Hey friends,

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I have been keeping track of your blogs though. You may have noticed that I just had two more reviews posted. Despite my call for helpers, I didn't actually get to see any of you online, but part of that was my fault. We extended our vacation in St. Louis by an extra day, so things were kind of thrown off. I did get to play Schizoid with this nice young man that for some reason had a very girly gamertag. I've got a couple more reviews cooking so if anyone feels like purchasing one of the two new games released on XBLA today, (Go! Go! Break Steady and 1942: Joint Strike...gut reactions; go with 1942) I'll be on and off the next few days working on those. It's pretty awesome that I've been given so much work this month. Not only does the money help with the whole unemployment thing, but I also really value the experience it is giving me.

I'm seriously thinking about using some of this money I'm making to purchase a new 80GB PS3 when they ship next month. I know I could get more work if I had access to all the systems, but I haven't really felt like I needed a PS3 yet, though I guess Little Big Planet is just around the corner.

While I'm talking about an expensive electronics purchase I wanted to ask if anyone out there knows anything about small businesses and taxes. To write for GameSpot and I had to get a small business license in San Francisco, so I'm technically my own business. My parents and a few others say that buying things like systems, controllers, or the new VGA cords I recently purchased for my 360 can all be written off come tax time. Is this true? If so, that PS3 purchase doesn't look so scary. Also, my 360 headset died the other night while playing a game of Burnout Paradise with Don and some others, so I need a new one. I hope he got the message I sent him and didn't think I just up and quit when I had to go.

Anyways, on to the point of this blog. I occasionaly visit GamesRadar when I'm bored and they occasionaly reward my visit with a fun feature. Usually, I'm not too crazy about their crude/rude coverage of the game industry--if GameSpot is CNN, GamesRadar is Maxim--but I like to keep track of what Frank Provo is doing, and they do have some brutally honest articles that can be refreshing at times. The most recent one is a list of cliches game journalists lean on while writing reviews. Every form of journalism has its set of no-no's. Whether it's your high school yearbook, the local paper, or GameSpot, every publication has certain words, phrases or terms they try to avoid. GameSpot has a banned list containing words like "mixed bag" or "rinse and repeat" that they give you when you sign on to do professional reviews for them. The ban list exists to keep writers from getting lazy, and in some cases to keep them from offending others.

GamesRadar has put together a list of the 100 lamest game industry cliches and it's pretty good. I don't know if I'd call all of them cliches, but there are quite a few of them that you'll recognize if you read a lot of game reviews; I know I've used some of them myself. Some of them feel like definitions more than cliches; I'm not sure all of them have reached cliche status...yet. Still, it's definitely something I'll keep bookmarked. Here are a couple of my favorites (the second one is kinda scandolous, no?).

12. This will appeal to the casual audience - Code for "This game is mildly fun for exactly five minutes, so maybe someone with no taste whatsoever will enjoy spending money on it."

23. Triple-A - Publisher-speak for "So help me God, if this game doesn't get at least a nine out of 10, I will get you fired so fast it'll spark a scandal that will taint your entire parasitic profession."

44. Flaws aside - "Remember all that really awful stuff I just spent the last two pages talking about? Yeah, forget I said any of that. None of it will actually affect your enjoyment of the game, and I was just deliberately wasting your time."

50. Awesome - the single most overused word in the collective vocabulary of American games journalists. Except for maybe "gameplay."

79. Solid gameplay - The gameplay is neither liquid nor gas. Also meant to imply that the experience of actually playing the game - as opposed to watching its cutscenes or navigating its menus - is good. Not great, but good.

They did leave two cliches off that drives me crazy. The first one might not be a cliche to some, but it is definitely a pet peeve of mine and it reeks of a self-indulgent part-time fiction writer turned game journalist. I hate when reviewers start their reviews as if they were in the game. Both Game Informer and IGN are guilty of doing this on a frequent basis and it kills me. You know what I'm talking about? Instead of talking about the walkthrough of the level they played, they talk as if they were really there and it sounds something like this:

I loaded up on ammo, things didn't sound so good outside. I get to the door at the end of a long corridor and one of the marines from early is crumpled on the floor. Dead. I hastily step into the light of the doorway when a shot rings in the air. The enemy knows I'm here! I rattle off a full clip in the direction of the sound...you get the point.

I understand previews can get boring to write, but no one likes to read that. If you want to spice things up, do something like this. Now that is an entertaining preview (thank you Brian Eckberg).

The other one I can't stand is ridiculously long introductions. IGN is the worst with these. It often takes them half a page before they start talking about anything that has to do with the actual game. There is no reason the review for Kung Fu Panda (yeah, I was playing it today, I was curious...don't bully me) should be more than one page. It's a movie licensed game that can be completed in four hours. Don't waste a readers time by making them wade through your lengthy introduction. The guys at IGN need to go visit 1Up or read a game magazine and learn what it means to get to the point.

Well, thats all I got for now, thought I'd share that list with you guys. Hopefully my reviews won't contain any of those cliches from here on out. I'd give you an update on the whole employment thing but this blog is already kind of long and there isn't much to report. I've got a nibble from a regional magazine in Houston but the pay sucks. August is quickly approaching, so we'll have to decide what we're doing if I don't hear from anyone before July ends. I'm doing well with freelance work right now, but I can't stay with my parents forever.

Oh yeah, one more thing. The Dark Knight was incredible.

Hey friends,

I'm working on another couple of reviews for GameSpot and I could use some help. The games in question are this week's XBLA releases: Golf Tee It Up and Schizoid. I've played a little bit of both and so far I'm really digging Schizoid. It's all about co-op though, so playing online with strangers is hit or miss. If you've got 800 MS points and you feel like purchasing a game, both of these titles seem worth the price. I can't give you a score yet, but I can say that they're pretty fun.

I'll be out of town until Sunday, so if you want to pick it up and familiarize yourself over the weekend, I'll be online Sunday afternoon for some gaming goodness. My gamertag is Yeah Write. If you aren't already on my friend list, send a message telling me you are from GS when you send a friend request. Have a good weekend everyone!

Here are some pictures to make you smile on and start your weekend off right. Don't you just love kids?

Life is like an RPG. Your college years are not unlike the character creation process in your average role-playing game. You've got a lot of decisions to make when creating your avatar. Will he or she specialize in weapons or magic? Will he be able to use two-handed weapons? What about magic resistance and armor class? The decisions made during this creation process will affect the player the rest of the game.

Similarly, the decisions you make in college will affect you the rest of your life. What major will you choose? What specific courses in that major will you take? Will you join any clubs? How about an internship? There's no way to future proof yourself, but with careful planning, you could create a professional with the skill set needed to succeed in the career field of your choice.

If you're an RPG player, you've surely felt regret at least once. Maybe it's an inaccessible door, a character you can't interact with, or a skill that you should have put more experience points in. Whatever it is, there's always something down the road that makes you think, "I should have gone with a different skill." For example, I started Oblivion as a dark elf specializing as a warrior. A couple of hours in, I was exposed to my first spell and quickly realized that magic was where it was at. Unfortunately, as a warrior certain spells and abilities weren't open to me, so I dumped experience points in to the spells that I could have and played the role of a warrior/mage hybrid. Hours later I reached a roadblock. My warrior wasn't strong enough to hold his own with the warrior guild, and his magic abilities were nothing compared to those in the mage guild. I was a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.

So here I am, unemployed, sitting at my parents' house, waiting on an employer to hire me, and I'm wondering if I leveled up in the right skills. Should I have taken that broadcast news writing cIass in college? No, I should have dumped some experience points into a graphic design **** Was it a good idea to go to grad school? I thought it was, but now I'm starting to think my extra degree hurts me more than it helps me (I'm not qualified for a management position, but I'm over qualified for an entry level position). I've done a lot of different things in the past two years, but have I mastered or specialized in anything specifically? I think so...I hope so.

I've recently realized that working in the game industry is what I want to do. When I say recently realized, I don't mean that it just struck me, but that it has always been there and I've just recently realized it. I've wanted to write about games since I could grip a controller, but it was always something that I thought would never happen for me. I read game magazines like EGM and Next Generation, and visited videogames.com (now GameSpot) all the time. I knew video games were different for me. I had a passion for them that could not be extinguished. Still, I muffled that flame for years because I felt that it couldn't happen for me. I didn't live in the right area, I didn't have the right skills, it just wasn't in the cards for me.

Then I got to college and realized that I liked to write. I got a journalism degree and told everyone that I wanted to work in magazines. The truth was, and I didn't tell anyone this, that I was hoping to find a job at a magazine and somehow weasel my way into game journalism. While working with TC I insisted on doing the entertainment section, which included video games, hoping that it would give me some much needed experience. My plan was coming together, but I had to admit I was a little worried. This isn't a single player game. I've got a partner in all this and the decisions I make will affect her too. I needed to let her in on my plan. So I did, and she was quite receptive. She knew a career in game journalism would make me happy, so she encouraged me to chase after it.

By now, I was finished with grad school and working with TC. I knew I only had a year left of employment and that I would have to start looking for jobs soon. I was reluctant to look in the game industry, still haunted by my "this will never happen" thoughts from childhood. Then I came across this quote on my Google homepage.

"All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."--Walt Disney

As corny as it sounds, this quote struck a chord with me. I forgot all about courage. By dumping enough points into courage, I could offset some of my other skill deficiencies. I've got a great, diverse resume, surely I can take on anything a job in game journalism could throw at me. So I started searching for jobs, and after weeks of pestering the folks here at GameSpot, I got some freelance work. This was a major victory for me of course. Getting paid to write reviews for GS was a dream come true. I'm thankful for the work they've given me, and I hope they keep it coming (I'm working on the review for Code Lyoko Fall of Xana right now, so expect to see that soon).

So I got my foot in the door, well maybe not my foot, more like a toe, but it's in. My lifelong dream is almost within reach, I just need a little assistance to grab it.

That brings us back to the leveling up analogy. I'm unemployed, looking for work and I'm not sure what to do. I could follow my original plan and find a job in magazines and hope that it will eventually lead to game journalism, or I can go after my dream now. Both plans have their pros and cons; I won't bore you by listing those. I have to choose one though; I can't ride the fence here. I've got to dump my experience points in the right skills, and hope that down the road I don't end up regretting my decision.

I've applied everywhere, from Bioware to here at Gamespot, and I haven't heard anything from anyone (except a polite rejection letter from Harmonix). Searching for a job out of state is tough. The Today Show had a report on unemployment a month or so ago and they said that Arkansas ranks in the top three states as the worst place to be searching for a job. I'm willing to get up and move to San Francisco, Austin, Minneapolis, Boston, Santa Monica, anywhere! All my stuff is packed in a storage shed; I can go at any moment. I just need someone to give me a chance. I've got the courage to pursue my dream, I just need someone to recognize that.

So I'll continue to sit here at my parents house, applying for every game job possible. I still apply to magazine jobs, just in case, but I'd rather get into the industry sooner than later. In the meantime, I'll keep doing all the freelance work I can get. Each review helps my resume a little bit more.

And that's what's going on with me. I've been away from GS because of the move; so sorry I missed your blogs. I'll try to start posting regularly again, but I can't lie and say I'll be here as much as I used to be. Being unemployed, I feel a certain twinge of guilt using my time to write blogs when I should be job hunting. Still, there's only so much I can do, the rest is in the employer's hands. So cross your fingers and say your prayers folks, here's hoping I find something soon.