LATEST UPDATE: New emblems added - Registered Member, Plus Subscriber, Total Access, Love Song writer, Voted Twice, PSP Aficionado, DS Aficionado.
So far, it seems that posting and spending time on the forums increases your rank, but it is far from the only factor. There are members who never post, yet have high ranks, demonstrating that ranking is based not only on posting, but also on time spent using the many other features that gamespot offers. So far, it seems likely that using the "collection," "tracking," and "wish list" features contributes to your ranking. Taking advantage of gamespot's news, review, previews, downloads, and other features does as well, although it is hard to quantify the impact of each of those things. As I get new information, though, I'll do my best to add it
Level 1 - Player - Self-explanatory.
Level 2 - Journeyman - Possibly a reference to the Journeyman Project series for the PC/Mac.
Level 3 - Mediator - Reference to a 1986 spaceship game for the C64 and the NES.
Level 4 - Paper Boy - Name of the classic arcade game where you are - yes! - a Paper Boy, delivering the latest news while dodging people and obstacles.
Level 5 - Tapper - A reference to the arcade game by the same name, in which the player had to serve beer quickly to increasingly surly patrons.
Level 6 - The Super Spy - One of the first attempts at a first-person-perspective action game, for the Neo Geo, in which you played as a secret agent charged with infiltrating an enemy base.
Level 7 - Sectoid - A baddie from the X-Com games.
Level 8 - Quad Damage - A power-up in Quake that drastically increased the amount of damage your weapons did.
Level 9 - Ikari Warrior - A classic SNK coin-op where you battle your way through guerilla territory, taking on marksmen, combateers and tanks!
Level 10 - Phoenix Down - An item from the Final Fantasy games, used to bring defeated players back to life.
Level 11 - Atomic Punk - An arcade game in which you planted bombs around a maze. I believe this was another name for the Bomberman series.
Level 12 - Rad Racer - Racing game for the NES. Featured a 3-D mode using special glasses.
Level 13 - Toobin' - An arcade and NES (and later Game Boy Color) game focusing on the fascinating world of inner-tube racing.
Level 14 - Ring King - A classic boxing game for the NES.
Level 15 - Nobunaga's Ambition - A classic KOEI historical simulation RPG for the NES set in 16th-century feudal Japan, which has been updated recently in online form for the PS2.
Level 16 - Magician Lord - A classic SNK action-adventure game placing you in the role of a magician lord seeking out eight books of wisdom while fighting off enemies with numerous types of magic.
Level 17 - Minus World - A hidden level from Super Mario Bros. for the NES.
Level 18 - Flicky - A little-known platformer for the Genesis, featuring Flicky, a character first introduced in the Sonic series.
Level 19 - Gitaroo Man - Highly-acclaimed rhythm game for the PS2 which tells the story of U-1 and his jelly-bean-headed talking dog Puma and their quest to save the universe.
Level 20 - Metal Slime - One of the cutest monsters from Dragon Warrior. A royal pain in the butt to beat before they ran away. But oh, the XP if you managed it!
Level 21 - Rescue Ranger - Possibly a reference to the Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers game on the NES.
Level 22 - Blaster Master - One of the greatest (and hardest) NES games of all time. Game play switched between walking and driving, which was pretty darn cool at the time.
Level 23 - Super Bagman - An arcade game developed by Stern in 1984, in which you played as an escaped convict collecting bags of money from a mine.
Level 24 - I Feel Asleep!! - A well-known line from Metal Gear for the NES. Unclear whether it was a typo (I fell asleep!!) or a mistranslation (I feel sleepy!!).
Level 25 - Defias Brotherhood - This is a chain of quests from Gamespot's favourite title of last year, World of Warcraft - can you do them all to get to the final showdown with Edwin van Cleef?
Level 26 - Cyber-Lip - A 2D side-scrolling shooter by SNK. Rick & Brook must save the Earth's space colony from the Cyber-Lip, a computer gone mad!!
Level 27 - Sheng Long - In the English version of Street Fighter II, after winning, Ryu said "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance." While the actual reference was to one of Ryu's moves, gamers thought it referred to a person. This was enhanced when EGM made a famous April Fool's joke claiming that Sheng Long was an unlockable boss.
Level 28 - Bionic Commando - Classic NES game in which you played as a bionic commando who could not jump, but had a nifty extending bionic arm that let you swing from stuff. Truly kick-ass.
Level 29 - Radiant Silvergun - An excellent top-down shooter for the Sega Saturn by Treasure.
Level 30 - Wicked Sick! - The award earned in UT2k4 for 30 consecutive frags without a death.
Level 31 - Ippon! - A reference to Karate Champ, possibly the first arcade martial-arts game. As a side note, I used to kick ass at that game. That charging bull didn't stand a chance against my mighty spinning back kick.
Level 32 - Snake Eater - The subtitle to the third game in the Metal Gear Solid series.
Level 33 - Goombella - Mario's first ally in Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, she was particularly useful in giving you information about your foes and location.
Level 34 - Paramecium - I believe this is from Forgotten Worlds for the Turbografx-16. At the end of a stage, your character proclaims, "You cannot stop me with paramecium alone!" Apparently it also appeared in Aero Fighters 2 for the NeoGeo.
Level 35 - Stitches - An epic mob in World of Warcraft.
Level 36 - Radical Ninja - It was the subtitle to the old NES game Kid Niki, an old sidescrolling platformer by Irem.
Level 37 - Heiankyo Alien - A Gameboy game in which you had to prevent an alien invasion of the peaceful town of Kyo...by digging holes with a shovel.
Level 38 - DJ Boy - The best side-scrolling roller skating fighter ever to appear on the Sega Genesis.
Level 39 - Max Force - Max's CO power in the excellent Advance Wars games on the GBA.
Level 40 - Abobo - Name of the boss in Double Dragon for the Neo-Geo.
Level 41 - Thunder Force - A classic series of side-scrolling action games for the Commodore 64, Genesis and Saturn.
Level 42 - Karnov - An arcade game (also on the NES) in which you played as a bald-headed fire-breathing brute. Karnov was a Muslim prince in the original arcade version, but possibly to avoid causing offense to Muslims, he became Jiborav Karnovsky, a Russian circus strongman, for the NES version.
Level 43 - Sword of Soran - A side-scrolling hack-and-slash for the Sega Genesis.
Level 44 - Violence Fight - A curiously-titled arcade fighting game in which the player chose one of four characters to compete in a series of one-on-one fights.
Level 45 - Mishima Zaibatsu - A fictional Japanese conglomerate from the Tekken series.
Level 46 - Mutoid Man - A boss from the arcade classic, Smash TV. As the host would say, "Total carnage! I love it!"
Level 47 - Jaquio - The villain from the Ninja Gaiden series for the NES.
Level 48 - Mr. Domino - A reference to No One Can Stop Mr. Domino!, a quirky but cute game for the Playstation. Also featured on some old Gamespot ads.
Level 49 - Kidd Thunder !! - A reference to Raiden's "Friendship" move in Mortal Kombat 2, in which he creates a miniature likeness of himself.
Level 50 - Strawberry Candy - One of the voice commands in LifeLine for the PS2.
Level 51 - Alien Hominid - A 2D side-scrolling shooter developed by The Behemoth that made the transition to consoles after starting its life as a web-based action game.
Level 52 - Spoony Bard - A rather odd insult from Final Fantasy IV. Spoony is a real word, meaning foolishly sentimental, but I can't imagine what thesaurus the translators used to come up with it when they were localizing FF4.
Level 53 - Zenny - Currency used to buy weapons and upgrades in Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 for the Playstation
Level 54 - Simon Says Bleed - From Demolition Man for the 3D0.
Level 63 - Big Smoke - Member of the Grove Street gang in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
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