Gamers With Jobs

I don't know how you guys have done it. How long has it been since the first rumors of Half-Life 2? Remember the discussion around those enigmatic crowbar advertisements? It seems to have struck our forum in April 2003. It is now August 2004. We've watched the source code get leaked (the announcement of which melted our site). We have seen footage from two E3s.

Â"What the hell was that?Â" I scream that about 30 times for every mediocre console game I play. I don't mind hard games, or losing at games, or even old fashioned Â"getting my ass handed to meÂ" sessions once in a while. I'm not Punchy Controllerson over there, my beard isn't nearly to the Â"plaid flannel shirtÂ" stage.

Bit of a special edition Coffee Grinds today as half of the article is written by `Brennil and the other half by Certis. It grew out of conversations we've been having recently about WoW, gaming in our lives, and how it affects our relationship.

We had our ESPN week and now it's time for Madden's turn. Like ESPN it has recieved stellar reviews but on average they have scored a bit higher than SEGA's offering. Are a few review points here or there enough to drop $50 bucks on a football game when you have a $19.99 title available? Maybe. Depends.

Most of us -- at least the card-carrying "Gamers" that supposedly constitute our readership here -- have by now seen the glorious delight that is the Doom 3 engine in action.

I didn't buy Doom. I don't know that I will buy Doom. I've never been much of a FPS fan and I never played any of the previous Dooms or Quakes (or even more than an hour of Half Life). I'd certainly like to watch someone play or check out the demo, but I think I'll save my money for something else.

It's time for another edition of the ever exciting and possibly even tittlating Quest Log. This week Ronsy takes on a vicious pack of Orcs to prove herself in the Rogue trial. Read on for the story!

There's a number of developers located in my hometown, and one of them happens to be SEK – the Spieleentwicklungskombinat. Which means something along the lines of 'Game Developing Company/Studio', but the charm of the name and its acronym - usually referring to a German special task force - goes lost in translation.

I tend to avoid first impressions for several reasons, not the least of which is that I question whether any first impression can be either comprehensive or entirely objective.  Without the entire text as a whole to dissect, itÂ's difficult to create a cohesive series of thoughts.  And yet, occasionally I break my own rule when the moment seems fitting.  In the case here of Doom 3 I

This week as some of us may know sees the release of arguably the most anticipated game of the millennium thus far, by one of the most respected developers in history. Can't say I'm not tempted. I drove obliquely near a retail establishment that caters to our breed but somehow found that one last shard of restraint that kept me out of further revolving consumer debt.