Sorry for taking so long to finish up this list. But here is my favorite game of the decade. First off, a recap of 10-2:

10. Metal Gear Solid 4
9. Call of Duty 4
8. World of Goo
7. Grand Theft Auto IV
6. Valkyria Chronicles
5. God of War II
4. Mass Effect
3. Uncharted 2
2. Chrono Cross

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1. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

As stated in my thoughts on Mass Effect, Bioware are master storytellers. Take that talent and add in the Star Wars universe and you have KOTOR. But what's so great about the game is that you don't have to be a Star Wars fan to enjoy it. It's a well-crafted RPG with a riveting plot, an excellent cast of characters, and a fun combat system. Being a big Star Wars fan certainly doesn't hurt though. Using force powers and wielding a lightsaber is easily one of the most thrilling things I've ever done in a video game.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you enjoyed taking a look at my favorite video games of the decade. Happy holidays everyone!

Thanks to Homer Rabara for the image.

N64-

Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, Guantlet Legends ( 3 times ), WWF No Mercy, WWF Wrestlemania, WCW Revenge, WCW/NWO World Tour

　

PS-

Final Fantasy Tactics ( 8 times )

　

PS2-

Disgaea (4 times), Final Fantasy X ( 2 times ), Resident Evil 4 ( 3 times ), Lego Star Wars ( 2 times ), Lego Star Wars II, Def Jam Vendetta, Def Jam Fight For NY, Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age ( 2 times ), Shining Force: Neo, God Of War, Freedom Fighters, Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland ( 2 times ), Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2006, God Of War II, The Bards Tale, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Guitar Hero: Encore Rocks The 80's, Mortal Kombat: Armaggedon, Final Fantasy XII

　

PS3-

Fight Night: Round 3, Resistence: Fall Of Man, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots ( 5 Times ), Spider Man: Web Of Shadows

　

XBOX-

Fable, The Godfather, Time Splitters: Future Perfect, Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic

　

XBOX 360-

Saints Row, Aegis Wing ( 2 times ), Halo 3 ( 4 times ), Smash T.V. ( 4 times ), Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Assassins Creed, Def Jam: Icon, TMNT: Arcade, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Army Of Two ( 3 times ), Fight Night Round 3, Burnout Paradise, Viking: Battle For Asgard, Forza Motorsport 2,BattleField: Bad Company (2 Times ), Castle Crashers ( 19 times ), Saint Row 2 ( 3 Times ), Midnight Club: Los Angeles, Fable II ( 2 times ), Left For Dead, GTA IV, GTA IV: The Lost And Damned, Resident Evil 5, Gears Of War ( 2 times ), Midnight Club: LA: South Central, Mass Effect ( 3 times ), Mass Effect: Bring Down The Sky ( 3 Times ), Saints Row 2: Ultor Exposed ( 2 Times ), Saints Row 2: Corprate Warfare ( 2 times ), Dead Space ( 2 Times ), Fable II: Knothole Island, Fable II: See The Future, Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station, Strangle Hold, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 ( 3 Times ), Borderlands ( 2 Times ), Dragon Age: Origins, Modern Warfare 2

Studio XPS 9000
Intel Core i7-920 processor (8MB L3 Cache 2.66GHz)
12GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260
1TB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive 7200 RPM
6X Blu-Ray Writer and 16X DVD+/-RW
Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium
Hauppauge HVR1250 hybrid TV Tuner with Remote Control
Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround Speaker System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition Edition English

So, I just got home and my plans to jump right into Aion: Tower of Eternity have been temporarily put on hold while I wait in a queue to get into my chosen server. Right now the wait time is sitting at 22 minutes, but it said something similar about 10 minutes ago, and when the number changes it's not always moving in the right direction. Anyhow, since I can't play just yet I figured I'd post an early impressions-style reviews blog entry about the game. And, since I'm having some trouble accessing the reviews blog right now, it's gonna end up here instead - at least for the moment.

In case you're unfamiliar with Aion, it's a new MMO from NCSoft that's been available in Korea for a while, but which officially goes live here in North America tomorrow. I preordered the game several weeks ago, so I was able to get in on the "headstart" launch that went live at noon yesterday. After seven or eight hours of play I'm still only level 12, but I'm starting to get a good feel for where the game is headed I think, and so far I'm liking it a lot. And here's why, in an easily-digestible bullet point format:

• Character Creation
  Aion's character creation tools are extremely powerful - like, EA Sports powerful. Sure, you can just pick a head, a body, and a hairstyle if you don't really care for this stuff, but if you want to recreate Pygar from the movie Barbarella, you have the option to tinker with just about every facial feature imaginable. The flipside of the character editor is that it gives you the freedom to make unrealistically proportioned characters with, for example, heads that are far too small for their bodies, or with tree-trunk arms and legs bolted onto a puny torso. Save for some presumably PVP-minded players opting for the tiniest character they can come up with, though, most people appear to be opting for something that at least resembles a human being.
• The Launch
  Perhaps it's not surprising given that the game is already out in Korea, but queues aside, Aion's launch has been an incredibly smooth one thus far. I was able to get into the game around 10 minutes after the announced midday start time, and although I was disconnected about 10 minutes later, I've experienced no problems since. With new players descending on the starter areas like a swarm of hungry locusts, content was getting devoured quicker than it could respawn, but getting quests completed was rarely a problem.
• Combat
  So far the assassin that I've spent most of my time playing as is a lot of fun - somewhat similar to a rogue in World of Warcraft, but with less emphasis on stealth. There doesn't appear to be a combo system as such, at least not in the WoW-rogue sense, but you can chain attacks together and, rather than having to map every move to a different button, every move in a chain is mapped to the same button. So, for example, after I perform my "Swift Edge" attack, I then use the same button to perform a "Soul Slash" and, when I reach level 22, I'll be able to press it a third time for a Rune Slash. It's been done before, but after sinking so much time into WoW and into organizing dozens of different buttons, it's a feature that I very much appreciate.
• The Visuals
  Even if I end up posting a dozen of these blogs before I'm ready to write a full review of Aion, I think I'll find it tricky to ever do so without mentioning how great it looks. The aesthetic is somewhat similar to that of Guild Wars, but with superior animation and the CryEngine under the hood. I posted some new screenshots, taken on my relatively modest home PC, to the gamespace today - definitely worth checking out.
• Flying
  Perhaps the most unique thing about Aion is that, from level 10 onwards, your character has angel-like wings that you can use to fly. Initially, you can only sustain flight for one minute, but my understanding is that increases as you level up. Also, you can only fly in certain zones, which seems a little odd, but is necessary so that you don't just bypass enemies and stuff completely.
• Gathering & Crafting
  Although I've trained as a weaponsmith, I've yet to spend much time crafting - there are a lot of materials that need to be purchased in order to work with metals it seems, and I came close to bankrupting myself long before I was able to craft a simple steel dagger. Gathering is interesting in that, rather than having to train in order to learn how to pick things up off the ground, everyone can do it. So, providing you take the time to pick flowers and fruit early on, you'll find that you're able to mine iron and gather other higher-level resources later on. Bag space is an ever-present concern, of course, but these things seemingly stack in massive numbers (I have 110 of one resource right now), you get big bags (known as "cubes" in-game), and there's a bank/warehouse system with both character-specific slots and account slots that can be accessed by all of your characters on the same server. I'm a pack-rat by nature, so bag space is always a "thing" for me, but right now it's not taking up nearly as much of my time in Aion as it always has in WoW.

And, with that it looks like I'm ready to get back into the game. Be sure to go and check out those screenshots, and expect more Aion coverage from me in the near future.

Cheers

For serious.

I just reviewed this game, hopefully it will be informative!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/zenoclash/player_review.html?id=676808

Comments and feedback is always appreaciated!

I just bought a new boat and decided to take 'er for the maiden voyage this past weekend.
This is my first boat and I wasn't quite sure of the exact Standard Operating Procedures for launching it off a ramp, but I figured it couldn't be too hard.
I consulted my local boat dealer for advice, but they just said "don't let the trailer get too deep when you are trying to launch the boat".

Well, I don't know what they meant by that as I could barely get the trailer in the water at all!
The stupid truck would die and start floating before the trailer even got close to deep enough!

What am I doing wrong? Should I load the truck down with some lead or maybe rocks so it doesn't float?

Anyhow, here's a picture. See for yourself. What am I doing wrong?

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/MarkM/

...to you, until we meet again (and I'm sure we will). Just a quick note to say this Friday will be my last day at GameSpot.

I hate long goodbyes, so this will be quick. Believe it or not, GameSpot has been paying my bills for well over eight years now, first as a freelancer, then an intern, then a freelancer again, then finally an editor, at which point I packed my bags and headed from North Carolina out to the left coast to work in the office fulltime. I'm learning that leaving a job after so many years feels more like a breakup than a simple professional transition, but it's time for a break all the same.

The hardest part will be leaving all my coworkers behind, whom I admire and will miss each in their own way. You wouldn't believe the number of talented and inspiring people I've been lucky enough to cross paths with--and in some cases, truly befriend--in my years here. Pretty humbling, really. Keep on keepin' on, y'all.

As has become the fashion, I've set up a blog if you want to keep up with my exploits:

http://verbocracy.blogspot.com/

I've had a blast busting out content for you guys and gals all these years. Catch you on the flipside.

http://www.giantbomb.com/

Update your files accordingly.

With the last of the Time Trotters riding off to the welcoming sunset of unemployment, I'm doing my best to stay ahead of the trend. On Monday I'll be starting up at my new gig, months of Call of Duty-filled joblessness finally coming to a close.

And while I will always remember the fall of 2007 as an enjoyable old mess of new video games, Boston life, and a roller coaster of job hunting, 2008 is looking to be pretty sweet.

Where will I be working, you ask? As a quick attempt at cross-site promotion, I encourage everybody to visit my internet blournal, DoofyCrap.com. Tomorrow I'll write about my rad new place of business over there. A quick hint: it perfectly combines so many of my interests it's scary. Not too many suspects to pick from, I bet some of you can figure it out in a hurry.

Best of luck to Ryan, and see you all at Doofy HQ!

- Rich

PS: If somebody at GameSpot Live wouldn't mind publishing the ol' Time Trotters to the site, I would greatly appreciate it. Too much of too many people's hard work in that baby to see it hidden away forever! I'm not asking for fanfare or anything, just put it up all sly-like to the Shaolin Style gamespace. My extended family (and of course the GameSpot faithful) would love to see it, thanks!

...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

Here's to a fun and interesting 20XX. May you never pay to play a bad game.

Hello there! For reasons that are probably obvious to most of you, I'm not going to continue posting to this blog. If you'd like to keep up with me, I can be found at the following address:

http://blog.jeffgerstmann.net/

If you are after things like "what Jeff thinks about games or music or movies or gas prices" or "points-related video," it will appear on this new personal site for now.

Here are some vids of the concert, they are from youtube and not mine but it should show you what it was like

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs_Z3VUoJ90

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMGLa6g0gag

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu7ePYxqBqA

I still didn't put my vids on my pc cause my friend has my phone! I'll get it back from her lol

In July Infinity Ward announced at E3 that they were having a beta for Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox 360 sometime in August. I was pumped for that after being a member of their site since day one. This past Wednesday they open up a lotto where you could send in an e-mail answering three questions and hope to get selected. While it wasn't a small choosing of people, it wasn't large. Days went by and I wasn't in, but finally today I got in. Checked my e-mail and their was my code and the congratulations from Infinity Ward. So I am glad to play it before the big rush of people come in on Monday once it becomes more available to the public of those who live in the U.S.

Tonight I played a little with Earthking and I must say the beta is amazing. There are three maps and each one is designed well and offers a great experience. The classes you can choose to be and the ranking system is cool too. I am normally a Heavy Gunner and have liked the weapons the class offers. Infinity Ward really has produced a game that will be great on the day it releases, this just from the beta. I haven't experienced much lag, so it has been good.

If you got in we need to play and start a Party Group. I love games that have a Party system built-in. The matchmaking has been excellent too.

Anyways, I start back up on school on Wednesday. So comes the end of my summer and here I go back to school to have loads of fun. I'll be glad to see my friends I didn't see in the summer, but by the third week I'll be wanting Christmas to come. Luckily Halo 3 comes out on September 25th! Less than a month now!

This week I get to go back to football to at least help out at practice. I am glad because I have been getting bored being at home since I had my tonsils removed. Then the following week I should get to practice again. I am excited for that to happen.

Anyways, Call of Duty 4 is something you need to sign-up for if you have a Xbox 360. Go to CharlieOscarDelta.com and on Monday those who live in the U.S. have a good chance to get. It'll be at 12:00 P.M. EST.

I've only seen World in Conflict running on a couple of occasions. The first was at Nvidia's launch party in San Jose for the 8800-series graphics boards last November, and the second was during January's Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Both places weren't exactly conducive to the job of sitting down and really getting into a game. However, I had a chance recently to dive into the multiplayer alpha test of World in Conflict at the luxury of my desk (which isn't that luxurious), and all I can say is, "Wow." The best description for the game that I can think of is imagine if Battlefield 2 were a real-time strategy game, because with its fast-pace, modern combat, and intense combat, this is going to be a crazy multiplayer throw down.

On first impression, World in Conflict seems like a very pretty-looking version of your standard real-time strategy game. Since the game is about World War III between the United States and the old Soviet Union, you've got a mix of modern tanks, artillery pieces, helicopters, infantry, and more that you can control around the battlefield. But then I started to toy with it and that's when its clutches grabbed me.

First of all, this isn't a simple one-on-one multiplayer RTS game. You can have up to 16 players on a server, divided into teams of two. That means up to eight players a side. And the beauty of World in Conflict's design is the division of labor in the game. There are four primary combat arms in World in Conflict, and when you join a multiplayer game you have to select one, and that determines the units that you can bring into battle. Armor gives you tanks, air gives you helicopters, support gives you artillery, and infantry gives you grunts. Once you've selected a combat arm, you can begin to requisition units. If you select armor, that means choosing between different types of tanks, with the cost increasing for the heavier, more advanced models, such as M1 Abrams tanks.

The main limiter to all of this is the number of reinforcements points that you have, and World in Conflict wisely limits it so you can only control three or four expensive units or a slightly larger number of cheaper units at any one time. Doing it this way means many things. First, players will need to take on different roles if they want to win. If your side goes overboard on nothing but attack helicopters, they'll get chewed up if one or two players on the other side simply choose the support arm and load up on antiaircraft platforms. So your team needs a good balance of combined arms. Second, this means that you'll really have to work together, because if you don't support one another on the battlefield, you'll be chewed up quickly. This aspect of the game is reinforced by the small numbers at each player's command. It's awfully difficult to overwhelm the enemy if you only have a platoon (four tanks) of M1s.

Once you've made your unit selections, you hit the deploy button and one of the cooler little aspects of the game kicks in. You'll see a huge, lumbering air transport swoop down out of the skies and airdrop cargo to the ground. Once the cargo lands, your new units instantly appear, ready for your command. Sure, it's not realistic, but it's cinematic and a neat way to quickly usher new units into battle. Plus, you can easily gauge that enemy reinforcements are on the way by seeing enemy transports swooping down in the distance.

Once you have units on the ground, you've got a lot more to worry about than just destroying the enemy. Each map has a number of key strategic points on it, and each point is defined by at least two different nodes. For example, in order to control a bridge you need to control both ends of it, so that's two nodes right there; seizing just one end of the bridge isn't good enough. Or taking control of a town square means seizing three nodes that border it. Unless you can put units in each node simultaneously, then you do not control the point. And controlling strategic points is important for a number of reasons, because it's how you basically win the game.

The longer you can park units into all of a strategic point's nodes and maintain control, the better, because you'll automatically dig in at that position. First, you'll construct machine gun positions that can take out enemy infantry. Once those are complete, next are antitank positions. And once those are complete, you'll construct antiaircraft positions. At that point, the strategic point is fully built up in terms of defenses, and you have a couple of choices. You can sit back and enjoy the defensive advantages at that position, or you can move on to the next strategic point and not have to worry about the enemy just waltzing up and seizing your point as soon as you leave. However, again this illustrates the risk/reward element of the strategy. Building up these defensive positions takes a long time, which means that as long as your units are parked in the nodes they're basically out of the larger battle. So what do you do? Sit back and wait to build up the defenses, or maintain momentum and initiative by moving out immediately and attacking the enemy?

I'm only scratching the surface of the game at this point, too. There's still plenty to talk about, such as how the reinforcement system works, the tactical aid system and how it can deliver everything from aerial recon all the way up to tactical nuclear weapons, the rock-scissors-paper nature between the units, and more. And then there's the game's wonderful graphics that brings all this destruction to life. Seeing a warm glow of a nuclear explosion or the smoke trails of a rocket attack arcing through the air is incredible. After participating in online battles all day, it's safe to say that World in Conflict has quickly rocketed up my chart of must-play games this year.

Ok, so many know about my pet Finch, Finchy. But not many know how small he really is so here is a picture I took of Finchy in the palm of my hand.

He's an Austrailian Zebra Finch by the way.

.

For the full size picture go to this link - http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/5986/picture501tx8.jpg

I'm back from my third suspension. What was it for this time? Who knows. But I've had about enough of the people here on GameSpot. Somehow something I wrote, which isn't appearing in my moderation history, was meant to upset people or something. Whatever, GameSpot. Since I'm almost 100% anti-GameSpot now, with their utterly ignorant reviewers, their Nazi moderators, and the dozen mails I get a day about joining a stupid union, I'm sorry to say this, but I'm putting a halt on my giving away Gears of War for Christmas. Basically, I'm still going to be around, but thanks to the Nazis on this stupid website, not as much. I hope all of you understand and you all still visit my blog... DAILY.

Either way, Merry Christmas.