The Gaming Life Of The Dread Pirate Guy.
I’m getting a little better on the whole posting thing. I don’t know what it is with me and this year. I barely have any time to write anything these days, much less on here.
But I have been busy on Twitter, of all things. I’m usually not the biggest Twitter enthusiast, but it just seems better to post bite-size chunks right now.
But I have been gaming again, which is good.
Let’s see, I’ve picked up a few games: Sonic Generations and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed for Xbox 360, Epic Mickey 2 for Wii, Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion for 3DS, and took advantage of the Fall Steam sale, where I raked in a few Lucasarts point and click titles, Binding of Isaac, realMyst, and a few more. Again, where to find the time….
(Here’s my Steam profile, by the way, in case you wish to add me.)
Gaming interest wise, I’ve been on a Sega kick of late. It seems like Sega is getting back to embracing its roots again, which is refreshing. I loved the Master System, Genesis, and Dreamcast, and looking back, they really did provide some innovative content that Nintendo never did. That’s not to say Nintendo doesn’t do great things, but Sega had its own way about it. Nintendo had the luxury of snatching up every major licensed film and TV show out there via third parties (not to mention the sheer bulk of the existing third parties), but Sega went a more independent route with comics and music stars, and just unique ideas like space/time traveling dolphins or sexy space reporters, or creepy talking fish men, or cartoon rollerblading graffiti artists. You get the point. Anyway, I’ll have more things to say on the two Sonic games (I really found myself missing old, chubby Sonic).
Best of all, word on the street is that Space Harrier is coming to the 3DS. That should look excellent on the little system (I really need a 3DS XL. *sigh*).
Speaking of Nintendo, what are my reader’s thoughts on the end of Nintendo Power in just a few short days? I used to wait by the mailbox for that new issue to come every month, and while I’ve subscribed to it off and on, knowing that it’s coming to an end is just… sad.
The internet is an interesting thing. Both a blessing and a curse. Print gaming magazines just can’t compete with up to the hour news stories and updates, and even on demand console demos and videos. The best they can hope for is an exclusive interview or a batch of screenshots.
But it really is the end of an era, all they way back with the NES in 1988. It’s amazing that it lasted this long, and it’s like a piece of childhood coming to an end. It’s probably the only end of a magazine run that has actually and genuinely affected me on some level.
So that’s the latest on the old gaming front here. I have a lot more content to publish, so I’ll be writing it throughout the month. So what are you guys and gals up to and playing these days?
Filed under: 2D gaming • gaming news • general gaming • nintendo gaming • sega gaming
The Dread Pirate Guy
“Speaking of Nintendo, what are my reader’s thoughts on the end of Nintendo Power in just a few short days?”
Lots of blame to go around on it from what I can tell and with people I have dealt with on it.
1) Staff – NP and Future Publishing (dealt with both, or tried)
2) Sites – A few in particular, but TWO major ones. One for constantly stealing NP review scores, articles, interviews, etc., and posting the content on their own site, then submitting that content to other sites. A second site is guilty for protecting the first site. So much so, Future Publishing had their logo removed from the site from a partnership they had had with the site.
As for the gaming side, been a lot of Wii U lately.
When Future took over the magazine, that was the end for me. Although I probably would have given up on it anyway after they closed down the NSider forums. Given that was the only online presence NP ever had, I’m sure it did a lot of damage to their install base.
I think print magazines can still be relevant today, as long as they have a good online presence. Future never did that for NP, and so it died.
I found the backstory of all of this interesting. I do think the day of print magazines for gaming is over (and believe me, it PAINS me to say that), but Since Nintendo dumped NSider altogether, and handed off Nintendo Power to an external publisher (which did a credible enough job keeping it alive, Nintendo’s communication with its fans during this generation has been weird.
At least the 3DS news videos have been decent. The girl hosting those isn’t annoying at all.