovely Velcro button outer cover.

No, I didn't get all the issue 200 covers I wanted.

I read it on and off for a couple of years before committing as a regular reader. Never looked back and I still read every monthly issue almost cover to cover. Shame about the covers themselves.

[Deleted User]

Edge seemed a highish brow take on gaming culture to me in my teens, and I was fairly pretentious then, so it was a case of hand meet glove. First one I bought had Metroid/Mario/Zelda on the cover, asking whether they could save the 'Cube......... guess not, and now the WiiU is in a very similar position.

EGM is my all time fave mag btw. The multiple reviews per game (+ bickering between reviewers) along with quarterman's metric news prescience set it apart for me.

Escape

I became a regular at the start of 2002, and was happy until the redesign of '04. Sanch was best.

PC Gamer and Edge will always be happy snippets of my youth, but rarely intrinsically so. As poly-tending shephards at 3D's dawn, they were no MAXIMUM.

(Reading Retro Gamer last night, its mention of MAXIMUM's 20-page Tekken 2 feature made me ponder the current viability of such. 'Twixt-gaming FAQuery is superior on paper.)

Blue Swirl

Escape wrote:

As poly-tending shephards at 3D's dawn, they were no MAXIMUM.

Never even heard of that, may have to have a gander at some of the digital reprints. Did it really only get seven issues? Reminds me of Arcade. Me and my mates loved it, it was up there with mid-90s' C&VG and EDGE for pure video game love.

Skondo

Subscribed for about eight years or so, but cancelled about a year after the last redesign which I really didn't (and still don't) like. Many of the writers I enjoyed reading don't contribute anymore and there just seem to be fewer articles that I'm interested in these days. That could be down to me, not the magazine.

I have one issue saved, the one with Shadow of the Colossus on the cover. I was going to save the issue where I made it into online/offline but they edited my forum post so badly that it didn't make sense.

Moot_Geeza

I wish I hadn't missed the final issue of Maximum, definitely the best early-mid 32-bit magazine. I used to buy a mag called Control (I think....I've only recently woken up) that started up around the same time as Neil West's Arcade. It wasn't all that and didn't last long.

JonB

I bought it since around issue 35 or something, and stopped when I left the UK a couple of years back. It does seem less useful nowadays, and more desperate to grab money from any source it can. I'd rather it kept up its quality and died if it had to than slowly decline and eventually die anyway. Still, I imagine even now it's by far the best print mag available.

LarryDavid

I think I sold my copies of Maximum to Gonzo a few years ago. It was great, really captured the excitement of those early 32-bit days and the rush of new arcade-quality titles arriving monthly from the shores of Japan. Also I was at school and the phrase 'hardcore gamer' was more something to aspire to than something to be embarrassed about. They devoted half an issue to each new title back then, Resident Evil, Ridge Racer Revolution, Sega Rally etc. Crazy days.

I've still got a copy of Super Play advertising the first issue of Edge, which I didn't buy - it seemed pretty dry and slightly pretentious to me back then. They tended to overlook many of the fun 16-bit games then current and focus on tech-demo's, early polygonal monstrosities and various formats which invariably died out shortly afterwards (3DO, Jaguar etc). I really didn't bother reading until the late 90's. I think my first issue had a snowboarding game on the cover (how late 90's can you get?) and probably a couple of reviews of something blippy on Warp which I'd never heard of (my tastes then being exclusively indie-leaning).

For many years it was a routine to nip into Smiths and pick up a copy, which I'd end up reading from front to back. Around the Dreamcast period was when I felt it was at it's best, although that coincides with the time I was most into gaming. As others have said the sheer ennui of this generation led me to stop buying a while ago and the mag itself has gone downhill somewhat. Whenever I look at it in the newsagents thesedays it seems there's nothing that interests me at all and usually at least one feature on an upcoming military fps.

I think my first games mag was a copy of Mean Machines with the Turtles on the front cover, so around 1990/91 or so. Wish I still had it. It was the era before self-awareness crept in, so reviewers were happy to be pictured rocking their mullets whilst wearing Hi-Tec's and acid-wash jeans.

Yossarian

optimark_prime wrote:

I bought issue 2, because it was the only games mag left in the shop that I hadn't already bought.

Back then it was the only games mag that came in a sealed bag, was more expensive than Sega Pro, Mean Machines etc, so it was a risky purchase.

I really enjoyed it though, and ordered issue 1 through the back issues section of the magazine.

Although it isn't as enjoyable a read as I used to find it, I still subscribe and have every issue.

Pfft, I bought issue 1 in a newsagent when only 3 other people in the country even knew it existed.

b0r1s

I was one of those three.

davyK

Just remembered - wasn't there an issue 0? It was the preview issue - I had that and I believe it is rather rare.

Can't remember if it was with issue 1 or released on its own.

My first magazine was either:

(1) a single digit edition of C&VG which was a great thing back then. Type in listings for the Apple IIe and Commodore PET, a regular column on writing your own text adventure by Scott Adams - and I remember reviews of arcade Defender (they had misread the name of the Baiter and called it a Briter) and Fishing Derby for the 2600. The sheer excitement of that era - was a great time. The first issue I bought came with a free gift - a type-in aid - basically a C&VG branded plastic flexi-strip that was the same width as one page so you could keep your place when typing in a listing. The cover art featured an old sailing ship in tribute to one of the issue's type-in games called "Round the Horn" or something like that.

I can remember that but can't remember anyone's name for more than 60secs.

EDIT: just googled that and the first issue had aliens on the front cover and I can remember that one - but I think our Computer Studies teacher bought that and brought it in so we could type in a game on the school's Apple IIe..

(2) Video Gamer - short lived magazine that in each issue briefly covered every single game for the 2600, Intellivision , Phillip G7000 or whatever it was called , and the mighty Colecovision. I can remember seeing it in a shop coming back from seeing Empire Strikes Back in the cinema - bought it while still heady from the big reveal. Jesus that was a long time ago.

Other magazines - can remember Big K and of course the legendary Super Play which was a real punch in the guts when it wound up.

Also used to get one called Personal Computing Weekly (I think it was called that) which used to have girly pics on the cover - the Oric-1 never looked so good.

mistercrayon

I used to get arcade instead of edge but then that died.

regmcfly

I'm still reading edge. I used to read a bit of all the magazines, ONM, Super Play, Mean Machines, Gamesmaster, 64 Magazine etc, but every now and then Id get edge. I'm fairly sure I got one back in 1994-95. I didn't go back to Edge as my no 1 choice till I moved back from the US (where PC gamer and EGM were my reads) and then when I started at Uni it was fairly regular. Didn't subscribe till 2006 but have been on it since then.

Bollockoff

My first issue was this one.

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Got it when I was 15 as I remember and read it front to back on a Duke of Edinburgh hiking/camping session with the school. The writing style was so different, so much mature in my mind than other mags at the time that I didn't understand alot of the words used and I enjoyed that. So I got pretty much all of them for ten years till last year when I realised I wasn't enjoying them anymore. And most of the stuff is going online now anyway.

When I was doing Year 11 GCSE English our teacher gave us an extract one lesson from EDGE. Was the DMC 3 review.

I never read it but I like those MAXIMUM covers. That's how ya do em.

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