'Twas the night before Christmas on PlayStation Home,
Not a creature was stirring resembling a gnome;
A character was made with great pride and care,
Despite my distaste for the lack of choices on hair.
Error -603 tried to keep me away,
Still, I tried seven more times and was able to play.
To my studio apartment my character tracked,
And noticed I, then, the options I lacked;
All eight pieces of furniture were colored in white,
And wallpaper choices were dull or a disgusting sight;
I thought to myself as my hopes slowly died,
"Perhaps there will be more once I venture outside."

As I walked through the courtyard in search of some game,
I noticed the theater was calling my name.
The screen said it was downloading, so I found a seat,
In the front behind others who were still on their feet.
The men were all asking the woman for cyber sex,
Except the one dancing, who said, "show some respect."
I stood to go join him in frolic and fun,
And chose as my dance move the man on the run.
Once dancing grew dull, I returned to my rump,
As the download completed, screaming, "Hey! Down in front!"
When, what to my increasingly bored eyes should appear,
But a trailer for Twilight, not a film would play here.
I got to my feet and went out the door,
Thinking they could've at least picked a good movie to advertise for.

Then, I thought I should give the bowling alley a try,
Hoping soon I'd find something to keep me from waving goodbye.
The ten lanes were full at 4 players each,
And no one would leave no matter how I beseeched.
A single-player arcade in the two rooms nearby,
Featured bastardized versions of old games I would try.
I was finished quite soon with the ruined Echochrome,
And Ice Breaker was just Pong made to play on your own.
On my way out the door, I saw pool tables, as well,
But realized fast that this pool game was hell.

One more building remained that I hadn't yet seen,
So into the mall I went for the first time since age fourteen.
Here, I found a small assortment of things I could buy,
Using real money to decorate my apartment, but why?
I'd found nothing so far worth the time I had spent,
And that money is something I need to pay rent.
I could upgrade to a summer home or purchase clothes with money just the same,
But the question I'd asked with no answer still remained.

I finished exploring all there was to do,
And decided the thing we'd been waiting on for over a year; almost two,
Was one of the biggest disappointments of 2008,
Worthy of nothing more than sadness and hate.
I pressed the PS button and selected Quit,
Just after typing a message to any that could see it.
They heard me exclaim, ere I faded from sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and PlayStation Home sucks."

First of all, where do you get off calling a game something like "Left Fore Dead" when it has nothing to do with golf! If it did, I probably wouldn't be playing it. Golf games suck. Hell, sports games in general suck, so any game about a game that claims to be a sport is guaranteed to suck. So, I guess I'm glad Left Fore Dead's not a golf game, but they could've used a better title. Maybe something like Left Four Dead, because four people are left behind in a zombie apocalyptic world and if they don't do something fast, they're all gonna die. What? Oh, it is called Left Four Dead? Oh, Left 4 Dead? 4 means four? Not fore? I never was very good at spelling.

Still, there are a few things I'd like to see Valve improve upon to make this game better than the awesome it already is. Here's a bullet-point list.

• Team swapping. This game's all about teamwork. But, for some reason, Versus mode has a tendency to randomly swap players from team to team. I'd guess it's some sort of auto-balance thing like they have in CounterStrike, but at least there they warn you first with a big "auto balancing next round" message. But, with Left 4 Dead, team swapping really screws things up. Versus mode is all about getting a higher score than the other team. It's kind of hard to do that when you're responsible for half the points the other team has since you swapped to the team you're on now at the beginning of this round. Take the team swapping out.
• Match-making. Again, this is a game that's all about teamwork. It's more fun when you play on a team with three other people you actually know and love (I'm assuming my readers aren't friendless. Wishful thinking, but who knows?) The match-making system in this game isn't the best for that, though. Sure, you can find your friends through the Play with Friends option, but the best you can hope for there is either a 4v4 match with seven of your buddies, or a 4v4 match with three friends and four random people. There's no middle ground. I'd like to see some sort of match-making system that allows a pre-made group of four go up against another pre-made group of four you've never met before. You could introduce a whole ranking system through that, it'd be awesome. Besides the fact that match-making is lacking, you have to enter in the console command to view the old server list that's a staple in all the other Valve games. So, to avoid the match-making system, you kind of have to go out of your way. I don't mind a good Quick Match function, but that's basically all Left 4 Dead has right now. Give us some variety.
• More maps. The basic campaigns are fun, and the replay-ability is pretty big, but seriously? Two versus campaigns? Four regular campaigns? Come on! I'd been through it all once already within 6 hours played. I know they're counting on the mod community to come out with stuff, but the SDK tool modders use to make maps isn't even out yet. Not to mention the fact that any maps people have managed to develop for Left 4 Dead still aren't playable on any server because any time you try to load one up, it defaults back to the same crap we had to begin with. The game's been out for almost a month, and people are getting bored with the lack of content. Do something.
• Loading times. It's inconsistent between players that have quality machines and people with equipment they should've thrown out in 1999. This isn't a huge problem, but it takes away meaningless achievements from people if they don't load fast enough, and it gives players with better systems a big advantage in Versus mode, especially if they start off as Survivors. Would it be too much to ask for a simple "Waiting for other players..." like Warcraft III has? Only when you're loading up a new map, obviously; let the late-comers suffer the consequences, but don't punish people just because their PC sucks.
  
• Weapon variety. Right now, there's a total of 5 guns in the game. 6 if you count pistols, 7 if you count duallies separately. Adding in molatovs and pipe bombs, you bring the total weapon count to a whopping 9 weapons, and that's being generous. I can think of plenty more ways to kill a zombie than 9. Can we get some more options?
• Specials aren't special enough. You've got to do something to balance out all the new weapons you're going to add, so make the Special Infected a little specialer. Start off with the cloud of smoke you get when a Smoker dies. It doesn't do anything. I'm told it stops in-game voice chat, but who uses that, anyway? Disable the computer's sound card instead, that'll really screw with people. No more Ventrilo, no more Team Speak, and because of the sound of the explosion, you won't be able to hear your teammates' cries for help or the Hunter that's lurking around the corner waiting to pounce. On top of that, give it a small damage counter, due to choking gases in the smoke or something. Smoker's just aren't useful enough as it is. Tank's aren't imba enough, either. It's way to easy to get kited around. Those arms are long, give their hits a little more reach. And Hunters are hard to make use of, too. Pounce damage is cool, but it's tough to land a blow on a Survivor from a distance. Maybe you could add in a little target thing that tells you where you'll land if you pounce from where you are in the direction you're facing. I don't know, though, that may be too much of an easy mode.
  
• Dedicated servers. As a general rule, they all suck. Host a game locally, or don't play at all. The biggest problem with dedicated servers right now is that they seem to be running a different version of the game. Get used to playing locally, and things will seem weird to you when you switch to a dedicated server. The "too close to survivors to spawn" radius is too big, the cooldown on a Smoker's tongue is the same on a miss as it is on a hit, and... well, I guess that's it. Still, that's enough to drive you crazy.
• Spawning in finales. This is some messed up #$%@. Why are Infected allowed to choose where they spawn until the finale event starts? Is it because the finale is hard enough as it is? Screw that, if you know what you're doing as a Survivor, you should be able to defend against Infected wherever they come from. Mainly, the reason I'm pissed about this one is last night I got to play as the first tank and I spawned in fire. Game over right there. I'd say a better handicap would be to make the "too close to spawn here" radius bigger during the finale. That way, they don't spawn so close it's "unfair," but they still get a choice, rather than throwing a Boomer in the middle of the level right in front of the minigun on top of Mercy Hospital.
• Finally, more story. The most we've got is one single epic intro movie. We know nothing about who these four people are or why armageddon's hitting them in the face with a shovel. Add some more campaigns or cinematics so we can get a little more background on the situation. While you're at it, try making the different campaigns we've already got tie together. It bothers me that the same four people have to escape the zombie apocalypse four times in completely different places.

Fix it, Valve. Fix it long and fix it hard. Left 4 Dead's pretty awesome, but let's take it to the next level.

Sam and Max: Season One (Wii: October, 2008)

I never thought it would be possible to find a small-statured creature hell-bent on destruction more loveable than myself. But, I may have met my match in the bunny-like Max of Sam and Max: Season One. The dynamic duo of Sam, a suit-wearing dog who runs around on his hind legs, and the naked aforementioned Max are freelance police detectives who do everything from taking their office phone back from their unwanted kleptomaniacal rat roommate, Jimmy Two-Teeth, to killing an evil reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln.

Sam and Max: Season One is a point-and-click adventure ported from the PC version released about a year ago. Prior to that, Episodes 1 through 6 had individual web releases spanning from October 2006 through May 2007. And before that, Sam and Max were the characters of a comic by a guy named Steve Purcell. But enough with the boring history lesson, let’s talk about the game.

This game restores my faith in a genre that hasn’t been entertaining since... well, ever. Each of the six episodes is full of brain-tickling puzzles, enough jokes to choke a rhinoceros, and a uniquely engaging plotline that contributes to the whole season’s overarching story.

If you think you’re good at solving puzzles or you don’t have any qualms with Googling for a walkthrough, you may be okay with simply renting this game. But, if you have a tougher time figuring the difference between the ins and the outs, it may end up being cheaper to buy it than checking it out from the local Stormwind Video over and over again. What, we can’t have video rental places in Azeroth? There’s enough on that tiny little Wii disc to give you a full 6 to 72 hours worth of puzzle-solving fun (I prefer not to make estimates on my readers’ intelligence). Previous Sam and Max fans could probably go without on this one, though. The only thing the Wii disc has that downloading the individual episodes doesn’t are some lame-ass excuses for “Special Features.” Paragraph-long character bios for 5 or 6 recurring characters and some uninteresting concept art. That’s it. Still, as a newcomer to the series, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It’s making me rethink my contract with The Donut Boys. I wonder if Telltale Games has room for a second mischievous being of lesser-than-average height...

Overall score: 8.5 out of 10, for an episodical… episodal… episodic… yeah, I think that’s it, episodic adventure of pointing and clicking at various things to achieve bizarre objectives and laugh at some zany jokes.

Hail to the Chimp (PlayStation 3: June, 2008)

What seems like forever ago now, I downloaded a demo of Hail to the Chimp. It seemed like a light-hearted and entertaining party game, enjoyable for me and a group of up to 3 of my closest friends/worst enemies to laugh our bums off for hours on end. Holy crap, did I just say bum? Sorry, I guess the British in that Kiki must’ve worn off on me....

Anyway, I’ve never been more wrong about a video game’s entertainment value. You see, the demo’s got maybe 20 minutes in it; the typical for a free demonstration of a larger product. Naturally, I assumed that since the demo was entertaining for the full 20 minutes, the full version would be just as entertaining, maybe not for the full length of time you’d put into it to see everything, but at least for most of it. Oh, how wrong I was... You ever go to a movie after seeing a trailer that makes you go, “Wow, that looks like a good movie,” and then leave when you realize you’d already seen all the best parts of it before you went in? That’s exactly what happened with Hail to the Chimp. 20 minutes is about all the time you need to spend on this game before you realize the rest of it will be exactly the same. All the mini-games are just slight modifications of the same damn thing. You compete with three other characters to collect clams, which, in the animal world are somehow the equivalent of electoral votes, and either throw in a ballot box, feed them to another clam, or beat more of them out of your opponents until you’ve got more than they do. “Variety” is apparently not a word in developer Gamecock’s vocabulary.

Looking around for the web for this game, you’ll find other reviewers agree with me whole-heartedly, but some actually hold this sorry excuse for entertainment in moderately high regard. That’s because there are some redeeming qualities in the game. Well... there’s one, anyway: humor. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the game is a satirical work of genius, but it’s at least a satirical work of higher than average intelligence. There are plenty of things to laugh at in this game. The problem, though, is that almost none of them have anything to do with actual gameplay. All the laughs come in the extra features and the cinematics, which can only be unlocked by playing through the monotonous single-player Campaign mode 20 times. In order to actually enjoy yourself and watch about 30 seconds of comedy, you’ve first got to subject yourself to 3 hours of torture (It’s a lot like watching “Comedy Central Presents...” in that way). Not only that, there’s no list available anywhere, in the game or even on the internet, to tell you what you have to accomplish in order to unlock specific extras. Basically, the whole “game” is about as entertaining as jamming your fingers into a paper shredder. It’s a lot of pain to go through for a tiny amount of comedy that’s actually pretty hard to find.

Overall score: 3 out of 10, for sucking less than some of the other games I've played.

Everybody's been wondering why The Chalice of Silvermoon and my Blog have been missing ever since BlizzCon 2008. Well, now I'm back, and I can tell you why: The Donut Boys, at least the two I THOUGHT were cool enough to bring with me to the convention, thought it would be funny to wrap me up in duct tape and leave me locked up in KikiJiki's hotel room. And I admit, that WOULD have been a great gag... if it weren't for the fact that the hotel he was staying at is a disease ridden, roach infested hell-hole where the cleaning staff only comes by ONCE A MONTH! I've got half a mind to just up and quit your stupid show right now!

But, my agent tells me I need the "publicity." So, I guess I'll stay. Besides, The Donut Boys should've learned their lesson, now- their talk show's been lacking it's only quality content for the last month. At any rate, now that I've escaped the clutches of the stickiest substance known to man (I'm not talking about the duct tape), I'm ready to get back to my true calling: blogging! A lot of things are on the way over the coming week. Keep watching closely.