The just announced Medal of Honor is following Tier 1 operations, the forces directly under SOCOM. When it was announced though, it sounded strikingly familiar. It sounds similar to the now canceled Six Days in Falujia. There was great controversy over the game and I fear that Medal of Honor might be doomed for the same fate.

After all, the reason that Six Days was canceled was because it was following the true story of the Battle of Falujia. Medal of Honor seems to be taking the realistic approach to modern warfare and following Tier 1 Operations. After seeing the headaches that it caused for Konami and the now deceased Atomic Studios, it's interesting that EA is gambling on this. It's not necessarily doomed to fail, but EA must exercise extreme caution when deciding how to tell the narrative. If it follows a fictional company based on Tier 1, then it might be alright, however if they are telling the direct story of Tier one, there might be some trouble. And looking at the unfinalized box art, my guess would be that they are going for a direct story. After all, the man was ripped directly from a Time Magazine photo essay from 2002 on the war in Afghanistan.

Ripped Directly from the Headlines

The grey area isn't how realistic the gameplay is (we've seen that with Modern Warfare 2), but with the narrative. Have eight years been long enough for them to make a game based on it? I surely hope so because EA can capitalize on the rich and relatively unknown story of Tier 1 and turn it into an incredible interactive experience. Tier 1 has an amazing story to tell the world; of how the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta was only 2,000 yards away from Osama and was fighting outnumbered 20 to 1. It's the overcome all odds story that game developers dream of, and it's presently starting at them in the face.

Did you miss part 1 where I discussed old, unwrapped and disappointing games?

Did you miss part 2 where I discussed my top 3 for each platform?

Part 3 covers my top 3 and ultimately my personal game of the year.

Remember, the following are the top 3 for the year - Because I Said So! (Trademarked)

3) Red Faction Guerrilla (Xbox 360)

The story may have been lacking, but the excitement of smashing things didn't stop as more elaborate ways of destroying the world around you opened up as you progressed through the amazing world of Mars.

2) The Secret of Monkey Island SE (iPod Touch)

It's been almost 20 years since I first played it and since then I think I've travelled to Monkey Island more than a dozen times. To see it remade was like a dream come true. I crazily got it on the 360, PC and iPod Touch to see which version would be best, and found the Touch was the best way to go.

1) Flower (PS3)

I fell asleep playing this game...twice. And you know what? I was rewarded with a trophy for taking a break! Flower is one of those games I can just pick up and play without worrying about what to play when I'm in one of those indecisive moods.

So that wraps up my "Because I Said So" awards. Thanks for those who read and commented

(And the users who ignore them.)

A while back I wrote a blog entry on the correlation (or lack thereof) between review scores of games on the three consoles of this generation and the sales of their games. Although this was all well and good, there was one thing that this did not really provide to the reader: namely, relevance to the ultimate purpose of gaming, that being entertainment. Judging by the fact that user scores did not correlate very strongly with sales either, we can reasonably conclude that it is probably not the case that greater sales of a game necessarily imply a greater degree to which those who purchased it enjoyed it. In other words, the mere fact that many people bought a game - often against the advice of reviewers everywhere - doesn't necessarily mean that they had fun playing it.

Indeed, probably one of my greatest mistakes when writing that entry was the unjustifiably rosy conclusion that I inserted, in which I said that people were buying games that they want to play when they ignore reviews. I was called on that statement in the comments section, and those who did so were absolutely right: the evidence I presented did not at all support that statement at all, and I was wrong in making it. It might have been more accurate to say that people are buying games that they think they want to play. There was, after all, no strong correlation between user reviews and sales, either.

But nonetheless, the results of that study do raise a rather pertinent question: If people ignore the reviews of a game that they buy, is that likely to be a good idea? Are they likely to be vindicated, or will they instead probably curse the fact that they didn't listen to the reviewers? To what extent ought people trust a review, if they are unsure whether or not they will enjoy a game? How often do players in general and critics agree, and where do they agree? These are all questions that I intend to investigate within the bounds of this article.

To begin with, I went mining for data once again at Metacritic and at GameSpot. This time around, I concerned myself with two points of data per game: the Metacritic average and the GameSpot user average. The former I used to gauge the general feel of the critics for a game, and the latter I used to gauge the general feel of the masses for a game. To ensure that the overall score could not be influenced too much by one single person, I filtered out all of the games that did not have at least ten reviews both by critics and by users.

People will surely tell me that this is an inexact way of doing things, especially the GameSpot user average (it being a self-selected sample), and on this point they would be correct. Nonetheless, given that the question posed above concerns itself with those who bought a game, not all those who were uninterested in it from the start, I feel that this is a good enough metric to use with which to examine the question.

Once I had my data, I next separated games into a number of categories. A well-received game was one where both critics and users gave it an average score of at least 8.0 (e.g., Metal Gear Solid 4 got a 9.3 from critics and a 9.4 from users). An average game was one where both critics and users gave it an average score of at least 7.0, but less than 8.0 (e.g., Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe got a 7.5 from critics and a 7.8 from users). And a poorly received game was one where both critics and users gave it an average score of less than 7.0 (e.g., Wii Play got a 5.8 from critics and a 6.4 from users).*

Astute readers will notice, however, that all three of these designations are ones where the critics and users agreed, on average, on the overall quality of the game. I also made two additional designations: a user-favored game was one where critics' overall assessment of it was one level less than the users' (e.g., critics thought it average while users thought it well-received), and where the users' average score was at least 0.5 points higher than the critics' average score (e.g., Spectrobes got a 6.3 from critics and a 7.5 from users). A user favorite game was one where critics thought it poorly received, but users thought it well-received (e.g., Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology got a 6.6 from critics and an 8.3 from users).

One could also invent the designations of "critic-favored game" and "critic favorite game", but these proved to be utterly nonexistent: out of the hundreds of reviews I sifted through, in no case did critics ever review a game significantly higher than users did. So I will not include these designations for consideration.

Finally, I denote that the users agree with the critics when the average critic score is within 0.5 points of the average user score. The percent agreement for a given console is the percentage of time this is the case for the games on that console.

Note that all of these designations are completely arbitrary - one could alter them to get slightly different results. I assert that they are reasonable, however: the range of 7.0-7.9 is indeed a roughly average score for a video game, and GameSpot presents an increment of 0.5 points as the smallest tangible differentiator between two games. Both of these facts I have effectively used verbatim in this article.

Now that we have both the data and the terminology in place, we can analyze the makeup of the libraries of each of the three current-gen consoles and the two current-gen handhelds:

PS3

Well-received: 42%
Average: 23%
Poorly received: 15%
User-favored: 18%
User favorite: 2%
% agreement: 67%

Xbox 360

Well-received: 32%
Average: 21%
Poorly received: 22%
User-favored: 23%
User favorite: 1%
% agreement: 56%

Wii

Well-received: 23%
Average: 18%
Poorly received: 23%
User-favored: 31%
User favorite: 3%
% agreement: 41%

DS

Well-received: 28%
Average: 18%
Poorly received: 16%
User-favored: 30%
User favorite: 8%
% agreement: 40%

PSP

Well-received: 24%
Average: 9%
Poorly received: 9%
User-favored: 51%
User favorite: 7%
% agreement: 24%

(Note that these may not add to 100% due to rounding.)

At face value, the Wii's detractors would seem to be vindicated at least somewhat: in terms of percentages, the PS3 does, in fact, have almost twice as many well-received games as the Wii, and the Wii does indeed have more poorly received games than the PS3 (with the Xbox 360 in the middle in both cases). However, if you take a second look, the picture becomes less clear: the Wii, in turn, also has almost twice as many user-favored games than the PS3. In fact, both sides in System Wars appear to be right to a certain extent: while it appears to be the case that the Wii does indeed have worse games than the PS3 and Xbox 360 on average, it also appears to be the case that critics reviewing Wii games do, in fact, not seem to quite "get it" to the same degree that critics reviewing games for the other consoles do. In a blog entry a while back where I discussed reviewer bias, it was suggested in the comments section that perhaps all reviewers were biased in the same direction. I said at the time that I did not know how one would gain evidence for this assertion, but perhaps the above might actually qualify, although I say this only as a passing musing that I imagine may well not stand up to serious scrutiny.

Interestingly enough, however, the biggest rebels of the consoles' and handhelds' userbase were not the Wii gamers, but in fact the PSP gamers. Fully 58% of PSP games were rated significantly higher by the users than by critics, and on only 24% of PSP games - that's less than a quarter! - did users agree with the critics' precise assessment of the games. This came as quite the surprise to me, but there it is. I won't claim to understand why this is the case - users are free and invited to venture their own theories if they have them.

But back to the question at the beginning. Based on this data, what can we say with respect to the question of whether or not people are liable to regret it if they don't listen to the critics when buying a game? Well, we can more or less say "it depends".

On consoles, it would certainly seem to be the case that the critics are more in line with the users on the PS3 than the users on the Wii. In 80% of cases PS3 users agreed with the critics' rough evaluation of the game (well-received, average, poorly received), and users agreed with the critics' precise score 67% of the time. On the Wii, on the other hand, in only 64% of cases did Wii users agree with the critics' rough evaluation of the game, and users agreed with the critics' precise score only 41% of the time. On the PS3, in only 20% of cases did users score a game significantly higher than the critics, whereas on the Wii that figure rises to 34%. In other words, on the Wii, over 1 out of every 3 games released is received significantly better by the users than by critics, whereas on the PS3 it's only 1 out of every 5 games.

On the other hand, however, on both consoles it was far from a majority of cases where users broke from the critics in terms of liking a game significantly more.

On the handheld side, the picture is much bleaker for critics - the DS looks much like the Wii, except for having more games well-received by both parties and fewer games poorly received by both parties, and the PSP is just off in its own little world, with users in agreement with critics' rough evaluation of a game only 42% of the time, and rating games significantly higher 58% of the time - well over a majority of cases.

So what should we conclude? Well, the conclusion should come as no surprise to one who is a savvy buyer of video games: reviews are generally not useless, but at the same time they are most certainly not the be-all and end-all authority of quality. People will very likely find it useful to read the review just to learn the bare facts of what is in the game at least as much as to listen to the reviewer's subjective opinion of what is in the game. Those whose main console is the PS3 are the most likely to find that their subjective assessment of a game is in line with the critics', while those whose main console is the Wii are the least likely. Those whose main handheld is the PSP should probably just completely ignore review scores, as in this case they actually do appear to be almost useless in terms of predicting whether or not the reader will agree with the critics' assessment of the game being reviewed.

I know that this almost certainly will not stop those who consider an 8.5 on a single site to be a flop while considering a 9.0 on that site to be pure AAA gold. But there it is, and I hope at least someone can make use of it. And, of course, if you've already got a scheme that works perfectly for you, don't let me tell you otherwise.

*Note that this is not quite precisely true, but I didn't want to take up even more space to enunciate the precise definition since it is not entirely straightforward. To be completely precise, a game is considered well-received, average, or poorly received if both critics and users rate it with that score, or if the critics rate it with that score and the users' rating is less than 0.5 points away. For example, a game that the critics rate as 8.1 and the users rate as 7.9 will still be considered well-received. This is to avoid the oddity of having percentages not add up to 100% since, for a game to be user-favored, there must be at least a 0.5-point difference between the scores.

So I was wrapping gitfts, and I thought I would take a little break and let you guys see a couple of new systems that I purchased recently.

First up:

Yup, FINALLY got a God of War PSP. I should have got it when it was new, but someone traded this one in at my store, and fortunately they took great care of it. The screen just appears to be scratched because of the LED screen cleaner I just used on it, but actually its damn near mint! The PSP logo on the front has some very minor nicks, no biggie tho.

This my friends is a little known gem called the JVC X'EYE. I got this on eBay for a very respectable ammount ($70 bucks I think?). You can read some info on this system HERE, since I am too lazy to type it all up.

I got this a while ago, but while I was taking pics, I thought I would share this with you.....

This is that wierd TV tuner thing that I was telling you about for the GBA Advance. It completely works, but unfortunately all channels went digital, so I cannot pick up anything. I have got some sound before, but the picture is still all fuzz....

Well, thats all for now, I will be going to work soon, so I have to get ready.

Later!

(Yeah I know the title is silly, just go with it =P)

Soo I cant sleep, its like 4:04 am here, so what better way to kill some time than by snogging...err I mean blogging....yeah thats it,..blogging. >.>

On the gaming front I downloaded Shadow Complex recently. Its kind of funny, I started it up and I immediately thought, "oh god, its a soldier infested wargame...I knew I shoulda played the demo!". Five hours later I'm in some underground base, occupied by badly dressed terrorists, or Lady Gaga backup dancers, I'm not quite sure which. I juzt know that the game so far is a blast.

You're all probably getting tired of hearing this, but Ive started Dragon Age again. My sixth charrie is now an Arcane Warrior, which Im liking a whole lot better than Shapeshifter, (If you add up all the playtimes of my various charries, they total 50+ hours hehe). The nifty thing about Arcane Warrior is that they can equip heavy armor and shields, turning the strength requirement needed for such items into a magic requirement, which are always high for mages. Anyway I romanced Alastair in the game recently, and the love scene, in true Bioware fashion, was accompanied by cheesy music. It even gives you achievements for having virtual sex. (now if only real sex gave those =P).

I've also been playing Wii! Its quite a nice accomplishment, considering I dont own one. Actually, its the neighbors' kids Wii, which they dont play, all they play is some little known indie game on 360...Halo something or other. =P Whats sad is they gave me the wii and the controllers, but none of the cables to hook it up so I went and bought a universal component cable and an ac adapter, and because Gamestop was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale, on used games, I picked up Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl. I've only played about an hour of Twilight Princess ao far, but it seems like a lot of fun. (I havent gone through a Zelda game since I finished Wind Waker). It also looks great in 480p. Oddly, I have two sets of component inputs on my tv and I unplugged the cable box and plugged those into the 2nd set to make room for the wii cables, and now the cable picture is a lot darker. I'm not sure why, but on the bright side, the wii picture is really bright and clear.

I'll let you guys know how Im progressing on the games soon!

I seem to be having a run of bad luck when it comes to my electronics collection. First my desktop succumbs to a virus and I'm stuck with a hand-me down laptop that's on it's last legs, my cat once again gums up my Dreamcast's open button, and now my 360 has lost it's video output because of one of three things

1. It was damaged in the recent power outage we had yesterday

2. It has finally succumbed to my cat walking all over it and shedding on it

3. A virus in an update or faulty part

The only positivie note is that I now have an excuse to buy one of the 2009 360s, which I've bee wanting to do for a while now

After the firestorm that was my last blog, I'm back to non-editorial blogs for awhile...Those are just so...Frustrating sometimes.

Yesterday I turned in my final project for my final course of my college career. For those of you that don't know, I'm 27, so I finished kind of later than "normal" but I'm glad it took me a little longer since I found something I truly enjoy doing. During high school, I had no idea at all what I wanted to major in, let alone what I wanted to do for the next 50-60 years. When you're 18 I don't know how anyone could plan for something like that.

My first year of college was right after high school, I went to University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. It was basically a commuter school, I was one of three people I met that were even from Illinois...But it was good to get away, meet some new people and try something new altogether. There I "majored" in architecture, though I quickly found it wasn't something I really cared about. Strike one...

After my first year at Milwaukee I had no clue what I wanted to do school-wise, so I decided to not register for the following year and moved back to Chicagoland. I got a job as a small-time auto mechanic, something that I loved doing, and was working 50-60 hours a week just to stay busy. Turns out, being a mechanic is hard enough work on its own, but when you're there 6 days a week for 8-10 hours a day, it's like sucking the life right out of you. During my time there I took some mechanic ****s at the local community college to appease my parents a bit. After two years of that I had had enough. Strike two...

After that, I kind of didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought for sure working on or with cars was my passion, but it just didn't seem like the right fit. I took a few months and did nothing with myself...Moved back home, was generally just mopey and depressed. Toyed with several possible careers including education and law enforcement...

Around that time I met my now wife, and she helped me get back on track a bit. I enrolled full time at the aforementioned community college and thought I'd give mechanical engineering a whirl. I was always good at math and the career could lead me to the automotive industry that I thought I loved. Things were fine with that for about a year and a half and then I just stopped caring about it. I didn't get accepted to the school I wanted to transfer to, and was basically left with no other options for transferring since I didn't want to move away. Strike three...

Panicky, I checked out every single college, university, and tech school in the area hoping to find something that would light a match in me...I found it.

Growing up, my first computer was a Commodore 64. For those of you that don't know what the hell that is, check this link out. I had always been interested in computers, loved toying with them and such. It wasn't as strong as my love for video games, but it was a solid choice for second place. I was pretty close to going to Westwood College, which is a tech school that advertises on TV...Definitely not my first, or even tenth choice for an institution, but I was desperate. The field I was interested in was information technology. Luckily, I found an even better program at a much better school.

The Illinois Institute of Technology is where my dad went...And it's where I ended up. They had recently begun an information technology major similar, but much better than a technical college could offer. Most of the ****s were near me, and everything just sort of fell into place. I was easily accepted and was truly excited about my new calling. Three years or so later and here we are. I had lots of ups and downs at IIT, their administration is pretty terrible...But I'm done.

Would I do it all again to end up where I'm at? Yeah, probably...But I would try to expedite things a bit so I would be a little bit younger

Now that I'm done nothing much will change work-wise...I've been at my job for a year and a half now, I've been full-time for a few months, so I'll pretty much just stay here for the foreseeable future, I like what I do, and I'm thankful to be able to have the opportunity to do what I do.

So, since this is a fairly long read (sorry about that) I'll summarize: If you don't know what you want to do when you grow up, don't worry about it, it will come to you. It is so much better to find something you care for than getting stuck in a rut right away.

Gah, no internet at home for a while, so you'll be hearing even less from me

But on the bright side I'm getting my ps3 fixed for Xmas.

One of these days I'll be a regular poster again. Miss chatting with all of ya'll.

With all the great new games coming out these days, it's hard to sit down and play the older games from past generations (or hell, even from this one) when most of my gaming time is spent on the latest and greatest thing. Plus it doesn't help I have other interests besides games, and of course work always gets in the way. What follows is a list of all the games I own that I have either: A) never finished, B) never started playing or C) never even opened. As I write this introductory paragraph, I imagine the list is pretty massive as I am always picking up new games and continually just placing them on the shelf. Are you ready?

Microsoft Xbox:

• · Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (never finished it)
• · Black (still sealed)
• · Blood Omen 2 (never finished it)
• · BloodRayne 2 (still sealed; rented it a long time ago once)
• · Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (never started it)
• · Conker: Live & Reloaded (never started it)
• · Crimson Sea (hardly played it)
• · Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (never started it)
• · Fable (never played it)
• · Far Cry Instincts (never played it)
• · Midtown Madness 3 (hardly played it)
• · Ninja Gaiden (can't beat first boss; way too **** hard)
• · Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (barely started it)
• · Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (never played it)
• · Project Gotham Racing (never finished)
• · Project Gotham Racing 2 (never finished)
• · The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (never played it)
• · Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 (never played it)
• · Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (never played it)
• · Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow (never played it)
• · Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown (never played it)
• · Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (barely started it)

Microsoft Xbox 360:

• · Big Bumpin' (hardly touched it)
• · Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath (still sealed)
• · Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (still sealed)
• · Condemned 2: Bloodshot (only finished 1st level)
• · Crackdown (never finished it)
• · Dead Rising (I hate the damned time system, never finished it)
• · Devil May Cry 4 (still sealed)
• · Eternal Sonata (still sealed; I want the PS3 version instead)
• · Far Cry 2 (still sealed)
• · F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (still sealed)
• · Guitar Hero III (still sealed)
• · Hitman: Blood Money (only finished 1st level)
• · Lost Planet (only finished 1st level)
• · Need for Speed Carbon (still sealed)
• · Operation Darkness (still sealed)
• · Pocketbike Racer (barely touched it)
• · Project Gotham Racing 4 (still sealed)
• · Ridge Racer 6 (never finished)
• · Rumble Roses XX (barely touched it)
• · Silent Hill: Homecoming (still sealed)
• · Sneak King (never finished)
• · The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault of Dark Athena (still sealed)
• · WarTech: Senko no Ronde (still sealed)

Nintendo (NES):

• · After Burner (don't think I ever finished it)
• · Batman the Video Game (I could never beat the Joker at the end)
• · Batman: Return of the Joker (don't think I ever finished it)
• · Castlevania (never got to Dracula)
• · Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (never played it)
• · Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (never finished it)
• · Ducktales (never finished it)
• · Gyruss (never beat it; but got damn close!!)
• · Ninja Gaiden (never finished it)
• · Ninja Gaiden II (never finished it)
• · Snake Rattle 'n Roll (never finished it)
• · Street Fighter 2010 (never played it)
• · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (never finished it)
• · Who Framed Roger Rabbit (never finished it)

Super Nintendo (SNES):

• · Breath of Fire (never started it)
• · Lemmings (never finished it)
• · Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (never finished it)
• · Secret of Mana (barely started it)
• · Super R-Type (never finished it)
• · U.N. Squadron (never finished it)
• · Xardion (barely started it)

Nintendo 64:

• · Ridge Racer 64 (barely started it)
• · Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (never finished it)

Nintendo GameCube:

• · Fire emblem: Path of Radiance (quit when I found out I missed something, I think. Was pretty close to the end too)
• · Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (barely touched it)
• · The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (never finished but got really far)
• · Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (still sealed)
• · Pikmin (never finished)
• · Pikmin 2 (never finished)
• · Viewtiful Joe (never finished)

Nintendo Wii:

• · No More Heroes (never finished)
• · The Munchables (barely touched it)

Nintendo GameBoy Advance (GBA):

• · Breath of Fire II (never finished it)
• · Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (never finished it)
• · Drill Dozer (never started it, I like the rumble pack though)
• · Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (never finished FFII)
• · Final Fantasy IV Advance (never finished it)
• · Final Fantasy V Advance (still sealed)
• · Golden Sun (got stuck, but was pretty far)
• · Golden Sun: The Lost Age (never started it)
• · Gunstar Super Heroes (never started it)
• · Justice League Heroes: The Flash (never started it)
• · Mega Man Zero 4 (never finished it)
• · Pokemon: FireRed (never finished it)
• · Sonic Advance (never finished it)
• · Super Robot Taisen D (never played it)
• · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (never finished it)
• · X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse (never finished it)

Nintendo DS:

• · Advance Wars: Dual Strike (hardly played it)
• · Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (never played it)
• · Bangai-O Spirits (never played it)
• · Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (barely started it)
• · Final Fantasy III (never played it)
• · Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (never finished it, too much side stuff!)
• · Front Mission (never played it)
• · Luminous Arc (never finished it but got damn far)
• · Luminous Arc 2 (never played it)
• · Lunar: Dragon Song (still sealed)
• · Magical Starsign (never played it)
• · Metroid Prime Pinball (never finished it)
• · Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (never played it)
• · Scribblenauts (never finished it)
• · Sonic Rush (never finished it)
• · Super Robot Taisen K (just started it)
• · Trauma Center: Under the Knife (never finished it)

Sega Genesis:

• · Castlevania: Bloodlines (I think I finished this, but I'm not entirely sure)
• · RoboCop vs The Terminator (never finished it)
• · Uncharted Waters (never played it)

Sega Dreamcast:

• · Phantasy Star Online (never singe player portion)
• · Sonic Adventure (never finished it)
• · Sonic Adventure 2 (never finished it)

Sony Playstation:

• · Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (never played it)
• · Breath of Fire IV (I think I finished this but I'm not entirely sure. Either way my save file is long gone!)
• · Descent (I know I've gotten pretty far but I don't think I've ever finished it)
• · Final Doom (never started it)
• · Final Fantasy Anthology (never finished FFV)
• · Final Fantasy Chronicles (never finished FFIV)
• · Front Mission 3 (I think I finished it, but I'm not sure. Either way I played the hell out of it)
• · Galerians (still sealed)
• · Resident Evil: Director's Cut (never finished it)
• · Syphon Filter 2 (still sealed)
• · Syphon Filter 3 (still sealed)

Sony Playstation 2:

• · A.C.E.: Another Century's Episode (never finished it)
• · A.C.E.: Another Century's Episode 2 (never played it)
• · Art of Fighting Anthology (still sealed)
• · Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (never started it; rented it once)
• · Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny (never played it)
• · Burnout Dominator (never finished it)
• · Capcom ****cs Collection 1 & 2 (I'd like to know someone that's finished ALL the games on these)
• · Contra: Shattered Soldier (never beat it)
• · Dark Cloud (hardly played it)
• · Devil May Cry (Never made it past the 2nd boss)
• · Dragon Quest VIII (still sealed)
• · Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol 1 (still sealed)
• · Final Fantasy XII (started but didn't get far)
• · Front Mission 4 (still sealed)
• · God Hand (only played a little bit)
• · Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (still sealed)
• · Growlanser: Heritage of War (still sealed)
• · Guitar Hero (unlocked most songs, never finished though)
• · King of Fighers: Maximum Impact (never got far)
• · King of Fighters 2006 (still sealed)
• · King of Fighters XI (never played it)
• · La Pucelle: Tactics (never played it)
• · Makai Kingdom (never played it)
• · Mega Man Anniversary Collection (never finished any of em)
• · Mega Man X Collection (only finished MMX)
• · Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (not finished yet but working on it!)
• · Metal Slug Anthology (never finished a Metal Slug game before)
• · Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs Zeon (never played it)
• · MS Saga: A New Dawn (never finished but been meaning to)
• · Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (never finished it)
• · NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (never played it)
• · Odin Sphere (barely touched it)
• · Phantom Brave (barely touched it)
• · Real Robot Regiment (never played it)
• · Sega Genesis Collection (still sealed)
• · Sengoku Basara (never played it; but finished Devil Kings)
• · Shadow of the Colossus (still sealed)
• · Silent Hill 2 (never finished it)
• · Silent Hill 3 (still sealed)
• · Simple 2000 Series Vol 101: The Oneechanpon (barely played it)
• · SoulCalibur III (still sealed)
• · Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (never finished it)
• · Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity (never finished it)
• · Suikoden IV (still sealed)
• · Suikoden Tactics (still sealed)
• · Super Robot Taisen: Scramble Commander (never played it)
• · Sunrise World War (never played it)
• · Super Robot Taisen Alpha 2 (never played it)
• · Super Robot Taisen Alpha 3 (barely started it)
• · Super Robot Taisen Impact (never played it)
• · Super Robot Taisen MX (never played it)
• · Tales of Legendia (still sealed)
• · Transformers (never finished it)
• · Transformers Tataki (never finished it)
• · Trapt (still sealed)
• · Twisted Metal: Head On-Extra Twisted Edition (never finished it)
• · Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (still sealed)

Sony Playstation 3:

• · Folklore (never started it)
• · Metal Gear Solid 4 (still sealed)
• · PixelJunk Monsters (never finished it)
• · SoulCalibur IV (still sealed)
• · Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (never finished it)

Sony Playstation Portable (PSP):

• · Brave Story: New Traveler (never finished it)
• · Burnout Legends (never finished it)
• · Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (only played it enough to unlock Symphony of the Night)
• · Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (maybe half way through. Got bored with the side stuff)
• · Daxter (came with my PSP, have no interest in it)
• · Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (never played it)
• · Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (still sealed)
• · Gradius Collection (hardly played it)
• · Gundam: Battle Tactics (hardly played it)
• · Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure (still sealed)
• · Infected (never finished it, and never wanted to)
• · Jeanne d'Arc (never finished it)
• · LocoRoco (hardly played it)
• · Marvel Ultimate Alliance (never started this version)
• · Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (never played it)
• · Pursuit Force (never finished it)
• · Super Robot Taisen A Portable (never played it)
• · Super Robot Taisen MX Portable (never played it)
• · Ultimate Ghosts N Goblins (still sealed)
• · Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (still sealed)
• · Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command (never started it)
• · X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (never played this version)

PC:

• · Age of Mythology (never played it)
• · Alien Vs Predator (never got far)
• · Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (hardly played it)
• · Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun & Tiberian Sun: Firestorm (Never finished it)
• · Diablo (hardly played it)
• · Diablo II and Lord of Destruction expansion (hardly played it)
• · Disciples II: Rise of the Elves GOLD (still sealed)
• · Emperor: Battle for Dune (hardly started it)
• · Fallout and Fallout 2 (never started; I doubt the disc I have even works on Windows XP LOL)
• · Guild Wars and all Expansions (can you even finish this game?)
• · Half-Life (never finished it; got stuck in sewers on PS2 version)
• · Hexen: Beyond Heretic (hardly played it)
• · Icewind Dale II (never started it)
• · Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns (hardly played it)
• · Lineage II (still sealed; once again, can you even finish this game?)
• · Neverwinter Nights: Diamond pack (hardly played it)
• · RF Online (still sealed; servers have been shut down L)
• · Rise of Nations: Gold Edition (never started it)
• · Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (still sealed)
• · SimCity 3000 Unlimited (can you even finish this game?)
• · Starcraft (never finished it)
• · The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (never played it)
• · The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria (still sealed; freebie at PAX)
• · Titan Quest Gold Edition (still sealed)
• · Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (still sealed)
• · Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Platinum Edition (still sealed)
• · Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm (still sealed)

WonderSwan:

• · Final Fantasy II (still sealed)
• · Makai Toushi SaGa (still sealed)
• · Rhyme Rider Kerorican (still sealed)
• · Super Robot Taisen Compact (never played it)
• · Super Robot Taisen Compact 2 (never played it)
• · Terrors 2 (still sealed)

Wow, that is a lot. As I look over this list, I see several games I would be ok with selling off as well as several games that I simply must play as soon as possible (Metal Gear Solid 4, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Dragon Quest VIII, Secret of Mana). Feel free to post your comments on the games that I have never played or are still sealed. I'll do my best to explain why I haven't played these games. Also, go ahead and post your backlog list if you have one. Now if you'll excuse me, I have several games I need to get back to playing. None of which are on this list! LOL

I'm still playing BlazBlue. My main character is still Nu according to my D-Card online, but I like Hakumen a lot more ever since I got good with him. He's my new favorite character in the series, and I use him more than any other character these days. Anyway, I made a new signature for myself here on Gamespot featuring Hakumen, and I think it looks even better than the Nu signature I made a couple blog posts back. It definitely looks unique and does his character justice, so I hope you guys like it!

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/346/hakumensignature.png

(In other news, I just leveled up on the site for the first time in what seems like a year.)

Love is a funny thing, Gamespot.

Love can make us feel like kings, and it can make us feel as if we've just jumped off of a 5 story building and landed on a bed of nails. Would you truely be willing to travel all the way across the world for your true love? I think so, which is exactly what I will do if she wants me to move to Australia with her. Tonight was Prom night. Tonight was when everything changed, in my opinion. We had an amazing time together, and I truely think it was the best night of my life.

She's my everything. She's my crutch when I feel Im about to collapse, she's my image of beauty once I look upon her face. I never thought that I could fall so damn far for anybody.

So we walk into Prom, and we talk to a few friends and the music starts then. So we start dancing. Honestly, I have no idea how to dance so Im pretty much just standing there at first while she grinds. Well, Justin and Faith are right beside us and Faith said "Ha, look at Matt. He has no clue what to do.", and I just give her a look that pretty much says "I completely agree". Then Justin looks at me and he said "Dude, it's easy. While her ass is on your dick, just move your hips along with hers." So I start doing that, and it turns out that Lisa thinks Im a good dancer Well, the night goes on and they play several slow songs and then randomly, our song comes on. Yes, Lisa and I have a song. It is I Will Follow You Into The Dark, by Death Cab For Cutie. So Lisa was talking to Faith when the song started, and as soon as we heard the acoustic guitar playing we both turned towards each other and smiled. Never have I seen her eyes light up so beautifully. I thought to myself, "How did I get so lucky? This girl is the definition of perfection, and the perfect image of beauty.". So we start slow dancing, and she has her arms around my neck and my hands are at her hips. Seriously, I wasnt able to take my eyes off of this girl for more than 2 minutes so far tonight, and this moment made it impossible to look away. Everything felt so damn right. Ive never been so happy, and Ive never felt so complete. So we're dancing, and I start singing to her, just so her and I could hear. And she starts singing to me. We danced with the song, and we couldnt help but sing to each other because its our song. After the song's over, I kiss her forhead and tell her that I love her. She just looks up at me and smiles. She doesnt even have to tell me she loves me, I can tell by the way she looks at me and how she lets me hold her. Like she feels as if Im protecting her from anything coming against us. She looks at me as if Im the only one in the room. She cant help but smile at me whenour eyes meet. Everything between us is so right. So there's alot more grinding and a bit more slow-dancing that night. The prom ends, and we were originally going to go go the After Party but she had an idea just to go to her house and watch a movie for a few hours. I was more willing to go to her house than I was to go to a party to be honest. So we get to her house, and we look at each other. The next thing I know, Im leaning in to kiss her. I dont even remember moving, I just remember looking into her beautiful blue eyes and the next thing I know, our lips were touching.

Now the next thing is, honestly, a bit weird and personal. Lisa and I love to make out, as most couples do. She's usually the aggressive kisser while Im more gentle. Which, I admit, is a HUGE turn-on for me. I just love it how she kisses me and wraps her arm around my neck so I cant get away. Its sexy. But this time it was different. Our kiss took on a whole new course. This time, I was the aggressive one. This time, I was the one who had to pull myself off of her to breathe. Have you read Twilight? If so, then you'll know that Bella has to pull herself off of Edward so he doesnt go for her blood. Most of the time, thats how it is with Lisa and I. She has to pull herself off of me. This time, I had to pull back. I couldnt help but keep kissing her. It was amazing. She said I, quite literally, took her breath away. This has never happened before. Sure, we always make out and all but never has this happened. Ive never had so much trouble keeping my eyes on the road instead of pulling over just to make out with her. In a way, it reminded me of how much Edward has to struggle to bring Bella back. But enough of the Twilight references, Im sure most of you havent read the book (And still hate it anyway, for some pathetic reason, no offense). Hell, from the way she looked I think she was even struggling to stay in the seat and not leave over to me so we wouldnt crash (Which has almost happened, for other reasons).

So now, Im sure some of you have read my thread asking OT for advice on what I should do for the next part. Very idiotic move of me to ask OT. Anyways, she's going on vacation on June 4th to Australia. Normally, this would just be another vacation that you always hear about but some stuff has happened in the past month with her family and all that I will NOT tell you (So dont bother asking), but she really wants to just get out of here. I know she wants me to go, because she asked me, straight up, if she decided to stay that if I would move down there with her because she loves me. So Ive already made my decision. Executing it, however, will be an entirely different proposal. I love this girl, she's my everything, so I'll happily follow her to the end of the world. I can easily afford the tickets and get my passport renewed with Graduation Money. The problem is, that since Im still underage (Im 17), I'll likely need a parents permission to go. Now I know I'll be with her one way or the other, but whether I have to sneak behind my parents back or tell them straight up is up to them. I plan to sit my mother down and talk to her about it, as soon as I know what Lisa wants to do. She's going to tell me 2 weeks after she gets there, so I'll be thinking of it constantly untill then. If she wants to stay, I'll tell my mother about it as soon as I can get her without my dad. If my dads there, its an automatic NO. But I'll deal with this as it comes at me.

All I know is that I love my Lisa Kristine with everything that Ive got, and I would hand over the universe in a snow globe to her if I could.

"If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark."

Hey guys! Ive fallen off the horse so to speak in the last 8 months (lol), reviews, opinions and of course...GRIPES!!! will be coming up in my future blogs, i'd like to say, WELCOME BACK to anyone hwo has been coming on my page going..."wtf? where is he?", lol, well im back, more to come soon, stay tuned

To all you call of duty 4 and brawl fans, give me your online name so that I can add you. Then we'll be able to brawl it up on Wi-Fi and shoot it up online. See you online.

Leaving for bootcamp at 10 am wouldn't be back for awhile BYE

mine would be:

dmc 4

rsv 2

gta 4

orange box

gun

cod 4

gears of war 2(i was able to get it early)

an old ps1 classic called medievil

bio shock

dmc 3

btw,the name "sir dan"comes from medievil.