Vitals: 38

Education: B.A. in English Lit from Hamilton College; M.F.A. in poetry from Syracuse University.

Publications: Have written for various magazines, newspapers and Web sites over the years, including USA Weekend Magazine, Playboy, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Daily, Maxim and Time Out New York, among others.

Platforms played: I'm by and large a console gamer, though I do some casual gaming on the PC on occasion.

Genres played: Third-person action. First-person shooters.

Multiplayer or single-player: Single-player, though I'm not averse to co-op. I generally despise competitive multiplayer.

My favorite Top 10 games ever played:

1) Super Mario 64
2) Dead Rising
3) Shadow of the Colossus
4) Grand Theft Auto III
5) The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
6) BioShock
7) Bully
8) Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
9) Okami
10) Freedom Fighters

What makes me tick: Beer, a decent internet connection, sharp pencils and beer.

Bonus round: Scott Jones has cast a jaundiced eye on videogames since the Atari 2600 era. Despite forays into football (12 years) and poetry (M.F.A., three years), Jones never stopped haunting game stores and studying screenshots in all the latest videogame magazines. During a five-year stint at a men's sophisticate magazine in the late '90s -- which Jones refers to as "My Years Among the Depressed and the Damned" -- he began secretly penning game reviews for GameCritics.com over his lunch hour. After finally parting ways with the men's sophisticate world, Jones began filing game reviews and game-centric editorials -- and actually getting paid for game writing -- for Maxim and Stuff's Web sites on a freelance basis. He's since written for Playboy, Sports Illustrated for Kids, USA Weekend Magazine, GameDaily, Blender and Time Out New York, among others. He currently lives in New York City with his two sideburns.