This is a great issue. I knew almost nothing of Huxley going in, but Tom Chick’s preview has me more than curious (even though FPS MMOs are way out of my league.) And Bauman still attracts writers who want to cover the stuff around gaming and not just the games themselves. Check out Erica von Ostrand’s look at cheater culture.

As for me, I have a few contributions this month. Despite the byline at the end of the article, the Shivering Isles preview is mine (trust the table of contents) and I also previewed Empire Earth III, a game I had no idea was in development ten weeks ago but am now actually interested in. In the review section, I contributed opinions on Europa Universalis III and three of John Tiller’s wargames (Jena-Auerstadt, Minsk ’44 and Vicksburg). My Alt.Games column is entirely devoted to Play With Fire, a great big puzzle game from Chris Bateman via Manifesto Games.

Since it’s still a slow month for games, I’ll be elaborating on some of my opinions in the magazine in future posts.

Bossman Bauman gave me a copy of the rechristened MMO magazine (once Massive, it’s now MMO Games). I think I like it. I don’t know enough about the genre to really take in everything (there’s a game that uses meat as currency?) but “The List” would humble even an expert as it names almost every MMO in operation, beta or development.