So, after picking up the game midnight, I'm about 9-10 hours into this game and went to work like a zombie. I began taking notes to make a comprehensive player review of the game and began to write this blog during lunch only find the SC2 player reviews growing and counting. I thought to myself "well, let me just entertain this". While it's nothing new to see hyped games get blasted by haters, StarCraft 2's Player Reviews are just too funny. Enjoy StarCraft fans. Enjoy.

#1. Look for the obvious and unreasonable

"I know I'm being harsh on this game, but someone needs to be harsh proportionate to the over-powered hype this game receives."

"But the thing is, if you're a loyalist and a purist, this game will disappoint you, too."

"Don't mind my Killzone avatar. Anyway, Starcraft 2 is exactly like Starcraft 1? What up with that?"

"Blizzard have done an excellent job to keep these original Starcraft super fans happy but if you're looking for an RTS game that has burst into the scene like a romance explosion nuke, then don't look here"

Romance Explosion Nuke?

#2. Look at when the review was posted.

"I see nothing new here. I have gone through the whole campaign, played some multiplayer and it just sucked balls." -Posted Jul 27, 2010 1:17 AM PT

#3. Real reviews will suck at spelling and grammar just to get back to the game.

"And hell yess, back they are, with a hell load of a bang...."

"I've alt+tab to leave a review...Awsm Graphics,Awsm everything, just Awsm"

#4. Korean = real

"I'm a Korean and this is my review"

StarCraft fans rejoice. Back to StarCraft 2

...sinceI was motivated by another gamespotter and his/her reviews.So here comes God Hand. A game I enjoyed alot.

I try not to review more of the mainstream games. Just the ones that not many people know about. I like hidden gems.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/godhand/player_review.html?id=729140&tag=contributions;review1

Yes. Actual gamers who know a thing or two about games but aren't spewing nonsense garbage about a game, console, or accessorythey can't afford, accusations that X is a fanboy because of X reason, blah, blah blah.

When gamespot was videogames.com, it was easy to engage in constructive conversations about which games were good, the pros/cons of certain consoles/PCs, etc. Nowadays, too many people shoot from the hip and we're left to sift through the crappy comments to find the ones that are insightful, meaningful and not just "I hate xxx. It should fail"or even worse, engagein pointless attacks.But alas, this is the internet and gamespot - whereannoying gamers outnumber the more laidback ones.

I've made it a point to avoid going through gamespot news and just take the comments with abottle of salt. Where are more of the mature gamers hanging out nowadays? Where can I go where it's less like System Wars?

I have gotten a chance to watch the all the Big 3 conferences as well as EA and Ubisoft. The Big 3 flexed their muscles in the motion control department but it was Nintendo that has already paved the way for this very large 'niche' market. With Nintendo having 3 years and 70+ million units in this market and Sony Move debuting before Kinect, Microsoft will have tall order to fill by then. But despite the odds, there's a good chance for success. Here are 6 reasons why Microsoft will be successful with Kinect.

1. The First Impression

First impressions are everything. It is what got the Wii in trendy households and those who had disposable income. There are thousands of people out there that love being the first person in owning the latest technology. Just ask the thousands who've camped for the PS3, the Wii, the first iPhone, and now the iPad. Actually, that's me. I've been in those lines. Watching someone control something on the screen from just simple body gestures just looks more impressive than any motion control in your hand. Sony and Nintendo's offeringsare decent **** someone doing 'hurdles' on your couch doesn't look as cool as someone actually doing hurdles. No more cheating on dance moves and push-ups. Select movies and ESPN on-demand with just hand gestures. Tell your XBox to pause video, play music, video chat, or take your picture. Kinect also knows your voice and your face. Not too shabby.

2. Timing

Once I heard the release date for Sony's Playstation Move, I thought they lost a great opportunity. Sony now has less than a 2 months to convince their audience that Kinect is not worth waiting for. The timing of Kinect's debut couldn't even be better. Its release date sits on the same month when holiday shopping begins and the Wii is not as hip and fresh as it was during the last 2 years. Nintendo amassed tons of sales of the Wii during their last 2 holiday seasons but as the Wii reaches its third year, Nintendo's best answer to continue its great sales would be to lower its prices.

3. Value

Let's speculate. Kinect bundled with its sports game will debut at $150 and $300 for the Kinect Arcade Bundle if you don't have a X360. Yes. It sounds steep. But let's consider the alternative. Sony's Sports Bundle is $99 which comes with the PS Eye, one Wand, and the game. If you want to play 2 players, you're set back another $50 for the 2nd Wand making it $150. In fact,some Move-based games will require a single player to use 2 Move Wands (i.e. Fight) which forces 2 players to have 4 Wands. In addition,this does not include the "optional" Navigation Controllers which some games will require which will set you back another $30 for each player. This doesn't includeadditional chargers you might want to pick up.Below is a better way of looking at it.

*Since the Wii has a Nunchuck and WiiMote bundled with the system, I just included the additional cost to meet the requirements of playing 2 or more players.

4. Accessibility

Microsoft has made it a point to make this easy experience begin right out of the box. Kinect is literally a plug-and-play system for a whole slew of features that range from video chat to voice commands. No batteries needed. No charging. No synching with the system. Kinect is just by itself. No extra hardward to setup or position.

Kinect makes it way too easy for anybody to play with or against you. While setting up Boxing on the other systems still requires some steps and a few pointers to Mom and Dad, Kinect takes away all those things and all you have to say is "Jump In".

5. Developer support

Among the elite publishers actively working on games for Kinect are Activision Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks, CAPCOM, Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Konami, MTV Games, Namco Bandai, Sega, Square Enix, THQ Inc. and Ubisoft. Even during last year's Tokyo Game Show the high-powered panel of three acclaimed Japanese industry luminaries: CAPCOM's Keiji Inafune, creator of "Mega Man" and "Dead Rising," Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi, creator of "Super Monkey Ball," and Konami's Hideo Kojima, creator of the "Metal Gear Solid" series have made positive comments. In one comment, Kojima said that "Natal (now officially Kinect) will start a revolution". Still think there would be no support to create games for core players? Read this article and watch the videos.

6. Brand New Experiences

I believe that Kinect is more than just motion control. While most of the demos at E3 are poor examples of what Kinect could potentially be, Dance Central and Your Fitness are apps that move in the right direction. I think Kinect is an incredible framework for completely new gameplay experiences. Imagine a deeper Boxing game using Kinect at the fullest potential. A boxing game where your footwork, stance, and punching form are all being tracked. Imagine the game recognizing whether you are fighting in a Southpaw stance and how to maximize your fighting ****and defense against your virtual opponent. What about the use of props? Kinect would be able to track actual golf swings. And who know whats down the road. Nobody said it couldn't be used in conjunction with another controller. This would be perfect since it would be very cheap to create a handheld controller that would need to be nothing more than be wireless and have buttons. Kinect can do the rest with its innovative tracking.

Overall, I'm hoping that the developers for Kinect will think outside the box. There are so many possibilities but that's a different article altogether.

I have been browsing through a number of blogs to read some thoughts and there has been a constant theme and tone set by certain people in the community. There's alot of "not enough hardcore" or "this company doesn't get it", etc. While most of the blogs and forum posts have announced that X company has failed miserably, I'm probably one of the few that thought the conferences were good minus the lengthy choreo of MJ's out-of-place dancers in a trade show. I think I stand alone as the only hardcore gamer that actually enjoys casual games.

Microsoft

We all know about Gears of War, Halo, and the other notables. It was nice to see Halo broaden a bit by taking things into space so I'm hoping something more will be done with that franchise aside from just space vehicle play. Metal Gear Rising was nice eye candy but I'm still interested in how it will play. Will there be some stealth or will be entirely action oriented? Black Ops is more of I've-seen-this-before and Codename Kingdoms was a nice little teaser from Crytek. I know the big franchises will sell and anything with MGS on it so I want to focus where the big divide comes in with the gamer community.

Kinect, Kinect Games, Dance Central, ESPN, etc.

I consider myself a hardcore gamer with an open mind. While it can be fun to watch footage of glorious destruction, decapitations, and headshots, I look forward to brand new gameplay experiences. While Kinect's early concept of bouncing balls and driving cars with your one leg forward looked absolutely goofy, I wanted to see other gameplay concepts with Kinect.

I liked Dance Central. Yeah, I said it. I can see this being a hilarious game. Now I can avenge my losses to the hardcore DDR nerds with hip thrusts, chest pumps, and other actual dance moves instead of stomping arrows and lights or waggling a remote or wand. Can't dance? The break-it-down mode will help you. Give it up to Harmonix for making perfect use of Kinect. If the Centipede, Running Man, and Headspin are part of the 300+ actual dance moves. This will be the dance game to end all dance games. I can see this and Kinect Adventures as a major hit in parties. I liked how Kinect Adventures took pictures during certain moments during a white water raft. I have alot of friends who don't play games who would at least chuckle at my couch over the still photos.

Kinect Sports is mostly familiar territory. I see Hurdles, Boxing and Volleyball being the only games played for the most part. For some reason, I can't imagine playing table tennis or bowling without anything in your hand. Microsoft should've done other sports that would've made better use of Kinect instead of copying Nintendo. Wrestling and the Hammer Throw would've been hilarious and entertaining. This is a missed opportunity on Microsoft's part. On the health side, Your Fitness for Kinect is impressive considering that it tracks actual movement and would be the most accurate in helping you do proper form and fitness technique without any extra hardware. I'm into fitness too and I would shelve my Wii Balance Board or sell it altogether once I've experienced this. Based on the interface alone, fitness games would be best on Kinect. Now, for Kinectimals? *shakes head*

My family is also into a alot of different sports teams and would love to see games not normally seen in mainstream channels so ESPN will be a nice touch and will play a large role in my family room.

Overall, Microsoft's press conference did its part. The biggest highlight of the show for me was the nice shiny new XBox and I'm definitely going to get one this week while eating a pack of Skittles.

EA

Dead Space 2 and Crysis 2 are going to be an automatic purchases for me so I was interested in seeing Bulletstorm, Mass Effect 3, and something from Respawn Entertainment. Need for Speed looks to take things back but I wasn't impressed. There are a ton of racing games out there that try to put a spin on things like Blur, Split Second, but Burnout is still more impressive than what I've seen here. Need for Speed is one of those franchises that has been going through identity issues and still hasn't innovated in anyway. I still get more satisfaction from my top 2 - Gran Tourismo and Forza. EA MMA is interesting and the footage looks good but it will be all about the controls. The EA Sports Active heart rate monitor sounds cool but looks weird wearing them. Will it be only specific to EA Active games? That would suck. It was nice to see good 'ol Joe Montana rep Madden 11 and its new gameflow features. It looked like he wanted to say more things about the game but Peter Moore made it known it was his floor. "Ok Joe. You can go now. Go ahead." *flicks hand*. And what of Star Wars the Old Republic? Can we make that CG fight scene the next movie?

Ubisoft

Child of Eden on Kinect. It looks interesting but I'd like to know more. Sometimes what we see is not the same as what we experience. All of a sudden, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood comes out and Ubisoft didn't waste anytime putting out the big guns. The Shaun White game looked promising so I'm looking forward to more details about that. After some pointless titles like Innergy and a repeat of Your Fitness, we finally get to Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. The game looks more fliud and coordinated than GRAW and the graphics are impressive. The cover system looks borrowed from SC: Conviction which I think is a good move. This game should've ended Ubisoft's conference but it doesn't. We move to Driver: San Francisco - another driving game, some nice in-game CG of a game tentatively called Project Dust and the return of Rayman. Not too bad. Then, when you least suspect it, you find that Michael Jackson has his own game. And since a simple teaser isn't enough, Ubisoft got his dancers and decided to do the full-length choreographed knife fight from Beat-It. Just great.

Well, it looks like this little obsession will never end. :D

It has definitely changed alot over the months. I've gotten more recent games as of late. Most of them used but in mint condition. I'm starting to get more into sealed NES games so if you have any sitting around, let me know. :)

I've been collecting and playing games since the Atari days. For almost 25 years, I've been collecting games. Alot of the stuff I have here even dates back to my childhood days. I have about 400+ games. So that basically means I average about a little more than 1 game a month. Not too shabby.

Game Collection 2010 Album

...sadly it looks like the consensus says avoid.

When I read overall reviews from sites like gametrailers,VG,etc. and see most player reviews agreeing, I find it disappointing. I'm the type of person that's not willing to risk buying new games if the reviews of the game just downright suck. Even if I were able to get a refund on opened new games or happen to find a used version at Gamestop (ugh) on the shelf, it still needs to be worth my time. I even have a low tolerance for just mediocre games. People may find me picky but sorry...my time and money is precious to me.

Just from looking at how the video reviews show the horrible animation and bugs, it's a real downer. I always wonder how games that look promising from all the pre-hype, developer interviews, and good concepts can get slammed like this. Is it just plain laziness, lack of drive, rushing to beat deadlines? Is it bad designers who don't listen to QA or feedback to avoid hurting their egos? When I design software at work, I go all out and the devil is in the details. Is that what's missing? I'm guess the only reason why I sound so suprised is because this particular studio actually has a pretty good track record. I liked KOTOR2 alot as well as Neverwinter Nights 2.

Does Obsidian Entertainment have lower standards? I doubt it's pressure from the publisher since it has been delayed several times. Is the whole studio just biting off more they can chew by trying to fulfill a laundry list of features in the game instead of just concentrating on the most important ones and just refining them? Sorry Obsidian...

Focus on scope first and then refine.

*Removes from Wish List*

In response to:
http://www.gamespot.com/users/subyman/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25821144&tag=all-about%3Bblog1

I'm not sure if there will be a melding of platforms. Convergence is a double-edged sword and some things just don't work the same when they're combined. I own hundreds of games that date back since the early 1980 to present time for both PCs and consoles. This is just a personal perspective on how I think PC gaming got to where it is now.

Personal Experience

For as long as I have been gaming, I discovered consoles first before PC gaming. The Atari 2600 was my first console. I played I got the Coleco and Gemini (Atari clone) but didn't get my first "PC" experience until I got my Commodore 64. Everyone who moved on from Atari, got Intellivisions and Colecos. I was one of the few that stuck with the C64 considering how expensive my parents spent for it but Atari made it easier when they crashed the video game world. Every console and game became so cheap it was easy to pick up something for 5 bucks. Some for a dollar. I had a ton of Atari and Coleco games but they were all the same to me. During the crash, 1-2 years later I still kept playing Apshai - my first RPG

Nintendo came out and things got better. Games were much more memorable then. Later on, my friends had SNES or Genesis except me but I was always invited anyway. Each friend talked about which was better and I was caught in the crossfire. My Mom saw me still tinkering around with the C64 programming in BASIC and decided to by a computer for the "family" - a 386 SX from Packard Bell and a VGA monitor. Coincidentally, a neighbor of mine also got one too and we talked about PCs all day. In a few weeks time, I continued to play SNES and Genesis at my friends' homes, learned about BBS, DOS prompt, EMS Memory, Sierra Games and Sound Blaster. When I showed them a copy of Kings Quest V, they were impressed but it was the shareware version of Doom that got half of my neighborhood to buy PCs.

That point in time put PC games on the map. It was during this time where the CD succeeded the floppy disc and there was never a shortage of Doom-clones. PC games were selling like hotcakes and it prompted alot of big time PC gaming companies to pressure Microsoft to fix DOS. Enter Windows 95.

It was during this time where PC games played a bigger part of corporate pie.Windows 95 did away with the DOS setup menus that made the installation of games unappealing to the masses. Those were the days when exclusive PC games were amassing a ton sales compared to their console counterparts and then ported into the consoles; some of which were just horrible ports.The Sega Saturn, Playstation, and Nintendo 64, Dreamcast were all victims of this even the Playstation 2. The superior version of Warcraft, Doom, C&C, Ultima, Unreal, Wing Commander, Descent, Quake, Mechwarrior, Diablo, Starcraft, Jedi Knight, Half Life, and whole slew of others were played on the PC.

Blame Microsoft and XBox Live for the Convergence

Although the PS2 re-established the console marketplace, the PC was still miles ahead as a high-definition graphic powerhouse and it was THE place to play multiplayer games online, download expansions, mods, and a whole slew of stuff. The PS2, Dreamcast, and Gamecube all tried to get on the online gaming scene that PC gamers have enjoyed since the dial-up days but found itself failing and going back to the tried and true single player or 4-screen multiplayer experience. The interfaces just plain sucked. Finding friends to play was not friendly nor was the experience any fun playing online. Simply put, the vision wasn't there to make online gaming a real part of the console.

This all changed with XBox Live when microsoft took a couple of pages in online PC gaming by creating a more seemless experience with playing with/against friends online.

When Halo 2 debuted, millions flocked on XBox Live to play against each other and talk trash. This was the moment console players finally got a chance to taste what the PC gamers have had for years. Since then, Microsoft knew that their next console had to make online gaming as one of the key pillars for their greater overall strategy.

Closing the Gap

When the XBox 360 arrived, the timing couldn't have been any better. HDTVs became more apparent in households and having a broadband connection was norm. The development of XBox Live 2.0 (now NXE) helped bring more value to the console thanks to DLCs, themes, Achievements, Netflix, chat, video and more. PC Gamers were still ahead of the curve in the graphics department as always but the consoles are now trying to match the PC in value.

In addition, a combination of cross-platform 3D Engines and the CEO's bottom line sets up developers for the 360, PS3, and PC in order of graphical power with the PC being the most superior. This makes the PC a secondary platform to help boost sales rather than show off the game making developers write for the lowest common denominator instead of developing for the PC's faster hardware.

Ironically, the same company who helped PC gaming appeal to the mainstream has placed that power within their own console. This puts Microsoft in a strange position where they want both the PC and their console to be successful in the marketplace.

In The End

Consoles will always have that mainstream appeal since the Atari days and PC gamers who have been around as long as I have got to enjoy their mainstream ride for a good decade. Personally, I was happy staying underground with PC gamers playing games from Origin, Sierra, Dynamix, and Lucasarts. As long as the PC framework stays open, game developers will never have to fear about their cut being taken or their content being pulled for controversial reasons. As long as the PC exists, developers can stay creative without barriers with whatever they see fit. And as long as internet exists, we can download whatever these guys put out. I still miss the days when PC games took over the shelves of EBGames and Babbage's but a convergence of devices and PCs? Not in a very long time, if ever.What about PC gaming as a subgenre of the console industry? Hardly.

...which of the following would you get out of this list (assuming no discounts)?

Final Fantasy 13 - PS3
God of War 3 - PS3
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - 360
Red Steel 2 - Wii
Splinter Cell: Conviction - 360
Super Street Fighter IV - 360

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect2workingtitle/player_review.html?id=708505

Yeah, it's a bit on the long side but I really liked the game.