AndrewTS

The book doesn't seem to be advocating it, at least based on that article. "Much of Checkpoint mimics leftist myopia so deftly that I felt sure it was meant as intentional parody."

I do too, but honestly mainly for their attitude, their open-mindedness over genres most other mags wouldn't even touch, their coverage of imports of consoles most of the gaming press at the time never even heard of. The writing was never really up to snuff, though. Plus, they'd occasionally flip-flop big time on their reviews. FFVII got the usual praise as gr8st game ever, then months down the line they'd be lukewarm about it. They gave good reviews and scores to Blasto, then later used it as a synonym for mediocrity. It puzzles me to this day that they LOVED the Virtual Boy. They were a lot like Play, really, although a bit more critical when they needed to be. Of course, the competition at the time were the bland, filler-heavy EGM (which spun off to EGM 2 as well), the hopelessly juvenile Game Players, the chronically-terrible but inexplicably-popular Gamepro (it's a big, fat, stinkin' cockroach as game publications go) and a handful of less popular ones. Nintendo Powerganda has also been around forever (and in my opinion, they're decent these days. Nothing spectacular, but they do the job). Sega even tried to duplicate the strategy with "Sega Visions," a short lived mag based around how great Sega was.

Nothing personal of course, and not accusing you. Just a general trend I've noticed. The Driv3r scandal would seem to indicate they're no better. However, as I've noted in the past--anything that scores below a 7 is considered a terrible game, when really all that should mean is that it's only above-average at best. Keep in mind that our scores are (unfortunately) considered loosely based on school grades, in which a score less than 65% is an failing grade. In reality, a game with a 5 score should be totally average, but people don't think that way. So everything is inflated. I honestly can't say first hand about today, but I know that ten years video game mags in Europe were largely the drizlits, and they certainly must have gotten better (Edge for instance). Sometimes a person who gets assigned a game when he/she hates the genre gets it because nobody on staff likes that genre. For instance--when I'd posted that review and follow-up e-mails of the guy from GI who hated 2D fighters but ended up reviewing them anyway. Of course, there's times when magazines meant to be honest, but were collectively buffaloed. Battle Arena Toshinden anyone? You could probably write a book about how lousy magazines are at reviewing fighting games. Official US Playstation Magazine is pretty good, too. My favorite was GMR, but it was axed. Play would be awesome if it wasn't so horribly written. GI and Game Pro need no introduction...

"My push is dead, and I'm crying in my booze. It could be worse--I could sell women's shoes."

Sadly, people pay more attention to scores than the content of the review. Despite the fact that actual scores are arbitrary. I forgot about the McGriddling. MCGRDDL'D MFer!! Ah well. Despite the McGriddling of GameFAQs, you know those idiot reader reviewers aren't being paid off. They're still idiots, but giving their honest opinions about it.

Keibler's popular wank material. Sells lots of mags and stuff. Been mentioned. WWE doesn't consider any of the others to be. Well, Gail could have been, and certainly the Divas could use more variety, but they didn't really try much.

Hm. McCool's the only one of the Diva Search/Winners/Losers/Drawers/Drawer-Droppers that I can stand. Guess she's in for a few heapin' bags of JBL poo.

Amen! Hallway ... room shoot bad guy, turn around and shoot bad guy that spawned behind you, proceed to next hallway, etc. Thank god for HL2 to justify my upgrade as well. Half-Life 2 is coming to X-Box this summer.

Yet, you posted about your apathy.

MNM debuts... I wonder who on SD is going to be canned come tomorrow morning.

The most popular game magazines and game review websites are in the pockets of game companies anyway. This is just an even more apparent example of the corruption of video game "journalism." Unfortunately, many websites in general have been more fair and honest, since they have fewer costs associated with them. However, paper mags have been in a decline in popularity and integrity for a while now. They're growing more irrelevant, and more corrupt to keep up. I guess online publishers are simply following suit as well.

Exactly. They should have just shrunk the X-Box Hosstroller, rather then changing the layout like that. Ugly doesn't matter if it feels good and the layout is good.

Cool. Seasons/Ages thankfully are two totally different games, and it was announced Nintendo's going to do something like it for the new GC Zeldas. Oh, and Minish Cap was made by plenty of the same people who did Seasons/Ages. Shantae--platformer starring a cute little half-genie chick. Although it has its share of Adventure elements as well. She gains more attacks, she can morph into various animals, can teleport, etc. Lots of RPG elements, including towns to visit and so forth. It's easy to just praise it on the basis of the graphics, but it plays very, very well too. The only complaint I have about it is that enemies respawn very close to you, so you have to be ready to defend at all times. Another good one is Toki Tori. It's a platformer/puzzler where you control a pudgy little chick (of the poultry variety) as you try to recover the eggs of your brothers and sisters. Think of Humans/Dino Dudes. Both are woefully underrated, so scope our the used Game Boy stuff at an EB or Gamestop and you might find them cheap. I've seen Shantae for $4.99 and Toki Tori for $8.99. Plus, you could always emulate to be certain, since you can't rent old GBC games most places. I'd avoid that place. The average price for Metroid II I've seen was $12.99. I think it sucks though, so I wouldn't call it a classic, but plenty of people love it. Try pawn shops. Many of them have video games there but not many people know it. So they'll let lots of stuff go cheap. Be wary of bootlegs, though. I have a bootleg Seasons I kept because it plays just fine, but the GBA bootlegs I've come across don't save. They'll have a battery in them, oddly. The most common bootlegs seem to be SSF2 Turbo Revival, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Tips n' Tricks had a feature on how to tell bootleg GBA games from the real things. It depends a lot on the look, though. So I could post some tips from it but it'd be a little tricky. If the Nintendo logo on the back of the cart doesn't look EXACTLY like the trademarked Nintendo logo, and instead looks like regular text, that's a dead giveaway. PAT.PEND. is squished together more than usual. Game Boy/GBC bootlegs are much easier--usually a cheaper looking plastic, and "GAME" instead of the Game Boy logo on the front. Plus, my bootleg Seasons is in a grey cart.

Of course, Victoria isn't confirmed, but considering she partnered with Molly on Raw, her only claims to fame are jiggling her ass and being a passable worker, and she hadn't been on TV in forever, just like Molly, it made sense...you know, as sensible as WWE gets, anyway. May as well fire Simon too. They ran out of ideas for him 2 weeks after they debuted him. For some reason, I'd be more shocked if Maven were canned than if he was.

Huh? The first "leaked" X-Box 2 controller I saw looked nothing like that. It was basically the smaller current XB controller. As for this one--much better. I hated the X-Box controller--both versions. The black and white buttons were placed horribly. Loved the D-Pad though. Here we go with the silly "consoles white in color are doomed" schtick. Coincidence of course. Plus it ignores the original Famicom.

Looks like I called it.

"Logically, what reason do they have to have jobs?" Logic doesn't matter in WWE.

It's Smackdown. WWE isn't going to make a major announcement like that on *Smackdown*.

I'll agree with Bob--I don't necessarily disagree, but it wasn't very funny. You could have come up with something better. Keith isn't mentioned much anyway, so it didn't really matter. Incidentally, how is it done? Something you can add as an option to the forums that Invision provides, or did somebody have to program it into the board?

HHH wouldn't need Flair. 1 HHH > two Dudleys and a Booker T.

Yes. Then one day, Bischoff ranted that "nobody cares about women's wrestling" (the original Raw Roulette ep, IIRC). So then, logically --the title became Raw exclusive. No explanation given at all. It just was. It makes even less sense than the Brock exclusivity bullshit.

"Why on Earth would they book the false finish, cheating to win and arrogant open challenge like that, when Regal and Tajiri are the faces, and La Resistance the heels?" First line of my sig. Also acceptable is "VIAM." Does this actually mean anything, since it's on Heat? It'll probably just be a thrown-together tag team of singles guys that by some miracle escape the cuts. I'll say Mark Henry and Viscera.

I'm glad it will apparently have plenty of single-player action. At first I didn't care since it seemed to be made for the multiplayer, but if the single-player stuff is solid I may have to pick it up. Although it sort of looks like a 3rd person perspective Halo with fuzzy critters.

Ah. So KI3 is one of those gaming equivalents to "Bret Hart is coming back to lead the Invasion" or "Yokozuna on Raw" dealies. I didn't realize.

I'm building a bomb shelter as we speak. Again, she wasn't fired. You can usually tell by the wording on whether or not someone requested release or got fired. From the way Molly's is written, she requested out. Naw. I know him very well on MSN. He's a very positive guy. He sure as hell won't like it, though. He might drink himself to an early grave from frustration.