Weekly Report: Recession proof?

Announcements

- Next week's Game Night: We're going to do an experiment with a free MMO next week, July 28th. Many PC gamers continue to remind us that money is tight and many of you are tired of us only playing console or PC shooters. So, we're going to try out Free Realms next Tuesday from 4pm to 7pm. Drop by to show your free games support! More information will be posted in the Game Night Union later this week.

- Game Night Aftermath: We had enough people drop by to play in the Battlefield 1943 game night this week. Justin and Chris played on the Xbox 360 while I played with the PlayStation 3. The two individuals that received the MVP for each platform include PS3_FAN_101 (PS3) and RealKilla_789 (X360). Nice going guys!

- Nearly 40 recommended user reviews have been considered for a top reviewer's emblem. Looks like about half of them may likely receive one of the emblems. I'll announce them in the recommendation thread hopefully later this week.

- Senior Moderator Role Returns: We brought back the senior moderator role, which is basically the same as general moderator; the main difference is how the mods were around prior to December 2006. Read the scoop that was reported by Caddy06_88.

- GameSpot Australia's Crosshairs recently had another community segment that features GameSpot member comments.

This week's member spotlight goes to EE2lemmonhead for having an interesting outlook about how the gaming industry may not be recession proof Check out his recent blog to learn more about some recession friendly gaming tips. The member spotlight emblem is well deserved!

Featured User Videos

- Signature Creation Tutorial (Pain9000000). If you have been wondering how to work with image backgrounds found in signatures, check out this tutorial.

- System Wars: The Comic MD Issue (Willy105): An interesting comic strip about our favorite System Wars forum lingo with sheep, cows and lemming.

You may view these user videos on the forums directory. Furthermore, they both received the 'As Seen on GameSpot' emblem.

User Reviews

- Excitebots: Trick Racing (Wii) kansasdude2009
- Ghostbusters The Video Game (PS3) AzelKosMos
- Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox) Aberinkulas

- Riviera: The Promised Land (GBA) bluej33
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PC) Jd1680a
- de Blob (Wii) AK_the_Twilight

Randomness Teh Awesome

- EAJack keeps coming up with some interesting articles in his blog so he's been featured in the Soapbox. His recent blog is a 10-Step program about making better games.

- MindforgeTech is a newer registered user that has posted quite a few blogs. Besides the internet lingo paper he wrote for college, you might be interested in his Left 4 Dead Tips .

- maniac-2k7 claims that preordering is the best way to go. Do you agree with him?

- celtic1962 has a list of RPGs he has played over the last 20 years. Want to get to know someone who has a long history playing many kinds of role playing games? He's your guy!

- Platyphyllum has posted part two of his most memorable games.

Tip of the Week

This week's tip is about how the SoapBox feature functions. Two questions that get asked frequently asked are related to why some users get featured while others do not. This week's tip explains how the process works and there are about five things you can all do to be considered as a SoapBox user.

Here is a brief list.
- Flag your blog under 'Editorial' drop down if you want staff to review your blogs.
- Use grammar and mechanics properly.
- Do your research
- Occasionally consider the newbies or non-gamers
- Don't use colored or fancy fonts
- Make a history of writing editorial blogs to show longevity of a SoapBox contributor.

Read an in-depth explanation for the list .

Next week's tip will be about the Member Spotlight.