May 01 2009
OXM Universe provides some unexpected value
This week I’ve shared my impressions of a few new and upcoming games for Xbox 360, and it’s been courtesy of the monthly demo disc that ships to subscribers with Official Xbox Magazine. What I didn’t expect to find was the meta-game playable on each disc that lets you accumulate points from trying the demos and then cash them in with OXM Universe. At the risk of coming across as a true-blue fanboy, let’s take a look…
OXM is great for its game demos, but this plain-Jane meta-game is definitely a cool bonus.
For those of you who have the disc as well, you probably noticed I skipped mentioning Atari’s Race Pro. It’s a sim-heavy racing game that trades in a sense of speed for some true-to-life brake pedal stomping, and it was too slow paced for me to want to sink my teeth into. Sorry.
Playing it unlocked 100 “points” for me, though, and that’s something that I never looked into before now. On each month’s disc, Official Xbox Magazine lets you earn points by trying the featured game demos. There’s an ongoing game tucked away on each disc called OXM Universe where you can spend the points to research technologies and eventually build ships to explore faraway planets in the fictional OXM Universe.
It’s mainly text-based and the 1000 points that you can earn on each month’s disc aren’t enough to get you very far, but the gameplay continues and the points carry over to every new disc. It’s a unique idea and one that almost compelled me to dig up some old, unused demo discs. (Almost - it’s not THAT cool, heh.)
Because the magazine covers a lot of ground, includes a monthly demo disc that’s becoming a rare offering as more and more magazines bite the dust, and features the ongoing OXM Universe, there’s a lot of value that you might not expect when you’re first filling out the subscription card to Official Xbox Magazine.
As far as gaming mags go, OXM is pretty awesome for 360 fans.
OXM Universe may not be a system-selling game by any stretch of the imagination, but the magazine deserves these kudos for putting out a great product each month, and OXM Universe is the unexpected icing on the cake.
This ends my weeklong dissection of all these recent Xbox 360 game demos, and it couldn’t come at a better time. At this point, even I can’t stand all this OXM shilling! I need some balance. Maybe a copy of Nintendo Power and little Wii gaming is in order. Seriously.
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