This is my secondary gaming blog which I'll use it from time to time to talk about what's new in my life when it comes to games or otherwise and reviews updates.

I also have my own personal website entitled The Mind of Game which I use to post a great deal of gaming news, First impressions, Reviews and Editorials. Check it out when you get the chance. I keep the site updated with a pretty steady stream of content so check back often.

• 1Jan 13

  Does Anyone Still Read These Things?

  First off, Happy New Year!

  And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and all that (fully aware of how late I am) as well.

  Moving on, just because I've been neglecting my GameSpot blog, I have been writing over at The Mind of Game and GUFUyourself as you should already know and, of course, this is a collection of my most recent works, so check them out why don't you!

  Journey Pseudo Review

  I dont tend to enjoy games that are artsy for the sake of being artsy. Ive played a few of those. You know the type. Games that go out of their way to be art. As much as I support the games as art argument, I dont feel games should try to be art, just being art is enough.

  Ill admit, as I sat down in front of my television, DualShock 3 in hand, I was prepared to hate Journey. Id heard conflicting reports on forums from people who had played the game. Some called it one of the best gaming experiences theyd ever had while others derided it for being only about two hours (which it is) and the equivalent of push forward to win the game. I thought I would fall into the second camp. But once I loaded the game, I kept repeating to myself, Have an open mind.

  As if it was that simple.

  So I plunged into my first playthrough of Journey, having budgeted the necessary two hours, leaned back slightly in my chair and telling myself to have an open mind, unsure if I actually would.

  But I did.

  Killzone 2 Review

  Parental Discretion is Advised

  Killzone. The Halo killer. The game that was supposed to be Sonys big exclusive franchise that would make us all forget about Halo. Well, that didnt happen, since the first game in the series turned out to be quite the mediocre game, at best. One has to question what Sonys motive was for even making a sequel to it. Maybe they thought the developers could fix their mistakes from the first time around and deliver the game the original Killzone shouldve been.

  Well, that didnt happen. What we got was a textbook example of style over substance, a game that looks good in videos but is absolutely terrible in practice. Killzone 2 hardly does anything right, and if youll bear with me, Ill explain why.

  Halo 4 Review

  Following the end of one trilogy, we have the beginning of another. For four long years, the Master Chief and his AI companion, Cortana, have been stranded in space, separated from humanity and everything they know. But not for much longer, as theres a new threat looming on the horizon and the Master Chief is pulled from his impromptu retirement back into the fray once again. But this time, instead of Bungie, the creators of the Halo franchise at the helm, theres a new kid behind the wheel. 343 Industries, the new studio dedicated to all things Halo since Bungie partnered up with Activision, has the chance to prove they have what it takes to handle one of the most recognizable and critically acclaimed franchises in gaming.

  Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city Review

  In the modern hip-hop industry, pretty much any rapper who wants to make it has to start at the bottom with a few mixtapes and move up to independently released pseudo albums. Kendrick Lamar has done both. The problem with this is the inherent risk of building hype the artist cant live up to with their first full studio album. J. Cole had this problem and I would argue Curren$y did as well. While their first major label studio albums were certainly good, thats all they were, neither great nor exceptional like their mixtapes/independent albums were.

  Kendrick Lamar was in a similar position for me. I loved his mixtapes and his independently released Section.80 and Overly Dedicated albums as well as the Kendrick Lamar EP and they all come highly recommended for anyone looking to add a bit of new West Coast flavor to their rotation. But the problem was, at least for me, they were too good. I was left to wonder whether or not his first studio effort, good kid, m.A.A.d city could measure up. Fortunately, Kendrick has proven that he can not only measure up to the bar set by his previous efforts but propel the bar into orbit.

  Forza Horizon Review

  The annual Horizon festival has returned to Colorado, its siren song luring lovers and racers of cars the world over. For three days, racers take to the streets of Colorado to show off their talents and compete for a coveted spot in the Horizon finals. While some games like Need for Speed have eschewed the Underground racing culture seen (or parodied) in the Fast and Furious films and Project Gotham Racing has taken to going for balls out style and flash merged with civilized circuit races, Forza Horizon is a little of everything, plopping you in an open world and letting you explore, serenaded by Avicii and his contemporaries.

  Okay, maybe serenaded was a poor choice of words

  And I've kept up with a couple editorials, which you can view below

  So, Lions...We Need to Talk

  Listen, I just dont think this is working out. I wanted to believe things could work between us, that we could make something out of a bad situation. But I was wrong. Maybe I was naïve to think things would turn around in just two years. Maybe I was just too optimistic for my own good. Maybe. Whatever the case, I now know that I was sadly mistaken.

  Lions, Im sorry, but I think we need to see other people.

  Ultraviolet Can Go To Hell

  One of the reasons I buy Blu-Ray discs is for the combo packs that include the Blu-Ray copy, the throwaway special features Blu-Ray which I never end up watching, the DVD for my mother and father who dont yet own Blu-Ray players (or HDTVs for that matter) and a digital copy I can watch on my PC, iPhone, laptop, whichever suits my fancy on a given day.

  But lately, some movies, particularly those produced by Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers have been shipping with Ultraviolet Digital Copies, which I considered rather benign at first but now hate with a fiery passion. Why? Not because Ultraviolet is inherently bad and the promise of being able to stream my movies from the cloud any time I like (and near a suitably quick wi-fi hotspot) certainly has merit but it comes with a cost that Im not too fond of paying. The cost of freedom.

  And that's all I'll link for now. If you want more frequent updates, you know where to go!

  Also check out Musical Musings. I post there too!

  Oh yeah, GUFUyourself has forums too. You should totally join!

  • Posted Jan 1, 2013 9:46 am GMT
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• 21Aug 12

  And I'm Back! With Videos!

  Yeah I know, been a while, all that jazz.

  Moving on, I have a couple of videos I'd like to share with you. The first is from my recent trip to Toronto in which I met up with some friends I'd previously known only on the internet. See? Not all internet meet ups result in kidnapping and other not so fun things!

  My Trip to Toronto

  Next, I have a couple of rants, the first on mandatory tutorials in videogames...

  Mandatory Tutorial Rant

  And the second is on the ridiculous price of room service in hotels.

  Why is Room Service So Expensive?

  And finally, I have another video from my trip to Toronto in which my friends and I came back to the hotel for a second and the...interesting conversation we had. Parental discretion is advised...all over this video.

  The Stuff We Talk About in Toronto

  So check them out and let me know what you think. Be sure to comment, like and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you like what you see!

  In the mean time, I'll try to be more regular with both the videos and the blog posts but as usual, no guarantees. I just have to be in the mood for it.

  • Posted Aug 21, 2012 12:41 pm GMT
  • Category: Humor
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• 5Nov 11

  Xbox Live Woes Continue

  

  It's been nearly two months since my Xbox Live account, The Game21xx, was hacked and suspended. This is not okay. Nearly two months' worth of the subscription I paid for has gone completely unutilized because Microsoft is taking its sweet time with the investigation of the hacking that took place on my account.

  Oh, and I'm still out the $75 that was used to buy 6000 Microsoft Points. Also great.

  But what should I expect from this kind of thing? Microsoft has my money. Of course they're going to take as long as they possibly can in order to avoid giving me my money back. Perhaps they're stalling until the end of the quarter to make their investors happy. I don't know, because no one will tell me a thing.

  I've called them numerous times in order to attempt to expedite this investigation but, of course, the Customer Service department is curiously far removed from whatever division of Microsoft that handles the investigation of supposed hacks and once an account is sent over to that department, there is nothing CS can do. Of course, I can't contact the investigations department either.

  So, my account is currently in a state of limbo and, as CS representatives told me numerous times, there's nothing I can do but wait until the investigation is over.

  Fantastic.

  I've been an Xbox Live subscriber since 2006, shortly after getting my Xbox 360. Prior to now, I've never had a problem with the service. I've had intermittent problems with the console due to its absurdly high failure rates early in its life but other than that, I've been very happy with the Xbox 360.

  This experience is doing quite the excellent job of making me forget all of the great times I've had with the console.

  Two of the biggest games the 360 has this fall gaming season (and all year, to be quite honest), Forza Motorsport 4 and Gears of War 3 have been mostly inaccessible to me. I finished Gears of War 3 in single player instead of having the opportunity to finish it alongside my buddies online and I've largely missed out on the majority of the multiplayer action my friends have been engaged in since the game released. In Forza Motorsport 4, I can't access many of the game's best features such as its deep competitive multiplayer and Rivals mode so I pretty much just stopped playing it.

  I asked CS reps about this. After all, if I'm paying for an online service, I should be able to access it within a reasonable time frame after being locked out of it.

  A month and a half? Sorry. That's not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

  But I digress. So, what's the solution CS gave me to tide me over until my account is reinstated? Create a new Xbox Live account and buy a couple months of service. Oh, and after I've paid again for the service I should've had access to in the first place, I can call them back and have them turn off auto-renew. What a deal!

  I spend a lot of time talking up the Xbox 360 on forums and how much I enjoy it, in large part due to Xbox Live and this incident has really soured my opinion on the service, the console and Microsoft. I'm considering just being done with the console altogether. I don't play videogames now nearly as much as I have years prior and most of the gaming I do partake in is on the PC. Given how Microsoft has pretty much given up on producing or procuring exclusives for the 360 that aren't either Halo or made for Kinect and casual gamers, there's not much coming for the system that's interesting to me at this point.

  After this fiasco, I probably won't bother to "re-up" on Xbox Live when it lapses next year. Multiplatform titles are better (and often cheaper) on the PC and the paltry list of 360 exclusives is only mildly interesting to me (at best) so why should I even bother? What if this happens again? I will, once again, be locked out of a service I've paid for, for an extended period of time and what's sad is that, at this point, I wouldn't put it past them.

  • Posted Nov 5, 2011 11:49 am GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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