I still have contacts at Clock Draper Spudgun. One of them was so incensed by the blindspots in this recent Top 100 that he decided to go a bit Edward Snowden. Beyond the break is a leaked early draft of my alma mater’s next eyebrow-elevating listicle.
“Being a Sainsbury’s shopper means having access to thousands of different items of tempting nosh. This only makes it harder to choose what to buy/eat, which is where our Top 100 comes in. We have surveyed the full range of foods available in Sainsbury’s to put together a list of essential eatables for 2024. Note that we have paid no mind to what was important, influential, or healthy; we only care about grub that is great to eat today. The result is 100 foods of the finest quality.”
I initially thought you were maybe holding a bit of a grudge with this entry, Tim, but then I looked at the actual list. Wow. It’s remarkably awful, especially if you sort by genre and look at simulations.
To me it looks like someone just made a list pulling out random games in random order from steam charts. By a glancing look at it I fail to se any rhyme or reason behind the choices.
A couple of days ago I used Google to search Rock Paper Grauniad {left-wing broadsheet newspaper that developed a reputation for misspellings, nominally The Guardian} for Tim Stone articles that might mention an obscure game I thought he covered. The tag-line returned is:
“Tim Stone: A vereran {sic} PC games journalist, Tim has been covering simulation, strategy and management games in print and online for over 30 years.”
I presume this means that, unlike the rest of us in middle age, Tim has increased HP and increased health regeneration, while also doing increased damage.
PS. Sainsburys should be ashamed: only one beer on the list (Guinness Original at 28)!
Well, the list is shitty, but inevitably all such lists are, even more so when they are constructed by a committee, which was always the RPS way. I mean, even back when Tim was part of them, those lists were not even close to a list I would make.
But honestly, I don’t see a point. IMHO the only lists that make sense are those that would gather the best little talked about games from the current year. There is such a freakishly huge number of games getting published nowadays, I am constantly finding real gems that I have never heard about, and I’m sure there must be a lot more out there.
But then again, Minecraft at number 1… I checked and they are writing about it almost every day. Must be getting a lot of clicks for relatively little effort. That explains it.
I’m less surprised that the turn based strategy genre is represented by whole 3 games, 2 of which are RPGs and the last one also story heavy.
I’m no longer in the target population of that publication. This site is the anomaly, not the other way around.
All i know is that Rise of the Golden Idol came out this week so that i know what myself and Mrs Nutfield will be playing over xmas.
They went with Total War Warhammer III rather than II???
Ah, Sainsbury’s. The mass consumerist market mindset targeted at the many, rather than the few, or indeed the one. I am very happy that you have risen above the collective crowd of Communism, Tim. I wonder, who else here knows of a certain statement Patrick McGoohan said many years ago, which is just as true today, especially concerning the videogames industry:
“You see, one of the things that’s frustrating about making a piece of entertainment is trying to make it appeal to everybody. I think this is fatal. I don’t think you can do that.” -Patrick McGoohan
Video of Patrick saying it here: https://youtu.be/95DrM4tfyD0&t=990s