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GamesFirst! Online since 1995
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10/01/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
Three years ago, Rick Fehrenbacher and Al Wildey bought GamesFirst! Although founded in 1995, GF! had been left to languish after the previous editor, a friend of Rick and Al's named Zap Reicken, decided he could no longer maintain the site. At the time of the Rick and Al's takeover, dubbed GamesFirst! 2.0, the site averaged 300 visitors per day. I came on board as the site's first console game reviewer. As Rick described so eloquently in his editorial last year, the consoles section and GF! grew together. A few games trickled in from Activision and a handfull of other games publishers for console systems, and those kept me busy for the remainder of the year.



09/22/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
A war is breaking out, a struggle for your time, your loyalty, and, most importantly, your money. The next-generation console battle is raging and the battles about to get hotter.
It should be common knowledge by now that Microsoft has tossed its hat into the console ring, but how much do you know about the ominously named Xbox? New details have finally been released, so here's the lowdown on Bill Gates' new toy.


05/21/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
Sony announced several new partnerships and technology deals at E3, making a major play to enter the online gaming market before Microsoft can get its online bits in order. Both companies have professed the importance of online gaming to the success of console systems, and Sony has specifically illuminated desires to create an online distribution network for all kinds of gaming, movies, music, and other broadband entertainment applications.


05/20/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
While there were many points of interest at E3 this year, the most consistently really crowded booth was Nintendo's, where gamers flocked, nay swarmed, to see the GameCube. For those skeptics out there who think the general mediocrity of the N64 experience has soured gamers, witness the intense interest shown for the new system. Let's face it, the N64 has suffered from a general lack of titles, and some companies have released really terrible games for it, further causing pain to gamers who have been forced to pursue the "any port in a storm" strategy (Big Mountain 2000 comes to mind, er, flashes painfully across my memory). However, there have been some very good titles, and it's no mistake that the best titles on the system have been made by Nintendo and it's 2nd party developer, Rare. Nintendo is, in many ways, the Disney of the gaming world “ they have created and continue to create incredibly popular and lasting characters, who appear in all sorts of games and have firmly lodged themselves in the hearts of mainstream USA (as well as mainstream everywhere else).


04/20/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
RPG is a game in which character development and character interaction take precedence over other factors and where each player's experience of the story is determined by individual choice rather than designer fiat . . . Of greatest importance, this definition eliminates adventure games, which share with the RPG an emphasis on story and character. What adventure games lack - and this is a critical point - is the capability for players to grow and develop their characters, and to affect, if not the outcome of the story, than the way in which the story unfolds. Without both character development and genuine choices placed within a player's control, a game cannot be called a role-playing game, as I choose to define the genre (Remodeling 1).


01/31/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
Peter Moore, President and Chief Operating Officer for Sega of America, held a press teleconference this morning to detail Sega of America's plans for 2001 and to comment on Sega's worldwide strategy. In addition to announcing a new $99 price tag for Dreamcast beginning February 4 (the Sega Smash Pack will now be priced at $119), the company has decided on some strategies to move Sega from a lagging hardware manufacturer, to a "top of the heap" software developer and publisher. Moore outlined a three-pronged approach that will go into effect April 1 this year and continue through at least March of 2002. The basic approach involves the following:

Sega is now a "platform agnostic" third-party game developer/publisher.
Sega will license the DC chipset.
Sega will focus on network strengths.


01/26/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
The modern world of videogames is like most other creative pursuits in that it is now coming of age and realizing its full potential. During the course of this realization, many different phases and styles have, and will, emerge. Turning points and plateaus are inevitable, as are special titles that represent "timeless" examples of the artform. Just as a classic Mercedes Gullwing will always stand out from the crowd of other cars, certain games will represent a highpoint in gaming that will maintain a certain "Wow" factor in the decades of gaming to come. Further, just because drastically better 3D modeling, and other innovations, are coming doesn't necessarily mean that the games will make a deeper, or even as deep of an, impression on the audience than its well-crafted ancestor did.


01/05/01 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
As we move into the next arena of competing systems, 2001's HAL9000 may be a ways down the road, but there is a wide world of electronic-gaming glory in sight. While most have hopefully known the awesome perfection that is Dreamcast, it does behoove both the serious and casual gamer to look at the upcoming choices and see what each new platform has to offer them.
PS2 has already landed and GameCube and X-Box will within a year. PS2 and X-Box should both be in the $300.00 range and GameCube about $200.00. Like most other technical-equipment purchases, it all depends on what you want your new box to do. The PS2 has made a serious leap forward as a true 'Set-Top Box' offering movie-playback and the promise of serous internet capabilities. X-Box will offer these also and Nintendo's new entry will at least offer online browsing. With DVD players dropping in price everyday and nearly half the houses in the country connected to the internet, these are niceties in a console, but maybe not the prime focus.


10/30/00 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
PlayStation2, the words still sound like honey in my ears. Like the culmination of some grand epic, the PlayStation 2 is now a reality and I'm still giddy with excitement. My zealous desire to own a PS2 reached a fevered pitch this week and had me compared to everything from an irrational fanatic to a crack whore looking for a fix.


10/30/00 | | GF! Back Catalogue 10/2004 => 1995
category: archive
So, as I was standing in line at 6:00 a.m., waiting for Big K to open and deliver me my PS2 booty, the hot topic amongst the fellow first-come-first-servers was DVD. None of us doubted the PS2 game system would be hot, but for many people DVD playback was what brought them out to brave hypothermia, and risk social rejection for years to come. (Hey, camping out for a PS2 is a hell of a lot cooler than doing the same for a Furby”you can't even give those things away anymore!) I have to admit I was skeptical.


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