Our house illustrator (one Philip “Nintendo Super Squad” Armstrong) has turned in his rough for the cover of our next issue, and so I present to you: GameSpite Quarterly 2.
Obviously, this cover is yet incomplete. The finished product will have full color, see. But you get the idea. This volume devotes approximately 175 pages to the 40 greatest* games of all time (or about 215 pages to the 48 greatest* games in the deluxe edition), and as I said the other day, the articles are fantastic. I know I put a lot of myself into the pieces I wrote, and that same devotion and effort comes through in everyone else’s contributions as well.
Now, you’ll notice an asterisk after the word “greatest,” there. That’s because “greatest” is such a subjective term! Our rubric: a few months back I took an informal poll of Talking Time in which I asked everyone to rank their five favorite games of all time. I didn’t say why or for what purpose so as to guarantee frank, honest answers. We tallied up the results and compiled them into a list. And then we wrote articles about all the games on that list. And the articles are very good!
Of course, you can expect the results to be somewhat shaded by the source of this poll (namely, it came from forums attached to a site that began as a personal blog and has drawn readers who largely share my own tastes), so we make no pretense of this being some definitive list. It is simply our list, and the resulting collection of thoughtful, thought-provoking writings spawned from said list. That being said, it covers a pretty wide swath of content — yeah, a lot of console games of a Japanese nature feature, but you’ll also find a ton of western-developed games, especially for PC. I didn’t edit or change the results in the least, and Talking Time pulls in people who love the span of gaming. So you’ll see, say, Suikoden II in here, but it’s sandwiched firmly between Star Control II and StarCraft.
All but two articles (both by me) are complete and edited and placed; I just need to wrap my last contributions and put together the splash pages and indices, and once that’s done (which will be this coming weekend) I’ll submit it for proofing. The final piece should be up for grabs by August 15. Please look forward to it, bow, etc.
I think I choked up a little bit just now.
Fantastic!
Assuming everything goes out by when you say it will I’ll have something to read on the plane on my honeymoon!
Suikoden 2 between Star Control 2 and Starcraft?!?!?!?!
Did Koreans stuff the ballot box?
Aw man, color? I liked the black ‘n’ white with purple trimmings.
That’s a pretty sweet cover, even in unfinished form!
Wow. That sounds amazing. I am both filled with joy to get the opportunity to read something like that, and a little bit sad that I wasn’t involved in its creation.
I rarely check out the forums, so I’m pretty anxious to see the results. Sounds neat! I don’t see Cloud or Lara Croft on that (awesome) cover. This is why I love this site.
Super Metroid at the #1 slot. Has to be. :P
Yeah, Final Fantasy is represented on the list, but FFVII is not the representative. It did get votes, just not enough to place.
Despite coming from a site with ‘spite’ in the URL, I’ve always thought the best articles that came out of this site were the unabashed love letters to old video games. I couldn’t be more excited about reading this when it comes out.
Thanks for putting this together with your free time, guys. I’m looking forward to ordering my own copy when it’s ready.
Yes!
I’m guessing it was Final Fantasy 6 then. (Not sure how 12 has fared on this site, and 5 is a little too dark horse to have made the cut I would guess.)
Rarely have I been so excited for a book I’ve already seen most of the contents of. This is going to be sweet.
I purposefully avoided reading as many of the other articles as possible until I’ve got it in my grubby hands. Sure, I probably should have pitched in with the copy editing more, but hey, there’s always next time.
Yeah, pretty much what Calories said is how I’m feeling. I’m really excited for this issue.
I’ve been waiting for a star control themed retronauts for a while. maybe this is the next best thing. anyway, sounds cool. look forward to the portal article.
I avoid reading most of the articles ahead of time. My only question is what is that thing attacking Pyramid Head?
That would be an Ur-Quan master.
I would love to participate in polls such as these, but I am still waiting to be verified for the Talking Time forum. Still, this looks like an exciting cover for a great (greatest*?) issue.
I’m betting the #1 game is Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins. Its just gotta be. Jeremy is its biggest fan.
Having just received Gamespite Vol 1 and Gamespite Quarterly 1 a few days ago, I’m really looking forward this new issue as the quality of your work is just awesome.
Thanks for everything from a French reader, keep up the good work!!
Do we get a “greatest fanzine ever” award or what?
I was wondering when the purpose of that poll would be revealed. Color me pleased.
That cover (currently) looks like the back of my notebooks in highschool, if I had more artistic talent. This is an awesome thing.
I really like the unfinished version of the cover.
Hate to nitpick (Awesome picture) but the Persona 3 guy should have SEES on his armband and not FES.
Unless he’s going meta, like FATAL FURY-hatted Terry Bogard from KoF.
Oh. Hmm. The reference picture I used was some fan-art that must have been going the meta route. Thanks.
This is definitely exciting news. Kind of wish I had volunteered to copy-edit like I had told myself I would. Oh well, maybe next time.
And nice illustration, Loki (err, Philip)! In the future, if you’re looking for some gaming concept art to draw inspiration from check out Creative Uncut. The effort put into cleaning up and posting quality images is pretty remarkable. http://www.creativeuncut.com/game-art-galleries.html
Very excited for this, especially because I’m somehow finally flush with some expendable income!