In yet another suave marketing move by the super cool guys from Microsoft, we have this uber cool video flooding the tubes as a part of their viral campaign. Anyone got the lyrics to this thing?

So we have people lining up for Halo 3 two weeks in advance. Sure it might be a great game, though after playing the last two, i was left with no great feelings towards the series, but isn't this a little ridiculous?

All hail the MS hype machine. They've managed to make a success out of a semi-passable FPS. It won't have a story as intricate as Persona 3 or an atmosphere as vivid as BioShock but it will sell zillions.

Congratulations frat boy jocks, enjoy your pseudo-shooter while it lasts. The rest of us gamers will rejoice for this trilogy will be over. Hopefully.

Since i now have your attention with the name of someone who's probably an internet celebrity for now, i got a Wii which needs some games.

So what's worth a play barring Metroid Prime 3, Super Paper Mario and Twilight Princess? i already got those. Any genre will do.

As a token of my gratitude for your visit to my humble blog, i leave you with a comic from Little Gamers. Have a nice day.

Also, Snailebs.

After receiving an email from Tolkien foundation warning me not to make any more epic posts that would infringe on the long winded notoriety of the Lord of The Rings, here's a condensed, non-LOTR threatening version.

My name is h3lios. i live in the bowels of South East Asia known as India. Mumbai to be precise, where we pay in kidneys for our Wiis, PSTriples and Xbox360s. So far, i plan to let go of one of my kidneys (farewell lefty) for a Wii to play Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3. Used to be a big J-RPG fanboy till i discovered Oblivion and Deus Ex (from where i got my nickname), both of which made me realize there's more to gaming than a killer storyline, namely godlike gameplay.

Nowadays i more or less play on any system or game i can get my hands on be it Command and Conquer, Counter Strike or even Snake on my cell phone. It's not about the platform, its the games that maketh a gamer.

Apart from owning the systems listed on my profile, i did have an eight month tryst with the Xbox which ended in a bitter break-up. A console that craps on you after 40 hours of KOTOR reeks of mega fail. Leaving me bugged enough to sell it and upgrade my PC to play KOTOR. At least the house cats can't sit on an Antec SuperLan Boy like they used to on an Xbox...



Voicing feline conspiracies aside, i joined Destructoid because i got sick of reading fake reviews and impersonal news on websites that can't tell their Balrog from their Vega or their freeloader from their modchips.

A long time ago in a galaxy quite close by, lived a boy who chanced upon his dad's handheld Space Invaders and PacMan games. The sweet LED presentation coupled with his nubile 4 year old mind made it the ultimate way for his parents to keep this spoilt brat in his place.

Well until he saw his cousin sister play Mario on the NES. Which resulted in him making quite an embarrassment of his folks till her could get one.From crying and beating the floor at malls to screaming bloody murder he did it all to make sure he could play Mario, TwinBee, Spitfire and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in all their 8-bit glory. And when they succumbed, all was good.

Or at least it seemed to be, till he realized that he never knew how to plug the damn thing on, leaving him dependent on the parent folk yet again.

All seemed lost, and gaming sessions were infrequent, mainly due to his dad never being around to plug in his NES. However seeing the awesomeness that was the Sega Mega Drive with Sonic,Street Fighter and more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle goodness, he proceeded to be a model child and get his hands on a Mega Drive. And learn to plug it in himself. At the tender age of 8.

And everything was beautiful and perfect again. But twice as good, after all it was 16-bits and not 8 this time around. His life felt complete with whooping his sister and friends in epic matches of Street Fighter 2, getting his arse handed to him in the mesmirising gore that was Mortal Kombat, and some epic matches of Brian Lara Cricket '96 Part 2. Add in some insane Streets of Rage (I and II) sessions and a few rounds of Maui Mallard, Alladin and Cyborg Justice and he felt that Sega was the be and all of consoles. Or so he thought.

Then in 1999 along came the PSOne with its stellar collection of games. He was blown away and proceeded to convince the parents it was better than the Dreamcast (which they wanted him to pick up) mainly due to the presence of a certain cricket game.

The next four years were less of a multiplayer frag fest and more of a single player introspection. Basking in the radiance of epic stories such as Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Chrono Trigger and Vagrant Story. He transformed from a "social" gamer to a full blown Square-Enix fanboy. After all, the multiplayer sessions of Crash Team Racing, Quake 2 (grenade launchers for the win!) and Tekken were few and far between.

Due to his discovery of the internet and PCs at the same time, this phase was short lived. On being gifted Deus Ex for his 16th birthday,he realised that the PC, apart from checking email could also play a few great games, turning him into a major tech head who upgrades his system every year or so. As well as start a few CS/UT'99 clans. Bringing back the good old days of multiplayer madness.

Falling to the hype machine that was the PS2, XBOX and GC, he proceeded to purchase all three. At the end of the generation, only two systems survived. The XBOX died after just 8 months. Leaving him quite confused and perplexed. This was his first tryst with death. The death of a loved one after giving him close to 40 hours of KOTOR, finishing Halo 1 , JSRF and running rampant on DOA and Halo multiplayer, left him (if you can excuse the pun)inconsolable. However the memorable experiences that were MGS2,3, Paper Mario ,Final Fantasy X,XII and Metroid were just enough to get him through.

As for now, he remains undecided on what to do this generation. Should he get a new PC err...Xbox "RRoD" 360? Succumb to the old school goodness that the Wii seems to be? Or should he wait out and hope MGS4 stay as an exclusive so he can get a PS3?

All this and much more, once better console games are out for this generation! Join us same time, same place for a different kind of melodrama. Of the geek soap opera variety.

Dear Ken Levine and the rest of the uber cool BioShock crew,

i am a long time PC gamer who has been waiting in anticipation for BioShock ever since it was announced. Since i reside in Bombay, India, quality PC hardware is hard to come by and is wallet rapingly expensive. However i managed to scrimp and save a few months of salaries to get a semi-decent rig up and running for this game. After all, with all the glowing previews and reviews comparing it to my two favorite titles of all time, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 definitely made it a must play.

Now add to the fact that i usually have to wait a good month or two to get the game due to a craptacular release schedule, i decided to risk a preorder with one of the many ready and willing import stores around the city. So not only do i pay more for hardware, but end up paying two to three times more the usual price for the Collectors Edition which will NEVER release here. But hey, it's for the love of the game, right?

Also the Xbox 360 version is as useful as dialogues in a porn movie (due to crazy red lights of death issues) and it costs an arm, a leg , kidneys and a few assorted body parts, i decided (or rather common sense did) not to get an Xbox 360. Besides Microsoft's customer support is quite pathetic here.

As you can see acquiring the means to game in a country like India isn't as easy as it is in the US or UK. We pay 4 to 5 times more on hardware, put up with shitty release schedules and have to resort to grey market imports for CEs that cost more and roam freely in your markets. But we do it anyway because well, we love games.

Instead of pirating a game i rather give the developers their due, after all it's the least i can do for such an awesome work of art.

But when you stuff rootkits down our throats, after all it takes to get things in place to play this masterpiece, everything seems so futile and useless. It seems that you guys have taken the PC crowd for granted.

i agree that you need to protect your interests, but this is not the way to go about it. i'm in half a mind to cancel my preorder and take a walk down the street where i can get the game for 2$. i pay for my games, i deserve to install it without any PC crashing rootkits or limits on the number of PCs i can install it on.

Have you no confidence in your product that you'd have to resort to such idiotic measures? After close to a month of cock teasing in the form of glowing reviews and impressions, that last thing i want is my anti-virus getting menopausal on me. Your attitude reeks of insecurity. It's bad enough to get gimped widescreen support and release one working version of the game (for the xbox 360).

Contrary to popular belief, even though people in countries like mine love to pirate, there is a small, vocal , growing section of gamers who believe in giving the developers their due. Considering that we're at such a nascent stage and the fact that we'd know about such draconian piracy prevention techniques in an instant, leaves most of us, if not all, with more reason to pay $2 over $50.

So please fix this pathetic excuse for copy protection immediately, lest the neighborhood pirate makes a profit over the people who deserve to. You.

Just another gamer,

.h3lios