EDIT: Oops, I didn’t mean to start a whole thread. I’ve taken to using the front page to link to articles I’ve done, but I don’t think each one is worth a thread. Sorry.
So let’s pretend I just wrote, “Hey, how about that CGW redesign!”
-Tom
Both links are borked.
Still getting used to the CGW redesign - black pages are never a good thing, and the reviews seem much shorter - but I loved the BF2 story.
Everytime I read one of your Tom v Bruce matches, I root for Bruce since he seems to have so much trouble with everything. Hope that’s not a problem for you, Tom.
Troy
Hey tom, I had chipotle for lunch today, a carnitas burrito with black beans and hot salsa. Anyway, I was dropping a deuce about half an hour ago and read your guildwars piece in an older CGW. I only read magazines on the crapper, take no offense. But I digress. What I mean to say was the “ass master” ventrilio bit… an instant classic. Great stuff. I laughed my ass off. Rhetorically speaking.
Bet you thought I was going to say I appreciated the literary references after all the shit jokes, pull a hat trick? No, my sense of humor remains lowest common denominator all the way.
But really, very funny.
Thanks, stusser. It is true that Bruce Geryk has told me he’s a level 6 ass master. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.
Troy, I’m sure Bruce appreciates your support. And believe me, he needs all the help he can get.
-Tom
Although it may seem to some people that I always lose, I didn’t think this was true. So I did a little research. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I told the CGW research department to do some research on my behalf, and leave the report on my desk in the morning. Anyway, of the 34 competitive Tom vs. Bruce articles that have come out (there have actually been 37, but 3 were co-op or otherwise non-competitive), I have won 15 and Tom has won 19. That makes me a very respectable 33-1 after accounting for all relevant factors. The CGW research dept. also wanted me to point out that in addition to this, I invariably win all the minigames, even if they may go undocumented due to space constraints.
Man GCW jumped the shark a long time ago. Used to be my favorite mag until it turned into a PC Lamer clone.
Careful, I got banned from the last forum for making a very similar remark!!
(Screw you Tom :-) Let Bruce win)
I can’t stand the CGW design. All that white-on-black and reversed colors. It’s like you need to put on 3D glasses to read some of those pages.
I hope you guys are considering publishing a paperback collection of the Tom vs. Bruce articles once you hit 50 or so.
It’d be great to have them all in one place.
You can find a lot of them at Find Articles, though they aren’t always labeled as such.
Sorry to disparage your skill level Bruce. If that tally is accurate, I may have to start rooting for Tom if you throw a couple of wargames in there. Did BF2 count as a win or a loss? Even if you won the bot game, you seem to have had a lot of trouble with pretty much everything else.
Troy
I dont really care about the redesign. But, it seems like magazines are always doing redesigns, which is annoying to me personally, someone who does not like change.
One thing that jumped out at me from the October issue though…there were was like zero coverage of my favorite, dying genres, TB strategy and CRPGs. Everything is FPS, RTS or a console port. Or some movie tie-in POS.
olaf
I could not agree more about black pages. They are an abomination. I hate to say this, but I think CGW’s art direction is pretty sucky. I have no idea what they are going for other than garish and unappealing.
Man it’s sad when console ports get a lot of coverage. I know they have to cover them since readers may want to play them, but it’s hard to read anything about GTA, for example, after it’s been out for months on the consoles.
The mags are covering a lot of Euro games too. Guess there’s just a dearth of product to write about.
Woo, the new font used for headings/titles/pullquotes is hard on the eyes.
CGW: Now 100% serif-free
I hate any change that makes 2-3 pages almost unreadable because the print run didn’t line up (or whatever causes the multi-colored blurry text) . Be edgy, be crazy, but if this “coolness” prevents me from reading one word, you have failed. I buy the mag for the words, not the art direction.
Chet
Yeah, that’s it. Or alternately, it’s answering the criticism that magazines never cover Euro games, or that they only focus on the major A-list games.
Should everyone should only focus on the same dozen games instead of trying to uncover the next Silent Storm?
That would be a registration error, where the plates are slightly misaligned. There are also some things you can do in Quark Xpress or In Design to limit or eliminate problems with text (trapping, overprinting, knockout).
I don’t know why CGW has these problems, as they’re easy to avoid, but almost every issue in the last year has had entire sections that were unreadable.
I love design and typography, and I’d really like to know the reasoning behind using that particular font for headlines and pullquotes.
But not the Zinio edition which doesn’t use such old-fashioned things as printing plates!
Now if your magazine was on Zinio I’d re-subscribe immediately… did I already mention that you really should offer a Zinio subscription?
The CGW redesign doesn’t seem much of a redesign at all to me, by the way. Maybe it’s because I don’t see the misaligned plates but the new issue looks much the same as any other issue.