Over the weekend, myself and some other members of Coyote Tactical went to Brea, California for the end of the year BoUSA office party, the Lion Claws Customer Appreciation Day. A free game with a bunch of my friends is great, sure. A barbeque/birthday party/bullshit party with a bunch of my friends is great, sure.
You know what's better?
The American Airsoft Magazine.
Well, I dunno, that guy's cooking was pretty damn good.
All joking aside, this magazine is pretty cool.
I got one of the first issues from the Director of Marketing and Partying, Alex Samudio (KILO 42), well, he tried to sell it to me, well, more like I'm so low level I had to weedle it out of him. It's full gloss, full color, "...and still just a measly $6 USD". I decided well, I got it for free, so, I could probably write something up about it and see if it was worth you guys buying.
I tried to come up with something witty and honest.
It didn't work. Something was missing!
American Airsoft Magazine's supposedly going to have a focus for each issue, and the focus for the premiere issue was "Bringing the Experience." So, I decided, if they were going to, I was going to. I brought the experience. Straight to the bathroom.
Yep, that's right. Back to the only room in my house. Finally, in a location replete with both beverages and good lighting, I was ready to go.
The cover, as you can see, is pretty well designed with a nice little logo (I maintain that they copied my idea, everyone remembers my avatar -- right?!) and a pretty neat picture of I think Heath Hammond (a cool guy) and some other dudes in some base killing some dudes.
The first couple pages are ads. Then there's the table of contents. Standard boiler plate. As Mikey said at OPI3, "it's all wrinkly, do something to make it hard," well, that happens on like, page 7 or 8. There's a really cool write up on the Recondo School that Battlesim.com and John Robison of HooahAirsoft (AussyMurphy's dad) did. The typesetting is cool, the pictures are way way cool. Writing is eh, but above average for airsoft writing, and, well, this is airsofters, not like, professional writers and magazine publishers. Keeping that in mind, it's good. The editor is good, I am a hawk about that kind of shit and it's usually pretty bad but this is pretty good. The next section is a goggle review. Kinda interesting, but I already knew all this shit. They didn't review M Frames! Ugh, points off!
Conveniently for me, the way this magazine is produced, it's prone to open itself to the middle (where the staples are) easiest, and that's good, because that's where the best pictures in the magazine are. WW2 Girl from the airsoft expo is there in full page hotness. She's not a supermodel, but she definitely has realistic appeal, which I like better anyway. The pictures, from a technical standpoint, are also taken real, real well. I'd totally meet, greet, and then beat.
Unfortunately, the picture after those is of MSG Mullen. Making a face like "I know what you just did Scales, and you sick, you real sick. But I like you." I'm sorry MSG Mullen.
The other features are pretty cool, of note is the ICS AK47M review, which has some really great pictures. Whoever takes these pictures has some real talent. The lighting is nice and the details are captured well.
They wrap it all up with a review of Dead Rising, and although a few months late, it's still cool. That was a neat game.
All in all, for being the first issue, this is a pretty neat magazine. It avoids the pitfalls of being an airsoft magazine (i.e., crushed to death by the Internet, delivering month old info and shit nobody cares about) by creating lots of original content and covering stuff that matters to serious airsofters. I like this because it's worth it for me to read it, instead of just be like, shit, old, old, old, shit, old shit, like when I read a video game magazine or a guns magazine.
This magazine is pretty good for having just gotten off the ground, and already leaps and bounds better than the other airsoft magazines I've looked at. It has the feeling of a professional endeavor rather than an expensive hobby. That being said, I will probably subscribe to this, it's pretty cheap (it's like, $35 bucks, I think, with shipping) and it's well put together, and the girl was hot. If you know anything about the people putting this together, there won't be any slouches. Unfortunately, it's a quarterly, but that's because I don't think a monthly in airsoft could make any money, let alone be good, at all.
Well, hope this is somewhat helpful for some of you who were wondering how it was. You can pick it up by going to
www.americanairsoftmagazine.com and I think AEX is going to be selling it pretty quick here.
