Racketboy

If you haven't heard of our potential club, read through this thread:
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4798

Once you've done that, do you think we should just randomly jump around when it comes to game selections or try to maintain some sense of chronological order? (possibly cycling through history every now and then)

I like a little consistancy to it so I know when to expect it... but have a strict schedule would just feel like homework.

I'd say semi-chronologically, go by year or console generation, but not necessarily by release date.

Random

Random so we can get a really great mix, never feel stuck in a generation and really have freedom to look at anything. You also won't have to worry about deciding whether to cover a certain game or not before moving on to the next generation.

But, some structure is good too; not sure what kind.

I voted random too because if you find a system boring you won't be stuck sitting it out while the history of that system is run through.

It would be helpful to have a chart which displays the active histories of the various consoles so at any time you could have a quick understanding of where this week's/month's history lesson falls in the larger scheme of things. Kind of like one of those charts of animal evolution. A similar chart on game developers would be great too but that would take much more work to piece together.

I also think at least a small number of quirky games and bad games should be included. To know where the history came from, where it was at at the time and where it was going, knowing some of the innovative attempts that didn't work or why some of the games were so very bad is as important as learning about the critically acclaimed and blockbuster games. I think as much is learned from attempts at greatness that fall short and utter failures as highly thought of titles. Besides, the interpretations of "good" and "bad" are subjective. For example, most people hate Sega CD FMV games but I happen to find some of them fun and entertaining and they WERE trying to chart new directions in gaming so they are also interesting in a historical sense. Did anybody but me actually complete Sewer Shark? Or Ground Zero Texas?

I too voted random; while I have a great history of gaming, I'm always open to new games.

Wow the voting is even... any tie-breakers?

I dunno, I said random. Maybe I'm so awesome that I should get the power of two votes?

HA! Its just like when I voted for Perot.