I've always been a pretty big trash-talker when it comes to video games. This is mostly because growing up, I was typically better than everyone else at playing games and I liked to remind my friends of that fact. Yeah, that was kind of a jerk move. I'm also a really competitive person, so if there's anything I can do to get in someone's head, I'll do it. Then, one day, I had nobody left to talk trash to. Many of my friends had moved away, gotten married, or simply weren't interested in games anymore. I spent my time running up the score against the CPU in Madden, but no matter how creative my insults were, the game just didn't seem to care. I tried playing online, but I quickly grew tired of the cheesy tactics that everyone seemed to use and the fact that people didn't seem to know the difference between insults or flat-out hate speech and good, creative trash talk. But then came online leaderboards.

Online leaderboards are great for two reasons: They bring (back) meaning to high scores, since you can actually share your scores with people, and they're a great way of inspiring some good, old-fashioned smack talk. This is how I found myself in an epic battle for bragging rights with Carrie Gouskos, former GameSpotter and current content developer for Warhammer Online. I've met Carrie a few times and I always enjoyed reading her work, but she had already left GameSpot by the time I arrived, so I don't really know her very well. I knew that she liked playing games, though, especially on the Xbox 360, so I sent her a friend request and she added me shortly thereafter. Before she added me I had been playing a ton of Pac-Man Championship Edition, and I think it's pretty safe to say that I had a bad case of Pac-Man fever. I had the top score on my friends leaderboard, but other than Brendan and Jeff, nobody looked like they'd ever get close to my scores.

But then things changed. I logged on one day and saw that Carrie (and forum moderator Carolyn Michelle) had beaten most of my scores. I quickly got to work and after a few hours, reclaimed my rightful position atop the leaderboards. Being someone who loves to talk trash, I couldn't wait until I got on instant messenger the next morning. I complimented Carrie on her Pac-Man prowess and then informed her of my accomplishments. She, of course, assured me that this change in rankings was only temporary. A day or two later I logged on and was dismayed (actually, deep down I was happy because I enjoy the competition) to find that Carrie had beaten all of my scores, logging an impressive 466,000+ on one game mode. Once again, I buckled down and took back four of the six high scores. And once again, I reported to Carrie that I had taken the lead.

My mom had been in town for a visit, so I hadn't played Pac-Man in a week when I finally logged on last night. It seemed that Carolyn Michelle and Carrie had both been busy, as I was no longer the leader in any of the game modes. To make matters worse, Carrie was ranked #21 IN THE WORLD in one of the modes. (Pro tip: Before you talk smack to someone, make sure they're not one of the best people on the entire planet at whatever it is you're talking smack about.) I knew that crying wasn't going to improve my scores, so I hunkered down and did my best. It turns out that my best is pretty darn good. I broke 500,000 points in one mode, took the top spot, and snagged the top position in extra mode 3, and I'm proud to say that by the time I was done playing for the night, Carrie was #22 in the world--a few thousand points behind the #19 ranked player--a guy named Aaron Thomas.

Becoming one of the top Pac-Man Championship Edition players in
the world wasn't what I had in mind when I started this little feud.

Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got to work was hop on instant messenger and let Carrie know about this Aaron Thomas guy who had leapt ahead of her on the worldwide rankings. She took it surprisingly well, though I like to imagine her at her desk, bursting into tears with her coworkers wondering what horrible tragedy had just occurred. After I broke the news we discussed strategy a bit--after all, this is a friendly competition. Here it became obvious to me that I'm going to have to rethink my approach to championship mode, since I'm currently stuck at around 242,000, which is way behind both Carrie and Carolyn Michelle.

No matter the outcome, when the dust finally settles on our little competition, I will have enjoyed the chance to hone my skills at the game and do some friendly trash-talking while I'm at it. Of course, I can say this because I know I'm going to win. ;)

I don't know when it happened or what caused it, but there's a boatload of negativity in the world of video games. Many game reviews have a negative tone, even if the game's pretty good; message boards are typically breeding grounds for negativity, insanity and hatred; even console manufacturers seem to spend as much time dissing the competition as they do promoting their own product. I'm certainly not without fault, either. I've had to limit the amount of time I spent on message boards because I found they were making me think negative about pretty much everything--even myself! To combat all this negativity I'm going to do something totally crazy. I'm only going to say good things about video games in this editorial. Let's see what happens...

God of War 2 is awesome
I have no good reason for playing this game for 33 minutes on March 12th and then not touching it again until last week. The game is absolutely gorgeous looking and the sense of scale that it conveys is mind-blowing. The gameplay is just as solid as ever and the story has me hooked too.

People can make some sweet rides in Forza 2
I am not one of those people, but I admire anyone who has the talent, time, and focus required to make these beautiful cars. I'm a tightwad with my virtual cash so I haven't been able to pull the trigger to purchase one, but I get a kick out of browsing, or watching over Justin's shoulder as he peruses the auctions during lunch.

Uno is hella fun
Alex, Brad, former GameSpot dude Dave Toister, and I played Uno over Xbox Live for a couple of hours last night and it was a blast. Alex and Brad had cameras hooked up so I got to watch them...sit in their chairs and stare at the TV, which was cool. We mostly played with the 35th anniversary deck, but played a few rounds with the Kameo and PGR decks too. I won a pretty good number of games. Brad did not, and is now threatening to never play with me again, which is pretty amusing. He can't quit me.

Robert Randolph & The Family Band are really good
What does this have to do with games? The first time I ever heard a Robert Randolph tune was "Thrill Of It" in NBA Live 07. I finally got around to picking up the album Colorblind and I'm really digging it. Eric Clapton and Dave Matthews guest on a couple of songs, but even without them the album holds up on the strength of some catchy hooks and impressive guitar playing.

Puzzle Quest has me hooked
Being that I've had this game from GameFly for about two months perhaps it's time to just bite the bullet and purchase it. I'm amazed at how this game keeps me coming back for more. I'm somewhere around level 34, but I don't think I'm that far into the story because I get distracted with side quests, forging new items, and training my mounts. Who knew that a simple puzzle component was all that it would take to finally get me hooked on an RPG?

I'm excited for my mom's visit next week
Now this certainly can't have anything to do with games, right? Actually it has a lot to do with games. My mom and dad were the ones who bought an Atari 2600 back in the day and got me started on the crazy path that eventually led me to a career writing about video games. She was super-into Missile Command back then so she's quite excited to get her hands on the Missile Command cabinet we've got in the office. I figure I'll just bring her into the office, get her a stool, and let her play all day while I work. We're also going to see The Police, so that should be fun as well. More fun than Missile Command? We'll have to wait and see.

It turns out this "being positive" thing is pretty easy--I didn't even say anything bad about NBA Live 07! It feels pretty good, too. Maybe we should all try to lighten up a little.

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Get to know the people that bring you all of the great content on GameSpot in a regular series of short and lighthearted gaming-related interviews.

Episode XVIII: Kevin VanOrd

Because I'm still trying to get the Phil Elliott interview worked out the last episode of Getting To Know ended with a mysterious "???" listed as the next guest. Well, we're still not getting to know Phil just yet, but I worked the phones and hounded some big-time Hollywood agents to secure some real triple-A talent, Mr. Kevin VanOrd.

Until I met Kevin the only person I had ever heard of that ran video game tournaments was the obnoxious tournament host in The Wizard. KVO is much cooler. Not only because he's not a fictional character from a movie, but because he puts together really awesome tournaments and runs our community game night. In this week's episode I grilled Kevin with the usual array of hard hitting questions. Find out about Kevin's previous life as a ninja as well as what happens to an arcade machine that rubs him the wrong way. Check it out!

With any luck the next Getting To Know GameSpot will feature Phil, but if that doesn't happen, Tor Thorsen is going to step up and take one for the team. As always, thanks for watching!

* I apologize in advance for the poor sound quality of this episode. I had some "issues" while shooting. Stephen and Vinnie did their best to help me clean it up.

I played quite a bit of Forza 2 this weekend. You'll have to wait until our review goes up later today to find out how it is, but I took a few pictures while playing the game, uploaded them to forzamotorsport.net and figured I'd share them with you. They're nothing exciting, but being able to show off your rides is definitely a cool feature.

This is the first car I bought in the game. No, the GameSpot theme wasn't included--that's my own terrible work.

I love hitting cones. It's so much fun. Cones rule.

I don't like crashing my rides, but I'm pretty good at it.

UPDATE:

I'm really getting the hang of the editor now. Just look at the detail!

Brian suggested more smilies, but I'm trying not to go overboard.

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Get to know the people that bring you all of the great content on GameSpot in a regular series of short and lighthearted gaming-related interviews.

Episode XVII: Brendan Sinclair

You might be saying to yourselves right now "Hey, that's not Phil Elliot! You promised us Phil!" Due to circumstances beyond my control I haven't been able to make this happen yet, but it'll happen soon. What I do have for you is the one and only Mr. Brendan Sinclair of GameSpot News fame.

Brendan was a little hesitant at first about getting on camera, but I convinced him that the news would wait for him and was able to drag him away from his desk for a few minutes. In this episode you'll find out how news is made (it's not the news stork), how many controllers Brendan thinks fellow news editor Tor Thorsen may have broken in his life, and what it's like to deal with the infamous Jack Thompson.

With any luck the next Getting To Know GameSpot will feature Phil, but if that doesn't happen, well, who it does profile will just have to be a surprise. As always, thanks for watching!

As I described in this post, I'm an avid collector of games and consoles. I own tons of games for every system from Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft. I even have games for the Virtual Boy, Atari Lynx, Wonderswan Color, 3DO, and a ton of other obscure systems. When I started to put together this collection, I fancied that I'd play all these great old games all the time and I'd never be without an awesome game to play. The odd thing is I almost never play them; I seem to get more satisfaction from owning the games than I do from actually playing them. I guess I just like knowing that they're there.

The first game I ever remember playing was Combat for the Atari 2600. My sister and I would get up early on Saturday mornings and play for a few hours before the good cartoons came on. Our favorite game mode was the one where one person controlled the big, slow plane (we called it "Fat Momma") and the other controlled three superfast fighter jets. We'd play that game for hours and always had a great time. Every now and again one of us will bring up "Fat Momma" and it's always good for a laugh.. I still have the game as well as an Atari 2600, and though I never play it, just opening up the drawer and seeing Combat in there brings back fond memories.

I was one of the last kids on my block to get a Nintendo Entertainment System, and when I did finally get one I didn't have any money to buy games. I'd get two or three new games a year, but most of the games I played were borrowed from friends. This means I didn't have a whole lot of choice when it came to what I played, but I wasn't going to complain; it was either play a crappy game like Back to the Future or beat Super Mario Bros. for the 100th time. Somehow over the years I've developed a fondness for lousy games like T&C, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (I was stuck forever!), and Fester's Quest . It's amazing that the positive memory of joking around and having a good time with my friend Jason completely overshadows the anger and frustration we experienced trying to dodge stupid milkshakes in Back to the Future.

Then there are the games in my collection that I own only because they were so bad. One such game is the infamous Superman 64. Other than a brief bit of time with the demo in an Electronics Boutique (yes, they were dumb enough to put it on display), I never played the game. I did, however, read all of the stinging criticism the game got in magazines such as EGM and GamePro. Now when I look in the N64 drawer and see Superman 64 in there I have fond memories of reading those magazines, and I'll never forget the beating that game took from critics.

My friends and family have always described me as a big kid, and I guess they're right. The fact that I have a big collection of games and systems primarily for the reason that owning them makes me feel like a kid again probably qualifies me as a big kid. But that's OK with me. I hope that when I'm 45 years old I have a gaming room filled with games that I rarely play and not a formal dining room filled with china that I never use.

I just turned Guitar Hero II back in to the GameSpot library (a little late) and had a few thoughts I wanted to share having put a ton of time into it:

Leaderboards rock
I didn't think they would add much to the experience, but leaderboards are a great addition. On several occasions I found myself staying up later than I should so that I could pass a friend on the leaderboards. I think it's kind of weak that some people have more points on a song after playing it on medium than I do after beating it on hard, but hey, it's a small gripe.

Alex is a Guitar Hero God
Before I knew any better I told Alex that I would have a higher score than him on a song. That was before I went online and found he was ranked six-hundred-something in the world. Dude is good.

The track list is still pretty weak
I love Pearl Jam more than any other band, but Life Wasted? Really? That's not even the best Guitar Hero-****song on that album--nowhere close. If you have to go with something off of the new album, Severed Hand would have been awesome. It seems like every time they struck gold with a song they struck out somewhere else. Possum Kingdom was great addition; Hush wasn't. From the original tracks, I liked a lot of the artists, but question some of the song choices. Heart Shaped Box was a great song, but not a great Guitar Hero Song. I know Harmonix liked to be all cool and whatnot with their song choices, but how can you not go with Walk This Way for the Aerosmith song? At least it wasn't the song from Armageddon. I understand that a lot of people enjoy harder music than myself, but I thought there was too much emphasis placed on it, and the game really got tedious near the end. There were some songs in the first Guitar Hero that I didn't like a whole lot, but there weren't any that I really hated. In GHII There are songs that I can honestly say that I hate. There were plenty of songs that I really loved in Guitar Hero, and there are some songs I love in GHII, but there aren't as many.

I don't care about practice mode
This really surprised me. I worked really hard to perfect my skills in the first game and I frequently lamented the lack of a practice mode. Now that it's here I never use it. I think it's probably because of the (in my opinion) somewhat crappy track list. I have no desire to practice songs that I actively hate so I just play the ones I like over and over again.

Downloadable songs = ripoff
I don't even know the exact amount of money they're charging for these things, but the songs are way overpriced. If you're going to bundle songs together, at least make them reasonably priced. As it stands now you're asking someone to possibly pay for a song they don't like and you're asking them to pay a lot for it.

The new guitar is nice
I really wish it was wireless, but all things considered the Xbox 360 guitar feels sturdier and is more comfortable to play.

I guess that's about it. There wasn't really a reason for this post--I just wanted to share my thoughts on the game.

*I forgot to mention that I love the bonus song Gemini. It's a blast to play and reminds me a lot of Gibb Droll, a kind-of well known guitarist who has been around for quite some time. Anyway, it's a great song. 

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Get to know the people that bring you all of the great content on GameSpot in a regular series of short and lighthearted gaming-related interviews.

Episode XVI: Jody Robinson

The latest Getting To Know GameSpot has arrived, and it features none other than Jody Robinson, a community manager here at GameSpot. She does a lot of work with the forums and our tournaments, but most importantly (to me at least) she keeps a big ol' dish of candy on her desk, which means I can just stop by and trick-or-treat any time. Awesome!

Jody might look all sweet and innocent, but that doesn't mean you'd want to take her on in a first-person shooter on the PC--she's got some skills. Watch this week's video to find out where she got those skills, why she's embarrassed to play a puzzle game, and what she does to people who think she shouldn't be playing "boys games" because she's a girl.

The next episode will feature Phil Elliott, one of the editors at GameSpot UK. They just moved into a brand new office, so maybe they'll hook us up with a tour. I don't know about you, but I'm interested in seeing how they do things on the other side of the pond.

Thank you for all the comments and the great feedback for my Behind the Spot video. Knowing that so many people enjoyed it really made the hard work worth it. Sadly, I was unable to host a downloadable version here on the site.

As always, thanks for watching!

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When people think of On the Spot they probably think of Rich, Jeff, and Ryan having a blast on camera, in-depth unstructured demos, and interesting video highlights from around the world of games. But there's a lot more to On the Spot than what you see on camera, and that's what I tried to capture with Behind the Spot, a behind-the-scenes look into the work that goes into making On the Spot the great show that it is.

I'm working on uploading a high-quality version of the video for those of you who have trouble with the video player or just want to have a version to watch over and over again. I'll update here if and when I'm able to do so.

As always, thanks for watching!

*Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Getting To Know with Jody--it'll be right here on the Soapbox next Friday.

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Get to know the people that bring you all of the great content on GameSpot in a regular series of short and lighthearted gaming-related interviews.

Episode XV: Brad Shoemaker

I've got one of the greatest jobs in the world, but sometimes it's difficult to not get jealous of the previews guys. A few months ago I was slogging my way through three(!) versions of Spyro trying not to fall asleep and Brad's sitting next to me with an early build of Guitar Hero II. Just the other day Brad and Brian were comparing notes on how their interviews with Megatron and Optimus Prime went. Yep, sometimes (but not always) the previews guys have got it made.

If you've been curious to find out more about the man behind so many of GameSpot's in-depth previews, now's your chance. I pulled Brad away from his shiny new TV just long enough to find out how he spent his most recent vacation, his reputation for being bad at games, and his addiction to World of Warcraft.

I've got my On The Spot behind-the-scenes video on tap for next week, and Getting To Know will return in two weeks with Jody Robinson, one of the unsung heroes who makes sure GameSpot's online community is one big happy family. As always, thanks for watching!