Game Informer

The staff is not small, so you often will get multiple opinions and the rankings are surprisingly even handed, normally running between 6 and 9.5 on a 10 point scale. Descriptive analysis is consistently good. The magazines primary affiliations are with distributors, not publishers, and they pay more attention to helping you make the right decision for yourself.

Reviews are kept separate from previews, which I like. There are usually about three feature length stories in each issue. They keep charts of available releases, and often provide some minor cheats. This is really what I think a game magazine should be, rather than the pure hype and excessive advertising that often haunts 'house' publications. As I've already said - if you only want to pay for one, this would be it.


Seems to Have A Split Personality   February 18, 2005
Benjamin T. Elrod (Kirksville, MO USA)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

I subscribed to Game Informer about..... uh, 4 or 5 months ago, because I was thinking about dropping another gaming subscription. The first issue I got, I noticed in the small print on the Staff page that the magazine was funded or backed or put out or whatever by Gamestop. You know, the video game sales chain? Oh great, I thought, this is gonna be a cheery, all-positive buy-more-games propaganda mag. The wierd thing is...... it has a buttload of personality, and the captions and some of the writing bits are the funniest I've ever read in a magazine!! Then I got to the reviews section. They have 2 people review every game (with one of them getting a little sidebar thing at the end), which is nice, but with virtually every friggin' review, the 2 reviewers give the game THE SAME SCORE. That makes me wonder what's going on. Are they agreeing beforehand to give some games positive spin? I dunno, cuz the actual reviews seem really well-balanced and fair, not like Nintendo Power, where they gloss over the bad. Also? The rating scale is from 1 to 10, with 7 being "Average". I like it. That is all. I recommend this mag, especially if you're a younger kid, like preteen or below. Clean, pretty well-balanced reviews, and funny as hell!


One of the worst gaming magazines I have ever read.   March 16, 2003
Da2then (USA)
7 out of 16 found this review helpful

Game Informer is a terrible,terrible gaming magazine.The information is late most of the time,the reviews are the worst of any gaming magazine,and sometimes the information is false.To top it off,most of the people dont even want to subscribe to this but they have no choice - Game Stop mails it to them if you spend a certain amount of money there regardless if you wan't it or not.If you wan't a good gaming magazine,I recomend you should pick up these instead of Game Informer:EGM,Gamepro,OXM,OPM or even Nintendo Power if you want an offical Nintendo magazine. They are all much better choices than this horrible magazine.


Outstanding!!!   September 13, 2006
Dubyac99 (San Francisco, CA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I just wrote a review for OPM, and had forgotten about this magazine. I also used to subscribe, and had recently let my subscription run out. I will not say it is not because I do not like this magazine, but because I am trying to save some money. But the fact is, that this is probably the best multiplatform gaming magazine on the market.

The reviews are smart and fresh, never hackneyed, or cliched, the way a lot of other magazines are (and some of my reviews, sorry guys!). But the introductory article in each and every magazine, by the Chief editor, always sounds like it has been written by a Harvard Grad, with a Layman's ability to make everything easy to understand. He has a way of making every article within the magazine all come together. Never biased, they are not afraid of telling it like it is in their reviews.

I would highly recommend subscribing to this magazine, and like somebody else mentioned, better to go directly to the store, and get the discount card. After $150 - $200 in used game purchases, it pays for itself.

Highly recommend!

MC White said: If you're a gamer, than you gotta have this magazine!

EDIT: Believe it or not, when I got home, yesterday, just after writing this review, I had a copy of the September issue in my mailbox. I had forgotten, I had called Customer Service about a missed issue. They were nice enough to extend me a two issue subscription free of charge, to cover my missed issue. I was quite impressed, and tickled pink, when I got my newest copy in the mail, when I arrived at my posh homestead.

Thank you Game Informer for continued excellent service and a wonderful magazine.



Casual Gamer   October 8, 2005
Jason N. Flood (PA, USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

I think this is a good magazine for the casual gamer it gives good advice and a solid rating system with at times multiple people rating the game! I don't have multiple systems or spend hours a day playing so it's important to me to get good advice when I buy a game at 50.00 a clip; money grow on trees? NO. I been getting it for a year now and I did receive an issue I thought was a dud but nobody's perfect.