So I was talking with a person on YouTube. A 20-something guy who has a life, a job, place to live. All that jazz. Lately I've been feeling slight dislike over statements he's said. I mean, sure, I could take salt with them and leave it at that. But I start thinking about what he says, and what if he's actually right. If game reviewing is biased.

Before I continue, this is not at all related to the fiasco where GameTrailers accidentally labeled PS3 footage of the racing game GRID as coming from the Xbox 360 version. My opinion is that it was simply an accident, and that these ass-backwards conspiracy theories are ridiculous.

This is me covering old news. Again. The whole Gerstmann fiasco that plagues GameSpot. Where issues involving credibility and corporate control over editorial is starting to concern me. That's why I ask in the title: "Is professional game reviewing a sham?"

Go read Jeff Gerstmann's review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Then look at the score. Did you ever wonder if his text is much more of a negative connotation than what the score depicts? As in, he wanted to review it lower? After reading the text again, the person I mentioned earlier's assumptions about the review seemed to be right on the money. He later said that "the other reviewers found his review to be the worst you could ever publish" and that "Gertsman [sic] was true to the word c***sucker." But I don't really see that in this review, and even in his older reviews, I never saw that. Am I blind to this? Is there something he sees that I don't?

He also mentioned that the review for Freedom Fighters was considerably different and negative in tone, later to be replaced with something more positive. A quick search found nothing. I don't want to say he's making baseless assumptions, as he's likely been around gaming sites longer than I have (I didn't really visit GameSpot or IGN or other sites except sporadically until about 2004-05). But that's what makes me wonder.

I mean, the guy I'm talking about does his own video reviews, talking straight and giving you no bulls***. That's been my policy as well: I tell it like it is. But with people constantly going "XYZ site is biased because they gave ABC game a 6 while everybody else gave it 9s!", it makes my head hurt, and constantly seeing it makes me not wanting to pursue games journalism. Because I seriously don't want to be put blame by idiots thinking I'm some biased dickhole just because I didn't give a game the 10 they wanted.

How can people who review games on game sites go through the process of doing it, making sure that it's satisfactory enough to the people they work with, but make sure they don't piss off people? It must be daunting.

I trust game reviews. Written by friends and by "professional critics". Most of the time, I'm either slanting to what the critics think, what my friends think, or both. Somebody usually seems to share the same sentiment I think with a game most of the time. When I hear these comments about accusations of bias and corporations supposedly paying people off to give good reviews, it's just gut-wrenching. A bad case of parroting. It pisses me off.

I'm not expecting to hammer into every single person's opinion that it's not true, as even some are blinded by the truth and refuse to believe. But what the hell can I say to people who make these assumptions? There are times where I feel I want to say something, but unless I either know somebody who works in the field, or that I do it myself, constantly saying "GAME SITES ARE NOT BIASED" seems to fall on deaf ears.

Maybe I need a consensus on what people personally think about this argument. Maybe from people who actually work and review for a site. You tell the truth, right? You don't let some company bully you to giving a game a 9, do you? Is it gonna get to a point where I have to literally pay attention to who's reviewing it before I can form an opinion about whether or not I want the game?

It makes me think. And it definitely makes me reconsider my possible dream job. Sad, really.

(Personal website, GameSpot, GameTrailers)

Yeah, I was disappointed in this game. It reminds me of a Michael Bay flick: Loud, dumb and obnoxious, lacks substance and is only enjoyable 1-2 times before you never touch it again. Although that might be insulting as Criterion is much better than a hack director.

Currently it's been GTA: Vice City and Team Fortress 2 in terms of what games I'm playing. Some of VC's missions are pissing me off and TF2's medic achievements make me want the other special weapons. It makes me anticipate the other ideas they have for the other c-lasses.

(GameSpot: seriously. Fix that freakin' c-lass/s-tyle bug already. It's absolutely retarded for it still be there several months later.)

So, since I lack a next-gen console, I decided to pick up some older GTAs. specifically GTA: Vice City and San Andreas on the Xbox.

I have a few questions. Is Vice City supposed to:

• have occasional graphical flickering?
• have times where the game pauses a bit unnecessarily switching between the menu and the game?
• have an occurance where the game freezes during ordinary gameplay? (This only happened once so far)
• have certain missions make the camera all jittery?
• have the music completely cut out, even on all radio stations? (Like before, only happened once so far)

I'm starting to think the used copy I have is busted. It has a lot of cylindrical scratches and, before it was cleaned, looked like it was on a shag carpet for weeks. I'm contemplating exchanging copies, but I want to know the consensus. Is this normal? Or do I just have a broken copy?

It's surprising, I've had games in worse shape play just fine. To a point, anyway. Thank god I got other games to hold me over, including SA. But why the hell is GTAIII for the Xbox kinda hard to find?

...no blood or fatalities in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe? Yeah, say hello to dwindling sales. Face it, it's not 1993 anymore, and Mortal Kombat is dead. The sooner you realize this, the more we can stop poking fun at every subsequent game past Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

Since the last blog, I have played the following games:

• Ratchet & Clank (PS2). Beat it. Got one gold weapon. Went through the turmoil of getting the RYNO. Having the game freeze on me at the final boss. I got notes for a written review, I should get on that as I haven't written one in weeks.
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2). Played it after seeing a GTA4 advert, as that's the only GTA game I own. I should get the damn trilogy already. Except I can't find it on the Xbox anywhere, only PS2. I want my custom soundtracks, damn it. (Or not.)
• James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire and Nightfire (both GC). Decided to randomly play these over. Beat missions I couldn't beat. Beat the final level. Two games conquered in a matter of several days. Two games I've had for several years but never finished. Funny, that. Nightfire is still a c-lassic, Agent Under Fire's relatively above average. If I start playing Goldeneye: Rogue Agent again, feel free to shoot me.
• SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs (PS2). Saw this for $5. Whole mess of Sony Gamer Advisory Panel members play this for a weekly game night. Thought it was a deal. Slowly trudging through singleplayer. Nothing really special. I'm playing on easy, which is sad because the only thing you can unlock is higher skill levels and the credits. The good singleplayer unlockables come by playing the game literally on the hardest skill levels. It's not hard to play because it's not uber-tactical (see: Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy's), but there's certainly strategy. Now, multiplayer is just run-n-gun, almost like Syphon Filter.
• Breakdown (Xbox). Decent first-person shooter/fighter/eating and puking game. Punishingly hard, even on easy. Fighting is fairly slow, and the game is pretty damn immersive, more than many modern shooters. The strange part? It was made by a JAPANESE company, in a country where shooters aren't really popular over there. :O
• Black (Xbox). Not very far in, but all I can ask is this: "Why did people like this game, again?". I feel like this game got a free pass only because Criterion Games (Burnout) made it. I might write a review of this, too, but in a different s-tyle.
• Patapon (PSP). It's funny. I'll get stuck in one area, stop playing, then come back to it and make considerable progress in one session. It's crazy. Still not done.
• Chrono Trigger (SNES). Don't think I've covered this one. I beat it a while back. A great RPG. This coming from a guy who doesn't play RPGs. Now to go find Final Fantasy 6 and 7 so I can finally fulfill that basic "RPGs you must play" quota. That and maybe Grandia. Or Skies of Arcadia. Or whatever the hell else.

Michael Pachter annoys me. As I watched this episode of GameTrailers's Bonus Round about GTA4, some things were abundantly clear: He shouldn't be saying the things he's saying. Why? Because he's not a gamer. He doesn't know what he's talking about half the time. And when he says rumors without facts to really back them up, such as this temporary scare of GTA4 being possibly delayed, it just annoys the hell out of me.

What is with the gaming blogosphere's obsession with this man? He makes assumptions literally by throwing darts at a dartboard. And about 70% of the time, he's wrong. Analysts are like weatherman: They predict stuff, but at least the weatherman can steer you right more than an analyst does.

I mean, I can pull assumptions out of my keister too, where's my Kotaku watch?

I like writing a lot. The only problem is that I do not write as much as I should. I blame this wholly on lazyness and procrastination. I have like, several ideas for blogs, but I always go into hodgepodge mode when I write these as I hate talking about one subject for a period of time without having long, concrete thoughts.

Maybe I need to invest in a good webcam. Not that horrible $15 one my parents bought me that I don't think works anymore.

• Jeff Gerstmann
• Frank Provo
• Alex Navarro
• Ryan Davis
• Jason Ocampo
• Brad Shoemaker

In one 3 1/2 hour setting, I beat this game. Only skipped 1-2 levels (like 7-4, and 8-1 and 8-2 frequently until I finally had the patience to beat them) and levels where you had the choice to continue. I had about... 40-something lives and lost a lot in the last few levels.

TheWesker/MisterVirus was tackling this game for a while until he quit on it. It's kind of a bummer, as it's not the World 7 levels that are tough, it's World 8's. I had a boatloads of music boxes and stars by the end, which only help occasionally. I'm not gloating, insulting your gaming skills or anything like that, I'm just saying that if I can do it, so can anybody else.

Just don't do it like I did. Or take a few breaks once in a while. Makes me wonder why they didn't consider a save battery system. I mean, it took two years for it to come out between JPN and US, what took them so long?!

Now I need to finish the several other games I NEED to play, instead of replaying this.