Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
GI Staff And Reader Interests, Dislikes, And Favorite Games: Issue #236
The Game Informer monthly staff page is a forum where we all come together and talk about what's cool right now. We'll get the ball rolling and would love to hear everyone's current interests, dislikes, and favorite games.
Andy McNamara
Interests: Off season bicycle and triathlon training (I need to learn to swim as I completely suck at it), Blackjacks Football (My nephew's team is heading to Minnesota State again. It is important to note, his team beat up on ex-GI writer Phil Kollar's home town in the process so double win), Vikings Football, Wolves Basketball
Dislikes: When life gives you lemons and you are unable to make lemonade – it sucks, it really does, That Assassin's Creed III has one of the best story and settings in the series but managed one of the worst executions of gameplay and pacing to place it firmly at the bottom of the highly-regarded series for me
Current Favorite Games: Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Dishonored, Halo 4, The Walking Dead, Xcom: Enemy Unknown, Borderlands 2, Far Cry 3
Andrew Reiner
Interests: Introducing video games, comic books & science fiction to my daughter (at six days old, her first game was Assassin's Creed III), Star Wars returning to the big screen, Once Upon A Time (a surprisingly awesome Lost-like show), Using my Vita more now than ever (thanks, Persona 4!)
Dislikes: A world without Twinkies, Marvel Now (I'm not digging any of the new books), Having to wait for Telltale to make The Walking Dead II (I want it NOW!!!)
Current Favorite Games: The Walking Dead, Call Of Duty: Black Ops II, Halo 4, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Lego Lord Of The Rings
Matt Helgeson
Interests: Fantasy football, Adrian Peterson's amazing comeback season, Homeland, Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill, GTA V speculation
Dislikes: The home refinance process, The fact that no one makes a decent mop, Matt Birk, Flu season starting early
Current Favorite Games: XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dishonored, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Assassin's Creed III
Matthew Kato
Interests: Shed Seven – One Hand Clapping: The Unreleased Demos 2001-2003, My real-life hockey team winning the AHA fall tournament, Dan's cat Macho (what a fun little guy!), Food Should Taste Good brand chips, www.vintageminnesotahockey.com
Dislikes: The NHL lockout, I'm a little worried about BioWare's future, Disappointing early sales of XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Dishonored, The lack of polish for Assassin's Creed III
Current Favorite Games: Dishonored, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, The Walking Dead
Adam Biessener
Interests: The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny (absolutely classic modern fantasy from the '70s), Evernote, Dropbox, Finding a buyer to keep the Minnesota Stars FC around for the long term even if he is the worst kind of capitalist pig-dog
Dislikes: NASL not using away goals as a tiebreaker (A shootout to determine the champion? So unbelievably lame. P.S. Rowdies suck), The awful new lock screen clock in the new Android update, Finicky chargers
Current Favorite Games: Dominion: Dark Ages (tabletop), Spectromancer: Gathering of Power, Plague Inc. (Android), King's Bounty: Warriors of the North
Joe Juba
Interests: Chili season, Textastrophe, How America hates a loser, Purple Uniball Vision pens, Waiting to see if the Wii U takes off, The endless potential of Star Wars: Episode VII
Dislikes: The inevitable disaster that will be Star Wars: Episode VII, Middle-earth breakfast, Of Thee I Sing (That’ll teach me to go to any musical that isn’t Sweeney Todd), These cereal boxes
Current Favorite Games: Assassin’s Creed III, Lego Lord of the Rings, The Walking Dead, Mark of the Ninja, Borderlands 2, Plague Inc.
Matt Miller
Interests: All-New X-Men (my favorite of the Marvel Now releases), The way Mass Effect 3 multiplayer keeps getting better, number9dream by David Mitchell, The Infinite Jukebox, The possibility that we might see good new Star Wars movies in the next few years
Dislikes: Pundits and their wild predictions, The way streaming TV shows repeat the same advertisements over and over, The possibility that we might see horrible new Star Wars movies in the next few years
Current Favorite Games: Far Cry 3, Guild Wars 2, Marvel Heroes, New Super Mario Bros. U, Halo 4, Mass Effect 3
Matt Bertz
Interests: Being one of the first people to see GTA V in person, Looking up musicians featured on HBO's Treme, Watching the intensity level stay at 11 for this season of Sons of Anarchy, The return of The League and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Ibrahimovic's amazing goal
Dislikes: The prolonged and foolish NHL strike, The terrible stealth in Assassin's Creed III, The slow pace Netflix gets new releases these days, The Wii U online functionality
Current Favorite Games: XCOM: Enemy Unknown, The Walking Dead, Far Cry 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Halo 4, Sleeping Dogs
Jeff Cork
Interests: Holiday game discounts, The Walking Dead’s ending (WOW!), Vacation (!!!!)
Dislikes: Blah blah backlog, Assassin’s Creed III’s version of Paul Revere (“The British are coming, at least I think they are from my vantage point on the back of this horse.”), Psycho Fox
Current Favorite Games: Far Cry 3, Zookeeper Battle, The Walking Dead, Dishonored
Ben Reeves
Interests: My book (go buy it), Eating a lot of Thanksgiving food, The Walking Dead (show, comic, and game), Marvel’s AvX, Skyfall (It was a great Bond film, and made me want to watch some of the old ones again)
Dislikes: Allergies, Losing an eye (This hasn’t happened to me, but I think it would suck)
Current Favorite Games: Halo 4, Assassin’s Creed III, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, New Super Mario Bros. U, The Walking Dead Episode 5
Bryan Vore
Interests: New Star Wars!,Getting out to a theater to see Skyfall, The Halo 4 soundtrack on Spotify, Trying to tweet more, Digging into all the Wii U features
Dislikes: The Halo 4 soundtrack remixes on the deluxe edition (yeesh, I keep picturing Master Chief DJing dubstep dance party), Finding out what Wii U features are a letdown
Current Favorite Games: New Super Mario Bros. U, Halo 4, The Walking Dead, 10000000, Assassin's Creed III
Jeff Marchiafava
Interests: Highly anticipated games living up to expectations (XCOM!), Games I wasn’t anticipating blowing away my expectations (Far Cry 3!), Cool indie games (XenoMiner!), Finally getting a new glimpse of GTA V, The election results
Dislikes: How early the sun sets now (Where are we, Alaska?!), Having too many great games to play (Seriously publishers, spread your games out and we’ll buy more/play them longer), Having my Wii U apathy confirmed after playing the system
Current Favorite Games: Assassin’s Creed III, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Far Cry 3, The Walking Dead
Dan Ryckert
Interests: The new GTA V trailer, Skyfall, Marathoning through the Rocky series again, DDP Yoga, The Bully soundtrack, Finally learning how to shotgun a beer, This dude
Dislikes: My iPad breaking, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified, The Wi-Fi at our office, Apple Maps making me late for a movie by taking me to a suburban cul-de-sac, Bing commercials
Current Favorite Games: XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Halo 4, WWE ’13, Borderlands 2, Dishonored, Kingdom Rush
Tim Turi
Interests: Peanut butter, Rock climbing, Catching up on tons of video games, Jim Beam, Wreck-it Ralph, Skyfall, Magic the Gathering
Dislikes: Cold weather, Shoveling snow, Running out of hot water in the shower, Silent Hill: Revelation
Current Favorite Games: Far Cry 3, Assassin’s Creed III, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Super Meat Boy, Resident Evil, 10000000, Super Hexagon, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, VVVVVV
Ben Hanson
Interests: Ping pong, Animated films, Staring at walls with a blank expression while listening to podcasts
Dislikes: Car repairs, The iPhone 5's podcast app, This hazy period where some of your precious digital items are stored in the cloud and some aren’t
Current Favorite Games: Far Cry 3, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Kyle Hilliard
Interests: Wii U, Wreck-it Ralph, Babies learning how to walk, Catching up with my old Halo buddies to play Halo 4, Delicious food, Brave, Alfonso Cuarón's upcoming film Gravity (I know almost nothing about this movie, but it is one of the things I am most excited about in 2013)
Dislikes: Mediocre food, No one knowing who I was when I dressed up as Forrest Kaysen from Deadly Premonition for Halloween (He’s such a beloved character from a universally loved game!), Whatever NBC is doing with Community (I don’t think they even know)
Current Favorite Games: Halo 4, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Assassin’s Creed III, Dust: An Elysian Tale, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Vita), Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U
Jim Reilly
Interests: Freshly-made popcorn, Sleeping in real late, Using really expensive hair wax
Dislikes: Accidentally buying diet soda, Getting out of the shower
Current Favorite Games: The Walking Dead
Jason Oestreicher
Interests: Sons of Anarchy, Shift keys, new PCs, Paying off my car, Breaking the PaRappa Curse
Dislikes: Having to round-up editors for Replay and Test Chamber during magazine deadlines, The PaRappa Curse
Current Favorite Games: Mark of the Ninja, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Torchlight II, Borderlands 2, Street Fighter X Tekken
Kimberley Wallace
Interests: Maxing my social links in Persona 4 Golden, Thanksgiving dinner (Bring on the mashed potatoes!), My new nephew, Going to AHL hockey games to fill the NHL void
Dislikes: The NHL lockout tease, Assassin’s Creed III’s slow start, That I’ve watched every Breaking Amish episode
Current Favorite Games: Persona 4 Golden, Sleeping Dogs, Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward, The Walking Dead