Dear Readers: How to Spell GameCola

(Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the March 2009 issue of GameCola, back when GameCola was published in a monthly online magazine format.)

GameCola Headquarters
New Haven, CT 06511

March 2009

Dear Readers,

My name is Paul. I’m not going to tell you my last name. Or where I live, or where I work, or anything else you might be able to use to identify me. I can’t afford to take that kind of risk. If they knew who I was, I’d be dead—or worse than dead, really, with a giant slug in my brain controlling my movements, my speech, my everything. Me and my friends—we’re the only ones who can stop them. We’re the only ones standing in the way of–

Sorry. I’ve been listening to a lot of Animorphs: The Radio Drama – Uncensored lately.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes: GameCola. The irrefutably best videogame-humor site on the entire Internet. Dear readers, I have an important message for you this month. One that I’ve been meaning to deliver for a while. One that I was planning to deliver last month, until a bunch of hooligans made that completely impossible.

That message is this:

Art-tastic as my high-quality video may be, I believe that my message is clear. There is only one—ONE—acceptable spelling of GameCola, and that is “GameCola.” You litterbugs on the Information Superhighway: I don’t want to see “Gamecola,” “Game Cola,” “Game cola,” or any other variation ever again. If I do, so help me God, I will bring back Link’s Burden: Time to Save the World Again.

So how about the great issue we have lined up for you this month, eh? I hear it’s the best. Of course, each new issue of GameCola is the best-ever issue of GameCola. That’s just the kind of quality you’ve come to expect from us. Here are some of this month’s highlights:

• We have Episode 2 of the second season of The Gates of Life! You know, The Gates of Life? The interactive story I was begging you to read last month? Last month, the readers voted for TGoL’s heroes to slaughter the inhabitants of “Helpless Gnomes’ Island.” Who wouldn’t want to read about that?

• Once again, we have too many Mega Man reviews. At least this time, one-third of the people reviewing Mega Man hate Mega Man.

• Michael Gray celebrates St. Patrick’s Day in Inside the Guide, videogame marathons in his review, haircuts in The Ten Reasons, and men wearing kilts in Versus Mode.

• Speaking of Versus Mode! We have a special guest star in Versus Mode this month: Gregory Gay from nerd-culture blog 4 Color Rebellion, which, in terms of fish, is the beta to our blob sculpin.¹

• Nathaniel Hoover debuts a new column about…wait, is that right? Flash animations and games? Do people still make those? Anyway, read Flash Flood.

• Lizo asks for your help in naming a world in this month’s edition of testgame.

• Mid-Boss defies my editorial policy of not bolding videogame titles in Mid-Boss.

• Paul Franzen wonders why he starts all his bullet points the same way in Dear Readers.

• The GameCola Podcast is probably fantastic, but I wouldn’t know, since it missed the deadline. Probably because it’s run by a bunch of creativity-hating hooligans. It should be available by the time you’re reading this; if not, I’m a bad editor for not removing this bullet point.

Enjoy this month’s issue!

Paul Franzen
editor in chief
e-mail: pfranzen@gamecola.net

---

1. The first thing they teach you in journalism school: Metaphors² with awesome pictures of fish don’t have to make sense.

2. I don’t care if this is actually a simile, or whatever. Stop being such a nerd, English major!