Those who know me, or read my previous reviews find me generous with the truth, and occasionally harsh with my critisms. Alpha Mag escapes none of these shenanigans, even though it belongs to my good friend Tom Freeman (a frequent Wuup Contributor). As always, I’ll look at what’s good & what’s bad, then have a cuppa tea. Lovely…
After Tossing a coin, I decided I would start with what I like at alphamag.co.uk
Nothing…
Ok now on to what’s crap
Everything…
Ofcourse I’m kidding… but I have to say the name itself ‘Alpha Mag’ already strikes a cord with me, and I’m sure other people too. It sounds authorative, yet MANLY too, and we all know with our purely phyiscal desk jobs we like every opportunity to feel MANLY…
The colour scheme isn’t bad, if not a bit feminine for such a MANLY name, but this is nicely countered by some drops of blood, and bold headlines. If I personafied Alpha Mag, it would be ‘Alan Titchmarsh’ with blood on his face. Gardening is feminine, but Alan Titchmarsh is MANLY… and if you’re wondering why I keep mentioning MANLY today, go search for loading ready run, and find the latest ‘Man Cooking’ video, but for this article, I will try and stop…
Use of quality images in articles do entice you to read the annoying, awkward to read copy, but I will cover why it’s awkward in a minute. The images bring life to the page, and really give you a visual aid to what you are reading (without it I wouldn’t bother).
Once you get over a short learning curve, the site is easy to navagate, and you can easily get to the sections which matter to you, or I, (namely gaming). The navagation is complimented by good typography, which negates you eye to the right place.
Ok I’m done, let’s rip out what’s crap
I know the site is new, and I’m sure most of this will be fixed in due course, but lets get in there quick and go for the kill.
UPDATE: They’ve fixed the browser issues
The template breaks a little in anything other than internet explorer, though most of these are small css tweaks that can be fixed, and I know some already have been. In Safari the search falls out of itself a little.
Articles on there are few and far between at the moment, due to it’s new nature, however I painfully read through the Gears of War Review. Right now I know we aren’t always clever with our words at Wuup, but we get to the point, and our critsims are constructive, but this review was using words ‘for the sake of being clever’, to the point some of it doesn’t even make any sense. My favourite part which DOESN’T make sense is the last line “To miss out on such unruly encounters would be an absolute travesty.” – what??? Why are game enhancements ‘unruly encounters’ – eh?
This review was heavily bias too, I get it, they like the game, and they liked the last one, however no game is flawless, and nothing is critised. The author was also delightful enough to provide us with a score 94%, well according to this review, its flawless.. why is it not 100%, that 6% is not accounted for.
Ok next article to be annoyed at: Hulk Smash a review of the last Hulk Film, now I haven’t seen this film, but thanks to this unique scoring system ‘Alpha Guess’ i’ll call it, I know this film scores 68%, but I fail to see what’s bad. Now either these reviewers are being paid, like PC Gamer, etc etc, who gave blinding reviews to Far Cry 2 (bunch of wankers), or these guy’s aren’t exactly sure how to review something.
Tom though, probably cause he’s done some stuff to us, has got a blinding review of Fable 2, which is fair and not bias, and he doesn’t emplore the ‘Alpha Guess’ scoring system either, his score reflects what he has written.
The Alpha Girls, everyone likes a bit of eye candy, however, the article about some crap, perfect date or whatever is painful to read, so much so I gave a very fair estimate on those girl’s IQ’s (4). Trouble is with no pictures, the ‘Alpha Girl’s’ title wears a bit thin… perhaps there is better to come?
Now I’m not going to review the other articles on there, cause this is still a new plant, give it time to grow, and perhaps us guy’s at Wuup will revisit Alpha, and give it another review.
Good Luck Tom!
Wuup Team
