Topical Tuesday: Your Best of The Escapist

[Spinwhiz]

Topical Tuesday: Your Best of The Escapist

The Escapist has published 259 issues, which means there is a lot of content on the site. Every few months, we pull out some of our favorite articles from the past to share. We know you have your own favorites that are worth talking about as well.

Welcome back to Topical Tuesday! Every week we ask the community a question related to our weekly magazine topic. Our goal is to begin an intelligent discussion based on a topic that's uniquely relevant to us as gamers and to the industry we love.

In this week's issue, we re-published some of our favorite articles from past issues. The problem is we're only able to pick five of our best from the hundreds of amazing articles we've published. With a vast backlog of well written and intelligent articles, we figured we'd give The Escapist community a chance to highlight their top choices as well. Which brings us to this week's topic:

Please choose your favorite articles from past issues of The Escapist. Just scroll down to the archives section of our current issue.

Ladies and Gentlemen, to your keyboards!

 

[AvsJoe]

There are so many to choose from! I have only read as far back as issue 180. Here are my favourites thus far in no order with a little blurb for each:

Issue 223: Obsolescence Pending: Rating the ESRB: I did not know the history of the ESRB and have always wondered why few pay attention to it. This was a well-written article that taught me a few things.

Issue 222: Not That There's Anything Wrong With That: I wish that our society would be more open to the gay community and the lack of gay (or simply non-straight) characters in video games are part of the problem. This was an entertaining read but I was a little disheartened by it.

Issue 218: Playing Like It's My Job: I've been there. Many times. I love this article because it reminds me just how much I love being unemployed, when I have all the time in the world to dedicate to gaming.

Issue 230: Get the Hell Out Of Dodge: I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan and VII is my favourite game. Though I disagree with Mr. Main (I love Midgar), I love reading this article.

Issue 246: Legend of the Drunken Mashter: This is probably my favorite article. It describes me so well. I can't play fighting games worth sh*t.

Issue 244: The Tragedy of Alone in the Dark: What? I love Yahtzee's work and I very much loved this article. I will still never play this game though.

Issue 243: Misadventures in Role-playing: I had never heard of anti-walkthroughs so I found this both entertaining and informative. The description of how to kill Lord British is priceless.

Issue 240: Press B to Serve: Every time I read this I want to cook up a video game themed dish myself. Then I remember how terrible I am in the kitchen. I can always dream...

Issue 238: Stripping Down the Nude Mod: I was a horny little bugger as a kid so I was always trying to find nude cheats and patches. Then when I finally found one for Vice City that turned Tommy Vercetti into a naked Candy Suxx, I was horrified. I have never done it again. Great read though. He said all the same things I felt when I saw that hideous figure.

Issue 199: The Top Ten Reasons Top Ten Lists Reign: As a regular Cracked reader, this just spoke to me.

Issue 195: Paul W.S. Anderson: Not as Bad as Uwe Boll: I've been a big Paul Anderson fan since I first watched Mortal Kombat as a kid. I admit the only major award he may ever see is a Razzie but his films are fun, and that earns a thumbs up in my books. I was glad to read all that in this article.

Issue 191: Grinding to Infinity: I love this series and especially this game. This article was a great read!

Of the articles I've read, I'd figure my favourite is Yahtzee's, but I have yet to read an article I really disliked. This is such an incredible magazine! Thanks guys!

...why did it take almost 48 hours before someone posted in this thread? Am I the only one who actually reads the magazine?

 

[Zombie_Fish]

I must admit that I don't really read the magazine as much as I want to (I have a list of articles/ full magazine issues that I want to read at some point), but I still have a few favourite articles.

[ul][li]Issue 207: Wired Differently [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_207/6197-Wired-Differently] by Nova Barlow. This was probably the first article that got me interested in the magazine and the topics it has to offer.[/li]

[li]Issue 209: A Delicate Balance [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_209/6236-A-Delicate-Balance] by Chris LaVigne. I'm quite a big fan of indie/ browser gaming, so an article based around this area of gaming and how powerful it has actually become was definitely an interesting read for me.[/li]

[li]Issue 158: Click Here for Hot Man Love! [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_158/5044-Click-Here-for-Hot-Man-Love] by Tom Rhodes. This was the first magazine article by The Escapist which I read after randomly seeing it on the main page whilst browsing. And don't ask about the title.[/li]

[li]Issue 204: Kickin' It Nerdcore [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_204/6108-Kickin-It-Nerdcore] by Nathan Meunier. I'm a musician and hearing about rap songs based off of videogames sounded like something I would be interested in. I've now subscribed to MC Lars' Youtube channel.[/li]

[li]Issue 204: Dude Looks Like a Lady [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_222/6608-Dude-Looks-Like-a-Lady] by Nathan Meunier. A very interesting look at the character Sheik and how s/he has been presented in the Zelda series as an independant fighter who can look after himself, yet at the same time be Zelda, the princess who inevitably ends up trapped in Ganon's Castle, as is just the way with the damsel in distress. A nice look at a character I never really paid much attention to in Ocarina of Time beyond the odd curiosity of who s/he really is.[/li]

[li]Issue 173: Cosplay and Effect [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_173/5411-Cosplay-and-Effect] by Alice Bonasio. This is probably my personal favourite article I've read on this site, to the point where it started to make me get a minor interest in cosplaying (something my little sister always failed to do) and made me even buy the book Playing With Videogames by James Newman, an author/ lecturer mentioned in the article alongside the book.[/li][/ul]

I also really liked the Vaginaphobia article you guys have brought back in this issue, even though it gott so much controversy and hatred from other people. I just found it to be a really interesting read.

...why did it take almost 48 hours before someone posted in this thread? Am I the only one who actually reads the magazine?

There are people who read the magazine, it's just that I suspect that the group of 'people who read the magazine' and the group of 'people who post in the Off-topic Discussion forum' are surprisingly different groups of people.