GamesRadar
Encyclopedia
GamesRadar is a multi-format video game website featuring regular news, previews, reviews, videos, and guides. It is owned and operated simultaneously in the UK and US by worldwide publisher Future Publishing
(including Future US
). Jointly with another video game related website CheatPlanet, GamesRadar receives approximately 3.25 million unique visitors per month.
The website is known for its combination of a professional yet comedic approach to video game journalism, publishing numerous articles and videos for comic effect besides the usual video game related news. The website also produces a popular weekly podcast for download from iTunes
that recaps the week in news in the video game industry and articles published on the site.
The PC section of GamesRadar was at one time organized by the gaming magazine PC Gamer
. The magazine's official U.S. website, PC Gamer Online, formerly redirected to GamesRadar before establishing its own host site. GamesRadar also features articles and reviews from other gaming magazines, such as NGamer
and Xbox World 360
, among others also apart of the Future publishing name. Reviews listed on Metacritic
written by GamesRadar editors are subtitled as "in-house" to avoid multiple scores from the same publication being listed. Despite featuring US and UK editors, all articles are presented together on the main site to both audiences.
Games reviewed on GamesRadar are rated on a 10 point scale, with 1 being the lowest possible score and 10 being the highest. At the end of each review, three of each game's biggest pros and cons are listed. For highly anticipated games, super reviews are, usually, written instead of a regular review. Super reviews are similar to the site's regular reviews, however they are written more like a feature, and less like a straightforward review. At the end, the reviewed game is compared to 3 similar games and a "Just for you, Metacritic!" quote is listed at the end of the review; a short sentence that summarizes the review and is used on Metacritic. The "Just for you, Metacritic!" line has been replaced with "For those who skipped straight to the end" recently.
UK Editors
Former Editors
Since May 19, 2008 the site has put out a weekly podcast
every Friday known as TalkRadar, which has quickly become one of the site's most popular features. The hosts discuss that week's Top 7, feature articles published on the site, recent game releases, game deals, and a community based segment where they read out answers from users to a "question of the week" on their forums and recently began playing back phone calls from fans. The podcast is presented by Associate Editor Chris Antista, with other lead hosts including Brett Elston and Mikel Reparaz, among other editors from the website periodically also as hosts. The podcast has also had guests from other video game websites or magazines including Brad Shoemaker (Giant Bomb
), Veronica Belmont
(Qore
) and Jim Sterling (Destructoid
). In smaller instances, the podcast has also interviewed non-video game related figures including musicians and public speakers. The podcast has been made available for download from their main site and iTunes
. Due to its popularity, fans of the podcast have created their own Wikipedia
-style website hosted by Wikia
known as Talk Radar that archives and details each podcast released so far, written mostly with exaggerated and humorously false statements. From this the hosts of TalkRadar themselves have often cited the wiki when referring to previous podcasts.
Starting in May 2011, the show switched to a biweekly format, with two shorter episodes being released on Tuesday and Friday. However in September 2011, they announced they were returning to one show a week. Despite TalkRadar return to a once-weekly format, Episode 180 was delayed until October 4 due to scheduling conflicts. In October 2011 Associate Editor Chris Antista left GamesRadar and now works at PC Gamer Digital alongside Tyler Wilde a former TalkRadar host although Chris still appears as a guest on the show.
UK
Following the success of the GamesRadar US podcast, the UK team also launched a weekly show. Rather than copy the format, the GamesRadar UK team formed an audio show to complement the original. On August 3, 2011, TalkRadar UK posted its 100th, and last episode. However, they ancounced at the same time that they would be returning in a month with the "The GamesRadar UK Podcast," which would "mix things up a little and hopefully breathe new life into the gaming podcast genre."
On August 14, 2008, it was announced that the British forums would be closed down and merged with the American side of the site. In response, some of the members of the British forums launched their own forum, named GRcade.
Since being established, the website has gone through multiple layout and design changes, the latest of which occurred on July 12, 2010.
Future Publishing
Future plc is a media company; in 2006, it was the sixth-largest in the United Kingdom. It publishes more than 150 magazines in fields such as video games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and photography. Future is the official magazine company of all three major games console manufacturers...
(including Future US
Future US
Future US is a United States media corporation specializing in targeted magazines and websites in the video games, music, and technology markets. Future US is headquartered in the South San Francisco with offices in New York City and Los Angeles...
). Jointly with another video game related website CheatPlanet, GamesRadar receives approximately 3.25 million unique visitors per month.
The website is known for its combination of a professional yet comedic approach to video game journalism, publishing numerous articles and videos for comic effect besides the usual video game related news. The website also produces a popular weekly podcast for download from iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
that recaps the week in news in the video game industry and articles published on the site.
Format and style
GamesRadar publishes numerous articles each day, including official video game news, reviews, previews and interviews with publishers and developers. The tone and writing style of the site more than often takes a comedic approach towards their articles, sometimes complemented by imagery, videos and links. Additional articles are written purely for comedic purposes or satire, humorously detailing certain aspects of games or video game conventions. One of the site's most longstanding and popular features is their "Top 7" lists, a weekly countdown detailing both positive or negative aspects of video games themselves, the industry and/or culture.The PC section of GamesRadar was at one time organized by the gaming magazine PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
. The magazine's official U.S. website, PC Gamer Online, formerly redirected to GamesRadar before establishing its own host site. GamesRadar also features articles and reviews from other gaming magazines, such as NGamer
NGamer
NGamer is a British magazine which mainly covers Nintendo video game consoles and software, and also to a much lesser extent, Sony and Microsoft consoles. The first issue was released on 13 July 2006...
and Xbox World 360
Xbox World 360
Xbox World 360 is a British Xbox and Xbox 360 magazine published by Future Publishing.- History :Xbox World 360 began life as Xbox World, with issue one released in early 2003, over a year after the Xbox's release...
, among others also apart of the Future publishing name. Reviews listed on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
written by GamesRadar editors are subtitled as "in-house" to avoid multiple scores from the same publication being listed. Despite featuring US and UK editors, all articles are presented together on the main site to both audiences.
Games reviewed on GamesRadar are rated on a 10 point scale, with 1 being the lowest possible score and 10 being the highest. At the end of each review, three of each game's biggest pros and cons are listed. For highly anticipated games, super reviews are, usually, written instead of a regular review. Super reviews are similar to the site's regular reviews, however they are written more like a feature, and less like a straightforward review. At the end, the reviewed game is compared to 3 similar games and a "Just for you, Metacritic!" quote is listed at the end of the review; a short sentence that summarizes the review and is used on Metacritic. The "Just for you, Metacritic!" line has been replaced with "For those who skipped straight to the end" recently.
Editors
US Editors- Gary Steinman (Editor in Chief)
- Sophia Tong (Managing Editor)
- Mikel Reparaz (Senior Features Editor/Assassin for a cult that meets in the ancient Sony ruins of Hiroshima)
- Charlie Barratt (Senior Reviews/Previews Editor)
- Tyler Nagata (Senior News Editor)
- Michael Grimm (Cheats and Guides Editor/Contrarian from the planet Contrary, hate everything you love)
- Henry Gilbert (News Editor/Silent Movie star)
- Hollander Cooper (News Editor)
- Carolyn Gudmundson (Previews Editor)
- Matthew Keast (Reviews Editor)
- Amber Fariss (Production Editor)
- Lorenzo Veloria (Cheats Editor)
- Cheryll Del Rosario (Web Designer)
UK Editors
- Matt Cundy (Editor/Redcoat)
- Nathan Irvine (Associate Editor)
- Justin Towell (Content Editor)
- David Houghton (Content Editor)
Former Editors
- Shane Patterson (Associate Features Editor)
- Stephen Pierce (Global Editoral Director)
- Paul Ryan (Associate CheatPlanet Editor)
- George Walter (Editor)
- Andrew Mendoza (Senior Web Designer)
- Joe McNeilly (Senior Editor)
- Dave Meikleham (Content Editor)
- Tyler Wilde (Features/Community Editor/Canadian)
- Lizzie Cuevas (Associate Video Editor)
- Brett Elston (Executive Editor/ Inspiration for lady Gaga's hair dresser)
- Chris Antista (Associate Editor/Noted hater of PC Gamer Digital/Smells like pizza)
- Eric Bratcher (Editor in Chief)
TalkRadar
USSince May 19, 2008 the site has put out a weekly podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
every Friday known as TalkRadar, which has quickly become one of the site's most popular features. The hosts discuss that week's Top 7, feature articles published on the site, recent game releases, game deals, and a community based segment where they read out answers from users to a "question of the week" on their forums and recently began playing back phone calls from fans. The podcast is presented by Associate Editor Chris Antista, with other lead hosts including Brett Elston and Mikel Reparaz, among other editors from the website periodically also as hosts. The podcast has also had guests from other video game websites or magazines including Brad Shoemaker (Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
), Veronica Belmont
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc...
(Qore
Qore (PlayStation Network)
Qore is a subscription-based interactive online magazine for the PlayStation Network and replaces the Jampack series of disks offered by PlayStation Underground. Currently only available in North America, the service offers high definition videos, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage...
) and Jim Sterling (Destructoid
Destructoid
Destructoid is an independent video game-focused blog based in San Francisco, California that was founded in March 2006. It has since grown into one of the most widely read video game sites on the Internet, reaching more than 3 million unique visitors per month...
). In smaller instances, the podcast has also interviewed non-video game related figures including musicians and public speakers. The podcast has been made available for download from their main site and iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
. Due to its popularity, fans of the podcast have created their own Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
-style website hosted by Wikia
Wikia
Wikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...
known as Talk Radar that archives and details each podcast released so far, written mostly with exaggerated and humorously false statements. From this the hosts of TalkRadar themselves have often cited the wiki when referring to previous podcasts.
Starting in May 2011, the show switched to a biweekly format, with two shorter episodes being released on Tuesday and Friday. However in September 2011, they announced they were returning to one show a week. Despite TalkRadar return to a once-weekly format, Episode 180 was delayed until October 4 due to scheduling conflicts. In October 2011 Associate Editor Chris Antista left GamesRadar and now works at PC Gamer Digital alongside Tyler Wilde a former TalkRadar host although Chris still appears as a guest on the show.
UK
Following the success of the GamesRadar US podcast, the UK team also launched a weekly show. Rather than copy the format, the GamesRadar UK team formed an audio show to complement the original. On August 3, 2011, TalkRadar UK posted its 100th, and last episode. However, they ancounced at the same time that they would be returning in a month with the "The GamesRadar UK Podcast," which would "mix things up a little and hopefully breathe new life into the gaming podcast genre."
Updates
On September 11, 2007, GamesRadar launched a downloads feature called Fileradar. Fileradar allows users to download mods, hacks, and content for games on the PC.On August 14, 2008, it was announced that the British forums would be closed down and merged with the American side of the site. In response, some of the members of the British forums launched their own forum, named GRcade.
Since being established, the website has gone through multiple layout and design changes, the latest of which occurred on July 12, 2010.