Gamers Alliance REPORT
Fall 2004 Vol. 2 No. 12
EDITORIAL
Guilty Pleasures
Let's face it. Sometimes, we enjoy things we shouldn't. At least, we THINK we shouldn't. And maybe that "forbidden" aspect is what makes the thing so much fun. You know what I mean: swiping the last piece of chocolate cake, watching Gilligan Island reruns, calling in sick to work when you're really going to the ball game. We've all been guilty of one (or more) of these indiscretions. It's human nature at its most elemental. These are our guilty pleasures.
Guilty pleasures.
And Gamers Alliance is one of MY guilty pleasures. This issue marks yet another milestone for Gamers Alliance: our 19th consecutive year of bringing news, views and reviews of games to the gaming world. This makes us the longest running, continuously published, English language gaming publication in the world! I have a blast playing games and writing about them and sharing my own views and the views of our contributors with our worldwide readership. Nineteen years is a long time. And yet, many of my non-gaming friends have NO IDEA what I do!
I'm reminded of something the great Academy Award winning actor, Jack Lemmon, once said in an interview. He was just starting out, struggling to make it, and found himself at a party. He was buttonholed by a fellow partygoer who had a dismal view of acting. To paraphrase Lemmon: "I can still see this guy's face. We were talking and he asked me, 'What do you do?' I told him, 'I'm an actor." And the guy replied, "No, no, but what do you DO???"
I've hade similar conversations and they usually go like this.
THEM: What do you do?
ME: I play games. I write about them.
THEM: Children's games?
ME: Sometimes. Gamers Alliance covers all sorts of games. But basically, games targeted for adults.
THEM: (with a knowing wink and smile): Oh, I get you. You mean, X rated games.
ME: No, no, no. Strategy games. Games of higher level thinking and social interaction.
THEM: Oh, yeah. OK.
And then they slink away, wanting to separate themselves as much as possible from the crazy person they were just talking to. Well, call me "crazy" (I've been called worse!) but I've having too much fun to worry about it. Games, Gamers Alliance - those are MY guilty pleasures.
Now, of course, this issue features its share of some of those gamer's games we all know and love. But, in a celebratory, festive, 19th birthday spirit, we're yielding to the temptation and throwing in some "lighter" games as a change of pace from our steady diet of brain burners: a gamer's version of "guilty pleasures".
In this issue of GA REPORT, we're sorry but we still get revenge, explore a haunted house, build a Keythedral, buy words and trump the opposition on the road to riches! Meanwhile, Greg Schloesser is furious, Mark Delano flies in the skies, Ben Baldanza gets political, Larry Levy is electrifying and Frank Branham gets heroic! And, of course, much more. Until next time, Good Gaming!
Herb Levy, President