After some delay, SKOAR! #XVI — Oct-Nov 2007 has finally hit stands in most metropolitan areas. For the uninitiated, SKOAR! is an Indian Gaming Magazine published every two to three months by Jasubhai Digital Media, which also happens to publish its tech-centric cousin Digit. SKOAR! got its first wind in 2003, right after Computer Gaming World (now known as the Games For Windows Official Magazine) was no longer being officially distributed for reasons I’m not aware of (Come back to us, Jeff Green!). It’s considered the de facto gaming magazine here in India, largely because it’s the only gaming magazine widely available.

Recently in the past year, SKOAR! has been placing full versions of oldie-but-still-very-goldie PC titles on their DVDs, with the help of keygens and No-CD/DVD patches. With more and more readers becoming rapidly aware of the issue, there was much probing from the community regarding this controversy, demanding an explanation from the staff members themselves. However, it has come to the point that despite certain staff members (mainly the Managing Editor himself, Badri “Badjag” Narayan) being full-aware of their own actions, they just don’t seem to give a fig. SKOAR continues piling on whatever their torrents can fetch them, and Issue XVI is no different. Which makes us very sad pandas, quite frankly.

For detailed proof with images, hit the jump and start wailing.

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I’m not a regular SKOAR! reader for solid reasons. Fundamentally, it’s like reading those catalogues that come free at an electronic entertainment store in the States; if you break it down even further, you’re looking at a picture book. Badass screenshots (Sometimes new, if you’re lucky!) and official artwork littered thought-out those pages, that’s what it boils down to. Who needs them crazy words? Words are for losers! Stop reading this!

But jokes aside, there’s a point to the comparison I’m giving. See, we don’t get those kinda perks here in our main base of operations (i.e. India). Yeah, it sounds stupid when I say it, but sometimes going into a store with these miserable freebies do a lot to educate those that don’t follow up on gaming websites like we do, or hell, even read the back of the box of the game they just purchased (“Company of Heroes is a strategy game? Where’s my first-person-shooting!”). Coming to that, you’ll find those who are willing to pluck down Rs. 200 for an issue of SKOAR! because what’s not to like about buying a magazine catered to an Indian audience about gaming, for crying out loud.

So here I am, doing just that (Hello, Issue XIII). Considering how much shit has transcended in the last few weeks (The death of our beloved SKOAR! forum, the rise of The Angry Pixel), I thought I’d take one last dive. Then, I got acquainted to this little editorial write-up on the first page:

“… We don’t know about you, but we’re getting mighty tired of this whole releasing-on-time routine; it detracts from the various pleasures of life we’re accustomed to enjoying between issues. Ergo, expect something, um, different for the next edition. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!”

Current Mood: Apprehensive.

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We’ve all complained about SKOAR!’s slipping standards at a hundred different places on the Interwebs, but it looks like things may be worse than they seem. Take the new issue, for instance. Among other fresh targets of oppurtunity, it looks like they have turned the guns on their own customer service guys. And if that wasn’t enough, they still haven’t learned their lesson and are going around giving StarLancer and Max Payne on their DVDs! If you don’t have the 200 bucks to fork over for the game, then what gives you the bloody right to even call yourself a gamer?

But I digress. The worst travesty in the history of the magazine has to be the latest Game of the Year awards. They’re so phenomenally disgusting that it raises suspicions whether they even know one genre from another. Never mind the fact that the ONLY nominees are the ones that the magazine has reviewed, but the nominee list itself is so mindbogglingly stupid that, when I heard of it, made my mouth open and close involuntarily a couple of times while my brain filled with inexplicable, but terribly attractive, images of the SKOAR! building on fire and the idiots that made this list running, screaming from the blazing ruins with at least three hefty spears protruding from their backs! (Yes, that was a Douglas Adams reference, so castrate me. I love his work!)

What’s so crazy about the list? Take a look for yourself:

See anything wrong up there? When did Okami become an action game? When did Kingdom Hearts 2, FF XII and NWN2, and oh, for the love of GOD, Viva Piñata become strategy titles?! Yes, there’s elements of strategy involved in these games, but that’s NOT their primary design feature! If you’re going to go out out on such a far limb to include turn-based and regular RPGs in the genre, then why not include games like Brothers in Arms and Bioshock in there as well? For a magazine that prides itself on being “elite”, screwups like this just don’t help that image, especially if you go around making such Kong-sized boo-boos and saying Condemned: Criminal Origins is available exclusively on the PlayStation 2 platform!

Almost every game on that list deserves to be named Game of the Year in its own genre, considering how Daxter pushed the mobile platforming envelope further than anyone thought possible, and how games like Tomb Raider Legend and the Sam & Max episodes revived franchises that almost every one of us considered stone-cold dead. Why doesn’t anyone at SKOAR! talk about how 2006 was such a wonderful year for RPGs and Adventure games, or how games like Company of Heroes, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Okami and Shadow of the Colossus created milestones in gaming history that will be remembered fondly for decades! It’s about bloody time that the ”gamers” at SKOAR! get their heads out of their collective asses and see the situation for what it actually is - gaming is India is no longer (and as far as I can see, it never was) the realm of the greasy teen with an unhealthy fixation on Counter-Strike: Source!

At this point, the SKOAR! gravy train is fast running out of steam and is headed for a bone-crushing collision with the cold, hard moutain of reality. As for me, I just hope no one outside this country gets their hands on the magazine. The myth of the stupid Indian gamer is already prevalent among the international gaming community and this type of trash will just serve to perpetuate it. SKOAR!’s got a long, long way to go before they go anywhere near mainstream, and until they actually sit down and decide which section of the Indian gaming community they are going to cater to, and not show double standards in every aspect of their work, they’re fast on their way to becoming the largest train wreck Indian gaming has ever seen. So much for leading by example… bah!