| Total Gamer scans -- Part Two |
[Nov. 8th, 2007|02:55 pm]
Patrick Alexander
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Daniel and I hated (and continue to hate) the concept, popular in the mainstream videogaming press, of the 'objective review', and other nonsense like it. To encourage our young readers to embrace and enjoy the inseparable connection between writer and writing, we had a section at the front of the magazine called 'The Total Gamer Gang', introducing ourselves, our freelance writers, and even our designer to the audience.
As I recall, for the first few months, Dan would ask each freelancer to send in a couple of sentences for his/her profile. "Hi gang! It's me, TORVALD! This month, I've been playing Splinter Cell: Boredom's Prisoner on my brand new Xbox. It's so ace!" That sort of thing. Of course, no-one ever got their two sentences in on time, so eventually Dan stopped asking and just wrote them all himself. This -- along with Dan's editorial at the top of the page -- was always the last thing to be done, often late at night on the day before deadline.
It seems like a task that should be easy, and not take more than a few minutes, but it became a real chore. You'd be surprised how hard it was, and how long it always took, to come up with just the right amount of text to fill each little square, and have it not be boring or repetitive.
Close to deadline, 'The Total Gamer Gang' was just the right thing to make a tired, strained editor leak lava from his ears. But Daniel was a smart man and knew that such a trivial page wasn't worth the stress. In such situations, for the sake of one's sanity, the sensible thing to do is be silly. Editors of 'serious' magazines forbid themselves this option -- but not us! So it was that before too long, 'The Total Gamer Gang' took a turn for the flippant...
Issue 7:
Actually, maybe I wrote those ones, or a few of them? I can't remember. It's just, reading Amos' profile, I get a vivid image of myself writing 'Wily Oriental', and Dan changing it to 'Sith' afterwards.
The page evolved from flippant to brilliant when Dan had the ingenious idea to turn each one into a little drama. This was the Golden Age of the two-sentence contributor profile as a literary form.
Issue 9:
Issue 10:
Issue 11:
Issue 12:
Here's one that I did. I know it was me because I remember changing 'Gang' into 'Gangrene'. (I didn't do the Street Fighter movie quote editorial, though -- that was still Dan.)
Issue 14:
Conclusion: Daniel Staines is a funny writer and a good editor. If, someday, he is once again put in charge of a videogame-related publication, you should go "Hooray!" and then read it regularly. |
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