So I got into the whole PC gaming thing lately, got the machine as I put in an older blog posts(pics included if your interested in what it looks like), so now onto the games, I downloaded a few of the demo's and ordered Company of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Civilization 4 and Unreal Tournament 2004.

So I have played COH, fantastic game, lovely visuals and the gameplay is deep and satisfying, UT2004, some of the funniest death match and other online play I have ever played, seriously fun, and Civ 4, again a great game although I really should play it more.

But the one game that caught my eye slightly more than the others is WOW, don't get me wrong the others are fantastic and easily some of the best games I have played in a hell of a long time, but WOW is so damn big, and there is so much to do. Started off one character, a Human Warrior but it was way tough, they just totally blow when it comes to melee combat which you would expect them to be good at, but when you are going into combat against a spider and getting your butt kicked you know somethings up...........so I started again.

So this time I started with a Night Elf Hunter, I wanted to go the old bow and arrow way and thought this would be fun, and it totally crushes the Human Warrior, makes me wonder why the hell anyone would want to be one of those, its like fighting a rock with a piece of paper.............. So I made the Hunter and the game is totally fun, I have played it a few hours a day and if you havent tried it yet you seriously should, it has something for everyone to enjoy.

The games graphics are impressive, even thought the game is slightly dated the art direction and overall feel is superb, the interface is great for beginners yet deep for the experienced, the quests are plentiful and fun and when going with a few friends can get even more fun. Just everything seems right and the game deserves all the hype it gets, am I a WOW junkie.............no, its pretty dumb when people say it, I only play it for an hour at a time or something and quit playing whenever I want, the game obviously is so good that I go back but I think the whole hooked on WOW thing is a little stupid.

All in all the games are great, but as I said WOW in particular is an outstanding game that shouldn't be missed, I play on the server Ghostlands I think so if you ever want to play and you play on that server just give me a shout, either through Gamespot or Xfire(v4lentine)...............by the way I just watched the trailer for that movie 300 with the whole Romans and Sparta thing..................DAMN! That movie looks so bloody good, cant wait to see that, just thought I would end on that note, thanks for reading.

While playing a few demos like Quake 4 I noticed that my PC was great at rendering but very very poor at holding a nice steady framerate that was nice and high for an FPS game, the card was a 7600LE...................very basic card and far worse then a 7600GT, so I already knew that the card was holding the machine back drastically and decided to upgrade it to get better peformance, so I finally decided to get a 7950GT, I didnt care about DX10 and just wanted to play stuff like HL2 and Quake 4.

So I got the new card, installed it and realised that the card wasnt getting enough power and the card automatically had to reduce peformance accordingly, so I got hold of the tech guy who installed my card and ordered a new 600W PSU, so within hours the guy was round and installed the new PSU............but it wasnt still getting enough power. Then I realised you have to have another cable in the back as the PSI just wasnt enough, I noticed the cable in the box but thought it was for SLI, so he put the cable in and the card was now running normally.

So I try a few demos and the difference is phenominal, Civ 4 runs on max at 60fps, Quake 4 runs on max at 60fps only slowing down to around 35 when the action gets intense(demo so the final version will likely run even better), FEAR at almost everything max at a nice steady framerate etc. So the card is great, getting F.E.A.R, HL2, Doom 3, Quake 4 and BF2142 in the next few weeks.

Heres a few pics






Thanks for reading, see you in the forums, on live or if you want to play a PC game just send me a message, c ya.

So I havent been on Gamespot in over two weeks, I was on my laptop and the screen decided to snap off on the right side because the screw had fallen out, then the thing decided it didnt want to boot up and left me with no laptop. I was going to get it fixed but decided I might as well just get a new PC for a change.

I didnt want to go out and spent £1000's on an amazing PC so I just ordered one from the catalogue, its not the best in the world but its good for the internet and the odd game, the specs are

• AMD Athlon Dual Core 3800+.
• 2 Gig of RAM.
• Nvidia Geforce 256mb 7600LE.
  
• 5.1 Creative Surround Sound.
• Wireless Logitech Mouse and Keyboard.

Its pretty fast so far, the only thing that I can see that will need upgrading soon is the graphics card, when I got it I thought it was a 7600GT but it turned out it is a 7600LE graphics card which is slower than the GT. But still, I didnt really get it for gaming anyway, I have some money spare so I may buy the 7600GT in the next few weeks so I can be a bit more open when it comes to the games I want to play.

So thats about it really, I am really happy with my PC and its perfect for what I want it for, good to be back on here, I'll see you guys on Xbox Live or the forums, see ya

So here it is, my first official blog, just thought I would talk about my experience so far with the Xbox 360, not exactly the most pro 360 blog but I think it needs to be said. I am going to talk about the faults I have had with the machine, it been a pain but I still don't regret buying one of these machines, the games and online more than make up for the bad experiences I have had.

So here we go, I bought my 360 on the UK launch, it was an awesome day, got the core machine in a bundle because they had limited stock and were obviously trying to squeeze all of the money out of the customers that they could, so I ended up paying around 650 UK pounds, I got 8 games with it, a wireless controller and a cool case for the game discs, all in all I was extremely happy with what I bought.

So I played the machine for a few months, kept it in excellent condition and in a well ventilated area and all was good.............until about 4 months after the purchase. I was playing COD2 one day, and it froze and I got green lines on the screen.............I was like WTF, are these breaking 360 stories real? But I turned it off and then back on...........after a few minutes it freezes yet again, I kept knocking the machine on and off and it crashed faster each time, until I couldn't get past the main boot up menu.

So I called Microsoft, they did all the steps you would imagine, remove the hard drive and see if it crashes...........unplug everything etc, but nothing, I was still stuck with a 200 pound paperweight. So I though screw it, I wont let them take it back, I will just take it to the shop and get a new one as UK purchases come with a free one year warranty as standard.

So I got another machine and was feeling good, I thought to myself, it has broke and this should be the end of the problem...........that's what I thought.

Playing Battlefield 2 Modern Combat maybe 3 weeks ago and the machine crashed, now 360's do have he odd habit of crashing so I thought it may have been a one off, but after resetting the console..........it crashes yet again, and again and again and again. Until I thought, what the hell, is is possible that the thing has broken again, I haven't done anything wrong? So I decided to leave it for a day and see if it would work fine the next day...........

So I left it a day and felt confident that it must have been a bad day and maybe the problem isn't as bad as I thought, so I was playing Battlefield.........got in a chopper and enjoyed the thrill of next gen..............for 5 minutes until it crashed yet again, so as I did the previous day I tried it again and again until I just gave up. So I had a dilemma..............where the hell is that proof of purchase from buying this damn thing!

After two days of looking for the receipt my mam finally managed to find the damn thing in a cupboard. So she manages to take it back to the shop and get another one, and indeed just like the previous time I get another one with little one, I have had it for 3 weeks and it seems to be fine and hopefully my next gen 360 nightmare is over *knocks on wood*.

So there you have it my next gen nightmare, its been a bumpy old ride but in the end I honestly think it has been worth it, even though in the forums you get branded a liar and a mistreater of goods the games and online experiences have managed to sooth my battered 360 experience. So if your thinking of getting a 360, buy a warranty, just to be safe, I have obviously had a lot of bad luck but most importantly like many others have been a victim of Microsoft's faulty hardware production (graphic chip failure for me according to the helpful Microsoft lady at customer support). So that's my experience with the 360 up until now, who knows what the future will bring...........lets hope its just more awesome games and less of the hardware failure, thanks for reading.

Well I have finally decided that I will start writing a few blogs, maybe once a week or so, probably just a few rants about video games and what I am doing etc. Next week I will probably write one about the 360 and my thoughts so far, hopefully the people who read this can give me some feedback on what they want me to talk about or what they think about my opinions etc. Check back next week and I should have a blog up, see ya later!