Does Apple Got Game? iThink Not!

Like most video game publications, Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) annually runs an article or a joke to do with April Fools’, but unlike most of the other game magazines, its not a parody of the magazine itself (see: Gamepro’s ‘Lamepro’ or Game Informer’s ‘Game Infarcer’ spoofs in the April issues of those two magazines).

Best known for the infamous ‘Sheng Long’ code April Fool’s joke had countless people across the world trying to unlock this mystery Street Fighter II character in arcades, this year they’ve done something that some people might not find too obvious to be a fake.

EGM ran a somewhat-convincing one page news article on the iGame, Apple’s first foray into the gaming market. A sleek, milky-white portable gaming system similar in appearance and design to other music-playing iPods on the market. Only thing is, this potentially-expensive iGame has the ability to do it all – play games, listen to music, transfer files, etc. You would transfer games to it via iTunes the same way you would transfer mp3s to your normal iPods, and the game selection would feature a diverse selection of titles, games styles and generations, ranging from classic, out of print retro games from yesteryear to tomorrow’s Xbox 360 hits in portable form.


That is, if this was real.

One instant giveaway that this is not real is that EGM would be the initial news source on this matter (even before Apple and Tech sites on the internet itself!). Game magazines are notorious for their news being outdated (this month EGM is just reporting on the DS Lite, something we gamers knew about for awhile now). Another is that in the picture in the magazine, it gives you a screen capture of the page in which you would download games from. The only thing is, in the retro section it shows such horrendous games such as ‘Total Recall’ (one of the first horribly-rated games in EGM) and ‘Hydilyde’. Also, in the new release section it lists ‘Dragons Lair 3D’, which may not be as obvious as the other mentioned titles but is still a giveaway nonetheless, considering when it was released on consoles in 2002 it fared horrible review-wise and it sold awfully.

Nice try this year, EGM, and this will probably be the best joke this year out of any video game publication, but you still just can’t fool good ol’ Ross.

(Oh, and big thanks goes out to Joystick for supplying me with the EGM scans). I did a little searching around the net and it appears that I'm not the only one who was not fooled.