Well, I guess I kind of broke my own vow for not posting anything non-game related, but what the heck, its a blog.

So, here's my life update:

1.) I am now down to three semesters left in college. Pursuing a dual-major in Business Management and Marketing, respectively. Hoping once I graduate i can get my two years experience then pursue my Master's (MBA to be exact).

2.) Holidays were good. Finally convinced myself to get an IPod, and am upgrading my 6 year old phone to a Blackberry Style. Got a golf bag and some golfing equipment for Christmas, (just started learning to golf).

3.) Currently going through a stage many men go through, what I like to call, "feminine fatality." There is a girl who is in some of my classes that I have come to respect and really like as a person (don't get me wrong, she's very pretty, but that's just icing on the cake for me). We only just met this past semester, and I really didn't start talking to her until November, but I really have come to like her alot.

I have asked her out twice before; the first I blame myself because I never followed-up and it never happened, the second I asked at a bad time (it was finals week). I asked it out for coffee or lunch over break, and sent her a reminder via Facebook on Monday. She has not responded as of yet, so I am wondering whether this is a polite "No" or just a coincidence she has not been on Facebook.

What concerne me is that this feeling I have towards her is different than with other girls I have asked out in the past. There was a point during this break that I sent her a text and she never responded for two days. With all the snow we have been getting (and the consequencial car accidents as a result) I became extremely worried, even at one point really upset, that something may have happened to her. Fortunately she did respond apologizing that she got a new phone. If she were any of my previous love interests, I would have just carried on with life those two days. But this was different. It was something I never felt before. Those two days she was always on my mind, so much that the only way I could get her off my mind was by playing a video game (and even then she kept popping back up at certain times).

Is it foolish to think that way? For someone whom I don't even know if that same feeling is mutual, or if at least that she thinks of me from time to time? Will I be able to tell her I feel this way, without coming off as creepy or clingy?

My ultimate fear though is this; even if it wasn't meant to be, she's a senior and will graduate after this semester, what will haunt me and, yes, even break a portion of my heart, is that she will graduate and that will be the end, we will never speak with each other again. This is why I want to take it slow, regardless of what happens this week with the proposed date. Although I am thinking of sometime in Febuary asking her to our junior/senior prom in March, but again am afraid that if I keep asking her I will only push her away.

Well, that's my life in a nutshell. Hope it was interesing, for any of you who wished to read through all of that.

Cheers.

No, this is not satirical (i.e. like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal; kudos to those who know what that is)

But rather a small number of proposals regarding the video game industry

1.) Regarding game budgets and development

- It seems very, very few quality games are developed by companies that either have little recognition, or that their publisher is very small. The games that do get good quality can be lumped into three categories: those that have a big publisher (hence the greater amount of money/time the publisher is willing to risk), the respect of the devloper (if the developer is known to create quality games, the amount of risk decreases, which allows the publisher to provide more money/timeknowing the game will sell well), and sequel/prequel to a popular franchise (which is logical considering the previous game(s) sold well, so publishers will look for quality better that the predecessors). But there are times when publishers putbig budgetsinto games simply because the idea looks good on paper, but then winds up being underdeveloped because of lack of experience by the development team.

Thus a solution to this would work for both problems. But both parties most be willing to forgo certain"things" in order for this to be met.In most cases, the publisher has the developer"sell", innon-monetary terms, their idea(s) to the publisher, and if the publisher like these ideas, they will accept. However, the method should be the reverse. A publisher should approach a developer with a set amount of money, then the developer should build an idea that can be worked within the proposed budget. For example,devlopers may come up with the greatest idea for a game or genre (for explanatory purposes, a game for Xbox360), give the idea to a publisher, and the publisher onlygives them a budget fit for an arcade game (in this instance, an Xbox Live Arcade game). In these cases the game either gets cancelled because the devloper just can't meet the budget or the developers are forced to pull alot of the creative ideas out because otherwise they won't meet the budget requirements, meaning a low-quality game will follow.

Not only would this in some form hopefully increase the quality of games, but would also increase competition, and allow developers to still create good games without having to be bought out by a big-name publisher in order to simply survive.

2.) regarding sports games

- As painful as this may seem to companies like EA Sports and 2K Sports, it should be proposed and enacted. For far too long the sports genre has been plagued by annual releases on what has become little more than roster changes and minor tweaks and fixes of gameplay mechanics (recently, though, some games are seeming to deliver a little more than that). In the now "DLC" era of the video game timeline, roster changes, bug fixes, and small gameplay mechanics can all be fixed using this concept. The former way was nothing more than spending anywhere from fifty-seventy dollars just to be promised the bugs from the previous game(s) were fixed and that the rosters would all be updated to the first game of x season. DLC can still solve this problem at a cost that is worthy of the service provided. But people still buy these games every year, which amuses me highly. Would these same people go about buying a new car simply because the brakes in their old vehicle were broken and because it lacked a GPS? This new method proposed would allow more fairness to the consumer while still having the game perform the same way it would take 4 or 5 seperate games to achieve. This would even benefit the developer to allow them more time (rather than a yearly budget) to produce something truly groundbreaking in the genre, rather than adding one bell or whistle at a time.

It is my hopes that the industry hears these simple yet effective proposals and at least gives them some thought. But yet who am I, a mere mortal of a man, to be heared by the game gods? (Ok, yes, that part was satirical).

Well, E3 has come and gone, sadly, but this year was alot better than last years E3, thankfully. So I will recap with my personal surprises, dissapointments and other worthy notes.

Big surprises:

-The announcement of Crackdown 2 and Left4 Dead 2

I for one am a huge fan of the first Crackdown, and from several articles months ago saying there most likely would be no sequel to Crackdown had me hugely dissapointed. That is until the trailer was shown at the Microsoft Press conference at this E3. Crackdown was, next to ES IV: Oblivion the best 60 dollars I have spent on a game so far and am looking forward to hearing more about the sequel. I was somewhat surprised that Valve decided to openly announce a sequel so soon after the first game's release, that usually is unlike them to do so.

-Molyneux and Lionhead's "secret project" revealed

After the showing of Project Natal, I was worried that Molyneux would be creating Fable III using Project Natal. Thankfully, this wasn't the case (yet). It seemed interesting yet scary at the same time, then again things Molyneux says should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Minor surprises:

-No word on Huxley

One of the games that peeked my interest two years ago had kind of taken the downturn as of late. The latest info given to the public was an article given last year explaining the RPG elements of the game (Huxley is supposed to be a RPG-FPS MMO for 360 and PC, and will actually allow PC gamers to play with 360 gamers). After constantly being pushed back and back until a late-year 2009 release, I was surprised that no mention of the game was heard. (Although my explanation is that the developer (also the publisher) is too small to be able to afford a booth, but couldn't a representative have possibly stopped in and gave the public some news? Or even asked Microsoft if they could show off their game during Microsoft's press conference? Who knows).

-No info on the newest DLC for GTA IV by Rockstar

Even though the DLC was only officially announced the week before E3, I thought that was part of Rockstar's plan to wet our appetites for E3. Unfortunately, I have yet to find so much as a trailer regarding the new episode in GTA IV.

- A true-blue Mario sequel from Nintendo

With Supre Mario DS being the exception, this was the first time innearly 16 years thatI think I have ever seen what would actually be called a "sequel" to a Mario platformer. Or any big-name Nintendo franchise, for that matter. If you haven't figured it out, I'm talking about Super Mario Galaxy 2. From the footage shown at Nintendo's press conference, it seems most like the original, give or take a few new elements (Mario drill anyone?) along with the addition of Yoshi. And from the looks of it, Yoshi isn't there simply to ride either. It seems new abilities that only Yoshi can do will have to be used in order to complete some levels (which is fine by me as long as it makes the puzzle aspect of the game a bit more challenging).

- Sony's motion-sensing controller

The sheer fact that Sony is almost replicating the Wii remote was a little shocker. But hey, if can attract a bigger fanbase to the PS3, that's not too bad. What WILL be interesting is to see which system developers flock too, now that all three have some sort of new "immersive" gameplay. Especially since the true lack of more gritty, hardcore titles on Wii is obvious, it will be interesting now to see which developers flock to whom.

Big dissapointments

- no gameplay footage of some games

Well, the two games I was hoping to see gameplay footage of, Borderlands and Star Wars: Old Republic, had none. Well, the people at E3 got to see some, but there was nothing for those of us who were restricted to watching footage from our monitors and laptops. Borderlands, which was just announced to be released this October, is stunningly lacking in gameplay footage, and for a game so close to release. There was footage last year, but that was before the art style changed. Most people have yet to see true gameplay footage, and most of the information given by Gearbox was already shared earlier in the year through various interviews and articles. And the fact that the interviewby Gamespot with the Gearbox rep. was nothing more than abunch of personal questions geared to the rep. (if you didn't see the interview, they talked about their favorite movies for half of the time).Hopefully a demo will be available through Live and the Playstation Network shortly before its release so the general public can REALLY get its hands on with the game. The latter of the two, Old Republic, can be respected that there was no gameplay footage to the public due to the fact thatBioware is still in early developmental stages and that no release date has been announced anytime soon.

Minor dissapointments

- no announcement of a bold new franchise by Nintendo

Maybe its the fact that Nintendo is still working on its "Wii" franchise (Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Music, etc.), or maybe its that Nintendo has some new device planning up there sleeves (Iwata's Vitality sensor aside). But after 3 years of the Wii selling on store shelves and no new word of an orginal IP from the Big N is a little shocking. And dissapointing. Don't let us down Miyamoto, don't let those down who had stuck by Nintendo even before the Wii was ever announced. You're genius has attracted the massive amounts of new casual gamers into the market, now it's time to reward those who knew of your genius beforehand. Pikmin was a great new IP from you, and we need more, Mr. Miyamoto and Nintendo, we need more.

Notes and Comments

- Microsoft's "Project Natal"

Does it look promising? Sure, most "new" things do. My one observation though is that while the camera can track length and width, does it really track depth? Sure, you could argue that the trailer video shown for it showed these things, but Nintendo's first trailer for the Wii remote made motion sensing look perfect, until two years later in the present day we realized we needed the Motion Plus to really get true motion control. Project Natal is something I'll keep my eye on but I'm nowhere near sold just yet.

- Keep E3 the way it was this year

This year's E3 was perfect. Not too big, and not too small, but just right. Yes, I just used a line from a children's fairy tale as an analogy. But it works. And so did this year's E3. So keep all future E3's to this year's standards.

- Console Fanboys

There is a difference between Console Wars and Console Fanboys. Console Wars is the battle between the console developers as to who's will emerge victorious each generation (if we are to look at it in respect to business, the Wii is clearly on top as of now). But console fanboys (and girls) are people who belittle the "other" consoles because it is not the one that THEY particularly own. So let me get this out of the way. TO ALL CONSOLE FANBOYS: YOU ARE NOT GAMERS. And you never will be until you learn to acknowledge each of the strengths and weaknesses of each console. Real gamers see the postives and negatives to each console, and then choose accordingly, much like choosing for college. But like college, not everyone chooses the same console. Why? Because each person has their own preferences. In gaming terms, functionality, reliability, library of games, level of immersion, non-gaming experiences, and just like college, price. Fanboys are nothing more than (insert Big Three name here)'s loyal customers who will buy anything and only anything for that system and who fall for every kind of advertising imaginable. And I for one would truthfully not be surprised if over three-quarters of these "fanboys" even bought the system with their own money, but rather had it given to them as a gift because its what the giver decided to get. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Back on topic. Exclusive games don't mean jack unless they are actually good. Games like Gears of War, Resistence, and Haloare nothing more than the everyday shooter that comes out, yet for some reason because they are exclusive, people automatically assume that that makes them better than anything else. The game itself has to be good; then again, "good" is different depending on who you are talking to. So to anyone else out there who hates fanboys, just remember, there words don't mean jack.

OMG.....

Sh-sh-sh-sheperd.....D-d-dead...WH...WHAT!?!?!?!?

How can this be?

Well, obviously this seems to be a huge and true 'teaser' trailer, because in the end it is really teasing all those who have played through Mass Effect and have become fans of the game.

My theory: (SPOILER ALERT FOR THE BOOK MASS EFFECT: ASCENSION):

Cerberus is going after Sheperd and in order to lower Sheperd's attraction to Cerberus, the Alliance has faked his death to get Cerberus off his tail and allow him to take clandestine operations against them...

Which if THAT is true, it could mean that Sheperd loses all his amor, weapons, and weapons upgrades (but not his stats, of course, that would go against what Bioware said about allowing players to use their existing characters from the first game for the next two, then again, this could be a sign that Bioware was not able to pull this off, which would be hugely dissapointing). Sheperd would have a new identity, which would help give explanation of starting the game with low-level guns (makes sense, wouldn't starting Mass Effect 2 with a level 60 character and ALL their high-level upgrades, weapons, and armor make the game a tad to easy?).

OR....Cerberus captured Sheperd somehow, and the party members are going to have to find him (which hints at the possibility of 4-player co-op, the scene where the trailer shows Sheperd's "Alien 4 Associates" might be a clue).

But I would go with my first assumption, seems more realistic, and it would not piss me off like the second option would.

Well, I try to keep my blogs related to games and the gaming industry, (this IS a gaming site, afterall), but today I figured I would vent on a current problem regarding school.

My Spanish 104 class (Intermediate Spanish 2, Spanish 4, whatever you want to call it), has become complete BS. Not only do we have written homework, but our professor added 2 other websites from which we have to do homework from (which means three different things of hw a night). Then, what was extra credit for my professor from last semester, this professor now makes mandatory. We have a quiz every day. And it is mandatory that we have to do community service in the surrounding Hispanic communities (when I don't even have a car to get to these places).

So I have to ask why we have to do all this sh!t when its only a low-level course, because I am now spending more time dealing with this one class than all my other classes combined (because I now have to study at least for 2 hours every single day, when I should be putting most of my time into my Marketing, Comp. Apps, and Multimedia courses[the first two with my Business Major, the last one with my Comp. Sci. minor]) So if I drop it, I will have to either a.) take the course sometime in the future again, or b.) take two culture courses (because it is required by my major to take either 2 language or 2 culture courses, don't ask me why this would be required of a business major).

And all of this is happening on today, my 19th birthday, Jan 19th. This day couldn't get any worse.

This may come as a shocker to many people, but it does not bother me in the slightest. When I mean CoD franchise I mean both versions; Treyarch's and Infinity Ward's. Why? I am sick and tired of this franchise getting shoved down my throat every single year. CoD has become the new Medal of Honor. I am sick of Activision milking consumers with yearly releases of a franchise. Give the franchise a rest and come back to it at a later time. Let Infinity Ward make another franchise up and use THAT as a back and forth, every two years the new franchise, then the next set of two years can be CoD. Treyarch has been working on titles other than CoD. I'm sorry if Activision thinks the only way to stay competitive is by killing franchises to death on a yearly (or shorter) basis, then count me out.

Another reason as to why I am leaving the CoD franchise is because of the enormously naive and annoying fanbase that it has now attracted. It boggles my mind that people suddenly bash Treyarch out of existence when they made a good game in CoD 3. I never found problems or boredom with that game, the story was great (of course, I think I am one of the very few that realized the importance in history of the campaign, when everyone else can only think of D-Day and Pearl Harbor as significant battles) The multiplayer was excellent; so many battles I can remember playing (the memorable CTF matches, the last minute flag saves, daring assaults on tanks [especially more than one], holding off the other team as support class while the rest of my team fell back to score the flag) All I can remember from CoD4 is the black and white: killing the other guy before he kills you. Even in objective games, the objective part (capturing the point, for example) seemed like a secondary objective: the main one was to kill. The game still awarded the team with points for killing, rather than making the objective the only point-earner (although the points were less than in regualr deathmatch games).

Another problem was the create-a-class. Not the fact that it was a bad idea in itself, but the fact that there was no balancing, or patches that would possibly make certain perks used more often. Martyrdom and Last Stand were the two most overused perks in this game, and there were plenty of perks that were either hardly used or unnecessary. The perks for being able to hear and blocking the ability for the other team to hear I have hardly heard anyone use, and why bother with a perk to have two primary weapons when it is as easy as switching a pistol with a dead player's weapon in-game? Were there any patches to maybe fix overusage, overpoweredness, or maybe even add some new perks? No. The only DLC IW had at all was one new map pack. Just one. For me that decreases replayability because, for one, new maps every so often add some freshness to the mix, plus add more of a gaming community to the game. In comparison with a game like Halo 3, where Bungie constantly patches the game, sends out DLC on a pretty normal basis, and keeps an eye out for modders and cheaters, the replayability can last much, much longer with the developer's constant support for the game. Again, IW shouldn't be to blame, it is Activision who wants that next installment from IW ASAP. Then again, Treyarch did come out with several map packs, as well as some videos interviewing veterans of the war.

So, unless Activision can give IW and Treyarch (and all their other devs. and IPs for that matter) a break, and unless IW actually starts putting a little more time and effort into monitoring the online play and occasionally rewarding those who still play with some DLC every now and then, I personally feel that CoD (and just about every Activision IP now, for that matter) is taking a step in the wrong direction.

Now don't get me wrong, CoD 4 is a great game, with an excellent single-player and a competitive multiplayer. But after over half a year of Xbox Live owners playing the game, and seeing some things first-hand, I personally think that Infinity Ward should scrap what they did and start anew, at least in terms of multiplayer. While I'm sure I haven't played as many hours as some people do (I do in fact play things other than CoD 4), from the experience I have gotten from the game, I can say this: get rid of create-a-class system. Sure it sounded great in theory, but not so much in practice. Because after the first couple of months of its release, those players who progressed far enough started realizing what perks, weapons, and upgrades are worth using and which ones weren't. Which, ironically, it seems that a very small handful of perks and weapons are used (martyrdom and last stand should be the two most viable candidates for perks). Some weapons are never even used, and most perks are hardly ever touched. (Honestly, has anyone EVER used dead silence or eavesdrop perks?)

I was glad to hear that Treyarch is making the next Call of Duty installment, because I think they made a solid FPS in CoD 3. And here is the comparisons to IW's CoD 4:

1.) Classes-that were mostly balanced (except for, what i think was, the overpowered Allies Heavy Assault)- if you wanted to use sticky grenades, you had to choose light assault, not use that specialty to create an uber-class (Did anyone else forget about the medic, who could heal you if he got to you before the respawn time expired?

2.) Vehicles- yes, I know IW wanted to make a more fast-paced FPS experience, but why take out something that had become a basic formula for FPS's? (And to just prove anyone wrong, I was dissapointed from day one when IW announced they wouldn't include vehicle). What's ironic is that IW actually never had vehicles in multiplayer, in any CoD game they have worked on, which may seem then that either IW wants to be different, or is just bull-headed and can't accept the changing times. And, it goes without saying, with vehicles comes bigger maps, though I had no problem with the map sizes in CoD4.

3.) Accuracy- Let's get this out of the way- the guns in CoD4 were TOO accurate. Getting headshots across the map not only with a sudmachine gun but with a silencer attached to it, and only with the first couple of bullets fired is WAY too accurate for that kind of gun. Sure, sniper rifles are obvious and maybe (maybe) a small assortment of assault rifles, but nothing more than that.

4.) Kill-cam- stick with what Treyarch had; I actually got even more pissed off watching HOW I died, rather then just dying. From the lucky long-ranged grenade throws to someone blindly firing through smoke (or just firing blindly period). It would ease my blood-pressure if you just showed me the direction where the person who killed me was, rather then how they killed me.

Whereas other blogs that I write talk about improvements to games, this one is for the fear of losing interest in the CoD franchise. Treyarch's versions might be the only thing that keeps me with it (unless of course they just copy with the gameplay that CoD 4 did). I just hope not.

Mass Effect is a fantastic game. Throughout the game I felt as though I was watching a film. The cutscenes are great, the music was top-notch, the voice-acting is the best I have seen in a game to date, and in the end I could not wait for the second part of the trilogy to arrive. But there are some things I wish to see Bioware do in the next game.

1.) Make the story a bit longer- I loved the story in Mass Effect, and though I played through most of the side quests before I completed the story, the main quest did seem somewhat short. Hopefully the next two games won't be so short.

2.) Spice up the side quests a bit more- While some side quests were intriguing (like the quest on the moon), most seemed repetitive. Respond to this distress call, eliminate this bad guy, and find out where these people disapeared to seemed to be the bread-and-butter of the side quests. Maybe something a little more in depth, like during the main quest where the player had to track down Fist. Chase a smuggler from one planet to another. Make the boarding missions a bit varied too, like helping an Alliance frigate repel a geth boarding party, with crew members still in the ship helping you, not either already dead, turned into a husk, or trying to kill you.

3.) Make more planets with ports an cities available to land on- The only planets that had either a port of city or anything remotely close to it that consist of interacting NPCs were the planets involved in the main quest. It annoyed me to no end that I was able to visit our solar system, but could not visit Earth, or even the colony on Mars. The same was said for a hanar and salarian world i encountered while exploring the galaxy. This idea would be an answer to the second problem I proposed; maybe if one lands on a port in Earth, the player can become involved in quests like helping the local police forces track down a criminal, or deliver this package from a NPC on Earth to another NPC on another planet. It would make the game a bit more varied and less bland; running about on one barren planet after another

4.) FIX THE USER INTERFACE- the most annoying aspect of this game had to be the not-so-friendly interface in assorting weapons and armour. While trying to add upgrades to your weapons or armour, if you felt that you did not like any of the current upgrades, you could not just exit out of the menu, you had to select something, even if the choice was "no upgrade". Deleting unwanted inventory items for omni-gel became a chore; when you finally scrolled down to your class I items to delete, after it deleted it the game would send you back to the top of the list, forcing you to scroll all the way back down to find the next class I item; this would waste minutes away from my playing time when in other games it was the simplest and shortest of tasks.

5.) some minor issues- fix the grenade countdown, because it would take a mentally challenged person to get out of the radius of the explosion from the 10 second timer the grenades had. Make it a little easier in terms of button configuration for the grenades too; for I had to take my thumb off of the left analog stick to hit the back button for a grenade, try using the Y-button a hardly used button in the game that is one of three ways to pull out your weapon(which shoulnt be needed).

Since I have heard that Bioware wishes to give the player the ability to use their characters from the first game for the second and third parts in the trilogy, I hope to see most of the other saved information to be included, such as whether or not the player has Kaiden or Ashley in their crew, or if the Alliance or the Council is in charge of the galaxy. It would make it a deeper experience for the player who has played the game before as opposed to a newcomer to the franchise.

Well those are my thoughts. Here's hoping that Bioware sees these ideas and possibly will consider them for the next Mass Effect game!

I thought it couldn't get any better. New maps, vehicles, weapons, accessories, create-a-spartan, an amazing campaign, an improved ranking system, hell, if they added a create-a-weapon, I'd be foaming at the mouth to play Halo 3. Hey, Bungie, you gave us all this great news, now what about clans and such? Ummm.....yea about that, we won't be including clans in Halo 3. Hahahahaha, good one guys, you're pretty funny.........wait, you're serious? WHAT?!?!?! WHY?!?!?!?! That's like a college or university saying that they won't allow fraternities. You're stabbing your loyal fanbase in the back by not allowing clans. Clans allow a group of people who share common interests to come together, and allowing for a more deeper multiplayer experience. It really dissapointed me, but this will not change my mind in getting halo of course (because that would be silly). Here's to hopes that Bungie will have clans in an update!

Well, I don't know what to say about Two Worlds. After first playing it for an hour the day it came out, the game actually seemed pretty nice. But the moreI seem to play it, the more it seems to dissapoint me. Don't get me wrong, there are some greatthings that I will always like about thegame (stackable weapons, the number of armour sets, the number of spells and various kinds of spells), but the cons seem to outwiegh the pros. As a 360 owner, it seems to me that Reality Pump and TopWare seemed to give the short end of the stick to 360 ownersfor a game that already isn't anywhere near the "next greatest thing since sliced bread". The tiny menus are fine when your sitting 2 feet away from your computer monitor, but not when you are sitting 7-8 feet away from your TV screen. The inventory was also obviously created with clicking and dragging in mind, not going up, right, left, down, and all around with an analog stick, which, when you begin to acquire many different things, becomes a hassle.

Talking about Two Worlds brings up another topic that I have seemed to notice since the hype with this game. How almost every single person expected this to be like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You can not expect a game with entirely different producers to be alike. Many of the opinions I have read on forums and other sites after the game was released were saying that "It is not Oblivion at all." Well, thank you, Captain Obvious, I mean, unless Bethesda suddenly decided to change their name to Reality Pump and change their franchise name to "Two Worlds", it isn't going to be Oblivion. Saying Two Worlds was going to be "the next Oblivion," would be like someone saying "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is going to be the next Battlefield 2," I do not understand how people can take two games made by two different companies; saying both are exactly alike, only one might haveminor upgrades, such as improved graphics, better framerate, etc. You can compare aspects of games, whether they are different or alike, but don't go around saying it is going to be "the next ______"

So, overall, while my opinion has lowered since Two Worlds release, it is still a game that I can play in short periods of time, before it gets to be the same old thing over again. Well, here's to Elder Scrolls V!!!!