It's been over a year and 8 months since my last blog. Some of the goals that I laid out in my last blog have been met: New job, getting Uncharted 4, new gaming rig and going overseas. Gaming has been on my back end of things in the second half of last year, but lately I'm starting to get into more gaming recently.

Twitch has been my go to site to watch gameplay and streamers. The gaming community is very strong there. YouTube for me is dying as a gaming platform to watch gaming related content. Twitch has grown to a point that a lot of YouTube gamers that I've subscribed to have moved on to stream in Twitch; with some going full time streaming. YouTube gamers that haven't caught up to Twitch feels like their channel has died out (as in they haven't posted any videos for over 8-12 months).

Seeing the forums here have changed a hell of a lot. I was super active in the AU forums from 2009 to 2012. Since that sub-forum is no more, it hasn't been the same. The AU forum felt close since I was speaking to other users that are from Aus, and I could relate more to them than the other users from off topic or the PC discussion forums.

Right now I feel like I'm getting back to gaming. Some of the games that I'm looking forward to are Destiny 2, FarCry 5, the complete version of PUBG. I also will try to stream more on Twitch, but with crappy Oz internet, it limits my capacity to stream.

Looking forward for the next six months in terms of games and stuff.

I'm finally back after 2 years and 8 months later. GameSpot has changed a lot for me since I came back. I rarely go to this site any more since I've been busy with work and other interests as well as this site that has completely changed. Gaming has slowed down for me in the past 2 years, I do still play and buy games here and there, but I've been very picky with the games I buy now.

I've been pretty lazy playing and finishing games in the past couple of years. I've bought games like Dragon Age: Inquisition, Fallout 4, Mortal Kombat X, Destiny, but haven't manage to get much playing time. To be honest, I spend more time watching games than playing.games. ESports have blown up in popularity as well as video game streaming such as Twitch. I've been watching a lot of DOTA 2 and CS:GO tourneys since my last blog entry back in June 2013.

Other than gaming there are other factors as to being away from this site for so long. Work has affected my gaming. I've been working for this telemarketing/customer service company for 3 and a half years and I feel like I should quit. As a matter of fact, I only have a month left until I leave the company. Although that I am grateful that I was offered the job back in August 2012, it didn't feel like it was the right one. I was going to leave after a year, but that extended for another 2 and a half years.

The reason? Lot's of reasons. I needed to get my first car ( which I did ), got a PS4 ( a must for me haha ), a new Laptop and saved up for an overseas trip. Other than my wants and needs, the people that I worked with in my job were awesome people. Made cool friends, which some of them were gamers. However, my job had a very high attrition rate; and most of the employees I made friends with have left the company. The company's campaign I have been working for also has been doing bad lately (employees, work rate, pay, the future of this campaign), and I feel like this is the right time leaving this job. I've got everything I need at the moment.

I've taken an interest in Photography. I bought my own Nikon DSLR camera (D5500) back in July and I've been taking shots since. The past 6 months, I've been practicing taking photos artistically. I'll be going overseas in the next couple of months as well. A well deserved proper break from work and get my amateur photography skills to work.

So since I'm back, I really want to make 2016 a gaming year again for me. I feel like I want to make a gaming manifesto for myself and a set of goals I want to aim at. So here is my list.

*ONGOING GOALS

- Complete at least 50% of Fallout 4 on PS4

- Complete at least 50% of Dragon Age: Inquisition on PS4

- Levelling up my guardian in Destiny to be on par with the latest.

- Complete Far Cry 4.

- Complete a an entire city in Cities: Skylines

*ONGOING NEEDS

- Need to have Uncharted 4 (A must for my PS4)

- I need to build a new dedicated gaming rig. For me, PC gaming has exploded due to new technology recently and I'm originally a PC gamer (This will take a while due to my financial situation).

- Upgarde to Windows 10 with my current PC

*ONGOING WANTS

- 32" LED SMART TV FHD for my PS4

- 27" 2560 x 1440 QHD Monitor

- New desk

OTHER NON GAMING RELATED WANTS AND NEEDS

*NEEDS

- New Job

- New Shoes and pants

- Lose weight

*WANTS

- New Nikon DSLR body (D500 OMG!!)

- The next Samsung galaxy phone

Ever since Microsoft's decision to reverse the policies for the Xbox One, it had got me thinking whether they did it because of gamers outcry and disappointment or whether to save its own butt and fix their tarnished PR image.  In my opinion, MS did it just to save their credibility and image in the console market or else the Xbox One would just not sell.

AtheneWins, a youtuber who is mostly a PC gamer shares his thoughts about the whole XBone policy reversal, which I kind of agree.

I got to admit, this whole Xbone debacle since its reveal is quite entertaining to watch

Thanks MS for the popcorn entertainment.

So I was playing Skyrim the other day and something struck my mind. I asked myself "How big is Skyrim compared to the real world?". So I went googling around to find some answers and I cam across this article.

A Physics grad named Matthew Sutton manage wrote an analysis on Skyrim's size and estimates to be around 2.4 miles from north to south and 3.7 miles wide from east to west. Turns out that Skyrim is actually smaller than San Francisco.

It's a small world after all.

SOURCE: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/01/skyrim-world-size.html

So there are plenty of new games coming out this year and here are some of my game rating predictions for 2012. These scores is what I predict GameSpot might give.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - 8.5

Far Cry 3 - 8.5

Borderlands 2 - 9.0

Halo 4 - 8.5

Assassin's Creed 3 - 9.0

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - 8.5

Tomb Raider - 9.0

Guild Wars 2 - 9.0

Diablo III - 9.0

GTA V - 9.5

Max Payne 3 - 9.0

Resident Evil 6 - 8.5

Medal of Honor: Warfighter - 7.5

DMC - 8.0

Lollipop Chainsaw - 7.0

Hitman: Absolution - 8.0

Bioshock: Infinite - 9.5

So here is the list of games that I will be getting for 2012. Since I have a new gaming rig, it looks like I'll be buying more games for this year. Finally, my Xbox can rest a little easier haha.

Games that I will be getting on PC

- Bioshock: Infinite

- Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

- Tomb Raider

- Far Cry 3

Games that I will get on the Xbox 360

- Assassin's Creed III

- Halo 4

- Borderlands 2

- Dead or Alive 5

Highly Anticipated games for 2012

- Bioshock: Infinite

- Halo 4

- Borderlands 2

So it looks like there will be lots of good games coming out this year just like last year.

So it's April Fools Day here in Australia So I have to be extra cautious since my bro is a prankster lol.

So yeah anyway since I have built my new rig, there are some games that I'm planning to get for PC this year...

- Far Cry 3

- Bioshock Infinite

- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Can't wait to see what this games are like in my new rig.

So today I have finished putting all together the parts for my gaming PC. Windows 7 is all installed as well as the graphic drivers for my GTX 680. I just have to install Kaspersky Internet Security and a few other software and its all ready to go.

The reason why I built a new rig is because I'm returning from PC gaming (I was actually a PC gamer for a start). The reason I bought an Xbox is because I didn't have the time to upgrade my PC or enough money to buy the parts to build a rig. This console generation is starting to show its age. I was all hyped about the next gen Xbox, but after hearing that Microsoft isn't announcing their new console this year, I can't be bothered waiting and decided to just a all new rig from scratch.

So I just purchased the new parts for my gaming PC. Here are my parts...

CPU:

Intel Core i5 2500 LGA 1155 3.3GHz

MOTHERBOARD:

Asus P8Z68-V-GEN3 Intel Mainboard - LGA 1155

HARD DISK DRIVE:

Seagate Barracuda 1 TB

OPTICAL DRIVE:

LG Blu-Ray Reader & DVD/CD Burner

RAM:

G.SKILL DDR3 8GB (2X4GB) PC-12800/1600 F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL Ram

GRAPHICS CARD:

Gigabyte Nvidia gtx 680 2GB

NETWORK:

ASUS PCE-N15

POWER SUPPLY:

Antec High Current Gamer 750W

CASE:

Antec One Hundred

I could've have brought better parts such as the cpu and ram, but it wasn't in my desired budget.

I haven't put in all together yet. I'll let you know in my next blog when I'm finished.

So I've decided to buy games online from now on. I used to buy games in retail such as Game and JB hi-fi and I always try to avoid buying games in EB Games since they sell the games double the price.

Oz Gameshop is probably the best there is right now, but I also use Dungeon Crawl (located in Elizabeth St, Melbourne) since they are cheap as well and sometimes I browse through Game Lane. Steam is also good to buy games from there as well.