This morning on the train I started re-editing the contents of Year One, Vol. 2 in earnest. And then I got carried away. Since there’s so much material surrounding Mega Man, Metroid, and Metal Gear (apparently we really dig the letter M?), I decided to create something akin to “complete” packages for each series. I’ve dug up old, old (as in, “toastyfrog.simplenet.com” old) reviews of games like Mega Man 8, forgotten reviews of Metroid Prime and Super Metroid from when the former was new, and even some never-before-published Battle Network content from the version of ToastyFrog Zine 6 that I threw out before starting on the version of the magazine that I also ended up throwing out until it was salvaged for Year One, Vol. 1.

Wading through all of this pre-1UP material has been sort of invigorating, much to my surprise. There’s very little of it that I look back on and think, “Ugh, this is dreadful.” The style is a bit different than how I write now — it far more likely to ramble off onto pointless tangents, whereas I tend to get to the point more quickly these days — but it’s still some solid writing. For some reason I always look back and think of my younger self as some kind of mealy-mouthed nitwit with no discipline, so it’s heartening to learn that wasn’t really the case. Younger me’s main shortcoming was a fairly myopic perspective on gaming, something that I am constantly struggling to overcome… though given how little free time I have for such explorations, I’m not making quite so much progress in that regard as I would prefer.

The point of all of this is… um, I guess that it’s “book crunch time” for me at the moment. As happens every three months, I’m pretty much immersed in editing, layouts, and production. The end result should be worthwhile, though. I’m very happy to think that poor, lonely Year One, Vol. 1 will soon have a companion volume on the shelves to keep it company. And, ideally, the one-volume Year Two and (the likely two-volume) Year Zero (feature content predating the advent of the GameSpite collective) will be along in more rapid succession than the volume I’m currently working on.

Next up, though, will be Quarterly 5, which is going to be so good I feel a little faint just thinking about it. This is not hyperbole! It may be low blood sugar, though.

Man, I love print.