Gee im really sorry, i only had five options...

Probably should have categorised Atheism and Agnosticism together, but hey, i've only seen two of you lot here so far, so it looks like i hit the mark pretty good. and i said earlier, if you are an 'other', say so and shout and scream about it. :)

IAMTHEJOKER88

I'm an other. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH! AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGH!

(Well you did say to do this! :D)

@jamyskis: ru indian coz u dont have many ppl knowing about kirpan .....

hindu ....brahmin 2 to precise ......dont really pray tho ;-)

hrothgar99

Nope, just a very worldly person :D

I was raised as a Sikh, but now im half agnostic and half Jedi :D

pav50

Does that mean you have a ceremonial lightsaber instead of a Kirpan? :lol:

Neither. Hindu.icygangsta

This.

Not that I'm a hindu, I just find it a shame that other religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism weren't represented.

I'm actually a non-practising Wiccan, if that makes any sense.

I've also heard good-ish things about the film.

The consensus thus far seems to be that it's about as far off from the original story as any video game film so far (save for Mario Bros. or DOA), that the acting is a little cringeworthy, but if you're in it for some good action scenes then you'll enjoy it.

I'll certainly buy it when it heads my way here in Germany next month.

Funny that this should be brought up, I've only just written a piece in the feedback forum about my opinion regarding the quality of moderating here.

I do think moderators in any forum play an important role. You will always getting spammers, trolls and flame wars in any forum and the forums do need to be policed.

Believing that moderators aren't paid by default is a fallacy, however. Many companies (especially publishers) hire paid interns or full-time employees (usually community managers) to moderate the forums and perform this role. Moderation in these fields is truly a fine art and decisions can sometimes be tricky.

I do believe, however, that the bigger the site, the more important the moderation and this is where I believe GameSpot falls down badly. I can understand that some cases may be difficult to mod effectively, but I've seen plenty of cases where the mods have proverbially gone in with a sledgehammer where only a needle was needed, and I've seen plenty of cases remain unmodded where you really have to ask why the mods missed it (even after I've reported it)

I had one once...it only takes a small area around the toenail to become inflamed for it to be painful as hell. I sympathise with you buddy.

Try and chop off as much of the excess nail as you can, and use antiseptic/iodine to kill off the infection. Hurts, but it works.

It has come to my attention over the years that I've been posting on the GameSpot forums, making comments on articles that the quality of moderation on GameSpot is dubious at best, highly inconsistent and discriminatory at worst.

I've been modded six times since I've been here. Not really a figure to be proud of, but I still maintain to this day that not one of the cases in question was justified. After being modded four times in one month for reasons I cannot begin to explain or believe, I even submitted my request for my account to be deleted. I have reduced my participation in GameSpot even to this day, because I no longer believe that I can discuss my views about video gaming properly here without having some kind of censorship heaped upon me.

But I digress - I'm not here to talk about my cases specifically, rather the quality of moderation as a whole - meaning comments that I have been modded for, that I have reported, seen directed against other and had directed against me. What I mention above were just examples of the inconsistent way that the forums are modded.

The mods also seem to have a very peculiar problem with telling the difference between a flame war, flaming and trolling. I've been trolled on more than one occasion, I've reported it several times and received the message "Thank you for notifying the moderators. Appropriate action has been taken." I look there a day later and the message is still there, yet I've seen other messages being modded for much less, mine and others.

In one case, I was modded and received a point loss for using "offensive" words (if the mod team is reading this - PM #32045103). The mod team has some very interesting ideas about what constitutes foul language. Not only because the word I used is not swearing in the least, but also because I've seen more offensive terminology being used here on a highly regular basis - of course, with little reaction from the mods.

There was one instance I can personally name where a dispute with Renevant42 and WufusRainwright, who had both thrown insults at me accusing me of being a pirate (which I reported and against which no action was taken) resulted in me being modded when I referred to this. I basically told someone to simply ignore the trolls, and I was the one modded for it!

As an another example not related to me, I quote a comment by drew36chambers made on August 13 at 3.56 pm CET:

@Oozyrat first of all, who gives a crap if I criticize them, critics do it all the time. secondly, I don't have to be wowed by a game just because the first one was great. thirdly, this thing about a gaming company "treating fans good" is a ridiculous statement. they are not releasing this information for the fans, if they were so tight lipped about it before, why release it 2 years before launch? money, Im a fan of levine just as much as the next guy but there is alot of other factors that go into making a game and you need to consider them before simply seeing the word 'bioshock' and jumping for joy. Im not saying it will be good or bad, I'm saying you need to use your brain and not automatically go nuts because a developer you like is putting out a game. its attitudes like that which gives rise to games like tekken vs street fighter. fanboys rarely do this industry service. then again, your probably a 14 year old boy in which case rescind my argumentdrew36chambers

I'll quite happily quote more when I see them, but I think I can quite happily rest my case now.

The GameSpot team needs to start being more consistent with their modding.

Note: I put this in Feedback because I feel that it affects the site as a whole. If the mods feel that it is better placed in "Ask the mods", please feel free to move it there.

so.. i went shopping today, i found oblivion.. in some boxset with another game.. only i didnt buy it because it was rated 18 for EXCESSIVE VIOLENCE! im so confused?!judybaker

I'm guessing from your statement that you're talking about the Oblivion/Bioshock double pack, and that you live in the UK. Only the BBFC uses statements like "excessive violence" and 18 ratings (here in Germany it's 18 rated too, but there's no comment as to why), the US version of Bioshock is M rated.

To be honest, I couldn't imagine Bioshock being your thing at all. It is very creepy and very bloody indeed. Good fun though, if I may say so.

What's more, the version of Oblivion in that box is the "vanilla" version - no expansions or anything. You'd be best off getting the Game of the Year (GOTY) version of the game, which includes the two expansions Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine, each of which makes the game even bigger. I've seen it on Amazon.co.uk for something like a fiver more than the boxset you saw, but I think it'll better suit your tastes.

Edit: I've just noticed someone selling a GOTY version of the game for 15 quid secondhand, if you don't mind buying it used.

hey, thanks thats very helpful... im not against violence all the time, i just dont want a game where i have to carry around guns and shoot everything and then get to the end of the level, kill some giant.. then start again but at the end of the next level there is an even bigger giant.. i see pictures from like cod and generally anything with the word war in it, and really dont want to support anything like that, or become desensitised to it.. in all cases war is bad, and sometimes i think video games glorify it a bit.. rant over. are there like detective strategy games? judybaker

There's no issue with any gamer not liking violent games. Everyone has their tastes and there are games to cater for every taste. You will always have people berating you because you don't like the games they like (I believe one called you an "old woman" because you weren't a CoD gamer) but there's no compelling reason why you should play games like that.

I must confess that I don't agree with you on the matter of desensitisation - I've been playing violent games and watching violent movies for years, and these days none of it really bothers me. In fact, it's when I see images and films of real war victims that I get really distressed. Perhaps it's because I've gotten so used to it that all I see are the pixels these days, not the blood, but everyone is entitled to their opinions and, as I said, everyone has different tastes.

I only get annoyed when people come along and say that gaming is a waste of space when they've never played a game in their lives - that's not an opinion, that's intolerance and ignorance.