Onion AV Club To Cover Video Games

An anonymous reader writes "The Onion AV Club, the entertainment section of the satirical periodical The Onion, has expanded its coverage of movies, music and books to include reviews of video games. Also, they will host a game history column by Wil Wheaton: "Each week, [Wheaton] will take a look back to games past with his Games Of Our Lives column, reaching beyond Pac-Man and Donkey Kong to find the dusty arcade games and worn-out cartridges that paved the way for the games of today." The first expanded issue posted yesterday, featuring an interview with industry legends Will Wright (The Sims, SimCity) and Howard Scott Warshaw (Atari)."

Comments

Wheaton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, given that John Perry Barlow came wheezing out of 1967 to lecture us a few days ago, I guess we're not going to be rid of Wil Wheaton for at least another few decades.

Interview with Wil Wheaton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope they have better luck than slashdot....

------------

Ask Wil Wheaton Anything (Part Deux)
Books
Posted by Zonk on Mon Nov 29, '04 04:18 PM
from the slashdot's-wil-wheaton dept.
A little over three years ago Slashdot interviewed Wil Wheaton, at the time best known for his role as Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG. Since then his blog WWDN has allowed him a creative outlet that has made the world sit up and take notice. Wil is now a regular participant in ACME Comedy Theatre, has published two books (Dancing Barefoot and Just a Geek), has done voicework for video games such as GTA: San Andreas, cartoons such as Teen Titans, and speaks regularly at conventions such as Gnomedex and Linucon. Wil enjoyed the first Slash interview so much it appeared in Just a Geek, and we're glad to have him back for a second go-round. Feel free to fire away, one question per comment please. We'll post his responses once we get them back.

Re:Good ol Will Wheaton

[Mr.Dippy]

I like to think of him as Wil Wheaton the Author, not Wil Wheaton the 15 year old kid who played a character on Star Trek. Although this is how he got his start, that was ages ago. Let it go and embrace the here and now. Pick up Just a Geek and your view of him will change...hopefully for the better.

Sweet

[ShawnMcCool42]

more serious game coverage than slashdot, woo hoo

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. I just read the two reviews up so far (Resident Evil 4 and Alien Hominid), and they're very short and not at all deep. It's impossible to say how honest they are until they review more games, but it doesn't look like the kid gloves are going to come off. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed the interviews with Will Wright and Scott Warshaw. It looks like their features will be well worth reading, but their target audience isn't really "gamers," just twenty-somethings with an interest in gaming.

Re:Good ol Will Wheaton

[hal2814]

Funny, I think of him as Wil Wheaton the kid who was in the movie with River Pheonix, Corey Feldman, and the Sliders kid who used to be fat but isn't anymore. And just so you know, he got his start long before ST:TNG.

I am interested in reading what he has to say about classic video games.

History of Sim City

[SpottedKuh]

Regarding the interview with Will Wright -- I found this really neat page discussing the history of the old-school Sim City franchise (prior to Sim City 4, that is): http://www.sc3000.com/knowledge/history_contents.c fm

Who else still has the disks for Sim City Classic? :)

Re:History of Sim City

[joeljkp]

I do, I do! I have it on 2 5.25" and one 3.5" disk in the original box. Too bad I lost the "code card", making it basically unplayable.

Re:History of Sim City

[bhtooefr]

I had a copy of the code card at one time, but here's what to do to bypass the code card (haven't tried it, it may fsck up something):

To unprotect SimCity!

Use Norton and change these bytes in the SIMCITY.EXE file:

Change: 0c 87 00 75 3c
To....: 0c 87 00 eb 3c
^^
Another software crack by Bentley Bear!

I found this by googling. I'm not sure what "Norton" is in this case, but any hex editor should to the job.

Re:History of Sim City

[Anonymous Coward]

Way back in the days of MS-DOS, Norton Utilities came with, amongst other things, a hex editor. You could run it on a file, or the whole disk.

Ahhh, memories...

Re:Good ol Will Wheaton

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Will is most famous for having a leech stuck on his scrotum, and will probably never do or have anything happen more memorable than that.

We Want Will

[Lu Xun]

Good idea, but too short; if he's going to lift the lid on some forgotten but important games, I'd like more detail, and perhaps a screenshot or three. Right now it's more like a clip than a full review, and I imagine that a lot of the games he'll be covering deserve more than a few comments and a picture of the cartridge.

Satire in gaming

[tiktok]

If The Onion is going to write about video games, then I suggest that games.slashdot.org write about satire! The first article could be something like: "Area Man Saves Princess" or "Productivity in White House Drops After Bush Installs Bejeweled On Presidential Network" self promoting gaming satire: Software Pirate Disappointed With Latest Game Releases

Re:Satire in gaming

[UWC]

For clarity, the Onion AV Club is pretty much serious treatment of various media from an unabashed Gen X point of view.

The weekly features are generally interviews with people important to various bits of an assortment of subcultures, media subgenres, and so on. The rest tends to be reviews of new movies, DVDs, books, and music, with one or two recurring humorous columns (e.g. "Commentary Tracks of the Damned" and now Wheaton's new column), but even those are just cynical treatments of actual media.

Just thought I'd try to clear that up, as the name "The Onion" is generally linked to satire/parody.

So this is what Will is doing....

[Picass0]

...instead of answering his Slashdot interview!

Such a public display of procrastination!

Re:The ad

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the Boy Scouts of America going to do? Light a campfire? Take away your merit badges? This just seems like senseless bullying on their part to me.

Mmmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

featuring an interview with industry legends Will Wright

Mmm, some hardcore Wil on Will action...

Good to see

[93,000]

I visit the AV Club for movie and book reviews that are less dumbed-down than your average USA Today "everything gets three stars". I don't always agree with what the AV Club has to say, of course, but I can usually at least see where they are coming from.

Hopefully they'll continue the tradition with games.

Honestly, this is nothing but good news...

[ultramk]

I've always enjoyed the Onion AV Club's reviews... they are often the most insightful, interesting and well-written reviews of movies and music around. Combine that with an amazing series of interviews... with everyone you could imagine.

The AV Club has to be the highest-quality journalistic source (when it comes to popular media, anyway) around. Even if I don't agree with the reviewer, the review gives me enough information to know what my opinion would be. Also, they aren't stuck-up: if something's low-brow but hilarious, they won't pull any punches.

Aside from the Wil Wheaton news even, this is pretty cool.

Also, of course, congratulations to Wil. There's a group of geeks out here who feel that you're under-utilized. This looks like a step in the right direction. We look forward to hearing more from you.

m-