Brutal Legend Companion Video

A video companion piece to my recent Brutal Legend review on The Armchair Empire - Infinite. Here's a link to the full review in case you missed it.

12 Years

Celebrating 12 Years!

The date came and went without even a ripple. In fact, it didn't dawn on me until about a week later that The Armchair Empire has been in existence for 12 years.

The official date of registration of the URL -- www.armchairempire.com -- was August 5, 2000, two days before my first son's first birthday and on the same day Alec Guinness died.

That was when all the trouble started.

The Armchair Empire Explodes into the Future!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, IF NOT SOONER

THE ARMCHAIR EMPIRE EXPLODES INTO THE FUTURE

Move to blog format and expanded use of social networking and video content to bring “All Things Gaming” to the next level with “The Armchair Empire - Infinite”

Vancouver, British Columbia -- May 22, 2012 -- The Armchair Empire is proud to announce its second evolutionary stage, nearly 12 years in the making, with the launch of The Armchair Empire - Infinite (ae-infinite.com).

“It has been more than a decade since The Armchair Empire launched and it was probably about time we made use of some of the dramatic changes in technology to make our own dramatic changes,” said co-founder and head writer Aaron Simmer. “With The Armchair Empire - Infinite we’ll be able to react faster to news, gets reviews posted sooner, and do a better job integrating video content and social networking nonsense, etc.”

“Mostly we took this step to make our lives at least 56% easier,” said co-founder and VP of Video Content, Jeff Nash. “It was time to go “blog out” with the Armchair Empire - Infinite, which features the same writers, the same level of insight of the regular Armchair Empire, but the articles can be presented much faster and possibly with more sparkles.”

The Armchair Empire (armchairempire.com) will remain a vast planetoid of gaming information, reviews, previews, features, interviews, and editorials of the last dozen years. The Armchair Empire - Infinite is essentially a satellite launched in the hopes of remaining relevant and possibly ride on the likely success of BioShock Infinite.

The Armchair Empire - Infinite is here: ae-infinite.com

Boldly Going, etc.

The Armchair Empire has undergone a lot of changes in its nearly 12 years of operation but the biggest change is right around the corner.

And it's entirely out of necessity this time. Usually changes have been cosmetic in nature -- logo change, etc. -- but this change comes about because the old infrastructure and tools for posting AE's content are cumbersome and unwieldy  when it comes to timely posting of articles. I've been using FrontPage 2003! As you can imagine, it's showing its age in Internet terms. And there was no such thing as YouTube. Or Facebook. Or Twitter. And Myspace was the new thing that everyone was talking about. So incorporating any of those items into the site, making them features of the site, would essentially mean tearing down the entire site and trying to rebuild thousands of pages of content. It was a daunting task to consider.

We looked at our options. And almost all of them would either mean a massive time or money investment. (Or both.) Neither option was appealing because I don't have much of either one (and I'm pretty sure Jeff's in the same boat).

So, as we approach E3, there will be a cataclysm.

The classic Armchair Empire will fracture and splinters of the site will spiral off into space. The flagship Armchair Empire will still exist (as will a dozen years of content including the Top Ten: Best Cleavage) but we'll be posting everything new to The Armchair Empire Infinite (working title), which will showcase a more integrated approach with the likes of Facebook, YouTube, personal blogs, Twitter, et al to provide more interaction and an actual discussion. All the fresh links on armchairempire.com will be content from Infinite.

We have every confidence that this move will mean more timely posting of reviews, opinions, and other features from writers that have been with The Armchair Empire in one form or another for a long, long time. To these people, I'm very thankful. If it weren't for them, The Armchair Empire would have folded long ago. (Of course, I love you readers, too! You're awesome -- take the rest of the day off!)

The Weekly Checkpoint on AE's YouTube Channel

The Armchair Empire's Mr. Nash takes a look at the latest happenings in the gaming industry for the week of March 25 - 31, 2012.

Trying for an Official AE Logo

I really need someone with modicum of design talent to take the basic idea presented above and make something awesome with it. I want something that's mostly "basic" so that it's instantly recognizable in profile.

Also, the "ball" the chair is cracking into is supposed to be Earth. Sketching landmasses would have stretched my doodling ability to the breaking point.

The Armchair Empire's YouTube Channel

Maybe it was a long time coming, but Mr. Nash has been busy!

I'd like to take a minute to let you know about The Armchair Empire's YouTube channel, which will focus on "quick impressions" of games, with commentary.

Check the embedded video below which focuses on "Titan Attacks":

More games are coming so stay tuned!