GamesRadar: Bringing Humor Into Video Game Journalism

As an avid gamer, I always like to be informed about what video games are coming out, how some of the newest games fare as far as being fantastic video game experiences, the latest gaming news, and more. GamesRadar is the website of my choice to go to in order to fulfill all of those needs..

What makes GamesRadar stand out to me is the way the articles are written. Many gaming websites try to take themselves so seriously with their critiques and coverage of video games with the occasional witty and/or humorous article. Not GamesRadar. Their specialty is to spice things up and provide plenty of funny articles relating to gaming. Sure they still have reviews, previews, and news like many other sites, but they also have a wealth of humorous lists and a host of goofy articles exposing video game tropes, video game fallacies, making fun of video games, and/or just providing humorous commentary about video games. These lists aren't just the generic "Top First Person Shooters" or "Top Worst Games of 2009," either. They'll make top lists for just about any absurd, random aspect of a game, such as "20 gross misuses of the word 'extreme' in video game titles" or "The most mispronounced game names ever." GamesRadar has some of the most well-written, witty features of any video gaming website, such as this one about bad habits the staff has developed when playing shooting games. It's an example of the great satire the site provides in exposing some of the predictable aspects of video games. What I also like about the website is that they've always given credit to some of the lesser known or forgotten video games as well, particularly when making lists. Most of the time when making a list, they'll mention a few unexpected games that don't receive the same recognition as the Call of Duties or Halos. For example, in this out-of-the-ordinary, yet fascinating "113 Games that have got snow in them" feature, you'll see games such as Croc and D2 mentioned amongst more popular games such as Assassin's Creed III and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Admittedly, as of late, there has been a common complaint that the website has lost some of its touch and that it doesn't post nearly as many clever articles or features as it used to. While this may be true, I still can't get enough of it because 1.) it has some of the most honest video game journalism on the Internet; 2.) the writing is still impeccable; and 3.) even if the articles are more serious than ever, GamesRadar still provides some of the most informative articles and content out there relating to video gaming. Check it out if you're into gaming and clever writing. The interface is a little convoluted to navigate, but it's still worth it.

HI FOLKZ!!!! IT'S MY INTRO BLOG POST!!!!! HOORAY!!!!

Alright, so the title of this blog post may have been a little too enthusiastic, if you're able to detect that sort of thing through text. It should be obvious with the overabundance of capital letters and exclamation points. But listen to me ramble on about a pointless blog post title. Greetings and salutations, fellow online classmates! I may have introduced myself once before in the first discussion thread, but I shall do it again for the purposes of this blog so that random folks that stumble in here aren't confused. My name is Joshua Winters, and I like to make towering sculptures of former child stars out of lard and Elmer's glue. As if you couldn't tell, that last sentence was a questionable attempt at humor (minus me stating my name). I can hear the groans and moans already from the person reading this. On a more serious note, I am a senior majoring in mass communications concentrating in film and media arts with a minor in film studies. As if you couldn't already tell, I am an aspiring filmmaker. Right now I create videos for YouTube and I am going to try to volunteer more at the UTV studio on campus to become better at my craft. I hope to get an internship soon, particularly in the summer. I want to focus my career on video editing or editing films, but I wouldn't mind embarking in screenwriting or directorial endeavors as well.

Like with almost everybody in the U.S., I am a user of Facebook, one of the most common social media outlets available. I've been using it since 2008, and it was my first exposure to social networking (I never got into MySpace). These days I primarily use it to share articles and videos with friends and family and share my own videos with people as well. I try not to spend too much time on there, but for what I use it for, I think it serves its purpose. Another social media website I constantly use is, of course, YouTube. As I stated before, I upload videos on there and I have two channels (one that is my old channel for random and goofy videos that I've made since 2008, and another with more "professional" projects that are more current). Last.fm, if it counts, is another social media site I use and have used since 2010. It's essentially a website to "scrobble" music they've listened to on their computers or iPods, allowing users to communicate with other music lovers with similar tastes and to find recommendations for different kinds of music that would cater to a particular person's tastes. I haven't dipped my feet in Twitter yet, but I hope to in the future because the more social media applications I become familiar with, the more I can get my work out there for people to see and also to establish connections with people to work with.

And that.......is about the gist of it. Thanks for reading!