Upfront
VIDIOTS, If it seems slightly misleading to have the Beatles on the cover of what you perceive as a videogame magazine...well, that's the point. VIDIOT isn't just a videogame magazine. There are too many of those. It's an interesting situation here, putting out VIDIOT.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
Upfront
VIDIOTS,
If it seems slightly misleading to have the Beatles on the cover of what you perceive as a videogame magazine...well, that's the point. VIDIOT isn't just a videogame magazine. There are too many of those.
It's an interesting situation here, putting out VIDIOT. As you may already know, we're the same people who bring you CREEM, "America's Only Rock 'N' Roll Magazine" and a 13-year institution to many of us at this point. No doubt some of you picked this issue of VIDIOT up because you saw the CREEM trademark on the cover—not to mention the Beatles.
Good.
Whether "The Magazine Of Video Lunacy" will end up as meaningful a cover blurb as "America's Only Rock 'N' Roll Magazine" is to CREEM remains to be seen, of course, and I for one can't blame you if you're wondering what the Beatles have to do with "video lunacy" in the first place. But we here at VIDIOT think it all fits together. How? Well, we're working on it, believe us. With each new edition, this mag will take shape and hopefully fit into its own little niche in the same manner CREEM did long ago.
If you picked up our last issue, you read our editor's note in the Letters column, in which we described the video revolution as we saw it and where VIDIOT's perspective lies. So I won't repeat that. What I will say, though, is that in looking at other major video mags, I noticed without exception two major flaws. Most home video mags fight a continual battle in their attempt to please both readers and advertisers simultaneously.
That they're generally stodgy and too often new product checklists hasn't escaped us either—do you really want VIDIOT to publish pictures of plastic racks you can store vid cassettes or game carts in? VIDIOT says throw 'em on the floor! Our own new products column tells you the trends—what's out, what's coming out and what you're going to care about—and that's it.
The second major flaw lies in most videogame mags, and you've probably already noticed it. If they aren't too stodgy—and don't think they aren't—they're condescending to the point of embarrassment.
VIDIOT doesn't think its readership consists of moronic schoolkids who laugh at Space Potty jokes, and if we ever underestimate anybody's intelligence out there, please let us know.
Anyone who likes the Beatles—and if you don't, you've probably never heard 'em—should enjoy Bill Holdship's guide to The Compleat Beatles and other Beatle videos in this issue. Anybody curious about tnose little table-top vidgames, running 60 bucks or more, should enjoy Rick Johnson's thumbs-up report herein. Wonder what happened on Wall Street last December? Greg Springer will tell you. Watch MTV? Read Rockvidiocy.
We're betting you like this issue of VIDIOT, and that you'll like the next one even better. When we told you last time to plug in, we weren't kidding. And we still aren't.
