I have been a subscriber since the premier issue, and will continue to be a subscriber, because I feel it's the best XBox magazine their. Yet, at times I get bored with it's writing style. They don't make it that fun to read, sometimes its too silly to read, at other times it's written with too much depth, to where it bores you. Plus, it doesn't have any good features (special stories) in it, they are all stupid or boring, with the only good one being in the first issue (the one about the perfect XBox setup, and the XBox set-up quiz).

Why two stars then? The reviews are actually well written, and are truthful, and I trust them. So, if all you want are interesting reviews, try this magazine, but if you want to know about other things without getting too bored, look elsewhere.

It's a great magazine, with the disc. You get reviews, previews, world exclusive articles, and so much more. Then, you (would) get the disc. Ahhh...the demo disc. I'd pay about $20 a year just for it alone. But, this stupid thing doesn't come with it. I would have given it about 3.5 stars if I could, but I figured that the magazine saves it (almost). But, let's talk about the actual magazine. It has truthful opinions from reviewers with an attitude, who know their stuff. It tells you what games you need to buy, what ones you could buy, and what games to stay away from. Also, you get to preview games that haven't been released yet, and will be released some time in the future. Then, you read their articles, which are fun. Although some are more entertaining than others, they're still good. The layout of the magazine is good, and the witty jokes at the bottom of the page are interesting and sometimes hillarious. Except, here, there's no disc. The disc gives you great demos that I've played for HOURS before. If I were you, I would get the magazine somewhere else, WITH the disc.

Grade:
With Disc: A
Without Disc: B (A low B)

The first rule I learned in Journalism 101 (shortly before dropping the class) was "Always remain objective". At OXM, editors and writers alike check thier objectivity at the door.

OXM is a nicely laid out magazine. Unfortunatley it's content is very weak. When I read a video game magazine I want it to first be informative. While OXM is "informative", it's the XBox "attitude" that gets in the way. The editorial and writing staff try so hard to be hip, cool and edgey that they come across as a joke. If you read in between the pot shots taken at Sony and the PS2 there is some relevant information. But it tends to get lost amidst the puns and attempts at being humorous.

The second thing I want from a magazine, are objective opinions. With OXM, objectivity goes out the window. Though most games that are reviewed are pretty informative, often times a mediocre game will score significantly higher than in other game magazines. Which makes me wonder exactly who is writing these reviews. Also, every issue is loaded with countless digs at Sony and Nintendo. After the first few pages it becomes childish and unamusing.

The saving grace of the magazine is the demo disc. On it you can get some downloads including bonus levels for some games. Unfortunatley it's not included here.

Considering the content of this magazine, I'd recomend picking it up on an issue by issue basis depending on what is included in the demo disc. For a better all around objectively written game magazine, I'd recomend Game Informer.

One of the best magazines I've ever read. A good mixture of humor and content.

Well, it sucks to get your subscription off of here or anywhere else that has it with no disc, cause discs are the essence of any magazine that has them. And they seem to have demos (for multi-system or just PS2 and Xbox) faster than OPM. Recently they underwent a re-design for the disc (per se) and they added a download section that lets you save game saves to your system and use them in that game. I never thought I'd say this about anything, but the credits on the disc are just as fun as the rest of the disc. Anyway, this is just a really great Xbox mag. The text is always easy to read, because they hardly ever do any background colors besides green and white. They have nice little factoids at the bottom of each page. Now of course they're 100% biased, but it doesnt really bother me. Except there's a certain editor on there, and it sure didnt take him long (after starting to work there) to become so cocky. He could almost be the EIC as obnoxious as he is. Other than this, it's a great mag, but kind of dissapointing that they took out the Queue (sp?) section in the back. Ah to heck with it: Pretty much the whole staff is pompous.