If I get one more e-mail, instant message, phone call, certified letter, telegram, bulletin board posting, fax, morse code signal, or carrier pigeon from a friend asking me when the PSP will come out and for how much, I'm just going to lose it. There's a misconception among my friends about the job I have that, because I write about games all day, I somehow have an inside track on every single aspect of the biz. The reality is much different, however. While it's true that Kaz Hirai and I exchange twice weekly e-mails, it's very rare that we actually talk business. Usually the talk is about his personal life. You know: cars, girl trouble, MTV, the latest Xzibit CD. That sort of thing. I mean, you did see Kaz chillin' with X-to-the-Z during the PSP press conference, right? That looked completely natural and not at all forced on the part of either participant.

As for the PSP, yeah I want one. Despite the Sony peeps being non-committal about the handheld's release date, the number of games that are coming out for the system at or around launch time is heartening, to say the least. As Sports Editor, I'm doubly pleased by the sheer volume of sports games that will arrive with the system's launch. In fact, sports games seemed to dominate the majority of the PSP news at last week's CES convention, and not all of the news arose from the EA juggernaut. Sure, we saw glimpses of the new Tiger Woods, NFL Street, and NBA Street titles, but the debut of NBA 2005 from 989 Sports was a welcome sight as well. Frankly, this being a Sony hardware launch, I expected more titles from the internal Sony developer, especially since a 989 hockey title was announced for the PSP in May 2004.

This being GameSpotting however, I don't have to concentrate solely on sports titles. Other PSP games which caught my eye during last week's coverage: Twisted Metal: Head-On. I mean, eight-player vehicular combat over the PSP's wireless connection? Yes, please. The new Dynasty Warriors game for the Sony handheld--a series I haven't touched since the PS2 launch--looks like it's taking a more pick-up-and-play style, which is perfect for PSP users on the go. This new approach has me intrigued and anxious for some hack-and-slash second-century-China style.

Despite the PSP's other cool features--namely the music and movie playback features--I still view the PSP primarily as a gaming device. Sony execs can bellow buzzwords such as "convergence" all day long but I've already got an iPod and a portable DVD player, thanks. Unless something drastically changes in my mindset over the next year or two, it's going to be an awful tough sell to get me to buy a UMD copy of Tombstone for my PSP. For now, I'm simply interested in the PSP as a game machine. As such, I'm pleased with what I've seen so far.

A share of the national championship, that's what.

I thought things might slow down around the offices as we approach the end of the year. After all, the flood of new game releases has slowed down to a trickle and we're getting geared up for our annual Game of the Year awards (which kick off today, by the way). How wrong I was. The big EA/NFL partnership has kept us busy over the past few days, trying to figure out exactly what it means for the industry in general and EA's competitors, in particular.

That said, I'm looking forward to some time off next week. In addition to spending time with friends and family over the holidays, I plan to do some good old-fashioned, All American media consumption over the break. Here's my plans:

- Catch up with my Tivo -- With ESPN College Hoops 2K5, World of Warcraft, and Halo 2 taking the majority of my eyeball time over the past few weeks, I've basically ignored my friendly little TV companion. I'm scared to even think how much backed-up TV I have to watch--including the latest season of HBO's The Wire and the last four episodes of Band of Brothers (which aired on cable in mid-summer, for God's sake). That's at least 16 hours of entertainment right there.

- Watch DVDs. I just picked up The Return of the King extended edition. I'm going to try and do the three-night Rings-o-thon and watch each of the extended editions on successive nights. After such prolonged exposure to Peter Jackson's magnum opus, I'll probably be wistfully staring into my friends' eyes and moving in poignant slow motion a lot.

- Finish George R.R. Martin's Storm of Swords. The third book in his "Song of Ice and Fire" series which are unquestionably the finest fantasy books ever written. To call this series fantasy, however, is an insult. It's more like historical fiction of medieval times that never existed.

- Play World of Warcraft. I'm heading to my folks' house for part of my Christmas break and the only game-related thing I'm bringing is my copy of WoW. What with all the family time, I'm not sure how much time I'll get with the game but I aim to get a few steps closer to getting a mount by the end of the year...

- Watch some college football. Even though I'm sick that Auburn didn't get a shot at USC this year, I'll still be watching the bowl games. That GMAC Bowl match-up between Memphis and Bowling Green is just too compelling a story to miss. And who, at the beginning of the season, would have predicted Toledo vs. Connecticut in the Motor City Bowl? I'm sure ticket prices for that one have skyrocketed into the $10-15 range by now. And finally, the coup de grace, the Silicon Valley Bowl. It breaks my heart that I won't be anywhere near San Jose on Dec. 30 to witness the match-up that fans of the sport have been demanding for years: Troy vs. Nothern Illinois. This, people, is why they play the game.

The more I think about it, the busier my holiday seems to be getting. What are your plans for the next few weeks?

There's 8,760 hours in one calendar year. 525,600 minutes. 31,536,000 seconds. Seems like a lot, right? Yet that still isn't enough time to play all of the great games we've seen in 2004. The sheer volume of big-name, high-quality titles that made their way to store shelves this year is staggering. Here at GameSpot, we've got the tough job of choosing which of these stellar titles are worthy of our Game of the Year awards. As you might expect, it's a highly contentious process that mixes fervent proselytizing with scientific method, passionate debate and head-scratching meditation. In short, it's crazy.

Here then is a quick inside look at the first round of our awards deliberations.

4:30 p.m. – GameSpot editors and staff begin piling into the big conference room, readying themselves for a long evening of passionate arguing ahead. Some, like senior editor Jeff Gerstmann, pictured at left, come well-prepared for the fray.

5:00 p.m. – The deliberations begin. The most fascinating thing about the entire proceeding is how quickly the conversations turn from debating the specific qualities of a particular title into much larger and worldly discussions of technology, artistry, and subjective merit. Clearly I’m among well-read and educated company. Which is exactly why I feel so bad that I keep finding myself using the phrase "R0XX0RS AZZ!!!11" when it's my turn to speak.

7:15 p.m. – Fifth Jerry Orbach reference of the night. Somewhere an angel gets his wings.

8:00 p.m. – Alex Navarro's 45-minute FBI Hostage Rescue filibuster finally ends when the poor lad finally passes out.

8:30 p.m. – The pizza arrives and all hell is unleashed as word of a pepperoni shortage gets around. Avery Score is seriously wounded in the skirmish, despite being Kosher.

9:30 p.m. – Someone says "Matrix Online." Hilarity ensues.

10:00 p.m. – How do you know it's getting late in a Game of the Year debate? When you find yourself vehemently arguing both for and against a particular game receiving an award. Within a five-minute time span.

10:30 p.m. – Eyes getting heavy now; having trouble concentrating. Either I'm hallucinating or that really was Jerry Orbach I saw doing bullet-time spin-kicks dressed in a bear-proof suit.

2:30 a.m. – I wake up, alone in the empty conference room, only to find someone has written on my face and put glue in my hair. I guess I said "R0XX0RS AZZ!!!11" one time too many.

So that's it. Round One is in the bag and only a few casualties and hurt feelings resulted. With Round Two just around the corner, the bloodshed and enmity will likely only increase. This time though, I'm taking a page out of Jeff G's (and Jerry O's) book and preparing myself accordingly:

Logging onto bungie.net can be a humbling experience. The degree of detail the site allows when checking your Halo 2 online statistics is both fanatic and fascinating, but it can also be a punch in the face to any gaming hubris you possess. While I haven't had a ton of time to play Halo 2, what with all the activity in my day job, I can unequivocally say that the numbers do not lie. Let's break it down:

Rumble Pit: 7 Games Played, 0 won
Team Skirmish: 14 Games Played, 3 wins
Head to Head: 2 Games Played, 0 wins
Big Team Battle: 5 Games Played, 0 wins

Each time I bring up the Game Viewer map on Bungie's incredibly detailed game stats pages, all I see is my icon with numerous killshot arrows pointing directly at it, and not enough arrows going in the reverse direction. Regarding the three Team Skirmish wins you see above, I can pretty much guarantee I had zero to do with them. In fact, except for a recent third place finish in a gripping Rumble Shotguns match on Midship, it's obvious: I pretty much suck at Halo 2 and most other FPS, for that matter.

It's a confession that doesn't really hurt to admit too much. I've never been known as the most skilled gamer among my friends, even with sports games. About the only titles in which I can consistently dominate are driving games, specifically more realistic racers such as Colin McRae Rally 2005, TOCA Race Driver 2, or MotoGP 2, and only due to practice more than innate ability. Realistic driving games are far and away my favorite genre, and I spend the majority of my personal gaming time with titles of this ilk.

(Of course, I was recently humbled during an Asphalt: Urban GT wireless multiplayer DS game with Ryan D. and Greg K., finishing dead last every time we hit the track. If either of them want a Colin McRae online rematch however, bring it!)

If I really sat down in my living room, stocked up on a week's worth of pizza and Cokes, locked all of the doors, and unplugged the phones, I could probably improve my Halo 2 skills; and maybe even approach my goal of a 1-to-1 death-to-kill ratio. But that just isn't possible for a number of reasons, one of them being I just don't care enough to do it. I don't play Halo 2 because I have something to prove, I play it because the game is an adrenaline rush, because it provides thrills--with its slick and gripping online play--that I've never before experienced in a console game.

As a pretty competitive person, I take my driving and sports games pretty seriously, because I like to think I know what I'm doing when I take to the course, hit the ice, or prepare for kick off. I'm smart enough to know when a genre has me beat, however; and Halo 2--and most FPS games--most definitely have my number. Accepting that, I find I can have a lot more fun with the genre, instead of being constantly frustrated about my performance and stats.

The old me took every gaming genre way too seriously. My early 2005 new year's resolution, is to let this Type A aspect of my personality off the hook; to forget my performance and stat numbers; and to simply have fun with the game, regardless of genre. That's the point of gaming, right? Who knows, the next time you challenge me to an online scrape in Halo 2, it may not be me at all:

Intelligence work, real intelligence work, has almost zero in common with James Bond. There's no dry martinis and shootouts with Walther PPKs. There damn sure aren't any stupid castles made of ice that all of the sudden begin to melt and threaten the life of Halle Berry.

Instead the real craft of spywork, as masterfully demonstrated in author Greg Rucka's Queen & Country comic book series, is in the politics of it all. The infighting between British intelligence deparments and squabblings between section heads drives a large portion of the action in Rucka's series. And while reading the heated arguments of bureaucratic heads might seem about as mundane as picking out socks, Rucka has a way of making these moments of tension shine. Of course, this is mainly due to his solid balance of kinetic action and subtle characterization. You understand SIS Operations chief's Paul Crocker's frustration with his superiors as clearly as you feel each action-packed punch suffered by special agent Tara Chace's while in the field.

In Rucka's lastest book, A Gentleman's Game (the first novel in the Queen & Country series), Rucka takes on the personas of Crocker and Chace and puts them in some of their toughest spots yet. For Crocker, it's a matter of dealing with the politics of governmental forces beyond his control, which threaten to place the lives of his agents (known as Minders, of which Chace is one) in danger. For Chace, forced to carry out the desultory whims of HMG, it's simply a matter of survival.

As a fan of Rucka's other novels, as well as the Q&C comic series, I eagerly awaited the first book in the series. I wasn't disappointed, as the book offers a compelling and detailed look at the world of espionage. From the soul-deadening down time between operations, to moments of bullet-speed action, the book explores all aspects of the spying life to convincing and entertaining effect. I can't wait for the next book in the series, due sometime in next year.

One other thought for those familiar with the Q&C comics: The events in the book have serious and permanent consequences for the comic series. For fans of the Q&C comics, this book is essential. For those new to the genre, to the series, or to Rucka himself, the book is a fine place to start.

I made a vow for 2004 that I'd finish Stephen King's Dark Tower cycle of novels. After all, King went to all of the trouble to finally finish his epic work this year, with the last three books in the series coming in an 18-month period. I figured it was high time for me to start and finish the series I've been toying with reading for years.

So, while riding BART home last night, I finally finished up the fourth book, Wizard and Glass. Going in, I had my doubts about this book, as I knew the vast majority of the narrative consisted of a long flashback whereby we learn pivotal information about the series' hero, Roland Deschain. What I didn't expect was for this to be the best darn entry in the series yet. High praise, when compared against the mostly excellent second and third books.

With Wizard and Glass, King set out to tell a Western and ended up with a love story. Or maybe the other way around. Nonetheless, both structures work perfectly, deftly combining a sense of both familiarity (through the Wild West atmosphere) and alieness (through the subtle and effective tweaks of fictional language and fantastical setting). What got me the most, however, was the love story. I frankly didn't think King had it in him. As sappy as it may sound, the romance between Roland and Susan is convincingly told and adds a great deal of dramatic weight to the events in the Dark Tower books.

I can't wait to start on the series' fifth book, Wolves of the Calla. With three more books to go, the odds of me finishing the series in 2004 are growing slim. The consolation however, is that it will be a fantastic ride all the way to the Dark Tower, no matter how long the journey takes.

This is my first GameSpotting journal entry since launching GameSpot Sports, so naturally I'd like to get in a cheap plug for the site before continuing on with my gaming thoughts for the week. If you haven't had a chance to do so, check it out and let us know what you think. In the words of some very wise people, we're totally pumped to be bringing you this dedicated sports game coverage and hope you enjoy reading it as much as we do bringing it to you. Now, on to the column!

I played a ton of baseball over the weekend, grabbing footage and reporting on all 14 playoff games for our feature story, 2004 Simulated World Series. Actually, that isn't entirely correct. More accurately, I watched a ton of baseball games being played this weekend, while I dutifully took notes and recorded periodic footage. By 2 a.m. Saturday morning, bleary-eyed and groggy, I was so inundated with baseball facts and figures that I was dreaming of Jon Miller's voice when I finally hit the sack. You should see the "reporter's notebook" I used to keep track of the games; what started as a fairly organized score sheet, detailing an out-by-out report of each game (using a modified scoring system I created on the fly), ended up as a series of hastily scrawled notes more akin to archaic symbols used in ancient Celtic ritual sacrifices.

Simply watching a sports game for a prolonged period of time, without having any sort of interactivity with it beyond reporting on the happenings, you become aware of obvious flaws that often turn out to have huge consequences in game outcomes, as well as niggling details that may not have been apparent to you when actually playing the game.

Case in point: MVP Baseball 2004's triple bug. I saw several potential singles or doubles turn into stand-up triples because of the outfielder's inability to navigate near the centerfield wall in Fenway Park when a ball was hit in their direction. I watched in horror as tiny little Jim Edmonds or Johnny Damon would simply be standing there, pumping their legs furiously without moving an inch closer to the ball, sitting there at the warning track. Because of this bug, it was up to the left fielder to come in and pick up the assist, turning a close double into an easy triple, and often extra RBIs for the batter. During the MVP series, I saw this happen at least twice. Had this problem been eliminated, the Sox very well could have taken both simulated World Series.

From a graphical standpoint, the differences in player models between EA's game and Sega's ESPN Major League Baseball, is astonishing. The players in MVP are instantly recognizable; the contours of their faces are convincingly rendered, while ESPN's player models seem stiff in comparison, and the less said about their seemingly pasted-on faces the better.

One more bite-sized player model morsel for thought: Are baseball developers going to have to bring in hair modeling experts this year in order to accurately model Johnny Damon's ill-advised Captain Caveman look?

If ESPN Major League Baseball doesn't look as good as EA's game, the same can't be said for its sound. The commentary in Sega's title is outstanding, utilizing the considerable talents of ESPN play-by-play man Jon Miller to full effect. The quality of the calls are excellent both in their execution and in their flow; you'll hear Miller talk about back-to-back strike pitches in context of one another, not simply as a series of individual comments streamed one after the other. It's a small but very effective difference that adds to the "ESPN broadcast" illusion the game's developers are striving for.

Finally, I'll leave you with one purely selfish plea for next year's baseball titles. While I appreciate the attention to detail found in both games' pitching animations, is there any way to speed up the wait time between pitches? Even a simple "hurry up" button would be greatly appreciated. My God, I felt my already thin grasp on sanity cracking at the seams while waiting between pitches during some of the simulated games. Sure, five to eight seconds may not seem like a lot to you. But fourteen simulated games later--several of which went into extra innings--and these wait times began to feel like tightly compacted eternities to me.

Another week, another spat of bad news for racing fans. Hot on the heels of Sony's announcement of Gran Turismo no online for Gran Turismo 4 (but a hopeful pre-Christmas release date) comes news from the Bill Gates camp that Forza Motorsport will be delayed until February 2005. If the former announcement wasn't bad enough, this is enough to get a racing fan like me down in the dumps. Honestly, I was looking forward to Forza more than any other game this Christmas season, save Halo 2. What I've seen so far of Forza has had me riveted to my PC monitor, mopping away buckets of anticipatory drool. OK, that's an overstatement, but not much of one.

What has me most excited about the game is the difficulty level, only tantalizing hints of which have appeared in online and print previews. From what I've read, Forza is aiming to be a racer for people who enjoy a challenge and who believe there's more to a driving game than simply pointing the front of the car in a straight line and mashing the turbo button. By including important features such as performance-altering damage, a huge variety of track conditions, persistent oil spills on the track, along with the absolutely insane variety of car customization features MS is bragging about, it's clear that, in Forza, we have a game that is not ignoring the more hardcore among us. Of course, whether the game lives up to its promise remains to be seen.

It's been a while since a game truly dedicated to aficionados appeared on the market. Sure, a game like Colin McRae Rally 2005 is much closer to a simulation than a pure arcade racer, but its off-road style might turn off fans of pure road racing. In Forza (and GT4, despite its rally mode) we have games that are focused on the subtle difficulties of driving quickly in high-performance machines in demanding conditions. After all, just as much skill is needed to negotiate the 13-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife in record time as is required to run a successful campaign in Rome: Total War; it's simply a matter of exercising a different set of muscles. In my gaming experience, I've always had a lot more success finding good racing lines and turning in quick lap times than in mounting scorched-earth campaigns, so it makes sense that Forza is high on my Most Wanted list this year.

These two announcements mean that instead of having two potentially fantastic online racers to keep us warm this holiday season, we're stuck with zero (not counting older titles such as the much-lauded Burnout 3). I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to taking at least one of these games, welding the disc into my Xbox or PS2, and going nuts online this Christmas. I had wonderful dreams of emerging from my self-imposed exile to online Raceville in early January, bleary-eyed and foul-breathed, muttering strange phrases like "catalytic converter" and "opposite lock" sotto voce. Hopefully the single-player-only GT4 will turn out to be the same holiday time-sink as its ancestor, Gran Turismo 2, was back in December of 1999. But racing fans can't help but pine for the Christmas that could have been.

National Novel Writing Month is upon us again. Well, almost. Actually, November is the month (un)officially dubbed National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, for short). Each year, thousands of people from all over the globe converge with the goal of pounding out an original work of fiction of at least 50,000 words in length. And I do mean pound. While 50,000 words may not seem like a lot on the surface, and it's technically not really a novel but more of a novella, when you actually sit down at your desk and begin scribbling out the words on a notepad or typing them on a laptop, it's easy to see how big a number 50,000 really is.

Luckily, the entire ethos of NaNoWriMo is "No Plot, No Problem!" Taken to heart, it means that the only goal during the month of November is getting the writing done. There is absolutely no need for a cohesive plot or a well-organized cast of characters. Plot points can be dropped just as quickly as they are picked up, characters can be killed (and revived again) at any given point, logic is thrown out the window along with grammar, spelling and, in many cases, good taste. After all, the entire point is to exercise your creative muscles, get your brain thinking in new and powerful directions and, most importantly, have a great time. Who cares if your novel makes any sense? December and January are for editing and revising. November is for writing. Come hell or high water, just get the words down.

This will be my third year participating in NaNoWriMo. I "won" last year, meaning I finished my 50,000-word quota, but not the year prior, due to my November 2002 wedding. I've always dabbled in fiction writing but never really shared it with anyone outside a few select friends and family members. Because of this, I've always had a real problem finishing works I've started. Once I fully commited to NaNo, I was fully determined to hold myself accountable, so I shared the news of my participation with everyone I knew, even allowing them to see my novel unfold as I wrote it online. Despite (or maybe because of) that leap of faith, I finished and, while my novel will never see the light of day, it was a satusifying step for me; taking a project from start to finish, regardless of the quality. For me, it was simply a matter of getting it done.

So, here we go again. Instead of annoucing my NaNo plans to my inner circle, I'm annoucing it to all of you. I'm hoping you can all help keep me accountable for my 50,000 words next month (that's around 1667 words a day -- I've done the math). And if any of you out there are interested in learning more about NaNoWriMo, check out their Web site and sign up. There is absolutely no cost to participate. All you need is an open mind, a good deal of determination, and a sense of humor. If you do sign up, please let me know and be sure to keep in touch in November, as we embark on a voyage into crappy pseudo-lit... together.