Wow! The news has been rolling in fast, lately! Since there's so much, I felt like posting it, along with my thoughts on whichever news story.

Sony Playstation 3

There has been a lot of news regarding the Playstation 3 lately, and unfortunately, most of it is bad:

PS3 auction includes NSFW pics

With all the PlayStation 3s up for sale on eBay, buyers have several auctions to choose from. The smart shopper will try to get the most out of their money, looking for deals that come bundled with games, accessories, or other knickknacks. One woman in Iowa is offering a truly unique deal--a 60GB PS3 bundled with photos of another large-capacity item, her 44D breasts. According to the woman, who goes by the handle "amysawesomeauction," she purchased the system at a Wal-Mart, where she used her assets and outgoingness ("I was number 27 & moved up to position 26 for $200 and a boob flash for some guys," she writes) to move up in line. The leading bid as of press time was a paltry $10.50--indicating that for some, bigger isn't always better.

My Thoughts:

Wow...this is rather strange, I never expected a woman to flash just to get in front by one place, let alone sell pictures of herself flashing along with a PS3. There are 25 bids currently, and the highest bidder is offering $ 760...:| The PS3 is being used in so many bad ways right now.

PS3 backward-compatibility database online

Fans waited in line--some for days--to be among the first to play the PlayStation 3 on its US launch date of November 17. But if those people were hoping to get home and play their older games, they might be out of luck. The PS3 is having some well-publicised problems playing approximately 200 original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games. Some games have audio problems, in others the screen flickers, and some games--including any PS2 titles that use the HDD--do not work at all. Sony has acknowledged the issue and stated that it plans to fix the problems through downloadable updates.

Confirming that these issues also affect North American gamers, the company has put a database Web site online for users to search for their games and find out if they will work properly with the new console.

Keying some random games into the database, Need For Speed Carbon, "randomly during gameplay, hangs"; Final Fantasy XI requires HDD and therefore, doesn't work; Okami's "audio stutters during playback"; and for Gran Turismo 4, "the title hangs on a black screen at a random time."

As to the HDD issues, the site advises, "Users are currently unable to play titles that require HDD for the PS2. This condition is planned to be resolved in the future with a system software updater for the PS3."

My Thoughts:

Personally, I thought something like this was bound to happen. I'm glad us Europeans are getting the Playstation in March now, we'll have some better games and the bugs are most likely going to be all. fixed. At least Sony have an easy remedy for this problem, instead of people having to send in/re-buy a new Playstation 3.

NYT not impressed with PS3

Hundreds of thousands of PlayStation 3s have now shipped out of Sony's warehouses and are now where they belong--in gamers' hands. Word of mouth is beginning to spread as first impressions are surfacing, and according to The New York Times, the final product does not quite match the hype.

The paper's Seth Schiesel opens his experience with the PS3 with this statement to Sony Corp.'s CEO: "Howard Stringer, you have a problem. Your company's new video game system just isn't that great."

Schiesel claims to have spent more than 30 hours with a retail PS3 and played more than a dozen games. After his marathon of gaming, he says that although the PS3 is "the world's most powerful game console," it is "surprisingly clunky to use and simply does not provide many basic functions that users have come to expect, especially online."

The high-profile newspaper goes on to point out several other problems with the console, including controllers that need to be synched up to each PS3 it is used with through a USB cable (versus Microsoft's truly universal Xbox 360 controller), lack of custom soundtracks, lack of a unified friends list, and no background downloading. In Sony's defense, the fact that the PS3 is a connected console means that system updates can be added later, like they have been with the Xbox 360.

There are a few positive notes, but the review is overwhelmingly negative. Schiesel, who lauded the Xbox 360's ease of use when that console launched, feels as though the PS3 is largely "unfinished" with some features that feel "tacked-on."

"Sony can't be happy with this review," Newsweek technology editor N'Gai Croal told GameSpot. "Fortunately, there's nothing like a Tickle Me Elmo-type shortage to keep potential customers salivating, regardless of what the Old Gray Lady has to say."

Only time will tell whether this and any other poor reviews of the PS3 will do anything to deter gamers from buying the much-hyped console, or possibly convince them to buy a machine from one of Sony's rivals.

One analyst thinks it's inevitable supply shortages will maximize the Xbox 360's chances this holiday season. In a memo sent to investors today, Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets said, "Retailers are likely to encourage consumers unable to find PS3 or Wii consoles to consider purchasing an Xbox 360."

Sony was unavailable for comment as of press time.

My Thoughts

I detect some Microsoft fanboyism, don't you? But, I can't say much yet, I don't even own the console, and I won't for a few months. But, I get the feeling that it isn't actually as bad as NYT has proclaimed it to be. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Sony dallying cost PS3 exclusives

This past spring, Ubisoft announced Assassin's Creed, a visually stunning PlayStation 3 stealth-action game that impressed members of the gaming press at E3.

While the French publisher did drop many story details about the game, which is set in medieval Jerusalem during the Crusades, it danced around the question of whether the game would be exclusive to Sony's new console. Though early Assassin's Creed press releases only mentioned the PS3, the game was shown off at Microsoft's X05 event last fall as "Project Assassin." For their part, Ubi reps danced around the subject of whether or not the game would would be released on other consoles...until they finally fessed up the game would come to the Xbox 360 and PC.

At first, many chalked up the confusion to the dissembling that is all too common in game-publisher public relations. However, a recent Newsweek article says that, for a time, Assassin's Creed was indeed intended to be a PlayStation 3 exclusive. In his blog Level Up, correspondent N'Gai Croal reports that both the Ubisoft game and Grand Theft Auto IV were both slated to debut solely on the PS3--but slowness on the part of Sony cost the electronics giant both franchises.

"We've learned that Take-Two [Interactive] and Rockstar Games were interested in continuing their longtime relationship with Sony, in which they premiered their Grand Theft Auto games on PlayStation platforms exclusively for 6-12 months before bringing them to other systems," wrote Croal. "Also, Ubisoft was interested in making Assassin's Creed, due in stores next spring, exclusive to the PS3."

So what happened? According to Croal, "For the greater part of this year, PlayStation chief Ken Kutaragi hadn't finalized the business terms for independent publishers on the PS3," wrote Croal. "[But] PlayStation's Japanese headquarters was effectively radio silent, and without Kutaragi's signoff, the normally independent American and European branches had no authority to reach agreements on the exclusives they believed could be valuable to the PS3 cause."

According to Newsweek, while Sony played the waiting game, Microsoft contacted both Take-Two and Ubisoft and offered them very generous terms to bring Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto IV to the Xbox 360. Croal cites an unnamed source at one of the companies as saying, "I do have to give Microsoft a lot of credit for going after titles and doing whatever they can to generate third-party support. They've been magnificent in this generation."

Though Sony Computer Entertainment America had not returned GameSpot's requests for comment, its executive vice president, Jack Tretton, told Newsweek that the 360 GTA IV was all its publisher's idea. "There was interest on Take-Two's part to bring Grand Theft Auto onto Xbox platforms," said the executive. "We wouldn't encourage them to do that. The interest came from them."

My Thoughts:

Sony are seriously screwing up this generation, they've now lost two exclusives which could have helped them greatly. I guess they should learn that most people are sucking up to Microsoft nowadays, and that they shouldn't ignore their clients. Pity, Sony, I believed you could make a comeback...

Nintendo Wii

So, with the Wii out, we're recieving a lot more updates on it. Unlike Sony, all of these are good:

Almost 2 million Wiis in US by year's end

Nintendo will bring approximately 2 million Wii game consoles to the U.S. by the end of the year, a wave of machines that could help the company gain ground in the console wars.

Speaking with Reuters, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that he expects 1 million Wiis in the region by early December and 2 million by the second week of January. The previous official company line simply stated that 4 million Wiis would be available worldwide by the end of the year.

Nintendo plans to restock U.S. distributors and retailers on a weekly basis, according to the company. The console will next launch in Japan on December 2 and in Europe on December 8. Earlier this month, Nintendo said it would ship around 400,000 consoles into Japan this year.

Of the three console makers, Nintendo so far seems to have done the most thorough job in getting retailers and distributors stocked. The $250 Wii console, which went on sale over the weekend, was available in several retail outlets. Some early buyers are selling consoles on eBay, but generally current bidding is in the $300 to $400 range with games and extras.

By contrast, Sony will only bring a few hundred thousand PlayStation 3 consoles to the states by the end of the year, according to various estimates. eBay bidders are putting $700 and $900 bids on the $499 and $599 consoles. (Some buyers are listing minimum bids of $1,000 or more, but these auctions have attracted few punters.)

Last year, Microsoft found itself short of Xbox 360 consoles. Rumors of new waves of supply would cause lines to form at certain retailers. Some Web sites reported that using specific code words with in-store sales reps could get them to bring out a console from the stock room.

Supply, though, improved after that and Microsoft says that, by December, a cumulative 10 million Xbox 360s will have shipped. Microsoft, though, is still having trouble gaining traction in Japan.

My Thoughts

To tell you the truth, I believe what Reggie has to say. The Wii is extremely close to the 1,000,000 mark already, with around 713,000 sold in just a few days. We still have 8 days left until the 1st of December, and in those 8 days, who knows, another 713,000 might be sold. Let's see what happens, because I'm expecting good results from Nintendo.

Amazon UK: Wii-less in 10 minutes

Online retailer Amazon UK opened to preorders to the Wii this morning, November 21--and sold out in just 10 minutes. When GameSpot checked at 9:25 a.m., preorders were not open. At 9.30 a.m., the site was offering the Wii, with the Wii Sports games compilation, and the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers for £179.99 (around $342), the recommended retail price.

By 9:40 a.m., Amazon UK proclaimed, "We are currently unable to offer this item." A short while later the Web site confirmed, "We've sold out of our initial allocation of Nintendo Wii consoles." The company K also posted a FAQ for those who were unlucky in pre-ordering a console the first time round.

It advised those desperate for a Wii that it would be receiving more stock from Nintendo before the official European launch day of December 8, and once it had received the next batch, would start taking pre-orders again. Gamers could sign up for e-mail notifications so they would be alerted when the new consoles come in.

Amazon had stated it would only be offering preorders for the same number of consoles it had been allocated for launch day--meaning if you managed to snag a preorder, you should be guaranteed a Wii. Only one console was allowed per customer.

On Sunday, the Wii launched in the US, where prior preorders for the console also quickly sold out. Nintendo has promised it will provide a "steady stream" of the next-gen console and that 4 million Wiis will be available worldwide before the end of the year, 2 million of would be headed to North America.

My Thoughts

This story proves my point even more about supporting Reggie's statement that the Wii is going to sell more than 2,000,000 units by the end of this year. If people in Europe keep this up for another month, plus all the USers that are buying as well, expect a lot more than 2,000,000 sales.

TG-16 games arrive on Wii

When Nintendo launched the Wii on Sunday, it did so with the promised dozen downloadable retro games available on the system's Virtual Console. But while the initial 12 offerings on the service included titles from the NES, the Super Nintendo, the Sega Genesis, and the Nintendo 64, the small slate of previously announced TurboGrafx-16 games was entirely absent.

Nintendo rectified that situation today, as the company has released a pair of TG-16 games on the Virtual Console. Gamers can now download Bonk's Adventure, the debut of the system's megacephalic mascot, and Hudson's Bomberman '93. Each game will set users back 600 Wii Points, or $6.

By the end of the year, Bonk and Bomberman will be joined on the Virtual Console by a handful of other TurboGrafx games, including Super Star Soldier, Victory Run, and Dungeon Explorer.

My Thoughts:

The Wii's virtual console was the perfect idea, one of Nintendo's best and what that will most likely guarantee success. I've never played any TG-16 games before, but I've heard from some users that it was pretty good, so I can't wait to experience it's games for only 600 Wii Points each!

Microsoft Xbox 360

The 360, eh? Even though I haven't heard much from it these days, there's still one thing to post:

Gears ousts Halo 2 as top XBL game

The cacophony of exclamations of "running riot!" has been drowned out by the sounds of chainsaws, because Xbox Live's Major Nelson has posted the weekly activity of gamers over Xbox Live.

Halo 2's longtime run at the top of the Xbox Live activity charts has ended, according to Major Nelson. The new king is Gears of War, Epic Games' first offering for the Xbox 360, which was the most played game over Xbox Live for the week of November 13.

Gears of War was released on November 7 to much critical acclaim. The game's multiplayer portion features battles between teams of up to four players each in three game modes. Halo 2, on the other hand, was released on the original Xbox on November 9 of 2004 and is backward compatible with the Xbox 360.

My Thoughts

Ha! Take that, Halo! (yeah, I'm not much of a Halo fan :P). Who would've thought it, though? Even though I don't like the Halo games, I never expected it to get beaten as best XBL game. I guess Gears of War really is all that, and I've been considering buying an Xbox 360 sometime in January, just for that game alone (even though there's some other games coming out that I want).

Well, that comes to the conclusion of this blog. I was planning on making this weekly or something, but I'm not too sure yet...opinions, anyone?

~Dis

So, how long has it been since the launch of the Nintendo Wii? Around 13 hours (when I'm typing this)?  Wow, it feels like it's been released for a while, or is that because I just witnessed the amount of sales it's already had?

The emblem for watching the Wii Launch Event says "How many of those things do you suppose were sold on day one...? ". Well, I can answer that question: more than 419,000! But, I'm also lying, seeing as a full day hasn't even passed by, yet this incredible amount has been sold.

The lines for the Wii yesterday were outstanding, some even reaching the corners of huge streets, mainly around the Toys 'R' Us situated at Times Square and Nintendo World. Nintendo World was even seeling a huge bundle of add-ons for the Wii and lots of exclusives.

But, as expected, the star of the launch wasn't the Wii itself, but Fils-Aime. He came on stage only to be applauded and to hear everyone screaming "Reggie Reggie Reggie!" and "We love you Reggie!". And no wonder, Reggie has done a great job, and his speeches are always enjoyable.

Now, I know not many of the Wii's games have scored very well with Gamespot, but still, does that stop us from buying them? I think not, I buy a game from my own impressions, and so should you. I'm looking forward to being able to buy the Wii in December, seeing as I'll most likely be getting it on Christmas, along with Twilight Princess. I might consider giving Red Steel a chance, though, but I'm not all too sure if I should buy it because it doesn't look appealing to me. Can't wait for Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and all the other great looking games!

What makes the Wii even greater, and probably one of the biggest reasons why people are purchasing it, is because of the Wii's Virtual Console service. Many people missed the old day classics like Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, F-Zero, The Legend of Zelda, etc, and would have little to no chance of finding them in stores, but the Virtual Console helps with that problem, which allows you to purchase Wii points and download the classic games from the NES (500 points, around $5), TurboGrafx-16 (600 points, around $6) SNES (800 points, around $8 ), Genesis (same as the SNES) and the Nintendo 64 (1000 points, around $10). Now, isn't that cheap, and now the Wii will save your progress on specific games, when they never used to have that feature (Genesis platformers, for example).

To end this blog, I'll show you guys a pic of one of the coolest guys ever, Isaiah "Triforce" Johnson, the first man to buy a Wii, and one of the biggest Zelda fans ever:

I can't believe how lucky he is, he got sold the first Wii ever, not by a regular clerksman, but Reggie himself! Plus he got it autographed as well, most likely raising it's eBay price by $1000 :P

I wish I had one of those wooly Wii hats, though, they looked great :D

We should mark this time as "People go nuts over a single review". Today, after only 5 hours of sleep (yeah, I did stay up too late again ), I log into GameSpot to find that Twilight Princess had been reviewed. It got an 8.8, and because of that, many GameSpotters have gone berserk about it. But, the question is, why? It's just a review, Jeff's opinion on the game, and people are flaming him because of it? People should learn that if they don't like someone's opinion, they should just diregard it, but what makes this even more stupid is the fact that people are saying stating that it should have recieved a better score when they haven't played it yet.

The thing is, it isn't just GameSpot, many members of different forums are bashing GameSpot and Jeff for this review, like Gametrailers for example. What's even more pathetic is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GameSpot&diff=prev&oldid=88589022

Jeff knows what he's doing when it comes to these kinds of things, he's had all kinds of experiences with games, and I doubt some people who'll kill anyone that doesn't give a game they like a 10/10 is going to make him change his own opinion on a game.

Remember, Twilight Princess won't be crap just because of this 8.8, because that's still a pretty good score. It'll be crap if everyone decides to review it with an 8.8 or lower.

I'm watching the the Wii launch event right now, and it's been ok so far. Something's where boring and all, but it's still worth staying up so late for. Zelda should be getting played sometime soon, so I'll keep you updated ;)
Edit: Why did they say Twilight Princess would get played? :?

My last blog got deleted for some reason, I might've clicked the wrong button by mistake, so I've reposted it. Sorry for bugging you guys.

I reposted this on GS US to see if the people on my contacts that can't normally see my blogs can see this one.

If you watched that Wii marathon last night, you'll probably agree that it looks rather amazing.

Everything we saw was, in my opinion, just spectacular, from Super Monkey Ball to Twilight Princess. I love the way you need to interact with the game(s), making you feel as if you're actually in them.

But, a downside to the Wii is the amount of movement you have to make, definitely not for lazy people. I get the feeling that this will reduce the amount of time people spend playing the Wii, although that's not much of a problem. But hey, it might be a good way to lose weight, if you play it in excessive amounts.

The question is, though, just how many people are going to buy it? I believe that quite a lot of people will, but we have to remember that a lot of people in this world prefer to play games just sitting down, doing nothing but pressing buttons. How people can consider that more fun that actually interacting with a game through your own body actions, I'll never know

^ Doesn't that look rather fun? I mean come on, getting to act as if you're really firing an arrow at some random enemy seems exciting to me, and boss battles must be extremely intense if you make the wrong bedy of movement. Hey, maybe we can make Link wipe his forhead when battling that boss that's on fire and using an extremely long chain?

Wii sports looks rather interesting to me. Playing golf, tennis, bowling, boxing, etc might not look as fun when you're looking at a picture, but when I saw the GameSpot editors play it, I was impressed. Although I don't think it'd be enjoyable to play by yourself, playing it with four friends and other people around looks like non-stop laughing...or manical laughters in the case of Brad Shoemaker.

Ah, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Great fun with multi-player minigames, including hurdle racing, bird racing, hammer throw, shooting each other...wait..WHAT? Monkey Ball shooting minigames?! That seems rather out of place, doesn't it? Well, it does, but when watching it last night on the marathon, it looked really fun, especially when Jeff managed to beat Brad at the last minute. I'll only ever get this game if I manage to convince my friends into liking games, which is most likely going to be impossible...v_v

Vroom vroom, I say! Excite Truck impressed me quite a bit last night, but how they managed to control the trucks perfectly is something I'll never know. From extreme racing to doing crazy flips and spins in the air, I must say that this game is definitely one of the games I'll be buying for the Wii. Hell, I'd do it just for the sake of flodding the land whenever I touch an exclamation mark!

Too bad we didn't see more of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, though, it would have been a lot more exciting then.

What's good to know is that the Wii backwards compatability works just fine, and that the Wii will also accept GameCube memory cards.

Also, according to some news sources, the Wii will also be able to play mp3's whilst you're playing, but I hardly doubt anyone would want that, right? Well, unless it has sucky music.

Recently, I've been playing quite a lot of games from the S/NES era, excluding Final Fantasy Tactics, which I just got a few days ago. I must say, it is indeed a great game, I knew I would enjoy it since I enjoyed Disgaea so much.

Anyways, back to the S/NES games. First of all, a big thanks to everyone who reccomended specific games for me to purchase, although it's obvious I haven't bought every game I have (truth be told, I had to emulate 2 or 3, but hey, they were Japan only, so what can you do?).

NES

What can I say? Now I know why this era was called "the golden era", I really am enjoying these games, especially Final Fantasy I, Dragon Warrior, Kid Icarus and Adventures of Lolo.

I really don't care about the graphics, seeing as gameplay and story tend to make up for it most of the time. Here's a little list of the games I enjoyed the most, and why I enjoyed them (in no particular order):

Final Fantasy

Ah, the begining of the Final Fantasy series. How much of a good begining was it? An amazing one. This game is pretty much one of the best games I've played, but not because it's a Final Fantasy game. I love this game due to the story and the difficulty level of it. The story might seem pretty bad at first, but from where I'm at right now, I have to say it is a pretty good one. The difficulty level of the game is just unreal! The first time I played it, I was being killed by normal random encounters! I guess Square-Soft wanted gamers to be challenged...believe me, this game is probably the definition of challenge.

Kid Icarus

Need an angel to save the day? Just call on Pit!

Kid Icarus is an extremely entertaining game, forcing you to concentrate on every area around you, seeing as enemies can come from any direction, maybe even forcing you to a miscalculated jump and fall off-screen. Definitely reccomended to anyone who's a fan of platformer games, and especially if you just like to kick some enemy but with sexy angel arrows!

Final Fantasy III

First of all, yes, I DID use an emulator to get this game, but hey, it's Japanese only, and I can't turn down a Final Fantasy game!

I must say, though, this has easily surpassed most games that I considered to be the best in the Final Fantasy series, all because of the amazing storyline, interesting characters and even the music, especially the boss battle theme. Square also made a good job with bringing the job classes back, and the huge range of jobs you can choose from makes playing it all the better.

They even have sly boss battles that you can't actually win, but have to do something special for, even if it takes a while to figure out.
(The box art isn't official, but I thought it looked to good to pass up)

Well, that wraps it up for the NES section of this blog, even though there are a lot more NES games I like, those 3 are the ones that mostly stand out in my eyes.

SNES

The SNES era, eh? Well, even though I haven't played that many games, I can still judge that this era was also a golden one.

Graphics have improved, and so has the music, and I must say, the music for most of the SNES games I have played is just exceptional. I guess I'll give a list of some SNES games I enjoyed and why (also in no particukar order):

Chrono Trigger

Ah, Chrono Trigger, isn't it just great? It combines a great story, great characters, great music and even great graphics. I couldn't get enough of this game, and the side-quests just made it last even longer.
Acquiring every technique is also a task that I found addicting, seeing as you had to learn specific techniques to learn the different Double and Triple techs.

The replay value of this game is also very high, seeing as there are around 10 - 15 different endings.

Tales of Phantasia

Hmm..wha? What do you want? I'm trying to play Tales of Phantasia, here! ...oh yeah, sorry, I forgot.

Tales of Phantasia, unfortunately, was only ever released in Japan, meaning that I emulated it. But, it was worth it, seeing as this definitely one of the best RPG's I have ever played. The story is so memorable, as well as the characters.

I loved the battle system in this game, as it was similar to that of Star Ocean's with only a few changes. Battles would be either difficult or hard depending on how they were entered. The best way to try and win a battle is by backing your opponents into a corner, but expect that to fail against most bosses and end up dead yourself.

Secret of Mana

Secret of Mana began the Mana series, and it was a very good start indeed.

What I liked about this game, apart from the usual story, characters, etc, is that your characters don't have an inital name, meaning that you have to think up your own name him/her.

What's also good about this game is how you have to level up your magic to make it stronger, and to make it even more challenging, the max you can level it up to depends on the amount of Mana Seeds you've sealed (i.e: you've sealed 5 Mana Seeds, meaning you can only level your magic up to level 5). You can level uo your magic to level 8, seeing as there are 8 Mana Seeds in total.

The way you control your characters in this game is rather complex, seeing as you need t open different menus with different button just to use an item or to use magic.

That comes to the conclusion of this blog, thank you for reading!
~ Dis

Hey everyone. It's been a while since I made a meaningful blog post about games, so I decided to create one about how games have changed, just for you guys.

Gaming has been here for a very long time, and it will probably be here for many, many more years, that's if it doesn't continue on the path it's on right now.

Why am I saying this? Well, gaming has changed quite a lot, and unfortunately, it's been for the worst.

Here's a little list of things that have been affecting games these days:

Culture

Ever notice how popular culture has been affecting gaming? Here's an example: 50 Cent: Bulletproof. The game was outright bad, but just because he was in it, everyone decided to buy it.
What's the point of buying a game just because a famous rapper is in it? To me, it just seems that Genuine Games (the creators of the games) knew that if they had 50 Cent as the main character, it would be immensly hyped, and no one would care if it was horrible bad or not.

Although 50 Cent: Bulletproof isn't the only example, I'm pretty sure you get my point.

There's also games that are based on movies. These types of games always sell like crazy as soon as they come out because people most likely loved the movie. But, the question is, are they really any good? Well, to be truly honest, a few of them have actually managed to be good and live up to the expectations set by the movie(s) (Spider Man and the Incredible Hulk being 2 examples), but then, we get those movie based games that aren't any fun, and that just offer glimpses of the movie in exchange for a buggy, unoriginal and cheap experience.

Originality

Games these days are losing their originality, a pretty important aspect of games. When I recently played all of my SNES and NES games, I thought "Wow, nearly all these games are original, no copying from other games or anything of the like", and when I compare that to games these days, it just makes me think as if game designers have ran out of original ideas.

Most companies are also putting their money on sequels to their previous games, even though they can make them original, it would be nice to see games that aren't in a series. The Final Fantasy series and the Legend of Zelda series, although being my two favourite series, are a perfect example of what I'm trying to say here.

Prices also play a big role in a games originality, although it may not seem like it. For example, whenever new gaming technology is created, gaming companies need to put even more money into creating their new games. This means that gaming companies will try and make the most money from the least investments, meaning they will have to take shortcuts somewhere. Unfortunately, this is where most games lose innovation and originality: if the company that is designing a game, made a game of the same genre in the past that sold very well, they already have a winning formula, and get the idea that by just spicing that same formula up a bit, they can make a game that will have a lot of sales because it is similar to the past game.

In the End

I'm pretty sure this has made you think that I now hate games or something, but that's not the truth.

I'm not saying every game is like this, just most of them. Hell, I could give you quite a list of next-gen games that I believe aren't like the sort of games I explained above, if you wish.

That comes to the conclusion of this blog post, although I might edit it a few times if I can come up with any other good points to add.

Thanks for reading everyone!
~ Dis

Yes people, today marks my first year anniversary at Gamespot :D

Many a things have happened since I first joined GameSpot, and I remember it all like it was yesterday (including yesterday :P).

I remember first joining. It was like a whole new experience, and I was really excited. I didn't know what to do first, so I just checked around, and I managed to find out that we could create reviews for games, and my attention was immediately caught. I wrote around 10 reviews in the space of 3 days or so, but, it's nothing to be proud of when I think about it now, seeing as they were spam reviews.

Yes, I was one hell of a noob back in the day, I even consider myself a spammer back then, but the past is the past, and I've changed...for the best.

I then remember stumbling upon the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time forums. Boy, was I excited! I started posting in every topic, regardless of whether they were any good, but then I found the perfect topic for me, named "Our own Legend of Zelda World". The topic was where you chose a character from the LOZ world or created your own, and along with other people, we just made a little story out of it all. It was mainly funny, and I still remember most of the jokes in it (i.e Green Link being beaten up all the time :P).

After a while, I decided to go around Gamespot more, and somehow, I found the Union's, my first ever one being the Final Fantasy Union, which is now a crappy Union run by spammers because all the good Officers left. After that, I joined the Legend of Zelda Union.

Not much really happened during the course of November (after I joined both Union's), I joined a few other Union's, good friends left (including Pangai_Noon, one of the coolest guys ever, who has sadly forgotten us all :() etc etc.

It wasn't until the 29th of December (2006) that everything in my GS life flared up in excitement, because that was the day I sent out charter invites for my Union, The Legend of Fantasy. One day later, the Union started up, and everything was just bliss. At that time, of course, I was still a spammer, and as expected, the Union went downhill as well.

Then, sometime in January, darksword1123 informed me of what he thought was going to happen to the Union if we didn't get our act together. This hit me hard, and thankfully, it was hard enough to make me change everything about the Union (making it a professional Union), and surprisingly, I turned myself around as well, promising myself to stop the spamming and disruptive posting.

Well, now just look at me, using perfect grammer adn nt hvng a sgle smap pots!11shift+backspace :P.

Another special event today is that it's the one year anniversary of one of my favourite Union's, Eminent Haven, the best general gaming Union out there.It's run by a good friend named JAG_ROGUE (I like to call him Jaggy Paggie Daggy :P), so check it out.

Well, that's all I have to say, I guess, I'll see you all later :)

Edit: Ack, teh uber 1337 spelling errors always happen when I type too fast :(

Ack, I've had the worst luck these past weeks. When I finally got my internet back up, it goes down...suckage to deh max :( Although that's not the only thing that's happened, I don't fleel like talking about them.

Ok, so this time I'm back for good, and sorry for worrying you all because you love me so much and couldn't live without me...:P

p.s: Has anyone got pie?

It's been quite a while, hasn't it everyone? No, you're not dreaming, this is Disgaeamad typing up a return blog just because he loves you all and he'd never leave GS.

If you didn't know, I moved house one month and 11 days ago, and ever since then, I've had no internet connection. Well, now I'm back, but not ready to rumble, seeing as last night proved to be quite vicious after me and my friends got attacked by a couple of drunken sixteen year olds, but I'm not going to be talking about that anymore.

Many a things have happened during the course of my absence, all which I plan to give a little detail on:

1) I finally got my life back. Yes people, it's true, Disgaeamad has a life.

2) I'm now in a band. The band's called the "Vontraps"(sound familiar, anyone? :P), and it's gonna be a smexy band indeed, unlike the disaster that was Leap of Faith. As per usual, I'm the lead singer

3) I got myself a guitar! Yuppers, I got myself a sexy guitar. Although I only got a starter one seeing as I'm not all that good, a Stagg is pretty good for £ 130 including 2 picks, a strap and an amp.

4) I'm giving up Photoshop. Yup, it's true. Go AMV Making!

There's probably more, but I'm not sure. I'm glad to be back, and I hope everything's the same, and no one's randomly left GS.

p.s: Can someone give me a list of improvements GS has made while I was gone?

Whoa whoa whoa, did GameSpot spazz out when creating levels? I get the feeling they did...

Anyways, I just made it to Level 24, so yay for me. Sure, levels aren't really important, they still give me something to blog about, seeing as I don't blog that much.

In other news, I found out you could use Luigi in the New Super Mario Bros. just last night, so I'm gonna play through using him this time.

I also...err..."bought" a lot of Nickleback songs as well, including "Just For", "Someday" (probably the best out of the lot), "How You Remind Me" (I used to have this, but it somehow dissapeared from my computer) and "Too Bad". A great bunch of songs. Now I just need to get the lyrics and I'm set.

For some reason, I don't feel like posting, probably because I had a lot of work to do at school today...meh, I dunno.

I guess there's nothing else to say, so I'll let you get back to whatever you're doing, because I need to go back and continue working on The LOF...how fun.