Editor's Note

Editor's Choice

This week's issue is Editor's Choice, otherwise known as The Escapist's boon to its Acquisitions Editor. It's a hard life I lead, chained to my chair and forced to read interesting pitch after interesting pitch. And it only gets tougher as I am eventually forced to pick and choose a few for each week's issue. Even worse, not every pitch we get fits into our neatly sorted calendar of topics. So they must sit, for little while anyway, in that email limbo that characterizes the mailboxes of middle management the world over.

Thankfully it's by no means a sentence to purgatory, and that's where Editor's Choice comes into play. With Editor's Choice, The Escapist provides a resting place for those unique pitches that weren't able to find a home in any of our other issues. I also breathe a sigh of relief, as the issue allows me to realize my ambition to ensure my mailbox isn't a place where good pitches go to die. Even more than that, it speaks to our hallowed tradition of meandering thematic promenades at The Escapist.

The Escapist has itself wandered off the beaten path of videogame journalism. Therefore, it only makes sense that we allow our contributors some chances to do the same. Wandering and exploring - it's an ethos that has served us well, and I hope you find that spirit continued in Issue 166.

This week, Jeff Palumbo looks into Tanking as both a virtual and real endeavor in "My Life as a Tank" and Philip Miner evaluates Persona 3 as a psychological statement in "A Gun to Your Head." Ray Huling dives into the complexities of the hardcore gamer in "Beat Your Game to Death" while Blake Ellison answers why your favorite hardcore import game won't play on your domestic system in "Global Growing Pains." Roger Travis also reminds us all that getting amazing gear through heroic deeds is not the recent invention of Blizzard Entertainment in "Achilles' Phat Lewtz."

Sincerely,