Wow.

We're back under the watchful eye of GameSpot.

GameSpot X Giant Bomb is not something I had even the remotest idea was a possibility.

Two years ago, I'd have probably accused you of heresy if you suggested that it would one day happen.

And yet here we are.

The Giant Bomb Staff, including the always fantastic Hardcore Dave, are in the same CBSi Offices as our old friends at GameSpot. And instead of finding it weird and intrusively corporate...

I find it totally bad fricking ass. GameSpot Cross Giant Bomb? Best idea Giant Bomb has had in a while. Seeing Jeff, Vinny, Brad & Ryan back in the old stomping grounds - complete with the strangely familiar styles of cubicles and the iconic frosted glass offices...Damn. I actually got chills. These guys, in those surroundings, just feels correct.

It doesn't feel like we used to imagine it would in the event of a corporate takeover of Whiskey - like Giant Bomb is the conquered. It feels like we're coming home. We went off on a mad little adventure and found ourselves as this slightly unhinged group of geeks who do everything crazy, and now we're home, back with our friends, and even though everything's different, everything's the same.

Giant Bomb has distilled the old GameSpot Crazy (Jeff's "GameSpot is still crazy" from the now-infamous "Crazily Small Underwhelming E3" is a standout example) into a finely aged Whiskey which we all carry in our hip-flasks. And in the meantime, GameSpot has remained a behemoth, a titan in the industry with unparalleled production values combined with industry-leading editorial quality (IGN & GameTrailers can only match for production values, 1UP for editorial quality).

And now, the BAND IS BACK TOGETHER. Alex is on drums, Jeff's on vocals, Ry Mac's got his bass out, and I think I saw KVO prepping to do the warmup act.

Damn son. Get me some Rich Gallup up in this bitch and CBSi will win the entire freaking internet.

And the wounds of the past are finally healed, because now it's all been spelled out. And I have to say, from what Jeff said it sounds like it went down pretty much the way I called it in my now very old text dramatisation of events - except for the ending, but I like this ending better.

GameSpot Cross Giant Bomb presents an amazing prospect - having the Giant Bomb fun and the GameSpot resources all under one roof. I'm totally onboard with this. Change is good. This is going to kick ass. Some of you might know I've been a bit disillusioned with some of the direction of Giant Bomb for a while. And in part, it's because I was beginning to lose the feeling I'd enjoyed so much in the early days of Giant Bomb being home. I had started to feel like Editorial was drifting in a direction which didn't include me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

And then, all of a sudden...I feel like I'm at home again.

It's good to be home. Much love Giant Bomb. Glad to be back, GameSpot.

Here's my new GameSpot Profile & everything.

Jens Out

PS: Tested Cross Mythbusters? Also totally rad. But we must ensure Rorie & Screened land on their feet too. Puppies FOR LIFE. Whiskey Media. RECOGNISE.

Christmas Letter 2011

Season's Greetings Friends, Family & assorted hangers-on!

It's that time of year once again where many people choose to send each other nice simple Christmas Cards - short, sweet indications that they're thinking of you at this, the most wonderful time of the year. And, as has become tradition, I am instead wasting your time with this, my annual Christmas Letter, in which I reflect at unnecessary length on the year that was and, of course, the festive season.

So here I am, sitting in the glow of the unnecessarily large Christmas tree in my bedroom with my (infamous, and only partially accurately named) Xmas in Pompey 2 Spotify playlist filling the room with the sounds of Christmas cheer. Which sounds incredibly cheesy, but I've always said* it's not cheesy if you can think of something either as cheesy, or more cheesy, which is also less appropriate for the given situation. And I have:

A Margherita.

Now, with that out of the way, on to the reflecting on the year. And frankly I think nothing this year says more about our modern era than the way that godawful "Friday" song by Rebecca Black infected every facet of our lives over the course of about a month earlier in the year - and it already feels like it's ancient history.

Either the years are getting longer or we're finding more ways to do stuff in them. Luckily, Mark Zuckerberg has come up with a way to find out in Facebook Timeline, whilst Twitter continues to give us an avenue to voice our every trivial thought (And say bitchy things about the way candidates on The Apprentice choose to dress). And I for one welcome our new Social Media overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted (Ahem) TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

Speaking of TV, the has been a great year for TV and I can prove it in just ten words:

The Simpsons has been renewed through its twenty-fifth season.

There have of course been some downsides though. The X Factor has unfortunately not been canceled yet, Big Brother was (Unfathomably) brought back and the BBC decided to hand over half their F1 (More on that in a moment) coverage to Sky Sports, which was probably not the best idea considering that they did so right at the same time as the entire country was furious with Rupert Murdoch, News Corp & Sky over the flagrant corruption & use of phone hacking. As own goals go, the BBC pulled off a belter there.

Oh and while I've got you, I still say Germany should have won Eurovision again. Yeah, I'm still bitter about that. And what?

Anyway, I said I'd say something about Formula 1. Ignoring the fact Vettel made the whole season rather dull with his overpowered Red Bull car (I really don't think it's fair that he gets a car which gives you wings), this was still a cracking year with some all-time classic races, including the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, the longest race in F1 history (A record it will hold forever as the rules have now been changed to prevent races running as long as that one did).

Also, over the two-year period since Jenson Button joined McLaren, he's outscored Lewis Hamilton. At the risk of saying I told you so, I TOTALLY FRIGGING TOLD YOU SO.

Ahem…Anywho, I suppose I should say something about some other sports for the sake of balance, but they're going to have to be eternally true platitudes because I barely pay attention to most of them so er…Manchester United are evil, cricket is dull & tedious, Rugby is vaguely homoerotic etc. etc.

Also if I don't mention video games, the citizens of Giant Bomb (dot) Com will probably shoot me in the knee with an arrow. I don't fully get that joke because I never played Skyrim (Too busy playing The Legend of Zelda IN THREE DEE on my 3DS), but they make references to it all the time on Reddit so I guess it must be pretty funny. The biggest thing in games this year for me was probably the return of Pokémon. Oh god how I played a lot of Pokémon.

So then, with that all out of the way, I leave you with this topical reference to both 2011 & 2012 in the form of a brain teaser:

If you ask Siri to schedule "the end of the world" for December 21, 2012, does that make you God if the world does end then**?

Have a

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Helluva Hanukkah, Perfect Pancha Ganapti***, Delectable Dies Natalis Solis Invicti***, Dignified Quaid-e-Azam's Day***, Marvellous Malkh-Festival***, Kwazy Kwanzaa, And a Happy New Year,

Your Pal,

Paul Douglas.

* Not true. I've never said that.

** No, no it doesn't. That would be stupid.

*** Look it up.

The Counter Culture Franchise returns with the first edition of the Counter Culture Weekly Re-Boot, 'The Counter Culture', an inaccurately named pop culture podcast about movies, game, TV Shows, music, anime and more. In this first edition, your intrepid hosts Paul Douglas and Tom Kline run down their reactions to the Press Briefings held at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Check it out!

It’s here, at last. I got my Nintendo 3DS on Thursday alongside copies of Pilotwings Resort from Nintendo and Super Monkey Ball 3D from Sega. As many of you will know, I’ve been excited about the 3DS right from the start. So, now I’ve got my own (In Aqua Blue - Team Blue FTW), has it lived up to my high expectations, or has it left me disappointed and frustrated like the current PSN outage?

The first impressions I ever had of a 3DS in person were at my Student Union, where i got to try out Pilotwings Resort and Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. Upon starting using the thing for the first time, back then, my immediate thought was “Oh my god”. The 3D effect, even though I had known it was coming and had heard numerous times that it worked, blew my mind. Here was a little device which was opening a window to a tiny world beyond, where dinky toy planes are piloted by caricatures or Ryu beats the snot out of some fat guy (I, uh, I don’t know much about Street Fighter. Only one I ever owned was Alpha 3 Turbo...Or something like that).

To my surprise, the experience was repeated when I first started using the 3D on my own 3DS. Somehow, each time I come to use it, it continues to impress. The only times I have turned the 3D off have been times when I’m playing Augmented Reality games like Face Raiders which require moving the console around. In standard games, and indeed in the menu, the 3D adds too much eye candy to turn it off. And further than that, it genuinely improves the experience, far beyond simply looking pretty.

What the 3D does, is make the depth we’ve been seeing since the PlayStation/Nintendo 64 era relevant. Whereas before we were looking at videos of expansive exotic locales, with the 3DS it’s like holding those places in the palms of your hand. A window to, rather than a video screen of, far flung places of adventure and fantasy. And this, in turn, makes the experience not only more engaging and visually arresting, but also in many ways easier to interact with. With the 3D in Pilotwings, you can deftly manoeuvre your plane or glider or jet pack around obstacles - even those which partially obstruct your view - with an ease unattainable in 2D. The ability to actually perceive the depth makes a considerable difference to your navigation abilities.

3D is something of an enigma. It’s long been something we’ve strived for in the world of technology, but nobody’s ever really demonstrated that it’s more than a novelty - in video. That I think is a big part of the problem, we’ve been too hung up on the idea of “3D Movies!” or “3D Sports!” to really consider that neither of those things benefits, in a significant manner, from the addition of 3D. It looks pretty, sure, but not enough to justify the downsides.

In games though, the advantages become apparent as soon as the dorky glasses are ditched. No longer is the screen dim or the experience cumbersome. With the Parallax Barrier Auto-stereoscopic 3D of the 3DS, you see the benefit, sans drawbacks, and begin to feel that 3D is not pointless, it’s just that it’s been misused.

The other thing it’s made me realise, from watching the 3D Video Nintendo has installed on the systems “For a Limited Time Only”, is that most live action footage does not lend itself to current 3D technology. Certain scenes in the video look great - shots of a bear by a stream, a flower opening and some fireworks at night for example. Others however are jarring and bizarre to behold, notably shots of dense forestry spring to mind. This suggests to me that 3D video works best with simpler compositions, likely because the eye is under less strain from being tricked by fewer points of reference.

To this end, I wonder if 3D video would be best served by animation. Having never watched a 3D movie (Owing to the fact I wear glasses and find wearing the 3D glasses over them uncomfortable on top of not being particularly keen on the screen dimming effect) I can only speculate based on my 3DS experiences. However, I find myself feeling that if Nintendo were to start selling 3D movies for the 3DS I would be interested in, say, Toy Story 3 or other animated features but would skip pretty much any live action release.

So far, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with the 3DS. The Circle Pad is a revelation in analogue control, and begs the question of how Sony got it so wrong on the PSP. The circle pad is better even than some analogue joysticks of the current era. It’s just so comfortable and easy to use, I sometimes wonder how I ever got by without it.

My two choices of launch games are, so far, holding my attention well. Pilotwings Resort is a liberating adventure in flight which can be as relaxing or thrilling as you like. Super Monkey Ball 3D, meanwhile, offers three distinct experiences (Monkey Ball, Monkey Race and Monkey Fight) of which one is supremely enjoyable (Monkey Ball) and the other two are fun in small doses, if a little unpolished in places.

I have yet to try out all the features of the system - I’ve not fired up AR Games: Augmented Reality yet, so my AR Cards remain to be tested and 3DS Sound remains to be explored - so there’s still more fun to be found with this little box of tricks. I’ll be back with fuller impressions later.    

Ah Nintendo...How the times have changed. When I was a kid, I was raised on a strict diet of PlayStation (later PlayStation2) and admired your systems from afar, until I got into the portable gaming scene with your delightful Game Boy Advance. And I'm crazy, so I only ever had that first one. The ridiculously hard to see one. But I ADORED it. Mario Kart: Super Circuit? I played the shit out of that. Eventually the damn battery died and so the Save stopped working.

Ah 2010, what a long and crazy year you have been. As you draw to a close, it's time to reflect on the year that was, with all the craziness that went on. But when it comes to games, I find, in retrospect, I am somewhat drifting out of the inner circle. Maybe it's the easier access to alcohol, or the fact that since I now live in a city the majority of the time instead of a village and therefore can go out and do things with literally zero hassle, but I find that the thing I turn to consoles for most these days is TV. Mainly because I use PlayTV on my PlayStation 3 so I can PVR stuff at University. 
  
Still, I played quite a few games this year. Admittedly, the fact that the list below is so short is down to the fact that I only played around 10-12 of 2010's games and some of them in no way deserve recognition, hence aren't on the list. However I played a lot more games from 2009 and earlier, including some on Steam for Mac, and a number of iOS games which came out very late in 2009. 
 
Still, gaming this year sure was exciting. What with Move and Kinect coming out (I own the former, will not touch the latter), E3 being a pretty crazy awesome spectacle just like the good old days, Nintendo announcing the 3DS...Yeah, a lot went on this year when it comes to gaming and, whether you noticed me or (more likely) not, I was there watching it unfold. I'm part of that pseudo-hardcore fringe now. Yes, I pay attention to all the big announcements and I have all the platforms, but I don't play all the big games and I don't get that emotionally involved any more. I have other things going on which I find more engaging for whatever reason. 
 
I'm more likely to be found killing it in Zuma's Revenge on OS X or Bejeweled 2 for iOS than I am to be grinding through Fallout: New Vegas. But you could also come across me fighting zombies and crummy inventory systems in Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition using Move. 
 
As for 2011, I don't know much about what it holds in store games-wise for me. I might be sucked right back into the very core of the hardcore movement, or I might continue to drift around the edges, watching Quick Looks and playing the hits, but only to relax between other stuff. I do know these two things though: 
 

1. I am buying a 3DS and, god-willing, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 3D will be out in my region in 2011 so I can buy that too.
2. Killzone 3 with Move Support? I'm sorry, but there is no ay in hell I'm not playing the SHIT out of that. I loved Killzone 2 - it netted my 2009 GOTY Nod.

Best of 2010

Jensonb: Best of 2010

	1. Disney Epic Mickey Game of the Year | Wii Game of the Year
	2. Halo: Reach Xbox 360 Game of the Year | Best First Person Shooter for 2010
	3. F1 2010 Racing Game of the Year
	4. ModNation Racers PlayStation 3 Game of the Year
	5. Green Day: Rock Band Music Game of the Year
	6. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth DS Game of the Year
	7. Call of Duty: Black Ops Multi-Platform Game of the Year

 Dear family; friends; casual acquaintances; people who I don't know reading this online and Google Spiderbots,  

It's that time of the year again. You know? The most wonderful one. That one. Christmastime. Yeah? You probably noticed what with all the pretty lights and tinsel and goodwill to all men and sudden inexplicable rise in quality of television. Which also means it's time for me to write my Christmas Letter, a tradition which - despite the protestations of many -  shows no signs of ending. You know? Like mince pies.

Now for some of you this is your first time receiving one of these letters, and some of you who have received one before have preposterously short atten...Oh hey look, a bunny rabbit!

Where was I? Oh right, explaining the letter.

Every year, I sit down and ask myself a simple question: "What kind of year has it been?".

Then, in the letter, I ramble on and on, at times quite tediously, in answer. And because I'm a wacky goofball, I usually litter it with jokes. Mostly the stuff I didn't have time to say in the year that was. Why? Because why the hell not, that's why.

So anyway, let's set about answering that question. What kind of year has it been? Well...A damned long one! I don't know about you, but January 2010 feels like so long ago I can barely remember it. Maybe it's the quite preposterous number of things which happened this year, or the way everything seems to have changed, or maybe it's the fact I'm a Student and therefore have consumed what is surely a dangerous amount of alcohol.

No, just kidding folks. The only DANGEROUS amount of alcohol is none.

Just think, this time last year, me and many of my peers were waiting around for the sadistic system known as "UCAS" to let us know our fate. I was in College and almost all my friends were 17, which means there was no nightlife to speak of.

How times have changed.

And look at all the other stuff. This year, amongst the achievements to my name are, sleep (Drunk) in a Disneyland Paris Hotel bathroom; move to University; spend an hour on a stage telling my fellow College leavers how awesome we are; go to Prom with a date AND pass Year 13 whilst basically sleeping through most of the Exam period - thank YOU inexplicably high marks in January Exams*!

*Seriously, I have no idea why they were so high. I thought I'd failed them.

Yes, it's been one hell of a year. A year in which I, repeatedly, discarded almost all of my hair and started reviewing drinks on the internet for...Some reason. You know now that I write that down, it seems even weirder...Still...Go watch those reviews... 

Still, by far the most exciting part of the year was moving to Portsmouth where, to paraphrase a song, I've got some friends that I may hardly know, but we've had some times I wouldn't trade for the world.

Man, I hate it when people pretend to be deep by using the lyrics of a song, don't you? Doesn't that just make you want to punch them in the face? Well please don't do that, I'm still typing. It's hard to type with broken glasses and a black eye you know. I speak from experience.

Also, some stuff happened in the wider world, but it's mostly very depressing. But...Uh...Hey, Toy Story 3 came out. So it's not all bad. Oh and they brought Golden Grahams back. Some of you have no idea why that's amazing, but I assure you, it's like the best thing that ever happened in the world of cereal.

You know, speaking of Toy Story 3, I saw a lot of good movies this year...So there you go, there's some good news from the wider world. It was a good year for cinema.

Still reading? Good...A lot of people duck out after the second or third paragraph after they realise I'm just as annoying in writing as I am out loud. In return for your persistence, I have some happy news: IT"S SNOWING! I literally glanced at the window as I was writing this paragraph and it's started snowing again! on Christmas Eve ! That's in-freaking-credible!

Yeah, as you may be aware, I never grew up.

I'm still a kid at heart. 

Anyway, I think I've taken up enough of your time now. Plus I want to get this sent at about Midday. So then...Have a Merry Christmas; Happy Holidays; Happy Hannukah; Kwazy Kwanza; Solemn, Dignified Ramadan and a Happy New Year.

Yours,
Paul Douglas

PS: Okay, NOW you can hit me.

PPS: OW! Hey, it wasn't mandatory! Jeez.    

Counter Culture Weekly is back, once again, with another healthy dose of Pop-Culture related madness! Up for debate this week are free comics - and which are worth YOUR nothing; Law & Order; Heroes; FlashForward; Scrubs; Steam for Mac; rich guys flying around in metal suits which for some reason have been painted red; Scarlett Johansson and how hot she is (SO hot) and so much more! It’s Counter Culture Weekly baby, get in or GET OUT!
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