Without any further adieu, I present you with my newest review for Mass Effect! Not that anyone had been or ever will be waiting to read any one of my reviews, but I just finished my first playthrough, and by GOD is it one of the best games I've ever played in my 10+ years of gaming. The story's flawless in every sense of the word, not to mention the stunning visuals and top-notch voice acting. Sadly, the vehicular combat does manage to fall a bit flat compared to the on-foot portions of the game. No worries though, as I did mange to acquire a majority of the achievements I was aiming to get my hands on for my first playthrough.

In other news, I'm still trying to find a job somewhere around my school after being fired and laid-off from my two previous jobs. I've applied to both Best Buy and Circuit City so far, with the intention of eventually applying for a position at F.Y.E. and every restaurant within 25 miles of here. Needless to say, I'm sick of having to essentially throw away much-earned items I've acquired over the years by selling them on eBay for roughly one-quarter of what I initially bought the items for. In other words, I can't get a break. Lucky for me, school's going okay so far in terms of both the amount of work I have to do and the courses themselves, and I've FINALLY started playing Assassin's Creed, so I'll let you know how that turns out sometime in the near future. Hmm, well, that about it does for today I suppose. Take care.

As the topic once again implies, I've been up to quite a lot lately, most of which I didn't exactly benefit from in any shape or form. Needless to say, these activities have in fact kept me from GS for roughly a month and a half, but not to worry... (drum roll) I'm back! With this in mind, I have once again been transformed into a World of Warcraft zombie, playing the damned game every waking minute of every day without any regard for my physical or social well-being. It was all worth it in the long run though (skip this part if you're not a WoW person), as I managed to acquire full season 1 arena gear for my 70 Warrior in conjunction with an extensive array of other PvP goodies including the season 1 axe and so forth. Sadly, I won't actually get to use said gear much as I'm heading back to school tomorrow for our second and final semester of the year. Fantastic.

In other gaming-related news, I recently won Assassin's Creed on eBay for roughly $40 - approximately $25 or so cheaper than if I were to get it from, you know, an actual retailer. Since the game hasn't actually arrived yet, I ventured to my local EB in a pseudo fit of rage to purchase another game, Mass Effect, which has been leaving me pleasantly surprised every time I finish up another session with it. The story's surprisingly intriguing and some of the gameplay mechanics are just plain ridiculous (in a extremely good way of course). Aside from that, I figured I'd actually take myself up on the offer I made to... myself... and start writing reviews for the games I've played and finished recently. I figured this would be a good thing to do, seeing as I managed to leave one job and get fired from another (don't ask). Granted, I will have a lot of schoolwork to do, but without an (almost) steady source of income, I'm undoubtedly going to have to be wary of what I spend in terms of money and of course how I spend it. Well, that's about it for now I suppose, take care everyone and feel free to comment on whatever you'd like.

At the risk of sounding redundant, I'm a little shocked and appalled at how Jeff was fired over stating his honest opinion on a game that he was assigned to review. In terms of GameSpot as a whole, I think that's just shallow and very, very selfish. Granted, it's really CNET that made the decision based on Eidos apparently pulling (or at least threatening to) their ad campaign, which would obviously result in CNET receiving a substantially smaller paycheck. Oh well, I guess it all comes down to people doing what they have to do, despite who's in it for what, i.e. the true gaming aspect of this particular site and so forth. All in all, such an issue has further given me a reason to leave GameSpot altogether, what with their new rating system being total and utter bull$#!t and the thousands upon thousands of "DURRR, WHAT GAMES SHOULD I GET DOODZ?" threads LITTERING the forums ever since I first signed up. I guess only time will tell at this point.

In other news, I recently signed myself up for GameFly, which to my surprise, is a very good service. The first game I had out, sadly, was TimeShift. The word "sadly" comes into play for a variety of reasons: the game lacks a coherent story and tolerable voice acting, and above all, it's excruciatingly repetitive. Needless to say I sent it back within a couple of days, hoping to receive Assassin's Creed in return; the next game in my "Game Q." Nope, they ended up having to send me Stranglehold instead, which so far has proven to be exceptionally entertaining despite its apparent short duration. It can get a tad repetitive at times, but it's still fun nonetheless. Expect a full review from me when I finish it, immediately followed by a review for every other game I manage to finish over the course of the next month or so; I'll be on my winter break (from school), so my life will basically consist of working, snowboarding, and video games. That's about it for now I guess, so take care everyone and feel free to comment on whatever you'd like.