I have realised that I have developed some kind of gamer's block, a tragic affliction that is preventing me from even attempting to start the huge pile of video games that is sat stubbornly upon my desk. Maybe I'm getting old, but I hate having to learn and develop some sort of rain man-esque reflex memories in order to master games at the moment.

So to remedy this, armed only with a box of cigarettes and some tea, I decided to download a lot of Xbox Live Arcade trial games.

I tried to look at several aspects of each game that I played; my initial impression, the graphics, the sound affects/music, what I thought of the control scheme, how difficult the game was (always starting on normal if and when the option was given), how long I was able to play the game before I grew bored or whether I played it through to the end of the trial, the price of the game and whether I would consider buying it. So I present to you now my impressions on the first handful that i have experimented with. I already own acouple of XBLA games so if you are wondering why Braid isn't getting a look in here, well it's because I already love it. I may review the XBLA games that I have paid for in the near future after I've finished this little series.

ASTROPOP

Astropop is a top down puzzler in which you control a spaceship that has the ability to grab and then shoot bricks with the intention of matching them up into groups of at least four blocks of the same colour. I am pretty certain that you, dear reader, are already compiling in your head lists of games that work on the same basis of brick/gem/generic shape matching. I guess all of the good ideas have been done; Tetris, Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Columns... so it's probably difficult to improve on an old formula. Astropop doesn't even really try to bring anything new to the genre. It just crowbars a weak story into the mix and dangles the incentive of upgrading you're weapons systems to provide easier ways to dispose of the erm... space bricks. It's not tremendously difficult to pick up and play, the majority of the game is dictated through the use of the two trigger buttons, however, it does get very boring very quickly.

Astropop is an odd game, I don't really understand the link between spaceships and destroying coloured blocks... I've thought long and hard about it and I think that the basis of this game could be replaced by anything and still possess more relevance than spaceships and blocks... how about controling a drunkard and trying to match drinks?- they could call it'windy pops'...or how about playing as a country bumpkin who has to roll cheese down a hill and make them match?...cheese pops anyone? Knowing how keen PopCap are on copying/stealing puzzle game concepts I would not be surprised to see windy pops on XBLA soon.

At 800 Microsoft points, or £6.80 in real money, I think that this game is far too over priced to be considered as a purchase. In drunken pub games terms (at 50p a game) I would have to play this at least 14 times to get my money's worth out of this title... not for me.

Banjo-Kazooie

First of all, I have to confess that I had never played this game before today, I was never really a fan of 3D platformers; Mario 64 wasn't very good, Crash Bandicoot was awful and Spiro can go and play Astropop as far as I'm concerned.

If the genre of 3D platformers is one that you cherish, then I apologise for my previous statement. I am right though.

At 1200 Bill Gates Dollars (or 1,020 penny sweets in old money) Banjo-Kazooie is one of the more expensive games on my list of demos. In its defense Rare have done a great job of making it look shiny and modern(ish) and the size of the game suggests to me that this would be good value for someone who has fond memories of this title. I don't have any memories of Banjo-Kazooie and because of this I am looking at this game through the eyes of a slightly over caffeinated, very tired 26 year old man.

Here goes.... the camera is very annoying, the banjo related instrumentals become very annoying, I can only thank christ that the bloody bear wasn't called bongo! 3D platformers will never be, in my eyes, the natural progression of 2D platformers, they are just wrong, obviously there are some exceptions to the rule but when I think of 3D platformers that are good I generally think of action/platform/puzzle hybrids like Zelda and Okami.

I also have a strong objection about the motivation of the story, I know I am being pedantic here but who cares if a small bear has been made ugly?!? bear's have never been pretty, that's why they are affixed with titles such as 'Grizzly' and (oddly) 'spectacled'. I know it's a game designed for the younger gamer and I appreciate that in this respect the actual writing of the game is relatively funny, I particularly enjoyed the rhyming witch but I'm not sure how long it would take before the novelty of rhyming underwear and bear would become annoying.

I played this all the way through the trial period and I can understand the charm of the game and why people would hold it dearly in their memory, unfortunately, my lack of childhood memories of the title means that Banjo-Kazooie is not really my cup of tea.

Bejeweled 2

Ah, PopCap... we meet again.

My initial thought on starting this game was 'bloody hell, it's puzzle quest!'. And it is. It's just puzzle quest but without the roleplaying geekiness that I love.I'm pretty certain that Bejeweled existed in someformbefore Puzzle Quest but I don't care Puzzle Quest is just better, Fact.

I have to admit though, it is an adictive game, but then again, so is Puzzle Quest. The sound effects are pretty bad, the robotic(ish) male voice that congratulates you when a combo is achieved grows tiresome after a while. The main difference with this game compared to PQ is that the main game does not feature an opponent and you merely spend your time matching jewels and racking up points. Playing this solo is a very satisfying experience and if it wasn't for the fact that it is expensive 800 microsoft points or 90.40 Swedish SEK in old money I would probably buy it... actually no, I dislike PopCap.... argh but it's like Puzzle Quest... hang on a minute... Puzzle Quest is exactly the same price! Buy Puzzle Quest and bask in the geeky splendour of killing Dulog the Two Headed Ogre!

Ok, this wasn't the most successful start to my Demo Review Extravaganza!!! but I've got a lot more games to get through and hopefully some of them will be good... Coming up in the next set of reviews... Cellfactor PW, Death Tank, Dig Dug and Gunstar Heroes...

I am now the owner of Prototype and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. These two games have now been placed upon the ever growing pile of games that I need to start playing if I can ever find the time to play xbox.

Thepile now consists of:

Prototype

Star Ocean

Eternal Sonata

Just Cause

Prince of Persia

Street Fighter IV

Far Cry II

Halo 3

Tomb Raider Anniversary

Resident Evil 5

Gears of War 1 and 2

This list doesn't even include the DLC that I have purchased and neglected to use yet such as the last Fallout 3 DLC, The lost and the damned, the new CODWaW map pack (more zombies!!!) and knot hole island for Fable 2.

Gah I really need some time to play all of these games.

I have played a little of Prototype... It's good. It is amazingly similar to previous spiderman titles, especially Web of Shadows. I'm quite intrigued by the morally ambiguous protagonist, I am not however, intrigued by the mass of checkpoint chasing missions that seem to form the basis of a lot of the missions. Whether the game will prove addictive and enjoyable is still undecided.

Here I am again, I've returned to gamespot, cap in hand. As Joesh89astutely pointed out, being on Giantbomb 'feels like I'm in someone else's house :['

I tried to get into the whole spirit of the giantbomb thing but I don't think that it's what I'm looking for in a gaming community website. There are a lot of good features on the site that I wish Gamespot would consider stealing, such as the ability to see an activity feed of everyoneon the site so it is easier to read random blogs. The inbox that is integrated into the webpage (instead of the stupid, slow and cumbersome inbox on GS) is very good too.

The news side of the site is a bit ropey though. After having a little play around with my profile page as well I wish GS would give us a little more freedom to customise our layouts (a la Livejournal).

So yeah, I'm back.

I've been away in Reading for the last two weeks finishing up the last few assignments for my first year, this has meant no xbox. It has given me the opportunity to get reacquainted with my DS though. I officially heart Chrono Trigger, it is an incredible game and I feel mildly foolish for having not played it before now.

Whilst wandering around Reading today I decided to have a look in Game for some bargains; didn't find any unfortunately but my curiosity has been piqued by a couple of recent releases for the 360, Star Ocean and Prototype. Both of these games look like they could have potential. I played a Star Ocean on the PS2 but I didn't really have much patience with the fighting system and the awfully whiny characters. I am in desperate need of an epic RPG on the 360 though so I may take a punt on SO.

In other news, I have become addicted to Prison Break, I'm halfway through the first season, I'm not sure how the other 3 seasons after this are gonna span out (how many prisons can one man break out of?!?) but Prison Break is currently filling the glossy american tv gap in my life following my love affair with Tony Soprano and with the hiatus of Lost for the time being.

I am off work next week so I fully intend on watching a hell of a lot more of Prison Break and either buying Star Ocean or starting Eternal Sonata, not sure which yet though.

Anyway, sorry about the pleading for friendship posts and then buggering off, I'm back now and I'm gonna have a look at the unions that I'm connected to and leave some/contribute more to some/join some more.

Now please Gamespot, sort yourselves out and make this website the kind of site that made me love gaming in the first place.

I've decided to leave Gamespot for a while, I really am feeling disillusioned with the whole thing, everything about the site needs to be reviewed and I don't have the patience to stick with this any more.

I have decided to register with Giantbomb.com, admittedly I may be chasing an ideal website that more than likely doesn't exist, but I'm gonna give the site a whirl and see how it works out.

Thank you for all of the comments and for each of your blogs that have entertained me over the last six months and thank you for granting me the privilege of being your friend (at least virtually), I hope that you're days are eternally sunny and your evenings well spent in gaming heaven.

If any of you are interested, or already have a giant bomb profile on the sly, my user name is the same as this one, here is the link. I look forward to seeing you around on there.

Right then. If you are reading this I would be very grateful to you if you could recommend at least one (preferably more) Gamespot users that I can add as friends (and would hopefully add me back). I'm in desperate need of new blogs to read (that is nothing against you, dear reader) and I'm beginning to feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall with my journal entries. I'd also welcome any unions that you (dear reader) could recommend.

I'm losing faith in this site quickly and I am very, very close to just walking away from it. The people behind the site seem to have a very questionable set of ethics when it comes to advertisement/clientelle, the actual blogging facilities are awful and it is virtually impossible to advertise your blog (in an attempt to increase your blog popularity and blogs to read).

So yeah. If things are still the same within a week I think that this blog will be simply deleted.

So please help me out here, I'm on my knees.

I've been watching TV this evening, I rarely do but I've been getting bored of my Xbox of late and after a long week at work I could do very little other than sit in front of the (other) box. I haven't really just sat in front of a TV for a long time, it generally leads to me ranting a little bit and generally irritating the people sat in the front room with me. That's pretty much what happened again this evening.

For those of you that are not from England, there is a pretty big media storm brewing at the moment. Our nations presses and seasoned hacks are printing out pulp vehemently, furiously in an attempt to maintain the anger of 'the masses' against virtually anyone that earns more than £50K a year.

I am not condoning the actions of a number of politicians that have decided to act liberally about expense conditions and regulations, a number of our MPs have been claiming expenses on mortgages for 'second homes' that have either been paid for already, have been sold on or were merely figments of an over-activeand very rich man's imagination. I believe that the people that have acted in a way that would cause an average man to be slaughtered by the authorities should be punished.

The thing that disgusts me is the way in which the English media seem to take a perverse delight in the 'expenses' witch hunt that is currently taking place.

This brings me back to watching television. As I sat downstairs, sated from my evening meal, lapping up media snippets and adverts like Soma I witnessed a senior journalist ranting and raging about how 'the working clas.ses are being made to look like fools!' I couldn't have agreed more with this initial statement, it was just the rest of his mindless dribble that nauseated me, the media are continually stoking a fire under the working clas.s through their constant baiting and blaming of different groups for the global economic crisis that is managing to affect almost every facet of life. A few months ago it was 'the bankers', these faceless toffs dressed in their saville row, three piece suits, strolling around with their brief cases packed with crisp Sterling and contempt for the 'working man'. So they managed to whip up enough fury to encourage people who have never even looked at the FTSE before in their entire lives to 'protest'. The weeks building up to the protest they warned that violence was expected. In other words, 'go on Joe Bloggs, take your frustrations out on these guys, go on, you love it, these men are taking the food from the mouths of your children... burn your effigies, we want blood'.

So the press got what they wanted,they condemned the protests with their 10 page specials and the 'thugs' that decided to smash up property, riot and provoke the police gave the media just what they wanted; good copy and more coal tostoke the firesof the angry public.

Like the hyperactive, weedy child in the school yard that shouts 'fight, fight, fight' and then blends into the crowd at the sign of trouble, the English press have managed to expertly craft and temper the ability to provoke the masses by picking away at the scabs and sores of the national psyche (the love of building up figures and then shooting them down, the hatred of other people's successes, the refusal to sometimes accept that bad things happen, the need for justice be it poetic or bloody) and then whipping them into a frenzy.

The journalist said that 'we, the common man, are being made to look like fools' and then they put us on television to rant about it. The amount of news and current affairs shows that have featured 'on the street' reports in which elderly and bedraggled pensioners that have long since given up any aspirations are always the first and the last ones to be asked "what do you think of the situation? do you trust x?" (where x is whatever group de jour that the media have decided to direct the public ire towards like a perverse cannon). Naturally these people will say no, they never will again. Brilliant journalism! Absolutely amazing, who would have thought that if you asked a person that survives on a state pension what they think of an affluent group that they'd show distrust?!?

So the media continue to poke the public, to spew out tabloids about this new scandal, they keep you sweet with side stories of famous couples that have 'never been happy together'. Joe Public can sit in his cubical on his lunch and read about these failures and he can feel relieved that the press know just what we, the public, like to hear.

So tell me more about why I can't get promoted. Give me a reason to hate the success of those around me. Give me a glimpse of how different my life could have been if I had a six pack.... Just don't tell me that I can say no to it all. That there may be ways of achieving success and how I could represent my fellow peers and that I could make a differer... oh wait, the next show is on... 'Plastic Surgery gone bad!'... Double plus good.

...makes me feel like i've opened a website through google image search. I don't like opening websites through google image search, the header always annoys me. This new header annoys me because.... (repeat ad nauseum)

I don't think that this topic is going to be very game related to be honest, it will still be packed full of geek though so erm... keep reading :|

Alongside my hatred of new headers, i have developed a hatred of "The Internet" and itsreluctance to allow me to write anything in brackets that ends with the number 8. Try it. Notice it. And then watch the hatred in you blossom.

Speaking of blossoms (I am the sultan of segue), my cactuses or is it Cactii? actually, I prefer Cactuar (geek? yes.), yeah, my cactuar have started to blossom.I mentioned this in passing to someone today and they warned me that this was bad and meant the imminent death of my hardy plants. (oh yes, I tell people about my cactuar, I am thelife andsoul of the party)It turns out that this person is a fool, I've googled it and it appears to be a good thing, so my conscience is clear, the death of a collection of plants that are famously able to survive with very little care and commitment would have bared heavily on my shoulders. There is a reason for this talk of cactuar though, I have a pretty big and ugly looking cactus that looks like an odd acid fueled Final Fantasy enemy. I am considering buying some FF VII figurines and taking a photo of them battling the beast... what do you mean I have too much time on my hands?!?

Other news, I've purchased a number of things lately designed to improve my life (some more than others). Firstly, I've bitten the bullet and paid over the odds for an old 160 Gb Ipod, my new(ish) 80Gb Ipod wasn't big enough any more, so now I have twice the capacity and therefore a mission to find more and more music. Idiscovereda torrent folder on isohunt called 'Freak folk for dummies' (google it!!!)- it's got about 4 gigs worth of bloody good albums on it, I had a lot of the albums already but I still managed to find almost 2 gigs worth of gems on there that have improved my collection greatly, there are a lot of the staple albums that everyone has to listen to at least once such as:

Beirut -Gulag Orkestar

Cat Power -Moon Pix

Godspeed You Black Emperor! - f# a# (infinity)

Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights

Sigur Rós- Ágætis byrjun

The Flaming Lips- The Soft Bulletin

Tom Waits- Rain Dogs

Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

And there's others in herethatI haven't listened to before but am looking forward to hearing, I've never heard of a band called 'The Gerbils' but I like the idea of finding out about them! So yeah, if you own or enjoy any of these mentioned bands/albums then I'd recommend looking for this torrent, it will take a long time to download (it took me 12 hours or so) but it's worth it, if anything just look at the list and be inspired.

For those of you that can't be bothered googling this, here is the link...

So there you have it, a blog about things that annoy me, cactuar and good music. I spoil you all with such greatness.

Any game that quotes George Orwell is Ok in my eyes.

I've just completed Call of Duty 2, it's quite scary how far video games have developed when you play a recent FPS and then go back to the best one from 4 years ago. Playing COD 2 has been great though, I've really enjoyed it and found it to be very rewarding (and I don't just mean the 1000 gamerpoints). I decided to play it through on Veteran from the beginning and was amazed at how intense it was, admittedly the graphics and the AI seem pretty weak compared to the modern day equivalents but overall I found this installment of the series to be as good as 4 and World At War. COD 2 seemed to feature a lot of siege/last stands that really managed to emphasize your vulnerability in battle. If you haven't played it I would thoroughly recommend tracking it down, you can probably find it for £10 or so on Ebay. Whilst playing this game I decided to overcome the trepidation that I felt about how Far Cry Instincts : Predator would hold up, my thinking was 'If COD 2 is still playable, surely Far Cry is worth giving a go' - It isn't.

In other news, I have recently started playing Fable II and I'm enjoying it a hell of a lot more than I thought that I would, I don't think that it is as immersive asFallout 3or Oblivion; it's a bit too superficial and shallow for my liking but the writing is solid and it looks good. I quite enjoyed being a blacksmith and I've already started to build up my property empire; I particularly enjoy the real time element of the profits that you can make in the game (I can imagine that I will continually revisit the game with the first intention of just checking my 'bank balance' before getting embroiled in some bigamistic adventure). So yeah, I think that I was wrong to dismiss Fable II so quickly after being so disappointed with the original. I was planning on buying the original when I bought my 360 but i bought it on XBL instead but I didn't really see what all the fuss was about, I mean, if I wanted to make a smell in front of a group of strangers I would stand around my town centre outside McDonalds with the rest of the 'yoof' of today.

Footnote- The buggy nature of Gamespot is really winding me up at the moment, I'm strongly considering migrating to a different site, one that lets me use the word 'class' in html links, one that doesn't block the word 'sni-gger' and finally one that has a bit more of an accessible and easy to navigate blogging system. Gah!

I've been off work for the last three days with flu, at first I suspected that it could be swine flu, however a meeting with my doctor and some hard facts (I've never been to mexico, never met a mexican, never been around a pig) has led me to the conclusion that I have Man Flu which I am sure you will all concede is one hell of an illness. Thanks to this time off work I have managed to catch up on some reading (I've been re-reading a couple of graphic novels to continue the 'much anticipated ahem graphic novel countdown) and playing a few games. The tragic thing is that because I have been ill I haven't really felt inclined to play games as much as i'd have liked to; I have however made good progress on COD2 on veteran - I'm up to the D-Day landings but I've pretty much hit a brick wall now and I'm struggling to make much headway with it. I'm 66% through the game though and I can see this being the first 1000/1000 gamerpoints game in my collection, mainly due to the fact that there are only 13 achievements in the game.

I've also downloaded 'Broken Steel' and have now got another 10 levels of fallout 3 to enjoy. Now that I'm earning experience points again I decided to start 'The Pitt' DLC... hmm... I think that this set of missions is almost as disappointing as 'Operation Anchorage'. The story/or lack of it, is very sloppy and the actual moral decisions in the missions are very ropey. The new enemies (Trogs) look quite nice though, like a cross between resident evil lickers and ghouls (but with bizarre pot bellies). I'm now becoming slightly disillusioned with Bethesda's DLC policy, surely the level cap should have been lifted with the first episode of content because I've managed to complete all of the missions (with the exception of broken steel's) and managed to collect all of the bobbleheads/destroyed the behemoth super mutants/explore places of interest and I'm now faced with the prospect of climbing the next 8 levels through killing giant ants and ghouls... hmm.

I'm now faced with the deliberation of either plodding on with fallout (can't be bothered), trying to complete COD2 (ditto), playing Fable 2 or starting Far Cry Predator... And then there is Jericho, Just Cause and Halo 3.

Finally, I'm hating everything microsoft right now, probably irrationally but I don't care, why the hell can't I join a party on XBox Live? gah... And why, oh why has June the 19th gone from being one of the greatest days in gaming history (well, slightly hyperbolic I admit...) to being one of sheer, utter disappointment?? Ok I could handle Batman being pushed back, hopefully it will mean that the game will be polished up a bit, but Ghostbusters being bought by Sony?!?!? gah damn you Atari!!! why do you toy with me so? I'm hoping for a release date of some sort soon but I will be relieved if an xbox version is even released now...

If you could see me now, dear reader, I am on my knees, shirtless and waving my trembling fists at the gods... WHY?!?

*sob*

In my previous entry I began the post with a quote from this comic book series that pretty much ticks all of the things that I'd like to hear about in a story that involves one man, a monkey and a planet full of angry women...

"No. No, first comes boyhood. You get to play with soldiers and spacemen, cowboys and ninjas, pirates and robots. But before you know it, all that comes to an end"

If you're interest is piqued by such a synopsis I'd suggest that you read further...

#5 Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

Y: The Last Man was a comic book series written by one of the main writers of the TV show, Lost. The story is based around a character, 'Yorick Brown' and his pet monkey 'Ampersand' who, for reasons that are revealed throughout the series, are the last two living males on the planet. The first issue shows the final moments of 99.9999999% of the male population and the chaos that ensues; think planes falling from the sky, nuclear reactors going into meltdown and the fate of billions of food jars that will forever remain unopened due to the lack of a helping hand with a manly grip...

Whilst in the hands of another writer this premise for a story would devolve into a messy mish-mash of sex and debauchery, Vaughan though manages to create a character that you can actually care about. Yorick spends most of the series searching for his girlfriend, who at the time of the gendercide was on the other side of the planet and the rest of the time trying to discover what it was that destroyed every other Y chromosome on Earth.

Faced with an apocalyptic future (and no one to remove spiders from bath tubs) the women of the world begin to split into a number of different camps; the women who want to restore order and civilization, the women who believe that the death of Man was an act of God, the women who decide to stick stubble on their chins and strap down their breasts with tape in the pursuit of money and romance and the women that fail to come to terms with the loss of their fathers, husbands, sons and friends.

Now if you are reading this far you may be thinking that this is beginning to sound very sexist and anti-feminist but Y: The Last Man is the polar opposite. Vaughan's protagonist is not exactly the stereotypical broad shouldered, square jawed super man of comic book archetypes, instead Yorick shows to his readers many aspects of the modern man that mainstream comic books fail to highlight; he is vain, he's a coward, he believes in true love, he believes in equality and he refuses to be seduced by the women that he meets during his quest (well, he does for most of the time) as he remains faithful to his college girlfriend that becomes almost mythical in standing as she remains elusive throughoutthe books.

Yorick is joined by a number of sympathetic allies on his mission to discover the fate of the world, the people that help him on the way include:

'355' - a female agent employed in a mysterious group known as 'the culper ring' that is ordered by the president to aid the last man and to ensure that the human race is restored, she is the other main character throughout the series and the friendship between the two protagonists really helps to drive the story forward. 355, like most agents employed by shadowy groups, is a trained killing machine that manages to be cold and efficient when defending Yorick but begins to soften and become more likeable as the series progresses.

'Doctor Alison Mann' - A geneticist that joins the group, determined to discover the cause of the plague.

The group travel across the globe, traversing the chaos of post-apocalypse America, Australia (that has become crippled by drug runners - the Sydney opera house becomes one huge drug den), Japan (where they meet the new head of the Yakuza, a former pop star turned megalomaniac), Russia and Europe. The iconic landscapes and landmarks featured in their journey are drawn by artist Pia Guerra and through his stylish graphics, he provides the reader with a view of how the world would disintegrate in the wake of a global crisis.

Like Vaughan's work in Lost, Y: The Last Man is littered with pop references and satirical swipes at genre defining titles of both the comic book world and TV/Film that seem fresh and relevant without seeming forced and obvious. Y: The Last Man, like the majority of the other titles that will feature in this countdown is a very rewarding and literate series, Vaughan is not interested in capes and super powers, he wanted his readers to think about the roles of masculinity and femininity in our present culture and how everything can fall apart; with the first spluttering of a cough, the push of a button or the click of a trigger...

In summary, you need to read at least one issue of this title. If you are intrigued enough to purchase one of the volumes of this series than you should buy volume one; it is an obvious starting point and introduces the majority of the characters that will feature throughout the series. If you are uncertain about whether to take a gamble on a book recommended to you by a stranger then why don't you Google 'cbr, comic book reader', download the program and then download the torrent that is available on Isohunt that contains the entire collection in .cbr format... but don't read them all that way, just read enough, allow yourself to be drawn into Yorick's world and then buy/borrow/steal (ok, don't steal it) every volume...