Christmas time is here again!

'Tis time to down tools for a week or three & get back in touch with my family & friends.  Merry Christmas to you all, see you in 2008!

Mike Kreuzer

Game of the year for 2007

Introducing the prestigious, the portentous, the premier, the Wrote on the Ground Game of the Year for 2007.  (Game of the Year.  G.O.T.Y... Goatee.  Geddit?)

Based entirely on the scores handed out during the year, and therefore losing in surprise what it makes up in scientific rigour and sheer fashionability, this year's award goes to -- drumroll, the envelope please  -- SSG & Matrix's Carriers at War.

I've heard this described as a gem of a game, and I agree completely.  A well deserved first place.  Well done.

I won't be handing out any silver, bronze or other lesser awards.  Second place is only a fancy name for losing after all.

Ethics revisited

Rumors abound today about GameSpot axing one of their reviewers when he didn't genuflect appropriately at the alter of one of their advertisers.

You can read the rumors here, and here and here (click next for the article), and probably elsewhere too.  There's a copy of his video review which has resurfaced on YouTube as well.  Of course it resurfaced on YouTube.

I have nothing to add to the rumors -- I don't know if they're true or a bunch of malarkey -- but I would point out that the conflict envisioned here, between advertising revenue & fearless reviews, is the very reason I chose to completely disconnect advertising and content on this site. You can read about that in my ethics statement, unaltered since the site began.