Sega All-Stars Racing WTFs (Ft. Nintendo/Zach Morris)

Dear Spike TV.  On behalf of myself and all the Sega fans out there, I demand you take that "Best Racing Game" award away from Burnout: Paradise 2 Need for Speed: Most Wanted (A Criterion Game) and give it to Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed.  You see, as a very important person on the Internet with an influential blog (95% of all traffic from Google Image Searches) my feelings matter very much, even if I didn't bother to watch your crummy awards show at all.  So until you stop hyping up overrated racing games, I call for an indefinite boycott of your lousy channel (even though I have denounced you badly enough before)!  YOU'RE CLEARLY OUT TO GET SEGA, THAT'S WHAT IT IS.  YOU GUYS SUCK!!!!  Go turn into a metrosexual channel just like G4.

EDIT: Just joking, don't really care what Spike TV does.  Even if Sega All-Stars Racing got recognition there, it would go in and out the ears of everyone watching.  A day after the show, not a single f*** will be given about the awards.  Seriously bro...that's the joke.

Now there's cause for concern about Sega All-Stars Racing's sales numbers.  Somewhere, a few Sega fans have jumped off a bridge (they've survived previous jumps) but this is a good comment I read from "IceHedge" on the TSSZNews article:

If you total these numbers up compared to how All-Stars Racing did roughly in its first week:

ASR sold 20,498 + 10,432 + 7,419 = 37,349

S&ASRT sold 34,825 + 9,272 + 9,506 = 53,603

In order: Wii/Wii U + Xbox 360 + PS3 units sold respectively

Yeah, we said the same doom & gloom stuff about the first Sega All-Stars Racing.  That it would bomb.  But the game went on to cruise to 3.2 million sales across all platforms worldwide which I suppose is successful (in Sega terms).  It's good enough to merit making a second Sega All-Stars Racing so it's not too bad.

Go ahead and blame Sega for doing a crap job at advertising.  Not enough commercials.  Only saw one commercial on ESPN2 while they were airing the Nationwide race with Danica's Sega car.  DarthS0L said Danica would get the word out, yada yada yada, but I don't think real-life car fans care about arcade racing games (a topic for another day).  Danica's impact on sales may have been below expectations but I'm not going to pile on Sega, Sumo Digital, or Danica Patrick for this because something MARKETING FAILS.  

But when you think of big sales, you compare Sega All-Stars Racing to some mega-hyped game like Black Ops 2 or Halo 4 and frankly...so what?  Games like CoD and Halo are basically hyped up so much they burn out too quickly.  Explains why they release a new one every year to the same exact massive sales numbers.  It's become tradition for every average joe gamer to run out and buy this on launch, play the crap out of multiplayer, then drop it for whatever else is the "cool new thing" at the moment--usually another very original gun/sword/knife-wielding action game.

EDIT whole paragraph: On the contrary, Sega All-Stars Racing isn't a "must-have" title for most (because racing games & Sega games aren't top-tier sellers by any means) but people will get around to it.  It'll have a longer shelf life than these quick Halo/CoD iterations because it won't be "eclipsed" as quickly.  I've heard of Wii U owners who wanted to pick this up but were holding out on the Wii U console altogether until its library got bigger.  Also the PC version isn't even out yet!  And Christmas isn't even here yet.  We're gonna have to go the "cult classic" route and do Sega's advertising for them.  It's what this blog helps me to do.  Anyway I'm not going into panic mode yet.

But you want to hear even crazier stuff?  I don't know what TSSZ News's deal is posting ridiculous rumors like this.  Apparently, Nintendo is planning to acquire Sega.  And this is from a video by the "HipHopGamer."

I don't believe it.  I don't even need to watch the video.  But I'll say this about Nintendo owning Sega--I'd be traumatized.  Why?  Because Nintendo and Sega think differently.  Nintendo is a successful game developer, Sega isn't anymore.  Nintendo pours tons of effort into Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, and Wii stuff.  It's good stuff but predictable and highly reliant on some new features like the Wiimote and the 3D screen (that makes people vomit).  Yet Sega lives on the edge.  Always got the crazy new IPs for each console (including arcades...something Nintendo was completely lacking), got that Sonic attitude, making professional arcade titles that still get credit like Daytona and Virtua Fighter.  I don't know how much room Nintendo would give for Sega to flex (Nintendo-console exclusives would suck) but judging from how Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games went down, I think any Sega IPs would just be sterilized.  After all, Nintendo IPs like Smash Bros. sell and Sega ones (usually) don't.  Which way do you think Nintendo will steer the ship?

If this is true, I hope I'm wrong.  Don't need to be a Nintendo diehard to know just looking at the history between the two, they're meant to be rivals just by the way they operate.  If they were to merge, then one would have to change.  And I don't see Nintendo willing to change.

Also, look at this guy...Hip Hop Gamer.  If Nintendo acquiring Sega was such a big story, this would've at least made it to Kotaku or Reddit but no.  Now I don't have a hate-on for rap like some others do (though I hate this crap psuedo hip-hop from losers like Black Eyed Peas and R-Kelly or whatever tool thinks hanging out with Justin Bieber is a good thing) but I know that a lot of these hip-hop sites tend to harbor crazy conspiracy theories.  Like Jay-Z with the hand signals, Lil Wayne's occult rap lyrics, Michael Jackson was assassinated by a secret organzation.  That's extreme, I know, but I can't help but feel skeptical about any "exclusive" information they have to report.

Oh, speaking of conspiracy theories and making up Sega stuff, it's our good Dreamcast 2 friend, Zach Morris!!!  He predicted the Dreamcast 2's release on Dec 12, 2012.  Guess what, it's three days to go and unless Sega has serious brain damage, it would've been announced & advertised already.  But Zach Morris has another blog up -- Model4: Inside Sega's R&D.  Strangely, some of these posts, presumably by "employees of Zach Morris," make a little sense.  In other words, they are mildly informative and actually reference old Model2/32X/Saturn media.  So what's going on here?  Is this some guy who lives in some fictional world where he's the R&D guy of Sega, making elaborate posts about Sega insider information on crappy websites that hardly anyone reads (like Chris-Chan but a lot less graphic)?  Or is he one of the lamest trolls ever only trying to f*** with the minds of a few wandering Sega fans?  Forget this guy.  I'm taking a nap.

Quick, someone needs to make a "Scumbag Sega" meme--maybe then Sega would get some attention.

GameInformer Curbs Their Disappointment

Hello kids, I'm not fully motivated to type right now but once again, two GameInformer magazines are tossed on the table and I couldn't resist the urge to rip 'em again.  I have both the Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012 issues.

But first, let me talk about the game covers.  The December issue has a Rainbow Six: Patriots cover, but that's not all.  Glued to the front cover is another "cover"that you can peel off.  This second cover happens to be an ad for the Spike Video Game Awards.  That stupid ass trophy of a monkey wearing a crown holding what appears to be a bong might as well be substituted for dog excrement.  Way to go GameInformer, just when I thought you couldn't stoop any lower.

What am I doing here???

Then there's the January cover showcasing this upcoming South Park game, complete with tons of photos and interviews with Trey and Matt.  Now, I'm completely indifferent to the show, but damn--since when did South Park become "down" with the gamers?  Ever since the World of Warcraft episode?  The Guitar Hero episode?  The Nintendo Wii episode?  Just like Spike TV or Mountain Dew--now gamers think they're hip cause they start advertising to them?  Sorry, I'm not buying.

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Now, it's review time!  First up is Need for Speed: The Run.  We all know The Run sucks.  So here's the GI review and it sucks even worse.  To spare you the pain, I'll quote parts of it:

Although The Run contains all of these constituent parts, it fails to execute or combine them in a way that is engaging. After I finished the game, I had raced across America, escaped the mob, and cheated death numerous times, but was left with relatively few postcards to remember the experience by.

My main problem with the game is that its cross-country trek simply contains too few highlights. The out-of-the-car moments can be counted on one hand, and when they finally do occur, the fact that they are little more than quick-time events dampens them as a novel gameplay experience in an otherwise foreign genre.

The racing itself isn’t boring, but it’s not novel enough in and of itself to make the game great – especially since it’s not being bolstered by the on-foot segments.

As much as the on-foot vignettes are a lost opportunity for The Run, I also feel like it drops the ball on the story as a whole.

Need for Speed: The Run is by no stretch a bad game; it just fails to capitalize on its chances. San Francisco to New York is a long haul, and it’s even longer when not enough happens in between.

Replay: Moderate

So let's play a game.  It's called "Guess the review score?"  Guess what it is:

A 7.75.  Personally, for me, reading this review without looking at the number, you'd think this would be somewhere in the 7 or less review.  Maybe even a 6.5.  It's almost as if Mr. Kato (the same dumbass extraordinaire who bashed OutRun 2) played the game, wrote down plenty of flaws, but at the last minute when it was time to write the final score, he chickened out a by a point or so.  Why would he do that?

Name recognition.  To him and many other mainstream gamer types, the Need for Speed brand is this glorious, fetishized object that they'll always respect, no matter how many crap releases Electronic Arts pushes every year.  So when they get to NFS: The Run, they play it and think "It's not very good" BUT they cannot will themselves to write down a score in the 6-ish range so they cut the deal and say "this game has problems BUT it's still a 7.75!"  Yeah sure, when the GameRankings average is 6.9, I buy it.

This is just like their previous review for Burnout: Crash.  Now we know this game sucks too but here's another quote from the GameInformer review: 

Despite these slight tweaks to the rules, the modes don’t feel all that different. After the initial hour or so, I started to feel the repetition setting in. You play the same intersection three times in a row, move on to the next one, play that three times, and so on. It really starts to feel like a grind as you try to plow through all the levels.

Replay: Moderate

They gave Burnout: Crash a 7.5.  See what I mean?  When they hear the name "Burnout," they piss their pants.  And when they find out a Burnout game just isn't very good, they weasel their way out of it with a short, non-helpful review with a few critiques to show they "care," slap a decent score on it, and they're on their merry way.  It's pathetic.

Oh, but reviews get even better!  GameInformer reviews Sonic Generations and gives it a 6.75 with a few choice quotes, here's some:

The result is a timeline that starts out strong and slowly deteriorates, serving as an apt history lesson for the struggling series.

 Unfortunately, the good times fade when Sonic begins cruising through 2D versions of levels from post-Dreamcast Sonic games. Traversing the burning ruins of Crisis City from the awful 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog reboot is an exercise in frustration packed with unfair drop-offs and annoying gales.

Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Heroes didn’t thrill me, and revisiting reworked versions only serves to remind me of how uninspired they are. Legacy issues, like wonky platforming and poorly communicated pitfalls, plague these later levels.

I felt smothered by Sonic Team’s insistence on shoehorning recent Sonic games, no matter how awful, into the 20-year timeline.

Concept: A whimsical trip down memory lane that ends in the gutter

 Replay: Moderately Low

I don't get it.  The only real critique behind the game is that it reminds them of bad Sonic games,  the controls "suck" again, and there's a few pits that you can fall in (news flash: a red warning sign appears in places you can fall to your death).  You moron, this is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAME.  If ONLY the mere sight of levels/characters from a mediocre Sonic game makes you sick, then you're a complete wimp.  Stop reviewing Sonic games.

Also, I don't get how Sonic Generations gets a "low" replay value when all I hear out of games like Burnout: Crash and NFS: The Run with their "medium" replay value is the repetitive grinding as usual.  Sonic has plenty of side missions and things to unlock--does Burnout and Need for Speed have the same as well?

Seriously, Sonic Generations faired much better than NFS: The Run ever did (a 7.8 average on GameRankings), so what's the deal with this review?

See what I mean?  When it comes to NFS or Burnout, those are special icons they cannot part with.  Sonic, however, is expendable.  It's for loser Sega fans, nerds, little kids, furries, and people with autism.  The "cool" gamers don't care about Sonic so they're not afraid to rip the game although they couldn't come up with much to say about the game anyway other than the usual talking points..."uh, Sonic's dead to us so this game automatically fails."

I did say this before and I'll say it again--GameInformer is a magazine sold by retailer GameStop so what the hell do you think GI is going to say?  That these games suck?  No, they're going to soften them up and convince readers to run to GameStop to buy all these wonderful games.  It's no use to them to rate a game poorly (except Sonic since that'll sell no matter what since we're all "tools").  Either that or Electronic Arts & Criterion are paying off GameInformer not to rate their games so harshly which is likely the case too.

Other GameInformer reviews include: Modern Warfare 3 (9.0), Battlefield 3 (9.25), Skyrim (9.5), and Zelda: Skyward Sword (a perfect 10).  So their reviews fall in line with everyone else's.  What's the point of reading this magazine again?

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Oh, and one more kick in the ass for the road, on Page 50 of the Dec. 2011 issue, they run through a list of games of this generation you "shouldn't miss" from each genre.  Here's the racing games that you must definitely check out:

"RACING: You love the smell of burning tires and the press of wind against your skin, but nothing compares to the feeling of knowing that, at any moment, you could lose control."

Forza Motorsport series
Gran Turismo 5
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Burnout series
Mario Kart series

I shed a tear at the guy's description but realized he's full of crap.  Really sad how this list has dwindled down to just this.  Forza is the only one that has any sense of credibility left.  Gran Turismo 5 is a heap of a mess.  NFS: Hot Pursuit is the only "good" NFS of this generation but even then, I think it's overrated and needed the assistance of both EA and Criterion to make it decent.  Burnout is Burnout and Mario Kart has Nintendo's blessing behind it.  It's the same-old same-old that you've heard for years and it makes me sick.  A shame that no other races have risen to challenge it.  OutRun 2, maybe, but no one cares about that anymore.  And Sonic didn't even get mentioned in the Platformer section, go figure.  Sega FTW!

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I can keep nitpicking about GameInformer but it is futile and petty.  GI still puts out some decent editorials although I obviously don't put a lot of faith in these guys.  But it's not just about GI, it's about the gaming media in general which tends to follow the same thought processes.  Now you know why as a Sega racing fan I can get so irate.

Happy Festivus 2.0

It's December 23 which is Festivus worldwide.  Now my (second) Airing of Grievances, this time on events from the year Twenty Eleven:

MICROSOFT SUCKS -- Cause they continue to ram the Kinect up our asses and it will always suck and nothing can change my mind.

NINTENDO SUCKS -- 3DS is overrated and cause Link keeps winning the GameFAQs character contests and it's beyond stupid at this point.

NAMCO SUCKS -- Ridge Racer Unbounded is trash and RR Vita is incredibly lacking (five cars and three tracks???????????).

SONY SUCKS -- They got hacked and couldn't do anything about it.

ELECTRONIC ARTS SUCKS -- What "unique" games have they made besides Madden and other perennial sports titles?  EDIT: FYI, Mass Effect, Battlefield, and even NFS: The Run were made by separate studios.  Also, Origin is spyware, you noobs.

CAPCOM SUCKS -- Cause they don't like racing games, that's why.  And they couldn't be arsed into putting MEGA MAN in MvC3 (this offends me even as a non-Capcom fan).

SKYRIM SUCKS -- Overrated, buggy, time-consuming trash.

BATTLEFIELD SUCKS -- I just don't care, lol.

CALL OF DUTY SUCKS -- MW3 is bad, rofl.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT SUCKS -- This game will always suck and its dwindling players shows...

NEED FOR SPEED SUCKS -- RUN JACK RUN FROM THE POLICE AND THE ONCOMING TRAIN!!!

BURNOUT SUCKS -- It just does.

FAST & THE FURIOUS SUCKS -- You're killing arcades with this trash!!!

GAME INFORMER SUCKS -- They trashed OutRun 2 but loved Burnout Crash, UNEXCUSEABLE.

OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE SUCKS -- Horrible Daytona USA review.

SPIKE TV SUCKS -- Turning gaming into an advertising cesspool and teabagging the guy in front of Shigeru Miyamoto.

G4TV SUCKS -- I don't know what they did wrong but I'm fairly certain Adam Sessler said something stupid.

REDDIT GAMING SUCKS -- Too many stupid ass Advice Animal memes.

TOSHIHIRO NAGOSHI SUCKS -- What has he done lately but make another studio for Yakuza games?

GAMEFAQS SUCKS -- Damn do I hate this website.  Every board is either run by absolute buffoons/trolls or picky moderators.

FIEA SUCKS -- How was a game about an anime-style teddy bear wielding a sword chosen over the sweet racing game I suggested?

AMERICAN IDOL SUCKS -- I hate this show.

DISNEY WORLD SUCKS -- Everything is overpriced there.

NFL REFEREES SUCK -- Officiating has been horrible all year.  Finally someone calls the zebras out (and gets picked up on live TV) and then he gets penalized again.  What BS, this is the No Fun League now.  I swear, if the Saints get cheated out of a game by one of these phantom calls, I'm going to lose my s***.



I suddenly like the St. Louis Rams now (after the Saints debacle earlier this year).

VIDEO GAMES SUCK - They're a waste of your time.  So why do I plan on making these very time-wasters for a living?  Same reason people make porn or sell drugs, cause they're STUPID.

Sega, however, does not suck.  Just when I thought you couldn't get any stupider...you find a way to totally redeem yourself!!!!  (Daytona USA)

YOU ALL STINK!!!

Time now for the Feats of Strength.  Until you (FnF fanboys) pin me to the ground, Festivus is not over.  YOU WANNA PIECE OF ME???  YOU GOT IT!!!

Spike VGA's: No Wonder Miyamoto Is Leaving...

As we all know, Miyamoto is set to "retire" soon.  EDIT: Okay, he's really not but whatever.  Although I don't suck up to Nintendo, I do give Miyamoto a LOT of credit for kick-starting Nintendo and the Japanese game market so kudos, man.

Anyway, a few days ago or whatever, the Spike Video Game Awards were on.  I had no idea about this until today.  And thank God I didn't watch it live otherwise I would've gone skydiving without a parachute.

So Miyamoto is in attendance at this Oscar's style award ceremony.  Wait a second, who died and made Spike the leading authority on video game awards?  Bunch of schmucks.  Although G4TV is probably worse, I dunno.  Anyway, the Black Keys (some lame-o alternative band I don't listen to) performed and here's Miyamoto head-bobbing, having a grand old time.  No really, he looked just weirded out throughout the whole thing.  Don't worry, Miyamoto, I'll mail you some Deep Purple/Cheap Trick CD's when this is over.

And then you have the STUPIDEST F***ING THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN.  Burnout winning game of the year?  No, not that bad but it's close.  So Charlie Sheen (oh God) goes up to announce the best FPS of the year.  He says Modern Warfare 3 and half the Internet becomes vehemently ill.  Up comes some producers from Infinity Ward to accept the award, followed by a cosplaying soldier who knocks one of them down and proceeds to teabag repeatedly.  Can't embed the video, fortunately.

Please bear in mind that SHIGERU MIYAMOTO was in attendance.  The Man, The Myth, The Legend.  Sitting there watching a guy get tea-bagged.  Have we gamers lost or minds or what???  Just to illustrate, I'll put both pics side by side.

What a joke.  Miyamoto the legend is subjected to this crap?  SHOW THE MAN SOME RESPECT.  This is like at a wedding before the bride says "I do," a fat naked guy goes streaking by.  Tons of advertising and crap celebrities like Jack Black, Hulk Hogan, Charlie Sheen, the Tosh.O guy, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Green, Eddie Griffin, Neil Patrick Harris, Ashton Kutcher, any pinhead celebrity who think it's "cool" to be down with video games???  Is this a show about VIDEO GAMES or is it about being a stupid ass???

No wonder Miyamoto is qutting.  He's probably thinking, "There's no hope for these kids."  I also know Hideo Kojima was there...sheesus, this stuff serves as fuel for his crazy MGS conspiracy crap.  All Kojima could do was babble on.

EDIT: S*** THIS GOT DELETED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, VIACOM BLOWS


I only pray that Yu Suzuki didn't have to sit through this.  Although I wish Toshihiro Nagoshi did to teach him of his idiotic ways.

Oh, and which games won awards?  Well, Skyrim, Batman, Portal 2, the same crap you'd come to expect.  Really love how the best Xbox 360 game was a non-exclusive (Batman).  Forza 4 won Best Racing Game although we clearly know Daytona USA should've won.  And thank God NFS: The Runs didn't win either. Also, I really can't help but enjoy the CoD vs. Battlefield war going on.  Did BF3 deserve to the win the award???  Sure they did.  But this just proves how idiotic the game industry has become.

I read an interesting article about the Spike VGAs from Giant Bomb.  TBQH, those guys over there are the only "big" gaming media that doesn't have their heads up their asses.

And one more thing.  The new Xbox Live Dashboard sucks.  Downloaded that bad boy and got hit in the face with a huge Terms of Use agreement.  Just scrolling down from start to finish, it took me 5 minutes to reach the end.  Brilliant, Microsoft, thanks for not releasing a TLDR version cause we gamers love to spend our time reading legal documents rather than blow other players' heads off.  Although I can't decide what's "worse" at this point.  Both make me wanna puke.

Also love seeing the Chuck Norris/World of Warcraft ads every slide.  We know you folks over at Blizzard are tossing and turning at night over your declining numbers in WoW.  And I keep seeing the Kinect in all these TV commercials.  Well, anyone who buys the Kinect is a toolbag, so there you go.  Yowza, I'm on fire tonight!  Suck it down.  Poor Miyamoto, here, from a Sega fan, let me give you a hug.

At least the Broncos won again so you have an uplifting story in Tim Tebow.  Better than reading about the game media, that's for sure.

Better To Be Pissed Off Than To Be Pissed On

There's really a hundred different ways I can address this story, but since I'm tired, I'm going to make it as brief as possible...

Sega made a game for urinals.  Piss on the target and you win.  I'm not making this stuff up; click here.  Wait, what's going on?

Now, I know this is in Japan and I know that Sega has to be the "bad boy" to make money (cause other companies like Nintendo and Capcom have one-upped them in terms of professionalism and quality products) buy my goodness, couldn't they invest their time into some real games?  BTW, I could "cheat" by bringing in a water bottle or a super soaker--HIGH SCORE BABY.  Who has that kind of a bladder?

I may talk up Sega, but they're still a huge enigma as far as I'm concerned.  You take a look and you've got Sonic over there, Yakuza over there, et. al. but the rest, I have no idea what the hell's going on.  Like who expected this:

Could be worse, it could've been one of those hentai/lolicon/weirdo games.  Instead, this is just one of those little mingame things like WarioWare.

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Quick, get these links in here:

Sega Dreamcast compilation game is real and coming out for 360/PS3 next year, what other games will be on it is not known.

Platinum Games making more stuff for Sega.

Spike VGA's drop in ratings
bwahahaha, jerkoffs are going down...

And these are semi-old but read them anyway.  1-up interviews with Yu Suzuki.  Talks about Shenmue 3 (ideas he has that he'll never use cause S3 will never exist), talks about Model 1/2 boards with Lockheed Martin, talks about AM2, talks about the Dreamcast, talks about Nagoshi and that crap.  It's actually quite lengthy.

Part 1
Part 2

He really doesn't talk about anything but this is as close as it gets to Sega racers:

JM: How do you feel the gamer has changed? The industry is still very young -- only 35 years-old or so -- but 15 years ago you created Daytona USA. Look at how much has changed in that time. In Hang-On you have only one motorcycle. Games like Daytona you only have two or three cars to choose from. Now, Gran Turismo 5 is out and it has over a thousand cars in the game. Personally, I'll never use 1,000 cars, maybe only 6 of them. Do you think people have now mistaken quantity for quality? Is there such a thing as too much?


YS: Yeah, user expectations are to blame, too. If given the option of 1000 cars and 10 cars in a game, the user will most likely take the game with 1,000 cars. Games with fewer options can't compete on the same level because the user will always choose the game with more cars.

...

JM: OK. Now for something completely random. Did you really own an F355?

YS: Yeah, I still do.

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Throw in one more thing to this terrible lump of a post.  So I replay Crazy Taxi on 360 on Arcade course and now I get $67,000 with Gus.  I wasted too much time looking for people.  If you get stuck around Square Park or Borders Paradise places, you'll run out of people.  You just have to hope that your passengers will take you around the Fire Station area because that's where you get a lot of people late in the game.

Spike VGA's And Stupid Stuff

First off, I took a shower a while back and I got some water in my ear which has me completely disoriented right now so that sucks.

I had no idea the Spike Video Game Awards were this Saturday, nor did I care.  It's so tempting to get on here and call the show a piece of crap, but I'm not even going to do that.  It is what it is.

The Winners.

Game of the Year: Red Dead Redemption.  Now I don't really care any way.  At least it wasn't something overly violent and annoying like God of War.

Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Now I love how when I'm on the 360 Dashboard, I see all this stuff for Halo: Reach.  Buy Halo Reach!  Mess around with the Forge Editor and all that crap.  Well guess what--everyone's playing Call of Duty: Black Ops.  I hate to sound like a jerk, but I prefer the contemporary style of Call of Duty over Halo, sorry that's just the way I think.  Way back to Counter-Strike and Goldeneye.

EDIT:
Basically, it's like that quote "Men love blondes but marry brunettes," or something.  So everyone buys Call of Duty but MS would prefer if you played Halo.  I think that's how it works.

Best Driving Game: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.  Now, I would've picked Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing but remember, no one cares about cool stuff like that anymore.  Thankfully, Hot Pursuit is not a game that I loathe.  We should all be thankful that Split/Second didn't win instead.  I don't even know if GT5 was nominated.

Best Music Game: Rock Band 3.  As it should be.

Best Downloadable Game: Costume Quest.  Wrong answer man.  Should be Perfect Dark.  EDIT: I'm also surprised it wasn't Super Meat Boy.

As for the rest of the awards, I don't care and I'm not going to bother mentioning them because I would be wasting your time.

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Then there's also game announcements and stuff.  You have Kratos from God of War who will appear in Mortal Kombat.  First of all, I can't believe these two are still going.  Sure, slash and hack each other to death.  I still think it's weird that Kratos was in that PSP Soul Calibur which doesn't make any sense cause there's no gore in it.

But then there's Forza 4.  Just after GT5.  You know these guys are going for the jugular here.  Polyphony Digital had six years to work on it and people have brought up tons of complaints.  I may seem partial to GT5, but I think they may have screwed up really bad here.  We'll see if Forza 4 gets the PI ratings right and throws in some new courses, then GT6 will be playing catchup big-time.  Kazunori Yamauchi, you had the sim racing genre down until then, you played prevent defense and now you're on your heels.

Forza 4 trailer.

Just for show.  I think it's really weird that you can "ramp" another car in GT5 since in previous ones, I thought your collision box extended the entire space above and below your car, but not here:

I'm done talking, goodbye.