Off the Newsstand: Game Informer Issue 225

It has been noted that I have been busy with a lot of things these last couple of months.  As work calms down after the holiday season, I am busy reading a whole lot of magazines.  With the newest issues of Nintendo Power, EGM and Game Informer about to come in the mail and an issue of OXM that I received from a friend, January is going to be a busy month full of reading.  Good thing I just finished my last issue of Game Informer last week.

As the first issue of Game Informer's calendar year, you would expect a big reveal as the cover story.  Last January, Game Informer got the exclusive first look at the new more mature Tomb Raider game, which was amazing.  This year Game Informer's big exclusive reveal was a South Park RPG.  It maybe hard to convey through words, but when Game Informer revealed this cover I was not amused.  Right now some people are jumping for joy at the fact that there will be a South Park RPG, but all those people are probably too young to play this game or even watch the show.  The cover story was neat, but all it really told me was the basic premise for the story, that the game will have the same art style as the show and Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, are writing the script.  Cool tidbits of information, but there were plenty of better articles in this issue of Game Informer.  The article on the Witness, Jonathan Blow's new puzzle-adventure game, took a short, but rather pleasing look at the Witness' puzzles and unique take on the adventure genre.  Also the in-depth interview with Dan Houser, vice president of creative at Rockstar Games was very enjoyable.  We got some really good previews on games that are releasing within the next few months and reviews on the biggest games of this holiday season.

At the end of the day, issue 225 of Game Informer is just an okay issue.  Personally I hold Game Informer's cover stories in high standing and this issues' South Park RPG cover story fell flat for me.  The rest of the issue was a good read, but I would not go out of my way to recommend anybody go out of their way to buy this issue unless you are a big of South Park fan.  There are much better issues of Game Informer you can read than this issue.