And they are all extremely satisfying so far.  I cant even remember when a game got this much praise. Heres a part i found extra nice:

"Gears of War is a must-have game, pure and simple. Epic has effectively created a new gaming universe, and the rich story of planet Sera holds its own with the likes of Hyrule, City 17 and the Mushroom-friggin'-Kingdom. A game so gorgeous, both visually and audibly, that is this fun to play comes along only a handful of times a console generation. " - IGN, Score 9.4 / 10

Thats an extremely positive review.

+ So much Marvel Love ! All of your heroes, all of your locations, all of your bad guys and all of your sidekicks, plot twists and cool super hero moves. Tons of extra missions, artwork, cutscenes and lore. You even get an extra Trivia machine where you can answer questions regarding the Marvel universe and earn Achievements by it. The content of this game is amazing. If you´re a Marvel fan you wont find another game filled with this much Marvel !

+ Great Hack N Slash gameplay. A great mix of Action RPG Diablo gameplay and some buttonmashing combo building. The action feels great all the way through. Takes the best from the Action RPG genre and builds on it. Sweet.

+ So many ways to play the game. With over 20 playable heroes there are over 20 ways to play this game and since you always work in a team of 4 you have even more options considering who to take with you. Chose those you like the best or try to make "real" groups of superheroes for special bonuses. Everyone will have their own Superheroteam and their own way of playing through the adventure.

+ Great understanding and love for the comics. Every superhero have just the abilites you would expect them to have in an Action RPG like this and every conversation is just as cheesy as it should, bringing fourth the personality of every character from Bruce Banner to Nick Fury to Weasel.

+ Fantasticly fun Co-Op. Play up to four players over live or just let your buddy plug in a secondary controller and press start. He jumps in to the game very smoothly and you now play together. You pick your favorite hero and see them cooperate nicely on screen. This game is straight out made for Co-Op and it is one of the best Co-Operative experiences you´ll find on this side of Gears of War.

+Superb, top-notch soundtrack. Dynamic and with lots of variation. Changes with the mood, the level and the difficulty of the game and always heightens the superhero feeling. Best soundtrack of the year so far.

+ Sweet bossfights. What would a mavel game be without all of the great villians. The huge bosses are the best. where you have to fight them God of War / Shadow of the colossus style with lots of cool moves and timely presses of different buttons to jump on them, climb on them and / or drag them down to the ground.

+ The Lenght. This is one LONG adventure spanning over several different marvel universes. Everyone will get their fix. Really impressive lenght!

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- Graphics looks great from afar but up close and in cutscenes it dosent hold up and looks pretty ugly at times.

- The leveling system could be more fun. I would rather like a skill tree like in World of Warcraft or Diablo rather than the pretty dull and sometimes confusing system the game uses now. Also custome changing is plain out broken saying that you must be at a SHIELD point to change it even if you are on one. Might be user error tho.

- The game dosent really encourage you to try out different hero combos since you gain reputation with a team whe  you use it. The reaputation will eventually level your team. If you switch a member in the team your rep will go down. I find myself just ignoring the rep since i want to try everyone out. I wanna try Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Iceman and Human Torch as well as Ghost Rider, Mr. Fantastic, Deadpool and Wolverine.

- When youre playing the game Single-Player you´ll notice that the other 3 heroes dosent really do much to help. They never use their abilities to the max and as such, dosent do much damage at all. On top of that the enemies tend to go after your character and ignore your companions completely making the "team" feeling pretty non existant. This is of course solved by playing Co-Op wich you should!

- The levels can sometimes feel kind of repetative. Same levels but with different skins, kinda. Considering the lenght of the game i guess this comes with it.

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Final Score: 8.6

Blade, Nick Cage, Ms Marvel, Black Widow, Thor, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing, Human Torch, Elektra, Storm, Iceman, Colossus, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Iron Man, Captain America, Dr Doom, Shocker, Rhino, Arcade, Loki, Mephisto, Scorpion, Ymer, The Wreckingcrew, Galactus, Enchantress, Grey Gargoyle....The list would go on forever, and i mean it... The most expansive Marvel game ever and a solid Action RPG !

Tested On: Xbox 360, HDtv 720p

http://cliffynooooo.ytmnd.com/

sad news indeed. A sad day for Epic Games.

+ Need for Speed is still a very stable foundation to build on. The Core gameplay is still fun and has the perfect arcade / sim blend.

+ Boss battles have become more personal with the help of more run-ins with them before you finally face them and a small window in the corner of your screen that shows their faces during the duel with them. They also have a specific car type and own territories as well as crews.

+ Your crew. They are all actually pretty useful once you know how to use them. They also add a kind of cozy teamfeeling to the racing. It feels good to have someone backing you up over voice-com.

+ Wonderful, charming and cheesy cutscenes all made with real actors and a kind of stylish filter over them. Much like the NFS - Most Wanted cutscenes, but cooler and with even more humor and feauturing some great B actors.

+ Really, and i mean really impressive facialanimations on the bosses wich you encounter in the ingame engine this time around. Their faces on the little cornercamera during the bossbattles animate fantasticly.

+ The tuner / streetracing / gang feeling is pretty thick throughout the game. Ever since NFS Underground they have really captured this streetwarsfeeling incredibly well.

+ The best enginesounds ever in a racing game. Yes. Its true. The enginesounds have been slightly improved with every game that has been released. Just like with the streetfeeling, the enginesounds started kicking in with NFS:U and has ever since been improved on. Enginesounds these days almost always sound waaay to much like a chainsaw or an electric toycar of some sort. in Carbon the cars sounds FANTASTIC. Every clunk, turbosound and deep wroooms of the engine sounds just as manly as they should and varies greatly depending on car and what you have done to the engine. Hearing your Nissan Skyline go "wrooooooooom, pppssschhhh" as you gear up and hear the turbo let go of air is just nice as h*ll. same thing with a huge V8. Its great to see that they have realized how extremely important this is to the feeling of a racinggame.

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- Its STILL "only" Need For Speed. They should try to stop this 1 game per year thing they´ve got going and take some serious time to do a NFS revolution and a completely new graphicsengine. This series wont live forever like this. Especially not as fullprices products since this feels more like an update to NFS - Underground 2 at times.

- Some customization options from the previous games have been taken away and on top of that the whole customizationsystem is very clumsy and very poorly made. Its easy to get lost in the menus and you end up not really knowing what performanceupgrade is best and how you actually change some parts. Also, you can install a new bodykit, then go to autosculpt a tailpip only to be met with the message that "you can only do this if you have a non stock" bodykit...

- The Autosculpt system is not really nessesary and I never use it. It really dosent give you anything new. You might as well just buy the parts that looks like the part you just made instead of wasting time in the autosculpt system.

- Still no Day / Night cycle. Why? How hard can it be. The Underground games were night-only games, Most Wanted was Day-only and now carbon is night only again, using, im guessing, the same engine. Why not put it together. Silly...

- Just plain unfair difficulty at times in the career. Its not like the bosses you meet later on are skilled drivers, they are just plain cheating. The difficulty just gives them rocketcars. Its not fun, just plain annoying when games get hard in the wrong way. NFS - Carbon does just that.

- The Canyon. The canyon is just 1 big minus really. The camera in this mode is like the wierdest racingcamera ive seen and it makes it really hard to take the steep turns of the canyon. Its also very annoying to just go flying over a cliff every 30 seconds because of this and because of wierd breakable railing in every U-turn. The framerate here also tends to dip from time to time making these turns even harder. Put cheating bosses and some kind of magic that makes all of your cars understeer  on top os this and you have one big annoying mode.

- The whole "open city" deal is just plain out not needed. You just use the menus to jump fram race to race anyway so theres really no reason at ALL to be driving around town. A town wich is still very dead and boring.

- Extremely STUPID Achievements. Yea. This shouldnt really affect the score of the game but in this case they are so very stupid. its been 1 year since the 360 release and these achievements do not show that. I got an achievement for lagging through an online race but you dont get 1 single achievement on your way through the carrermode... Just read up on the achievements and see them for yourselves.

- Unstable onlinemode. I get kicked out of almost every game. Once i get in a good race i almost always get kicked out making the online part unplayable. I have people on my frindslist reporting the same thing.

- Non existant soundtrack. What happened to the really nice soundtrack of Most Wanted. You probably wont even notice a soundtrack in this game. Why? Why take away feautures from previous titles at all?

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Final Score: 7.7

Its still Need for Speed. its still fun and extremely stylish. But it wont last for another title. Also some really wierd designchoices were made with this one. Might be worth the buy just for en enginesounds tho..mmmm...

Tested On: Xbox 360, HDtv 720p

12 more days to Nov 17 and Gears of War. I have ordered it at a store where i´ll probably get it 2 days earlier tho so that makes it 10 more days until i have my hands on Gears. 10 more. I´ve been waiting for years, i can do 10 more days....but its HARD. Im so hyped up now that its silly really. I would have to go back a long time before I find another game wich i was this hyped up for 12 days before release. Anyways. The US reviews should start appearing in the coming week and by any logical means, all of the scores should be sky-high. Gamespot gave Oblivion a 9.6. I expect at LEAST the same, if not higher score for Gears of War. Anything else would be plain out wrong. If the Gamespot score goes below like, say 9.2 i would personally lower my expectations for the quality of Gamespot reviews in the future. Anything below that would be an insult. I havent even tested the game yet tho so i might be talking way out of my league saying things like that, and who knows, the game might actually NOT be godlike (ahahahahahahaha). No sorry, cant say that with a straight face. I expect the Unreal Tournament commentator to shout out "GODLIKE" when i insert the disc into my 360. The voice will come from above. From the heavens.

Speaking of the 360. Anything I play on that console at the moment just feels like spending time in wait for big daddy Gears, no matter how good the game might be. Im mostly playing NFS: Carbon and Marvel: UA at the moment and UA in particular is a really great game, but still my mind is somewhere else, my mind is still hooked to counting the days until Gears. I have a coule of Gigabyte´s of videoclips stored on my computer and im watching them all over and over. Contrary to what some believe, this does NOT turn me off and make me feel like the game will be worn out on release. Quite the opposite actually. The more i watch these clips the more hyped up i get. I dosent get worn out, it dosent get repetative. It only gets more and more impressive until im sitting here, like i do now, writing about how awesome this game will be.

I have pretty much booked the days from Nov 15th (when i think my copy will arrive) to Nov 19th to Gears of War only. It will be a 24/7 marathon with Singleplayer, Co-Op and that sweeeeet Xbox Live versus. So...10 more days. But, what if i dont get it early, what if I actually have to wait until the 17th. The wait from the 15th to the 17th will be unbearable. I will probably cry then, yea, straight out cry. No, no that cant happen, 10 more days. Come on, I can do it. *looking at the calendar*. Damn, sitll 10 days....  Anyways gamespot folks. Tony Hawk got a 10.0 from Jeff back in the day.. I mean, yeah... I´ll leave it at that.. High hopes for the review, high hopes..

Need for Speed: Carbon (x360) and Marvel Ultimate Alliance (x360)

Ive just uploaded 2 great videos feauturing Cliff Bleszinski talking alot about different aspects of gears of war and gaming in general. Check them out if you havent already. I will probably upload some more Cliffy videos that i have because i find his rants extremely interesting to listen to, especially the 20 minute speech that you can now find in my videosection. I so totally agree with his opinions on the industry. A true genious.

16 days more to go now until EU release of Gears. I sat down and put some work into a new banner for my page to match the upcoming Locust invasion. Expect an extensive final verict from me when the game is out here.

The first snowfall for this winter season. It has begun.. I just looked outside and my car was all covered in white. It has begun, the swedish winter. This is the start of 4 months of cold, snow and darkness and i havent even changed to winter tires on above named car yet because it isnt even legal to do so for another day. So i should obvoiusly do that very soon. I also need to fix my windshield wipers since they are malfunctioning. On top of that i need to put some weight in the trunk of the car since its extremely light in the back and will drift like a mustang on crack when driving on icy roads.

Anyways. Im really NOT looking forward to the winter season. It tends to snow us in and make the raods so icy its almost impossible to drive on them. Huge snowstorms can come at any time and force you to stay indoors for days out where i live. And as i said earlier, the winter here is damned cold and its dark outside almost 24/7. Its a good thing its only 17 more days until Gears of War is released. A light in the coming dark winter. I guess the winter is a good gaming season, when the snow dosent cut off the electricity to the house.. And yeah, I DO envy some of you living in areas where the winter is just a mere change from hot sunny weather to more of a windy climate. Here its like Santaland for months. I would happily switch places with one of you if youre one of those that would want to experience some snow. Ill see if i can get a picture of the first snow tomorrow when i wake up.

I´ll let the video speak for itself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2XYf4zI-I4

Its really a tragedy. Ever since GameSpot changed their Video Blog system from that Quicktime´ish thing they had to this new Flashplayer thingy I cant watch videoblogs anymore. Theres appearantly something with my comp. and Flash that dosent click because the video keeps getting slower and slower and slower until it stands still and is not just playing at all. This results in me, not being able to follow Jeffs points reports since like 2 weeks back. I really enjoyed his weekly rants but if GS dosent change back to the videoblog system they had before, i will not be able to watch the reports anymore. Ive tried different versions of Flash and different browsers but to no avail. Its just a choppy mess for about 3 minutes and then its a slideshow before it stops completely. Are you an expert on Flash? contact me. I am completely out of ideas. Is Flash so much more demanding than Quicktime?