Site glitches aside, I thought I'd take a quick second to let you all know what's going to happen with me this year and how it'll affect my time on GS. Yeah yeah, I know I'm not on here a lot anymore as is, but I wanted to make a non-editorial blog for the first time in forever and thought this would be a good chance to speak from the...er, keyboard.

Some time 'round the start of September, I'm gonna be starting my Master's program for Library Sciences and, because a Master's degree is commonly known to sap one's social life (including the pretend ones) completely, I'll be even rarer than usual. Don't worry all about 10-ish of you regular readers, I'll be able to Soapbox whenever I feel like it because a fun fact is that a vast majority of my soapboxes are spontaneously written with no real editing or preparation to speak of (you probably noticed anyway maybe but whatever). To be frank, I treat them like writing exercises so I can keep myself from falling into dumbitude. But yeah, this is probably all just dumb stuff anyway.

On a side note: it's fun to look back on my first soapboxes from '08. Man, I was a TERRIBLE writer back then and if you call me a terrible writer now I swear to God I will cut you. Something else to note is that my entries from way back had over ten times the amount of commenters...maybe I should be dumb?

Also also, I looked at my earliest blog posts and holy hot poop, I want to punch myself. Yeesh.

Okay, I'm rambling now and this really isn't funny.

Guess I'll click that submit button now.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Subsequently, a lot of people have been in touch asking what I'm up to now. The last couple of weeks have been really exciting -- I've put out the first episode of my new weekly podcast, which not only reunited me with Jane Douglas, Lucy James and Dan Maher, but also went to number one on the iTunes chart. I've also been busy writing for Wired, appearing on BBC and Sky News, and updating my YouTube channel with new videos. In the next few weeks I'll be sitting on a BAFTA games journalsim debate, interviewing Rhianna Pratchett at the Hay Festival, talking about the next Xbox on CNN and BBC, and of course heading out to E3. If you're going to be attending any of those events, please say hi, and if not, I look forward to hearing from you over on my website or on Twitter. There's loads more coming down the line, but for now, please let me know what you think! See you all again soon.

Jane, Lucy, Dan and I recording the first episode of my new podcast.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Anyway, basketball's left. Huzzah to playoffs.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

The problem I have with this is I believe we should be getting more demos for games that are asking $50-60 of our hard earned money instead of demos for games that are less than $20 which we are probably more likely to take a chance on anyway. What does it say when a company who is asking for less than $20 of our money is willing to let us play their game before handing over the cash and other publishers are asking for up to three times the money without as much as offering us a thirty minute trial to put us at ease.

I think I can answer my own question: people see a game from a well known publisher and are far more likely to hand over $60 and ask no questions. Most of these gamers probably don't follow a lot of gaming news and probably don't try a lot of games from lesser known publishers and developers. I know I am far less likely to buy a game from EA, Activision, Ubisoft, or Take Two because I have been burned by them for a lot of money for a lot of games that turned out to not be worth $60 but I am the minority.

Out of the last eight games that have been from big studios and have retailed for $50-60 at launch that I have played I would say four of them were worth that price. That is pretty sad. Luckily where I work I get a decent amount of games for free. Out of those eight big name games I only had to pay for four of them.

Sadly I don't see this issue changing any time soon. Oh well, I have found a ton of great indie games lately that are cheap and gave me a demo.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

In the first couple of years as a laptop user, I always considered PC's to be better than any laptop, but I got used to them, and never looked back to PC's. Until now. 

I wanted an iMac. I kind of still do. But I gave up on the idea. It's just a too big of a risk for me. It's cheaper to buy a PC and I also have the chance to upgrade my system whenever I feel like it. The iMac on the other hand, as beautiful of a machine as it is, would have made me happy for only a brief moment. Why? Because of new models. It gets an update each year, so in a couple of months, I would be drooling over the new version, and not be satisfied with the one that I have. I know myself, and that's exactly where I would have ended up. Getting a PC however gives me the chance to do whatever upgrades I want in order to be as fresh with my system as I want. And for someone like me, that is the best option.

I will hate the bunch of cables and extra space that it takes to have a PC, but I'm sure I'm going to be happy about other things. I'll be ordering my PC sometime this week and building it myself. 

I'm not giving up on console gaming, but now I'll be playing on two fronts. I can't wait to get into Guild Wars 2 and SimCity 4. It's going to be awesome. Also, mods for Skyrim, Black Mesa, the STALKER franchise, the second Witcher, all in full HD with details to the max? Awesome. 

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Well you know what? You can escape it, and very easily. All you have to do it forget the concept of the pile of shame altogether and realise an inscrutable fact: There simply isnt enough time. Great works come out on a nearly daily basis - games, books, albums, movies - there is already a ton of these this year that will be great things that should be enjoyed, but you do not have the time to consume them all and that is no bad thing at all. 

Life is a complex thing where everything is competeing for your time and attention. The things I have already mentioned, plus wifes/girlfriends/boyfriends, regular friends, family are all wanting to grab some of your attention, eating away at available time in any given day. How you deal with life relies your ability to juggle all these attention seekers and carve out your own way of dealing with each. 

I spend time with my wife cuddled up on the sofa watching various TV shows, current favourites are The Walking Dead, Dexter, Arrow, Hawaii Five-0, Glee, NCIS: Los Angles. Some great things in there, some total fluff, but those are what I am into at present. They all allow me to spend time with the wife while also consuming some TV, killing two birds with one stone. Are they the truly important TV shows on at the moment? Hell no. Well maybe one is, but I dont have time to consume those shows, and I haven't seen anything in recent memory that fits anyway. 

Those shows I miss out on would count towards my pile of shame. I haven't seen some of the truely great movies ever made: 2001, Apocalypse Now, Blazing Saddles, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Exorcist, The French Connection, again all adding to the pile. Movies I have seen include Space Balls, BASEketball, Die Hard 1-5 and hundreds of others including some of the big names. These are movies I can receit lines from off by heart but get no credit for, I just get crap thrown for not seeing the other ones. 

I haven't listen to Dark side of the Moon, The Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, Achtung Baby, Off the wall - great albums that haven't graced my ears before due to either a lack of interest or, more likely, a lack of time. My musical tastes are probably not worth going into in much since I am fully aware my affinities are not to everyone's taste, but those albums would make the pile. 

I haven't played To the Moon, Psychonaughts, System Shock, Super Meat Boy, Katamari Damacy, Call of Duty 4, Nights Into Dreams and any Castlevania title. Do I still consider myself very knowledgable when it comes to games? yes I do. Looking down the list of 100 games to play before you die that I took the above examples from, there are just as many games I have played if not more, but because those are the cult classics, thats ones that people can trace most of moden game design back to they would go on the pile. 

However, I chose to not have a pile of shame. I have limited time, and if I am ever graced with kids, that time will go down even more. If my job, like the good folks here at Gamespot, were games journalist, then it wouldnt be so much of a problem and I would be able to see many more great games than I get to at present. My job isn't that and it isn't for lack of trying, but I just accept that some things slip through the net. 

These are things that will not radically change my life had I actually consumed them, and I can live happily in the knowledge that I have limited time and cannot see/hear/read/play everything I probably should. This because I consume enough for me, to make me happy and feel satisfied, and therefore I do not have a pile of shame. 

My hope, as idealistic and futile as it is, is that people reading this editorial will say "Ya know, that dude is right. I don't need this pile of shame I have in my head or even physically in my room. I just need to be happy in what I do consume". It is not going to happen, but I hope I have at least given you some food for thought. 

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

DMC: Devil May Cry
Dead Space 3 
Metal Gear Rising 

Tomb Raider was the latest game I've been playing. I was enjoying the game a lot and I do mean A LOT! I haven't enjoyed a third person action game like this in a long time...then all of a sudden bam! I was hit with a f*cking game breaking glitch almost to the end of the game. The glitch hit me at the Chasm Stronghold, where the enemies refused to spawn and I cannot progress. I did quite a bit of searching for a solution and nothing is possible (unless a patch is released). It seemed to affect all console and PC versions of the game. After cursing very loud today and getting in a rage. I am calmly going to toss this game aside and start Crysis 3!...shame this game could have been a firm contender for GOTY 2013 for me

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

In the world of Game Design Deadly Sins the one that takes the cake is re-release, and lets look at the king of re-releaseses the Street Fighter Series. II, III, IV and Final Fight have at least 20 different games with little change to the game play, story line or setting just new characters. The only game that seems to avoid this curse is Street Fighter I, which seems to have vanished into oblivion thanks to its release on the Turbo Grafx 16 and the name change to Fighting Street. The point I'm making here is try something a little different when it comes to your fighting games: 1 game with all the characters and moves for that part of the story and that's it, it's better then having to run down to the game story and spend 60 dollars for what ammounts to a glorified download pack

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Today we have created some of the most beautiful game engine yet, Cryengine, RAGE (not the game) etc. But while beautiful i sometimes think to myself whether or not i would find value in this game if it weren't put together with an advanced engine. I mean while beautiful, what have they achieved that is supposed to make me love the game like everyone else does?. Game engines today are simply more matured versions of early 3D engines, better textures, better animation, better sound etc. obviously; and yes those things do provide a better experiance usually. We have a gotten to a point where we can even see face pores on characters and even dynamic hair all of which better portrays each characters look and feel. But my concerns lie with the core game and input, i wish to see similar innovations take place in those spaces as well but i feel that many are to satisfied with the "more sequals with better visuals" approach that devs see no reason in attempting chaging something which brings them money; you hold on to what make money, not what makes a difference. I wish to see more experimental gameplay, hopefully on the PS4 as well; create some new IP's and brainstorm some different concepts as to how we can use your extra power to best of your abilities. We know your core titles make money and certainly they should continue making them even if i myself am not a huge fan of there approach.

When it comes to user input i feel Nintendo is really the only one of the three really attempting to change there gaming experiances, i mean they are the only company out of the three that has radically changed there controller designs thoughout each generation. Even if the power wasn't there, they still strived and sold because of it's wide acceptence and strange looking but cool controllers and for a system like the Wii, granted they don't have much now in terms of content. They still have a broader range of titles that took into account the unique controller, so the entry point was much more reasonable for your average consumer even if not back up by strong hardware. One thing Sony has done right with the power shift to PS4 is moving over to an x86 based CPU, this should make cross platfrom development easier and overall game development an easier process. The rest of the specs are impressive as well for a console, 8GB of shared memory and AMD based APU. While the specs are great, the games they showed off during the unvieling didn't really make we super excited as i had hoped. I mean while i was smiling and impressed with a few of the visual affects and some of the first part titles announced, at the end i looked back and could really see much of a differentiation between the current generation and the next generation. I mean just look at the new Killzone, very impressive visuals, but, it's a first person shooter and......it's a first perosn shooter. Now i say that because i saw nothing that really blew my mind in the end, the set pieces were amazing and the visual effects were top notch, but i couldn't get over the fact that i was to have this experiance using two joysticks and an R2 trigger again. And while a game is worth more then it's controls, i just wish to see something that would ignite my flame again; you know that something that makes us proud to be a part of this industry, because if no bounderies are being pushed then why do we have really?

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

This is my last blog here in this profile, thanks everyone who commented in my previous blog, you really were helpful I'm going to keep searching for my old friends to track them and be friends with them in my new profile: GerardoExber.

Afterward I will put this profile to private, I don't want to see it again.

Yes all my progress is lost now, but whatever, a brand new start awaits me in my new profile

See you there: http://uk.gamespot.com/users/GerardoExber/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-26003880

Thanks for Reading "exber" last blog

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

The end result:
Intel i5-3570K, Cooler Master Hyper Evo
AS Rock Z77 Extreme 4
16GB Corsair Vengeance (low profile, black)
3GB XFX Radeon 7970
750W Antec HCP
Corsair 600T (white)
120GB Patriot Pyro SE
1TB Western Digital Black
1.5TB/2TB Western Digital Greens

The SSD and Green drives are carryovers from my old computer. I did a fresh install via the Windows 8 upgrade (I do not care much for Windows 8 so far but thats a whole other post). I havent had a chance to do much benchmarking or any gaming, but the computer is relatively quiet and very fast. Noise initially worried me as my previous computer was mostly quiet (Antec Sonata III) but its only a tiny bit louder with the fans on low, and I dont think Ill have to turn them up until I do some overclocking. Even once that 7970 kicks up to full speed the computer isn't any louder, which is a nice change. The old one was a tiny bit quieter at idle, but got noticeably louder while gaming. This one doesn't get much louder under load.



Poking through my old blog posts makes me realize that my old computer was only actually three and a half years old. I could have sworn it was four or five - I guess it just feels like it aged worse than it did.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

A History of Christianity - Paul Johnson - Fascinating look at Christian history.

The Best and the Brightest - David Halberstam - Excellent for anyone wanting to read up on the Vietnam War.

Too Big to Fail - Andrew Ross Sorkin - Now a movie about the financial crisis, but the book is always better.

All the Devils Are Here - Bethany Mclain and Joe Nocera - Detailed look at the financial crisis and its roots.

The Ocean of Life - Callum Roberts - Interesting book on ocean life and science.

Manhunt - Peter L. Bergen - The best book so far on the hunt for and mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.

The Passage of Power - Robert Caro - Book four of the biographical series on Lyndon Johnson.

The American Civil War - John Keegan - A British historian's take on the American Civil War.

Game Change - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin - Behind the scenes look at the 2008 Presidential campaigns.

The Big Bang - Simon Singh - A good science brushup with historical lineage regarding the life of our universe.

The Guns of August - Barbara Tuchman - Arguably the best take to date on WW1's early miscues and miscalculations.

What If? - Collective Authors - Alternative history based primarily around what the world would look like had differing victors emerged in various wars.

What If 2? - Collective Authors - Alternative history mostly revolving around specific events or individuals and their movements.

New Pengiun History of the World - JM Roberts - A narrative of the world as we know it from creation to now.

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations - David Landes - Interesting take on economic history, with a heavy tilt towards the cotton and print industries from early on until the industrial revolution.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Even though I have decided a while ago that I don't come here anymore or even decided that I would even blog, the world goes on and everyone gets going or the going gets dull. I was the latter and I just felt like there was so much I had to say. Now as I come to the point I have way to end it here, I feel like that's just the way it is. I was never really popular here and all I wanted to do was be somewhat popular but I guess my attitude was too much tor some people to bare (?). So as I end it, no longer anything anymore other than just another name on xbox, I will say that the only time I had fun was with "The RPG Story" and that little compilation story I had going with EHZ.

Anyways. I'm getting off. This time I really am leaving. I just wish that with all the events in my life though, I just wish that the happiest ones could've been the ones full of happiness and not the other way around. I guess that's what happens when you lose your mind and start to slip out of reality. Complete insanity is imminent. Soon the whole world will be cast in the darkness and the 7 signs will appear from Revelations.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot