I have a confession to make that will alienate me from at least half of all gamers: I hate Halo.

With every new and improved Halo comes some new weapons, a handful of new maps, and maybe slightly better single-player AI.

But what stops me from enjoying Halo in any way, shape or form is the return of one of the most annoying new video game mainstays since Medusa Heads- The one-hit-kill rifle butt.

First let me break my hatred down into the most logical reason: When gamers play video games, we enter the game world still carrying our percieved notions of reality from the real world. My percieved reality is thus- people clubbing you hurts, but bullets kill. In reality, one or a few bullets will kill a human being. But boxers trade blows for round after round after round, barfights rarely end in anything but black eyes and bloody lips, and the marines are taught that in close quarters combat, dragging your adversary to the ground and submitting him with expert strikes is the key to victory, not holding your rifle the wrong way and swinging it around like a wildman.

Simply put, we all know that piercing a human body with a high-velocity projectile is far more deadly than blunt-force trauma, even from a considerably heavy object. So I am pulled out of the Halo game world every time I get into a gunfight with someone who is equally well-armed as I, and am taken by surprise when, after I've unloaded an entire clip into his abdomen, he runs up to me and takes me out with one glorified sucker punch.

At least in the first two Halo games (and I admit I haven't played the third), the gunbutt-strike attack doesn't even look that painful! It isn't a full-fledged, over-the-head hammer blow. It's just a quick jab.

The Counterstrike/Battlefield convention of the one-hit-kill knife attack is a little more bearable: For one, it has to be carried out on an unsuspecting foe, and big frikin' Bowie knives are deadly enough to concievably kill someone with a well-placed strike.

But one thing that bothers me about all of it, whether it be knife or gunbutt, is the lack of skill it takes to pull off an attack like this.

In the game world, we essentially cripple ourselves. Our sense of sight is more limited than in the real world, we have no sense of smell or touch, and our hearing is limited to what the developers want us to hear. Since our enemy's footsteps sound identical to our own, it is incredibly easy to "sneak" up behind someone and stab them. In fact, there's no "sneaking" element to it at all. Just the luck of running out of a corridor after an enemy passes it, and snaking him while he's gunning away. In this scenario, given the choice of either gun-clubbing the poor sap in the back of the head for a one-hit-kill, or blasting him with 5 should-be-lethal revolver rounds and risking him reeling around and wailing on us, it's really no choice at all. While the developers were surely thinking that the one-hit-kill aspect of the melee weapon is a good trade-off for the requirement that one must be breathing down his enemy's neck in order to use it, it is effectively over-powered because we cannot use the senses that would ordinarily alert us to impending danger to counter it.

Consider Doom: In Doom's multiplayer, most of the weapons were powerful, but the melee-only chainsaw was pretty much a gauranteed kill. But it came with one very logical and reasonable trade-off: Every time you fire it up, it's horrifying roar lets pretty much the entire level know that they oughta watch their backs. Have we devolved since then? Really?

Halo had to take the over-powered melee weapon to the next level with the introduction of the crazy-killtastic-something-saber. Now instead of having to come right up close to one's enemy, one simply has to know the map well enough to find the sword, then point in the general direction of an enemy, be a reasonable distance from them, and have two hands (to depress the fire button). Now we're punishing skill and rewarding obsessive, pathetic map memorization. Throw in the other Halo convention that I hate - the recharging shield - and a pretty unskilled player can wreak havoc on a level for a significant period of time.

The knife or gunbutt should be a last resort weapon- something to switch to when you run out of ammo or a clever last-ditch alternative to reloading, provided only that your enemy is pretty much down to their last breath anyway.

It's funny how some of us live lives so extreme that between celebrations and nights of chasing away sorrow, hardly a day goes by that we don't consume alcohol.

It's been one of those weeks for me.

In a few days, one of my best friends, a Hong Kong native whose Student Visa expires in a few day's time, will be returning to his homeland. We've spent nearly every night this week sharing drinks and memories - because a single 'going away' party is not appropriate for such a good friend, who's been there with me through good times and bad, even been halfway across the world with me in Nagoya, Japan.

We've mostly been blitzing a 6-pack each of Kirin Ichiban. But one night we indulged in some Mead to celebrate the viking spirit of blazing ahead without looking back, and a few nights nearly guzzling whiskey handles to stave off the sadness of saying goodbye.

But go he will, and the final goodbye will come, and there's something about having to say goodbye to a best friend that makes a midwest boy want to move on too.

And so it is with those thoughts in my head that I sit alone in my too-large room, finishing off my favorite Japanese beer and smoking more cigarettes than I've had since those packs of Cabin Milds back in Nagoya, trying to fight depression and loneliness, sadness and regret.

If I am lucky, in a month or two, my blogs will come to you from a high-rise apartment just outside of downtown Nagoya, right off the yellow line, Higashiyama. I will be cramped as a sardine in a 12 x 12 apartment with the kitchen built right into the bedroom, but happy as a clam.

I am a strong believer in squeezing every drop out of life, damaging your lungs and liver along with every joint and bone in your body, travelling and smoking, drinking and enjoying the outdoors and the exhilaration of heaving a mountain bike down a 60 degree slope.

By default, I am a staunch opponent of old age.

If the Gods are good to me, I will die a happy Gaijin in a crowded Nagoya bar, my ex-pat and Japanese friends beside me, drinking a Shouchu for you, dear readers, and pouring a sake in the dirt for my friend Myles, who will never be forgotten.

地球最後の日って言われてます。　

友達に'俺達、死ぬしかないんだぞ！'って言われたが、俺は生き残る。

この日の為に数えれないほど銃弾貯めた。　

でも、銃より希望が強い。　希望さえあれば生きる。　

　俺は戦う。　俺はいきる。　　俺は希望する。　この暗い日々が、　なんでも暗い事のように、明るくなる

　we must always remember, it is never pointless to resist.

I am not a movie expert, but I am a movie snob, and that's all the credentials you need to make a good critic.

My most recent bout of cinema snobbery came when I went to see the midnight premier of Indiana Jones 4. Quick-witted readers will observe that making the midnight premier is a decidedly fanboy thing to do, and I am a self-proclaimed Indy Jones fanboy. In fact, I am the number one Indy Jones fan, except for maybe the two kids in the theater wearing leather fedoras and Jones T-shirts.

So, okay, I'm the number one Indy Fan who also has a social life. Anyway....

Before I go on, I guess the requisite SPOILER WARNING is at hand. However, I will do my best not to reveal all but the most minor of plot points.

The first thing to be said, of course, is Indy is OLD! I'm talkin' ancient. Since Air Force One and now, Harrison Ford must have been chilling in a humidor day and night chomping big fat rich old guy cigars. Although he pulls off some minor stunts himself (where the viewer can see it's obviously not a double) with relative grace, ol' Indy mostly saunters around with that aching-joint gait the same as your grandpa. His hind quarter isn't the cut-from-quartz lady magnet it used to be, and he's carrying considerable weight around the midsection.

Mind you, I do not consider this inherently a bad thing. In fact, Ford's admittedly flabby physique sort of lends him the aire of the tough grandfather figure who is mostly embittered by the way 'kids' are doin' things these days, but can still bust some heads from time to time with impressive agility. The problem with the script (written by the equally old and insane George Lucas), is that it casts Ford as the 'father figure' rather than the 'grandfather figure' and incessently seeks to remind the audience that Indy is a badass superhuman with, somehow, more 'super' power and toughness than he had in his late 20's-early 30's adventures from the first three films.

Yes, we all know experience goes a long way, but eventually time and frail bones can force even the wisest grandpa to take a seat, and this is what Ford should have been doing most of the time in this film. Watching, mentoring, researching, and busting heads when the situation absolutely calls for it.

Loyal readers (all one of you) might scoff and say 'but Indy has to be a badass! He has to bust heads!'. I respectfully disagree. Indy does pretty much nothing but bust heads in this installment which only serves to expose his frail form to scrutinizing eyes. If the script could have used some restraint and directed Indy to bust heads from time to time, in brief intervals instead of pretty much throughout the entire film, I believe the audience could have appreciated it more and it would have fooled viewers into thinking that Ford really is the wily, agile old man hiding a big stick.

All the head-busting in the film falls in familiar Indy Jones territory to the point of, at times, feeling very rehashed. Ie, in this installment, we have not one, but several scenes of Indy hijacking a vehicle by whip-swinging in and punching the bad guy driving in the face and/or smashing said guy's head into the steering column, de ja vu remaniscent of carjacking antics throughout the first three films.

The other problem with the otherwise impressive and exciting action of the movie is its entirely-too-frequent forays into Looney Toons territory. If there was anyone left on the planet that didn't think George Lucas is a nut, this movie will convert even the most adherent Church of Star Wars fanboys. I will give this one SPOILER: near the very beginning of the flim, Indy finds himself in the middle of a nuclear testing site with mere seconds to escape before a bomb strikes dead center where he's standing. His solution is not to run or drive a car out of the scene, but rather to hop inside of a refrigerator at ground zero, close it up, and use it as some kind of rocketship to ride the wave of debris out of the danger zone. Logistical questions aside, like: wouldn't the refrigerator just have been vaporized by the blast?, this scene comes off as one of the most ridiculous moments in the entire film. While everything else in the vicinity of the blast is melting and being obliterated into slivers, Indy's Fridge-Rocket 5000 soars through the sky, coming to an enormous and spectacular crashing, rolling halt that no one could have possibly survived.

But 90-year-old SuperIndy, apparently having found the Lazarus Pit sometime in the late 40's, survives without so much as a broken bone, or conveniently, radiation poisoning.

This scene is just a barometer for the silliness to come, which I won't mention any more of. The point is, in all the previous Indy movies, Jones and company survived by the skin of their teeth on several occassions by long-shot maguyver scenarios that were at least somewhat plausible. But not here, lordy no, Crazy old man Lucas decided to turn my beloved, fallible hero into an X-Man with immortal powers.

The saddest part about Indy's new-found superheroism is that it steals screen time and importance away from Shea Le PooPoo, who while normally obnoxious, seems in his element in this film and could have been set up perfectly to take up the Indy reigns.

On the story side of things, this Jones installment falls flat of all the predecessors with the possible exception of Temple of Doom. Oddly, while the film chooses to stick formulaically to the impressive-but-now-cliched big-budget adventure movie setpieces that the original Jones movie immortalized, this one departs in all the wrong ways from the Jones story mold.

I won't reveal much, suffice to say that while all the Indiana Jones movies had a mild supernatural bent, usually coming to life sometime in the end of the film, this latest (and reportedly last) installment goes way out to the Twilight Zone and it's all the worse for it. That, and old people kiss in this movie, and that's just gross.

Is this film a fun watch? Yes. Will it inevitably be a summer blockbuster? Of course. But I really can't help but wonder, after reportedly in-fighting with Lucas constantly over the script, which Spielberg evidently dissaproved of, why he didn't walk away from this project.

The answer is probably the same as the cause and solution to most problems: money. And this, my friends, is where I draw the connection to gaming.

I believe the world is at a crossroads. It's me, you, Indy, and Playstation 3. We are at the tipping point where even the best guys, the most artful, the most ardent, the most staunchly independent and quality-driven men in all industries in the world are bowing to the power of the Dollar and cranking out product with no heart and no brain to appease a rabid audience that instead of shouting loudly and rioting in the streets, simply brushes off their own being used with a shrug of the shoulder and a collective "meh.. maybe next time"

There should be a game called Ninja Manager, where you create a secretive ninja village and manage everything that happens.

You can send ninjas out on recon missions, build brothels to keep the ninjas happy on off days. You'd have to pay special attention to make sure that your ninja village is secretive enough, and shadowy enough for ninjas to have plenty of places to hide. Because, you know, when ninjas aren't out on recon missions they pass the time by sneaking up on each other and going "Gotcha! I could have snapped your neck right there"

You would also have to be careful to include a chalkboard somewhere that the ninjas could write how many times they got each other, and that would determine the head ninja. That, and who is the best at the bi-monthly ninja sand volleyball tournament.

Speaking of the ninja sand volleyball tournament, you'd have to be sure everyone played by the rules and no one was sneaking up and snapping opponent's necks.

Also, I think it's important that a ninja smoke bomb factory is always operational, because if you don't have that, then your ninjas can't say "ninja vanish!" and narrowly escape from trouble. You would have to determine which ninjas are actually the worst at being ninjas, and then make them take one for the team and stay behind at the smoke bomb factory.

More ideas for this to come.

P.S., if you are a publisher that wants to use this idea for your latest video game (Here's lookin' at you, EA), I only request that I oversee the entire operation to make sure that ninjas are fairly represented in the game.

My dream is that one day a major videogame media outlet will approach me to begin writing a column called 'The Jaded Gamer' where I talk about how most modern games pretty much suck, wax geriatrics about how we used to play Mario 2 until our thumbs bled, and yes Timmy, there was a time when you could walk off of one side of the screen and appear on the other.

With all the sh*t-talking I do about Gamespot (despite them being so kind as to give me an outlet for my rants) I doubt they will be the first to approach, but I have my fingers crossed that someday some scout will dig up these blogs and connect my ID tag with my pen-name I write under for Japanzine, and offer me carte blanche to write my own column.

Until then, this will be my personal (and mostly private - although I have one guy tracking me now! Whoever you are, you get 4 gold stars! and a smiley face for every other poor soul you lead to the dark side) soapbox, despite Gamespot's continuous denials to put me on the real 'user soapbox'.

Probably because my username offends people (the same guys that run over hookers in GTAIV), and I don't have a profile picture (tried to upload one of Snake or something a long time ago but the file was too big and it wouldn't accept it. been too lazy ever since). But I like to think the content of my steadily-increasing-in-frequency rants are of much higher quality than the circuitous and mostly self-serving Freshman-philosophy-flunkie term paper material most of the guys that actually do make the soap box are putting out (with pretentious titles like 'Absolutism in Gaming...' and a real groaner from some time ago about how people who talk about Ayn Rand without reading The Fountainhead cover to cover are phonies).

I pull no punches: I write these stupid blogs because I do hope, eventually, someone or with luck even a handful of people will actually read them and find them interesting or at least agree with me, or at least hate me in an intelligent kind of way. I have little mercy for modern gaming and modern gamers, who are a different breed from the gamer friends I had years ago (whom I subsequently ditched- around the time Playstation 1 came out- for a more balanced social life and the ability to fly under the radar when it came to my then-#1 hobby).

Gaming is no longer my #1, or even my #2 hobby, and I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably not have enough money during the entire run of the current generation of systems to actually purchase one. I have made peace with the fact that for the next 4 to 6 years, in the few instances that I do have free time, I will be playing old school RPGs and re-treading Metal Gear Solid 3 and Resident Evil 4. In fact, this is the way I like it. I will stick myself in a kind of time capsule- a pocket of time in which gaming was good and honest and free from pretension and shields that refill after you duck behind some barrels for a few seconds. I will shamelessly download emulators for systems long, long dead and gone and play top-down shooters that remind me of my Nagoya days, killing a few 100-yens between dates and all-night parties with some truly interesting, worldly people, in smoke-filled arcades where men and girls both converged to watch the slightly aloof gaijin nearly beat Raiden 3.

I hope to emerge a better man. Someone that the masses of the newest game-hungry generation will point to and call a Guru of modern gaming - the man that went under into the abyss of 2D classics and those wonderful amalgams of 3D and pixel-sprites and refused to come out until the gaming world was a better place again.

In a way the decline of gaming has liberated me from a vice that robbed me of the life I should have had when I was a kid- baseball, soccer, snowball dances. Fishing with dad. I'm getting a late start, but I'm starting to practice the sports I never got a chance to get good at, fulfilling my dreams of seeing the world outside of 32-bit lenses, hooking up with girls and making good friends in every major continent.

But I go forth in the world guided by my old heroes, who like the comic book heroes of old had morals and personalities that you filled out with your own imagination and a tangeability that even the world itself seems to have lost. Mario, and Snake, the Belmont Clan, Pac-man, Liu Kang, and Cloud Strife and the gang all got my back.

The kids these days have no one to look up to but cold anti-heroes who stab hookers, faceless, gritty space marines, and graphically rendered hands that connect to no one in particular.

Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs.

I just remembered there was one 'mobile' game I did enjoy.

When I lived in Japan there was a Dragon Warrior hack and slash that I downloaded to my cell phone and played on the train ride to work every morning. I became hopelessly addicted to it, and would even play it at home from time to time, when I couldn't sleep cause my girlfriend was snoring or something.

For the record, even 5'3 stick thin Japanese girls snore.

Oh, but that game was a free download with far better production values than anything the American cell market puts out. And it'll never be imported to the states.

I think all 'mobile' (as in cell phone) games should automatically be docked 5 points on Gamespot's 10 point scale before anything else is even considered. This is, of course, to represent the fact that games created for and played on a tiny cell phone with hardly any memory and a number pad for a button face, are at their very, very, very best, mediocre.

Downloaded Doom RPG out of sheer boredom while waiting for a plane heading for LA. It helped me kill about 15 minutes before the plane started to board, but I was getting bored of it even by that point, and have tried to play it again since but just can't get over how clumsy the controls are and how incredibly shallow it all is. NES games were more involving than most 'mobile' games on the market.

The only bright side to the whole deal is that they only cost about 4 dollars a game, but there used to be a time when simple and far more fun games came on your cell phone for free. But, now (and you'll note this is a common theme in my blog rants) developers have realized there is money to be had by offering them for pay-for-play download. If I downloaded 3 games every month, that would double my cell phone bill.

All we need on a cell phone is Snake, solitaire, and if we're lucky, a Tetris clone.

When I stop and think about it, I realize that I (and the rest of you) should be offended that Gamespot even reviews these games. They are a mockery of gaming that should be laid to rest, and for Gamespot to give them scores like '8.5', masquerading them around as real, quality games is an outrage.

At the very least they have IGN one-upped by clearly stating that the review is for a 'mobile' game. IGN wont mention its a mobile game till you've cliked 4 or 5 tmes into the review.

Also, calling them mobile games is kind of tricky. Makes me think of DS and PSP. They should be called 'cell' or 'pooh' or 'dug this out of a trash heap' games.

If anyone tracks my comments and blogs (i doubt it), they probably realize my biggest complaint about the game industry is its constant rehashing and lack of innovation.

That said, sometimes all I want to do is step outside, raise my hands to the sky, and scream up to the heavens "I WANT THE NEXT TEKKEN!!!!"

Seriously, seems like it's been forever since we've had a new Tekken installment. I can vaguely recall reading some kind of news about it way back when, but the last one I can remember really enjoying was Tag Tournament. Pretty fond memories of passing those boring days at the dorm with my buddies Freshman year, or playing it while we pregamed for some big party. Good stuff.

Yeah, there was another one after that, right? 4 or something... but it just didn't live up. My point is, I guess, industry stagnation is a bad thing, but man I love when games throw all the characters from their universe into one big mega roster! The last great Mortal Kombat was Trilogy, the best Tekken was Tag, and I have always, always wanted a Super Robot Taisen (means 'big war' in Japanese) game. If you haven't heard of those little gems, they're basically role playing games where all the giant robots from more or less every Japanese anime and TV show and game are thrown into one collosal RPG.

Of course copyright issues prevent them from being released in the states (i think they released one with a bunch of the character names changed and slight graphical tweaks to make them legally distinct, but come on, isn't that a giant copout?). I had the opportunity to buy the latest and greatest one while I was back in Japan the last time, but I was saving my money for Izakaya (japanese pubs), cigarettes, and my eventual flight home, so I took a pass.

Speaking of Japanese, anyone studying it out there will want to buy the DS 'game', "Kanji Sono Mama" (no, it's not about anyone's mom. It literally translates as something like, 'Kanji the way it is"). Best kanji dictionary i've ever had the pleasure of seeing. The DS Stylus lets you draw the kanji out so you just have to look at a kanji, and do your best artist impression on the DS screen and it will give you the meaning. Plus, when you type in Nintendo in Japanese characters, it gives you the Mario coin chime and a brief history of the company. Ha! Most paper kanji dictionaries are hopelessly confusing to use, and other electronic ones cost upwards of 300 American dollars, so it makes more sense to buy a 120 dollar DS plus the software. Note to college kids in Japanese classes: This is an excellent write-off to convince your parents to give you money for a DS.

Saw they finally recently released a Gundam RPG stateside. Got real pumped. Then realized it was from the "Chibi Gundam" (SD) series... come on... Huge, melodramatic space opera and Chibi robots? They just don't go together. It may be cool, but I don't know if I could take it seriously enough to play through it all.

Speaking of recently released RPGs, just blew some money on Persona 3 FES. So far so good, gameplay-wise. First game I've bought in god knows how long. I just don't have the money or the time to be buying stale rehashes or FPS' with poor AI because the developer focused entirely on online content (don't have the money to take my consoles online),. After I bought it, I saw that crazy PS2 Alchemy RPG came out as well and regretted not buying it instead. I love the idea of Alchemy in games. I love exploring in games, and gathering alchemy components is a perfect motivator for aimless wandering.

But the Gamespot review of the game gripes about its graphics. Hey guys, can we make a policy to eliminate graphics as a factor in reviewing last-gen games? Honestly. Plus, this Alchemy game (forget the full, weird name) has pretty stylized graphics, so can't we forgive it for a 'dated' look? There's a reason DS sells the best out of all systems on the market. People don't care about graphics!! now more than ever.

Besides (and here's one for the conspiracy theorists), rumor has it that in both the PS3 and XBox360, certain 'liberties' have been taken with other components of the system so that the graphics can be juiced up. Cracked.com reported that enemy AI is actually getting STUPIDER in next gen systems because the power for the system to make really smart AI is being rerouted into the graphics. So we're doomed to more stupid FPS AI for at least another 6 to 10 years. Great. sometimes I fear that by the time games start being innovative and forward-thinking again, I will be old and have crippling arthritis.

Here's the only thing you can ever see on the discovery channel, national geographic, history and travel channels: ghosts, dogs, dirty jobs, UFO's

2 years ago it was choppers. What the hell is up with that? Seriously, these were the only channels I ever used to watch anymore because all other TV had become trash. Now this TV is trash too.

I just had to get that out of my system.

Also, why am I allowed to say 'hell' on gamespot, but i can't say 'sucks"???? That 's*cks"