First of all, a huge thank-you to everyone who’s been talking up (and buying up) our new publication. GameSpite Quarterly 3 is far and away the fastest-selling issue of this venture to date. I mean, we’re certainly not going to retire on our earnings, but I’m pretty sure that we’ve already hit my primary sales goal (namely, everyone whose work is included in this volume should be able to buy themselves a copy for posterity with their earnings). No telling if this enthusiasm will hold up for the long term; it could very well be that we simply happened to glom onto the so-called Cyber Monday buying frenzy and that’s that. But I’m really hoping that it means GameSpite is slowly and steadily building an enthusiastic reader base who sincerely enjoys what we’re producing here and shares our love for old-fashioned media. Print is pretty rad! And I’m glad you (apparently) think so as well.
I haven’t entirely settled on a format for posting GSQ3 material online yet, since these are more akin to bite-sized nuggets of content as opposed to full-length articles. So, I’ve posted three entries all at once — about a normal article’s worth of words, except spread across several pages. (Don’t worry, it’s not a foul scheme to increase clickthroughs. You see any ads around here? ‘Cause I sure don’t.) Today’s postings include:
- Adol Christin (Ys Book I & II) by Andrew Bentley;
- Lord British (Ultima series) by newcomer Aaron Littleton; and
- Rad Spencer (Bionic Commando) by… me.
Further updates to come in the months ahead, naturally.
Well, I want to watch and/or play Left 4 Lord British now.
No kidding. Sign me up for the Beta Testing, please.
ugh, not enjoying this any more. i thought i was, now its just such a chore to read.
I guess that answers the question of whether or not we’re building a small but enthusiastic readership!
Welp, that brings Gamespite Quarterly 3 to an end. See you 3 months, everybody!
For some reason I just love that Lord British write-up. Let’s all stay tuned over the next few days to see if Richard Garriott defies probability and reads these things!
The Rad Spencer piece was actually the first example Parish showed the rest of us of the format he wanted. The Lord British piece, on the other hand, was written when things were in full swing, so you can already get an idea of the strange and wonderful places this issue went as we all tried different things and repeatedly inspired one another.
I cant wait for Tomm’s Tetris and Bucky O’Hare pieces
After reading those I can’t wait to read the rest of the articles. Good work, guys!
Cool! A game character writeup on Lord British.
I am reading it.
Oh Jesus this is terrible. Its basically a personal attack on Dickie B. either for giggles or for some actual hate on.
A pity. The concept of game character write ups for more than just Mario, Link, Samus, Lara Croft, Master Chief, and the handful of other well known characters sounds AWESOME.
In the Lord British case, its an utter disaster. :(
I’d hope GameSpite is more about obsessing over the minutiae of gaming, and less about actually being spiteful towards games, let alone towards specific people.
I like the Lord British one.. whether that’s because I never played anything he’s done or because I’m an Aussie and can appreciate a good piss-take.. or maybe both.. I found it most amusing. I look forwards to more like it.
I think it’s fairly inaccurate to talk about Richard Garriot’s “displeasure at his avatar dying” since most of the Kill British stuff is actually coded in. (For example, the sign you can loosen to fall on his head.)
Ha, that Rufus guy actually went and complained about this on a forum somewhere in an effort to whip some anonymous masses into a frenzy. (Which didn’t actually work out so well.) Kind of an overreaction, maybe! Especially seeing as it’s predicated on an unfounded assumption that the Lord British entry is the sole sarcastic write-up in the issue.
I wasn’t trying to whip anyone into a frenzy. It was more a “look at this” sort of thing.
Since RPGCodex is like the opposite of most retro sites. (It worships computer games and largely acts like console titles are all “weeaboo mass market crap for morons”.)
Which is an interesting callout to ALL sites covering old electronic games.
How come people can’t enjoy and respect ALL classic titles instead of just virtually worshipping the games of their childhoods and their childhood alone?
If half the slobbering over Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 were put to some other classic RPGs it would be so much nicer.
Instead of balanced discussion and “reporting” we end up getting the opposite reaction ala the old Retrogaming Radio podcast where host and technical guy basically spent a half hour tearing CT a new backside.
Maybe they were doing it in response to the 100s of retrosites and articles which act like its the best retro RPG ever. (Its good but its not even the best 16 bit RPG ever. Maybe the best SNES RPG though.)
There is no balance.
And that was my big problem with this god awful write up. It seemed to be just trolling by someone who maybe played Ultima Exodus in Nesticle for an hour or two.
Try reading “The Official Book of Ultima” by Shay Addams. Its literally a biography on Ultima’s Creator up through Ultima 6’s publication.
I mean, the guy IS a has been now. But his contributions to gaming match those of many Japanese creators everyone gushes over.
If you really wanted to bash him for his sins, howabout his selling out to Electronic Arts which is a GUARANTEED way to kill a game company? Or Ultima 8 and 9 which were god awful?
Mocking him for making himself the now cliched king who sits on his throne and doesn’t really DO ANYTHING is pretty weak.
I mean putting you and your pals’ alter egos/tributes in your game is certainly better than the amount of JRPGs who through cliched by the numbers characters in there to appeal to all the doujinshi porn comic readers’ preferred fetishes.
(Seriously. FF10 was like every major fetish in one cast. Bishonen, Older Man, Furry, Goth, Big Knockers, Underaged Girl, Traditional Girl Next Door, Jock. Maybe I am just too connected to the Net or too damned cynical but it seemed like the cast was made to fit fetishes as opposed to being used to tell some sort of effective story.)
Yeah, I don’t know – I think that for most people in my age range we just think of old computer games in terms of number munchers, or oregon trail. I think I had donald duck’s playground on my old computer,or leisure suit larry, but other than that my parents wouldn’t let me near the thing – so as a result I tend to think of nes/snes games nostalgically. Thanks to GOG I’ve been enjoying some older pc games that I missed, they’re good games, but for me they weren’t accessible as a child so I don’t think of them as retro classics. Maybe missed out.
Oh. So this whole thing ultimately boiled down to another instance in which someone with an “everyone whose tastes are different than mine is a brainless sheep” mindset began flinging around angry accusations of closed-mindedness and self-absorption without a hint of irony or self-awareness. I should have guessed.
Hahaha, yeah this IS the internet after all… ;)
Parish, as far as I can see Rufus is being 90% reasonable about this. He makes two big valid points in his posts:
a) that NES and SNES games are held in the highest esteem in every “retro” publication, which is unfair to so many great Commodore, Amiga or Intellivision etc. games out there.
b) that the article on Garriott seems overly mean, especially towards a man whose games were top-tier in their genre up until around Ultima 9.
I guess if you were being sarcastic about the whole thing it’s ok, but given point a) it sort of brings to mind Poe’s Law.