Rather than spurt some hateful diatribe, I've just decided to say goodbye. Everyone knows why, and I'm not the only one. Yes, I haven't paid for this site in a long time and yes I don't really do much outside the VU these days except reading reviews, but I am still a statistic -- a number that lets CNET court advertisers. And while I may only be one, I am one of many who will be leaving. And CNET will see the effects soon enough. All I can say is that it's a shame a company so obsessed with money has failed to realise that looking after the pennies will mean that the dollars take care of themselves. Of course, I shouldn't be surprised if CNET really didn't think that their actions were going to have the consequences they did. We are the gamers that dissect and dissent -- did you really think we wouldn't notice and/or care?

I've been here for 7 years (over 5 with this account) since the days I typed in videogames.com into Internet Explorer's address bar. Since being here I've done and seen a lot of things, I've gone through good times and bad, I've done well and I've made mistakes, and I've met an amazing bunch of people. But things change, things evolve, and my morals cannot allow me to stay here any longer. It's a shame, but even if I did stay, how could I trust GameSpot now? I've decided to move on and post my thoughts at the NZGamer forums and occasionally Gameplanet's forums. They might be small, but no smaller than the VU and they perhaps allow me to take a more... down-to-earth approach to video games. I might also check out NeoGAF if I'm feeling snooty.

I've always felt like GameSpot was a kind of home in the vast realm of the Internet, and now I feel like that home has been burgled and burned to the ground. Still, the times I did have I will always remember fondly.

It's been real all. Make sure you all stay in touch.

--Liam

[The irony of the following diatribe is that I work for a video games website reviewing games. Hah!]

So after months and months of build-up and I guess hype, Assassin's Creed is finally upon us. And its release has highlighted how reviews really aren't much help at all. There are two reasons why I think this. Firstly, as much as many reviews try to pretend that they are fact, they are opinions. Yes, I realise that you can't second guess your audience when it comes to recommendations, but facts are usually undisputed and the reviews for Assassin's Creed are all over the place. No just in terms of subjective things like what makes a game fun -- these reviews can't even agree on what version of the game looks and runs the best.

Even if you take reviews are unashamedly opinions, like 1up's worthless spoiler-filled review, how can a score be justified? On that logic, I could say I don't like brussel sprouts and as a vegetable, they get a 3.5.

The fact of the matter is that these reviews have failed as a buyer's guide, as the conflicting nature of the reviews has caused a large majority of the internet to become confused. I am confused myself; will I like this game? It's obvious that this is a love-it-or-hate-it game, and while I can tell from some of the better written reviews that there are elements to Assassin's Creed that I will find enjoyable, I probably won't be able to tell until I play it myself. Bioshock reviews made it sound amazing, but when I got the final product I realised that everyone hate overlooked just how boring and shallow the gameplay was.

The second problem is that With limited funds, I am unable to afford every game I want. Consequently, I often tend to listen to the word on the street to see if a game is worth my hard cash over another game I will probably like just as much. It's like choosing between sushi and onigiri. But in this situation, I wouldn't be able to find out about either food until I had tried each one.

I'm talking about embargoes. Assassin's Creed opinions were kept under lock and key until the final hour, meaning that it was nearly impossible to cancel your pre-order if the game sucked. Now, I live in New Zealand so the game isn't out here until the 23rd, but that's also the same day Mass Effect is released and I know that there is an embargo on that too. So how am I supposed to tell whether or not I should pass on Assassin's Creed and get Mass Effect more? Even listening to the rambling opinions of the industry, I should be able to work out what is likely to appeal to me more, but with the exception of a few leaked tidbits floating around the net (thanks to the fact that no one can keep a street date) it's nearly impossible to find out whether the game is more my thing.

Consequently, I'm at a deadlock where I'm stuck between choosing Assassin's creed and Mass Effect. I can only afford one and this is my final game purchase for a loooooong time, and I can't really help but feel left out to see by the very industry that turns on a profit on the premise that it helps me with these kind of decisions.

Can you have too much of a good thing? Maybe. I picked up Guitar Hero III on its release here the other day and I've played a bit, but I've kind of shelved it already. It'll probably last me well for those "I'm too tired to be bothered playing anything intensive" sessions that I find I get, but I don't see myself committing to it the way I committed to Guitar Hero II. I was wondering if it was because Guitar Hero III is an inferior game. And I whiledo think that perhaps the ridiculous note charts are little too extreme (although I'm sure the Score Hero crowd will all claim the game is easier), I think it's basically because the charm of Guitar Hero has finally worn off.

That's right; I'm just over it. I think being saturated with three games in as many years might have something to do with it, but I think that mainly the charm has just gone. It was the same with DDR: it was new, fresh, and insanely cute fun, but after a while it just got dull for whatever reasons. Now, when I go back to it and play whatever super-new version is out, I smi in wonder at the newsongs and featuresand it's all happy memories about the days of 5th Mix, but I still stopped. Maybe that will happen with Guitar Hero -- maybe I'll come back in 5 years times and see Guitar Hero VII and be all like "Awww!" But for now, I think I'm just over it. It's going to be good, occaional fun, but it's certainly not gripping me or tempting me into playing it all the time.

Guess I'm just glad I didn't buy the bundle with the wireless guitar.

So when my subscription for Xbox Live comes up for renew again, I am going to be cancelling it. "WHY?" I hear you cry. Simple: it's not worth the money. You see, I'm not one of these people that feels every game has to have on online multiplayer component. I play most of my games offline anyway. Although I briefly played Gears of War online and I do like me some Halo 3 now and again, I find mostly that Xbox Live doesn't offer me anything now. I don't play half the games I own online, and when I've tried to play against my GameSpot friends I get such crippling lag that it's hardly worth playing.

If I do feel like dabbling in online gaming, the PS3 offers me lag-free, server-based gaming for the cost of absolutely nothing. And yes, I can find my friends if I need to as long as they are playing the same game (and if you're not playing the same game as me, why do I care what you are playing?).

Additionally, Xbox Liver Silver offers me all the options I generally do use on the 360 anyway. I can download demos and content, I can get XBLA games, and I can chat with people and use MSN. I don't need to pay for this. That's great and I appreciate it. But I don't really see the point in paying for a peer-to-peer service that is riddled with lag when I can get a better experience for free. I don't like throwing money away, and that yearly XBL fee is basically another game once a year.

I used to think that burnout was simply a matter of playing too many video games and becoming tired of them. You know, just yearning for a book or something. Now, as I can feel that I am once again approaching gaming burnout, I'm wondering that perhaps it's more to do with the acuteness of the media; the tired boasts and promises of the industry; the saturation of games subjected to a hear today, gone tomorrow business model; and, most importantly, the self-righteous gits that regularly roam on message boards.

I've always had an extreme interest in gaming, and I've always felt a little alone as no one has ever shared quite the same passion I do. That's why I like forums, as it's a chance to spill my thoughts onto an area that is occupied by people who share my passions. However, I feel that by hanging out on them, things start to appear a little too serious. It seems that people often have too much stock invested in their opinions and quite often things can get nasty. The Virtual Underground isn't the only forum I hang out in, but even there I've noticed that it's feeling a lot more hostile in there. Over at Gameplanet, especially in the Nintendo forums, there is very much an air of "You're not from 'round these parts." Even in the forums of the site I work for there is definitely a feeling of towing the status quo and agreeing en masse.

Ultimately, it makes me feel a little burnt out. It's sad, because I love analysing things and I would love to do study video games and their cultural impact. However, I just feel that sometimes the areas where you are likely to get some good debate going are the same areas that will result in hostile attacts. (And I don't think it's limited to video games; I've seen the same thing happen in the forum for Registered Rep!) I've currently been playing Sonic Rush Adventure, and the lovely, sunny, happy feeling I get while playing that game is just something I want to share. I want to be able to just express my feelings and talk to people about how cool the game is and how happy it makes me. However, at the moment, I just don't feel that way. I feel lost in a see of vocal and violent opinions and I just want out. It's the kind of thing that makes you think "Aaaah, bugger it" and want to leave altogether.

Once upon a time, I stumbled across some advice. I can't remember if this was something that I read or if it was something that was told to me, but it stuck with me all the same. The advice was that if you wanted to be a winner, you merely had to over-promise on everything. People are attracted to promises, not matter how large, because they are filled with hope and the lust for potential delivered. Even if you under-deliver, which you usually will, people, with their short memories, will have forgotten what you promised and merely look at the reasonable success that you have achieved by selling on promise.

For example, the hundred-dollar laptop. Everyone is interested, especially with the motivation that it's to help the underprivileged, even though it's gone from being the hundred-dollar laptop to the two-hundred-dollar laptop. It's okay, after all, as two hundred dollars is still pretty damn cheap for a laptop, and since we were all interested anyway, it's not that bad.

This is, I feel, Nintendo's wonderful model, and it's how they have achieved so much success. It's also why I feel cheated and burned by the company.

Remember that video that accompanied the announcement of the Wii remote? Remember all the cool things they promised you would be able to do on the Wii? The Wii remote was anything you wanted it to be, with a little help from your Muppet Babies imagination that is.

Instead, what we got was a bunch of waggle-filled tat, mostly shovelled onto the system by third-party developers. And don't give me that tosh about nobody expecting the system, because all we've gotten from Nintendo is a bunch of GameCube games with waggle and a sports game that neuters 60% of the complexity and ultimately leaves you waving your arms around like an idiot in the belief that the voodoo technology in the controller is actually translating your motions into the game. Sony got closer to fulfilling on their Killzone 2 promise than Nintendo did to fulfilling their promise about the Wii.

But that's okay because, as I said, you can underdeliver on your promises and no one will care. Even though I'm not able to leap from behind my chair and shoot the scumbag aliens, even though I'm not able to engage in sword combat that interprets my actions as anything else but 'pressing A', it's still pretty cool to have some motion sensing in a video game right?

Well I'd say wrong, as the last time I touched the Wii was so long ago I don't even remember. I put it in the lounge in the hopes that it might get some use there, and it's remained unplugged ever since. Once the novelty of Wii Sports wore off, there was nothing left in the machine and it's been gathering dust every day. People moan about the lack of games for the PS3, but that easily has twice the number of worthwhile titles when compared to the Wii. Kaplan said that before the Wii I was a bored gamer, but it seems like after the Wii I'm bored.

And I don't know what the worst thing is: that there is nothing on the horizon to make me want to turn the thing on or the fact that I own one and thus have contributed to the sales figures that fuel the belief that this all-promise, no-games business model is a good one. Everyone's citing the large amount of money Nintendo is making, but no one is asking themselves why Famitsu is reporting that 67% of Wii owners never turn the thing on. And sales figures get quoted everywhere, news articles pop up about how Nintendo rules the gaming world once again, and people continue to believe that it's the gaming vehicle of choice.

While I'm convinced that the Wii bubble will burst, convinced that Nintendo doesn't have the ability to populate the machine with worthwhile titles themselves and that no third-party developers are going to have the skill to make anything fun or engaging, I'm not sure if this is belief that it simply will happen or delusional hope that it will happen. Because while I was all for taking the conventional experience and taking it to the next level of immersion, all I've managed to see if a bunch of minigames and last-gen titles filled with waggle. I refuse to believe that it can fuel sales of the machine forever, and if it does and that's the future of video games then count me out.

I saw a post on these forums that said that Sony was getting its perhaps it should have concentrated on simplicity and fun. I think this poster has a very, very loose definition of fun. I believe under it, blowing my nose could be considered fun. To say that I am disappointed with my Wii is a gross understatement, and I'd sell it, but it was a present. I don't believe in selling presents. Instead, I plan to box it up and place it in my cupboard alongside my Master System and cla$$ic Game Boy. There it can stay, waiting in the hope that something will come along to justify it rising from its cardboard sarcophagus. Otherwise I'll stick to my conventional gaming experiences on my PS3 and Xbox 360, frequently spending hundreds of dollars a month, lining the pockets of first and third-party publishers.

[GameSpot, the fact you still haven't sorted out this forbidden word thing is beyond ridiculous. At this rate they will have solved world hunger before you fix it.]