Life By You looks promising, Armored Core 6 is kicking all sorts of butt, and NBA 2K24 gets more and more predatory and dismaying.
The news this week includes:
Let us know what you think.
NOTE: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE ENDING AND EVENTS OF MASS EFFECT 3. DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WISH THE GAME TO BE SPOILED FOR YOU.
In this day and age, one learns to take internet outrage with a heavy dollop of salt. The videogame community tends to be reactionary in the worst way, for a few reasons: they tend to be young, they tend to express their immediate feelings almost as a stream of consciousness, and let’s face it, the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory comes into play as well.
When it comes to game endings, when I hear that the community is upset about a game’s ending, I almost always take that as a good sign that the ending is daring and provocative. For example, there was an outcry over the abruptness of the ending of Halo 2, which had the nerve to conclude with a cliffhanger. The 2009 Prince of Persia reboot ended with the player undoing all of the work to free an ancient evil god they’d just imprisoned.
So when I heard that there was a growing outcry about the endings of Mass Effect 3, my interest peaked, because invariably, that meant the story was provocative and daring, instead of predictable and boring.
This week we’re talking about pre-owned video games and ask the question, do you buy new or do you buy used? Do you sell your games? We answer some listener comments and hit on a few hot topics:
We’ve also got a bit of history on The Golden Age of Arcade Games and we take a gaming flashback to Mario Brothers, the original non-super version.
When I was a little boy gamer I would spend a bit of my allowance on Electronic Gaming Monthly a great little gaming magazine. Unfortunately, young gamers will never understand what the industry was like twenty years ago. In a time before the Internet, the only place to get gaming news for a young kid was a glossy magazine. Today, EGM closes its doors and we’re losing a historic piece of gaming history.
Granted, there were other glossy magazines prized by young boys too, but we were old enough to purchase Electronic Gaming Monthly, now known as EGM by the hip and cool. Although EGM was founded in 1989, many adults between the age of 29 and 35 probably spent their youth flipping through the pages reading the reviews and editorials.
The days of the magazine are drawing to an end for many industries, with video game websites covering everything from truly hardcore to highly niche, we all demand our information as soon as possible. If a company like Ziff Davis is selling its properties, we want to know the minute it is announced, when 1UP is purchased by UGO we want to know the minute the ink dries. Why? Because we can.
January 2009 marks the last issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. After Hearst Corporation (owner of UGO) purchased 1UP from Ziff Davis it was announced that EGM would be seeing its last issue. Sure, there was a chance this would occur without the acquisition as well but the sadness wouldn’t be any different. We’re sure the staff will find a great home writing for another publication or in the online world, but it is sad just the same.
Along with the sad news of EGM closing, we’ve heard a number of folks at 1UP have also been effected by Hearst Corporations purchase of 1UP which has many people out of a job during tough economic times. There has been rumor the 1UP podcasts being ditched as well, but we have heard nothing official yet (please comment with official stories if you hear).
Of course, 1UP is “officially” rejoicing at the news but we know this is part of the “smoke and mirrors” that is an acquisition. A few, now former, 1UP folks have been using twitter and game forums to voice their own “opinions” of the purchase.
This is a rough economic time for many people, printed magazines, online publications and others. The only shining light is knowing many of these individuals will find new places to call home or start brand new online publications to compete against their old company. Talent will not go restricted, they will no doubt group together to form new aged publications to show off why the big boys are flailing in the dark.
We wish them all well in their efforts to find success.
