Grandma's New Position: Reviewing Games For MTV

The launch of MTV.com's new show The G-Hole revealed the big secret Grandma and I have held in confidence like the location of the second marker revealing the path for Indiana Jones and his band of stock characters.

The folks at MTV were impressed by Grandma enough to give her a gift before they left the foggy hills of Cleveland to head back to New York. That gift is the one and only translucent green XBox Debug Kit, a console that solidified MTV's offer to Grandma: To put it simply, Grandma is now the senior correspondent for the G-Hole on MTV Overdrive.

It works a little like this...

The XBox Debug allows Grandma to play early builds and beta versions of games before they come out, getting MTV Grandma's opinion on the "fuck yes!" or "what the shit?" qualities of games for the XBox before all others. This doesn't mean Grandma's reviews will be XBox exclusive, far from it. Grandma has ALREADY RECEIVED, as she would say: "a SHITLOAD of games" from MTV, and you bet your ass each system was represented heartily.

It has begun.

This is a huge deal for Grandma, for many obvious reasons. First, in her words: "YES! FUCK YEAH! Tim, you know what this MEANS?? GAMES!! For FREE! All I have to do is fucking PLAY them, and then tell them what I think. It's a CAKEWALK; it's the best job on the PLANET!! HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN????" Second, she doesn't feel bad now when she gets a free game and has to tell the world she thinks it's horrible. She hasn't lied about a game yet in exchange for some play time, and she doesn't intend to start. Third, this puts her in a position of gaming journalism, so to speak, and you know what means. The chances of her achieving her ultimate goal and going to E3 has become more likely.

Grandma is gaming around the clock now, even more than her average of 10 hours per day; switching between games and systems not "like a pro," but AS one. She has so many new games to play. Not just "try"- rather she takes them head on as she would any new purchase. Grandma is READY for this. She has waited for this opportunity since she picked up her first copy of Nintendo Power and said aloud "man, this would be the ultimate job."

She is getting everything she could ever want as a gamer. Grandma is in her glory; more importantly- Grandma is in her prime.

When she looks back at the past six months, she only has to wonder for a moment as to the cause of her success:

It was you.

You guys linked to Grandma in your blogs, you wrote articles about Grandma in your newspapers and magazines, you talked about her on your radio shows, you invited her to your podcasts, you sent her your ideas, you mentioned her at gaming conventions, LAN parties, and arcades. You gave her e-cards and clippings when she was in the hospital, you mentioned her in forums, you had her back in battles, you held her up when she was down.

It was all you guys and don't you ever fucking forget it.

And then there were the rest of you. You know who you are. Ubisoft, Surreal Software, Microsoft, Sony, Working Designs, Midway, Double Fine- all you guys dug Grandma enough to give her some swag or send some games her way and share the love; proving to Grandma that the industry she's adored for thirty years cares about her too.

You, all of you know Grandma enough now through the blog to know what this means to her. She considers you all to be an extended family of grandchildren, and nothing is more important than family.

Grandma has opinions she'd like to share with you; she has much to say.

Old Grandma Hardcore is ready.

Game on.



--To see the show, go to MTV.com/Overdrive and click on the "Games" tab. The Overdrive Channel is a broadband version of MTV with exclusive interviews, news and shows like the G-Hole. Overdrive is optimized for Internet Explorer, so Firefox and Safari users can download an updated version of IE to see Grandma do her thing. The blog continues, we go back to our daily update schedule tomorrow! Coming up... CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes (possibly), Der Spiegel, Grandma's Project, etc.,....--