It's All Fun and Games Until - - -

Real classy, Tucker.

I want the cover to RESET to be something like this. Maybe not this exactly, but something along the sames lines. I'm hesitant to do it myself . . . "written by and cover art by" seems so pretentious. Brad, I'd love you to work on something for me. Doesn't have to be an oil painting masterpiece . . .

As promised, here's the unedited Author's Intro. Enjoy.

RESET
Fun Articles

Book Introduction

Reset. The word itself has been a videogame staple since the early days of the console wars. Reset the player. Reset the game. Reset the system. It is a chance to go back to the beginning, to learn from your mistakes, and to try it all again. All the way from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Sony PlayStation consoles have had a reset button. The SEGA Dreamcast had a controller reset function and most Squaresoft games have an in-game controller reset.

There have been many books written dealing with the videogame industry. Some have been written with a very specific purpose in mind, like Opening the Xbox, and some have been written from a universal perspective, like The Ultimate History of Video Games. These books (and please see the bibliography for a more complete list) are written very well, but read like history textbooks. And this analogy holds true - - like a history textbook much information can be learned, but it tends to be very dry.

Reset.

There is so much fun, just pure unadulterated joy, inherent in the game industry. It is unmistakable. Really, think about it. How could there not be fun buried deep within an industry that makes its mark on the world by giving people games to play from the comfort of their living room? Games like Pac Man, Mortal Kombat, and Metal Gear could be started up and played while sitting on the carpet, lounging on the couch, or laughing with a group of friends. Level after level could be beaten, mini boss after mini boss could be defeated, enemy after enemy, weapon after weapon, more and more difficult maps could be uncovered until the game got so tough that . . .

Reset.

But back to the fun. The problem, if there really can be one, with books such as The Ultimate History or High Score, is that they tried to be too informational, too clinical, too adult. The fun is in the magic. Not the fact that the original main character of Tomb Raider was a buff Amazonian woman named Lara Cruz. Not the fact that the original name for Knockout Kings was Fight Night. Not the fact that most of the development of Ms. Pac Man was done illegally. The fun isn’t that even five years after the system has been released, a game like God of War can be made for the PlayStation 2. The fun is playing that game. The fun isn’t the hype, controversy, and uproar about a game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The fun is getting in there and changing the radio stations. The fun is finding the references to the game Marathon in the game Halo. The fun is seeing Donkey Kong in the crowd of Punch Out. The fun is in having the opportunity to

Reset.

So here we are, on the raggedy edge. Okay, so maybe not raggedy. Maybe pixilated. I’ve decided to write what is a novel comprised of sixty small chapters . . . I refer to them as articles because they tend to be stand-alone pieces of work. Some of them are pure ‘fun’ as in the “What Makes a Hero” article. But some of them are more informational, as in the “Deep Waters” article. The articles were kept short, light, and high energy. If at any time you feel that you are getting bogged down in information that you don’t need to know

Reset

Steven Metcalf
3/13/2006

Hey You, With the Face!!

Penny Arcade versus Democracy.

That line (from the post title) was actually a voice loop in a videogame. What was that? I think, no, I'm pretty sure it was a pinball game. Hmm.

I'm just over a third of the way done with the primary writing on RESET. I went and organized everything over the weekend and the book is right around 60 pages right now. Not too bad.

I'm currently working on the "What makes a villain" article, finishing up the "10 games that hurt more than helped" article . . . and I think that's all right now. I'll post the book introduction later today.

Read the comic.

Eees fonnny.

Caught

So I get an email from my agent this morning and she's all like "How's the book coming?" And I'm all like, um, It's kinda coming okay.

Um.

I better get writing.

I forgot that other people knew about this thing.

Meow

Sudeki

Just to cheer myself up - - here's a quick pic of Candace Kita dressed as some chick from the game Sudeki. This was from E3 . . . I don't know, three years ago?

It's not looking good for E3 this year. Scott is trying to get Jeremy and I in, but it's not feeling too promising. It seems that the streak may be over.

Here's to a good run . . .