"The
future of
interactive entertainment."
A UK videogames magazine for grown-ups that covers the best of the months games, and reports on the fringes of videogame culture. From Future Publishing. Publication began in 1993. If you ask me, it feels like Wired for gamers, since it shares the same wordiness, world weary writing style, and flair for typography and layout. (Only with fewer adverts.) This generally serves to alienate most readers. (It is constantly slagged off by UK:Resistance for its low sales.) Originally, it came bagged up on the shelf, to force you to buy it before you could read it, and add a leap of faith to your purchasing descision.
"Of course Edge is porn. Why else do you think it's bagged?"
It doesn't come this way any more, and I suppose this change is also reflected in the content. It originally gave prominant space to minority systems systems such as the Neo-Geo, FM Towns Marty and PC Engine,
"If Edge doesn't show you systems like the FM Towns, or PC Engine, or indeed, the Neo-Geo, who else will?"
But now coverage is relegated to the perspective of someone on the outside looking in. It still occasionally surprise me however. What other games magazine would casually use the word "fuck" twice in the same issue. The magazine does try to raise issues in the gaming world, and ask where it is going. Sometimes more successfully than others. It also maintains the heritage of gaming, reminding people of long forgotten classics, a thing especially important in this era of casual gaming.
It had a US sister magazine called "Next Generation" (now defunct) with which it shared some articles, and news gathering resources.