UPDATE: All the keys have been taken!

We have keys ready to give away for the Cities XL Beta! More information in the forum post.

We have some of you doing some pre-E3 impressions this year! After you check out what your fellow GameSpotters and Staff have to stay before E3 starts, be sure to bookmark the e3.gamespot.com. GameSpot will be revealing the future of gaming from June 1 through June 4.

E3 Member Spotlight: ehsan8888
While many of your blogs were great reads, ehsan8888 received the member spotlight for his tips about making this year's e3 even more enjoyable. Here is an excerpt from one of his tips.

"Visit the forums and participate with the community! Gamespot is a great website and they have taken their time year after year to give you good coverage of E3 and the least you can do is to just post a little online and give them you input. Just don't cause any arguments."

Pre-E3 Blog Highlights!

- Let the Hype Begin by canana
- E3 and me by icytower38
- E3 Predictions by jrabbit99
- E3 Fantasies by PJ24
- Excited for E3 (+more) by shadow9669
- E3 This Year by khoofia_pika
- Thoughts of E3 by Gammit10
- E3 2009 Predictions by xboxrulze
- E3 Anticipation by jediknight52501
- GameSpot Editors on E3 video by Shaun
- What are you excited for? by Sophia

Pre-E3 Discussions

- Expect to see something ridiculous this year? Jedi Squirrels?
- What is the E3 Schedule?
- Who will have the best E3 showing?
- Games you want to know about at E3 this year
- Is Gamespot going behind the scenes
- The biggest game character at this E3?

We'll see you on the show floor!

Announcements

- New Navigation Bar: We have decided to ask you a couple of questions about the latest navigation bar. The survey [survey no longer available] takes about 20 to 60 seconds to complete. One of the questions shows a few other navigation darker/lighter mock-ups too!

- Show Us Yours is a photo contest where GameSpot members display their custom PC or tricked out home entertainment set-up for a chance to win some games.

- Next Week's Game Night will be the biggest we have had in staff participation! Just about every GameSpot staff will be playing UFC 2009 Undisputed. Participants will receive an emblem. Stop by the Game Night page for more information.

- Freebie Points Update. If you have been wondering about your points for the Webby awards, you'll want to drop by this page for the latest updates.

- New Emblem! Thanks to fastesttruck and borninvincible we have a new Member spotlight emblem.

Member Spotlight: laughlyn12

This week's member spotlight goes to laughlyn12 for his blog about sharing the love of gaming!

Here's an excerpt:

Featured User Videos

- Jin's Top 10 WoW bosses
- Home Chamber Apartment

Randomness teh Awesome

- Nintendo DS forum held its first tournament for Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. Check out a video of the final battle .

- SNOOP_CAT talks about his disappointment about the Star Wars Galaxies changes associated to the Creature Handler.

- MAILER_DAEMON talks about Diablo series in his recent blog.

- Madvicker wasw the MVP for last week's Killzone II game night.

- The_Jackle received Thehotspot homework emblem

- Kevin VanOrd posted a video with highlights of last week's Killzone 2 game night.

- OTS Trivia winners have been posted in the competitions forum.

Tip of the Week

I've noticed a variety of GameSpotters posting editorial blogs about E3 this week. I'd like to post something about what you all have to say every Fridays. The community content I am looking for is as follows.

Blogs: If you have an editorial style blog, just make sure you flag your blog with the editorial category in the drop down menu before posting. This gives me easy access to find your blog. If your blog is not what would be considered an editorial send me a private message with the subject title 'E3 community coverage' and provide the link to your blog.

Videos/Images: If you plan to attend E3 this year, be sure to upload your pictures and videos on the site. After uploading the content send me a PM with the subject title 'E3 community coverage' and be sure to provide any links of images or videos you would like to share with everyone.

Forum Threads: These can be anywhere on the site, even in some user created boards and Unions. You'll definitely want to send me the links to interesting topics worth mentioning.

I also plan to have a 'remember when E3..' section about previous expos. You are more than welcome to send me a link to previous E3 pictures, blogs or videos for consideration.

Stop by this Friday for our first GameSpot community E3 coverage report!

Announcements

- Planned Maintenance will occur from 6am to 7am PT tomorrow morning, Tuesday, May 12th. If you are using the site during this time you may notice a slowdown in performance.

- This Week's Game Night will be Killzone 2 on the PlayStation 3. PS3 game nights rarely have a good attendance. Drop by the chatroom to chat it up with fellow PS3 fans if you don't have the game. Heck, play another PS3 game with those who do not have Killzone 2! Chris Watters has put out a challenge to any Killzone 2 player. He's pretty confident that he'll own everyone in the game this week. Kevin Van Ord will also be making a return. As always, we'll be handing out the bounty hunter emblem depending on the participants that show. Read the FAQ for the emblem requirements and how to participate.

- How To GameSpot/Welcomes Newbies has been changed to How To GameSpot . Please refer the forum as How To Gamespot to avoid any confusion among our newer registrants of the site.

- GameSpot's Navigation interface has been updated. Check out the changes and provide feedback .

- The Member Spotlight emblem activity in the Emblem Union will be ending soon.

Member Spotlight: Spoogei

This week's member spotlight goes to Spoogei for posting a blog about why video games are rarely used as education tools

Here's an excerpt:

User Reviews

- Silent Hill (PS) Video_Game_King
- NBA 2K9 (360) NBAmaster33
- Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (PSP) Paully3433
- Golden Axe: Beast Rider (360) SemiMaster
- Fallout 3 (PC) Jd1680a
- F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (360) celtic1962
- Star Ocean: The Last Hope Dreski83
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (360) Dreski83
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two (PC) Aberinkulas
- Ninja Blade (360) Domstercool

User Videos

Featured:

- Assassin's Creed Video Review by Moroes
- Fat Princess Beta Walkthrough by dannyodwyer

Additional videos:

- D_West posted a video review of Guitar Hero:World Tour

- dragon_king64 posted a video about a PS2 Multi-tap that works

- Azghouls has uploaded a variety of FarCry videos.

- Akhorahill has posted a variety of Silent Hill 5 game endings.

- topsemag55 has posted a variety of gameplay videos of Painkiller and The Witcher Enhanced Edition

Randomness teh Awesome

- Sophia has asked for you to NAME THAT Game tune!

- AmateurZombie has received TheHotSpot homework emblem.

- xboxrulze has been re-added to the Soapbox for his recent editorial about realism and gaming.

- mmmwksil has reached a stage of gaming and genre fatique. l

- Amnesiac23 has some parenting advice about purchasing M rated games for children.

- GSGirl has posted an essential list of iPhone games.

- c_rake has done a wealth of research about Sony and Microsoft motion controller rumors.

Tip of the Week

GameSpot's weekly in-game activity known as Game Nights offers a bounty hunter emblem to the players that kick butt at a game. If you currently do not have the emblem, here's how you can try for the emblem.

- Start by dropping by the GameSpot Game Night schedule and see if there are future platform/game nights you can participate in. If not, the Game Night Union always has an open discussion about game recommendations for future game nights.

- On the day of game night stop by the chatroom between 4pm PT and 6:30pm PT to see if you can get in a match with a GameSpot staff member. Volunteer moderators may also host matches and give names staff, but staff choose the MVP(s) for the week.

- Depending on the amount of participants we may hand out between 1 and 3 bounty hunter emblems.

- Those who have received the emblem are featured on the game night page. You can check former MVP users on the game night feature page and the archive page .

- After you have played in game night you are encouraged to post any experiences through text, videos or screenshots in the dedicated game night FAQ or game night report thread.

Until next week!

...and we've won the People's Voice Award for Best Games-Related Website! This is a huge honor for us, and it's all thanks to you, the community! Everyone here at GameSpot would like to express our appreciation for your efforts and support!

We've begun the process of going through the two roll call threads, the news post comments, and the community blog comments to get a list of usernames. This is almost done, and we're expecting to begin handing out emblems and bonus points in the next day or so. If you're interested in how we're progressing with this, please bookmark this page to see updates.

Please understand that this is a mostly manual process, and so it will take some time before we're finished. We'll go as fast as possible though!

Updates:

- All of the emblems have been handed out! Now it's time to move onto the points, which will take much longer to do. Further updates to come later.

- Everyone who modified their signature has been accounted for. You guys can pull that out of there now. Thanks again!

- We will begin handing out bonus points Friday. In the meantime, if you know you will be receiving them, please backup your signature, as the process of handing them out is known to damage them. You should be receiving a private message to indicate this as well.

- 5/8: We've started handing out points, so users may start to see their signatures break as mentioned above and in the private message you should have received if you will be affected. Please note that this will be a multipass process, so you may have to fix your signature twice.

- 5/11: The process is continuing, and many of you have already had bonus points awarded. Again, this will be a multipass process, so please be aware that you may have to fix your signature twice. Sorry for any inconvenience.

- 5/19: As promised, 3000 bonus points have now been awarded to all users who supported us by adding a mention of the Webby Awards in their forum signature. We are working on handing out the rest of the points to everyone who participated, but it's taking much longer than anticipated. Please be patient: these other 4000 points will be handed out to everyone as soon as possible.

- 5/20: Everyone with a username beginning with the letter A have had their bonus points awarded.

- 6/11: Now that everyone's back from the madness of E3, we're ramping up on handing out bonus points again. Sorry for the delay, but we'll be pushing hard to give everyone their well-deserved points!

- 6/19: I am very pleased to announce that very nearly every single person who supported us for this competition has had their bonus points awarded! I have to wait until Jody gets back to confirm, but we'll catch anyone we missed as soon as she's back. Thanks for your patience!

- 6/26: And we're done! All the points have been awarded out. Thanks again for your patience, and special thanks to Steve Easley who built us a tool to hand these out much faster!

Seems like GameSpot has been hit with the free birds and beta bees. GameSpot community members are bound to get something this week! Due to the content overload I have skipped a variety of categories in the community report this week. This means the report is primarily about things you can get for being a part of the community!

Announcements

- GameSpot Webby's Update: As of this morning we were at 3% [UPDATED as of 11pm PT] to our goal thanks so much everyone. We have come so much closer to our goal because of YOU! Keep pioneering by getting your friends to vote, pass along the instruction link: www.tinyurl.com/gamespotwebby . You and your friends will receive some freebie GameSpot profile level points for taking the time to vote. In case you didn't know we also plan to give away a 'celebration emblem' in your profile if we happen to win as another token of our appreciation to you.

- Battlefield Heroes Beta keys: We have thousands of keys to hand out this week. If we reach our beta limit for the day there is no need to worry! Stop by the following day for a key! Alert your friends so they can check it out with you. Also be sure to provide feedback and bug reports over at the official Battlefield Heroes site.

- World of Warcraft Novel Giveaway: Can you imagine? We even have some books to giveaway . We are offering these books to US and Canadian (excluding Quebec) residents.

- Cities XL Beta Offer: The beta offer will be happening until June. If you're a city building fanatic, this MMO simulation should be on your beta list of games to check out. Be sure to provide feedback to them if you get in.

- GameSpot US Game Night: What's up for grabs? One bounty hunter emblem to the person that owns one or more GameSpot Staff members! This week North Americans and International night owls from other countries will be playing versus and co-op modes in Resident Evil 5. Stop by on Tuesday April 28 from 4-8pm PT .

- GameSpot Australia Game Night: What's up for grabs? I heard that attendees will be handed some profile level points. James Kozanecki and Dan Chiappini plan to heat up some action with GS AU members in the Killzone 2 game.

Randomness teh Awesome

- Behemoth has a caption contest that offers a chance to win Castle Crasher download code + King Pack DLC.

- HotSpot Homework emblem was granted to Hou, InuTails, Sephiroth99000, Seppa_Man and ldwildfire06

- GameSpot Aussie April Pick-Up Thread. Post your pictures of what you got in the past 30 days.

That's it for this week. Stop by the community page next week for our normal report that will feature GameSpot members and the tip of the week!

This year, GameSpot.com is honored to be considered in the 13th annual Webby Awards. We are up against a news blog website, an online news magazine, a publisher's game website and a professional gaming website. What sets us apart from these other websites? What have these websites covered over the past 12 years? Has GameSpot not done these things at one time or another?

We have joined the news blog territory and have a landing page dedicated to the many perspectives of gaming; we have had professional gamers come to our playing field to participate in tournaments from 2006 all the way through 2008; we have written thousands of features and articles that are just as good as any online news magazine about games; and although we may not publish games, we provide the very best coverage on the web about them.

If you would like to show your support for GameSpot.com, drop by the 13th annual Webby Awards page and vote for us under the Entertainment Games - Related category. You are not required to vote for every category on the page, but why not take a moment to vote for the websites that matter the most to you!

GameSpot's Nomination history with Webby Awards

- 1st annual

- 2nd annual

- 9th annual

- 10th annual

- 11th annual

You know who you should vote for, but we will let you decide.

UPDATE: They plan to give out an emblem. Stop by this page for the details.

Final update: Codes were sent out. Thanks for everyone's interest. Happy testing!

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Another update: Codes are being sent out. Check your emails from now and in the next hour!

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UPDATE: Beta key COMING SOON. We have 500 keys ready to send out to everyone. However, we're waiting for a green light to send them out.

If you were selected you'll be sent the key via email with full instructions about how to redeem it. Thanks for your patience during this time.

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UPDATE: We're out of keys. Please check your emails tomorrow morning for further instructions about how to redeem your code.

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FORMER POST

SCEA has sent us some beta keys for us to share with all of you. To receive a beta key please note the following instructions:

You must have:

... a PlayStation 3
... an active PlayStation 3 PSN ID
... the latest firmware to access the PlayStation Store
... 200MB free on your system
... Tuesday and Thursdays evenings available to test

If you meet these requirements send us an email to with the following information.

GameSpot username:
Your Active PSN ID:

The beta will last for two weeks. Much like other betas, those who receive the key will provide detailed feedback reports during the beta phase.

Further instructions will be sent to those who receive their beta code.

Announcements

- GameSpot Answers allows registrants to post questions and receive answers about details in a game. If you don't see an answer for your favorite game, ask a question! For an example, try doing a search for evil on the Fable II Answers page for some splendid detailed answers and some questions that are still open for you to answer!

- This Week's Game Night: On Tuesday April 14th we'll be playing Street Fighter IV on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

- Game Night Aftermath: Our first game night this year went pretty well for being a mature rated game. We had nearly 40 participants with a few cheerguys that stopped by to chat it up last Tuesday night. Stop by to view the report about how things went. There are some PC and Xbox 360 match videos as well!

- Nintendo DS board guidelines: Since the announcement DSi discussions needed to be in the main sticky thread. We've finally loosened up the rules a bit but be sure to read the comparison thread before posting in the forum

- Zombie Trivia is ends tomorrow at 4:00pm PT. Get your zombie knowledge on to earn an emblem.

Member Spotlight

This week's member spotlight goes to Sequekhan for his suggestions about remaining healthy while playing games. Here's an excerpt:

So when you sit in your favourite comfy chair and put on a game, do you spare a moment to think about your well-being? Do you plan how long you'll play, what you'll eat? Do you know how far you should sit from the screen?

User Reviews

- God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) AzelKosMos
- Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GC) dark_being
- Final Fantasy XII (PS2) Garrison_Ford
- Eternal Sonata (PS3) ShadowLaguna
- World in Conflict: Soviet Assault (PC) Jedo
- Two Worlds (X360) zh666

Featured User Videos

- Da Package (Episode 57) by dragon_king64
- Biohazard Guns Collection by pakhair

Randomness teh Awesome

- BigC1689 talks about how people need to play games in moderation; especially with games like World of Warcraft.
- d3emondav3 grades the different platforms based on the games, graphics, value and fanbase.
- canana shared his opinions about the future of Zelda.
- TheBuck27 explains why he is still in love with his PlayStation 2. If you're a fan as well, be sure to track him as he plans to continue to write blogs about the platform.
- payne6705 explains why Nintendo doesn't get the DS.
- natasha8384 has uploaded a variety of gameplay videos of Wanted Weapons of Fate and Dark Athena.
- Johnsteed7 believes that Co-op Games Have An Expiration Date. Should you be purchasing these DLC right away?
- Sophia has posted some impressions about the Ninja Blade track.
- yeah_write asked for some advice about Guitar Hero and Rock Band

Union Activities

- The next Mod Collective game night will be Killzone 2 on Saturday, April 18th 2009.

- Post your Union activities ! Almost didn't have any union news until I came across spazzc625's blog!
Tip of the Week

This week's tip is about how you can avoid coming across spoilers while using GameSpot Answers. SavoyPrime asked if there was a way to dodge spoiling his favorite games and Dave Good aka megagood responded with the following scoop:

We implemented a few features to keep spoilers from surfacing when users aren't looking for them. The biggest one is that users can mark their question as a spoiler when they ask it. We have a few other behind-the-scenes tricks to keep spoilers out of the spotlight as well. If you see a spoiler-containing question without having searched for an answer and checked the box "search questions with spoilers," please let me know and we'll mark it as such.

If you have any further suggestions, drop by this discussion thread .

Until next week!