The Gamespot corruption/review story has been floating around the Internet for close to a week now but I have been holding off writing anything until more details come in. It just seems however many more details flood in the story gets worse and worse.

First, a brief synopsis. Gamespot has been hyping up the release of Kane & Lynch for quite some time now. They have had multiple banners around their website, as well as an overall Kane & Lynch skin for their pages. If history could provide any example, it would be that the review of this much anticipated and hyped game would follow suit. Kane & Lynch will receive a top notch score.

But no… Kane & Lynch got destroyed by the reviewers. Imagine spending tens of thousand of advertising dollars with a company only to have that company turn around and completely trash your product. That is their job right? To provide honest reviews? Not this time said Eidos. The developing company put a lot of pressure on Gamespot to make some changes. Completely unbelievably, Gamespot caved. Not only did they make edits to the plain text review, but they removed the video review. The real icing on the cake however came when they fired Jeff Gerstmann, their editorial director of 11 years, the one who actually wrote the review - seemingly without explanation. The implication of this firing? It must be Gamespot policy to be bias on reviews.

Since the original story there have been statements by both Gamespot and Gerstmann. Neither party have either confirmed or denied these rumours - which to me, and most other people, is essentially a confirmation.

What do we do now? How do we find an impartial source? Well I personally started to notice this trend with Gamespot about a year ago now, and have been annoyed with them for some time. I have been using www.gamerankings.com to attempt to get an overall look at games. Generally you do get a better picture, but you still have to deal with the reviews of the major corporations either dragging down or pulling up the reviews (if that really is the case). Over the next few days I am going to do a little research on comparison of reviews among companies.

I am going to start with my most annoyed comparison. Madden 08 vs All-Pro Football 2k8. Most people that know me well have already heard me express my disgust at how APF got mostly obliterated by reviews while Madden was praised. Madden may very well be a fine game - but in a side to side comparison it stands out as an utter piece of garbage. Look for this probably tomorrow.

Following that I am going to have a deeper look at Gamespot vs. The World to attempt to find some other inaccuracies.

Until then, please do enjoy the original Gerstmann Video Review of Kane & Lynch that was pulled from their site.

So I have fallen off of the wagon. Is it off the wagon? Or on the wagon? Anyhow, my World of Warcraft account has officially been reactivated and I must say it was a slow and painful process.

About 2 weeks ago Jagonfox reactivated his account and tried to convince me to play with him - I said no.

About 1 week ago Himmura/Darkane/Kstar reactivated and mentioned I could play with him. I considered it and I said no.

About 3 days ago HKP mentioned he had reactivated and I should play with him. I considered it even harder. Three hours later I was sitting in Brill with a brand new Undead Warlock.

Basically since everyone I played with had sold their accounts - err wait Ebay, I mean they sold their time as a service. So since they sold their service and all had to level again, we decided to give Horde a try. A friend of a friend’s cousin’s babysitter’s neighbour who feeds his fish while he is on vacation plays on Skullsplitter - so now so do we.

So far we have myself on the Undead Warlock, Kstar on the Hunter, HKP Mage, Jagonfox Pally, and Kstars girl on another Pally. I have to admit, I’m not overly excited about leveling another character - and I truly don’t know if I will stick it out. If I do give it up, or we all fall apart somehow, I’ll likely finish up my 69.8 Hunter from before I switched to the Shaman back in early BC. I always enjoyed the hunter more than the shaman anyways.

Either way, WoW has kept me from here, but I will get back in to it. I have big things to write about Gamespot - as well as on the review industry as a whole. More to come shortly…

Next time you hold a console LAN party down in El Paso, you better be careful who shows up. Either that or maybe install an airport metal detector at your front door. If you aren’t prepared, you could easily end up with a large gathering criminals with warrants out for their arrest.

U.S. Marshalls in El Paso, Texas tested this theory recently with what some might call the oldest trick in the book. You may already be a winner… yeah - of jail time. 115 arrests were made and 129 warrants cleared as criminals responded to a letter informing them that they had won an Xbox 360. On top of that, over $25,000 in back traffic fines were also collected.

This entire story begs for increased membership applications to the National Association of Retarded Citizens. Here is a newsflash for our slower friends down in the large southern state. It is also coming from someone who is in Marketing, and would be in charge of running various contests and campaigns such as this. You will never be randomly selected from the phone book to win an Xbox 360, a Television, a Boat, or any other cool prize. I don’t know how many letters or calls were made to inform these Mensa members that they had won, but the fact that any more than ZERO people even showed up brings more tears to my eyes than any World Vision commercial showing me a bunch of flies with a child on them.

What is even more surprising is that I was aware of this method for catching criminals when I was about 5 years old. Are these criminals new to Earth? Have they been living abroad on Neptune for the last 20 years? Oh no wait, they are just Texans. I certainly hope no one from Texas ends up running your coun - oh wait.

Hey - at least they make a damn good BBQ down there!

What can be better than lesbian alien sex? How about lesbian alien sex, with some guns ‘n’ ammo on the side!! Mass Effect has been out for about 10 days now, and I have managed to sink my teeth in far enough to produce a competent review - at least as competent as one would expect from Peppercorn Nation…

Mass Effect is the much anticipated latest entry into the gaming world from Canadian great (although now owned by EA) BioWare Corp. In the past, they have given us Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights. Mass Effect follows in the footsteps of KOTOR, in a futuristic sci-fi Action-RPG. Actually it really should be called an RPG-Action, because there are many more RPG elements than there are action.

The story is simple, yet fulfilling. You must save the galaxy! What makes it interesting though is the element of choice. You have the ability to dictate every conversation your character comes across. You can be the valiant hero, the firm commander, the rude renegade - basically whatever tone you wish. Sometimes you have as many as 6 options to take the conversation. While some conversations will inevitably lead to the same end result, other areas of the game allow you to fully choose how to act. For instance, one particular mission had me investigating your classic science experiment gone bad. While running tests on a plant, scientists discovered a mind control element of the organism and of course attempted to use it for personal gains. These men were obviously not brought up with common sense and access classic cinema, nor did they have any books, tales, fables or stories of any sort. If they had, they would know that these types of experiments usually lead to zombies.

Wouldn’t you know it. The scientists are now mindless zombies shooting me with guns! Right after I just turned on their water and power and saved them from the evil alien race of the Geth! Well I am faced with a decision. A “human” gave me a stun grenade upgrade to my frags and begged me to spare their lives, as destroying the evil plant would surely free them of this mind control. No dice sister! I shot them all in the face - which strangely enough still warranted quite a nice thank you and reward from the other non mind-controlled scientists. I don’t waste my time with frivolous emotions like compassion or human nature. I will say the wussy scientists didn’t put up much of a fight… I guess their lab rats for a reason.

Aside from the decision making factor brought forward by Mass Effect, there is also an interesting futuristic class based system that will be familiar to any RPG vet. There are about 8 classes in Mass Effect, and maybe about 30 skills. Each class has a primary and secondary set of skills - totalling about 12 per class. These can include Sniper Rifles, Assault Rifles, Pistols, Electronics, First Aid, Armor, Fitness, and various offensive/defensive spells. As you gain a level, you also gain 2 skill points to upgrade any of your skills. After reaching a certain level with your primaries, they will unlock the secondaries. As an infiltrator, my weapon skill began with Pistols. Upon reaching level 5 pistols, I was allowed to spec in Snipers. These are the only 2 weapon specs for my infiltrator. My strength really lies in sniping people from long range, but I can also pack a mean punch up close with my pistol.

You also gather various party members as you advance in the game. Each one can specialize in Combat, Tech, or Biotics. You may choose to select a party that is full assault for some missions, while other missions might call for some hackers and decrypters.

Just as you can be creative with your party, you can be just as creative with what you actually do in the game. At any given point you have about 10 side missions and about 3-4 primary missions that you can work through in any order at any time. Some missions are as simple as taking your land rover and driving around a deserted planet looking for wreckage, while others will send you deep into an underground laboratory guns a blazin’. All in all, it is refreshing to be able to do what I want when I want - not that it really matters in the long run as you’ll usually end up doing them all anyways.

So far I am very much enjoying the game - but it is not without its negatives. Personally, the biggest setback I have faced is the extremely slow pace of the game. I find it tedious when I am not in a mission. There is a lot running from place to place, constant checking of your map and or journal, and being forced through long slow conversations that seem to always end in me receiving yet another side mission. By far the most annoying slow paced areas are taking elevator rides, and boarding your space ship. Elevator rides usually last about 45 seconds to 1 minute - which on their own do not seem too long. But really, take some time and just stare at your monitor for 45 seconds… it’s feels a lot longer than it is. And these wait times are not load times - oh no, there are still load times in between these wastes of time. When you board the Normandy (your spacecraft), your ship’s computer will decontaminate you. This consists of about 2 minutes of a white beam streaking across your body. This was interesting the first time - maybe even kind of cool. By the tenth time I’m ready for my Xbox to crash so I have an excuse to just go to bed.

The real problems with the game (that is an issue that everyone might find troublesome rather than just spoiled impatient brats like myself) lie mostly with the combat. I can’t quite place my finger on what the issue is - but it just doesn’t feel right. There is a clunkiness to it that helps make intense fights less intense and small issues with “locking” in to cover positions when I’m simply trying to strafe. Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas both did the cover system quite well making you hit a button when you want to use cover. For some reason BioWare decided that simply walking in to the cover should snap you in to place. This “cool” system has attributed to a few extra special deaths as I lock in to “cover” against something behind me while backing up and then end up getting shot in the face.

There are also issues with sniper shots going through stationary targets and making a hole in the metal behind what I’m shooting. As I have yet to try a shotgun or an assault rifle, I can’t comment on their accuracy. It is quite annoying however to zoom in on something that is so close it takes up about 90% of my screen, fire a round, and see the evildoer take no damage. That is one magic bullet.

There is also graphical slowdown. I guess its just time to upgrade my compu- oh wait, this is on a console. Why is there framerate issues on a console again?

Anyhow, no game is without its flaws - so nothing to get too concerned about. All in all, the game is quite entertaining. In fact, the game seems diverse enough that I’m very much looking forward to playing it through not only the first time (which is rare these days), but I’d even like to give it a shot a 2nd time, and maybe a 3rd. There just seems to be so many perspectives and methods to play the game, it truly might be “a new game every time you play it” as we so often hear these days. There also seems to be quite a difference in playstyle between the classes - adding to the replay factor.

I do recommend this game to anyone with a 360 that is interested in an involving single player story-based game. Also any loners out there desperate for Facebook friends, both Commander Shepherd and Wrex from the game had their own pages. Unfortunately Facebook didn’t think it was as cool as I did, and they removed them. Perhaps if you write them a really nice letter they’ll allow you the digital friends you so deserve.

Finally got some time aside to be able to finish off this game…

My final words? More of just a word I guess… disappointing. Assassin’s Creed is a completely beautiful game for about the first 5 hours. You see, the remodeled versions of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem are absolutely breathtaking - especially when you see them for the first time when you ride in on your horse. Doing the missions in each town is also pretty fun. Unfortunately after one assassination in each city, the devs seem to come up short an any form of originality whatsoever.

You then get to return to each city 2 more times each. You then get to repeat the same 2-3 hours of quests 6 more total times. You then get to figure out how to create your own real hidden blade in the sleeve of your shirt. You then finally get to breath a sigh of relief as you use that hidden blade to gouge out your eyes.

This game started out quite strong and just finished off with such a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, each assassination is quite cool, but forcing you to replay the same saving of the citizens, or the same “Assassinate 3 targets in 3 minutes!” over and over is just a new level of lame.

You get the impression near the end of the game that someone finally clued in at just how repetitive it was getting and felt the need to spice it up - and boy did they “spice” something up… my anger. Rather than include some new cool missions, they decide to make them harder. Read between the lines, harder doesn’t mean more challenging, it means more annoying. See now when you save a citizen, instead of having to kill 3-4 guards, now you need to kill 15-20. Now when you have to secretly assassinate someone in the street, they are surrounded by 5-10 drunk people that want to start fist fights with you in the street, or 5 beggars preventing you from reaching your target - both of which attract guard attention forcing you to fail. It is not challenging, hard, or interesting. It is just straight annoying.

I do have to say that from the 9th assassination to the end of the game - it is in fact different, interesting, and entertaining. It seems the final word is that the first 20% of the game is excellent, the last 10% is excellent and the middle 70% is the Ebola virus. Overall, the excellent graphics, and level of fun that is bouncing around from building to building, as well as the previously mentioned 30%, brings up a repetitive annoying game to an acceptable level that is recommended that everyone give a shot to.

Overall? Perhaps a 3.5/5 - and worth a play-through from anyone. Just don’t expect and re-playability.