So i finally decided to take it to a Blogging level. What started as the website for my guild to vent around, and document our gaming endavours, has now become a Sector9 Gaming Group Blog. So i wanted to do some shameless promotion in hopes to get some fellow gamers to come and check it out,and join our discussions

Now lets make it clear, this is 3 weeks old and it is not quite Joystiq or PS3fanboy, but we are making our way to something. To be a little more honest with you, i wasn't going for any public plugs anytime soon, but i changed my mind in hopes that my gaming peers will be my best critcs!

So, any of you that comes across this, please come and visit us. We keep it very straighforward and opinionated. There is no BS, and no censorship. Just good ol' game talk as we see it and as we write! There is also no memeberships or anything like that, just stop by, read, post and go!

So thanks in advance, and here is the address: http://sector9gaming.blogspot.com

- Igor

Address update. We are now: www.sector9gaming.com, and there is hell of a lot more to read. Thank to anyone that comes around and lands us their oppinions!

Well interesting day today. I got 3 badges at once. Got a "Tagger Flirt", "PC Aficienado", and one more. Too lazy to go back and post 'em here. But any rate its kinda cool i got those. I am however wondering if you need to achieve certain levelsin order to unlock the badges, or do they just come as you earn them, regardless of the level. Gonna have to check into that!

Quick disclaimer first: i hate to rip on media, their job is tough as we get to scrutinize everything they do, but i am getting very fed up with reviews here and now i really wanna bring up a few good points. I do apologize in advance if someones feelings get hurt but you brought this up on yourself!

GS reviews, how about that!? Latest tirade of their reviews now is Skate. With 7.5 score, and obviously now in a losing battle to a much more POPULAR and kind of householdfranchise Tony Hawk Proving Grounds. I can tell you right now that THPG, and this is me the Nostradamus, will get either 8 or 8.5. So far I've demo-ed both games and THPG is atrocious comparing to Skate. To make this even less biased i'll tell you that i cant stand EA lately, they are Michael Bay of gaming imo, butSkate is excellent by any standard.This is beingrecognized by players all around asthey are giving ithigh scores and are raving about it.

Now why, we wonder, has GS given the game a 7.5. Well its simple, its not a sequel to a popular bandwagon game and it actual offers innovation and improvement to our gaming. Additionally we had Lair and Heavenly Sword lately. Lair, while aflawed game, offered some of the bravest ideas in gaming accompanied by a great story, amazing score and dazzling graphics. Based on some tech issuesit got a 4.5.

On the second note, here is HS with an 8. only flaw was the shortness. Here is a interesting note on that. God of War 2, same flaw, lost .4 or .2 pointsin that categoryand got still one of the highest ratings possible, but come on, its God of War and Sony ruled the world at that time so we can just chop of 2.0 for no reason to gods of gaming right? well now, they are not so we are just butchering everything and anything they put out.

For a better and in-depth explanation for my HS rant here is a link to a post i made that explained their bias in aclear light. http://www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25913444&union_id=12707

now here is another thing that cracks me up about these guys and their reviews. few years back there was a game called kill.switch. Premise of the game was piss poor as you basically ducked and than shot and rinse and repeat and the game was eventually beaten. Doesn't this remind you of something? thats right, Gears of War!!! duck, shoot and do it some more. Whats the point you say? Well the 1st game got a stunning 6.9 cuz it was WAY too simplistic and the premise was shallow, the other one got 9.6. Why, well EPIC sold so many copies in such a short time that it just would look bad on these guys if they told you the truth. Graphics 10, dialogue .5, story 1.5, physics and gameplay....hmm around 3.5. No way Jose, they had to follow the band wagon. Don't believe me, here is the link to kill.switch, to compare find Gears review which is bit easier to find and stack em next to each other. It feels like a Daily Show of Gaming segment, laughable. http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/killswitch/index.html?tag=result;title;1

So in conclusion, get your news, your rants, your rumors and all the other stuff that gamespot does better than anyone else, here, but if you want a legit review go to an independent media outlet. i dunno, pick any one, there is so many of them. i am not here to solicit, just to point out the obvious.

and in sort of a P.S. manner, bookmark this post cuz i am gonna play Cleo and predict some future:

Timeshift, Haze, Fracture will all wind up at 8.5 or under, or 8 and under. No matter the quality and the innovation of these games. However C.O.D, and all the other franchises that are uber popular will get a 9.0 or more. No offense to those game, i play them just as much as the other guy, this is point against the reviewers. Also lets see, Uncharted, 8.5,being saved from a 6.5 mostlycuz its Naughty Dog game, but some second rate sequel will get a 9 or more, pick one there is gonna be 100 of them coming out. These are just some examples, dont take it for granted, i could have used any other game, but those were the 1st that came to mind as the ones that are going to get obviously butchered.

Now i already typed entirely too much and with some seriously bad grammar as i wanted to get it out of my system while its fresh, so i will live you on this unfinished note so you can ponder some and than add some more!

2nd Entry (Monday, 11/26/2007):

As of recently there has been a few more reviews that bugged the crap out of me. Personally i wanted to wait up, fully play thru these games andthan come after whoever has messed up the review. This time around it wasn't just GS, butseveralother sites and on some blatantly awesome games.

First one i wanted to bring up was Ratchet and Clank. Pretty much all of the world gave it 90% or more, but gamespot came with the standard MS bias and brought it down with a 7.5. In all honesty the game is amazing on every account. It further improved on everything that R&C franchise achieved so far and the mistakes were minor. Not even in any visible or important aspect of the game, but simply in not giving enough substance to those aspects. To understand more u can check out my review of the game. For what it is worth i tried to approach my review thru categories and lessen any personal bias with that. Link to my review: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/ratchetclank/player_review.html?id=511655

More recently there have been many of controvesies about Assassin's Creed and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Again i was outraged but the approach of certain website. GS ragged on AC but still gave it a high score, while IGN just ripped the game a new one. Makes no sense. In addition, again a PS3 exclusive, U:DF gets rave reviews from the planet earth and GS bombs it with crap comments. Now bias again if you ask me, however more important point is that these games are unique in so many ways and are portals to what we will be seeing in future and should be judged as so. This i will be writing about in my new blog, but i did want to bring it up as a very important point.

Uncharted is an amazing title. New IP from Naughty Dog that will open up maybe a path to yet another blockbuster franchise for these guys. While it may have some mistakes, and again, nothing that will make you dispair while you play, i've enjoyed more than any other game in many years now. How did GS find a way to drop 2.0 of the grade based on their personal issues with the game and not lackluster development is beyond me. Don't believe me, read their review, than play the game and than read mine, for example. Its is blatantly obvious and very sad that they continue to cut into PS3 games with complete disregard for the actual game quality!