The news hit on 1/06/2009 that 1UP.com, MyCheats.com, GameTab.com and GameVideos.com would be sold to UGO.com. EGM has been closed. Many people on the 1UP staff lost their jobs. The 1UP Show is now canceled with the 1UP podcasts (including 1UP FM and the Backlog) likely to follow suit. This news immediately had a profound effect on gamers, not to mention the whole of games journalism. I turned to Twitter just after word of the acquisition hit my RSS feed and watched as the many reactions from both 1UP staffers and other games journalists poured in. I’ve compiled the reactions here in this video:

Though I just finished ranting about how useless an endeavor creating year-end wrap-ups and best-of lists is, I do appreciate reading them from time to time. In the case of best-of comic book lists, it gives me an idea of what collections and on-going series’ I should look into catching up on.

Comic Book Resources has compiled and released their best 100 comics of 2008 list. I’m bringing it up here because four of the five books ongoing in 2008 that I’ve recommended via Comic Tips have placed in CBR’s list. I think this is as good a time as any to say: told you so!

The four comics in CBR’s top 100 of 2008 that I’ve said you should be reading are as follows:

• #85 Dynamo 5
• #72 Echo
• #42 Air
• #08 RASL

I was absolutely thrilled to see RASL in the top ten. I’ve voiced my concerns for it and its quarterly release schedule in the past, and it’s good to see it getting some recognition for being something special. I was disappointed to not see any Jonathan Hickman books in the mix; I’d imagine that the delays affecting his books have caused many to wait for trades. I would also liked to have seen House of Mystery in the list, but everything else feels just about right.

One thing is for certain: I need to read this Criminal TPB that has been sitting on my desk for three months.

One Hell of Holiday Season

So yeah, its busy as hell around the holiday seasons for me, but I just wanted to pull up a digital music artist for the month of December, but someone spiked the egg nog. 7 Days later I wake up in Death Valley with this song being played in my head like angels. Not gonna sit here and talk on and on about this. From the dark corners and generally shadowed areas. I give you, from their latest album FH3, TZDV by Faderhead…

An update for Gravitron 2 has just been released in the form of a 15 level map pack. These new levels can be accessed from the game’s main menu by cycling the “Map Pack” setting. Be advised that starting a game on the new map pack will overwrite your progress on the original map pack and you’ll have to start over.

Steam users will get this update pushed to them automatically. If you purchased Gravitron 2 directly from the developer’s site you’ll now find a patch available there.