Messages

176

TalkBack / Re: Jesus, I'm Old

« on: January 21, 2009, 12:49:57 PM »

Ah, yeah, that was a cool project to get our logo down to 2 or 3 colors and look right once it got converted in her embroidery software. Ah, old stuff. As for the ideas, taken into consideration. I definitely would like to write about them individually but yeah, family play would be worth touching on as well. Advantage of the shorter blog form no doubt, doesn't have to be full-on essays.

177

TalkBack / Re: Jesus, I'm Old

« on: January 21, 2009, 05:26:45 AM »

Yeah baby, the Stinky Pak rules! We even tied in the weird Earthbound scratch-and-sniff campaign to try to eek out that extra ounce of creativity. Kudos primarily to the other big sites for playing along, it was the power of everyone sticking to the same story (though I remember some other ones going a step further and adding their own angles which deepened it even more) that made it work.

As for the site... damn folks, when I got back in to see how much behind the scenes is still similar. Aaagh, I couldn't even imagine. Bubble gum and duct tape. This place was my chance to learn both Cold Fusion and SQL... I didn't know a thing about diong them right. Oh well, it stays alive and at least aesthetically it's been made nicer.

But c'mon folks, some flavor of what you'd be interested in getting an angle on...

178

TalkBack / Re: Jesus, I'm Old

« on: January 20, 2009, 08:49:45 PM »

Bah, but being on people's bad sides can sometimes be an effective way to keep them reading. Not to say I'd go out of my way, just people with strong opinions prompt strong reactions and as long as it makes you look, hey, it's a success.

179

TalkBack / Re: Jesus, I'm Old

« on: January 20, 2009, 08:32:35 PM »

Erm, umm, I hate to tell you but that's my actual name.  :

Trust me, in my mind since I've never had any direct ties to anyone or any company in the industry I've never had any reason to want to be someone else. I figure when you go to so much trouble to establish yourself why give the credit to some non-existent pen name.

180

TalkBack / Jesus, I'm Old

« on: January 20, 2009, 08:09:13 PM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=17560

 

To whom it may concern,    

Welcome to my auspicious return to "the scene". If you're unfamiliar with me look in the Editorial section back to the dawn of time and you'll find some inane ramblings. You may also find some ancient reviews of mine perhaps (I still giggle over the fun I had lambasting BMX XXX) if you turn the filters to GC and REALLY OLD. If you've been on the scene long enough to remember me, yes, I am still as much of a self-righteous, long-winded and opinionated blowhard as ever... just now my chronological age has begun to sneak up on the geezerly "get off my lawn" opinions I had way back when.    

Forgive me if I may be a bit disoriented, but things have changed a wee bit since I last contributed in any meaningful way to a site. The web is a bit of a different place now, as anyone with a web connection can post their thoughts to a blog (complete with free hosting, mind you)... somewhat posing a watered-down threat to "reputable sites" in the same way that scene sites were stealing from pay sites way back when. Shoot, in the day we paid for that hosting and we needed to broker our own deals for ads if we wanted to avoid putting a dent in our pocketbooks, and we fought an uphill battle to garner industry connections and get invites to events or evaluation games.    

Danged whipper-snappers these days don't know how easy they have it! We didn't have the TwitterBook or FaceSpace! We worked boards diligently on other sites trying to get nibbles through cross-links or we'd work to grease the palms of other sites with promises of linking back to them or whatever we could think of to suck someone in. We also didn't have nice site back-ends for publishing our content into a database. Oh no! We hand-crafted our HTML and manually made our links and we liked it! Shoot, back at the start it was wild when I coded up a JavaScript powered form that you could type your content into that would then spit out the HTML for people to email me so I could then upload the page via FTP and link it up within the site through the front page and main section pages with much diligence and care! Even when the original DB-backed incarnation of this site made its unholy debut (an effort in learning Cold Fusion and SQL that ultimately contributed to getting me fired from my full-time job) with primitive DB design and god-awful beginner code that was progress somehow... we were pushing the edge of what people did for free on the side.    

But no, I'm not bitter how comparatively easy people have it now... someone had to expend blood, sweat, and tears to get the ball rolling. You pay extra to beat the curve and it was a hell of a time back when you could count the truly known sites and people in the scene on your fingers and toes. Now it is certainly simpler to get going but in the end your content has to be that much more remarkable to be heard above the chattering of the crowd. I think I love the Despair.com Demotivator that says it the best: "Blogging: Never Before Have So Many People With So Little To Say Said So Much To So Few". Amen.    

I hope to get back to contributing in some capacity, with my advanced age (all of 35... so over the hill!) and two lovely girls (for those who remember, the birth of my first prompted my departure from the scene over 8 years ago) perhaps I have a new perspective to offer as a gamer with kids. If you have ideas for things you'd like to see be sure to let me know. I have as much to blather on about as I ever did, just at some point a real job and family really took away the spark to put it cohesively into print. Perhaps it is time to get the brain out of mothballs and begin pissing people off once more. Now THERE'S a motivator...

181

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 14, 2009, 07:27:25 PM »

Arbitrary in the sense of humans judge the entire thing. A human places the ball (prone to error), humans move and place the yard markers (prone to error), when they measure for first down they place the one end (prone to error), then they pull the other one to the end of the chain (tell me when you see them pulling out the slack, etc that isn't prone to error) to then eyeball whether the tip of the ball is past the marker. Now, the theory is that in the end it all balances out one way or another in terms of luck of placement or that the cumulative error-proneness often ends up making the end result more approximately correct than some of its components may be. Nonetheless, add that all up and ultimately all of the placements, ultimately all subject to human error (lets not even get into dudes throwing their hats away from their body and the like to approximate where something landed) and thus in that way arbitrary.

Technically, with things as they are, they could place something in the ball itself and you could begin to make things painfully precise... or take major steps towards it. Would that make the game better? No. But if accuracy was a concern they would do something about it.

182

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 14, 2009, 09:43:27 AM »

Yeah, that's where my accountability thought with numeric scores comes in as well, even though I like what the score forces even with good reviewers. Your thoughts are great but in the end people deal in measurements... even if arbitrary. Watch a football game and the way they spot the ball and you definitely see the problem in action. Placement is arbitrary but the decision needs to be made and people have to live with that.

183

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 13, 2009, 12:06:53 PM »

Haha, this is why I love this topic. Regardless of where it goes seeing people who are passionate and engaging their minds about what is effective and what isn't.

To tell the truth I think what you would find at the end of all of this is that no matter what system you use or way you implement the scoring/lack of scoring/supplemented scoring much more rides on the quality of the reviewer than any other factor. Any of these systems, with the right reviewer, could work and be of benefit. How many people out there could write at the level to make it work regardless of format? OK, probably not too many. It is some hard stuff. I like to see the passion in here though of people asking the hard questions, thinking through their approach, and wanting it to be a good fit for the readers.

184

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 12, 2009, 02:38:26 PM »

Giving a game a numerical score is arbitrary enough, giving it a score based on how you think you might feel if you had someone else's opinions is crazy and getting close to Game Informer Paper Mario territory. Halbred's right, you just have to write well enough that someone reading the review could infer from the text if they'd like it more or less than the reviewer.

I think part of the reason for your hang-up with qualifiers is at the core of the first statement, that numeric scores are arbitrary. Not given thought perhaps but I would argue that a review without a numeric score on it would be much more arbitrary than one with it. I'd say either as a stand-alone could possibly qualify but if all you have is text for a review without any score whatsoever unless you write War and Peace you will fail to have any guarantee of your message getting through loud a clear. Just the use of the word "infer" gets you into highly treacherous territory. I suppose email is then to you a crystal clear mechanism for the exchange of thought and feeling? Couldn't you detect I was sarcastic or kidding or deadly serious or heartbroken just from a jumble of words I assembled with no other indicators for you to go on?

Perhaps my numeric scoring and qualifiers are then the emoticons on the written review. By simply putting down that arbitrary number you convey a great deal of hard information in a definitive way simple words could never hope to cleanly deliver. By that score you know what company the game keeps. By seeing the breakdown scores you know roughly what to expect in terms of sound, visuals, control, everything. Sure, you could waste a lot of words trying to get it across but words in that case are inefficient and, if anything, even less reliable a means of clearly communicating with everyone than even that arbitrary number that is often given more weight than it deserves.

The score is a necessary evil because print and true nuance do not go hand in hand. I could be a poor deliverer, you could be a poor receiver, we could have different societal or experiential perspectives that alter the meaning of what you or I would think are clear and concrete words. Inference lacking a personal connection, a great deal of previous exposure, or some other more concrete factor is doomed to losing the message.

Realize, the qualifier isn't necessarily just an excuse to tack on more points or scores or grades. It is an opportunity to clarify with a numeric changer complemented by text that explains the change. So rather than someone trying to infer my thoughts from my scoring or my scoring from my thoughts I could provide both and attempt to get something that more consistently approaches clarity.

185

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 11, 2009, 07:28:15 AM »

Sure the body of the review can fill in perspective of how different groups may feel but still, the failure to quantify how that impacts things makes for likely ambiguity. Take the typical Pro/Con most reviews tend to have. Most of the time the number of each is somewhat the same but assuming by number they even each other out would be a mistake. Truthfully just one con could blow out a laundry list of pros. In the end while people may bemoan quantifying their score it is an exercise in accountability. There is no hiding behind "Well, what I meant was". You're putting it out there and as a matter of fact that score can then be put up against others to paint a picture of where the game falls. Now, this is definitely where aggregators fall on their face. Fact is, my critical 6 could make sense when considered against other reviews and another person's 6 could actually be a big anomaly in terms of how they normally see the world. To the aggregator they're all the same though. Some power in the average of 100 reviews but all reviews aren't created equal.

There is no perfect system. I just like the idea of the work being the responsibility of the reviewer. Go to some lengths to make your feelings plain. Take the time to try to put yourself into another perspective to evaluate the game in a different light, accounting for another person's legitimate perspective.

I think the Aerosmith or Sonic game reviews stand as great examples where the qualifiers help. If you give the game a bad review is it because of the game itself, the license, the lack of originality? Even for fans of the band the game could be terrible if the mechanics of the game are poor. Even fans of the music would be entitled to clearly know this rather than just flatly saying fans of the band will pick it up anyway. No, they'll pick it up anyway because nobody would address the shortcomings of the game in a way that fans of the band wouldn't disregard as someone just not liking the band. Again, I liked the game, I just think the situation it falls into illustrates the problem well.

Trust me, as verbose as I am (as you can see), there is easily a part of me that believes that the work a reviewer puts into their choices of words and turns of phrase should be properly appreciated. Writers put nuance into the reviews to be appreciated and people who short-cut to the score can miss a lot of quality points. Hell, the format of reviews for this very site, where the body of the review only is on the first page and numeric scores need to be clicked through to... it is something I collaborated on. Thing is, as a reviewer the job is to serve everyone, even the chronically lazy or just those in a hurry. So there is something to be said for taking the time to crafting consistent and clear condensed views. Having written in real print I can tell you a full review of a game in 250 words or less is a powerful exercise. I enjoy going the other direction (obviously) but perhaps the best test is to put equal time and effort into both. Qualifiers would just be the direct paragraph and score offset guided right to a legitimate audience, doing them a greater service than the "for the masses" review that addresses both everyone and no one.

186

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 07, 2009, 10:44:13 AM »

I think we had an argument like that before where I suggested allowing multiple scores with qualifiers for a review that are picked depending on what the reviewer wants to express but people kept saying we should have a fixed set of scores that all reviews should use instead of each review using its own set.

I think the people who disagreed with you are just limiting themselves unnecessarily and pigeonholing all reviews to only be able to count against one consistent set of potential qualifiers would ultimately weaken the point of having them at all. Sort of like how the Wii has suddenly legitimized the "casual audience" as distinct from mainstream and hardcore... where before it came along you wouldn't have had a need. Things change, times change, context changes.

A good example specific to only a handful of games but that would be an excellent qualifier if someone would offer it (mainly because people could truly find it beneficial): A qualifier on a review of something like Guitar Hero Aerosmith/Metallica/etc for fans of the band specifically. I rented it thinking I would love it because I love a lot of Aerosmith's music. Thing is, the mix of what they offered was mostly stuff that I wasn't stoked to play. So I could even see two qualifiers or more.

Fans of Aerosmith's entire catalog: + 2 (they actually did span a great deal of their catalog
Fans of Aerosmith's more current music: -1 (a lot of older stuff newer fans may not even recognize)
Guitar Hero fans neutral to Aerosmith: -2 (aside from the music itself it wasn't terribly compelling compared to the broader GH3)

Now, these qualifiers would need to be accompanied by a very clear and concise paragraph or two for the sake of really knowing why but I think it is a great example of qualifiers that could certainly be relevant at a game level. Just a matter of people being creative and possibly even... having some fun with it. Nah, reviewers are to be taken seriously, no room for that.

187

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 09:58:51 PM »

True... so maybe a clarification for "People who enjoy the frustration of skill having little correlation to success" +7!

188

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 09:39:02 PM »

Perhaps they're good if you want them to be true to the carny rigged tradition of games...

189

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 08:31:32 PM »

Perhaps it would be best to have the additional criteria/exceptions open-ended. That would allow for Carnival Games to have an exception for people who legitimately enjoy boardwalk/midway games... which my relatives do and that would explain a lot of their affection for it despite its shortcomings. I think what I dislike about it is how poorly it is implemented. It really was made as, or is only generally as well made as, shovelware. It sucks people in easily for its theme and being unique but not because it deserves the attention. Shallowness I could excuse but the control for many of the games is just amazingly wonky and poor. To me that's the shame of it, though I agree for that segment the hate wouldn't likely be enough to dissuade many people.

190

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 06:18:32 PM »

With something like Carnival Games do people like it because it's a good game of its type and caters to its target audience perfectly or because they're just unaware of something better?  A few years back I read an article by Roger Ebert about kids movies.  As an adult they can be challenging for him to review but some kids movies are good enough that an adult can like them while some are so lazily made that you can tell the studio is intentionally half-assing it on the basis that kids won't notice how bad it is.  I can't remember what movie he used as an example of good kids film (probably something by Pixar) but he shared a story about a conversation he had with someone in an elevator.  The person was talking about taking his kids to one of the Scooby Doo movies.  Ebert said that Scooby Doo was a very poor film and suggested the guy take his family to the good movie instead.  He said they will likely enjoy that film more and probably will be disappointed by Scooby Doo.  The guy blew him off.

I see a parallel between kids films and non-games.  That's not necessarily an insult, it's just that both are examples of something that critics may have a hard time reviewing because they're targeted at an audience that will not have the knowledge and experience of the critic.  Quality still matters.  A kid doesn't have to see crap movies and a non-gamer doesn't have to play crap games.  So I think a harsh review for something like Carnival Games is deserving.  It's a poorly made product and even if you're the target demo there are well made non-games that you will enjoy as well as some well made games.  You likely will enjoy these other options MORE you just don't realize it.

Ignorance isn't an excuse for poor taste and you don't deserve to be swindled by companies that know you don't know better.  Now you shouldn't be a snob either but a critic should be able to point out that something sucks even if the target audience may end up liking it in ignorance.

Though the important thing is who reads reviews?  It isn't the people who buy Carnival Games.  When some really horrible film is number one at the box office all those people that saw it either didn't read any reviews or dismissed the reviews because "critics don't know anything".  Reviews might as well be written for an audience that likes to make informed decisions as they're the only ones that will pay any attention to them.

Hehe, I wouldn't defend Carnival Games. I'd still make sure a site score for it (assuming we're talking "average mainstream gamer") pretty bad. Despise the game. Shallow. Crap. Now, for a "casual gamer" I don't think Carnival Games suddenly becomes high art. I do think, however, that the criteria for depth and challenge in the game need to be reconsidered, and thus the score could be qualified, some, for the casual crowd who generally are less concerned with depth and challenge. Still, we are polishing a turd (the Mythbusters proved it could be done afterall)... so maybe with that it could earn an extra point to be fair. How much something would gain or lose would really depend. Well, and also your score could bring it down a point (or maybe even more) for Hardcore gamers, heck, maybe even give it the 1 it deserves for that crowd. You see though, the review would be smarter and stronger because it would speak to each type of gamer and give them advice rather than that type of gamer needing to try so hard to infer or read between the lines.

As for who reads reviews for something like Carnival Games I'd wager not too many but at the same time, given the outright scorn the game generally got from most sites who weren't reviewing for the casual crowd in the least, what incentive do they have to look? Of course we'll hate it, but that doesn't really help them because we're making no even passing attempt to see it in the light they would look at it in. We could still be wrong trying to qualify but at least with the attempt to connect with them we're doing a service that would make us unique... and that could drive hits, relevance, etc. I just see a major problem with reviews being the theory that they're somehow written for everyone when they couldn't possibly be. Ideally someone would at least try to address this, and the community could be better for it.

191

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 05:26:20 PM »

It is nice to see relatively new posters actually use paragraphs and are articulate!

Uh, if you would review... in theory I may be one of the oldest possible posters there would be, just not recent. 

192

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 05:09:58 PM »

Precisely... an interesting phenomenon if you begin taking into account the genre or series. On the whole the newest Madden may truly be a great game on its own stand-alone merits. However, for people who have followed the series year after year maybe the purchase is less compelling overall since little was added from the previous year. The score should then somehow mean something different things to different people, almost being "qualified" up or down based on some other criteria. So maybe on a given game you'd get an 8 overall but to fans of the series you call a -1 for lack of differentiation. The question then would be what hat does the default review primarily reflect? Probably you'd need to be in the mind of the "mainstream gamer" which I would wager is neither casual or particularly hardcore. That is the "fair" score. Thing is, read people's positive and/or negative reviews of many games and you get a hodge podge. You get rabid fanboys of the series eating the game up despite its shortcomings (*cough* Final Fantasy games for the most part), you get jaded former fans bemoaning a shift they didn't like (see "Cel-da" criticisms for Wind Waker), or you get people who admit they aren't fans of a genre but reviewing a game anyway (perhaps Wii Music is a good example).

So to go from being an average reviewer to a GREAT reviewer it is actually a pretty difficult road. First you (or really, ideally, the site itself) should establish a baseline "audience" the review is geared to in order to ensure that across reviews it is consistent. Then, perhaps, additional content could/should be added to the review to make it clear how you think "wearing another hat" would impact the review. Granted, this nuance would be lost on aggregators but since you established a baseline audience and are consistent towards it at least the primary view is worthwhile. For nuance the aggregator sucks anyway, so screw em.

Thoughts?

193

TalkBack / Re: Making the Review Process Better

« on: January 06, 2009, 03:18:28 PM »

Wow, a topic someone like me can chew on... and maybe once the universe finally gets into alignment I'll be given a chance to expand on things. Anyway, first way back in the day of 64 Source I wrote an article about the topic of how to write good reviews, or an attempt to quantify my vision of it, and it dealt in some ways with this concept. I will tell you, in the 2 sites I was in the core of helping set up (including this one) there was serious discussion about ratings, scores, and how things would work. For a site wanting to score free games unfortunately I'd wager numeric scores are going to be necessary... the companies are out to get their word out and unfortunately for their marketing departments a consensus of 1,000 word + in-depth analytical reviews is harder to shove out there as an accolade as 5 major sites giving it a 9 or above. Sadly as well, whether right or wrong, the vast majority of people out there respond to the scores since it is all they have or can possibly comprehend. Somewhat revealing a bit of my angle to come on the site... for parents, in particular, a score is what drives them to buy the game for their kids.

To add even more complication and depth to this discussion though it is all difficult stuff, especially as you then introduce other factors, like distance. This is something on 64 Source we specifically (for a time) tried to address even with reviews 1 - 2 years after the fact of a same major game we'd reviews. How does an inspirational and incredible game of the moment given accolades out of the gate hold up over time? See something like Super Mario Brothers 3 (eclipsed but still an excellent example of the genre) against something like Goldeneye (loved the game originally but practically worthless beyond nostalgia now as it has been so thoroughly eclipsed). Some games, like movies, or TV, or books, or whatever age like fine wine... others you find have turned to Boones Farm or vinegar. The moment can make a big difference. So that introduces a new dimension. Is it fair to continue to hold something like Goldeyene (really, I loved the game, not bashing it, just it is a great example of a game great at its time more than all time) in as high esteem as other games with the same score that have aged more gracefully? Hell, perhaps games with lower scores that have aged better deserve more credit than GE just for their staying power. So even the power of MetaCritic and other score aggregation sites have only the power to rate games in terms of the here and now. This is especially an important reason to get solid VC and other reviews. Perhaps what was terrific then is well ported and just no longer relevant.

Another way to pee in an already tainted pool (and what my old Editorial really dealt with more) is context. I think moreso than numeric scores, lack of truth in score breakdowns (how many reviews do you see where a 8 game gets 4 sound but 10 graphics or what gave you... I swear 90% or more of reviews all breakdown scores will fall within +/- 1 point of the main score and themselves... is there truth in that?), or other bugaboos is context. Perhaps moreso than ever with the introduction of the Wii and the resurgence of "casual gaming" I really think, though it would make aggregation sites squirm, that game reviews almost need MORE scores.

I think in the old editorial it fell to series (if applicable), genre, and general audience... but perhaps now we need series (if applicable), genre, casual audience, and hardcore audience. Why? Because first if you're not a fan of the series or genre the score needs clarification. Is it transcendent (perhaps ala Smash Brothers for "fighting" as an example)? Is it a great example of the genre but unlikely to convert non-believers? Is it essential to someone who loves the series but still the same core game? Perhaps great for the series lover but a negative to someone outside. So context even in that sense DOES matter and one score for the game utterly fails to take that into account. But look at the Wii. Carnival Games? To the hardcore somewhere between tolerable and absolutely craptacular depending on your tastes. To casual gamers like my relatives (and based on sales, many many more people) who overlook the suspect graphics, dodgy controls, kiddie-pool shallowness... perhaps not the greatest thing since sliced bread but I will tell you that they play it on a regular basis to this day.

Blah, time to split but like I said, I hope to talk about it more with some ideas and once things roll may well put up a revised version of the old Editorial (that I sadly can't find, of course) that explores this problem. Thanks for a compelling discussion folks.

194

General Chat / Re: "Hey I'm new!" Official Introduce Yourself to the Internet Thread

« on: December 18, 2008, 12:31:57 PM »

Ah, saving, true... only problem is my being old and returning to the game usually only once a week makes saving interesting as I can't remember what damn fool plan I had at the time. 

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General Chat / Re: "Hey I'm new!" Official Introduce Yourself to the Internet Thread

« on: December 18, 2008, 12:15:41 PM »

Short bursts?!? Pshew, I've been able to play through one battle for the entire time my daughter is in gymnastics at an hour with the battle I'm on. Early battles were good and dirty, but where I'm at now it is an all-out war and drags out. Well, or maybe I just suck at these battles.  :

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TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Guitar Hero: World Tour

« on: December 18, 2008, 10:37:10 AM »

I don't know whether on downloading a Rick Springfield song to play for GH I'd first be overcome by:

• nostalgia
• nausea

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General Chat / Re: "Hey I'm new!" Official Introduce Yourself to the Internet Thread

« on: December 18, 2008, 10:30:16 AM »

I suppose I could be counted as new but old but new... but aside from a few people I was truly terrified to STILL see are posting after many years we'll see how trying out a comeback may feel.

• With the kids and wife I love playing the LEGO games, Wario Ware, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party and Cooking Mama.
  
• On my own Mario Galaxy and getting all of the stars was bliss, Metroid got a bit tedious but was rewarding and Zelda was... Zelda. Also really enjoy Guitar Hero though when I picked it up I thought I was taking a risk.
• Still haven't had a chance to rent Wii Music, a title I thought when I originally heard of it would be great and now sounds like something I'd rather not get a bad taste in my mouth over but will try because that's how I am...
  
• Finally got into the Advance Wars series on a long trip and was surprised how hardcore a little strategy game could be.
• Most gaming I do tends to be on the PC (since the TV is communal and often occupied) and with the kids around I tend to play quicker stuff, regularly playing PopCap or Reflexive games. When I get the time though I am 60 hours into Fallout 3 and STILL loving every moment of it, enjoy Spore for some more whimsical fun, load up Team Fortress 2 when I need a multi-player fix, and STILL will play Civilization 4 on a very regular basis.

So hello to the current Forum regulars, whoever you are. Hope to see some old faces pop up like mine, missing what used to be. Also look forward to irritating an entire new generation of people... it is what I miss most.

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TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Guitar Hero: World Tour

« on: December 17, 2008, 06:58:02 PM »

What I want to know is who is going to get a full library of Motley Crue. Girls, Girls, Girls... Wild Side... Kickstart My Heart... hell, get wild and give me some of their more raunchy music for some wholesome fun. Still will never forget them doing a concert a Merriweather Post Pavilion (Columbia, MD for those in other regions) and a family making a ruckus because they brought their kids to the concert and couldn't believe what they were doing on stage. Mind you, this was after the release of an album complete with the songs She Goes Down, Slice of Your Pie and Rattlesnake Shake. I guess all they heard were the power ballads on Smooth Mix Pop 101 or something and thought that was their gig. For each Every Rose Has Its Thorn there are 3 Unskinny Bop people... sheesh. I miss my 80s/90s hair bands!

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TalkBack / Re: PREVIEWS: Guitar Hero: Metallica

« on: December 17, 2008, 06:50:29 PM »

Odd as it may be to say, I'd go nuts for Stone Cold Crazy alone if that were the song by Queen. Just love the song, sue me!

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NWR Feedback / Happy 4th Birthday Planet GameCube!

« on: March 09, 2003, 11:46:19 PM »

It scares me when people remember OpN... damn if that doesn't feel like a million years ago. Rick was just a wee bundle of attitude and I still could spend a million hours a day keeping a Nintendo site firing on all gears the old much harder/insane way, NO DATABASE. EEEEK!