TAKE A LOOK AT THE BANNER I MADE FOR MY UNION!

The Old Saloon
or look at in my uploaded images.

That's all, thanks.

 

....and now it's gone AGAIN, and took away my moderation history link too...AGAIN.

I checked today my moderation history, and the same moderation from Gfaqs was back, but this time WITHOUT all the info from last time, so I think it was just glitched or something. It was the dame date and time, so it couldn't've been a different moderation.

I checked again and it's now gone. Also, the link to my moderation history is gone too, I had to check it from my browser's history.

GS is crazy...but that's not news. Not really even worth mentioning...

I sent out union invites for the Konami Union. Sorry.

I also submitted 2 games and some info missing from GameFAQS/GameSpot. I will still submit one game that is missing from the sites, and then I can finally make sure that my game collection on GS is up to date. It annoys me when games I have don't seem to exist anywhere else, and I want to advertise the fact that I own them.

I guess that gfaqs message moderations don't stay too long in the history. This also means that my earlier post moderations on gfaqs may very well have been in the history, I just didn't look at it back then (didn't even know about it, didn't have a link).

 

 

And I hate this new text editor of gamespot for a few reasons:
Instead of just starting from the next line when enter is pressed, it adds an empty line in between. So if I want to start on the next line, I have to write the br tag myself, because gs adds p tags. Also, it adds an empty line on top of the message or blog post everytime because of the p tag. This sucks so much I'd be banned from gs just for bleeping my thoughts.
If I want to skip a line, I'd press enter twice.

Second reason to hate the text editor is that it doesn't support tables. GS people said it would, but it doesn't. Everytime I add a table, through my own html code or gs table maker, it deletes it in the final post and all the content goes crazy.
Don't tease me with the button if it doesn't work, you bastards!

Also my hr tags don't come out as they should. I can fix it everytime myself of course, but damn it I have the right to demand that GS does it.

I had some other reasons to hate the new editor too, but I forgot them because I'm too angry now.

 

I might post another blog tonight, with info about my new games.

I'm now on level 28, and still until last week I didn't have any dirt in my moderation history. "Excellent job! None of your contributions have been moderated!" it always said when I looked. Well, today I looked again, and guess what (it's easy if you've paid attention), I have my first moderation history mark now.

It's from gamefaqs (those bastards!) and I got it for something I posted on the GTA IV ps3 board. This is what I posted:

[I know everything about GTA IV...]
...because I am the Housers' long lost half-twin brother. We have a spiritual connection and we share thoughts. I know everything Dan Houser knows. Don't be afraid to ask me anything or suggest ideas, I can send them as eThought to Dan and he can implement them in the game.

You judge if I deserved it or not.
I personally don't like this much. Not because I didn't deserve it (my post WAS pretty dumb), but because the whole board has been filled with similar stuff since it was opened, and rarely do I see any of them get deleted, only when people start insulting each other. And if I start reporting similar posts, will those get moderated too? I find that very hard to believe.

I've had some of my posts moderated before (for reasons I 100% agree with), but they never left a mark in my moderation history. This is my first one. I just wished it would show me what the reason was, all it says is "Gamefaqs action, gamefaqs reason."

That's it. I have a headache, can't be bothered to write more.

I'll be sending a union invite to everybody again, so don't be mad at me. I know most of you people hate it when people send you invites to unions you've never even heard of, but you might as well un-tic the box "Receive automated messages" in your preferences if you hate them so much. I've only sent out 3 invites to my friends during the one and a half year I've been on gamespot, so it's not like I'm spamming your in-boxes or anything.

Also, I need a cool name for my JFNC Central union. Go there to give suggestions, now.
Where? Here: http://www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/home.php?union_id=Challengers.

And any ideas of how to change my union called Old Saloon? It's been a western union for now, but because of the silence, I was thinking about changing it a bit. Old movies, British sit-coms and punk music were my ideas. Don't bother going in there though, comment on my blog.

And the Real Rockstar Games Union is working again. If you enjoy Rockstar games, join it, track it, anything. It's made for you. And if you enjoy one Rockstar game in particular, The Warriors, then join the Warriors game and movie Union.

That's advertising for ya! 

tough luck, buster! Seems GS doesn't give it out anymore, nobody's been getting it lately. If GS did this deliberately or not, you're not getting it. If it's just a glitch you'll have to wait, if it's just that the rules for getting it changed, you'll have to wait to find it out. Ha haa haa...oh, I shouldn't be laughing. But don't expect me to cry either. I'll just say I feel your pain, how'd that sound? Another thing If GameSpot keeps doing this, there will be nothing left for me to complain about You might have heard me complaining about GameSpot glitches that prevent me from checking my moderation history or associating games to unions. Well, just a few days ago I noticed I could associate videos to unions. Today, just 10 minutes ago, I saw a link to my moderation history in my profile. If Gamespot becomes a fully working gaming related website, what will I do? Where will I go to complain? I might as well join Hell's hockey team now, as nobody ever expected to see any real progress on Gamespot. Ever. And now we were proven wrong. End of the world?

Actually, I dont. My .45 handles the martial arts for me. Later Impressions: GTA Vice City Stories The review I'm going to write, if I'm going to write one, is not going to be as cheerful as my First Impressions blog post. I kind of became disappointed at the game towards the end, although the best bits came later on too. But that's why the blog was called First Impressions, they were just first impressions. Scarface: The World Is Yours I intented to write a similar blog about the game Scarface as I wrote about GTA:VCS, but since the GTA:VCS blog wasn't a big hit, I'm not going to bother. If I write a blog post for more than 1 hour, add pictures I took from the game myself and time the blog posting so I wouldn't be left under everyone else's blogs in my friends' "People who I'm tracking" lists, I want more hits than 50. Even some complete crap blogs I've written have gotten more attention than that. Maybe it's just because I'm so boring, that I never get anyone to read a thing I write. Can't blame you really, I become easily bored too while reading, unless we're talking about comics. Anyway, the review of Scarface wont be too positive, I don't much love that game either. Proved to be a sack full of **** in the end. And Worms 4 Mayhem...I dislike that game too. Froze on me after I finally passed 3 impossible story levels without saving between them. So there's some happy news for you, you bastards! I'm tired, every part in my body hurts, and tomorrow is going to be a very boring day. Next week I have to go to the army check-ups, and I haven't even gotten my ID card yet. So a very bloody damn crappy day to you too!

I have been a GTA fan since the first time I played GTA3 at my friend's house. The freedom of the game impressed me from the start, and the violence and humour were so amusing that I couldn't stop playing and go home for dinner. I didn't understand much of the game, but it was still fun to explore the city and just waste hours on end shooting people, seeing how long I could keep the cops and the gangs at bay.

"Is this a driving game, or a shooter? What's the goal?
I don't know, but I love it! KA-BLAM copper!"

My first own GTA game was GTA2 for PSOne, and even to this day I still love it as much as I love my newer games. It's one of my best games ever, and I have wasted a few hundred hours to it, just enjoying the sick humour. I am very proud of the fact that I have beaten GTA2 with all missions done for every gang without using cheats.

My first 3D GTA was GTA: Vice City, and it's quite possibly the best first-play experience I've had in a game. Driving around the 1980s Mia...Vice city, looking at the scenery while listening to good music and funny commercials. I don't know a game that offers as much fun outside missions.

And that gets me nicely to GTA: Vice City Stories I recently purchased.
To be honest, I didn't really expect much. From what I heard beforehand, none of the new stuff would be to my liking, and I was afraid that the storyline wouldn't be nearly as good as in the other GTAs. Simply put, I expected to see a half-assed story and clunky controls just because it was on PSP first.
Well, I'm glad I was mostly wrong.

---

Victor Vance gets kicked out of the army for posessing drugs he was hiding for his superior officer, and ends up doing a series of not-so-legal deals to pay his brother's medical bills.
Victor himself is against drugs, which is quite understandable this time, as his mother is a junkie and Vic and his brothers were raised by their aunt Enid.
I honestly think that Vic is the best main character ever in the whole history of GTA series, as he isn't a gangbanger or a mafia hitman. He's an averige guy from a dysfunctional family who takes care of his sick brother, and because of a series of unfortunate events ends up in the wrong side of the law. He doesn't whine and complain all the time, or go around acting like mr. tough bigshot either.
I also really like the voice acting of Dorian Missick, even though I don't usually pay attention to that kind of things.

But although I like the character and voice of Vic, there are others I do NOT like. For example Victor's superior officer Martinez. His character is supposed to be hated, as he is the one to start all of Vic's troubles, and he really is a disgusting guy I would never want to meet in real life, but the voice acting for him isn't all that well done. The timing and tone of voice don't fit in the dialogue of the cut-scenes, so it feels like the sound wasn't recorded for the scenes they appear in, thus ruining a bit of the experience.
I also dislike how one of my all-time favourite characters, Phil Cassidy, is portrayed in this game. The boomshine drinking arms-dealer is, still, a boomshine drinking arms-dealer, but he just doesn't feel like Phil Cassidy anymore. In the past GTAs he's been left a bit out of the main story and used for a comical relief on missions, but now he has more on-screen time with less humour in him. It's not a big deal, but I thought I might mention that so I don't sound too happy about everything.

Phillip Michael Thomas makes another outstanding performance as Lance Vance, one of the best side-characters in GTA ever, who still tries to steal the show with his funny comments and overenthusiasm in the middle of the action.
I also like how the young Lazlow sounds on the radio, not yet a professional radio host.

One last Chance for Lance Vance Dance

About the story, it's been kind of a let down up till now, but as I haven't yet finished half of the game I'm hoping to see an improvement soon. To this point it's been Vic getting kicked out of the army, protecting a white trash woman and a baby, and stealing drugs and weapons.
I've done a lot of missions without seeing a clear storyline between all of them, but since GTA usually does that in the beginning, I'll be forgiving for the time being. The bad side of the "story" up till now has been the fact that I don't buy it. Vic's a straight up decent guy, but still kills everyone, owns an illegal business and no criminal activity seems to scare him even a tiniest bit, except drugs of course. Wierd...

Vic and Lance getting info out of a bent cop

The missions are pure grade A GTA candy. I was a bit surprised how they even managed to add a few new types of missions too, as I didn't expect a PSP GTA to have anything new and different.
One of my favourite missions up till now has been a mission for the Cubans, where you drive old man Robina from Hyman Memorial Stadium to the future spot of Café Robina. This "driving mr Alberto" is a bit different for 2 things: The man's got a weak heart, so despite the time limit you can't just hit the gas and fly, and the second thing is that the currently big gang, Cholos, are patrolling around the city in their cars, so you need to sneak past them without being seen, or else old Alberto kicks the bucket. This isn't all that different from other GTAs, but the fact that you're not being straight-up chased by a hundred armored cars spawning around every single corner really adds a nice touch, and after playing every mission in the GTA history, I really enjoy seeing these kind of little things.
Another reason why I like the mission for the lack of continuously-spawning enemy cars is that in this game, the cars are FAST and spawn ALL THE FREAKING TIME! Sure, car chases are needed, but I don't see a reason why VCS had to have so damn ridiculous amount of enemy cars spawning behind and infront of you all the time with a better driver AI than before. Instead of being easily fooled, this time the enemy is better at blocking your path, and even I had trouble enjoying the action with my mad-leet driving skillz turned on.
But other than that, I've really enjoyed all the missions.

The export/import and car showroom type of fun
car hunting returns in Civil Asset Forfeiture Impound

A really great new feature that I never saw coming, not even in my dreams, is the building of an empire. Not long after the beginning of the game you get a hold of a little business of your own to generate cash. Now, you'd expect a simple "I own a small building and do a few boring missions" kind of scheme, but instead, you really do build an empire.
It works like this: All around Vice city there are small business-spots scattered around, and all of them are owned by one of the gangs in town. The places don't look all that interesting, usually it's just a tiny building in the middle of a brown square, but you can develop your own businesses to generate more money and also make them look a LOT nicer. You go in your office, choose a type of business you want from 6 types (3 are locked at start), ranging from loan shark to prostitution. You pick a size for your business from 3 possibilities, and the place turns into a construction site (with added background noise). When you later return, you might see a big, flashy building standing where there used to be a small, dirty shack.
You can steal enemy controlled businesses by destroying a vehicle at their site, killing all the guards, and then buying the place. The bigger the business, the more it attracts enemy attention, and the more damage you do to other gangs the more they try to do to you by attacking your businesses and trying to kill you on sight around town. Of course you can also do side-missions to generate more cash for every business type, like drive your girls to customers for example.
I can't express how much I like this new feature, and I hope it's used in future GTAs too, or at least something similar to it. It really feels like you're actually doing something, advancing somewhere, when you see your newly built 3 story building with neon lights on at night.

This is what you buy...

...and this is what you build

Another new feature is the possibility to buy special vehicles for your safehouses. For example, at your first own safehouse you can buy a bullet-proof Sanchez, and at another place you can buy a mini-helicopter named Little Willie.
And let me ask you this: Have you ever become frustrated after losing your substantial amount of expensive and hard-to-find weapons when you're busted? Well that's history, as you now have a chance to buy your guns back at the station or at the hospital. Exactly what GTA always needed.

Tiny helicopter named Little Willie...
James Bond, anyone?

Graphics...as a pessimist I expected again to see a stripped down version of Vice city, and that's what it looked like at first. But after one ride around downtown at night, it became clear to me: This game is a lot more lively looking than the original Vice city. Sounds unbelievable I guess, but it's true. Vice city in VCS looks more alive than the old... future? one where Tommy lives. There's more to explore, more neon lights on, more to see. Makes me want to just dive into the game through the tv-screen and swim in the colours for all etern...uh, nevermind.
And what I like is that trails are back. Most people hated trails in Vice city, but I personally couldn't play it without trails. This time, I've tested both trails on and off, and both look good. I keep switching back and forth everytime I see something new and interesting, but I really can't tell if trails on is better or worse. It's just different.

Occasionally the new old Vice city looks different, but still good.

After all this praising, I think I need to get down to earth and reveal the bad side of the game: Glitches. I have already encountered numerous glitches, and I haven't yet spent more than 10 hours with the game. One annoying glitch is random stuff, like lampposts and mailboxes, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. I've lost a few missions because of Vic's car suddenly getting stuck as a lamppost just grew out of the ground in an instant and went through the roof. Another annoying glitch is Vic himself getting stuck in a car, one half inside, one half on the hood of the car.
But the most annoying and recurring glitch is when Vic comes out of a store or some other building, the streets become empty. No peds, no cars except for the parked ones, even if you really need a car for a mission. Usually the cars and peds come back after a little while, at least when you re-enter a shop or enter a parked car, but the streets were once completely empty until I reset the game. I also had some little trouble with the radio stations for awhile.
So it's not all good, there's some bad mixed in too.

Pigs are back on the saddle

I still need to say that the controls aren't as clunky as they were in Liberty city stories, but they're also not as good as in the original Vice city. But it's a lot closer to good than bad, so I think nobody needs to worry too much about that.
Also, there's better fighting mechanics, with 2 attack buttons and grips, so definately something has been improved on that part too.
There's also swimming, though no diving, and the Python revolver makes a return. You can also get a pair of some fancy binoculars.

So, it looks like GTA, sounds like GTA and plays like GTA. It is GTA.
The new features make up for the lack of interesting story, so don't be afraid of the smaller price tag. This game isn't just a PSP port, its Grand Theft Auto to the fullest, baby!

And now, I need to get back and finish it.
Good day to you all!

I uploaded more images to GameSpot.

You remember the GS Avatars contest just not so long ago? Well, I uploaded the 30 avatars I made back then. None of them got picked, but I think they're cool, so check them out.

MY IMAGES