Breaking the Silence

Just wanted to leave a note here, for passers by. After almost 8 years, different hosts, and several pleas to try and get this site the attention and variety it once craved, I've come to terms with what it's become.

It's not much, but it was a nice 8 year chapter of my life, and the site will live on as proof of that. Sure, our old hosts have long gone, and thus some of this chapter is missing. But I'm ok with that. I'm proud of the work both my team and myself have done over the years, and I'm kind of shocked that we all managed to run this on our own free time for that long. I've made some great friends over the years thanks to VFH, both near and far, and if that's all I have to remind myself of my time here then it was worth it.

This isn't the first semi-depressing letter I've written here, but it's most likely the last. I've just become too busy with other work to actually maintain this by myself for no compensation.

I won't close the site or our social media accounts, I could never bring myself to do so after all the time we've put in, but updates on our Facebook and Twitter will probably be kept to a minimum barring a few note-worthy links here and there. It's not much, but it's the best I can do given the time I have.

However, I myself am not going away. Feel free to follow my art blog, Twitter, or even my Tumblr; each of which are generally regularly updated with my thoughts and latest works. When I'm not self-promoting I'm generally talking about movies, music, TV, comics (and all the other crap I like and would generally speak about here in full length when given the time). Who knows, maybe some day I'll have a reason to come back to this place and start writing again, wouldn't that be swell?

Thank you to everyone, I'll see you later.

No More This Week in Futurama

It's exactly one month before Futurama returns to Comedy Central again with new episodes. But I've decided, with an upcoming busy work schedule, and an unfavorable feeling when I wrote the previous episode reviews that I won't continue the episode reviews for the remainder of the show's existence.

I'm fine reviewing Fringe and Doctor Who, because at least those shows generally have an overall narrative that I can discuss my thoughts and theories about (and sometimes bounce ideas of another reviewer like I do with Fringe). But when it comes to Futurama (and not the movies, cause I can at least treat those like movie reviews), I'm just judging the humor, and that honestly just gets annoying after awhile when I can't say anything about the story. Sure, the episode plot may have something to say, but overall, it doesn't matter. But really its a mix of that, and the fact that I have a lot of work to be doing on my own film this summer, so I figured I would cut the feature I liked the least.

Sorry if you were looking forward to those, however, I'll still be tweeting my thoughts on the new episodes over on @ViewFromHeaven with #Futurama.

The State of VFH Address

Hey, just a little something not Fringe or Doctor Who related. We still exist. Well... I do at least. But when I'm not writing here on my free time, I'm very busy. I go to school, I work in a studio for a whole day each week on what should be my one day off, and when I'm not going to school or work I'm back home, drawing, animating, and doing research for my next film. Sure, sometimes the research involves reading comics, watching movies, and playing games as they apply to the subject matter, but generally its all older things, and I've always tried to keep our content based on new releases. Because of this, my writing time is very limited, and if it weren't for Zach writing the bulk of the Fringe reviews this season, I probably wouldn't do them at all.

I've gotten to see a bunch of movies in theaters that I still haven't reviewed, i.e. Season of the Witch, Unknown, and Rango; one of which I've really enjoyed enough to recommend it to a lot of people. And I've listened to a lot of new music that I haven't gotten to review either. I haven't had any game time though. I bought Mass Effect 2 on PS3, and some older titles, but I've had literally no time to play them, let alone review them. If I do any gaming, its... Angry Birds on my iPod, and right before I go to bed. But despite all this, I've got a 3DS pre-ordered (no games though), as does Zach, and I want promise a rush of 3DS content, but we'll see where the week takes us.

Why the gradual lack of content? Real life, to put it bluntly. Our seventh birthday is in just TWO days. Yes, SEVENTH; that's seven years of my own life that I've dedicated to writing reviews about the things I buy, just so that maybe a few hundred people could read it each day, despite never commenting back (yeah, I check my Google Analytics). Seven years ago I was just starting high school, I had friends from the Nintendo Nsider Forums, and I wanted to share my thoughts on games outside the confines of a message board, and allow them to do so as well.

Thankfully Derek (Reo) gave me that chance, with our own website, and VFH was born. Within those seven years though, things have changed. The world is different, money doesn't buy as much as it used to, and we've all grown up. It's one thing to be able to review what we want whenever we want because someone's parents were nice enough to buy them the latest game. But the real world doesn't work that way when the only money you get goes to food, supplies and rent. The other ... listed writers (I can't really call them active) haven't really been upfront with me about WHY they don't write... but I can get it.

This upcoming year and the following year will probably be the most important time of my life, as I get into production on my thesis year animated film and start looking for a job. At some point I have to realize that I have no priorities in VFH, it's just something that I've done in my free time for seven years. I don't regret any of the time I've spent doing this; I love the feeling of getting that 1 in 1000 comment, I feel more comfortable writing essays and letters because I've spent so much time with VFH. When I brought the site to Blogger, I did so because it made updating even easier, and it allowed me to invite more people and have them share their opinions easier as well. It does sadden me that despite constant efforts to get the other writers more involved with just sharing their opinions, this has always remained a place where I just basically praise the things I like, and Zach doing TV show reviews with me. But, I still got what I could out of it.

I get that we're 1 of a million website on the internet devoted to reviewing games and entertainment, and I completely understand why people would go to an IGN, Kotaku, or other site before here; I go there too. But I never intended to make VFH a competitor for that. I made VFH because it was a place where me and my friends could get together, online, and share with the world I thoughts and opinions. It's why I've always been against putting ads on the site, and shoving the fact that I run a website in people's faces. It's not for the glory, its just a love for what I do. I want to be able to write more about the things I watch, play, hear and read, but I just don't have the time like used to.

I think what I'm trying to say is, if there was an easier way to do this. I would do it. Formal writing takes time, and while it's payed off for me in the long run, it doesn't always make sharing my opinions easy. I could do video reviews, but who wants to be another floating head on YouTube? And then I'd have to worry about video editing. I could tweet reviews, but even as a sentence that sounds stupid. I want VFH to exist, even if I don't always have the time for it.

This is not the end, but it's at least a substantial notice. Thank you.

A Week of Catching Up

First things first: sorry. Sorry that I've had an incredibly busy schedule this summer with my part time job and my job as an artist. Come June I honestly had no free time to play games let alone write reviews for games, and any free time I had was either spent reading or watching movies, once again, not exactly having the time to write about them. But as my last week of summer vacation arrives, I've taken a week off of work to get some things done, including back tracking on reviews for games, movies, albums, television, and maybe even a book or two. It's a lot that I have to do, but if I dont get them done now, they'll never get done.

Now that's my excuse, I can't speak for the other 5 writers...

Some Things to Note

Hello readers, just a couple things I wanted to say. Despite tons of movies, games, and other things releasing this summer, I personally have had quite the busy schedule and have found that VFH just hasn't been my top priority when I have what little off-time I can get. That's not to say that I've given up on this, I still enjoy writing about entertainment as a hobby, but this doesn't put money in my wallet so of course I have to spend most of my time actually working. Not that that explains why everyone else here hasn't written much or at all, but I'm sure I can credit it to similar reasons.

As for the site, there's some changes, some minimal, some major that I want to be noted. For one, you may have noticed that we now have our own favicon instead of the old Blogger "B" logo. But also, I found out how to finally insert page breaks, so starting tonight, all future long posts with have a "read more" link at the bottom to bring you into the full page post, instead of cluttering up the main page with text. With this, I may also go back into all of our past long posts and slim those down with page breaks, and possibly add more articles per page now that everything will be trimmed.

There's still a lot of things I'd love to write about, but just don't have the time. Perhaps I'll get around to reviewing them by the end of the summer, but at this point I don't know. Stick around!

VFH is SIX

How the time flies, I almost completely forgot to write this! What's there to say? First off, while VFH's existence is six years old now, our home here is just two years old; and considering our original location died recently, it looks like we're here to stay!

What's changed since last year? Hmmm, well we've doubled our readership, got some decent recognition from Archaia Comics for our Awakening review, which then led to other comic related contacts... not to mention the inclusion of the Book Review section in general. We've awarded quite a few VFH Seals of Approval... and we've even lost some staff members. Sure not the most exciting of things, but hey, we do what we must.

Anyways, here's VFH popularity rundown: MySpace - 435 friends (200% increase!), Facebook - 13 fans (that's actually an improvement), Twitter - 514 (also a 200% increase!), YouTube - 924 friends and subscribers (holy. shit.), and Flickr.... I haven't really used it that much recently, due to their limits. Social media is still very much a part of the VFH experience and we hope that you continue to follow us on all realms of the interweb.

What's next? Well, seeing as we won't have hands-on E3 coverage like last year (I'm sure you can figure out why), this year VFH is all about the reviews. Starting next month there will be FOUR This Week In features running each week, that's Lost, FlashForward, Fringe, and the new season of Doctor Who! So even if we're low in the news category, you can look forward to a science fiction related review or two every other day for the next two months or so.

But television isn't the only thing we'll be reviewing, our Music review section has tripled in the last year, and there's quite a few books, games, and movies releasing this summer that are just begging for our opinions. As for more unique content? I'd say you can look forward to more two-person reviews in the coming months.

Also, I know I mentioned something about a website redesign back when the new year started; I'm getting to it. I've just been busy with a lot of other work recently and haven't had the chance to design such an overhaul yet. However, with the original VFH completely gone now, I think it's a good time to finally get rid of the banner we currently have on top.

Hope you stick with us for another year! We couldn't do this without you, the readers! Thanks!

VFH Classic is dead.

Sad news today, VFH Classic, the place where all of this started, officially went offline today. Sure, we've grown out of it since moving to Google Blogger, but it was still a host to a couple hundred reviews, some of which were even posted during the existence of this version of the site.

Because of of this I'm currently trying to access Google's cached version of VFH Classic and restoring any reviews listed here that were posted there. Sadly, I probably won't be able to recover our huge library of Gamecube, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, PlayStation 2, and Xbox reviews, but I'll see what I can do.

VFH Classic: 2004 - 2010

UPDATE: I did my best to restore all the reviews that were posted on VFH Classic from here, but some reviews were not cached by Google and there for are gone forever. As for reviews that were on VFH Classic before this site (there's quite a lot of them, even by writers no longer with us), most likely they too will be lost, as posting many of them now would be irrelevant.

This Week in Lost returns tomorrow!

Just a reminder for everyone! Tomorrow night marks the return of This Week in Lost! For those that would rather watch the show BEFORE reading our review (like you should) the event starts at 8 PM EST on ABC with an hour long recap special, with the two-hour long season premiere following at 9.

May I remind you this marks the start of Lost's sixth a final season, so it will also mark the beginning of the end of the feature. Thankfully we have other This Week In features to keep you engaged for when Lost finally ends.

See you then!

VFH in 2010

As this decade comes to a close, I've been finding myself reflecting on the last five years I've spent running VFH. The content, the writers, the look, all of that stuff has been changing, and 2010 will be no different. I mean it, especially since I've been considering giving the site a complete makeover for the new year. Nothing is set in stone, but I'm looking at creating a new layout, banner, and maybe even a new look for our mascot, Viewbear.

But other than just the appearance, I'm looking to continue our trend of being less of a news site, and focusing more on unique reviews and content. Features such as multi-writer reviews, so that you can get opinions on games/movies/music/TV shows/books from two or more different points of view (Though to keep in mind, This Week in Lost and FlashForward are already this way). More and better video content, with hopefully more HD footage than what's been uploaded lately. And perhaps just more writing in general if the right people come forward (more on that, literally next year).

I know it's a lot of talk with nothing to show for it, but stick around with us for the next year and I'm sure it will all be worth it. Thanks!

This Week in Doctor Who

Welcome to yet another new This Week In feature. Unlike all previous This Week In featured shows, Doctor Who does not originally premiere in the United States, where we are located; so the feature wholly relies on when the episodes premiere on BBC America. A minor set back, but recently the time-gap between UK and US airings has become ever slimmer. Read the full announcement here.

For those who have not seen Series 1-4 of the new Doctor Who series, there will be spoilers throughout this feature!

This post will be updated as the episodes premiere.

2009 - 10 Specials
12/19/09: "The Waters of Mars"
12/26/09: The End of Time "Part One"
1/2/10: The End of Time "Part Two"

Series 5
4/17/10: Episode 1 - " The Eleventh Hour"
4/24/10: Episode 2 - "The Beast Below"
5/1/10: Episode 3 - "Victory of the Daleks"
5/8/10: Episode 4 - "The Time of Angels"
5/15/10: Episode 5 - "Flesh and Stone"
5/22/10: Episode 6 - "Vampires in Venice"
6/5/10: Episode 7 - "Amy's Choice"
6/12/10: Episode 8 - "The Hungry Earth"
6/19/10: Episode 9 - "Cold Blood"
6/26/10: Episode 10 - "Vincent and the Doctor"
7/3/10: Episode 11 - "The Lodger"
7/10/10: Episode 12 - "The Pandorica Opens"
7/24/10: Episode 13 - "The Big Bang"

Series 6
12/25/10: Christmas Special - "A Christmas Carol"
3/18/11: Red Nose Day Special - "Time" and "Space"
4/23/11: Episode 1 - "The Impossible Astronaut"
4/30/11: Episode 2 - "Day of the Moon"
5/7/11: Episode 3 - "The Curse of the Black Spot"
5/14/11: Episode 4 - "The Doctor's Wife"
5/21/11: Episode 5 - "The Rebel Flesh"
5/28/11: Episode 6 - "The Almost People"
6/4/11: Episode 7 - "A Good Man Goes to War"

Finally! This Week in Doctor Who

After all this time, the feature I've wanted to do for the longest time finally comes to fruition! Though, if you actually checked the This Week In hub post within the last two weeks, you may have noticed that a little spot for This Week in Doctor Who was already added.

What's taken so long? Quite simply, air date delays. It seemed kind of pointless to review the previous two Doctor Who specials, "The Next Doctor" and "Planet of the Dead," because their air dates from the UK premieres to when they arrived on BBC America were so widespread that by the time they actually got here, you pretty much knew everything already.

And while this Saturday's special, "The Waters of Mars," aired in the UK a month ago, I will still review it, because the next two following Saturdays will also have brand new specials, which air just one day after their UK premieres. So, for now, this will just be a special, three week This Week In feature. But, if we're getting both of "The End of Time" parts one day after the UK, then I'm hoping that Matt Smith's Series 5 episodes will also have a short gap come this summer, so that I may continue the feature in a timely fashion.

No More Polls

So, last month we put up a pretty important poll that was basically asking you loyal reading to suggest more content for us to post. And guess what? No one voted... not in the whole month. So because of that, we've decided for now to no longer have monthly polls. In fact, no polls in general.

If you want the feature back, you know where to contact us. I'd hope.


(Hint: It says 'Contact Us' on the right side navigation...)

This Week In FlashForward

Welcome to our new weekly feature, This Week In FlashForward. Like This Week in Lost, Zach and I will each write our impressions/review of the week's episode, each with our own scores, which will be averaged into one Overall Score.

This post will be updated as the episodes premiere.

Season 1
9/24/09: Episode 1 - "No More Good Days"
10/1/09: Episode 2 - "White to Play"
10/8/09: Episode 3 - "137 Sekunden"
10/15/09: Episode 4 - "Black Swan"
10/22/09: Episode 5 - "Gimme Some Truth"
10/29/09: Episode 6 - "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps"
11/5/09: Episode 7 - "The Gift"
11/12/09: Episode 8 - "Playing Cards With Coyote"
11/19/09: Episode 9 - "Believe"
12/3/09: Episode 10 - "A561984"
3/18/10: Episodes 11/12 - "Revelation Zero (Parts 1 and 2)"
3/25/10: Episode 13 - "Blowback"
4/1/10: Episode 14 - "Better Angels"
4/8/10: Episode 15 - "Queen Sacrifice"
4/15/10: Episode 16 - "Let No Man Put Asunder"
4/22/10: Episode 17 - "The Garden of Forking Paths"
4/29/10: Episode 18 - "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
5/6/10: Episode 19 - "Course Correction"
5/13/10: Episode 20 - "The Negotiation"
5/20/10: Episode 21 - "Countdown"
5/27/10: Episode 22 - "Future Shock"
6/3/10: Series Recap

No More Weekly Store Updates

Hello readers, the Fall/Winter season comes upon us, things tend to get busy around here. And, as you may have seen, starting with last night's This Week in Fringe, we're going to have a bigger focus on weekly features and exclusive reviews instead of just reporting news/updates.

For me, one of the biggest pains every week was posting the Nintendo Download, PlayStation Store, and Xbox Live Marketplace weekly updates. Why? Because even though a bulk of it is just copy/paste from the shop update releases themselves, there's a lot of reformatting I need to do for something that most readers can easily just find elsewhere. The XBLM update specifically was most troublesome because it's a case where I have to check daily, and actually search to see what's new each day.

So, starting this week, we will no longer be posting the updates for digital stores. Sorry if this bothers you, but hopefully the increase in original content will be appreciated.

This Week In Fringe

Unlike This Week in Lost (and now, FlashForward) however, Fringe's weekly episodes will only be reviewed by myself. For a full feature description read here.

For those who have not seen Season 1 of Fringe, there will be spoilers throughout this feature!

This post will be updated as the episodes premiere.

Bold indicates VFH Seal of Approval

Season 2
9/17/09: Episode 1 - "A New Day In The Old Town"
9/24/09: Episode 2 - "Night Of Desirable Objects"
10/1/09: Episode 3 - "Fracture"
10/8/09: Episode 4 - "Momentum Deferred"
10/15/09: Episode 5 - "Dream Logic"
11/5/09: Episode 6 - "Earthling"
11/12/09: Episode 7 - "Of Human Action"
11/19/09: Episode 8 - "August"
12/3/09: Episode 9 - "Snakehead"
12/10/09: Episode 10 - "Grey Matters"
1/11/10: Episode ? - "Unearthed"
1/14/10: Episode 11 - "Johari Window"
1/21/10: Episode 12 - "What Lies Below"
1/28/10: Episode 13 - "The Bishop Revival"
2/4/10: Episode 14 - "Jacksonville"
4/1/10: Episode 15 - "Peter"
4/8/10: Episode 16 - "Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver"
4/15/10: Episode 17 - "White Tulip"
4/22/10: Episode 18 - "The Man from the Other Side"
4/29/10: Episode 19 - "Brown Betty"
5/6/10: Episode 20 - "Northwest Passage"
5/13/10: Episode 21 - "Over There (Part 1)"
5/20/10: Episode 22 - "Over There (Part 2)"
5/27/10: Season 2 Recap

Season 3
9/23/10: Episode 1 - "Olivia"
9/30/10: Episode 2 - "The Box"
10/7/10: Episode 3 - "The Plateau"
10/14/10: Ep. 4 - "Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?"
11/4/10: Episode 5 - "Amber 31422"
11/11/10: Episode 6 - "6955 kHz"
11/18/10: Episode 7 - "The Abducted"
12/2/10: Episode 8 - "Entrada"
12/9/10: Episode 9 - "Marionette"
1/21/11: Episode 10 - "The Firefly"
1/28/11: Episode 11 - "Reciprocity"
2/4/11: Episode 12 - "Concentrate and Ask Again"
2/11/11: Episode 13 - "Immortality"
2/18/11: Episode 14 - "6B"
2/25/11: Episode 15 - "Subject 13"
3/11/11: Episode 16 - "Os"
3/18/11: Episode 17 - "Stowaway"
3/25/11: Episode 18 - "Bloodline"
4/15/11: Episode 19 - "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide"
4/22/11: Episode 20 - "6:02 AM EST"
4/29/11: Episode 21 - "The Last Sam Weiss"
5/6/11: Episode 22 - "The Day We Died"

PSP finally!

So, just a quick notice to break up the lack of content in the past few days... I just picked up a PSP-3000 today, making me the only VFH staff member with one now. I previous had an original model PSP for a few months, but it wasn't mine.. anyways.

Point is, now that I actually have a PSP, that means you as the readers can look forward to more PSP content such as reviews, impressions, etc. which is one department I feel we've been lacking in since the start of VFH.

Stay tuned!

The New VFHvideo

Well, I was refraining from doing it, but I finally decided to upgrade our YouTube channel, VFHvideo, to YouTube's new profile layout. I was liking the current one, which I put a lot of time into getting just right, specifically the background; but I was reading on YouTube's Blog that on July 15th, all YouTube profiles will be changed over to the new layout, so I figured I might as well do it now.

I wasn't a fan at first, but I have to say the new profile designs are quite nice, but definetly need some getting used to. I definetly like the fact that the full HD video is available right on your channel, and that despite there being a featured video, you can now watch all of a user's upload right on their channel, and comment, without ever leaving.

Now if only something like that could convince me to switch over to MySpace's Profile 2.0....

VFH E3 Predictions

This is actually being posted a few days late, so disregard anything that may have already been thwarted by all of the recent Pre-E3 leaks; we were just waiting to get everyone's opinion (obviously didn't happen though).

Jerm
1. Nintendo is going to use the Metroid Prime Trilogy as their crutch to please the hardcore audience.
2. Microsoft is going to have Bungie lead their show with a set release date for Halo 3: ODST.
3. Sony is going to be carried by third party titles or announces Final Fantasy Versus XIII as an exclusive for the PS3.
4. Hideo Kojima will break E3 with this teased new Metal Gear project.
5. Duke Nukem Forever will actually be picked up and finished by some crazy last minute "Oh you~" developer.
6. Grand Theft Auto IV DLC preview
7. Bioshock 2 will be this years biggest game at E3.
8. Any leaks will bring this year's event to a new level of "meh".

Nick (Hampig)
1. Nintendo: New Zelda with MotionPlus, Pikmin 3, and maybe a new IP. I'm expecting a lot on Sin & Punishment 2 as well, and I'm really pulling for a DS Metroid. Chances are the Trilogy will dampen that hope a little...
2. Microsoft: Focus will be Halo 3: ODST. I'd love to see Shin Megami Tensei come to 360, so I'll say that much. Outside of whats already been announced I'm not sure what to expect. They will have at least one big unannounced item though.
3. Sony: All that Final Fantasy stuff. A new version of the PSP, with LittleBigPlanet for it. New Metal Gear for PS3, won't be for PSP or mobile; probably just an expansion though. TRICO will be awesome; I'll assume you control the little kid and the bird/dog/demon thing is like Yorda, or along those lines at least. Kingdom Hearts III, as well? Then I'm expecting quite a few surprises.

Zach
1. I don't need to predict, since I'll actually be at the event.

JDW
1. The Kojima teasers will be for MGS4 expansions, both taking places at different time periods prior to the game.
2. As much as Nintendo will try to please the hardcore crowd, they will fall short, again. But hopefully that will include Virtual Console on DSi.
3. Microsoft will have new hardware to announce, whether it be a gaming Zune, a motion peripheral, or something else entirely.
4. I'm expecting a lot from Suda51; more on No More Heroes 2, The Silver Case (on DS), his EA project, and more.
5. Project TRICO will appear, and look 20 times better than the leaked trailer; pants will be ruined.


And that, sadly, does it for VFH's E3 predictions. Chances are some of these have been ruined already by leaks from the last few days, i.e.: the PSP Go (with LBP footage, and MGS mention), new NMH2 trailer, the Zune HD (though not gaming centric), and GTAIV's lastest DLC episode was announced.

So really, it's already before E3 and some of our predictions were right/dooped. Let's hope there will actually be surprises left by the time the event actually starts!

VFH reaches 30,000+ Unique Readers

I won't site here and repeat my usual list of thank yous and more, you can see that from last time. None the less, I still would like to thank everyone, yes all 30,000 of you different readers for allowing us to reach such a goal in just over a year.

And, as customary at this point, let's take a look at our social stats since the last 10,000: 318 friends on MySpace, 657 combined friends and subscribers on YouTube, 376 followers on Twitter, and then there's the slump of just 9 people calling us a contact on Flickr, and 10 fans on Facebook; can't win them all right? None the less, everyone counts, and your readership is much appreciated!

To keep you reading, the staff has been discussing a bunch of new features to hold your attention for the summer, with some of the features available in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for that.

See you all at 40,000!

Poll #14 Results

This month's poll was a little more personal than usual, personal in the fact that we asked how often you visit us. Sure, the ratio of visitors to voters was way off, thanks a lot, but it still gave us a little bit of insight as to who we are writing for.

How often do you visit VFH?

Daily - 12%
A few times a week - 31%
A few times a month - 6%
Rarely - 12%
This is my first visit - 37%

Pretty interesting to say the least, in that on average, we have about the same amount of new visitors as we do regularly returning readers. So, the least I can say is thank you for visiting, and thank you for coming back!

May's poll is up! It should feel familiar...