It's been my birthday for a solid thirty minutes now. Horray!

With the latest review of Grand Theft Auto: IV released, and the giant golden font reading ten I was tempted to receed back into the history of Gamespot and take a look at some of the other tens. It seems that behind all of them, there is either a stunning storyline, or more than robust gameplay. Though there are few that fit the selection, all of them should be in your collection either now - or some time close in the future. Let's take a step back shall we?

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - One of the first ones that comes to mind, sitting infront of the TV with a rumbling controller in hand brings back some of the fondest memories in gaming. Easily, gaining it's way to become not only mine but many others favourite games - bringing Link into the spotlight and creating an amazing story to be enjoyed for years. Though the game has it's flaws, they do nothing to stop the great story and overall enjoyable and rewarding gameplay.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 - For some it may be hard to recognize this as a perfect game, but I can assure you that the hours I've spent playing this game were all enjoyable. However, the repetitive gameplay can be questionable as to how it obtained this perfect score. But again, the gameplay is stunning and park creation adds to the effect of the game.

Chrono Cross - Another game out of the five to snag up a perfect score, Chrono Cross as told by it's description did not have the largest budget but it definitely made up for that. It manages to maintain an amazing storyline - without becoming an exact copy of Chrono Trigger. While it's combat differentiates slightly from the normal RPG standard, it is a warmly welcomed addition and the magic system is great.

Soul Calibur - It busted on to the scene with amazing graphics, and spectacular gameplay to boot. Tucking away the other fighters of it's time. It pushed the envelope on fighting games, and further developed the characters from the series. This perfect game was to be followed up by many sequels, none of which have matched it's amazing start.

None of these games, can really be argued with and it is rare that Gamespot ever hands out a perfect score. But it's time to welcome Grand Theft Auto IV to the ranks of the great games. While there are few that have come close to reaching the perfect score, there are few to mention: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Tekken 3, Perfect Dark and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.

This easter I purchased an iPod Touch, which is rapidly turning out to be a sound investment. Upon opening the box - which in itself is neatly designed. I was greeted with a slim black iPod. Being able to store up to two thousand songs, I went off to fill it up. While I only got a little bit of songs on the first day it was still amazing. The touch surface makes it easy to navigate. On the front menu there is an option for youtube, and an option for just general internet. Whilst that was amazing, loading sites with lots of media and images takes slightly longer. I was even visiting Gamespot from my new device.

It would seem that all great games are made up by their soundtrack, or to say the least made memorable by the tracks. From the orchestra featured in the Legend of Zelda games, to the hardcore metal in the Devil May Cry series. Just a note.

It seems now adays that the true essence of MMORPG gaming is gone. It has been shipped away by the casual players who want instant gratifcation in a game, and can't spend the time of day to sit down and earn it. But they aren't the only problem for the MMORPG genre. It would seem that those PvP fanatics are also ruining games, that become to focused on PvP and generally lack in the PvE department. Skills that could be used to conquer an instance boss in the game, are now being used to mindlessly kill eachother in PvP. If the developers could create a game with equally balanced skills, that could be used in either PvP or PvE we would have a good game. A balanced game, thats all I ask.

Just because you a game pays to be advertised on your website does not guarantee that it is a good game. This so called conterversial review has resulted in Jeff being fired? Kane and Lynch is a poor game at best, infact he was being gratious with his review. He gave the horrid game more than it deserved, and do you think that the social outcry from him being fired will help the sales of the game. Nay, this will only further negatively effect the sales. I'm dissappointed Gamespot. I've been a member since 19/2/04. Never before have I seen such disgraceful actions. I won't abandon the site entirely for the credible members left.

I fully support Jeff Gerstmann.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20071129.jpg

I came to a sad realization the other day while playing Halo 3, as pretty much everybody else was. It was simply that all these series must end, rather they should end. I love all my favourites series such as Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid and the like but they all are going to have to end in order to keep us appreciating them for what they were worth. If we continue to draw out these series they will lose their touch that they had from the beginning. A rare exception to these is the Final Fantasy series but that is only because it is not centralized around one character. In my opinion however, the final fantasy series has been headed downhill since about number seven.

To stay on track with my original topic you can easily see that most ideas should be able to fit in about three games in a series. A trilogy is about all we should see, once you pass three games in a series you end up dragging it out way to long and the characters get far too much emphasis. The next thing the players want to do with that character is fight impossible bosses and the like, holding the main character as some sort of god.

Short and Simple.

Welcome to a world where you shape the epic sagas thatwill be told to future generations. Welcome to a world where the fate of millions hangs in the balance as player clans struggle for supremacy. Welcome to Darkfall!

Do you have what it takes to become a legend?

http://www.darkfallonline.com/

Originally posted here by Gamespot.

Uponcoming onto Gamespot this morning I saw an article that caught my eye, as titled Resident Evil 5 stirs concerns of racism.

After a short read I couldn't help but go and watch the trailer, and you know what? It's not even racist. You can't make somebody a racist from just playing a video game, and if I hadn't read that article I wouldn't have given the race of the zombieed as a second thought. Zombies are zombies, don't look at it as arace issue. In previous games we've had to battle white zombies, hispanic zombies and black zombies. I never once thought of it as racist to shoot a zombie.

If your confused, watch:

http://www.gamespot.com/video/929197/6175676/resident-evil-5-official-trailer-3.

That's right! I said it.

Lately I've been playing games with amazing controls, graphics and other flashy bits but where they succeed in that they seem to fail miserably in story telling and overall they just can't keep me engaged. For instance, one of the easiest to spot is World of Warcraft. The controls and graphics are great, but what are you really doing? In World of Warcraft, you talk to one character and he tells you to talk to his friend who is just across the room. I really deserved getting the level for that!There are some games however that are managing to still grace themselves with fine story telling and graphics, notably the Final Fantasy series has managed this for quite some time and if I may say so Metal Gear Solid has been doing alright with the story and graphics.

You may also want to note that most of these games were not for computer, and thats why this rant is here anyways. I have downloaded several games and honestly they all were really bad. I even stopped to play one that was 2D and had no walking animation for longer than I put up with some with fancy graphics and crazy combat. Why did I stop for the 2D one? It had an alright story, and quests that made sense!

Obviously there is some games that really don't need story to be good, the ones that need it are the MMORPG's which currently are failing to catch my eye. However, there are still First Person Shooters than I can just sit down and shoot things without caring at all wether im the good guy or the bad guy. So there you go, sports games and first person shooters are free of this burden so they can focus on graphics and flashy moves all they want!

Lastly I want to focus on the massively multiplayer part of computer gaming. This is where most of the games fail to have a story, and they need it desperately. You can have a good story on a massively multiplayer game! The only difference is the player can have one, two or three friends accompany him on it. They could also make up a series of side quests and personal quests that you can do alone, to help you get more engaged.

Anyways, thats my two cents. Thanks for reading, and sorry if it didn't make much sense. I know there will people with other opinions, maybe even people that leave suggestions for games. But thats not what I'm wanting here, I just want to judge a book by its chapters (chapters being story and quests) not by it's cover (cover obviously being graphics). On a last note, I don't literally think it's all graphics, there just needs to be less focus on graphics and more focus on the background and story.

So until then, I'm gonna go play a FPS!