Finally. Actually it wasn't that long, with my finish time at a bit over 27 hours. But I'm willing to admit that at least a few of those were me doing things the hard way. It me longer to master how to play it than it did with the other two Bioware games I've played, KOTOR & Jade Empire. But despite that ... holy sh*t Mass Effect is good. The (surprisingly easy) ending sequence I found to be damn exciting and my heart was racing. But as the credits rolled something occurred to me... Mass Effect is a trilogy. Whoa.

Now despite it's overall greatness it's definitely flawed. The texture popping and frame rate issues bothered me the most because they really detract from how utterly awesome the game looks and sounds. Hopefully any technical issues will be resolved for the sequels which I now officially can't wait for. Spicing up the gameplay wouldn't hurt either. And more deflowering of alien virgins would be cool...

Ok so as you may know if you've read my last couple of blogs, I've had some serious gaming issues recently. This is my luck, so I'm not going to b1tch about it after the fact. But having to replace my 360 then discovering that because of this I can't access any of my XBLA games OR (Rock Band) DLC without being signed on to Live, I just lost it. Allow me to explain.

So I packed up my 360 and Rock Band and took it to my friend's house. Yeah I know. That's a lot of stuff to cart around but it's the price I pay to play with people who don't suck. Anyway, we're rocking out well, then we go to pick another song and my friend says, "Where's all the Metallica stuff?". Hmmm... it wasn't there. I checked my hard drive, and it was there alright. At that point I knew. I knew about this phenomenon occuring when you transfer the contents of a hard drive to a new on, but all I did was slap my hard drive on a new system. Ok, so how goddam asinine is that. I REALLY hate this. So let me get this right. I buy a model of a system that breaks down. I have to pay $99 to get my old model fixed. So I buy a newer model. And now I can't use any of this stuff I payed for unless I'm signed in to an online service that I also pay for. An online service that is, at least for the moment, pretty f*cked up. Something is NOT adding up here. Is it me or is Microsoft becoming what Sony was a year or so ago? I mean this in the sense that everything they're doing and saying is flat-out pissing off their customers.

Before I begin please refer to my previous blog. Go on, it'll only take a second. K. So My 360 sh*t the bed early last week. I fixed that situation (at what a price) and thought my troubles were over. WRONG. My newest problem has nothing to do with my 360. However my PSP is now gone without a trace. Vanished. Of course I've searched my teeny tiny room for it to no avail. Allow me to explain something to you. When I take my PSP with me I always take this small case of games as well. Said case is present and accounted for. My PSP, not so much. When my PSP is not in use, I put it in one of four locations. Nope, not there. I've looked under stuff, behind stuff, in drawers and other places I know it couldn't be and I still can't find it, which leads me to the following conclusion... someone stole it. There have been four people that have been in a position to take it and I eliminated three of them as possible culprits. This fourth person is someone I know but not particulaly well and they had a perfect opportunity to take it. The hell of it all is, I have no proof. And I can't accuse this person because it could cause some serious complications elsewhere. So unless I stumble across my PSP somewhere I'll never really know. And that SUCKS. What sucks even harder is that my 4GB memory stick and copy of Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles were in the PSP. WHY ME?!

P.S. On an unrelated note my addiction to COD4's multiplayer inspired me to throw in Rainbow Six: Vegas. I remember having a pretty good time with it a year ago. Now, however, I find it unplayable. I was a bit shocked. Oh well...

Yes it finally happened. I'm actually pretty lucky that it lasted as long as it did (got mine at launch). So I called MS and they informed me that my warranty was looong gone and I would have to pony up $99. Nay, sir. My alternative...

If I've learned one thing, NEVER under-estimate the power of ...

So I picked this up a couple days ago...

I know I've stated before how I can't resist a bargain but it may have bit me in the ass this time. So I wanted RE: Extinction on blu-ray so I went to Best Buy . It was 26.99 while the trilogy was 58.99 on sale down from 69.99. So I figured why not. I do like the first one for some reason and I thought Apocalypse was ok. Extinction, however is even more disappointing. It just went too far into left field and had the least to do with the games. Considering I already have the fist two flicks on DVD already I feel somewhat violated. It's solely my fault but the disconnection from the games irked me more than it ever had before. So in Extinction we have Claire Redfield who is leading a convoy of survivors (?) and then they meet up with Alice (Milla "gets naked in every movie" Jovovich) who developed telekinetic abilities (?!) at the end of RE2. Then there's the Tyrant, who finally makes it into an RE movie. I thought he'd be...bigger. And that's it. The only ties to the games are Claire, Tyrant, and Umbrella. Oh, and Carlos is still around. Now like I said I liked the first flick, which means I was able to look past all Hollywood-ization of the games. But this newest flick just takes it too far. There's no explanation as to what Claire has to do with anything. No mention of Chris Redfield or Leon or anything else. It makes me wonder what could have been if George Romero had his way with the franchise. His script for the first RE movie is on the net and I plan on reading it just out of sheer curiosity. I can only speculate as to how good it really is considering that Land of the Dead fell slightly short of my expectations. If there is a fourth RE film, I hope it's seriously re-invented in the same dramatic way that RE4 did for the games.

Hello and Happy New Year to all. So I saw all these "Game of the Year" blogs you crazy kids are posting, so I figured I better do one too. Mine will be a little bit different though. I've done away with categories. No "best graphics, no "best story", no nothing. I should explain. A. I'm lazy B. I don't scrutinize games in that fashion anyway. I judge games on the overall experience. Did I enjoy it and to what extent? What detracted from the experience? You get the idea. So I've picked my five favorites for each platform, with some exceptions, that I played during 2007. I have nothing for PC because I didn't play any PC games at all during 2007 (my PC can't handle much of anything anymore). I also only list four games for PS2 & Wii (slim pickins) and two for the handhelds (didn't do much with those this past year). So without further adieu...

Xbox 360

Bioshock

Call of Duty 4

Rock Band

The Orange Box

Mass Effect

Playstation 3

Ninja Gaiden Sigma

Heavenly Sword

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Assassin's Creed

Unreal Tournament 3

Playstation 2

God of War 2

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's

Manhunt 2

Wii

Super Mario Galaxy

Super Paper Mario

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

DS

Contra 4

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

PSP

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles

Silent Hill Origins

Any comments would be most appreciated! (Except flamers of course) Well that's it. Bye bye 2007 and good riddance. Here's to an awesome 2008. May it bring positive change and games that don't suck. Later!

These will be my last comments regarding Gerstgate. Promise! So things around here seem to be calming down slightly. Now that we can all think a bit clearer and after finally getting some info right from the GS folks I think I see the big picture. And now that I see the big picture I feel slightly bad that I cancelled my Plus subscripton. But no matter what action we as users take against Cnet, the folks at GS will suffer as a result.

Another thing. After checking out the last HotSpot podcast and On the Spot show, I feel for the rest of the gang. Seriously, I thought Ryan McDonald was going to lose it. I felt all along that the other guys were being picked on by users unjustly because of what some a$$hole in charge perpetrated. I can only hope that the number of cancelled paid subscriptions amounts to enough so this guy loses his job.

As for Jeff, I personally hope he ends up at 1UP. I think he'd fit in perfectly over there, plus they're right down the street from the GS offices. I can only hope.

Yes, this is about the Jeff Gerstmann debacle. All signs seem to be pointing in the same direction. Cnet values advertising dollars over integrity. Honestly I'm not THAT shocked, just disappointed. I see that there's a mass exodus of GS users over to Gametrailers so just for the sake of keeping up with some cool and intelligent gamers, I too will be making a profile there. I am not, however, shutting down my GS profile. Yet. But I did cancel my Plus subscription.

Rest assured folks, this is just beginning. This has the potential for somewhat serious repercussions. I say s*** hits the fan before the new year. Should be interesting. And finally to Jeff... sorry. This sucks ass and shouldn't have happenned. Later.

But I guess text will have to do. Anyways, hello & happy turkey day to all gamespotters. So have you been swamped by all of these kick-ass games coming out? I sure as hell have been. Threre's a solid 7 or 8 games I would like to beat by Christmas and with the way my schedule's been lately I have no idea if that's possible. But I gotta try. As soon as GS un-f**ks it's video uploading you guys can expect a video about this particular pile of games. Later.

P.S. - Rock Band GOTY confirmed?

Hey everybody. I realized that it's been almost 3 months since I last made a video, so expect one soon. There's quite a few things I want to talk about, so I'll probably end up making a few vids instead of one long vid, just to make my ramblings easier to digest. See you guys.