The phrase, a series of unfortunate events, sums up all that had happened so far. Months ago I decided to lend my lap top to my sister who refuses to buy one of her own. Following that I decided to grab my other sister´s desk top and add some few upgrades (not much, just enough for it to run without me having to wait a week for it to boot).

On the following months the dammed power supply broke. Being the lazy procrastinating worthless humanoid that I am, I didnt buy a new one right away. My solution, open up the case and place a fan next to it... it was cheap, fast and efficient. Little that I knew...

People have written books about the phrase, little that he/she/I/we/etc knew. At least if Dustin Hoffman´s character from Stranger Than Fiction is to be trusted. Chances are that if any of this possible books exist, they have a solid reason to do so. Cause little that I knew that dogs have a thing for video cards... in that they tend to ¨mark¨ them as their own even when they obviously aren´t.

See... when you leave an open desktop on the floor the animal considers it as a part of the floor it self. And since animals have a tendency to urinate on every square inch they live... I dont even want to talk about it anymore.

Now, you may think... that covers the Dog and the Video Card (which will hopefully recover after it dries out properly... even though no one would want a peed on Video Card... that dam thing costs 60 dollars... so it better!). Wheres the anger management? well, I believe writing can be very therapeutic.

I spent the last 5 months playing a single game (its not that I did nothing but play the game, its that it was the only game I really played). I finally got tired of playing World of Warcraft and I am happy of boeth playing the game and with being done with it. I wont do a detailed exploration of my time on WoW. I wasnt adicted to the game but I did let it grab me and pull me in. Then one day, after a week of honor farming I just felt like I could stop right there. All the desire of going back to the game was gone so I cancelled the account. I think Ill go back to it on the expantion cause Shamans are supposed to get fixed.

As I went on with my WoWitis I didnt stop purchising several PS2 games that I wanted to beat befor christmass to be done with last gen consoles and finally move to this gen. The final product is a Massive ammount of unplayed games that I intend to beat in the months to come.

Right now Im working and Kingdom Hearts. I plan to move to MGS2 then probably God of War 2... but by the time I beat MGS2 maybe Ill be on the mood of something else, perhaps in to some more MGS.

The pile of games in big and the time is running out so chances are that I will play many of this games on easy mode. I usually prefer normal levels of difficulty but right I get more fun out of beating a game and then moving on than getting everything on a single one. Hopefully the games on my list get an optional easy mode at the start.

As I said before, I am finally out of Outland and hopefully this year will be the last on the PS2 gen. So far my GameCube gave me some of the finest gaming experiences Ive had and my PS2 has delivered as well. Hopefully the Wii (wich I plan on getting on december) will do even better and the PS3 that I may or may not get next year as well.

I am as shocked as everyone else out there. I cant believe whats going on and how quickly one of the most respected video game web sites is loosing all of its credibility.

My opinion of Jeff is as good as anyone else. I hated the Twilight review. I thought that he was a point loving 360 fan-boy. He seems like a really funny dude. But, above all, I agree with the vox populy over the fact that he was an honest, tought editor. When Jeff gave a 9, the damm thing was a 9.

What really bothers me is how dumb all this really is. Even if the top bosses at C-net felt like firing him, werent they samrt enough to do it in a propper manner? The only thing that keeps a web site such as gamespot running is integrity. The fact that gamespot users trust editors IS what makes this site a success. But some one missed that.

I just feel like I needed to say something about it. It is sad to see something as big as GS burn down so fast. Things will never be the same... onceagain.

See you Jeff... keep those points going.

I just finished reading Roger Eberts review of the movie based on Hitman. He found the movie to be good, not great, but good.What really stroke me is how that movie reasured hes believe that video games will never be art. My next comment will be replaced by this longer statement for moderating issues and because I dont consider myself an agressive person specially when it comes to other people points of view... but believe it was far shorter and did a great job delivering my thoughts about that guy.

He thinks games will never become art. Art?! Really? Im not going in to an argument regarding why theyshould be considered art. Nor will I give examples of games that do a better job, andi n many cases are plain and simple better, than any movie out there. None of that stuff, I wont defend games. I wont become the savior of gaming in the art world. What I will do is ask one simple question: Why arent video games art?

Art is a completely subgective matter. Art is something totally vage.Anything in this world can be, and in many cases is, considered a form of art and a way to express ones self. Pants, shoes, belts, buildings, furniture, paintings, songs, movies, books, dancing, acting, baseball, comedy, thoughts and perfumes are all considered by someone out therea form of art and a way for an individual to express it self. But a game... no! that cant be art. Gigli: Art! Metal Gear: No Way! JenniferLopez: Artist! Miyamoto: dirt bag!

But please, by all means, dont take my word for it. Im going to quote an artist (and a good one for that matter) on this ohso delicate subject matter. Take it away Oscar!!

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner
or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode
of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt
without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things
are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things means only
Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of
Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the
rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of
the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect
use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove
anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy
in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of ****
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express
everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is
the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling,
the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work
is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with
himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he
does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless
thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

- Oscar Wilde
Preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

All art is quite useless. I didnt even bother to read The Picture of Dorian Gray after reading that preface. Nothing that could have been written following those pharagraphs could have striken a chord so close to my thoughts any way. Mr. Oscar Wilde, an artist himself, wrote down the true definition of art: All art is quite useless.

Dont care how much passion you have for movies, dancing, comics, music, sculpting, books, paintings or (yes I will say it) VIDEO GAMES. They are all a bunch of useless piles of junk.

Games are art because what else can they be? Can someone tell, out of all mans creations, wich place does video games deserve? Because honestly speaking: saying that art is higher than a video game is simply giving art a stature and a relevance that it just doesnt have.

Recently I heard the news about Psychonauts geting a Wii and a 360 release. This news made me remember all the fuzz about the game, about how awsome it is (I managed to play it and it was surprisingly good and original) and how no one cared enough to buy cause they were playing 50 Cent Bullet Proof and Jaws the game.

But the thing is... reviewers kept saying that everyone should have played that game. Here at GameSpot they gave it the award for Best Game no one Played. I have heard many editors saying that it isa shame that such a great game went unnoticed. But thats were it ticked me... how much did they score the game? A Great 8.8. Is it a low score? not really. Is it the kind of score that make people buy a game. If you are going to keep ranting about people not buying a good game... give it a proper review. 8.8 is a high score, but it deffenetly isnthigh enough acuse people for skipping it.

The worst part came to me today when I saw the review for Call of Duty 4. A First Person Shooters set on modern time war (the latest substitude for WW2), with on-line support, great graphics and all the stuff that every single shooter out there has now a days. They gave this gigantic pile of originality and innovation a wooping 9.0 Superb Editor Choice score. Same thing happend with Raynbow Six Vegas (just replace modern war with SWAT) andHalo 3 (just replace modern with sci-fi)... they are all 9.something Superb Editor Choice games. They are all todays definition of a standar shooter.

Video Game reviews have a tendency to value production above prettymuch any and everything else. Just make shure your WW2/Sci-fi/Modern shooter works propperly. Dont waste time and resources on the creativity departmen just dump all your cash on the on-line and visual departments and keep all the mechanics and buttong setting we all know and everyone will love it.

Honestly... theres more to a game than its technical proficiency. Movies with nothing but production values still get butchered by movie critics who at least have better criteria than judging a movie for its looks. Its a shame Video Game editors are still amazed by production values and are static about a game that does everything right but nothing special.

I dont think production is meaningless. But this day on age, giving a buch of very similiar games with very similar features and very similar levels of produciton a 9.0 Superb Editor Choice review just doesnt sound right.

So far this is the year of the First Person Shooter... again. Once again the video game realease calendar is filled with top of the line FPSs. We have Halo 3, Bioshock, Rainbow Six Vegas, The Orange Box, Crysis, CoD 4, Black Site: Area 51, UT 3, Haze and all the way to the emblematic Killzone 2. Some are out, others will be, most will be good and all will be in first person... once again.

If you went back to the year end list of coming and release games of 1997 you would find your self with something similar. A mother load of shooters out or in the horizon. Shooting is only fun in first person mode some may say. Its a bit sad to think that Video Games have stayed in such a static place over the course of many years.

Now, I am not here to discuss the "shooter" part of First Person Shooters, I am here to talk about the First Person part. Why is it that they are still making them? Why, to top it all off,do they keep making Sci-fi, ww2 or, the trend, modern shooters... in first person? Gears of War was Sci-fi but it was in 3rd person... and it won every damm award out there and everyone loved it and its holding the spot for the best game this generation (easy Halo freaks), and they still go around spending millions on another FPS!

So, this brings me to the reasoning of this blog: If the FPS genre is so old, why to the keep maing so many of them? Its not the fact that they keep making them, it is more in the lines of why so many? Why is it that the idea of a game set on a Sci-fi enviroment, in first person perspective, with on-line match making and killer graphics still makes the blood of any kind of developer boiling?

My theory surrounding this goes in to the audience. Because the audience decides, by purchasing many copies of a game, if said game was a success or not. To me, it all boils down to the constantly refreshing demographic video games have catered over the years. Most of the bread and butter for Video Game developers are kids in their teens or in their early 20s. This demographic have the characteristic that it doesnt really know better. They werent around when Half Life was first release. They dont know that people were playing on-line for more than 10 years, they dont know that many of the things that make Halo the greatest game of the history of the universe have been standar for ages now.

For a big part of the gaming world is very young and they dont have, or even want, a background of the older games. They want whats cool looking and brand new. Conceptually speaking Halo 3 is the equivalent of a cheese sandwich but to a young gamer who have been playing games for just a few years it is the meal of the millenium. To be honest, Video Games arent the only ones suffering frime this, have you seen any big hollywood movie lately? They are just a bunch of rehashes with a new CGI cote of paint, nicer looking ladies and bigger explotions... but in the end its another "been there, seen that".

At least movies have a hole separate world outside of the hollywood junkyard that keeps things fresh, original and interesting to reward those who make the effort if looking past all the crap coming to movie theaters and dvd rental stores. The sad part is that Video Games dont have that kind of alternative offering. The Halo 3s of the gaming world are likely to eat all the Psychonauts and their kids all together before they find their way.

I made my mind a few months back about getting a Wii next christmass. I am playing my PS2 and my DS this days and they are keeping me happy and busy this days. I was intending to get a Wii on christmass but today I realised two things.

There are no Wiis to be found on the net. Amazon never has them in stock and the same happends any were else on the net. I live outside of the states but I have a P.O. box and I often buy things on websites. The thing is that where I live you can simply go out to any video game store and just get a Wii. You dont have to be friends to anyone and theres no need to be first in line to do it, in fact, I could go out right now and get a Wii if I really really wanted. The problem is that they sell it at almost double the price.

I decided that if I couldnt get one for 250 on the net I would get one anyway on christamass. But thinking about, if I did that I would have to pay almost the same ammount of money that an Elite X-box 360 costs. Thats just wrong. I wont pay 400 dollars for a Wii! I cant! I am a budget person, I allways get things when they are at a lower price... not the other way around! So that took the wind out of my Wii buying wings.

The second thing that brings me to not buying one yet is the fact that right now I have 3 PS2 and 3 DS games that I havent even started playing wating for me. Between Bully, FF:XII, Kingdom Hearts, Hotel Dusk, Phoenix Wright: AT TT and Puzzle Quest I think I have practically the rest of the year down. I dont need any more games... and I havent finished God Hand and GTA III (hopefully I'll finish one of those this weekend).

I really want one. I want to play Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Wii sports, Twilight Princess (again), Fire Emblem, Battalion Wars and I want to get Guitar Hero III on the Wii too. But I guess I'll just wait until they can be bought at a normal retail price over the net to get one. At least Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be out by then... hopefully.

I see people around saying that sonys dessision to drop BC on the PS3 its a bad thing. I, for one, dont care. If what you want is to play PS2 and PS1 games then... get a PS2! its waaaay cheaper than a PS3 and you get 100% BC.

Maybe on the case of the 360 I can understand the "need" for BC. But I dont see anyone ranting about it anymore. The truth is, no one buys a brand new high tech console to play older gen games.

Honestly, the 399 PS3 its the one I want. Remove all that junk that I wasnt going to use anyway and leave only the important stuff. I can pay 399 for a PS3 and still wake up in the morning feeling ok with my self. If BC needed to go to make that happend then so be it.

Like I said, you want to play older games, get a PS2: its cheaper and its better.

Every time a new technology or some new hardware or software is released in to the market there are a couple of people (or a hole bunch, deppending on the hype) that buy said item right away. I, for one, learned my lesson and can say only one thing to anyone that goes on and believe in the hype: dont do it.

I am a proud owner of the best selling gaming devise out there right now: The Nintendo DS. Just DS, no lite... not for me... not for any crazy person who ignored the lack of games it had at first and the obvious future improvement it will get (how many GBAs where there? GBA, GBA SP, GBA SP improved, GBA Micro... maybe a couple more). I went on and happily bought a DS Phat... and you know what, I deserve to own a DS Phat and everyone that bought it at that time do so too. We should have waited.

Now I look at all those X-box 360 owners who bought their consoles early. Now you can get an improoved version and a couple of games to boot... do I feel sorry for them? No, they should have known better. Next in line are PS3 owners who bought their 600 dollars cancer curing wonder-box. Have they waited they could have saved a couple hundreds... its not like the few good games it has will be gone in a year.

The opposite works like wonders. I bought a PS2 a few months back and there are so many great games at so low prises that I am getting more games than I can actually finish without hurting my wallet that much. Im getting a Wii in december but I dont know if Ill be getting that many games beyond the essentials. Christmass 08 Im going HD and by that time there will be way more games out there so I believe wating 1 or 2 years isnt that big a problem and the benefits in terms of money and game options are well worth it.

Remember this, never buy a console right away. Wait, games that look great at first could end up being bad a few months later, games that are good and stay that way drop in price, consoles drop price andinprooved models come out. Dont buy in to the hype. Dont let that evil marketing chief win. Make THEM work for YOUR money.

Over the years we have seen many kinds of gaming related symptoms. The nintendo thumb problem frome the NES days to the newly, also nintendo generated, wii-itis. I, for one, suffer frome a different series of problems that arent physsical.

My favorite one is, by far, compulsive saving. I have the nasty little habbit of saving every single time I can. As soon as I yo and do something or reach a sertain level on a game, I just cant help but save the game. If the game uses save points, I just cant live with myself if I dont save before a boss firght.

Obsessive gatherer. I have this on a smaller degree, but I call this on people that just have to get every single item in a game. I believe there are tons of people out there with this problem and things like the M$ point system use it to their advantage. Because I know there are people out there that play some games just to get the points... and thats sick.

Game dreams. This happends every time I make a really long session for a game or when I play a game right before I go to bed. In some anoying way I feel like Im playing the damm thing and it makes my sleep unpleasent. This happends often after a long sessions with an strattegy game. Warcraft III, Civilization IV, Command & Conquer... you name it, they all gave me game dreams... thats why I read before I go to bed, reading tens to do the opposite.

One more turn numbness. What I mean by it is those times when you say to your self that youll stop playing right after this or that and when you do it then you go on to do something else with, and then again and again. Because of this damm thing I once spend a entire DAY, morning to night, playing the grand daddy of addictive games: Civilization IV. The only game that can beat Civ. IV is WoW, witch also gave me the same problem. Well, I uninstalled Civ. IV the day after the insane marathon and I no longer play WoW... so I am a cured man now.

Well, to my account, those are some of the effects games have on my head. I have most of them under control... except the compulsive saving part. But the others still pop up every now and then.