You hear a lot about bias. It was really prevalent I think in latter 2008. You see children, fanboys tend to call certain reviewers/outlets biased when they feel a game they love (that they usually don't play...) gets a too low score, or games they hate (haven't played argument part 2 redux) get too high of a score. The worst heat in this whole thing is 360 vs PS3 debacle. PS3 owners have given low scores to 360 games, and vice versa on sites such as Amazon and Metacritic. Before I continue I wish to say I have a good amount of love for each major console as a way to vaccinate myself against fandom. In short, cut it out!

I also have heard a lot of hate mail coming to certain people such as a certain host on a certain show on a certain channel about his review of Killzone 2 (which was a 5/5, wtf no such thing as 10/5) which is just BS because I love the guy. I don't know maybe there is someone who takes money from a publisher for a high score but I doubt it. These are typically people who get paid to do this and spend a lot of time and effort, so be nice. Anyway back to the point I wanted to make next.

Perfect scores inspire more hate than any other thing in my opinion. Some people feel like some games deserve a perfect score and complain when the game gets a 9. Some people don't appreciate the weight that a perfect score carries. It does NOT mean the game is perfect, it usually means that the flaws are small or the game is so good that any problems are like a grain of sand in water (just made that up). A score like a 9/4/90/what have you doesn't mean the game is bad, it just means the reviewer doesn't feel it deserves such a heavy score.

In closing, fanboys, leave your least favorite console and it's gamers alone. And people don't be pissy if the game you love gets a low score. Remember what games used to be? Fun. They still can be if you drop the hate and enjoy.

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. After a week of listening to 8 bit music I was inspired. Inspired to locate my NES. I looked for it with gusto. My mother told me that it was probably thrown out. In shock I told her "You know if you threw it away you threw away a piece of history, I understand it doesn't mean much to your generation but it means a hell of a lot to mine". And despite the aching feeling that it might be true, my efforts were rewarded.

At first, I was happy with what I located first, my Atari 2600 and a library of games. Sweet. Several minutes later I dug and dug away until I found it. The godfather and savior of gaming as a whole, The Nintendo Entertainment System. Under clothes and out of a protective box, dirty and alone. With glee I took it out of the room and cleaned it. Now it sits on my couch awaiting the proper components to see if it works, hopefully it will. If not, so help me God I will work to restore it when I can afford to.

Other thing I wanted to talk about was something that put a damper on my Call of Duty experience.On the Outskirts map there is a terrible, terrible glitch that allows someone to basically climb into the sky. And they can shoot. SHENANIGANS!! In another glitchy note I'm beta-testing Quake Live, and from the look of things, this will be in beta for a while because I have trouble with it in firefox, but of course the game is free and fun so no worries. They'll iron out the bugs and the important thing is I'm helping them do so.

Did you guys see the latest Nintendo Power? It's amazing how many rpg's are coming to DS. I am really excited for Phantasy Star 0 and the new Puzzle Quest. However I am mad that we won't get Phantasy Star until next winter, even though it came out December 25th in Japan. Are they telling me it will take a year to translate it? Anyway Puzzle Quest has a "demo" on the official site and it's similar to Warlords but the pieces fall differently and require slightly more strategy but it's the core concept in a nice sci-fi shell. So it's safe to say I'm pretty damn excited.

Also, Chinatown Wars drops in March =D

Oh before I forget they also have an interview with Nobuo Uematsu as their Power Profile. Schweet, I'm reading it now.

Okay, update YOU CAN HAS IT!

For one, I survived the holidays somehow in one piece. It must be a Christmas miracle that I did. Anyway to get to the point, I lost my job. Apparently they took all the seasonal people off the schedule without deciding who to keep. All I know is that I was one of them. So farewell to my disposable income for the time being. It will be way less disposable come September when I plan to go to school. I also owe money sadly enough, and with no income I'll kick myself for spending any more. Sorry Rock Band but I don't need new songs that bad. So yeah, life kind of sucks at the moment.

Christmas is knocking on our doorstep. I need to grab some gifts and I'm good. This also may be my last week at toys r us. After they kill me with hours of course.

Not to sound greedy, but having a job makes me want to buy more stuff because I can actually afford it. So I picked up Naruto Ninja Council 3 and N+ thanks to our buy-one-get-one-half off deal and my employee discount. And today on itunes I picked up Combat Rock, Power Supply, Osaka Popstar And The American Legends Of Punk, and the A Fire Inside EP. Woot!

Hey guys, just thought it was time for an update. For one, I am alive. I survived black friday. Which is something I would blog about but it's a hard to explain experience. Anyway I'm glad I got my shopping done for my friends, which is an awesome feeling, although I have to focus on my family's gifts now. In other news I just finally picked up GRAW 2 for 360 and have been playing it extensively. It's a fun game but a bit difficult because it is borderlining on RTS. Other stuff I should mention is I have a twitter account: k_leva. And I also got twitterfox which actually makes me want to use it so woohoo. I also bought myself some patches from newgrounds which is cool especially for the free swag I got with it, including a postcard manifesto with art by Dan Paladin. Otherwise I just got myself onto an audiojournal with my buddy Matt which is a new experience and something I will be doing often. Anyway I should wrap this up, got to prepare a bit for my 3:30 to midnight shift tomorrow. Just thought I should throw an update.

I just took a gander at our stuff on sale on Black Friday. I'm scared. And I do HAVE to work on Black Friday.

I was pleased when I booted up my xbox for the first time on the 19th. Very very pleased. The NXE as it's called has finally arrived on my exbawx. So right now I want to do a bit of a breakdown on what I think of it.

Installation: The installation went fairly smoothly for me aside from the fact that it had to restart several times to complete it however it took a very short time, I think somewhere between 3-5 minutes overall. 

Interface/Aesthetics: The first thing that was greatly improved was the interface. It is a lot more streamlined, for me the best thing I noticed was that as far as my game library is concerned, I have to go through almost zero menus in order to play my XBLA games. Thought the interface design is a bit familiar (Itunes' cover flow comes to mind) it is amazingly effective for the 360. Gone are the blades and the neat swoosh noise they make but the new layout feels a bit more, dare I say, organic. It also has a satisfying clicking sound which is music to my ears to me, being an ipod enthusiast. It is very easily navigated with the bumpers, triggers, and analog stick. And above all it's easy on the eyes, which I really appreciate because of my time as a design student. 

Avatars: First and foremost, personally I really like the avatar system. They are very customisable, with everything from facial features, to accessories such as rings or face-paint. Where as on the Wii you get a minimum choice of facial features and a favorite color to work with. The avatars on the 360 are also a little more interactive, with a few preset expressions and a silly little ability to make the avatar belch, which while juvenile, really amuses me. I also like how you can make their lips move so the have the illusion of speech, which makes for some good kung fu movie parodies for me and my friends.

Ability to store games on your hard drive: This is the only thing hard to swallow for me at the moment. This feature promises to decrease loading times, which it does, just not significantly. I tried it with Fable 2 and it barely put a dent in the loading times save a second or two. And frankly, it is a waste of good hard drive space, each game being at least a minimum of five gigabytes to install. Which is bad for me considering I only have a 20gb hard drive. The only thing it really does is make your 360 a tiny bit quieter, because the disc has to spin less, which is also good for the disc and drive. 

 In conclusion however, this is a very welcome update. It's overall very aesthetically pleasing, and streamlined. I just hope that the ability to store games gets a little bit better.

NXE is here. I have off tonight and tomorrow. I get paid friday!

 

Bye all!