When I was six my dad came home from work with a new games magazine for me to read.
He’d been doing this for a while – he used to buy ZX Spectrum mags and CVG before I was even born – and now I was old enough to read and very much obsessed with my NES I loved each new issue he’d buy for me.
This one was something else, though. It was bright yellow, was twice the size of normal magazines and was a special edition created by the CVG staff. It was called The Complete Guide To Consoles.
Inside its 124 pages were over 300 reviews, covering “just about every game available on the PC Engine, Mega Drive, Sega, 7800, Coleco and VCS”.
Over the years the CVG team released a further three issues of The Complete Guide To Consoles, each one offering a new batch of reviews.
There were spin-off issues too: The Complete Guide To Sega, for example, covered “every” Master System and Mega Drive game available at the time (though in reality it was missing loads of stuff).
While I always enjoyed reading every magazine my dad brought home, I adored these ones in particular. I was constantly blown away by how many games were in there, and given that the first was released in 1989 – long before the internet was commonplace – they truly felt definitive.
I carried them everywhere I went, read them over and over, knew them cover to cover. By the time the fourth book – covering the likes of the Neo-Geo and Super Famicom – was released, I was old enough to know what I wanted to do when I was older.
Firstly, I wanted to write for a video game magazine: preferably CVG or Nintendo Magazine System, its official Nintendo spin-off.
Secondly, I wanted to write something ‘definitive’ too. Something like The Complete Guide To Consoles, that people would love, read multiple times and cherish like I did with those mags.
Basically, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my lifetime hero, Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall. He joined CVG as a staff writer, became editor, then ended up editing The Complete Guide To Consoles too. Jaz was the man, basically, and I wanted to do what he did.
Those of you who know me already know how the first part of my dream went.
I went to university and got my Journalism degree in the hope it would help me get into a games magazine, and sure enough I made it: first as a staff writer (and then games editor) for the Official Nintendo Magazine, then online editor for Nintendo Gamer and finally – completing the dream – as games editor for, yes, CVG in its final years before it was tragically closed down.
I’ve been a games journalist for 12 years now, and have been lucky enough to do the ‘holy trinity’ of working on a magazine full-time, working on a website full-time and working freelance while running my own website. It’s safe to say, then, the first part of my dream – to write about games for a living – has been well and truly ticked off.
The second part, though – to write something definitive – has continued to elude me. Until now. Continue reading “Revealed: My Secret Project™”
Tired Old Hack 