Legally, the exact reasons behind his dismissal cannot be revealed. However, they stemmed from issues unrelated to any publisher or advertiser; his departure was due purely for internal reasons.

Directly from the GameSpot website in a little Q&A that they put together in an attempt at damage control. I for one listened to the HotSpot podcast every week and although it was mainly a console gaming publication, I enjoyed Jeff and the rest of the crew’s conversation’s about the gaming industry. I for one do not believe one thing that GameStop says. Now it very well could be other reason’s behind it, until that light is shed, we as gamers have to sit back and wonder why the fishy smell. If you stop by and read the GameStop management’s Q&A and the valid point’s that the gamers brought up. All signs point to he was fired for giving a bad, well not even bad I would say mediocre rating for a less then mediocre game. His article was edited, video review pulled & then he was let go from his position. Now look at it this way, maybe GameSpot isn’t lying by telling us he wasn’t fired for the actual review but rather his reaction to getting flak for the honest review he gave it. Either way, respect to Jeff Gerstmaan. He told it like it was and was probably even generous for his rating even though maybe his review did not reflect it, it was better then he probably wanted to actual put. So in the end GameSpot can now honestly deny that he wasn’t fired for the review but for his reaction to the reaming he was getting for it. Now this is all speculation by gamers, which I think may not be too far from the truth. I really encourage gamers to check out some forums and other write ups on the subject to get your own take on things but the Q&A by GameSpot management doesn’t convince me one bit it was for any other reason for their actions against Mr. Gerstmaan.

Q: Was Eidos Interactive upset by the game’s review? A: It has been confirmed that Eidos representatives expressed their displeasure to their appropriate contacts at GameSpot, but not to editorial directly. It was not the first time a publisher has voiced disappointment with a game review, and it won’t be the last. However, it is strict GameSpot policy never to let any such feelings result in a review score to be altered or a video review to be pulled.

I say if Eidos and GameSpot thought that Jeff’s review of the game, which nobody can deny they have been HEAVILY pushing and buying up prime advertising real estate to boost sales hurt their pocket books. We as gamers, as a community, as the people who pay for their products and give them the success they have should take strong action against these type’s antics. We should boycott them both! Show them that we as the end user’s have the power to make or break them and that they would have been better off leaving and living with one little mediocre but honest review. In the end it’s going to hurt them alot more then that one little review could have ever hurt their sales for one game. Eidos obviously had something to worry about, rightfully so and it’s pathetic. Make a mediocre budget game, spend shitloads of money on advertising in an attempt create even bigger profit margin’s. It’s the way companies think now and it’s disgusting, now not all are like that but it’s a big and growing problem. Check out this article “Euro developers more creative than US studios, says EA“. American developer’s are just more worried about making money, bottom line. If your a PC gamer then I suggest you check out Games For Windows Magazine. These guys are honest and tell it like it is for the most part as far as I can tell. I’ve been listening to them and reading the magazine for a while, I even prefer to read it over the over rated PC Gamer Magazine. Which don’t get me wrong I still do like PC Gamer. I just think right now Jeff Green and Team seem to be the best PC gaming media on the scene these days, and they deserve it. If your a console gamer, well what the hell are you doing reading this anyways, go back to your living room in front of your T.V’s and pretend your in a band and can actually play an instrument or something. I’m just kidding of course, you obviously are interested in this article because your were, key word here FOLKS were, a fan of Jeff Gerstmaan or GameSpot/HotSpot fans. Look around the web and find a new place for your news, reviews & previews for your gaming content. It’s your duty as a gamer to not put up with this kind of pressure from developers & publisher’s on the gaming media.

I am due for a new gaming rig that’s for sure. So i’ve been browsing various supplier website and comparing prices and check out the comments on the products. Well I noticed that the prices we Canadians are getting aren’t fair compared to our dollar right now.

If you even just take a look at tigerdirect.ca compared to tigerdirect.com it’s a perfect example of it right their. For the same NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT you get two very different prices. On the .ca website you will get a price of 365.99 for the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT and on the US website you will get a price of 299.99US. Even if the prices were both in US it would still be an unfair pricing for the Canadians. Now i’m not exactly sure if they will just pass your order on to the Canadian offices of you order from the .com US website for the same price or if they process your order directly.

I just think I might avoid them in general for a while. I’m not ready to purchase quite yet anyways so I have time to shop and newegg.com is always a good choice too. It’s just something that I noticed and thought if others haven’t yet, then they should.

If you thought this article was interesting in the least, please help out by digging this article @ digg.com

I have been checking online retailers all morning to see If I could locate any with some on their website’s but have not had any luck so far. As a longtime AMD fan, that feels a bit let down from the companies lack of products in the near past. Although at the same time, we know that they have been working hard getting things together after the merger with ATI. So the future should bring us AMD fan’s some pride. we hope.

The links in this post are for my friends account not my own, I just thought I would help him win his free copy of the game since he has been trying really hard to win. He will gain nothing from your refferal except if he places high enough a free copy of the game. While you will win whatever you uncover… It’s win win for both us and him.

There are still lots of prizes left up for grabs, try your chance at the Assassin’s Creed Challenge now and see if your a winner. Below is a list of the prizes won/available. First number are the amount that people have won so far, and the next is the amount left to win.

• NX Fusion PCs 2 0

//My buddy thanks anyone who enters the contest through his link, and wishes you the best luck of uncovering a winning peice. He also said that you could try to start your own, but it is very late in the game, and there is only 7 days left. Also though if you wanted to try good luck to you as well, it is all for fun and everyone seems to be having fun while playing.   

[tags]win,xbox360,contest, game, video, gaming[/tags]

I have a fairly outdated system in today’s gaming world. It’s a Socket 939 x2 3800+ cpu, 2gigs ram, Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT OC, onboard sound etc… The reason why I even mention sound relating to performance is that some will argue that onboard sound takes away from your processor while gaming to process the sound and rightfully so.

I never even loaded up the single player game as I went into multiplayer “just to check it out” and ended up playing for about 5 hours straight. Now my graphics settings are fairly low, running @ 1280 x 1024. Which still looks pretty damn nice but I do find it a bit dark, and it has some almost blacked out area’s through out the game, including enemy soldiers. They somtimes appear to be black, and if they hide in a “blacked out” corner or crevass then needless to say unless they fire at me I do not see them. I can live with that though for now. I would attempt to turn the graphics settings up a little higher although I would then probably make my, already lacking frame rates even worse. I was getting an everage of i’d say around 38FPS. Not the most ideal FPS to be getting but I can live with it for now.

 I had a great time playing this game and already made it to Master Gunnery Sergeant. I have yet to make a custom class as all the weapons that I unlocked are not appealing to me. In Call of Duty 2 I was a huge fan of single shot bolt action rifles. So the sub machine guns, and machine guns that I unlocked still don’t appeal to my game play. I am actually really liking the m16a that I have been using in burst mode, the grenade launcher attachment doesn’t hurt any either. It’s pretty easy to rack a few kills with those, as well as make a body or two fly.

So far so good with this game though, it’s really living up to the hype, for me anyways. I recorded alot of my yesterday’s gaming streaming my video out to ustream.tv. Which did take a little toll on my video card as well as my bandwidth. Did it affect my playing, maybe a little as my ping was avg 100 when my ping to the server was actually around 30. It did get a little choppy for me at times, but the stream looks choppy anyways.

 If you live in a part of the world that will not be getting this game released until friday or you just won’t be able to pickup the game for a little while then you can check out my Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare stream over @ ustream.tv.

The video is choppy because of feed it does not run like that on my end. As well my screen output is a little off so some edges are cutoff but I couldn’t figure it out in a timely manner and wanted to just game so I did it like that anyways. If any of you have any ideas on how to improve the feed in anyway please do let me know, Leave a comment on this article and I will get back to you. I would like to continue to add videos & feeds in the future but would like to see the quality improve drastically.

[tags]multiplayer, gaming, game, cod, 4, modern, warfare[/tags]

EA’S COMMAND & CONQUER 3: KANE’S WRATH ENLISTS ALL-STAR CELEBRITY CAST Expansion Pack in Award-winning Series to Include Natasha Henstridge and Carl Lumbly in Live Action Video SequencesCHERTSEY., October 30, 2007 - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that Command & Conquer™ 3: Kane’s Wrath, the expansion pack to the critically-acclaimed and fan favorite, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars™, will feature Natasha Henstridge (Species trilogy) and Carl Lumbly (’Alias’) in its all-new, high-definition, live action video sequences. Henstridge and Lumbly will be joined by veteran Command & Conquer™ actor Joe Kucan, who originated the role of Kane, the megalomaniacal leader of the Brotherhood of Nod. All three actors are at the epicentre of the Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath story which will span 20 years - from the rebirth of the Brotherhood after the Second Tiberium War through the dramatic events of the Third Tiberium War and beyond.

“Natasha and Carl are a perfect fit for the live-action video sequences that will bring our epic story to life,” said Mike Verdu, General Manager of EALA and Executive Producer on Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath. “We had great success with the cast and story for Command & Conquer 3, and I’m very excited to be working with such talented actors on the expansion pack. We’re doing something really unique with the campaign this time around - and I think fans will be thrilled to see how the story unfolds.”

Live action cinematics have become one of the hallmarks of the Command & Conquer series dating back to the original Command & Conquer in 1995. In addition to the trademark live action videos and multi-decade campaign, Kane’s Wrath introduces six new sub-factions and a wealth of new units, structures, and powers to the armies of the Global Defense Initiative, the Brotherhood of Nod, and the enigmatic alien Scrin.

The Xbox 360™ version of Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath will debut a revolutionary new radial interface designed specifically for console gamers. Taking RTS controls to a whole new level, players will utilize the command stick to build, deploy, and attack.

Developed at EALA, Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath will ship in Spring 2008 for Windows PC and Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system. This product is not yet rated by the ESRB. For more information about Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath or the Command & Conquer series, please visit http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/23/xbox-360-arcade-available-starting-today/  Well the rumors are no longer just rumors, it’s now fact. Microsoft finally confirmed the release of it’s family oreiented Xbox 360 Arcade.

 The new Xbox 360 Arcade is geared at the non-hardcore gamers and looking to compete with the Nintendo Wii. The MSRP for the Xbox 360 Aracade is $279.99 U.S which comes close to the MSRP of the Nintendo Wii which is $249.

The Xbox 360 Arcade should be available for sale starting today (Oct 23 2007) and will be packaged with a single wireless controller, HDMI connection for hi-def output, 256Mb’s of memory, and 5 casual gamer, games.

 The five games that will be shipped with the Xbox 360 Arcade will be as follows: Namco-Bandai’s Pac-Man Championship Edition, Carbonated Games’ Uno, MumboJumbo’s Luxor 2, Electronic Arts’ Boom Boom Rocket, and Sprout Games’ Feeding Frenzy.

[tags]xbox, 360, microsoft, arcade, gaming[/tags]

]]> http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/23/xbox-360-arcade-available-starting-today/feed/ http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/wanna-send-video-mail-why-not-try-eyejot/ http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/wanna-send-video-mail-why-not-try-eyejot/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:27:35 +0000 ph33rgear http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/wanna-send-video-mail-why-not-try-eyejot/ Video Mail In a Blink

Last night this new website called EyeJot was brought to my attention. What is EyeJot you ask, well if you’ve ever wanted to send a friend, web show, Chris Pirillo etc. a video about a rant or question that you might have. You can now do so without any fancy software or having to upload the video and host it yourself. EyeJot is basically like Gmail, except you send and receive video messages via EyeJot’s website.

Now as cool as this is, it would be nice to have the option to download the video’s to your hard drive. Say for instance I have a web show and viewers send me in video questions, I would like to play them from my computer and not the web application that they have. The website still says that it is in beta, but seems to be running smoothly as it is now with the little testing that I have done.

Brief technical explanation from their site:

Video messages anywhere, anytime

Eyejot has combined the best of what email and live video chat each have to offer and has created a platform that’s remarkably easy to use and works with any web browser, on any platform. Email is effective because it’s easy and you can create something that can be read anytime in the future. Video chatting is great because it’s visual. You can impart emotion, tone and energy. But, very often the person you want to chat with isn’t online at the same time. Maybe they’re even in a different time zone. With Eyejot you truly get the best of both worlds. You can be sending video messages to your friends, family and business colleagues, literally, in seconds. The Eyejot difference is that there’s no software to install! Watch Eyejot video examples.

[tags]eyejot, video, email, vlog, record, messages, messaging[/tags]

]]> http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/wanna-send-video-mail-why-not-try-eyejot/feed/ http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/skype-myspace-tag-team-social-networking/ http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/skype-myspace-tag-team-social-networking/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:55:17 +0000 ph33rgear http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/skype-myspace-tag-team-social-networking/

Well  it’s  really taken longer then I thought it would have, but Skype  & MySpace have teamed up to  once again change the way social networking is done.You can now send VoIP audio to your friends through you Myspace Friend’s IM. Now I never  said that I knew which two companies would team up like this but it really was just a matter of time. If you look at alot of innovative webmaster’s and bloggers, they have had these feature’s built into their webpage’s for some time now. Given that the way they do it is not quite the same as this new feature but they were finding ways to get it done. I give it only a matter of time before FaceBook and like site’s pick up on this type of communicating.

User’s can now join Myspace through their Skype software and have audio contact with people in their friend’s list’s as well. Will this be a really big move for both companies? probably. Although I still only give it a matter of time before it get’s abused the way the whole MySpace network turned into a spammer’s paradise. Everyone will have 100 new audio message’s a day from people they don’t know and it will be a band with a 10 second clip, trying to promote their new song or upcoming show. 

Even more interesting that obviously PC 2 PC calls will still remain free, but the money generated from MySpace on PC 2 Land & Cell lines will be split between the two companies at about roughly 2 cents a mintue. This information was apparently not supposed to be released until today sometime, but what can we say it’s going to be a hot topic for a while. Ebay wrote off 1.4 billion of their MySpace acquisition out of the total 4.1 billion purchase and are willing to throw that right back in to try and hold some ground against the rapidly catching up FaceBook.

[tags]skype, myspace, social, networking, voip, audio, streaming[/tags]

]]> http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/17/skype-myspace-tag-team-social-networking/feed/ http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/16/your-not-doomed-unbrick-that-iphone-now/ http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/16/your-not-doomed-unbrick-that-iphone-now/#comments Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:44:20 +0000 ph33rgear http://www.lockergnome.com/ph33rgear/2007/10/16/your-not-doomed-unbrick-that-iphone-now/ Okay, well as Apple had said, anyone who hacked their iPhone would have it rendered no good after the next update. Well for those of you that did not believe them, you’re now probably sitting there pretty angry that you have a $500 unusable iPhone.

Well fear not, there is now a way you can revive that broken iPhone, at a cost of course. It will cost you about $100 and a little work, but I’m sure it’s worth it to you. Unbrick that iPhone now.

Here is what it says on their Web site… Check it out for more info.

World’s First Unlock for iPhone 1.1.1 / 04.01.13_G Firmware

Our sincere congratulations, to the iPhone/ iTouch Dev Team for their brilliant work in finding an ingenious way to jailbreak the 1.1.1 system. This exciting news means we are now able to gladly welcome all SIMFREE unlocked phone owners to UPGRADE to 1.1.1 if they so wish.

Further to this, we are very proud to announce, (after some very difficult and lengthy hardware hackery), we were able to retrieve the necessary info to create the world first 1.1.1 unlock solution. We have now tested SimFree v1.6 with phones that have the new Baseband version 04.01.13_G with full success. This now means that SimFree v1.6 release, is now capable of completely restoring/repairing software unlocked “bricked” iPhone. Those of you wishing to repair your phone, please read the following steps.

Steps for “un-bricking” your anySim or iUnock iPhones:
1. Follow the iPhone/iTouch dev team steps to bring your phone back to 1.0.2 system (your baseband firmware will still be the newer 04.01.13_G)

2. Register your true IMEI (found engraved on the back of your phone) with our servers through one of our trusted resellers.

3. Power down your phone and REMOVE your sim

4. Power up with the sim removed and Install SimFree.app 1.6 (simplest method is through apptapp installer, see post below)

5. Follow this tutorial to execute the Simfree. app.

Here is the direct link to SimFree v1.6: Download SimFree v1.6

Why use iPhoneSimFree, Facts about unlocking with SimFree

1. iPhoneSimFree was the first to release a Software Unlock for the iPhone.
2. iPhoneSimFree Unlock works on ALL versions of iPhone (1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.1.1)
3. iPhoneSimFree Unlock works on ALL versions of Modem Firmware ( even the latest 04.01.13_G )
4. iPhoneSimFree Unlocked phones can be updated from any version to 1.1.1 safely without bricking your radio and GSM functions (unlike other unlock methods)
5. iPhoneSimFree does not patch your devices firmware ( unlike other unlocking methods )
6. iPhoneSimFree can FIX all phones that anySim and iUnlock bricked with the 1.1.1 update
7. iPhoneSimFree Unlock is restore and update resistant up to and including 1.1.1

[tags]iPhone, unbrick, repair, fix, [/tags]

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