To all the gamers out there, I want to wish Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May you will all receive or give presents to your loved ones and hoped that one of them is a video game .

Before I wrap this blog up, I would like to list down the best and most disappointing things of 2008:

The Best Things:

+My new discovery of other video game websites (GameTrailers, GiantBomb, ScrewAttack).

+Having to finally own a PlayStation 3, which completes my next-gen console collection.

+Metal Gear Solid 4- Guns of The Patriots is finally here!

+Gears of War 2 is here too!

+Condemned 2- Bloodshot is awesome!

+Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy has finally been released!

+Also including AC/DC, Metallica & Slipknot. Four rock solid albums in one year is mind-blowing!

+The Dark Knight is superb. RIP Heath Ledger!

+My MackBook Pro- my first time into the Apple world and I love every minute of it.

The Disappointing Things:

-What GameSpot has turned into.

-Alone In The Dark- a good example of a perfect game with lousy controls.

-Tomonobu Itagaki's departure from Tecmo

-Duke Nukem Forever's delayed release (What else is new)

-Ghostbusters- The Video Game delayed release (Damn you Activision)

-Midway's financial crisis

-Windows Vista sucks and the Red Ring of Death. Microsoft has lost its focus.

-Haven't played MGS4 and Gears of War 2

That wraps it up. Nothing much to say except that MGS4 really deserves Game of The Year award even though I haven't played it yet . And speaking of wrapping things up, may you will all receive great gifts this year and for those who don't celebrate Christmas, have a great holiday!

Psykhophear

(Favourite Christmas Carol: Deck The Halls)

I just built a website of my own last night and it's called Chrotokho Creative. It's an official company registered by yours truly and it'll act as a blog and a hobby website where I would post anything I feel like it, ranging from video games to art to music to toys. I have further plans for Chrotokho (Pronounced as "Crow-too-co") in the near future but as for now, it's more of a hobby site.

So if you guys do have the time, feel free to check out my site at:

chrotokho.wordpress.com.

Until next time.

-Psycho_Path/ Psykhophear

I did some online shopping last week and bought myself two PC games: System Shock 2 and Men In Black: The Game.

System Shock 2 is widely known as one of the best PC game ever made and it won numerous awards when it first came out in 1999. It was also known for being one of the scariest games out there. I've never played the game before but after hearing about it and discovered that the designer responsible for System Shock 2 (Which in this case- Ken Levine) also made the fabulous Bioshock of last year, I knew I had to give it a try. Problem is, this game is a real hassle to find. I was hoping to find a re-released version like any other games but this one was just a pain in the neck to hunt, so I decided to purchase one in eBay.

When it landed on my mailbox, I was thrilled. I couldn't wait to give it a try but after installing it to my laptop, the frickin' game won't work. Dammit! It's one of those stupid Windows compatibility crap again. I can install the game without any problems but as soon as I dive right into it, the game keeps freezing. I was able to walk around a bit but the screen freezes without any warnings and the sound stutters a lot. Y'know, this is what I hate the most about playing old PC games. The compatibility piece of crap. It's all about downloading patches, installing the right drives, not XP compatible. All that bullsh!t. It's so annoying. I have other games I've been wanting to play such as Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, Max Payne, Painkiller but I face the same problem with them as well. Why can't Microsoft make our lives easier by producing some kinda program or add-on that allows user to play old pc and MSDOS games? How complicated can that be? I guess that's why Vista is a huge flop because they don't do it for the consumers needs. It's all about the cash. OK, maybe I'm going a bit off topic here but my point is, all this patch and incompatible bullcrap should be banned. This is something I have no tolerance for. Installing software should be a simple and straightforward procedure. It doesn't have to be a %*&#&!*% project!!!

Surprisingly, this other PC game of mine works really well. I'm reffering to Men In Black: The Game. This may not be the best movie-based video game out there (Almost all movie-based VG sucks) but honestly I really enjoy this game. I remember playing it the first time when a friend of mine lend it to me many years ago and at the time, I hadn't watch the MIB movie yet so I really didn't have a clue of what to expect in this so called "official game of the movie". But to this day, I still like this game very much, and you guys might think, "what the hell? How could like this garbage?"

I know the controls are kinda stiff, the storyline is way far off from the movie, the fighting sequence is terrible, the levels are incredibly short and rather than having to fight like a big-giant-non-humanoid-alien-like-creature-from-outer-parts-of-the-galaxy as the final boss, what you get instead is a crazed billionnaire who is armed with a robotic body. Worst final boss ever. So why do I like this game? I dunno. I just love it. It just has that certain charm to it that some people get it and some people don't.

Ok, back to the point. So as I was saying, unlike System Shock 2, I had no problem installing and playing Men In Black today. No crashes, no freezing, no compatibaility bullcrap, nothing. Everything was smooth. It was so smooth in fact that I even finished the game in just about two and a half hours. Now that's a lousy game but I love it . If anyone has any solution in playing System Shock 2, don't hesistate to give comments about it. I tried using the patch but a message appears saying that the game is already a higher version so the patch is not required. How do I avoid the game from freezing unexpectedly?