...is that they designed for the press, stockholders and gamers. We hear "blah blah blah" until trailers or gameplay footage comes up to validate our wish lists. In a press conference, a company decides what information is presented, how it is presented, and who presents it. They decide what message and tone they want to portray and show the direction their company is taking. As with the big 3, their goal is to instill confidence in those who plan to invest in their company through their stock or their products (or both).

I'm a stockholder for all three of these companies. I may not be carrying more than 2% each of these companies shares but it's interesting to see how much clearer each company plans to shape its future.

NINTENDO LIKES SMILES

Nintendo kicks off their press conference by talking about "generating smiles" in the hearts of new gamers. The problem is: New gamers don't watch E3. Nintendo realizes that hardware is no longer a "seasonal nature" - so no more waiting for the Christmas sales spike. Iwata talks about destroying the psychological barrier. He also talks about getting non-gamers engaged and enriched. I find it hard to believe considering Nintendo's current lineup of games and being married to a non-gamer is proof of this. He still needs to figure out how to keep non-gamers attached to Nintendo's products. A bunch of shallow games that make very little use of the Wii's interface is not going to cut it. There are tons of Wii titles out there. Unforunately, those games last no more than a week at best. Just ask some of my co-workers.

Nintendo believes Animal Crossing for the wii is going to be a hit the same way The Sims was for the PC. With the addition of online and a top-mounted mic, it might work.

Reggie Fils-Aimé then talks about hardware sales with its direct competition. Impressive. But then he talks about how Mario and Sonic Olympics and Pokemon are selling tons of units and have helped sell their handhelds and systems. While these games aren't exactly blockbusters, it's clear that the rest of the public is biting. He begins to talk about how celebrity endorsements have helped sales on the DS particularly Nintendogs and Brain Age and with it 19 third party games selling more than 400K units on casual games. I hope that number doesn't include games from the virtual console.

Reggie: "Is this the ideal platform for new franchises? Is this the platform for more unique casual games? Is the Wii Library going to set new experiences for the core gamer?"

He then pulls out Clone Wars, Raving Rabbits TV, and Call of Duty as his examples. Poor examples, even to casual gamers. He goes on to talk about Guitar Hero on Tour selling 300K and all of a sudden his underling, Cammie Dunaway introduces GTA Chinatown. Weird considering that she was more in tune with friendly casual games.

She then abruptly changes gears brings up business and practical use of the DS such as locating airport luggage to viewing box scores in sports.

Wii Sports Resort demonstrates the Wii Motion Plus particularly the sword dueling. It's interesting that Nintendo plans to use Wii Sports Resort to guarantee the sales of their Wii Motion Plus but it looks more or less like Nintendo's way of migrating current Wii owners into a new motion controller which will probably be unveiled next year if not this year.

To end things off, Shigeru Miyamoto shows up with Wii Music but seems aimed toward casual gamers that do not know anything about games or music. It looks very clumsy and not very fun to play. Disappointing. But knowing how new wii owners (who know nothing about gaming) are going to buy it up.

In the end, it felt underwhelming but that was expected. Nintendo has been alot more conservative with its approach to press conferences. They brought up the numbers, talked about a few games and end off with some demos. I guess Nintendo would rather spend more time and money trying to figure out how to sustain this new "paradigm" of getting all types of gamers to continue buying their products.

SONY REMEMBERS

Sony as always puts alot of money into the production of their press conferences. Their presentation seemed more geared towards gamers, more specifically, the hardcore and techies.

Impressive introduction with montage of games including Ghostbusters, MGS, Riddick, Bioshock, Madden, Uncharted, Little big planet.

They say 2008 is the year of the PS3. The PS brand started July 20, 1993 and so they believe that history will repeat itself (despite how much the gaming industry has changed). They talk about the lifecycle of the system and remind the business guys how powerful the system is by talking about how the same chips are being used for supercomputers around the world. Good Job.

Sony Shoots back at Microsoft on reminding the crowd that bluray is here to stay. Good Job.

They didn't waste anytime with intros, slideshows or numbers. They show Resistance 2 which is pretty impressive but I still feel exhausted looking at another FPS game.

They get back into business world again and they use LittleBigPlanet to show numbers. They didn't show any comparison numbers against their own competitors. They pulled numbers from how many units of the PS2 was sold but never talked about the trends of their sales.

Interestingly, they talked about PS2 and how PS2 owners will translate into PS3 owners. 130 titles coming to PS2. This is a suprise. The gameplay footage was very brief. Sony begins to position the PS2 console as a casual gamer's entry level system. Very Strange. PS2 talks about value by packaging Lego Batman with the PS2. This seems counterintuitive to the goals of their PS3.

They talk about how GT5 is going to provide new content such as videos of races, new cars, etc but only through the playstation network.

When they talked about and unveiled Playstation Home, I felt that it is going completely in the wrong direction. It's too much stuff to do. People just want to play good games and that's it. Do people want a Sony version of Second Life? The installed user base of the PS3 is still the smallest of the Big 3. People who enjoy the Playstation Home will most likely be a small percentage.

They talk about tossing in names of studios providing movies in HD/SD in the PS network for purchase or for rent. Yesterday, I went through their skimpy selection of movies. I didn't really care for this since this is a bluray machine. If I want to rent movies, I'll go 360. But if I want to own movies, I'm going to Best Buy (or Ebay) and buy my next movie.

Now they are talking about PSP and how the entertainment packs (GOW /w PSP) help the PSP sell. Cool deal. Then they talk about how the PS3 can upload content directly to YouTube which will probably add more garbage to the net. No offense but the ratio of interesting user videos to garbage is not good.

Sony then gets game designers to vouch for the PS3 platform and that it is now (after 2 years in the programming learning curve) the platform to develop on.

As the presentation nears the end, they announce Zipper Interactive's MAG - a game concept that sounds similar to PC's BattleField 2. 256 simultaneous players sounds nice but getting it lag free is another challenge in itself, just ask the boys at Blizzard.

Overall, Sony's conference came down to a reminder to its loyalists that they will eventually win this generation of consoles but I think the industry has changed so much that this business has extended to more than just games. It's strange but there's definitely room for all of these guys in the Big 3. Nintendo wants to carefully expand the casual market but their trick will be to sustain it the same way they have with the core gamers (without alienating their core gamers). Sony is all about pure content and they believe that they carry the best content and the best system. They just don't have the numbers to show it. Microsoft wants to nurture their online market and extend their box to do more than just games. Microsoft is trying to dabble in everything casual, hardcore, and your typical movie goer.

It's really anybody's game. As an owner of all three consoles and a stockholder for all 3, it's really interesting to see how the game industry has changed drastically. I've been following the gaming industry for so long and have always been interested in the business side of things but I always believed that any company can be successful as long as they have a good balance of satisfying their profit margins and their customers.

There's quite a bit to see during the conference. From a business perspective it looks like MS has been looking at numbers and coming out with games to address the Singstars, and casual gamers. They also responded to Sony's Home and Nintendo's Miis with the use of cutomizable avators. The nice thing about this is that it still looks accessible and there seems to be nice and easy facelift for the Xbox Live interface. Not bad. As long as it's easy and is compatible with 360 machines who have not had the update, things should be ok.

While we, as gamers, don't see the need to buy games like "Lips" or "Scene it", there's a huge crowd out there that's going to buy into it. Their EyeToy-like games which uses the camera are gimmicky and look difficult for even casual gamers to get into. This will be a huge waste considering that many consumers have seen stuff like this on the PS2.

HD CONTENT

I think Microsoft made a very smart move integrating NetFlix into to their Xbox Live movie downloads. As long as it's in HD, MS can go head-to-head with PS3 and BluRay. God knows how often my family goes out to rent movies. In our area, the selection of Bluray movies are very small. Some movie rental stores don't even have a Bluray section. Currently, the Playstation network sucks at delivering HD content online because there's hardly anything to download. But that's understandable. They're trying to sell BD disks.

I've rented plenty of movies on Live and having Netflix should keep things more current. What's even more smart is Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web. Being able to purchase Marketplace content whenever you want from Xbox.com and downloading automatically to your console. Purchase that new map, television episode, the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade game or set up a movie to watch when you get home from work. Cool stuff. I know I'd do it. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are pretty much dead. I see a bunch of XBox live downloaders switching to Netflix. Why pay $6 in Xbox Live points to watch an HD movie when you can pay $5 a month from Netflix to download/stream whatever you want as much as you want? Crazy.

INTERACTIVE TV

MS plans to roll out Xbox Live Primetime this Fall, a place where users "can star in their own game shows" particularly 1 vs 100, Deal or No Deal, Big Brother and Fear Factor. I'm not sure if this will interact with the actual shows as they are being aired. If so, this could work. If not, I don't see any consumer attachment to it. There are so many games out there on the web where people are interacting with many players online (i.e. Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, etc.)...all for free. If Microsoft is smart, they would've inked a deal to get NBC to encourage viewers to log on Xbox live to play with their live contestants.

EXCLUSIVE VS. NON-EXCLUSIVE GAMES

Fallout 3. Cool. RE5. Nice. Last Remnant for 360 and PC. Sweet. Rock Band 2 will be automatic for me. Final Fantasy 13 on 360? Pretty nuts I'd say. Does Sony get hurt by this? I don't think so. If Sony hadn't won the HD format wars, then I'd be worried for them.

Here's the thing about FF13 going non-exclusive. It's pretty evident that FF13 is going to an expensive game to produce and the only way to break even quickly on those costs is to make the game accessible to as many gamers as possible. Unless the company who owns the platform (Sony/Microsoft) fronts the money for it to stay exclusive. Forget it. Productions costs are through the roof, especially in an economy that we're in right now. That's the main reason. This is not PS2 vs. Xbox anymore. PS3 and 360 have a sizable chunk of owners and there's no lopsided winner in this console race. Until there is, you can expect more things like this to happen.

Have fun with E3 everyone.

I'm someone that likes to listen to a bit of music but I also like to play it as well (on real instruments). I play on the piano and I have some experience on the guitar. No matter how you spin it, even musicians like to play video games too...even games that TRY to mimic their real counterparts. Just ask some of my friends and myself. That being said, I've been playing rhythm games since Parappa, Drumbeat, Frequency and pretty much everything else. I even remember playing an imported version of GuitarFreaks at the local arcade. It felt sloppy. Yet nothing really caught my eye until Guitar Hero came along. Like GuitarFreaks, it seemed hammy watching others play. When I actually played it myself, I ended up buying it for my PS2. Guitar Hero 2 comes along and I bought that too. It was great since I didn't have to buy new peripherals. Everything seemed fine until Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band came along. As an early adopter of the 360, I had a choice between Guitar Hero III (GH3) and Rock Band (RB). Fortunately, I had friends who owned those games. For a few weeks, my friends and I rocked on GH3 until we played Rock Band. Of course, this is nothing like playing on real drums and real guitars but the experience was undeniably different and much more entertaining. It was a chance for non-musicians and musicians to come together and just have fun pretending to do cover songs. We ended up dropping GH3 and stuck with Rock Band. A few of my friends still play GH3 and some have even downloaded new tracks. The majority of my friends played Rock Band more than GH3. Eventually, everyone dropped GH3 and played only Rock Band exclusively.

Now we have Guitar Hero World Tour (GHWT) and Rock Band 2 (RB2) coming up. I've heard and read about GHWT's music creator but I have also heard that all of the downloaded GH3 tracks will NOT work on GHWT. Neversoft knows it's not technically feasible or resourceful to have the downloadable tracks to include different instruments - not to mention different difficulty levels of each of those instruments.

I myself have downloaded ALL of the latest tracks for RB. Friends bought the peripherals, I buy the tracks. My friends and I knew Harmonix is not stupid enough to release a sequel to kill their own library of downloaded tracks. That wouldn't make sense. Who would download new tracks if Harmonix announced that RB1 tracks will not be compatible with RB2. However, with GHWT, it seems like the franchise has to start all over. My friends and I knew that not everyone has disposable income. A new set of peripherals? More tracks to download? We also know that we don't have time to create music and share it - much less test it and make sure it sounds good. In fact, the music creator doesn't even include a vocal track - a HUGE downside! I'm sure that the music creator will be easy to use to make beats and guitar solos but this misses the whole point of rhythm gaming entirely. While Neversoft is concentrating on making new costumes, boss fights, neat accessories, and music creators, the rest of the casual gaming community may not care. Unless of course, this casual group of people has NEVER played Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Neversoft is banking on leveraging the Guitar Hero brand but I anticipate a huge uphill battle. For people that actually play these kinds of games, are people willing to just drop Rock Band (or GH3), its (downladable content) DLCs and just pony up the funds on World Tour? How much are these peripherals going to be and how much are the DLCs going to cost? And what about those new to rhythm gaming? Isn't it likely that these people will come across friends (with similar gaming interests) who've already played Rock Band?

Seriously, the genre is going to get crowded with a ton of neat features and the like but ultimately, it's going to come down to who has the strongest and largest library of music. There is still a ton of people out there that just don't care for games in general and just want to sing and pretend to play in a band with friends. If you have a limited library of music, that experience dies rather quickly. Harmonix knows this and they're playing it safe - keeping your DLCs intact, improved peripherals that are not required, creating setlists, etc. There are even people out there who are making money doing mods on Rock Band peripherals such as double pedals or realistic drums sets. It sounds crazy but Harmonix knows these people are out there and they are encouraging it by keeping the peripherals interchangeable. As of this writing, RB has 200+ songs and counting. When RB2 debutes, they will have 80+ songs to add to this library. I have yet to see if RB1's on-disc songs will transition over or will just be included in RB2's list.

Now if Guitar Hero World Tour were to have debuted before Rock Band, this would be a totally different story. Just replace the words RB with GHWT on this blog. Harmonix is lucky to have the timing they had with Rock Band. GHWT has a huge uphill battle to face when it finally debuts but RB2 will have a major edge on two things: A strong current library and a huge fanbase. Battle of the Bands is also a great concept which keeps things easy to understand and fun. Create a setlist and let a party of friends battle it out to see which band can get a higher score based on the agreed setlist. Imagine a party scenario where your band needs to break a million points to beat the other team. You're down by a slew of points. It seems doable but the next song is unfamiliar to vocalist. It creates an entertaining situation that entices onlookers to become active participants. It sounds easy, fun and very promising.

To counter RB2's current and future library of songs, Neversoft is hoping that their music creator will even the playing field by sharing created content with other GHWT users. GHWT will have their own iTunes like library by calling it GH-Tunes - an area where people will rate the highest ranking songs. This sounds great on paper but how does this translate to fun in the real world? How will you moderate 100 versions of "Hotel California" and 2 versions of "My Sharona". Neversoft hopes to alleviate this situation through Showcases - a list of the best user works alongside new songs from popular artists. Of course, Neversoft, like everyone else, has different tastes in music.

According to IGN's assessment of the music creator, "If you manage to create a nearly impossible song, you won't have to worry about that limiting your audience. The exact notes you played will be set to the hardest difficulty and the game will auto-generate note patterns for the easier settings so that everyone can enjoy (or hate) your work". If this is true, will the editor allow users to edit the auto-generated notes? If not, this can make the game feel unnatural, especially if some key notes are missing from the chorus of a song. What's it like playing as a band with these user created songs? How does band scoring work if there are no vocals recorded? All these questions and so little answers.

Based on what I've read, there is one huge advantage I see on GHWT, particularly on the Wii.
According to GameDaily: "Wii users will be able to store downloaded songs on either the Wii's internal memory or on an SD Card in a 'Rock Archive', and then will be able to create playlists from this".

Currently, Rock Band does not support DLC on the Wii and to have the ability for someone to bring an SD card around with World Tour DLCs and just start playing is a pretty big advantage over Wii's Rock Band. If RB2 doesn't address this, we can potentially see GHWT do some damage on the Wii charts and RB2 dominating 360 and PS3. At least that's my prediction.

So which sequel do I favor based on the given specs of both these games? I would lean towards Rock Band 2. No disrespect to Guitar Hero and its future sequel. I used to own a few of the GH games myself. Irregardless of game's name, I would be going after the game that has the biggest/strongest library and is accessible to people who normally don't play games. Guitar Hero World Tour looks to be a good game but for a different kind of gamer altogether. It's still unclear to me how the music creator and the DLCs will payoff for people that plan to purchase GHWT. GHWT's 85 songs is not going to cut it if the original Rock Band is churning out DLCs before the sequel. Good user content is based entirely on the users that make them. The fact that these would-be music producers will not be able to get ahold of these tools until the game debuts doesn't help either. Before you know it, we may see three times the number of songs on Rock Band 2 vs. World Tour. I know there are people out there that will own both GHWT and RB2. I know a few of those people personally but even if I had all had disposable income I still want some value and less risk. Current owners of Rock Band will have an easier time with their purchasing decisions, myself included. Thanks for reading.

As I was writing the MGS4 review I realized I never wrote a review for MGS2. Call me obsessive compulsive but I just felt I needed to cover the older games in the series before finishing the review for MGS4.

Before writing the review, I threw in MGS2 into the PS3 and tried to play for a few minutes. I found myself playing several hours into the game. It's rare for me to find myself replaying a game I finished previously...even if the only incentive is to write the review. It also helps game seem "fresh" when you don't remember anything you did in this game almost 7 years ago. Has it been that long?

I've tried the same thing with the few games I've finished and I'd say half of them are worth finishing again.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/adventure/metalgearsolid2sonsol/player_review.html?id=589979&tag=readerreviews;continue

Check it out if you're bored.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZradcastro

What exactly?

Mass Effect (Xbox 360) Like New (Played only once)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas (Xbox 360)
PS2 Travel Case / Bag
Gamecube Travel Case / Bag
The Legend of Zelda (Collector's Edition) (GameCube)
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (Playstation 2)
NBA 2K Lot (2K, 2K1, 2K6, 2K7)
Sega Saturn Game Lot (7 games)
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (Game Boy Advance)
Nintendo Entertainment System - Game console & 3 games
Heroes of Might and Magic V (PC Games)
Final Fantasy IV Advance (Game Boy Advance)
Assassin's Creed (Playstation 3)
Suikoden IV (Playstation 2)
Nintendo Game Boy Color - green - with box
Nintendo Game Boy (ORIGINAL)
Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy (2002, DVD)
Mechwarrior 4 Compilation
Playmakers (2004, DVD)
Star Wars Trilogy (2004, DVD set)

Rad

Let me first say that I'm not one of those irritating fanboys that nut at every cutscene in MGS4 or write half-assed reviews with the words "own3d".

We all know how many people love this game and the couple of handful that hate it. I'm currently waiting to get off work so I can get on the last act of the game. So far, I'm enjoying what I've been playing. What particularly intrigued me is the people watching me play.

During the day the game debuted, I had plans with a few old friends that wanted to go out and watch a movie and later have dinner. When they arrived at the door, I had them plop on my couch so I can continue my game and they began asking me what I was playing. I just started in Act 1. One couple (guy and girl) never played any video games in their whole lifetime while the other couple (yes...also a guy and girl) owns a Wii and just casually plays games. They continued to watch me for an hour but I was already 2 hours into the game - a short reward after running a million chores in the house. Considering how Kojima loves lengthy cutscenes I wanted to eat badly so I just stopped and saved the game in the middle of a scene. My friends were pissed off and wanted me to finish the scene. I reminded them about our movie night but they decided to change plans just to watch Metal Gear. I was starving and I wanted to run out and get a sandwich so I told them to just take over. All of them were hesitant in touching the controller. It felt alien to them. "I know you guys have played games before" I said. I assured them that they can just start over if they wanted to and I told them that I wasn't too far into the game. Still, none of them wanted to try playing. I told them they can watch TV if they want or checkout the showing times for movie night. I opened the manual for them and restarted the game. Of course, I didn't want to be a bad host so I asked if anyone wanted anything eat. I went to Safeway to get some snacks and food. An hour after I got back, I see them playing and arguing over how to get to point B. I stood back and watch as I saw my friends gnaw at each other like two kids fighting over a new toy. I resisted in asking for the my controller back and just threw tidbits of tips here and there. Despite the initial awkwardness, the group seemed decent in controlling the game. Then again, the game's difficulty was set on easy.

So we traded the controller after every death. It was interesting to watch my friends play. One of my buddies was so frustrated at the number of deaths we had that he decided to to make it into a drinking game. The person that dies holding the controller must take a shot of 151. Needless to say, we never got passed Act 2. After getting sober, one couple stayed over wanting to finish the game. The controller was changing hands for many hours and we got to Act 4. It was 4am in the morning. Today, they're coming back to finish off Act 5 with me. I'll write a review later. From what I've seen and played so far, this looks to be a strong contender for some pretty good game awards.

Initially, I wanted to write this blog in response to the Gamespot article titled "Atari movie to star DiCaprio". In the article, it describes how DiCaprio will play the part of Nolan Bushnell - the outspoken father of video gaming. What intrigued me was not so much the article but the many comments made to it.

Many comments stated how the movie, Nolan, or the history of games doesn't matter. Many of the ones who commented on the article didn't really care about the old man or that old-school should stay old-school. This is a huge contrast from my many face-to-face encounters with gamers offline. I've been playing games since the heydays of Atari and it is really easy to find someone close to my age to know our roots. While I was going through my usual game collecting at the nearby Gamestop, I heard two kids go at it about what their favorite games were. Expecting to hear echoes of GTA, Halo, and other recent games, I was suprised to hear two distinctive titles: River City Ransom (NES) or Super Metroid (SNES). What suprised me is seeing these young gamers talk about how much fun they had playing these games. I couldn't help overhearing them so I approached them and asked how old they were. They were 17 and 18 respectively. These guys were playing games that debuted before they were even born. They asked if I could recommend them some classics and I did. They were very respectful young men and I got the gist that they simply just wanted to play more fun games. I asked what got them started playing some of the older games and they credited the Wii's Virtual Console. They mention that they have many friends their age that do more retrogaming than their older counterparts - their parents! During my second visit to Gamestop, they mentioned to me that they ended up buying the original consoles on Ebay and wanted to play the games in their original form. I asked why they aren't playing any of the newer games. They mention to me that they do play them but they also told me that "there's just not enough variety anymore" and "the really good games only come out once every two months."

Game companies take note. To see gaming move to the next level, game companies need to take more risks in new experiences otherwise gamers like these will just default to the old-school games to fill time.

Especially myself. What other interests and hobbies do others have? I guess I'm just pretty bummed by how much Gamespot and its community has lost its edge. I kind of get the feeling that people have sort of moved on.

More or less, I feel the similar to the older people on this site. There used to be many good people - some of which were friends and now they're out to do bigger and better things. Simply put, this site is just overrun by too many fanboys. As long as a few of us lurk once in awhile, I'll be around. Just not as often. As you get older, you just tend to keep things simpler.

So, I'm getting back into running and marathons. There's a footrace in San Francisco coming up called Bay to Breakers (7.7 miles only). I've been running it for 10 years now and this'll be the first year I will be doing a centipede race. This is where you're linked with other fellow runners as a team by rope/sash/etc. If one person slows down, the whole group slows down. During the last couple of days, I've been running around the neighborhood, the parks. Yeah, it's just running. But it's helluva lot more peaceful than reading some of the stupid crap I read here. I hope our team can place.

I'm also plan on overhauling my site and getting back into web development and programming. I've jumped back on those forums and the community there has always been caring and helpful. I've already designed a prototype so I'm juiced in getting it done. My site has looked the same since 2002. Over the few days and weeks, I've realized that when I buy many games (and try to play that many games) in a short amount of time, I realize that I'm just covering up things I really want to do.

See you on the other side.

Much like everyone else who's followed this game, I've occasionally read about the development of this game for sometime. On a whim, I decided pay GameStop a visit and GTA4 suddenly shows up on the shelves.

I finally bought the game and played it for a couple of hours. I was very impressed with incredible amount of content I was buried in. I actually felt overwhelmed with the content that I decided to put down the controller, turn on NFL Network, and start browsing through my emails and sites. Then, I read the reviews.

Gamespot: 10
1up: A+
IGN: 10
etc.

Wow. They all followed the same trend. Any game that recieves a "10" is an incredible game in every sense but of course this is just my own opinion. Does GTA4 deserve to sit next to timeless games like Chrono Cross and Zelda OoT? I'm not too sure about that (at least in my book) but I can see why all these game reviewers gave 10s.

The Theory

GTA4's crazy sales and high reviews is the happy ending to Rockstar and Take-Two's tumultuos tale.

I believe that EA's attempted hostile buyout played a small part in this. It was an ongoing saga that most if not all game pundits followed. Take-Two knew they were in deep crap thanks to their overspending and acquisition sprees. Take-Two's subsidiaries did whatever it took to produce good games, but unforunately Take-Two's management was in disarray and with the added pressure of delivering similar GTA4 game experiences on two different systems, Rockstar and Take-Two had their work cutout for them. 2K Sports (although arguably superior than their EA Sports) has suffered and died since the exclusive NFL license. EA is to Empire while Take-Two/Rockstar is to Rebels. Game journalists took note and moved forward.

When I played the game, I expected high 9s but 10s are very rare to see considering the sacred few games that have gotten 10s. EA's hostile takeover was a very public message that put gamers and journalists on the defensive for their beloved GTA franchise. In some ways, I think GTA4's perfect scores sends a message not only to EA but to other large companies looking to acquire lucrative game properties just to increase their bottom line and place customer satisfaction in the backseat. It sends a message that smaller companies can still deliver the goods.

I didn't think I would be buying this many games in the last 2 days:

1. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS)
2. Advance Wars 2 (GBA) - NEW!
3. GTA4 (360)
4. Dodonpachi (Saturn)
5. Layer Section II (Saturn)
6. Brain Age 2 (DS)
7. Zelda (DS)

I think that's enough for now...

...or is it?