GR Mailbag: The Naughty & The Nice

From: "***@aol.com"
Subject:question
Dear Game-Revolution,
First of all, i just want to sya that i totally love 
your site. But I was just thinking, you guys have the best 
job on the f***ing world. I mean, you get to play video 
games all day, drink mountain dew and screw around. Not 
that im saying that your lazy bastards. I'm sure you all 
have fathers. well, anyway, I think being a video game 
reviewer might just be the job for me. I was wondering, 
do you need any special skills for this job? If not, 
then I'll be at work on monday.

Dear Unfortunate AOL Subscriber,

Of course you need special skills to be part of the infamous GR super-squad! Razor-sharp wit, uncanny literary ability and rugged good-looks just aren't enough to earn you that coveted Game Revolution decoder ring. You also need your own unique super-power. For instance:

- Community Editor Brian Gee has had the abilty to turn his eyelids inside-out - altering his appearance to cast fear in the hearts of any would-be attacker under the age of 5.

- Ben Silverman is an accomplished mutant with the paranormal skill to project powerful force blasts. All it takes is one visit to Taco Bell after midnight, an order of Gorditos, and (like Superman in his phone booth) the man is tranformed.

- Shawn was blessed with a cast iron gut. He can eat anything; chitterlings, haggis and even 3DO games. Oddly enough though, he won't even touch our most recent stomach-churner: Survivor.

- And the the grand exalted Zombie Duke, aside from his obvious zombie abilities, also has the immense power to fire any one of us in a heart-beat.

- GR

From: "Karsten B."

Subject: Consistency
I appreciate that your site does not handle games with 
kid gloves, despite the fact that I have seen some of 
my favorite games maligned at your hands. However, I 
can't help but notice your ratings are often 
inconsistent at best. Recently, the latest Wave Race 
games was given a B-, and chastised for being a simple 
rehash of the 64 rendition, and to simple an arcade 
game. Though I found this somewhat surprising given 
that most other web pages I respected described the 
control as incredibly deep, I thought little of it. 
I became irritated, however, upon reading your 
review of ssx tricky. Let's see: same game engine, 
many of the same courses, same racers, tweaked 
controls. The reviewer even went to refer to it as 
a nice "patch." Why did this game warrant an A-, 
whereas Wave Race, undeniably more drastically 
different from its predecessor, only B-? 
Just curious...
Bonchochos, Man of Fire.

Hi Karsten.. errr... Bonchochos,

Different doesn't mean 'better.' Wave Race Blue Storm came out a full 5 years after the original Wave Race, yet the differences between the two are largely graphical. We expected more from a sequel being released so much later.

We're also talking about two very different games. The original SSX received an A-; it shouldn't come as a shock that its sequel, which is an improvement in every sense (although not as big of one as we would have liked), got the same grade.

When you boil it all down, the bottom lime is that one game was more fun than the other one, and that's the most important thing, isn't it?

- GR

From: "luis sotelo" 
Subject: (no subject)
you will put gta3 to free download? if you are not going 
to put it you will put it

Howdy Luis,

No, we will not to be putting GTA3 on our download section, so you should be able to find it there now. Did you check back tomorrow?

- GR

From: "cornflake kelloggs"
Subject: GAME CUBE BEATS ALL
why cant you guys accept that the microsoft trash box and the 
gay station 2 have lost in every way?

What's up Cornflake,

We're just stubborn that way. Besides, the Gay Station is always very popular with ten percent of the population, and the Trash Box is far too useful for getting rid of old pizza boxes.

Unfortunately, we all can't be as obviously unbiased as you are. Oh, and your uncle Mario says to pick up some eggs on the way home.

- GR

From: "stipe42"
Subject: mailbag
Hey guys,
Good work on the reviews. Since I found your site a 
couple years ago, I have rarely found exception with 
anything I've read here. Game Revolution has become 
my sanity check for buying games - if it didn't manage 
a B or better from you guys, then there's a 99% chance 
I'm not going to like it all that much.
That said, I have a review request. I've heard a lot 
of hype about Lineage, the MMRPG that originated in 
Korea and has an immense user base (3 million+ 
worldwide). It's available for the US now and is freely
downloadable and playable for thirty days before monthly 
charges kick in.
I want to know if it's worth my bandwidth to download.
On another note, what do you think about that business 
strategy for an online game? It's the first one I've 
noticed that did not require upfront purchase of a stand 
alone copy. IMHO the free download and trial is more 
attractive and at the same time might help them build a 
user base more easily than something that you have to 
sink $50 into just to get started.
cheers,
stipe42

Thank for the Letter Stripe.

It's nice to hear that you like our reviews. We like to think they're helpful. Not that they are. We just like to think that they are. As for Lineage we'll be reviewing it as soon as we can. Revolutionary writer Duke recently met with Richard Garriot to try out the US version.

As a business strategy, we think it's great too. It's like a regular video game demo, taken one step further because you never actually have to go to the store and get the game. Plus it's a great way to get new gamers hooked.

We've always felt it was a bit of a ripoff to have to buy a game, and then keep paying for it. Or even worse, to force you into buying the expansions if you want to play them, like Everquest: Shadows of Luclin.

However, it's a strategy that can only really be used right now by massively multiplayer games that have big central servers to track your account. Games like Max Payne will probably always require you to buy a game disc.

- GR