This whole Too Human drama was starting to really bug me. I liked the demo, so I figured I would get it once I had the money, and after a few other games I wanted more (such as Soul Calibur 4 and Burnout Paradise). Then GameSpot released their review. They wailed on the game. A 5.5 out of 10 is worse than what Haze got. Of course, people read this review and thought that this game was dead and over with.

Then people bought it, and loved it. These were the same people that just HAPPENED to like the demo. So, who is indeed right, the people who liked the game, or the people who didn't? Neither. An opinion is an opinion. However, this just goes to show how reliable a review can be...

Games, like all other media, have different genres. Some people may like a genre, others may not. So if a person plays Soul Calibur 4 and hates it, it isn't a bad game, they just might not like fighters. Now, why they would play a fighting game if they hate fighters is beyond me, but a person who loves fighters, will love Soul Calibur 4! Simple as that. That is why, if a reviewing website is smart, they will pick a reviewer that likes the genre of a game he or she is reviewing.

Too Human is an odd game with the fact that two people could both like the action RPG genre, and one would love it while the other hated it. That's just the way the gameplay was, especially with the dualstick controls. That explains why GameSpot could have put a action RPG game reviewer there, and he hated it, while other reviewers loved it.

It is this inconsistency that causes me to not trust reviews anymore. I will use them to a certain degree. such as if I'm unsure about a game, but if I know I like a game (from a demo, or if I just love the genre or series) then I'll get it no matter what scores it gets! I wouldn't have cared if Battlefield Bad Company got a 3/10 from GameSpot, as long as it wasn't for any serious reasons anyway, I love the genre, and I love the series.

If you're unsure about a game, just play a demo or rent it. If you're still unsure, THEN go to reviews, but make sure to actually read them and use multiple reviews. If you know you like a specific series or genre, and you know you'll like it, or if you played the demo beforehand and liked it, go ahead and buy it. Don't bother with the reviews. After you find that you love it, to read that that game got a 5.5/10 from a website, you can chuckle to yourself, happy that you didn't listen to that reviewer's opinion.

I'm hoping I can get it today. I'll almost definetely get it by the weekend. Once I get my Gold membership I'll also get Uno. So here will basically be my schedule once I get Gold... this goes void September 3rd.

NOTE: All times are Eastern

9 (maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later)AM-12 PM: Battlefield: Bad Company

12PM-6PM: Either not on Live at all, or Battlefield Bad Company.

6PM-6:30 PM: Dinner

6:30-9 PM: Battlefield Bad Company

9 PM-10 or 10:30 PM: Arcade game

The Arcade game will be Uno, Geometry Wars Evolved 2, or Castle Crashers/Soul Calibur/Puzzle Quest.

I want to play Conquest on BF:BC so freaking bad... :(

EDIT: Getting Gold this weekend. Probably Saturday.

I'll be getting a gold membership and a 1600 microsoft points card in a few days. I'm shipping the Microsoft points card to store since they don't sell it in Wal-Mart, so it will take 3-4 days 'till I get these. Maybe more, it depends on when I order the MS points card. I KNOW I'm getting Geometry Wars 2 and Uno, I just need one more 400 point game. If anyone can give me any good ideas, let me know. I'm already looking at Smash TV and the two original Sonic the Hedgehog games. Just PM me or comment.

Anyway, Soul Calibur IV came out yesterday, and it's getting some pretty good ratings. X Play (G4) gave it a 4/5, and EGM gave it two B+ and an A. Sadly, it did not get Game of the Month, which was given to NCAA Football 09. Now... who the hell came up with that? I like football games and all, but it's not even like Gamespot gave it that good of a rating (7.5/10). Someone needs to send EGM a letter with a hand that slaps everyone in the face.

As for why the blog is called "BLASPHEMY!!!"... I don't know. It's just fun to say.

This blog is here generally not to point out the obvious, which I am doing in stating that video games are under attack. People like Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton think that video games are poisoning the youth of America, especially a certain series named Grand Theft Auto. The fact is that we still haven't gotten decent enough research to prove that video games cause agression (a neutral testing facility please?), so this argument should be put off until there is, without a doubt, PROOF that video games cause agression.

There is a bigger thing that we should be concerned with though, is that, is it really the developer's fault that these games get into the hands of children? No. Who buys the games for the children the majority of the time? Parents. Other times the clerk shouldn't let a 13 year old buy Grand Theft Auto IV, but they do. Not to mention that tragedies like the one at Columbine and Virginia Tech could have been prevented EASILY! Just simply keep the gun away from the guy. Sure, he plays Grand Theft Auto and Counter-Strike, but then again, who doesn't? They should be looking into how he got the gun, not what games he was playing! Before you know it policemen will see you driving badly, will pull you over and ask: "Have you been playing Burnout recently?".

I'm getting ahead of myself. The real reason that games are getting targeted is that parents don't want to take the blame. "The game MADE my Johnny want it and steal the gun!!!" These people don't want to think that their "Johnny" could do such a thing, or that they could have done anything to stop what happened. So, they simply blame what is the easiest thing to blame, which are video games. They are the only form of entertaiment that is truly interactive, and it's still a fairly new media. Easy to get away with blaming it.

Before I go on, let me tell you a story about a grandma and her grandson. May I remind you that this is a true story, although some details might be a little off. So a grandma takes her grandson to a store, and the grandson tells her that he wants a game. He points at Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, she looks at it, and says okay. Later on, at her house, she walks in on him playing GTA San Andreas, and it was the Hot Coffee mod. She obviously wasn't happy. So what was her first course of action? Why, sue Rockstar of course! As far as I know, the lawsuit didn't go very far, but still, this is an obvious example of what I was saying.

Not to mention that because of this, there is a great bias towards the gaming industry. Ask the governor of New York, he just signed a bill requiring that in the state of New York, every game was rated and every system has parental controls. While the gaming industry has already done most of this themselves (ESRB and every system except the DS has parental controls), this shows a great bias towards the gaming industry, and only the gamers recognise that. You know it's not good when GTA IV was on the news simply because it was violent and a lot of people were buying it. You could sense Jack Thompson in his evil lair going "Good, good, good...".

The gaming industry, however, is not going down without the fight. Organizations like the ESA are making sure the games don't go under because of all of this bad press. G4's Adam Sessler has had many of arguments with Jack Thompson, and in fact has a episode of "Sessler's Sandbox" that says all that I said above and more. You can find it here.

Well, just make sure you use all of these arguments to your advantage. Video games seem to be winning the fight, but when you go against the government, even when you're winning, you could be losing.

I don't like to brag, but... WOOT!!! I got all 30 single-player achievements on Battlefield Bad Company, so if you need help with one, PM me.

Also, I would have made a more worthwhile blog post, but there's no good news...

Yes, Square Enix has "betrayed" another console again, this time jumping on board the Xbox bandwagon. They're still on the PS3, but in North America and Europe, it will be on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Meanwhile, in Japan, they are still a PlayStation 3 exclusive. People are making this big news because it means that Sony is basically done to most people for this generation. This was one of Sony's last exclusives, and the lost it. Well, that is true, as many people are saying they are getting a Xbox 360 in the forums and when commenting on news, but this is bad news for Microsoft. Yes I just said that, bad news for Microsoft, in fact, the whole gaming community as a whole.

When I said it was bad for Microsoft, you have to look at the big thing here: it's still a PS3 exclusive in Japan, but not anywhere else. Think about it, if it is not financially smart to put out a version of a game in one area but it is everywhere else, is that good? No. This simply shows how weak Microsoft is in Japan. Not only that, but probably all two 360 owners in Japan would have bought this, considering it is an RPG from their own country. That is some bad stuff. Too bad too, if FFXIII would have been sold in Japan on the 360, sales would have probably quadrupled. If Microsoft wants to beat Nintendo, they need more Japan-native titles. JRPGs would probably be best. This is a big problem for Bill Gates & Co., and they need to fix it ASAP.

Now, time for the gaming community problem. You see, the big news shouldn't be that Final Fantasy XIII will be on the 360, but it will be on two platforms. Square Enix has never had a Final Fantasy multi-platform title if my memory serves (this does not count ports like the recent release of Final Fantasy IV on the DS, and FamiCom and the NES are the same thing), so this is big. Big in a bad way. Square Enix probably needed to put FFXIII on two platforms, they wouldn't take a chance on being called sell-outs by gamers. Obviously, they are getting less money in their pockets, so they needed, to be able to make a profit on this game, to put it on two platforms. Sure, it could also be that production costs are rising, which is bad anyway, but this is not good news for anyone.

So next time someone asks you if you heard the news about Final Fantasy XIII, don't say an excited "Yeah!", but say a sad one. This is good news in some ways (we 360 owners can play FFXIII, and I am happy about that), but overall, it is bad news if you look beneath the surface.

Yes, Nexon has a new game, Combat Arms. It isn't quite as new as Sugar Rush, which is going into open beta, but it is fairly new. It is an arcady shooter (arcady meaning not realistic) with four modes and six maps. The modes are Capture the Flag, Elimination (first team to a set amount of kills wins), One Man Army (same as elimination except every man for himself), and Search and Destroy, which is the same exact thing as the Call of Duty 4 version. If you haven't played Call of Duty, then Search and Destroy is a mode where there are two teams, and each team has two places where you can plant a bomb. At the same time, if you die, you are done. No respawns. Your team wins a round by either defusing a bomb planted at one of their bomb spots, detonating a bomb at the opposing team's bomb spots or eliminating everyone on the opposing team. If the other team planted a bom and you killed everyone on the other team, you still have to defuse the bomb. Now, because you can actually win from defusing the bomb, this mode has a lot of strategy about when to plant a bomb, whether to wait for the other team to plant a bomb and defuse it, where to plant a bomb, etc.

This game also has ranks. You get ranks by getting experience from matches. The better you do in a match the more experience you get. Ranks range from Recruit all the way to General of the Army. You can see the ranks here. The General Ranks are actually based on your experience compared to everyone else. For example, there can only be one General of the Army, and that person is the person with the most experience, there can only be three Generals below him/her, etc. Now it takes forever for me to level up and I'm only a Private...

Anyway, the maps are Cold Seed (fantastic for Capture the Flag, in my opinion), Junk Flea (a very popular map, especially for elimination), Pump Jack (best map for CTF in my opinion), Snow Valley (SNIPE FEST), Gray Hammer (not very popular), and Warhead (again, not very popular). I'm personally not a fan of Cold Seed, as it is pretty hard to defend in capture the flag for one of the teams and rediculously easy for another. It is great for CTF, but it is very unfair.

Anyway, I suggest you play. It is a fun game, especially if you have xFire or something that (which I don't...). If you do decide to play, I'm FinalHeart and at this point I'm a Private. If you really need proof that I am FinalHeart, which you really shouldn't, my k/d ratio should be around 1.2 to 1.3.

I don't have Xbox Live Gold yet, so I was stuck playing single-player. It was fun, and it had some nice humor in it, but I found that I was basically sticking myself with that healing thing every two seconds. Still, the best part of this game has to be blowing up walls. Just fantastic.

Overall, single-player alone probably is worth a rent, that's why I'm gonna get Live.

Not really a very intelligent blog today, but I will be getting Battlefield Bad Company, on the Xbox 360, in a couple of days. I won't have Live for a while though, so don't expect to see me online for a week or two.

Also, I'm back from my vacation. Nice to be back, although I did miss the day where the Diablo III news broke.