Oh boy! It's the MS-DOS port of Superfrog that has some rather significant game-breaking flaws that actually render the game unfinishable, coupled with sub-par ports of their Alien Breed games that have been severely cut back! Shut up and take my money!

Nope.

Wow. This is a question, eh?

I think of it as a blip, in that it came and went remarkably quickly. At least, that's my perception of the console. I don't remember it launching, I don't remember ever seeing any games for it on sale, and the first time I saw one was after the Dreamcast had launched and my friend Chris revealed that he'd owned one for several years but hadn't bothered setting it up because it played host to a largely shit selection of games (although, in fairness, the Saturn version of Resident Evil was pretty fucking awesome if unable to match the visuals of its PSone counterpart).

Really, I don't know what to think of the Saturn.

My PC is named Borris, but beyond that not really.

A "Love It" sized tub of Chocolate Devotion from ColdStone's.

I can't remember what my resolutions were. If they're anything about improving my memory, I'm fucked.

I volunteered at a playgroup for autistic children back in England, and I'd gladly volunteer for similar. So long as I don't have to interact with those crazy parents who think their kid became autistic because of vaccines or some such bollocks.

I did not. As a rule I tend to ignore video reviews. They are almost universally terrible.

Yes.

Dialogue from a deleted scene in "Labyrinth", there.

Someone sent me some slashfic once, but I haven't seen any actual fan-art of that nature.

Oh, I don't know. All of 'em.

Yes.

J Nash and Stuart Campbell get my admiration by default by sheer virtue of actually having don their jobs properly over the last two decades. But of the current "generation" of game journalists? Man, i don't even know.

That.

I don't think you did use the word "aggressive", although it's late and I'm tired.

I did actually try to mellow out for a while there at the end of last year, but it just resulted in more vicious hatemail. This year I decided, fuck it. I'm going to write what I want to write for the only audience I actually give a toss about - me. If other people like what I'm writing, or agree with the points I'm making, then that's fine. But last year I let people's opinion of me get in the way of what I wanted to do.

If nothing else I think I'm demonstrating that this field really needs to grow the fuck up. When game journalists start actually doing their jobs probably, when things get better, I'll consider toning down the hostility.

Maybe it's my method. I am quite happy to call someone who is producing shit work a shit worker, and I've no problems telling people who can't write that I think their writing is terrible. Some take this better than others - Jim Sterling, for instance, doesn't mind it when I tell him I think he's a shit writer. At least he doesn't react by telling me to go fuck myself or to put a quantity of cocks in my mouth.

Not to my face, anyway.

I think people would prefer it if I were more civil. If my posts were less "Hey, this bumbling fuckwit didn't even do his cocking research properly! If only he'd do the honorable thing and fall off a cliff" and more "Respectfully, I believe you have overlooked this previously available information which you and your colleagues reported now two days ago" then... well, actually, they'd still hate me. My tone is, I think, largely irrelevant - certainly it's not dissimilar from the tone of some of the people I'm criticizing, which you may take or leave as you will.

Other people critical of what I'm doing seem pissed off with the fact that I'm "just a reader", to which I say if that's the attitude you have towards your readers no wonder your writing is so shit.

But the most common mistake is assuming that my blog is about "personal taste". It's not. I've compounded that by posting about bad jokes I didn't like in the past - something I've tried to stop doing - it's about lax standards, about people not bothering to do even the most basic research. Virtually all of my reblogs of posts from SempraFi's blog are game journalists reposting old information - sometimes *ancient* information - or flat of failing to look up what they're writing about before they click "Publish". It's incredible, the low standards in this field. Anyone can do it, and usually anybody does.

It doesn't help that critics are traditionally terrible at receiving criticism. Even if it's not them being directly criticized, the number of journos - some of which I respect - who hate me simply for existing is ridiculous.

I've never described myself as above criticism, but look. There's a huge difference between what I'm doing and what Destructoid are doing. Destructoid are ostensibly a news source. They are expected to report information as it comes in, and to actually do some research before they blindly vomit stuff up onto their site. Similarly when they write a review you expect them to have played the game from start to finish and to give an honest and fair appraisal of it (to their credit, reviews are usually Destructoid's strength).

I'm not reviewing games, though. I'm just Some Guy giving an opinion of a game based on what he's experienced. I don't do it professionally. I don't claim to, and it's never really been an ambition of mine. So when I say that CoDBLOPS is shit it's based on what I have played coupled with the opinions of people I trust who have played the single-player campaign and deemed it to be less than enjoyable.

The day I start reviewing games and saying "I didn't play all of it, but it's shit, 2 out of 10", you're more than welcome to make that criticism and I will more than happily listen to it. It's also the day Satan starts driving to work in a snow plow.