That guy is completely full of s***. Back when he was in junior high, somebody told him he was smart and now it's world's burden to bare. I promise if I ever make a reskinned Mario/Donkey Kong mash up and release it to XBL, I won't take myself one millionth as seriously and I certainly won't quietly savor the smell of my own farts the way this guy obviously does. (I'll be very open about it) Eat a steak, kiss a girl and make a shooter, you over-efforting erudite blow hard dandy. Anyway, he says some interest... um, well, he says some stuff, so feel free to check it out! :) Peace.

The top 10: 1. CoD: Black Ops 2. Halo: Reach 3. Zelda: OOT 4. CoD: MW2 5. God of War 6. Red Dead Redemption 7. Portal 8. MGS4 9. Final Fantasy VII 10. Heavy Rain For the record, Halo 3 and Halo: Combat Evolved are 13 and 14 , respectively. This entire list is at Destructoid. I didn't want to comment, but I can't resist. Treyarch was one of my favorite developers and I consider World at War one of the finest, most lovingly crafted and well-rounded FPS offerings of all time - including PvP, co-op and zombie modes. Argue if you must, but I'm firm on this one and always will be. CoD died with Black Ops, for me, and it might be the single biggest personal disappointment in my li'l world of video game fandom. That said, I can't give anyone an honest opinion on where it's ending ranks because I couldn't finish the single player portion. I got about 1/3 the way through before throwing in the towel for various, numerous reasons. I just don't dislike myself enough to go any further with the campaign. Other than that, there the list sits. Make of it what you will.

Who subtracts points do to a lack of multiplayer -- especially when reviewing third person action games -- is part of the problem. I think I've said all I really need to say. Carry on.

I keep reading all this incessant whining about Microsoft's alleged plan to prevent the use of preowned games in their next console. To be honest, it makes sense to preemptively recover the money you've been losing for decades by protecting the money you might not be making in the present and future. It's called thinking, and consumers should try it some time. Look. You may present an argument that, let's say, you bought a computer and that you "own" it. You use the computer for a while and then you think it's time to get another, better one. So you go to Craigslist to offer it for sale and you sell it to a guy who then pays you money. That's where both of you are wrong. You see, you payed the fair market price for your computer and maybe even got it on sale or maybe you built it yourself and payed even less for the parts. Now you have extra money, so in essence you've already paid less than the parts are worth. Retroactively, you've stolen because the parts manufacturer deserves 100% of the money you paid originally and now YOU have extra money off the parts THEY made. The guy you sold the computer to is the real criminal, though, because now HE has the stuff THEY made and he didn't pay THEM any money. If he bought a new computer, then they would get money, but he didn't and they don't get money. They made the chips and cards in the computer. They spent millions and millions designing, building and marketing their product. They have to pay the people who make their stuff. They have to buy expensive machines too. It's all expensive. Whenever the stuff they spent all those resources on to make gets sold between private parties, that's money that could be used to pay for it all, but they don't have. In the end, it's their ideas and ingenuity that you are buying and is it fair to have someone else have it and not pay them for it, even after YOU have made extra money from someone else's ideas ingenuity? I don't think so. Same can go for cars, lawnmowers, ovens or mattresses. Someone else made them. Not you. They are someone else's ideas. Not yours. But now you've sold them and the company that made them is robbed of somebody buying a new one from them and YOU have extra money! Think about it. (For once.) But what makes it even worse is that video games are not machines, they are art! Look, I am an artist. I used to airbrush motorcycle helmets and do other stuff. One time I painted a helmet for a guy and he really liked it. He paid $250 for my work, which was good because then I had money. But he crashed so bad once that it scared him and he sold all his stuff because he wasn't going to ride anymore. He sold all his stuff for cheap as one big lot and got money for all of it. That made me mad. My helmet I painted was in his stuff, so another guy got MY ideas and work without paying me for it. If he didn't get it from that guy who paid me, he might have come to me for his own paint job, but he didn't. Now the first guy has extra money and the other guy has stuff I worked hard to create, MY ART, for free. That's not fair because the art was my idea and I didn't get more money now that a new person was enjoying it. He got it for free, so why come to me for new stuff, right? That's money I didn't make and that makes me angry and sad. I hope this makes people understand what's really going on with video games and we all think a little more about it and we realize that people get hurt when other people don't pay them for their ideas and work.:( Thanks for reading. -B

This is a post from September 19, 2010. With so many new (to me) faces around, I thought I'd post an older, lightly edited blog that contained a more editorial tone. Without talking it to death or wallowing in painful self-awareness (I have Olympian status for both of those traits), I'd say this one cuts to the heart of the matter and in spite of my trollish tendency to needle certain sects of our gaming brethren, it's truly my overriding concern for the hobby and the industry. To those who've read it, forgive the rehash. To those who haven't, without further ado... So, I've been thinking about the state of our hobby and even though I'm not big on "b*tch blogs" (love reading them if they're done right; don't like writing them) a disturbing, insidious trend has developed that I feel is worth pointing out. Let's go back a little to go forward. I remember so many years ago I saw a stupid promo on Good Morning America or some such haus frau morning talkie where a bunch of slinky, halter-topped booth babes were crawling all over a black trailer emblazoned with green "X's". There was a lot of commotion, some kind of coronation music and tons of smoke. The rear gate dropped. The smoke cleared. And in the trailer?... was... nothing. I'm guessing it was brain the child of some Madison Avenue douche. You know, probably one of those guys who comes up with tag lines like "Liquid Hydration" for Powerade or thinks that pluralizing with "Z's" will sell product. Anyway, I suppose it was to "sizzle" the new console that Microsoft had in development and, if I have my history right, was still about eighteen months from actually revealing. I suppose the sound and fury, signifying nothing was to keep what was coming in our consciousness until the blessed, blessed day The Halo Machine would grace us all and allow prepubescent rats from all over the globe to spout homophobic, racist insults at us in the privacy of our own homes, during our leisure hours. I digress in a big, big way to tell that story, but there is a method to the madness: That was the moment I thought - erroneously - I was witnessing the end of PC gaming as we knew it. Maybe entirely. I figured that a PC world heavy hitter like Microsoft was going to bring more horse power to the machine itself (which it did), make it a multimedia hub (which it kinda did, I guess) and use it's long-standing relationships with PC game developers to bring otherwise impossible-on-a-console titles to the unwashed masses. In other words, I thought the world from then on would be: "Mr. Smith, here is your business and computing machine. Mr. Smith, here is your leisure and gaming machine." Titles like Crimson Skies and Deus Ex: Invisible War were followed by the likes of Jade Empire and Operation Flashpoint: Elite. Stuff that Sony couldn't touch and Nintendo would never entertain. I loved the ease of a pop-in-and-play console interface and appreciated the more complex and beautiful games you could only get with a PC experience. It was the best of both worlds, or so I thought, and a sign of things to come. I thought the beauty of developers like Papyrus would be made clear to a whole new generation and subset of gamers. Boy was I wrong. Now, I'm not about to go chapter & verse about EA and Activision and their franchise buy-outs, nor am I going to get into the pervasive, Johnny-come-lately casual element, although both have their place in this trend. I'm simply stating that in the latest console generation - when machines are as powerful as ever and devs have the experience under their belts to get the most out of them - the arcade-like trend of dumbing down sims and removing features is rampant and pandemic... And if it's going in any direction, it's the loyal PC gamer who's now most affected. I'll give you some franchises, mostly sims: Colin McRae Rally, TOCA: Race Driver, Il-2 Sturmovik, Operation Flashpoint, NASCAR and BattleField. DIRT and GRID are the current names of the first two (enough said). OpFlash saw it's creator, Bohemia Interactive, beat feet half way through the dev cycle as creative control was wrested from them by Codemasters - who own the rights to the name. It's a 'roided up version of GRAW, really, and a game I love to death, but to call by it's venerable PC namesake is a crime and a lie. NASCAR was bought out by EA, arcadized, dwindled in popularity (this is a billion dollar sport, mind you) and was ultimately abandoned after 2008. Il-2 Sturmovik (the worst culprit, IMO) completely abandoned it's sim roots and plays like Heroes over Europe with fancy cockpits. Crimson Skies was/is still better... And it, my friends, is no sim. Battlefield on the console doesn't come close to it's eight year old PC counter parts. It's Call of Duty without the tactile feel in it's weapons, set in huge maps with floaty disembodied vehicles. Go back and play 1942 if you disagree. There's a reason Counter Strike and Red Orchestra are still available at Best Buy, even though they pre-date the current console generation. So because I'm nudging toward "TL;DR" territory, I'll wrap this up with the point I probably should have said eight paragraphs ago: IS IT REALLY SO HARD TO BRING THE REAL DEAL TO CONSOLES? Is it money? Is it dev time? Is it a keyboard thing? Look! I have one attached to my PS3! I'm looking at it right now! All modern systems have USB ports and can run whatever a top end PC will... Maybe not as handsomely, but they can! Are they afraid to tell console RTS fans "Hey! Better get a keyboard & mouse, because it'll play better with them!"? Now, I admit I have the programming skills of a guy whose toaster oven clock still blinks "12:00", but keeping a "hardcore" feature like this alongside a controller option doesn't seem too difficult. Does it? Can't it be a mode like any other? I'm asking. And who are they listening to? Il-2 Birds of Prey apparently started sim, but testers found it "too hard". Who are these testers? Nunns and house wives? Flashpoint is going all co-op, eliminating PvP and killing the most unique military shooter on consoles while taking a giant (profitable?) leap into MedalofDuty: Ghost Battlefield territory. Isn't that segment, kinda, you know... flooded? Are they listening to their critics or their fans? Or their shareholders? Two out of three, I'm betting. Guess which.

*Cloak Engaged* Vwoooooop! Tetetetetet! BA-DOW!!! BA-DOW!!! *Proceed with the mission, Nomad!* Thwiiiip! KA-POW!!

Ha Ha! Get it?

I slay me!

... you see I was... joking...

...

Is this thing on?

Well, the game is as advertised and more than just a pretty face. I'm about two hours in and my $20 is already well spoken for.

If anyone can imagine a FarCry game where the shooting mechanics, um, actually exist, this is it. And now that I think about it, I'm trying to come up with a game where the gun play is this tight & compelling and the AI don't act like cardboard cut outs in a shooting gallery.

Hmmm. This generation?

I'm excluding over-the-shoulder view, third-person and Halo. I'm thinking of anything with iron sights that has a tactile (no, not tactical) feel. Maybe Killzone 2. Maybe CoD 4 or World at War. I dunno. It's late and it'll come to me, but I have to say I'm impressed with the way they converted the controls to console and made them handle so well. I'm also impressed with the game's distinct PC feel and design. It's hard to put my finger on it, but games designed from the ground up for PC that somehow end up ported to consoles always have a certain sophistication that eludes the likes of Resistance or even the newer Battlefields. I guess with games like this there's just so much more going on under the hood.

In Crysis, Crytek truly did create a game that rights the wrongs of it's past efforts, though I do love FarCry: Instincts, albeit with a heavy dose of nostalgia. It takes the super soldier cliche of most every FPS and gives it meaning through vulnerability in spite of your fancy, bionic suit and AI that surprises if you count on the same old tricks. Not once, yet, have I been spotted from absurd distances, 'nade spammed or simply bum-rushed into frustration with this game. I've played too many of these things, frankly, and I know the little tricks developers use to mask short bus AI. I'm not saying they don't employ some smoke and mirrors; I am saying that when I let my guard down and expect the usual, I'm ending up at my last check point more often than not. Impressive.

I'm playing on hard difficulty, by the way. Anything less is cheating yourself.

Oh, and the graphics?

You PC guys can go stare a rock textures or ground cover for hours on end and get those little tinglies wherever you get them because, hey, it's America, the land of a million freak flags. To each his own. The game looks fine and the setting & atmosphere remind me of everything Crytek's ever done... Which is good.

Nuff said.

I've never been one to catch this site's midday podcasts. I've checked them out for a minute here and there; probably a combined total of seven minutes, all told.

After watching Start/Select yesterday for the first time, I realize that if gamespot's heirarchy had decided which show would stay and which would go by means of a host vs. host bench press competition, SYNC would still exist.

Got back into Demon's Souls recently. Bought - actually pre-ordered - the extra special artbook edition back when it was released, as a matter of fact. Extraordinary game.

And that Cursed Crusade game really has my interest piqued.

Yeah. Atlus.

Good stuff.

I thought about buying the Resident Evil 4 HD edition on PSN, but after looking at the images, I know every single screen shot by heart. I guess I've played it too much (if there is such a thing) and just have to keep my happy memories.

It'll always be my #2, all time behind Gran Turismo 2.

I will be buying Crysis, though, because I love me some first person shooters so bad. Sorry to be part of the problem.

The new Syndicate being an fps doesn't bother me and I'll be there on day one. I love Starbreeze and I think their graphics are a half-generation ahead of the standard in most cases. I also, apparently, love me some cyberpunk, because it looks like a better Deus Ex than Deus Ex if the screen shots are any indication.

If your avatar is the generic "Circle-G", I summarily ignore and/or discount your opinion in any and all forums.

When you say you're leaving gamespot, I immediately "untrack" you (if you say you are leaving and don't leave, or worse, set your account to private, I will immediately hate you) and by the way, I hate the term "follow" and refuse to recognize it. You are not Jesus. You do not make the rules which govern my life. I hate how every "internet thing" is marketed with vaguely effeminate names and any word that is remotely aggressive/proactive is being replaced with some mamby pamby passive term. I hope others are noticing this.

Yuppies ruin everything.

Alway have. Always will.

There is no such thing as an obsolete game or genre. I wish dumbass developers and gaming execs would understand this when they try to explain why every classic RPG or strategy series redux comes out as an FPS.

Gaming execs and developers actually would do well to never open their mouths, really.

I have rediscovered Bud Ice. It is a good, cheap, tasty beer.

Fin.

Well, I too have been part of the grand wave that is Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I'd say it certainly fires the first shot in gaming's "AAA" season. Much has been written about it - mprezzy's entry was clever & accurate and johnsteed7 nailed his angle - so I'll try to keep these takes as fresh as possible and present them bullet point style.

In no particular order:

- Clint Eastwood's sty!e worked in Dirty Harry and it worked in all those Spaghetti Westerns. It is underutilized in this medium and I found it worked well for the MC in his morally ambiguous role as a corporate spy/hatchet man. I'm bored with the overly earnest, duty driven archtype and found Eidos' incarnation of a cyber punk anti-hero refreshing. Move over, Gabe Logan! Solid Snake and Sam Fisher have a new third-stringer to kick around!

- There is a solitary sense to this game - just so you know, Metroid Prime is the undisputed king for producing this feeling of isolation and loneliness - but it doesn't beat you over the head, by use of dialogue and cut scenes, with a sense of losing your humanity, your lover and part of your soul. They missed an opportunity to propel video games forward as a front line story telling medium by not laying it on thick enough. It's ironic to me that Square Enix would ever be guilty of this.

- NPC's are still as stiff as ever and will sit, craning there necks to smile vacantly at you while you pilfer credit chips from their coffee tables, jump on their beds and root through their medicine cabinets. Like George Orwell's laughable-in-retrospect Nineteen Eighty Four, I had my own futuristic visions of the post-PS2 era having AI with more complexity, purpose and personality than the average sea urchin, but alas, I will probably have to wait until Deus Ex: No! It's Actually Really Happening! comes out for Playstation Holodeck. All that said, it beats the living turdnuggets out of Oblivion, where if you so much as lay a finger on someone's clay goblet, an omniscient, medieval version of INTERPOL sends out a universal, telepathic APB and the screeching NPC douches won't give you a freakin' break until you A.) Kill every last one of them, or B.) Turn yourself in. JEEEEEZ! So much for being the Hero of Kvatch... But I digress... Anyway, encountering a man gayly puffing away on a cigarette while standing over the cop I killed three hours ago poops all over my immersion cornflakes. I thought we'd have this one licked by the downhill side of this generation. Oh, well. I don't demand perfection. I do demand playability.

- Somehow, in my heart of hearts, I know the next Deus Ex will reveal that Dick Cheney's severed, cybernetically-sustained head will be at the heart of it all (just like real life).

- Immediate price drops for games that don't feature multiplayer is a lesson I guess I'm going to have to learn over and over and over again.

- Early on, the hater in me was screaming "DERIVATIVE!". But if the first game in the series was the game that launched the entire branching path genre AND you've only borrowed from this generation's best AND everything is implemented beautifully, with your own signature tweaks & sty!e AND it's the first game this generation to put it all in one place AND it's wrapped in a contemporary, relevant story & setting... Well... I won't fault it for "merely" combining all that is known to date about the craft and polishing it to glistening, silvery perfection and I won't fault it for not revolutionizing or redefining modern video game convention. I'll enjoy it for what it is: A signal that we're heading into the "golden years" of this console generation; where the technology is known and the truly nifty "art house" pieces (like last generation's Shadow of the Colossus, Okami & Persona 3) are finally on the way.

The Maryland Terrapin uniforms, that is.

I was born in Bethesda - yeah, that Bethesda - Maryland and I love me some steamed crabs, the book Beautiful Swimmersand the flag bearing the crests of Lord Baltimore & Lord Calvert. Coolest colors of all fifty if I do say so. Very funky and medevil.

I would have alternated the the colors on the shoulders, but then again, that's like saying Monet should have put more violet in Venice Twilight.

I dunno... I guess this is one way for a guy to fight off depression and boredom. Laughed myself silly doing it.

Had a whole story to go with it, too. It would have been far more coherent than anything Kojima's done, post-Raiden. Something about an evil muffin king, brain washing and whether the hero's enemies were truly & indeed filled with gelatinous, fruity goodness or was he just mentally compensating for the horrors he unleashed from the business end of his rifle. Gritty metaphorical stuff. See? Way better than what ever the hell Sons of the Patriots was all about. But, aaahhh, who cares?

Just enjoy the pics and make up your own story.

Peace love and melba to all!

EDIT: Phooey. Looked good in preview. Just right click and view image until I can crop these down.

In the mean time, here is my son: