By now a lot of you have listened to the latest Mobcast (apologies on the up-and-down sound quality — we’re working on it!). It’s a great episode, with some great guests — including ex-EGMers Crispin Boyer and Mike Cruz, and community member Derek Lavigne — that I’m sorry I missed.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t join in on the fun, as the guys brought up two topics that I wanted to chime in on: one EGM related, one time-travel related.
First, in our community question this week, PJ Sangalang asked, “In the old EGM/1UP days, what was your favorite game to review and least favorite game to review?”
Favorite: Grand Theft Auto 4: This one is similar to Shoe’s BioShock review story. Each reviewer was sequestered to a hotel room with a big-ass TV and a copy of the game. No distractions, no PR people looking over your shoulder — just a week with you and the game. You’ll often hear outlets and people complain about these setups, but barring being able to play at home, this is a decent approximation of that experience, without phones going off, AIMs interupting, and pesky work to be done.
Of course, as this review session took place a week before deadline, I did have a lot of work to do, so I’d have to go into the office for a few hours, then head to the hotel for eight or so hours, and then sometimes back to the office. This made for some long days, but during that time when it was just me and the game, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.
Least Favorite: Bounty Hounds: Now, this PSP game is serving more as an example of the type of game I didn’t like reviewing — mediocre fare that I felt was just sucking away my time. A lot of times, we had to play review games in our free time since we wouldn’t have time at work, and with this game, my parents were in town. I remember spending a decent chunk of that time on a game I wasn’t loving. Fun.
The other question I wanted to chime in on was Crispin’s, who asked what game you’d like to send back to your 10-year-old self. What shocked me was that nobody applied the Back to the Future Corollary, which states when you have the power of time travel, you much send back something that will make you stinking rich.
The natural answer, then, is any recent sports game that will list some of the previous few years’ big winners and great players. Imagine the killing you could make over the years with the sports bookie if you had Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition to give you a few pointers. Pull this off, and you could get any game you want!
How about you, readers? What games would you send back in time?