Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is absolutely fantastic. It's one of the most immersive games I've ever played, easily being the best Splinter Cell yet with the most fluid and dynamic moves so far. I'm gonna play it some more before I offer a complete review of the game, but get set for a score in the upper nines.

Now and then I find myself humming Magical Sound Shower or maybe Dr Wily's theme from Megaman 2. These catchy tunes were basically the soundtrack of my youth, but on top of that, they helped define some of the coolest games around at the time. As a matter of fact, the way I choose to experience my favourites of old these days is mostly through remixed or the original music from those games.

I know this, why doesn't EA?

Alright, okay, it's not just EA, there's a general notion that hey, licensed music is a good idea! Well I don't think so, I hate it. As long as they kept it away from the games I enjoyed it was fine, I suppose, but now EA's been on some kind of crazy rampage and acquired stuff like Burnout and Franz Ferdinanded it up.

In ten years time, are we really expected to remember the theme song from Amped? What's that? Oh it didn't have one? My mistake.

I'll go so far as to say that Amplitude and Frequency, two very neat games gameplay wise, are completely broken to me because I need to haul my ass through stuff like Slipknot and Pink. I'm not saying proper video game music is good without exception, but even bad video game music has.. I dunno... charm? Oh and it's highly unlikely that it's already tried to enter your brain through the Top 10 on MTV.

Recent games with original, memorable soundtracks are extremely few, and while generic RPG #15 churns out one orchestrated song on top of the other, very little actually sticks. Where's the Super Mario Bros theme of this generation?

My nephew told me not too long ago, on the subject of game soundtracks, that he prefered Fifa over Pro Evolution Soccer because of the music. I'm not sure if he was completely serious, but my instinct told me to kill. Figuring it was too much of a hassle, I just beat him up a little and sent him home.

I understand that it's all about bringing the punters in, and I guess having yet another environment to listen to their favourite artists means a lot to some people. I'm just insanely thankful for Microsoft's custom soundtrack feature, so I can listen to some quality music instead.

That was me being ironic, it's a thing I do.

Anyway, wrapping up, while many developers these days seem to be about what the consumer wants, basically shaping the products after them instead of bringing something new into people's lives, I really feel that more effort should be put into giving something personality. It's through personality it'll be remembered.

I'm gonna go back to humming Magical Sound Shower now.

I sincerely and truly believe that everyone at Sega has gone absolutely bananas.

I'm a Sega fan, and if I try really hard, I vaguely recall that once upon a time, Sega made some pretty hot games. Now, either they forgot how to do that, or their definition of hot has changed. A lot. For some unfathomable reason they've decided to put us fans through absolute misery lately, and as if Virtua Quest wasn't enough of a slap in the face, they hit a new dimension of low with Shadow the armed Hedgehog. Yes, this means that at some point, someone suggested firearms in a Sonic game and wasn't silently disposed of.

Let me put things into perspective. For about fifteen years, these guys have supposedly moved at the speed of sound and cracked stuff open by bouncing on it. Well, they need guns now.

Oh and apparently he's haunted by his dark past. Well, who isn't these days?

"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"