Woot! Happy birthday to us all! Avault forevaaaaaa!!!

And the mission could NOT have been accomplished without a LOT of help from our Guardian Angel!

Awesome! I’m glad to be a (very) small part of what’s going on. I was mailed a copy of the Best Buy “games magazine”… the bias was disgusting and I threw it away. AVault has a good thing going for it!

Kudos to Angel & all the staff at Avault! Happy anniversary!!! <3 U ALL!!!

-Bob

Daaaaaang! Congrats to all the Avault peeps! Here’s to another 15.

Amazing, truly. I’m happy to be a part of it.

Congratulation guys. Congratulations Avault. Congratulations Angel.

Gotta say, I’m glad you guys are here to offer a less “corporate” perspective on gaming. Congrats on 15 years from a guy who’s been reading since the late 90s (but only commenting recently).

Happy Anniversary everyone!

WOW! What an amazing accomplishment through 15 years of an unstable economy and a constantly evolving gaming industry. It’s great to see real gamers with real passion still on the web. Long live AVAULT and long live PC Gaming!!!

What brought you out of the closet Solo4114?

Nice! Have I really been reading AVault for 15 years? The times they do fly! I was a teenager back then……. Happy Anniversary!

Congratulations, Angel and team!

I am really proud to have been working under Angel for well over a decade–there is no other gaming website that offers what The Adrenaline Vault does under his leadership!!!!

Bob Mandel

Happy anniversary and congratulations to everyone.

It is truly incredible that the ‘vault lives still. Kudos to all those who put the work into keeping it alive. Here’s to another 15 indeed!

remember remember the fifth of november

Sweet 15th anniversary for you all, i’m a reader from mexico that keeps coming here from almost the beginning of this excellent website!

There’s something comforting about Avault still being here. I first encountered the site in 1996. I’d check it several times a day because it felt like every time I loaded the page, a new review by Emil Pagliarulo, Brain Clair, Pete Hines, or one of the other original writers would appear on the page. (Or maybe I just liked the color purple!) I met the staff at E3 1997 after making up a fake software company in order to sneak into the convention, and by that August, was writing for the site.

Avault literally consumed the next seven years of my life. It was special time because we focused on writing honest, hard hitting reviews that didn’t pander to the publishers. It was a privilege to be able to share our passion for games in a popular forum.

From the looks of things, Avault is still about passion and sincerity. While I love the current group of writers, some of whom I brought on when I briefly returned as EIC a couple of years ago, I’m especially grateful that Bob Mandel, one of my best friends, is still on staff and that Angel remains the man behind the curtain.

On one occasion in the late ’90s, Angel said, “We’ll be doing this in our ’50s!” It was hard to see then, but he was right. Congratulations on 15 awesome years, Avault. Here’s to the next 15, and you doing this in your 60s!

Greetings from Poland.

Pete
Avault reader since… 1998 or maybe 97…

Game Not Over!

Found this site in late 90s, my college days, and was so glad that it didn’t dabble with pay features (as if that helped!) like so many others. I kind of lost out of the gaming scene when work came into the picture but when I could finally find to hit the olde keyboard again, Avault was one of the sites I revisited. Didn’t know that you hit hard times but kinda happy that it all turned out for the better.

Cheers!

Thanks everyone for the nice comments.

This was the first gaming site I found that (a) wasn’t a giant mess of ads that would bury my 28.8 connection and (b) provided honest, insightful reviews. Its funny but around two-three years ago when a lot of my favorite sites (incl. Avault) appeared to be dieing, and PC gaming along with them, I basically quit following the gaming scene. I finally started getting into it again not too long ago, and just outta curiosity I started hitting a lot of my old bookmarks. What’s astounding me is that most of my old favorites have recently come back from the grave or are becoming more active. I think that PC gaming goes through cycles, and frankly I think the last two years has been a dark age with barely a bright spot in sight. I think the scene is due for a major resurgence, and I hope Avault is right there to lead the way.

Amazing stories, loving to read them

Whoa, a word from David Laprad too. This certainly brings back old times

I found Avault sometime in the late 90′s and really glommed on to their in-depth reviews – which read like mini-magazine articles; hitting every angle. I trusted in the reviewers who steered me towards some titles I might otherwise pass by. I bookmarked the site then and made sure that carried over as the pages tore from the calendar with reckless abandon.

Flash forward to January 2008 – MLK Jr. Day. I had the day off from work and just moments before leaving for a little family shopping excursion, I checked the site and saw Dave had hung the “Help Wanted” sign. The application was easy – just send a writing sample and hope for the best. Of course – I tempered any optimism by reminding myself that this was the Wild Wild Web – and there were plenty of scribes out there just waiting to make their fortune and glory. A lowly New England-based middle manager toiling away at a financial services company while harboring fading hopes that he’d find his soapbox and scream his voice loud for all to hear – didn’t stand a chance.

So – it was a huge shock when I returned home and saw David Lapard’s note – “You’re in!!!” – Same Day.

Finally, I had vaulted pass the velvet ropes. I was atop Mt. Olympus. Nothing could knock me from this perch.

And then I was hit by a one-two punch of Wii shovelware detritus as Summer Sports and The Dog Island darkened my doorway; waiting for my inaugural review(s).

Like Sisyphus (Google it, kiddies), this was gonna’ be a long trek to the top. : )

Most of that is true; albeit colored with a little bit of hyperbole. The point is, I get to write for my favorite site – and to be but a tiny tile in this grand mosaic is one of those life experiences that we, of the evolved brain, cherish so dearly.

It’s good to see Dave posting about his experiences, both in the old days and as EIC. Of course, I might be biased since it was Dave that brought me on board.

Seriously, I remember this place in the 90s. I can’t tell you the number of times I made purchases (or did not make them) based on reviews here. (I still go back and read the old reviews of games I purchased long ago, just to remind myself of what things used to be like.) I was sad to see things die down, but when the call went out for reviewers, I was honored to get the nod.

Of course, reviewing games is not all rainbows and unicorns; you can see that by looking up the worst titles we’ve reviewed in the past few years. But it’s worth it to get the gems we get to review occasionally.

Wow, 15 years! I think that’s old enough in Internet time to actually be considered “Full- Grandpa”.

Congrats everyone! Let’s kick another 15 out!

@Michelle,

Slow days at work as far as posting goes. Like I said, though, I followed the site back in the mid-late 90s when I was in college. I think I originally came to the site looking for patches for a particular game. I followed the site from that point up until it shut down. I saw when it came back, and then as the format for the site evolved a bit further. I’ve come to view it as a great place to get reviews that are thoughtful, well-written, and less prone to hype than many of the other sites out there. I may not always agree with the reviewer’s take on the game, but I appreciate the fact that the site quite clearly is NOT a mere corporate shill. I also appreciate that you guys regularly review “indie” games instead of just the next Medal of Battlefield Duty release.

I found the site a long time ago when the demo for Dungeon Keeper was announced in PCGamer (I think) and had this addy to get the demo on such and such date.

Chip: back in the earliest of the early days at Avault, we actually reviewed demos, as we hadn’t established enough contacts at the publishers yet to receive materials for review. Pete Hines once told me he’d log on to Avault and scour our downloads section for new demos to review. That kind of naive, grassroots, come hell or high water effort is missing from the games industry and electronic journalism today, as both have matured.

Jason: You’re right about the joys of reviewing stinkers. But those reviews are the most fun to write. I had a ball reviewing the dreadful PC version of Frogger. Those of you who pay attention to the credits in video games might remember that Jordan Thomas once wrote for Avault. His first review was famously scathing. Jordan is an amazing writer; he could eviscerate a game and leave it bleeding in pieces on the ground.

Quick – someone staple David down in his chair before he vaporizes again – great hearing from you, Dude. DO NOT be a stranger round these parts – we misses you.

And we loves you, and reveres you!

Wow, a lot of familiar names above me. And a lot more memories, nearly all of them pleasant.

Funny story (to me): I was working full-time in a technical position at a state department in Florida back in ’98. Avault was my homepage on my work computer–this was, of course, back when Internet use was self-policed and apps like SurfControl or WebSense were either not yet created or simply not as pervasive as they are today. Between help calls I’d devour that day’s content; I was mostly there for the articles, but at the time there was a very extensive download section as well. And we had a nice, fat T1 with far better speeds than the 33.6k modem I was rocking at home.

When the Soldier of Fortune demo hit sometime in 2000 (I think), I downloaded it only to find that it wouldn’t fit on a single Zip disk, being JUST over 100MB in size. So I did what any desperate gamer would do. I extracted it, broke it down into its zipped components and tried to force it into more manageable chunks. One of the files in the .zip was around 99MB, and the actual space caused it to STILL be too large. I finally figured out a way to recompress the entire package in more agreeable sizes, forming a multi-part zip file that spanned two Zips. Victory!

About a week later, a report was run against our network connection, and a Top 10 web-traffic slideshow was presented to management. Immediately before the meeting, our network admin came by and showed me a printout of what the report would contain. The usual suspects were present: CNN, the local newspaper, Yahoo/Lycos, ESPN, et cetera. At the top, with approximately 77% of our bandwidth, was The Adrenaline Vault. He confided that he traced it back to me but, due to our friendship, he would be conveniently leaving it out of the presentation. I do think he enjoyed watching me squirm a bit before he promised that particular omission, though.

Needless to say, I signed-up for DSL through Sprint the next day. After that, I made sure that while at work, I only read Avault for the articles.

Oh, and I went by Desticato back then, but he had to be put down. Sadly, he’s come back as a brain-eating undead thing, so now I have to wear a helmet. All. The. Time. Fortunately, I can do that and still read Avault. I just have to squint through the faceplate. I did mention that it’s an antique diver’s helmet, no?

Happy Birthday and Congratulations!

I still remember buying games that have achieved Avault’s Editor’s Pick. Those were really head on and I enjoyed all the games that was recommended. Avault is/was the definitive source for unbiased reviews!

Keep up the good work, guys!

I am a listener or reader from Australia..i was trawling bungie lucky i heard the podcast have have been a listener ever since..i like how you guys just say it how it is..you are not hardcore gamers..pretty much like an average joe like myself..i can relate to it

I used to be a reader of Avault several years ago (I’m talking way back when Half Life 1 was still popular). For some reason or another, I stopped visiting Avault and switched to Gamespot. I am indeed pleasantly surprised that Avault is back in its new avatar.

Although I am from India, I am keen follower of games and unbiased game coverage. Gamespot has recently been getting a little biased towards certain franchises – all the while ignoring glaring deficiencies in the latest releases of said franchises. Also, they can’t stop badmouthing the adventure game scene. I still can’t fathom how reviewers of twitch shooters and MMOs are allowed to review adventure games!! THEY’RE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT GAMESPOT. Sheesh!!!

But I remember Avault used to give balanced reviews. So I’m hoping that trend continues today as well.

Here’s wishing you a happy anniversary Angel and Team Avault. All the very best!!

- Vijay from Chennai, India.