Seems like every page on GameSpot is now saturated with so much visual graffiti -- banner ads, sidebars, flashing lights, embedded movies, user avatars, and other devices trying to draw your eye -- it's getting to the point of meaningless noise.

Pretty soon you won't know where to look, you'll just stare into your monitor in stupefied, slack-jawed bedazzlement.

I go to the home page and around 761 entities start competing for bandwidth. And the servers aren't exactly champing at the bit to deliver; it's usually a delayed load in spite of the end-user's high-speed connection.

Then there's the intermittent "inter-page" ads: "click here to continue..."

Even with the "Flashblock" Firefox plugin, it's a messy collage. Confusing, hyperactive, headache-inducing rigmarole competing for attention all the time, often all at once.

All I really want is to see if there are any noteworthy new PC releases. That's all.

It's getting harder to cut through the static.

EDIT: after I submitted this, one of those particularly annoying superimposed in-your-face ads floated down into the middle of the screen, obscuring the page, requiring that I either click it or hunt for the little "x" in the upper corner. I never noticed those kinds of ads on GameSpot before. Maybe that's nothing new, but I never specifically noticed them here.

First of all, I find the whole premise of this a bit overlarge; it's like asking who the greatest movie hero of all time is. The AFI did a special on the top movie heroes awhile back, and Atticus Finch came up number one. Atticus Finch, for crying out loud. Rick Blaine (Bogie in "Casablanca") was above Rocky and Han Solo. Gimme a break. It's all a matter of tastes and perspective.

So here we have a bunch of gamers voting and it looks like the "winner" is simply from one of the most broadly-played, prolific game franchises over the last ten years. And this is perfectly understandable and not in the least inappropriate; but it is also predictable, and illustrates the shortcomings of an ambitious poll like this one. As do the results: "Gordon Freeman -- The Greatest Game Hero Ever" doesn't quite ring true. In fact, it's a tad silly.

Anyway, I voted for Freeman twice, actually, during two "heats." I also voted for The Nameless One from Torment during one of the early rounds. And let's be honest, Nameless One was a far more sophisticated, complex, and moving character. VASTLY more interesting. It's actually quite ridiculous and lopsided to even compare the two; might as well compare chess to tic-tac-toe. I mean, Freeman never even talks! Was there EVER any voice-acting attributed to him? If so, it was negligible. Where's his personality??? You point him and shoot. La-dee-da.

Don't get me wrong, he's a better choice than many of the others. He did, after all, clean up the Black Mesa facility single-handedly -- and him only a meek scientist (and therein lies the simple-but-effective hook) -- and traversed the landscapes of Xen to face off with Nihilanth.

But I stopped voting when it got to the later rounds. Freeman vs. Mario? That's a tough one. How about Serious Sam, where was he? Sam had tons of personality; he would have been a more impressive choice. Also, was Dirk the Daring even in the running? Dirk the Daring was the sh** in the heyday of coin-ops. Two quarters to play? Can do!

Gordon Freeman, "Greatest Game Hero of All Time." Got hyperbole?

Nope, cannot agree with this. And again, I am someone who helped vote him through two of the early rounds. This contest could never live up to its own scope and scale. That is now abundantly obvious.

I was looking over the recent PC releases and was struck by a slew of really eccentric and/or niche and/or downright obscure and/or bizarre and/or less-than-awe-inspiring premises.

You got new PC games based on fractals, based on restaurant management, based on racing a rolling ball, based on you-name-it ... and still, there continues to be a dearth of deep, engaging RPG's -- a genre that basically defined the PC game back to its earliest "before-the-dawn" stages.

And I am not talking about the MMORPG-flavor-of-the-week copout crap which crops up everywhere, and which is basically a sandbox for a bunch of digital heroes who need an excuse to get off their twitter or myspace account and "interact" in a real-time playground. (If I ever get to the point where any and all types whatsoever of online activity amounts to the sum total of my "social interaction," somebody please find me and bring me around.)

Don't get me wrong, I will play literally any type of PC game as long as it is fun. And I realize that developing a really in-depth, fully fleshed, properly balanced CRPG amounts to an enormous effort from both the creative and "calculatory" angles.

But, such an accomplishment, if truly done right and conscientiously, nearly always creates a buzz among the dedicated, hard-core, still-vast PC gaming community. And, with a little well-placed marketing, such games will invariably be at least mildly successful, if not hugely so.

So what gives, you flaky developers? Do we really need another WWII shooter? Do we really need weird games about a sentient crystalline triangle looking for the meaning of its existence? Seems like there's an obvious vacuum here, and with a few notable exceptions, nearly every developer is missing it.

I mean, could you imagine an old-school CRPG -- integrating dice-roller elements faithful to the computational elegance of Baldur's Gate or Wizardry -- coupled with Gothic-like freedom and that kind of immersive world development? A wide-open sprawling eyeful of a world to go with a deep mathematically complex multirole party-based system? Helped along by the types of colorful eye-popping models and graphics that we know are possible and workable?

Or how about an action-RPG with a whole sheet's worth of learnable combo moves a la Blade of Darkness -- but upgraded with more modernized physics and actual variations to the types of weapon damage? An action RPG where maces and hammers render immovable the joints of full-plate armor? Axes do bludgeoning and cutting damage? Your guy (or gal) progresses through ... I don't know, the Elite Twin-axe Light-armor School of Lightning-fast Melee? Or the Oversized Claymore -Wielder's Full-plate School of Shambling Juggernautry? Or the No-Dachi School of the Overwhelming Whirling Razor? Learning the subsequent special attacks along the way....

Heck, it could be done. Those freaking superficial samurai/ninja-type "beat em ups" have a window into it, even. But ultimately, I'm talking real substance here. Torment had real substance. The original Star Wars flick had real substance. Why cannot they pair real inspiration with the enhancements offered by progressing technology? Why Jar-Jar Binks? (And don't get me started on "enhanced editions" -- I have no more patience with that than I do with cutesy chesspiece renditions; some things are meant to be kept vintage. You don't colorize Dr. Strangelove. You don't have Greedo get off a first shot; you don't apologize for your smuggler/rogue's acute survival instincts.) But I DIGRESS....

If I ever come into a financial windfall, I just may try and start a company that plays to this void.

It just isn't fair. We RPG-lovers get slim pickings, really; but there's a seemingly endless procession of MMORPGs.

Anybody else completely underwhelmed with the prospect of gallivanting all over some virtual fantasyland that persists online so you can "interact" with the likes of a bunch of other desktop-humping gamers?

From where I am sitting, CRPGs and MMORPGs are really in entirely different ballparks, if not different universes. I happen to know that many, many hardcore RPG gamers would actually rather go out and zing a football around (a REAL football) at the park (a REAL park) with a buddy (a REAL buddy) than play one of these MMORPGs. You can include me in this crowd.

Gimme an RPG with a plot or some real action and tactics and keep your "online connection required" crapola. I mean, I know there are some notable exceptions; but all in all, there are so many failed, uninspired, virtually unpopulated MMORPGs that it's just sad -- it's a protracted phenomenon that should have been a short-lived fad; a mind-numbing craze that should be left to run its course and go away. Kind of like American Idol and reality TV.

In all sincerity, online play is fine -- but I prefer it for nonstop action (shooters, hack-and-slash, dogfighting, or otherwise), or for straight head-to-head strategy (CHESS, can you dig?) -- and more particularly, online play is most welcome when it is offered as an adjunct to games that already have solid single-player elements.

Who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll give the WoW deal a try; or maybe Guild Wars or whatever else is passing as the "free online play" heavy-hitter these days.

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So I check in at the "PC" section of GameSpot, and lo and behold, something interesting catches my eye. I click the link, and voila! -- it's another stinking MMORPG.

And, of course, being GameSpot, it's an even bet that the entry will be for a not-yet-released game.

Everywhere I look, I get links to MMORPGs. BIG downer. Bombarded with MMORPGs. Shucks and crap and other comments.

* * * *

What I really wish for is WIZARDRY 9. There were rumors that, like, fizzled out several years ago. There was even a save-game at the end of Wizardry 8, so you could presumably continue your character into the then-still-foreseeable game that would have been WIZARDRY 9. I guess I can still hope. WIZARDRY 9 would be like a cold beer on a scorcher of a day. Or, let's say, a tall Guinness on St. Patrick's Day.