I'm back from my holiday/vacation! I'll post a better blog about it later when I've rested up a little bit. :P

It's holiday time for me again, it doesn't seem like a year has passed since I went on holiday last year. Again, we are taking the long 5 hour, 300 mile drive from Montrose, Scotland to Blackpool, England. Ugh. The forecast doesn't look too great for the week with rain being the predominant weather we will encounter. Owell, that's more of a reason to go swimming for the whole week. :lol:

Don't worry, I'll only be gone a week so I should be back blogging before you know it. I'll hopefully have a holiday blog planned for the day we get home so I can tell you all about it. I might include a few pictures as well.

Take Care!

Well, 5 days have passed since the climax of the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit in Los-Angeles and I've finally got round to posting up a blog about it. First off, I must say that it wasn't the best E3 that I have seen. The three main conferences weren't as exciting in my mind as the previous ones were but was a bit of a let down. Microsoft and Sony were clearly battling with each other but talking about their online updates while showing off a few games in the process.

Microsoft E3 Conference - Monday 14th July - 91 Minutes!

The first and longest conference of E3 was the Microsoft conference. Due to technical difficulties with the Gamespot site which rendered it in-accessible during the first 20 or so minutes of the conference, I with the thousands of other people were unable to watch the start of the conference. To make up for this, I watched the stream when it became available on the E3 page a day later and watched the first 25 minutes to see what I missed. They started off with a band showcasing great up-coming games like Fable II, Gears of War II, Resident Evil 5 and so on which was great eye-candy and the games looked fantastic. That great eye candy did last for very much longer though, they soon went onto stats for a good portion of the conference which decreased my hopes for the rest of the conference somewhat. All that lead onto the showing of the new (somewhat Wii-like) avatar system for XBL and the new dashboard design.

I really enjoyed watching the games and learning more about them which, as I said above provided great eye-candy but also ear-candy as well. As soon as all that ended the started rambling on about stats and stuff and they explained how the 360 is better, blah, blah, blah which bored me slightly but I kept watching. They soon moved onto a different subject, a new XBL update for the 360, consisting of Avatars that look strangely like the Mii's but are not. During this time they also showed off some new XBLA games that incorporate the avatars into them but I'm not going to get into them that much because they're not all that interesting. One thing I was quite interesting by is the new Dashboard design that they showed at the conference. As much as I like the 'blades' design, I must say that the new design looks a little neater and professional. It was announced that this will be out this fall which I'm looking forward to so I can test it out further.

Just before the end of the press conference, a huge announcement was made. This was the announcement that Square Enix's hit franchise Final Fantasy will be coming to the Xbox 360 through the latest instalment, Final Fantasy XIII. There was a trailer shown as well but I don't think GameSpot was aloud to show it so they moved to a different camera at the back of the hall so you could barely make out anything. I was very shocked when this was announced because I've been wanting a Final Fantasy game on the 360 for quite a while now and it's finally happened.

Nintendo E3 Press Conference - Tuesday 15th July - 65 Minutes!

The second and shortest conference of all three, lasting just over an hour in time. I was immediately put off when we were introduced to the most annoying woman you will ever come across at E3. A woman only Nintendo could produce for their conference. That completely put me off the entire conference but like the Microsoft conference, I continued watching it, hoping that it would get better but it sadly didn't. We were shown a gameplay demo of Shaun White Snowboarding which used the WiiFit Balance Board as the controller which was pretty cool. This was sort of spoiled by the fact that the woman actually got on the balance board and played the game on stage, she was clearly out of place there. Then, another Wii Sports game was thrown at us and so was another demo, which made use of that annoying woman. It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

Anyway, we were then treated to some 'Wii Music' and some weird guy who was waving his arms around trying to play an drum set that was up on the screen using the Wii's motion control. All this movement was just causing a racket and making him look extremely stupid. But wait, there was more to that segment, not only drums were shown but the sax, piano, guitar etc were shown as well, all controlled and played by waving your arms and acting like a fool. That produced, not music but noise. The new Animal Crossing as demonstrated as well and they showed some lackluster DS games and then it ended.

Sony E3 Press Conference - Tuesday 15th July - 89 Minutes!

The third and second longest conference of all three lasting just under 1 hour and 30 minutes. I had severe problems with the live stream as it kept stalling and I couldn't make out anything that was said. I did however watch the reply when it was uploaded onto the site and I quite liked this conference. It began with this guy in a white shirt talking about the big names that had previously used the stage that they were on and how great it was etc. This continued for a good 20 minutes then it finally cut to a gameplay demo of Resistance 2. The game looked very good, the city of Chicago looks fantastic, and so did the enemy in the demo - a 300 or so foot 'Leviathan' which would give little kids nightmares. Next up was one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the year, LittleBigPlanet. A cool thing they did with LBP was that they created a level with all the stats that that Sony had gathered up through their games consoles which made it a lot less boring. They also showed few other games like Special Madden for the PS, Buzz for the PS3 and even a Batman game for the rotting PS2.

Now comes the news concerning the Playstation Network and what new updates Sony are going to be releasing. A Movie section that will allow you to download movies to watch on your PS3 for free using a Netflix account. A couple games were shown that are going to be available through the Playstation Game Store through the PSN. Games include a new instalment of Ratchet & Clank which looks quite interesting. Killzone 2 was hardly mentioned, only a trailer was shown for God of War III and that was really it for the PS3 games.

GameSpot's Live E3 Stage Shows - Tuesday 15th July, Wednesday 16th July and Thursday 17th July - 26 Hours Combined!

GameSpot did fantastic this year. Their live stage shows were great and were dominated by fantastic demo's and news. The tape segments were very good as well, especially the 'Behind the Show' show which was very entertaining. Kudos to the GameSpot staff, Brian, Kristin, Ryan, Don and all the other staff members behind the scenes. You all did very well and I hope you've caught up on your sleep.

Ending Comments On E3 2008!

Overall, the conferences were pretty lackluster with only a few stand out moment between the three of them. GameSpot's stage shows made up for the dismal conferences by providing great coverage from the show floor and providing game demo's that made my mouth water. E3 2008 was definitely not the best but was definitely not the worst. Hopefully next year will be better.

What did you think of this year's E3? Post your thoughts in the comment section. :)

I'll be posting my thoughts on E3 soon. Probably on Friday, the day after the final GameSpot Stage Show has concluded. Watch this space when I let out the E3 part of my brain where every thought about the event is stored. :P

Yep, the time has come around again, the time when most American people go out and celebrate their countries Independence from Great Britain in 1776. The common activities associated with the Fourth of July range from Baseball games to the great Firework displays all around the country. Even though I'm British, I still try and show my respect by doing a few things, watch American television shows, buy some American stuff (which I don't do often) and more.

So, How are you going to spend your time for this magnificent occasion? Please share your plans for today here. You don't have to post your plans if you don't want to, of course. I'm not forcing you. :P

So, to all Americans (and non-Americans), Have a wonderful Fourth of July weekend! Stay Safe!

I have been wandering around the internet quite a lot more recently than usual, checking out other sites and other message boards and have come across something has angered me over the past few days. This 'something', as you might have already worked out from the blog title, is the amount of arrogant people there is on the internet. I'm not really directing this at people who have let it rip over a message board after being provoked by some little kid, I'm directing this at the people just waltz in to a board topic and start randomly flaming and/or start swearing without any respect what so ever for everyone else. I've actually seen this happen a few times on GameSpot's message boards and blogs, which I am happy to say, is normally dealt with swiftly by the message board moderators. That brings me to the question; 'Why do they do it?'. I've heard many of the offenders say that they were bored, or they wanted to do it because it make them feel big and tough, I laughed at both reasons.

Most times, a moderator or a staff member as taken notice of a member that has been constantly flaming someone or some people and they have told the offender off and that's the end of it. the member in question leaves and doesn't come back. With that being said, there are people who have been told of by a moderator but they continue to do it and the only way to stop them is by suspending or banning the person for the boards completely. This normally helps but occasionally there are people who will evade their suspension/ban and continue to cause chaos through-out the board until they get truly board and finally go away.

Another common thing I see is moderators go with the 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em' saying and actually help the offender(s) flame the other members. I mean, what's worse for an innocent member than having the people that are meant to help you, go against you in the blink of an eye? Nothing is as bad as that. If you try and defend yourself against the flaming moderator, they will more than likely warn you or suspend you for flaming them when you were simply sticking up for yourself. It just proves how corrupt a staff team can be a certain sites. Hopefully I will never see any of the GameSpot moderators or staff members act in this way. As I said before, the GameSpot message boards are kept reasonably free from flaming and members that seem to only be able to cause trouble instead of contribute to the community like everyone else. So, a big thank-you and well done is in order for the GameSpot moderators and staff members that help keep the community clean. Keep up the good work guys. I would also hope that you, the members to the community will actually report anyone that is extremely disrespectful instead of either joining in or flaming them back.

Well, that turned into more of a rant than I though it was going to be. I also hope you will forgive me for making mistakes in the post as it's getting pretty late here and this blog was rushed. Have a great month of July and keep safe.

Well, coming up to 9 months after Rock Band was released in the United States and Canada and 1 month after it was released as an Xbox 360 exclusive here in the United Kingdom, MTV games and Harmonix have announced Rock Band 2!

The game has been scheduled for release in September, 2008 on the Xbox 360 first with it being released on other platforms later in the year. It has been confirmed that all the peripheral and downloadable content from Rock Band will be back-ward compatible with the sequel which is great news for everyonebody who don't want to re-purchase all the songs they downloaded for the first game.

Rock Band 2 has said to have quite a few new things added to its already great foundation od co-coperative band play, miltiple instruments, great online multiplayer experience, raising the bar by bringing a new level of depth to the game, better connectivity and a bunch of new features. Some of these features include:

- An improved and bigger sountrack than before featuring some of rock's more famous acts, comprised entirely of master recordings instead of the cover versions you heard in the first game. That's a very good thing if you like jamming to the original instead of some cover artist making a hash of the song they're covering.

- New online modes that will connect all the rockers of the community in even more ways that ever before, locally and globally. That seems like a great prospect after the disappointing online play in Rock Band.

-Much More.

Much more details about features and music for Rock Band 2 will be revealed at the E3 Media and Business Summit this year. Over 40 awards were won by Rock Band last year including Best of Show E3 2007.

Harmonix and MTV Games announced today that the online music store for Rock Band has surpassed 15 million paid downloads since the game's release in late Novemeber 2007. To date, over 200 tracks are currently available to date via download purchase, the store allows plays to preview and then purchase downloadable tracks, packs and albums from the large selection of tracks and alums available.

So, after reading reading the info above, do you think Rock Band 2 will be a good sequel? Will you actually buy the game when it's released in September?

Saturday, June 28th

Well, the day has nearly came to an end here in the UK. I didn't do much today, considering I didn't have enough time to do anything really fun because I got up and noon. Although, I did go out and get a bit of shopping after I looked in my fridge and say nothing but cobwebs and dust in there with a little sour, gloopy milk at the back. This was a bit of a surprise to me as I never thought about looking in my fridge ad I really didn't have time to being busy with work and all. Watched Wimbledon a little today, enough to see Andy Murray win a hard fought contest against Tommy Haas putting him through to the Second Week of the All-England Championships.

I'm not one for making predictions but I think tomorrow will be a more exciting day than today. Hopefully I won't get my lazy ass out of bed too late and will be able to go somewhere and actually make a day of it.

Holidays

Well, I am now off work for the summer holidays, a whole 7 1/2 weeks of pure enjoyment. Work officially ended for the holidays yesterday at 12 noon, that may seem like a weird time to get off work but I work at a school so, yeah. I'm thinking of going somewhere with my family during the holidays but I'm not quite sure where yet, It will probably be somewhere down in England as it's closer to home and has some pretty good places to visit. I could also just stay at home and play games for the whole 7 1/2 days, I'm not quite sure yet.

New Banner and Avatar Soon, Hopefully

I'm hoping to make a new Banner and Matching Avatar soon, that is if I can get some ideas on the subject that my banner is going to be about. Feel free to give any ideas for a banner and matching avatar set here and I'll take them into consideration. :)

That's about it for this blog, quite a short one but it's getting late so that's to be expected. :P Hope the remainder of your weekend is enjoyable.

Does anyone now-a-days actually still listen to this great band? I'm asking because all I hear kids listening to these days is rap and hip-hop kind of stuff and it makes me wonder if anyone has any interest in great music anymore.

"Genesis are an English rock band formed in 1967. With approximately 150 million albums sold worldwide, Genesis are among the top 30 highest-selling recording artists of all time. In 1988 the band won a Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video. The most well-known and longest-tenured members of Genesis are Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks. Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett were also members of the band in its early days."

Information Source: Wikipedia.

If you haven't listened to any of their songs, you should definitely listen to these:-

The Knife (1970)
The Musical Box (1971)
Supper's Ready (1972) - It's a Live version of Peter Gabriel singing. I couldn't find the original studio recording on Last.Fm.
The Cinema Show (1973)
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974)
Afterglow (1977)
Follow You, Follow Me (1978)
Turn It On Again (1980)
Abacab (1981)
[url=http://www.last.fm/music/Genesis/_/Mama]Mama (1983)
Invible Touch (1886)
Land Of Confusion (1986)
No Son Of Mine (1991)
Congo (1997)

Dicuss them here. :)

Yes, that's right, "Guitar Hero: World Tour" have added two new instuments to the mix along with a newly designed guitar for you to rock out on.

The New Guitar:

Okay, here's the low-down on the newly designed guitar that will feature with the new Guitar Hero game. The new guitar has many more features then previous guitar models. One of the biggest and probably best feature on this new guitar is a touch pad on the neck next to the control buttons. This allows you to alter sustained notes by sliding your finger(s) up and down this touch sensitive stip. It can be useful if you wish to mimic a slap bass, which you probably will if you're a bass fan.

That's not the only design change that's been made. The back/select button has been adjusted and made to look like the bridge of the guitar, this makes it easier to find and easier to hit if you want to activate star power. This gives a more realistic look to the guitar design as well. The d-pad has been re-shaped to look more like a knob which gives it more style. Most (if not all) of the old features that have featured on previous guitar controllers will still be on this guitar so you're not going to miss all the oldies that much.

The Microphone:

The microphone is a fairly standard piece of equipment. It's wired, and it comes complete with buttons. Even with the buttons, you will still need to use a controller to get into the menus etc. To activate star power with-in the game you will not need to wait one of those special sections like you do in Rock Band, just tapping or making a quick sound will surely do the trick.

The Drums:

This is the one piece of equipment that I will definately enjoy playing with when I get this game as I'm a big drum fan. It has three pads, two raised cymbals and one bass pedal which makes it look more realistic than the drums in Rock Band. This makes up the basic set up of one snare, two tom-toms, two cymbals and a bass drum. The two cymbals are elevated above the three pads and you can adjust then to what-ever position you would due to the fact that they are on hinges. To activate star power with the drums, you just need to hit both cymbals at the same time and off you go.

For all you people that have just witnessed your next door neighbor's son or daughter walk in with a GH: WT pack, no need to worry. The drums are said to be a lot quieter than the ones included with Rock Band so it won't ruin your night watching endless romantic DVD's with your partners. Like the guitar, the drums are wireless which will make for less space consumption.

Source: IGN.com