At least once per session I come across a very annoying glitch in Ninja Gaiden Sigma that prevents me from accessing the load/save screen. The only way to fix it is to quit the game entirely.

Of course any progress made since the last save is lost. I had to fight and beat that damn dragon skeleton four times! FOUR!

I can't find much info around the netterwebs about this. Anyone else having the same problem?

Irrational seemed to go to great lengths to dissuade us from expecting a sequel to System Shock 2. What?! You never played System Shock 2!? Shame on you!! Nevertheless, the similarities are striking. From the mutant madmen roaming the corridors to the vending machines and plasmid bio-upgrades, it all feels very familiar. There are even 'ghost' sequences as you see the deceased ex-residents of the doomed underwater city re-enact their final movements, giving you a chilling glimpse of their past.

With Bioshock coming out next week, I have a lot to get through before Rapture takes over my life. There's a bit of online stuff and car buying to do in Forza, a lot of Ninja Gaiden and of course God of War 2, Okami and the soon to arrive Odin Sphere!

[edit] Oops! I forgot to mention Paper Mario and the ever-present World of Warcraft!

I'm blogging from the Excom training centre in Brisbane where I am learning how to use MS Project to make pretty diagrams to distract my boss while the company goes to hell.

Not much opportunity to play games here, World of Warcraft doesn't seem to be installed on the training machines for some reason.

Career mode is finally done in Forza 2, it was great to see that 150 GamerScore drop as M.Rossi crossed the finish line of the final endurance race. That takes me past 13,000 in total. I wish PS3 games had achievements, for some reason playing games as their own reward just doesn't seem quite enough any more. Hopefully the trophy room in 'Home' will go some way to incentivise completism. Perhapsthe industryshould adopt an unofficial standard and aim to include 'reward points' as part of every title, I guess that's always been the casefor collection games. Perhaps that's why I found theshines in Super Mario Sunshine so compelling. It would be great to show offthe madskillz to my buddies though, that's the real advantage of Live.

I just wanted to show you what a proper bottle of Newky Brown looked like. Now can you see why I think the pathetic import bottles we get in Australia are so ridiculous?

Famous hypnotist Paul Mckenna shows off how much Newk you can get in one bottle in the UK.

Today's mission was a resounding success!

I now have Picross DS and New Super Mario Brothers. Not only that but I found a few classic PC games in their original boxes in the dump bin at GameTraders, namely: Myst III Exile, Riven, 11th Hour and Tribes 2. The box for Oddworld: Abe's Exodus was also there, but they couldn't find the game and manual, they said they'd call me as soon as they found it though, so fingers crossed.

The Bourne Ultimatum is due for release in theatres here soon, so in preparation for that I picked up a DVD box-set of The Bourne Identity/Supremacy. Hopefully I'll be able to rope some friends into doing a Bourne mini-marathon before we head to the cinema for the explosive conclusion.

Bec's at the ballet tonight, so it's beer and games/movies tonight. I've been buying up big on the DVDs lately so maybe I'll watch a couple of those.

I've been playing Pokemon Pearl for 56 hours and 37 minutes in total. If you lump it all together that's over two days straight! Apart from World of Warcraft there aren't many games that will hold my attention for such a long time.

To date I have caught 65 Pokemon and seen 112. I think this might entitle me to a Pokedex upgrade, I'll have to check with Rowan the Pokemon professor.

Not long ago I picked up a black DS Lite for my girlfriend. She picked up Pokemon Diamond at the same time so that we could trade some of the Pokemon that are version unique. In a matter of days, she had caught up with me in terms of story progression, she even polishes her gym badges more often than I do!

I ordered Odin Sphere from the US this week as it looks like it won't be seeing a release here in Australia any time soon. I'm looking forward to adding it to the stack of games that I really need to play before the Christmas rush. It'll be joining God of War II, and Okami but with Bioshock and Halo 3 coming so soon I don't expect I'll have time.

I picked up Resident Evil: Deadly Silence in a bargain bin at Myer last weekend. It was a treat to hear all the poorly translated wooden dialogue again. Nice to see the zombie chewing the guy's head off at the beginning, too. That part was censored in the UK version I played back in the day.

If I can successfuly sweet talk 'the sponsor' I'll be looking for Picross DS and New Super Mario Bros. at Chermside shopping city this afternoon. Picross really grabbed me after a colleague suggested I check out www.wiipicross.com. If you value your job, don't open this at work! New Super Mario Brothers I've been meaning to get since it was released, I was a Sega fanboy in my youth and didn't play any of the early Mario Games, I thought this would probably be the best way to experience the old school vibe without all the disadvantages the old platforms had.

M. Rossi is taking care of business in Forza 2 as I type this. D'you think they knew that players' enthusiasm might be waning in the late stages of the game? The inclusion of the option to hire a driver to race in your stead makes me think so. Being a slave to the points means I have to finish the game somehow. Mr. Rossi enables me to do something else at the same time.

Now it's gripe time. The menu system in Forza just plain sucks. Many of the achievements involve buying lots of cars, but every time you buy a car it kicks you to the career main menu and it doesn't remember your prior selections as you dig back into the menu tree. There's other stuff that irritates me about the Forza 2 menu system but I won't go on about it, just get it right for Forza 3 please guys!

It's been a busy weekend in Shinnoh! My Pokemon roster has expanded considerably, here are the new additions:

Zubat...

Psyduck...

Machop...

Buizel...

Geodude...

Abra...

and Buneary...

I'm currently working my way through Eterna Forest, full of bug type Pokemon, yuk! I haven't caught any wild bug types yet, it's all been trainers. I still didn't catch an Onix, either, this is my goal!

Stay tuned for more Pokexcellence!

A lot happened in Shinnoh last night. First of all I am very pleased to announce that my Chimchar EVOLVED into...

Monferno! All that sour food, and a bunch of Pokemon battles, finally got to him.

I caught a Starly. Here he is...

After talking to a guard in Oreburgh he gave me an old fishing pole, which I used to catch...

Magikarp! I caught a male and a female version, not sure if that's significant or not. Think they'll breed? Probably not considering they're stuffed into Pokeballs.

I met the president of the Poketch factory who sent me to find three clowns who had some very simple questions to ask. If I got the questions right, he'd give me a Poketch (a Pokemon watch)... The questions were SUPER EASY so the Poketch was mine. Currently it tells the time, counts my steps, shows my Pokemons' health levels and is also a calculator! As I said in my TV interview, it's 'coolness'. Supposedly there are more apps you can install on the Poketch, can't wait to find some!

I caught a female Bidoof to keep my male Bidoof company, a female Starly and almost caught a Shinx but my Monferno was too powerful and would beat all comers in one hit whilst all my other Pokemon were too weak. Maybe later today...

Finally, I acheived my first badge! The first gym leader was using rock based Pokemon but despite using Monferno, who is fire based, I totally owned him :lol:

  Hey folks! So, thanks to www.play-asia.com, Pokemon Pearl landed on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. With it being my first foray into the Pokemon universe I really didn't know what to expect. As a franchise it's never really grabbed me, but hundreds of thousands of pre-ordering pokemon devotees can't be wrong so I decided to take the plunge!

  Jumping into the game last night I met Rowan, the Pokemon Professor, whos advice I chose to ignore - perhaps to my peril but how hard can a Pokemon game be?! And, after rummaging around in a suitcase he left by the lake, was awarded with...

Chimchar! He likes sour food and his butt's on fire... connected?

  This morning I captured...

Bidoof! He's not pretty but hey, I'm new to this! He was lurking in the long grass on Route 201 and jumped me. I was on my way home to tell Mom that I was going on a mission to collect Pokemon for the professor's Pokedex. Always tell your mummy before you go off somewhere.

  There haven't been any 'quests' issued yet, apart from the 'go here and see so-and-so' instructions, but it's early days. Perhaps there won't be any and it's all about collecting. Maybe someone could enlighten me?!

Stay tuned for more on my Pokemon adventure...

...not sure what happened but up to release day there was nothing you could say to get me to buy a PS3. Then my brain started to itch...

...by Saturday it was unbearable.

After a good few hours of delicate negotiation with the boss, I was on my way to JB to complete the sacred triumvirate of gaming. No need to call ahead, this is Australia, there were fifty people at the midnight launch in Sydney, count 'em, FIVE OH! Not that the console was unpopular, of course, it's just that the Aussies aren't nearly as stupid as they sound. They all waited until the weekend to stroll in and pick up their pre-order, very cool. Myself, I didn't pre-order, Sony ensured that I had no enthusiasm to do so, but suddenly I found my reputation on the block. I'm the guy that people can count on to own one of each console and offer opinions on each.

"What's the PS3 like?", everyone asked on Friday morning. I couldn't answer. It was the beginning of the end.

So what is it like? Now I can tell you. It's heavy. HEAVY. Don't walk to the shop and buy a PS3, you WILL have longer arms by the time you get home.

It's also UGLY. A non-console savvy friend of mine thought I'd pulled out an old console for some retro fun. Sony's marketing imagery makes the PS3 look very cool, but black and silver doesn't work so well in your front room.

It's BIG. This thing makes the 360 look small. Seriously. It's got the PSU inside it, which is convenient but makes the unit much larger.

It's QUIET. If you have a 360 you'll know how it makes a noise like a 747 aborting a botched landing, in comparison the PS3 sounds like an angel sighing, quietly.

It's COOL. Sony's XMB (cross media bar), makes the 360 dashboard look like a freak show. If you're HDTV enabled, you will love the front end of the PS3. It's gorgeous in hi-res and all the functions are available from a single consistent interface. Have you ever tried to change your theme on the 360? Yeah, it's nothing like that.

So that's the out-of-the-box experience, the size and weight are a minus, but it does make you feel like you're getting something for your $1000. The real hook is the interface, it looks and feels great. The online store is pretty slick too, with prices in real dollars and not "Sony points" or whatever.

I picked up Resistance: Fall of Man and Formula 1: Championship Edition, more on those later...