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!

Announcements

- Streaming Games Board: We've created a new forum dedicated to streaming services and free to play games. Stop by to check it out.

- Game Night Returns: Stop by on Tuesday 4/7/09 to participate in the first game night of the year. The game will be Left 4 Dead on the PC or 360. We'll be handing out a participation celebration emblem.

Note: If you cannot participate in the first game night of the year because of the ESRB rating, please read the game night FAQ for further information.

- Participation Emblem Alert: If you're an avid contributor of GameSpace banners you can receive an emblem for helping out numerous times. The following staff and users received the Banner Printer emblem last week: anthonyr1, capedbear , chilledmartini, insinuendo, rohver, ticonorico21, yevinorion and zixarga.

Moroes

This week's member spotlight goes to Moroes for his editorial about how some of today's games are using the same molds as previous games. Here's an excerpt:

The sad truth is that the companies are scared to be creative, due to the increased chance of failure. Failure results in less money, and at this point everyone is trying to get as much money as they possibly can. I wouldn't blame them.

Announcements

- Site Change: The new image viewer has rolled out on the site. Go to your game list in your profile or do some searches for the gamespaces on the site.

- Event coverage: GDC week uncovered the hype around OnLIVE. Did you miss anything else? We continued to roll out the coverage this last weekend so stop by to make sure you didn't miss out on anything. Additionally, Tor Thorsen posted a blog with videos of the show floor

- Emblem: If you missed out on the GDC emblem there were some requirements. You needed to watch the OnLive unveiling during the live press conference and discuss the content. If you did both of these and didn't receive your emblem, drop by this reporting thread to claim your emblem.

- Game Night Update (finally!): Looks like Game Night will be returning next Tuesday with a new time frame to benefit our east coast and European GameSpotters. To make a return we wanted to have a game across a variety of platforms. Next week's game night will be Left for Dead on the PC and 360 from 4pm PT to 6pm PT.

- Illegal or Mature Advertisments? We have a new reporting thread in case there is an automated advertisements problem.

Member Spotlight

whoozwah

This week's member spotlight goes to whoozwah for keeping it real. Whoozwah has a variety of suggestions on ways people can hold truths to be self evident . Here is an excerpt:

Not everything you like is "epic"

Not everything you dislike is "fail"

Sequels are better than remakes/ports

User Reviews

Below is this week's activity from the top 100 and 500 reviewers list.

- Starcraft (PC) Aberinkulas
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PC) doctor_kaz
- Thrillville: Off the Rails (360) Dreski83
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (360) DouglasBuffone
- Wheelman (360) wonderboy_46
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) AzelKosMos
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (Wii) zh666

Featured Videos

- MCU Game Night 1 Footage by vgm007. Footage from the Moderator Collective Union Game Night 1 - Gears of War 2.

- British Grenadiers Tribute bangell99 using Empire: Total War footage.

Honorable mentions:

- Rise of the Argonauts game ending by darkbeing
- RE5 And Stuff by Jbul

Randomness teh Awesome

- OnLIVE was the hot topic in blogs this week. Here's a collection of those who wrote about it: sieg6529, c_rake, Jerell_rast, FakePlasticSN32, nftw, wehttam16, xblane, kainsec, MrCHUP0N, shabulia and _LiquidFlame_.

- The_DRUGGIE has posted his top 5 annoying bosses of all time.

- floristandbicyc has been added to the Soapbox due to his well written editorial about Character Archetypes in video games .

- nutcracker from UK shares his impressions of Cryostasis, which should make it out to the US on April 20th ,

- Setho10 has posted a blog sharing many impressions; so much I cannot describe them.

- xriceballx has posted a blog celebration of 3 years on GameSpot. The blog includes some shoutouts to her GameSpot buddies.

- GDC Harmonix Party pictures and videos by JodyR.

Union Activities

RPG Temple is offering any and all role playing discussions around a variety of platforms. It's kind of like the General Games Discussion board, only you have to be very role playing eccentric. Stop by to read what they have to say about their recent discsussion related to Dragon Age: Origins.

Tip of the Week

This week's tip is about tagging, thanks to some help from GameSpot members, Avenger1324, JackBurton and ehsan8888. A tag is a word related to an item that another user has linked to it. Tags allow other users to search for content that have been "tagged" with the same word. For instance, check out Avenger1324's tag page. If you click on a keyword like Atari, which displays other users that tagged the content with the same keyword.

Tagging content is found in many areas on the site. Content such as forums, videos, gamespace pages, user images, user videos, articles [news, previews, features, reviews], blogs and threads all have a link or button to tag the content.

GameSpot also grants users an emblem depending on how much activity they have with tagging content.

Lastly, if you're interested in getting a keyword up in the tag cloud found on the forums directory, ehsan8888 suggests flagging content that is a not so popular keyword or game.

Find more suggestions from the GameSpot members located in How To GameSpot thread.

We'll see you next week!

Announcements

- Event coverage: Attend the Gamer Developers Conference 2009 virtually! We have plans to have a live press conference broadcast on Tuesday March 24 at 7pm PT. A little birdy told me that there will be an emblem for this press conference. Sometimes birdies lie, but it's worth a try [oh, I rhymed]. Then stop by on Wednesday for a special GDC episode of On the Spot.

- Emblem Activity: We are giving everyone one more chance to get their Reader's Choice emblem. Stop by here for the instructions .

- Game Night Status: If all goes well, we should be returning Game Nights on March 31st. Post your game recommendation.

Member Spotlight

DouglasBuffone

This week's member spotlight goes to DouglasBuffone for his event report . Doug headed out to Las Vegas to attend the Red Faction Guerilla press event. Stop by to see pictures and read the full report!

User Reviews

Below is this week's activity from the top 100 and 500 reviewers list.

- ShellShock 2: Blood Trails (PC) dark_being
- SiN (PC) Aberinkulas
- Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) doctor_kaz
- X-Blades (PS3) Domstercool
- Eternal Sonata (360) Garrison_Ford
- Saints Row 2 (360) NBAmaster33
- Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos (SNES) SophinaK
- Alien Syndrome (Wii) zh666

Featured Videos

- Guitar Hero Metallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls gameplay by Dzjaansis. The video features mostly gameplay, but there are some shots of the band as well.

- Star Ocean: The Last Hope - My own battle by tjoeb123. Primarily gameplay but tjoeb does a little teaser in the beginning.

Honorable mentions: cjgangsta posted a video blog about MMOs, while sky-ia posted three videos of Rodland gameplay footage.

Randomness teh Awesome

Seems that many of you enjoy this corner of the weekly report!

View Me!

- kansasdude2009 has posted some pictures of his gaming set up.

- kittykatz5k has posted 5 animes reviews for the following: Death Note, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, Paranoia Agent, and Bleach.

- Writer1983 recently realized just how good it is to be bad for a change. She shares her impressions about GTA: Chinatown Wars on the DS.

- Frozen Liquid has been added to the Soapbox. Check out his recent editorial about game art.

- RasutoSSAikou recently wrote a blog about gender identification. Does gaming really have no gender?

Activities

- GameSpot DS forum posters are hosting an unofficial Pokemon Tournament for Pokemon Diamond/Pearl and Platinum. Registration ends on April 10th

- The mods have started a new game night for those who want to bash them in the game. Psst, it's really the only way you can without breaking the ToU.

Union Activities

- The Anime Café have posted previews about some upcoming spring releases of Anime. Check out their first report and then drop by the second report .

Tip of the Week

GameSpot Soapbox is a place where rants and ramblings about gaming and other topics are posted on GameSpot. Who particpates in this feature? A variety of GameSpot editors and selected GameSpot users. If you are profiecent in writing skills and have some interesting incite about the gaming industry create a blog post and use the category "editorial". If you would like to avoid being considered, use another drop down menu other than Editorial.

On a related note, we have cleaned out a lot of inactive soabox users last week and will continue to finish up the spring cleaning later this week. If you haven't been an active blogger in general, it is highly likely the association to soapbox will be removed.

Until next week!