http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZradcastro

What exactly?

Mass Effect (Xbox 360) Like New (Played only once)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas (Xbox 360)
PS2 Travel Case / Bag
Gamecube Travel Case / Bag
The Legend of Zelda (Collector's Edition) (GameCube)
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (Playstation 2)
NBA 2K Lot (2K, 2K1, 2K6, 2K7)
Sega Saturn Game Lot (7 games)
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (Game Boy Advance)
Nintendo Entertainment System - Game console & 3 games
Heroes of Might and Magic V (PC Games)
Final Fantasy IV Advance (Game Boy Advance)
Assassin's Creed (Playstation 3)
Suikoden IV (Playstation 2)
Nintendo Game Boy Color - green - with box
Nintendo Game Boy (ORIGINAL)
Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy (2002, DVD)
Mechwarrior 4 Compilation
Playmakers (2004, DVD)
Star Wars Trilogy (2004, DVD set)

Rad

Let me first say that I'm not one of those irritating fanboys that nut at every cutscene in MGS4 or write half-assed reviews with the words "own3d".

We all know how many people love this game and the couple of handful that hate it. I'm currently waiting to get off work so I can get on the last act of the game. So far, I'm enjoying what I've been playing. What particularly intrigued me is the people watching me play.

During the day the game debuted, I had plans with a few old friends that wanted to go out and watch a movie and later have dinner. When they arrived at the door, I had them plop on my couch so I can continue my game and they began asking me what I was playing. I just started in Act 1. One couple (guy and girl) never played any video games in their whole lifetime while the other couple (yes...also a guy and girl) owns a Wii and just casually plays games. They continued to watch me for an hour but I was already 2 hours into the game - a short reward after running a million chores in the house. Considering how Kojima loves lengthy cutscenes I wanted to eat badly so I just stopped and saved the game in the middle of a scene. My friends were pissed off and wanted me to finish the scene. I reminded them about our movie night but they decided to change plans just to watch Metal Gear. I was starving and I wanted to run out and get a sandwich so I told them to just take over. All of them were hesitant in touching the controller. It felt alien to them. "I know you guys have played games before" I said. I assured them that they can just start over if they wanted to and I told them that I wasn't too far into the game. Still, none of them wanted to try playing. I told them they can watch TV if they want or checkout the showing times for movie night. I opened the manual for them and restarted the game. Of course, I didn't want to be a bad host so I asked if anyone wanted anything eat. I went to Safeway to get some snacks and food. An hour after I got back, I see them playing and arguing over how to get to point B. I stood back and watch as I saw my friends gnaw at each other like two kids fighting over a new toy. I resisted in asking for the my controller back and just threw tidbits of tips here and there. Despite the initial awkwardness, the group seemed decent in controlling the game. Then again, the game's difficulty was set on easy.

So we traded the controller after every death. It was interesting to watch my friends play. One of my buddies was so frustrated at the number of deaths we had that he decided to to make it into a drinking game. The person that dies holding the controller must take a shot of 151. Needless to say, we never got passed Act 2. After getting sober, one couple stayed over wanting to finish the game. The controller was changing hands for many hours and we got to Act 4. It was 4am in the morning. Today, they're coming back to finish off Act 5 with me. I'll write a review later. From what I've seen and played so far, this looks to be a strong contender for some pretty good game awards.

Initially, I wanted to write this blog in response to the Gamespot article titled "Atari movie to star DiCaprio". In the article, it describes how DiCaprio will play the part of Nolan Bushnell - the outspoken father of video gaming. What intrigued me was not so much the article but the many comments made to it.

Many comments stated how the movie, Nolan, or the history of games doesn't matter. Many of the ones who commented on the article didn't really care about the old man or that old-school should stay old-school. This is a huge contrast from my many face-to-face encounters with gamers offline. I've been playing games since the heydays of Atari and it is really easy to find someone close to my age to know our roots. While I was going through my usual game collecting at the nearby Gamestop, I heard two kids go at it about what their favorite games were. Expecting to hear echoes of GTA, Halo, and other recent games, I was suprised to hear two distinctive titles: River City Ransom (NES) or Super Metroid (SNES). What suprised me is seeing these young gamers talk about how much fun they had playing these games. I couldn't help overhearing them so I approached them and asked how old they were. They were 17 and 18 respectively. These guys were playing games that debuted before they were even born. They asked if I could recommend them some classics and I did. They were very respectful young men and I got the gist that they simply just wanted to play more fun games. I asked what got them started playing some of the older games and they credited the Wii's Virtual Console. They mention that they have many friends their age that do more retrogaming than their older counterparts - their parents! During my second visit to Gamestop, they mentioned to me that they ended up buying the original consoles on Ebay and wanted to play the games in their original form. I asked why they aren't playing any of the newer games. They mention to me that they do play them but they also told me that "there's just not enough variety anymore" and "the really good games only come out once every two months."

Game companies take note. To see gaming move to the next level, game companies need to take more risks in new experiences otherwise gamers like these will just default to the old-school games to fill time.

Especially myself. What other interests and hobbies do others have? I guess I'm just pretty bummed by how much Gamespot and its community has lost its edge. I kind of get the feeling that people have sort of moved on.

More or less, I feel the similar to the older people on this site. There used to be many good people - some of which were friends and now they're out to do bigger and better things. Simply put, this site is just overrun by too many fanboys. As long as a few of us lurk once in awhile, I'll be around. Just not as often. As you get older, you just tend to keep things simpler.

So, I'm getting back into running and marathons. There's a footrace in San Francisco coming up called Bay to Breakers (7.7 miles only). I've been running it for 10 years now and this'll be the first year I will be doing a centipede race. This is where you're linked with other fellow runners as a team by rope/sash/etc. If one person slows down, the whole group slows down. During the last couple of days, I've been running around the neighborhood, the parks. Yeah, it's just running. But it's helluva lot more peaceful than reading some of the stupid crap I read here. I hope our team can place.

I'm also plan on overhauling my site and getting back into web development and programming. I've jumped back on those forums and the community there has always been caring and helpful. I've already designed a prototype so I'm juiced in getting it done. My site has looked the same since 2002. Over the few days and weeks, I've realized that when I buy many games (and try to play that many games) in a short amount of time, I realize that I'm just covering up things I really want to do.

See you on the other side.

Much like everyone else who's followed this game, I've occasionally read about the development of this game for sometime. On a whim, I decided pay GameStop a visit and GTA4 suddenly shows up on the shelves.

I finally bought the game and played it for a couple of hours. I was very impressed with incredible amount of content I was buried in. I actually felt overwhelmed with the content that I decided to put down the controller, turn on NFL Network, and start browsing through my emails and sites. Then, I read the reviews.

Gamespot: 10
1up: A+
IGN: 10
etc.

Wow. They all followed the same trend. Any game that recieves a "10" is an incredible game in every sense but of course this is just my own opinion. Does GTA4 deserve to sit next to timeless games like Chrono Cross and Zelda OoT? I'm not too sure about that (at least in my book) but I can see why all these game reviewers gave 10s.

The Theory

GTA4's crazy sales and high reviews is the happy ending to Rockstar and Take-Two's tumultuos tale.

I believe that EA's attempted hostile buyout played a small part in this. It was an ongoing saga that most if not all game pundits followed. Take-Two knew they were in deep crap thanks to their overspending and acquisition sprees. Take-Two's subsidiaries did whatever it took to produce good games, but unforunately Take-Two's management was in disarray and with the added pressure of delivering similar GTA4 game experiences on two different systems, Rockstar and Take-Two had their work cutout for them. 2K Sports (although arguably superior than their EA Sports) has suffered and died since the exclusive NFL license. EA is to Empire while Take-Two/Rockstar is to Rebels. Game journalists took note and moved forward.

When I played the game, I expected high 9s but 10s are very rare to see considering the sacred few games that have gotten 10s. EA's hostile takeover was a very public message that put gamers and journalists on the defensive for their beloved GTA franchise. In some ways, I think GTA4's perfect scores sends a message not only to EA but to other large companies looking to acquire lucrative game properties just to increase their bottom line and place customer satisfaction in the backseat. It sends a message that smaller companies can still deliver the goods.

I didn't think I would be buying this many games in the last 2 days:

1. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS)
2. Advance Wars 2 (GBA) - NEW!
3. GTA4 (360)
4. Dodonpachi (Saturn)
5. Layer Section II (Saturn)
6. Brain Age 2 (DS)
7. Zelda (DS)

I think that's enough for now...

...or is it?