Ah yes, hopefully I'm back to the usual Friday blogs now!

I think I need a bit of help, I might be a shopping addict! I'm leaving my job in about a month, so I only have two pay days left until I'm back to being a poor student, so I'm buying things that I want now while I can still afford them. I bought some MS Points last night, and bought Puzzle Quest, I was tempted by Buku Sudoku but I decided against it in the end, so I've got about 1100 points left over so I might have a look at some other XBLA games, does anyone have any suggestions?

I also pre-ordered Viva Pinata 2, Fallout 3 and Fable 2 My boyfriend needed an XBL Gold subscription, and well, I didn't want to miss out on 'Pinata Vision' so I ordered one of those bundles, apparently they used to come with some MS points and a couple of free XBLA games, I'm not sure if they still do but that would make it a pretty good bundle if they did!

I watched the Sony & Microsoft E3 conferences. I thought MS's was pretty amazing, lots of games I am really looking forward too like Viva Pinata, Fallout 3, Fable 2, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Lips, Scene It 2, You're In The Movies and the new avatars thing, although a bit of a Mii rip-off still look pretty good! I was a bit 'meh' about pretty much everything else.

I missed the Nintendo one because I was out purchasing a new telly. But I only really wanted to watch the Animal Crossing stuff, so I looked it up on YouTube afterwards, and it looks AWESOME! I can't wait for it to come out, I hope Elvis is in it. I'm tempted to pre-order that too, but not a lot of places have it up yet which means that I can't search around for the best price. Sony's conference was particularly yawn-some, Little Big Planet was the only half interesting thing in it.

Anyways, I've rambled enough now

-Zoë

Yep, it was my 21st birthday on Wednesday!

So here's a nice picture of me and my boyfriend enjoying birthday drinkies at my party.

I got loads of cool presents but my favourite one of all is Professor Layton for my DS which my boyfriend imported for me. I love it! The puzzles are so much fun but I'm finding it really hard to resist cheating :/ but I go on holiday tomorrow for two weeks to Cyprus so I'm hoping there will be no internet out there so I won't be able to look at any walkthroughs or anything! So I'll see you all in two weeks *waves*

I've been a bit lazy with my blogs recently, because I'm a lazy person

Rock Band has been getting played quite a bit too since I got it last Friday. I thought I'd be able to do guitar on medium, but I got stuck so I'm back on boring easy! I'm also attempting the hard vocal career and I'm 2 sets of songs away from finishing that. I got really stuck on Orange Crush and Should I Stay Or Should I Go, it just didn't seem to register my low notes for that song, obviously I'm better at high notes...as my 96% on Enter Sandman proves lol. I'll try and get some pics of my characters up soon.

GRID arrived yesterday, but it's not getting played for a long time I don't think, as I'm enjoying Rock Band and the Lego Indiana Jones game is out soon which I'm looking forward too very much.

Seeing as WiiFit wasn't helping my weight loss, I've joined Tesco Diets to try to help me to lose weight. They give you a weekly shopping list and meal plans for each day, so hopefully this will work. It's my last hope before I'm resigned to a life of eating junk food and being so fat that they need a crane to lift me out of bed. My 21st birthday and my holiday are at the end of June, so I'm hoping that I'll look a bit less podge-tastic by then, so wish me luck

- Zoë

Sorry, no cool panda pictures today!

I couldn't be bothered to do a blog last week, I was off work and too busy sleeping and that kind of malarky But I'm back now you'll all be pleased to know! I spent a large chunk of my long weekend playing GTA IV, I wasn't that impressed at first to be honest, but as I've played the game I totally get why it's got rave reviews, although I necessarily wouldn't agree with the 10, it'd probably be a 9.75 in my book I've not played it much this week, and doubt I really will until my new strategy guide arrives, courtesy of the GSUK podcast competition I want the Liberty City Minute achievement so I will need all the help I can get!

I've preordered GRID also, I've not got round to playing the demo get, but it basically looks like DiRT but on a road. So I'm sure I'll love it which reminds me I need to finish getting those last elusive achievements for DiRT. I've been attempting to play Wii Fit every day too. So far I've lost a pound, gained a pound, then lost it again...so it's going to be a long hard road to lose that 2st! I really like the rhythm boxing, it's a lot more of a work out than it looks and the Mii trainer has a hilarious gruff voice! I find it really hard to do the yoga and muscle ones though, because they are just a bit boring, so I'm really only doing the balance games and the aerobic ones.

Also: ONLY 2 WEEKS 'TIL ROCK BAND! I feel like I should have some kind of Rock Band outfit to play it in like spandex leggings, and a studded leather jacket lol

- Zoë

Yeah so I currently love pandas, they are just so big and cuddley and dopey. I really want one! There is no way that you can watch pandas and not smile, if you can? Well, you need to see a doctor about that stone heart of yours!

Last night, my grandma died but I'm putting a happy face on it because she'd been hanging on for a long time and she's not suffering any more, she's at peace now so I'm taking what comfort I can in that. So the pandas are helping with the happiness. As are Gamespot, because I won a game ( Euro 2008 ) in one of the GS UK podcast competitions and I'm supremely happy about that because it's the first time in my 20 years and 10 months (exactly!) of life that I've won anything. So that also made me happy, thanks guys...AND the fact Wii Fit is out today too So there are lots of things to be happy about.

I finished the Lost game this week too, I have to say, it got a bit more interesting at the end and I'm kind of looking back on it now as 'hmm that was an alright game'. Also I played my boyfriend at Mario Kart locally this time, and yes I can confirm he kicked my bum at it! except at Coconut Mall because that is the only track I'm good at. I unlocked Toadette, but finding it a bit hard to play with her because she's so slooow!

Anyways, thats about it for this week. Hopefully next week, I might have some pictures of Wii Fit in action to amuse you all with

- Zoë

The European release date & pricing for Rock Band was announced today. I took one look at the words/figures 'May 23rd - £180' and came to the conclusion that Rock Band will not be getting many European sales. There are 2 big factors in why Rock Band won't sell in Europe: the delay and the price. A third smaller factor is the availability on the consoles. I apologise that this editorial will mostly be based around the UK, but I know more about the thoughts and opinions from this area than anywhere else.

1. The Delay

Rock Band was released on 20th November 2007 in the US, then several XBL packs were announced for people to download, then they announced they were making a Wii version...all while we Europeans sat and waited, and waited just for news that we would get a version of it at all. They have finally announced that Rock Band will be released in Europe on May 23rd 2008. This is over 6 months later than the US release. When I first heard about Rock Band, I thought it was great and I couldn't wait to play it, but as time as gone on the hype around it has really died down, and I've become bored of waiting and my attention and excitement for new releases has been turned to other things. The GS UK forum is of very much the same opinion.

For example...

• 'Yeah i was pretty bummed-out by this, it's not like it's a month delay which i could accept, this may take up to half a year to get to us and that is unforgivable.' - fishdalf
• 'Way too late for me, they've missed the boat and I don't think I'll bother getting it now. They release it later here, and we will be charged more for the game and extra songs. Sorry but thanks but no thanks.' - jk80
• '[quoting jk80] I have this feeling too.' - PhoenixMDK
• 'I'm leaning towards not getting it.' - Dark_Dude_98
• 'This game is almost dead to me.' - macacd

I'm afraid that EA & Harmonix have simply 'missed the boat'.

2. The Price

Along with the release date, the costing has also been announced. £180. One hundred and eighty fine British pounds. Let's have a look at what else you could buy with this amount of money:

• A Nintendo Wii
• An Xbox 360 Premium (for £20 extra)
• A PSP (with approx. £50 left)
• A Nintendo DS (with approx. £70 left)
• 6 GameBoy Advances
• 7 GameCubes
• 2 Playstation 2s (for £10 extra)
• 3 Xboxes

Why should we pay this extortion amount, when we could buy a whole new console, or several, with that money? This seems espcially unfair when you convert the price at which the US version costs ($169.99) into GBP...£85. This means that we are paying over double what it costs over there. (For American readers: our version at £180 would cost you $355.70). Guitar Hero was just about affordable if you split it with your friends, or got your parents to buy you it for Christmas, but I really can't see mum and dad shelling out this much money on one present, or you and 3 other mates paying £45 each for a game you would have to share between 4 people, you could buy a normal 360 game each for that price. I highly doubt that the cliche 'casual gamers' will be willing to spend that much either...Rock Band is running out of prospective consumers.

Here are some more quotes off the GS UK board to further prove my point:

• 'I'm not paying that much. I was really looking forward to it as well ' - TepicPlug
• 'I might still get it, we'll see how much it costs' - Dark_Dude_98
  
• 'I doubt the average consumer will see that over the price tag.' - PhoenixMDK
  
• 'the most I would have paid is around £100.' - jk80
  
• 'I would expect to pay about £130 for the game and peripherals together, but this just seems far too much. I wan't this game, but not this much' - readingfc_1
  
• '£180 :O Thats a complete rip off I really doubt I'm going to get it if we have to pay more for the game than an actual 360 costs ' - tamsj04
  
• 'wow, 180 is just too much. I've been anxiously waiting for this game for 5 months but knowing the price....i think i may pass on this (or import it)' - HellsAngel2c
  
• 'I'll stick with GH thanks.' - clyde46
  
• '£180 for a 5 month old game and 9 new songs? no thanks', 'i'm fed up of being ripped off so i doubt i'll bother' - Jedi_Shearstone
  
• 'Its a disgusting price...i couldnt believe it... they should be able to make it cheaper than that...right?' - Tom1243
  
• 'The game won't sell much so will get price drops until people start buying it. I'd rather buy a Wii than this 1 game if it stays at £180. Even if there is more taxes to pay in good ol' Blighty no way does it justify the price doubling' - arfy2
  
• 'wtf £180!! no thanks' - fenwickhotmail
  
• 'If EA think people are going to be buying their games, they can get lost. Because of this I refuse to buy a single EA game and of course rock band until they sort this mess out.' - Dark_Dude_98
  
• 'That is insane! That is more than half the price of a PS3 for crying out loud! I don't want to pay that, I might look into getting a drum kit from the US shipped over' - Caddy06_88

(There are many quotes just like this, take a look at this thread and you'll see what I mean, I just can't list them all as it would make this blog too long!)

As you can see, the massive RRP of this game has put a lot of people off. Let's hope theres some major, MAJOR price drops for this game.

3. Availability on other consoles.

The announced release date and prices are only for the Xbox 360, what about other consoles? Do they simply not matter, like how the European games market simply didn't matter when they were planning to make this game? This is ridiculous, first they exclude an entire continent, now they are excluding another huge portion of the games market? I think EA & Harmonix are finally realising the full extent of the backlash and are rushing to get this game out and just get it out on one console to 'shut us up'. Well, they should have thought about that before.

I'm not saying it won't sell any copies, of course there are still some people who are hyped for it and will buy it no matter what, but I think these will be dropping like flies now the price has been announced. There are those with more money than sense who will buy it. But what about gamers on a budget, gamers without a 360, young gamers who would have to save up pocket money for about 2 years to afford £180, 'casual' gamers, gamers without anyone who wants to split the cost, gamers who don't appreciate being charged double and waiting over 6 months for a game, gamers who thought they'd like the game but would 'wait and see' for a price announcement? I don't think they'll be buying it somehow.

- Zoë

[EDIT]: I was sent a link to a petition trying to get the price of Rock Band lowered, so I thought I'd post it for anyone who wants to sign it: http://www.petitiononline.com/RockBand/petition.html

This week I discovered the Playstation Store, I was perusing the old games section and noticed they had Crash Team Racing and Crash Bandicoot 1 which I just had to buy for my PSP because I love Crash Bandicoot, I used to play the games all the time on the PSX, but I'd forgotten how hideously frustrating the first game is because it doesn't save after every level, I'm currently stuck on level 3 (hey, it's been a while since I played!) but I keep having to play level 2 again to get to attempt level 3. Which is quite ugh-some. Crash Team Racing is still pretty awesome, even if it is a bit of a Mario Kart rip off! But for £3.50, I'm not complaining. I've also been attempting to make a PSP theme but making the icons look smooth and round is alot more annoying than I thought it would be, but still it gives me something to do at work

I think towards later on in the year I might get a PS3, there's a few exclusive games that I want like Little Big Planet, Rachet & Clank, Jak & Daxter and erm My Singstar. I could afford one now just I don't really want one now if that makes sense, I've got work and my PSP and I hardly get time to play games anymore anyways! So I think I'll wait, see if there's any truth to these 80GB coming back rumours.

Erm not much else to talk about really apart from the fact I'm really, really bored at work!

Ooh, I forgot to mention my new emblem, look isn't it shiny I'm also on the dreaded level 20 going up about 2% a day!

- Zoë

Well, seeing as it's Good Friday tomorrow and this means I will be sleeping and playing games rather than getting up at some ungodly hour (about 6:30am) to go to work and suffering through 8 hours of being bored stiff sat at my desk, so I thought I'd do my blog today instead! I've written this at work to waste time, but I'm updating from home for a change because I wanted to pop some pictures in my blog

My holiday was pretty awesome, lots of sun and cocktails! I enjoyed just having the time off really and chilling out all day, I wasn't a fan of the plane trip home though, it was a bit bumpy and I felt ill all the way home There was a nice big swimming pool too, it wasn't heated but we braved it most days because you can't go on holiday and not go swimming!

(Thats the view from our balcony)

My collection of games I don't have time to play is growing aswell, the Simpsons Game (X360) was only 25 squids on Play, so I thought I'd buy that....then I received an early birthday present from my boyfriend, in the form of this little beauty:

:O

So that is taking up most of my time! I bought some extra games for it too...Diner Dash, Tekken: Dark Ressurection, Wipeout Pure & The Sims 2 (Yes, the amount of Sims games I own is shocking). I bought my boyfriend GTA - Vice City Stories & Liberty City Stories, and Burnout Dominator to say thank you lol I'm really enjoying it so far, can't wait to get some more games for it...hopefully I'll find time to actually play them unlike the mountain I've ammassed of lonely 360 games! Any reccomendations?

My Zen returned this week to! It's a completely new Creative Zen, sent on it's own, no packaging or anything, in a Jiffy Bag, all the way from Poland! Obviously mine was too broke to fix, so they've sent me a new one. So far, this new one seems okay *touch wood* although I'm dubious about the method by which it was posted!

Also, because of my new found PSP joy, I'll be making a few wallpapers to go on it, they'll be in my Images gallery tab thing (along with some GS user icons) so feel free to have a look at those

- Zoë

Not much to say today apart from that I'M GOING ON HOLIDAY!! but I'm sure you probably already knew that seeing as I've talked about little else for the last month! It was mine & my boyfriend's 3 year anniversary yesterday, we went for a nice meal and then went shopping and bought lots of things!

I bought the CSI game for the 360, which I'd read was bad. But I didn't quite anticipate how bad, which is a bit of a let down really because I love the TV show, oh well. I'll probably complete it then trade it in and hopefully buy something better with the proceeds, any reccomendations?.

I also bought Beautiful Katamari earlier in the week too, which would be an okay game if it wasn't so freakin' impossible! If I manage to get it to the right size (key word being if), then I don't have the right items! The King dude said he wanted 'playful' items...I got 'playthings' and he said that wasn't good enough?! Then he said he wanted 'Japanese things'...my #1 item? 'Japan'. Which apparently wasn't right either! I mean seriously, what the fudge?! So that has irritated me no end.

I'm listening to my boss whinge about Bill Gates and how he has created 'a dictatorship and a monopoly' and I am rapidly losing the will to live. He's not Mussolini for crying out loud! This is something I won't miss while I'm off on my jolly hols!

The Zen was shipped back to Creative early this week, so we will have to wait and see if I'll ever get it back *fingers crossed*

Enjoy next week, try not to miss me too much

- Zoë

Yep, it's Friday again and an even more special occaisson than last week's 'timesheet-sending-off-day'...exactly 6 months until I leave my stinky job today! Although it is technically an unpaid work day, stupid leap year!

I go on holiday next weekend, which I'm really looking forward too and have a list as long as my arm of things I need to buy and things to pack etc. I think I might get my suitcase out this weekend and pack a few things I need so I have a week to remember anything else I might need! While I'm excited, I'm annoyed. I really want to buy Beautiful Katamari and the Lost game but I know I wont have time to play them because I'm going away. Hmph!

Still not having much luck with Creative, I emailed them and said my serial number wasn't accepted. They said 'oh please check carefully and try again'...do they really think I wouldn't have done that when I got the error message the first time?!

So I emailed them back, he asked me to fill in what I thought was an 'email version' of the form, he sent me back a CRS number (whats one of those? I don't know) and told me to go to the website again and fill in the same form so I did, tried my serial number, suprise suprise, didn't work!

So I e-mailed them again. And this time the guy said that he'd created an Service Request for me, and said I'd receive an email with the shipping information in and then said 'do make sure to include a copy of your proof of purchase. A. waited 2 days, no 'shipping information email' and B. I've already sent them a copy of my proof of purchase why do they need another one?! It doesn't say anywhere else to put a copy of it in when you send it back *sigh.*

SO...I emailed them back saying I'd got no email, and that I was worried because I'd had so many problems that they'd lose my player so could they offer some assurances that I'd actually get my £160 player back. I did get the shipping information but I also got this:

"I cannot give you any assurance about the shipping process as these is much depend on how you ship the faulty player to us. Again I repeat, it is recommended that you use a track & trace option (obtain a tracking number or proof of postage) when sending the faulty player back to us to ensure it is not lost in transit."

I wasn't worried about the god damn post losing my player, I was bothered about the idiots at Creative losing it! I have a really, really bad feeling about this

Phew, totally needed to get that off my chest! I've been helping my boyfriend do his uni work this week, has totally worn me out trying to remember how to do PHP and MySQL stuff! Well that and going to his 2 nights a week after I've been at work (bringing my total driving time to 2 hours a day), and doing work until about 10pm at night from pretty much the moment I get to his at 6pm. I'm just glad his hand-in is today, so I can have a niiiiiiiiiice relaxing weekend *puts feet up* well apart from probably waving goodbye to my Creative Zen forever when I take it to the post office. I think that might be quite traumatic.

- Zoë

It's my favourite time of the month today, timesheet-sending-off day! Yey! It's two weeks until I go on holiday tomorrow aswell which is pretty nifty

I solved my problem of not having anyone to play TF2 with...I persuaded my boyfriend that he really needed an Xbox 360 Elite! Which it turns out that he does, because he absolutely loves it. He got Assassin's Creed, Burnout Paradise (both of which I will be pinching off him to play), and the Orange Box. So we are now one of the geekiest couples ever, but watch out for us on TF2! We played a game and were pretty much 2nd & 3rd all the way through and we were 1st and 2nd at one point, which I am quite proud of as I am rubbish at games, any kind of games but espcially multiplayer where everyone is better than me!

I've still not fixed my Zen problem, after them treating me like a total noob going 'oh have you tried pressing the reset button' all week, they've finally said to send it in...but when I try to create a service request on their site, it tells me my serial number is invalid! I'm just sick of being messed around, feels like I should just give up trying to get it fixed because it's not worth it anymore! Ugh.

I chose my uni modules this week, so come October I will have lots of fun doing Advanced Web Programming, Advanced Database Systems, Emerging Technologies and Information Resource Management...*yawn!* oh well it has got to be better than my placement job! I posted some videos aswell that I thought were pretty funny I nabbed them off Youtube using some kind of online Youtube video to *.avi converter, which I thought was pretty cool!

This week has been a pretty slow week, and I think they'll just get slower and slower until my holiday

- Zoë

...would anyone like to play Team Fortress 2 with a total noob?

Feel free to add me, and you know help me. Please?

- Zoë

Friday seems to come around quick even though the days go so slowly, I'm not complaining though. The weekend is the highlight of my week! Well that and the fact its a month today that I go on holiday! We're going to Lanazarote, for mine & my boyfriend's 3 year anniversary on March 6th

I'm hoping to have a relaxing weekend and maybe play some games. I've been halfheartedly playing Boogie Bunnies, but I am so useless at it I can't even get past the jungle levels! I installed the Sims 2 on my laptop and alll the expansions, then realised how impossible it is to play the Sims with a trackpad! So I'm shelving it until I can get a mini-laptop mouse. I'm tempted to buy Switchball aswell because it reminds me of Kororinpa, but I'm not sure. I think it would be good, but I can't do logic things and once I've finished it I probably wouldn't play it again.

I also need to finish 5-starring the songs on easy on GH3, so I can get the achievement and possibly move up to the dreaded medium, which I've only managed to do two songs on so far! But it has inspired my boyfriend to start playing real guitar again, which basically meant buying a new guitar hehe, he is really good though...and it makes me a bit jealous because I used to play bass when I was at that rebellious age of 14 but I wasn't very good and he tries to make me play bass while he plays guitar but he's just annoyingly better than me so I don't want to lol I'm trying though

I've made it to level 15 today aswell, yey! I think I might look for holiday seeing as it's Friday and that in my brain means 'today is a day where no work gets done, it's nearly the weekend who cares!' We're having a Dominos for tea tonight (obviously the other highlight of my week lol), I'm quite excited for some reason I think its because I feel absolutely starving now!

- Zoë

Yey, Friday again! And I've managed to survive January Only 6 months & 28 days until I leave work now! Well, if I don't die of hypothermia first. The office is very, very cold and drafty today

Although it wasn't meant to come until 25th Feb, I got my new laptop yesterday! Its pretty good, but feels absolutely huge and gets quite hot. I've not put any games on it yet, I'm not sure whether I should install the Sims 2 or not, I'm not sure I want to become addicted to it and build 'Grand Designs' all the time again! I might get back in to it in time to buy the new expansion pack. I can feel myself being sucked back in already!

I'm struggling for things to say, it's obviously been a slow week! I'm reattempting my whole diet thing so all I want to do is stomp my feet, and then storm off to go curl up in my bed and feel hard done by, because I have to eat boring horrible things. So nothing much has been getting done.

I downloaded Undertow, I'm not a fan. I can barely tell where I am all the time and I'm doing some stupid boss fight as the little marine guy and I can't change him lol I wish they'd give us MS Points instead, I wanted Boogie Bunnies, or Switchball! I'd pay for them and download them myself if I thought I'd ever manage to find the time to play them!

- Zoë

Yey, another Friday is here! It's now only 7 months & 4 days till I leave my job, woo! And to top that off, its 'send timesheet off day' today! Which means I get paid next Thursday too

• 2.40Ghz Core 2 Duo
• 4GB RAM
• 400GB hard drive
• NVidia GeForce Go 8600GT 256MB
• 17" screen
• Wi-Fi
• DVD Drive
  

So I'm hoping it will be pretty good and will last a while! I don't plan to take it out and about, just sort of around the house. Its difficult when I'm at work at my desk all day staring at a screen all day, then the only real way I can talk to my boyfriend is by sitting down at my desk at home and chatting to him on MSN, because I'm usually too tired after work to see him on a night. Anyways, I figure I could get my laptop and sit in front of the telly with it...and also use it to cheat on 360 games by using it to look at game guides! It's estimated delivery date is 25th Feb though

I never made it to level 14 on GS, I'm still on unlucky level 13 booo Although, I do have shiny new emblems that I'm proud of!