About Our Writers
MARCUS CORRIN got his start playing games on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1982, and hasn’t stopped since, no matter how hard his wife rolls her eyes. After moving from his native England to the United States in 2000, he found himself working in video game retail for five years, and actually misses it a little bit. He has a fairly extensive collection of gaming hardware and software dating back some three decades, including a fully-functional S.T.U.N. Runner arcade cabinet, and often delves into the land of retro gaming. Marcus was a founder member of the 360 Arcadians Live podcast, remaining with it for its full two and a half year run – much of which also included SOC’s own Elaine. His other interests outside gaming include motoring around in his creaky old ragtop Trans Am, trying not to suck at the bass guitar, listening to noisy music, watching obscure and sometimes terrible movies, and catering to the whims of his two cats.
SAM DIXON is an IT geek, married to an IT geek who spends far more time reading and posting about games than playing them. In addition to digital games, he mainly spends his nerd points reading cyberpunk novels, playing pen and paper role-playing games, preaching about Linux and being a whore for downloadable games and content. Sam owns (as of this posting) 138 Xbox Live Arcade games, 20 Virtual Console games, a couple dozen PSN games, and about ten games on Steam. Having spent more this generation on downloadable games than retail ones, he is ready to admit he has an impulse-buy problem. At least Some Other Castle will get some amusing stories of some very horrible games and the occasional gem.
JENN DIXON was first introduced to video games when her dad brought home a Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer from Radio Shack. Little Jenn would grasp that black joystick with the red button and play games like Centipede, Clowns and Balloons, and Whirlybird. She even laid down some BASIC program skills on that computer, too. Banned from having an NES upon its release, Jenn was forced to live vicariously through her friends and by begging them for turns to play. Her video game destiny became a reality when she was met her husband Sam and was immediately drawn into games such as Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. A hobby soon became an addiction. Jenn currently wastes away her degree in German and English communications by playing fighting games, RPG’s, driving games, and puzzle games. Her other geeky pursuits include photography, fractals, and playing with puppies.
DAN ILLSON, world traveler, has an interest in games as equally varied as his place of residence. From his humble beginnings with the Atari and Nintendo game consoles to his current sophisticated tastes that only gaming in 1080p can satisfy, Dan enjoys everything from a good JRPG to a complex FPS with a healthy mix of strategy and fighting games mixed in. While he tends towards console gaming, Dan also dabbles in the world of PC titles and can argue the feasibility of game physics and controller favoritism with the best of them. When he’s not playing games or increasing his backlog of titles (an example of chaos theory at work) Dan is controlling your internets from his mile high mountain fortress in Denver. Recently escaped from the deep south, he also enjoys playing hockey and drinking good beer which explains his “rant” style of writing; or it could be the ADD…. As of this posting Dan has started, but not finished the following games: FFXII, Uncharted, LBP, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2, and many many more.
MICHELLE JUETT represents the green and rainy Northwest, home to Microsoft and PAX. Games and art sum her up very well. These are her two passions and they often intersect although she would like them to merge more frequently. Although she is very much into digital art, traditional forms such as drawing and painting have been known to occur. Sadly, she is addicted to World of Warcraft so other games sometimes get ignored. It doesn’t stop her though from playing other amazing games. Although her preferred game addiction treatment is Xbox and PC, she has a big soft spot for Zelda games. Her other websites include: Deviantart , her webcomic and her main website.
EVAN VALENSKY is pretty sure he isn’t the manager of anything (but he likes to pretend). He has a BA that focused in History and Philosophy but is still unsure how that helped him with his career choice of IT. Evan has been gaming since his dad brought home a NES but his real passion was the PC which he has been finagling to play games on since the 386 days. Today you can still find Evan gaming on the PC but more often than not he’ll be on the 360, the PS3, or even sometimes the Wii. While not gaming Evan enjoys movies, comics, and other mass media but he has been known to occasionally participate in something requiring physical activity. He recently got married to a non-gamer and has slowly been trying to teach his wife the fine art of enjoying video games, thus far he has been unsuccessful.
