The next chapter I'll be tackling is the one on Grand Theft Auto III, which of course encompasses the games before and the games after it, as well as the various "sandbox" precursors and numerous modern day clones and knock-offs. I'm certainly no expert in the GTA mythos, so any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Right now I only own Vice City Stories for the Sony PSP, though I may have to rectify that with a rental to get up to full speed. Thanks for the help, guys!

I just received this month's issue of the Game Creators' Newsletter, and boy is it loaded with great content. Of course I'm biased since they give a nice review and excerpt of my book in there, but there are plenty of other columns of interest--Dark Basic, anyone? We don't hear much about the UK scene, so I'd check it out for that factor alone, but I've listed the sections below for your perusal. BASICally, if you're AT ALL interested in game development, get your butt over there and subscribe to this thing; it's fantastic.

I have exciting news for fans of computer role-playing games and readers of my book on the topic, Dungeons & Desktops. Rusty Rutherford, creator of PEDIT5, the first CRPG we know about, has contacted me via email to tell his story. I've printed it below for all to enjoy, and I'd sure like to get some discussion going here about this all-important first for the computer games industry. I encourage you to read the "dark ages" chapter before reading the below, unless you're already familiar with PLATO and that era of computing.

I just wanted to comment quick on “The Great Videogame Crash” (my personal official designation, along with my preferred use of "videogame" over "video game", just like "bodybuilding" over "body building") and sort of vet my thought process for public discussion and potential disagreement. After spending ~3 years writing the other book on American videogame and computer systems, I came to the conclusion that it has to refer to the year 1984 if a single year needs to be chosen. This was based on a combination of research and personal experience. To put it simply, in 1983, consumers had no real concept that there was something going on behind the scenes. All the consumer saw was increasing stock and lowered prices. Behind the scenes was a different story, with retailers having excess of unsold inventory and diminishing or non-existent profit margins for even good publishers in light of cut-price dreck from their competitors. The classic supply outstripping demand. It wasn’t until 1984 that consumers started to realistically notice there was a problem when less and less new product started appearing on store shelves. That’s why to me, 1984 has to be the year.

Obviously videogames never fully went away in retail or sales channels, but there was a definite slowdown 1984 – 1985. It wasn’t until the limited release of the NES in late 1985 and its wide release in 1986 that retailers started to want to get back full force into videogames and lots of different companies again wanted to cash in. So really, The Great Videogame Crash can be considered from 1983 – 1986 if you want to get technical, but the years where it was felt the most by consumers - who to me are the most important part of the equation - would actually be 1985 and 1986. At least that’s my theory and one I plan on sticking with. And obviously this only applies to North America and specifically the US, as market conditions were very different elsewhere. Also, we can't mention The Great Videogame Crash without also mentioning that the thinking in that 1984 - 85 time period was that low cost computers like the Commodore 64 would more than fill the function or need of consoles that "just" played games. Obviously that wasn't the case and both markets peacefully co-existed for some time. So, what do YOU think?

Just a final reminder that Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East 5.0 is Saturday, September 13th and Sunday, September 14th, at the InfoAge Science Center in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. For more information, please visit: http://www.vintage.org/2008/east/ . Unfortunately due to commitments with the book I will neither be attending nor presenting this year, but it's not because I don't want to. If you can make it, I highly recommend the event.

The Super Mario Bros. chapter is going to be worked on on and off as well. Obviously discussion of the precursor games, like Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Pitfall, etc., will be critical, as all of the 2D games in the series (Super Mario 64/Tomb Raider are their own chapter), as well as the "challenge" of Sonic, but what are some of your other thoughts about the impact, influences and clones of the best-selling game of all time? I'd love to know, as I'm certainly no connoisseur. In fact, I was a bit "resentful" of Super Mario Bros. and the NES in 1985/86 in my youth, as I kind of blamed it for the downfall of systems like the ColecoVision (how wrong I was). I still ended up wanting one, but never got a NES when it was a contemporary system.

By the way, I'm sure you're wondering why the "can of worms" comment in the title... I consider it one of those chapters that has to be done right, otherwise we'll hear no end of it... Even with the impossible time crunch, it's one of those chapters that Matt and I need to heap some extra TLC on.

Hey all. I'll be tackling the Flight Simulator chapter next and would love to know your thoughts. While obviously Flight Simulator really started with Bruce Artwick's original game for the Apple II and TRS-80 computers, I personally didn't play a true flight sim until Flight Simulator II on the C-64. I remember finally taking the time to go through the tedious manual to learn the controls and actually felt a sense of accomplishment as I "learned" to fly (in both the game's main flight mode and secondary combat mode). Sadly, I let about a month pass between Flight Sim II sessions and I forgot a lot of it and never really had the heart to go back and try again on anything more than a very casual basis!

I played a few combat sims on the C-64, like Sid Meier's F-15 Strike Eagle, but really never got into those types of games much as I always felt like I was flying in circles to either avoid or catch enemies. I remember very distinctly getting one of EA's combat flight sims for the Amiga (name slips my mind) and being impressed with the crude polygonal graphics, but my friend at the time (I think we were seniors in high school) who aspired to be in the air force, wasn't duly impressed. After that, I've tried such games on and off, but really, I"m no expert in the genre, though I do own some of the classics (like Falcon for the Amiga/ST and a few of the later combat flight sims from Ubisoft for PC).

So, anyone have any thoughts about the genre in general and what I should look out for? I'd love to hear some stories and what some of your favorite games are past and present. Thanks!