I'm getting tired of coping flake from people who bad muth gaming/gamers/games, with little ro no information on what they're talking about. Take family groups who say in GTA: San Andreas, the aim of the game is to sell drugs, attack civilans and kill people randomly. Anyone who plays the first twenty minutes of GTA:SA wil see that one, drug dealers and drug dealing gangs are presented as the enemy in the game, in fact almost every mission sees the player going up against gangs criminals, curropt cops. There are maybe two or three missions GTA:SA where you kill someone who didn't deserve it. These simple facts have been overlooked though by so many.

Another example is how people have told me that gaming is not mentally healthy, well do anything in extreme portions and its not mentally healthy. People hear gamers talking about how many hours we've spent playing a game, stuff like, "it took me ten hours to finish the Library on Legendary in Halo," that was ten hours over an entire week, not one day, but its this simple thing that gets left out and suddenly everyone who plays games regularly is seen as as being obsessed. Its getting out of hand.

Will there ever be a time when people accept gaming for what it is, the biggest, most successful and most compelling form of entertainment on the planet? Becasue this is what gaming is becoming, and in some ways, already become, horror movies like Dawn of the Dead don't scare gamers, they've played Doom 3. Action films are boring, especially after Half Life 2 or Deus Ex 2, because things happen in games that just aren't feasiable in films. In films it's the direcotors action scene, but in Half Life 2, when you have zombies, or Combine troops coming after, a Strider stalking nearby, and team mates getting shot at, its your action scene, how do you deal with it? Half Life 2 represents so many ways to solve problems using explosieve results, it just works, but it'll never be a part of cinema. Games can and have been evovling, will films have peaked and been left behind.

There's a lot more for me to say, but I can't the words right now, so maybe in a few days.

I've been following F.E.A.R. (god, thats hard to type) with much anticipation, the game is shaping up to be brilliant. Not just Doom 3 standard, think more FarCry, Halo 2 standard. I doubt it will be at the Half Life, Halo, nothing will ever be the same again, but its close alright. What I really love is that while gamers will get scared by crzy Japanese girls like in the movies, we'll be able to blast her, unlike the movies. Goof things can only come and I wouldn't be surpised if that once I'd finished the game, these would be nothing scary about it. Not because, like The Grugde, it wasn't scary, but because I was scared, but I blasted whatever scared me, finished the game and all is well that ends well. Unless they go for a Halo 2 cliffhanger...

The Tom Clancy games have been fun, if its FPS tactical action you wanted, then RainBow Six was everything and more, Ghost Recon had more combat/warzone falvours to it and Splinter Cell are the best pure stealth games ever.

Now I hear that Robert Ludlum's work is bening marketted by VUG, its goig to be interesting to see how the stuff fares aganist the Clancy catalugoe of games. Personally I'd rather see Matthew Rielly's novels be made into games, now those would be cool.

I just heard that GTA: San Andreas has been banned in Australia. This means a lot to me since I live in Australia, but I got GTA:SA last year, I pre-ordered it have (technically) an adults only copy cause the Hot Coffee stuff is hiddeb on the DVD.

Suck that to all the XBOX gamers dumb enough to wait for it, in the time you waste waiting for the best console game ever, it gets banned!!! Meanwhile my copy is still safe, yeah I'm loving it.

Yesterday there was my complaints on console RPGs. Now here's what I want in one:

It needs a huge world, but a varied one. Several small towns and medium to large sized cities, each with distinctive feels to them, along the lines of the cities in GTA:SA. The outside environments should include a myrid of dungeons and outdoor places. Creepy crypts, ruins, forts, castles, woods, open plains, volcanoes, icy snowcapped mountains and rocky craigs and cliffs to explore. Dark realms of evil and glowing one of good. The environment should be large, but not so large that it takes hours to get from one place to another, although some travelling is good, especially if there's plenty of good monsters to contend with.

Next Enemies! We need ghouls, ghosts, zombies, trolls, ogres, mountain trolls, orcs, goblins, evil magicians, witches, dragons, vampires, wolves, dozens of huge beasts and demons and of course gargantuan evil soldiers like Saverok from Baldur's Gate.

All the enemies have to look cool. HIGH resolution graphics, rich virbant textures, real time shadows and dynamic lightning, very real world water effects, no fog or smog anywhere in the game, mind blowing draw distances and visual astounding battles featuring huge armies of a wide variety of units on each side, each with numerous movements, attacks and death animations as well as brilliant spells being cast with huge fire balls and lightning and bodies being blown across the sky. That's what it looks like.

The biggest part is easily the gameplay, and it should be in two very important parts. First exploration, there should be heaps of different places to go, people to see, things to do, this leads back to the enviroment. The big part is combat and the characeter. But I'll write about that another time.

I'm a fan of the classic dungeon crawl in games. Hacking through monsters, collecting magical items, and adventuring in amazing locations exploring every nook and cranny, finding enjoyment in reading, "you leveled up, select a new ability".

So I wonder sometimes what happened to Baldur's Gate on Xbox and PS2, one of the greatest RPG series ever, on old PC hardware, why it should have been huge on modern consoles, so why was all so linear, and repeatative. Such things are awful and an insult to the name BG

A recent probem in so many FPSs is that developers are obssessed with, "unscriped events" events that are brought about by the A.I., the players actions and in some caes, the game's physic's engine. When unscripted works, it works brilliantly, Halo 1 showed how good facing a slightly new challenge each time you played through a level. However one area of Halo 1 was that it seemed Bungie was incapable of a good set peice, then we all saw the last level and one of the biggest, most explosieve and action packed scenes in gaming ever. The warthog run in The Maw was astounding and gamers everywhere wondered, how will Bungie top it for Halo 2? Having seen the E3 2003 preview of Halo 2 with a massive battle on earth, it seemed that Bungie had learned not to rely on the A.I. but also plan out large battles. Halo 2 looked like it would be the best console action game ever, and there was talk it might even move in on Half Life 2's turf with best overall FPS. Weren't we all in for a shock.

November 9 2004 came and not only was the New Mombassa level from E3 removed, it seemed that Bungie had ditched plan action scenes for their A.I., player interaction. Admittidly there were huge battles but they felt to chaotic and lacked the planning of what many hoped for, it also removed any sense of speed from them. Meanwhile GTA: SA apperead with numerous missions including large scale set peices and GTA went on to claim the console crown, with Halo 2 taking 2nd place, just though.

Don't let this fool you, Halo 2 is indeed a close 2nd, in many areas it surpasses GTA, graphics, A.I, and multiplayer, the reason that SA is a better game is that the gameplay and sheer size put it above Halo 2. That said I'd still buy Halo 2 it if goes to PC. Its that good.

GTA, those three letters hold in the gaming world a certain power. Right the GTA games and there makers, RockStar are under fire following the Hot Coffee scandal, yet Sony and Microsoft haven't seemed to even raise their eyebrows. They don't care if the games are sued, or banned, becasue San Andreas has already become the biggest selling game of all time. Its publishers, really don't care whats happening, the money keeps roling in.