Sony Emblem please? come on Gamespot, hurry up lol.

I watched Microsofts confrence from top to bottom, where is my damn emblem!?

Gahhh stupid gayspot

Top 5 Currently Playing Games

5 Lost Odyssey

I know, looking at it at a glance it is very easy to point at Lost Odyssey and call it out as a standard JRPG which breaks none of the conventions and plays things very traditional, and very safe. But that is IMO definitely not a bad thing at all. In my humble Opinion Final Fantasy XII was a disaster in RPG terms, it had a flat and uninteresting story with dull characters and washed out visuals to match. The actual fighting system as well was trying to emulate an MMO. Now, I have no problems with MMO combat... within MMO's but when your trying to micro manage an entire party or just to play alone it soon becomes tiresome and dull, especially when you quickly realise that moving away from the enemy doesn't effect if they will hit you or not. But enough of hating on FFXII, the game that ruined a child hood favourite of mine. Lost Odyssey corrects all those problems; it goes back to the basics with highly engaging and original story, interesting and unique characters and some fantastic music and graphics. Sure the load times are a bit awkward sometimes, but nothing is perfect!

8/10

4 The World Ends With You

While Square-Enix go about murdering there older and more established franchises as mentioned above, they are showing a knack for creating some great new ones. Sure the lead character is a walking cliché and Tetsuya Nomura's art designs are looking as versatile as a stick figure (I'm sorry, I must admit as amazingly good as his pieces look, there really isn't much variety to them lol) but the game is great to look at for a DS game with a fun story and lively characters, I've been finding it hard to put down which can lead to some rushed exits from buses and tubes when I get very into the game. The combat system is a little tricky to get used to but still a great laugh. This game is great.

8/10

3 Beautiful Katamari / We love katamari / Me and My katamari

... Katamari rocks, nuff said.

No really though, I've been playing this game since it first came out in the UK in early 2006 and still to this day I play all 3 of the games that are available in my region regularly and still enjoy them. Sure the DLC was a rip off, but I still bought it lol.

9/10

2 GTA IV

This game is astounding, everybody knows it, it's been said a million times but screw it I'll say it once more. In all fairness I was a little sceptical about this game before it came out, I'd been a massive fan of the series up until Vice city, which in my mind was the last truely great game in the series, don't get me wrong, I had plenty of fun with San Andreas but I just felt it was lacking the care and attention that made the previous games so detailed and magical. This was all rectified in GTA4, a game so good I pretty much played it non stop until I reached 100% and managed to get myself every single achievement within the game (without a gold account anyway lol) And in all fairness, thats really the only reason it's currently second... I'm on a total burn out from that game. I'm sure I'll come back to it though in the future.

10/10

1 Persona 3

Persona 3 higher rated than GTA IV you say!? Well... yeah, only because this game has some how managed to encapsulate and drill it's way into my brain until it's pretty much the only thing I think about.

I bought it when it originally came out in the UK, fearing, as it was not a crap sports game or other generic piece of crap that it would disappear quickly, but never got round to touching it. When I came home from university I really layed into this game and now I'm in love with it, completely obsessed. It's keeping me very sane during my new and rather dull job (which I'm sure I will reveal soon enough lol) From the awesome graphical ****and purely emo method of persona activation it's unique from head to toe, and when you find yourself having to make a tough decision between catching up with a friend who wants to tell you a shocking secret, going to the cinema with a girl who could very well end up going out with you, revising for an exam that is looming or getting some well earned rest before taking on the randomly generated dungeon that makes up the main portion of the game you find you would rather play this than live your actual life lol.

10/10

Camisado

Blogs!

As of later today I shall be home for summer, although I wont have any of my stuff really for around a week (need to hire a car and go pick it all up) so, during this week of low technology and lack of fun, I've decided to blog ... a lot.

Here is a sneak peak at what is to come.

• Top 5 Films
• Top 5 Games Currently Playing Games.
• Top 5 Recent Albums
• Top 5 Games Coming Soon
• Top 5 Websites
• Top 5 Comic/ Manga characters.
• The Great Preowned rebuy!

Thanks, hope you guys enjoy it!

Camisado

... to keep my 360.

Hey one and all, I'm kind of looking for advice today. Basically, I'm pretty fed up of my 360, I've had one since launch and am now on my 3rd console (stupid red rings) but in recent months I've been less than happy with it, (read a few blogs down for my feelings on achievement points) Now for the main question, should I keep my 360? What is stopping me from trading it in now that in this generation there are very few exclusive titles.

For example the only game I'm still currently looking forward to on the 360 (that isn't available on the PS3) is Fable 2, am I forgetting something?

What should stop me from trading it in for a Wii, a stack load of games and some good times? (I have actually owned a Wii before and sold it, but now with games like super smash on there way I kinda want another lol.)

Thanks for reading guys, here's hoping you can all help me out

I'm sorry but...... this has been bugging me for years, and I finally snapped.

This, is not eight updates....

5. Gran Turismo

The Gran Turismo series is in my mind, the greatest driving series of all time, with it's insanely high detail to attention and a massive selection of cars and tracks to chose from each game in the series can take a while to complete.

Of course it must be said that really if you've played one GT game you have played them all, but how different is that situation from say, Madden? or Fifa?

Best in Series: As Gran Turismo improves on itself with every game, so far it's going to have to be Gran Turismo 4. Roll on GT5

4. Grand Theft Auto

I've been playing Grand Theft Auto right from the very begining back in the days when it was a 2D birds eyed viewed game that limited itself in that very way, driving so close to the edge of the screen trying to escape cops only to smash into the wall that suddenly appears on screen could be trying at times.

I, and I don't think I'm alone in saying this, never thought the GTA series could evolve like it did, if anything this just goes to show games companys that changing the very basic prinicples of your game can infact do wonders for your franchise. GTA3 was one of my favourite PS2 games, and was improved upon in Vice city, I am however one of a very small percentage of people who thought that San Andreas was more of a step sideways than a jump forward, so that is why this otherwise amazing series comes in 4th.

Best in Series: My personal favourite in the series is Vice City, with it's likeable cast and amazing location that is big enough to be enjoyable, but still retains a high level of detail in everything.

3. Devil May Cry

I originally missed out on the original Devil May Cry for some time, as I was never really a big fan of survival horror or any horror genre game at all when I was younger, but after actually seeing a friend play it I realised this was something different, it was a game where you were not limited to only 9 bullets for the entire game and the kills would come quick and fast, as well as being super stylish.

Best in Series: Until Devil May Cry 4 hits shelfs here next friday I'm going to have to say that DMC 3 Special edition, is so far the best in the series so far.

2. Metal Gear Solid

The Metal Gear Solid series is something that on the surface seems very easy to explain to somebody who has never played it, it's a stealth game. But it's more than that, it's stealth with realistic weapons (well mostly) and a realistic stealth element, mixed with massive high fantasy story telling, bosses take on an almost god like level of skill and power that is unheard of, this really seperates it in my mind from other stealth games with there rather dull plot lines.

Best in Series: A very hard choice here, but then again thats what makes this so high up in my list. I'm going to have to go with Metal Gear Solid 3 as the jungle and camoflauge element really adds another level of depth to this already massively replayable game.

1. Final Fantasy

That's right, I'm a Final Fantasy nerd, This game series is one of the first I ever played (minus a lot of sonic 1 and streets of rage) and it's also the very first game series that I ever fell head over heels in love with. Final Fantasy 7 truely is one of the greatest ever video games to be made, and I'm just so happy I got to play it, as that game single handly took me from playing games once in a while, to becoming an actual gamer.

Now, the series has had it's ups and downs, with 7,8 and 10 being my favourite moments in the franchise so far, the new direction they have taken with say, Final Fantasy 12 does anger me a little as it doesn't follow the signature romantic story and fun battle system and instead feels more like a really badly made single player MMO with dull characters that are technically all the same and a story about politics and war!? *snooze* Give me a FF7 love triangle over that any day.

Best in Series: Very hard to chose from, and will mostly depend on how I'm feeling at the time of being asked, but as with 80% of the time I would have to say Final Fantasy 7, with 8 coming in a close secound.

Thanks for reading this purely random and uneventul blog

Camisado

First of all I'd like to apologize for not having a very active presence here for the past few months, my life has taken a few twists and turns in that time, some of which have been very beneficial and others that you would possibly categorize as 'character building' but I won't go into detail.

Today's blog talks about a kind of serious issue for me, over the last few months I've found myself enjoying videogames less and less to the point where I seem to be grudgingly picking up new games and dragging myself back home to play them, in less than the right frame of mind.

Personally, I'm putting this down to the Xbox 360, and it's wonderful system of 'achievement points'. I am actually a big fan of achievement points, and until recently have been fighting there corner saying that they do in fact add extra depth to a game and can even add a replay value to some pretty bad titles. But as of late I have come to realise that when playing any game on the 360 I am beginning to feel more and more like I'm working a job, doing my shift in the great search for more points, something that doesn't happen when I play my PS3. Were as before I would have grinded my way through Eternal Sonata (for example, I have no hatred for this good game) without a care in the world, having a great time thinking about nothing but opening a nice big can of whoop ass on the final boss and learning more of the story, I am now instead spending my time saying "I wonder when the next achievement will be given?", "How long will I have to play to get the achievement at the end of this chapter?" and "How many plays is it going to take me to get all the EZI items? "

And for what purpose? I could understand if say having over 20,000 achievement points would unlock something as a kind of prize but other than "one up man ship" on the next player, what really is there to be gained from working my ass to the bone for 'that last agility orb in crackdown'?

Maybe I'm just thinking about this the wrong way, and achievements are supposed to be more of a casual pat on the back of congratulations, but to me they seem to be taking up a large chunk of the games. For example I'm a huge fan of Devil May Cry 4 and I was planning to get the 360 version, why? For no other reason than because I'd get achievements out of it.

I don't know, maybe I'm the only one. But for now at least, I'm putting my 360 back in it's box and back in the wardrobe while me and the PS3 have some fun.

Camisado

Offically Becoming a Legend.

Hey guys! I got finally got my internet working in my room and so here I am, in my Uni room, with a couple of mates round playing PGR3.

To be honest, I feel a little stupid for the blog post I left just over a week ago. In less than a day I'd already made friends and I'm really enjoying my course (even though we only started working properly yesterday)

The only bad thing about living in halls of residence so far is that they have blocked all MMO's, so playing WoW is a no no, it's kind of annoying as I still had a month left on prepay.

Also, When I upgraded my 360 a few weeks ago, I got a free copy of Halo 3 which I need to pick up, and it's been out in this country for 12 minutes and I can't get it until saturday because of the shop I ordered it at being in london, and me now living about 2 hours away.

Damn...

oh well, sorry for the short and crap blog but I'm being hella lazy.

Camisado

...begins in roughly twenty minutes.

Tommorow is the day I leave my family home for university and to be honest, I'm starting to feel scared. I've been looking forward to University for a long time now as I finally get to study Video Games and create my own. However, I can't help feeling that this is by far the biggest step in my life so far and by far the biggest change.

I just wish I had prepared myself for this a lot better than I have. I'm going to keep you all up to date with what I'm getting up to at University and even hopefully show you some of my work.

The worst part is that my family is incredibly small, consisting of just me and my mum, with me gone it's going to be just my mum and I'm more worried about how she will cope without me than how I will survive, I just hope she doesn't shut herself away from the world and to be honest I think I'm starting to exagerate in my own mind and make this whole situation a whole lot worse than it is.

I'm sorry this blog hasn't made much sense, and it probably doesn't even read very well but at this time it's the least of my worries.

Thanks for reading, I'll post a new blog tommorow with (hopefully) some shots of my new room tommorow when I'm settled in.

Camisado

Offically trying to make Magic happen.

Welcome ladies and Gentlemen to the newest crack pot idea of me, Camisado.

I present you with the Best Adverts Ever Week! A week of awesome adverts (most of which got banned because they were rather extreme) that should at the least provide you with a daily giggle.

So please feel free to get involved, the more people who contribute, the better the week will be. (more adverts = more laughs = awesomeness )

Anyway I thought I'd kick things off with an advert that I saw once before it was swiftly (and rather pointlessly) banned, but it was so good that it has stuck in my mind ever since.

Enjoy.

Hopefully this has inspired you all to join in and if you have any difficulty in getting your advert on here feel free to PM me and I will assist.

How to join in,

* Tell me your interested via PM so I can add you to a group of links for people to check out all the events.

* Create your blog *with video embedded* using the title, "Best Adverts Ever Week! entry", or something to that effect.

* Put a link back to this blog in your blog so they can get around all the entries easily

* And most importantly of all, have fun with it. I'm just trying to build a bit of community spirit here and get people truely interested in looking at other peoples blogs.

Current Contributors.

Stigmatized

Katosepe321

In other news, it's been a whole year since I signed up to gamespot so, Happy Anniversary to me

Camisado

Offically here to stay.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I've finally reached the dreaded level 20, the level that sorts the men from the boys.

Sorry for such a short blog, my lives a bit hectic at the moment with moving out to uni, expect it to steady out again in the coming weeks

Camisado

Officially way chuffed.

Ok, well I promised I would tell you all how much I got for all my games that I traded this morning. Including my 360, I got £419 store credit and ended up coming home with an Elite 360, Bioshock special edition, Blue Dragon, Halo 3 (already paid, just need to pick up on launch) and Skate (Same as Halo 3)Cool no? who says trade in's arn't worth it?

CAMISADO

Officially going crazy!!

In recent times I've had a few thoughts crossing my mind (which is more than usual :p )

You see, In just over two weeks I will be moving out of the family home and up to a halls of residence to start my university life. I'm obviously excited and also very nervous at the same time. The room is however, about a 3rd of the size of my current room and so I'm trying to compact my life into the smallest amount of room as possible (not an easy task) and today I came over my games collection.

Now, it's not a massive games collection, although If I piled them one on top of the other it does almost reach my height of 6 foot so there really was no chance to take it all with me, so it needed a trimming.

So tommorow, I shall be taking the following games down to Game Station (my local shop)

For 360

• Gears of War
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Viva Pinata
• Saints Row
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
• Tony Hawks Project 8
• Call of Duty 2
• Pro Evolution Soccer 6
• WWE Smackdown V.S RAW 2007
• Spiderman 3

For PS2

• Guitar Hero II
• Ratchet and Clank
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Tekken 5
• Canis Canem Edit
• Lego Star Wars
• Need For Speed Underground 2
• Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
• Suikoden V
• Grand Theft Auto 3
• Tony Hawks American Wasteland
• Grandia II
• Dance Factory (with Dance mat if I can find it :/ )
• The Getaway
• Disney's treasure planet
• Marc Ekco's Getting Up
• Gran Turismo 4
• Jak X
• Jak 3
• Jak 2
• Jak and Daxter

For Gamecube

• Star Wars Rouge Squadron 2
• Star Wars Rouge Squadron 3
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
• Pokémon Colosseum
• Mario Sunshine

For PSP

• Dynasty Warriors
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Here is where the fun part kicks in, who ever can tell me how much money I will make back off these games (preferably in £) wins a prize (not really but shh)

If the sale of these goes well and by that I mean I make a substantial amount of Money I also plan to sell my Premium 360 (which is still looking pretty swish) and upgrade to an elite model with a free game (Bioshock hopefully).

Anyway, that's it for now.. nothing amazing really but shh, you love it really.

Camisado

The return, of a hero.

Hey everyone it's me, Camisado, i've returned

China was an awesome country, I started in Beijing which is a really big (and very smoggy) place and we visited all the standard tourist hotspots, the best part of beijing was definitly the great wall of china. We climbed it for a good 4 or 5 hours and went over 30 of the parts (the house like checkpoints) The awesome views were only ruined slightly by the locals trying to sell us water and bookmarks all the time :/

It was at this point, that my camera broke. Now when I say it broke, I don't mean completely but the screen just showed a white image all the time, meaning I had no way of seeing what I was taking at any point.

We travelled down the yangste river for 3 days on a cruiser ****boat. It was nice to stop moving after like, a week and every day we went on excursions to see other things.

The first day we got onto smaller boats and went down a really narrow part of the river which was very beautiful.

The next day we went to investigate the ghost city along the river, it was a really nice place full of old supisition and nice buildings.

After our 3 days on the boat we travelled to a lot of places over the next two weeks until we reached the climax of our trip, the tiger leaping gorge, this was a hard trek up the side of a mountain for two days. It obviously wasn't a very high mountain, but a mountain none the less and I really was most pleased to finally be off that thing

I'm sorry this wasn't as in depth as I promised but there really is far to much to list in one blog, maybe I will add a few more things in the comming days or so but for now, I hope you enjoyed it.

Here are some misc pictures from my trip

In other news!

I've finally taken the plunge into World of Warcraft after wanting to play it for a while, it's a great game and I'm having a blast. I'll upload a picture in a bit I guess, my character is a level 12 Warrior Tauron called Blooregard, anyone who gets the reference get's bonus points ;D

Camisado

Today was the First day of the Japan Expo at London's excel centre, and being the ultra cool group of people that we are, my friends and I decided to go to this awesome event. I also realise that until now I have yet to show you guys myself, so here I am.

The hall was filled loads of different stalls from food, to manga, to toys and even clothes. One of the highlights of the day (by highlights I mean the stall we spent about an hour at, until the people working there started to look a little annoyed was the Gun stall. Now, over here in the UK guns are not really common place, so even though these were replica's we managed to have so much fun acting like kids with them

.

Obviously being an event based around everything Japanese we were bound to run into some cosplayers (and even a huge crowd of Lolita Goths).

If anyone got a bit hungry, and trust me they did there was enough Pocky to last an army a good few years.

A lot of the toys were the same on all the stalls but every now and then you found a gem, or even a fake Mario plushie.

I've never been very good at Origami but at least there was an area for practicing and improving.

Today was also the day that I managed to get my hands on a playable copy of Naruto: Rise of the Ninja which was demoing at the event, it was the E3 build and we were allowed to play 2 player mode. I must say it was so much fun, I got a little excited when playing with my friend and are emotions became more animiated the longer we played... good times.

It was a really long day and we spent pretty much all of the day on our feet walking from stall to stall and watching all the various activites as they happened, It came as great relief when we finally got to sit down and relax.

And of course...

4 images donated by Selina Yau

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As of this update, I have officially left for China for 3 and a half weeks, I promise you all a mammoth blog full of pictures from my adventures trekking through China (and ending up in Hong Kong ) Have fun without me guys.... but don't forget about me!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Camisado

Offically Taking A Gamble.

That's right kiddies, the ideas factory that is my brain has decided to spice up this blog with something I call, The Demo Review.

Annoyed at constantly downloading the new demo's from the 360 marketplace only to find out they are complete crap? Then I'm here to help, to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were.

Now, seeing as there are currently 82 demo's on the UK's market place, it would be stupid for me to try and go from the beginning so, as of now I shall be doing this every time a new demo or two goes up.

Today's entries are Flatout: Ultimate Carnage and Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights

Disclaimer: The products viewed in this blog are not complete and therefore my Demo review should be seen as just that, a review of the quality of the demo and NOT the final product.

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage.

FlatOut originated in 2004 on the PS2, Xbox and PC, now on its second sequel, FlatOut is ready to jump into the next generation for the first time. Now, I'm not a huge fan of this game although I did enjoy the idea of your driver bursting out of the windscreen at ridiculous speeds.

The Demo consists of 3 different race types, Carnage Race, Death Match Derby and a standard Race mode. Famed for its destructive elements I decided to start with a Carnage Race, which promised to be full of well.... Carnage.

The goal of a Carnage race is to rack up enough points to score you a gold medal. Points are awarded by ramming other cars, destroying scenery and passing through checkpoints, don't be fooled by the term 'race' either as there are no laps to be completed and a pointless meter that charts your position (which would be handy only if we were actually racing) Instead, you are forced to continue around the lap again and again until you have finally racked up enough points for a new medal, fail to reach a checkpoint in time and it's the end of the race.

Secondly I tried the Death match Derby, which pitted me in a single level car park against 11 other vehicles. The objective was to destroy as many other cars as possible and to end the match with the most points. This alone may be the worst aspect of the demo, as you pretty much play a FPS death match.... in cars. It even rewards you with memo's telling you that (insert generic race drivers name here) has a frag count of 4. A frag count? In a car game!?

Getting any kind of 'frag count' going is also stupidly hard and practically impossible because each time you touch another car you lose life, meaning if you want to destroy other cars it will very soon lead to your own destruction.

Finally and at this point completely disheartened I tried the Race mode. It's your standard race mode, how could they go wrong? Well luckily they didn't. The race mode is probably the most enjoyable aspect of this demo, which is a pity for a game that's selling point is its 'crazy destruction'.

Even though the race mode is the best mode in the game it still has its flaws. It suffers from bad car handling and boring game play. By far the most fun part of the race is the first 15 seconds or so, when all the cars are still together and you can really get challenged to stay on the road, after that the pack splits up to much until sometimes you won't see another car on the track. It also suffers from some odd physics and strange glitches, all of which I'm sure will be fixed in the full game.

As much as I tried, I found it impossible to send my driver flying from his car through his front windscreen, have they tried to make this game more serious? Let's hope not.

Overall FlatOut: UC is a competent demo that suffers from being an obvious and flawed burnout clone that will probably lead to a competent but flawed burnout clone game. If you're a fan of the series it might be worth a download, otherwise, save yourself some bandwidth and try something else

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage earns 2 out 5 random images

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights

With a name that sounds like a dodgy porn film, Juiced 2 is being released on September 21st.

The demo for Juiced 2 starts with a talking loading screen

And then introduces you to the betting system. It's pretty easy to work and in the actual game you can even race for pink slips (how original)

You're pretty much forced to lose this race because of the new driver DNA system, which actually upgrades your skills as you drive.

After this race you are allowed to purchase a car, you get the wonderful choice of a Chevrolet, a Mazda or a ridiculously expensive Saleen sports car... I think it's pretty obvious which one I went for here.

Modding your car can result in some truly garish cars but is for the most part decent fun and offers a good depth that will reflect well in the final product...

There are 4 different race events from a standard race (which is annoyingly hard to win if you drive like a driver rather than a gamer) and they consist of two races on the same track and two drift races, which both share another track. The drift racing is insanely easy and it feels like the game is doing most of the driving for you. One of these drift events pits you against other drivers while the other is against a 2 lap limit and a 50,000 point score to beat. Neither feel particularly impressive.

One of the big features to be added to juiced 2 is your driver DNA which improves as you play... taking 10 corners improves your ability to corner for example. While this sounds like an interesting mechanic within the demo it feels more like a tacked on gimmick as it is very hard to feel any difference between your previous ability to handle the car and the new DNA skill.

Over all the Juiced 2 demo isn't that bad and if the game improves on the demo it should make for an ok game.

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights earns 3 of 5 random images

Camisado

Talking Finally about a life, outside of gaming.

As of Sunday the 22nd I will no longer be in the UK for 3 and a half weeks, I will instead be rocking it up in China. I'm really looking forward to this trip as I'm going to be trekking around the country with a guide, before spending my last 3 days in Hong Kong keeping up to date with all the best in Asian fashion. I'm also trying something out which I haven't done before. I don't plan on taking ANY of my handheld games consoles with me. Instead I will try and survive 3 and a half weeks without playing a single game (a mighty feat for me) I'll be sure to have some interesting stories once I return.

So here's the question, what do I pack? I know I need some walking boots, some waterproofs and a big rucksack but other than that I'm stumped. I guess I'll just go with some T Shirts and shorts and see what happens from there.

In other news, on Saturday the 21st I shall be attending the Japanese Expo at London's Excel centre with a group of my friends, it should be a lot of fun with people cosplaying no doubt and lots of cool things happening, I'll try to take some pictures to upload before I leave the country.

(wow, I actually think this is my first blog not to involve any games at all... bizarre)

Peace all,

Camisado