Meh. It's been weeks. months. I didn't really miss Gamespot, but I'm kindda back on it now. Mostly for the forums, discussions and other intelligent non-biased things I can find here.

As far as news/reviews go, I really don't care anymore, I'm NOT renewing my complete account once it expires, but I'll stick around from time to time.

So... if anyone's still out there, see you around.

Wow, talk about lame tech support: Vivendi pretty much broke the record in my book.

Here's the deal. I received as a late b-day gift F.E.A.R. this year (yeah, it's an old game, but the person didn't know) and well, it's still a very welcome gift but there was one slight problem with it: it was the French version. Now if anybody wonders how that can happen, it's because I live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and here they usually sell games with French box art, but the software is actually English. Anyway, I told the person not to worry about it so that I would exchange the gift myself.

I went to the store for an exchange (NOT a refund) and they wouldn't exchange it due to piracy reason, and it was more than a week since the game was bought. Oh, well, bummer! So what else was left for me to do? Ask Vivendi kindly if they could assist me on this case.

Well, I contacted them to know what I could do, so here's their exact response:

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Thank you for contacting Vivendi Games Technical Support. My name is Ethan. I will assist you with game FEAR today. In this case I would like to tell you that we would not be able to to give you the replacement for the French version of the game as we here at Vivendi Games Technical Support on support the US version of the game. Best regards,
Ethan
Vivendi Games Technical Support
-----

What a bunch of pricks. It's not like I'm living in France or something -- I'm in North frickin' America, and they're ignoring my case ? What does that mean, if a person that speaks French asks for support, they will **** on them? WOW, way to go!

But that's not all. I contacted them again explaining the where I was located geographically and it seems like it wasn't a problem anymore, but they never even tried to help me with the game. I proposed a software exchange, or even just a serial number exchange so that I could use an English copy (because their French software S/N doesn't work with the English one) but they simply replied with another completely lame-ass answer which would probably rate 0/10 as far as "help" goes.

Anyway, I'm stuck with a stupid French version of F.E.A.R. and I can't do **** about it. The store won't take it back, and Vivendi is completely ignoring me.

What a bunch of losers! As far as I'm concerned, as clear as I've told them on my reply email, I am never buying anything from Vivendi games ever again. I feel insulted -- I'm just trying to get an exchange disk, and they're ignoring me. Jerks.

BitTorrent to the rescue!

March 19th, 1994.

The last metroid was in captivity... the galaxy was at peace...

then all hell broke lose, I played for weeks, months (ah, the beauty of being in highschool, sleeping during class, playing at night... even pretending to be sick here and there, mweheheh)

and then got a game genie, used that "Hyper in inventory" game code and replayed it to insane levels.

Then replayed it again to get that 3 hours limit (my first game had over 50, but the goal there was to take as much time as possible, milk the ***** out as much as possible).

Then replayed it again.

and again.

and again.

... 13 years later, I think I still have an unfinished game somewehere.

Bottom line -- I may sound crazy, but I'm just celebrating the 13 years of one of the BEST games ever made. Even today, it's still MUCH more fun than 3/4 of what is out there.

I wish I could have my memory erased so I could re-explore everything like the first time... I envy the ones who've never played it yet -- you've still got one of the best games ever to enjoy.

Long live Super Metroid !!!