Hehe, PC Gamer UK.
Who the hell is Mark Donald anyway? I haven't bought PCG for a few years now, and looking at my mate's copy, it seems everyone has changed.
Mark Donald is a shit editor, why didnt you become editor. All Mark Donald does is insult people who send in letters. The 'In short' part of the letters section used to be funny with Matt Pierce, but now its just Mark Donald taking the piss out of people, it isnt funny!
Hehe, PC Gamer UK.
Who the hell is Mark Donald anyway? I haven't bought PCG for a few years now, and looking at my mate's copy, it seems everyone has changed.
I won't insult the man. Just remember the Half-Life review (I'd link, but it's broken, but try here. The fact that this mediocre piece of work that could have been banged off by anyone is PC Gamer's HL review is far more insulting than most of the things I could say.
Half Life was a good game, its just that Mark Donald is a complete moron, he has fucked PC Gamer up, all the captions aren't as funny now and the 'in short' bit is crap, Donald is just a consoleer at heart and he knows this.
Yeh massey, the new PC Gamer design, they said they wanted to revamp it because it looked 'old' but i dont really get how a new magazine can look old or for that matter that somebody who wouldnt buy it will now because the front cover posseses more colours.
Half-Life would still be the greatest game of all time if Medieval's barding-clad warhouse hadn't trampled it down to a mere second. It's just the HL review is pure, distilled description. There's no critical analysis there. When I first read it just after I'd read the Deus Ex review I just...
There aren't words.
And, guess who's editor when Half-Life 2 hits? Who's going to edit the HL2 review? It's going to get 98-100% not because of the level design (design is Law, I believe), not because of Alyx's back-against-the-wall Tort-Action-Led-By-Leslie-Hope-Inducing (she began training as a Lawyer, didn't she?) Trouser-Filling Fear Face, but because Mr. Donald's been drinking too much fizzy pop while in front of Rise of the Robots. Where's the justice?
Last edited by O'Shuva; 30th Jun 2004 at 17:28.
Meh, Half Life is the best game ever, Half Life 2 will take this crown soon enough.
Hating to break it to you, but there's no games magazine in existence whose editor actually writes the replies to the letters page responses.
Other than that: you have no idea about who Mark Donald is, what he plays and how he works.
Oddly enough, I remember the amusement when he left Gamer the first time - he was Dep Editor when I joined - to go and edit Official Playstation. We bought him a Playstation as a leaving present, as he had no experience of the format. He is not a console kid. And to hold up a single review from six years ago as evidence of him not knowing what he's talking about is pretty rubbish. God knows I've written rubbish reviews in my time, and I don't think the HL one fits under that category at all.
On a personal level:
i) I'm a huge fan of Donald's redesign - Thief cover, currently on the shelves. I've said it elsewhere, but it's the first 21st century games magazine and I urge anyone and everyone to read it.
ii) More than any editor who I worked under, Donald was the only one who actually taught me anything about the business of writing. He regularly threw back work at me when I was being slack, missing arguments and not doing the job. When I was Dep Ed, it was his lessons that I shouted at most of my freelancers and any staff writer who was unluckly to be beneath me - EXAMPLES! SAY WHY! DO NOT REWRITE THE PRESS RELEASE!. I can't think of someone I'd be happier having as Editor of GAMER.
And me? Editor? You must be drunk on crazy booze. Just because I can tart the words up pretty like doesn't mean I'd be any good in the tall chair.
KG
I'm looking forward to reading the Thief 3 review Mr G. You did write it, right?
Just a question, does being an editor give you more control over the amount of articles written by yourself ending up in the magazine?
He just isn't as funny as Matt Pierce, who was more funny overall and had a funnier more jovile face, But surely you would have been pleased to take up the editor's reigns? I mean. They must earn a 6 figure sum of between 150,000 and 200,000 pounds yes?Originally Posted by Brem_X_Jones
Massey help me out on this one, or get fred in here, he'll know what I'm talking about.
Last edited by BottleofVintageGarrett; 1st Jul 2004 at 14:33.
I've never heard of Mark Donald, just KG and MP (Keeper Gamall & Max Payne?)
I admit some people might have crazy joy love over Mark D, but his style just doesn't quite come together for me, personally. I'm sure he's a good whipper of writers (and therefore, a fairly good editor), but his style grates with what I would really like from a piece.
I take back the rise of the robots comment. I knew it was crap even as I wrote it, what with him being into PC strategy and everything. The only defense I can offer is total rubbish, so I won't.
Calling him a shit editor because he doesn't have a jovile (sic) face? Dear God, I feel bad aligning myself with you: you've done more to dent my self-righteousness than KG...
And you haven't even played HL2, Bottle (unless you're somekind of evil sticky-fingered fool, and I hope for your eternal soul you're not). THAT'S what I'm talking about! That's the kind of attitude that will drag us all into a endless downward spiral leading into a hellish glut of dire licences!
On the other hand, I still don't like (at all) Mark D's style and nothing you lot (or I, for that matter) do can change that. It's a sad state of affairs - after all the pretensions and delusions of literacy grandeur, it turns out I'm insanely conservative, a knee-jerk reactionary and a troll. Hey, I am what I am.
Here's hoping he'll rise up and prove me wrong. Please god, let me be wrong...
Last edited by O'Shuva; 1st Jul 2004 at 16:58.
Okay when Half Life 2 is released, I challenege you to stand up then and call it a crap game, stop jumping on the 'VALVE WAZ TEH C0N5PIRAZY!!!!@$#1241' bandwagon, their source code got stolen, they had to sort it out, end of fucking story, stop trying to make more of it than there actually is.
No. Evil crackers did it. I'm hoping it's going to be great because it's been put together by an excellent team of crack artists who have a passion for their medium. I don't know it's going to be great just because of it's name. If I did, I'd be a royalist.
I hate insane over-hype - and again, back to Mark D and the fact that it feels, some months, that PC Gamer only exists to hype HL2 and Steam technology. HL came into the world with little pre-release fanfare and it did all right. PC Gamer seems to have lost the ability to tantilise. I don't want to know everything about the game before I even play it! It's the DX intro all over again!
Last edited by O'Shuva; 1st Jul 2004 at 18:31.
Simple as this, if you have dial up, then steam is shit. But if you can find two pennies in your council flat to rub together, then Steam is quite good.
Also PC Gamer seem to be getting more and more right wing, there was this picture of saddam in a game and underneath the caption read, "Saddam Fighting? Thats unrealistic for a start" But Saddam is a geezer and he is fighting the Americans bravely, I dont think PC Gamer should publish articles in support of the War, (Like they did when the War started) because it detracts from Gaming and is morally wrong. And now it is even more relevant, now Saddam has been handed over to the puppet Government.
Everyone knows America is full of shit: Lets take the '91 War for an example, Israel was still occupying Lebanon, and Resolution 425 of the UN called for Israel to withdraw as they had set up multiple camps in the area, which had been confirmed as having torture chambers in them. They refused, the US and Israel subsequently vetoed a UN Resolution calling on all countries to abide by International Law.
What else happened in '91? What was the main reason for invading?....
It was the build up of Iraqi troops on the Saudi Arabia Border, America disclosed this by saying they had evidence to prove it, yet they have still not released this evidence. And even if it were the case, and they did go to War on a justified pretext (the invasion of Kuwait) why do the same rules not apply for Israel's occupation of Lebanon? Why the double standards?
PC Gamer is propoganda for the War.
Last edited by BottleofVintageGarrett; 2nd Jul 2004 at 10:43.
Government? What government? The entire trial's being held in an American army camp. Only members of the US press are allowed in. It's done in the evening in Iraq so it can be the top story in the US morning shows. Saddam's a poor man's Bin Larden, except he was sold WMDs by Good Ol' Ronald, Arnold's spiritual progenitor and the destroyed them in a desperate attempt to stay in power (and his palaces with their Spanish toilets).
The world (or at least the West) is dominated by the rich bankers generally found in New York, but also dispersed across the rest of the 'City on the Hill' superstate. There is no conspiracy. And because of them and the right-wing government, normal Jewish people occupying the land of their ancestors are being blown to pieces when they get on a bus by desperate Arabs. Not all the blood-stains the Beeb have become obsessed with zooming in on of late belong to flag-waving right-wing maniacs who support Israel's miniature version of the Iron Curtain and want to turn the East of the West Bank into a giant Ghetto.
Mark Donald, megaphone for the facist state? I'll agree the redesign isn't to my taste (I've just seen it and the renamed Netgamer seems to have consumed the entire magazine), and my urge to apologise has evaporated, but it's possibly taking things a little too far.
Some aspects of the new netgamer are good, such as that thing that teaches you how to design levels, but I agree, its gone too far.
As for Israel, is it me or do things seem to have gone progressively downhill since the great Rabin died, he was a true voice for peace, and you know who killed him? Jewish extremists, so much for Judaism being 'so tolerant' eh?
I dunno, I just think the Saddam trial is a farce, I know the booming voice of the PC Gamer propoganda machine wants to tell me othersidebut in all reality its just a showtrial, shows how much more 'civilised' and 'fair' we are, still trying to export the good old fashioned American democracy and British values, seems to me a bit like old colonial rule: "We are better human beings than you, therefore we should rule you and make you better"... Pathetic...
Judaism is tollerant, like Islam and Christianity ("Please, stop killing one another, for God's sake! Use symbolism! Like... like wine could, sort of, represent blood! And bread could be, like, flesh!") and most of the other religions. It's just that crazed extremists (Bin Larden, The Israli government, George Bush, Richard Coeur de Lion, the Templars, and so it goes on) use it as an excuse for things their less-than-righteous activities.
I dispare of the state of PC Gaming sometimes, where everything has to have a gun (or at least a blackjack) sticking out of the bottom of the screen to get noticed. Everything that doesn't is simply allowed to die. Online gaming is reaching saturation point - the big slice of MMORPG and multi-player only games the industry is vomiting up is horrifying, as it the rate that market is becoming increasingly destabilised. Only the truly hardcore gamers can play these things and actually get anywhere (my time in Neocron was spent being sarcastic and distilling booze), the rest of us obviously aren't worthy to read PC Gamer unless we can devote ten hours a night to being maimed by gnats.
Last edited by O'Shuva; 3rd Jul 2004 at 09:31.
True. True, PC Gamer is a voice for anti islamic hate all over the world.
Please extrapolate, if you would? I just think the PC Gamer Staff Writers and their shadowy bosses are putting too much focus on a mere fraction of the PC Gaming world, more ignorant rather than actually being an evil unto themselves.
I totally agree with you on that point. NetGamer seems to have swelled, like a huge ugly monster, and taken over the entire magazine.
Except if you read the section you'd discover huge chunks aren't actually about online games at all. It's the whole-post-release stuff. I mean, as if I'd had been given a couple of pages to write about Planescape Torment in the old design.
This forum we're in at the moment? It's Extra-life material. A game doesn't end with a review. In fact, in reality, it's only just begun.
EDIT: In fact, piqued by this complaint, I finally went back to the mag and looked at the section. A good half - more if you include the Zangband feature, which is part of Extra-life - isn't about online games at all, let alone persistent world stuff.
KG
You are taking the piss, yes?
If not, it's the first time Gamer's ever been called right wing. It's normally people complaining about the magazine's leftist sympathies.
(Cross ref: Ross' "What the fuck were they thinking" review of Command and Conquer: Generals berating its politics extensively)
KG
Yes for the first question. My name's not usually on things I didn't write.
To the second question, yes, abstractly. In practice, the Editor's got hundreds of things to do that actually prevent him writing anything himself. He can decide what articles get written, but doesn't really have the time to write.
KG
Each to their own, I suppose. I miss half the reviews section. It was probably just a shortage of games. Oh well. I suppose it'll grow back in a few months.
Haha, I'm joking, have you ever read any Chomsky?
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