It's true.

The answer was not one or the other but both.

Behold the turducken of desert: a pie that is also a cake that is ALSO a white chocolate chip cookie!

[Apparently TwitPic's not down with embedding images, so you'll have to deal with a link, unfortunately.]

So yeah, there's this thing called Twitter. It's a cold and inhospitable place where people "tweet" about sandwiches and stuff. If you're down with the Twitter, then I've got a friend or two for you!

So say hello to @gamespot, the official Twitter account of GameSpot, and follow it if you want to read about those fancy video electronics things so you have something to do while eating sandwiches or waiting for them to be made.

And if you're into like, downloading things like PC mods or patches from the 'tubes, you might be interested in meeting @gamespotfiles.

Finally, if you'd like to read me discussing (mostly the "cussing" part) games and vaguely-game-related things you can follow me here.

UPDATE: As an American, I often forget that there are other countries out there besides my own (wait...there are?). So yeah, if you're on that island over there -> somewhere (I think it's called London? Or Albion? Or something?) you can also check out @gamespotuk for updates.

Nothing to see here, move along. Just testing my ability to manipulate the HTMLs in a blorg.

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Lots of text.

Man, this boxshot is big.

Yup.

Everyone else is doing it, and since I'd jump off a bridge if everyone else was I figured I'd do it too. Here's my personal top ten list of 2008 games along with some extras (I totally stole this format from Shaun, thanks buddy!). Watch out for the occasional spoiler!

10. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: The best Metroidvania yet (people who call them Castleroids are dumb). A great main character, awesome story, challenging gameplay, all new monsters and art (!), fantastic bosses, and totally rad soundtrack.

9. Super Smash Bros. Brawl: I loved this game early in the year when I reviewed it, though it was gradually left behind in favor of others. Lately though, I've been playing it again with my brother now that we've moved in together and I'm reminded of how fun it can be.

8. Street Fighter IV: Just cause it's not out in the US yet doesn't mean anything to me! Playing this on genuine Japanese arcade machines is awesome. We'll see if the home versions are as good for me.

7. Fallout 3: I loathed Oblivion. Like, I couldn't play it for longer than 20 minutes. I did enjoy Fallout 3 though, for some reason. Maybe it's because I like Fallout (even though this game isn't really Fallout in any way) but whatever. My biggest issues with it is that it's not an RPG because none of the choices you make really matter (at the end of the game I was a known mass murderer and cannibal, yet the Brotherhood of Steel was still all like "Hey man you can totally join up with us and save the world!") and that the entire game wasn't like the Libery Prime sequence at the end.

6. Persona 4: I loved Persona 3--it's one of my favorite RPGs ever. Persona 4 took that formula and perfected it, and in every way its gameplay is superior to its precessor. Where it doesn't succeed quite so well though is in the story. Though the characters were much more believable in P4, P3 had such a much more epic story (especially the ending, which is pretty much the best final encounter ever). As original as the social link/dungeon crawling combo is though, I'm really hoping they radically change the series again for P5.

5. Left 4 Dead: This game is awesome. There's nothing better than having four people team up to fight zombies post-apocalypse. I can't recommend this game enough for co-op play.

4. Valkyria Chronicles: I love strategy RPGs, and Valkyria Chronicles is among the best ever made. Though it has a few issues, I love its art style and direction, the manner in which its story is told, its characters, the sheer amount of backstory there is to read and uncover, and the many steps forward its taken for the genre. I'm very disappointed at how poorly its been recieved as far as sales are concerned in the US.

3. No More Heroes: Travis Touchdown's hilarious and bloody rise to the top is pure genious. Suda-51, I salute you. While this is basically Boss Fight: The Game 2 (the first Boss Fight: The Game was Shadow of the Colossus, another fantastic title), the bosses are just so over the top and awesome, the art style so stylish, and the combat and controls so right. The ending is epic too. Can't wait for the sequel.

2. Metal Gear Solid 4: Solid Snake's final mission is absolutely amazing. I broke down and bought a PS3 for this game alone, and it was worth it. I can't really say anything about this that hasn't already been said so I won't.

1. Dead Space: This was one of my most anticipated games of the year and it was way better than I expected. I loved this game from the beginning all the way through the end, and I think that it's done an amazing number of things for the genre in that it managed to be heavily action oriented yet still unmistakably survival horror, unlike Resident Evil 4 which was anything but a pure action game.

Special Awards:

Barely Missed the Top 10 (In No Particular Order): Gears of War 2, Braid, Prince of Persia, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Rock Band 2, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, and Mega Man 9.

Didn't Quality Since They Were Remakes/Ports: Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. Two of the best games ever, but yeah they've been out for like 10 years or something.

Most Disliked Game: Mirror's Edge. I will never understand why some people liked this.

Worst Game: Emergency Mayhem. This is one of the worst games ever made. It represents everything wrong with Wii Shovelware.

Favorite Book I Read: I actually read about as many books as I played games in 2008 so maybe I'll write a separate best books blog post sometime (scratch the maybe, I will sometime this week). Anyway, this is a tie between two books that are a lot older but only recently were read by me: Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. They're both amazing stories that I count among my favorite of all time.

As a bit of a foreward, this is going to be the start of a series of quick and succinct breakdowns of some commonly held, incorrect beliefs about game reviews that I write as I find time and observe them in their natural habitat: the Internet.

Games do not start at 10 and lose points

So many people seem to believe this is true, and it shocks me as that's an entirely absurd notion. No one here at GameSpot (and no game reviewer anywhere, I would hope) believes that a game starts at a 10 and loses points as flaws are discovered. The opposite actually, while not entirely accurate, is a much better way to look at it if you want to draw that sort of a comparison.

Think about it: you don't start out a class in school with an A and lose points by not doing homework or missing questions on tests--you have to demonstrate a certain level of competence in order to score a good grade, and the same is true for a game. The problems with a game that we point out in our review merely prevented said game from earning a higher score; they did not lower its score. These two things may seem alike, but they are actually quite different.

So it turns out, much to my surprise, that I don't actually loath everything about Mirror's Edge after all. Though I can't possibly imagine why they would name the theme song "Still Alive" after the Portal song came out--cause let's face it, that's hella dumb (a quick Google check showed that all 10 first page results in a search for "still alive song" were for the Portal one), not unlike the game Mirror's Edge itself--they apparently did.

Anyway, it's a pretty good song, and you can listen to it below, though frankly I would encourage you to open it up in another tab so you can hear it without assaulting your sensabilities with the game's visuals:

For the record, GLADoS' version is better, but that doesn't mean this isn't a pretty rad song with some nice piano work.

In other, arguably more awesome news, the Valve Store has made actual 18x24" movie posters for all the Left 4 Dead episodes, and has a pretty sweet deal that gets you all four for $14.99. They also have some totally sweet shirts (that cost too much) emblazoned with Bill's wacky lines like "I hate vans" and "I hate the woods."

I looks kinda close to me. Only with a monocle. Because monocles are totally sweet. 

As I previously posted, I've decided to catalog a list of differences that I noticed between the SNES and DS versions of Chrono Trigger to accompany my review of the game. Please note that this does not include every change--just the ones I caught. Be warned that this includes story spoilers, though I do split the list up into a spoiler-free area and one full of some story spoilers.

Finally, to get you in the mood, I'm going to recommend you listen to this amazing lyrical(!) remix of Robo's Theme on loop.

Update: I've been corrected on a couple inaccuracies by the Chrono Trigger forum and have removed them.

Spoiler-free changelist:
- The game has been retranslated, and while a majority of the game script is near identical, some of the more famous lines have been changed. Examples of retranslations include the removal of Frog's faux Olde English accent, Magus being referred to as the Fiendlord (and consequently, his army is now simply the Fiends and not the Mystics), and the 12,000 B.C. era being named "Antiquity" instead of "The Dark Ages."
- The addition of the PlayStation's new features, which include the bestiary, anime cutscenes, music player, and treasure guide
- The addition of a DS style combat system, which simply moves the commands from the top screen into the bottom screen, clearing up the screen a bit
- The addition of the Arena of the Ages
- Contrary to what I said on On the Spot last week, they actually did add an extra spot for a letter in character names, meaning you can name the spiky-haired protagonist Chrono if you so choose. Just know that it's sacrilege.
- New items. If you thought Rainbow was ridiculous there's a new sword for Crono that's more powerful and has a 90% critical hit rate.
- The formally missing song Singing Mountain was finally added into this iteration

Spoiler-filled changelist:
- The addition of the Lost Sanctum. This is a new quest hub that appears in both Prehistory and The Middle Ages eras, and is a settlement of friendly Reptites that were not associated with Azala. While I appreciate the effort to add these new areas into the game, the quests are totally pants, to borrow a British term. They're self-contained to the village and the surrounding new zones, and it's just full of a bunch of boring fetch quests. I hope you like climbing that mountain, 'cause you're going to be doing it like 200 times.
- The addition of the Dimensional Vortices. This new dungeon is actually a series of three dungeons that appear, one each in the Future, the Present, and Antiquity eras. Each one is composed of single screen areas randomly stitched together (so it is different each time you visit) from all of the dungeons of the game (and including the same monsters that originally appeared in that screen) that culminate in a unique challenge. For example, one of the Vortices requires you answer four multiple choice trivia questions about the game, and another splits your characters up into two separate groups that must work independently. The final bosses of the Vortices are clones of three of your party members, and upon defeating a clone the original receives significant stat boosts. Also, you find out what happened to Dalton, and he claims he will form the greatest army the world had ever seen in Porre, which further ties Chrono Trigger into its sequel, Chrono Cross.
- An additional ending can be found by beating the game and then revisiting the bucket in the End of Time that originally led to the Day of Lavos. This new location effectively welds Chrono Trigger's notions of parallel time travel together with Chrono Cross' idea of multiple dimensions, and most certainly ties together the two games. You witness the fate of Schala (now the Dream Devourer), and see what is proof that Guile in Chrono Cross really IS Magus and not like, another timeline's Janus that grew up without a crazy mom or something.

Just as a heads up, the review for the DS version of Chrono Trigger will be up this Friday. Chrono Trigger has remained one of my favorite games ever since I first played it 13 years ago on the SNES, and I'm really excited that I get to review the rerelease of it now. So, because I'm a huge fan of the game and remember way too much about it, I'm going to write up a list of major differences between the SNES and DS versions that I spotted while playing here. If you're so inclined, you'll be able to see this list--which by no means includes all of them--after the review goes live. It will include spoilers though, so, ya'know, you may want to hold off on reading it until you've finished the game.

See you in the future!

The last couple months have been pretty busy for me, so I've kept off the grid as far as blogging is concerned. Between my real job, reviews, moving, and trying to have some semblence of a social life I've just had a lot going on.

My blogging situation isn't going to be improving in the near future, but if you're in need of your Lark fix (for some reason), one thing that I have found the time to do is Twitter fairly frequently, and you can follow me here if you want to opt into that. Be warned: unlike this blog I don't bother censoring myself, so if you like creative swearing you may occasionally see some new phrases to add to your personal dictionary. Also, I tend to make sweeping generalizations completely baselessly. But at least I don't talk endlessly about sandwiches!

Anyway, lately I've found myself playing the following games:

Dead Space
Dead Space has displaced Metal Gear Solid 4 as my favorite game of the year. I could type like 2000 words about this but I totally already did. You should go read it.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
My opinion of this game has evolved over time but I now see it as my favorite Castlevania yet. Overall, I think that Aria of Sorrows is a superior game because it had a better story and there isn't as good of an actual sense of progression in Order. But I love the artwork, the new combat system, the difficulty, and that you can explore beyond the castle walls.

Gears of War 2
So when I was at Comic-Con and Cliff announced that there'd be a full-sized Lancer I thought about how cool that was. Then I saw it on Amazon and said DO WANT and one-click bought it, then immediately regretted it. But since I can't one-click-cancel-an-order I just let it be (4+ clicks is way too much). Now I have it at my desk and don't regret being able to annoy my coworkers with it at all. Oh yeah, Gears of War 2 is super fun--much better than Gears 1.

Mirror's Edge
So back when this was everyone's critical darling around E3 I was interested. Then I saw it a couple weeks ago and decided I didn't like it. Then I played it for a bit and wasn't impressed. Now that I've played it for more than 10 minutes though, I can say that I hate it with all my being. It's a great idea and while I love some of the stuff it does (like running through doors, which is awesome), but it doesn't deliver at all as far as I'm concerned. I hate how it looks, I hate how it tries to tell a story, I hate how I can't turn 5 degrees without visual tearing in several places on screen at once, I hate how the "where do I go?" button simply points you in the right direction even when that's two floors above, and I also hate puppies and rainbows.

Time Hollow
As a fan of "visual novel" games for the DS like Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk, I picked this title up. I didn't beat it--quickly ditched it actually for Castlevania--but from what I played it's not something I'd be interested in. Linearity is something that games like this are all about, granted, but when you've got like 12 places to go and only one of those places has what you need (and it's hidden, of course), it gets frustrating fast.

Left 4 Dead
I totally haven't played this but I want to. I should download the demo. That said, I finally ended up taking a sweet "Dead Air" promo poster we were sent and turning it into a profile theme like I've been meaning to for a while. Shaun would be proud.

Chrono Trigger
Half my lifetime ago I first played this game on the SNES, and the years and transition to the DS have not soured it at all. I'm working on the playing it for the review now, so check back later for my final word. One thing though--I'm quite amazed at how much I remember of this game.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
I've only played this for about a half hour but I'm already liking it better than Persona 3. The intro is still slow, but it makes a lot more sense. I'm also reviewing this so look for this later as well.

This is a video.

The last month has been a harrowing time for everyone around the office. Between the beta site (which launches very soon in final format), E3, and Comic-Con, we've had a lot going on. And this won't be changing anytime soon, with Leipzig, the Penny Arcade Expo, the Tokyo Game Show, and all sorts of other events like the EA Studio Showcase and Nvision on the horizon.

Here's a list of things that have happened already or will be happening in the near future that I've touched, in an effort to catch up a bit:

* Soulcalibur IV and Madden NFL 09 launch centers are up and they're looking great. Lot of good ones coming up too.
* QuakeCon totally happened
* Our Editors' Choice Awards for E3 just went up
* I was on The HotSpot last week
* I'm working on a new game for review, dood
* I'm hosting a live gameplay marathon next Friday for the beta of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. More details on OTS today.

Oh, and if you're into that sort of thing, check out my panel write-ups from Comic-Con:

* 20th Century Fox: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Max Payne, and Wolverine
* Capcom: The Making of Street Fighter IV
* Episodic Games: Rewriting the Adventure Genre
* Stargate Worlds
* Capcom: How to Get A Job in the Video Game Industry
* Xbox Creator's Showcase: Gears of War 2 and Fable 2
* Penny Arcade

Good to see you again! I know you've had a rough year, but it's good to be back in familiar waters, isn't it?

Enough of that. Conversing with personified non-entities isn't something anyone should do very often. Ok, you shouldn't do it ever. That said, it's that time of the year again for games, and while we've all actually been working on it for the last few months, I'm proud to unveil GameSpot's home for E3 2008.

Right now, it's full of some of the biggest stories that have cropped up in the last several gamers' day events, but I encourage you to keep your eyes on it over the next couple weeks to watch it change and evolve as more preshow coverage crops up and it gets closer to go time. As always, we'll be providing you with the very best in live coverage of the big three press conferences, and we also have a great many special guests, awesome games, and cool surprises for you in our live show, which will span a full three days.

As someone who knows the terrible secret of space, it's tough not to just blurt out all the details. Of course, that hasn't stopped the occasional behind the scenes sneak peak. As I've heard Ryan MacDonald say around the office over and over again, this year will be our best E3 yet, and I believe him.

So keep an eye on our E3 site, hang out and chat about what you're looking forward to in the forum, and get ready for what we do best!

P.S.: If you want to check out last year's coverage, it's easy to find right here! And the year before is here!

Friday night was quite the night for me. Along with a bunch of friends and co-workers, I got a bleacher seat at AT&T Park to watch the Oakland Athletics play against the San Francisco Giants. I'd never seen a baseball game live before, and so I was looking forward to it, but ultimately it wasn't too fantastic. What was fantastic was the 80's Night garb that some of our guys donned. After the game was finished, I came back to the office to wrap up some work on a few projects and wait for another group of friends to show up, because we had a whole different type of outing planned--a decidedly crazier type of outing.

Saturday marked the final North American stop of the Metal Gear Solid 4 World Tour 2008, and game creator/director Hideo Kojima was scheduled to show up at 4pm for a two our signing session along with Ryan Payton, Yumi Kikuchi, and Kenichiro Imaizumi. With the knowledge that I could get a Kojima autograph, I decided to join Patrick, Julian, and Chris in the waiting game.

It all started out at around midnight, when we did the first location spot check. Granted, we were crazy, but we didn't want to be the first guys in line. That entails a whole different kind of responsibility that we weren't willing to assume, and we really only wanted to be in line as long as we could. The office is only a couple blocks walking distance away from the Metreon, and so we walked down to check for the early stages of a line forming, and upon discovering that there wasn't any we came back. At 1am we did another spot check, and again returned to the office, where we got a few hours of precious sleep in.

At 5am, we ended up doing our last spot check, upon which we discovered that there were already nine people there and quickly got in line. The group that had already formed was full of some really nice people, but I couldn't help but notice how under-prepared I was for the event--some of them had camping chairs ready, and they were definitely wearing some thicker jackets than I was or had blankets. Being unaccustomed to overnight line camping, I just had a hoodie, my DS (with a game I'm doing a review of in it; yes, I worked while I was there), and a book (Altered Carbon, a good sci-fi read). In the very unlikely event that I do something like this again, I'm coming packed for bear.

Those guys at the front of the line had been there since 2am, a fact they pointed out with pride to anyone who asked. They also fought tooth and nail (and believe me, they had to at some points) to make sure that everyone knew they were at the front of the line. For a significant stretch of the day, one of the good-natured guys, a huge black fellow wearing camo who was incredibly nice but had a fantastic stern glare, held up a hand-written sign that simply read, "START OF LINE" with "WE GOT HERE AT 2AM" written beneath it.

At around 7:30, we needed to make a food run. Across the street was both a Mel's and a Denny's, and we decided to go to Denny's. Mostly because the food at Mel's always looks and smells so appealing, but is ultimately incredibly disappointing and borderline terrible, whereas Denny's is consistently somewhat awful. But when you hadn't eaten real food in 15 hours, you'll pretty much eat anything, right? So Patrick, Julian, and I made our way there while Chris stayed behind to hold our spot, and await the fruits of our return, because apparently Denny's does to go food (I really had no idea). It was a little while after we got back that things started to get real crazy.

By 10am the line was already most of the way down the 4th street side of the Metreon. The day before, I had stopped by the PlayStation Store to see if they had any plans for the event, and it turns out that they of course had no idea how they were going to do anything. The complete lack of planning started to show around this time. The Metreon opened its doors, and of course the crowd in line began to surge inside the building. It wasn't until a significant portion of the line was already inside and waiting that the PlayStation Store manager came out and indignantly informed us that we weren't allowed to wait and had to move it back outside. For reals man, it's not like you didn't see the line, it would've helped if you actually tried to look like you knew what you were doing.

So the Manager Jerk pushed us all back outside, all the while with an attitude of bitter resentment that would continue throughout the day. As the day went on, more and more people showed up, and at this stage some crowd control methods were called for. Despite the fact that the Manager Jerk knew where the front of the line was, several of the people at the front reportedly had to enter the building and double-check that everyone working knew where the line began. This had to happen again once they finally managed to get some ropes up to keep the line orderly, as there was again confusion by the Powers That Be about what part of the line was the front and which was the back. All throughout the day, I had heard horror stories about how the LA event was botched by the group behind us, who didn't even make it inside the building and drove all the way up and got in line at around 5:30am just to make sure they didn't get screwed out of it again. I was hoping that wasn't going to happen this time.

Cosplayers began to show up throughout the day, including a guy about 7 people back who donned a Naked Snake outfit complete with face paint. Out of the people that I saw though, the best costumes belonged to a group who had unfortunately shown up too late to nab autographs (though they hung out by the window looking in the entire time, so here's hoping they were seen). The group consisted of an Old Snake, complete with awesome looking Octocam suit and a wicked sweet 'stache; a crocodile head helmet wearing Naked Snake with a slice of watermelon; a decked out Frog soldier; and a really good Meryl Silverburg. Update: I've since heard that I must've seen Meryl at a bad time for a variety of reasons. She actually seems pretty nice, despite what I had here before.

Around 2ish I want to say, Manager Jerk showed up again (having reared his ugly head several times earlier to make sure we were all standing and lining up against the wall properly or something). This time, he came with a couple ladies bearing wristbands for us all, proclaiming that without a wristband you weren't getting in. Finally, some order, if not a bit late. He ended up trying to screw a couple of the guys that had been there since 2am out of wristbands because they weren't in line the precise moment that he came by, but they did get theirs after a lot of complaining--unfortunately, I heard that there were a few others who didn't manage to get wristbands later on, despite complaints. In addition to wristbands, Manager Jerk also brought a series of draconian rules that he proclaimed loudly:

Apparently, Kojima would sign anything you asked him to sign (I saw posters and limited edition copies of the game signed), but I decided not to press my luck and ask for a DS signature (hey, he was a producer on Lunar Knights). I blame Manager Jerk for not knowing what was going on, and also the dude who asked him to sign a pack of Marlboros. I mean, really dude, WTF?

At around 3:30pm, a car came up to deliver Kojima and group, and the line surged down to look on to see him wave and smile. There weren't many people who actually stayed in line at this point, and I was thinking to myself that it would have been the perfect time for some less scrupulous types to try and sneak their way to the front, but apparently that didn't happen, or I didn't see the fights. I think the weirdest thing that happened to me the entire day was that someone came by asking for where the line ended (at this point, it literally wrapped all the way around the building and was over 500 people long), and then ended up chatting with me for a bit when he recognized me for my Super Smash Bros. Review. That's the first time something like that's ever happened! I wish I remembered his name, but I blanked out on it due to sleep deprivation as soon as he left. Sorry dude!

Finally, at about 4pm, we were let into the building where we were pushed through a signing gauntlet that began with Kenichiro Imaizumi, moved on to Hideo Kojima, and ended with Yumi Kikuchi. Sleep depraved, I didn't really do much besides thank them and tell them that I loved Metal Gear, and then I headed out and collected a rad MGS4 dogtag, and then it was over.

Looking back on the ordeal, it was certainly a crazy but awesome experience. It was fun, and I'm glad I did it, but I'm not sure I could do something like that again. In the end though, it was totally worth it, and I'm proud to have gotten a Hideo Kojima autograph by waiting in line for 11+ hours. Special thanks go out to Patrick, Julian, and Chris for setting this whole thing up and making sure I tagged along!

* All photography by Chris Lovos
** Not really true

Going back to my previous post, I managed to snag one of the 80GB MGS4 PS3 bundles off of Amazon last Friday, minutes before the entire Internet discovered it was up for pre-order and refreshed simultaneously, breaking it.

Anyway, just got my shipment notice, and thanks to the miracle of next-day delivery, I'll have it tomorrow. This makes Metal Gear a good game.

Oh wait, I've still got an SD TV (I'm waiting until I move to buy a new one), so it'll actually be a bad game because it'll look bad.

Update: This was meant to be a joke, but a lot of people didn't get it, apparently. As I commented later on, it's foolish to believe that a game is bad based on its soundtrack, and vice-versa.

I know this because the soundtrack is pretty terrible. Unlike the earlier games in the series, this one pretty much only has two songs worth listening to, and one of them (Metal Gear Saga) doesn't really count because it's just a remixed version of the Metal Gear Solid 3 theme. The other song, the theme of the Beauty and the Beast Unit, is pretty decent too, but the individual unit member battle songs are awful. Oh, and don't even get me started on the garbage of a lyrical track, Here's to You. I'm really disappointed.

Speaking of disappointments, my plan is to get one of the 80GB MGS4 PS3 bundles (not the gunmetal grey PS3, which is an overpriced hunk of junk--and this is coming from a huge MGS fanboy), but no retailer really seems to know what's going on with that, despite whether they are taking preorders or not.

On the other hand, Alone in the Dark is going to be amazing, because it has an amazing soundtrack. Those crazy, haunting Hungarian (or whatever) vocals are totally rad.

Recently I've had to cut back on my blog posts because of how busy I've been. I'm not an editor--though I do write the occasional preview, review, or feature--but rather a producer. My job in particular is a pretty much half project manager and half air-traffic controller. I do a lot of things on the site, from manage story promotion to being in charge of game launch centers. We've got this little thing called E3 coming up--maybe you've heard of it?--and that's taken up some of my time, though it's mainly being watched over by the others in the office, and of course there are other things up and coming that I can't mention just yet but and incredibly excited about. You guys will find out soon enough!

The last month or so in particular have been kind of a milestone for me. I'm called a producer but I don't really feel like I've really "produced" much. I'm talking about from the very beginning, taking an idea and running with it. I've managed to see that Community Game Night got its own feature page, which is something that has been in discussion since around February I want to say. It's not everything we wanted it to be right now, but we've got some big plans for it and will be revisiting it later in the year. From the Bleachers now has its own home as well, and I'm really happy to see that Brian, Shanker, and Aaron's podcast has got the page that it deserves. Finally, I was able to make a gameplay marathon for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures happen on a really short notice, which is something that I was able to build from the ground up and worked really hard to pull off.

I hadn't planned on hosting it, but I'm really glad I had the opportunity to as it was a ton of fun. I've only had a few on-camera experiences, and I know that I say "umm" and "you know" and "good times" way too often, but overall I don't think I did too bad of a job. Going into it, my plan was to be very conversational, very much the smartass, and know nothing about the game–the last one because I wanted an outsider's perspective on it. I think I stuck to my guns on that pretty well, and anyone who knows me should be able to vouch for that as that's how I really behave. I mean, I asked a teabagging question and rambled on about riding sweet mammoth mounts!

Of course, I would have liked for us to have been able to answer a lot more questions and show some end-game stuff, but Kevin had only really played it for about 3 days and so that wasn't something that could have happened. Rest assured that he is very serious about making sure he's able to get the time in to give it a full and meaningful review. If you're still on the fence after seeing the early portions of the game with us, you should watch the reviews blog closely, read his impressions of it, and keep an eye out for the review.

Currently, you can watch a highlights reel of the show if you missed it, but come Tuesday you should be able to watch the full thing. Sorry it won't all go up until then, but it's a holiday weekend (Monday is Memorial Day here in the US) and the GS Live guys deserve the break.

P.S.: Watch the replay of Fight or Flight, our Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament! It was a lot of fun and I had a great time commentating on the matches. One hilarious fact is that we realized around 2pm that the in-studio Wii didn't have any characters unlocked on it, and so Chris had to jet home and back to Berkeley (about 25 minutes away) to grab his. He made it back literally 5 minutes before the contestants came in, but it turns out that Wolf wasn't unlocked. I managed to rush my way through The Ruins level in SSE (thanks to Jeremy for reminding me which level it was!) and defeat him with Lucas just as Ryan called 3 minutes. Hilarious stuff.