Wow this whole debacle seems utterly familiar. I was lucky enough to witness and shall we say "experience" firsthand the downfall of the GameRankings community, notably also owned by C-Net. Notice how the user accounts are disabled over there as well as the board and the reviewing system. Because I had my account personally attacked by an editor for trying as hard as possible to stay completely OUT of the controversy, situations like this make me very sour. It also reminds how explosive internet drama can be.

I don't want to say anthing more. I simply hope that this can blow over without major consequence to the community.

I've wanted to play Final Fantasy IX for a while now. It's been sitting there on my shelf calling my name for over a year now and for one reason or another. Most likely it's just because I know the amount of time it involves. I hate having to quit games, especially RPGs, for days in a row just because I don't have enough time. And I've been pretty busy.

Finally I gave in and was more or less wowed by the entire opening sequence. I was glad I had decided to start another harrowing journey in a Final Fantasy world. I was glad that I'd finally be playing what is lauded as one of the PS1's finest games. And then something happened.

Somewhere near the twenty hour mark, perhaps halfway through the game, I couldn't bring myself to keep playing. It just seemed like a huge chore to me. The story seemed to be dragging. For some reason, I didn't care about anything, not the characters, not the world. So I just stopped. And I haven't started back up since.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. Somehow, some of the greatest games just don't mesh at all. They seem so bad to me I can't even bring myself to finish them. And then I feel bad about it, because any proper reasoning skills would tell you that you should be enjoying this game, that this game has everything you could possibly want. I usually can't persuade myself to pick the game up again, so it goes back on the shelf as evidence that there must be something wrong with me. Perhaps becoming more busy has made me more picky of what games I play. Perhaps those time constraints are forcing me to make the most of whatever free time I have and even video games sometimes don't cut it. Or could it be possible that Final Fantasy IX was just a bad choice at a time like this.

And, of course, this is no blow at Final Fantasy IX. I thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy VI and VII and many other great RPGS. I'm a firm believer that every game presents itself differently to each person that picks it up. My experience doesn't (and shouldn't) have any bearing on another's view of the game. That is also a reason why I've been having so much trouble writing reviews lately. It seems that I experience games so completely differently than the average gamer, trying to influence their opinion in any way seems futile.

On a side note, Oblivion has pretty much stolen my soul. I really don't know how to pick out games that I'll like, because, clearly, other's scores have no bearing. Perhaps I just have to get lucky.

W00t I guess, or something.  I can't imagine how I reached that, seeing that I've spent an average of about ten minutes a day on this site the last month.  The good news is, I have straight A's in school, and quite frankly, I value that more than anything on this site.  I just reread my Chrono Cross review because I was trying to make my scores more accurate.  I found that I was giving way to many games really high scores, so I went through and actually compared the games to one another.  I found that many games were getting 9s that probably deserved 8s and a few were getting 10s and probably were slightly less than perfect.  Then again, the score really shouldn't mean much to the readers; It's the content of the review that matters. Anyway, I've also been spending time composing, which I really enjoy. I have a Work in Progress for OCRemix that has received a very positive response but I'm still working on perfecting it. Happy gaming.

Achieving Second Place RotW at Honestgamers, the same Psychonauts also placed second in Reviewspotting, the highest I've made it so far. :)  Now to achieve that elusive first.

I don't know how long it will last, but as I've right now, my review of Psychonauts is featured on the front page of Honestgamers.com. Yes, my alias there is Sasqua Mox.  It's the first review I've actually tried to perfect and then entered somewhere besides Gamespot. Apparently they liked it. :) I'm very excited. I entered the same review for Reviewspotting here on Gamespot so we'll see how it does there. Special thanks to Lukeriela and Teh ghost for critiquing it in the Community Contributions Union.

I think up until this one, my 18th, I've never gotten more than two video games for my birthday.  This year, I played it smart and gave my parents a large list of good cost-effective games that I've always wanted but never bought.  They said the one that cost the most was $23 and told me I should never give them a list again where, when they go into Gamestop of Gamecrazy, the clerk says "We don't have any of these."  In the end, I received Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (for PC), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II (for PC), Psychonauts (for PC), Final Fantasy Tactics (for PS1), DDR (for PS1), Donkey Kong Country II (for SNES), and there's still one more that hasn't arrived in the mail but I don't know what it is.  Quite frankly, I really don't need another one quite yet.

I don't view myself as a genius. I view myself as someone who was given the ability to understand and accomplish almost anything I set my mind to. However, there are many many people who have accomplished more that I ever will. Those are the true geniuses.

My problem, if it is a problem, is that everyone I know views me as a genius. Perhaps I have set my standards too high for myself. I am not a pure perfectionist, but a perfectionist at things I deem important. For example, I am a perfectionist at math. And math is an objective subject, so there is perfection to achieve. I'd like to think I can eventually achieve that perfection, but I may be pushing myself too hard.

I spend much of my time pouring my thoughts into creative pirsuits. I play the piano, write novels, draw comics, compose music, and I'm proud of what I've accomplished. But could I ever create a career out of this? Perhaps. Or are these just hobbies like video games that I use to pretend accomplishment in a virtual world? I'm entering my senior year in high school and plan on pirsuing astrophyics in college. If there is one thing that would give me a real sense of accomplishment, it would be making some world bending discovery in that field.

I don't know if I'll ever publish my novel. My music compositions might be published within a small group of friends. Several of my comics can be found on this blog my brother started specifically for that purpose. Unfortunately I don't have any time to make them less crude than MS Paint stick figures. Perhaps that's what makes them have character. Click here for some laughs

I'm looking to be getting some good games this Christmas.  AoE III for sure.  I'm praying my computer will run it fine.  The members of the AoE Union would appreciate that.  I put several great PS1 games I haven't gotten yet in hopes that one of the nearby gamestores will finally have them in stock.  They haven't failed me yet with Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy VII-IX, Legend of the Dragoon, Xenogears, and Vagrant Story all coming from the same two stores.  Only two this generation games though: Baten Kaitos and Metroid Prime.  It is quite unfortunate I only have a Gamecube because that list could be much longer. 

In other news, I've taken a liking to two separate but related sites: the Community Contributions Union and Wikipedia.  At both, I can hone my writing skills which will help me with AP English and I can also enjoy talking about my favorite video games.  At Wikipedia, under the name of Darkolite (cheesy I know), I've already reorganized and contributed to a lacking "Secret of Evermore" topic.  Here, I made Reviewspotting Issue #1 which is now featured as a Sticky in the General Games Discussion Forum.  A very merry Christmas to you all!
 

I'm planning on staying at this site for a while. I like the message board even though it's a little slower than most others. The review system is great and the Unions seem like an interesting addition. No one needs to worry about me randomly disappearing until I say otherwise (and then it wouldn't be random)

The day that the GameRankings Armageddon occurred is the day everyone decided a new message board was needed, so we moved to Gamespot. I, however, had no Gamespot account so I went to register. Hooray, a member! WRONGGGGGG!!!!!!! I went to open my email for the confirmation letter and there was no letter. In fact, I hadn't received a letter in a few days. I clicked the receive button to be greeted with a nice error message. No cuss words were said. This posed a problem because I was still unable to post on the boards because my account wasn't confirmed. Then I remembered I had another address I used for other websites so I wouldn't get spammed. Guess what? That whole site had gone down. YES, if you didn't know, KORNKIDS.COM IS GONE! Great, I thought. So what did I do? I waited until my dad got onto his desktop and used his email address. Evil, I know. But he'll never find out. Another problem though was that even though the other accounts I tried to create were unconfirmed, I still wasn't allowed to use the usernames I had typed in when creating this newest one. I settled for DarkBelthasar, a guru from the game Chrono Trigger, and a prophet from Chrono Cross. And my account was created AND confirmed. Good times let me tell you.