Arteveld: I've had those few Bajtek's game pages on my mind, and TS issue 0.. It's in pieces today.. But thank gawd for the RetroReaders...;P
Well, look at CDA, they were never good, from the goofy beginnings to the absurd "10/10 for each major title" wankery they do today. They don't even hide their advertising as reviews.
SS had some balls in the beginning, but right, they were overrated. But on the other hand, they had a great cultural impact on the kids. They DID spawn the first major generation of japanophiles, for example. And boy, i hate them for that.;)
I said earlier that I've been reading CDA since late 1998 and that I'm still a subscriber, so you see that I disagree about the "they were never good" part :P.
While I never considered them to be on par with TS, Reset or early SS, it still was a good magazine with it's own style. Sure, they were far from perfect, with their own set of ridiculous views and mistakes, but what magazine wasn't? Are you saying that TS and SS didn't give reviews with "10/10 for each major title"? :P
I was seriously thinking about not buying it after laughable reviews for Soul Reaver 1 and 2 (it was too obvious that the "reviewers" didn't even play these games), but they still write something interesting every now and then, and more importantly - the full versions on covers can be really good.
But as I said before - the recent changes were just too much. I think I still might buy it from time to time if they include a game that I am interested in, but I won't be buying it regularly.
About SS and japanophiles. Oh my, I still remember it:
"What is this supposed to be... this.. Manga Room... thing. Two pages wasted on some stupid Japanese cartoons? What were they thinking? Fortunately no one sane would enjoy this... thing, so thankfully it will be gone by the next month". Suffice to say that I was somewhat disappointed with the general response :P.
And on a side note - it's really weird talking about these magazines in English. :)