The Coop

You sure about that? How else would you explain That's So Raven, and That's So Raven 2 on the GBA? Hmmmmmmmmm?

Think he's laughing most at all the posters on Gamespot's forums that are striking for 24 hours on his behalf?

Ah. Gotcha

The TP 8.8 got so much attention because the Nintendo-fan masses thought it was a low score. They raised a big stink about it, and the drama is still going on today. And I never suggested he should have been fired for the K&L review/score, or that he did the wrong thing in stating his opinion. I was merely bringing up a business model that's been around for a long time, and how it would apply to all of this. Companies cut out things that are costing them money... that includes devisions, products, and people. It's quite possible, that Jeff was seen as something to be cut after Eidos pulled their financing, and what's going on is the end result. It doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it fair. But it does happen regularly, and it may very well have happened here. That's all I'm suggesting.

As has been shown over the decades, when an employee winds up costing their employer a lot (and I mean A LOT) of cash, they get the boot more often than not. It usually doesn't matter if it was an honest mistake, or if it was a huge blunder on their part either. The company wants to stop the money loss at its source... and if this scenario is indeed what happened, that's Jeff. If the numbers being thrown out at the moment are true, then we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a big hit for many companies to take, and most times someone involved in that money loss becomes the fall guy for it. It sucks, it's often very unfair, and it usually results in people getting the ax for dubious reasons ("He opted for an early retirement", "He wanted to spend more time with his family", etc.), but that's how it generally works (been the victim of it myself on a smaller scale). And no matter how hard we try to ignore it, on-line magazines and game review sites the size of IGN and Gamespot are still a business at the end of the working day. Again, this is running with the assumption that all this is what actually took place with Jeff and Gamespot.

Oh, I didn't say you suggested it, zircon. But last night, there was a "EIDOS GOT JEFF FIRED! FUCK THEM!" sentiment floating around with some people as they posted, blogged, and responded to those things. I can't remember the names of the sites and blogs I read last night (links all over the damn place now), but early on I read a few blurbs about how Eidos possibly demanded Jeff be fired because of his review. It makes no sense to me either, but somehow that notion caught on for a while.

That's what I've been noticing as well, as this hoopla has played out more. It's starting to look more like rather than demanding Jeff be fired, Eidos simply pulled back advertising funds after a low scoring review (like so many other companies have done over the last couple decades with game sites and game magazines). Then, that loss of cash for Gamespot was placed squarely on Jeff's head in a "You just cost us big bucks! Here's your Whammy... YOU'RE FIRED!" fashion. Guess we'll see if that's how it went down.

And here I thought you'd saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico.

I have been putting two and two together. - On the one hand, there are some people telling variations of the same general story. Jeff wrote a potentially crass review, was told to tone it down, did, still pissed off Eidos either because of the low score or the way the review (video review) was written, and got fired for it. - On the other hand, there are lots of anonymous sources, unknown posters "coming forward" that want to be quoted, mysterious phone calls, and some questionable jumps in logic (see above comment on the 1UP article). If this thing was being reported on the local news, reporters would be all over the story questioning it's validity before going public with it, because of there being so many unknown sources. As such, I don't think I'm in the wrong by saying it's easy to still be a bit skeptical and not jump on the bandwagon of "EIDOS IZ EVAL AND GOT JEF FRIED!" when looking at everything. Edit: Interesting article, Specter. Even they said the review was a little mean (this coming from GR ). It's starting to look more like several reasons were behind Jeff's canning, and not Eidos demanding Jeff be fired. Also, remember Howard Stern's movie, "Private Parts"? Remember the scenes where the radio management was ready to fire Stern because of sponsors dropping out due to his crass nature on the air? Anyone else think that some of that may be in play here?

I have to bring up an interesting part of the 1UP article... Somehow, whoever this mystery person was, took "He also implied that 'AAA' titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed", and went straight to, "which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site." Mighty big assumption. The recently deceased Evel Knievel would have a hard time with that jump. I have to wonder why that statement didn't also come off as meaning that high profile games deserve more than a single page review... kind of like what Jeff did with Halo 3 and the OMG CONTROVERSIAL "Twilight Princess" review. Maybe they expected him to raise the rating, maybe they expected him to go into more detail as to why the game deserved a 6.0. Who knows. We don't, but a lot of people sure are acting like they do without much in the way of facts out there at the moment. Again, until someone comes forth with proof that Jeff was canned for giving the game a 6.0, and not because of some other reason(s) (questionable review quality, being too crass in stating his opinions, etc.), it's rumors, conjecture and back alley whispering right now. Perhaps this makes me a bit of a hard ass on this subject, but real life and watching things unfold on the Internet have shown me not to buy into the hoopla and conspiracy proclamations when drama arises. So, I'll wait for the information to come out (and it will, one way or another). If he got fired for scoring K&L a 6.0 and pissing off Eidos and their site investment, that sucks. If he got fired for writing reviews that weren't very in-depth or professional, well...

So many people are talking like that review is what got him fired. I don't believe anyone has given concrete proof of anything beyond "He was let go". Right now, it's simply a bunch of people claiming he was fired to make Eidos happy. No evidence, no comments from other people who work for Gamespot to back it up with proof... just rampant rumors being clung to as truth. If I'm wrong, please point to where it's been proven that review rating is the cause. As I said. He's written piss-poor quality reviews before. If you want proof, go and read his "review" of Taito Legends 2 for the PS2. If he's handed in that kind of thing once, he's likely done it before over a ten year span. I personally think there's a better chance that those horrid quality reviews caught up with him, than there is of the "K&L getting a 6"-thing being the cause of his departure. In short, if he was fired because a company advertising on Gamespot had their game rated as average, I will truly be surprised.

Yeah. There's two versions of him, right? Three actually...

Bah. Difficult without being cheap is half the fun. Besides, I don't think there are too many casual gamers in this thread. And if there are, they need to sharpen their teeth on some games that are harder than Bowling Bigfoot- You mean this guy?

Nah. I was just joking. The game is punishment from beginning to end, and will fight you're claiming victory every step of the way.

Shhhhhhh... We're sitting right here. No need to shout. Bigfoot- You cheater. All you have to do to get to the final level on the second loop is play for five hours without pausing. Then the game feels sorry for you, and moves you to it

Meh. After his horrid Taito Legends 2 review that was almost insultingly bad and devoid of info, I'd been questioning every review I read from him since. If he called that a review for TL2, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd done similarly lacking reviews before. I also wouldn't be surprised if this firing was the end result of too many questionable reviews on his part.

Spheres of Chaos Ever wonder what Asteroids would be like if it was made by a Woodstock programmer on a major acid trip while listening to Pink Floyd? Well wonder no more, because here it is. Recently released as freeware, Spheres of Chaos is an electronic mindfuck just waiting for you to enter it. As mentioned, it plays a lot like Asteroids (right down to a Hyperspace button), but with added weapons. The ships are geometric in design, and the effects that are constantly going off are nuts. So warm up that lava lamp, get out your black light, and give it a whirl.

You bitch about how much stuff there is to do, then you bitch about being given new stuff to do once you've done all the previous stuff. I suppose next you'll be bitching about having nothing to do once people stop resending their songs. Then you'll start bitching about your own bitching about stuff. Next comes being called a whiny bitch, and finally, you'll be bitching in circles about the bitching of bitching about stuff from whiny bitches bitching about bitching until it rips through the fabric of our reality... ending bitching as we humans have come to know it. GAWD! YOU'RE JUST NEVER HAPPY!

Looking at the list, here's 15 of the best ones in my view... -=SNES=- Super Castlevania IV- A great entry into the series. Nice graphics, good music, but a bit on the easy side. The controllable whip makes for some interesting gameplay additions, and there are plenty of levels to make your way through. R-Type III: The Third Lightning- Great shmup. Pretty damn hard too. Great graphics, good music, and a choice of three different Force orbs to make for some experimentation. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts- Hard as a fucking rock, it'll make you want to punch a baby. However, it's not hard because it's cheap, it's hard by way of enemy placements and level layout. It's graphically very good, has a very nice soundtrack, and to see the ending, you'll need to play through twice. Super Metroid- Do I really need to explain anything with this one? Axelay- Another shmup from Konami. As expected it looks quite good, has good music, and it switches from "into the screen" view, to side view every other stage. Gotta crank this one's difficulty all the way to see everything in the ending. -=Genesis=- Ristar- A platformer that really got little attention, despite the rather high praise. The character is sickeningly cute, but the gameplay is spot on. Great graphics, upbeat music, fun gameplay thanks to the character's stretchy arms, and big, fun levels. The boss fights are blast too, and the game as a whole has just the right amount of challenge. Great stuff. Gunstar Heroes- Contra-like gameplay, but much more hectic. Very good graphics, good music, a tough challenge, and lots of levels. It's by Treasure, so it's got all the expected cool special effects too. Run 'N Gun baby. Alien Soldier- Take the above game's gameplay, difficulty and visual style, shorten the levels, and make twenty-plus bosses for you to fight. This game is a boss fight lovers dream, as the bosses make up the majority of it. It never came to The States, and it's a shame since this game is quality stuff (again) from Treasure. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole- Action RPG that's set up in an isometric view. It's done by Climax, and it has a similar graphical style to games like Shining Force and especially Shining In the Darkness. Making the jumps is a bit difficult because of the view, but the game is great from start to finish. Shining In the Darkness- A dungeon crawler on the Genesis? Why not. The music gets a bit repetitive after a while, but it's a quality title. The dungeons get tougher as you go along, and keep some paper handy as you'll want to make a map of your journey. Good graphics, nice tunes, and a solid challenge that keeps from feeling unfair. Beyond Oasis- Another action RPG, done by Ancient (Yuzo Koshiro's company). Great graphics and a tough, but fun quest wait for you here. The music's a bit average, but mostly because the tunes aren't all that memorable, as opposed to being bad aural quality. Shinobi III- The last entry on the Genesis, and it's a good one. Very nice graphics, good music, a nice variety of levels, and it's a good challenge. It plays similarly to Revenge of Shinobi, but its gameplay has been expanded with a few new moves, and ridable vehicles. A very good action platformer. -=NES=- Castlevania- An NES classic. Sure, the graphics are rough, but the music is memorable, and the gameplay is good. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest- Better graphics and equally good tunes, this game's several times larger thanks to the broader quest. Another NES classic. Ninja Gaiden 1+2- I'm putting these together because they play damn near the same. Both games are hard as hell, but they're also quality titles thanks to the graphics, music and level design.

What genres are your favorites?

Well, then I'll keep working on it. Be a few days before there's a WIPable item though.

As I said in the other thread a few days ago, it's a shame when someone who's just getting started in their life has it taken from them. Having such a tragedy come to pass during an event that was supposed to be happy and festive makes it sting just a bit more for those who knew him. I never spoke with Reuben, nor have I ever heard his remixes and original music. But this fact doesn't prevent me from extending my condolences to you, his family and friends. Your loss was great, and my heart goes out to you as you make your way through this extremely hard time. If it's any small measure of confront, know that this thread shows you're not alone in your grieving, as the remixing community is sharing in some of your pain. Your son and friend touched a lot of people with his music.

I chuckled at how they were talking about the extra power 16bit offered, and as examples of that power, they showed several Master System games. Um, what?

Has there ever been an American system/game that did well in Japan? American gamers are all for buying-Japan made games and systems, but it always seems to be quite the opposite when it comes to Japanese gamers buying American made games or systems. Are they really that disinterested in American-styled gaming, or is it just the charts that are released making it seem that way?