(bonus points if you know what that means)
on wednesday my Halo 3 Todd McFarlane (andGreg Capullo) Lithograph finally came 
i sent away for it on August 31 and got it December 16, thats 15 weeks, 107 days which is almost 1/3 of a year. i had to email them a few times but i finally got it.
i just hope i can find a good enough frame for it.
also that day i got Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 
for an AMAZING price, i got it at staples on clearance (brand new) for get this $6.27. it had been marked down 4 times from $29.97-$19.97 than from $9.97-$7.47. and i get to the till and there is a clearance sale of 25% off and its $5.60 without tax.
i called eb before i got it and they said it was i think $40 new and $29 used, i couldnt pass that deal up. im not too good at "tacticial" chooters like tom clancy's games but i think i can do it better than Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 for gamecube.
what else.OH i read the Dead space 2 article in the new gameinformer and it was amazing, im not going to write everything cause you should get the magizine so i will put some bullet points of what i found interesting.
- you will be able to manuver and fight in zero g gravity, not just jumping from point to point.
- set on a space station named SPRAWL which looks like the ishimura, which is located on saturns moons, and you will be in citys.
- set 3 years after the first game and involvs stoping a government plot involving the marker.
- AND a new gun called the javelin gun which shoots a javelin to pin necromorphs to walls, and the alt fire makes them explode or electracute them.
- there WILL be 3 player ONLINE CO-OP, and they are working on online multiplayer.
- and there might be more comics to add to the whole dead space lore.
this is what the cover looks like 
i could only find it at eb games for $5.99, so go out and pick up a copy.
what else, what else..... i beat AssassinsCreed a week ago and it was great, i dont have all 1000 yet but all i need to do is find lots of flags and kill 4 templars.
thats it for now i think....yep.
1.Kill boosting for nukes
2.Kids boosting with riotsheilds in HC SnD
3.Kids boosting in general really
4.akimbo 1887's are completely over powered and have ridiculous range.
5.impossible to get into game ever, and if you playing by yourself most of the time the game has already started and your team is losing by alot.
6.javelin,stinger,etc glitch that when you die you kill everyone around you.
7. airdrops that give the losing team chopper gunners and ac-130's which is retarded in the first place.
8.nukes being only a 25 killstreak, with things like harrier strike and chopper gunner it has become way too easy to get a 25 kill streak. it should have been moved to 30 or 35.
9.levels where you can get into stupid spots. ex: on top of the higher buildings on highrise.
10.thermal scope and heartbeat sensor and the kids who camp with them excessively.
11.how none of the high powered sniper rifles have theability to one shot kill consistently.
12. assault rifles are stronger than the LMG, and kill much faster.
13.they give you only one claymore now and it doesnt even work that well most of the time.
14.the fact that i play on xboxlive and the ridiculous amounts of people talking trash. especially when they can't back it up.
15.kids (especially ones on HQ for some reason) who justify losing horribly, by saying they had a good k/d. ("eah good job camping buddy... did your controller come with a left analog stick?) then telling me im bad cause their k/d was better than mine, even though my score was sky high from capturing and destroying objectives. ( "eah i did die almost twenty times, but i still went positive, i played to win and accomplished that goal, and my score was almost triple the guy who came in second, but no excuse me what do know about call of duty.. i one have a 3.00 w/l ratio.")
Just an update on my gaming. Recently got Tropico 3, what a blast of a game. I definately havent had this much fun since I played Tropico 2 with all the pirating and wenches LOTS OF WENCHES!!!! I also just picked up Uncharted 2 and proceeded to beat it in under a day ahhha, best PS3 game I have played in ages, even the multiplayer is a blast which is a rarity in console gaming. I also started the new Mario BIS game on my DSlite. Very very fun and hearkens back to the original one back on the Gameboy Advance, I think it was something like mario and Luigis super star adventure. Anyway its extremely similar and quite a treat to play, lots of humor and a very relaxing pace. Allows me to pick it up for 20 minutes or so and then save and go do something else. If anyone hasnt tried it I definately recommend a rental at least!
My fellow gamer, have you ever wanted to be a survivor in a massively multiplayer online game based on the player vs millions of death dealing zombies? It can be thought of as Left 4 Dead but with thousands of survivors per server that need to ban together to survive, build death vehicles to get around and fortified cities that can be populated. The vehicles can be made to fit multiple persons while the cities can be all guild run, and the only way to make a city is to start a guild. But of course if a small guild exists with a small city it will be a lot harder to defend against the zombie horde that just keeps coming (Since the cities will actually be destroyed if left undefended). But the larger guilds with the cities will run like a well oiled machine, with all goods and services run by either players or having the ability to hire CPU merchants for there town that will try to get regular goods, but with the help of player gathering and hunting convoys they can get a hell of a lot more.
It would seem that guild/city life would be the very aspect of the game that brings people in, but what would make people stay? That is something that would need some thought. Like what is the end game? What is the pvp? I was thinking that pvp could possibly be guild vs guild fights, declaring war on another city for resources that the city possibly holds that a rival guild would want. City defense then would be very important, and also access to cities would be limited to guild members of certain guilds, with the oppurtunity to have visitor passes to enter other guilds cities, so politics will have a heavy say in this title.
Of course for the lone wolf player, or the lone survivor there will be lots of gameplay for them as well, like first off becoming a mercenary for other players to higher and use as guns for certain situations. And the other would be the capabilities to set up small housing for there own uses, like a bank. But they would make good mercs, merchants, and companions. An endgame of this vision is still in thought, but please comment on here because I would like to see peoples thoughts and ideas, and perhaps this could come to fruition one day!
Well after the recent down fall of www.mlgpro.com, and my inactivity there. I've decided to come back to GS. I remember a lot of good times, and a lot of good people. I decided to make a new name, because I don't go by " WSGRandomPerson " anymore.
If you remember me, and still want to keep in contact my new username is " Random__ " ( Two underscores. ) I will start posting daily, or every other day. Thanks to whomever re-follows me ( I don't know if that's the right term, but whatever. )
Last weekend a fiend and I drove to Cleveland, Ohio to see Intronaut, Kylesa and, of course, the mighty MASTODON!
I had met the guy I went up there with on the Mastodon message board and we hit it off because he lives in Indianapolis (I live in Columbus, a town about 40 miles south of Indy). He offered to drive up there so I agreed. I knew he was an alright guy from talking to him on the board, but he ended up being much cooler than I expected. That's definitely a good thing considering Cleveland is about 5 hours away.
We arrived at the venue about an hour an a half before the doors opened and met up with a couple of other guys from the board who lived in Ohio. We stood around and talked for a while when Bill Keliher (guitar player for Mastodon) walks up to and starts talking to us. I was trying so hard not to nerd the fudge out (Mastodon have been my favorite band for I don't know how long). I had told him we drove 5 hours from Indiana to come see them to which he responded "You guys are fudging nuts, thank you so much". He took off after about 15 minutes so we went inside to hang out at the bar and get a few drinks before the show.
At the bar, there was this 40-something year old dude who was there because he took his son to see Mastodon. He was smashed off his ass but was cool none-the-less. We talked sports (he was a Browns fan and I a Colts fan) and just random poop It's surprising the cool people you meet at shows.
We heard Intronaut start so we made our way to the crowd. The venue itself was pretty damn tiny. I'd say the average movie theater screening room is larger by a pretty big margin. Intronaut sounded incredible. The heavy parts in their songs sounded like a freaking stampede of bull elephants racing towards you, you could feel the double-kick drum in your chest, it was fudging awesome.
After Intronaut, Kylesa came on. To be honest, they bored the living poop out of me. I don't know weather they just weren't that good live or I was just too damned excited to see Mastodon and was getting impatient. To be fair, the rest of the crowd seemed to like them.
After what seemed like forever of the crew setting up the stage for the 'Don, the lights went out and they came out on stage. They played their new album in it's entirety from front to back. It was one of the most incredible live expireinces I've had in my concert-going career. After they finished Crack the Skye, they took a break for a few minutes and came back out and played another set of their older stuff. Most of the songs they played were off Blood Mountain but they threw in some Leviathan and one song from Remission. To put it simply, they kicked major ass. I don't regret the 5 hour trip in the least.
After the show we waited around in the crowd and the drummer, Brann Dailor, jumped out and started talking to people and signing stuff and taking picutres. I got my picture taken and shook his hand and we took off outside. We met the guys from Ohio out by the tour bus to wait on the rest of the band and soon enough we had met and talked with Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders (lead guitar and bass, respectively). By this time there were just us 4 guys out there, after they went inside Brann came out and talked to us for like 40 minutes. We told him we were from the Mastodon board and our screen names and stuff. I got another picture with me, Brann and the guy I went with. When Brann left, we decided to start the trek back home.
The drive home was fudging brutal. We didn't talk as much because both of us were tired as hell. We stopped somewhere in Nowhere, Ohio and ate at a Denny's. It was about 3 in the morning but the place was fudging packed. I guess all that the people in that town have to do on a saturday night is to hang out at Denny's, haha.
I made it home about 9 on sunday morning. I had such an amazing time. Meeting the band I've adored for years, hanging out with some cool people, listening to great music. It was the trip of a lifetime, for sure.
Hello to all my friends here on gamespot. I have not been on gs alot lately because my personal life is in a tail spin. I have fallen into a financial black hole. As a result of this i am unable to keep the home that i'm in and am forced to find a new place to live. Fortunately, i am clear that if things don't change quickly foreclosure will be beating down my door. So I am acting now rather than waiting for this to happen.
I must find homes for many of my pets even tho i will be able to take some with me. I have a family member who is having some medical issues and i am praying that things will not take a turn for the worst.
I'll be on gs when i can, i miss all of my friends here at gs and would like nothing better than to hang around here all of the time, because gs is alot more fun than the real world. This is life however and this to shall pass.
I'm definately not leaving gs i'm just not going to be on as much for a while. When thins settle down i'll be more active.
I missed out on a new emblem and i'm not even concearned about this, because emblems are great but just not as important as food on the table and a warm bed to sleep in.
I will be checking in as often as i can untill things settle down.
Untill next time.....
It has been a while since I did anything productive on this site.
I still check it periodically. I read that Onlive article. It looks nice. The interwebs is a lovely thing.
Anyway about video games.
I have been addicted to video games my whole life...
except for the last 3 months. I have not touched a game.
And I don't know why. The last game I bought was rock band 2. Soon after I bought an actual drumset.
So that game became quite useless. The only reason to play that game anymore is to sing "you oughta know" by alanis morisette. What a horribly masochistic thing for any male to do.
But I digress.
I need to enter some sort of video game re-immersion program.
Maybe some sort of RPG. I was looking at Lost Oddysey. Not the game really, but the price tag. But I'm old school enough to love any RPG no matter how grindy.
Then I had a thought.
Playing Rock Band had a directly positive effect on my life.
I played game and it inspired me to get real instruments.
Now I play real instrument and I gain personal satisfaction.
Techniques I learned in that game actually improved my life.
Now try comparing that to any other game.
A shooter, I understand eventually you may end up shooting zombies/aliens/minorities
But I'm starting to realize how little RPG's are helping me with my life.
Badass sword techniques, Black magic, and general diety summoning are all anachronistic.
Nuclear Weapons > Bahamut
There are sort of moral lessons from RPG's I guess.
Every RPG does have the Heideggerian message which is like we have to become one with nature. It is always the Holy Nature Spirits which overcome the Evil Human Giant Machine.
The one exception is Pokemon. Pokemon is like screw nature. We can put all the useful plants and animals into little balls, put those on a computer which digitalizes them, and then forget about them as we level up our completely broken Umbreon. (I just realized I never had an Umbreon in Silver because of my 7 PM bedtime. Stupid game mechanics)
What else. There is a lot about friendship.
You can magically make friends with everyone. I especially do not understand how you can fight somebody and then have them immediately befriend you.
You just beat this person 8-10 times with a giant sword, set him/her on fire, and smacked him with a demon.
Ooh and whats up with Clerics.
Talk about religious propaganda. I mean I need an RPG where you can use natural healing techniques. Like a Native American character to replace the religious ones.
If you're wondering I'm listening to Mitch Hedberg right now so that can explain the lack of segways/sense?
Abrupt ending.
I think I will share my RPG idea next time. In however many years it takes me to post again.
A friend of mine has begun working on a site earlier this month called The Big Penguin. Its a highly community-based site that will be focused not on just gaming, but different forms of media in general (comics, movies, books, music, etc.) but there isn't a need to explain any more since he's got a blog about it here: TheBlogPenguin So far the designs he's been giving me for the site look really good and he's got some really neat ideas that he hasn't announced yet, that haven't been used on other sites similar to his. Although we don't have very many other details about the site to announce at the moment (he pretty much covered the basics in his blog), I just wanted to help spread the word about the site as we want to start off with a sufficient community in September once it launches.
If you have ideas, questions or want to help support the site and work with us possibly, send me a PM, email me at dcpc10@hotmail.com or just post a comment below. Nerdboy (the maker of the site) is also very active on www.Noobfeed.com and will be posting blogs there too. Thanks for reading, tell your friends about the site, and keep the TheBlogPenguin bookmarked, I hope to see you on the site in September 
On a Journey to find a Platform of greater expression...
If you need me, call the number under the sink. 
R-Force
I found a funny article on Destructoid.com and thought i'd share it with everybody.
1: I will give up saying the word "innovation" and its variants in the new year. I recognize that the word has lost all meaning now and that being "innovative" does not automatically get me a ******* from the gaming press.
10: I will be confident when promoting my game, but I will not be arrogant. I will not make wild claims about the capabilities of my game, I will not insinuate that people "don't get" it if they hate it, and I most certainly will not enter into bets with online message boards over the game's success.
20: I promise to stop whining about used games as if trade-ins only affect the videogames industry and aren't another cog in the very same capitalist machine that lets me get away with half of the **** I get away with.
Click the link for the full list.
http://www.destructoid.com/the-game-industry-s-new-year-resolutions-116085.phtml
Check it out, you could win some things or learn about the game here.
Official Website: Soul Calibur IV
What's Within Your Soul: What's Within Your Soul?
And will be for good once I get something sorted with a union I'm in. If you can't figure out what I mean, yeah, I'm done with GS. Gerstmann gate blah blah blah. Nice knowing you. PM or message on xbl if you want to stay in touch.
I'll set up a proper website at some point. But in the meantime you can check me out at:
http://hyperboledrive.blogspot.com/
..And it unlocked some more sweet rides to the game..Like the RS4..if im not mistaken...that yellow Pontiac..Lexus..and some others..But wheres the Bugatti at 
Stephen Colvin is Cnet's new Executive Vice President. He took the job at the end of last October. As Vice President his duties are to maintain and grow Cnet's websites, including Gamespot. Colvin's last job was CEO of Dennis publishing, the company that publishes Maxim. What's interesting about that is the fact that Maxim regularly reviews games months before they're finished, and have given perfect five star reviews to games like Test Drive Unlimited, and King Kong.
All this was on gamespot's wiki page (along with the rumor of Alex Navarro leaving on the 24th) But that, and everything else that was written under the sub-heading 'Controversy' seems to have disappeared.
It kinda makes me wonder what would happen if ALL the reviewers quit and started their own website. The site would probably be extremely ugly, at least at first, and they might not get the same amount of screenshots, videos, and behind the scenes footage. But the trade off would be that the people you've come to know would have the freedom to do and say pretty much what ever they want. Of course they wouldn't be making any money, so that could be a problem. But if a ton of fans jumped ship and followed them to their new site I'd imagine they could find a way to turn that kind of daily trafic into $$$.
Maybe I'm way off base here. Maybe most of the people who come here just have the ULR memorised and don't know the names of the editors, and wouldn't care. So I dunno, where do you think people's loyalty would lie, with the company or with the people?
A post in the Gamespot AU discussion board (http://au.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26112818) prompted me to once and for all adress this growing issue. Is Islam completely understood in Australia? And who's responsibility is it to educate the general public about Islam and our beliefs?
As an Australian Muslim living in Brisbane I can say that I have not experienced any "Islamaphobia", however I am not an Australian Muslim woman, which brings me to the point that most Australians can only speculate as to the religous beliefs of others based wholly and soley on their appearance. I have heard countless stories in which Australian women have experienced the ugly side of modern post 9/11 ignorance. In some cases there has been name calling, in other more extreme cases some women have been threatened with rape! The reason?... they wear a head scarf that symbolises their faith.
My best friend Ryan however is a typical beach vollyballer with long hair, bronze skin, and is as Aussie as they come. He is of course born Australian and has reverted to Islam. No one could guess that he is Muslim, and that is due to the fact that apart form some subtle differences in behaviour ( eg we don't drink )we are all Australian. The point i am try to make is that without being "outwardly" Muslim, we are virtually indistinguisable from the rest to society.
Now let me just say, I love Australia and the people in it!
Let me also say,I live by Islam, but i also respect everyone elses faith.
In the above mentionedpost,"segregated Schools in Australia"the poster attempts to make the point that if Muslims were to have segregated Islamic schools in Australia, then Australians and Muslims would grow to hateeach other and there would be an increased chance of Terrorism! I say that is Bull! The foundation for the argument is that Muslims and Australians are different.... which we are not! So we don't drink, or eat pork... how does this make us so different? If asked, I think most Muslims would call themselves Australian Muslims. I would also like to point out that there is a line between relion and culture. You cannot compare the values of a culture to the values of a religion. When compared point to point, anyone that would care to educate themselves would find that the 3 major faiths Islam, Christianity, and Judaism havemuch in common.
Which brings me to myfinal point. Who's responsibility is it to change this way of thinking?
My first human response is "yours!, why shouldI make the effort to understand you if you cannotmake the effort to understand me?". But as I take a moment to contemplate thisdeeper, I realize that it is "our" resonsibility to lift this stigma. Since Adam (Peace be upon him) every prophet that was sent by God had a message. Essentialy that message was the same thoughout time. We either chose to take heed or not. That message wascontinued wether or not people listened, and no matterhow hard it became to deliver that Message. We now come to a time in which we as Australian Muslims need send our message of Islam ( Peace ) and become the true becons of our societies. It is easy to blame the uneducated for their mis formed opinions, however it is our responsibility to be the true examples of how a Muslim should act, look, and treat other religions.
Next time you face ignorance, try to educate that person instead of labelling them racist or whatever first springs to mind. If that person walks away from you thinking " he/she wasn't so bad" then that would be a good start.
If you are a non Muslim reading this, take a moment to google Islam, read a little about our faith, you will soon realise that we have more in common than you first thought.
Salams
