This new voice was to be considered the voice of the average gamer: a devotee of the form, interested in gameplay tips and tricks, always on the prowl for the next big bit of news. Magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly brought the kind of games coverage everyone wanted, in a style that seemed friendly and knowledgeable, if a bit lacking in personality. Clearly, the initial mandate was to provide a feel of professionalism to the articles by aping the style of the respected media giants that had come before.

This was fine for quite a while; certainly no one complained loudly enough for it to become an issue. Yet as the home console market developed and each brand -- Nintendo, Sony, Sega -- got its own magazine (and in many cases, more than one), the need for distinctive voices became a factor. Games coverage began to get a little edgier, a little more outspoken. Why not? This new market prided itself on its attitude as much as its acumen, the way that similar youth-oriented entertainment did, including the newly-minted "extreme" sports sector.

Yet for all of that, the boundaries could only be pushed so far in a medium devoted, for the most part, to game reviews. The prevailing wisdom appears to be that putting too much personality into a review detracts from the important information. It's never meant to be about the writer; it's all about the game.

At the same time, however, the industry itself seemed to be calling for a champion -- a Gonzo journalist on the level of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, or an outspoken personality like Lester Bangs -- someone whose writing was sharp and flavorful, someone the industry could call its own. Perhaps someone who might bring legitimacy to the field, at least in the eyes of the mainstream, who still didn't quite realize the importance of video game culture. But how far could one go in writing a review, and which publication would dare to be the first to offer a truly unique voice?

This might have continued for years but for the advent of the Internet. Suddenly, the ubiquity of self-publishing tools democratized the review process; anyone who could write could tell the world what they thought. With dozens of games-focused amateur blogs appearing daily, the old guard needed to step up its game (so to speak) and try to offer what the smaller sites couldn't: exclusive content, direct from the developers and publishers themselves. Rather than providing a fresh voice for the masses, the need for exclusive content meant that game media outlets instead had to buckle down to the desires of the publishers. A further tightening of the editorial reins ensued; coverage became as straight-laced as it had ever been. The notion of the rebel reviewer dropped by the wayside.

At least, that's the way things went in the big media circles. But at the same time, the 'Net quietly began to grow its own subversive voices. Enter Penny Arcade, inarguably the most respected, most popular game-focused webcomic ever to exist. While it may have begun as nothing more than a silly strip featuring in-jokes for the faithful to repeat, it steadily grew into a powerful voice of its own. The PA guys -- Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, and their respective comic alter egos Tycho Brahe and John Gabriel -- were, from the start, foul-mouthed iconoclasts who gave the world their unalloyed and unabashed opinions, unfiltered by any need to please a corporate sponsor. Perhaps it was their humble origins, perhaps it was their slow rise to notoriety, but by whichever means, first their audience and then game developers began to see Penny Arcade as a reliable source for news and reviews. So much so, in fact, that these days PA turns away more ad requests than it allows. They are in the position of being able to request playable versions of games before agreeing to run their developers' banners on their site, a feat traditionally reserved for the old guard media outlets. Whatever it was that led to their rise, it's worked for them admirably well.

On a different front, respected online magazine The Escapist began to run a new series of video reviews featuring a fast-talking British expatriate named Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, called "Zero Punctuation". Notable both for the speed of his speech and his outspoken, frequently expletive-ridden monologues, Croshaw also made a name for himself by speaking his mind about the games he covered and, more often than not, hated. Perhaps coming from the critically-respected Escapist gave additional weight to what might otherwise have been overlooked as simple reactionary extremism, but for whatever reason Croshaw has developed a loyal -- and doubtless growing -- fanbase.

Coming from a similar origin, the new game site Giant Bomb has hit the gaming community just like its name would suggest. Featuring no less than four ex-employees from news site Gamespot, Giant Bomb has managed one of the most impressive debuts the industry has ever seen. In a way, its success may be partially traced back to Jeff Gerstmann's firing from Gamespot -- he had always been that site's most outspoken correspondent, and surely a great portion of Giant Bomb's audience came to the new site just to follow and support him. While it's not known at this time exactly how long it took Gerstmann to put together his plan for a new rival game site, he quickly drew to him Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella, all former Gamespot employees who left the site very shortly after Gerstmann was expelled.

Like the other two examples mentioned above, Giant Bomb combines a deep knowledge of games with irreverence and occasional swearing. In this combination can be found the surprising essence of the new games journalism -- distinctive voices giving their thoughts without pandering, rebel writers who accept sponsorship on their own terms, backed up by an audience that follows them for their very attitude. The games industry has always needed these viewpoints -- what one might call the true voice of the gamer -- but it has never allowed itself to support them for fear of losing money from backers with reputations to protect. Yet these exemplars could not have come into existence without the restrictive environments they proceeded from. As the field matures, who will follow them, and what will the medium look like? Whatever comes next, rest assured: it will speak to us all more directly, more intimately, and more loudly than ever.