Just in case you missed it, now's the time to fill out your bracket on GameSpot's All Time Greatest Game Hero Bracket Challenge! Even better: you'll get to see how your bracket stacks up against GameSpot editors and staffers, including me. Oh, and you will also be entered for a chance to win a $3,000 shopping spree, which is almost as good as beating my bracket. I'll even give you a some help on beating me. Here you go. I did not pick the following characters to win it all:

Pitfall Harry
Pit
Lance & Bill
Professor Layton
Lolo

That's all I'm tellin' ya. Fill out your bracket here:

http://www.gamespot.com/greatest-video-game-hero/my-bracket/index.html

I don't know about the rest of you but it's debated here in the office all the time: Who's the greatest game hero of them all? Of course, the next question is *always* "what makes a hero great?" Is it how powerful they are? Is it the challenges they overcome? Is it beating the most powerful villain? Is it being believable and someone I can relate to?

Then you add the gaming component - what if a hero was really awesome but in a crappy game? Or what if the hero is made impressive by the player but has no inherent personality (like Gordon Freeman - I mean, if I thought not talking - ever - would get me a girl like Alyx, I'd be a monk)?

I have to admit, I'm not sure I have a good answer. But I bet our users do. Today we're launching the first part of our All Time Greatest Game Hero feature. We'll be settling this, March Madness style, with a full bracket of 64 characters and a bunch of head-to-head matchups until there's only one left standing. Will it be just a popularity contest? Or will people recognize that the greatest hero may not be their favorite? Our editors picked 54 of the 64, and the last 10 are up to you. Vote here and then stay tuned for the bracket creator on 8/25!

Seeing how amazing Mass Effect 2 looks at E3, I got interested enough to dust off ME for another playthrough, mostly to see if I could get the Paramour achievement. I have to say this game is just gorgeous - there are some rendering issues and pop-in, but in general it just looks glorious.

I am also still dazzled by what a rich, complicated universe Bioware created. The different alien races, all unique but all with a sensible history, a different take on how species could evolve. I really liked the conversation with Liara when they discuss the fact that perhaps the reason humans are so reckless and brazen is that we don't have time to be polite. Some really interesting commentary on what humanity and our evolution is all about.

One thing still sticks in my craw, though - the elaborateness of the Reaper plan. It strikes me as incredibly stupid and unnecessarily complicated. These guys have advanced technology and mind control, and they haven't mastered farming? I mean that's what we're talking about here. Why do they plunder and retreat? Why not set up a bunch of worlds that are continually generating animals for eating? And why not cultivate animals that aren't likely to fight back? There's a reason we farm cows and not monkeys: cows produce lots of meat and are dumb dumb dumb.

I recently finished Dead Space, and one of the things that it made me ponder was the constant state of tension, when you could be attacked at any second. By the end you start to figure out the triggering events so you aren't as surprised anymore, but in the middle, when I was in that "I don't want to move because somebody's going to kill me, probably in a fairly bloody way" - that was stressful.

It made me think about our soldiers in Iraq, and how it's no wonder they come back mentally scarred. If Dead Space is even 5% what it's like to be constantly worried about threats coming from any direction at any moment, it's got to really take a toll on somebody. I only had to put up with it for the dozen hours I played a game, and I knew the worst that could really happen was that I'd have to wait for that section to load again. That's nothing compared to what our soldiers are facing. I would crack for sure.

Just getting started in the Force Unleashed and have to say I understand the 7.5 we gave the game. . . it's gorgeous and fun and I like where it's going, but I just beat Kazdan Paratus and there were times when I wanted to hurl my controller at the screen.

I've never been in a battle where I felt so confined and trapped, and it was because I was constantly trying to move around the arena and the game wouldn't let me off of the immediate screen, even though there was plenty of room within the arena. That made it feel really cheap, because I'm trying to avoid things and can't.

I beat Kazdan on the third try, but it wasn't very satisfying, I felt like I hadn't ever really figured out the trick to beating him, I'd just been lucky. That's not a fun way to beat a boss. Regardless, props to Kevin for being willing to admit that it may have some great Star Wars and gameplay elements, but there are some things that are so broken that the score *must* reflect them.