"I think people say I'm a little bit harder on Microsoft than others just because I know them, and I know what they want, and I know why they want it," Fergusson says, "so I tend to call 'bullshit' a little bit quicker than other people do."
Escapist Editorials
Some will care, some won't, and, to be perfectly fair, most will never even realize that anything controversial is happening. Still, the continued tightening of the noose around big-budget PC titles brings questions about the platform's long-term viability back into stark contrast against the comparatively hassle-free experience of consoles.
Through designing and playing this game sketch, I've discovered my own strategy for dealing with police brutality in a public forum. Should I ever find myself in that kind of situation, I'd be ready to act, and I'd be brave enough to act. At least I hope that I'd be brave enough to act.
It's a Friday afternoon, and Scott Foe is in a hotel room, 27 floors above the streets of San Francisco. In two hours, he'll be unveiling his latest project to the press. It's billed as "the highest production value mobile title ever."
This week, for Episode Nine, the de-rez team presents a game of Russian Roulette with ATI and Nvidia, a letter from Jack Thompson and the self-playing console.
This week Yahtzee turns the angry, yellow eye on you, the viewer. Particularly those of you who have sent him email crying about the Super Smash Bros. Brawl review.
The loss of two of the ESA's largest members - who would soon have become its single largest member - will likely cause ripple effects with far-reaching and potentially damaging consequences to the organization and the industry at large. But in matters such as these, there are typically many more questions than answers, not least of which is why anyone should care about the ESA in the first place.
Each week we publish letters sent to us regarding previous issues and highlight particularly interesting forum posts. If you'd like to comment on an article directly, send your letter to editor@escapistmag.com.
It is these orphan articles that cause us the most difficulty. You see, we're suckers for a great article, but we have designed, and love, our editorial calendar. It is the foundation upon which the whole of The Escapist is built. However, we have learned in our over two years of publishing The Escapist that sometimes it is best to have a little flexibility built in the mix.
I have to admit to a certain reticence when it comes to praising games. Like most writers, I can usually find something not to like about a game, and those bits usually make the best copy. But 30 hours into Grand Theft Auto IV I can easily say it's my main contender for Game of the Year. Hell, it's in the running for Game of the Decade. I'd even go so far as to say it's the best game I've ever played.
I'm not sure what caused this precisely - maybe the time for re-evaluation was nigh, maybe there's something in the collective unconscious. But after about a year and a half of the gaming media being content to assume the industry was clicking quietly along on its own, everyone seems to want to know the State of the Game all at once.
Empire Earth III is much simpler than its forbearers, and it would be hard to imagine anyone familiar with the real-time strategy genre having trouble picking up its meager concepts. But even this simplicity is not pulled off without a hitch: it turns out imposing a Protoss/Zerg/Terran-type trichotomy onto a nominally historical game has the potential to come across as, um, kind of racist.
This week on Zero Punctuation, God of War: Chains of Olympus.
Today marks the retail release of Grand Theft Auto IV. If many analysts are to be believed, the latest installment in the lucrative but notorious franchise will sell as many as nine million copies. And if certain politicians and activists are correct, it will almost certainly lead to widespread youth depravity and violence. But if the authors of Grand Theft Childhood are right, parents actually have very little reason for concern.
One of the extremely talented comedians I worked with on that show had a theory: He believed everything was funny. Everything. The inevitable comeback to this was "Well, what about the Holocaust?" His reply: "Hilarious."
