Author: John Breeden II

As a journalist John has covered everything from rural town meetings to the U.S. Congress and even done time as a crime reporter and photographer.|His first venture into writing about the game industry came in the form of a computer column called "On the Chip Side," which grew to have over 1 million circulation and was published in newspapers in several states. From there he did several "ask the computer guy" columns in magazines such as Up Front! in New Mexico and Who Cares? in Washington D.C. When the Internet started to become popular, he began writing guided Web tours for the newly launched Washington Post online section as well as reviews for the weekend section of the paper, something he still does from time to time. His experience in trade publications came as a writer and reviewer for Government Computer News. As the editor of GiN, he demands strict editorial standards from all the writers and reviewers. Breeden feels the industry needs a weekly, reliable trade publication covering the games industry and works tirelessly to accomplish that goal.

E3 Promise

Last year we predicted that the E3 show would be the largest and most exciting show ever. For the most part, we were correct. But this year promises to be even more interesting. The console war this year is in full swing, with Sega having stumbled out of the hardware side of the market. Last […]

Fallout Tactics is a Strategic Heavy-Hitter

Fallout Tactics – Brotherhood of Steel takes the very-cool post apocalyptic world of the Fallout role-playing universe and uses it as a setting for a tactical combat game. It has the same look and feel as the Fallout RPG, but without the detailed inter-party relationships and without the myriad of external side quests. I am […]

WWII Normandy Puts VALUE in ValuSoft

There is a logic out there that says that value software (games priced around $20) have to be bad titles. Many of us have seen this first hand and have purchased low-priced games only to be completely disappointed. That is why WWII Normandy came as such a surprise. When it arrived at the GiN testing […]

JA2:UB Zeroes In On a Kill

I have been waiting a long time to get back into the action of the Jagged Alliance world. I’ve been following this series since the beginning, having been attracted to the arsenal of real-world weapons and interesting character personalities. And some of these mercs have been on my team a long time, like when we […]

The Longest Journey is Paradise Found

The Longest Journey has been the top selling adventure game in Europe for sometime, but only recently has started to make inroads in the United States. I can tell you this right off the bat: you will not find a better looking game anywhere. Adventure games have gotten a bit of a bad rap lately, […]

Sudden Strike Blitzkriegs RTS Market

It takes a lot of guts for a German company to come out with a World War II game. In that country, its often taboo to even talk about the war, much less create a game to glorify it. I can just hear the German peaceniks falling out of their chairs as a generation of […]

Who’s Afraid of the Blair Witch?

When the Blair Witch movie went from a film student’s basement cutting room to Hollywood blockbuster, it was inevitable that many people would be looking to cash in on the project. A video game tie-in was inevitable. Now, as we approach Halloween this week, the lab dims the lights and sets out to review the […]

Strike Two, But Not Out

A lot of trade magazines that cover the entertainment industry are, perhaps unduly, focused on movies. In quite a few of them, the pending actor’s guild strike has been covered with the same gloom and doom that might befall a pending natural disaster. But while some sectors of the entertainment industry might be crippled by […]

Vampire gets in your blood

I thought perhaps I would have to take on the curse of unlife to wait for a quality RPG with a good storyline to come out for the PC in the United States. Thankfully, I have found one, and I didn’t even have to wait a thousand years, though it seemed like it at times. […]

Warlords Battlecry is predictable mayhem

The Warlords name has always meant a solid turn-based strategy experience. So it was with some expectation that I delved into the world of Warlords Battlecry, which is the newest real-time addition to this wonderful series. The move from turn-based to real-time is a tricky one. Some game series do it well, while others end […]