Controller1.com- Three Months Later
So we’ve been around for three months. People are reading, sometimes even posting. Occasionally, we’re even answering. So what’s on the horizon for C1.com?
Dancing girls? Orbital space stations? Jenga? You tell me.
So right now, the avatars when we post are busted and there’s no written indication whose posted what. WordPress is a brilliant way to run a website like this, but its not perfect and neither is the site. In three months we’ve managed to settle on a theme that sorta works as well as a colour scheme that’s not perfect but it works and we have a nice logo thanks to Clint. The Focus Test is our main drawcard and we’ll continue to do that with FTs for Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Call of Duty, Left for Dead, Banjo Kazooie and Boom Blox comiing over the next few months (and that’s just what I got for Christmas) as well as a number of older games mixed in. Cam now has a Wii so that’s now increased the ease with which Commodore 64 games are FT’ed since a Wii is easier to bring to the studio than a 15 inch Dell laptop is. Or a working Commodore 64. Jesus Christ how will it be when Great Giana Sisters is released on DS?
Hey, If you like the site and you don’t like the content, or it doesn’t cover your style of game, drop us a line (chief@controller1.com) or even better, submit a story yourself. We won’t bite and we won’t steal your stuff. We probably aren’t read by guys heavily into World of Warcraft, but we do cover everything from Animal Crossing to Zaxxon. At the moment the game reviews are in a narrow band of AAA shooters since that’s what I tend to play, but I love reading about games that I don’t normally play.
We’re always looking for suggestions for games to Focus Test. We can FT almost anything but certain types of games are easier for us to procure. 360, PS3, Wii and DS are pieces of piss for us to FT (especially if there’s a demo), older Retro games through MAME are not a problem but modern PC games are not the easiest, unless one of us has already bought the game.
What do you think?
January 5th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I really miss the angrygamer.com podcast theme. Any chance of older podcasts being made available?
Also the vocal effects you’d employ when you said things like “Bioshock” and “Pokersmash” were hillarious.
Good job all around though.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Thanks. A-G is dead, dead, dead. Different server, different owner. You’d have to ask indicted A-G CEO Demi Demforth IV about the A-G podcasts.
Not saying something won’t be made available in the future.
However the vocal effects such as you described are bound to crop up on FT’s
What was better Focus Test, or talking/skits of A-G? I’ll put a poll up.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Heya George! Both the skits and the focus tests are great. I couldn’t say I like one more than the other… that being said I think the focus tests are easier for you guys to put together which means you can pump out more of them…
And more is always better.
Did AG really have an owner that wasn’t one of you guys? I thought the whole concept of a CEO was a just a running gag.
BTW, I’m a proud owner of Pokersmash and even though I don’t play it as often anymore I have the mp3′s on constant rotation at work. Surely it’s some of the best music ever produced for a video game… certainly for an XBox Arcade title. COD5 owns me right now, though. Unfortunately I’m having trouble getting through the single player as the multiplayer keeps distracting me…
January 6th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Hey! Here’s something I want addressed. How come the PS3 has cheap 3rd party peripherals like steering wheels for $29, but the XBox has almost zero and if you want a steering wheel you have to fork out 99 bucks?
January 6th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
360 owners just lucky, I guess
January 7th, 2009 at 1:59 am
I think the site is off to a great start. The articles are well-written and the podcasts have been consistently funny and interesting. I do miss the characters from the old AG podcast, especially lovable lunkhead Reggie, ivory tower dweller P.R. Hufnstuf, and the always-reliable-for-a-laugh EA SPORTS PRESENTS guy. Tina and Shell, I don’t miss quite so much (nothing against them as people, I just didn’t find them very funny).
I prefer the Focus Tests to the skits, though, for their rough, improvised liveliness. There’s a fresh honesty in just listening to some guys play a game for the first time, and hearing their responses to the minute-to-minute action. Perhaps you could continue to do the Focus Tests for the most part, and make the occasional scripted skit when the mood strikes you.
Oh yes, and like Frostback, I’ve found the Demi concept mystifying. Who is this mystery man? Will the truth ever come out?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Woops, two more things I forgot to mention:
1.) I found Angry Gamer when I saw a link to it on UK Resistance. Perhaps you could get this site linked there as well to increase exposure?
2.) I really like the Controller1 musical theme. It’s fresh and cool, and punctuates the fact that this is a site with different management and a different attitude.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
The former owner of AG was more of a whore who doesn’t want to be identified with that site because of his day job. C1 doesn’t have that problem which is why I use my name instead of a nick on this site. I need to get around to more pimping of the site.
I personally loved the sketches and I wrote many of them if not most. I also took hours to edit and add sound effects something I couldn’t justify the longer the old site ran and our numbers dropped so sharply everytime we took a needed break for a few weeks.
One of the trio HATED the scripted format. A lot. It was causing ructions and we couldn’t very well do the show without his voice because he brought so much charm to the show- most of the time he was the best actor. We lost the girls when they moved on with their lives and never found a replacement.
When Cam suggested the Focus Test format, we leapt at it since it was mostly unedited and didn’t require a lot of prep beforehand. We’ve made some mistakes with selecting sections to play. If someone’s made up their mind to hate on a game before you even start the console, its always going to be hard but its honest and makes sure the show is lively.
We’d love to do a video podcast, but we have dayjobs that could be jeopardised by sticking our mugs on camera to impersonate Peter Molyneaux, which is why there’s no video podcast. And Video sketches would be even harder to to well under those circumstances.
I’d love to do more sketches but I like to make movies in my spare time, which you can view in the ClivePwned video tab at the top of the screen. I manage to make two a year and have another three finished titles from previous years ready to go up in coming months. Cam has his own new site and Clint is a pro-am wrestler who twitters.
Phew. Now to play some games.
PS- Demi is a real guy.