Okay, I like GameTrailers.com. I think it is one of the most comprehensive sites for video game footage. I don't have much of a strong attachment with the editorial staff compared to Giant Bomb, Ziff-Davis era 1UP or pre-Gerstmann fiasco GameSpot, but they hold their own. I disagree with them from time to time, including Shane Satterfield's somewhat disdain for PC gaming, but it's only minor slip-ups to a perfectly fine cake.

What bothers me about gamers these days is that with the wonders of the internet, people who were originally closet fanboys who'd praise the PlayStation and bash Sega and Nintendo now found the internet and spout their terribly-written 13-year-old slang-ridden drivel all over message boards how "PS3 is the best and M$ suxxxxxxxxxxxxxx." It's hard to visit a game site's message board because of that, especially GameTrailers's forum. But like a guy who wouldn't deny a sandwich even if I got punched in the face for it, I have a masochistic tendency to visit the forums and see the bile spewed by these teenagers who must defend the $500 purchase their mommy made them. Now, I know there are legitimate PS3 owners who think the system is awesome and probably don't care for a 360 outside of exclusives such as Halo or Gears of War. That's fine, you're welcome to think that about games. It's another thing when you bash the competitor for no reason except to increase your e-penis points.

GameTrailers has been a terrible bastion of criticism from Sony fanboys. The first telltale sign was way back in late 2007 when they put up a comparison video for Assassin's Creed. The PS3 version was shown to be very bright and washed-out looking compared to the more darker and vibrant colors of the 360 version. Then somebody pointed out that they didn't have two settings enabled on the PS3: "RGB Full Range" and "Super-White signals." Both of these really only come into use if you're using HDMI outputs, but sure enough, that person's video showed Assassin's Creed having colors that were now balanced with the other versions. Surprisingly this brought GT to show comparison shots between Component (what they used in the original comparison video) and HDMI by comparing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. No discernible difference was found. But it is an interesting fact for those who are tech savvy and want to know something about video outputs.

Then nothing controversial happened until June 2008, when Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released. The review came out and one small score of 8.7 in the story department. Having played MGS4, I'd agree with the sentiment. The story's too contrived at times and towards the epilogue, it was basically Hideo Kojima trying to mop up a dried-up vomit stain by using Pine Sol. Again, this infuriated some gamers, them saying "GT IS BIASED TOWARDS MICROSOFT" and having forum signatures that compared the story scores of MGS4 to Halo 3 and Assassin's Creed, which is an improper comparison as all three games don't even share the same genre. Basically after a few months it died out and nobody has that in their sigs anymore.
A few months later, a small snafu happened in one of their comparison videos. One clip that was labeled an Xbox 360 clip for the racing game GRID was actually a PlayStation 3 clip. Eventually the video was taken down, but not before people went in arms over it. It got so ridiculous that even Kotaku, a gaming blog I pretty much despise, got in on the act. Shane Satterfield, the Editor-in-Chief at the site pretty much had to play damage control to something that is the equivalent to accidentally saying the F-bomb on live television.

There's more issues but I feel that it's bogging down to my general point. Another comparison snafu happened, this time with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It seems that the two side-by-side clips were accidentally mislabeled. What was the 360 clip was the PS3 clip, and vice-versa. This was prooved by the 360 button prompts appearing in the PS3 version of the clip. That video got pulled, corrected, and reposted. You think that people would just forgive them for making the mistake, after all it's just human error, right? Nope. Not anywhere close. Again, people went up in arms over a little mistake. These retarded teenagers drool stupid terms such as "EPIC FAIL" that it makes me want to go on a killing spree just to expunge these people from the face of the earth.

Let's put it this way: These fanboys dissect every issue over game sites more than scientists study cancer cells. Any time a mistake is made, people start becoming conspiracy theorists and point fingers at GameTrailers for being owned by Microsoft (lie) and getting money from them (also a lie). Really, it pisses me off that we still have people going over these game sites with a fine-toothed comb. It bothers me that any time there's a disagreement, it just leads to pointless site bashing and e-penis stroking.

I'm going to give advice to these people who continually blame sites for being biased towards Microsoft: Shut up, and grow up. Stop defending your precious system, Sony doesn't care for people like you. This goes double for Microsoft and Nintendo defenders. If you don't like the site, I suggest you do the following steps:

1. Click the "log out" button
2. Delete the bookmark from your web browser
3. Find a new gaming site to roam (I already have one suggestion)
   
4. ???
   
5. SUCCESS! (hopefully)
   

Remember World at War? Yeah, before its announcement everybody called it COD5. Even when the game was announced sans a number, people still called it COD5. WHEN IT CAME OUT, SOME PEOPLE STILL CALLED IT COD5. Playfire has it labeled as "Call of Duty 5: World at War."

And most people I know who play COD4 called it that, not "Modern Warfare." It's such a generic name that it even got Andrew Pfister confusing it with Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for previews and reviews of WAW.

I'm not saying that the game's gonna suck because of that, but you're gonna confuse a big chunk of your audience because people knew it as "Call of Duty." Modern Warfare is such a generic term that it could mean anything. It'd be like EA calling the next Battlefield game simply "Bad Company 2."

So I tried out Unreal Tournament III on the Steam free weekend. I thought it was decent enough, but my friend Blaze made some good points on IRC:

[17:18:40] <@BlazeHedgehog> It's competent. But I already own UT2004.
[17:18:45] <+TonicBH> I only own the original UT
[17:18:59] <+TonicBH> so some of this shit that might've been in 2003/04 is "new to me"
[17:18:59] <@BlazeHedgehog> UT3's so bland that it could've literally been a content pack for UT2004
...
[17:19:23] <@BlazeHedgehog> But that's the thing
...
[17:19:36] <@BlazeHedgehog> Nothing in UT3 gameplay-wise is impossible in UT2004

After all, UT3 just seems like UT2004 under the Unreal Engine 3 skin. Not like there's anything wrong with that, but a followup in the series should try to push the series forward somehow. I find the PS3 version to be the most innovative as it introduces mod features to a console game without having to hack systems or the game itself. 

I'm also pissed they took out Assault mode again. I've said it before, but Assault was the best damn mode in UT. It's co-op with a twist, and it was always fun to try, even with that Convoy map in the UT2004 demo. Other than that, I liked the map variety (from Asian castles to jungles to cities, much like the variety of classic UT). But yeah, I'll save my $12.

Maybe I'll get UT2004 instead. It's probably like $5 now.

I've been dabbling with Quake Live recently, it's fun even though I suck at it sometimes. One duel match ended 30 to -1 where I literally got owned by some guy named "Mustaine." Skilled bastard. QL is fun, but it feels like it's... lacking. I don't see why, it's Q3A and Q3: Team Arena with stat tracking, achievements and new maps... Yeah, go check it out, is free.

Alright, I like the concept of Versus. It's UT's Assault meets the co-op campaign of L4D. The problem is right now... it's broken. I have seen one too many games where matches end 6,472 to 310. Those aren't fun. In fact I end up seeing loads of ragequits when matches go that way thanks to good players on one team and average-to-bad players on the other. So I have a few suggestions to improve Versus.

CONCEPT 1: Points for killing special infected

Every time they kill a special infected, that's points added to their team's score. Even if they fuck up and die towards the end, they get more than just 100 points for getting that far. Here's a rough outline:

HUNTER
15 points if the Hunter is killed without successfully pouncing a survivor
10 points if the Hunter pounces a survivor but doesn't make any more hits (aka pounces but does no additional dmg)
5 points otherwise

SMOKER
20 points if the Smoker is killed without grappling/strangling a survivor
15 points if the Smoker grapples and drags a survivor but doesn't strangle them
10 points otherwise

BOOMER
10 points if the Boomer is killed without getting bile on any survivors (spewed or exploded)
7 points if the Boomer causes explosive bile to hit a survivor when killed
5 points otherwise

TANK
100 points if the Tank doesn't kill/incapacitate a survivor
remove 20 points for each survivor downed (2 survivors down while tank is killed = 60 points total)

WITCH
50 points if the Witch doesn't attack anyone (those who one-shot-kill her)
30 points if the Witch is startled but does not incapacitate the person who startled her
20 points if the Witch incapacitates the person who startled her, but is killed after

Of course, these are not solid numbers, but these could easily help a team behind in need of some additional points for nailing loads of special infected.

CONCEPT 2: Adjustment of distance in last map

Right now the distance is "100%" if the survivors get to the radio spot. This should be changed to:

50% if they get to the radio spot but don't contact the rescue vehicle
60-65% if they die before/during the first wave (contacted rescue vehicle by this point)
70% if they die during first tank
75% if they die during the second wave
80-85% if they die during the second tank
90% if the rescue vehicle arrives but nobody makes it
100% if they escape successfully

Again, not finalized values. I'm welcome to a few suggestions

CONCEPT 3: Algorithm to prematurely end the match

To avoid these situations where the losing team quits en masse due to a clear loss, I suggest an algorithm be put in that determines the point distance between teams. If it is to a point where one team cannot mathematically catch up, then the game ends early with an automatic victory to the winning team.

Example: Team A is kicking ass and taking names. They've had all four survivors on their team usually hit 75-100% of health, no incaps, and Team B has barely put a scratch on them. They're leading on Map 3 with 3,500 points. Meanwhile, Team B has been hobbling along after the first two maps at 230 points. Let's say that Team B doesn't make up enough points to catch up to Team A. Therefore, the game will make a note that "The other team cannot make enough points to catch up," and that Team A automatically wins after Map 3.

Yes, this might cause matches to end before the full campaign is played out, but it prevents situations where the losing team KNOWS they're gonna lose and there was nothing they could do to get back into it. Now, this differential would only take place after the third map in a campaign, and would increase accordingly once Maps 4 and 5 are played. But if this and Concept 1 are put into play, there's possibilities that even if they muck up in the first two maps, they could still rebound and get points by killing special infected along the way of those maps to shrink that deficit.

So, in the immortal words of Joel Hodgson, "Whaddya think, sirs?"

So I had the weird idea of thinking, "I should do an audio podcast instead of writing something." And so, I did. 43 minutes of me rambling like a crazy man. Mostly about the hot-button Killzone 2 topics, such as "why I'm not getting it right away" and why fanboys are a bunch of whiny dickholes.

You can download it here.

I'd like to know what you guys think. Leave feedback, if you can. I know one thing's for certain: I need practice at this. I should not stutter or lose my train of thought as often as I do.

(This is a copypasta from my own personal blog at Livejournal, refined with new links and clarification.)

Before I begin, I want to clarify what I mean by "gaming blogs." In this case, I am referring to Kotaku, Joystiq, Destructoid and others. I'd link you to them but I personally don't wanna give them hits. Go google search it if you're that curious. These type of blogs are ones I hate. The ones that are literally the scum of the gaming industry. Worse than fanboys, Michael Pachter, and bad commercials. I should probably explain why.

1. These guys will never fact-check. And if they do, it's very rare.
   I can't believe the several times I've seen blogs hawk up some rumor they found on "XBOX360RULEZ.NET" about some game confirmation or whatnot. They will post rumors without even going as far as asking the publisher, even if it results in simple "We don't comment on rumors" or "no comment" replies. The best example I can give is when Kotaku posted a link from some Cheapassgamer user about a new Xbox called "Xbox Pure." However, it was part of a contest CAG was doing to see who can make the most convincing hoax. As a result of not doing their research, Kotaku later realized they got punked. Instead of doing a simple "Oops, we fell for it, we're sorry" edit, they decided to condemn CAG for doing what was a harmless prank, which leads me to my next point:


2. They will act all high and mighty, as if them writing for some insignificant blog makes them special.
   Seriously, it's a job. Be professional. Acting like some holier-than-thou personality will get you hated on by many, and make it harder to find you future jobs if in the chance you get shitcanned. Now I'm not saying that "gaming is serious business," but in any form of writing job, you have to be professional and courteous to your employees.


3. They will act like assholes.
   This is related to the above, but the best example I can think of was a few years ago: there was a former Kotaku editor named John Brownlee (writing as "Florian Eckhardt") who wrote very offensive and sexist things as Kotaku articles. Such as an article about girl gamers, in which our illustrious Eckhardt thinks it's funny to treat women in a sexist way by asking them to have a TV on their back and be used as a mantlepiece. It floored me that he was writing this and not getting reprimanded by Brian Crecente. He was my primary complaint against the site in a long-outdated written piece titled "Kotaku is full of shit," of which I still have on old-ass hard drive from years ago. Unsurprisingly he and Eliza Gauger left for some other blog. Yet the "asshole" tone is still there through some of the new editors, and even editors from other gaming blogs.


4. They will end up being masters of the obvious, posting relatively old news, as well as pointing out things that internet nerds would already know.
   Says Kotaku: "HEY, DID YOU KNOW THERE IS JAPANESE PORN OF TIFA FROM FINAL FANTASY VII?!" Welcome to 1998, guys. Seriously. Rule 34 is always in effect: If it exists, there's porn of it. This applies to ANYTHING. There's like porn of DOOM CHARACTERS for fuck's sake! (I'm not linking that, go find it yourself.)


5. It's all about the hits, not about the writing.
   This was confirmed long ago, but: Gawker Media, who owns Kotaku, pay editors by the number of hits they receive on the site. I'm not kidding. That's why you see the constant wave of stupid rumors and Japanese porn articles. Idiots will link it, and the editor gets a nice fat paycheck for doing what former 1UP editor/now 2K Boston producer Shawn Elliott does in his spare time on Twitter. It's ridiculous.

I recently got Call of Duty: World at War as an early birthday gift (my birthday's tomorrow). I've been dabbling in both co-op modes and multiplayer. Today, on a snow day, where my class had been canceled, I decided to take a break from getting my ass kicked in Crackdown...

...to play Call of Duty 3. See, COD3 was the sole COD game I had for the 360 until I got WAW. Both made by the same developers (Treyarch), and both made with different development times and circumstances. COD3 had to be released on five platforms, two of them launch systems, be made and finished in nine months, and had to be out for the holiday season (and to satisfy Activision and their fat cat shareholders). World at War was made in two years, had familiarity with the technology since it was modified COD4 tech, and again, out for the holiday season.

World at War has more features, game modes, gameplay, players, everything. But I decided to play COD3. Considered to be the "worst in the whole series" and the sole reason loads of people were skeptical about WAW (besides the whole "going back to WWII" thing). It's not that bad, really. It was only $13, perhaps if I had paid $60 back in 2006 I'd be telling a different tale, but I kinda like it. Perhaps it's a guilty pleasure. Or maybe it's those "Kusoges" I hear about on them internets.

Or it's because there was one remaining achievement that I knew I could get ("Supply Officer") that didn't result in grinding (the remaining rank achievements) or frustration ("Grizzled Veteran"). Either way. I'd say it's worth a look. And hey, easy achievements! For the most part.

After hearing the semi-painful news that Ziff Davis sold off 1UP.com to UGO and fired 30 people as a result, I felt kinda bummed. Not really saddened, I had grown accustomed to staff departures from game sites I loved. It was a way for me to think, "Hey, I could now get into this business." Sadly, after hearing this news and all the issues gaming editorial sites have (GameSpot recently fired a few of its staff members due to the economy, one of which had been with the site for a good 8 or so years), I decided not to pursue that career fully. Seems too flash-in-the-pan and already is a crowded market.

But anyway. People are grieving more towards Electronic Gaming Monthly's unexpected demise, but I cannot share those same feelings. The only issues of EGM I owned were from 2006-07, back when they thought it was cool to insult their audience. My friend Ryan (BlazeHedgehog) summed this up a few years back, and it applied to the T back when Dan "Shoe" Hsu was Editor-in-Chief. I heard that was toned down considerably when James "Milkman" Mielke became EIC, but I got sick of EGM after the February 2007 issue that I didn't even bother coming back. I know that I'm gonna stop by a nearby store and snag the unofficial "final issue" and see what I missed out on.

I associated more with the podcasts that 1UP.com had. I remember two years ago when I was a frequent listener to 1UP Yours. Back when it had the simple crew of Garnett Lee, Shane Bettenhausen, John Davison, and Luke Smith. Then Luke left to work at Bungie, and Mark MacDonald replaced him. Then HE left, and then the fourth chair was pretty much a revolving door of various 1UP editors like Shawn Elliott and Nick Suttner.

I also used to listen to GFW Radio, the podcast for the since-defunct magazine. As opposed to the somewhat bitter, near immature nature of 1UP Yours (which I liked, mind you), GFW Radio was more matured and yet, at the same time could be just as immature as its sister show. I didn't listen as often since I wasn't a PC games guy much anymore, but I still enjoyed it. It was interesting hearing Jeff Green and Darren Gladstone have interesting conversations with Sean Molloy and Shawn Elliott interjecting now and then, with an occasional peep (or 10 minute monologue) from Ryan Scott. Shawn ended up becoming my favorite games writer outside of the former GameSpot crew. On one podcast, he could be waxing philosophical about review scores, game design decisions, and other things. While later in that same podcast he could pretend to be "Whiskey Nerd" and talk about silly forum posts about marrying Sonic characters at some Sonic fan message board. It's a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation, except you loved the Hyde side as much as the Jekyll side. Now that he works at 2K Boston, I say if Shawn doesn't become prominent in the industry within five years, I'll be floored.

Sadly I never got into 1UP FM (or its predecessor EGM Live) or Retronauts. Retronauts put me off after their almost Japan-centric nature on some of their video episodes. As well as their unjust hatred for Donkey Kong Country. I don't care what you say, the second DKC was the best frigging game on the SNES, and one of the best 2D platformers I've played.

After hearing that one of the few staffers that successfully made the transition, Garnett Lee, wishes to continue "1UP Yours" despite Bettenhausen's departure and Andrew "Skip" Pfister's layoff, I feel a little hollow inside. If you wish to resume the podcast thing, sure, but don't call it "1UP Yours." You'll get too many unfavorable comparisons to the Yours of old. It's like listening to GameSpot's podcast "The HotSpot." Listen to a recent podcast, then go back and listen to one from 2006 or so when you still had Rich Gallup, Jeff Gerstmann, Alex Navarro and others on. It's so drastically different it's not funny. And you fired virtually everybody from GameVideos, pretty much canceling The 1UP Show. Again, making a new "1UP Show" will not at all have the same impact. Everybody that made that show great was given pink slips. You can't just hire a bunch of guys and try to remake the same magic, it's like replacing virtually all the cast of a TV show after you changed networks or something.

And I put the blame originally on UGO, thinking this was their doing, but after reading the NeoGAF thread about the transition (NOTE: 60+ page thread, either skip to the last ten pages or whip up a bowl of popcorn and endure the whole thing) that Ziff-Davis pretty much orchestrated the firings, the cancellation of EGM, among other things. That shows that ZD are real assholes for doing that.

I hope all the people who got laid off find new jobs soon. Even if it has to be them pulling a Giant Bomb and making a small site staffed by former 1UP and EGM staffers, I'd visit it. To put a spin on something Garnett used to say: Weekend destroyed. And they are ghost.