I always looked up to Gamespot as a reliable place to go for reviews. They always seemed to be unbiased and it's with great pleasure that I joined the community and got to know all of you and all of Gamespot's staff.

All of this is lost now.

I sure hope CNET reflects on this and thinks: Was the money worth losing the hard earned respect and credibility that took years to earn?

I really don't know what happened but something was lost and I'm not a part of this anymore, I don't want to be.

-i78 out.

Hi guys,

I was checking out the review scores of the game ''The Darkness'' on Gamerankings just now and came across a wildly amazing fact: There's a 7 point difference in the scores between the 360 and the PS3 version of The Darkness.

Now, I could understand if for some reason the game had some technical flaws on a system that made it much better on the other console but what do you know-- GAMESPOT has scored both games equally, which can only mean one thing: the review scores out there are biased.

The draught of good, original games for the PS3 is the only logical explanation I have come across, you know? Like some godsent driftwood in the middle of the ocean, every good PS3 game that comes out is hailed like the second coming. On the other hand, does that mean that reviewers are more demanding of XBOX 360 releases?

I don't know. All I know is that more and more I am losing trust in reviewers. I must confess though, more often than not I skip reading the reviews themselves and just look at the scores and conclusions. I am doing myself a disservice, I know. Overlord that just came out: I tried the demo and loved it. Now with review scores averaging 75% I am reluctant in making a purchase. But what does 75% mean? This is my mid-year resolution: Not care about reviews so much, trust my instincts more.

As for PREORDERS and why you should do it: I know a lot of you think that Preorders are a scam, while in fact they're a tool for the merchant so he can offer a better service to his customers. See the Darkness came out and I had ordered only sufficiently for the preorders we had with a couple extras just in case. Personally, I thought the game would do good but my preorders said otherwise-- we had only a few. Well the darned thing came out and for some reason now it was sold out almost instantly and we had people calling about it during the week-end (but we cannot get restocks during the weekend) who wanted the game. We had run out of copies to sell, nothing we could do. See? Unexpected hits are commonplace now, with titles gaining in quality each year you never know what's going to be the next big thing.

My advice? Pre-order Half-Life Orange Box now. This thing will sell like hot cakes.

Hey guys, been a while I know.

I finally got my diploma, thank you very much. That's what kept me away from here at first. Then came summer, a new girlfriend, a new car, a new job and whaddayaknow we're 3 months later and it feels like I haven't been on here in ages.

So anyway I'm making this short but I am reminding all of yous to check out "The Red Star". I blogged about it before the finals started while it was still an upcoming game. Well it's been out for nearly two months now and I've spent some time with it and let me tell you: it's one of the most original old-school games I've ever come across.

It plays out like a beat' em up like say, Final Fight. You've all played Final Fight, right? The twist is that you also have a firearm and the game is in 3D. The stages are a mix of hand to hand fistyfights while the boss are firefights only. Actually, The boss fights play out as if you were in a vertical shooter like Raiden, the camera angles changes to fit the change in gameplay. Your equipment is upgradeable and there's a nice range of combos and tricks you can pull off.

Like I said earlier, for less than 20$ brand new, there's not a lot of games of that quality you can buy so you'd be a fool to pass this one if you're at all interested in old-school type of games. Heck, this game is more fun than a lot of 50$ releases.

So anyways if I haven't convinced you to check it out yet I don't know what else I can do. Oh and for the record, don't bother reading reviews. It's as if half the reviewers totally misunderstood what this game was about. Add the fact it was released at a budget price and you have a bad case of Neglectitis-Ignorantis from a lot of people who reviewed it.

Any of you guys tried it yet? Leave me your impressions in the comments here

-Ben

With the current announcement of games coming out for Wii and recent rereleases like FarCry, Prince of Persia and Godfather, it was only a matter of time before someone at Capcom would go and suggest they remake Resident Evil 4. Of course! The game was hardly the success it should have been and with the current Wii drought, it could possibly sell by the truckloads.

So allow me to suggest Luigi Mansion for the Wii, with the flashlight now how GREAT would the controls be, huh? I bet that would KICK major Cushion! Oh how about Mario Sunshine too eh? Why not the entire Gamecube Library while we're at it.

I was just updating the new release lists at the store now and saw that Red Star's official release date is today.

Now I know that the buzz surrounding Guitar Hero 2's 360 release is humongous but it doesn't matter, here I am to talk to you about this budget priced game with a not so original premise but gameplay that looks refreshing and quite well executed.

Best of all?

The Game Sells for 19.99$

So I will leave you on this with a few screenshots.

Oh yeah, so far

The average Gamerankings score is 90%

Cheerio!

Hey guys. I gotta say my computer works much better now that it's ventilated. I swear I was going to throw that thing through the window. Anyways, I got 3 new CDs and I felt like sharing with you guys because they're super good.

Menomona 's Friend and Foe

Here's a CD I bought just because I felt like spending the Gift Card I received on my birthday (months ago). It was on the listening stations at the local Archambault. Menomena's sound is quite unique. It's described as ''extremely accessible yet entirely unconventional.'' It is by far the most ecclectic album I bought in ages. It reminds me a bit of Wolf Parade and TV on the Radio as far as the singing goes. The short, melancholy yet rhythmical piano interspersed with the catchy rock riffs and dirty drums totally hooked me. I've given it a few listens already and I'd say you should definitely check it out.

The Klaxons ' Myths of the Near Future

And now, for something totally unexpected: The Klaxons. I have no idea from under what rock they've sprung out but as far as I'm concerned they can arguably be called the revelation of 2007 already. No matter what you do this week-end, stop by a record store and listen to this CD. It's really good. It sounds familiar yet it is totally original. Even their cover of Paul Oakenfold's It's Not Over Yet is surprisingly good (considering the leap from Techno to rock). To sweeten the deal, it's less than 10$. Not bad for a New Release.

Andrew Bird 's Armchair Apocrypha

And now for something totally different. I don't know about you but I've been listening mostly to bands recently. And by recently I mean for the past couple of years, the only exceptions being Jason Collett and Alexi Murdoch. Anyways, this cd just came out and I tell ya, it's very good. It's a bit folky-tender-rock but that's fine. You don't feel like the artist is trying to take all the space for himself, the music and vocals are harmoniously arranged and it comes out really good. It's a bit mellow but sometimes you just don't feel like listening to anything noisy. I guess that's where this CD comes in handy hehe. Definitely check it out.

The links I provided point to Allmusic, where you can listen to samples.

Oh well. Anyone else got new albums worth checking out recently?

Someone tells you about a game, you read the reviews and promptly you decide to buy the game- Quickly, you make room in your afternoon for a short trip to the local videogames store and all day, until you finally get home to play after school or work, you're all riled up and expecting the world: this game could be the greatest game you ever played! You just can't wait.

Fast forward 6 hours: it's 1:30 a.m and I still can't play the game.

The game I'm talking about is S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the game that until, well, the problems started, I thought would be the game that made me play on PC again. Let me tell you my story-- the descent to hell of your everyday PC gamer type of guy.

I had heard of STALKER from a friend, Peter_Panda, who had told me he had been waiting for it to come out for a long time. Surprisingly he still had not bought it. I took a look at the game's screenshot and sure enough it had a certain look that I really appreciated: gritty post-apocalyptic, reminescent of Fallout. I watched Jason Ocampo's video review and I was sold. I promptly ran through my old games to find a couple that would garner enough credit to pay the attractively low price it sells for and dropped by the store before going to work in the late afternoon.

Now when I got home I proceeded with the installation. It had been so long since I actually bought a PC game that I immediately installed and played, the last one being Company of Heroes, that I had nearly forgotten how painful it was. Thankfully, this is a DVD version. I did not have to swap half a dozen cds around. the installation itself is not so bad-- It's fetching patches. I heard somewhere that the patches delete your savegames so this was absolutely necessary prior to playing, there's no way I'd be procastinating that.

A couple of reboots later, I finally start the game. It's a bit sluggish but playable. I run through the tutorial and get my first mission and go out to explore a bit-- OH NOES! My computer reboots. Cold, hard, without warning. The sensation is familiar though it stings-- akin to being betrayed by the oldest of friends. I attribute this to randomness and promptly restart the game. I knew the game had its fair share of issues from the onset so I am willing to turn a blind eye. Now my second session starts. I skip through most of the initial dialogue and run out, explore a bit and-- OH NOES! My screen... becomes... plaid?

I attribute this to my owning older hardware with outdated drivers. After all, I purchased my 250$ video card oh, at least a year and a half ago (a Radeon X800, how terribly outdated it seems now). For the sake of fairness, I would like to point out that I could have bought a Wii with that kind of money. So anyways, I then proceed to the proverbial driver updates.

I'm fairly used to drivers hunting so this is rather quick. I do that with ease, but one can only imagine the poor guy who's fairly new with computers who doesn't understand quite why his new videocard glitches and hiccups with his brand new game. We've all been there, right? So anyways, this process takes a good chunk of time. The installing and countless reboots of both the video and sound drivers are now driving me insane. I've rebooted this computer at least 6 times now, not even counting the one that was forced on me by my failing hardware. All the steps were done now. DirectX reinstalled. It's ready... will it work?

That's the moment you know you've ran out of solutions, you're against the wall: if it does not work this time, I'm screwed, it's the end of me. The game loads, the graphics appear on the screen.. I skip the initial sequence and run out... it seems like it wants to work but I'm hesitant, apprehensive-- it could fail at anytime and sure enough, it does. The exact same thing happens: my screen is invaded by squares, plaid-like in their distribution.

I sincerely don't know where the problem lies. Is it one of the drivers that has compatibility issues? I don't think so. Is it my video card that is overheating? possible. Is it my OS that is simply due for a major uninstall / reinstall? Do I have a virus? Is my power-supply sufficient? Does my case provoke overheating? How much is this going to cost me? I just don't know and frankly, for me it's another nail in PC Gaming's coffin.

I understand a lot of people are willing to put up with all this but I'm tired, out of energy. When I buy something, I really appreciate when it works and not after doodling with it for hours, NO! Remember the ''Plug and Play'' thingy? That's how PC gaming ought to become. That Games for Windows thing? I really wish it's going to work but me... I'm tired. My videocard that I bought mere months before my 360 is now an old piece of plastic and metal that I could not even trade for a Gameboy SP. My game that I got yesterday, I may never even get to play and thanks to PC gaming 'enthusiasts' and their dubious ways, you can't return PC games at all. Needless to say, I really got the shaft and I'm not too happy about it. With consoles becoming more and more like PCs (minus the buggage) for a fraction of the the price and more often than not even better performances, my days gaming on a PC are numbered.

Any of you guys have PC Gaming horror stories to tell? Have you at one point moved away from PC as a gaming platform or do you swear only by it?

UPDATE:

I've moved around my PC and opened it. The game has been running for over 30 minutes without failing now. I believe the problem was due to some overheating, probably the GPU. I've nailed down the trouble now I just need a better solution than leaving it without its cover. It's now 3 AM, I am finally playing.

 

By far I guess one of the most anticipated XBLA releases is Castlevania. I'm just ''polling'' you all.

Have you bought it yet? If so do you like it?

 

 

Perhaps you don't know yet, but I am glad to tell you that it's now official: Devil May Cry 4 is coming to 360, PC and PS3. It's no longer an exclusive for Sony's pony. While it may anger some people, this is indeed a good thing, since it will surely put more money in Capcom's coffers and the game in more homes than it would have had it remained a PS3 exclusive.

Now we've all read somewhere that because of the cost of creating a next-gen title (and by next-gen, I mean graphically next-gen) is exorbitant, with reports of games like Lost Planet costing as much as 40 millions to produce. Needless to say, you can't make games that cost this much and have them end up as bargain binners: they need to sell millions of copies in order for the publisher to make a profit.

Now while this may seem like a perfectly good excuse for PS3 exclusive to become not-so-exclusive anymore, allow me to introduce you to Factor number two, a factor that could very well spell doom on the Playstation namesake.

You see, the PS3 is not just 'having a hard time' and it's not 'just the beginning', it suffers from 3 things: Bad press, Lack of exclusives and a high pricetag. What potential buyers need now is a good reason to get one, aside from the Blu-Ray player. Those who wanted one for the Blu-Ray playback already bought it. Now it's gamers Sony are after. The problem is, there's no games. So the public holds off buying the product. Meanwhile, the people who make games, such as Capcom, look at the 2 million PS3s shipped and the dismal attach rate and realize they will never recoup their expenses with such a small userbase, so they go multiplatform. Meanwhile, customers who see this have more reasons to buy the competitors' products instead and less reasons to get Sony's.

Sony needs to react and quick. The only things that would really get them out of this would be to get a killer app, now, or to lower the price in order to be on an equal foothold with the 360, but Microsoft could always retaliate and lower their price: Sony would end up losing a lot more money on each console sold and still be the more expensive machine. 'Home' may very well be one of the things the PS3 needs, but it needs them now.

Of course, only time will tell, but it sure looks like losing this big name is not going to help move more PS3 units. With each exclusive the PS3 loses, Sony also loses potential customers and now Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII coming for PC and/or 360 seems about to become a reality faster than we'd imagine.

Remember how much fun you had at the arcades with your buddies, elbows fighting for more room around one of the most beloved crowded cabinets of our childhood, TMNT: the Arcade Game? The graphics were sharp, the animations diversified, the controls tight. Best of all, 4 players could play at the same time! O, the fun we had.


Remember me?

Enter TMNT: The Arcade Game circa 2007. Namely, last wednesday's XBLA release. It's authentic! Everything is there: the cheesy, computery voice over, the pizza powerups and even a whole 4 frame of animation for a tied-up splinter. Oh, the fun we'll have. Oh Really?

I guess my beef with the game is that it's a shameless quarter muncher, but there's no coins involved whatsoever. In an article entitled Quarter-Gobblers are Broken on XBLA, blogger Vlad Cole argued that some games just are not the same when there is nothing at stake (your quarter, in this case) saying: ''What made [Gauntlet] so fun was the fact that your money was always at stake''. While at first a lot of people called him crazy for it, you have to admit that indeed there's something terribly wrong with a game in which you cannot really die and in which your score doesn't matter so much (as opposed to schmups like Ikaruga for example).

During my XBLA session of TMNT, I died over 3 dozen times. Maybe more. That's almost 10 bucks of quarters I did not have to put in the machine to keep on playing. I did not keep count. I honestly couldn't: I would sometimes die before even hitting anything. While it sounds nice not to have to insert a real quarter every time I died, I could feel there was something definitely missing from the experience.

Playing XBLA games with near infinite continues is exactly the same as turning on the cheat mode. You lose the tenseness that comes with a real challenge. Standing at the TMNT machine, I realize I was not only playing for fun, I was playing for honor. Would I be the next one on the cabinet who would have to put another quarter in? Would I run out of quarters first? Would I make the difference in that boss fight? All those motivations are lost when all you gotta do to keep on playing is just press start.

Take Alien Hominid for example. Yes, I may curse it for being too difficult but at least the game keeps me on the edge. It constantly challenges me to find the tricks and the patterns-- the way to play that will keep me alive. The more I play, the better I get, the further I advance into the game. Eventually, I will finish the game, and it will take no more than an hour or so to do it. Can you imagine? a game that lasts less than two hours! It will take me weeks in order to succeed though (if I ever do). That's what is missing from TMNT, that's how the game should have been ported.

So what will I do with my TMNT XBLA title? probably try it a couple of times online with buddies to see if it's fun. It could really redeem the game, but I highly doubt it. It just goes to show that some memories are best left untouched.