hey guys,

for those who have been reading my blog posts. thanks and i appreciate having all of you in my life someway somehow.
but as we all know by now, because of the lack of ethics and moral standing in Gamespot and CNet. i shall no longer be frequenting this website.

after hearing their official anouncement, which really wasnt much.
i dont feel that i can trust them with anything on this site anymore. esp their reviews.
from my previous blog posts (aka, the one before this) i have long suspected that their reviews were bought or just plain silly. and i guess i was right afterall.
and regarding their annoucement, its quite obvious that they have something to hide. and by smothering us with words that seem sweet and pleasing, it actually makes things worse.

sometimes its better to just get to the point and speak the truth. maybe then we will have some respect for them and them we can build up trust again. but as it turns out, it was way too much for them.
oh well, so that will be it for me.

thanks for all the comments and such.
see all of you again some time i suppose.

Jonathan

i am beginning to think that GS's reviews are either bought or extremely unfounded and based solely on a certain few factors.

for one, if a games is beautiful, they love it. regardless of how it plays. Assassin's Creed getting a 9.5 ? thats disgusting. any game withhorrible AI and poor combat should never be given anything more than 8 for gameplay and therefore for no reason should be getting anything more than an 8 for overall. no matter how pretty or how profoundly deep the story is.

dont get me wrong, i'm a true believer in having an amazing story in the game and trade it for looking kinda ugly, but no matter how good the story, if the gameplay is down, the game is fundamentality flawed. games are called games because of the way it plays out (aka gameplay). if i wanted a good looking game that doesnt play well, watch a movie for goodness sake.
or an ugly game with a good story, read a book. a game sets itself apart from the way it plays and pulls you into the action like no other medium can. so GS, take your AC review and really shove it. what a total letdown.
did Jade seduce you guys ? i think so.

with AC's poor AI and stand back and watch you kill their colleague combat, its ridiculous to find this in a next gen game.
if you ask me, 7.5. no higher
as for the pretty games with high scores, its true. theres hardly a pretty game with a low score on GS. well there definately is but the prettier they are, the more they score. Gears. Crysis. Bioshock. AC. dont get me wrong, i think they are great games (with exception for AC), but i think its something i find like a pattern. and thats why i think most Wii games fail to impress them. heck they fail to impress me with the way they look too, but i dont fault them cos they look crappy. as long as they play good an engage me, i find that it will do. graphics isnt everything.
GS ought to sort it out. Graphics make up part of the score, but dont pull a good game down if it looks bad and dont bring a game up cos its beautiful. beautiful means F*** in a game. seriously.

if we all lived through the Genesis SNES era, we all know that a good game is a good game regardless how it looks. sprites itself can make a wonderful game. believe it.

its been a long long while since i've blogged here in GS.

partly cos lately GS has been a very uninteresting site to go to and partly cos i've been spending my time in other areas.
i've been very much into facebook for the last month or so. so many things to do there and lots of friends to chat with. or wall with. haha.

and i just got back from a much needed holiday yesterday. i was in Chicago for 10 nights. bunked with my friend who was studying there. pretty nice place, lots of cultural stuff to see and do. i bought quite a few things too.
games wise - orange box PC, God of War 2, paper mario GC, and The Red Star
dvds wise - Saw 1, 2, and 3 Special editions, Serendipity, 10 things i hate about you, dog soldiers, transformers the movie

and well, stuff around me are still the same. busy with work (even busier now actually). before my holiday, have been working 9-8. almost 12 hours a day. sick.
and still in love with her, and still without much success. in fact, as of today, its been 4 months since we ever went out on a one on one date / outing. and she's still together with him. so... yeah. sad stuff.

well, that pretty much sums it up. anyway i possibly wont be around in GS too often no more. dont see the point. getting kinda lame really. and since they changed their review format and all, i find it weird and uninformative. boo to them really. and now with all the tv series starting again (House, CSI, Heroes). gonna spend more time on tv and on work and with my new games.

so well, gtg for now, catch you guys again in sometime.
take care and live well

i hit my first WiiSports homerun last night.
first time i hit it out of the ballpark, previously it was all homeruns by runs only.
*yes i am that bad at it. haha

the Mii in question was Leonidas from the movie 300. yeah i have a Mii of him, dont ask why, i just found him on Miiplaza and he looked kinda cool so decided to create one for myself. haha

and the homerun was equal to 3 runs. cos i had 2 runners at base. :)

went to my friend's house yesterday night for the final time this year before he flies back to London.

we wanted to finish off Red Star, we had 3 stages left to go.
after an epic struggle, we finished off stages 17 and 18 quite easily.
but alas, at Stage 19 (which also happens to be the final boss), we were overwhelmed. what a waste.
that would have been something. lots of bragging rights to finish such a difficult game.

he had 3 forms. we managed to conquer the first 2 but couldnt find it in us to finish off the last form.
shucks. and i was really looking forward to add that game to my completed game list. damn.

oh well, back to the drawing board. maybe next year when he comes back.
hahaha

i'm currently absolutely hooked on Wii Sports. especially the Tennis and the Baseball.
its really good. loads of fun despite being very simple in nature. however the controls are not as intuitive as i hoped they would be. but fun nonetheless. but as for whether its for the whole family, well, lets just say that my Dad wasnt too impressed by the Golf. in his own words, "it just doesnt feel right without a real ball"
haha, what was he expecting.

anyway, i really want those convention exclusive Castle Crashers figurines. they are so wonderfully cute looking and a must have for my display cabinet. now, if it only wasnt so darn expensive. 60 USD means a whopping 95 SGD here in my country. 95 SGD for 4 figures ? that would mean approx 24 SGD for each. how mightily expensive for something so small.
then again, video games are just as expensive. so its video games or that. tough choice.

i went down to my friend's house again last saturday
played more Red Star. the last time we stopped at stage 15. couldnt beat the boss
this time, we shot him down ! ;)

then went on to defeat stage 16 (mostly by myself, he died really early both times) and finally died on stage 17 the boss of the stage.
decided that the next time wee meet, which will possibly be a year from now, we gotta go on and finish the game. only 3 stages left to go. 17, 18 and 19.
hope that we'll be able to do it, i really want to beat that game. heh heh heh. that would be a real accomplishment.

anyway, i got my Wii a few days back. but i cant play it at all. :(
this is because its a US set so i need to use a stepdown converter to play it or a third party power brick supply.
and guess what, lo and behold, i bought BOTH a stepdown AND a third party power brick just to be sure, only to find out that BOTH are spoilt. :(
how unlucky is that.

so now have to buy another one of either and test it again. what a bummer.
and i have Zelda TP waiting for me at home and a Mario Power Tennis i want to buy to play.
yes i know, they are all Gamecube games. but those are the games i bought a Wii for - partly. cos for now there arent reallymuch good and fun Wii games to play.
i have Wiiplay and Wiisports at home to play too. but i am really waiting for SSBB and Endless Ocean and possibly Mario Galaxy or something. hope they have great games coming out. if not, well, theres always Paper Mario Gamecube, and Ocarina of Time VC, and my good old Streets of Rage 2 on VC !

that effectively means i end up playing more VC and GC games rather than Wii games. how weird is that ?

why Goomba always so angry ?

there has been an article or two going around about some guy saying that he predicts in time to come, we'll have a one console generation. where every game is released for one specific console (excluding PC) and nothing else.

honestly, i dont think that will ever happen.
its just impossible for many different companies to agree to unite and release just a single console.

reasons for this are:
- conflict will arise as to who is the sole distributor and profit maker of that one console
- the pride / ego of the different companies involved
- the difficulties in communication
- conflicts due to wide array of ideas of each individual company
- the high costs involved in producing a single console powerful enough to meet the needs of a mass market

as for what good and bad may arise from such an agreement, well, its hard to say
it will be pretty good for consumers no doubt but in the long run it may backfire big time.
i've always wished when i was younger that there would be a one console to play all the games in the market
but as time went on, i realised that when there's one console and one console only, competition goes out the window
and with that, quality in games also goes out the window with it.

and considering that now with intense competition, i already feel that this current gen of games arent really living up to what gaming should be - hard, rewarding, fun, immersive - then what then when there's absolutely no competition left ?
who's really going to put in the effort to create a great game for all ? right now companies like Sony MS and Nintendo do what they can within their means to produce whatever great games possible so as to attract people to purchase not only their game but the console itself, eg. God of War, Halo, Mario.

but when there's nothing left to fight for, no effort will be put in either. the only people who have something to profit from a widescale effort are the multiplatform developers like EA, Ubisoft. but even now, their games arent exactly top notch, some of them are downright awful. in time to come, i believe that might just remain the same. i mean, who needs more madden when there's little or close to no change ? i can understand the difference in Madden 08 due to the weapons system, but from 06 to 07 ? there was nearly nothing. same for splinter cell, its just sequel after sequel.

to me, sequels really start to bring down the gaming industry. its ok once in awhile to have a generally good sequel. like the God of War series, or Kingdom Hearts, or even Fable. a sequel or 2 is fine. but it should stop at a trilogy in my opinion. after that, it gets hard to be unique and appealing to customers still. in other words, its just another easy way to make money. use the same formula, but give it a new coat of paint.

in short, i really hope that it doesnt come down to a one console generation. i'm not saying it wont work, but i feel that for it to work, alot has to be compensated and possibly lost. but hey, i may be wrong. but thats just my view. anyway even if it does reach that state, i possibly wont be playing games anymore. i'll be too old then. so it'll be up to my kids (if i ever have any), to decide if it really is the best possible direction for the gaming industry.

my Wii hasnt arrived yet !!! oh no !
i really hope that USPS hasnt lost it or misplaced it. and i really hope that the ebay seller really posted it and isnt faking me. cos he said he doesnt have a tracking no. for the item. :(

well, its been 5 days only Jon. relax. take a deep breath.
*inhale and exhale*

ok, time to get back to work