Well, I guess this is my last blog of the year.

This is my first Christmas holiday and New Year I've ever spent in California with the family, and I intend to make it a great one - that means I'll be playing minimal games (maybe an occasional Starcraft skirmish) and showing minimal activity on GameSpot.

Well, I haven't posted consistently in unions for a few weeks - and I doubt consistent posting will resume until 2007. I guess I better apologise for that to all unions I have responsibilities in, especially All-Around Gaming, in which I've been an All-Around Lazy Leader. :P

Who knows what my next active year on GameSpot will bring? Maybe not a lot. More blogs - certain. More union posts - probably. More blog commenting - hopefully. More videos - I doubt it, but come what may I hope it's another awesome year here on GS.

So to make up for the next week or so of almost complete silence and inactivity, I'll make this blog a great one - lengthy and fulfilling, just like a ridiculously large hot dog. So if you want some major readinz, scroll down and take it all in. But if you want some major readinz elsewhere, or would rather do something more wholesome and productive (such as eating a ridiculously large hot dog) then by all means, leave a "Merry Christmas" comment or whatever and go eat your hot dog.

Here goes nothing.

Have a great Christmas and New Year, people.

___________________

Starcraft Impressions

___________________

Well, yeah - the aforementioned prospect of a few occasional skirmishes on the game basically says that I'm enjoying the game an awful lot. It's definitely, so far, the most enjoyable, fun, and accessible strategy game I have ever played - and that's saying a lot coming from a person who usually steers clear of RTS games.

The controls and basic interface and can be seen as basic, but by sticking to some sort of bread and butter formula Blizzard have made the game amazingly addictive. This has been said before by hundreds of people, but this game is easy to learn and difficult to master. You click unit, you click on desired destination, they fire at any nearby enemy, etc; you click unit, you tell unit to build bunker at desired destination, they build bunker at expense of resources, etc. This is the mother of all strategy games, and it may as well have popularised its genre, the RTS, all by itself.

I'm about halfway through the Terran campaign at the minute, but I have done a lot of messing around with the campaign editor, although I make standard "blow-every-enemy-base-up" missions for the most part, they actually do come out as quite a challenge when they work properly. Better still the editor is a piece of cake to utilise and you can make the most complex scenarios evar easily.

The StarCraft Battlechest is essential, put it that way. If you're in for some oldschool strategy, want to use your brain in a game for once instead of mindlessly shoot things or beat up zombies, or if you just have some spare cash, you HAVE to buy this game.

At the moment, the game is heading for an 8.8+. I likee this game.

______________________________________

A Trip Into EBGames, Best Buy, and GameStop

_______________________________________

Not all three stores at once, you understand.

So, yeah - a mall with all three stores in has got to be a winner, right? Right. But unfortunately, I couldn't find a mall like that, so I went to all three stores separately over the course of the last three days, compared bargains, and played some games in the booths. Awesome trips all around!

EBGames: great store here. The PC games had some pretty good offers - I considered getting Warcraft III for $30, but scrapped that idea after much thought, and then thought about purchasing ANOTHER boxset, an Ultimate Quake one (Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena) for $20, despite the fact I already owned Quake. Eventually I didn't buy either, and I scanned the playable game booths instead.

Xbox 360: there were a load of games available on the dashboard, so I immediately went for Gears - to my dismay, it's just a video of the game, which nevertheless looked stunning. Dismayed at the lack of playability, I opt for Viva Pinata - with the same results, just a video. Same went for Oblivion, Project Gotham Racing 3, and NHL 07. I was just about to see what the other booths had to offer when I found a playable demo (teh gasporz!) for Rockstar's Table Tennis - which takes a long time to get used to, but when you do, it has some amazing graphics and some pretty cool gameplay on offer too. I liked it.

PS3: yeah, I had the pleasure of playing a MotorStorm demo. Every single bit of hype about the graphics in this game are all correct - MotorStorm is without a doubt an extremely fine-looking game, with all the dirt effects, amazing motion blur, stunning backdrops and environments, and an awesomely responsive physics engine, it ends up being one hell of a treat for the eyes. Unfortunately the gameplay isn't quite as revolutionary as the technical aspect - it is a great dirt-track based racer, but it just feels average for some reason.

DS: there was Elite Beat Agents in this one, a rhythm game that is quite quirky and charming in its presentation - random comic strips and weirdo storylines, and then there's some hilarious gameplay chucked in there too. I don't really "get" the gameplay mechanics, though, yeah the game is reasonably difficult ... but still, it looks and plays like one of the better DS games to come out in quite some time.

Best Buy: another cool store, obviously. I couldn't find much in the way of cool offers, though, which questions the store's name of Best Buy, so in the end I just roamed around the store with a cousin and eventually found our ways to a PS2 and an Xbox 360, lined up beside two gigantic HDTV's.

Xbox 360: fortunately, nobody occupied the two comfy armchairs in front of the HDTV, so we picked up the quite lovely controllers and found out that we were playing Call of Duty 3. The game is pretty darn awesome, in my opinion - the 360's controller is perfect for first person shooters, as I soon found out, and soon we were blasting the hell out of each other with ease. The game is just, first and foremost, a great World War II shooter.

PS2: it took us a while, a few Oreo cookies, and a lot of persuasion to get a go here - and yes, the game was Guitar Hero II, which I will be receiving for Christmas I think, not too sure though. The two people playing co-op were actually pretty good, or at least the guitar player was, although I think he could have done better on Hard difficulty rather than beating up Medium easily. Some people need a challenge. The punkette who was playing bass was also pretty decent, although again, seriously, some people need Hard difficulty when they're too good for Medium...

Yeah, we got a go, and played co-op Message in a Bottle, me going lead guitar on Medium and he going bass on Easy. We done pretty well, actually - neither of us are very good at the game, but I do have a little bit more experience due to that 6 hours in GAME one time. :P We had fun, we gave the guitars back, we went and done some more roaming, and bought some CD's for our family. Aren't we good?

GameStop: I didn't find much fun here - there were no vacant playable booths and the games on offer on them seemed a bit mediocre. I think that it was Starfox DS on the DS, which intrigued me, but the screen was seriously scratched due to idiotic people who can't even hold a ****ing stylus properly for ****'s sake. Stuff like that makes me angry if its done on purpose, they let you play demos, you wreck them, I mean, who gains anything? Idiots. The 360 was a load of videos again, disappointingly, and there was a tantalizing Guitar Hero II on offer but unfortunately the booth was offline, the TV was ****ed up and the PS2 wasn't even turned on...

I did find some pretty cool DS games, which I kind of need because of all the upcoming travel. Poh-Kay-Mon are still calling to me, whether I'm going to opt for the supposedly crappy Mystery Dungeon or the slightly better Ranger, I'm not sure yet... but I still haven't played NSMB or Yoshi's Island DS, so again I'm in a bit of a dilemma.

_________________________________________

Stuff I Either Hope, or Will, Get For Teh Christmaz0r

__________________________________________

Skateboard: yeah! My old skateboard is seriously wrecked, it really is. aus, due to my lazy idle inconsiderate nature, it's been lying in the back yard for three months and it's probably all rusted and crappy. Not that I care. So yeehaa, I'll be getting a new skateboard and I'll probably go find a skatepark somewhere with my cousin, who knows.

Guitar Hero II: double yeah! The only problemo is, it probably will not be PAL code, so I only get two weeks to beat it and play it as much as I ****ing can... yeah well, who cares, I'll lease out a cousin's PS2 and play play play play play. And also, none of my cousins are good enough at the game to ask for a go, so hahaha, I get it most of teh time... :D

Some new PC game: just hope it will run on the laptop. I want Warcraft III, and I've let people know that I want Warcraft III, so I can hope... I can hope.

Lots of Lays and 7up: self explanatory.

A new CD: let's see... it lies down to two CD's. I've been after Radiohead's I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordinz for a while, so I hope I get that one, otherwise, it will be Feeder's Echo Park, an album I mysteriously missed in my travels.

Dunno what else: seriously, this Christmas is going to be a surprise. I don't really care about what presents I get, and I'm not trying to sound all grown up and noble, but I don't - I just wanna see what christmas in California is like, with three times as much family as I've got at home.

Oh well, that's that.

_______________

My Personal GOTY

_______________

(Haven't seen teh lamez0r nominees? Go look.)

I don't even know why I'm doing this, but I'll do it anyway. I based the nominees on games that I personally have played this year instead of games that have been released this year, but quite frankly I haven't played many games this year and I wanted to contribute something. Me teh no care. Here goes, then...

In 10th place... TOCA Race Driver 3. Great racing game, accurate simulation, much better than Forza and Gran Turismo, in my opinion.

In 9th place ... Battlefield 2142. Awesome tactical shooter, best played online.

In 8th place ... Animal Crossing: Wild World. Wildly innovative, addictive while it does it.

In 7th place ... Burnout Revenge. Crazy stuff, addictive as Lays and 7up, and some of the best graphics on Xbox.

In 6th place ... Metroid Prime Hunters. Who'd a thought it? A good first person shooter on a handheld? Breaks the norm for me.

In 5th place ... Advance Wars Dual Strike. The top strategy game on a portable - recommended to anyone with a DS. anyone without a DS buy it for the GBA. The second one, that is.

In 4th place ... Diablo II/Lord of Destruction. I've had a lot of fun with this RPG, it's awesome on battle.net, can't wait for houtx1836 and andywilliams24 to get the game and join the quests. I've finished the game largely, save for the last act in LoD, and I'm itching for a replay with a different character.

In 3rd place ... Half-Life 2 PC. It pains me to score it at 3rd. It's such an awesome game, it really is, the most versatile and volatile singleplayer FPS evar, must be played to be believed. Its simply THAT GOOD.

In 2nd place ... Unreal Tournament 2004. Yes. Its not 1st. Its actually a bit weird placing a 2004 game in a 2006 GOTY, but I absolutely adore this game. Best online FPS ever, I don't care how much fun anyone is having with Gears, or Counterstrike, or whatever, UT2004 is simply the cream of teh crop in multiplayer. The most complete online game ever, so many options, so many customisations, so accessible, so nearly perfect.

In 1st place ... Civilization IV.

Go ahead, cry foul! Yeah, you do that!

I have reasons, though. Civilization IV, after the dust has settled, is an almost-perfect example of a strategy game. This is strategy done properly. This is strategy without any big flaws, save for a few minor niggles scattered around some of the more complex gameplay mechanics.

Then you think - wait, Scott hasn't played this game on Xfire much! WTF?

Well thats mainly because I bought the game in January with christmas dosh and I didn't get Xfire till June, and those six months with the game were simply awesome - I stayed up long into the night devising strategies as to how to destroy the pesky Aztecs, how to raid their cities methodically and with minimal casualties, how to establish the best trade routes possible. The game is captivating in every sense of the word, addictive in every sense of the word, and definitive in every sense of the word.

There are barely any visible flaws in the gameplay, save for some yes, lacklustre graphics, but they do the job. They depict the battles, the cities, the units, the everything, they are exactly what they say on the tin. They may not be flashy, but for gameplay as unbeatably deep, hard to master, and above all content-brimming, you cannot beat this game.

In Civilization IV, they have perfected the formula of past games and spruced it up for the modern gaming industry. They've thrown it headlong into a rollercoaster ride of titles and games and they have prayed that it will survive and that it would not look like an old formula in new clothes.

They didn't need to pray.

This game, simply, is essential. It should be a part of every collection. This is the pinnacle of all strategy games, this is a benchmark for all strategy games, and this is, quite frankly, strategy at its finest. One of the best games ever, this one, and while it may have been released in 2005... it's still my best candidate for GOTY. I absolutely adore this game, and everyone should too.

___________________________________________________

So anyway, that's that from me until 2007 - thanks for reading this largely pointless but nevertheless fun blog, and every other blog I've wrote since January 1st, 2006. Just, thanks. It's been one hell of a year here on GameSpot, and a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs here in my world... so I hope you guys have an awesome Christmas and an amazing New Year, because I'm sure that I will.

May your swords stay sharp.

- stevenscott14

P.S. I originally went over the limit. Maximum blog size is 20,000 characters... I got 20,133. :P So I cut out my rant for Best and Worst '06 (which sucked) and it appears here slightly streamlined. Took me three days to write this. :P