Have you ever browsed through online game stores to see what pre-orders are available? Do you ever notice that a few of these sites (including our own GameSpy PriceGrabber) allow users to review a game, even before it comes out? I always thought that was crazy. Even crazier were the people who actually filled out their reviews. On one site I found a "user review" of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, which is (so far as I can tell) months from release. On what fanboy authority are people writing these reviews?

Then I faced up to the horrifying possibility that these people might know more than even me (Fargo.) Maybe they're on to something. With quivering hands I tracked down email addresses and instant-messenger accounts until finally I found the man responsible for 90% of online pre-release "reviews:" Gary "Kung|=u" Rizzaro of Bakersfield, California. As Aristotle himself would sometimes drops pearls of wisdom upon his hungry followers, so too did Rizzaro pause to swap a few ICQ messages with humble little me. Let's do it.

The Interview

Gary "Kung|=u" Rizzarois a God among men
GameSpy: Can I first just say that, as both a gamer and as a professional editor in the gaming scene, I stand in perpetual awe of your enormous siphon-like mind, your giant head filled as it is with an almost carnal knowledge the depth of which I can never hope to possess much less understand?

Rizzaro: I like to break forums by picking really long nicknames.
GameSpy: Truly all of us -- and by "us" I mean the teeming whole of the human race -- can learn much from you. But let's move on. Why with your nearly horizonless wisdom have you chosen to elucidate the human race by sharing with us your faultless, illuminating reviews of games that aren't yet out?

Rizzaro: I don't elucidate unless I have a sock.
GameSpy: But surely there must be some sort of source for this privileged knowledge, some well of information shimmering in the ether from whence you can pull driblets of awe-inspiring acumen?

Rizzaro: Some games are born to suck. I just call 'em out.
GameSpy: Wow. Let me write that down to share it with my children. In fact, I'm going to have children, just to share that with them as soon as they are capable of speech. But, let's move on to the hard questions. For example: in your "Review" of the upcoming Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, under the "Pros" of the game you listed: "It's Counter-Strike."

Rizzaro: [Snorts happily.]
GameSpy: ...yet, under "Cons," you said: "Valve might screw it up."

Rizzaro: I wrote that months ago.
GameSpy: But don't you think that the word "might" undermines the perfect infallacy of your Nostradamus-like predictive prowess? Were you perhaps acknowledging a chink in your armor of brilliance, shimmer though it does?

Rizzaro: You can look up dirty pictures on the computer in the library, but you have to know the right sites. I do.
GameSpy: Please, Rizzaro! Don't change the subject -- allow us but one miniscule peek into the vistas of your cavernous intellect, hallowed halls of pure acumen encased within your enormous bulbous head that allow you, alone among mortals, to assert months before its release that with unerring certainty that Halo 2 will 0wn your g0nads?

Rizzaro: I use the robot voice whenever I play Xbox live. I use it to tell people "ur gay."
GameSpy: As Apollo granting fire, your actions uplift all of humanity.

Rizzaro: TeamFortress II will RULE! I give it five stars.