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There's a great article on why "Star Wars fans hate Star Wars" that has some sadly valid points.

He argues that Trekkies are different, but I think after the past few ST movies and "Enterprise" the two camps are starting to feel more alike in how they see their favorite mythos being treated.

In the interest of blatant self promotion, I offer my own coverage of CP in JIVE Magazine :-)

Yeah, we're no NYT, but still :-)

In the interest of blatant self promotion, I offer my own coverage of CP in JIVE Magazine :-)

Yeah, we're no NYT, but still :-)

Jive Magazine got an interview (and a custom magazine cover) with the PA guys a few months ago that I submitted but was rejected. Has some interesting stuff on the origin of their names. Check near a third of the way down when they explain how Mike became Gabrial after being called Deadly Peach....

Here

If you are tired of all the serious 'TOP' lists that show up towards the end of every december, Jivemagazine.com has done a fun year end awards for the last couple of years here called Toon's 2nd Annual Random Awards.

I particularly liked the award Shadow of the Colossus got.

JIVE has all the attributes you mention you want but are actually doing a good job at keeping everything free. They publish a nice color glossy too. You might check with their publisher about how they make their magazine tick. The ads aren't too bad there either.

If you want a much better (and funnier) view on where gaming has been and is going, read JiveMagazine.com's interview with Penny-Arcade's Gabe and Tycho. The author of the Jive article doesn't keep referring to himself in the third person. Max Steele reminds me of the Simpsons where Homer changed his name to Max Power because it sounded cooler.

Everyone seems be coming out with a fact/fiction article these days on the newest consoles. Check out this article [http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3235] for a little more humorous view of some of the same ideas at Jive Magazine.

I agree with you..pretty much anything can be addictive, especially if it is enjoyable. I think what is new here is that we are finding that MMORPGs are especially addictive because they are in fact designed to be. Again, that is nothing new - smoking was designed to be addictive by the tabbaco industry, casions are designed to keep you gambling, etc. The newsworhtyness in the article is just pointing out that the trend in videogames is changing in that they are now being intentionally designed to be addictive.

On a side note, I played WoW for about 2 months. At first I played about 5-10 hours per week. A month later I was playing 30+ hours a week, and I really started noticing a decline in work performance and personal life balance. I realized I was falling into the addiction trap, so I canceled my account. Anyone can do that - you just have to be a little self-aware, and understand the danger.

I found TFA's a little weak on content, so here are some way more interesting ones:

JiveMagazine
Understanding MMO Addiction

Blizzard also drips with credibility regarding their quality control process, an increasingly important asset for anyone in the MMO market.

I disagree with you there. People often forget about Battle.Net when it comes to Blizzard's portfolio. Battle.net is probably the worst multiplayer community/experience I've ever had (as well as all of my friends). Remember when they had deleted 112,000 Diablo II accounts (June 2003) due to hack and cheating programs? They patted themselves on the back in an effort to drum up more financial competence. Then not even 6 months later they deleted ANOTHER 400,000 accounts(Oct 2003). It only took them what, 4 or 5 years to recognize that the community as a whole sucked? The cheating was so rampant an honest player like me could never enjoy a complete round of Warcraft or Starcraft. When I played people were either cheating or turned off their computer when I was about to annihilate them so the loss wouldn't reflect on their ladder score. It was worse than CounterStrike (another game I hold with disdain).

Please don't forget the infamous Bnetd case.

Yeah. WoW is awesome. I'm in the beta and its tons of fun and I'll probably buy it once it hits the shelves, but I don't trust them any more than I do SOE/Verant for business practices. They may be the lesser of two evils, but are they still far from perfect.

If there is any game that I'm jonesing for it would be Tabula Rasa. Made by Richard Garriott and his team, the same people who practically invented the MMORPG. After seeing everything that E3 had to offer this year TR is probably the most innovative game to hit the MMORPG genre since well... Ultima Online. =]

...unfortunately, I'm not sure it was all positive. I'm quite certain that one of the hospital scenes in MP2 was the first time I thought to myself, "Enough of the fucking back story already. I want to play!"

The Max Payne team, and Sam Lake in particular, should be commended for bringing a level of depth to the story that most games in the genre have never even attempted. But there are a lot of people who believe that all that great story came at the price of disrupting the balance between exposition and gameplay. Plus, there are plenty of people who thought that the story just sucked.

On a side note: anyone else notice the resemblance between Max Payne story author Sam Lake, and Mr. Needs a Maalox himself?

namely Mythica and the Titans expansion for Age of Mythology

As with all online RPGs, Mythica's dev and support will determine whether or not it's a good game, though right now it looks pretty good and has a lot of potential, simply with the fact that they're covering untrodden ground.

The Titans expansion is going to change the balance of the game dramatically. Right now the new race, Atlanteans, are grossly over-powered but should present an interesting challenge in online play.

well, considering how you have to stop Horne from escaping, no you can't finish the game without firing a shot. I however, agree that the Kung Fu Edition V3.00 is bar none, the best mod for Max Payne and I though it was fucking amazing

in case you're wondering about my comment about the bit about the insane action move with the shotgun, it's an exploit in the code I found where if you're holding a two-handed firearm that has good knockback (jackhammer is preferred here) you can shoot someone, slamming them into the wall and then follow up fast with a take-down, do the takedown and finish them with another shotgun blast.

I'm assuming that the winking smilie means that you know who I am and are messing with me. In case it doesn't, I'm the gaming editor of JIVE Magazine and I'm definitely a gamer.

Honestly, while there aren't very many XBox exclusive titles that are worth playing there are plenty of games on XBox that are. There are other games that have yet to come out that are also worthy. I went to the E3 this year and was pleasantly surprised by the XBox area.

The XBox isn't bad, but the PS2 has been out longer, has more name recognition and doesn't have the MS stigma attached to it.

http://www.jivemagazine.com/music-reviews/2002/051 92002-moby_18/index.shtml