Love is in the air as everyone's favorite massively hyped Hallmark Holiday lands on our collective laps, and then fails to gyrate. Most gamers are loners who enjoy shooting at things and looking wistfully at Lara Croft (not necessarily in that order) so another V-day gone by just breeds resentment. Here at Beatdown we revel in resentment so let your freak capture-the-flag fly and join us for your ‘semi-monthly' take on the PC gaming news.
Actual Game Quote of the Week: “Do not feel apprehensive about this apprehension!” ~ Guard, No One Lives Forever
CNet and Gamecenter seemed like such a nice quiet couple. So loving, so doting, so seemingly co-dependent. Yet all was not as it seemed … er… seems. Last year, CNet started flirting and then hanging around with that maverick of gaming cyberspace known as ZDNet Gamespot. That hardcore bad boy game website known in the Latin community as “El gaming Lothario.” Yet Gamecenter didn't worry. Didn't see the signs. Felt it was just a phase CNet needed to get out of its system. A website that big surely has wild oats to sow. Surely, with an Internet this lucrative there was room in the marriage for two game sites for one parent company? Surely!
Alas, it wasn't to be. Gamecenter, as of last week, has been cruelly spurned in favor of the flashier Gamespot, with his downloads and Game Guides, extensive review and preview library and outrageously innovative Gamespot TV. Gamecenter was just a primitive homely HTML spinster when compared to the hunky Gamespot that came onto the scene. Que es mas macho? Gamespot. And so it goes, life goes on yet Gamecenter does not. So let us mourn. We mourn and wish well the editors, the freelancers (including myself) and this very column's inspiration: Mark Asher's Gamespin. We mourn them all with heavy heart indeed.
But we should not blame Gamespot. Nor CNet. For surely if a choice were to be made then this was the right one to make. Yours truly only wishes ZDNet and CNet had never met in the first place. Still, to Gamespot we say a fond “good luck.” But beware the fickle nature of new love. So easily borne, carried away, and so easily brushed aside for the next big thing.