I would like to buy the GTA DLC on XBL but i'm 210 points short... I'm considering buying one of those emailed vouchers on ebay but it looks like they have raised the prices to more than on Amazon in a cunning ploy to rip off the already slightly ripped off GTA IV owners. With this in mind i am facing a dilema... do i buy a 4200, 2100 or 1000 points card? I do enjoy XBLA games, I own portal, braid, tetris splash and street fighter so i would not be adverse to buying some more games but i'm running out of inspiration as to what else to buy, any help people?

I've also procured Dragon Quest V!!! at last. Now all i have to do is complete IV and i can get cracking.

Despite my depressing whinge about games a few blogs back i seem to have found a renewed love for my noisy, shiny white box, at least for now...

I love my girlfriend. She makes me laugh. I was trying to sleep yesterday and she was sat in bed playing Phoenix Wright on the DS and she was just about to complete the first trial. When the 'not guilty' writing came on the screen and all of the ticker tape and celebrations started i told her that that is how all Asian courts end successful trials. She believed me. mwah ha ha

Apparently Jan 19th 2009 was declared as the most depressing day of the year. I'm guessing that this has been scientifically proven and has something to do with the post-christmas blues and the crappy weather. I would like to contest this claim and decree right now that today is the most depressing day of the year.

Firstly it's the day before valentines day... So anyone is single may be down in the dumps. I've got a girlfriend so the whole valentines day blues isn't the issue for me. I'm more bothered about the lack of anything exciting coming up in the near future. Firstly, I can count on one hand the number of games that i am excited about this year, one of them is RE5 and despite avoiding the demo (to save my heart from truly breaking) I've got the feeling that it's going to be a little bit disappointing. Secondly, the immediate release schedule for the next couple of months is awful. So I have nothing to look forward to there.

I bought an Xbox 360 about a year ago so I've had the pleasure of enjoying a lot of great games upon their release, for example: Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, COD WAW, GTAIV, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Braid. I've also bought all of the games that excited me before I bought my xbox, like Bioshock, Orange Box, Beautiful Katamari, Oblivion etc...

I've scoured through game review sites for hidden gems and highly rated games that i wouldn't normally fancy like Burnout Paradise, The Darkness, Halo(s), Psychonauts and have been generally unimpressed. So now the fun of searching for bargain gems has been tarnished by the fact that i've more than likely played the majority of what the xbox has to offer. So what now? What am I supposed to be getting excited about... Street Fighter? hmm.. maybe. I will buy it but even back in the SNES days i was generally underwhelmed by beat em' ups...Star Ocean is coming up soon, but i rarely have enough time any more to dedicate my life to an RPG (with the exception of DS RPGs that keep me sane on my dinner hour). Batman Arkham Asylum could possibly be great, but on the other hand it could also be a stinker (the inability to make a great comic book game will definately be a future blog entry/essay).

Looking further through the release schedules... if someone said to me that there was going to be a game called monsters vs aliens i would raise a quizical eyebrow and urge them to continue, unfortunately it's a film tie in for kids.

June the 14th may offer me salvation, but again, i'm not holding my breath, if i get too excited about this and then find out that it's another Hellboy then i will lose the will to game.

So that is a barren couple of months.

That's just the world of gaming! Everything else is rubbish too... music? Rubbish. Film? The watchmen... will probably be rubbish.

My god, I'm actually even more depressed than when i first started writing.

I've only recently remembered buying the new fallout 3 dlc drunkenly on xbox live a while ago!! D'oh. So I've started playing fallout again. I've managed to complete every achievement so far aside from the DLC stuff and the neutral and evil karma levels. I think i might start again soon and just try to be as evil as well... bill gates :)

The new content is ok, nothing special, it's frustrating that you can't loot equipment from your dead enemies and the scale of the levels so far have been pretty tame. I've also noticed that it's pretty buggy, i actually fell and got stuck inside a mountain! But more fallout is a bonus for me and i'm planning on kicking those commies right out of alaska, i'm gonna keep an eye out for Sarah Palin too...

I've just completed Mirror's Edge and written my first review of it, I implore you all to read it, praise my brilliance and then buy the game (or at least rent it).

So now I have a number of games to consider jumping into:

Prince of Persia- I've started playing it but maybe i should take a break from running and jumping about..

Gears of War 1 and 2- The other options of games to get with my replacement Xbox were either pretty rubbish or already owned by myself so i was left with GoW2... I still have to get past the opening levels of GoW, it's just not grabbing me. I'm currently obsessed with the Devotchka song that was used to advertise the sequel, if you haven't heard it then ­ click here. It seems like an odd choice of song and doesn't really go with the imagery but i like it.

Lord Of The Rings: Conquest- I like Lord of The Rings, I love Starwars Battlefront... so why can't i get excited enough about it to play the game? I think i'm worried that it's gonna be rubbish....

Dead Space- I have the animated film to watch and i've only completed half of the game, i left it for a bit and can't get the feel for the game when i try it again and keep dying.

Bioshock- I need to complete this game. I need to complete this game. I need to complete this game. I'll probably have to start it again though, i hate picking a game up again midway after leaving it for a long time.

There's also a couple of other games that haven't even made it on the list of games that i need to play such as Condemned (still in the wrapping), PGR4, Burnout Paradise, Hellboy (i will complete it, even though it is poo) and Mass Effect.

I've also got Chronos Trigger and Dragon Quest IV to complete before Dragon Quest V comes out!!! Too many games man...

In other news, I'm very happy that Lost is back on TV, if i could be any character in the show i would be Sayid- I even reckon he would beat Altair in a fight.

The title of this entry may be a bit harsh but i have my suspicions. I've just bought a new xbox, the old trusty xbox (date of manufacture: October 05) has coughed up its last diseased lung and is going to be laid to rest at the bottom of my wardrobe. I wanted to buy an Elite but was put off by the price and the need to send off for a Data transfer kit, so i've bought an Arcade xbox and i am using my old hard drive. As part of the bundle i've got Gears of War 2 and Lord of The Rings Conquest. I hate GoW but i think i'm gonna have to give it another chance, if i still don't like it i will just trade it for something else (probably when Street Fighter comes out).

So hopfully i wont suffer from phantom unreadable (often brand new) discs and all the problems that i had with the old box.

I'm thinking of opening up my old xbox and using it for a novelty purpose... any suggestions are welcome, at the moment my best idea is to use it as a flower pot.

Reading was a drag, it feels good to be back home, I have 30 minutes before the missus arrives so i thought i'd write some rubbish on here.

The highlight of my week away from home (and more importantly, my Xbox) was that i was able to get well acquainted with my DS and the pirate fun that comes with it. The games that i have been enjoying this week include Dragon Quest IV, Metroid Prime Pinball, N+, Advance Wars, Phoenix Wright and *cough* brain training *cough*.

One game that did annoy and disappoint me was Mario 64 DS, I had quite fond memories of this game when i used to own an N64 so i thought that i'd enjoy revisiting it again, I was wrong. The camera and controls are awful although i'd probably say that that's down to the DS conversion, i couldn't stand playing it for long. I also gave the Starfox game a go but it was rubbish, why couldn't they have just jazzed up the graphics of the original?

I'm particularly enjoying Dragon Quest, i forgot how odd and British it can be, the translators at Square Enix did a great job, i especially enjoyed the ropey Eastern European-English, it made me chuckle. Dragon Quest V should be good.

My mission to make all of my friends buy Left4Dead continues with varying degrees of success; the only friends that want to buy it are the only friends that can't afford to buy it... bugger.

I've decided to avoid playing the Resi 5 demo, i will just buy it and moan afterwards. I've been quite amused by the backlash that it's been getting, why are people moaning that the controls are awkward, that you can't reload quickly and you can't do it when you're running? Have these people never played a Resident Evil game before?!?

This will probably be my only blog entry for a week or so because i have to go to Reading on Monday for my apprenticeship...

I've spent most of this week playing Lost Odyssey, i'm 22 hours into it and i'm enjoying it but it's begining to drag a little bit, there is just too much fmv and not enough action... I will persevere though.

Out of boredom i've decided to write about the next five songs that randomly play on my mp3 player (no matter how strange they may be) and jot down my thoughts of them for as long as the song lasts...

1, Lucky Seven By The Skatelites
: This song is from a compilation called Trojan Mod Reggae (which is a brilliant boxset that i would recommend to anyone) that is filled with old ska and reggae that make me wish i was old enough to have been around when they originally came out. Listening to this song make me want to wear a hat and dance around a bit. If you're into your ska-punk that made a come back x amount of years ago (reel big fish, capdown et al) then i'd suggest getting this box set, or at least downloading this song, t'is great.

2, Gone by M83: French post-rock with a healthy dose of electronica in it. I'm a massive fan of Mogwai and whilst M83 don't dip into the heavy guitar noise as much as them i still think that they are brilliant. This song builds up slowly and them begins to whirl around with a blend of guitar, synths and drum, that can only be described as beautiful noise. I can imagine this music being used in a huge Sci-Fi epic of a game and in my head this would be playing at the closing credits of Dead Space... It's probably not the best song by M83 because i don't think it ends strongly, it really could have done with a huge crecendo.

3, I'm a song by ooioo: I have no idea how to pronounce the name of this band. The only way that i could describe the sound of this song would be that it would quite easily slot into 'We love Katamari'. Sometimes i like to listen to a band that depress the hell out of me, the kind of band that are quite happy to deal with dark, dark imagery and excel in introspective reflection and then sometimes i like to listen to a band that sound like Rick Wakeman on industrial grade acid. I'd say that these guys fall into the latter category.

4, Last Day of The miner's strike by Pulp. Jarvis Cocker is a genius. I find it upsetting that when most people think of britpop they think of Blur and Oasis when Pulp were by far the greatest thing about the decade. Pulp managed to go unnoticed for about 15 years, releasing some iffy records and some works of genius. The John Peel Sessions are incredible and is a good way of gauging how much they developed and perfected their Northern critique on modern life. This song is great, it spans across a number of years and proclaims that 'the north is rising', which as a northerner i can profess is true. I really like the sadness and bitterness in "87 socialism gave way to socialising", the idea that everyone became more interested in themselves instead of uniting together to make things better. The way that Jarvis screams 'Get it on' by the end of the song is like a really vacant rallying cry that after everything that has happened doesn't mean too much. Jarvis Cocker is a Genius.

5, Tom Waits rip off by sweet baboo
This song sounds like it was recorded in a bath, but in a good way. This is an honest, open song that seems irreverant at first singing about B-movie heroes "Bruce Campbell was a man, with a chainsaw for a hand and he killed the undead but was bad and i wish that was me" then Sweet Baboo (babs to his mates) begins to plead with God to not let him die because he is 'The new phil spector', i love his self deprecating lyrics; are humourous and leftfield that manage to still sound right for the lo-fi gospel sound of the song.

Like any good cd, here is a....

Bonus Track...That's where it's at by Sam Cooke: I've been playing this song a lot lately when my girlfriend is around because i'm determined to have this song played at our wedding (we're not getting married yet or anything, i haven't even proposed, but i love her and if i am going to marry her, this will be the song that we will dance to). Sam Cooke was incredible, his voice is beautiful and soulful and the production of his songs are perfect. There is no better sound than old soul from the motown and stax days, if pop music sounded like this today i think that people would be happier and respect each other more (idealistic you may say, but in 40 years time and we look back at our '****c' pop songs we will have Gareth Gates, Westlife and Robbie Williams, who would you rather dance to, them? or Marvin Gaye, The Temptations and Sam Cooke?), and if people were still full of hate and anger after listening to those songs at least we can then dismiss them as being criminally insane.

The Battlefront III video

I've always been a fan of the battlefront series, anything that lets you kill Ewoks and be Boba Fett is ok in my books, however, am I the only person who was slightly underwhelmed by the leaked video of SBIII footage online?

As i've only just become used to the novelty of the internet i still habitually use the poor mans internet, teletext, to get my daily dose of Game Central, generally they seem pretty rational and immune to getting excited but by the way that they described this video you would expect it to be earth shatteringly amazing (the only time that i can say that i was stunned into disbelief by the beauty of a gaming moment was the first time, many years ago, that i saw That FMV sequence in Final Fantasy VII).

The footage looks exactly the same as the last two, which admitedly is a good thing because they were great, but they don't look like they were pushing the boat out to create something different. The flying mechanics look exactly the same (slightly slow, pointless and tacked on) and the wrapping the grappling hook around the AT-AT's legs looked AWESOME(5 years ago, seeing it being used again and again is like watching your favourite comedian reuse old material).

I know i seem quite cynical about the game, i don't mean to be, I will definitely buy it on the day of release because i think that the series is entertaining, i just don't understand why that clip is getting everybody excited when there is nothing in it that we haven't seen already.

I am now the proud owner of a DS lite, my third DS lite in fact, I sold the first one a couple of months after buying it because i was bored of waiting for a decent game to appear. The second DS went the same way as the first and was sold because of my chronic boredom with the DS catalogue of games (and also partly due to a lack of money) so i got rid of it and bought an Xbox with the proceeds!

So i have no regrets about my previous periods of DS ownership, I do feel a little embarrassed this time though (and a little pleased too) because i also bought an R4 cartridge... I know that this makes me the devil in some people's eyes but i tried to rationalize it like thus... I've bought 3 DS lites so Nintendo have made a bit of cash out of my easily-susceptible-to-media'd ass and i would never buy a brand new ds game anymore when you can get them pre-owned so Ninty never would have seen any of that money anyway. I don't think video game stores are gonna start dying at any point soon either despite the recession affecting everyone else (RIP Free Radical).

I've spent a lot of time downloading the majority of the DS games that i wanted now (many that i previously owned anyway) so now i have my shiny DS and a decent collection of games. I've also tried a couple of awful games such as Teenage Zombies, English of the Dead, TMNT and Micromachines (to name a few). I was especially disappointed with Micromachines as i have been with every release after having such happy memories of the Amiga and Gameboy versions.

This is my first soiree into pirated games and the like and i'll be honest, i like it. I'm not gonna start modding my Xbox or what have you, it's just that i really don't think that the majority of DS games out on the market are good enough to justify paying £30 for.

So... My list of Illegally procured DS games...

Advance Wars - Dual Strike

Apollo Justice - Ace attorney

Brain Training (1 and 2) I'm a geek i know, but i am terrible at maths and this kind of helps (and being an apprentice engineer i probably should try to brush up on it)

Dragon Quest IV

Elite Beat Agents

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings

Grid (not tried this yet, probably wont like it but i am willing to give it a go)

Hotel Dusk - Room 215 (I've wanted to play this for a long time, so it will inevitably be rubbish)

Mario Kart

Mario And Luigi - Partners in Time

Metroid Prime Pinball

My French Coach (hmm yes, lets move on...)

New Super Mario Brothers

Nintendogs (erm... yeah, i've had to allocate a bit of space on my cartridge for a couple of girly games for Dawn)

Pheonix Wright

Pokemon Diamond (Dawn's girly game #2) - I'm not saying that pokemon is for girls, it's just that she likes it and i don't get it...

Professor Layton

Puzzle Quest

Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution

Soul Bubbles

Super Mario 64

Teenage Zombies (haven't deleted it yet, the intro was quite nice though)

Tetris

The World Ends With You

Touch The Dead (not tried this yet, I know nothing about it and i'm intrigued, and if you haven't guessed yet; i quite like zombies, so this will inevitably have nothing to do with Zombies)

Trauma Center 1 and 2

Ultimate Spiderman (because i can't say no to spiderman games, even if the other format versions were rubbish)

WarioWare Touched! (Dawn's girly game #3)- This Is a girly game. absolute rubbish.

Worms

Yoshi's Island

That's the list, I would really appreciate any suggestions for games that i should look for, I'm trying to find space for Chrono Trigger but i haven't managed it yet...