Just as a quick update, GameSpite Year One, Vol. 2 was supposed to have been completed for proofing last weekend, and I was meant to have it in my hands at this point. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case; the project spiraled a bit out of control. I’d estimated we’d end up at 280-300 pages; currently I am performing a holding action at 360 pages to keep from bumping up to the next folio price. What can I say? I got a little carried away with the page layouts. It was kind of like Xeno’s Paradox for a while, there: I’d see I had 70 pages to go, but once I’d completed 10 pages of design I’d still have 66 pages left. Fortunately all that’s left now is the fine tuning, so I should be submitting this to Blurb for reals tonight. Given the girth of this bad boy, pricing will probably end up being a little more than $20 for the paperback and twice that for a hard cover version with dust jacket.
Since it’s about 90% recycled content, I’m guessing it’s probably going to be of less interest to most people than our usual fare. However, GameSpite Quarterly 5 will be a 25th anniversary celebration of the NES, so I figure that should probably appeal to a few more people. (And yeah, I promise our next retrospective issue after that will be for a non-Nintendo, non-8-bit system.)
Needless to say, the delays with the book layout have affected mailings for the subscriber bonuses, but I am determined to have those in the mail before month’s end! In other words, next Monday.
Anyway, I need to wrap the book now so I can watch the Lost finale and go about ignoring TV again. I would like to take this opportunity to further propagate my personal theory for how the show will end: We’ll discover tonight that Pierre Chang is Pierre Francis Chang, and that the DHARMA Initiative is actually just a training camp for employees of the P.F. Chang restaurant franchise.
The whole series will then be revealed to have been a fever dream experienced by Hurley after eating a plate of crispy orange chicken that had gone slightly bad.
(boom)
LOST
That… that would kick ass, man.
Jeez, spoilers man.
I gave up in the third season, but it sounds perfectly fitting to me.
My prediction is that it will just be the dog ending from Silent Hill 2.
It will be yet another fever dream of Tommy Westphall. Like all things are.
Hm, might have to pass on GSQ5. 1Up’s 20th anniversary look seemed pretty definitive, to me, not to mention that Famicom retrospective from a few years ago (last year?).
Lost? Uh, I got nothing. You summed it up best: I want to watch it, and then wash my hands of prime time TV.
being someone who was suckered into watching a CD-R bootleg of the pilot episode of Lost before it started airing on TV 5 years ago….
back then if you told me Lost’s plot was going to deteriorate into a lame morality play surrounding paper thin god and devil caricatures with writing so uninspired and flacid it was going to clash with all the mysterious intrigue the show had going for it initially, I’d tell you you’re full of s#!&.
But dammit, that’s what happened :S Most of the previous 5 seasons were just a lure (and almost filler to round out the episode count) to get you to watch the last season so the show could get all pedantically religious on your gullible ass. I honestly feel betrayed. It was like picking up one of those fake $100 bills that folds out into religious propaganda.
For some reason, watching the final Lost episode reminded me of Michael Bay’s The Island so hard. I was looking forward to seeing it in the theater that summer and I was told DON’T WATCH IT, IT SUCKS! Ironically by the same person who told me I should watch Lost. What a jerk. Never listening to that person again.
Maybe you meant Zeno’s paradox?
Clearly, Xeno’s paradox describes the impossibility of ever quite making it through disc 2 of Xenogears.
The ending kind of reminded me of the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Confusing, vague, (probably) meaningless, and of course full shallow religious symbolism. And there are going to be plenty of people who call it art.
Once again I must recommend that you give Breaking Bad a shot before ignoring TV again. Vince Gilligan created, same bloke who produced a ton of (good) X-Files episodes.
Listen to the man above me. Breaking Bad is one of the finest shows ever made.
That’s the show where the dad from Malcolm in the Middle finally snaps and builds a meth lab right?
I don’t know, I actually liked the ending of Lost.
I mean, it totally ignored the mysteries that had built up over the years, and was ultimately pretty sappy and sentimental. But character-wise, it wasn’t that bad of a send-off. Not to mention the fact that the last five minutes were absolutely perfect. I almost cried, and I never cry when watching anything.
You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Shng. It’s also got some gorgeous camera work, and the only instance I can remember of a character having a disability without beating you over the head with it all the time. Good stuff.