Need That Game Fuel

I bought some Game Fuel online last week, and it finally came in! It's a 2007 yield, emblazoned with the Halo 3 marketing push. I like the 2009s, too, but I definitely think the Horde flavor is going to age better than the Alliance. I lucked out, also, because the eBay listing described the condition of the individual cans as "Acceptable or Better" but there's only two or three cans that dip below "Good." You really don't know what you're getting when you buy from auctions.

You know, it's funny. I feel like some kind of connoisseur of discontinued soda beverages. An expert on expired foodstuffs, if you will.

For instance, I think people give Crystal Pepsi a hard time. When that stuff came out, people weren't used to too much of companies coming in and sending something truly odious out into the world with no research, no focus testing, no walking up to somebody, anybody, and asking them "hey, can you try this real quick and tell me if it's unsettling in any way?"...none of that. America, as a whole, was one big test market and we did not take kindly to it. But nowadays there's all sorts of crap like that. People buy soda because it looks like it's from a different decade, even if that particular soda did not exist in that particular decade. And, instead of being horrified that every OTHER soda we buy is jacked up full of high fructose corn syrup, we get excited that just this once, for a limited time, we get a drink with some actual sugar in it.

I don't mind all that. I'm just interested in collecting double-takes in Uptown Charlotte when those Wells Fargo financial analysts realize that I'm chuggin' down a fizzydrink that hasn't been made for half a decade, dogg.

The Secret Garden of Magazines

Game Informer is probably the best source for video game magazine covers in the history of the medium. That goes without saying. Sure, sometimes they prioritize exclusivity at the expense of goodness and they slap an obviously terrible game on the cover. No one's perfect. However, their parent company, Gamestop, is doing some interesting things to get a leg up on the lowly consumer.

I read somewhere that GS is prioritizing the digital version of the magazine, which you get free when you sign up for their Powerup Rewards program. They've offered a digital magazine (think less "PDF or iOS App" and more "link in an email that sends you to a website where you read these things") for a couple years now, but these days employees are instructed to assume new Rewards customers want the digital edition instead of print, and so the question is not even posed at the time of the sale. A commenter in the linked Reddit thread informed us that the company-wide policy is to assume digital for new sign-ups, but to offer digital when a print subscriber comes in to renew, but obviously not every district manager is strictly adhering to these practices.

So, to sum up:

• Gamestop wants to lighten its burden in regards to all these printing costs!
• It offers a Digital Edition of its magazine that it really wants you to subscribe to, but you have to choose either the print version or the digital version. You know, like The Atlantic.
• It's not amazingly iPad friendly. It's basically a website. So we get to hunch over our computer desks to get our video game news like it's a BBS in 1987.
• The digital/website version of the magazine has dynamic ads even for back issues, so you'll always get current advertising when thumbing through old content (another benefit of magazines squandered)
• If you do choose the print magazine because you like pretty art strewn haphazardly across your living room, there's a chance someone could switch you over to the digital version without asking you.
• No matter how much editorial freedom GS gives the staff, it's important to remember that the magazine is, itself, obviously a huge advertisement for preorders at Gamestop, with frequent pitstops for lists like the end-of-the-year TOP FIFTY GAMES OF 2011. Seriously? Top fifty? You really couldn't have narrowed that down? The original title for this piece, I believe, was FIFTY SHORT PIECES OF AD COPY FOR GAMES THAT ARE OLD ENOUGH TO BE AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE PRE-OWNED AT YOUR LOCAL GAMESTOP!
• Also, the Rewards program you buy into to get the magazine is a huge loyalty program that locks you in to a single store chain to buy pre-owned games that Gamestop itself acquired for basically pennies on the dollar in the first place. 
• This is possibly the worst retail store in history. 
• I shop there all the time because I hate myself.
• It's a longrunning joke that I am addicted to bulleted lists, but only two people even know or care so in real life it's just annoying.

This is not a big news story, but this is not a big news blog. At long last, though, here is my point: Gamestop has created a publication that you can only get by walking into a store already knowing that it exists. You have to go in and ask specifically for the print version if you want it. There is no pathway from not knowing about the print version of GI to buying the print version of GI. What is the only area of print media that shares this business model?

That's right:

Obviously this is meant to represent those behind-the-counter racks that I'm not sure they make anymore.

The porn industry has survived this way since way before we were all born. The only way you could walk out of that corner liquor store with the new issue of ALL OF THE ASSES was if you already knew it was there before you walked in the door. 

However, I don't really believe that this illustrates some kind of new corporate greed that can be compared to shameful habits like pornography. I'm just not that lucky.

Blizzard Game of the Week

I know what you're thinking: VGX, I've been thinking about BLIZZARD a lot this week for some reason, and I would like to know which BLIZZARD game I should play right now.

Listen: you need to know you are not alone. 

Lost Vikings 2 is a great game developed by Blizzard and released by Interplay in 1997. For some reason, the Sega Saturn, PC, and Sony Playstation versions of the game were released under a different title:

While Norse by Norsewest: The Return of The Lost Vikings is, in every measurable way, a better title, I can remember being twelve years old and confused about the differences between the two titles. As far as I could tell from reading the Wikipedia article and no further research, the PS/Saturn/PC release had re-done graphics and better sound, including voice acting. I guess that's fair.

In Lost Vikings 2, you play as three vikings who seem to have stolen future technology from somebody (I skipped the opening cutscene so I really don't know) and have to use their unique talents to solve puzzles in order to talk to a witch on the other side of the level. One viking has a lightsaber and that Wife-Arm from Bionic Commando, another one has rocket boots, and the third one has a shield and some type of gastrointestinal distress.

I just played this game for about five minutes just right now and let me tell you: pretty good.

Obviously the joke in this post is that Diablo III is the only game anyone cares about this week and I'm too poor to buy it so I'm dicking around with emulators. I thought it was funny at least.