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They Break the News, I Break it Again!

“Very Funny Stuff!” –Eric Flannum of Shiny Entertainment (makers of Sacrifice and Earthworm Jim)

“You’re about as funny as Gallagher!” – An Anonymous Reader circa 1999

Beatdown’s back, alright? It’s been a while. Almost exactly two years to the day that this sarcastic and snarky, weekly look at PC gaming disappeared from the ‘net. Whether you were a reader then or not, welcome to Beatdown now. We take PC gaming news, stuff about the new releases, what the movers and shakers are doing, we unspin the PR, and we serve it in a bowl. Boil it down, add some cumin, and pour it over a plate of spam. The result is awful, but the smell is something you can’t get anywhere else.

First, a bit of history: Beatdown first appeared in the late-1960s where it forged on for several issues despite the lack of a retail PC game industry to make fun of. Andy Warhol called it “visionary” and “ahead of its time.” Those early issues reported a world filled with “stunning graphics”, “breathing walls”, “bump mapping and go-go boots”…. but disappeared when it “came down from that trip.” In 1999 it arrived at Daily Radar.com, enjoyed a 6-month run but, sadly, was cancelled (this author had two weekly columns there and, like some sort of superhero, was forced to choose which would die by an editor wearing tights). Daily Radar died soon afterward. This was a coincidence. Beatdown wasn’t down for long. In fact, some would say it wasn’t gone at all because it appeared without missing a week at Alex Ross’s SharkeyExtreme.com. It grew successful there reaching a hardcore and developer audience and was then moved to help launch SharkeyGames.com. There it resided for over 54 weekly issues! But then the Tech-Crash occurred, advertisers fled the Internet, and Alex Ross left the site he founded. Internet.com took control and promptly canceled both Beatdown and SharkeyGames. Two websites carried Beatdown. Both are now gone. So... um, good luck Firing Squad!