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May 21, 2014 In Uncategorized

USgamer Continues to Be a Bastion of Great Games Discussion

Today on USgamer’s site Editor in Chief Jeremy Parish outlined some changes that are taking place at USgamer. Former 1UP alums Kat Bailey and Bob Mackey are now full-time contributors and the site itself will be moving more toward features and reviews and away from news and previews. In short, they’ll be doing less of what everyone else is doing, and offering more in-depth coverage and discussion of games and gaming.

This makes me very happy. And let’s be clear, USgamer has been proving great games coverage since launching a year ago. But now they are focusing even more on the good stuff. I’ve written here before about my love for the way 1UP covered games, as well as the efforts to get back to that kind of coverage that Jeremy Parish made when he became the EIC over there. The spirit of in-depth games coverage and discussion is alive and well at USgamer, and it’s great to see the staff there getting the support from Gamer Network to focus on more feature-based content.

Here are just a few examples of the kind of coverage I’m talking about:

What I Like Most About Tropico by Kat Bailey

Super TIME Force Xbox One Review by Jeremy Parish

Kat’s Quest: Child of Light as the Quiet Successor to Grandia by Kat Bailey

Exploring Game Boy’s True Successor, Bandai WonderSwan by Jeremy Parish

As I have mentioned before, one of the reasons I started Co-Op Critics was a desire to have longer-form discussions on games than most gaming news sites are producing these days. 1UP was a huge influence on my decision to get into podcasting as well as my desire to write about games. I started the Secret Identity podcast in 2006 in part because of my love of the 1UP podcasts. I covered games for Comic Book Resources from 2008-2010, and tired to shape a good deal of that coverage to focus more on creator interviews than news and reviews, because that’s the kind of content I was enjoying from 1UP.

And while there are 1UP alumni scattered throughout the games industry and various gaming news sites, I have always appreciated the approach that Jeremy Parish has taken to games discussion, as well as the people he surrounds himself with whenever he gets the chance. I am very much looking forward to seeing what the future holds for USgamer, and I encourage you to support what they’re doing if you want to see more of it.

usgamer
June 26, 2013 In Uncategorized

Worth Reading: The Staff of USgamer on Good “Bad” Games

Back in January I said I was going to start highlighting more articles from other sites that contain the types of discussions we try to start here at Co-Op Critics. I’ve done a really bad job of that, but perhaps today’s entry will kickstart a more regular flow of these highlighted articles.

Over at USgamer (the sister site of Eurogamer), Pete Davison posted a great article today that fits in with The Year of B-Games series I’ve been doing here. The article is called “When Bad Isn’t Bad,” and Davison asks the staff of USgamer to reflect on some of the favorite games that were not critically or commercially well-received.

There are some interesting games on the list, including Ninja Blade, a From Software title that I’m hoping to get to this year for my B-Games series. Here’s a snippet of what USgamer’s Mike Williams had to say about Ninja Blade:

“Everything in Ninja Blade has to be there because it’s awesome. It’s the only explanation. Ogawa carries four different weapons on his back because it’s awesome. He does amazing skateboard tricks while surfing on a missile because it’s awesome. He hits a wrecking ball like a baseball because it’s awesome. Why does Ogawa ride a motorcycle through the sky to shove it down a boss’ throat? Because it’s goddamn awesome.“

To see the rest of what Mike had to say and get the full list, you can read the full article here.

On a related note, I really like what I’m seeing from USgamer so far, and that’s not surprising seeing as 1UP alum Jeremy Parish is the Senior Editor for the site.