All I wanted to say was that I love the new Starcraft Installment by Blizzard. It amazes me how Blizzard has not only managed to hold their own as legends of the world gaming community, but has also succeded in holding a reputation for producing top notch games that lack any complaints from me.

I've also been addicted to Battlefield Bad Company 2, I just can't stop playing online.

peace

I have a small problem that I'd like to address. That problem is the Halo Franchise. These days I feel as if they will hand any Halo shooter a high score simply because of its name and company. I felt that Halo 3 was hardly worth renting, and the online play is boring and clunky. I love shooters, I love all sorts of video games that aren't just there for instant gratification, but the Halo team needs to beef up their games and throw some new ideas onto the table. I hope that Halo Reach will actually be good, but their last 3 releases have only been kind of good at best. I know many hard core Halo fans who have all said, "It feels as though after the first Halo the only thing they changed was maybe adding a new gun or two." Where's the originality that changed the world of gaming when the first Halo came out? Where's the creative genius that invented the Halo universe and transformed how poeple look at video games?

The first Halo release was such a huge success because it was something never seen before. A futuristic shooter with modern graphics on a whole new system. Before Halo, gamers such as myself were seen as nerds or odd because we played games on a television instead of going outside all the time. After Halo, it suddenly became cool to play video games. Jocks and Nerds alike joined together to play shooters and suddenly video games were all over the place and competition became fierce. Microsoft needs to "up the anty" with their next release or more people are going to do what I have already done, lose interest in the Halo franchise. Halo Wars stunk and I'm a strategy enthusiast. I expected a lot better out of them. Halo3 was a disaster in my opinion, and I didn't even bother with ODST because everyone I knew who played it just thought it was "not that bad." Well, not that bad may work for some games; Metal slug series, Turok for x360, Lair, etc... But I suppose I hold Halo to a higher standard. I'm going to bet they will do a great job with their newest release coming up in September, but if they screw this up I'm hanging up my master chief helmet and moving on. So come on Halo team, let's bring back the reason we came to you in the first place!

peace.

Is there anyone out there who can give me a good recomendation for an RTS that may not have been advertised? I've seen a few out there that look good, but I was wondering what some on here might think. I am also including older games for the PC. Any suggestions would be good, and in fact if anyone knows of ANY games that they love that aren't well known I would love to hear them too.

Peace.

Hello, I am 21 years old and I have been playing video games since I was 6 years old. I started off on the original NES, playing games such as Ninja Gaiden and mario/duck hunt. I had quite a field day with those types of games, and back then it truly was difficult just to make a certain jump, or cross some kind of small obstacle. I remember when my brother, (2 years older than I) would get extremely pissed off whenever he'd reach those snaggs, and would go for hours trying to get past them. It was always a sigh of relief when he succeeded. Then as I became a little older I upgraded to the super NES, and I was esctatic! I thought we had just recieved some sort of secret technology from the future. "HOLY **** LOOK AT THE GRAPHICS ON YOSHI'S ISLAN AND DONKY KONG! WOW!" Those were the days, when graphics and gimmicks weren't as important as replay value and, well, fun. As a kid I never really had the opportunity to play any of the sega systems very much, only when I visited my cousin who had a sega genesis. I was always a nintendo kid.

Then came the dawn of the N64, and when I heard there was such a thing as 3D graphics I about **** my pants. My favorite game was Golden Eye for the longest time, and even though I was still 11 or 12 I managed to get my hands on a copy of Perfect Dark, which to me was the most awesome game ever. Back then I also had a fascination with the Turok franchise, but could never beat Turok 2. To me, Super Mario 64 was the coolest game ever because there was a little bit of free roaming available in it, which was a totally new concept to me. I would play these types of video games constantly, and although I may have suffered socially a bit as a boy I don't regret having that foundation of classic games.

As I entered high school, the PS2 came out along with the Game Cube. When I heard about the graphics quality of the PS2 I probably did crap my pants, because I never thought such a thing was possible. "graphics that are better than the cinematic scenes in final fantasy? Nuh uh!" I would have dreams at night of plugging this shiny black and blue machine into a big screen TV and being sucked into a world of crazy technology and futuristic graphics. But when I finally recieved a PS2 for Christmas, I was a little bit let down. I would soon find that for the PS2 there weren't as many games I wanted to buy, and many of the games I did buy I became wary of after a few weeks. I found myself putting down the game system and hanging out with my friends more. This was probably a good thing, and when my brother purchased a game cube the only game I liked for it was Resident Evil 4. After a while I didn't play consols anymore, well, until very recently with the Xbox360, which I must say I very much enjoy and still marvel at how far graphics engines have come since I was a boy.

I also started playing PC strategy and shooters when I was young. My first game was probably Doom 2, which gave me nightmares at first, but after a while I thought it was really awesome! I then played a game called Lord of the Realms 2, which compared to strategy games today it is nothing, but when it came out I was enthralled. Being able to control an army and send it crashing into another army was something I had always fantasized about, and slowly but surely games were being made that gave me the ability to do that. I became obsessed with the game Tiberian Sun. Somehow or another I accidentally skipped the original Command and Conquer and went straight to Red Alert and Tiberian Sun, as well as Dune 2000. I became obsessed with strategy games, and when I randomly purchased Shogun: Total War as a birthday gift, my life would never be the same. sadly the game was a little too advanced for my computer at that time, but when my father purchased a new one a year later, I busted out the old game and discovered how amazing it was! I could never beat it, and would not succeed at beating it until high school, but I didn't care, I loved just being able to play it. Being able to control a large army of Samurii was something I never thought I'd be able to do, and suddenly I was in Feudal Japan, overseeing a massive maw of carnage. It was pretty sweet.

From there I would graduate to games such as Rome Total War, Medieval 2, and the current Empire Total War; and after all of this I must make a conclusion to this autobiography. I think that Strategy games are the only genre where I will always be able to return, no matter how many years go by, and have just as much fun as I did before. Shooters are fun and can be played for a while, but sooner or later, for me, they become boring. It is true that I can burn out on strategy games as well, but after a little while I will want to play them again. Something about controlling an army against another doesn't get old as quickly for me as simply shooting people or aliens, or rummaging through some RPG, or button mashing on a fighting game. There's always this feeling of being in control of your units' lives, (I know they are not alive and are just sprites, but I get this feeling of responsibility towords keeping my men alive) leading them into victory, and it gives me a rush of endorphines that make a roller coaster feel like nothing. I don't know, but Strategy games have got to be my favorite. What is your favorite genre? I would sure like to know.

peace