Every now and again, I like to bring you a little slice of Korean gaming. I try not to delve too deeply most of the time, but this was just too good to pass up.
Today, I present to you the best gaming magazine in all of Korea. There’s a good chance, and this is not hyperbole, this is the best monthly game magazine in the world.
Retailing at 13,800 Korean won (about $12.50 US) and weighing in at over 500 pages, GAMER’Z caters to almost every gaming audience available. It serves your standards, from reviews and previews to game culture and more. Everything is covered in this issue, from the staff’s Game of the Year picks to a feature devoted to the history of the Playstation 2.
Korea’s top 10 most wanted games for March 2013: Starcraft II expansion is #1.
Most astonishing, however, is the MASSIVE strategy guides that make up the second half of the book. Being the primary source (and as far as I can tell, ONLY source) of printed gaming news appears to have its privileges. There is just a ton of content for the money spent.
One of the games, which I don’t recognize nor am I skilled enough to translate from Korean to English, translates an entire Japanese RPG’s dialogue into Korean. I’ve seen this done before, having purchased an Asian version copy of Tales of Vesperia with a Korean dialogue guide book by Namco Bandai Games taped to the side, but I never would have expected this kind of resource to come from an outside company.
How thorough is a GAMER’Z guide? Well, Final Fantasy’s in there… all of it. From the six classes to maps with item locations and the shortest route drawn out. Take away the bestiary, and this is as close as you can get to Nintendo Power #17.
The cherry on top, however, was a magazine inserted into the middle of this issue titled “Smart GAMER’Z” that was devoted entirely to smartphone games. This tiny booklet adds another 50 pages to the proceedings.
Check out the gallery below for a quick look at this beast. There’s even some Disgaea D2 preview screens inside!
Who says printed media is dead? Hail to the king, baby.
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- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance got a 9.8 score.
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- These games didn’t fare as well, though.
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- Game culture through music and peripherals.
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- Game culture through a retrospective feature.
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- I’ll be honest, I bought the magazine because of Final Fantasy nostalgia.
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- Hard to believe there was a time where “White Mage” made no sense to me.
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- I just wanted to include a Lich picture. I don’t know why.
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- It’s hard to see, but they drew routes to save you time.
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- Final Fantasy guide finishes and leads to a Dead Space 3 guide.
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- U.N. Squadron was apparently “US Navy” in South Korea.
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- The Playstation 4 reveal feature still didn’t show the black box.
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- Disgaea D2 screens… cute ninja and samurai there.
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- I haven’t been following this. Any chance these are new shots, Mark?
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- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance also had a good 40+ pages of walkthrough information.
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- Darkstalkers preview with a move list.
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- Character art + Move List = Finished Preview
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- PS Vita best console of the year. #1 of 1.
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- Journey wins yet another award.
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- AniPang and Dragon Flight for Kakao made mobile games of the year.
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- I have no idea why the retro games made GotY lists.
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- Skyrim: Dragonborn DLC gets its own strategy guide inside.
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- This magazine was inserted into the original.
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- It was smaller and thinner, but devoted to smartphone games.
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- 9.0 for “Heroes War”? Hopefully that gets translated to English someday.
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- Then, of course, there was a Blazing Souls feature.
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- This is the game that was fully translated. Anybody recognize it?
About the Author
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| Fade to Slack is a founding member of Delta Attack, an American expatriate in South Korea, and a true believer in the legitimacy of mobile gaming.
Keep up with him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Fade2Slack so he can justify having a Twitter account. Fade to Slack has written 308 posts on Delta Attack. |
