Love it or hate it, Facebook is slowly taking over the universe. Instead of resisting the inevitable, I’ve accepted my fate and signed over an hour of wasted time a day to Mark Zuckerberg. The Tanooki fan page is a result of one of those hours.

What’s the difference between a “group” and a “fan page”? I’m trying to figure that out myself, but for now, the fan page is the place to be.

Question: Who would win in a fight, Mark Zuckerberg or Tom (MySpace)?

The Tanooki Fan Page

Some of you may have noticed a slow down in our usual news coverage over the last few weeks. Sure, we’ve had to deal with some cool things such as a new site design, testing out new methods for recording future podcasts, launching an online store, and planning some other exciting things we can’t tell you about yet. But the real reason? We’re all still students, this semester is hitting all of us hard, and we’re severely understaffed. Ahh!

That said, I’d like to introduce five individuals that have volunteered their time to contribute as a part of our news reporting staff. They’ll each be contributing a little bit each day to complement what Matt, Becky, Michael, Joey, Drew, and I already provide. We encourage you to make them feel awkwardly new give them a warm Tanooki welcome as they get used to how things work around here. Say hello to Pete, Chris, Nick, Ryan, and John!

I’ll be pushing each of them to get to know the community by joining the forums, so be sure to head on over and familiarize yourself with them there as well.

Thank you to everybody who has submitted applications so far. We are going to sort through everything this weekend and make some decisions early next week. We’ve also received a few emails asking if we received your application. If you sent it to apply@thetanooki.com, then everything is A-OK, trust us.

For those of you still interested in applying, it’s not too late. Just send us your application materials before Sunday and you will still have an equal shot at landing a position at The Tanooki. Good luck to everybody!

Apply Today

Life around these parts has been pretty hectic lately. With the opening of our store, the start of a few video features, and everything else going on in our lives, there just isn’t enough time in a day to report all the news!

Starting today, we are now accepting applications for our news staff. The application process is fairly simple: submit two writing samples and a short description of yourself to apply@thetanooki.com. For the writing samples, you must write one industry related news story and then either a culture or media post (screenshots or video). Be sure to include a photo(s) for each article (bonus points for basic photo editing skills) and demonstrate at least a college-level writing ability. Writing samples should be submitted as a word document or html file, but if you already have some samples on another site, just link us to them in the email.

We encourage anybody with an interest in writing to apply, and if you submitted an application before, we would love to hear from you again! All positions at this time (including ours) are nonpaying, but we will find a way to reward hardworking staff members.

Good luck!

We are excited to finally announce the opening of our online store! The past week has been spent hand-picking and organizing over 900 items to feature in the store, which includes games, accessories, movies, books, figures/plushies, and much more. Can’t find what you are looking for? Try our search feature!

We have partnered up with Amazon to not only bring you great prices and a huge selection, but most orders over $25 will qualify for free shipping. Best of all, every purchase helps support The Tanooki’s ever-growing hosting fees!

The Tanooki Online Store

It’s not often that I have the chance to write school papers on gaming, but this is exactly what I’ll be doing this semester with my gaming class. Not only will I be writing 3, 5 page papers on Zelda: A Link to the Past, but every few weeks, I’ll be writing a reaction paper on a particular game. I figured since I’ll be spending so much time on these papers, I should share them with you!

Last month marked the 20th anniversary of the Mega Man series. Since its humble beginnings in 1987, the Mega Man series has evolved from a cult favorite to one of the most recognized videogame franchises in history. The first two Mega Man games were vastly different in a few key areas (the original had only six Robot Masters, you could replay stages in order to get valuable items, and the game kept track of your score), but by the third game, the Mega Man series found its stride. Mega Man 3 follows Mega Man 2’s formula of difficult platforming stages which lead the player to a boss fight with one of the eight Robot Masters, but in an attempt to evolve the franchise, Mega Man 3 adds several new elements to the series, some of which became mainstays of the series for years to come.

Continue Reading »

Matthew: Today is a great day for me on so many levels. Before starting The Tanooki, I had absolutely no professional journalistic experience. In fact, before The Tanooki, I wanted to become a film editor. While that would still be a decent career, I’m fairly certain that the videogame industry has become my true calling. Whether it be as a journalist, animator on a development team, or working for G4 or a show such as Game Head, I want to stay in this industry for a long time.

But who cares about what I think. I know it sounds cheesy, but we could not be here today if it wasn’t for you guys and gals. You stuck with us through our slow times and server explosions, and we really appreciate it. We hope you stick around for another year (or five), because we have some great things planned (trade shows, here we come!). Cheers!

Christian: You know, when dozens of thousands of readers showed up to check out The Tanooki on our initial launch day, we knew we had something special here. There were some doubters, and we knew we were taking on a huge time commitment, but here we are a year later, still alive and kicking! The Tanooki isn’t going anywhere. We’re here to stay.

We’ve got a ton of things planned for this year, including a few really ambitious projects. If you’ve been with us for a while, you know we always have big goals for The Tanooki, and we’re usually quite committed to expanding what we can offer you.

Let’s celebrate a great first year, and look forward to a fantastic sophomore year!

 Hmm, I wonder what this could be about…

That’s right, Christian turns 21 today!

His week has been extremely busy so far, but hopefully he will find some time to celebrate his big 2-1 in grand Tanooki fashion (gaming!). Oh, and if you don’t see me around here for a while, it’s probably because he is tracking me down for using this old photo of him…

Cheers!

While on my trip to Pasadena, California to cheer on the Illini at the 2008 Rose Bowl, I decided to leave a tribute to my favorite website on a beach in Los Angeles. Of course, I am referring to the very site you are currently reading, The Tanooki! Although the game’s result was quite disappointing, the trip has been fantastic. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to returning home tomorrow so that I can once again start writing for the site.