miketheratguy

When I've got the time I should go collect my various impassioned comments on this very subject and repost them here, because I've made several which echo pretty much everything that you just said (in some cases down to the exact same arguments). So, until then, I'll just keep it simple and say "I concur".

Yeah, I might have been a bit conservative about the numbers. It's hard for a person to admit that he has a handling addiction gambling addiction.

X-rated Solitaire? I already play that like 4-5 times a week.

I loved Roseanne. For the first 4 or 5 years that show was really good. John Goodman is a highly underrated actor.

And here it is, the ONE THOUSANDTH file on Retromags!!! Great simple eye-catching cover, making for an interesting sort of time capsule of seven years of console gaming. And lulz at the image of (and comment on) the Xbox. Also dig the artist conception of what Nintendo's Dolphin (man, wasn't that a stupid name?) might look like on page 93. It looks less like a console and more like a postmodern blue bathroom scale with a Nintendo 64 controller inexplicably attached to it.

LOL I love it. The funny thing is, your second sentence is essentially accurate. In the years since the release of the game it would seem that the overwhelming majority of people who so much as glanced in its general direction - in particular those who apparently had never seen Final Fantasy, RPGs, or video games before - have dedicated their lives to the unwavering practice of tearfully prostrating themselves before the altar of the almighty and eternally untouchable Final Fantasy VII, their entire remaining existence spent in doe-eyed veneration for what can only be described as the best game in the series - nay, the best thing ever made. And if their words, deeds, votes, downloads, and Youtube comments don't perpetually remind everyone of this then their Cloud engagement rings and Sephiroth sex dolls will. I think a bunch of them work at Square.

Points for mentioning the masterpiece that is Silent Hill 2. I'm a pretty casual gamer... ....actually wait, that doesn't describe me at all. I've been playing video games for 33 years and they're my favorite hobby ever, so I guess I can be considered more of a hardcore gamer. ...Actually, forget these stupid labels altogether. Let's start over. I love playing video games, but I love playing them for the sense of comfort, excitement, immersion and fun that they provide. I generally don't go in for challenge. That's not to say that I don't like to be challenged (I refuse to lower the difficulty of Alien: Isolation to anything below expert and will probably never pass the first encounter with the Xenomorph as a result), but so many people look at challenge in different ways. Some gamers view multiplayer competition as the only true challenge. Others look at a game like Dark Souls, with its legendarily merciless difficulty, as the best kind of challenge. Others like to have their brains massacred by puzzlers. Me? Idunno. I just like to have fun. What makes me come back to a game usually isn't the sense of challenge, but rather the sense of atmosphere, exploration, and the sheer joy of gameplay. While I definitely felt a rewarding sense of accomplishment when I completed the %&^#% water temple in Ocarina of Time, what I take most from my experience of playing the game was the joy of my first 3D open world, the satisfaction of technical advances like the lock-on camera, and the fun of navigating creepy dungeons. While I felt undeniable excitement upon figuring out what to do next in my beloved Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, what thrilled me most about both games was the sense of location and the degree of interaction that I was allowed to have with them. The puzzles of Silent Hill 2 make it a more interesting and challenging game, but it would still be a landmark of atmosphere and storytelling without them. I've played all of these games many times over, well past the point at which I'd become familiar with what to do and how to do it, because the experiences are just that entertaining. Toejam and Earl has hardly any challenge at all. Mega Man 2 can be beaten in an hour. The Sims is.... ...I don't think there IS such a thing as challenge in The Sims. But what all three games have in common is the sheer presence of "it", that intangible quality that makes a game just plain fun to dive into. And at the end of the day that's what will keep me coming back to a game, even if my membership in the red-blooded American male club would prefer that I attribute it to the rugged victory of dudely conquest instead. Challenge can be a really good thing - it's nice to feel like you've accomplished something or overcome an obstacle, after all - but for me, challenge is just one of the many building blocks that can be used to make a great game. If it's there then great. Some people want as much as they can handle, and more power to them. But at the end of the day none of it will amount to anything if the game isn't fun.

Looked over the Final Fantasy VII preview. Came away reminded of the fact that the frothing, worshipful HYYYYPEZ began well before the game was even finished. "There has been some controversy regarding certain mature aspects of the game. Will Sony censor the game in any way for the US audience? If so, what specifically?" - "SCEA has always maintained its intent to preserve the greatness of Final Fantasy VII. It is a masterpiece, a work of art..." "What is your impression of the game so far?" - "I am awestruck! ...As an RPG fan, I'm in heaven". "What is the most outstanding feature of the game to you?" - "The feature that I find most remarkable about Final Fantasy VII is the way that it truly immerses you in its fictional world. Like a good movie or novel, you get so engrossed in the story and events that you actually begin to feel as if you are part of the world. Final Fantasy VII is an epic adventure". "In your opinion, how does FFVII direectly compare to games available for competing game systems?" - "Final Fantasy VII is incomprarable to any other game on any other hardware system. The story line, graphics, music and gameplay really set it in a class by itself. Trust me, you have never experienced anything like Final Fantasy VII before". "What ESRB rating is Sony anticipating for FFVII?" - "Final Fantasy has a well-established heritage with US gamers. With this Playstation-exclusive title, Square has delivered a depth in gameplay that has never been accomplished". Yeah, but how is the game? ....Good?

Man, I must've gotten a bundle or something, because $200 is definitely the number that stands out in my head as the price that I paid for the system just after Christmas of 1998. I know that I didn't get any games with the system so either something else came in the package (maybe more of those hideous mutant cudgels that they tried marketing as controllers) or my stoner-like memory (which is a really strange thing given that I'm totally straight edge) has completely failed me. Even if I remove my own anecdotal experiences that $150 price point seems way too low, especially for the PS1. To have their price cut in half less than two years into the machine's run? Especially seeing how well the system was selling? It's madness! I guess the prices were what they were, then so be it. I'm just honestly kind of shocked.

I barely remember either system being as low as $150, especially so soon after release. That's like half off just two years into the Playstation's lifespan, and $100 bucks off the price of an N64 after just a year. Something tells me that this can't be right, especially considering the fact that when I bought my N64 in the winter of 1999 it was most definitely $200 bucks. I think EGM lied.

Very cool to know, and I appreciate the gesture. Let me know which ones you have when you've got the time, I still may be able to fill in some blanks if they appear. Hope I didn't come across as overly dramatic. PSM just happened to be the magazine that was with me during some really great times. Kind of the last remaining relic of the good old days.

If I were to throw a bunch of issues of PSM at you guys, where on the backburner schedule would they fall? I really, really, really don't want to get rid of my PSMs, but every day I grow just a weeee bit more tempted to sacrifice them for the greater good.

Nice! Yet another missing space on the digital EGM shelf filled. Thanks!

I do remember Gumby! The Secret of NIMH (great film), exploitation flick "Basket Case" (also great, for entirely different reasons) and compilations of Gumby shorts comprise the very earliest memories that I have of these newfangled "VCR" things and the "video tapes" that played in them.

Having gone through the experience I described above I still maintain that it's relatively unfulfilling to have a book of reviews that are just a paragraph or two long and mainly just summarize the gameplay. It's not really having a book of "reviews" so much as having a quick-reference guide, like those Leonard Maltin movie books that come out every year. You pick up it, you scroll to Gremlins, and in a few sentences you learn that it's a dark comedy about monsters and that he didn't really care for it. You think "huh, I liked it myself", and put the book back on the shelf without having really gained any great insight or been as entertained as you would have been if you'd read a longer and more dedicated discussion of the same film. Now having said that, I don't mean to completely crap on the guy or his efforts. Being a huge gaming geek I DO appreciate the novelty of having breezy video game books to flip through when I get the itch, like when I take out my ebook reader when I've got some waiting time at the airport or as I'm getting ready for bed. And I do like the idea of having a single all-inclusive volume that has box art and a few details about each game that's available for a single console, even if the discussion doesn't go much deeper than that. I can respect the preservation aspect of it. I guess maybe it's just that I've personally seen other, similar efforts, as well as more exhaustive ones. I myself put in countless hours of work to download every single Wikipedia page on every single video game that I've ever played, arranged them in alphabetical order, added bookmarks, and converted them into an all-inclusive pdf that can be added to at any time should I decide to update it with newer games. That document alone is several thousand pages long and goes beyond mere opinionated summary - it goes every game's background, history, publication, critical and financial response, legends, rumors, updates, revisions, etc etc etc. When you've already got something like that, a book full of little blurbs like "Maniac Mansion is a point and click game with hipsters" wouldn't really measure up. Though it's really kind of apples and oranges, and not really fair to compare the two. They're two completely different things, put together in different ways and for different purposes. Again, I can respect the guy's efforts. I just found his reviews to be lacking. But I also appreciate that his book will apparently NOT just reprint his web content and will instead feature edited and revised reviews that will, hopefully, have a little more weight and oomph to them. I do wish him luck and I'm sure that his efforts are completely earnest but I guess, at this point, it's just difficult for me to see them as anything more than kind of a shallow experience compared to what else is out there.

I looked up a couple of the guy's reviews and found them to be okay: pleasantly casual and down-to-Earth but not particularly funny or deep (and also kind of hammy at times, such as when pointlessly referencing the lyrics of that shitty Disturbed song to close his Maniac Mansion review). He describes the basic premise of the games well enough, which is good, but doesn't really go into any critical depth or provide any noteworthy background. Saying that Astyanax is "kind of like Castlevania" and describing Super Mario Bros. 3 as a satisfying game with a lot of choice is interesting I guess, but I didn't really get anything beyond that other than simple explanations of each game's premise. A similar book was released a few years back called "The Video Games Guide", only that one included reviews of thousands of games across all kinds of systems, not just the NES. I bought it expecting it to be an incredible rush of information and nostalgia, and for the first day or so I felt like it was. SO many reviews! So many memories! Where do I even begin? But once I started browsing through the book it quickly dawned on me that reading one or two-paragraph summaries of a game's basic points wasn't especially entertaining or enlightening. I found myself disappointed with a thin and relatively pointless experience that wasn't much deeper than reading the synopsis on the back of a game box, and ultimately decided to just sell the book. I went back to reading about games on Wikipedia which, perhaps ironically, wound up being more interesting and informative anyway. I do like the idea of having a big compendium of nothing but NES reviews and respect anyone dedicated enough to go through the time and effort to play and describe each game, but the bite-sized capsule structure of his reviews coupled with the fact that they (and other, more in-depth reviews) are freely available online would leave me conflicted about giving someone money to release them in the form of a book.

Hey, it's retro to some eight year-old kid somewhere! But yeah, that explanation makes sense. It's sound logic.

I thought the same, it's the answer that would seem to make the most sense.

When a magazine is out of print, discontinued and dead, why is there a cutoff date at all? Not complaining, just something that I've always been curious about.

Lol have at 'em. I couldn't be with a girl who parades her wares. I'm not the sharing type. ...Fun to look at, though...

Lol I try to make it a point not to date any of them!

You bring up a couple of good points. I may prefer longplays to speedruns, whereas you have reasons not to like either. It just goes to show how different people's tastes can be. Also, you're right: what am I doing watching someone playing games at all when I could actually be playing them? What am I doing with my life?

That's.......kind of an extreme reaction. Still, I kind of have to admire his bold level of commitment. I mean that's premeditation-level rage right there. Ahhhh, that guy. To this day I have no idea why there's a crazy man dancing to Skittles (I'm kind of out of the loop in this) but literally just days ago my cousin sent me a different clip of that guy. I admit, I enjoy the infectious weirdness of the whole thing, but really I was more struck by the girl who shows up halfway through to do a bunch of crazy dancing of her own. Those legs....those socks! Her dorko dance at 2:06 is just cute overload.