Year in Review

Year in Review

This is a bit of a personal year in review, not just a run down of individual games which have come out this year. We will do something along the lines of a Game of the Year, this isn’t that though. This is a low-down on happenings here on The Reticule over the past year, and some of my personal highlights.

Looking back to last December and things weren’t looking too good for The Reticule. We had changed web hosts, and had encountered a few delays in getting the site back online. From there, I personally went the majority of the month of December without a stable internet connection, some of the old writers had moved on to pastures new and nothing was happening on the site. Last January, I took the drastic step in calling time on the site.

The down-time last a few months, but in March of this year I was re-invigorated and found my lost passion for gaming, and for writing about games. I looked far and wide for writers, I brought back some old faces like Ben Borthwick and Michael Johnson, and brought onboard some new writers such as Steph Woor and Mark Reece.

There was a big change though to The Reticule, we got a lovely makeover and I made the decision to open my mind to writing about consoles. The site was no longer a bastion of PC gaming, rather I brought in our console cousins to the family. Personally, I am still a PC man at heart.

Our first month back in action saw the release of Portal 2 and our first Red Mist award of the new site.

May was a bit quieter, we had Frozen Synapse and Brink amongst others, but late Spring and early Summer is never a good time for the AAA games. Especially not when you have E3 right around the corner in June.

Of course, we were not able to attend E3, but Ben provided some live-blog coverage of a few of the main press conferences, and I was generally a bit cynical of the whole event. We did interview Fredrik Wester from Paradox Interactive and give reviews to titles like Pro Cycling Manager 2011, The Witcher 2 and LA Noire.

In July I spent a wonderful week with the guys at the PC Gamer magazine and met up with one-time writer Tom Senior, he still remembered his roots. I am immensely proud to have had writers like Tom and Phill Cameron write for The Reticule over the years, they have both gone on to achieve great things in the industry already. I would like to take this moment to wish them all the best going forward, Tom with PC Gamer and Phill with his various projects.

August saw the hype start to kick up a notch for the big titles of the year like Battlefield 3 and Arkham City and we made plans for the Eurogamer Expo which was a personal highlight of the year and dominated September for myself.

While I was busy getting ready to meet Michael and Dan Ring at the Expo, Ben was busy giving Deus Ex: Human Revolution a Red Mist. The Expo itself was a brilliant experience, meeting characters like Craig Lager from Gaming Daily and Greg Giddens from MidLife Gamer, playing some awesome titles and attending various developer sessions made the trip stand out.

After recovering from the event, October saw live-action trailers return to the big time and our review of RAGE, a title which I have really enjoyed playing. I found it a welcome change of pace from the majority of current FPS’.

Last month, we had another Red Mist, this time for Dark Souls while I was left unimpressed by the singleplayer aspect of Battlefield 3 while loving the online aspects.

Over the months since we relaunched the site, writers such as Kevin McLennan, Jordan Harling, Lewis Foster and Nick Wheeler have appeared to help out with their own words. We are now in December, and I look back on the past year for the site, and I am quietly pleased with how things have gone. The Reticule rose from the ashes a new beast, but has stayed true to its’ heart.

I would like to thank all the current staff, and all previous staff, for all their hard work, and I look forward to the new year with passion.

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