Grand theft auto has always been a series I've managed to avoid. Perhaps it was due to the fact I was one of the six or seven people in North America who didn't buy a Playstation 2, or maybe it's because the few times I did play it at friends houses, I found it to be an under powered, poorly voice acted mess.

I was told that for the new generation of consoles, all of these problems would be fixed, a big, beautiful new city, wonderful voice acting, and a story that would pull me in so deeply I would find myself thinking about the consequences of my actions for days, nay, weeks to come. So I was pulled along in the hype machine, growing ever twitchier the closer I got to the release date.

I stood outside at midnight Monday with the other huddled masses, enjoying the first little rain Calgary had gotten for the spring. I eagerly rushed home to slam it into my console and play all night to my hearts content.

And I waited. And waited. And waited.

Waited for the rush of technical realism and beautiful story development that I had been promised by oh, so many reviews.

But it never came.

All I received was a technical demo focusing more on building a "believable" (I'll get onto that more in a second) city than character, proper voice acting, and plot development. I waited for the people around Niko (the only character I managed not to develop a serious disdain for) to develop into well rounded, lovable characters. Instead what I received was a troupe of the most horribly conceived criminal archetypes that reminded me almost immediately of the hackneyed stereotypes pushed in previous GTA iterations. The moment I met little Jacob and his horrible imitation of a normally pleasant accent, I began my rather expedient decent into a deep seething hatred for this game.

While I will be honest in saying that I have not played through the entire game to experience all it has to offer, it becomes rather obvious that the fact I didn't finish the game before reviewing it stems from the fact that after a mere seven hours. I don't want to play it anymore. Playing it beyond this point has become more of a chore to see if it "gets better" rather than enjoying myself. Why should I be forced to push myself through the storyline to get to a point that I actually enjoy? Perhaps this displays a serious lack of patience on my part, but I ask, "if I skipped lacrosse practice, sat outside in the rain with a bunch of people who would be better served as test subjects for some brain altering chemical, and then payed 65 dollars, shouldn't the game make at least a halfhearted attempt at holding my attention for the first few hours?".

Getting away from the storyline, I also found many problems with the technical marvel that is Liberty City. Reading review after review I grew ever more excited at the idea of a "living, breathing city". What I received instead was a bunch of strategically placed npc's yelling out their conversations to anyone within a forty foot radius who cares to listen. What kind of realism is that? I suppose I was pleasantly surprised by the driving physics, Nikos' movement flow and the radio stations, but surely that cannot be what garnered all this critical acclaim. I did NOT pay good money for a driving and walking around simulator.

I'm going to stop this review now as you can well see the bile reaching the top of my throat as I write it. Perhaps I could have gotten over the flaws that this game has if everyone and his brother hadn't blown their collective critical load over it. Perhaps I could have accepted the fact that the game IS NOT in fact, perfect if it hadn't received what appears at the first glance, to be perfect scores all around. It's horribly irresponsible to give this game a ten out of ten, five stars out of five, ten pandas out of whatever, when it is not perfect. It's far from it.

Review score: 5.5 out of 10

So I really, really don't like Grand Theft Auto 4.

Really.

I don't.

No, I'm not kidding.

Review later? Perhaps.

If I can quell my anger.

So has anybody else noticed that Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto 4 looks a terrifying amount like Iranian political leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Or that the Gamespot filters hate non-english sounding names?

Just thought I'd....you know....point it out.

Just scored 330,012 in Through The Fire And Flames on expert!

Whoo!

First post in three months!

Whoo!

Again!

So I picked up the new Stranglehold demo off of XBL and you know what?

I like it.

While the graphicsdefinitely leave a considerable amount to be desired, the gameplay is absolutely priceless. For so long have I wanted to dive across a table while shooting poorly voice acted criminals in the face. Especially in slow motion.

Figured I'd try to put together a long post for today, I don't think it's going to happen though, wayyyy to tired.

Later.

Hey guys,

Figured out a quick and diabolical way to bypass Gamespots new video player if you're having problems running it. I don't have any problem running it on my home computer, however if I try to bust it out on the laptop over a wireless it gets a little bogged down.

So here's what you do.

Say you want to fire up a video of a long running series like Button Mashing or On The Spot, all you have to do is go into a video that's older than the new video player has been around. Due to how painful converting all these files would be, Gamespot has just left them be, so pull up that old video and, lo and behold, is the windows media player. Now, without closing the window, stop the video and go back into the menu for the new On The Spot (or whatever) episodes. Select your video from the list and watch it pop up in the old windows media format.

Now I haven't extensively tested this, so if it doesn't work for some videos, I apologize. However I thought it was a neat little trick that alot of people who have been whining about the new player would like.