I have been slacking off as far as posting or "GameSpot-ting" lately. It is not the fact that I have much to do at work, nor the fact that I am too busy playing console video games…I am actually addicted, and it is a very bad addiction, very time consuming. Ha ha..

Nah, I actually got Football Manager 2011 recently and I have been glued to my laptop for the past week…But let me start from the beginning.

In the midst of waiting for price drops on all new good games that I am interested in (Dead Space 2, Two Worlds 2 and soon Dragon Age 2, LA NOIR and so on) I started re-playing some of my old games that I have in my collection. Well, it so happened that I started with Oblivion, fully knowing that this title will take me forever (and by that I mean months of gameplay) to complete on a close to a 100%. There is just so much to do. I purchased six houses so far and have furnished all of them with all possible options as far as furniture. Only those, who have played Oblivion would know that your character would be needing a colossal amount of gold to do just that. Well, it got kind of got boring as I was doing quests, almost over with the main quest (I gotta save Bruma, which happens to be just south of Skyrim (*hint*new*Elder*Scrolls*game*))…

So, I go on eBay for 10 minutes just to see what's new and BOOM! Purchased Football Manager 2011 for a cut price…I love good deals! Anyway, I received it and have been so addicted to it, even though the game is hard but the level of detail that you can actually get involved with your club is unprecedented. As always I am playing with my beloved Arsenal…

Not only am I playing on football (soccer) manager but I am also getting extremely excited about this Wednesday's David vs. Goliath spectacle between the mighty Barcelona and the inconsistent Arsenal. I am leaving work early and I have made the following preparations:

1. I will be by myself watching the game, so nobody would be on the receiving end of my anger IF (ahh, who am I kidding? WHEN) Barca score.

2. I have purchased 3 bottles of full-bodied Shiraz (made in Australia)…

3. I have frozen pizza in the fridge which I will be snacking on while watching the game.

4. I have purchased two boxes of Kleenex tissue paper to wipe my tears or clean everything else that gets dirty from throwing pizza slices or breaking wine glasses.

5. I have informed my friends not to piss me off by texting me if the result is unsatisfactory for my Gunners.

Well, I hope I am prepared for the massacre on Wednesday afternoon (or night in London)…

Go Gunners, Go Arsenal! Hope you have a great game and keep a clean sheet!!!!!!!!

Go Gooners!!!

EvilSelf….

p.s. I will be laughing today when the Spurs lose agains AC MILAN…ha ha ha ha Spuds….

EvilSelf's Army of Two Review here.

Army of Two: 40th Day - You cant go wrong with the second installment of Army of Two. Same game mechanics, more of the same so to speak.

Gears of War series - If you are looking for a great cooperative shooter with a decent story look no further than Gears of War series - tons of fun and great characters.

Borderlands - outstanding co-op FPS with RPG elements, even though it lacks in an engaging story. It will provide you with hundreds of hours of gameplay.

EvilSelf...

I am at a point where i need to do something radical. I am talking about a career path, career development and overall success. Being involved in the IT for the past 2 years (you know, being a rookie starting low and aiming high) does not give me any piece of mind at all. As some of you might know, the quickest way to learn new things and climb higher and higher are job progression and searching for that new opportunity. Looking at some of the so called "IT positions available" i cant seem to be able to comprehend the need for experienced IT personnel...How in the world am i going to get there if nobody is willing to teach "the dog how to make tricks"? Or at least give a platform, where you can actually learn, apply and make a difference, other than doing a project for a freaking grade at school...Who would give a curious, hard-working, reliable and knowledgable (and new knowledge-thursty) IT youngster an opportunity? Shocking stuff...

All you people still in school, think ahead and think well, because once you graduate, it is not what you learned in school but what you can do in real life...it is not about your grades...Nobody would care about your straight A's or whatever...it is about having luck and your ability to apply IT techniques in real world...Who give a da*n if you can recite what object-oriented programming is? Can you be a part of large-scale integrated IT and Web infrastructure? it is frustrating when there are so many jobs available for experienced professionals. Duh...give me a damn chance to get there and give me that experience!

"IT" folks, depressing is the state my mind is today. Man, i gotta learn everything by myself, any new upcoming technologies, any new trend in Web Development, Unix-based scripting and maintanance, pretty much everything...Not only that, but i wont be able to apply what i have learned in a real-life, mission or company critical applications...It DOES make a difference if you have a platform to actually test and apply your learned skills, rather than pure book-reading at home and the occasionaly Perl script or miniature Java app to make you feel better at the end of the day...:Woohooo...i learned something new and wrote this little program here that does this...!" So what?

I will finish my rant with the wise words to those who want to enter the hurricane called IT: "learn , apply, learn, apply, learn, apply and at the end of the day - re-visit what you have done previously"...Because, you would consider yourselves a lottery winner should your employer build your career for you...

EvilSelf...

Well, 2011 is here and 11 days in already i had to stop and think for a moment. As i am sipping on a morning cup of coffee (Folgers, Yakhh.., but it is free)and going through GameSpot's forums to do a little posting, i cant stop thinking about how boring these 11 days have been for me...

First, it feels like there are not any good games coming out for a whole 25 days (until Dead Space 2 comes out)...I have been re-playing old titles that i have in my collection. I started with Metro 2033 and surpirsingly enough i was able to do what i wanted to do in that game - be a stealthy-type of a player. There are also one or two achievements for "not killing anybody at all on a particular level" so i was able to do those. Amazing game Metro 2033 is, and i would recommend it to all my friends and blog-readers. Then i jumped the bandwagon to Mass Effect 1. Man, this game is so amazing (you can seriously feel my excitement as if i was a kid in candy store), the final battle is so epic and the ending music - nothing short of epicness, epicness, epicness....Today (after work) i will be starting The Darkness (again)...

Secondly, i have not been able to watch a lot of sports lately. I am a big football (the soccer type LOL) and ice hockey fan, but there haven't been any games on TV lately...Kinda getting frustrated about it because this period of 2011 is so boring that the lack of proper entertainment for myself only makes it more and more boring...You know what i mean? Well, the indoor soccer season started last Sunday and we barely won our first game: 5:3...I love playing football/soccer/...

Lastly, i want to thank _Doomsayer_ who reminded me of a movie that i had intended to watch many months ago but kind of forgot about it : The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. Well, i received the DVD yesterday and watched it and i liked it a lot. My type of movie and i can recommend it to anybody that likes mystery thrillers, intertwined with PC/geek/gothic-looking hacker as one of the main characters..Of course it is rated R so warnings there...

Not much happening these days for me, work is work, life is life, just the boring type...

Let's finish with a quote from Jackie Estecado (just thought of it and made me feel good ;-)):

"These f***in' morons think i was born yesterday..."

'Til next time,

EvilSelf...

EvilSelf's Alpha Protocol Review here!

Mass Effect - the Mass Effect series is the only game i have played that comes close to the idea behind AP. Even though Mass Effect takes place in the future the high-tech world and the RPG elements are very similar to AP. Actually, Mass Effect is a blockbuster that should be tried by any gamer no matter what type of games they like.

EvilSelf...

1. Oblivion - open-world? Tick. Lots of quests? Tick. Long? Tick. But yeah, Oblivion will provide you with majority of the RPG goodies that Risen has to offer, bar the difficulty level.

2. Dragon Age Origins - not much can be said about DAO as far as similarities to Risen, but the fact that the Fantasy setting is present and the epicness of the story. To me, Risen is much, much better Role Playing Game.

3. Arcania Gothic 4 - Gothic series should have been like Risen, but Gothic 4 has nothing to do with it. Despite this fact, if you are looking for an RPG that is simple and easy to pick up then try AG4. Dont expect the complex role play, the amount of quests and overall quality to be the same as Risen.

EvilSelf...

(Click on the blog title, so you can see everything in full screen, if you please)

Well, fellow gamer guys, gamer galls and GameSpot aficionados, it is THE time of the year…A time when someone looks back, reminiscing about the good times, the bad times, the missed opportunities, the exciting new beginnings and most of all - wishes of a good and successful year ahead of us.

This will be my final blog for this year and everything that I have come to appreciate (or hate) will be shared with you – my GameSpot friends. Please enjoy the blog and hopefully you get to feel the excitement, the dislike or any other feeling I felt while I was conducting the below-mentioned activities.

Beginning of a new year – 2010 – God, I hope Garrus is back!

While spending the majority of the time off me and my girl had (over 2009's winter holiday season) playing local co-op games like Gears of War 2 or Army of Two, I could not wait until the long awaited Mass Effect 2 hit the market in January. Believe me when I say that I am not big fan of Sci-fi (Star Wars/Trek-like) entertainment, but I decided to give Mass Effect 1 a shot the previous year. And boy, am I glad that I did! So, while eagerly anticipating ME2 I went ahead and purchased Army of Two 2: The 40th Day. The only reason I was keen on it was because it featured a full scale local co-op support – something that we don't see very often any more. When you have someone that you share a living with, then you'd better have a way to incorporate your gaming habits with them, or else you risk a potential of "domestic violence" Haha…Just a word of advice…

Mass Effect 2 came and I was blown away – the opening sequence, the return of "Archangel" and the introduction of Legion were moment that will make me come back again and again to this highly acclaimed franchise.

"Would you kindly"…

I have to be honest – the most anticipated game in the beginning of the new year was none other than Bioshock 2. The story, the characters, the "plot twist" in the end of Bioshock made my…"insides boil". You know what I mean? I loved this game so much, the steampunk-like underwater world of Rapture, the setting. So, a Collector Edition, here I come!

"Please call me York, that's what everyone calls me…"

I have always been a huge David Lynch fan. His 90s TV show Twin Peaks is by far my favorite TV series ever, forever. When Alan Wake was first introduced I was so hyped up for this game, that I could not wait to get my hands on it. In order to help the time pass quicker I ended up playing Aliens VS Predator (did not like it), Final Fantasy 13 (Square Enix, you are in trouble!), Metro 2033 (very underappreciated game, I love it)…But one game, which after getting a review score of 2 (yes, TWO) on IGN, I never expected to steal the show of 2010 and be a strong contender for my GOTY of 2010 – Deadly Premonition. Here I am purchasing this "slated" game just until I get my hands on Alan Wake and playing it again and again and again. I have never seen or experienced a more unique, more disturbing or psychologically-mind-bending story than Deadly Premonition's…"So says Mr. Stewart…"

NOTE: Played Alan Wake once and ended up selling it. I cannot believe Deadly Premonition turned out to be the better game – by a mile.

Marston…John Marston.

Having never finished GTAIV (which was a very good game in the beginning, it is just that I got bored for some reason) I had very high doubts whether I will like Red Dead Redemption. Luckily I ended up buying it and I experienced an outstanding cinematic journey – a Wild West story, a setting that I am fond of, since I grew up reading Western-themed books. I mean, seriously – this game felt flawless – outstanding characters, soundtrack, story, emotion, voice acting, everything was top notch and there should not be a single person who has played RDR and does not think it deserves a GOTY nomination. I know it got one for my GOTY….

Singularity, Mafia 2, Fifa 11…

My gaming "career" continued playing a Metro 2033-like adventure called Singularity (good game), 2K Czech's Mafia 2 (amazing game) and the long awaited by me Fifa 11 (being a huge football (soccer) fan I spent lots of hours with just me, my buddies and some ice cold Nuka Co…I mean beer). Other games I played during this period was Dead Space (amazing game) and Arcania: Gothic 4 (an "ok" RPG).

"The game was rigged from the start…" (The most awaited, anticipated, craved, desired game for me)

I am pretty sure if i were to have any white hairs on my head right now, they are from playing the Fallout series. Every single hour I played Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas has been a pleasure, mixed with an occasional anger at some technical blemishes that (for me at least) CANNOT change my opinion on what I think is my all time favorite game series now. Fallout New Vegas was called a "technical disaster" but I had an outstanding time with it. Every moment felt a "climax", a "culmination", an "answer to an enigma".

Playing any game for so long would only make one fall in love with it. And this is what happened to me. Fallout series and Bethesda's take on them (or transformation) is a gaming moment that I will always cherish. I am so addicted to them that I even spent a fortune when I purchased a Fallout 3's director Todd Howard (Dude you are great!, keep up the good work)-signed Vault Boy Bobblehead. It made me feel so good, that I finally had a piece of the series, I had a "contact" with the development team that brought me this awesome game.

Not, only that but I also acquired a "center piece" for my gaming room – a Fallout New Vegas Neon Sign…Now, am I addicted to these games or what? Thank you Bethesda, Todd Howard and Obsidian as well for giving me an idea how to spend the best part of my gaming "career"!

The rest…

During 2010 I also purchased many other games, which were for my girl to play – Halo Reach (she is a big Halo fan, for what that's worth), Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Fable 3, Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition.

The worst game I played this year…

Arcania Gothic 4 is NOT the worst game out there. Heck, the game is fun. But out of the crop of titles that I have played it was the most generic one, introducing nothing to the RPG genre. It was just (as I called it in my review) an "RPG thirst quencher".

My Game of the Year…

4. Mass Effect 2 – the lack of RPG elements really bothered me. It was a tremendous movie-like experience but lackluster side missions/exploring

3. Red Dead Redemption – I felt like RDR is flawless. Truly a must try for any gamer – whether you like GTA or not.

2. Deadly Premonition – my love towards the surreal horror and psychological thrillers (not to mention Twin Peaks) was truly satisfied with this game. Low production values, but when you experience the best and most unique story in a video game, then that changes everything. Thank you Swery65 (the game director of DP)!

1. Fallout New Vegas – Glitchy? Yes. Nerve-wrecking? Sometimes? Can you do what you want to do? Yes. A true RPG? Yes. Worth your money? Yes. Hundreds of hours of fun gameplay? Yes.

Well, it was a long blog, but it was well worth it. The passing 2010 gaming year was a good one for me and just by looking at what the next year has to offer, one can only lick their lips, drool a little bit and save lots and lots of cash for future gaming purchases.

To all family and friends (online and offline) wish you good health (most important "PERK" you can get from life) and a happy new year!

EvilSelf…

1. Metro 2033 - I found Metro 2033 to be superior to Singularity, but both games feature a good story, graphics, atmosphere and...Russians..in abundance!

2. Bioshock Series - Singularity's dark and kind of gloomy atmosphere (with lots of usage of blue and green, the "sea colors") will remind you of Rapture. Yes, the gameplay mechanics of Singularity are very similar to those of Bioshock so you will be enjoying the fun three times as much (of course, playing all three games - B1, B2 and Singularity).

3. Stalker Series (PC ONLY) - You want a game that offers more than Singularity and Metro 2033 combined? Try the Stalker series - one of the best PC exclusives ever (with all the mods of course).

EvilSelf...

1. The Darkness - The Darkness has it all - compelling story, excellent voice acting and stunning graphics. It even adds a bit of supernatura and fictional to the traditional mob story. A game not be missed if you are a fan of Mafia 2.

2. Mafia - The original Mafia (only on PC, sorry console guys) is what started it all. If you get passed the dated graphics, the game will offer plenty of exciting moment and also plenty or restarts and retries. Why? Because the first Mafia is a very hard game. Have fun!

EvilSelf...

1. Fallout New Vegas - if you liked Fallout 3 you will love Fallout New Vegas. Same concept and graphics, better role-play

2. Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion - there are not many games like the Fallout series to be honest, but try Oblivion if you like Fallout's gameplay and you dont mind fantasy world RPGs.

NOTE: I would suggest Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 as well but i am not sure they will be appealing to majority of the gamers nowadays (due to dated graphics and being PC exclusive). If you think those don't bother you then give the first two games in the series a shot.

EvilSelf...