The Video Game Critic

Well it's the start of a new year so I thought I'd let you know how things are going and what's in store.

The big news last year was that I transitioned the message boards from a service to hosting them myself mainly for financial reasons (the service was expensive). It was pretty painful! The boards weren't very functional the first few weeks, and it took me months to get things running smoothly. The boards are stable now but I do notice some hard-to-read text every now and then. I am always open to suggestions or improvements.

Another new development was the formation of the RPG Crew. This group tried to fill in the gaps in my reviews by providing RPG reviews that fit my format. The reviews have been slow coming but I'm happy with the ones that have been posted. We'll have to wait and see what these guys come up with in 2016.

My priority for the new year is the mobile site. My stats are showing more and more users are accessing the site via the mobile pages, some of which look pretty shabby! I'm currently giving those a major overhaul which should be deployed in the next week, so stay tuned for that.

Once that's done I'd like to revisit some of the "top 20" lists I've been promising, like my favorite games of all time, top 5 games for each system, a sonic special, best/worst movie games and best/worst console designs. I'm also putting together a lengthy "rants" page.

What else would you like to see?

Finally I want to thank the moderators who did a great job of keeping the spammers at bay during those first few months of the new message boards. I'd like to thank them for keeping the boards well-groomed and the posts family friendly. The boards make up for the lack of quantity in quality. The people who post on these boards are extremely knowledgeable and have a deep appreciation for all games - classic and modern.

Thanks to the RPG Crew contributors and Mark Jewell who continues to provide professional-looking graphics. Thanks to those who point out my typos and errors. Thanks to everyone who uses my Ebay and Amazon links when they shop on those sites. Keep in mind that once you click ANY one of these links, whatever you buy during that session is credited to the site. Convenience links are provided via icons on the main page.

Thanks again and I hope you all have a great year!

Thanks to Dave for running this site since 1999. That's a long time to be doing anything, especially online.

For the RPG Critic group, it is off to a slow start but I like the reviews that have come out. It might need a few more members, not just for submitting reviews, but also for feedback, edits and keeping the ball rolling.

That Dina console opens up the SG-1000 library to review, which is exciting. In the past there was strong opinions about more reviews for the portables such as the Lynx, Game Gear and especially the original Gameboy.

Thanks Dave! I love this site so I appreciate you keeping it up and running for so many years. I agree that we probably need a few more people who are consistent with the RPG Review crew, mostly for editing and providing feedback. I know I don't have a ton of time so I try to do what I can, I think having some people who really like to edit/revise could be very beneficial. I tend to take weeks to get around to editing (honestly not my favorite thing to do... I think I got burned out from too much school). Thank you Scotland and ptdebate for keeping the crew alive. Even if you're not interested in writing reviews, if you are someone who likes revising please shoot one of us a PM and we'd gladly add you to the crew.

All I want to know is when Video Game Mania 10 will be.

If you're looking for suggestions, I'd love to see reviews of the portable systems, not just the games for them. Your system reviews, while outdated, are full of great info, and I'd appreciate your take on the portables, especially since I don't own any and am interested in getting one or two!

Ugh, please no "rants" page! I'm so burned out on people complaining on the internet, especially gamers.

Top 10 lists sounds great.

How about portable console reviews?

I really like the Top games for each system idea.

I know it sounds strange coming from me, but I'd like to see some RPG reviews getting cranked out on a regular basis. I love the discussion the reviews that did get done provoked. I think it'll really be awesome for the site. Especially considering that most of the best ones haven't been reviewed.

Jon,
If you'd like to join the RPG Crew let us know!
Sounds like you might have something to contribute.
VGC

Breaker wrote:If you're looking for suggestions, I'd love to see reviews of the portable systems, not just the games for them. Your system reviews, while outdated, are full of great info, and I'd appreciate your take on the portables, especially since I don't own any and am interested in getting one or two!

I second this. More portable games and reviews of the systems would be great.

Also reviewing various controllers and peripherals in the individual console sections would be neat.I know you have a couple under the articles section, but I'd love to see you do the Sega activator or the Kinect under their respective consoles.

Otherwise all I have to say is thanks for all the hard work you put into the site.