It's been long enough since I posted. Let's remedy that now.

Well, the review of Metroid Prime 3, my most-wanted game this year, is finally up, and I must say I was surprised to see that the game scored an 8.5 rather than a 9 or above. Naturally, this sent the more volatile forum-goers into an uproar over how Gamespot is "teh biased" against Nintendo.

Actually, this is something that I've been seeing for a long time, and have long since grown weary of. Claims of bias go up every time a game gets a review lower than what its fans think it deserves, and it's not just limited to games on Nintendo platforms. Now, I've been coming to Gamespot for a long time, and while there are several reviews I disagree with (I don't think I'll ever figure out what was wrong with the guy who gave Mario Kart 64 a 6.4 when it was first released), I have yet to see any bias against anyone. No, in my opinion the cries of bias come soley from fanboys bitter that their games didn't get higher scores.

I'd like to address the issue of bias with some examples. As most of my time on Gamespot is spent looking at Nintendo games and browsing the Nintendo forums, however, I will limit my discussion to analyzing the perceived bias against Nintendo.

Is Gamespot biased against Nintendo? Consider these Gamespot reviews of Nintendo games:

Gamespot gave WarioWare: Smooth Moves a 9.1, higher than any other reviewer, and significantly higher than its 82% average score among critics

They also gave Yoshi's Island DS a 9.1, higher than its 82% average, and much higher than the 6.83 awarded it by Electronic Gaming Monthly

Another 9.1 went to Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. This game would have been easy to critique for being a port of a two-year-old game with last-gen visuals, yet they still gave it a Superb rating.

Generally, Gamespot gives all games, including Nintendo games, middle-of-the-road scores. They're more critical of a game's shortcomings than many critics, but seldom if ever do they simply hate on a game and give it a bad score. Sure, some of their scores rest at the low end of the spectrum, as is the case with Zelda: TP and MP3. But I've just given you some good examples of Gamespot doing the opposite and giving Nintendo games a higher-than-average rating.

The fact is opinions differ, even among critics, and Gamespot isn't going to give MP3 a 9.5 just because everyone else has. They didn't do it with Bioshock, either. And it may be that their reasons for dropping the score for this game are warranted; they certainly were with Zelda. But in the end, it doesn't matter. What does matter is what everyone seems to miss, even though it's the review's headline: that, according to Gamespot, Metroid Prime 3 is "a worthy end to the trilogy".

Yeah, they obviously hate it.

I picked up my Wii at midnight on launch day. I had Zelda beat within a month. Best 3D Zelda yet. Wii Sports is good, casual fun, though my friends have spent more time on it than I have.

My cousin got me Baten Kaitos Origins for Christmas, so when I finished Zelda I started up on that. I beat it yesterday, and while I enjoyed it, it still left a lot to be desired, especially where the story was concerned. It's fun, but it's no Final Fantasy.

In between, I've been spending time with my VC purchases: SM64, Kirby's Adventure, Gunstar Heroes, and Bomberman '93. All great games, and I'm still playing them.

My Playstation is not working, alas. I need to get a new laser for it. I still haven't finished Final Fantasy V and IV yet, and I want to get FFVIII and IX soon, plus the other great PS1 RPGs that I haven't yet played.

My SNES hasn't seen a lot of use lately, though I've been thinking about starting up some Super Mario All-Stars. I can't believe how long it's been since I've played one of the NES Marios, especially SMB3.

My Sega Genesis, likewise, hasn't seen a lot of action. I played through Sonic 3 & Knuckles fairly recently, but I haven't done much with it in a few months. It's sill nice to have, though, because I'll want to go back to those old Sonics eventually.

I have played my N64 a bit lately, though. Having played my cousin's copy of Mario Kart DS, I decided I wanted to replay MK64. I did, and instantly remembed why it's so much better than MKDS. It's the only really good game I have left on my N64, so I'm thinking about selling the system and getting MK64 on the VC.

Anyway, I'm starting up a game on Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, which I recently bought used. No new game prospects in the near future, except for the occasional VC purchase. No, the games I have should keep me satisfied until SSBB comes out.

Well, I got my Wii reserved yesterday. $50 down means I own one-fifth of a Wii! I got the fourth system out of eight, and I also reserved Twilight Princess. Oh, man, there's going to be some awesome gaming come November 19...

So much to post about, mostly concerning the Wii. Well, let's start.

So, it looks like Nintendo's made good on their promise to get the Wii out before Thanksgiving and priced below $250, each by the smallest possible margin. It almost seems like they didn't reveal anything we didn't already know, considering how close the price and date are to the upper limits Nintendo gave us months ago. Oh, well, confirmation is a good thing. And I, for one, never would have guessed that it would sell with a game packed in.

I'm pleased to see the third-party support Nintendo's getting for their console, too. 101 games? That's a real load, and there are some great-looking titles in there, too.

And now they're saying GTA will appear on the Wii. Considering that GTA 4 has already been announced as a multiplatform game, and the perceived profitability of developing for the Wii, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a GTA on Nintendo's new console. But will it be the same game as on the other systems, and if so, will it be available at the same time? I would venture a "no" to the first question, if not both of them.

In personal news, I'm almost finished with Chrono Trigger, and I've found it to be a bit of a disappointment. It's been fun, yes, but not the amazing legendary masterpiece that it's made out to be. Mostly, the gameplay's too simple.

According to a news article posted today on Gamespot.com (that's the site you're on, foo'!), IBM is already shipping out the first batch of CPUs for the Nintendo Wii. Codenamed "Broadway", these CPUs are said to be much more powerful than the Gamecube CPU. Senior managing director and general manager of Nintendo's integrated research and development division Genyo Takeda said that today's acheivement marks the "final stage" in the development of the Wii, and that does a lot to excite a deep-rooted Nintendo nerd like myself.

You can read the whole story here.

So, I've been wanting to replay some old games lately. I really want to play Metroid Prime 2 again (for the fifth time). Also, it's been a while since I've played Sonic CD. Of course, I'll need to get ahold of a copy of that, first. I'm thinking about getting a Sega CD to go with my Genesis so I can play it on its original platform. That'd be cool. And then there are the Final Fantasies I've so recently finished that I'm already wanting to replay. Ah, but there are so many games I haven't yet played the first time! When will I ever have time to replay my old games? Such a travesty!

All right, folks, so this is my Gamespot blog. All my latest video-game related happenings go here.

So here lately I've been getting into Final Fantasy in a big way. It's a series that I new for the longest time that I should play, but didn't start until last fall, when I played Final Fantasy X. Since then I've played most of II, all of VII, and then yesterday I finally finished FFVI on my copy of Final Fantasy Anthology. It was one of the best games I've ever played. Maybe better than VII. Anyway, now I'm playing V, and enjoying it immensely.

I named my main character Simon, by the way, which is a far cooler name than Bartz.

Here lately I've been getting in the mood for some Sonic. Genesis Sonic, of course. I've played through Sonic 3 & Knuckles about ten times (and I still love it), but what I really want to play is Sonic 2. When I've got about an hour and a half of free time, and no Final Fantasies to play, perhaps I'll play straight through that game.

Well, that was fun. Nice first entry, I think.