I remember when Billy was getting the site together. I think he had it going already as N2000HQ, and I had been working for OperatioN2000 with Justin Nation. I hadn’t done much for awhile, and then here came Billy urging me to work for him. He told me all these people were coming to work for him that were from old sites such as N64HQ and the site I worked at with Justin back in the day, the 64 Source. It was like he was getting the band back together. I think Billy even said that; “We’re on a mission from God.” I thought he was nuts. But then he told me Justin was joining and that his site would be adsorbing OpN2k and its content. He didn’t have to twist my arm too much after that, I joined up and I felt we would be doing something exciting. I’m pretty sure the site was PlanetN2000 at that point, and Billy’s enthusiasm was contagious. After we had the new team going for awhile, I asked if I could bring in old friends such as Colin Taibi, Jon Lindemann, Desmond Gaban or Rob “Rick Powers” Stevens. He was cool with that and pretty quickly we had a great group and a great site. Those early days were really thrilling.

***

The first time Michael “TYP” Cole came to E3 was in 2001, and I’m not sure if he was 18 yet. On the day the show started, there had been some trouble with his registration and he wasn’t going to be let in. I marched him up to the administration area, and argued with the officials that he was an integral part of our staff and we needed him. They were a little hesitant at first, so I told TYP to print out some of his work on the computers they had there, and then started saying “why don’t you print out that preview…or that interview you did…” I was being very snooty with the E3 officials, acting like they had inconvenienced us a great deal. I was really confident we were in the right, though a small part of me wasn’t sure it would work. But it did, and TYP got his press badge. I thanked the officials, and Michael was ready to bounce off of the walls at that point. I was just happy I was able to get my man into the show.

***

Just before Super Smash Bros. Melee came out, one of my sources day by day told me the secret characters bit by bit. I promised I wouldn’t reveal them unless someone else did first. And believe me, it was hard to resist posting that info and having the exclusive story that everyone wanted to know. Well, time passed, and while I forget who leaked it, some other site did release the full character roster, causing me to leak the list as well. Then I emailed Billy with the subject “What to tell Nintendo when they come asking about the SSBM characters.” Billy was less than amused, but we were probably the biggest site with the info. Within a short time, Nintendo did contact Billy and we pulled the list. I think the other site that listed them pulled the secret roster info too. It was ultra crazy and quite a rush, both getting the information and then running with it impulsively. I definitely should have talked to Billy about the info and everything beforehand, but it was almost too exciting to hold onto once the information got leaked elsewhere. I wanted to prove PGC had the goods, but it didn’t make Nintendo happy, so it wasn’t really cool.

***

I hired people for weird reasons, which sometimes paid off really well and other times did not. Michael Cole for example, caught my eye when he would wound up getting published in several other sites’ mail bags as “The Younger Plumber,” such as IGN or our pals at the now defunct Tendo Box. In fact, one of the guys at Tendo Box said something along the lines of “Wow, you seem to pop up everywhere, Younger Plumber!” and that got me thinking that if he was getting published everywhere, he had valid things to say and contribute. I contacted him (I forget how at this point) and told him I’d like to try to hire him. I “trained” him in terms of the formats of our various sections and got him to try to write a bunch of stuff. Billy, and much of the rest of the staff, were very uncertain about Michael, as he was untested and was literally someone I had picked from the ether. But he eventually was promoted from trainee to full staff, won the acceptance of everyone, and since being hired has proved his worth to the site several times over. I’m quite proud of him still.

David “Rize” Trammell had a similar story, I believe. He wrote very technical posts on IGN’s letters section and in their forums. So I contacted him and we talked, and he knew so much about the technology aspect in games and consoles, that I offered him a tentative position. It turned out he was aspiring to be a game developer. He got to work right away helping me with the massive (though never completed) GameCube FAQ that had been my pet project forever. He came and went a couple times after I left, but was also very valuable to have onboard and a great guy.

Then there were a couple people I tried to hire that didn’t work out at all. I can’t remember the name of the guy, but I hired someone who was in close personal contact with Ken Lobb, and was feeding us information about him a lot. I considered this to be a very valuable source, so I offered him a position. Billy agreed, but both Billy and I noticed the person did not contribute much at all—not even any Ken Lobb communications. That is, until we got word that Ken Lobb had left Nintendo for Microsoft. He told our new staffer that he felt Nintendo was getting stagnant, and how ideas for the Xbox, such as having customizable soundtracks, were “like something Nintendo would do.” With out any material contributed by this individual, we kicked him to the curb. He understood though.

So yeah, I made some gambles which have gone both ways, but the folks who did turn out good for the site did very well.

**

For a long time, since Justin’s OpN2000 and Billy’s N2000HQ, we were writing about vaporware; games we might see, or games we’d like to see. Even after the sites merged there were no concrete games to write on; even after we got the PlanetGameCube name, there was demos and things we could do previews on but nothing to review; at least until the GBA came out and we could start reviewing those titles. Therefore, the site had no set Game Review format. We heard a lot of opinions from a lot of staff members whether we should have number score reviews or not. I remember one vocal staff member was Jonathan Metts, who I believe was still a little bit of a newbie at that time—and if I remember correctly, he was against numbered scores. Well, Billy designated it so that he, Justin and I could talk the issue out and come up with a format.

It was a pretty serious conversation. We took into account ideas and concerns staff had, but Billy kept us all on track and didn’t let us get too much into abstracts. While my memory is rusty on this, I believe Justin proposed a format very similar to one he and I had used at the 64 Source, the first website he had run and the first one I had worked at. I pushed for number scores between 1-10, and Billy made sure that the only decimal score we could give in between those scores would be .5, so it wouldn’t be all over the map. I can’t remember who came up with what else, but the review format we developed is the one still being used by the site today. I wrote up a big document explaining the format, and how reviews would be handled; for example, first come, first serve, and staffers had to sign up for reviews, as we didn’t want ten staffers all reviewing Luigi’s Mansion or whatever. I’m sure how reviews are distributed behind the scenes has changed, but the format remains the same, which is a testament to what Billy, Justin and I came up with, works.

**

The rumor section was a fun little thing we decided to do too. Billy definitely wanted a characterization of his cat, Louie, doing the rumors in HaX0Rs type dialect made popular by SomethingAwful.com. I had another idea: why not have a visible meter showing how reliable or unreliable this rumor is by having pictures of Louie and his litter box? The more stinky and dirtier the litter box was, the less validity the rumor would have. Billy dug the idea, so I set it up.

I tapped my friend, Gary Tozbikian, to do the drawings. Billy provided us with several photos of Louie (and there were several on the site already to boot) and Gary got to work. I can’t remember how many pictures there were: maybe between four and six. 1 or 2 on the clean side of things, one ambiguous “we’re not sure” picture with Louie reared up on the side of the box looking confused, and 1 or 2 with progressively more disgusting litter boxes. Then, Gary did an extra picture, of Billy cleaning up Louie’s litter box. I think that one was used only a couple times over the years, one of them being when Nintendo World Report “dismissed” Louie from his duties and said goodbye to the character, as Billy had moved on long before. It was a cool idea, and it worked really well for the section. I remember Louie’s rumor column being pretty popular among fans. The staff also had fun coming up with things I should have Louie say and such.

**

E3 was always great, not just for the games and the explosion of news, but because you’d get to see your co-workers; either re-uniting with familiar friends from the year before or putting faces to names for the first time. And with these get togethers came a lot of video game playing. It seems like we’d all bring our video game systems and games and there’d be different groups of staff playing different games in different rooms. In 2001 Billy brought Sin & Punishment and I was floored at how amazing a game it was. Ty Shughart, Zosha (“Dragona”) Arushan, Andres Rojas and others would play games like Guilty Gear, which I saw for the first time. Ty actually schooled me enormously in the shortest, most humiliating match of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 I’ve ever played in my life. In 2002, I remember Steven (“Windyman”) Rodriguez showing off his home modified soft dance matt, while handing out Mountain Dews (remember, it was the signature drink of PGC) to anyone who wanted them. And while there’d be cliques playing this game or another, there were times we would all get together for gaming sessions too. I think in 2001 is also the night we had the big Samba De Amigo party, where almost the entire staff (except maybe Billy, he may have been at the Nintendo Party) played Samba, and we had the maracas and everything. There was a lot of laughing, and trading off and tons of memories created that night. That night was the reason I had to buy Samba De Amigo on Wii immediately after it came out.

In 2002, we had a huge, like nearly all-staff, Super Smash Bros. Melee tourney. I got eliminated almost immediately, and while I’m sure Ty did well, I really remember Michael “TYP” Cole kicking much ass in that tournament. Great times; great memories. I’ve felt really bad for the staff the past few years with the restrictive nature of E3, as it would make staff reunions impossible. Hopefully, with the changes/reversions to old ways coming to this year’s E3, the current folks of NWR can meet up for some SSBB.

**

I became pretty decent friends with Kosta, our first Australian correspondent. He only contributed rarely, though it was due to him having to work hard on Australia’s print magazine, Nintendo Gamer. Kosta and one of his colleagues and I hung out a bit, and I ended up giving Kosta my copy of Ogre Battle 64, because it was never released in Australia and there was no other chance for him to get it (it was one of my favorite games; little did I know it’d take me forever to find it again in the U.S.). I was working really hard at PGC too and hopefully that impressed Kosta & co., but it may have been that gift that made Kosta recommend me for the job of American correspondent for Nintendo Gamer. I was thrilled. After awhile, I wrote a couple articles for them, including one where I took pictures of the GameCube launch in America (Ohio really). They ran with it. Unfortunately, the job kinda fizzled out, and I wasn’t getting paid anyway, but it was a real thrill being published in print for the first time.

**

Meeting fans of the site was always a trip. While I had a couple local encounters, the big time to run into fans was at E3. A lot of people were thrilled to see us when they knew who we were. My brother came with me to E3 a couple of times, and the year he attended while I was at PGC, people kept stopping him after they saw his name tag and asking if he was related to “Max Lake” and then supposedly they would go nuts. I had a few guys stop me on the last day of the show one year and they were telling me how much they loved everybody’s work, and especially Louie the Cat. It was an amazing feeling.

It was also really cool to go onto the traffic tracking website, to see how many hits we were getting and from what parts of the world. Well, back when I used to check, we got hits from all over the world, even in really remote countries, and it was just a thrill to see. I’m sure the site is doing even better now with the popularity of the Nintendo DS and the Wii. Back in the PGC days, GameCube was very much an underdog. However, I have to say I learned pretty quickly that Nintendo has some of the most passionate fans around.

**

During E3 2001, there was an opportunity for one of us to go to a Sega Party. Jonny was setting it all up, and he asked who should go. I knew Billy was going to the Nintendo Party at least, so I said that I would go. It was an amazing evening that I will remember for the rest of my life. Sega had just announced they were getting out of the console business and would become “first party agnostic” supplying games to all three consoles as a third party. Peter Moore was still at Sega at the time, and he was emceeing the event. Basically, every leader of every one of Sega’s teams, Smilebit, Sonic Team, Amusement Vision, etc. came up and revealed what project they were working on. One of the cool demos of the night was Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s reveal of Rez. Staff member Justin Wood (AKA J-Dub) had managed to sneak in too, and we were having a hell of a night.

I demoed Super Monkey Ball and while playing, Toshihiro Nagoshi, head of Amusement Vision came up and gave me a Monkey Ball keychain that I have to this day. I asked him if he had big plans for GameCube, and he said yes, but he couldn’t talk about them. He was super friendly. I talked to one of the head Smilebit guys and told him how much I loved Jet Set/Jet Grind Radio, and how I had bought both the Japanese and American versions of the game. He thanked me, and it was thrilling to tell a developer directly that their game was one of my favorites. Best of all, I met and introduced myself to Yuji Naka. I kinda geeked out and told him how much I loved the old Sonic games and encouraged him to keep making great games. He humored me, but looked distracted while I talked. Still, I’m glad I talked to him. J-Dub and I had an amazing night; Billy thought I had gotten drunk at the event, but while I had a drink or two, I was mainly buzzed with excitement. The Sega of old was gone, and now they were ready to make an impact on the industry through software alone, and they were celebrating. Again, it was an unbelievable night I’ll never forget.

**

Long time readers of the site know that when the GameCube was originally released in Japan, Billy had traveled over there to go to Spaceworld, and then visited Nintendo Co Ltd. Headquarters and tried to get in, and on top of that stayed around in Japan to wait in line at a Japanese retailer with fans to pick up the GameCube on the day it launched. His antics got around to people at Nintendo and gamers in Japan, and he was dubbed “Crazy Billy.”

Later, in 2002 at E3, Billy and Rob “Rick Powers” Stevens went to the Nintendo Party. I stayed in Billy’s hotel room and played Mystic Heroes, which he told me to check out. I loved it, as it was just like Dynasty Warriors, but super-deformed and with a great addition of having different kinds of magic. So I did that, and other staffers played games or worked up material and the night passed by.

After Rob and Billy got home, they told me about Smash Mouth playing and other guests of note. Rob pulled me aside and told many of us staffers that they saw some Japanese guys staring and pointing at Billy, talking just loud enough so that they could hear that they were saying “That’s Crazy Billy!”

**

Every gamer and fan wants to go to E3 and thinks it’s this wonder world of gaming goodness and fandom to the extreme. And yes, it can be those things. But going to E3 in the capacity that the site did meant a lot of work. Sure, almost all of the site staff always worked hard, but E3 is like running a marathon over going jogging every day. You’d get up early for the press conference on the day before the show opened, then scrambled to get everything posted. One year after the Nintendo press conference, Billy split the staff into groups, and I headed up a group that basically rented out an entire internet café, carrying a fistful of press releases. We had walkie talkies that year, and we reported back and forth with Billy on what was happening. Meanwhile, Billy would coordinate with the people who were at home and whose job it was to upload media and what not. It was crazy.

Then on the day the show opened, you’d naturally want to just play games, but there has to be a method to the madness; there were appointments to attend, particular games to play (you couldn’t just play whatever you wanted whenever you wanted), and time needed to go to the press room and write things up. I think we always had one person holding a computer in the press room, so when someone else would come up, they’d trade off and the person holding the seat would go to the show floor, while the guy from the show floor would man the seat and work on stuff.

With all the work going on, there was little time to wait in line to meet guests, or even check out too much of what the competition was offering. It’d be one thing to another to get done. I remember really feeling bummed I couldn’t meet Mr. T or another year, Bruce Campbell. But the lines were too long and that made it too prohibitive. Then again, all Mr. T was saying to every person he met was “I’m gonna pray for ya, I’m gonna pray for ya,” in his trademark gruff voice.

By the end of your average day of E3, your legs and feet would hurt like hell, and by the end of the show, your body would be destroyed. Lucky then, that (at least in those days) PGC stayed in a hotel that had a nice, heated pool.

**

When we got the PGC staff together for essentially the first time at E3 2001, everyone was excited. Some of us had known each other from before from other sites, others of us were meeting for the first time. It was a great time. Billy was holding a staff meeting in one of the hotel rooms, when we started to see guys from Nintendojo walk by. It was obvious they were from Nintendojo, because they had all made hockey jerseys stating so. We kept quiet as they walked by the hotel room, because the door was open. A little later, in Billy’s room, there were a couple of us sitting around; Ed Shih, Billy and I. The door was open, and then Nathan Heckel, someone who I had worked with at Nintendojo and 64 Source came by sporting his jersey and a karate kid style headband with Japan Rising Sun in the middle.

“We’re going to destroy you,” he said, almost with a sneer.

We remained affable.

“What, you guys got a big story?” Billy said. “I heard you were doing something with…” (I forget what.)

“No, it’s not that. But we’ll destroy you tomorrow. You’ll see, you’ll be absolutely crushed.”

We were all a little creeped out, but not really bothered. Who did this guy think he was?

The next day, just before the press conference, Billy came around to all of us, telling us that a Nintendo Rep had told him that Shigeru Miyamoto wanted us to know he really liked Planet GameCube. I got misty eyed. I felt like all of our work was worthwhile and we were on track. It was a phenomenal moment.

During the press conference at E3 2001, Nintendo showed off Luigi’s Mansion and Pikmin. I’m sure others will tell their stories about the group’s reaction to Pikmin. “What the hell was Miyamoto growing in his garden?” was one joke; seeing the game in motion elicited another comment: “Look at those little fuckers go!” Henceforth, the game was known as “Little Fuckers” to the PGC staff. The weird thing was that there was no Mario.

So during the question and answer period, I first introduced myself and the site and apologized to Peter Main for confirming the GameCube logo and getting it out there early (since Billy and TYP had taken pictures of the show floor early, confirming that the design uncovered by Gamefront.de the week before was indeed the GameCube logo). Then I asked Shigeru Miyamoto where was Mario, after he had appeared at the launch of every other Nintendo system. The response I got was basically “Wait ‘till Spaceworld!”

Then Nathan stood up, resplendent in his jersey and headband.

“Miyamoto…SAMA…” he began, and followed it with a bunch of other slow, awkward Japanese. Now only Zosha (“Dragona”) Arushan knew much Japanese at the time, but the rest of us knew he had addressed Miyamoto-san improperly. Everyone on stage and in the room laughed. Miyamoto crunched up his face and said:

“What?!?”

“In English, please,” said Peter Main.

“Um, do you like working at Nintendo?” Nathan said, deflated.

“Yes!” came the reply, alongside more chuckles.

After the show, Billy called Justin Nation to hear his reaction, and Justin told Billy I really had giant balls, talking to Peter Main about the logo like that. I smiled. Meanwhile, Nathan Heckel had addressed one of the members of the Japanese media, confusing him with Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, just because he had a mustache. After that, Nintendojo gave Miyamoto one of their jerseys (with the numbers “64” on it appropriately) and he took it graciously. But we PGCers didn’t feel so crushed or destroyed. It kinda became a running joke with us the rest of the trip. “I’m going to destroy you!”

Nathan has the last laugh though, and not just because his antics got him written up in Japanese gaming magazines. His Japanese has gotten much better over the years, and now he’s living in Japan working for iNis, game developer of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and Elite Beat Agents fame. But he’ll forever be the star of one of my favorite memories working for the site.

**

While Billy was on his Japanese adventure in 2001, he attended Spaceworld, which I believe was the last time Nintendo held that then-traditional event. The big reveals of the show were the new Mario and Zelda games for GameCube. We couldn’t talk to Billy, as he had troubles using computers and internet while he was over there, and he wasn’t likely to call any of us after the event either. So we just stayed online in mIRC; I think it was Dragona, Rize, Andres, myself and maybe one or two others.

Finally pictures of Mario showed up. It looked pretty decent, though it was not quite in its polished Super Mario Sunshine form. Not long after that, the first images of GC Zelda popped up, and we were all dumbfounded by the debut of the Legend of Zelda Wind Waker’s animated style. It looked too simple; too silly; it looked nothing like the preview of a Zelda game shown off as one of the Spaceworld demos a year before. We literally could not believe it. Was it fake someone whipped together real fast? Was it a joke? Could this really be the next Zelda? We didn’t know (and keep in mind the demo wasn’t completely polished either).

I think Billy was able to get online for a second and talk. Maybe I’m wrong. But whenever we did get in touch with Billy, he confirmed it was legit, and told us to chill out because he liked it. Naturally, as time passed and the game came out, many of us came to love it too. But that night…

Naturally, the uproar over that night certainly steered Nintendo into making the “mature” Zelda they had teased us with at Spaceworld 2000, in the form of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. Of course, this story is now legendary in the annals of gamerdom, but a handful of PGC staff experienced it firsthand and we were confused as hell.

**

Although he gets a lot of flak now, Denis Dyack is one of the nicest, most passionate people I have ever met in the industry. During the showing of Eternal Darkness at E3 2001, Denis and other Silicon Knights employees were on hand to talk to the fans as they played it, often asking what they thought about certain gameplay issues, how they could be improved, and asked if they had any ideas overall. Very cool.

PGC interviewed him for our ill-fated E3 Video, and he was so amazing with his answers and time. He really gives a damn about what he does, and at the time he was thrilled to be working with Nintendo. He also told us a lot about how Silicon Knights made games and what their philosophy was. He talked about a lot of things, and was just super nice. The only problem was that we were outside the convention center, and a forklift kept driving by, or planes kept flying overhead—all very loudly. But Denis was very supportive of the site and incredibly friendly. Though no matter how much Billy tried, he wouldn’t say word one about Too Human. Seeing as the game only came out recently, it’s no wonder why.

**

The E3 video, originally pitched by me to Billy as a way to make money to help keep the site going was a disaster waiting to happen. Although we were able to get lots of great footage, the person who originally was going to edit it for me backed out at the last second. Then I had to scour the area for another local filmmaker. The guy I got was less than dependable, and I had to borrow money to buy him equipment, as well as hold on to Rob “Rick Powers” Stevens’ camera for waaaay too long. Meanwhile, Mike Hrusecky, trooper that he was, had gotten video footage on CDs together that were going to ship with the tape, and I held up everything because my guy didn’t give a damn about getting it done. People around the world were freaking out, and justifiably, because some had pre-paid. Overall, I was in over my head, and I take full responsibility of the mismanagement of the project; I definitely apologize to all readers and staff about that.

BUT… Our E3 video was the start of something across the internet, and many other sites started offering similar videos of E3—just more professionally done. That is, until a man name Adam (last name eludes me) stepped forward and joined staff to redeem PGC and make a professional E3 DVD. Adam did a great job with the PGC 2002 E3 video. Since then, PGC doesn’t do video projects, which is probably for the best, but at least we went out on a good note—and our efforts inspired many others to follow our lead.

**

This story pre-dates PGC a tiny bit, but it involves NWR’s current director, so I think it should be OK. My brother, Pat and I had gone to a couple E3s with Jon Lindemann and we all became great friends. Well, a couple years before the new millennium, Jon came into town to visit us. Our parents were out of town, so Pat and I planned to have a party. I worked at Blockbuster Video at the time with an attractive girl who had just broken up with her boyfriend whose name I forget. We invited her to the party and she called us at my parents’ from work and told me “I don’t care if it’s you or your brother, but I’m hooking up with one of you tonight!” I couldn’t believe my ears. Of course, what happened was that she hooked up with Jon! We were appalled, but also thought it was hilarious. I think they tried to have a long distance relationship but she got weird on him. It’s my favorite Jon Lindemann story, and no, I’m not bitter at all Jon. Maybe a little then, but she was a kook!

Another cool story about Jon is that even after he joined the PGC staff and was in good standing, after attending an E3 with us, he told Billy and I he didn’t think he had time to contribute, so he dropped off staff and said maybe he’d come back someday. After dealing with some people who just didn’t contribute and didn’t say anything before we had to kick them off staff, I found this to be very admirable. And look where Jon is now!

**

While I got many games to review, none were more interesting than a couple of imports I got from Lik-Sang, back when they were a business partner of the site (R.I.P. Lik-Sang!): Animal Leader and Rave Groove Adventure. Animal Leader was just insane, featuring blocky animals in a constant struggle of survival, life, love, death and reproduction. It was very deep but also very fun. It was all in Japanese of course, so I didn’t understand a lick of it, but got the general gist of the story.

Rave Groove Adventure was a game based on an anime, and played a lot like the Power Stone games, except that each character needed a certain combination of the right weapon and the right red, blue, and yellow stones (there were several types of each color). Now for fans of the anime in Japan who knew the characters and their powers, this would be no big deal, but for me, it took a lot of trial and error. The funny thing is that a little four footed snowman (who is actually a dog named “Plue” I would find out later) wanders around the screen and heals or attacks or just gets in the way depending on circumstances. There was also a story create mode, where you could make up your own stories. Since I didn’t know any of the characters, I made up creepy, ludicrous stories with the pictures and text (since Romanji was available to use). Between this and the unique fighting, Rave became one of my favorite games. I told the staff about the game and showed it to them one E3. Seeing my love of the game, TYP made me fansubbed copies of the anime (before it was licensed here) of the first 90 or so episodes. It was awesome.

Fortunately, both games were translated and released here; Animal Leader as Cubivore and (though I didn’t find out until much later) Rave Groove Adventure came out as Rave Master, mainly because the anime came out in North America eventually. I’ve been going through Cubivore a bit over the past few months now that I can read text and understand gameplay fully. Rave Master is also something I still play it occasionally, though it takes forever to teach new players what’s what. Fortunately, I have a few friends that have played it enough with me they can hang. I keep telling myself that maybe someday I’ll write a FAQ for it… but it’s last-gen and too obscure for many people to care.

**

Acclaim’s Turok series was a mainstay on Nintendo consoles since the first one was one of the N64’s big initial titles, and I ended up interviewing lead designer, David Dienstbier about the series—almost on an annual basis. Most of the interviews were done by emails, but in E3 2001, we did an interview in person for our video. I don’t know if anyone remembers seeing pictures of this guy, but he was huge. He actually pressured Acclaim to put a gym in for the staff, and he was certainly making good use of it. Anyway, the interview featured me and him, because we had some history, and we talked about the last (and worst) Turok Acclaim made.

Before the interview, there was this PR rep who had helped set everything up. She was a total knockout by the name of Tara Blanco. I can’t remember who all was there, but I know Jonny Metts and I were drooling. She didn’t stick around long though, and we got the interview rolling.

I was pretty nervous for some reason, or tired, or something. Afterwards, I told Jonny:

“Man, I feel like I came off like I was Chris Farley doing one of his Chris Farley show interviews with somebody famous.”

“Yeah! It was a lot like that!” Jonny replied.

I was like “hey!” as I had been joking and didn’t think I looked that goofy. But, hey, I look goofy a lot of the time. It was just kinda funny.

Down the line, Jonny did a lot of the PR for the site and was in touch with all the developers and their PR people. I remember him telling me proudly one time that he was back in touch with Tara Blanco, and though this discussion was held over the internet, I know we shared a smile.

**

On the last night of E3 2002, after we had all played the hell out of Metroid Prime (and realized a first person Metroid might not be so bad!), Zelda Wind Waker (that was pretty good too and the animated style worked well for it) and Super Mario Sunshine (it was Mario, there were no pre-conceived doubts there), we were ready to party. Billy had found a Japanese restaurant with a buffet and karaoke. The entire staff, along with some fans of the site that had come to the show headed there and occupied many of the tables.

The buffet was about to be over, but I decided to get it anyway, and made as much short work of the food that I could, piling up my plate twice. Of course, the second trip to the buffet was just as it was closing, and the food I was loading up on would last me the rest of the night. Of course, not long after I sat down, my first attack at the buffet was already making me fill full. Still, I had this overloaded plate of noodles and various other items.

“You don’t look happy there, Max. You look like eating that food is the last thing you want to do,” Jonathan Metts said, sitting across from me. I nodded miserably.

Everyone else was less crazy than me and ordered off the menu; not long after food was served, we started ordering Sake. It was great because it was hot Sake, and it warmed your entire body as it went down. Those of us that drank loosened up and enjoyed it, and for a couple of staffers, it was the first time they had ever tried Sake.

As people finished their food, staffers and site fans started singing karaoke. I sang the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and Billy told me I sounded like I was in a band. I told him I used to be. I wish I could remember what other staffers sang, but I’ve long since forgotten. However, I could never forget that Ty, Mike Sklens, myself and fans Rimmer and Evil Mario (and maybe a couple other people) all got up to sing A-Ha’s “Take Me On.” It was hilarious, I was tipsy, they were all excited and singing that song was the best time I’ve ever had singing karaoke.

Not long after, Evil Mario bought some more Sake for me and David “Rize” Trammel. David slumped his head down, and smiled sheepishly, tilting his cup.

“This Sake stuff is pretty damn good,” he said.

It had been a great E3; many of us were going home tomorrow and we were all tired from all the hard work we put in. We returned to the hotel, where I’m sure some us took a dip in the heated pool. For one reason or another, Mike Orlando needed to stay in the room that Mike Sklens and I shared. So he slept in the big walk in closet. He had brought some noodles home for the restaurant and offered them to me. I said I’d eat them for breakfast, but I forgot, and they remained there after we all checked out.

That was my last E3 and the last time I saw most of the staff in person. But it was another one of those nights I’ll never forget. It was the perfect end to a perfect show.

**

For E3 2002 before the show, I stayed at Daniel Bloodworth’s house for a bit, before going to Michael “TYP” Cole’s house for a couple days. Daniel and Michael were the perfect hosts and I remain grateful to this day for their hospitality.

Zosha (“Dragona”) Arushan and I became pretty good friends at the site. It started us having a competition to see who had more pets at their family house. I won, and we ended up talking a lot after that. When she came to E3 2002, her longtime friend, Loon (who lived in the area) came to meet up with her and they hit it off rather famously.

By the end of the show, for some reason Dragona, Andres and Andres’ girlfriend Breakygirl, couldn’t go home for some reason and had no idea what they were going to do. I came up with a quick idea and called Daniel at home. I explained briefly the situation and asked if he could take on a couple more house guests for a short time. Daniel being the awesome, generous person he is took them in.

For awhile, they lived with Bloodworth, but later got their own place with Loon. It was pretty nuts. A few years later, Loon and Dragona got married.

Towards the end of 2002, I had to leave the site because of some troubles I was having. But I kept in touch with Dragona. She and I would talk all the time, and eventually she invited me to come visit her during the summer of 2006. I agreed and off to see her and Loon again..

Well, it was great to see them, but what was really cool was getting to know Dragona’s little sister, Maureen. She was super cute, was a gamer and into a bunch of other cool things. We became fast friends, kept in touch after I left, fell in love and she came and moved in with me and ultimately, we were married. We’re madly in love and incredibly happy.

Although free games, friendships, the chance to meet game developers, an American Correspondent gig, and the sense of accomplishment that comes from helping run a great website are all nice, nothing compares with finding true love and happiness. So although there were several factors at play and this will probably sound crazy, I attribute my time with Planet GameCube and Billy’s master plans for helping me find the girl of my dreams and live happily ever after.

**

I’ve run off a bunch of memories and I have several more, but thinking back at my time at PGC, one of the best aspects of the site was the people. It’s impossible for you to be best friends with everyone, but I feel I established some sort of connection with every one of the staff while I worked there. I’ll forever be amazed at Billy’s dedication and how he made a career out of this; he totally deserves to be where he is now at Game Informer Online. I also have a lot of respect for the people, old and new, who have kept and are keeping alive what so many of us worked so hard on for quite awhile, all voluntarily, and who are keeping Nintendo World Report and the spirit of Planet GameCube and the sites before it like OperatioN2000, 64 Source, and the granddaddy of them all, N64HQ burning strong. And it’s not just the staff that was great, but all the colleagues we had at other sites, many of whom are still active in the community today.

I can’t believe ten years have gone by, but I totally believe that Nintendo World Report is still going strong. I always worked to make the site a place I would be excited to come back to and read, much like I had done with N64HQ. I know many of the current staff have that same work ethic, and it’s great to see the site is still a force to be reckoned with. Here’s to ten more years!