It seems as tough it's been forever since I last really got involved with Gamespot, when in actual fact it was only a little over 6 months ago. It's quite amazing how slowly time passes by when you haven't really got nothing else to do.

So, I have returned to the Gamespot once more. Since my attitude's are always changing, I don't know if I'm back to stay or just back to look around here and there, which is what I have been doing. But I'm making a blog post, so that has to be a good sign right? Well, I'm still frequenting Gamespot, so I'll at least be half active. Alot of things have changed about me in the time since I last posted a blog however. No longer do I wish to persue the carears I wanted to, which was in journalism, programming or video editing. Infact, I have no idea what I want to do, but I'm no longer interested in those three.

Also, I'm not sure how to describe it, but before I'd be afraid of what I write incase someone didn't like it, or it felt a bit too out of place or I'd end up in an entirely different mood the next day and felt what I wrote I shouldn't of done. Well, I still have some of the latter, but now I can feel like an arse and not regret it. So if you don't like what you read, then I don't really care. If I don't like what I read from what I wrote... well then that's a different matter.

As a quick life update, my level of gaming has shrunk quite a lot recently due to huge money shortages. I managed to get an Xbox 360 with three games between now and September, and that was about it. Tough, Burnout Bikes is extremely awesome and I now have another Geometry Wars to rule the day!

So, I'm going on hiatus. As you're probably aware, I've hardly been keeping up with blogs. Lets just say I've lost the community appeal of Gamespot. As also seen from my last few blogs, I'm not blogging much either, and they're pretty random when I do. So, consider this a hiatus. I'll still be around, so if you want to PM or anything feel free to do so. But I'll just be checking the site for news, games and such (Like I always ever used to really).

This is not a leaving post, because leaving post's are just stupid and retarded. Yeah, I said it. Whoever makes those kind of posts is pathetic, because you won't leave. If I checked your "Last online" status, I'm pretty sure that will say something about your leaving post. Not forgetting all those countless times I've seen "Hey, I'm back, I didn't really leave" blogs or "I changed my mind, lulz".

If you want a bit more active WizzyKid, check me out at Giant Bomb. I'll be generally posting over there, and mainly submitted thousands upon thousands of screenshots of many obscure and super popular games.

EDIT: If it makes anyone happy I'll link to a Roflcopter!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=boh92DrYEWs

Gotta love the pronunciation of "Soi" and "Sh"

It's that time of the year. That one time where I spend most of the time of the day sat at the computer and absorbing all the information from more games than you can possibly think of.

I've been following E3 since 2004, and I can say that these were easily the crapiest conferences at E3 yet. Part of the reasons could be to do with no big console or handheld anouncements, or even anouncements of top selling exclusives. But the shows where very lackluster. It seemed that only Sony tried to keep me entertained, as they showed the most games.

Microsoft's conference was really borring. But at least I was interested in some of the stuff shown. When they were going to show off LIPS, a singstar like game, a woman singer called Duffy with a terrible voice was about to show it off. Luckily for us Gamespot watchers, the content was block. To keep us satified they gave us Dancing Mastercheif! What's sad is, that was easily the most memorable part of the Microsoft Conference.

I can't believe it, but Nintendo's conference was terrible. It was a flop. It was hardly entertaining or interesting like the past 3 Nintendo conferences. Very few games were shown, and little gameplay was shown altogether. The segment on Animal Crossing seemed to last forever. You know, I'm not a fan of the game, I don#t particuly want to have to make a coffe, come back upstairs and still wait another 5 minutes. But they had to talk 10 minutes about Pokemen, some unimpresive snowboarding game for the Wii board and Wii music which looks completly uninteresting. The only thing that did get me excited was the anouncement of GTA DS. That was it. Only one thing I now know, that I didn't know before from watching the conference. It didn't help they did more talking than Bill Gates could ever do.

Then there was SONY. Right from the introduction, I knew this was going to be the best conference. From the flashy stage to the brilliant array of games. SONY had games, games and more games. There was alot of talking in between, and repeated trailers, but at least I actually enjoyed this.

But yestarday wasn't all that bad, because the Gamespot stage demos were superb. Lengthy demo's of some of the best games such as Resistance 2, Ratchet and Clank: Quest For Booty, inFamous, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia... yeah, it was top quality games non-stop. (It was so good, that my name got shouted out 4 times)

I still need my E3 conference emblem to have Microsoft and Nintendo light up. Despite a rewatch, they're still not there, hmmmm.

Recently, I decided to download Phase for my Ipod. I've been wanting to give it a try for a while now, and I finally have my hands on it. It's a good rhythm game -- about as good as a rhythm game can get on an Ipod. Developed by Harmonix, Phase is an adictive game for the Ipod. So much so that my click wheel has started to come off.

Phase is very easy to pick up and play. You select a song you want to play, and your in the action. You press the left side of the click wheel, the middle button and the right side to hit the corresponding notes. When there is a 'Sweep' of notes, you have to slide your finger across the click wheel corresponding to the position of the sweep of notes. Tough, this is rather awkward when using the Ipod Nano model, as the click wheel is tiny, and it may not recognise your finger sliding across at the worse of times.

The game is rather punishing in it's difficulty. Even with an accuracy of over 90%, you can still fail a song. Rather than going Halo, it's back to health packs -- and a limited number at that. Each checkpoint (The amount of which varys depending on the song length) has a set number of stars which you need. You will loose/gain lives depending on how many stars are needed for the checkpoint. If it requires 4 stars, and you only have 2, then you will loose 2 lives. There are score multipliers for every number of notes you hit in a row, which helps you to recover if you're near a checkpoint.

Phase does a good job of recognising your music, and planting notes that match the music. Tough, it does only work well with songs with strong beats. Guitar heavy songs, muffled drums and reverbed vocals can create a random sloppy mess (Sorry Korn fans). Sweeps are hit or miss. They appear when the music suddenly changes in pitch or volume. This works great with synths, but is abruptive during heavy metal and crazy Jimi Hendrix riffs. Luckily, there is a limit to how many can apear at a time, so techno enthusiasts will have a bit more to do other than sliding their finger left and right.

Choosing the songs you want Phase to recognise is a rather uneasily lengthy task. When you have brought and downloaded the game, there will be a new playlist created called 'Phase Songs'. Only songs that you drag into this playlist, will be playable on Phase. Since you can only put one song into a playlist at a time, this can become frustrating. Also, it may take a few attempts to sync your Ipod, before it recognises the playlist itself. It would be much more convenient if it would just work with all the songs that are on your Ipod.

One major annoyance I have with Phase, is that it is very easy to accidentally reset your Ipod mid-game. Not only have you reset the settings and high scores within the game, you have defaulted all the settings on your Ipod. This can become very frustrating.

For just £4, Phase is a very nice game. It will work with any song you want it to play, tough some songs will play much better than others. Controls may feel clumsy, but you will get used to it.

Phase loves:

In Pieces - Linkin Park
In The Belly Of A Shark - Gallows
Land of Confusion - Disturbed
Duality - Slipknot
Pork and Beans - Weezer
Technical Difficulties - Julien K

Phase Hates:

Korn

UPDATE: You HAVE to convert songs to AAC to play them on Phase. The game doesen't tell you that until you've put them onto the Phase playlist, transfered the songs onto your Ipod and then you attempt to play them.

It might look something like this:

P.S: It's a fan-made image--just so you know.

I've noticed something: A large number of people are tracking me. More people are tracking me, than the amount of people who I am friends with.

This doesn't entirely bother me. However, I am curious. I do feel like I'm being ignorant. I don't mind people tracking me and not knowing me or anything, because I do that too. You might like a person's videos, or a few of their blogs like a special feature they have running. I only track people back, who writes interesting blogs, or is someone who I know in real life.

It's hard enough to keep up staying in touch with my actual contacts. After all, I do have alot of hobbies, and I don't particularly enjoy writing alot. I'm not one to leave useless one word comments tough. Just to let you all know, if I'm not tracking you, then I'm not interested in you. That may sound harsh, but I don't want to read blogs or watch videos that I am uninterested in.

Whilst on that note, if I track you, and I don't comment alot, it would be because of the same reason why I imagine many people track each others, it's because I'm not interested in all your blogs, or your videos. But of course I'm sure you all knew that anyway... right?

Just something I needed to get off my chest. Feel free to track me, but don't expect me to track you back, even if you do comment on my blogs. Of course, it's nice of you to do so, but it's hard for me to comment on something of which I'm not interested in. Like I said, I don't like to leave pointless comments to pretend I'm keeping in touch with you.

Just a quick side note: There are some people who I used to track, who I have untracked. I haven't been active around the Gamespot community for long, so I was just getting used to it all. I've untracked because I'm not really interested in you, unless you have a strong relationship with me.

Welcome to Game Spotlight, the feature where I will be bringing you all the information you need about great games that are sadly, hardly known to anybody. There are many fantastic games buried out there, amidst the carnage of the mainstream games of today.

Previous Game Spotlight: Metal Fatigue

Echoes

Gameplay Montage

Screenshots

Website

We're all familiar with shoot 'em ups. There have been many of them released such as Gradius, R-type, Galaga, Ikaruga, 1942, Geometry Wars etc. But most shoot 'em ups all have one thing in common: The enemies have attack paterns. No matters how many enemies can be crammed onto the screen or how many bullets go flying, anyone with enough patience can learn to survive a level with ease.

Echoes, a freeware game from Binary Zoo, is unlike those many shoot 'em ups. The game plays much like the cl@ssic game Asteroids, only you can move freely without having to wait for your ship to accelerate and the visuals make you feel like you're on an ecstasy trip. It can really be summed up with the phrase "Asteroids on crack". The game sends wave after wave of asteroids which break up into smaller asteroids which all bounce around in random directions. In Echoes, there is the addition of power-ups and some new and very tough enemies.

This isn't your typical shoot 'em up by any means, but it doesn't do anything you having seen before. Rather, it's the way it blends the cl@ssic Asteroids gameplay, excellent movement and stunning visuals. As well as shooting down asteroids, you will also encounter asteroid belts in which a row of red asteroids will follow you, black holes which spew out small asteroids and a whole ton of them when destroyed and there are meteors which appear from off screen and zoom across to the other side. If you make it to the last wave, you will also encounter the sun which is the largest target and will fire meteors towards you whenever you hit it.

Echoes isn't an easy game, in fact it's very hard. Part of the reason is because it's completely unpredictable. It's never the same game each time you play it. Thankfully, it controls great. Your ship moves instantly to the direction you want it too. You can control using the mouse, with the keyboard and aim with the mouse or a joypad (Tough if you don't have one, using the keyboard for both is still a good option).

There are power-ups that drop to aid you. There is a weapon upgrade, health recover and a power-up which fires eight powerful bullets. You'll want to keep your weapon as powerful as possible, otherwise you'll really struggle to make it passed some of the waves. Luckily, your ship can take allot of punishment, and you never need to take your eyes off the action. A large circle around your ship decreases in size and changes colour whenever you loose health.

Echoes wouldn't be nearly as thrilling, if it wasn't for the visuals. There are tons of particles effects that can appear on screen at once, with minimal slowdown. Motion blur makes it easy on the eyes, and asteroids leave trials as they speed past. All the while, the screen flashes whenever something is destroyed. It's a subtle, but nice effect. Nothing is more satisfying than destroying a large asteroid and hearing a "KABOOM!" while it echoes around your room. You can adjust and even turn off the effects, but it will detract from the gameplay.

If your looking for a different kind of shoot 'em up which offers visceral gameplay and great visual effects, then Echoes is for you. Unfortunately, there are no leaderboards so you may feel there is no purpose to play the game after a while. There are "Zoots" in the game which are like XBLA achievements, but they're very hard to achieve and obtaining half of them unlocks a lackluster "Crack" minigame. You simply destroy a large asteroid which shoots indestructible asteroids towards you and repeat until you die.

Head over to binaryzoo.com if you wish to download and play the game for free. Oh, just for the record, the footage in the first half of the gameplay montage was played on medium. The second half was on the easy difficulty setting.

Just look at the price difference for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars on the PC and the Xbox 360 from Amazon!

There is an epidemic across video games, they are rapidly evaporating! There's no doubt about it. Ever since the last generation of games, they have been drying out. In many games involving water, it would never go beyond knee deep. There where often a few segments, of which you could unnecessarily jump into deep water, only to not being able to proceed anywhere. But in this generation of games, it seems all those segments have vanished!

Now, don't get me wrong, there are still games out there that have some creative and very fun underwater based levels. But, most games now use invisible walls so you can't even touch water, that you would otherwise submerge in. Last time I checked, we're now in the year 2008. Doom simply didn't have the technology for it fifteen years ago, but there's no excuse now. I should be able to go underwater in every game that has water.

Don't just take my word for it. There are many popular game franchises that have lost their water. The Quake series, for example, had water everywhere and used it to great effect. It really created eerie moments and really helped to give the game an otherworldly feel. The water even warped around you while you were under it. Mosr games now don't do that! But since last generation's Quake 4, knee deep water was gone! Completely done. It's in the same setting as Quake 2 which was full of very deep water, yet in Quake 4 I only recall one area where there was visibly deep water.

But it's not just Quake. The Unreal Tournament series is guilty for this as well. The first 'Unreal' games had water everywhere, and the sequel had water too, but it was always an optional route, or a route to invisible walls. The first 'Unreal Tournament' game had plenty of water filled levels as well. But all of the Unreal Tournament games after that have deep water used to minimum effect, and is there to be avoided rather than used.

Half life 1 and it's expansions used water to a superb effect. There were many situations you'd find yourself stuck in an area whilst the water level rises, or avoid water completely as it is electrified, or even to go in the sewers. Half Life 2 still had some neat moments involving deep water, but not to the extent of the origina. Deep water is almost non-existent in episodes one and two as well.

The Metroid Prime series is also another culprit. Metroid Prime had some very creative underwater areas, including the sunk space pirate frigate, the one you blew up at the start of the game. Metroid Prime 2 has you sprawling about a very large underwater turbine with some very creative designs. Yet Metroid Prime 3 has nothing. Not a single area where any form of liquid is above knee deep.

But of all the games, I absolutely cannot believe a game like Bioshock does not have one single area where you can stand in water that is knee deep. There is one cutscene where you're submerged, and that's it. You can't even chose to swim underwater at the start of the game, the only time you're even swimming in it. Is it not a bit strange that there is not one single area that floods so much that you are completely underwater? Whenever there is deep looking water, invisible walls once again stop you from entering it. That's just bizarre.

You may of noticed I've mainly pointed out "First Person Shooter" games. Well, thats because it's most noticeable in these games. Platforming games and action adventure games still make use of water. But not all. The Tomb Raider series used to be full of underwater sections, but not anymore. In the 2D Sonic Games, there was some very tricky underwater levels. Yet, in the 3D games, the characters die just from touching deep water.

Developers, where the heck is all the water? You've used it before, don't be afraid to use it again. It's at the point of absolute insanity that players are not being able to go underwater. I'm still incredibly surprised, that the Mario series is one of the few where water still plays a big role in gameplay. Even in the latest iteration, Super Mario Galaxy, there is more water than in the past few years of games!

Developers, sort it out.

I've seen plenty of reviews, and I've seen plenty of reactions towards them. I've seen people rant on about how games don't deserve a high score, and vice versa, but recently it's getting out of hand. I think people just need to realise how Gamespot reviews their games, and who they are actually aimed at.

So, I'm going to go over the Gamespot review guidelines. One of the first things it says is "We rate games on a scale of 1 (the absolute worst) to 10 (the absolute best). The rating we assign to each game is intended to give you an at-a-glance sense of the overall quality of the game relative to other games on the same platform. However, we encourage you to read our full reviews and watch our video reviews to give context to our ratings", this tells me two things:

1. Gamespot gives an at-a-glance sense of the overall quality of the game relative to other games on the same platform.

2. While the score gives you a rough idea of how good the game is, you should read/watch the whole review so you know the reasons as to why the game got that score.

People forget these two points far too often, or just ignore them altogether. You can't fairly compare NES games to Xbox360 games. Games are reviewed and given a score relative to other games on the system. Just because The Legend of Zelda: Ocorina of Time has a 10 on the Nintendo 64, doesn't mean it's a 10 in comparison to many high quality Xbox360 games. Technology moves on!

Here is another statement writing in the Gamespot review guidelines, that people need to remember:

"Our reviews are written with the prospective customer in mind--someone who's naturally interested in playing a new game and has a limited amount of time and money to spend. Our editors approach each review strictly from that perspective. In turn, our reviews are not intended to validate or support the beliefs of hardcore fans, nor are they intended to provide feedback to developers or publishers about how a given game could have been improved. Our reviews are only designed to tell you, the game player, to what extent a game is worth your while"

Alot of people seem to forget that everybody's different. Not everyone is an RTS enthusiast, or an MMORPG lover. Gamespot's reviews are not aimed at a specific category of gamers, their aimed at everybody. If your an avid fan of a particular game franchise, then you may disagree with a score Gamespot has given a game. But Gamespot, or many other critics out there, review their games towards someone who likes to play games, and would like to now how a game compares to other games.

But the real problem, is that too many people freak out when they immediately see the score. If you read or watch the whole review, you will find out why it has the score, and maybe find out that the certain things that bring the score down, won't even bother you. Remember, everyone has different gaming tastes. Just because Gamespot reviewed a sports game really high, doesn't mean you will enjoy it if your not into sports.

Remember, that Gamespot review games based on the retail version. Not ten patches later. Your obviously going to find the game more enjoyable, when the game has had far more patches with many gameplay alterations than when it was released. As for large, open world games "We typically invest approximately 30 hours' worth of playing time before committing to our evaluations. While this does not necessarily allow us to cover the long-term prospects of a given persistent-world game, the truth is that we do not know what the future holds for any such games". Your obviously going to have a different opinion of such a game, when you've played it for 70 hours.

The Bottom Line
Everyone is different. Everyone has different opinions about games. Gamespot caters to your average gamer looking to compare games and see which is worth his/her time. Gamespot compares games on a scale respective to their platforms. Reading or watching a review, will help you to understand why a game got that score. Games change over time, but it's just not practical to constantly alter a review when every patch comes out.

Adding to my trend of filler blog content, I bring you the most epic video to ever breach the nets. It simply describes Youtube, or rather the Internet itself which can be found on Youtube. It is a music video for Pork and Beans by the band Weezer.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI

Of all the parodies in the video, I think it exaggerates the never ending diet coke and mentos experiments pretty well.

Ahh yeah. That was one funny video. Sadly, it still remains completly true as Microsoft still continue development on this big ass table. It's a good job no one hates Sarcastic Gamer for this, otherwise people might actually like Microsoft!

Luckily, this unaffordable table is still in development, but does pop up from time to time in select cities. If you happen to be unlucky enough to be there, make sure not to check it out.

(Why did I not blog about this sooner)

Many of you don't know, but I do alot of video editing in my spare time. It is a hobby of mine. I may become a professional video editor if I decide to. Anyway, for one Geography lesson a few weeks ago, we were asked to make a Powerpoint presentation, and then a movie to sum it up. Of course, the movie was only meant to be made in Windows Movie Maker and as a slideshow (which is all everyone did). However, I took it up a notch and didn't use Windows Movie Maker. I came out and surprised everyone with this instead:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v386/hiney89/?action=view¤t=GlobalWarmingMovie.flv

This is also my first video project that is appropriate for many people to view.

EDIT: Please do not post in the comments section debates about the issues of Global Warming and whether it's fact or fiction. I only want feedback on the video and whether it gets the point across well.

Piracy and games are no stranger to each other. Every form of media has it's share of piracy. Pirating for games on the PC have been going on for a long time. Arguably, it has become easier to distribute pirated copies of games with much more capable technology. Game publishers have been tackling piracy for a long time. It used to be in the form of a serial number of which you would enter when installing the game, and would never have to worry about again.

But now there is much more than the simple serial number. Anti-piracy has evolved into what is known as "Digital Rights Management" or DRM for short. Basically, this means that publishers are pulling out all the stops to prevent pirating. This puts increasingly restricting access to games for legit buyers and is effectively preventing them from being able to enjoy a game at it's fullest. Recently, games have required internet access to install or even play the game such as Bioshock or Unreal Tournament 3.

This has obvious drawbacks. If your not connected to the internet, you can't play the game. If you still run on a dial-up connection, you will have to use it everytime you need to play the game. Of course, should the online servers for the game be offline, then you also cannot play. This was experienced by many at the launch of Bioshock when the 2K servers were down due to technical issues.

Needing an internet connection to play a game at any time is annoying itself. But EA has devised a downright devious scheme to prevent piracy. Planned on Being introduced in Mass Effect PC, the games require that you enter an initial activation code, and then every ten days onwards. The game server will automatically check your serial number every five days. If you don't enter an activation code within ten days, then you can't play the game until you do so.

This is bound to become the biggest anti-piracy nuisance ever devised. It's a bit like watching a movie, only ever half hour you have to enter a 16 digit long pin number. Could you imagine reaching the final part of Mass Effect's main story, deciding to call it a night, waking up next morning only to find out that you need to re-enter that stupidly long string of numbers of letters, and then finding out the EA servers are down.

What EA seem to forget is, that pirates are pirates. No matter what you do, people will always find ways to pirate games. EA is only punishing us legit buyers. In a time when PC gaming is suffering a slow death, EA are certainly not trying to help the situation. The information regarding this issue was original brought upon the Mass Effect, Bioware community forums here.

Here are some other sources:

http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18614 (Command and Conquer Modding Site)

http://kotaku.com/387846/mass-effect-copy-protection-an-opportunity-to-use-the-adjective-draconian

http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/ea_to_use_securom_drm_on_mass_effect_and_spore/ (Phone activation discussed here appears to be false)

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/07/mass-effect-wins-award-worst-pc

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/07/1523242&from=rss

If this gets the "Go ahead", then I'm sure there will be a huge drop in EA games sales.

I bet you haven't.

Despite the fact they have released four albums, two EP's and one LP as early as 1995, opened up for well known acts such as System of a Down and Blink-182, toured with Killswitch Engage and even scheduled to appear at music festivals this year including Rock AM, newly formed Mayhem Festival and on the main stage of Download Festival, they are the absolute least popular signed band that I know, with most of their fame being in the UK.

It's hard for me to understand why this is. Usually an unpopular band deserves to be unpopular - their music just isn't that good. But this isn't the case with 36 crazyfists. Sure, the band is more to the screamy side, but that should please angst teens anyway.

This is an example of how much a great night you can have with 36 crazyfists. *CURSE WARNING*

Original music video here.