Sharky Extreme wasn't always owned by a multinational public corporation, supported by writers and staff and a sales team in every corner of the globe, you know? In the old days (that's two years ago) Sharky Extreme had very humble beginnings. It was just a couple of folks and two cats (one especially psycho after the 12 hours flight in from London) in an apartment in LA. One of those bad parts of LA with dealers on every corner and I'm not talking ice cream cones here, friends. Yes, before there was an office in San Jose, a buyout by internet.com and the rest of it, this time two years ago, Sharky Extreme had just survived its first month on the internet (we didn't call it the NET then because of that shite film with Sandra Bullock). Notice the non-capitalized “i” there? That internet.com lingo is catching on now...

Anyhow, two years and one month ago, I look back now and realize that we probably made our most important management decision to date: Sharky Extreme took the plunge and hired Mr. & Mrs. Spell Checker who came over from Seattle with years of experience on Microsoft Word (watch The Pirates of Silicon Valley if you need any more hints than that).

The Maxi Gamer Phoenix w/ Half-Life Review: A Phoenix From the Flames?

That title seems a bit much by today's standards, after all, what we're dealing with here is a plain Jane 100MHz-clocked Voodoo Banshee, even if it was made by a company with a unpronounceable French name, unless of course you're Canadian or French (excusez moi then, garcon). At the time though and as discussed in last week's issue (don't ask questions just check it out), the Voodoo Banshee was a really solid 2D/3D combo. Almost as good a combo as a No. 1 In-n-Out Double Double with cheese (and no onions please) and a milkshake. It was that good. “The FedEx man-styled” introductions seemed to be pigeonholed firmly in the “stock-phrase of the week” part of my brain, so pardon me there please. Nowadays I can't stand the FedEx man waking me up to deliver hardware. I hate the UPS man even more, though…

Fans of the bubble-background graphs (there were two of you even then) will enjoy this one because we pitted the Phoenix against a TNT and a couple of Voodoo2s on a Pentium II 400/300 and a K6-2 300 running a whole suite of benchmarks including the demo version of SiN. We never used SiN again as a benchmark and after the game came out we were glad we hadn't. On a more serious note, the MAXI Gamer scored remarkably well due to a stroke of genius within Guillemot's company. Someone there (who shall remain unnamed) managed to sign an exclusive deal with Sierra allowing them to have the Half-Life: Day One before anyone else. I remember people writing in saying “I don't care about the Voodoo Banshee or MAXI Pads, I'm going to buy that thing and play some Half-Life before anyone else.” In the mad rush and excitement I think some folks at Guillemot forgot to clearly mark the box and say “Hey relax kiddies, Half-Life is really cool but we only got an exclusive on the OEM demo so don't get annoyed if you're expecting to get the full game or anything. Besides it's not finished and won't be released for a couple more months yet.” Whoops. They may have had some issues getting that kind of label okayed by the ESRB, K-Mart and the rest of them but if Kingpin can have labels saying “REALLY REALLY REALLY x100 violent” all over the box then something should have been done. Luckily for all the early Sharky Extreme readers who did their homework and read the review, they understood fully that it was a demo, right?? (except for the 2000 of you that sent in Emails saying “You Suck!”). Get it here.

Guillemot Strikes Back: Guillemot Maxi Gamer 3D 2 Review

Maxi! I know it seems like it must have been a Guillemot-themed week but it wasn't. I wasn't as organized back then and didn't have a pompous “Editorial Calendar” back then or even a Palm Pilot. So the editorial did very much go on a first come, first serve basis. Guillemot sent a whole box of goodies that kept me busy like a beaver for a week, which is why along with the Phoenix review, that week also saw us plonk up one of the last Voodoo2 reviews we ever did. The Voodoo2 seemed, even then, to be getting a bit long in the tooth but the funny thing was it really did the job better than anything else. It was the Gillette Sensor Excel Mach III of razors in the 3D graphics world. If you're a lady-reader (hi mum and auntie Elena) then please visit www.gillettegirlz.com for your comparable hyperbole of a metaphor. And I didn't joke about the maxi-pad either. Get it here.

0-60mph in 4.2 Seconds with Diamond Viper V550

Believe it or not, before I came to the US I knew little about cars. I came from Europe, where the history is from (thank you very much Mr. Eddie Izzard) and lived in London, you see. We use this thing over there called “Public Transport.” New Yorkers may have heard of it. So when Diamond Multimedia, now gobbled up by S3 and (currently being digested by Via I think?) sent me news of their “exciting 2D/3D graphics” with the “really cool” Viper name, I had no idea what they were talking about or trying to refer to. Now I know what a Viper is and what it looks like but I still don't get it. What I do get now is that the entire Diamond Multimedia marketing team has dissolved since then and they are probably not driving Dodge Vipers, either. Still, for a TNT board, this little fella was about as stable as they came, unlike a Dodge Viper. So where's the logic in that naming convention? Get it here.

What the hell do you think this is? In between Guillemot and Diamond packages showing up every morning I didn't have any time to play games! So there will be no looking back at gaming content this week two years ago because there wasn't anything to look back at. Call it a hiatus, go and torture yourself playing Trespasser if you have to look back. But next week there will be some really snazzy game previews (I've checked into the archives so I know) of games that were so good the game never even came out.

Last week's Mel & Kim reference was actually picked up by Redwood of www.stomped.com before anyone else. He ICQ'd me saying “I saw that Mel & Kim Get Fresh at the Weekend Reference and I'm older than you but I don't even remember them.” This week I'll try something a little easier. The first one to write in and tell me what the title line at the top of this article (assuming you got this far) will get a prix (prize in French). Please don't write in explaining what Michael Jackson's problems are. Try Jarvis Cocker of Pulp instead.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I know I have. A healthy dose of “boy were you so wrong” is also a requirement in this job. So give me your feedback and hit the forums. Let us all know if we've changed for the better or worse and in the true spirit of yesteryear, I'm writing via a stream of consciousness so chill out, ok? Cheers for tuning in all this time. And if you're new to all of this and have not a bloody clue of what I'm talking about, don't fret. Just join the rest of the queue…

Alex “Sharky” Ross
Editor-in-Chieftan

A new feature? What? No sarky (“sarky” is used in the East end of London as colloquial term for sarcastic you little blighters) comments about the title/theme of this either… The weekend is once again upon us and even after two years of doing this thing we do, I still can't believe how much the industry has changed. Thus the thought of dedicating a new weekend feature to see just what we were saying back in the day, I felt, would be fitting. You'll see where we/I went right, where we got egg on our faces and where we went so far off road that we ended up southeast of Pluto.

Two years ago this week (which was when we kicked the site off) we were a slightly different outfit. Language was a little more risqué (parental discretion is advised and if I had a kid, which I don't you nosey buggers, I wouldn't let them read this), testing methods were very different, system specs were by today's standards a snails pace and best of all we had those charts with the bubble background (hey they were “in” in '98!).