When was a pre-teen living in Pinole, California, my best friend in the world was Joey Markert. We were inseparable. We went through all the stages together — Stars Wars action figures, then G.I. Joe, then role-playing games, and finally — suddenly — girls. (You can imagine how much success we had with that last one…)
I eventually moved away to beautiful South Dakota, and Joey and I lost touch. With the help of the Net, we reconnected about 10 years ago, drifted apart again, then re-reconnected about three years ago.
To my amazement, Joey and I were still doing the same things. I was running Blend, and Joe was running Gamehelper, a Web site devoted to all things gaming. I think its remarkable that Joey and I never drifted too far apart in terms of interest.
For his part, Joey has been around Gadgetopia. Here’s a picture of me, Joey, and All-Pro defesive end D’Marco Farr playing D & D back in the day. And this post about the role playing game-geek connection was based on many a late night gaming session around Joey’s kitchen table.
Anyway, Gamehelper has just gone through a huge redesign, and it’s become pretty kick-a**. I don’t have much time for gaming besides, ahem, the occasional three-hour PGR3 sessions on my kid’s XBox360, but I still find Gamehelper interesting as all get out. Regardless, I’ll never understand rock band video games. Ever.
Guitar Hero? Seriously?
