Firmware update 2.0 is definitely the best yet! The theme that came with it is pretty cool because it makes all the XMB logos look like they've been sprayed on :D. I can finally keep my demos in a genre orientated category to make it easier to play certain types of game in certain moods lol. I can also sort out my 3 million videos now :D. All in all it was a fantastic update!

I'll report on this weeks store updates tomorrow as nothing has been added to it yet.

Apart from the update news, I was wondering if any of you would like my MSN to make it easier to talk. If so then my account is tom_ttt@hotmail.co.uk.I already have some of my GS friends email addresses but all you other guys would be a nice addition :D. Also if any of you wanna talk to me via my PS3, then my ID is BlackAct.

That's all. Bye.

So anyway, I was considering getting Half-Life 2: The Orange Box this month when it is released for PS3 but i thought I better get some more opinions from XBOX or PC users that already have the game. Please leave a comment regarding your opinions on The Orange Box and I'll check it out at some point and base my purchase on what you all say.

The Timeshift demo from the PS store this week was surprising. It's controls took a lot of getting used to, but apart from that the game played out pretty well. It's a shame there wasn't more on the store this week though, I'm running out of games to play.

Peace Out, BlackAct

What do you think? I decided I needed a banner because my account header was a little bland so, I took an image, loaded it onto Paint, and worked my magic. All I had to do was make the image fit the size requirements, (that entailed making it larger than it was initially and stretching the image just wouldn't do, so I had to doctor it with Copy & Paste and the flip tool :P ) stick my name on it, and then upload it to GameSpot.

Oh yeah, I also created a Blog Header Image but all I did on that was add some text so I didn't really create that.

My thanks in advance for any comments on how well you think I've done. (Remember I did this on Paint :P lol)

I was wondering. After the glitch is fixed, will the exp that we've missed out on be added to our totals or will it just be forgotten?

Any help would be appreciated.

BlackAct.

Yeah you've probably worked it out by now, I'm a massive fan of the series but Final Fantasy XII is different. Personally it doesn't live up to the standards that previous Final Fantasy games have set. Sure, the battle system is unique, but is unique always good? As a clever man once said, the battle system fools you into thinking you have more control over the situation, when you actually got a whole lot less control, thanks to the gambit system.

The games story is lacking, massively. Take a game like Final Fantasy X for example. The storyline in that game was really intricate with twists and turns around ever corner! Final Fantasy VII. That had a great story too! But Final Fantasy XII? Nah that really didn't cut it, it wasn't even half as good as the others. The characters were shallow, the game music sucked, and the in-game graphics were worse than previous games in the series. Admittedly, the FMV sequences were fantastic for the PS2, but the gameplay graphics were substandard.

Even die hard fans of Final Fantasy like myself will be disappointed in this game! My only advice is, make sure you rent it or borrow it first.

I seriously need some more friends on GameSpot. So far I have a grand total of three friends and I'm in dire need of more blogs to read and user reviews to ponder over. So, my limited number of friends isn't keeping me occupied and I would appreciate anyone out there, to be my new buddy :D lol.

Once again I find myself being a slave to the Final Fantasy games in my collection. I started out about a month ago when i dug out Final Fantasy VII and decided to complete it again, so that I'd have a save file on my PS3. This was all well and good until I defeated Sephiroth and then decided to go and finish off the entire game. So having gotten in the Final Fantasy zone, I thought I might as well Play through Final Fantasy X again, so that I would have a save file on that also. Once again I found myself unfulfilled at the eng of the game, so I went round and got every characters crests and sigils for their celestial weapons. After completing Final Fantasy X, I went on to complete Final Fantasy X-2. I never really liked this game as it isn't as gripping or as story driven as the others, but I finished it anyway. Having just completed the main storyline, I went back on New Game+ and finished every mission in order to unlock the Mascot Dress Sphere. Currently I find myself struggling along through the storyline of Final Fantasy XII, which i feel has fallen short of the mark, compared with the rest of the Final Fantasy series. I just hope that Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII pull it off and become really good games like Final Fantasy VII was.

ARGH! I'M GONNA GO OUT AND KILL SOMEONE! SO MUCH FOR CAPCOM HAVING MY LOYALTY AND TRUST, THEY CAN GO AND KILL THEMSELVES FOR ALL I CARE!!! :evil::evil::evil: Bloody Hell!

As Christmas approaches my chances of getting a PSP and MHF2 seem better with each passing day. I've given up saving for them because if I buy them before Christmas and then find out my parents would have bought them for me, I would have owned myself...

In other news, the Eye Of Judgement trailers were released earlier this week and that game looks absolutely fantastic! If the Playstation Eye works as well as the tutorial suggests, then Eye Of Judgement is going to be revolutionary! It's now right up there on my "Games To Get" list along with the likes of Folklore and Haze.

On the bad side of this week, Unreal Tournament 3 has been put back until early '08 along with Home and FFXIII, which is a major bummer for those that have been waiting to get it for the past year or so. However the setback of UT3 has given me a greater opoprtunity to get Haze, as I'll have more money in November to purchase it with.

In my personal life, work experience just looms ever closer and I still haven't sorted it out! (Even though plan to go out tomorrow after school and sort it out with a friend. That still doesn't help the fact that I have exactly one week until I begin work experience) I also have coursework that I'm supposed to have done but I say gaming is more important :D.

The Skate. demo surprised me this week as I knew of the "Flick It" system but I thought it would be a twitchy and unresponsive feature that would really break the games structure, but it really worked well. I have played that demo at least 5 times now and still find it increasingly more fun as I discover new ways of getting that fantastic 3X multiplier. Speaking of demos Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction should be hitting stores on Thursday. We will have the whole first level to smash, shoot and explode our way through, which I'm hoping will keep me occupied for a good week until the store updates again.

Oh yeah one last thing, Beowulf looks like someone could actually have pulled off a good CGI film!

Cya!

That's right. The day (or rather month) that lot's of long awaited games are released is just over a month away. November is PS3's first real month for good games. Haze, Unreal Tournament 3, Assassins Creed and Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools Of Destruction are all released within the space of a fortnight if my sources are correct. The new idea of Nectar in Haze is a feature that will either make or break the game and the online play on UT3 is something special to be looking forward to. The painfully awaited Assassins Creed is also due at around the same time. The free-roaming aspect of it is something that really hasn't been done to this scale before. The fact that you are able to scale every building and pick between various different ways of killing your mark is a never before seen aspect of gaming. RnC should prove to be a great addition to the already legendary franchise and the more in-depth back story should add more of an adult feel to the game. I personally can't wait for UT3 as PS3 doesn't have many good online shooters, except maybe the likes of WarHawk and Resistance: Fall Of Man. Haze should also be a good addition to PS3's online franchise if Free Radical can pull off the interesting feature of Nectar, into a none-biased tool to possibly swing the battle in favour of the Mantel side.

All in all November is gonna be a great month for gaming, especially for Sony. I know I will be buying most, if not all of the games mentioned above and I hope that they will be a good choice of games to add to my sparse collection.

See Ya, Tom