When Namco Bandai voiced their intentions to go in "guns blazing" and handle the upcoming sequel to their niche cult-hit as a massive AAA release last week, it immediately put many of Demon's/Dark Souls fans like myself on notice in regards to its future. The escalating potential of the Dark Souls series ultimately succumbing to a similar fate as that of Resident Evil, Dead Space, and all the other misguided, bloated and grossly compromised AAA failures released over the last few years has become quite disconcerting for a good chunk of its modestly-sized yet fiercely dedicated fanbase.

In a recent post, Jim Sterling of The Escapist puts the legitimate fears of the game's fans and the broken mentality of AAA publishers into perspective quite well: click here for the video link.

There's not really much that I can add that wasn't pretty much covered in the vid. All I can say is that despite my mild amount of forced optimism, it's getting harder and harder to not see the writing on the wall. A part of me always knew the success of the series up to this point was like blood in the water attracting sharks that will inevitably seek to devour everything that made these games what they were, all for the faint chance to be the next [insert western-developed cashcow of the moment]. 

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I cannot remember well the year that I was inactive, but still from time to time I'm visiting the site for upcoming games.. I bought a PSP 2000 to keep in touch myself in gaming since the PS2 is on its dying years... Even though I have my PSP, I failed to review some awesome games both Japan/Eng/Eur due to my hectic schedule. Oh my, I really misses making reviews...

Now that I am near graduating on my vocation, and have some pretty short time for myself as well as hours to burn, so I bought a PS3 unit and try to catch up some games that I havn't played during my busy days/years... Now I also got a 3DS that would come in handy on my workplace... I only played it after my duty, of course my patients in the hospital is my top priority..

Now I'm currently enjoying some free time Playing JRPG on my PS3 and grinding on Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on my 3DS. I also play with some on my friends, which is awesome. I want to maximize the games on my PS3 and 3ds before jumping to any new-gen consoles, this is how I play my games, maybe I'm not the first one who played the game but I play my games on the right time.. 

Hope to meet more gamers here and happy playing... Its nice to be back...

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Completed Far Cry 3. Had so much fun with it, decided to go on and get the Platinum while I was at it. The story was decent and kept me interested enough, but it was the gameplay that kept me coming back and striving forward. The way this game lets you accomplish your objective any way you want to is great and that is one thing I love about games that really allow you to tackle any situation the way you want. If you want to be stealthy, you can. But if things don't go according to plan, you can fight your way out of a bad situation if you have the right tools on you. I always had an assault rifle, shotgun, light machine gun, and a sniper rifle (modded with a zoom scope and sound suppressor). The sniper rifle was usually always the first weapon I would use before attacking outposts. Eliminate the enemy silently, then try to get to the alarms to disable them. If I couldn't get to them, then I would snipe them and then the rest of the enemy. Occassionally, things wouldn't go to plan and s*** whould hit the fan. Which wasn't a problem. I would just pull out the shotgun or the other weapons in my arsenal, and get busy. There was never a situation where I felt frustrated in this game. If I died, I knew it was because I had messed up.

Great environment in this game. The jungles, beaches, and ocean just looked great. And dealing with the wildlife could bring unexpected situations. Case in point, I was swimming to get behind this outpost so I could attack from the portside, and damn alligator got ahold of me and I ended up having to stab his ass to death. That was the awesome thing about traveling by foot. You could be sitting in the bushes doing recon on an outpost and then blam! A damn tiger would try to make you breakfast! That unpredictability of the game in that aspect was just exciting.

I'm not a fan of FPSs, but FPSs with RPG elements I am a fan of. This is one of those games you shouldn't miss. Like I said, the story is decent, but interesting enough to keep you involved (especially with the way the villains are presented, Hoyt and Vaas are great). It is the gameplay that will keep you coming back. I'd easily give this game a 9.0. I fully recommend it.

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Should have taken a lesson from the Balkans!

Look at this crackpot idea that we had in 1920 of abolishing individual

nations and putting them together under the Yugoslav flag.

It led to disaster and the EU has sadly made the same tragic mistake.

It is only now becoming obvious to everyone.

Except the U.K. who didn't want any part of it in the first place.

and Germany who is the only nation who has prospered from the Eurozone.

belongs in this topic....the Eurozone has long qualified for joke status

----------------------

BEFORE MARRIAGE:

Husband - Aaah! ...At last! I can hardly wait!

Wife - Do you want me to leave?

Husband - No! Don't even think about it.

Wife - Do you love me?

Husband - Of course! Always have and always will!

Wife - Have you ever cheated on me?

Husband - No! Why are you even asking?

Wife - Will you kiss me?

Husband - Every chance I get!

Wife - Will you hit me?

Husband - Hell no! Are you crazy?!

Wife - Can I trust you?

Husband - Yes.

Wife - Darling!

AFTER MARRIAGE: read from bottom to top.

--------------------------------

FOR fans of X-Factor:

Cowell wants body frozen after death'

why wait?

----------------------------------

British rescue operation.

Use stealth tactics to get into the enemy building.

Use silenced weapons and gas to disable combatants and avoid detection.

Rescue victim quickly and without taking any casualties.

American rescue operation.

Roll up in Hummers, because they are cool. Throw grenades at building

until everyone inside is dead, because explosions are f''ing cool.

Drag corpse of person you just 'rescued' out of the rubble.

stick American flag in the remains then the survivors make a high five.

--------------------------------------

Prince Charles decided to take up jogging.

Every day, he'd jog past a hooker standing on the same street corner.

He learned to brace himself as he approached her for what was almost certain to follow.

"One hundred and fifty pounds!" she'd shout from the curb.

"No! Five pounds!" He would fire back, just to shut her up.

This ritual between him and the hooker became a daily occurrence.

He'd run by and she'd yell, "One hundred and fifty pounds!"

He'd yell back, "Five pounds!"

One day, Camilla decided that she wanted to accompany her husband on his jog.

As the jogging couple neared the working woman's street corner, Prince Charles realised she'd bark her 150 pound offer and Camilla would wonder what he'd really been doing on all his past outings.

He figured he'd better have a good explanation for his wife.

As they jogged into the turn that would take them past the corner, he became even more apprehensive than usual.

Sure enough, there was the hooker.

He tried to avoid the prostitute's eyes as she watched the pair jog past.

Then, from her corner, the hooker yelled, "See what you get for five pounds, you tight bastard?!"

------------------------------------------------------

mistake on the BBC News online.

The headline said that Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall had broken a leg but

the photo alongside was of Shergar.

---------------------------------------------------------

Scientists have shown

that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year.

If you do the maths, you can calculate that 85 million years ago the moon was orbiting the earth at a distance of about

10 metres from the earths surface.

This would explain the death of the dinosaurs. The tall ones, anyway.

------------------------------------------------

Medal of Honour has been described as the most controversial game ever

because there's a level where you have to shoot Yanks in Afghanistan.

So, you play as an American then?

------------------------------------------------

Afghans are unable to understand or comprehend such a violent massacre.

A lone gunman running around executing people for no reason.

Americans learn about this in school.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

They should have captured Bin Laden alive and made him

continually go through airport security for the rest of his life.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think its great that female pilots are dropping bombs on the Taliban.

It would be even better if they dropped pamphlets that said:

'This bomb was brought to you by Jenny,

who is naked and enjoys drinking, smoking and premarital sex.'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SKY NEWS

David Richards,40, from Caerwys snaps photo of UFO in back garden!

Well sir if you say it's a UFO then you have identified it making it an FO,

if it's landed in your back garden it's not flying thus making it an O.

So David, you have succesfully managed to take a photo of an object in your garden.

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Click on the girl with the cheeks full of candy for the review (P.S. it's a good game for you iPhone users).

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It's not the games themselves -- I still love sitting down with a game just as much as I did back when I first stuck Defender in my 2600. And I think by and large game developers are just as creative and amazing as they've ever been. I don't think I could ever stop loving this hobby, as I have loved it longer than any other thing in my life. I hear musicians talk about how music made them feel the first time they heard their favorite band, and that's how gaming makes me feel. I hear people talk about the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction they get from climbing a difficult mountain or getting an A in Calculus, and that's how I feel about gaming. Of the problems I am about to speak, love and admiration for the hobby aren't among them. 

However, you can still love something and not like what it's doing. That sums up very much how I feel about where things are going. I see developers shutting doors even after making a game that sells a million copies. Back in the day, they would have been heroes of industry. I hear publishers mentioniong that a game has failed to meet expectations after it sells nearly three and a half million copies in a month, and I wonder who these people are and where they got their expectations from. I see publishers abusing the loyalty of gamers by asking them to buy unreleased, unaccounted for content for nearly half the cost of the game itself, even before it has been released. I have watched the two main players in the industry make proclamations of "10 Year Cycles" all the while refusing to lower the price of overpriced, ancient hardware that is only months away from being replaced. And I have also watched the industry attempt to explain away the sales numbers that have fallen each month for hardware and software. Whether due to bluster or plain self-delusion, they believe that they don't have a problem.

But they do. They really do. 

New rumors of consoles requiring that there be a constant internet connection have surfaced and not been squashed. The insistence on pairing the precision control of a controller with an imprecise motion control mechanism looks set to continue. A recent interview with DICE revealed that one of the companies (Microsoft I would presume) has been trying to bribe them to include Kinect controls in their games. What better illustration of a problem is there than a company trying (and feeling compelled) to bribe game developers to include support for a device that just doesn't work? Sales numbers are going down because the companies have kept the prices so high that the $129 market (which is quite large, by the way) has never turned up to support this generation. Further, people like myself have found their love for the hobby tested by all the microtransactions and season pass asshattery. Can anyone make a compelling case for why you should buy a game on launch day anymore when you can wait a couple of months and pay one third the price and get a bunch of additional content? I tried, and I couldn't. If you can, enlighten me. I'd love to hear it.

Which brings me to the crux of this post: the industry has done the impossible. It has found the place where my disdain for how it is being run has exceeded my love of it, and the last thing I can do -- the only thing I can do to show it how much I love it is to stop supporting its bad habits. My love is about to grow tough. Where it was once unconditional, it will now be very conditional. The relationship is about to become very lopsided in my favor for a change, and brother, that's going to feel pretty good. I have realized that I am strong and that this hobby needs me more than I need it. I purchased over two hundred retail titles this generation, and roughly half that number of downloadable games. Believe you me, I hold the cookies in this relationship, and if I don't start seeing more respect, that money is going to go elsewhere. 

So from now on, I will abide by this simple set of rules:

I will no longer buy games at launch unless the publisher publicly and openly states that there will be no plans for Day One DLC and/or Season Passes. If a game includes those items, I will wait until it is either bargain bin priced ($15 or less sounds about right) where I can buy the extra content for less than the amount they would have gotten from me initially, or until a "Game of the Year" version gets released at a discounted price and with all the additional content. 

I will no longer support any system that emphasizes motion controls. I believe the Wii was a cancer on this hobby largely because it flagrantly disregarded the fact that controls are the single most important aspect to a game. I believe Microsoft has, sadly, gone in the same direction. There is a lot of money in pocket and I want to spend it -- all you have to do is give me what I want. The first and best way to be guaranteed not to get it? By shoving a control mechanism on me that doesn't work.

I will not support any company that demands I connect to the internet to use their device. I am the master of my time. I will be goddamned if anyone is going to tell me how to use it, especially a device that I've paid hundreds of dollars for. 

I will not support any company that implements measures to block used games or intends to tie software to one console. I think it's safe to see why this is such a bad idea after a generation where the North American industry leader had a failure rate of double digits. But it's not just that -- it again goes back to trying to tell me how I can use a device I bought legally. If I want to loan a game to a friend or family member (or conversely, borrow one of theirs), then I should be free to do that. Other industries do just fine with used markets existing, and in many ways, view that as a means of gaining a lifetime customer. Gaming can too. 

I will buy the machine that least resembles a media center and most resembles a game console. This should be self-explanatory, but I don't need Netflix on my console. I have a myriad of other devices for that. And think about that for a minute -- why would a game console manufacturer include all kinds of options that encourage the player to not buy and play games? I want a game console, because that will be the developer's console. 

In closing, I'm not doing this to be a prick. I'm not doing it to make a point. I'm doing it out of love. I feel I owe it to this hobby to not take part in a lot of the dark habits it has taken up. If my money goes towards the good side of gaming (and perhaps other like-minded people too), then perhaps it's not too late to save it. And if it is, at least I can say that I tried. I am afraid of where things are headed. The dark signs are everywhere. Something has to change. We have to go back to the basics of what worked, and let history be our guide. 

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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

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Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an amazing action RPG and worth every penny. From superb graphic design to fluid gameplay mechanics, it offers a vast amount of content.

There are tons of sidequests, and much like the Elder Scroll series, there are also a variety of factions which you can join while (or after) you work on the main quest. The premisse is interesting; you start the game "walking from the dead" and soon discover that you are the only person who can actually change his/her Fate. In the world of Amalur, every person, every event is pre-determined to end in a specific manner, and there are even certain people called Fate Weavers who can "read" your Fate, seeing what you are destined to do, how you are supposed to die, and etc. However, you soon start traveling through the world, and people realize your actions are actually affecting and changing the outcome of events that were once, "set in stone." Unfortunately, I believe the storyline fell short throughout the game; I felt like the dialogues and characters involved in the main quest were somewhat superficial and the story lacked depth.

At any rate, this Fate ties down to the very character creation and development process. You have a few basic "Fates", or as the game calls it, "Destinies", which are cards that will power up your character in a specific direction. You will have a card "Rogue", in which you can develop it further by leveling up and unlock the card "Scout", which will grant you more skill points and ability points to spend either on your "Finesse" map or, if you decide to improve the other two areas "Might" or "Sorcery", possibly unlocking different cards such as the hybrid "Disciple", a "mage-rogue" mixture. Overall, the system is very flexible and fun to mess around with; rpg gamers will definitely enjoy leveling up their character and crafting to their needs.

The gameplay is so much fun! My character was primarily a Mage build, and I had spent a lot of points on the Chackram, which I loved using in conjuction with my magic (not to mention juggling enemies around with it.) It's a combat system that made me feel powerful and always rewarding me with tons of loot. There are many options for the 3 main abilities and they provide quite a few combos. Leveling up is not a chore; the combat is very smooth and fast. A few bosses here and there might give a bit more of a challenge, but overal I found the game to be pretty decent in difficulty. There's also a Hard Mode for those wanting a bit more challenge.

The visuals in this RPG are insanely beautiful. I never got bored at looking at the scenery and environments. The dungeons were fresh and different from one another, even if all of them (or better yet, the entire game) is very colorful. Unlike the Elder Scrolls series, which devides each game to a specific region in Tamriel, Amalur provides the entire world at your hands, even if not in the same huge scale of the TES. But to me, the ability to be able to explore all different areas in one game was much more to my liking, because the regions vary so much (be it in the overall feeling or aesthetics that it shows.) I thought the characters were very vivid and lively, and the monsters also varied in shapes and forms a lot, as well as battle manouvers. The art design in the game is trully something to be looked at, and I actually enjoyed seeing the loading screens artwork, so beautiful they were.

On the background of it all, there lies the soundtrack and sound effects. It's all orchestrated, and gives you that "fantasy world" sense of exploration and wonder. The music is soothing when it needs to be, and engaging when it needs to pump me up for an epic battle. It made my travels in Amalur much more enjoyable.

I thought that, for a first game in a series (the next one, set in the same world is supposed to be an MMO), this game is a great achievement for 38 Studios and Big Huge Games. I didn't like their partnership with EA in publishing this game (there is even a game breaking bug unfortunately, but so far no patch has been released. At the same time, EA has already put out 2 DLCs, so why is this not being addressed?), and I hope they don't on their next. Browsing their forums, it's clear that the developers want to do things right, but are impeded by bureaucracy from EA. I also hope that when I they are done with the MMO, they can start working on a single player sequel, maybe with a more indepth main storyline and more dialogue choices. This is a must for any TES fans out there, and for fans of action RPGs in general who love a good combat system experience and loot.

DEVELOPER: Big Huge Games, 38 Studios
PLATFORM: PlayStation3, Xbox360, and PC
RELEASE DATE: February 7, 2012

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KENJI COME IN

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Then Kane & Lynch happens, and Jeff takes the fall.

Jeff is back.

I now work for SCEA (my interview was in the Ratchet conference room).

Funny how things have a way of working out.

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So why did I step down for a few months and basically vanish from GS? Several of you know that I've been pursuing my Master of Arts in Biblical Studies for a few years now, but last November I re-took my area exams - the written and oral portions, and they looked me right in the eye as I sat at that table and they told me I passed. The exams serve as a sort of capstone; you take them or you write a thesis, and passing the exams or successfully defending your thesis is the last thing you take/do before getting the degree Happy day, yes it was, but it wouldn't last. A few days later I get a call saying that I was missing a class on my transcript, which had already been addressed by a previous head of the dept. After they got my message, another problem rose up - going through my transcript, they found two classes showing up as F's. Shame on them for not finding this after clearing me to take the exams twice; shame on me for not checking my grades myself to make sure that the professors had changed those two incompletes. >_>

So a few weeks after that gets taken care of, a few other problems rose up, eventually leading to them telling me that the office of Academic Affairs was putting a hold on my graduation due to GPA still not being high enough with the grade changes, but the head of the department and dean appealed on my behalf, saying that I shouldn't be punished for problems on their end (basically, 4 heads of the department, two of them interim, over the course of 4 years, with me getting cleared twice to take the exams, but there were two years that this could have been brought up, and they felt like it wouldn't be fair to me to have the rug yanked from under me b/c of their mistake). Unfortunately, the higher ups didn't agree, so I get a call a week and a half before all of this telling me that they're not letting me graduate and I should be prepared to take more classes. What do I learn from this? Verify what someone tells you, even if they're an authority figure that you should be able to take at their word. I'm not bitter toward the people that fought for me, but it tells me that I need to stay on top of things.

By the week of graduation I'm reading to make a formal appeal myself directly to the VP of Academic Affairs, but I got an e-mail later saying that they'd reviewed my situation and decided to let me graduate... this was 4 days before graduation day. Won't lie, it was one of the most emotionally trying times I've ever dealt with, to be at such a high at finally finishing only to be told that it wasn't good enough, then having a month of hell and not knowing before being told no, then suddenly told yes. I walked on Saturday the 17th of December 2011, getting a scarlet Master's hood and my degree, the whole time wondering if they were going to either pull me aside and tell me to go home or find some excuse later to say that the degree is invalid, but I've been assured by everyone that once they give you that paper, it's final. Such are the times that try men's souls... I think I'd be here now completely broken if I hadn't chosen to let myself feel everything that I'd been holding back these last few months.

On top of all of that, my grandfather, who was helping me study by discussing my exam material with me, suddenly died of a heart attack after an ulcer sent him to the hospital just days before. He was a brilliant man who was in med school by the age of 18 and was a medical doctor in his 20's. He practiced medicine for over 60 years, up to the week before God took him home at the age of 85. He wanted to see me graduate so badly; I'm the first of his grandchildren to pursue post-graduate education, and though I may not be a doctor like him, I still plan to pursue a Ph. D someday, which he was also highly encouraging about. I learned so much from him in these last 5 years, like my family history that traces its origins back to the age of the Norman Invasion in England (I even have a family crest that I never knew about) and the early Virginia settlers in the days of the American colonies. Even after his passing, looking through this Korean War vet's old pictures revealed that his father, my great-grandfather, was a WWI doughboy, when before all I knew was that he was the head of the school board in my hometown back in the day (fun fact re. Korean War - my cousin's husband is from South Korea, and when they were still dating and she introduced him to our grandfather, he mentioned that he'd fought in the war, and the reply was "thank you." As you can imagine, the air changed tremendously after that ).

Losing a family member/loved one never comes at an ok time, but I never had the chance to fully grieve the way I needed do. Only one friend offered to stand beside me during the graveside and let me cry, and between work and studying for the exams, I didn't really get to have any down time (I only found out afterward that I could have used up to 3 days of bereavement time...). I knew for days leading up to graduation that with all that's happened over the last few years, the success of getting the degree could either cause me to become extremely bitter or broken, and if emotions popped up at any point during this, I needed to just let it happen. So after church the night of my graduation (lets me sleep in on Sundays ), the manliest tears flowed forth - all the mourning that didn't get finished, the emotions that had been building over the last few years of the grad school ordeal, the month of hellish unknown, being told that the last 4 years of your life had been wasted, then being told that it was all going forward anyway - the battle was over, and at least for a time, I'd be allowed to let the guard down completely.

I can't remember the last time I've actually looked forward to my future without feeling like something was unfinished or that I had regrets. Even now, as I need to find a teaching job for the fall and a second job to supplement my income over the next few months, I feel more fulfilled, as though what I've had to deal with turned into a story of endurance and perseverance to show that the worst can happen but you can still come out of it successful. Even in humility, it's ok to reflect and accept success once in a while, though it should be a stepping stone for future successes rather than one to rest on, especially at the age of 28. For a time I looked at the paper thinking that it was illegitimate due to how I came to get it, but one thing overrides it all - when I wrote nearly 11 pages single spaced in the span of 6 hours to take those written exams, my three professors looked at them and told me I could take the oral follow-ups. After an hour and a half of being asked all kinds of questions by two men with Ph.Ds from The University of St. Andrews and Durham University, respectively, and one with a Th.D from Union Theological, and at the end of all that they conferred and told me that I demonstrated Master's-level proficiency. In the end, it's what you can do with what you learned, not just that you can say you learned stuff, which is the whole point of taking area exams or writing a thesis - it's a practical step that you don't take if you're just trying to get a grade in a classroom.

So what's next?

As I said earlier, I'm looking for a teaching job, preferrably at the college level, and since my hours at the bookstore are being cut a bit due to the Christmas season ending, I need to get something else to help make enough money to live and still pay bills. Maybe save a bit while I'm at it? Down the line I'm wanting to get a Ph.D, but first, work and earn some money, living a bit along the way. Continue to meet and get to know new people, while letting those I care about know how I feel that from time to time - never know when it might be the last; my sole remaining grandparent turned 85 last Wednesday, and we're celebrating her birthday this Sunday. With school out of the way, it's time to bring a lot of things together and get in shape like never before, and maybe refresh or learn a foreign language while I'm at it - I still want to see Europe, whether it be a long vacation, an internship, or maybe even future studies.

Oh yeah, I'm testing for my second degree black belt in Iaido next month. No sense stopping that just because some people on the internet think I have mental issues for studying the sword and learning how to train my body to do stuff.

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Note: Images were taken out because Gamespot won't allow me to post a blog that's longer than 2000000 words.

Best Kinda Old/Kinda Retro Game (That Didn't Come Out In 2011)

Dark Cloud 2

Look, there are a ton of video games coming out each year. We barely have enough time to actually invest hours on every single one. So I occasionally roll out my cabinet of old, past-gen library and basically finish up whatever games I haven't yet. In this case, the best 'old' game I enjoyed the most this year was Dark Cloud 2 (Dark Chronicle in other regions). The game offered a great dungeon-crawling experience with some unique additions to the role-playing formula. In all its seemingly impenetrable layer of complexity--the weapon synthesizing, the Georama system, fishing, Spheda (basically golf), photography/invention (list goes on and on)--everything was extremely fun to do and, more importantly, meaningful to the overall experience. Dark Cloud 2 may fall short on its contrived story, but everything else about it is captivating, and definitely one of the best role-playing games I've ever played so far.

Runners-up: Final Fantasy IX, Machinarium, Final Fantasy III, Aquaria

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Best New Character

Wheatley

There was no other character this year that both played as the bumbling idiot and worthy antagonist quite like Wheatley. He more or less served as comic relief in Portal 2, but this funny personality core managed to become something bigger than himself, evident in the game's narrative. It's easy to make fun of Wheatley because he's that type of character, but his moments alone are what give Portal 2 its appropriate light-hearted tone and some pretty hilarious lines on top of that. Of course, you'd have to give credit to voice actor Stephen Merchant for producing such a memorable character this year, but it's Valve's excellent writing that deserves most of it.

Runners-up: Space Core (Portal 2), Johnson (Shadows of the Damned), Adam Jensen (Deus Ex: Human Revolution), Katherine (Catherine)

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Best Nolan North Performance

Penguin (Batman: Arkham City)

Oh man, this seriously was hard to choose. Well, not really. It was between his "SPAAAAACE!!" impression in Portal 2 and his outstanding performance as Cobblepot; I chose the latter. The best thing about both of these choices? None of them actually sound like the Nathan Drake voice, and shows how much range and talent Nolan North has. It's pretty obvious, but hey, I had to point it out.

Runners-up: Space Core/Defective Turrets (Portal 2), Nathan Drake (Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception)

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The 'Drinking Game' Game of 2011

Shadows of the Damned

Bored at parties? Can't seem to find a way to make gaming sessions with your best buddies more fun and interesting? Tired of playing the same old beer pong? Have I got just the game for you! From beginning to end, SUDA-51's latest outing, Shadows of the Damned, is littered with d*ck jokes and other sexual innuendos that it just makes for a good drinking game at a party. Every time you hear a sex joke, you drink! It's just got enough of these tidbits that won't totally kill you of alcohol poisoning. And you know what? Some of these jokes are actually pretty funny.

Runners-up: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (every SPOICE MUHREENS!), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (every explosion)

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Best Music

Bastion

It's weird that somebody would even think of picking a game that they haven't played yet for this category. And yet, here we are. Still, that won't stop people from going to Youtube and listen to Bastion's soundtrack there, and that's exactly what I did. There were some great video game music this year, but it was "Build That Wall" and the ending song, "Setting Sail, Coming Home" that captured my attention the most. Don't get me wrong; the rest of Darren Korb's instrumental work is fantastic, but these two songs are more than enough to justify the soundtrack's quality, the tone it's going for, and just another game that's slowly convincing me to get an Xbox 360.

Runners-up: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Catherine, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

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Props for Originality

Catherine

A block-moving puzzle game with a story? Sounds like a bad combination, right?

Actually, no. While it's not the best way to promote a healthy relationship with that special someone, Catherine manages to implement its fairly intense puzzle sequences with an entertaining narrative filled with morality choices, freakish nightmares, and sheep. And let's face it: We need more games like Catherine; games that introduce unique concepts to familiar genres and put them to good use. It's not every day we get to see publishers take a risk on original IP like this, and I'm glad Atlus has taken the plunge.

Runners-up: Bulletstorm, Driver: San Francisco

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Best Game I Haven't Played (Yet)

Dark Souls

There were a number of noteworthy titles I missed playing this year, but Dark Souls is what I'm guilt-ridden about the most. I spent only a few hours on Demon's Souls, and it was every bit as punishing as they say. Yet, I wanted to jump back in and try again…only to fail. That's fine with me. Dark Souls seems like it's every bit of the latter but much harder, and I'd have to wonder if the developers at From Software just absolutely hate the entire human race. Still, it's an immersive role-playing game I have interest in, and hopefully I'll man up and actually buy it someday.

Runners-up: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, Magicka, Bastion, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, You Don't Know Jack

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Most Disappointing Game

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

As a big fan of the AC franchise, it saddens me that I have to put Revelations as the 'winner' of this dubious honor. You can read my review on it here because I've already said all there is to say on how disappointed I am with Ubisoft's latest face-and-neck stabbing extravaganza. In short, it's still a fun game but it doesn't fulfill all expectations, and the new additions to the formula are needless, feel like they're forced, and worst of all, boring. I really hope Ubisoft addresses these issues and improves with Assassin's Creed III next year, but I'm still having doubts.

Runners-up: Shadows of the Damned, Brink, Dead Island

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Other awards:

Best Story – Batman: Arkham City

Worst Game – Duke Nukem: Forever

Best Looking Game – Dark Souls, Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, El Shaddai, I can't choose!

Best Character Voiced By Someone Other Than Nolan North – Grayson Hunt (Steve Blum – Bulletstorm) and The Boss (Troy Baker – Saints Row: The Third)

Best Box Art – Dark Souls (Japanese Version)

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Hi everyone. You may have noticed that GameSpot is starting to look, sound, and feel different these days. GameSpot's content group is actually being reorganized to focus more on video and to explore new directions, and as it turns out, I'm not going along for the ride. As of today, Friday the 11th, 2011, my job has been eliminated.

Up until today, I was the managing editor of GameSpot. But it began for me in January 1998, all the way back from when GameSpot was a small startup company based out of a cramped two-story San Francisco building that used to be a travel agency. For 14 years, I've been covering PC games, console games, handheld games, and game hardware through reviews, previews, newsletters, customer service, news developments, press conferences, trade shows, video shows, special features, op-ed columns, and strategy guides, among other things. During those 14 years, I never took a step back. Not in the good times, not in the bad times, and not even in the weird and scary times. To make a long story short (too late), I did everything I could to make contributions that were valuable, useful, and even crucial to the site's prosperity, its editorial integrity, and in some cases, its survival. Anyone who says otherwise either doesn't actually know anything about GameSpot, is a liar, or both.

So you may be wondering why you've never heard of me, but as a programmer might say, that's working as intended. Let me explain, and even less briefly this time.

I signed on at GameSpot at a time when anyone could get rich by buying any old stock in the market or by "doing something with the Internet." As you might expect, with people everywhere starting to get rich, they also started getting a little big for their britches. Everyone outside the game industry, and also in it, considered him/her/itself to be a genius, and proclaimed their greatness to the heavens. Game magazines and Websites scored juicy exclusive stories on upcoming games by gushing not just about the games, but also about how awesomely awesome the developers were. You know--stroke the old egos a little bit. It often worked. Then the year 2000 came along. The year of the Tech Wreck, when the bubble burst, etc.. Advertising budgets, particularly for Internet companies like ours, dried up seemingly overnight and sites like GameSpot really started feeling the pinch. With the American economy already contracting going into the following year, we then had a certain series of events happen on September 11 of 2001, which made having a job writing about video games seem trivial and petty, and also not very practical or stable, what with the stock market also tanking and everybody on the TV claiming the end times were upon us.

That's when it dawned on me...there might be something to that old saying about pride coming before the fall. I've never cared for selfishness or self-importance, but it became very clear just how many people were making it their mission to seek out the spotlight, and how there didn't seem to be enough people driven to build something that was useful or substantial. I made the conscious decision, there and then, to go the exact opposite way, to double down on what I felt was truly important: Holding myself and anyone who worked with me to a higher standard of writing, and doing whatever I could to ensure that GameSpot's content was as good as it could be. To try to help build something that actually was great, rather than stand around talking about how great I was or wasn't.

If self-aggrandizing bloggers with diarrhea at the mouth were the problem, I wanted to be part of the solution. I wanted to share the most interesting games, and the most interesting aspects of these games, with the readers of GameSpot, so that they could discover games they might otherwise have missed, and so that they might share these games--which were, you know, only for losers who live in their moms' basements--with new people, and maybe have these new people discover that video games aren't just for loser basement-dwellers. That these so-called "video games" are actually pretty cool. And the whole time, I wanted the games themselves to be front and center. I wanted the games to be the stars. Because it wasn't about me. It's never been about me.

At this point, I'd like to shift gears and comment on the current state of the game biz. You could say it has some problems right now. Publishers who produce retail products are at war with retailers who sell used games. On the one hand, several game publishers are now offering preorder "bonuses" (such as day-one DLC) that effectively penalize customers for not buying new games, while resellers continue to grow fatter and fatter by buying used/trade-in games at $20, then turning around and reselling the same used game for $40-50 and pocketing the difference. As a result, digital distribution is clearly the future, except that digital services keep getting hacked and spiraling bandwidth costs are making widespread distribution of large digital files seem increasingly untenable. (Don't take my word for it. Ask Netflix.) Or maybe the real future is in social, free-to-play, and mobile games, except that many of these games nickel-and-dime their customers to death with microtransactions that are baked directly into the actual design of the games themselves. The only common thread here is that paying customers lose. Want to get this new game? You either pay full price+ for it, or you pay slightly less for a "used" version lacking content and often with crippled online capabilities. Go social/mobile/free-to-play and enjoy a new breed of games that are specifically designed to be mind-numbing unless you pay money to make them less so.

Sadly, I don't have any good solutions to these problems off the top of my head, other than to point out that smart customers will really appreciate it when game companies present their products in a way that doesn't burden said customers with these problems. (Hint, hint game companies. Also: Hint, hint, customers.) However, if you, like me, work, or worked, in the actual game industry and have begun, like me, to wonder exactly what you've been fighting for, let me point out that there are still good people writing about and covering games, and that there are still great development houses out there looking to make games that are actually enjoyable as games, and also that the barrier to entry on actual development has never been lower for those thinking about crossing that line themselves.

I'd also like to remind my brethren (or, former brethren as it were) that even though games are increasingly being considered a "business" in the sense of being cash cows to exploit, they've actually always been a business. Your hard work, professionalism, integrity, and willingness to contribute to something that's bigger than yourself are not only what got you here--they're what made the game industry so successful, and they're what will continue to ensure that you, and games, thrive. You writers and reviewers and news reporters, you video producers, you graphic designers, you programmers, you testers, you producers, you game designers, you artists, you musicians, you sound technicians, you voice actors, you product managers, you community managers, you publicists, you Web page builders, you copyeditors...each of you is an important part of this business. And there's no shame in being part of a business, especially one that's produced so much enjoyment for so many, and for so many years.

The very best people to do business with are knowledgeable, productive, detail-oriented, solutions-focused, considerate, easy to work with, and always learning. I've met countless people who evince these great qualities and I'm sure there are many more in this industry out there that I simply haven't met. These are the qualities that will serve you in good stead, regardless of whether everyone is making tablet games now (or "freemium" online RPGs now, or big-budget first-person shooters now). These qualities are what give you real value, both as a creator and as an employee/employer. These qualities are what will give you staying power out there, even when times are tough, and when it seems like the whole world's gone crazy, and that there are no opportunities and no real hope. Regardless of whatever irrational decisions come down from on high or whatever unfair market forces try to cut you off at the knees, there will always be a place for people with your skill, creativity, talent, drive, and relentless pursuit of self-improvement.

I think I've said enough at this point, so I'll be signing off now.

Goodbye and good luck to all of you.

-Andrew

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