Ah, the ordeal of pre-ordering a console.

As of today, I am officially on the 'waiting list' for a vital missing organ - yes, I mean the Nintendo Wii. After a small trip to Lancaster city centre, I crept back on the bus on my way to the University with a Pre-Order slip tucked neatly into my wallet.

Now, while I appreciate that pre-orders are necessary to get your foot in line, I can't help but be pissed off at the fact that a £20 deposit has been taken out of my precious bank account and all I have to show for it is a piece of paper telling me that £20 has been taken out of my precious bank account.

Sigh.

Anyway. If anyone is around the Lancaster city centre at, ooh, 12 midnight December 8th, I'll be at GameStation.

Oh - and for the 1 of you expecting a HL2: Episode One review, I simply can't be arsed.

Just bought it today - at a retail shop, not via Steam - and early impressions are good, great in fact. Look out for a review very soon.

Time to pay your last respects. Mind-blowingly funny docu-sitcom Arrested Development has been cancelled and will unlikely be making a re-appearance. Arrested Development was by far one of the best shows ever produced by FOX, but just like Firefly before it, glittering critical acclaim was just not enough to save the show. Thanks to dwindling viewer numbers, the show waas cut off at 3 seasons, more insulting was the fact that the episode numbers for each season were 21, 18 and 13 respectively. However, always the in-joker, Arrested Development poked fun at FOX's cut-down, and fought them all the way in the fantastic self-referential style it always does. Arrested Development may have been a little unconfortable for most 'standard' comedy fans. It was minus a laugh-track (Friends is an example of one with), it promised things in a 'Next Time On...' segment that it didn't deliver, and the jokes were so fast it was easy to miss them. I thought after the critical success that - in my opinion - over-hyped The Office was (especially in America) that Arrested Development would live on to see better days. However, despite only being 50 odd episodes, spread over 3 seasons, I can't help but feel a little happy that creator Mitch Hurwitz ended the show on a high note, with not one episode making me think it could've been done better. I'll leave with the last lines spoken in Arrested Development, by series narrator and one-time character, Ron Howard: "No. I don't really see it as a series... Maybe a movie?"

In anticipation of Half Life 2: Episode One, I wrote a review for Half Life 2. Check it out here. Its a lengthy review, but worth it - it gets my seal of approval anyway.

Bah. My Debit Card isn't accepted by Steam. Looks like I'll have to find a workaround. Bloody Steam and its bloody American cards.

The latest craze has hit the gaming world, I am of course talking about episodic content. Yes, I know there are about 6,000 other things that can be considered 'latest crazes' in the gaming world but that would take up to much time. Maybe I should release my blogs episodically instead? Anyway, theres been a bit of a mixed reaction towards Half Life 2's expansions. But my main problem hasn't got anything to do with Steam, whether the $19.99 will be worth it, or why they spell Alyx with a 'y'. No, my main criticism is at the name, Half Life 2: Episode One. Opposing Force - made sense. Blue Shift - er... kinda made sense. You were blue. A bit. But Half Life 2: Episode One? Wasn't HL2 Episode One? Isn't this like an epilogue or something? Or even Episode Two Part One? Its like calling The Phantom Menace, Star Wars 4: Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Only without Jar Jar Binks. Though it would be nice to cut through him with a shotgun. Does it make sense to anyone? But what really may push me away from buying the now confirmed trilogy of 'Episode' HL2 games is how long they are. For approximately $60 , gamers will get the entire trilogy. $60 is about the price of an expensive video game (Amazon.com has PC MegaGame The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for $39.99). This means that the combined (no pun intended) gameplay time of all three titles must equal that of a high-priced stand-alone title, surely? Sigh, anyway, only 4 days to go now. I'll have a review of Half Life 2: Episode One as soon as I've completed it.