Here's my review if anyone of you feel like reading it.
I'm not the type of person to start a game again that I've beaten a year ago. So why am I starting Grand Theft Auto IV over again? Well, when The Ballad of Gay Tony was released, I decided to download it, but before I would start it, I still need to start Lost and the Damned. When I put Grand Theft Auto IV in again, I was expecting to be prompted to start Lost and the Damned, but it gave me a prompt to start Gay Tony instead. I declined, and was waiting to be given the option of starting Lost and the Damned, but it never did. It went straight to the beginning of GTA IV.
And then I remembered, "****! I deleted my save file!" Yep, I had to reformat my HDD earlier this year when I installed FFXI (don't ask) again, and a glitch caused by the most recent dashboard update at the time caused the eight gigs of game data to be corrupted. Since you couldn't find the game file in your memory management and my 360 wouldn't read the disc (which is what the glitch was doing), I had no way of uninstalling it. Thusly, I had to reformat my entire HDD to get back those eight gigs of memory (I only have a 20 gig drive).
So that sucks.
When I let the game start over again, one thing I forgot is that there's no title screen. I was trying to figure out how to start Lost and the Damned, and I decided to play a bit until I figured out it. I thought maybe it was an option on the cellular phone, so I played a few missions until I got it. I checked the phone, but there was no option, and then I found myself playing a few more missions. I finally learned that you start the Lost and the Damn under the new game option in the pause menu. Instead, I played a few more GTA IV missions.
That's when I realized I was starting the game over again with the intent of playing it through a second time. This isn't a simple under 10 hour action game. This is a long time that took me more than a month on and off to finish last year. One thing I have to ask myself is, do I really have the time? Shouldn't I just go straight to Lost and the Damned instead of wasting my time playing GTA IV again? Then I asked myself another question: am I really wasting my time playing GTA IV again? I'm not sure.
I have a lousy memory. So, playing this game again is almost like playing it for the first time, but I wish I did remember some of the more important choices. Did I kill this guy or let him live? Part of my memory still works, because I remember some brutally challenging missions, like the bank robbery. I do'nt know if I want to live through that again. But as I continue to play through GTA IV, I find it hard to really put it down and jump into the Lost and the Damned, because ultimately, I want to relive this epic game. The story is engrossing and you actually get attached to the characters.
I will say this, though. I am just not happy with the graphics. I'm one of those HDTV owners that has such a hard time getting my display settings perfect. I'm tired of tweaking these settings. "It's too dark here, and now too bright there." Some times of the day, the game is gorgerous, but other times, it's pretty damn ugly. I remember putting up with this when I first played it, and now I have to go through it again, which I'm not thrilled about.
So yeah, that's what I'm currently doing. Spending a big chunck of time on a game I already beat when I could be using this time instead to beat two DLC episodes and probably another 360 game in the same span of time. Why am I doing this again? I guess the bottom line is... the game's just that damn good.
No, this isn't about my Xbox 360 failing for the fifth time. Rather this about this:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6238637.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;3
How much did MS buy Rare for again? Wasn't it somewhere around TWO BILLION dollars? And what has Rare yieldedyou? Perfect Dark and Kameo? Some Grabbed by the Ghoulies game on the Xbox? Yeah, I know Kameo 2 didn't sell too well at launch, but that's because your user installed base wasn't that big at at the time. This was only complicated by the fact that no one could find any 360s to buy because you gave TOO MANY AWAY TO CELEBRITIES! Oh yeah, and how about the thousands of 360 owners who didn't have their systems to play on because they were always being shipped off to be repaired? 
Rare is doing what you paid forthem to do, and that's make a game. Kameo 2, once I heard about it, is one of the games I was actually looking forward to from Rare. The first wasn't amazing, but it was an overall solid and fun game. I'm sure the sequel would have been much better, but now I'll probably never know. So now you cancel Kameo 2 to have a company who takes years to make one game develop something for Project Natal? You've given this company brand new technology to work with, and you except them to make something grand? Well,youcan betmyass that whatever they'll make for it won't be anything more remarkable than shovelware found all over the Wii.
Before anyone tells me I'm taking this too seriously, remember, this is only a rant. Who knows what Rare will come up on Natal. Maybe Kameo 2 wasn't shaing up that well and MS decided it wasn't worth continuing.I don't know, this whole Rare situation has just really left a bitter taste in my mouth ever since MS purchased them from Nintendo. Talk about one of the biggest blunders of the video game industry. Ok, Rare, you got a fresh slate to work from now. Better do it right, and stop embarassing MS for purchasing your worthless ass.
The Ultimate Union for UCBs and Unions, or 4U for short. I had an idea a while back to form a union whose main purpose is to help raise awareness of other UCBs and unions that people have on GameSpot. I'm hoping this union will grow and fulfill what I've set forth to accomplish. The union is open to everyone, and you don't have to run a UCB or union to join. The union board will be sorta of like an off-topic styIe forum, so don't feel like you have to talk about unions and UCBs there. I hope to see a lot of you join and be active at my new union. It would be great. 
