After four years of service, my beloved 40 gigabyte Zen Touch portable music player is not giving me anything close to the 26 hours of battery life per charge that it used to.
When you are used to going three weeks or so between charges, it is irritating to suddenly have to re-charge every day or three. Especially when you are someone who obsesses over battery life.
In 2005, the Zen Touch offered, by far, the longest battery life for a high capacity portable music player. It was my only option. Today, multiple portable media players last 30 hours or longer (for music) before needing to be re-charged. The battery life-obsessed can now look at features besides battery life when choosing a portable media player.
So what do I replace my Zen Touch with.
A PSP go, the new, download-only version of the PlayStation Portable, which lasts about 10 hours per charge for playing music. With the screen off.
(I chose the black model.)
This was an impulse buy. For some time I was considering replacing my Zen Touch with a Zune HD (which Microsoft claims lasts 33 hours per battery charge) when a 64 gigabyte version of the Zune HD was released or my Zen's battery died completely, whichever came first.
But when I learned that I could buy a PSP go at a discount, that was more temptation than I could handle.
The concept of having all my portable games and all my music available to me at all times in a device that easily fits in a pants pocket is one that greatly appeals to me. I can live with changing discs or cartridges or cards or whatever on a device that stays in one place because the system and its media tend to be near one another. If I want that kind of choice with a portable device, I need to carry everything with me, and I can only hold so much in my pockets at one time.
Say I'm on a bus playing Burnout Legends. Say I'm getting bored of Burnout Legends but I still want to play a game. A few button presses and I'm playing LocoRoco 2. When I'm finished with LocoRoco 2, I can press a few buttons and play Tetris. And when I tire of playing games, I can press a few buttons to listen to The Chair in the Doorway album by Living Colour and then place my PSP go in my pants pocket. All without changing physical media; it's all in the PSP go's internal storage.
This sort of scenario is what makes the PSP go an amazing device, and it is not currently possible with any other hardware.
Not legally or with good games anyway.
Still, it would have been nice if the PSP go had a touchscreen. A few months ago, I went as far as saying that I would not buy a PSP go because it had no touchscreen. A touchscreen and stylus are what make the Nintendo DS versatile, allowing it to run games and non-games that do all sorts of things that are impossible or difficult by pressing buttons. (Ever try playing Meteos by pressing buttons? Don't.) But even without a touchscreen, there are plenty excellent games to be played on a PSP go, and they are all available at all times.
Not that there is no buyer's remorse with my PSP go impulse buy. The PSP go is weak as a music player. It can play music well, but it is missing basic features that devices that are primarily music players have. There is no play queue, so unless you want to listen in artist/album/track order (or by mood with the optional, free SenseMe channels software), you must first create a playlist on a computer and then transfer it to your PSP go or select a new track as soon as the track that was playing ends. Windows Media Audio files cannot be played until after WMA playback is enabled, which requires an Internet connection. Copy-protected audio files will not play. And as already mentioned, battery life is weak compared to devices designed primarily for music.
So if anyone wants to buy me a Walkman X, please do.
...goodbye.
Boy, that would have been awfully obtuse, wouldn't it?
I'm going to do my best to avoid turning this into a massive weep session. I've already started and scrapped writing this message more times than I can count, so instead of putting endless thought into this, I'm just going to say what I feel and leave it at that.
The five years I've spent at GameSpot are arguably the most important years I've spent in my life. Prior to this gig, I'd never had much of a real job. When Jeff and Greg and the rest of the crew back in 03 gave me--some skinny, 21 year old punkass who'd never done anything but freelance for a few scattered sites--a legitimate chance, I'd never envisioned that this would turn to be the job that defined me, that gave me a place and a career. I had no idea that I'd actually make some semblance of a name for myself here. That anyone would actually give a crap about what I did or what I wrote. I still find the notion kind of unbelievable, actually. Reading all the messages people have been sending me since the word got out has been utterly mind-blowing. It's one thing to enjoy what you do, but it's quite another to know that others enjoy what you do. It's gratifying, and I'm thankful for it.
I could probably spend the next several hours giving individual thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way, but most of them know who they are and have been thanked in more personal fashion, so I'll skip the acceptance speech from hell. Instead, a general thank you to the staff (both former and present) for letting me be a part of the dream that is/was GameSpot. Also, thanks to you, the reader. I'd be nothing if you folks didn't come back time and time again to read the junk I put out, and I can't tell you how thankful I am that you did.
Leaving completely sucks, and believe me when I say I'm in no way joyful about my departure. Well, OK, that's not entirely true. There is a certain sense of...freedom that I'm feeling now as I envision an endless string of pantsless weekdays. Still, if I'd had my druthers, I'd have probably rather stayed precisely where I was, doing what I was doing. But circumstances don't always work out the way you'd prefer, and things change, often not for the better. My time here was finished. I was conflicted about that notion going into the holiday break, and that notion turned into fact with startling clarity as soon as I came back from break. It was a frightening and painful experience to let it go, but I had to. If you love something, set it free, and all that junk. I don't think this one's ever coming back, though.
Of course, I'm not going to disappear into obscurity--at least, not without a fight. You'll probably start seeing my name start appearing on bylines relatively soon. I'm not doing anything full time just yet, but we'll see where the wind takes me. In the meantime, if you need to get in contact with me for any reason, my new e-mail address is alexiconofscars@hotmail.com, and if you want to read my assorted ramblings about whatever, I am keeping a personal blog at The Head Of Alfredo Garcia. Stop by sometime if you want to read about what I think of practically everything except games. I'll give you a hint: I hate all of it.
And lastly, let me just make one thing as crystal clear as possible. I hold no ill will, issue no blame, take no umbrage with any of my former co-workers on the edit team. These guys are some of the hardest working, upstanding, straight up cool mother****ers I've ever met in my life, and as long as they're around doing their thing, GS will continue to live and breathe--there will still be a soul there, underneath whatever ridiculousness might be on the surface these days. There is no GS without those guys. The GS content crew is a family, and no one can change that.
Before I duck out, a few stats to chew on from my time here:
Number of reviews written: 733
Number of video reviews produced: Somewhere around 100
Number of video features appeared in: Dozens
Controllers broken: 7
Debug consoles broken: At least two that I can remember (sorry Ricardo!)
Number of console launches experienced: 5 (not including N-Gage and Gizmondo, which absolutely, positively don't count)
Number of weekend birthdays spent at the office: 2 (thanks PlayStation 3, Wii and Rock Band launches!)
Number of E3s covered: 5
Number of hours of sleep lost while covering said E3s: 280
Number of delicious sandwiches consumed during work hours: Too many to count
Pounds gained over the last five years: 45
Favorite review ever written: It's sort of like choosing your children, but I'd have to say that Super Mario Galaxy was probably the piece of writing I was most proud of just for clarity and overall quality. For pure comedy, while Big Rigs is obviously the fan favorite, I think my Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green review was my favorite, mostly for the opening paragraph, but there are some good chuckles elsewhere, too. My only regret with that one was that it was published before I'd learned the skill of brevity.
Favorite video piece: Regarding Robocop. Tim Tracy took my hours of ridiculous footage and turned that thing into something magical.
Worst review ever written: Read any of the first five to ten reviews I did for the site. They're as boring as they are barely informative. I was still learning the craft at that point. I think I've gotten a touch better.
Review that caught me the most flack: Probably Advent Rising. I will still never understand what anyone saw in that game. It was like retarded Star Wars with a broken frame rate. Now there's a box quote for ya!
Biggest editorial regret: Never giving Burning Questions proper closure. What can I say? I snapped.
Biggest non-editorial regret: Lack of travelling, specifically to Japan. Would have loved to have gotten one TGS trip in.
Thing I'll miss least about GS: Apart from the current unpleasantness, I'll say the commute. Nothing sucks more than driving an hour through traffic to work every day, especially when you're accustomed to carpooling and then suddenly end up having to do it all by your lonesome. *cough*
Thing I'll miss most about GS: The dozens and dozens of awesome people who have come and fled over the years that helped make GS a terrific place to work during their time. You know who you are.
And with that, I bid you all a fond adieu. It's been real.
--A
They say that life's a carousel
Spinning fast, you gotta ride it well
The world is full of Kings and Queens
Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams
It's Heaven and Hell, oh well
And they'll tell you black is really white
The moon is just the sun at night
And when you walk in golden halls
You get to keep the gold that falls
It's Heaven and Hell
See you over there! \m/
I was a little flippant in the last entry so just in case it isn't clear, I fully understand how completely messed up this is. It's as if Gamespot is trying to destroy their own credibility, trying to make people cancel their subscriptions, with how they're handling this. For the love of God apologize. And if you can't apologize, or don't feel you have to, put the situation out in the open. This policy bull crap about how we don't talk about former or current employee's hiring/firing status is a load of crap. Protecting his privacy? Then why can't Jeff talk about it? Cnet lawyers protecting him from himself?
I don't want to be a big drama queen and leave Gamespot, that's always a load of crap to me, "leaving" the site. It's the internet, you're not really going anywhere. But I'll be damned, Cnet sure is trying it's damndest to change my mind.
edit: And God dammit, do you even realize who you're firing? Greg Kasavin is gone, if he was still here I think Gamespot could weather this a little better (I'd like to think it never would have happened but what the hell do I know?), but now... I don't want to say this in an insulting way to the many editors left over who I've loved to read over the years. Brad Alex all them don't get me wrong I would grieve their leaving in a very real way especially under these circumstances but when you fire Jeff Gerstmann you're cutting off the goddamn head. I mean who the hell do we look to now? Who is the face of Gamespot? And how can we look at whoever takes Jeff's place without a sense of suspicion? If they can swallow their morals and take up his position in the wake of something so blatant as this, what the hell are we supposed to think?
For those who might have missed the news ...
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - read it
Demo scheduled to be released on September 10. On a friggin sunday.. Sigh. Anyway since I missed the beta I'll definitely try it out as soon as possible! I've been waiting too long for this and I'm sooo tired of the delays.
Crysis - read it
The most hyped game of all time where the "true potential" of DX10 comes into play. Load of bull, but none the less I'll try it out too. Can't wait to shoot down flying robots! Scheduled to be released September 25.
That's all folks!
The website has a dirty name here. I don't care. This place has become deserted, stale and boring. The smileys are god awful, the forum is slow and the humor is so bad and corny here it makes me want to puke sometimes.
After the Forum change, this place hasn't been the same. The site is ugly. People hate it. And yet Gamespot has decided what is best for us, it's FANS. They don't listen to us, they give us a condescending pat on the head and say "It'll all be okay, we know what's good for you."
This website has enormous potential and the forums have just as much. Clean up the ugly look, keep up the emblems, add more customization and ENLARGE THE AVATARS AND LOSE THE STUPID SHADOW BEHIND THEM.
Seriously, people have been asking for this stuff for how long? No more excuses Gamespot, people are leaving and your turning your shoulder.
Oh well, back to System Wars. And before you call the place a cesspool of retards, go to the main forums here. Not everyone is a stuck up poster of the Virtual Underground here. Most Gamespot forumites can't spell Gamecube.
Not to mention I would rather be surrounded by retards then deal with unnescassarily long posts with dozens of the most annoying smiley ever created "
". People insert that stupid thing everywhere and it annoys the hell out of me. Your not cute by throwing it in. And instead of writing a senior thesis on why Mario is a plumber, write 2 paragraphs. 
