Week One - Febuary 27th, 2000

Id -

Nowadays, when I first walk into the arcades, all I see is a bunch of morons jumping up and down on some dance-pad like there's no tomorrow. Now what exactly am I talking about? Dance Dance Revolution is what I'm talking about (AKA the worst game of all time). If you're going to groove, can't you do it at the local disco (if they haven't been shunned by society already)? The worse thing is that DDR takes more physical effort than any other game. Come on, the average gamer's had a few beers, and 8 or 9 slices of pizza. He's gotta sit down and belch the night away, not jump up and down and lose his guts. Hard to believe, but there's more DDR games coming out...they're spawning on the Dreamcast now...good lord.

Though Dance Dance Revolution has been driving me nuts, at least Pokemon is slowing down a little (Note: I said little). At least I haven't heard about two mothers getting into a fight over Pokemon for more than two weeks. If Nintendo is simply going to make 90% of their profits off of Pokemon, hang it up. Pokemon has already disgraced your once god-like name. Last ditch effort? Release Perfect Dark as soon as possible and have a huge ad campaign. Perfect Dark and Perfect Dark alone will be the only thing that decides the fate of the Nintendo 64. Actually, the N64 is already dead. Let's just say Perfect Dark is the only thing that might get gamers to look at Nintendo normally again. Mass Pokemon slaughtering? Gotcha.

So at this point you must be guessing what I am looking forward to right? Actually, at this point...not much. I am looking forward to the Playstation 2, which comes out in Japan very soon. But face the facts, I'm not by any means a rich man, so I'm not flying to Japan to import one (Customs would probably give me a hell of a time anyway). I'm also looking forward to both Chrono Cross and SaGa Frontier 2, both sequels to previous Square RPGs respectively. But then again, nothing is good enough to make me run to the store and buy right now...when developers and publishers say this is the slowest time of the year for gamers, they're right...

But then again, since I've been distracted so much by school, I've got tons of old games to play. For one, I'm still in the middle (more like beginning) of Grandia (played a total of 2 hours in the past three weeks). And for another, I still haven't beaten Resident Evil 3 yet. Seems like I'm the last guy who haven't beat that game because everyone has... so basically, I've got tons to play. So my tip for the February-March gamer? Horde games during the winter. Come on, it's not World War 2, nobody's stopping you.

Zero -

See! We can work without shiva! Only ten hours after his vacation, I've fired one staff member and created a whole new section. By the way, we need as much help as you can lend us, so if there are any budding web journalist out there [that can spell and use satisfactory grammar], give me an email and I'll talk to you. Having ICQ or AIM is a definite plus, but remember, your job will be to maintain AN, not revolutionize it. That is shiva's job.

I have not been using my PSX or N64 lately, as they are sitting there and gathering dust. The PSX has some games pumping out, but truthfully, I got my eye on the PS2. The N64 is like AN, you might think there are a lot of people helping out, but it turns out to be only a small few dedicated ones that really make a difference. Currently there is nothing I am looking forward to, except maybe Perfect Dark and Pokemon Stadium. Four-player mass orgies with Pokemon. Ah yeah…

There are some computer games that have been munching up my time lately, namely Age of Kings and The Sims. Periodically, I play Age of Wonders, which is a Master of Magic update [for those of you who remember that]. I have to admit The Sims is strangely addicting, I play games to get away from doing menial chores and forget about work, but this is what I am doing in The Sims. And then it's slightly unnerving when they start doing better then I do in real life.

Contrary to popular belief, Age of Kings is not better then StarCraft, in my opinion of course. The game is even more unbalanced the StarCraft, as you are able to build a mass of one kill-all unit or just build a ton of the super buildings in the end of the game. But I still play it because if people do not play that way, it can be fun [it is not adrenaline inducing, and a game takes forever…]

So is everyone wondering what game to buy in these slow months? Forget your console, and go get a copy of The Sims. The community is tight and you get new accessories for your Sims every week from Maxis. Overall, it was an exciting week, with some great news about our favorite games. I am looking forward to getting my hands on Planescape: Torment for the PC once I garner some dough.