Amongst the newer gaming sites, you'll find a pair of rising stars, making a name for themselves not just by presenting hard-hitting and well-researched articles on the latest video games, but presenting original perspectives that make their sites not only informative, but fun.
The first of these websites is Blargo, started in late 2005 by a group of college roommates looking for a project to do in their spare time and also hoping to gain valuable experience in the journalistic field. Blargo started as more of an informal blog site in which the four friends gave their opinions on certain games and didn't attempt to scoop major stories or provide much in the way of original content, but upon the graduation of the site's current editor-in-chief Jonathan Zhang in 2006, the team made the site their full-time job, and began looking for stories to get a leg up on other gaming websites. Zhang didn't have much in the way of industry contacts, but he was bold and persistent, and looked for stories that other websites might have bypassed. This led to Blargo gaining a reputation as a sort of "outsider" gaming website, a place one went when they weren't looking for stories about their favorite games, but instead were trying to find stories they hadn't even known they wanted to read. Zhang and his staff looked for interesting stories, funny stories, stories about obscure games, stories about indie titles (which, given the rise in the popularity of indie games, ended up being quite fortuitous and timely), stories they knew would be exclusive because none of the larger websites were trying to get them. Blargo's big break arguably came in 2008, when reporter Nathan Martin got the chance to talk to a recently fired Konami employee who had information about the company's attempts to purchase Sega in 2003. Before the Blargo story broke, most people believed that Toshiba was Apple's biggest competitor in the Sega acquisition race, but the Konami revelation proved just how close that company had been to acquiring iconic characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and the rights to manufacture and sell the Katana. Zhang made sure the story was extensively vetted, carefully scouring a variety of sources to confirm its authenticity before publishing the bombshell in June 2008. To Zhang's surprise and delight, Konami ended up confirming the story a few weeks later, after other sources corroborated Blargo's account. Blargo was immediately thrust into the center of the online gaming media universe, and was soon able to scoop other major stories, putting the site up there with IGN and Kotaku amongst the top sources for gaming news on the internet. Despite the sudden success, Blargo continues its reporting on the unusual and obscure, and maintains a community of readers who have been with the site from its beginning, giving it a reputation as one of the quirkiest places on the internet for gamers.
(...)
Sylph was founded in 2004 by Sallie Nordigan, as a website primarily focused on video games from a female perspective. The site launched with an all-woman staff, and the staff remains primarily female, though numerous male reporters have now joined the site's ranks. Though Sylph maintains a largely female readership, its coverage of games doesn't differ all that much from its contemporaries, covering all recent games and also remembering older ones, with little if any particular focus given to games starring female characters or made by female creators (though the site does frequently point out when a game's staff is heavily female). The name for Sylph was inspired by the Sylphs from Final Fantasy IV, a game the 25-year-old Nordigan admits to playing extensively as a young girl. Nordigan's all time favorite video game character remains Rydia (also from Final Fantasy IV), a character featured somewhat frequently in the website's graphics, in various symbolic and silhouetted forms. The site proudly courts an extensive community of girl gamers, and has collaborated with all-female competitive gaming teams as well, covering their performances in tournaments and even sponsoring events where players have the chance to compete with some of these famous teams. Nordigan cites GameTV's Brittany Saldita and Lyssa Fielding as inspirations for her work, and in fact, much of Nordigan's staff has memories of watching that show just to see perhaps the two most famous girl gamers of all time give their opinions on all sorts of video games every single week on the show.
"People have no idea how inspirational it was to see Brittany Saldita playing all kinds of games on that show," said Nordigan. "She played sports games, she played shooters, she played RPGs... until she came along I thought I was the only girl who liked those kinds of games. I didn't know any other girls at my school who played Final Fantasy, the girls who did play games at my school played stuff like Mario, which is a great series in its own right, but I mean, everybody plays it so that wasn't a very big deal. The first time I saw Brittany Saldita talking about Final Fantasy IV when she reviewed the SNES-CD re-release, I almost cried."
Sylph also gives extensive coverage to the sexism that female gamers face at various events and in the online sphere, calling out companies that don't do enough to combat offensive remarks targeted toward women in online games. Nordigan herself has had sexual remarks targeted toward her when she plays games like Tom Clancy's Delta Force and Cyberwar online, but she says it doesn't deter her from playing those games, even with her microphone on.
"I like to think the coverage our site has given to that kind of conduct, exposing it and bringing it into the light, has led to crackdowns on that kind of behavior, but it's not just us pointing it out and I'm glad it's not just us, because it's going to take everybody speaking out in order to put a stop to those comments."
-from "Video Games Give A Voice To Young Journalists", an article in the December 8, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone magazine
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So, what were MY top games of 2009? My list, for obvious reasons, will differ from a lot of people's, but I first want to talk about some of the games that others have placed on their "Best Of" lists, and why I don't think they belong.
Bayonetta would be first, and while it's being heavily praised for its graphical prowess and fast-paced action, I've been quite vocal in my displeasure for the game. The sexual content I actually don't have a problem with: Bayonetta is fully in charge of her sexuality and is proud of her body, and while her presentation seems tailored toward the male gaze, I think there's plenty of things about Bayonetta that women can appreciate: she's confident and assertive, and never placed in a position of submission to anyone. She embraces who she is, past, present, and future, and while she often struggles to do the right thing, in the end, she does what she does for herself and has clearly defined personal goals, goals which she achieves with style and flair. My problem with Bayonetta is the unnecessary amount of hideous violence, to the point of fetishization. The "fetishization of violence" is a problem I've discussed in length on this site, and while I can tolerate a degree of violence and conflict in games, it's far too prominent in Bayonetta for me to be comfortable with. The Blackheart series, which on one hand is extraordinarily sexually progressive in the depiction of its female leads, also has a major problem with this issue, and now Bayonetta ramps it up to unacceptable levels, glorifying the torture of living beings (as evil as they might be) to a ludicrous degree. I also had an extreme level of distaste for Tom Clancy's Delta Force: Rendition, and though I've never been a fan of the series, I did praise the original Rendition game for raising critical issues about America's role in the world and the ethics of combat. The new game throws much of that out the window, glorifying the savage violence committed by its characters both male and female, and ultimately "fridging" Ayari Quadash, the one character in either of the Rendition games who consistently showed any kind of moral perspective whatsoever. And for all the praise being heaped on Duality, count me out: it's a simple-minded shooter with some wildly creative characters and animation but marred by its fallback onto the same old shooter cliches that still plague gaming when the medium is capable of so much more.
There are some games this year I truly loved. Final Fantasy XII, despite its violent scenes and the acts committed by its protagonist Lilith in the name of peace and freedom, still depicted a protagonist with incredible moral courage and strength, and her relationship with Amyra, while not explicitly of a romantic nature, was one of the most touching displays of a deep and beautiful friendship between two women that I've ever had the privilege of seeing in a video game. Speaking of beautiful friendship between women, Thrillseekers 2 was my Game of the Year, and it wasn't even close. The entire storyline of the game featured powerful women doing powerful things, and rather than resorting to violence to resolve their conflicts, the characters expressed their emotions and listened to one another. This game, unlike the original, didn't feel the need to bring in a group of armed criminals to raise the emotional stakes, but instead, the only thing at stake was friendship (except for that one scene when Alex and Stacy almost fell off a cliff, but at least they weren't being chased off that cliff by bad guys, so I'll allow it). I'd like to also give a shoutout to Power 2, one of the most fun games of the year, and also one of the most sneakily challenging. The game's puzzles were some of the most ingenious I've experienced in a game in recent memory, and though there were some boss fights in which monsters had to be defeated to advance, it's clear that Watt and Volt don't initiate any of the violence, nor do they enjoy it, and the game keeps the focus on the puzzles themselves and doesn't glorify the fighting. Gran Turismo 4 was an amazing, beautiful demonstration of the Sapphire's power and one of the best racing simulators of all time, and when I want to race and don't want to focus so much on the driving itself, Arabian Rally is tremendous fun and in my opinion trumped Sega Rally as the best arcade-style racing game of the generation so far.
-Wendy Halpers, from an article published on Cressida Lane on January 16, 2010
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Can Gaming Magazines Survive Another Decade?
Some of the younger gamers of today might not remember a time when we all rushed to our mailboxes every month to grab the latest issue of Nintendo Power or GamePro, but magazines like those used to be the best source of news about our favorite games. Once GameTV hit the scene in the mid-90s, gaming magazines faded somewhat into the background, but still provided in-depth articles and insights that even MTV's groundbreaking show couldn't. Then along came the internet, which could not only provide immediate coverage of breaking gaming news, but the same longform journalism and strategy articles of our favorite magazines, and suddenly, many of those magazines found themselves pushed out. Over the course of the last decade, we've seen great magazines like The Official Sega Magazine (which was once The Official Saturn Magazine) and GamePro fall by the wayside, but others have held on, and might just make it to the end of the 2010s if they play their cards right. There are four major video game-related magazines on the market today in North America.
Nintendo Power continues forward as the official publication of the game company Nintendo, and continues to provide news, previews, reviews, and strategy articles for the company's newest releases. It remains available as a gift to Club Nintendo subscribers, or by itself for $19.99 a year, and it's also sold in some stores like Walmart. Nintendo Power has seen subscription rates dip over the years, but maintains its iconic status and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, as Nintendo recently handed publication duties off to a major periodical company.
Electronic Gaming Monthly has also soldiered on. A major player in the market since the early 1990s, the magazine has recently seen some hard times, but is starting to recover and hasn't missed a monthly issue in more than twenty years. A former editor actually credits GameTV for the magazine's continued survival, saying "we had to get smarter and leaner in order to survive, and it's kept us going". Sister publication ExpertGamer ceased printing in 2004, but the company maintains strategy articles on its 1up website.
GameExtreme, which was once GameTV: The Magazine and briefly MTV Games, was once the official magazine publication of the GameTV show, started in 1997. It survived the end of the show, changing its name in 2001 and again in 2005, and is still owned and published by Viacom. The magazine retains some of its original "attitude", covering recent titles with a more informal approach and even occasionally collaborating with Games Over Matter and former GameTV host Alex Stansfield. It's the least popular amongst these four magazines and probably the one most in danger of going under soon.
GameInformer is the official magazine of GameStop, America's most successful game store. While it's often accused of publishing puff pieces designed to drive up the company's sales, it also gets more exclusives than any of the magazines on this list (not counting Nintendo Power, since it's, well, a Nintendo magazine), and frequently has some of the industry's best long-form journalism. While it's probably true that GameInformer is quite industry-friendly, it also gives intriguing snapshots at games well before their release, and is also probably the most economical magazine on the list, offered up free with a fairly cheap store rewards subscription. It's also the magazine on this list that's in the least financial danger.
Overseas, game magazines such as Edge in the United Kingdom and Famitsu in Japan remain quite successful. Particularly in Japan, game-related magazines are extremely popular, and numerous monthly and even weekly publications still do well there. Gaming magazines already endured one major test in the 1990s thanks to MTV's popular TV show, and the ones that survived have become extremely resilient. Though continued economic hard times threaten the industry's growth, it's likely that gamers will still be able to subscribe to at least one major video game magazine by the end of the coming decade.
-from an article on Blargo, posted on December 21, 2009
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December 1, 2009
This wasn't Brittany Saldita's first trip to the G4 studios, but it was the first time she'd been there in quite a while. She was there to shoot a few small interview spots for a show counting down the decade's top 100 games, and as she waited to go into the recording room, she was greeted by a familiar friend and the producer of the show.
"Hello, Ted," said Brittany, waving at her friend with a smirk. He walked over and clearly wanted a hug, and Brittany graciously accepted, tightly embracing her old friend as the two of them started to talk about old times and new projects. "Oooh, good to see you again, and work with you again I guess?"
Brittany snickered, always enjoying the chance to get to work with her old co-stars. Apart from Lyssa, Ted was probably the GameTV host she had the most fun working with on camera, as their personalities always seemed to compliment each other and their tastes in games always seemed to clash, plus, their senses of humor overlapped and they could playfully insult each other without it ever seeming overly vicious.
"Just hope you don't say anything weird in there," Ted told her.
"Well if I disagree with the list I'm gonna get real pissed off," Brittany replied. "Speaking of which, can I actually see the list, or...?"
"That's the thing, it's not actually finished. See, it's a fan vote, and the voting doesn't end until January. We're getting some footage in now for games that are probably going to have a good chance of making the list, and then once the list is finished, you'll be asked to come back and do some more segments, provided you don't completely embarrass us in there."
The two exchanged another laugh, and began to talk about things beside the list, like their families, their friends, what they'd been up to...
"So you quit Geek Radio?"
"Well, my contract ran out and I decided not to renew it," said Brittany. "The show was fun, but doing it every weekday for like 40 weeks a year was taking up too much of my time. It paid pretty well but so does all the voiceover work I've been getting lately."
"I really liked hearing you on there but I get what you mean, you didn't want to take too many jobs at once, right?"
"Well, I'm spending more time with my kids now," said Brittany, and Ted nodded in understanding.
"Yeah, this job takes away from them sometimes," replied Ted with a sigh. "Got two and a third on the way."
"Julie's pregnant again? Congratulations!" Brittany clapped her hands happily. "Honestly I don't think I could do a third, I really want to spend a lot of time with Arturo and Regan and having a third child would just take too much away from them."
"I think we can manage, but it'll be difficult.... but it's so worth it, you know? And of course Alex... his website is taking so much of his time but I think he's leaving a lot more work up to his staff, so he says he's getting more time free too."
Of all the gaming websites on the landscape... Kotaku, Blargo, IGN, Destructoid... Games Over Matter was just about the biggest one out there, only IGN and perhaps Gamespot were bigger. The site had grown faster than Alex had imagined, and he'd been able to attract some serious talent, even poaching a couple of people from G4.
"Yeah, he um, he's got Bill over there now," said Ted, referring to his once co-host Bill Sindelar, who was now working on Games Over Matter as a co-editor and video reviewer. "No hard feelings though, we've got some nice young talent ourselves, you know? Speaking of which... there's this young man, Anthony, he's the script writer for The Crunch and he writes for another show on the channel too."
"Really? Now, when you say writes for The Crunch... I mean that's a reality show, so-"
"He writes the narration, coordinates the interviews, I mean, he tells the story," said Ted, his voice dripping with praise. "You can't have a reality show without writers, even if it's unscripted, you gotta have people who can take, you know, what's going on, what's being filmed and create a narrative out of it. And he is absolutely brilliant at it. Anyway, he does that and he writes another show, um, an animated show on here, but he also does some segments for our commercials, you know-"
"Oh, like Popcorn for Cutscenes?" Brittany chimed in, remembering a popular G4 segment of shorts where animated figures comment on various cutscenes from popular games in a sort of MST3K-style.
"He's contributed to that, but there's another one he does with his little sister... she's just as talented as him."
"Wait a minute..." Brittany racked her brain for a moment before remembering. "Hey Ash, What'cha Playin'?"
"That one! That's the one!"
"Oh man, she's hilarious," said Brittany, giggling a bit while remembering some of her favorite parts from that segment. It reminded her of the fun times she and her co-hosts had had on GameTV, though Ashly and Anthony's segments were usually even more irreverent and weird. "Is she doing segments for this countdown too?"
"I think a couple, yeah, but anyway, she'd really like to meet you, and she's actually shooting her show here right now, so if you've got some time-"
"Sure, I'd love to meet her!"
As Ted and Brittany went down the hall to the studio where Ashly and her brother were shooting their latest segment, Ted continued to talk about Ashly and what she'd been up to recently.
"She's actually really interested in voice acting for games," said Ted, "and since you've been doing a bunch of that recently..."
"I wouldn't say a bunch," Brittany replied. "I'm doing more animation than I am games, I mean with games it's mostly just Thrillseekers and some other NDA stuff I can't talk about right now."
"Still, though, you're doing quite a few games and I bet you could give her some words of encouragement or something. Maybe you won't have to talk, maybe she'll just fangirl all over you."
Brittany snickered at this prospect, and blushed a bit as well. Knowing that she was making such an impact, knowing that there were people who'd seen her show when they were young who were now coming of age and becoming future stars in the industry she loved so much... it was humbling to her, and she hoped she wouldn't get too emotional if this young women really did start fanatically praising her.
The red light indicating that cameras were rolling in the room was off, and Ted knocked on the door to see if anyone was still in there.
"It's just Ted, I've brought someone here you guys might like to meet."
The door opened, and a young woman answered.
"So I was finally able to get Brittany here while you were here. Ashly, this is Brittany Saldita. Brittany, I'd like you to meet Ms. Ashly Burch."
"Holy crap," Ashly stammered, before quickly extending her hand. "It... it is an honor."
"The pleasure's all mine, Ashly," replied Brittany with a smile, taking Ashly's hand. "So, I heard you're into voice acting?"
