It was with much sadness that I read on Teletext, of the demise of one of the last great champions of quality gaming, GameCentral (www.teletext.co.uk/gamecentral). This teletext, and recently web-based, news and features service started out in March 2003, taking over from the excellent and hilarious Digitiser, written by Mr Biffo, and with such big boots to fill, the two main writers of David Jenkins and Roger Hargreaves have thrived, and created a service second to none from magazine, website or TV. Only recently their reviews have appeared on Metacritic, which shows how well regarded they are in the gaming community. Their writing is consistently excellent, with balanced and informative articles championing quality games, that many gamers would probably never take a second glance at otherwise, over the overhyped big budget blockbusters.
They have taken a lot of stick from rabid fanboys over the years, who simply don’t believe that their overhyped game is not as good as the hype-fuelled machine suggests. But at the end-of-the-day they have kept to their principles of telling it how it is, and what a welcome breath of fresh air that has been. When you read the tabloid newspapers and their poor excuse for gaming journalism, constantly giving licenced pap 5/5 scores and the like, you begin to lose hope for your hobby, which struggles to be taken seriously anyway. With constant campaigns against adult gaming, which children are being brainwashed into becoming psychopaths by, apparently, (thanks to dimwitted or non-caring parents) They have been there for us, with quality adult journalism, that takes our hobby seriously.
There is also a thriving gaming community who regularly read and write in to the GameCentral Inbox. I myself have met several good online friends through writing articles and letters to the site, and even created the GameCentral Clan with other like-minded gamers on ps3leaderboard.com. Although with limited (ie no) success on Call of Duty thus far! Although it is a lot of fun. This social side of gaming is often underplayed and now is a massive part of gamings appeal, with almost all games now containing some form of online multiplayer mode. GC helped me find fellow players, when my own friends have still to make the jump to next-gen gaming, and my own playing experiences have been all the richer for it.
To try to raise awareness of their plight, with the plug being pulled in January 2010, we have set-up a petition to help show potential suitors that the guys deserve to keep going in some capacity, whether it be another teletext service, website or even TV show (Editor David Jenkins did appear on a rare gaming show called GamesNight recently before it’s untimely demise a few months ago). If you go along to: www.PetitionOnline.com/SaveGC/petition.html and sign the petition, so that if nothing else, at least the boys realise how important they have been to a lot of gamers, and to quality gaming itself. Even if you've never heard of GameCentral, please take the time to read their articles and sign the petition, and spread the word. One of the last great independent games sites needs your help! Thank you.
