I wanted to say a few words about Jeff. For about the last year or so that I worked at GameSpot, just before I left for Blizzard, Jeff was my boss.I worked primarily as a reviews editor for him in that final year at GS. Most of you know Jeff as that funny off-the-wall guy who charismatically carried On The Spot with Rich, and also my own podcast, the HotSpot. And he is that guy. The side you might not know is the Jeff who wouldn't hesitate to go to bat for his people. I wrote quite a number of reviews while working for Jeff--not all of them were particularly flattering of course. And once in a while some angry marketing flack, or on occasion, producer would contact me, irate over my lambasting their game. All I ever had to do was forward them to Jeff, and he'd bite the bullet for me--he'd deal with their angry tirade and shield me and all the other reviews editors from all that nonsense.

So what you say? That's his job as head of the reviews department, right? Well here's the thing. He stood by me even when I was in the wrong. Some of you may remember the gaffe I made on a certain high-profile review, regarding certain online features of the game. That was totally my fault, and my oversight on a high profile game. Even though it was a relatively innocuous thing that didn't materially affect the rating, it turned into quite a fuss, primarily because fanboys of a certain major game company think the review scale for that company's games should run from 9 to 10 instead of 1 to 10. And if a review dare drop below 9, the facts and assertions in that review better be bulletproof, lest you incur their eternal ire. In this case, it was not.

So it was scandalous and embarrassing for GameSpot to deal with that mistake. And Jeff could have easily thrown me under the bus. But he didn't. We had a discussion about what went wrong and how I missed it. I told him what happened, and that I was terribly embarrassed by the whole thing. He and I then sat down together and tested the specific features I missed. He agreed with me that they were immaterial to the score, and then we added the amendment to the review. There was no yelling, no threatening, no passive aggressive bullsh*t. He treated me like a professional, worked together with me to make it right, and discussed how to avoid making that mistake again. If there was any fallout or angry phone call from the publisher on that issue, I never heard or knew about it--he or one of the other senior editors handled it, because they always believed it was important forthe reviews staff to be independent and not worry about outside pressures.From start to finish, he stood by me and my work even in the rare case that it wasn't up to GameSpot's high standards. And I always appreciated that.

It's what makes it extra sad to me that Jeff was dismissed. Apparently there was no one above Jeff in the GameSpot hierarchywho would do the same thing for him that he did for me -- stand by him and the work he did.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 28 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

When I first started working there in February of 2003, I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive. Since GameSpot was part of CNET, I was worried that the folks working there would be all corporate, and there'd be a coldness to working there. Prior to my arrival at GameSpot, I'd just come off of working for FiringSquad and Gamers.com, companies which were founded by people who became close friends of mine. I recruited my college buddies to work there, and we all took to working together, and that was a big family atmosphere. Matter of fact, during my stint at FS and Gamers, I turned down one or two chances to work at GameSpot because I felt too much loyalty to my friends at the startup.

So coming to GameSpot, I didn't know what to expect, but I thought for sure, it couldn't offer the same cameraderie that I enjoyed at FS and Gamers. I couldn't have been more wrong. In my roughly three and a half years at GameSpot, I forged quite a number of friendships that persist to this day and will continue to flourish. Sure the site had the trappings and backing of a big corporation, but you'd never know it from the atmosphere in the GameSpot portion of the office. There was and probably still is a marked difference in feel when you walk through the edit, video, engineering, production, and art portions of GameSpot vs. any other floor in CNET, which might as well be Initech from Office Space for what I could tell.With the GameSpot floor, there'sa palpable difference in attitude and culture. Sure it's a lot of fun loving guys and gals, but every single person took their work seriously, because anything less would be letting down the rest of the family, most of whom were your friends.

In my time there, it really was the best of both worlds -- the passion and familial atmosphere of a startup or blog operation, with all the resources that a major corporation could provide. And guys like Greg Kasavin and Jeff worked so hard to maintain that separation, the duality that made GameSpot such a success. Hopefully those who are left, especially those who handle the business side, can value and draw upon the experience of the veterans to understand how it's supposed to be.

I was heartened by what I heard on the podcast, because I know all those guys. There is no more dedicated or honest group than my old mates at GameSpot--if they say it, you're damned right I'm going to believe it. And as long as those guys are still there, the people I know and believe in, I'm going to keep coming to GS to read the news, read the reviews, and watch the videos, because I know I can trust them.

I don't ever have to question it, because I've worked with these guys, looked them in the eye, drank with them, and busted my ass at the same damn tradeshows with them for years. None of the guys I know is going to print words or say anything into the camera that he doesn't well and truly believe. Here's hoping that the company that employs them will continue to protect their ability to do their jobs the right way.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 5 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 15 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

- my friends, incl. all those goofballs I used to work with at GS

- daube de boeuf and tomato soup with puff pastry at Bistro Jeanty

- Steff's sports bar

- Corned beef and turkey sloppy joes at Tommy's Joynt on Geary and Van Ness

- 3-way combo plates at Everett & Jones BBQ in Oakland

- East Bay hip hop, incl E-40, Too $hort, Keak da Sneak

- friends and a board to play Settlers of Catan with

- being able to drive up to Napa on a whim and buy bottles and bottles of wine

- doing the HotSpot podcast

- monthly poker nights

- the pho place at the 99 Ranch Market shopping center (tho I'll be in striking distance of a bajillion Vietnamese places down in Garden Grove)

- playing basketball at lunchtime on Fridays, and at Lowell HS on Saturdays

- the girl who's cut my hair for the last 5 years

- The DFC (Durant Food Court in Berkeley, home of Steve's Korean BBQ and Meesha's Gyros place)

- local media coverage of Cal sports (Go Bears!)

- proximity to stores that actually stock a good selection of Cal gear

- Chicken tikka masala at the Indian joint across the street from the GS offices

- Cuban sandwiches at 21st Amendment

- garlic fries at Pac Bell Park (I'm not calling it SBC Park, dammit)

- Little Star Pizza

- Fat Tire Ale

- Chicken fried steak at Rudy's Can't Fail cafe in Emeryville

- workable public transportation

- good hole-in-the-wall eateries of varying cultural origin (the OC seems to be the home of national chain restaurants and white-washed 'ethnic' food)

- the arcade machines in the GameSpot lounge

- niu row mien at Gou Bu Li in San Pablo

- chocolate-raspberry cookies at Teacake Bakeshop in Emeryville

- sundaes at Fenton's in Oakland

- drinking pitchers of frozen margarita at Chevy's during lunch

- late night trips to Casino San Pablo and the Oaks Card Club

- Lester's smoked bbq pork ribs

- 20 people all doing an Irish Car Bomb at the bar

- Chimichangas at Casa Orozco Mexican restaurant in Dublin

- Drinking Red Devils at Thallasa in Berkeley

- The sight of ships in San Francisco Bay as you drive across the top deck of the Bay Bridge

- Seeing the sun set on the Bay from just about any elevated point of the East Bay

- Being able to say I'm from the 510, the East Yay, the home of hyphy and "yeeeeeee!!!"

- The sound of the cannon going off on Tightwad Hill when Cal football scores at home games in Berkeley.

- Laughing at all the poor stanfurd fans here.

- Followed only by laughing at all the silly Niners fans.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that like...80% of the list is food and liquor related. But yea, after living here for most of the last 11 years, it's strange to say that I'm going to miss it. When I arrived here in fall of '95 to start school at Berkeley, I absolutely loathed this place. I hated the cool and rainy climate, the car-unfriendliness, the densely packed and cramped feel of the cities and their general filth (particularly Berkeley and SF), and the liberal politics of the area. I guess over time I'd grown to appreciate everything here and now even see a lot of things through a different lens. Honestly, if I had my druthers I'd stay here where most of my friends are, but the promise and excitement of a career change compels me to go back south. Can't have it both ways, so be it. This seemed to be the only logical choice, and I can't say I hesistated much if at all in pulling the trigger.

I would like to add one more thing--it could only be Murphy's law in effect when two days before you move away 450 miles is when you meet a cute bartender/dancer who makes a pass at you and then responds favorably when you spit some game back at her. Some of us are cursed, I guess

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 30 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 26 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

In any case, yes it's with mixed feelings that I announced my last week here at GameSpot, via the HotSpot podcast last night. It's been a good run of 3 years, 4 months, 6 days, but a new opportunity came along that I just could not pass up. It's weird to even say that, given what an incredible experience I've had working here. I've actually been writing about games for nearly 8 and a half years now for various publications. I loved it so much that I dropped out of college for a couple of years to pursue this career, before coming back later to finish, but I haven't regretted a minute of the journey. In that time, GameSpot has been, without a doubt, the most well-organized and professionally-run of all the operations I've worked for. I'll always appreciate what a privilege it was to work here and contribute to the world's greatest gaming publication.

I'll still be hanging out here, reading the site, listening to the HotSpot, maybe adding a blog post here and there. After all, I gotta make sure Greg, Jeff, Alex, Carrie, Brian, Ricardo, Rich, Justin, and all the rest of the crew continue to keep it real, right?

As for what I'm doing next, I know that now's not quite the right time to say what it is in a forum like this--I should at least wait until I'm actually started working there. I'm not even sure what the etiquette is on this sort of thing...as excited as I am about it, I want to just scream out from the rooftops where I'm going and how stoked I am about it, but I just don't know that it's kosher to do that in a public space. In any case, I'm still staying in gaming, so don't worry that I've suddenly sold out and decided to go to law school or something. I'll still be up at nights playing World of Warcraft and trying to get 360 achievement points and spending way too much money on games and hardware.

Thanks again for all the well wishes!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 99 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

PS: please don't try to add me on XBL if we don't know each other. Actually that applies to you guys who've tracked me down on other social networking sites too. It's nothing personal, I just like to keep my friends lists strictly to people I know in RL.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 16 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

[ Watch Video ]

So it was only like 6 months late, but whatever. Here's me doing my first and only bungee jump ever, off a 171 foot platform in Las Vegas. This video was taken in late December of '05. Skip to about the 1:30 mark or so if you wanna get right to the jump. And thanks Rich Gallup for encoding this off the VHS tape!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 35 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Good plan right? I even slept at home from about 6PM to 12AM so I'd be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for a late night of HL2 action. So I stroll into the office tonight, all ready to go with some dinner and two tallboy cans of Mountain Dew Amp to keep alert. I open up the Steam app and find...the game is still locked. WTH. Then I realize...the game doesn't unlock on Steam until 10AM Pacific, not 12AM. pwnt.

Well, no sweat right? With no traffic in the middle of the night it's only a 20 min drive home from the office, so I'll just go home and try to go back to sleep. Except for the fact that CalTrans closed off all access to the eastbound portion of the Bay Bridge. All traffic on the 80 E was actually diverted to surface streets and all on-ramps to the 80 E in downtown SF were closed except the one on Bryant. This led to a gargantuan backup of trucks and cars at 2:30AM in the SOMA area. Rather than get in the stupid-long line of cars from 8 different streets trying to cram into a SINGLE on-ramp, I decided to drive all the way south on 101 to the San Mateo bridge, and take the long way around to the East Bay. The 20 min drive home turned into an hour long drive. Yea it wouldn't have taken that long if I just got in the line of cars, but that's just how I am...I'd rather drive miles out of the way to avoid slow traffic than willingly get myself into bumper-to-bumper grind.

The worst part is, I'm still awake. Time to try to get some sleep before I come into the office to start on Episode 1. For REALS this time!

Jeff and Alex definitely owe me a can of Hyphy Juice for this one!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 13 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

As an alumnus of Cal, I have to say it...

Figures that a $tanfurd guy would get so excited over such a trifling "accomplishment." Guess that's the sort of low-expectations they foster over at Palo Alto junior college.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 22 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

I guess it's a good thing in a way, as I've done some things this weekend I wouldn't normally have done if I had internet access. Like playing Settlers of Catan at my friends' place. Yes...a board game. This game is crazy fun though--why's it taken us so long to discover it!?!! I also read a book *GASP* Yes...I was so desperate for entertainment I actually read a book. OK it was just the Da Vinci Code, which hardly qualifies as literature in the minds of you popular fiction haters out there. But whatever, it was entertaining and kept me occupied for a few hours. I even got out of the house and watched X-Men in the theater. Now that was a pretty mediocre film, but it did get an extra brownie point for referencing "I'm da Jugganaut, b****!"

On the culinary side of things, my friends and I headed out to Napa (well, Yountville to be specific) yesterday to eat at my favoritest restaurant in the whole wide world. OK, I'm not that well traveled, but for it to be my favorite eatery in the SF Bay Area (and I have eaten at a few of the finer places around here) is still heady praise. For those of you who are visiting wine country anytime soon--you absolutely must eat at Bistro Jeanty.

Don't bother reading the menu. If the waiter tries to get you to order something else, like the coq au vin, do not listen. You want to order the tomato soup with puff pastry as an appetizer, and the "daube de boeuf" (beef stew) as your entree. It's quite simply, the most sublime beef stew you will ever eat in your life. The meat is so tender, just blowing on it causes it to fall apart. They serve the dish with a fork, but it's more properly eaten with a spoon. Mortal men should not be allowed to indulge their palates like this. Remember in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, when Johnny Depp's character says, upon finding the perfect puerco pibil, "It is so good that when I'm finished with it, I'll pay my check, walk straight into the kitchen and shoot the cook. Because that's what I do. I restore the balance to this country." Yeah. This beef stew is the same type of revelation, but I'd never walk up to Chef Philippe Jeanty and shoot him, because that man is a genius. So yea. Next time you're in California wine country, stop in Yountville. 

It's Memorial Day weekend, so allowing it to pass without a BBQ would simply be unAmerican. I'll be heading out to one shortly--hopefully there'll be some football and/or basketball being played. Then tonight it's off to another fine Bay Area restaurant, Town Hall, for a friend's birthday. Whew, all this time out of the house sure is fun, but expensive. If the 'net connection cooperates, I'll have to spend next weekend holed up at home playing some Alterac Valley matches in WoW.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 10 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 22 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

I'm not going to open any of this stuf just yet, so I leave open that slim possibility that I'll regain my sanity and return all of it to the store sometime this week. But who am I kidding? Now that it's all here within easy reach, it's only a matter of time before I tear these boxes open and start playing. If I do something really stupid and come home from work with copies of NBA 2K6, GRAW, and Fight Night from the GS library, I'm really done for.

So what prompted me to go out and get a 360 now, just days after E3 06? Part of it is what I saw down there in LA. I think deep down inside, I was waiting to see what Nintendo and Sony would show us before committing. While I was generally satisfied with what I saw out of the Wii, thinking about the technical issues with the remote is making me take a wait-and-see attitude about that console. Will Nintendo and the developers fix some of the sensor issues and gameplay design issues with the games before launch? If you asked me after day 1 of the show, I probably would have said that I would pre-order a Wii, along with Zelda, but now that I've had time to think about it some more, I'm not so certain I'm ready to just run out and pre-order one.

As for the PS3, well, let's just say at that price point, and with the lineup I saw, I'm about 99% certain I'm not going to pick one up this year. Yes, yes MGS 4 and FFXIII blahblahblah. Those are killer apps for some people, but I'm not one of those people. Those franchises peaked for me with the NES and SNES, respectively, and it's been all downhill from there. As far as I'm concerned, Assassin's Creed and Heavenly Sword were head and shoulders above all the big name franchises as far as PS3 games at the show went. But from what I've heard from developers behind the scenes about what a pain it is to program the machine and how expensive it is to get good results...it just doesn't seem to me that the PS3 is off to a good start for this generation. Then there's Sony's online implementation--doesn't seem to me that there's any semblance of a plan there, a true vision other than to mimic what everyone else is doing, sort of? Contrast that with the plan Microsoft envisioned during the press conference, with real XBL integration across 360, PC, and phone. It's like night and day.

But honestly, what really got me to drop 5 bills today on a 360 and a copy of Oblivion was the time I spent playing NCAA 07 for the 360 at E3. No, it wasn't some huge quantum leap in football or anything. But I just knew after being spoiled with that brief, 15 minute play session of college football with next-gen graphics, there was no way I was going to be satisfied playing the game on Xbox or PS2 this year. So you could say it was a college football game that prompted me to buy a 360 (even if my first game will in all likelihood, be Oblivion), much in the same way Mario 64 got me to buy an N64, and KOTOR got me to buy an Xbox, and Lumines and Meteos got me to buy PSP and DS.

Now it's going to be a long road ahead to catching the likes of Jeff, Ryan Davis, and Carrie in points

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 27 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Wii? Imagine walking into a Best Buy this fall and asking the salesperson if they have any Wiis in stock. Actually, don't. Because when I did, my head started to hurt a lot. Or asking your buddy, "hey did you pick up a Wii yet?" "Yea, it's in my pants."

I've always marveled at Nintendo fanboys for being more blindly sheep-like and trusting than even Apple fanboys. If Miyamoto told them the sky was green like Link's clothes, half of them would believe it. But right now I have a hard time seeing even the hardcore Ninty faithful getting behind this one.

Revolution was a cool name. Wii is a joke.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 21 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Of course, moving servers was not an easy decision or an easy matter. There was a lot of uncertainty...we grew up on a "carebear" server where no world PvP existed. What if we got ganked while just trying to farm herbs or minerals? What if Horde tried to lock us out of instances before we raided? What if the server performance or battleground queues weren't any better? We took the chance anyway, with hopes of a better tomorrow.

The process of transferring characters over was, to put it mildly, a royal pain in the ass. The web interface used for the server transfer was just about always overloaded with login requests. Our guildies tried for hours to attempt a character transfer, only to run into "server is busy" error messages. The worst part is that character transfers were only available from 3AM to 3PM, so most of us had to try to do this from work or school. We all tried staying up until 3AM one night to do the transfer all at once, and the web interface was STILL BROKEN! Some of us made the transfer and for a few harrowing hours there, we had nightmares of the guild being split apart...some on the new server, and some stranded on Lightbringer. With some perseverence we were able to complete the move though, and no one got left behind. We even got all our alts across.

After a week of playing on Black Dragonflight, we couldn't be happier. The server performance has been almost flawless, with little noticeable lag or server hitching issues. Battlegrounds run nonstop, with Alliance queue times of 30 minutes to an hour for all game types, thanks party to an Alliance to Horde ratio of about 1.2 to 1, instead of nearly 3 to 1 like Lightbringer. Oh, Alliance players are still generally numbskulls who don't know what they're doing, so we still lose more BG matches than we win, unless we get a good number of elite-guild players in the game. Alterac Valley matches against the infamous Fires of Heaven Horde guild are especially challenging, as we almost always lose those. But it's fun to actually be able to play some battlegrounds without waiting four hours! The ganking issues have also been greatly overstated. I've been ambushed a couple of times, but it's not the constant, backstabbing bloodbath some people made it out to be. PvP just adds a layer of tension to being in contested zones. And besides, with my epic gear, I find that I can pretty much fend off 2 poorly equipped level 60s by myself, and most any solo ganker who makes the mistake of tangling with my warlock.

Moving to the new server has been a joy all around, and I've got a perfect Warsong Gulch scoreboard to prove it.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 6 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLMlvPszwQA

It is the greatest thing EVER. Oh Alton Brown, why did you not show this to us first? You're supposed to be the genius of science that is food preparation!

Mashed potatoes at my house this weekend.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 15 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Well we've finally taken him down, so it won't be long before we're farming the entire instance for 1337 ep1x!!!11!! like we do with Molten Core, which we run from start to killing Ragnaros in 2.5 hours flat. It's not a moment too soon I guess. Our server, Lightbringer is about halfway to opening the gates of Ahn'Qiraj, so it'll only be a few weeks before that instance is available for us to peruse. Hopefully we'll have gotten at least close to Nefarion by then.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 5 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

I don't know what is funnier--the fact that someone took the time to digitally erase the swords and insert glo-sticks into Arnold's hands, or the so-cheesy-that-it-transcends-awful-and-becomes-awesome song.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 7 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

After seeing the film version of Rent tonight and enjoying it a lot, I've arrived at the conclusion that I can like musicals, but only when they're in movie format. It has something to do with me being really dense and having a hard time following the story when I see a musical in the theater. Granted, I don't have a whole lot of experience. The very first musical I ever saw was a performance of West Side Story that I went to with my parents when I was in junior high or early in high school. Wasn't too enthused. Then, when I was a senior in high school (or a just barely started college...don't quite remember), I took my then-girlfriend to see Rent at a theater in LA. I didn't like it at all. A lot of that had to do with me not being very sophisticated or mature at the time. I remember being disappointed that Neil Patrick Harris (AKA Doogie Howser MD), who was playing as Mark wasn't performing, and also wondering what kind of Laker tickets I could have gotten for the same price. I saw a couple other musicals--Miss Saigon on Broadway the year after college, for example...but none of them really grabbed my fancy. I did always like "classic" Disney movies like The Little Mermaid though, which are basically kiddy musicals in cartoon format. 

Fast forward to a few years ago. The girl I was dating at this point wanted to drag me out to see Chicago, which I was totally skittish about. The only real reason I got conned into seeing it is because it starred Catherine Zeta Jones, so I figured anything's worth enduring to see her on screen for two hours. As it turned out, I LOVED Chicago. It was a revelation for me because I never expected to enjoy it, but I really did. Something about the movie format makes following the storyline much easier for me, and the musical performances were great too. Who knew CZJ had such a set of pipes in her throat?

So I went to see Rent tonight, a musical I never enjoyed when I first saw it, and not surprisingly, I appreciated it a lot more the second time around, in movie format. It was admittedly weird for me to see Jesse L. Martin as anything other than tough-guy Detective Green from Law & Order, let alone an HIV-positive gay man with a drag queen as a boyfriend. And I wasn't totally sold on Rosario Dawson's performance as Mimi (though she does indeed, look like a cracked-out smack fiend). But I got over it. And Sarah Silverman also makes an amusing cameo as a sleazy executive in charge of the tabloid news show that hires Mark. Anyway, I now kinda wish I saw Wicked when it was playing in SF last fall. But maybe someone will make a movie version of that too!

I wonder how long it will be before someone makes a musical-edition of Karaoke Revolution. Imagine Rent, the video game. Do a duet of "Tango: Maureen" and if you pass, you see that clip of the film where Mark and Joanne tango. Hey, there have been dumber game concepts ;p If the game industry wants to make inroads to segments of the population that don't normally play games, I think this could be one way to do it. And if any of you ladies need a guy to sing Roger's part in "Light My Candle," I can totally do it!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 13 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

New hardware runs hot. Anyone who's owned and built their own PCs knows this. Let it breathe, people! Let it breathe!

Even my slimline PS2 overheated sitting on non-shag carpet when I brought it to my parents' house to play extended sessions of God of War during Christmas. And that thing probably doesn't generate a fifth of the heat that a 360 does.

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 4 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot