Reviewing console games

Over the last year or so, the blogs I have posted about video games (console, not Mac) have generated the most email. There are a lot of video game websites that do nothing but review video games, but for some reason people have been responding to my posts about video games on consoles. So here on the blog side, I am going to be doing a lot more of that over the next year.

For Mac users who don’t understand the term “console”, please let me explain.

A console is a video game system that you connect to your television, like the old Atari or Nintendo (NES). The current crop of video game consoles include the XBox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 (PS3) from Sony, and the Wii from Nintendo. As a happy owner of all three of those platforms, I am lucky to be able to play all the video games on the market. (Including any Mac or PC game, although I tend to enjoy console games more.)

It is my hope that a few of the game makers out there decide to send some of their console games for review here at MyMac.com. None have so far, although one company did send a PS3 controller today. I have not opened it, but it looks cool. It glows or something.

So what makes me qualified to review video games? Well, I have been playing video games much, much longer than I have been writing about the Macintosh or Apple. My first console was an Atari 2600 when it first came out. From that point on, I have been keeping up to date with each major console, buying almost all of them. And, not so strangely, I still have all my gaming consoles. (Some I had to replace after the original gave up the ghost.)

My reviews won’t be of game the day they come out and hit the store shelves. While I am a pretty good game player, I have a ton of other activities that preclude me from playing games all day and night. Some games I did play, and beat, very close the the release date. (Halo 3 and Ratchet and Clank being the most recent.) So my reviews will probably be weeks, or even months, after a game is released. Which is good! If you were thinking of heading to the store to pick up a new Wii game, and I just wrote a review of it, that may help. And it’s bad! If a new game just came out, I may not have it yet, or have only had the chance to play it for an hour so far.

Anyway, hope you enjoy my future writing about video games. Perhaps that will include not just new game reviews, but looking back at video game history as well.