Happy birthday to me, it is toomorrow, and I can't wait. Today though, I got the wii which me and my sister were sharing. We were supposed to get it two months a go but it took this long to get them in stores! Ah well, I'll just be playing Zelda (and hopefully) Guitar Hero II on my birthday. Besides that, I'm hoping for a family guy dvd collection thing, and maybe some new clothes. That's all for now, I'm just excited!

Alright, I'm doing my first real blog in a while, and I've come up with this list of ideas for gamespot to make itself better. Gamespot is an awesome website, don't get me wrong, and it will continue to be great because of its community, and the news it supplies. Anyways, here is my list.

5. More Exclusive News, and Previews- Gamespot gives some excellent news and previews, however some of this lags behind other sites such as IGN. The previews are in-depth sure, but I'd like to see them come atleast a bit earlier, along with some news being exclusive to just this site, so we'd learn about it first.

4. A better way to inform the community- It seems like some members in the community don't know a ton about some things, for example, how to join a union, or add an image to their post. Even with the welcome newbies forum, gamespot needs to show other users up front how to take advantage of the sites capabilites.

3. An easier way to design sigs/banners- I love seeing the beautiful artwork made by some users, and it makes me think, I really need photoshop. Gamespot should have a built-in sig/banner maker, that is fun and simple to use for less tech-inclined gamers. I would love to make my own sigs/banners instead of asking for them from another user.

2. Stop with the Glitches- Of all of the game forums I've been on, gamespot is by far the glitchiest. I'm not sure whether this is because of its immense user base, or there are too many wierd bugs just popping up, but this can be downright frusturating. Union levels not moving from time to time, blogs not working, censoring of posts when there's nothing to censor, this has got to stop.

1. Improve the Unions- Legendary Gamespot user SentinelRV made a humongous list of ways to improve unions and get the community involved. I found this list amazing, and most of the ideas very realistic and could be easily incorporated. Being a leader of a union myself, which is pretty large, I must say it gets tough to manage. There are too many users that aren't active within the union, even though our union has 20 or 30 active users. This is something gamespot NEEDS to improve.

Ahh, it's refreshing to get out of the level 20 curse, for everyone who hasn't had it yet, be afraid.

Well, I mean it's branching off of freewebs.com, but it's a start. If you want to go to my games discussion forum, make a user name and participate... here's the link: http://www.freewebs.com/hendrix29/

Hey everyone, I recently joined an upstart site about Oblivion, that has some cool topics. It only has 40 members, so I thought I'd post the link here, so anyone interested could join there.

http://obliviontime.proboards55.com/index.cgi

I don't understand why so many gaming publications use just one type of rating system. To me, game genres are drastically different, and each genre should be rated differently. For example, an RPG should be rated 40% on story(and immersiveness), 40% on gameplay, and 20% on everything else. A shooter however, could be only 10% on story, 25% gameplay, 30 % graphics and sound, 25% pacing, and 10% everything else. Games are truly different, and the rating system should be applied differently too.

Now that I see people posting comments on my blog, I'm gonna start this up.. Yesterday I got Ratchet and Clank:Size Matters for PSP, and so far I'm having a blast with it. Since I've never bought a Ratchet and Clank game, I thought I'd be overwhelmed. This was obviously not the case, and I am more than satisfied with my purchase. If you're looking for a varied action-platformer to dust off your PSP with, this one is worth looking at, atleast so far.

Update: Gamespot review is up, an 8.2, I finished it over my vacation and actually found it more enjoyable than that.

The expansion to Oblivion is almost here, and I myself am extremely hyped for it. The game looks utterly different and strange, and looks like it has a Morrowind feel. Besides, it is 40 hours of new Oblivion content for 30 bucks, and that is quite a deal in my eyes.

Hey everyone, my union is up. PM me if you wish to join, anyone is accepted, as long as you like the elder scrolls. Designers are greatly needed however, because we need a good banner and icons.

I have played quite a few games( and at times, franchises that have incredibly deep worlds). These are worlds that feel immersive, and often meticulously detailed. The best of them make you care for them, and make you feel like you are truly contributing. Here are some of these worlds in which I have ventured:

Icewind Dale II: Although I had not played the original, the sequel had an excellently detailed world, with plenty of interesting sidequests, and plenty of nice touches to make you feel there.

Neverwinter Nights franchise: Although the second feels more immersive, this franchise has an amazingly detailed and thought out world(coming from dungeons and dragons of course).

Jade Empire: This one had an absolutely amazing backstory, as explained in many scrolls throughout the game. It helped when there were some amazingly believable characters.

Star Wars:Knights of the Old Republic: Although it was the Star Wars world, the game took me to planets I had never seen before, and the amount of dialogue really helped this one.

Elder Scrolls Series: I have never been sucked into a world like the ones of the Elder Scrolls before. These worlds are so meticulously detailed, along with being humongous, that I began to choose what I wanted my character to go to sleep in. With so many options and so many things that explain the world of the Elder Scrolls, there is no contest in this being my top choice.