@azshorty2003: I don't mind the new design. It's clean and easy to navigate. And considering the back end of the site has been based on code written over 15 years ago until now, I have to imagine there are vast improvements under the hood. That said, I hope they remember that the quality of the site hangs just as much if not more on the quality of the content than its presentation. One thing people don't realize is that no one who initially built Gamespot still works on the site. A lot of the problems with site functionality up until now came from the fact that the engineers asked to fix things didn't build those things in the first place and had to go through tens of thousands of lines of code just to figure out how something was done. And over the years new features were just bolted onto the original site, meaning many core functionality problems simply couldn't be fixed without starting over from scratch. So that is why to redesign was done. It was just as much a back end rebuild as it was a front end rebuild. But I like the new front end.

@c_rakestraw: I think they were trying to show character growth. Dante started out as a callous brat who swore because why not and by the second half of the game had matured into a much more relatable character. They definitely overdid it in some cases, but I think that was what they were going for.

@c_rakestraw: I think maybe the worst choice that game made from a marketing standpoint was to include the boss in the demo. Especially without context those were up there with some of the worst lines Dante has spoken. And yet the rest of the game doesn't have anywhere near the same level of foul mouthed attempts at humor. I honestly didn't even notice it outside of that one conversation. I have no idea why they decided to include that in the demo but I'm sure it did a great job of convincing a ton of people that they were justified in saying this new Dante was going to be poorly written.

Sadly no. First year in quite a long time they haven't had one. At least a decade. I also kind of felt like their awards this year sacrificed depth for fancy web design. Their page looked like something from Polygon. They didn't have their worst of awards, nor awards for categories like story or music and so forth. This is honestly the most bare bones awards they have done on this site from an amount of content standpoint. I don't even think they wrote up reasons why they nominated each of their nominees. It's a shame. I hope next year they focus on the awards and not the page layout.

Well in January Kingdom of Amalur: The Reckoning is coming out. Don't know if it will be good or not. Most RPG's I can think of are part shooter like Deus Ex and Mass Effect.

I agree on almost all of those ideas. I especially want to be able to add emblems similar to the staff reviews. Since we can't give specific scores for graphics and audio and so forth, it can be hard to quickly communicate the good and bad things about a game without adding too much text to make the review interesting for the reader. I also like having a feedback box for the writer. I would recommend that a function be implemented where a user can be blocked from giving feedback if the author wishes, so that people who want to attack anyone who disagrees with their points on a game can be safely ignored. Other than that, all the ideas seem good. A sorting feature would be really nice as well. Glad this is being discussed. I look forward to any changes implemented.

The first few Ultimas were amazing, but the series died for a reason (the last two games were atrocities). I'm not optimistic about Garriott's return.

CarnageHeart

Well Garriot wasn't really at fault in those cases. EA forced major changes in the games so much that Garriot quit and Origin was shut down. The last great one was VII which was the last before the company was bought by EA. Garriot publicly denounced EA and what they did to Ultima. His version of Ultima VIII and IX were very different than what EA eventually forced them to release. If Garriot could be brought back to the modern EA then I could see some beauty come of that.

I'd second Jak and Daxter. The first is a great platformer and the second two are good open world games that are far less mature than GTA but still fun. Sly Cooper is another great platformer, although I've heard the second one is a bit shocking at the end. Hmm. I don't know that many great games for 6 year olds.

You guys forgot to add the PC version of Game Room. I assume you know the details, but it was released day and date with the 360 version, same regions I believe. More details:

Title: Game Room
System: PC
Published by: Microsoft
Developed by: Krome Studios
Genre: Compilation
Number of Players: 1-2?