Michael Stailey
Publisher, Editor-In-Chief
mstailey@pixelverdict.com
310.878.4968

David Johnson
Managing Editor
djohnson@pixelverdict.com

Staff Reviewers
Adam Arseneau
Erich Asperschlager
Tim Graffam
Steve Power
Jon Mercer

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Name: Adam Arseneau

Age: 29

Gaming History: The first video game I ever played was on the Commodore Vic 20, which probably set in motion a gravitation towards keyboard video gaming and bad graphics. My parents were early adopters of computers in the household, so most of my computer gaming was done away from the living room. Sure, we got a NES when I was a kid, and Mario and Zelda were fun, but there was nothing like the pure thrilling power of a CGA monitor, a 5 1/4″ floppy drive and a total lack of mouse controls. I was the kid who had his own BBS. ‘Nuff said.

Console gaming required a financial investment, by which I mean it was the thing my friends had, and I didn’t. I would go over to their house and play them, and beg my parents for, but alas, no dice. I was one of those kids who was always a full generation behind everyone else in terms of console gaming. When everyone had traded up their SNES systems for PlayStations, I had a Sega Genesis, which entertained me to no end for many hours, until I realized that Blast Processing was a piece of crap. I got a Dreamcast only after the system had been discontinued (best system ever made). I didn’t get a PlayStation until after the PS2 was a runaway sensation, and the prices came down to the “loose change in your couch” range.

But the arcade. Ah, that was my realm. Not realizing that arcades were merely teenage delivery systems to buy drugs, I haunted the local coin palaces, throwing away college tuition upon college tuition into Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat II, anything with a II in it. Of course, now if you even are lucky enough to stumble into a proper cabinet game, it charges you seven dollars to play, or tries to make you dance. Kids these days with their dancing video games…

College was all about PC gaming: Starcraft, CounterStrike (of which we hosted our own server at school and lost repeatedly to thirteen year-old kids) and anything else I could downl– er, aquire cheaply. These days, PC gaming is for chumps, because now it requires the serious financial investment. Time was, any piece of crap computer would run any game out there. Now, you need to be a NASA technician to play Crysis on your PC. With the exception of some healthy doses of World of Warcraft, I’m all about the console gaming. It’s cheaper.

Consoles I Own: Dreamcast, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS, Wii, PC (strictly a WoW thing these days)

Consoles I Play: Any/all when I can pry the television away from the wife, but mostly 360 these days.

Favorite Games: Chrono Trigger (SNES), Dead Or Alive 2 (Dreamcast), MegaMan 2 (NES), River City Ransom (NES), Yar’s Revenge (Atari)

Favorite Genres: Fighting, RPG, Guitar-based, FPS (only with a keyboard and mouse, otherwise I am rubbish)

Special Move: Rotate 360 + P when close, Spinning Verb Driver

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Name: Erich Asperschlager

Age: 31

Gaming History: I wasn’t one of those kids who got an NES for Christmas. I was one of those kids who went over to the houses of kids who got an NES for Christmas and played all their games. In fact, I didn’t get an NES until I could buy it for myself at age 13, and then only after I’d bought and returned a TurboGrafx-16. Let’s just say Keith Courage in Alpha Zones wasn’t quite as cool as it looked on the box.

I upgraded to a Super Nintendo a couple years later, buying it with Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past—the only SNES game I owned for a long time, and still my favorite in the Zelda series. College brought with it endless sessions of multiplayer games like Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye, and Killer Instinct Gold. Graduation from college left me wandering in a gaming wilderness that I didn’t emerge from until news about the now-current consoles gave me the itch I’m still scratching.

I planned on buying a Wii at launch, but used that money to buy a PS2 and Guitar Hero instead. I eventually got a Wii, showing up early one Sunday morning that February to stand in line at a local Target. I felt kind of stupid then, but the fact that I still rarely see Wiis on store shelves makes me feel a little better even though my console has been unplugged since Christmas.

Currently, I play a whole lot of Xbox 360, though my love of all things retro (and my inability to use two analog sticks at the same time) means I spend a lot of time in the Arcade, playing collections of old games, or rocking my DS. What can I say? I love 2-D and I’m cheap.

Consoles I Own: NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, Wii, Xbox 360

Consoles I Play: Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Wii

Favorite Games: Mega Man 2, Legend of Zelda series, Super Mario series, Battletoads, Mario Kart DS, Picross

Favorite Genres: Platform, Puzzle, Retro

Special Move: Enter B, B, A, A, Up, Left, Down, Right, Right, to unlock
Infinite Jest Mode
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Name: Tim Graffam

Age: 30

Gaming History: To this day, my dad loves to tell the story of how he acquired an Intellivision at K-mart for five dollars on sale and after rebate. My memory is a little hazy, but I’m pretty sure that was around the time the video game industry was caving under the weight of its hubris in 1983. I whiled away many hours playing Pitfall, Burgertime and my personal favorite, Masters of the Universe, in my basement on an old 13-inch black and white television. It turns out that Intellivision was the first and last system my parents ever bought for me, but it set the wheels in motion for a lifetime of gaming.

That’s the extremely short version of my video gaming origin story. Throughout the 25 or so years that have followed I’ve continued playing games on any and all consoles, handhelds and on the rare occasion, even on a PC. Here are a few salient moments on the path to becoming the gamer I am today:

• The first system I bought with my own (paper route) money was the original Game Boy. To this day I’m not entirely sure why I picked it over an NES, but whatever. I played that green-screened brick to death. Actually, that’s a lie, because it’s very much alive and still works today.
• My conversion to full-fledged, unapologetic Nintendo fan was instigated by the NES, consummated by the Super Nintendo, and galvanized by the Nintendo 64. Despite this, I have enjoyed all consoles through the years and am certainly not blind to the fact the Xbox 360 has a lot more to offer me than the Wii, based on my gaming interests.
• November of 2004 saw the onset of my own personal “Halo-calypse.” There are many, many landmark games from the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube generation that I own, yet never got around to playing because of Halo 2. I’d love to go back and enjoy them, but realistically, there’s a pretty good chance that’s not going to happen.
• Over the years, I’ve been pretty choosy about games I play. My discriminating tendencies haven’t changed, but the forces behind them have, as the financial constraints of youth gave way to the time constraints of adulthood. In the end, you just have to find the genres that blow your hair back and stick with them, then make time for those rare, once-a-generation, potentially life-altering game experiences as they arise.

Consoles I Own: Okay, I fancy myself a bit of a collector (to my wife’s chagrin), so here we go… NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii, Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Famicom (version 2), Super Famicom, Sega Master System (version 1), Genesis (versions 1, 2 and 3), Sega CD (version 2), Saturn, Dreamcast, Game Gear, PlayStation, PSOne, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Atari 2600, Atari Jaguar, Intellivision II, Magnavox Odyssey, Commodore 64, TurboGrafx-16 and… I think that’s it.

Consoles I Play: Right now, Xbox 360 mostly, DS and Wii occasionally.

Favorite Games: The Legend of Zelda series, Halo series, Super Mario series, God of War series, Metroid series, Castlevania series (only in 2-D). Pressed for specifics, my “desert island” games would include the likes of Halo 3, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, God of War II, Resident Evil 4 and some other amazing games I know I’m forgetting.

Favorite Genres: Platform, FPS, Action/Adventure, RPG (when I have the time), Music

Special Move: Hold B, Back, Forward, Release B to execute a furious Unnecessary Overreaction.

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Name: Dave Johnson

Age: 31 (chronologically)

Gaming History: For years, I fed my healthy video game interest by leeching off of friends.  Scoring a Nintendo or Atari was a hard sell to my parents.  They eventually met me half way and bought a Commodore 64, where I was able to plays such memorable gems like Bop n’ Rumble and Rad Warrior.

After saving and saving I eventually was able to spring for my own Sega Genesis, and it was all downhill from there: Sonic, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Musha, Thunder Force III, NHL ‘94, Joe Montana Sports Talk Football, Bomberman and, the mightiest of them all, Pit-Fighter.

Consoles I Own: NES (x2, both not working), Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, a broken Nomad, Gamecube, some old Pong sytem, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, The Great Sega Dreamcast and a Sega Saturn with Saturn Bomberman (the greatest multiplayer game ever made).

Consoles I Play: Try to spread the love, but the 360 is the platform of choice.

Favorite Games: Streets of Rage 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, Ninja Gaiden Black, Gears of War 1 and 2, Pit-Fighter, Resident Evil 4,  Rock Band, Saturn Bomberman, Guardian Heroes, Street Fighter series, Halo series, Bad Dudes

Favorite Genres: Action, fighting, beat ‘em up,  shooter

Special Move: Enter Forward, Down, Forward HP to unleash a devastating
Hobbit Punch.

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Name: Jon Mercer

Age: 26

Gaming History: My sweaty, torrid love affair with the video game began like so many other vices; in the 1980s. Afternoons playing with G.I. Joes became evenings spent trying to crack the high score of Charley Chuck’s Food Fight for the Atari 2600. A boy’s growing love for digital entertainment became a volcanic lust with the late 80s arrival of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the Mercer family Rec Room.

Following the same infatuation that every young gamer has with Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, I spent countless hours perusing the glossy pages of Nintendo Power magazine, which led to my discovery of meatier fare such as Mega Man 2, Castlevania, Contra, Ninja Gaiden I and II, and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out (Mr. Dream is a bitch). By the time the 16-Bit war erupted and the local arcade scene reached critical mass with the arrival of Street Fighter II, I was already what could be considered a hardcore gamer, a gamer working beyond borders, a mercenary (which ironically cannot be spelled without all the letters of my surname) on all sides of the conflict.

And while I didn’t OWN every console (my parents demanded that as I moved on, I sold the previous generation’s hardware), between myself and my circle of friends; we pretty much managed to play what we sought to play. Platformers and old-school shooters became my domain, RPGs became my late night mistresses, and many a budding teenage romance were killed short by my refusal to listen to Spice Girls when the scores of Yuzo Koshiro were much more soothing to my ears. I’ve always been a strong proponent of art design in gaming and have collected a libraries worth of coffee table books dedicated to the subject.

Since those days I have remained steadfast in my love of gaming, even going so far as to have my opinions published in Eastern Canadian newspapers as a freelance gaming columnist. In between my daylight life as an Animator and Graphic designer, and time spent at a local gym, I never falter in plugging in at least a few hours a week with controller in hand and my fiancée beside me on the sofa. As always, my loyalties remain to the industry as a whole, and not with any specific console.

Consoles I Own: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, PSP, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Entertainment System

Consoles I Play: Anything that features a controller and a power button.

Favorite Games: Mega Man 2 and 3 (NES), Contra III (SNES), Super Castlevania IV (SNES), G.I. Joe (NES), Shadow of the Ninja (NES), Ninja Gaiden I and II (NES), Gunstar Heroes (Genesis), Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island (SNES), Gate of Thunder (TurboDuo), Final Fantasy IV (SNES), Final Fantasy IX (PSOne), Chrono Cross (PSOne), Mega Man X (SNES), Maverick Hunter X (PSP), Super Ghouls N’Ghosts (SNES), Gradius III (SNES), Gradius V (PS2), Actraiser (SNES), Thunder Force III (Genesis), Einhander (PSOne), Burnout Paradise (PlayStation 3), Sly 2: Band of Thieves (PS2), far too many to accurately list

Favorite Genres: Pretty much the only things I don’t play are Mahjong simulators, but if it influences your choice of birthday presents for me, I prefer action platformers and old school SHMUPS (ask Steve or Dave)

Special Move: Honey Badger – In any level, hold Left on Controller 2 and jump into a pit. The player’s next life will possess invincibility and a Mega-Jump.

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Name: Steve T. Power (Great Canadian)

Age: 32

Gaming History: I was really a child of the Atari generation, and my Nintendo Entertainment System saw much use during the cold Newfoundland winter months. I had a Turbo-Graphics 16 because it was the only way I could play Street Fighter (called Fighting Street on the Turbo CD) at home, and because Ninja Spirit and Bloody Wolf were amazing games. I moved on to more “teenage” pursuits in the 90’s, but I was a regular on the local Street Fighter II Arcade scene, had a brief fling with the 3D0 and was gifted a Nintendo 64, which promptly gathered dust in its original packaging under my old bed at my parent’s place.  I wasted my formative days on the PC with Diablo, Quake, Baldur’s Gate and Photoshop. Whilst working on a design diploma I would often taxi one of the guys in class to a local game shop. In the span of one week I witnessed the clerks playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Final Fantasy VII, and the Video Game fire deep in my belly was re-ignited. My very next student loan went toward a Sony Playstation and over a dozen games in a very short span of time. I soon took a job at that very same shop, and within a year I was managing and working in earnest on rebuilding a game collection. I’ve embraced the Xbox360 and Playstation 3 as my consoles of choice, and I chose to remain blissfully ignorant of the Nintendo Wii until they released that damn Indiana Jones game, which scarred my soul.

Consoles I Own: NES, SNES, PC, Commodore 64, Xbox, Xbox360, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PSP, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo DS (one oldie, x2 DS Lites and a DSi), Game Boy Advance SP, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, iPod Touch (it plays games dammit!), Nintendo Wii.

Consoles I Play: All of the above (with the exception of my busted Saturn).

Favorite Games: Demon’s Souls (PS3), G.I. Joe (NES), Ninja Gaiden I & II (NES), Castlevania series, Street Fighter series, Final Fantasy series (XII is the pinnacle of the series for me), Metal Gear Solid series, Shadow of the Colossus, Halo, PC RPG’s(Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, The Witcher etc.), Pretty much anything out of Ubisoft Montreal, Bioware, or Bethesda Studios, Halo, Gran Turismo, MMORPG’s, My god, pretty much a little bit of everything.

Favorite Genres: Eastern and Western Console and PC RPGs, 3^rd Person Shooters, and pretty much anything and everything else.

Special Move: Runeblade +2 – Open inventory panel, click on “Runeblade +2” and choose “equip”.