I know I haven't been here for a LONG time. Haven't answered to people's messeges, blogs, and whatnot and been missing out to review the latest movies I've seen (can't wait for Tropic Thunder, Iron Man was cool, Indy 4 was disapointing, Get Smart was hilarious, and Dark Knight is the best movie I've seen in a long time).

So I felt it was approriate to say that I am discontinuing me updating with people's actions or blogging... in GameSpot. I'm going to do this instead in GIANT BOMB (Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker's new video game website). Reply back if you have a profile there so that way I can send you a friend request. See you there!

- Charlton

Again, I haven't been blogging lately. I didn't post one of my favorite hobbies on this fine blog, but one of 'em is writting screenplays (original or adaptation). I started writing screenplays after my "the positive and negatives 1" blog after I started reading acatual screenplays of Annie Hall, There's Something About Mary, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

During my one week vacation off from school, I got writer's block all day and just wanted something to watch. I already watched Thank You For Smoking and Annie Hall the other day so what other DVD I have I can watch and have fun. I picked out my... THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. After watching it, I stamped it as my favorite film OF ALL TIME! Now back then when I was child, I would say my favorite film of all time was Space Jam. But seriously, 40YOV is so perfect in making me laugh hard and make me root for the kind fellow Andy (Carrell's character). I tried to do the look of the film's poster and I couldn't do it as perfectly as Carell's. I wanted to see this film for the poster and for Carell who I thought was really funny in Bruce Almighty, Daily Show, and Anchorman.

40-Year-Old Virgin, the title tells you what the story really is. But you would expect this film to be just raunchy and heartless. It is raunch, very raunchy. But it's got a lot of heart, you care for Andy and root for him and also like the personalities and side-plots for his 3 friends (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and that guy from Weeds). Andy and Trish (Keener's character) have such great chemistry and you like that they're a couple. It doesn't feel forced at all and that's a touchdown. It's also a great satire, I guess you can call it that, for expoloring Andy's first encounter with "protection", his drive home with a drunk girl, his waxing treatment, and his "date" with himself (which in the end stops the whole thing, and decides to watch Everybody Loves Raymond). If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to watch it. That is if you don't mind any humor reminiscent of Superbad or There's Something About Mary.

For us Americans, half or most of us don't like the Oscars Ceremonies (I mean look at last year's ratings, whoa!). Anyways this year's Oscar nominees happens to be the brightest, smartest, and wittiest comedies I've seen in a long time and that's Juno. It's basically Napoleon Dynamite meets Knocked Up added with alternative folk music and hip dialogue that will make older people want a translator to understand what a blog is. I really liked Juno a lot and the first time I saw it, I was amazed at why it was nominated for Best Picture. Then my heart went because Juno did win your heart. Without being too poetic, this movie has very funny lines of dialogue like "That ain't no etch-a-sketch. This is one doodle that can't be undid, home skillet." to "Honest to blog?". Oh and definately "He's got brains and guts coming out of the ying-yang". You might dislike the hip dialogue but I personally couldn't stop repeating most of the lines in the movie throught the whole 2 days after I've seen it.

The cast is great, obviously. Michael Cera does his sthick of playing as the nervous guy with perfect nervous comedic timing that will make Ben Stiller very jealous. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney play the supportive parents role very well though I wish more dialogue from J.K. Simmons. Olivia Thirlby as Juno's best friend Leah is funny in a weird way, but at times her wackiness took me out of the movie only 1-2 times. Jennifer Gardner and Jason Bateman have roles that will make you think their characters are very stero-typical as in you've seen these characters before. But during the progress of this fine movie, you'll realize that Gardner really should deserve Juno's baby while Jason Bateman's character is tough to like to but can be easily relatable to other men or women. But seriously, it's ELLEN PAGE who deserves the spotlight as well as to win Best Actress. Ellen Page's creation of Juno making her have a teenage vulnerbility to being a quirky, come-back hip girl is tought to have those two elements combined but Juno wins your heart that you start rooting for her throughout this unwanted pregnancy. I really liked Juno. And you know what? After I've seen it the second time (yes second) in the cinema, I asked myself something. Why couldn't there be girls in my high school like Juno?

My best friend named Jay drew a 40-Year-Old Virgin pic of me and it's not highly accurate I couldn't stop dreaming that this will be me someday. Hopefully, not going to be a 40-year-old virgin myself but anyways. Sorry I couldn't comment you guy's blogs for weeks but I've been busy with a bunch of school crap and screenplays (which isn't crap). Blog on this and I'll blog your next post. See you soon.

8)

Hey, I knowI haven't posted for so long, and if you're willng to reply back to this blog, I'll definately will reply too. I got to talk about Cloverfield, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Meet the Spartans, and Paradise City. Here's something different I'll do for this blog. One side will be Positive and one side we'll be Negative.

POSITIVE

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - I watched the 2 GS interviews and the first video diary and I instantly ran to GameStop and pre-ordered for the Xbox 360. I so can't wait for this game to come out, and the fact it's coming out in March 11th, it's a shock that it's close while Spore is so far away. Heh. Anyways, I re-visited the first R6: Vegas and I didn't like it as much as I thought I did when I played it a long time ago. Compared to Call of Duty 4, it'll end up as a loser if those two games ran in the Olympics.

Cloverfield - This movie was EPIC. It's a movie experience, just like I Am Legend, that seriously shouldn't be missed. It's the next Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla, and no not the American remake, but basically those monster movies that were entertaining. Blair Witch's intense horror of not knowing much meets elements of Godzilla. It doesn't include those long boring speeches of "Oh this monster was formed by nuclear warfare" but it's a story about a group of a few young adults trying to survive from the monster as they try to help the main character's girlfriend who is where the monster is. I know, I know "Why would you want to get in the middle of the city where there's the monster?". Well, it's called love. I don't want to spoil much, and if you didn't see this movie yet you won't know what I meant by that "love" answer. New York City has gone through a lot of stuff from movies, Godzilla, King Kong, I Am Legend vampires, and etc. It's like a roller-coaster simulation like Back To The Future Ride at Universal Studios for less than an hour and a half, but it's so darn good. I loved it and I plan to watch it again next week, but then I again I'll miss Strange Wilderness . It raises questions and knows it can't answer them because it's all told from the camera. The camera might be way too shaky all the time but I just recommend not to eat food so you won't be distracted and to sit all the way in the back so you won't hurt your eyes as much. If you're over 40 years old, your eyes will hurt even if you sit in the back. The ending might make people mad, but I liked it because "it was supposed to be like that people!" I give it a 4.5 out of 5 or 5 out of 5.

NEGATIVE

Burnout Paradise - This game isn't bad, I tried the full game at GameCrazy this weekend and I enjoyed it. But the reason why I didn't get it is it because I don't have the time to commit myself into playing a game. So sorry. Driving games hurt my fingers and thumps I got to add but I digress.

Meet the Spartans - This movie sucks soooooo baddddd. It steals jokes from everyone and other jokes that are already done and other jokes that is not original and is unfunny. I shouldn't even call these jokes, jokes. I should call them references. This movie doesn't deserve to make money at all, it should deserve to be buried in a burial site alongside the lame parody movies like Date Movie and Epic Movie, and then let Rambo and Cloverfield monster kill the movie reels. This movie gets .0 out of 5 or 0 out of 5, don't pay to watch it, rental or at the theatre, sneak into the theatre or wait for the bootleg online. AVOID!

:?

Hey everyone. I hoped you all had a pleasant New Year's Eve and Day. I was thinking of a good blog to start off the new year (2008). During that time, I was listening to a new CD I bought that just came out this week. The CD was so good, I just had to tell my fellow Gamespotters on my thoughts about it.

I'll be really honest. This is my first time listening to Radiohead, so I didn't expect much. I went through a few of my friends' best albums of 2007 and most of them had In Rainbows on their list. A day later, a friend of mine I knew personally sent me one song from the In Rainbows digital download, and it was 15 Step (which is the first track on the album). I thought it was good, and I just went on with my life. During Christmas break, I just couldn't stop humming 15 Step, and I finally decided to buy the album on 1-02-08.

The first thing you should consider is to have a blank CD case ready, as the package comes with only a CD envelope for the CD, stickers, the pampler. The "do-it-yourself" packaging is really cool, and I had fun trying to put the stickers on the blank CD and such. But I can imagine that some people might be turned off by this, and would pay extra for a more professionally made CD.

Radiohead is experimenting with rock, and in this album in particular it will certainly entertain. It's a great album for the start of a hopeful year, and hopefully it won't be just recongnized as the album to feature "do-it-yourself" packaging or "pick-your-price" digital downloading, but as a collection of great songs surely to be accesible to everyone.

:?

It's not a traditional Game Awards blog, but it's my personal take on which (Xbox 360) game was great, okay, and down right horrible.

Woots

BioShock - A true masterpiece of storytelling and do-it-your-way gameplay is my overall take on a game. The atmosphere, Rapture, makes you feel you are part of the history of what's bound to happen. Voice recordings, cheeky advertising, and old music takes you in and makes you discover as what seemed to a perfect paradise for people went down the drains, literary. The big part of the game could be the Little Sister/Big Daddy interractions, if you have played the game you would probably agree with me on that.

The Orange Box - With only 60 bucks to spend on a great deal of 5 games, what's there to lose? 3 games of playing Half-Life 2's single-player, an extremely innovating puzzle game with dark humor called Portal, and the sequel to the grand-daddy of team-based shooters Team Fortress 2. You'll get more than what you bargain for.

Halo 3 - It's all about Master Chief this time, and as usual it's time to kick some Covenant butt. The story in this game isn't great, but the gameplay is so fun, especially the last mission involving a warthog, awesome music, and big explosions. Halo 3 offers a lot more than just matchmaking and single-player but co-op, map editor, and video editor will make the longevity. Bungie, you dit it!

Call of Duty 4 - World War II games are boring, thankfully Infinity Ward got the messege and they bring an awesome fast-paced, bad to the bones, tactical shooter. The story is disapointing in that it's short, but the way it touches on themes like media, sacrifice, and etc. makes it worthwhile. The multi-player is really the beef of it all, and it's fun too although don't expect it to be as easy as most shooters. You really got to pay attention.

Rock Band/Guitar Hero III - Games like this usually don't stand out as Game of The Year, that's a shame because R.B. and G.H.3. are great party games with innovation somewhere in there that everyone can enjoy... if they have the patience.

Mass Effect - I loved this game and it's definately worth the pick-up... if you know what you're getting yourself into. There are problems like the story is too convuluted, first it's about one alien race, and then there'sanother alien race hating the alien race they told you about before and then there's some myth which is real who wants to destroy all life and blah blah. The gameplay is what matters and it's half third-person shooter and half RPG, combined it's great fun. However, some missions, traveling to other planets, driving, and some boring conversations probably would make this game in "Ehh" section but the overall presentation makes this a w00t! It's a game not to miss.

Ehhs

Stranglehold - I admit it was a good game, but it's the type of game where it doesn't go beyond what you expect. What I expected was just having a good time with the relentless action it was going to offer, and that's it. I didn't get anything other than that which isn't a bad thing. The multi-player was mediocre and it's better off not playing it all. Trying to find a match is painful. It's cool to see a game to be treated like it's a DVD, and you've played the game, you'll see what I mean.

The Simpsons Game - It's easily the funniest game of the year, but what makes this an "Ehh" is just the gameplay. It's sometime too repetive. Some puzzles, enemies, short story, and overall lack of value makes this funny game stay sadly in the Rental section.

Assassin's Creed - Imagine Splinter Cell but you have more options like free-roaming and cool platform elements combined with a mediocre story in a good-looking historical movie (ex: Gladitor). Your MAIN goals are basically doing the same thing over and over again, the other goals are sometimes exciting or gives you the downright "might as well play it anyways..." feeling. The ending made me decide to go "Ehh", and yes I did play it during the Christmas break on a different profile.

Boos

Hour Of Victory - This World War II game was so painful for me. There's a demo on Xbox Live Marketplace to give you an warning on what is expected to come. It has horrible presentation from weapons, vehicles, cutscenes, graphics, health, and everything else. You can't take down a tank while you're driving a tank, but you can take down a tank with one grenade. In cutscenes, when the characters are talking the music and background sounds are so loud, you barely hear the characters making you read the subtitles. There is no special objectives to keep the game exicting, it's a Call of Duty (WW2) rip-off done horribly, horribly wrong.

Fuzion Frenzy 2 - This game is not worth buying forachievements, but it's okay for a mini-game game. The mini-games are sometimes good and sometimes bad. The "host" of the video game is so annoying, it's painful listening to him when you can't skip him during online play. Oh yeah, the online play in this game is pretty cool, no lag whatsover. But what makes this game bad is just that if you win the mini-games, it doesn't matter, you probably will still lose somehow. This is Mario Party for the Xbox but with no cuteness or loveable characters. See where I'm going?

The Darkness - The story was actually pretty good, but the gameplay is sometimes downright boring. The demon powers are sometimes cool, but after a few hours there's not a lot to do. The presentation is pretty good, but there's nothing really special or stands out from most first-person shooters released this year. I don't even want to start with the multi-player.. Ugh.

Huh?

Any game in this category is a game that I had a good time with but it's not a good game. It's a game that's between good and bad, stuck in the middle per say. So... huh?

Crackdown - Most people probably bought this game only for the Halo 3 beta which is a shame 'cause this game had a lot of potential for a game made by GTA3 creator. It took a simple concept about you playing a futuristic cop with cool abilities but that's about it. Driving cars isn't as exiciting as driving cars in modern times, the graphics isn't impressive but what is great is that there no slow-downs when going from one part to the city to another. There is some slow frame-rate at times when there is too much stuff going on. This game is probably worth a rental or buy for some if you just want to blow stuff up with a friend online.

Lost Planet - A game I was expecting so much actually wasn't that good or bad at all. The story is so out there, it doesn't make any sense. Imagine if you were reading a Harry Potter book, and then between the beginning, middle, and ending of the book, some pages are lost. That's what L.P.'s story is like. The gameplay is fun but it's repetive when it comes to taking down big enemies without using mechs. Boss battles are really cool, but you'll have to play 30 minutes of doing the same thing over and over again. Soon after a while the enemies don't look new, and mechanics like getting up after a fall or shooting is sometimes broken. The multi-player is so amazingly bad, I don't know where to start. The gameplay in the multi-player gets tire-some and less exiciting as time goes by. The game.. well.. ... huh?

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Happy Holidays and I hope this guide helped you ;)

-StarFry64

;)

I recently made a blog about how my Xbox 360 broke down (which is now deleted)because it wouldn't show up on my screen. Well, today is Christmas and you know what my parents got me? A new XBOX 360! I would like to quote Homer Simpson by saying "Woo Hoo!". & Now I'm Happy.

For Christmas, I got my copy of Guitar Hero III from my grandparents, some clothes, a DVD copy of The Simpsons Movie (still funny the third time watching it), Hot Fuzz 3-Disc Collector's Edition, and "The Big Beefy Comic Book of Bart Simpson" from my sis. This is the best christmas I've had so far.

I wish everyone a great Christmas day, vacation, and soon-to-be Happy New Year's. Let's not forget to say Happy Birthday to Jesus too.

:)

The "360 2007's Buyers Guide Through Woots, Ehhs, and Boos" is still not out from me yet but soon before Christmas.

I'm thinking of buying either Crysis or Unreal Tournament 3, but both as I've seen demand your graphics engine to be able to hold up. I'm no tech wizard or anything, but let's just say I've been using my computer since 2002. The only games I've bought for my PC was Unreal Tournament 2004, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, and StarCraft. All those PC games worked on my PC thankfully. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid if I buy Crysis or Unreal Tournament 3 and install it and whatnot, the game won't work. Unreal Tournament series I love bt I read there's a 360 version so I'll wait.. hopefully. But Crysis looks too good not to play.

I question myself a few times that PC games are hit-and-miss for some people. It's easier for console players to simply pop the disc in rather than putting in 4 discs to install one game along with getting a graphics engine. I've seen a lot of PC games that are point-and-click or mind-blowing first-person shooters, that a few years later get imported to consoles (Half-Life 2 for example). Give your thoughts on PCs vs. Consoles. To me, consoles win :(

:?

Just a short blog but I've decided to make an IGN profile: http://blogs.ign.com/StarFry/ but I'll still come back here every day or every so often, GameSpot will always be my favorite game site and I'm not making a new profile just because of Jeff.

Also for my next blog, I definately promise that it would at least be my "360 2007 Buyer's Guide Through Woots, Ehhs, and Boos".

Update: I just finished MASS EFFECT for the first time and wow, I'm impressed. Very. Full review very soon either this week or next week.

8)

You've probably read other blogs grieving over Jeff's termination at GameSpot and a major disapointment. Jeff was THE person right for GameSpot along with several GameSpot members that left such as Greg Kasavin. Rumor has it that Jeff got fired by his "Kane and Lynch: Dead Men" review with a score of a 6.0 (fair).

Rant

Eidos Interactive isn't partically happy of it not with the score, but the overall "tone". Wow, good excuse. Seriously, "tone"? The tone is that Jeff did not like "Kane and Lynch" so what's your problem. Sure, you're put an advertising campaign on GameSpot for the game, but you got to deal withharshopinions, Eidos. Heck, even IGN is running a "Hot Babes Contest sponsered byKane and Lynch" and the person who wrote the review didn't get fired (and the score was below 8.0), so what's the difference?

Honestly...

Before Jeff got fired, I tried Kane and Lynch and I agree, it has a lot of promises but it just doesn't live it up, and the swearing is lazy. Firing a person's opinion isn't going to change what the game is, and Kane and Lynch sucks.

Good Times Part 1

I had a previous account before I offically became just StarFry and one of my memories during the time was "Let's GameSpot!". You may or may not remember this show but it's basically a (really) shortned version of "On The Spot!" with news, contests (featuring Trivia Robot), and such. I entered a contest on one episode and I got a free GameSpot shirt, along with my name on who won the contest last episode. Hopefully I can show you a picture of me wearing the GameSpot shirt.

I used to remember Jeff being the funniest guy in GameSpot, for example I saw a video if him and Ryan Davis ad-libbing for an e3 Swag commercial. It was funny and surprising to see one of Jeff's unique talents, a sense of humor. Obviously you could see his sense of humor on HotSpot, On the Spot, video reviews, blogs, and such but now, no more which is a shame.

Good Times Part 2

It's not just us GameSpot users shocked(/delighted if you don't care) about the news but people around other game sites like Kotaku, IGN, Penny Arcade, and others find this well.... yeah. Here's a few links I found about Jeff's departure.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/29

http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/fired-cnet-editor-speaks-328660.php

http://www.gamespot.com/users/viiral/video_player?id=I3IwlDD75bwNvjPf

In Conclusion

What else can I say really, it's really horrible how journalism and advertising can make one valuable person be fired by his opinion. So, Jeff, this blog salutes you for your work in GameSpot.

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Note: My next blog, hopefully it'll be my 2007 edition of "360 Buyer's Guide through Woots, Ehhs, and Boos". I only play Xbox 360, but hopefully I'll get the Wii this christmas. See you guys next time.

:|

I've never played a game that makes you feel like you have an impact on what's going around you. Maybe BioWare has done so in KOTOR and Jade Empire but judging from most people, this game is their best. The game makes you feel like you're Captain Kirk but obviously you have more option, to becoming a renegade or doing the right thing. The most interesting part of the game is the conversations, it is so interesting to see how your actions by dialogue could effect how the story goes for you. My character so far is just trying to do the right thing in my first walk-through (which is on Casual). On my second walk-through I'm planning to make another character who'll be like the James Bond from Casion Royale (the Daniel Craigh movie, not the comedy). Forming relationships personally or professionally is pretty difficult as I try not to make a harsh or dumb comment to the person/people I'm talking to.

While I'm saving my other reasons for the full-length review, the game has it's issues. The driving sequences are odd, your vehicle moves so fast for something that looks completely heavy on the outside. The story is great but sometimes seem too hard on pushing you to new information (take LOST PLANET as an example). The conversations last a bit too long so if you're a little bit/completely impatient tolong cutscenes, this isn't your type. The coversations is impressive since it's using the game engine but sometimes errors like delayed dialogue (with characters having their mouths move but nothing heard) to subtitles disappearing too fast occur rarely but isn't much of a hassle. The missions sometimes don't give you a clearer or better understanding of what to do in a given situation even if you read the Journal, so if you're not a big fan into RPGs (which I am not) then you'll find yourself looking at the Game Guide.

The one thing I am worried about is the game's length. There are only a few main missions which I checked take at least 1 hour and a half- to 2 hours and a half. The side quests are interesting but nearly as exciting as the main missions. If you're not enjoying what The Citadel has to offer (which hold side-missions that helps you complete one of the main missions) then you've made a bad decision of buying/renting the game.The gunplay is actually pretty good, asking you to use tactical defense or tactical offenseora mixture of both. The game is quite a system hog despite the fact it's offline only, my 360 kept rumbling so much during conversations, loading screens, and mostly gunplay. On a few occasions, my 360 puts on the old "This disc is unreadable" which means the 360 is too lazy to hold the game anymore and needs to cool down. It frustrates me and probably other players that you have to start from a checkpoint far behind what you were doing and go over all again. BioWare's checkpoints are unforgiving, the best stragety is to save before or after a conversation, before you know there's a loading screen, and after a big fight or the second you're done with your mission.

So overall, the game's not for anyone. RPG fans who know what they're into would likely enjoy themselves but Halo or Gears of War fanatics should stay away, Mass Effect is truly not that game. It's RPG first and third-person action shooter second.

8)