Let me start this off by saying I am not some gaming fan boy. I don't get geeked out and listen to podcasts and scrounge the internet for every tidbit of info concerning an upcoming game because I used to do that and it ruined games. I might look up info on them to try and keep moderately informed but I just don't get geeked out on them. I also don't view geeked out as derogatory as I am geeked out on gaming but not on any one game in particular.

It sounds strange I know but I have this disease call morals which means I hold people to their word. So when a developer tells me they are adding a feature but never inform the masses that said feature was cut until the game was released then I will burn them down for it in any review. Yes more reviews are coming and just wait till I get done with Mass Effect.

The other thing is I don't give every game that I enjoy a 5+. Games are supposed to be fun and I can almost always enjoy them to some degree. I tend to find the fun in games anyways so I only consider fun one aspect of the game that goes alongside other technical aspects that can really take away from a game when you consider how much was paid for it. If I drop 20 bucks on ODST then it was worth 20 bucks but it cost 60+ and as such it received a 4 because it really wasn't worth 60 bucks. A 10 is an epic title that significantly impacts the future development of gaming and a zero is broken. A 5 is a nothing special. Top heavy reviews are just not my thing. A 7 is a pretty good game IMHO but you will see a lot of people dropping 10's on games that I think deserve a 7. Remember we are all entitled to our opinions but at least I am here qualifying mine.

Now just because a developer bragged about a certain function in a game and then didn't include it doesn't mean I will take a ton of points away on my review. I will call them out if I knew about those missing features but I will review the game I have on hand and not the would have and could haves.

I also don't like giving too many props or penalties for multiplayer. Not co-op but death match style multiplayer. Just like ESRB can't be rated for online interaction you can't penalize a game for having less than stellar participants. I am really a co-op kind of person so the multiplayer aspects rarely appeal to me and as such I rarely play them. For instance I absolutely despise the multiplayer portions of the Halo FPS series. Not because it's poorly done or anything like that but because a casual gamer can not realistically jump in and compete with people who memorize the weapon locations on every map, stack the map settings against casual players, and when they reach a rank they themselves can't compete at they create new accounts to play as so they can keep killing noobs to stroke their epeen. Don't get me wrong, I get it. You're good and you like your game but if you're good play against other people who are good. You are not good if you are intentionally targeting noobs because that makes you pathetic for trying to look better than you really are. You can't compete on the level like an adult so you run back to the minors because it makes you look like a star.

If you think I don't know how to throw down with the best of them you're wrong. Granted you won't find me on the top ranks of any xbox games...mainly because my sig isn't umpalumpa...but also because my days of playing a game to death are behind me. I have been on top two boards on Planetside and Unreal Tournament(Pro Servers) so it's not like I haven't been there. I just don't have the time, patience, or addictive personality to get geeked out on games like I did when I was a little younger. Mix that with the fact that I make a lot more money than I did back then and the need to squeeze every last dollar out of a game is gone. Too make things even more interesting my best friend works for Micro$oft so I get the occasional free game and get to play tons of games I would never likely buy and that brings me to why I am going to start writing reviews.

Well it's because of my best friend. Shortly after we met he told me that I should be reviewing games. Back then we were in college and had very different goals. He already worked in the industry for Sony back then and though I had offers I had no desire to ever work in game development despite my passion for playing them. Fast forward a few years and the critical reviews I have been making to him have been traveling to work with him as well and largely considered accurate by his peers at work. Most of the time he has been unable to inform his co-workers of where he actually got the knowledge but as his faith in me not breaking his ND agreements has grown so has his willingness to share the source of his information which has certainly made for some interesting lunches and dinners here lately. The crowning moment was when, after years of badgering me for input, a game proposal that he had been pushing was accepted and the developer is basically making it word for word from what we proposed. I always told him I wanted nothing but good games and that my ideas would freely pass to anyone who wanted them as long as gaming moved beyond the stagnant stalemate we have today. I guess that would be a good time to interject that games that don't fit the mold get brownie points from me. Anyways, our success and his renewed badgering have lead me to writing reviews.

Now if I could just get the fan boy moderators to quit removing my reviews...

Keep this in mind.

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

~Sigmund Freud