It’s my first-ever freelance piece, and for print, no less! The article is a four-page preview of Assassin’s Creed III; the folks at Future US sent over a PDF of the finished product today, and it looks amazing. I’m ecstatic about this, and I can’t wait for you folks to see it. (In case you were unaware, @GAMER is Best Buy’s in-house gaming magazine.)
The issue hits on April 8th, but subscribers will get it a little earlier. You should all pick it up when it’s out!
Last week, at an EA event in New York, I played about half an hour of the second mission of Mass Effect 3. I don’t know much about Mass Effect, but according to BioWare, you don’t need to have played either of the first two games in order to enjoy the third. They insist that they’ve written and designed ME3 to be accessible to newcomers, without sacrificing anything for die-hard series fans.
I wrote up my thoughts on Destructoid. Check out the full preview, won’t you?
On Thursday night, the New York Videogame Critics Circle had a coming-out party of sorts: its first awards show, a classy affair that was the antithesis of the Spike Video Game Awards in just about every way. I attended the show, and was lucky enough to be able to present an award as well. It was a lot of fun! Check out my recap at Destructoid, which includes the full list of winners as well as a video recording of one of the show’s two live performances of songs from the Bastion soundtrack.
I reviewed EA’s revival of Midway’s arcade football classic, NFL Blitz, for Destructoid. Aside from the exclusion of late hits, which is sad but unsurprising, it plays pretty much like the Blitz you know and love. Plus, there’s a lot of content for $15, especially when you dig into the robust online package.
Check out the full review at Destructoid!
you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.
Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE.
The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items.
That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your going to hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.
The best and worst of humanity in one short story!
(Source: sweetupndown9)
Colin Campbell x: 25 Tips for the Young Games Journalist
Last year I became the proud recipient of a Games Media Legend Award. It was also my 25th year since I began working in games journalism. So I felt the weird urge to write 25 tips for the young games journalist, based almost entirely on the mistakes I’ve made over the last two and and a…
I read through this, and my first thought was, “Well, I haven’t necessarily had that experience.”
Then I thought, “Idiot. You’ve been doing this for just under four years. That’s a lot less than 25.”
I’ve always thought of myself as pretty smart, but I’ve also prided myself on having an open mind. (Yes, I’m one of those “you learn something new every day!” people.) I feel like it’s important for anyone who wants to work in media.
I don’t ordinarily promote my writing here, especially non-review stuff, but I liked the way this preview came out. Mostly because I used some flowery language, and I think I pulled it off.
Here’s my full review of EA Sports’ NHL 12. Spoiler: it’s yet another very, very good hockey game from the folks at EA Canada.
Now that I’ve reviewed this and Madden NFL 12, I can finally dive into Deus Ex: Human Revolution!
Hey, I have a Tumblr!
I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted on here, and I suppose pimping your own work isn’t the best way to re-introduce yourself, but… deal with it. (Or unfollow me — hell, I’m assuming most of you will after this post, if you haven’t already.)
Because of my day job, I haven’t written much for Destructoid at all lately. But I’m still the main sports guy there, and I handle almost all the big sports reviews. Here’s the biggest one of all, Madden NFL 12.
I’ll be back in a week or so with another link — I’m also reviewing NHL 12.
A week ago, 2K Sports invited a bunch of journalists (including yours truly) to a press event at Citi Field before a Phillies-Mets game. We met the winner of the Major League Baseball 2K11 $1 million perfect-game contest, a guy named Brian Kingrey from Hammond, Louisiana, and I wrote a story on Destructoid about him.
They had the journalists play Kingrey and try to get hits off of him, just like last year. I was the only one who got a hit against the 2010 million-dollar winner, and I won a Jose Reye-autographed Mets jersey (which I promptly gave to my brother, a Mets fan, as a graduation present). I also won this year, and I got the item in the photo above: a baseball autographed by Roy Halladay! I think I’ll hold on to this one…
For the full story, go here.
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I’m Samit Sarkar, an Associate Editor at Destructoid.com. It’s pretty much the greatest job in the world, though the common misconception is that I simply get to play video games all day. It doesn’t quite work that way — but it’s still awesome. (If you want to check out all the posts I’ve written, head here.)
I’m a stickler for proper English — grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. — so if you see any mistakes in my writing, let me know. And if you see mistakes elsewhere, let me know, because I’ll want to point them out here and laugh (à la English Fail Blog). I might even put some on The Grammar Nazi, a Tumblr that I contribute to.
You can contact me at samit [dot] sarkar [at] gmail [dot] com for personal stuff, at samit [at] destructoid [dot] com for Destructoid-related inquiries, or on Twitter (see below). I’m also on Facebook.
Oh, in case you’re wondering, I’m 25 and I live in Long Island. But it’s so much easier to just say New York — I’m only an hour east of Manhattan.
Also, I am a HUGE fan of the 27-time World Champion New York Yankees.
