he phone rang, and I answered it. It was my mum's voice. "We'll be home soon, Conor," she said. "We're in the shopping centre." After hanging up, and heading back to the couch, I realised what she had just said. So I bolted back to the hall table, grabbed the handset and punched in my mum's number.
"Hello?"
"You still in the shopping centre?"
"Yes, why?"
"Go to Easons, I NEED Edge!"
"Edge?"
"E-D-G-E. It's a games magazine. Please, you MUST get it!"

No doubt my dear mother was perplexed at why her son was so desperate to get, of all things, a magazine. But there was a very good reason for my exasperated demand; Edge was ten years old. Like your little brother finally getting into the double figures, or your best mate reached that hallowed 18 years mark, there was no way you could miss Edge turning a decade old. It was an event in itself, as important to gaming as celebrating the birthday of Shigeru Miyamoto, or the twentieth anniversary of the Famicom. This was Edge's birthday dammit! To miss it would be plain sacrilegious.

It's something of a privilege to own a copy of Edge's decade issue. Well, to own any issue of Edge is a privilege, so I guess to own the tenth birthday issue is...an honour. Yes, that's it - an honour. Only four other magazines have stood the test of time, and lasted as long. Each of these, PC Gamer, CVG, Gamesmaster and Nintendo Official Magazine, doesn't deserve to lick the boots of Edge. In a media sector that is gradually slipping towards mediocrity, it's encouraging to know that honesty and professionalism still have a place there.

Right from the wonderfully idiosyncratic covers (I got the Street Fighter one), to the professionally done news stories, to the brilliantly-written and entertaining columns (Redeye is someone I definitely aspire to), to the utterly correct 'Edge's Ten Commandments', fascinating 'Perfect 10?' and self-indulgently interesting 'The making of...Edge', E128 never fails to astound. As a comment on the past ten years of gaming, it is infallible. As a testament to the intelligence of the gaming community, it is more than uplifting.

The strength of Edge is that it does things a lot differently than its 'rivals'. A big problem with the print media is the apparent hesitancy to take the medium seriously. An unwillingness to acknowledge that gaming has long since moved from being a childrens' playtime activity, to not only a multi-billion dollar, but a medium with as much validy as other 'higher' forms of culture. The poets, playwrights, painters, singers, actors and directors of this world do produce some stirring art, but so too do the artists, programmers, directors, producers and designers of the videogame industry. Fact. But it is a fact that few magazines take into account; most seem to be written for children, and by children. Edge is not patronising, something I hold as an unholy journalistic sin; Edge treats the reader with respect because they know who you are.

You are the hardcore gamer. You have a deep passion for videogames. You have respect for the industry's greatest talent. You know your games. And so Edge have made magazine written by you, and for you. Too many magazine writers have neither knowledge nor interest in gaming's past; but if you are to truly comment on the present, a healthy appreciation of past goes a long in helping you. Another of Edge's more famous admirable traits is it's strict reviewing regime. Many have accused them of being too harsh, but these are the same people who complain that Simon Cowell is "too mean". Too often in our society the truth is dressed up, for fear of offending or hurting the sensitive. But Truth is sacred, and honesty is all too rare in the gaming press. Even magazines like NGC are beginning to show cracks. It was painfully obvious in their reviews of Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker that the scores were overbloated. There was no way they could tell the truth about the two games; that they were good, fun games, but little more. There is no way that they warranted 96 and 97 respectively. Zelda's score especially was undeserved. It's easy to see why they got these high scores; to not give Nintendo's two biggest franchises 95+ would mean a flurry of rabid letters from crushed fanboys too delusioned to see the faults in their precious games. So they chose the easy option, and ducked their editorial responsibility.

There are many, many magazines who, for one reason or another, dish out undeserved scores to software. Maybe it's because of pressure from publishers (the greener kind of pressure sometimes), or hype blindness, or even a case of the dreaded 'Seventy Per-Cent Average Syndrome'. Whatever the reason, integrity, it seems, has taken a long vacation. An irritating aspect of many reviews these days is the excessive use of unnecessary ratings. Scores for graphics. Scores for sound. Scores for gameplay. Scores for controls, playability, lastability and (the worst of all) originality. Pros, cons, second opinions, alternative purchases, reader opinions...honestly, what is the point? Do the journos have to over-compensate for their lacklustre writing abilities with meaningless assessment garbling? No such problems with Edge; just a informative review and a simple, solitary score.

Such lack of confidence is evident in lesser publications' covers too. While Edge covers have meaning, and feeling behind them (some are so good I wish I could purchase a huge glossy poster of them to adorn my wall), covers of mainstream mags reek of desperation. So much hyperbole, exclamation marks and bright, bold images are crammed into such a small page that any sense of focus and direction is thrown out the window. The minimalist style is carried right through to the final page, with great effect. The use of space, background, and screenshots easily makes Edge the easiest magazine on the market to look at. A new mag named 'gamesTM' has attempted to mimic this aspect of Edge (as well, as, erm, everything else) but no-one can do it like Edge. The aforementioned desperation isn't without cause; as mentioned earlier only five mags have survived the past ten years. Magazines come and go - with so many on the shelves publishers can be expected to be anxious about the future. So some just avoid professionalism and try and grab the mainstream crowd (apparently there's quite a lot of them). Others try and carve out their own niche. Edge have their own section of the market - the Edge section.

Edge is Edge. It has no equal. They call themselves 'The Bible Of Videogames'. Usually, I would criticize such arrogance, but in Edge's case it is true. My mates don't exactly see it this way ("not enough pictures") but what do they know? I guess it really isn't for everyone. It's just for us.

To another ten years!

Conor Smyth
[email protected]