Been a member of GameSpot for 3 years, and a week, as of this writing. At first, I joined GameSpot because I loved reading the reviews that were posted here. They always informed me on whatever I wanted to know, and I've yet to disagree with a single posted review. Then I started finding out more about the site- On The Spot, The HotSpot, Burning Questions (Thanks for those Alex, I always loved reading those), Tournament TV, Editor Blog Posts- Heck even the forums were lively. I'd try to catch them every chance I got. Why? Because they had a lot of personality. The team who put out all this stuff together had a great sense of humour, while still being able to deliver quality work, none like I had seen on any other site.

Today, I just don't feel the same about GameSpot anymore. I'm sure anyone stumbling upon this will have heard about all the fiasco about Jeff- His leaving is not the sole reason of this post, but it sure broke the straw on the camel's back. From the day I joined, to today, most of the editors/staff members I enjoyed watching/listening/reading about are gone. While I think all the remaining GameSpot staff are great in their own way- Alex, Brad, Brian, Riccardo, RyanM, RyanD, Vinnie, Aaron; All you guys are great, even the ones behind the scenes, I know you guys put a lot of work into the site as well- the ones that are no longer around were pieces of a great looking puzzle. A few missing pieces of the puzzle is alright- A bit disheartning, and we're going to miss them, but one still gets the idea. But when you're missing a good portion of the puzzle, you just can't quite see it anymore.

Hope those who made the decision are happy, because many of us sure aren't.

To keep this from becoming a rant, I'll just finish it off here.

Best wishes to all that are still at GameSpot. Must be a bit awkward there right now, but I'm sure you guys will pull through. Thanks for all the great work you guys put together, especially the guys behind the scene- And of course, Jeff.

As for where I'm headed, I've decided just to take a break from any website- Going to see where things are headed.

As for me with GameSpot- I probably won't be frequenting around here anymore as much- Just doesn't feel like GameSpot anymore. I probably won't make blog posts here anymore, for the few who actually read them- Did anyone actually read them? Anyway.

Jeff Gerstmann 1996-2007

All Responsible, Can Shove It.

Over and out. Thanks again for the great times, GameSpot.

-Shadow-Eagle

My first Limited/Special Edition game. Too bad I can't even play it yet, since I'm still waiting for my step-up card to ship back to me. Two more days...

I recently just sent out my 8800GTS 320mb for the step-up program- Going to the 8800GT. On the one hand, I'm excited that I'll be getting a fairly significant upgrade. On the other hand, I'm pretty disappointed I'll be without a proper gaming PC for about a week, since I recently picked up Gears of War and Viva Pinata. Gotta save up money for the last batch of upcoming games, so I guess I'm stuck without anything to do- Gaming wise anyway. I'll just have more time to play guitar (Actual guitar, not Guitar Hero)and play hockey/tennis more with my friends.

Speaking of saving money, I have to delay picking up UT3 and/or Crysis, since I've fallen over the fence on my decision to get a 360. If you haven't read my past few blog posts about Mass Effect, its the system seller for me- Only because BioWare is developing it, since they made my favourite game of all time, Knights of the Old Republic. The shooter-Gears of War-esque combat seems kind of irking to me, since I prefer playing my shooters on the PC, but every other aspect of Mass Effect is very appealing to me, so I should be able to look past that personal minor shortcoming. Hopefully Mass Effect turns out better, not as good- BETTER, than Kotor, because I'm delaying Unreal Tournament 3 and Crysis for it, and plunking down 399.99 for it. I know this sounds like a pretty crazy decision, but to sound like a broken record, I haven't had asatisfying RPG since Kotor, so I'm willing to give up two of my anticipated games for a good RPG, if only for awhile. Luckily, Mass Effect isn't the only 360 game I want. I'll be looking into picking up Dead or Alive 4 and Eternal Sonata late December, after Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3. Here's to hoping I made a wise decision, and Mass Effect turns out better than Kotor.

"The best deal in video game history" - IGN

I gotta say, I agree. For 45$, I've gotten a lot out of The Orange Box already, and I don't feel the least bit done yet. Just recently finished Half Life 2 and Episode One again, using FakeFactory's Cinematic Mod (4.0v), and boy does it make a difference in texture quality. Jumping into Episode Two without it irked me a bit, since I noticed a lot of things went back into low-res textures, especially Alyx. That aside, having played Episode Two for about 2 hours now, I like the variety in environment they added so far, and the repetitive Half Life 2 formula hasn't worn thin on me yet, I just hope Episode Two is longer than Episode One- I blew through it in 3 hours yesterday.

With Team Fortress 2, I've been having a blast with it, and I don't think I'll be putting it down for awhile. I haven't seriously been into an Online-FPS since Rainbow Six: Vegas last year, and even that didn't last too long. Team Fortress 2 just has so much variety with the oh-so balanced classes, even with only 6 maps; Though, I'm already seeing custom made maps coming out for the PC version, haven't played any decent ones yet though. Been using the Medic and Soldier a lot, and recently been starting to use the Heavy more. The other classes I haven't used much yet, and I really don't think I will be for awhile.

With Portal, as quick as it was, it was a very interesting experience, especially the way it ended; I thought something horror-esque was going to happen. Luckily, it was a pretty funny and amusing ending, though I did get stuck in some spots for awhile at the end. I'm waiting to see more custom maps before I start downloading them.

And now, The Witcher. Its pretty much my most anticipated RPG of the year, seeing as- And I've probably repeated this countless times in this blog now- I haven't had a good RPG since Kotor. I realize Mass Effect from BioWare, the makers of Kotor, is coming out this year, but I don't have a 360 to enjoy it- So either I cross my fingers and hope for a PC port, or stop buying PC games and save up for a 360... Which I'm not about to do for one game. I think I just went way off-topic there, so lets get back on track.

Its pretty much been what I expected, which is to say an excellent RPG, but not without its flaws. Keep in mind I'm only 2-4 hours into the game- No Xfire support to keep proper track yet. I'll keep this spoiler free for the 2 people who read this, storywise anyway. If you think spoiling something like the mechanics of a mini-game is a spoiler, then there are spoilers.

Combat:

The combat is different- Instead of clicking on an enemy as fast as you can, or clicking once and watching the battle pan out, its all based on clicking in a series of intervals. As Geralt, the protaginist, is in combat swinging away with his sword, colours that consist of blue and orange appear trailing his sword. Whenever the orange trail appears, its time for you to click. Its by no means better than the aforementioned general ways of combat done in several RPGs, but its a system that breaks the mold, if only slightly. I haven't gotten tired of it yet, but I'm not too far into the game by RPG standards, so we'll see how well it holds up throughout the game soon enough.

Dialogue:

The dialogue from NPCs is decently written, nothing has stood out much yet. The voice-acting can range anywhere from decent to below-average. I've run into conversations where I felt I was about to make the choice of what to reply, but it just continued on without any choices. The only lines of dialogue I've so far been able to make in conversations have been just starting up a new subject, or changing the subject at the end of a conversation. Maybe I'll run into some of those later into the game, but if I don't, its nothing that can't be overlooked.

Graphics:

Even though its running on a heavily modified version of the Aurora Engine (Neverwinter Nights), it looks really nice, even by today's standards. There are some spots that irk me a bit, such as the faces on some characters look a bit low-res, or the lack of Anti-Aliasing (Though that's my fault, since I decided to go with the 320mb GTS, bumping Anti-Aliasing really brings down the FPS, which I'll get to in a sec) Those aside, everything else is easy on the eyes, especially when the lighting is in effect outside. With my rig (See bottom of About Me page) I'm able to get 100+ FPS indoors, and 40-60 FPS outdoors (Used FRAPS to check). Tried forcing x4 AA with the nVidia Control Panel, and that caused longer load times, and the framerate to drop by 50%.

Bugs/Annoyances:

I've encounted a few minor bugs here and there, and one reoccuring major one I hope they fix soon- Keep in mind I do have Patch 1.1 installed (Though I haven't tried 1.1a, but it only fixes a certain spot in Act V according to the patch notes, so I think I'm just going to wait till the next major patch comes out). The minor bugs aren't much worth mentioning, so I'll just skip them. But the major one I have is the random crashing. Sometimes when I'm loading into a new area, or loading a previous save, all of a sudden it'll crash for no apparent reason. I'm guessing this has something to do with Vista, even though I installed the Virtual-Memory leak update installed, so I hope a proper fix comes out soon. Speaking of loading saves/new areas, they're really starting to become irritating, especially since I need to constantly save so I don't lose too much progress when the random crash occurs. Loading a previous save/new area takes anywhere from 10-20 seconds. I know it doesn't sound like much, but since there's a lot of loading between houses/caves/dungeons etc., it can really start to get annoying. The same can be said about Quick-saving. Hope this gets fixed in the next major patch as well, or at least lowered.

These probably aren't very helpful at all if you're looking into buying the game, but I need more time to give a better impression of the game. Overall though, its been starting to satisfy what I've been looking for in an RPG. If it gets better as the game goes on, it'll definately be a memorable RPG. Unfortunately, this week is looking to be another busy school week, so I think I'll have to wait till next weekend to get more serious time into it.

The game feels like more Diablo-esque fun. Finish quests, grab some loot, rinse, repeat. The formula feels pretty much the same, maybe with a few minor tweaks here and there. The graphics aren't by any means phenomenal, but they're easy on the eyes. With my rig (See bottom of "About Me") I was able to set everything on/Very High, with the exception of Anti-Aliasing, which I had to put at medium. Setting it any higher caused the game to take exceptionally longer to load, and hiccup a lot. There wasn't any major graphical image loss from Very-High to Medium, so not much to complain about there.

Overall, if you've already made up your mind about Hack N' Slash games, and you really don't need to play any more- Judging by the demo-Hellgate: London isn't going to change your mind. On the other hand, if you're still craving some more Hack N' Slash action, maybe even with some old Diablo playing friends, Hellgate: London definately has the formula down right. Personally, I'll probably end up picking it up if some of my old Diablo 2 friends come along for the ride.

Now that that's out of the way, the games I'm currently playing.

I grabbed a copy of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords for PC from GamersGate. For 20$, I thought it was a pretty good deal. Been jumping in and out of it every now and then. Getting more addictive the further I get into the game.

Tomorrow, I plan on picking up The Orange Box for myself, since I've got a 3 day weekend. I've already prepared to play Half-Life 2 and Episode One all over again before jumping into Episode 2, by downloading FakeFactory's Cinematic Modv4.0. I'm excited to check out the graphical differences tomorrow, as well as playing Portal and Team Fortress 2.

And finally, Unreal Tournament III (Beta?) Demo. If you look at my Xfire profile, I've been really enjoying the game, even with only 3 Maps. Feels a lot faster than any of the previous UT installments. I'm looking foward to how the character customization system works, the new campaign- Instead of ladder matches- And the new Warfare mode.

Half way through October now. Couple more weeks before the crazy month comes. I'm still hoping I can find some way to grab an Xbox 360 for Mass Effect. If not, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Hellgate: London, The Witcher, etc. etc. should be able to keep me busy.

If for whatever reason you've been reading my blog, you'll know I've been craving an RPG since finishing Kotor 2; And if you didn't know that, well now you do. I've been fairly unsuccessful to find an RPG that matches the thrill Kotor 1/2 gave me. Along the way, one of the games that really disappointed me was Jade Empire, when I finally got my hands on it. I had really high expectations for Jade Empire to be a deep RPG, since it was developed by Bioware. What I got slapped in the face with instead, was what I personally thought to be, a really shallow game, in comparison to other RPG games developed by Bioware. Almost all the elements that made Kotor to be fun were stripped down. Repetitive and shallow "Action/RPG" combat, shallow stat building, shallow side-quests, lack of proper inventory, and shallow exploration elements. The only positive things I can say about Jade Empire is the solid voice-acting, decently written script, and mildly-interesting, but forgettable, characters. Inspite of all the negatives of Jade Empire though, I managed to overlook those elements, and finish the game; In 11 hours...

I'll be honest, I didn't do the side-quests like I do with all my other RPGs; Mainly because with the lack of an inventory, the rewards either amounted to Silver, or another useless skill I'd needlessly have to spend my points on. That alone really irked me throughout the whole game. Why should I bother doing the side-quests? The two skills you get right from the start of the game, assuming you only focus on upgrading those two, will get you right to the end without needing any other ones, and silver is piss-easy to get- Also very useless. All the things that you could buy, you can get better going through the main quest.

The combat became very repetitive after a short while, and basically boils down to this: Keep hammering the regular attack button, and if they block, use heavy attack. If they use a heavy attack, jump behind them and keep hammering that Left-Mouse Button! I would have been just as satisfied as I was with Kotor if they just used the same combat-system. As it stood, I managed to look over it. On the plus side, it was mildly entertaining to watch my character jumping around and fighting.

Lastly, the exploration. Oh man, the game felt so linear when it came to this. Again, the problem with the lack of a proper inventory system crops up. Why should I bother looking for optional power-ups, if I'm going to get better ones through the main quest? And even if I wanted to go out of my way to look for the chests/crates (or in this case, Bamboo Casks), most of the areas boiled down to forked roads that lead to either continuing the main quest, or beating up a few more enemies to get another useless power-up. There were very few open fields that just let you explore, get lostand soak in the environment, if any at all.

So, in-short, a passable and mildly entertaining RPG that pushed back that crave in the back of my mind for another RPG- Only a little bit though.

Now, two things are happening in terms of my craving for another good RPG. I've found a mod for Baldur's Gate I to use the improved engine graphics engine of Baldur's Gate II - Now its more bearable on the eyes, so I'm going to take a whack at that and try to play it again. Second, I'm on the fence againabout whether or not I should grab an Xbox 360 this year, for Mass Effect. Fully customizable character that actually speaks (Both male and female), and Bioware claiming its "the most non-linear game we've ever made"? Please, that alone is all the incentive I need to buy an Xbox 360. Hopefully they learned from their- Again, what I personally consider, mistakes with Jade Empire. Of course if I do decide to pick up a 360, I'll alsolook foward to being able to play Dead or Alive 4, Ninja Gaiden 2, Grand Theft Auto 4, etc. as well.

Of course, I haven't forgotten about the RPGs coming out for the PC this year. The Witcher seems very promising from the recent videos and previews shown, and Hellgate: London looks like more Diablo-esque fun. Not exactly the kind of RPG I've been looking for, but if I can round up my old Diablo II playing friends again to play Hellgate: London, I'll be excited.

Unexpectedly, I saw a pretty nice deal on a 22" Monitor at one of the computer shops near my house. A Viewsonic 22" Widescreen Monitor (1680x1050). For 179$ (After rebate), I think I got myself a pretty nice deal.

So far, its been a pretty big improvement over my Sony 19" LCD (1280x1024) Websites are a bit more convinient to navigate, and my games seem to look much better - And not much of a performance decrease, that I can notice.

November looks like its going to be one hell of a big month, with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis, and more I'm most likely missing, coming out-- And just when it looked like November couldn't get any better for me, it did.

Rock Band announced for the PS2

I've been keeping an eye on Rock Band since I heard about it, seeing as I'm a fairly big Guitar Hero fan-- And by big, I mean I've 5 Star'd all the Guitar Hero 2 songs on Expert. I was fairly disappointed when it was only announced for the PS3/Xbox 360, since I don't have either, nor do I really want to purchase another guitar. I was even more bummed when I saw some of my favourite songs being playable in the game, such as"Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive", "Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper", and more.Seeing Rock Band announced for PS2 has gotten me really excited for it now, hopefully it'll be compatible with the Guitar Hero controllers so I don't need to go plunking more money for another peripheral. Another great game to add to the 2007 list... And another tear drop from my wallet. >_>

On a side note, my new rig has arrived today! (Specs a few posts down) Now I gotta go hunting for a copy of BioShock...

I may spew out potential spoilers for Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, so if you haven't played it yet, you've been warned.

So yea, after finishing The Longest Journey, I went straight on to playing Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and boy was that a quick journey. It took me half the time of The Longest Journey to finish Dreamfall, and I didn't skip a single word of dialogue. I went into Dreamfall expecting a great, longstory with some more hair-pulling puzzles. What I got instead, I wouldn't call disappointing, but I surely wasn't satisfied.

Instead of answering any questions I had from The Longest Journey, Dreamfall piled more questions on top of me, and none of them were answered. One of the most disappointing "endings" I've seen since another sequel, to another great game. The gameplay, that honestly didn't need to be there, was mediocre at best. The combat/stealth were laughably easy, and seemed to get in the way more than anything else, and the abscence of hair-pulling puzzles was disappointing.

I could nitpick every little thing about the story, and gameplay, but I think I'm a year late to be complaining, so I'll just end it at that, and cross my fingers in hopes that Dreamfall Chapters comes quickly.

On an unrelated note, Bioshock Demo will be finished downloading in 30 minutes!

Been rocking this Pentium 4 for 3-4 years now. Got a minor upgrade to my GPU last year,but its starting to show its age, so I decided to go looking into a whole new PC a few weeks ago. After helping two friends build new PCs recently, I decided to get myself one. Here are the basic specs:

Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66 GHZ

8800GTS 320mb Superclocked (Got it cheaper than the regular 8800GTS 320.. O_o)

Corsair DDR2-800 2GB

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R Motherboard

I expect it to last me for a few years, even with the new Quad-Processors rumoured to be coming late this year. At the latest, I'll be recieving it on the 24th, three Days after Bioshock is officially released... Still wondering if I should keep the box closed until I recieve my new computer, or just start playing with this computer...

In terms of games, I haven't been doing much lately. Recently picked up more old games, such as The Longest Journey, Dreamfall: The Longest Journeyand Planescape: Torment. After playing The Longest Journey for about 15 hours, I can safely say its my favourite Adventure game of all time. Although that's not saying much, since I'm not the Adventure-game type of guy. Some really hard puzzles that had me stumped for a long-while, to the point where I almost pulled some of my hair out. Other than the hair-yanking puzzles though, the story is really interesting, and the dialogue is well written and executed.Haven't skipped a single word yet. With Planescape: Torment, I haven't seriously gotten into it just yet, only dabbled with it so far, and its what I expected- Outdated graphics, but awesome gameplay and story elements. Why don't they make RPGs like this anymore? T_T.

On the more recent-side of things, been replaying Rainbow Six Las Vegas with one of my friends since he got his new computer, and I've been jumping in and out of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl from time to time, trying to finish it up. Basically just waiting for Bioshock and Medieval II: Kingdoms to come out this month, hopefully I finish up at least The Longest Journey and Dreamfall before they come out.