For those of you who don't know anything, Grand Theft Auto got a perfect score right here at Gamespot. That's right, a god-damned 10! This has only happened four times in the entire history of Gamespot. Really! Holy crap! It's like watching history happen.

This occasion seemed worthy of note in the blogs, and my congratulations goes out to Rockstar and everyone who made this game. Wow, a 10!

Last weekend I bought an original Xbox at a garage sale for $20. I would say it was a steal, but I have no games or functioning controllers to go with it. Fortunately, I have a friend who owns an original Xbox who wasn't using it, so I borrowed his controllers and a few games since I didn't have the money to get these things myself.

I rememeber a time when I couldn't even fathom owning all of the big name game consoles. Back in the days of the Gamecube I thought it was rather excessive for one person to own an Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube all at the same time. Now I own all of these and more (N64, Wii, NES), in addition to a slew of PC titles. It makes me kind of proud, in a way. Now it seems inevitable that I'll someday own a PS3 or a 360, once I can get them on the cheap.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying my new/old/whatever Xbox. I just finished playing the single player campaign in Halo, and I've started playing Fable. I'll probably get around to Halo 2 as well, and a lot more games will be added to my My Games collection.

I was thinking this morning about some of the best games I've played over my long, video-gaming existance. I'm typing this post (hopefully more posts like it will follow) to talk about how awesome these games were and why.

My most recent nominee for favorite game is Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which I played in November of last year. I started the game soon after beating MGS: The Twin Snakes, and after playing through the prologue and the opening sections of the mission, I decided to stop playing for the day. A few weeks later I picked up the game again on one of my days off. Twelve hours later I was still playing the game, stopping only for lunch and dinner. I was so engrossed in MGS2 that I couldn't put it down until I had finished the whole thing.

And why not? First was the game-play, which for the MGS series is what I would describe as a combination of action and puzzle. I say puzzle because it takes a certain amount of thought to sneak past guards without getting shot in the face. I died at least 20 times during the prologue alone, but I didn't mind because this set up never caused the game to become frustrating. It actually added to the excitement.

MGS2 has a story which is rarely rivaled for its epic scope and interweaving plot threads. It's actually ironic of that the story is so epic, while the gameplay takes place in a relatively small area, the Big Shell Facility. It's a small place, but each section is so well constructed with just the right amount of enemies and rooms that it seems much larger than it actually is. Compare this to games like The Legend of Zelda or Shadow of the Colossus where there are big spaces but much less to do in them. MGS2 actually increases the amount of space one has through an assortment of smaller rooms, making the game seem bigger than a wide open space does. I wasn't playing the game from event to event; I was playing MGS2 room to room

I was just watching the first 15 minutes of game-play in Dark Sector, and I must say that I'm impressed. The game looks like an intriguing cross between Resident Evil 4, with its over-the-shoulder camera angle and biohazardous story; and Gears of War, with advanced gunplay options and movement capabilities. If I had a PS3, I would buy this game to see what happens next. However, I don't have one, so I'll just wait until later.

Saturday evening I waited outside the door of my local Gamestop for the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, obtained my copy, and began to play. First off, I think this is a good game, but whenever a game series makes a transition from one sequel to the next, there are always going to be features which take some getting used to. Here are some things I've noticed that will take some getting used to.

1. If you are already a master of SSB Melee, use the GameCube controller if you want to retain your edge. The Wii controls will not come naturally, and it will take some time before you can master the new control set.

2. The action is a little slower than in the previous game. I'm not sure what effect, if any, this has on the gameplay.

3. Mario's B+down attack has been changed from Mario Tornado to the water spraying backpack.

There's something that's been bothering me about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ever since I beat it back during the era of the N64. It has to do with the ending of the game, and certain story elements of the game, so if you ahven't played this game and are dead-set against spoilers, it's best if you don't read on.

Now, in the game Link travels between two different time periods. The first time period is where you start out from, when Link is a kid trying to help princess Zelda. The second time period is seven years in the future after Ganondorf has taken over Hyrule and Link is an adult. The player travels between these two time periods to solve puzzles and get information which helps them progress through the game. At the end of the game Adult Link defeats Ganondorf in the future and he is imprisoned.

This is all very straightfoward until the epilogue where Zelda, also an adult, uses the Ocarina of Time to send Link back to the past so that he has the opportunity to live the seven years he lost between both time periods. Basically, Link gets a second chance to make up for lost time, but this raises some serious issues with the storyline.

First, Link is sent back to his childhood in the first time period (we'll call this the past for the sake of convenience, as we'll refer to the second time period as the future). However, Ganondorf is only defeated in the future by Adult Link, which means that this event hasn't even happened yet. This also means that Ganondorf, who from the beginning is searching for the Triforce, is still running around, doing his thing.

Second, in the final scene of the epilogue Young Link is seen visiting Young Zelda, seemingly for the first time. This is confirmed in a cutscene from the sequel to Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, where Zelda mentions that she feels as if she's know Link for a long time, even though she presumably hasn't. If in fact Zelda sends Link so far back in time that he is returned to a time even before the two of them met, then it is entirely possible that the events in Ocarina of Time don't even happen due to the mechanics of time-travel. This is supported by the fact that right after this "second" meeting with Zelda, Young Link goes on another quest, to one depicted in Majora's Mask, without repeating the events which in turn brought about the events of Ocarina of Time.

Therefore my dilemma is this: did the events of Ocarina of Time actually "happen", or were they cancelled out through time travel? If they happened, does Link experience the whole period of time when Ganondorf ruled Hyrule? If they didn't happen, then do any of the issues which were present at the beginning of the story actually get solved? What about Ganondorf? He just can't go away since he was present even berfore the story began. Further complicating the matter is the fact that Ganondorf used Link and Zelda to gain access to the Triforce? Would he have gotten his hands on it even without their help? If he had, then wouldn't the situation have been even worse as Young Link is off on his own and Ganondorf is taking over the world "again".

It's all very complicated. I know it's just a game and that the answer isn't really worth all of this trouble, but it's something that has stuck in my mind for many years. Ocarina of Time is probably my favorite game of all time, and I like to concern myself with all relevant matters pertaining to it.

So, that's what I have to say. Take it for what it's worth, but Zelda fans might contemplate this this matter to themselves.

Few people realize it, but there's a lot more to Disney films than meets the eye. the animated films of the Disney corporation contain some really interesting concepts that actually transcend their traditional appearance as family-friendly entertainment.

Let's take The Lion King for the first example. First, the plot is inspired by the Shakespeare play Hamlet, widely considered the greatest written work in the English language. Beyond that, however, there is much in the film which goes beyond simple, childish entertainment.

Right off the bat, we find the character Scar: an ambitious, heartless bastard. Not only does he murder his brother on screen, but he coldly orders his hyena henchmen to kill his own nephew, Simba, in what is basically an effort to secure his position as king. It's not even the first time he tries to kill Simba, as earlier in the film we find out that Scar tells Simba the location of the Elephant Graveyard, knowing that Simba's curiosity will compel him to visit it, where the hyena's are waiting to kill him.

Assassination? In a Disney film? Hell yeah!

Toy Story is another good example of the thematic quality of Disney films, particularly Toy Story 2. This is a film whose story deals with the idea of mortality, which suddenly confronts main character Woody as Andy's mom prepares for a garage sale. he's accidentally sold to a toy collector, but because of this he is presented with an interesting choice. He can live forever in a museum with other rare toys, adored by thousands of visiting people, so long as he abandons his previous life with Andy. Either that, or Woody can go back home to Andy, living the life of a normal toy until Andy grows up and he is inevitably discarded, doomed to suffer in toy oblivion as he has seen happen to other toys.

It's a choice between eventual death and immortality, and at first the choice is simple. Woody chooses to go to the museum, but after being reminded of his relationship with Andy by Buzz Lightyear, Woody decides that being with Andy, for any amount of time, is preferable to an eternity spent behind glass.

This is heavy stuff, but you'd never know it from the movies because it's all so well integrated into the plot. Most of us here remember the Disney films we saw as kids, and some of us may regard them as good for kids, but that we are beyond that form of entertainment now. Some may even regard animation as a frivolous form of entertainment. Maybe in some cases all of these things are true, then again, almost everything is worth a second look. One may find something they never saw before.

It seems that the owners of the classic horror film Dawn of the Dead are suing Capcom over the similarities between the film and zombie-killing video game Dead Rising. According to the MKR Group, the productionc ompany that owns Dawn, the facts that the game is set inside a shopping mall, features zombies (in addition to humorous ways to kill them), is a dark comedy, and has a satirical story line which parodies consumer culture, make Rising too close to the movie, which counts therefore as copyright infringement. Check the link for further details:

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2526490820080226?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews

While the similarities between Dawn of the Dead and Dead Rising are unmistakable, Rising obviously being inspired by Dawn, what are the owners of the movie trying to say by suing Capcom? Is it that they own the idea of a story of zombies in a shopping mall? Do they own the concept of zombie media parodying contemporary culture? Of course not! It would be ridiculous to assume that such broad, creative concepts belong to a single company or individual. What if I was to write a story where super-powered, gentically-altered humans ran around trying to fight an oppressive government and save the world? Would Marvel be able to turn around and say that my super-heroes were in fact "mutants" and that my story was too similar to the X-Men franchise to be legally viable?

I personally don't think that MKR has much of a chance, but I don't like the sound of what they're saying.

Do you know what two disparate foods taste good together? Believe it or not, it's white cheddar cheese and cashews. Try it sometime. Just pop a slice of white cheddar cheese and some cashews in your mouth at the same time and chew. Don't swallow right away, though. Just mash the two morsels together and knead the mass with your tongue. Something about the natural, understated flavor of a cashew makes it a perfect match with the rich, tangy essence of the cheese. It's like the cashew provides the perfect setting for the cheese to perform on.

Super Mario Land is a game released on the original Game Boy system way back in 1989. It was a game that I much enjoyed during a long car rides with my friend, who actually owned the Game Boy I played it on. Recently, my brother ordered the game on ebay, so I was able to play it again, much to my excitement.

Super Mario Land is actually a real oddball when when one gets right down to it. It has the basic components of a Mario title (the jumping, the mushrooms, the goombas[I think], and the coins), but everything else comes in from left field. Enemies include, but are not limited to: turtles whose shells explode after you stomp them, bees that throw arrows at you, robots with detachable heads, seahorses that spit fire, a sphinx, and bouncing moai with wings. Some of these enemy choices, like the sphinx and the moai, are likely due to the locations in the game, but they're still weird. Unless I'm mistaken, no one has ever seen these guys after SML ever again.

This brings up another thing about the game. Why is Mario in a place like Egypt, with pyramids plainly in view? Why is he on Easter Island? Why does he pilot a submarine underwater rather than swim, and why does he fly in an airplane towards the end? These questionds are just as valid as they are unanswerable. I suppose any location is as good as another, so long as it stands out, but it's still a little bit of a non-sequitor.

I will mention one thing that was different that ended up being pretty awesome. SML contains none of the classic Mario musical elements, but the music is actually really good. That's saying a lot, considering that this is a Game Boy title.

SML is pretty unusual compared to most Mario games, but it's still fun to play. It holds a lot of memories for me anyway, playing it on those long drives, so I would say that's the important thing. Just for fun, though, gamers should go back every once in a while to look at the games they loved as a kid and think about things have changed.