EGM and Finals

I swear, finals these days must take steroids. It's not even the tests or such, just the projects and the time consuming, life sucking toll they have attached to them. I'm not surprised nor shocked that I made it through. I'm just shocked at the fact that I managed to do something I set out to do, rather than conform.

Oh and I'm now 22 year's old according to my birth certificate, driver's license and social security. Kind of sucks, I know that there's less of a point in celebrating birthdays but ultimately I can't quite say I'm willing to give up on celebrating them. Granted by 30 I'm sure no one will care but honestly? I can't justify not celebrating my friends birthdays in the same style as mine. Getting something you REALLY want and bang on one day out of the year you actually have something like that com true? Pretty sweet stuff if you ask me.

Granted I do want to take a moment to talk about Electronic Gaming Monthly. The magazine has been relaunched. From a stand point of a gamer, the magazine hits on all relative subjects and managed to actually have the big stories for the month. From a journalistic stand point, this magazine is a Picasso on display in a children's museum. The quality of this magazine is far beyond any expectation I've ever held to something in print. It has quite literally thrown down a gauntlet for magazines that cover videogames in general. It does what it does, but it does it so well that you question what you were reading before you picked it up. Oddly enough, I get a sense of this being much like Playboy Magazine, without the boobs and such.

It's composed much like Playboy. It has interviews with game developers, black and quite photos included of the conversations in progress, much like Playboy. It has the reviews after the cover story and before the interviews. Again like Playboy. The only thing I notice is that this magazine really does show quality. I must have flipped through it and read it cover to cover several times by now and yet I keep going back and referencing the whole thing over and over.

I know, I got an story from when I was younger for just about anything. However, digging through my old stash of Magazines I did uncover a very old, (199-) EGM with Pikachu on the front. I basically flashed back to the exact moment. My Dad was in Florida, gearing up to send me back to my mom. He bought the magazine for me to read on the flight home. I remember digging into it and the first thing that caught me was Hsu and Chan and their plan to make a Radioactive Pokemon called Chernobylchu or something. Back then I was laughing so hard at the concept I didn't bother to look at the subtly of it. Now I read it and I laugh more at the written jokes rather than the visual ones.

EGM seemed to be a gaming staple and their absence I think was noticeable. I had notable respect for Dan "Shoe" Hsu for grilling Microsoft on their retarded backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360. I also loved the fact that EGM was extremely thick and made sure to have as much information on it as possible without becoming a phone book every month. I kick myself in the butt for NOT buying them or subscribing. Course, I look back now and know I wouldn't be helping anything and would probably have several issues of Maxim thanks to the publisher killing it off.

My friend Kyle, he told me the magazine died and I had a mild moment of pause. I realized that something must be wrong with that statement. EGM had been around about as long as I had. Christ, Nintendo Power was founded the year I was born for pity's sake. Starting in 1989, EGM basically just did its thing but like all magazines, I guess Street Fighter impacted it. The more I read into videogame history, the more and more I see connections to popular franchises like Street Fighter, Megaman, Mario, Final Fantasy. Magazines like EGM really hit their stride when they focus on making sure everything for a super popular game is correct. That doesn't happen as much now thanks to the internet and message boards like Shoryuken and Dustloop but it doesn't mean that magazines can't lean to a genre of videogames.

The Highscore itself is mostly a directionless but tightly knit group of people whom focus on their own favorite genre of games and continue to make notes and thoughts as such documented when they post. My Editor for Popzara tells me I need an editor really badly for this blog and I do agree that I'm not the prettiest thing to read or the most verbose or kind, I try at least to be entertaining and fair as possible to most of the stuff I talk about. I think the word I'm looking for is real. I try to be 'real' with everything I talk about because bullshitting and lying isn't going to do me or you any good, especially if someone is trying to actually read this stuff for an honest opinion.

For now though, I'll just continue this blog, updating when I can while trying to bring on friends and talent I think might be cool enough to contribute something to it. I'm not sacrificing anything here really, nor am I really screwing myself over by writing out my thoughts and opinions. So long as I don't readily whore myself out for money without reasons for doing so, I guess.