I'm issuing an ultimatum: If Giant Bomb wants to retain its relevance as a gaming source, by the end of the year the wiki needs to acknowledge of the rise of the Android as a platform for games. Gaming is starting to arrive in a big way as the Market becomes available in more countries and available on more devices across more networks. Games range anywhere from the tank combat game Panzer Panic, to the racer Raging Thunder, to the addicting Speed X. I know I've already harped on this before, but by the end of 2011, I guarantee that the Android Market will rival iTunes App Store in terms of diversity and quality of games. 
 
Recently, I've been playing: 

• Pac-Man Championship Edition (no explanation necessary)
• SpeedX (dodge blocks as your hurtle down an artsy and seizure inducing "corridor")
• Raging Thunder 2 (standard racing game)
• Radiant (kind of like galaga)
• Panzer Panic (top down tank combat game)

• Replica Island (entertaining platformer)
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (self-explanatory)
• Zenonia

In May, I discovered the wonders of Steam. It was the answer to my college gaming concerns. Having never been much of a PC gamer before, only dabbling in a couple RTS games from the late 90's and the Sims, my new laptop turned out to be adequate at running most modern games on moderate settings. Steam has become my friend with its insane sales, ability to download most games as many times as I want, and a great selection. DRM restricts the use of the game to your account, but it does not require you to be online at all times. It's a very liberal DRM policy that gives the user plenty of freedom without having to worry about some people exploiting the system. 
 
However, nothing gold can stay. Yesterday I bought Mass Effect for five dollars because it was a game I'd always heard was great, but couldn't play because I have a PS3. So it finished downloading all 10 GB and click "Play" only to be met with the message "Failed to contact key server". After confirming I was still connected to the Internet and wasn't mysteriously disconnected during the two minutes between when the game finished downloading and I clicked "Play", I searched Steam's site for some help, but all they had was this. I knew this couldn't be right because I had download dozens of games from Steam already and hadn't had a problem with one of them. 
 
I ended up finding a topic created back in January with people who had the same problem during a previous Mass Effect sale. It turns out that Steam didn't have enough CD keys on hand to distribute when the game was released. It's happening to a ton of people who bought the game yesterday, as well.
 
CD keys? Really? Aren't we a little beyond that archaic copy protection system? Isn't Steam supposed to negate all that? Your login IS your "CD key"! Either the developers were too lazy to edit the code for the Steam release, or EA is too over protective with their DRM. 
 
It's such a paradox. The people who legitimately buy the game, the ones who are giving the developers their due because they appreciate the work that goes into the production of a game get punished because the publisher can't trust them to not share the game. I know people who would pirate games like Mass Effect without a second thought to the morality of the action. And they would be happily playing now, not waiting for Valve to get more CD keys from EA. It's so infuriating that the ones who AREN'T stealing the game have to put up with this bull while you could easily pirate the game and not have to worry about any of that. 
 
DRM NEEDS to die. It has no place today. It does not prevent piracy. It punishes the legitimate user. EA publishes games for incredible developers, but EA as the publisher is garbage. How much foresight does it take to realize taking this action isn't going to save any lost sales. It's not going to prevent the game from being hacked by some guy and uploaded to be downloaded for free. EA should be encouraging their customers, not discouraging them. If I ever have this problem with EA's games again, then I might reconsider legitimately purchasing their games.

Unlike the Wii, it looks like it's actually creating new game experiences not possible with a controller or motion control. This was no more clear than in that MTV dance game. That game looks really fun to me, and it looks like it would be a great work out. It seems really hard, but I bet there are different difficulty modes just like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I think this is the first motion control device that actually makes me genuinely excited. I don't even own a 360 and have been a PS3 guy since it launched. Kinect frankly offers true innovation. The best part is it works. I'm not looking for full adventure experiences. I'm looking for fun party games and rhythm games. 
 
Anybody else with me?

Peter Pan! I just discovered I have not updated this since you last visited... You would not believe my anguish at my misdoings. Apologies!.

I am flat out with sleeping my way to the top, soaking in the tub, just generally being a parent to every Lost Boy that crosses my path, my day goes from the second star on the right, straight on to I see my darling's 10000 text messages. I am beyond drunk most of the time. life happens.

I swear I will blog more regularly. Seriously! This is for my ever faithful, devoted public.

[SOURCE]

I can't remember the last time when I sat down and read through a whole book for the heck of it. On Friday, my friends and I were browsing in a Barnes and Noble next to the restaurant we were at because one of us had to wait for a parent to pick him. At B&N, books are sometimes placed on the sides of shelves just to kind of advertise them, probably to dumb asses like us who wouldn't look at the actual shelves for books. On this shelf-siding, a number of interesting books were displayed.

The most immediately important book on that shelf was The Alphabet of Manliness. One of us owned a copy of the book, and it actually is quite hilarious. The other notable book was The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, who also authored World War Z, a novel I have not yet read about an eventual zombie apocalypse. There were two copies, which my friend and I bought, mostly for the lolz. Well, yesterday morning, I started reading it. I read for extended periods of time on and off for the next two days, and, I have to say, I'm impressed. The book seemingly "accurately" describes what an ordinary citizen should do in-case of a Solanum (the virus which causes death and reanimation) outbreak. It also describes zombie physiology and past zombie outbreaks. While the entire work is obviously fiction, Max Brooks is able to turn an impossible situation into a likely disaster.

While this book may not be the most literary of novels, I have been inspired to actively read again, something I have not done since Junior High. After I post this blog, I'm off to start reading the Lord of the Rings again. You may wonder why I would possibly need to read a thousand page epic again. Frankly, when I first read them, I stumbled through them due to my lack of comprehension when I was 12 or whatever. Hopefully by now I can read them and thoroughly interpret and enjoy them.

My only regret is that I didn't play any Dead Space... Ah, well. That can wait for another day.

This is definitely debatable and I'll probably get tons of pictures from Jayge that are WORSE than this, but I think this is it:

This Giant Bomb experiment has failed. A utopian community of gamers who love games without platform discrimination... we have failed to create this. Don't believe me? Check out my last blog. It's hidden because of all the negative ratings. Why? All it does is showcase awesome games coming to PS3 next year. I don't think I discriminated against anybody... my language is clean (unless you consider "sexy" offensive)... what's the deal? Oh, that's right: fanboys.

For the first couple months of Giant Bomb, this disease was nowhere to be seen. Many of us rejoiced: finally a community where simply discussing of games could ensue. Alas, it was not to be. Fanboyism, the virus which has claimed so many game forums before it (GameSpot, Gametrailers) has proven too strong for us more enthusiastic gamers. This is disgusting.

What happened? Did Giant Bomb become too popular for its own good, attracting the scum of the internet? I mean, we could argue how illogical corporate fanboyism is, but that's not the purpose of this blog. No, I'm calling YOU guys out, you people reading this. Are you part of this infection beginning to plague the only shining utopia of Giant Bomb? If you aren't, what can we do to halt its progress? I'm asking you guys. Speak out and either join my fight, or find someway to defend your actions.

A few days ago I was reading an article about Killzone 2 and it suddenly hit me: There are TONS of games coming out next year on the PlayStation 3. Just check this out.

Heavy Rain

Ratchet and Clank Future 2

inFamous

God of War III

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Killzone 2

Fat Princess