This is the second episode of Staff Herding, a fairly new series modeled after Member Herding where I select a staff member (at least one who agrees to participate in the feature) and ask them a number of questions before buttoning up the finished product in a nice tidy little blog. Those members familiar with the Member Herding series will be familiar with the format used here, but if this is your first time reading a blog of this kind, it's best summarized as an interview of sorts with unique questions specifically tailored to the person being interviewed and often including a few random bonus questions that have nothing to do with video games.

Before I get to the interview I would like to extend my personal thanks to Ben Reeves for agreeing to participate in this project. I had the opportunity to exchange a few emails with Ben while he was filling in during JeffM's vacation; Ben helped me out with Blog Herding. He graciously agreed to do this and the rest is history. So, thank you, Ben...for taking time out of your busy day to answer the questions with your charismatic and cheery personality. Game Informer has the most interactive staff I have ever experienced and it's easy to forget just how busy they are, but with contributions like this, it just reaffirms how committed they are to the community.

One other item I would like to note is my interview is more focused on Ben Reeves the Gamer, not Ben Reeves the Game Informer employee. I'm sure the staff gets inundated with questions like, "How amazing is it to work at Game Informer?" or "Why did you give Darksiders II a 9.0 instead of a 9.25?" - I didn't dwell on those types of questions so if that's what you're expecting, I hope you're not disappointed.

And finally, Member Herding typically features 5 questions + 2 bonus questions, but given the significance of having this unique opportunity, Staff Herding features 10 questions (some are multipart) + 2 bonus questions. It's much longer than Member Herding and therefore will be sectioned into two parts.

Enjoy!

Game Informer Staff Member: Ben Reeves

Game Informer Position: Associate Editor

GIO Rank: Veteran Member - Level 13

Gaming Experience (Years playing): IDK, I'm 32, and I've probably been playing since I was five (maybe before), so I'll say 27 years.

Last Game Completed: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Currently Playing: Borderlands 2, Assassin's Creed III, Far Cry 3, Dishonored (maybe if I played them one at a time, I'd beat them faster)

1. I'm always pleased when I find a fellow gamer who remembers the Commodore 64. Did you have the tape drive and 2400-baud modem to go along with it? Did you just use a joystick from an Atari 2600, or did you have a legit C64 joystick? Some of my favorite games include Raid On Bungeling Bay, Raid Over Moscow, and Telengard. Ever play any of those? Do you think you could still type the keyboard commands to load a game? Is gaming better, worse or about the same now as it was back then? Of the consoles you've played, which one do you think had the biggest impact on shaping the video game industry? I presume you plan to purchase the Wii U and whatever Microsoft and Sony put out, but which are you most excited for? Do you think the lifespan of consoles is getting longer or shorter?

Man, I don't remember our Commodore that well. One of my parent's friends gave the system and their collection of games to us one year, but I don't know anything about the specifics of the system. I don't even know whatever happened to it. I was obsessed with the thing for a while, but then I noticed that the NES all my friends were playing seemed so much cooler and our Commodore felt pretty archaic. I had system envy. Always have :) Anyway, I remember playing this Pac-Man rip off a lot. We probably had like 15 games, but that was the one I remember the most. I think we had Raid On Bungeling Bay too, and one of my neighbor friends was really excited about it. He tried to show it to me, but I just wasn't interested. I think I was too young.

[Saint: Ah, I might've been a little overambitious with that question, but I usually get excited when I find a fellow gamer that remembers the Commodore 64. It was certainly one of my first systems that helped shape the gamer I am today. Like you though, once the Nintendo came along, it was pretty much game over for my PC gaming days until a few years later when I made the leap back into PC gaming with the Amiga 500 and that whole x86 Intel chip era leading up to the Pentium.

System Envy, eh? I think that's contagious, but the good news is it's curable.]

2. Psychology experts (mostly) agree there are seven basic emotions: Anger, Contempt, Fear, Disgust, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise. Name a different game that has made you feel each of these emotions. Is there one game that made you feel all of them?

Anger: Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Contempt: Manhunt, Fear: Silent Hill 2, Disgust: Dead Space 2, Happy: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Sad: Shadow of the Colossus, Surprise: Metal Gear Solid. I don't think there is a game that made me feel all of them, but Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus probably came close.

[Saint: I have to admit I'm a bit surprised with a few of your responses like anger and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I have to wonder if that's at the game itself or your human opponents, heh heh. I've definitely had a few of those moments in Soul Calibur, so I can relate. And I have yet to play Shadow of the Colossus despite hearing overwhelmingly positive comments about it. If it made you feel this range of emotion, consider me intrigued. I'll bump it up on my list of games to get.]

3. You seem to travel a lot and have had the opportunity to visit plenty of cool and interesting places, like your recent trip to Japan. What's the neatest place (video game and non-video game related) you have ever been and why? Which developer or publisher had the coolest office? I had the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian Art Institute's -The Art of the Game exhibit which you wrote an article on. How would you characterize the exhibit and did you think it was missing any particular system or game?

It's tough to pick the coolest place I've ever been. Japan definitely ranks, but I'd say I really liked London. I remember sitting in a pub and realizing that that establishment was older than my country. That was mind-blowing. Game wise: Valve has some really cool offices and Bungie's old office was really cool too.

I liked the Smithsonian Art Institute's exhibit, but it felt like more of a fan show, because all the games were voted on. They had a great setup, but I would have liked to see more history about each game. I think they should have focused a little more on why each game was an important artistic expression. I think they were trying to be a little too fair: the Sega Saturn got just as much coverage as the PS2 and SNES; it just seemed a little odd.

[Saint: I have a brother that lives just outside of London and I can remember visiting him and thinking the same thing about the age of everything. We toured a castle known for having the largest wooden gate still in existence - and it was built in the 1400's.

Words cannot express the level of jealousy I am feeling when I imagine you visiting Valve's headquarters, but I guess I can make peace with it knowing my favorite developer ranks up there as having some of the coolest offices. I'd expect nothing less from them, heh heh.

You make a great point about the Smithsonian Art Institute's video game exhibit that I never really considered. All of the games and their associated systems were pretty much represented equally when clearly a few of the featured games and systems had much more impact than others. I can only imagine the level of pain it would've taken trying to sort them though.]

4. Congratulations! You are a published author who penned Kill Screen, a suspenseful novel "that explores the concepts of death, personal forgiveness, and the social issues surrounding our ever-advancing technological culture." What was that experience like and can we expect more novels from you? The title is genius. For those that don't know, a Kill Screen is normally associated with older arcade games and is a point in a video game where it will always crash or freeze, usually because the developers didn't expect the player to make it any further or because of hardware limitations (buffer overflow). What's the story behind the title? Did you collaborate with any of your coworkers on the story and are any of their personalities represented in the book?

Thanks! I certainly enjoyed writing the book, and I'd love to write another. I've jotted down a few ideas, but it might be a while before I have another completed work. It takes a while when you're only writing on the evening and weekends. As far as the title goes, its working title was Evi for a long time. It makes sense once you read the book, but I didn't think it would grab people who didn't know anything about the book, so I actually changed the name after it was written. I tried about a dozen different titles including Anatomy of a Machine, but ultimately I didn't like anything as much as Kill Screen. Looking back, I wish I had worked a better reference to the title into the book, but it's also kind of a cool title even if you don't know what it means.

I didn't actually tell the rest of the GI staff that I was working on a book until I was ready to publish. Maybe I should have told them sooner, but I didn't want anyone asking me about it all the time. I think Tim and Adam might be the only fellow editors who have actually read my book. Everyone probably thinks it's as stupid as half the other stuff I write on the site. It's actually a pretty serious book, which some people don't expect from me.

(Buy his book here.)

[Saint: Well, I think the title is brilliant and was kind of surprised it hadn't already been used yet. Kill Screen is one of those relic expressions, kind of like the Konami code, that future generations of gamers will forget if we don't keep it alive. It was cool to see a kill screen in the post credits of Wreck It Ralph. That had to be a hard secret to keep (authoring a book) from your co-workers, but it's kind of admirable you approached it discreetly instead of using your workplace connections to get it done. I've read some great reviews for your book so I doubt it's stupid. Besides, you have a huge fan club of followers who love your contributions to the magazine and website.]

5. In the 1982 film Tron starring Jeff Bridges, the main character is beamed into a mainframe computer while he searches for the evidence he needs back in the physical world to prove his boss stole some of his work. The movie shares an arcade game of the same name. What was your favorite event from the Tron game - light cycles, tanks, I/O Tower (spiders) or MCP Cone? If you could be beamed into any video game, what game would it be and why?

Light cycles for sure, but my brother and I would toss Frisbees back and forth pretending they were those crazy discs all the time when we were kids. That movie was so cool when I was young; it seems kind of ridiculous now, though. If I could be in a game I'd love to visit Panzer Dragoon, because everything in the game always looked cool, and it would be sweet to ride on a dragon.

[Saint: That's a great reflection from your childhood about playing Frisbee with your brother and I appreciate you sharing it with us. I think most people favored the light cycles and the movie really was cool, but I refuse to watch it whenever I see it being replayed because I'm afraid it will tarnish my image of it. I dumped some quarters into Tron at the local arcade back in the day, that's for sure. It's one of my favorite games from the past. Panzer Dragoon sounds like an old WWII game, but your mention of dragons caused me to look it up. Sounds like we could use a remake or a sequel built on current generation technology.]

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the rest of the interview and see how Ben answers the following question:

Do you have a zombie emergency response plan at work, and if so, what are your immediate actions? (If not, what do you think you are best suited to do?)

Cheers.