I'd copy paste this except I don't like the gamespot background, so check the review here. http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3152674&did=1

I've had a pretty stressful week. Finals are coming up for med school, I haven't had the oppertunity to play many games, hang out with my girlfriend, or do capoeira because my Mom got a post-surgical infection, which is pretty serious, so I'm running to and fro. Feels like a lot of real life garbage hit me at once, but a sort of metaphysical life preserver was thrown to me by some gentlemen who liked the quality of my reviews. Here is the pm that was sent to me. Review Recommendation: Tekken: Dark Resurrection (PSP) To Squids-Ahoy: Due to the quality of your review, I am glad to extend an invitation to join The Community Contributions Union. Your review will appear on our union bulletin and in the next issue of ReviewSpotting within the "Week in Review" section as one of the best reviews for Tekken: Dark Resurrection. Winner of the GoScer for Best UCB/Union, The CCU is dedicated towards establishing a community of Gamespot and GameFAQ users that have submitted quality reviews and editorials. Many of our staff writers - DrFish62, MrCHUP0N, ShenLongBo, and myself - are not only moderators for GameSpot, but also staff writers for other professional websites (Trigames.net, GamerWithin, and honestgamers), so if you're interested in getting feedback from other video game journalists, we have the experience to assist you. Our union has representation from a host of international members, GameSpot moderators, and writers from other websites. We believe that great player reviews are being drowned out by all the one-paragraph, spamming reviews and that they are not being featured as they should. In response, the union features ReviewSpotting, a longstanding "Review of the Week" magazine posted in the General Games Discussion Forum, on a weekly basis. We encourage your submission into the contest, which is open to all GameSpot members. As a member of our union, you can request critiques on your reviews and editorials in a writer's workshop where members critique the works of others; and most importantly, you can share your work with those that write about video games as much as we like to play them. Sincerely, Draqq_Zyxorian Head Officer of The Community Contributions Union Moderator for GameSpot I feel vindicated for the level of effort I put into my work here at gamespot, not just in my blogs which hopefully leave readers with a little nugget of something juicy to chew on, but also my reviews which are written with professional quality. It's nice to see someone encouraging perfection in gs members for the sake of improving the site, and I feel as if a second wind has kicked in.

Recently, I was accosted by the morality police when my lovely young lady commented on the state of dress, or rather undress, of my character in Monster Hunter: Freedom. Indeed, upon entering the game, she appears to have little in the wardrobe department, having figured that Monster Hunting was best accomplished in a thong. Personally I question the logic, I would figure chaffing would be involved, but largely this is just the least common denominator to address a larger problem, in that games portray women as sex symbols. It's impossible to argue either, 90 percent of games that feature women have them poorly dressed or impossibly vulnerable, emotionally as well as physically. Though Tomb Raider would be far to simplistic as a poster child for the prototypical sexual identity assigned to the female gender, I find games like Xenosaga, Tales of Symphonia, or even Dynasty Warriors taking great pains to illustrate icons of sexual desire. Before a great tirade engulfs the point of this post, I concede there are numerous games to the contrary, like Metroid, or Resident Evil, but largely these are exceptions rather than the rule. However, we've only analyzed one side of the issue, and indeed I would be no advocate of intelligent discourse if I did not address the other. Men, in games, are portrayed as the Grecian stereotype; handsome, muscle bound, powerful, rich, and typically these characters have one fatal flaw which their enemies exploit to make them suffer. The greco tragedy is the mold by which other characters are tested. Though the actual event by which the character "falls" so to speak has various entrences in games, usually the event precipitates the gameplay. The event is used to draw the audience into the game, and generate sympathy for our poor hero, who has to suffer through x many levels of falling down into endless pits or being killed by generic zombie monsters, so games that deviate from this course are noticed. Certainly it would be audacious to compare the two states of inequality, one being a sex object, and the other a teen masturbatory aid, however it's necessary for one who brings up the case of inequality to analyze both sides of the coin before flipping it for a chance to be heard on the bully pulpit (thank you Roosevelt). I'm not trying to advocate the change of character design in games, but merely trying to point out that first, this sort of problem affects both sides of the x chromosome. Second, this is an entertainment industry, so if we buy a game, that validates the industries efforts, and they make more to satisfy the consumer whore within us. Finally, this is a video game. It isn't real. These people don't exist. So when somebody tells me they are offended by a game that portrays women as sex objects, I'm inclined to point out that these digital representations of the feminine lobby are no more woman than I am the muscle bound hero trying to save them.

I write this in the wake of sampling the sub par appetizer that is the Darkstar One demo. Imagine Freelancer, but with a sprinkling of rpg elements and you've got the summation of Darkstar One. The sin of Darkstar One is treading on the beaten path, not daring to venture outside the box to take a stab at anything new. The plot, gameplay, and even the sound is recycled from the historical anuls of its ancestors, and yet I wait with anticipation for its release. Complaints aside, it's nice to see someone carrying the torch for space sim fans, even if this only looks like a half baked effort. In the past few years, space sims are about as numerous as Daikatana fans, the well having dried up about the time that Freespace 2 came out. With its release, critics heralded the game with numerous accolades. Excellent, Amazing, Unbelievable, it's like sex except your getting it, all were bequeathed unto them, and life was good. Except the game didn't sell well. According to Wikipedias entry on the game, the exceedingly poor sales of the product sounded the death knell for space sims everywhere, proving that people just weren't interested anymore in the subject matter. Since then there have been a few games, like the lancer series, or some third party efforts to bring back the old privateer games, or even privateer knockoffs like X, but largely these don't capture the essence of what made space sims great; large scale capital ships getting blown to kingdom come. I look forward to lucasarts developing another xwing or tie fighter game, even a rogue squadron would satiate my appetite. For the moment, my yearning is abated only of two thoughts. The first is that the roleplaying genre went through the same phase until Baldurs Gate came out. The second is that Freelancer will always have a place on my hard drive. Always.

If you haven't heard about the news about E3, you might want to sit down for this blog post. Everybody else, go get the large soup spoon and the tub of ben and jerry's. When I heard yesterday morning that E3 would no longer be a mega show, I was initally convinced by the snappy comments from the powers that be that, no, this will no longer be a circus, as if it were clowns instead of booth babes marching down the isles. Popcorn aside, E3 has been cut to size, allowing only about 5000 attendees, taking place during the summer, and focusing more on larger companies with products to pitch. The phrase I wish to pitch to them rhymes with clucking bell. The E3 we know and love is dead now, no massive trade floors with thousands of people competing to play a new game about rolling balls or playing guitars. There will be no week in our lives that seems to be to distant to affect us, a copy of a copy of a copy. Our energy and our time was focused on how many hitpoints the boss was going to have, or if the sandwich had a crispness and freshness rating. The week was like Christmas, the world cup, and prostitiution day wrapped into one. You had your home team, the team you wanted to lose, and everybody went home happy. Now, all we have left is the husk of a dream, most likely never to be filled. Mellodrama aside, I'm ashamed that E3 would take this direction, because the show allowed for smaller name companies to get their products in the open. Now that the show seems to be devoted to the big names like Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Konami, Capcom, and what have you I doubt that smaller companies will ever have a chance. Whether the consequence was intended or not, the result is depressing. There will be other gameshows, like the TGS, or the Microsoft or Konami one, but they never had the power E3 had, and they never will. Truly, with the martyrdom of the greatest symbol in gaming, I mourn the passing of one era, and hope that in death we find life in another.

Within the month, after school slows down and I can relax for a bit, I'd like to throw on a contest for the hard core gamer within all of us. I will post questions, video's, screenshots, quotes, or whatever I feel like, and you will have to identify the item based on what I post. The person who gets the most questions correct will get a prize, mailed to him by myself, based on the correctitude of his answers and quantity. Anyway, something to look forward to, so get your game on, and get ready to rumble....soon!

More and more, I find the average gamer willing to forgo on what is considered "cutting edge" in graphics and gameplay in order to find a gaming experience to satiate their appetite. One friend, for example, is more than content with playing Zelda: A Link to the Past rather than the new Zelda, which she thought was garbage. As gaming finds itself hitting incredible heights with photorealism and interactivity, more and more games are suffering tremendous commercial defeats, because gamers don't want a tech demo, but rather a solid game to enjoy. An article I read some time ago had an executive from one of the big companies, I believe it was Nintendo, stating that the production time and values for video games are reaching such astronomical values that it is quickly becoming impossible for a company to produce a top quality product without unheard of levels of investment. While the gaming community can always expect games of Halo, Crysis, or Final Fantasy quality, third parties are most likely going to adapt to what their base appreciates best. A recent example, a game named Ship was reviewed by Gamespot, recieving an 8.3, and admirable score. This effort was compounded by the fact that the game is a third party development with no past experience, and that the price tag is 20 dollars. The apotheosis of the game is a murder mystery, with people not only searching for their target, but also trying to keep from being murdered themselves. The full review can be found on the site, but the idea is so refreshing and inventive that it became the highlight of my week. Finding a fresh idea that makes you say "now why didn't anybody else think of that" is a rarity in this commercialized business industry, but will most likely become a staple of the surviving companies. The saturated gaming market today is, in my "expert" opinion, going to encounter a mass exodus of companies folding and a consolidation of resources and talent in order to survive. Certainly games like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo will be around for some time, but it's the third party games that are going to dominate these consoles. Personally I look forward to seeing the future of gaming focusing more on innovation and creativity rather than the creation of a commercially succesful product. If what I predict comes to pass, then we will all be better off. Counter-Strike will no longer have a place on hard drives.

Recently I purchased Tekken: Dark Resurrection for the PSP, and I've enjoyed it a great deal. It's a near perfect translation of the PS2 version of Tekken 5 with some added goodies such as online support, though limited as that may be, as well as a dojo mode to improve yourself and create a likeness of your fighting capabilities in an AI. Check my review if you wish to know what I thought, but that's really where I digress, because more and more I'm finding myself lamenting the fact that my PSP has the dpad from hell. Bathed in the menstral blood of a thousands prostitues and forged in the fires of the 666 level of hell, it constantly betrays me like you wouldn't believe. The diagonals in the game are nearly non-existant, forcing me to choose the less efficient hat stick just to do many of the moves. I've actually perfected switching back and forth, but it's such a hastle when I could just go pick up the PS2 version for less than 10 bucks at this point. It's not just Tekken that sufferes from this problem either. Street Fighter Alpha Max 3 also had a dpad problem, forcing players to use the hat stick to throw their hadoukens and hurricaine kicks. It doesn't seem like such a monster to create better controls or what have you, but the problem is pretty glaring considering the amount of money I paid. I know it's not my dpad either, when I played Winning Eleven with my dpad, I found that I had a great deal of control with the diagonal, so I know that isn't the problem. It's consistent enough though that I'm curious what the deal is. I enjoy Tekken, Eddie Gordo is still my favorite capoeirista, and Lei Wulong is still a badass extraordinaire, but it's probably not going to hold my interest long if this control issue keeps plaguing me. It's never the big problems that get me like bugs or instability, it's always the little ones like semi-crappy controls. Namco, how I rue the day...

Gamespot posted an amazing link today which I think is very telling of the course gaming is taking.

Unfortunatley, because of the incredible sales of games, the growth of the industry, and it's infiltration into nearly every social strata, it's inevitable that the executives are going to indulge themselves. It's happened before, like when John Romero stated that Daikatana was going to make us his female dog. I had a good laugh at his expense, as did we all. Ignoring the bad examples however, the link I posted above is an announcment saying that there is going to be an announcment in the future. Is this the new premature ejaculation of the gaming industry, people saying that something will happen in the future? I can understand the relative exhuberance and excitement overtaking the devs as they complete a project that took up a great deal of their lives, but the result is going to be a rather jaded gaming community. More and more when a company says "Oh hell yes, something is going to be announced soon" or "sweet monkey Jesus, this game will be released soon!" I'm inclined to roll my eyes and go drink a beer. I can't say exactly where it started, but it's becoming more and more prominent since the shenanigans at Valve with Half-Life 2. No, Gabe Newell did not eat the source code, it probably wasn't programmed. This goes double for the delays on Halo 2. I bought Xbox live in 2003 with the intention of playing Halo 2 at the end of the year. That didn't happen. The most irritating example was the Killzone 2 video, which looked amazing. Why did it look amazing? Depends on who you ask. Sony insinuated that it was real time, but then the people who made the rendered vid claimed responsibility and said they had been working on it for over a month. Meaning the spent a month working on fabricated bullshot. Shame. The politics of gaming are becoming more and more prominent in recent years, spurning a number of bloggers whom we expect to sift through the crap and discover the truths. Though we can't expect a Walter Kronkite of the gaming industry to show us what's trustworthy and not, we can all do our parts to govern our industry. The next time something stupid happens like a release date gets pushed back, somebody lies about a game, or the graphics weren't tightened up, don't buy the game. You vote with your wallet.

I've uploaded a video as sort of a visual aid for this post, but if you don't watch it then you haven't lost anything. Rather, I'd like to discuss the impact my hobbies have on my taste in games. As much as I enjoy gaming, I enjoy martial arts a bit more. It makes me look like teh cool, it gives me discipline, keeps my ass from getting to fat, and impresses ladies...sometimes. Among the various disciplines of martial arts, my favorite is Capoeira, a brazilian martial art which prides itself on being more of a dance than a fight. You aren't trying to kill your opponent, but rather give them the ol' tricky. Capoeira prides itself on both upright movement, like flips, rolls, cartwheels, and ground movements, which are difficult to describe so I won't try. It looks cool, it's great excercise, and it involves everybody. To see a capoeira group is a rare treat that people don't normally experience. To my everlasting delight, I discovered that Tekken has a practitioner of capoeira, Eddie Gordo and the Eddie Gordo knockoff lady. Tekken 5 was a blasty to play, because I recognized the moves that Eddie was doing, though some were slightly improbable, and saw that I could do some of them myself. Since then, I've preordered the PSP version, Tekken Dark Ressurection, which has met with critical acclaim already from Gamespot. The game comes out the 26th, and I am teh excited to get my filthy paws on a copy. I identify with Tekken more than any other fighting game because of Eddie Gordo, and it surprised me just how excited I got about the game. I've played plenty of games of hobbies I enjoyed, such as soccer or fighting metal gears, but the unique nature of capoeira and it's relative obsquirity in US society makes Tekken a special treat as it highlights something I enjoy a great deal. If any of you have a PSP, give this one a whirl unless Tekken gives you heartburn.