The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Book Stuff

Writing a book is a lot of work.

Oh, and water is wet, time stops for no one, and puppies are adorable.

I decided to change the format of the book a bit, and was thankfully given the green light to do so by my publisher. The entire Almanac format I have always struggled with just a bit because it never made a whole lot of sense to me. Remember, I didn't come up with the Almanac idea; I was going to co-author the book at first until the former writer backed out for personal reasons. So I was sort of stuck with it. Todd kept asking if I had any better ideas, and I was like Homer Simpson thinking of dancing monkeys. I had nothing. Finally, months later, I had an idea.

The book is now broken down into months rather than by days. I never could wrap my head around talking about Freedom Force Vs the 3rd Reich on March 10th...just because. So now we're breaking the book down into three main sections:

-A 2005 Retrospective (by month) where I talk about the significant releases for each month on every platform. (January - October).

These aren't really reviews of each game (though I guess some are) but I try to approach talking about each game from a different angle. Some entries discuss popular mods for a game, like I did with MVP 2005, while some are basic guides on how to get past boss characters (like Oddworld Stranger's Wrath). Some discuss a series as a whole, like the evolution of Gran Turismo. That sort of thing. I think the idea is more about it being fun to read rather than it being some kind of all-encompassing cheat guide. You can get most of that stuff online, so I try to keep the guide stuff to a minimum.

-A Holiday Guide which discusses games to be released for the 2005 Holiday season.

-2006 Highlighting some of the more high profile games currently announced that are due out in 2006 (and beyond in some cases).

Sprinkled inside each month are general grab bag essays (The Best D&D games; Why Sports Games are Rip Offs, The Best Game Rental Services), Bargain Bin entries (good games you can get for $20 or less) Closet Classic entries (discussing the importance of games from the 80s and 90s), and Company Graveyards (discussing companies that have went the way of the Montreal Expos).

The reason I bring this up is that a lot of people, a surprising number of people actually, have asked me what the book is about and before I really had a helluva time trying to explain it. I think this presents a clear outline of what the book is all about. Whether or not that interests you is another story, but at least I can answer the question now.