It's another impulse buy. I went and got Marvel versus Capcom 2 for the PS2 today which cost £19.99 pre-owned. I also traded in about 8 games just to get £13 off. Thats like £2 a game. They were mostly decent Xbox games that I had finished or just didn't play anymore but I still think I should have kept some of them. I mean, Unreal Championship 2 is good right? It's shocking what they offer you when you trade games in. They have to be worth more than a pound for games like Half-Life 2. I bet they will sell it for like £10, although Xbox games don't seem to be selling much these days. Thats probably why they're almost worthless when trading in. Damn, should've thought of that :(

At least the game was worth it this time. It is pretty fun to play even the computer and I've barely gotten into it. I have been playing loads of fighting games recently, I picked up Street Fighter Alpha Anthology a few weeks ago and blew the dust off of King of Fighters '02 earlier today. I even got a fighting game controller for the PS2 with the six button layout. Only cost £10.

I just wish I could play some human players...

Everyday this month I walked past my local Gamestation and noticed a cheap Dreamcast in the window, it was only £27 with 4 (crappy) games. After checking the other DC games they had in-store about 20 times, I decided to just go for it. So when I went in today the guys behind the counter were glad when I asked for the DC. They wanted to get rid of it and a huge pile of games they had in the stock room. They even dropped the price of all the games to just £1 each. I thought that I might aswell go for it and get loads now while I could for so cheap. The whole bundle included:

The Console, 2 controllers and a Memory card

Aero Wings

Charge 'N Blast (free since it was just the disc)

Crazy Taxi

Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future

Grandia II

Jet Set Radio

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Metropolis Street Racer

Sega Rally Championship 2

Shenmue II

Sonic Adventure (with another free copy)

Sonic Adventure 2

Soul Calibur

Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles

Star Wars Demolition

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer

I actually intended to get a Sega Saturn but the bundle I wanted was sold just yesterday! It came with Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sonic Jam, Virtua Fighter 2 and Command & Conquer. Gutted:(

I just bought a DS and yes it was worth it! So far I'm very impressed, I got New Super Mario Bros with it and its great fun. Even my none-game playing family love it.

At first I kinda regretted blowing £120. Then when I got home it didn't really matter that it cost so much, it was money well spent in my honest opinion. I was never really into handhelds but this totally changed my mind about them. It even got me playing old GBA games again :P

Now I have to start saving for a xbox 360 all over again...

My first paycheck came through today :D So now comes the dilema - What to buy! I've pretty much narrowed it down to either a Xbox 360 or a new Bass Guitar. Its difficult to choose because I can think of plenty reason why I should and shouldn't get either.

For a start, I've already got loads of games (some of which I haven't even started!) to play and I know that I dont need more. I havent always got a lot of time to play games often anyway. But I am looking for an excuse to get a 360, Xbox Live certainly is enticing...

Also, I already have an electric guitar and my brother has a tattered old bass that I sometimes use so maybe I dont need one just yet. But he doesnt let me use it most of the time and its just a cheap 4-string that doesnt sound great. I am pretty sure that I'll play it all the time if I get one. (gonna go with a EDB605 if anyone knows what that is.)

My birthday is coming soon so I might aswell wait till then and get both if I cant decide :)

Yep, I've started college this week and my first job starts on Saturday. I'm not going to have a lot of time for gamespot sadly, or anything for that matter because college is during the week and the job is all weekend. How crappy is that gonna be! During the past few months I havent had to do anything since I left school. Late nights, very long lys in bed... and now I'm straight in the deep end with 6-7 day weeks. :(

There is a good side to this though, the money is well worth all that since I get paid to go to college :D so in a few weeks, its time for a 360 and xbox live me thinks!!

Again I've been buying a lot of games recently. In the last few months I got all these; Heritage of Kings, Armed and Dangerous, SSX On Tour, Resident Evil Outbreak, Crash Bandicoot Wrath of Cortex, Syberia 2, Broken Sword 3, Fahrenheit, Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes, Worms 3D, Capcom Vs SNK 2 EO and a bunch of Megadrive and NES games. The main reason was that they were really cheap. How crazy is that for 2 months! I always walk into a shop just for a look and end up buying something I know I won't have to time to play. I do want the games, its just I never have enough time to play them all. Most of them I have played for about an hour tops.

And the fact that before I went on this insane spending spree, I managed to get Final Fantasy 8 for the first time just makes it worse. Having never played it before, I was keen to experience one of the best games ever made. Now I've got 12 other games in the way. I'm always really bad like this, I never get round to finishing most games without starting something else beforehand. The majority of the games in my collection are about half/three quarters finished. I still have games I got for Christmas to complete! I can live without finishing Crash Bandicoot right away I guess but I don't want to miss out on the more story driven games.

All the short adventure type games are at the top of my list to finish at the moment. Broken Sword 3, Syberia 2 and Armed and Dangerous probably. I'm gonna finish the shorter games first because if I start playing Final Fantasy 8 I will definitely get distracted with something else, cause that game is immense and I want to play it all at once(or around the same time). Thats whats wrong, I can never stick with 1 game at a time, especially if its Final Fantasy. I still haven't finished 7 (lol) but I am very far into it (excuses...) Longer games are great if its an adventure or RPG, story based, but most others I just cant be bothered going all the way to the end if its too long. It gets kinda boring and tedious to finish some games with picking something else up. I will always finish them at some point though.

Not that I don't like long games, I do but if I'm going to buy a lot of games like I have done recently, I'd prefer them to be shorter and more suited to quick play-throughs so I could do a few at once without worrying about the story or getting confused. Once I have less games to complete I will go back to the longer ones like both Final Fantasy's. I hope I don't see any more cheap games in the mean time.

Forget the "Retro Phase." Now its the Adventure game phase. I've recently bought a bunch of them and I'm glad I did. Its always been my favourite genre but I had forgotten how much I enjoy them. When I first got a PS1 it came with a demo of Broken Sword and it ended up being the only game I played for a while. I loved point and click games ever since:P

I got Broken Sword 1+2 Double Pack, Broken Sword 3, Syberia 2 and Fahrenheit over the past month and can't get enough of them. Its hard to believe that the genre is getting less popular. They aren't even the best examples. Games like Beneath A Steel Sky, Day Of The Tentacle and Sam & Max are some of the best games of all time. So why are there less and less new games like them coming out? Its not like it's impossible to make a game as good as those nowadays...

All week I've been buying old games, trying to better my collection. Pretty much bought out all the decent games from my local Gamestation. Whenever I see a rare game somewhere, I'm usually back the next day to get it. I guess it would be ok if a had a proper job...

I consider myself a collector of old school games but without a huge collection as of yet. I mainly focus on Nes, Snes and Mega Drive when buying/playing old games. Recently I haven't even looked at my Xbox to play a game which is kind of worrying. My PS2 is on, to play PS1 games. I still like the current generation of games but I never really want to play them anymore. Hopefully I won't end up trading my Xbox in for something stupid like a Sega 32X or some ancient Atari PC that barely works. I just hope all this retro buying pays off. :P

After I wrote my first game review I realised that you need to take a lot of things into consideration when doing one. Will anyone read it? Will it make even the slightest difference? Will I be allowed to be smug over a job well done? No.

I chose to review Wolfenstein 3D on the Snes because I owned it and there were no other reviews for it. Valid reason right? well no. Who the hell is gonna care about a 12 year old Snes game that is kinda rubbish anyway. Only the most dedicated of fan boys. Thats the impression i got from my friends who saw it. They write reviews for games like Oblivion and Halo 2. Which is no bad thing cause everyone knows about them and will definitely play them. People might want to get other opinions on the game. There are probably hundreds of user reviews for those games already so is there much chance of someone taking notice in one of those reviews my friends did? not really (but probably more than wolfenstein.) There's not a lot of people who will spend hours looking through all the reviews and judging them all. Basically, your review probably won't be read by most people if you review a popular game.

Thats the "dilemma." Do I write a review for a game that already had plenty of user reviews because it's popular or do i find some bizarre unheard of game that maybe 5 people know about and review it cause no one else has. Maybe I will just review my favourite games from now on.

So if you do want your review to be read by a lot of people, which type of game do you review?