April, huh? It's been a while.

Writing can be tough. Give me a blank screen and no specific topic, and there's a good chance I'll write absolutely nothing. In saying that, I have been busy. The last 12 months of school have seen to that. As far as games go, this year hasn't appealed to me as much as 2008 did. Indeed, the only games that have impressed me in any huge way (or at least enough to have me remember them off the top of my head) have been Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2. Which one more? Well, I'd have to go for old Batman. If there is one thing I like in a game, it'd have to be audio diaries. Which reminds me, ODST wasn't half bad either. And I'm not even into the whole space marine thing.

Merry December.

Given that this is the time of year that school decides to pick a fight with me (and inevitably win), I thought I'd write one last blog before things get too serious and I'm busy studying or at least guiltily procrastinating. Since I last decided to relieve myself of game related opinions I haven't played many new releases. This is largely down to my disinterest in most of these games (Street Fighter IV being a prime example of this). However I did play through Resident Evil 5 as well as some slightly older games.

Might as well start with the zombies. I'm sure anyone who happens to be reading this (for whatever reason) is tired of hearing about RE5 at this point, so I'll keep it quick. It's pretty good. To be honest, RE is not a series I'm particularly fond of; the control scheme, the story, the very concept, none of it appeals to me. That being said, I found the game to be fairly enjoyable. The incredible graphics, intense boss fights and... hilariously bad presentation of local co-op, all fought against my apathy and made the game worth playing.

The next game that immediately comes to mind is Too Human (timely huh...). For me, Too Human is the most frustrating kind of decent game. At every turn, something just prevents it from being great. Be it the slightly clunky controls, the somewhat off animation, or the damn Valkyries. OK, so the Valkyries are decidedly worse than most other aspects of the game, but they're still indicative of the problems that drag Too Human down. Overall, I still enjoyed the game. Although it was largely down to the fact that Too Human is the type of game that I generally enjoy.

Next up, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. I haven't actually finished this yet, but I think I'm close enough to the end to form an opinion of sorts. This is actually the first game in the series I've played, and it was mainly out of guilt for neglecting my PS3 that I played it. The gameplay itself is not particularly compelling, but the story, setting, characters and colourful art styIe that surround it most certainly are. The game has an all round (to use a technical term) pixar-ish quality about it, from the funny dialogue to the creative character design. I'll probably finish it in the next few days.

Besides these I have played quite a few other games that I don't feel like writing as much about, these include: Iron Man (...), CoD: WaW (good, but not good enough. Sorry Treyarch, you just can't win), Amped 3 (unbridled madness) and Need For Speed: Undercover (...). On the DS front, I finally finished New Super Mario Bros and have spent shamefully little time playing Chrono Trigger. I'll play through it eventually.

This post has a lot of brackets...

Let the writing of several lines of text indicating how I feel about a game commence:

Far Cry 2

This game is one I'm largely conflicted about. It has its awesome moments where the open world stuff plays off, however, it also suffers from just about every problem a game of that type can do. Besides these problems, it has a backwards difficulty curve, to begin with the game is frustrating, as you are constantly being attacked when you drive around the map, yet, by the end I was making it through missions without having to use many (if any) health packs. The game also has uniquely terrible voice acting. Most of the lines sound very rushed...bewildering.

LittleBigPlanet

LittleBigPlanet is a game that I don't find particularly compelling. It's just a platformer...a platformer with odd controls. Now, the creation stuff is interesting and playing user created levels is often fun but in the end I can't help but feel that this is a game which is massively overrated. To me, the only standout feature is the game's music, which I find to be amazing at times, especially in the Savannah levels. In saying this, I have yet to complete the game, maybe when I'm done with it I'll somehow be blown away.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

The vehicle building aspects of Banjo give it surprising depth. It can be frustrating at times, but finally building something that makes a mission easier is a rewarding process. Besides this, the game is wonderfully written and genuinely funny (I think I used that phrase in my last blog). The basic objectives of the missions can get a little repetitive but overall, the game is great. I think I still have to collect about 30 Jiggies before I can face the last boss.

Final Fantasy IV (DS)

After feeling bad about neglecting my DS, I pre-ordered Chrono Trigger (which isn't out here in the U.K yet) and bought Final Fantasy IV. I've played FF IV for about 30 hours and am about to enter what I believe to be the final dungeon. Besides some shoddy voice acting, the game is very good. It looks great, it's a good challenge and has a fairly interesting, if a little dated, story. I'll probably finish the game in the next few days and then start looking forward to Chrono Trigger, which I've heard described as one of the best RPG's ever. Hopefully it lives up to that claim.

I qoute:

"start writing them more regularly"

That was a lie.

The longer I put off writing these, the more daunting a prospect it becomes. I'm going to have to craft this in such a way that I can eliminate the various games I've played from my mind before it self-destructs. Here goes:

Before Christmas (BC if you will):

Shortly after lamenting the difficulty of a boss fight close to the end of Final Fantasy X, I finished the game. Apparently Aeons were the answer. I also played through Mass Effect again, getting some more achievements and enjoying the dialogue all over again. I almost certainly played several others before Christmas but I'll be damned if I can remember them.

After annual gift day...

I played many games. Underlined (or not) text shall represent them:

Dead Space

While I'm not generally a fan of horror games, Dead Space garnered enough praise and looked promising enough for me to give it a try. I'm glad I did because it turned out to be one of my favourite games this year. The game appealed to me in similar ways to Bioshock, it has an amazing atmosphere, an interesting setting and audio logs to listen to. The game's story isn't as compelling or original as it might have been but it's enough to keep you moving along. Derivative as it is, Dead Space in sublimely crafted game. Play it.

Fable 2

As a fantasy RPG, Fable 2 is a game my various interests won't allow me not to buy. The stand out feature of the game is its world, Albion. The land is full of interesting and genuinely funny, well voiced and well written characters, a rarity in video games. The game's story is entirely forgettable but does take you to several interesting places for long enough periods of time for your various morally charged choices to take effect and shape the world. The combat in the game is fine and stays relatively interesting for the entirety of the experience.

Gears of War 2

I wasn't particularly excited about playing Gears 2 until I had actually played a good chunk of it and remembered how awesome the original was. So much so that I played through the single player campaign in one sitting. Gears 2 improves on the original in enough ways to make the concept of shooting aliens from behind cover interesting all over again. One of the main improvements was the addition of an actual story to the series, which makes moving from one showdown with monsters to the next far more meaningful than it was in the first game. As far as multiplayer goes, my indifference knows no bounds.

Expect Act 2 in 6-8 weeks.

These blogs are all too quickly becoming a monthly event, giving me too much to write about at once. My fragile mind can't handle it. I'll do my best to make this somewhat sensible and then hopefully start writing them more regularly. Where to start......ah, The Force Unleashed.

I bought and played through twice, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Once on normal and once again on Sith Master, although I mainly sprinted through the latter. I found the game to be very good. The story, although a little contrived, was entertaining and better than any of the new movies. The graphics and sound were the other high point, with solid voice acting, again better that the new movies (damn you Hayden Christensen) and the music you expect from a Star Wars product at this point. The gameplay on the other hand was a bit all over the place. Using the force to throw guys around was fun, but when the game started introducing Force resistant enemies and cheap boss battles things got a little tiring. Lightsabers without dismemberment doesn't play anymore. Still, overall it was worth playing.

Following that I played some Alone in the Dark. Don't play that game. I'm not going to anymore. I got to the second last mission and the game is asking me to burn all these roots (of evil) that have appeared. To do that I have drive around an apocalyptic Central Park in a car that controls as if it has the ability to fly but is scared of heights and when it touches a kerb it gets enough courage to fly several feet in the air but then gets scared again and comes back to the ground (my obtuse way of saying the physics are terrible). I refuse to play it anymore, especially when I have games like Fallout 3 to play.

What a segue. Fallout 3 is awesome. It would be fair to say that it's basically a post-apocalyptic Oblivion. Because of this, the game has some of the same problems that Oblivion had, such as repetitive environments (metro stations) and stilted NPC behaviour. In other ways it has improved on Oblivion with sharper dialogue and more voice actors and unique character models. The combat is fairly satisfying as soon as you get the bloody mess perk and remains fun throughout. The best thing about the game though, as it was in Oblivion, is interacting with the different, interesting characters in the game, completing side-quests and exploring the world. I've played the game for 40 hours and have done most of the quests I can do, all I've got left to do now, is explore the world collecting, killing looting and so forth. If you liked Oblivion, or just like the idea of the game, definitely check it out, its few flaws are easy to overlook.

Apart from that I've continued to dabble in Pokemon Diamond, The World Ends with You and New Super Mario Bros. I'm on the last world Mario and it is damn difficult. I'm also close to the end of Final Fantasy X and after finding the game to be mostly easy, the second last boss is proving very difficult. What makes it more frustrating is that there is about 10 minutes of build up that there is no way to circumvent. I'll do it eventually though. True to form, I've once again been toying with the idea of getting back into WoW. Just to tide me over until Christmas when I'll have all the new games that I wanted. I'll be level 80 by 2012.

It turns out that Microsoft can fix a 360 in a relatively short time, as I received mine back on Tuesday, less than two weeks after I sent it away. Not too bad. I mean, it shouldn't break in the first place, but at least they return it quickly. Since I got it back, I've finished condemned. The story was pretty interesting and a few of the locations at the end broke the repetition of industrial buildings. Overall though it was a great game, even if it did screw me out of 90 achievement points for collecting all the stuff throughout the game.

I'm now playing Spiderman 3 for the 360. Not a great game but I really like Spiderman 2(the game), so playing another game of that type is sort of appealing to me. I've not played it much yet, but I doubt it's a particularly long game. I'm off school next week, which will give me a chance to finish, this, the force Unleashed when I get it and Final Fantasy X. Speaking of which, has got much harder, I'm just over 30 hours in and facing a pretty tough boss.

Well thats pretty much it, just a short update to inform anyone who happens to read these things that my 360 has made a triumphant return. Well it wasn't all that triumphant really.......

I guess it was inevitable. I happens to everyone eventually. My 360 died. At least it happened before the big rush of games that is almost upon us arrived. I sent it away over a week ago and received an e-mail saying it had arrived in the repair place a few days ago. However I still expect to be waiting a few weeks until I get it back and can continue bludgeoning people in condemned. Another game I plan to get for the 360 is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. It didn't get great reviews but since the story is supposedly impressive, I'll give it a try. I'm one of the idiots who will pay for anything that says Star Wars on it.

Since I spent all that money on a PS3, I've been playing PS2 games...on a PS2. Anyway, the game I have been playing is Final Fantasy X. I'm about 20 or so hours in and am enjoying it quite a bit. The game has been relatively easy so far though; I only had my first game over 20 hours in. Not that I'm complaining of course. I'm sure I will be looking back on the games easy half longingly when bosses at the end are making me look like a fool. So far the story is very compelling, even if the voice acting is inconsistent and the characters gesticulate like morons half the time.

Another game I'm playing, or was playing I should say, is The World Ends With You. Don't get me wrong, the game is great and has an interesting story, I just don't feel like playing it. I can't explain why because I enjoyed the time I spent with it. However, I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point. New Super Mario Bros, I haven't played at all. Not sure why the hell I got that game. As for Pokemon diamond, I have seven badges but am severely under levelled. I'll see to that soon though. Sound like a threat? Maybe it is.

Another fear of mine came true recently as Nintendo announced a re-designed DS shortly after I purchased a lite. Luckily the changes are pretty pointless (to me), so I'm not too bothered about it. It's closer to the time when all the big games come out. In fact many of my most anticipated games are coming out this very month.

Dead Space

Fable II

Far Cry 2

LittleBigPlanet

Fallout 3

It's looking like another awesome year for games.

I'm never sure how to start these blogs off, once I get going its fine but.... Anyway, I got a Red DS lite. I wasn't entirely certain that it wouldn't be a little pink looking but luckily its a manly dark red. You might even say blood red. It doesn't get much more manly than that people. I like it a lot so far, its sort of tough to find games that don't have a disney logo on them, but apart from that, its been a solid purchase. So far though, I only have 2 games, mainly because of the aforementioned Disney fiasco.

One of which is Pokemon Diamond. I've always liked the main Pokemon games on the Game Boy, so I thought I would give this one a try. It's very similar to past games in the series, as I expected which is a good thing because the basic mechanics of the series are fantastic. The only thing thats really different are the weird Pokemon that I haven't heard of. There are a few familiar ones but not many of the ones I like. I have favourite Pokemon, sue me.

My other DS purchase was New Super Mario Bros. I'm not a huge fan of side-scrolling platformers but since its Mario, I decided to give it a try. Its been decent so far. I don't think its going to transform me into a fan of the genre but it's relatively enjoyable to play. Im only at the start of the second world, but I'm pretty sure I've not even spent an hour with the game yet.

As for the other games I'm planning to get. The World Ends With is atop the list. I can't find it anywhere but I'll get it eventually. Final Fantasy IV is a consideration but from what I hear the game is brutally difficult, so I'm not to sure. I also want to buy Final Fantasy's VII and X. There is only so much Final Fantasy you can take at a time. Other possible buys are Hotel Dusk, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Final Fantasy (geez) XII:Revenant Wings.

Aside from the DS, I've been playing Condemned for the XBOX 360. Its gruesome. But thats really all its got going for it. When you smash someone with a crowbar in that game, it feels how I imagine smashing someone with a crowbar must feel. Apart from the awesome brutality, the game can be pretty boring. Environments all look extremely similar and all the investigating you do is almost insultingly easy. Still, its an enjoyable game.

That is pretty much it, it was my birthday yesterday, hence the DS. I'm off to browse eBay for copies of Final Fantasy VII, looking for a good buy it now price. I'm not in the mood for a bidding war.

With my return to school yesterday, marks the time I have to play games being significantly lessened. Despite that I've finished both Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. MGS4 is pretty much all I could have hoped for in terms of wrapping up all of the ridiculous loose ends that kojima had dreamt up over the years. Its full of fan service, which could be a little irritating for some people, but since I'm a fan, I really enjoyed it. I'll probably play through the game again soon to make sure I caught every bit of the story.

Uncharted was a game I found to be pretty decent. Nothing special, but not overly offensive in its unoriginality. You can see my review here. The game starts out as if it might be fairly compelling, but the developer seems to take every opportunity to make the game generic. I don't really recommend it unless, you really need something to play on your PS3. I did get some trophies out of it though.

It's less than two weeks now until my birthday, and I'm planning on getting a DS. There are several RPG's out for it that I want to play as well as New Super Mario Bros and Hotel Dusk. Chrono Trigger also just got a release date of November 25th announced, seems like a game I should play. The only question is what colour to get it in? Any suggestions?

Gamespots new layout is taking some getting used to, but its not too bad. I would prefer if you could see all of the emblems people have, and if the friends blogs list was a little longer, but apart from that I'm liking the new look. I had said previously that I was not going to visit the site as much anymore, but because I'm on here checking the news and blogs everyday anyway, I figured I might as well continue to blog.

Adios!

I got a PS3. Hell yeah. Its big and shiny. After having saved up for ages, my wallet being emptied very suddenly was somewhat disheartening, but in replacement for all those pieces of paper I have a PS3 and MGS4. So far I'm loving both. I'm planning to go and get another game soon and I'm not sure whether to get Heavenly Sword or Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. I struggled to get the damn thing connected to the internet at first, and tried some relatively complicated things in order to get it working and finally did, but I did it by unplugging and re-plugging my modem....seriously. This is the second internet problem I have 'solved' by doing this. Maybe I should buy a new modem.

As for MGS4, I'm only about 3 hours in but I'm enjoying it tremendously. The gameplay in MGS has never been the thing that draws me to the series, it has always been the story. I really like the characters, cut-scenes and madness of it all. So, even though the gameplay changes in the new game are kind of cool, I'm not really too bothered about them, I just want to see the story unfold. As usual its pretty confusing so far, but I hear it all comes together (no spoilers!).

In other gaming related activities, I have played a lot of Top Spin 3 recently. Its a great game at first but gets tiresome quite quickly. I've finished the career mode and I don't really want to play any more of it, but why would I when I have MGS4 to play. Speaking of which, I'm off to play it some more right now.

Since in the vast majority of my recent blogs I have mentioned my exams in one way or another, I thought I should post my results (which I received this morning). In Scotland, the exams are graded in such a way that getting a 1, is the equivalent of an A, a 2 the equivalent of a B, etc. So, here we go:

Biology--1

Computing--1

English--1

Geography--1

Music--2

Physics--2

Mathematics--3

Spanish--3

So there you go, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out for the most part. The only disappointment is maths but to be honest I wasn't really surprised. DreadDlordD, hope your results turn out well.

...BOOM...for the generic term referring to an explosion. Giant Bomb launched as I'm sure you've heard and the site is pretty cool, I'll probably be spending my time over there now. My username is ElectricHaggis, so if you are headed over there as well, send me a friend request. Well then, farewell!

Microsoft kicked off this year's E3 with their press conference and the Internet exploding news that Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the XBOX 360 and on the same date as the PS3 no less. FFXIII was one of the main reasons for me to get a PS3 and although I still plan on getting one, I'll probably end up playing the game on the 360, you know, achievements and all that. This seems to be a huge blow for Sony, considering how many people were perhaps waiting for this game to come out as a reason to buy a PS3. It is understandable however, that Square Enix would do this, the best way to make money is to have people buy your game, and the more systems it is out on, the more people it will be available to. I guess this is what E3 is all about, massive news.

Unfortunately, due to Gamespot not loading up as the press conference went live, I missed the Fallout 3 demo, a game that I would have wanted to see more of. I did however manage to catch the latter half of the Resident Evil 5 demo, which looked amazing. I've never really been a fan of the series but playing the game on co-op with a friend looks like a lot of fun, it also looks as if they have made the game a lot more playable then previous games in the series. A release date of FRIDAY THE 13TH of March 2009 was also announced.

Next up was a rather short demo of Fable 2 by its enthusiastic developer Peter Molyneux. He stated that the game was finished, showed off the intro cut scene and then proceeded to try and blow our minds. Its easy to mock Peter Molyneux, but I do like his enthusiasm. I can't wait to play Fable 2, even if it isn't quite as open-ended and innovative as he claims (not saying that it won't be, but....), it will probably still end up being a great game. A release date of October was announced.

The next demo was Gears of War 2, with Cliff Bleszinski playing some co-op campaign. I enjoyed the first Gears a lot but never really got into the multiplayer, so the campaign is what I'm looking forward to in the sequel. The demo was very impressive and showed off many of the new weapons, one of which appeared to be a flamethrower that is pretty cool. The more destructible environments seem to make the gunfights more intense, which can only be a good thing. The game was announced to have November 7th release.

After all the excitement of demo's, Don Mattrick, went on about some business figures etc, basically a fight with Sony. After that however, Xbox live business guy John Schappert, announced and showed off the new dashboard and the avatars that are to replace gamer pictures which looked like slightly more realistic Mii's. The avatar will now appear on the re-designed gamercard next to your gamerscore, rep etc. I think it's really just a rip off of the Wii's Mii's but if they are used in a interesting way, it could be relatively exciting. As for the new dashboard, I really like it. Its much more slick than the current interface. This new stuff will be rolling out as the 'fall' update.

Next announced were some XBLA games, Geometry Wars 2, Galaga Legions, a nebulous South Park game, and Portal: Still Alive, which is the most exciting for me personally. There were also trailers for Rare's Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts which looks very interesting and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. They then showed off You're In The Movies, a game from ZoeMode (developers of Crush), which basically looked like an Eye Toy rip off with a movie maker tagged on. An already leaked game was then shown off called 'Lips', which is basically Singstar only you can use your own music, which is pretty cool if that's your thing. Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: On tour were then spoken about buy their respective developers. The rhythm music genre has become strangely competitive all of a sudden. Sqaure Enix announced some other RPG's which were overshadowed by FFXIII, those being, Star Ocean, The Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery.

Sony and Nintendo's Press conferences are tomorrow and will no doubt have some big news of their own. Damage control at Sony's no doubt. I hope to see some information about God of War 3, Killzone 2 and LittleBigPlanet. As for Nintendo, I want to see anything that might interest me, maybe something on a new Kid Icarus or Animal Crossing Wii. Either way I can't wait to see what Sony And Nintendo have up their sleeves.

As usual, my desire to play World of Warcraft has been more short lived than I had intended. Since I last wrote one of these blogs I have reached level 44 and got myself a noble steed to charge around on, which isn't that much progression if you consider the amount of time. The main reason for me to continue playing was to get the mount and now that I have it, there isn't as much of an appeal. However, I will continue to play it at a more plodding pace, and drag my feet to the higher levels so that I can wander through low level areas and think to myself, 'I could kill these NPC's'.

The main thing pulling me away from WoW, is Ninja Gaiden 2, a game that I wasn't particularly bothered about playing but as my friend loaned it to me while he was on holiday, I thought I might aswell play it. And I'm glad I did because it's a very fun game. The combat in the game is extremely fast paced, gory and satisfying. I finished the game on easy because I had heard it was very challenging and didn't want my first time playing it to be tedious and frustrating, but as it happens, I found the easy setting to be too easy (it seems obvious now), so I'm now playing it through on the normal setting which has been more enjoyable so far. Although I'm only on the third mission so who knows if it will become frustrating, lets hope not.

Another game I have played quite a lot over the past few days is Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix. Now I know what your thinking, but I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books and to a much lesser extent the movies. So running around a faithfully recreated version Hogwarts is an appealing concept, but that's all that can really be said for the game. It's not terrible but it can only really be recommended to people who are fans of Harry Potter and can deal with the horrible voice acting, ugly graphics etc. In saying that I got the full thousand achievement points out of the game, so its not all bad.

Viva Pinata is the most stressful game EVER MADE. Seriously, this game is hectic, my pinata won't stop beating the crap out of each other and this guy keeps coming into my garden and smashing them up. I started playing Viva Pinata with the intention of having a relaxing time, but butchering people in Ninja Gaiden is more relaxing than splitting up a fight between a fudgehog and a mothdrop. Frightening stuff. I will persevere though and try to get my garden back on track.

In other news, Giant Bomb announced that they will be having a beta where you can try out the site before it launches, setting up an account and such things. To get involved you have to send them an e-mail. I done this shortly after hearing about it, so hopefully I'll get to participate. When Giant Bomb fully launches I'll likely spend more time there than I will here. I won't completely abandon gamespot though, there are plenty of user blogs I want keep up to date with. VIVA PINATA (I feel like I should shout that whenever I play the game).

As I expected I would do when I had a bit more free time, I'm playing World of Warcraft again. I enjoy the game but have never really got addicted to it the way some people do, hence why I'm only level 40. Although I'm levelling up faster than I used to because I have a lot of quests to burn through in Theramore. The area I just finished up in was Desolace, which was not that enjoyable because of the desolate environment. I get that that's the point but it was still a dreary place. Since I'm level 40 I can get a mount, but it's like 80 gold including training and I have nowhere near enough. I guess I'll get that eventually.

Playing WoW indicates the inevitable neglect of my consoles but as there aren't that many games out there that interest me at the moment, that would probably be the case anyway. Not buying any new games is also the result of me saving up for a PS3, to play the only recent release that really intrigues me.

That game is of course, Metal Gear Solid 4. The latest game in my favourite series of all time. The game received a review score of 10, which seems to be handed out in a more nonchalant manner than it once was, but, I guess its the content of the review that is more important than the score. Either way, I look very much forward to playing the game and seeing how the story turns out, or how more convoluted it becomes, as the case may be. Many of my PS3 owning friends who have finished the game are threatening to spoil the games story for me and if they do, I may have to kill them. I have told them that but I'm not so sure that it will deter them. There are a few other PS3 games I want to get as-well, such as Uncharted, Resistance, Ratchet and Clank Future, Heavenly Sword and God of War 3 and Final Fantasy XIII when they eventually come out.

Besides that I'm just willing away the final days of school before the summer holidays. I only have a few days left but they are going incredibly slowly. Well, I'm off to play some more World of Warcraft, my character won't get to level 70 by himself (or with me controlling him most likely).

By taking advantage of my time off I finished two games over the weekend. The first of these was Lost Odyssey, a game I got like 3 months ago and played a lot at first but then stopped for no apparent reason. Since I was so close to the end I decided just to finish it and overall, I have to say it is a pretty good game. Although the games story isn't all that great, the characters are really the most interesting thing. The game does a great job of developing the characters and informing you of their past through text based flashbacks. The game can be surprisingly emotional at times. I didn't cry. Really. I didn't.

The other game that I completed was No More Heroes which I really enjoyed. Its not a particularly long or challenging game (besides the final boss), but the crazy story full of amazing meaningless revelations makes it worth playing. I almost feel as if I shouldn't criticise the game because it is made as a piece of art and any bad mechanics etc may have been intended, but what the hell. If you own a Wii you should check it out, its a very unique game.

Now that I have finished these games I'm not that sure what I should play. I was thinking of going back and playing Final Fantasy XII, which I played for about 10 hours and then stopped for no apparent reason. ( do you see a pattern emerging here?) My other ideas were to start playing World of Warcraft again or to just buy a new 360 game. Let me know what you think. For now I'll play some FF XII.

As usual I have a plan in place for something I want to buy. The next thing in my purchasing cross-hair is a Nintendo DS. Basically, I want to play game such as The World Ends With You and Pokemon Pearl or Diamond. I might end up getting one at Christmas since there are new colours coming out which are pretty cool. I just hope that they don't announce a new Nintendo handheld system as soon as I buy it.

My last exam (Biology) was today and it really is a relief to finally have them over and done with. Overall, they went fairly well and I feel as if I have been quite successful in most of them, Spanish being the only exception. As for the results, I won't get them until August which could get quite nerve-wracking as the date of them being delivered to my home in a perhaps catastrophe-filled envelope nears. Another positive to being done with the exams is that I am off school until June 5th, giving me a lot of time to play games.

Although I said that I would not be getting GTA IV until after my exams, I went back on that claim and got it anyway. I didn't think it would be too big of a problem since I had a week off between two exams. I finished it in about 4 days, which might mean that I was a tad addicted (my longest non-stop gameplay time was around 10 hours and 30 minutes). Needless to say, my eyes were a little bloodshot. The game received a lot of 10 out of 10 scores on sites, magazines etc, and although the game is pretty amazing, I don't think I would give it a 10. For instance the multiplayer is quite poorly implemented which means I often get kicked back to the single player when a match gets screwed up and have to wait at a long loading screen. The game also shares a few of the problems that the older games had, such as no checkpoints in missions and stupid friendly AI. Overall though, the game is excellent and has an incredible story and interesting characters. I may write a review for it at some point, but who knows.

Another game I purchased recently and will continue to play over my time off is No More Heroes (thats where the blog title is from), a very unique game from SUDA-51, the creator of Killer 7, which was a game with an insanely cool story and premise but tedious gameplay. However, No More Heroes seems to marry those interesting concepts with a game that is actually enjoyable to play. So far I'm really enjoying the game and am glad to be playing the Wii again, which I feel as though I have been neglecting of late. Sam and Max season 1 is the only game that I'm anticipating for it which springs to mind right now.

I don't know if I've ever written about this before, but I play guitar and the drums. Anyway, that wasn't wasn't just a random thought, there was a reason behind me mentioning it. I'm selling my drums since I don't really enjoy playing them anymore and I was only keeping them because I had to sit a drum exam and needed to practice for it. The money I get from selling them will be put toward the PS3 I'm planning on getting. I have to play MGS4 you see. So over the next week and a half I'll just be relaxing and playing some games.

Not to plug the site/blog I just made but you can visit it here.

I made it just so that me and my friend could express our opinions on some games and reviews some others. Feel free to visit and comment.

Apart from that I have done 2 of my 8 exams and they have went well. Just six more to go and then I'm free. GTA IV here I come!

This weekend, I surprised myself and finished three games : Call of Juarez, Shivering Isles and Super Mario Galaxy. First of all, Call of Juarez : although I wasn't looking forward to the prospect of having to finish this game, once I started playing I began to enjoy it more. The games story isn't all that great but the ending was pretty cool and wrapped the game up well. Overall its a decent FPS, but there are far better ones that you could be playing, unless you're crazy into western themed games.

Next it was Shivering Isles, the expansion to The Elder Scrolls IV, which is one of my favourite games of all time. The expansion is has a really great story and funny characters but the quests can be a little repetitive as they mostly boil down to the go there, get that archetype. Although if you really enjoyed Oblivion you should definitely give the game a try. I now have all 1250 achievement points for Oblivion which is good. I can't help but be hooked on the gaining of achievements.

And finally, Super Mario Galaxy, a game that I got way back in January but have never played with any consistency, but I recently got 60 stars and thought I might as well go and give Bowser a run for his money. I expected the boss fight to be more difficult than it was and I certainly didn't expect beat him first time. The games ending is also very clever and hints to a few things that you may not have expected. I will say no more however, as I know how sensitive some people are to spoilers. Anyway, I only have about 70 stars so I guess I haven't really finished the game, but I'll get there eventually. This is also the game which shows that Wii is more than a supercharged Gamecube, and can actually produce amazing graphics if a developer puts in the time.

Over the past few days I've had the crazy idea of buying an NES and a SNES on eBay. I don't really know why I want them, I just do, and since you can get them for a reasonable price, I'll probably end up doing it. Also I'll be able to play amazing old games such as Super Mario Bros and Street Fighter 2, however after that they might just have to look pretty on a shelf in my bedroom. I also looked up the Sega Master System 2 because it was the first console I owned but unfortunately I don't have it anymore. Maybe I'll get one of those aswell, no I wont.....well maybe.

GTA IV's colossal release was today and although the game has received fantastic reviews and looks excellent, I won't be getting it just yet as it would do terrible damage on my ability to do well on my upcoming exams. Speaking of those wonderful things, exams, my studying has been going well and I'm not too worried about them. Anyway, as soon as the exams are over, a copy of GTA IV will be on its way to my XBOX 360.