Author: John Breeden II

As a journalist John has covered everything from rural town meetings to the U.S. Congress and even done time as a crime reporter and photographer.|His first venture into writing about the game industry came in the form of a computer column called "On the Chip Side," which grew to have over 1 million circulation and was published in newspapers in several states. From there he did several "ask the computer guy" columns in magazines such as Up Front! in New Mexico and Who Cares? in Washington D.C. When the Internet started to become popular, he began writing guided Web tours for the newly launched Washington Post online section as well as reviews for the weekend section of the paper, something he still does from time to time. His experience in trade publications came as a writer and reviewer for Government Computer News. As the editor of GiN, he demands strict editorial standards from all the writers and reviewers. Breeden feels the industry needs a weekly, reliable trade publication covering the games industry and works tirelessly to accomplish that goal.

It’s A Three Day Banger!

This is our Independence Day! And not the kind where aliens come down to Earth and blow up the White House and other national landmarks. At least I hope. The first weekend in July is the time when those of us in the United States celebrate the fact that we broke away from formerly-evil-now-best-friend England […]

There’s a Bloodmoon on the Rise

I just can’t get too much Morrowind. And considering that 80,000 readers voted it the PC game of year and game of the year in the environment category, I’m not at all alone. Bloodmoon is the second expansion pack for the Morrowind game, and builds out the massive single-player RPG even further with an entire […]

Freelancer is Alpha 1-1

The space flight genre has always been a fascinating one for most PC gamers. It is one area where the PC will probably always be ahead of the console world, at least in terms of massive universe type games that would really be too advanced for most consoles, even the vaulted Xbox probably. Freelancer is […]

Justice Comes Slowly

(But it did arrive!) In the United States we often get justice in the end, but sometimes it just takes a little while. A good example of this is the St. Louis law that prevented violent video games from being sold to minors. It provided fines for any vendor who sold computer games deemed violent […]

Sherwood is a Sure Thing

The Commandos game pretty much set the standard in small-quad RTS games. Armed with only three or four soldiers per mission, you were tasked with defeating, or avoiding, a hoard of enemies during a variety of missions. The problem with Commandos was that it was just too hard to play. You shoot someone and you […]

E3 Keeps Getting Bigger

Every year the editors of Game Industry News head to LA (it used to be Atlanta) to parlay with just about everyone in the industry. And while news organizations and instant communications have made E3 less of a necessity, it's still the largest tribal gathering for our industry. Just about everyone in the industry attends […]

I’m Going Back In!

The IGI, or I’m Going In series proves that you don’t have to own a console to get a good stealth shooter. The IGI series in its original incarnation is far older than either Metal Gear Solid or the Johnny-come-lately Splinter Cell. Unlike most stealth shooters on the console, you can resort to mindless violence […]

Postal 2 Kicks Butt

Many people probably remember when the original Postal came out a few years back. The little 2D top-down shooter had everyone in a tizzy because it featured a guy who basically "went postal" and decided to go around town mowing everyone down in a hail of gunfire, napalm and whatever else happened to be handy. […]

Complex Combat

When I first received Hearts of Iron, I was kind of expecting a strategy game along the lines of Axis and Allies, where you could fight World War II on a strategic scale. What I got was that and a whole lot more. Hearts of Iron is the most complex game I have every played. […]

The Mighty Qin

Prince of Qin is a bit like the ancient Chinese culture the game revolves around. It’s interesting, mysterious and a bit confusing at times. Played in a top-down Diablo-like interface, the game follows an interesting Chinese story and adds a "what-if" factor. The story goes that in ancient China there was a great warrior who […]