Did anyone ever find out who Sushi-X was?
- Thread starter Ferny84
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Mike Works
Member
He's not one single person. It's just an alias multiple people used, sort of like Quartermann.
The answer is probably somewhere on these boards already, but Sushi-X, the real deal, was Ken Williams. You can read all about it on Chris Johnson's Blog, in the EGM Chronicles.
http://homepage.mac.com/chris_johnston/C1662594604/index.html
have a semradical day,
Orange
http://homepage.mac.com/chris_johnston/C1662594604/index.html
have a semradical day,
Orange
God's Hand
Banned
Yeah, Sushi-X was an avatar for numerous EGM staff. There's some detailed info about Sushi-X on a number of newsgroups.
I checked out CJ's Blog and this is what I found...
Super-Secret Gaming Ninja, Sushi-X
He's good at fighting games, hates Game Boy titles, and mysteriously disappeared from EGM one day. What gives?
Now's a good time to take a moment and talk about one of EGM's mainstay characters -- Sushi-X. While other people can probably tell this story better than I can from the beginning, I'll take a stab at explaining some of what I know about this mysteriously pseudonymed character.
The way I figure it (and I'm guessing here, since he appeared in EGM before my time), the Sushi-X persona was inspired by Famitsu's Taco-X, a reviewer often dressed as a ninja. Since EGM's Review Crew style is a direct rip-off of Famitsu's, this hypothesis of mine probably isn't too far from the truth. The Sushi-X that most EGM fans know and love was the one that was a master of fighting games, hated Game Boy titles just because he could, and was often the "swing reviewer" who would pan something the other guys "liked." HIs real name was Ken Williams. Ken had been Sushi-X for a good long time before I started in 1994. His personality was exactly that of the Sushi-X in the magazine -- he loved fighting games and had a passionate disdain for anything Game Boy or that involved turn-based role-playing. When a new fighting game would come into the office he'd spend hours on it -- whether it was an upright machine or something that could be plugged into the office's Super Gun. While I was working there, Super Street Fighter II Turbo arrived and the guy went nuts on it, practicing combos, refining his technique -- it was insane to watch. I never considered myself very good at fighting games, but I did get schooled by Ken a couple times. And I mean...rocked. Some of his techniques and skills would show up in the magazine as strategy guides or in special fighting game guides that EGM would publish from time to time. EGM did print a picture of Ken at one time semi-hinting that he was Sushi-X. At one of the early '90s Consumer Electronics Shows, the Sendai booth had a Street Fighter machine set up where people could challenge a staff member. I forget which issue it was, but there is a picture of that scene in the magazine. Of course, no one figured that the white guy with the EGM jacket playing against them was Sushi. Most thought Sushi was a Japanese guy, which had never been the case.
But at some point later (after I'd already left EGM the first time 'round), Ken Williams departed the magazine and started working on Sendai's web-project, a site called NUKE. He gave up his Sushi-X duties, and soon everyone else on staff was taking turns playing Sushi-X (much like I described the middle-days of Quartermann in the first entry of this blog). And that's where things derailed as far as Sushi maintaining a consistent personality. Suddenly he liked a couple GB games and RPGs. He was still generally played as the harsher reviewer but it was definitely different.
When I came *back* to work on EGM part-time in 1996 (issue 88), the Review Crew had changed. It was now Dan "Shoe" Hsu, Shawn Smith, Crispin Boyer, and Sushi-X. Continuing to do Sushi at this point was like beating a dead horse, but we did it because readers were attached to the character. During this era, a guy named Scott Parus played the part of Sushi most often (although a different guy had dressed up in the ninja suit for pictures), but sometimes others would chime in too. Some of those Sushi reviews were written by other members of the Crew, who'd already written their own reviews of the same title as themselves, trying to reflect the Sushi-X persona (which would also give one an anonymous chance to rail on a particularly crap title).
Then an interesting thing happened. Ken Williams returned to EGM as Managing Editor in October of '96. So suddenly, the old Sushi-X was back. (Nothing was said in the magazine about this though, since technically, Sushi-X had never left.) If you're keeping track, that means that issues 89-104 have the original Sushi doing reviews again. Of course, when Ken left Ziff-Davis in March of '98, the dead-horse beatings began anew.
As we were planning the drastic redesign of EGM that was scheduled to hit with issue 120 (July 1999), the entire staff made the decision to axe Sushi-X from the Review Crew for good. The concept of the character had long since worn out its welcome, and as a staff we wanted to move the magazine in a different, more mature, direction. One without pseudonym characters giving opinions. When that issue reached readers, they replied immediately with: "What happened to Sushi-X?" A fair question, and one we got several hundred times. After all, they'd gotten to know him over the course of many years (even if he was but a weak imitation of his former self by now). So he was brought back to answer questions in a Letters section sidebar called "Ask Sushi." But it didn't last and a few months later the character slipped into the mists of time and disappeared.
That is...until another Ziff-Davis magazine, GameNOW, brought him back in early 2003. For those of you who missed checking out GameNOW when it was around, the thought was that EGM would be the games mag for the older crowd, and GameNOW (rising from the ashes of Expert Gamer/EGM2) would service the younger readers. So resurrecting the Sushi-X character in GN made perfect sense. This new Sushi was a bit different (and more hip with the street lingo) but he still loved a good fighting game and not much else. Sadly, GameNOW closed in late 2003, thus closing the book for good on Sushi-X's tale.
But who knows, maybe this gaming legend will be back someday...
TO BE CONTINUED....
Awesome, my choldhood isn't dead
Super-Secret Gaming Ninja, Sushi-X
He's good at fighting games, hates Game Boy titles, and mysteriously disappeared from EGM one day. What gives?
Now's a good time to take a moment and talk about one of EGM's mainstay characters -- Sushi-X. While other people can probably tell this story better than I can from the beginning, I'll take a stab at explaining some of what I know about this mysteriously pseudonymed character.
The way I figure it (and I'm guessing here, since he appeared in EGM before my time), the Sushi-X persona was inspired by Famitsu's Taco-X, a reviewer often dressed as a ninja. Since EGM's Review Crew style is a direct rip-off of Famitsu's, this hypothesis of mine probably isn't too far from the truth. The Sushi-X that most EGM fans know and love was the one that was a master of fighting games, hated Game Boy titles just because he could, and was often the "swing reviewer" who would pan something the other guys "liked." HIs real name was Ken Williams. Ken had been Sushi-X for a good long time before I started in 1994. His personality was exactly that of the Sushi-X in the magazine -- he loved fighting games and had a passionate disdain for anything Game Boy or that involved turn-based role-playing. When a new fighting game would come into the office he'd spend hours on it -- whether it was an upright machine or something that could be plugged into the office's Super Gun. While I was working there, Super Street Fighter II Turbo arrived and the guy went nuts on it, practicing combos, refining his technique -- it was insane to watch. I never considered myself very good at fighting games, but I did get schooled by Ken a couple times. And I mean...rocked. Some of his techniques and skills would show up in the magazine as strategy guides or in special fighting game guides that EGM would publish from time to time. EGM did print a picture of Ken at one time semi-hinting that he was Sushi-X. At one of the early '90s Consumer Electronics Shows, the Sendai booth had a Street Fighter machine set up where people could challenge a staff member. I forget which issue it was, but there is a picture of that scene in the magazine. Of course, no one figured that the white guy with the EGM jacket playing against them was Sushi. Most thought Sushi was a Japanese guy, which had never been the case.
But at some point later (after I'd already left EGM the first time 'round), Ken Williams departed the magazine and started working on Sendai's web-project, a site called NUKE. He gave up his Sushi-X duties, and soon everyone else on staff was taking turns playing Sushi-X (much like I described the middle-days of Quartermann in the first entry of this blog). And that's where things derailed as far as Sushi maintaining a consistent personality. Suddenly he liked a couple GB games and RPGs. He was still generally played as the harsher reviewer but it was definitely different.
When I came *back* to work on EGM part-time in 1996 (issue 88), the Review Crew had changed. It was now Dan "Shoe" Hsu, Shawn Smith, Crispin Boyer, and Sushi-X. Continuing to do Sushi at this point was like beating a dead horse, but we did it because readers were attached to the character. During this era, a guy named Scott Parus played the part of Sushi most often (although a different guy had dressed up in the ninja suit for pictures), but sometimes others would chime in too. Some of those Sushi reviews were written by other members of the Crew, who'd already written their own reviews of the same title as themselves, trying to reflect the Sushi-X persona (which would also give one an anonymous chance to rail on a particularly crap title).
Then an interesting thing happened. Ken Williams returned to EGM as Managing Editor in October of '96. So suddenly, the old Sushi-X was back. (Nothing was said in the magazine about this though, since technically, Sushi-X had never left.) If you're keeping track, that means that issues 89-104 have the original Sushi doing reviews again. Of course, when Ken left Ziff-Davis in March of '98, the dead-horse beatings began anew.
As we were planning the drastic redesign of EGM that was scheduled to hit with issue 120 (July 1999), the entire staff made the decision to axe Sushi-X from the Review Crew for good. The concept of the character had long since worn out its welcome, and as a staff we wanted to move the magazine in a different, more mature, direction. One without pseudonym characters giving opinions. When that issue reached readers, they replied immediately with: "What happened to Sushi-X?" A fair question, and one we got several hundred times. After all, they'd gotten to know him over the course of many years (even if he was but a weak imitation of his former self by now). So he was brought back to answer questions in a Letters section sidebar called "Ask Sushi." But it didn't last and a few months later the character slipped into the mists of time and disappeared.
That is...until another Ziff-Davis magazine, GameNOW, brought him back in early 2003. For those of you who missed checking out GameNOW when it was around, the thought was that EGM would be the games mag for the older crowd, and GameNOW (rising from the ashes of Expert Gamer/EGM2) would service the younger readers. So resurrecting the Sushi-X character in GN made perfect sense. This new Sushi was a bit different (and more hip with the street lingo) but he still loved a good fighting game and not much else. Sadly, GameNOW closed in late 2003, thus closing the book for good on Sushi-X's tale.
But who knows, maybe this gaming legend will be back someday...
TO BE CONTINUED....
Awesome, my choldhood isn't dead
SatelliteOfLove
Member
explodet said:
"No, I am Sushi-X!"
Perfect. :lol
Andrew is right. The original Sushi was David Siller. He went on to make Maximo, though he was cut loose from Capcom before part II. Not sure why. He was a nice guy but he sure did like to run his mouth a lot. 
Ken Williams was the second and longest-running Sushi, and the one who earned the right to the name IMO. After that it was a variety of people. Fun fact: Our own K Lee even played the role for a couple of reviews.
Ken Williams was the second and longest-running Sushi, and the one who earned the right to the name IMO. After that it was a variety of people. Fun fact: Our own K Lee even played the role for a couple of reviews.