A couple weeks ago I sat down to write a post about Just Cause 2. I wanted to talk about the fun, silly nature of the combat and violence in the game without writing a proper review (something I don’t feel I’m particularly good at).
I eventually decided to present the post in the nature of a police blotter, the kind you sometimes see in small-town newspapers, that detail generally boring incidents of fist-fights and drunken jerks and minor vandalism. I had a fun time writing about the sudden escalation of ridiculous violence in Panau in that fashion, and from the comments posted, it seemed to get a good response.
Since I enjoyed it so much, I thought it might be fun to write an entire newspaper, not just about Just Cause 2 but about other games I’m playing and have played in the past. So, I did.
It’s called The First-Person Observer. The concept is a gaming news site that reports strictly on news from inside video games, as if I’ve employed a staff of reporters to scour the innards of all the games we play and report directly on the happenings they witness. (It’ll make sense once you see the site, I swear.) It’s given me the chance to write about old games as well as new ones, specific games as well as general game mechanics and tropes, and lets me pretend that all games take place inside the same rather ridiculous universe.
For the site launch, I’ve got five featured stories up, and six more general stories. I will be adding more to the tune of (hopefully) two or three a week from now on.
First-Person Shouter isn’t going anywhere; The Observer is just a companion site for that type of meta-humor, fake-news writing that I really enjoy. I still want to have this site to blog from my own perspective about the games I’m playing and whatever else is going on. But I’m very excited to launch the Observer — I spent this past week feverishly writing these stories and building the site, and it’s honestly the most I’ve fun I’ve had writing since I did Concerned, and maybe the first few weeks of Living in Oblivion.
You can subscribe to The Observer’s twitter feed to be informed of breaking news alerts if you want. The site also has RSS feed and e-mail subscriptions.
One final note: there are some advertisements on the site. I decided I spend far too much time creating and abandoning websites to continue to do so without earning a little ad revenue on the side. If you find them too intrusive or distracting, please feel free to let me know and I’ll see what I can do to tone them down.
Thanks! I really hope you like The Observer; I am having a lot of fun writing it. Check it out and let me know what you think.
