Wasn´t much of a surprise yesterday to see Call of Duty: Black Ops getting a raving review for what, to be honest, doesn´t really look any different to the previous games.

OK - Why change a winning formula... But c´mon, it's the same dish with new decoration... The zombies are back; the weapons are different but the core game mechanics are the same - but the brain in neutral and the trigger finger on overdrive... yaawn.

They dissed Medal of Honor; trounced Fable 3 for being the same as Fable 2 (so its bad with Fable, good with COD?), yet surprisingly when faced with the best paid, I mean known franchise on the XBOX, they give it a whopping 9 out of 10.

Will probably wait til the hysteria (and prices) drop a little before seeking out a second hand copy of this one!

Again, looks like 2010 is a year of disappointments in the long run for gaming ;o(

Starting to get very worried... I´ve followed Medal of Honor & FallOut:New Vegas on Gamespot, watching each video or reading each new snippet of news only to be bitterly disappointed when the games are finally launched with samey gameplay (MOH) or, worse still in my book, being asked to pay a wod-load of cash for a game with more glitches than Microsoft Vista (FO:NV)... Shame on you Bethesda!

I´m looking forward to the new Fable game, but now with a nervous heart... I REALLY LOVE Fable 2 and hope that Fable 3 will go beyond my expectations by building on all the strengths and novel touches/mini games and side quests that Fable 2 presented with ease...

Please... PLEASE deliver a product worthy of the name and not a rush-job like FallOut:New Vegas...

If the Chicken Run esque video is anything to go by.. this is gonna be ace!

It´s been ages since my last post but things are taking their time with Fallout 3... By accident I stumbled through Operation Anchorage (probaby the most straight forward of the DLCs) and also Mothership Zeta and I´ve also managed to visit all the locations of the map, so I guess it´s also time to start following the story...

Problem is, I´ve recently become the proud owner of Fable 2 (which my girlfriend is playing at the moment); GTA IV (a classic I snapped up for 2o Euros from Play.com) and Bad Company all battling for my attention...

Decisions, decisions!..

I´ve also managed, at last, to get a decent internet connection so will hopefully be investing in XBOX LIVE GOLD in a few months so I can finally finish off Bad Company online and start Bad Company 2.

For now, the Wastes await... One day I´m gonna finish this game...

Thanks to stupid Microsoft red tape I´m revisiting all my old games and, in some respects, they did me a favour...

I´ve forgotten just how much fun Fallout 3 could be... wandering the wastes discovering new places, new people and making whacking raiders into a profitable sideline, or carefully exploring the secrets of a location, only to check the clock and see half the night fly by...

For this reason I thought I´d share with you a few general tips on how to maximise the wasteland...:

1) AVOID the main quests for as long as possible... If not, you´ll be finished before uncovering many of the side quests and locations which don´t serve for anything other than "mutant target practice", "Raider hunting" or uncovering sidelines about Chinese spys in Food Factories or that Giant Killer Ants and mining don´t mix...

2) When you find a new location, return to Megaton, dump all your excess weight and return with the essentials ONLY (normally abour 54 with 3 guns, armour and a stealth boy). When you enter, find a storage point (ammo box, metal box, desk or locker) and use it as a staging point. When you´re close to full weight, return to this point and leave EVERYTHING, then continue exploring. Remember if the entrance was guarded, the bodies also serve as excellent storage points...

3) Take everything - even scorched books or coffee mugs can be sold to traders or Moira and quick caps.

4) Once fully explored, repair everything you can to reduce weight. Then, simply use the "Quick Travel" between the location and your Megaton House to transport your new found "loot". I usually do it in three trips - Weapons & Armour; Components for Unique Weapons and "crap".

5) Depending on the weight, it can also be profitable to walk back to Megaton loaded with crap items (eg coffee mugs, cutting boards, books etc) so you can accidently "bump" into raider gangs and rob them of their gear, and lives. By the time you arrive at the gates of Megaton, with any luck a trader will be waiting so you can sell all you have. Full of caps and with less weight, you can now run into Megaton, load up on items, go outside and clean the trader of all his caps. Use the wait option, set 2 hrs, and repeat with the next trader until you´ve sold all the useless items you have, or the traders simply have no more caps.

6) The mini-quest "Wasteland Survival Guide" is a very good quest to follow as the various locations involved open up lots of interesting locations to explore before you reach "objectives" such as Rivet City, the Supadupa Mart or the National Archive...

Using these simple tricks, you can make the endless hours "wasted" roaming the wasteland very profitable and fun...

After an incredible 4 MONTHS awaiting the arrival of this game (someone in the Spanish Postal Service now has 3 copies of this game - enjoy!) I was nervous when I ranked up my XBOX to be greeted by the black n white intro screen. Would this be worth the wait, or the biggest disappointment since the 2010 England World Cup squad??

Luckily, Operation Flashpoint 2 Dragon Rising is everything I hoped for and more - a refreshing and realistic first person shooter which, while not everyone´s cup of tea, with a little patience it slowly becomes one of the most engaging and realistic war experiences I´ve seen on the XBOX...

Spray and play freaks stay well clear, using tactics like this in OF2DR only leads to a quick and annoying death - one bullet can screw 40 minutes of careful planning and patient tactics. Your squad are not the sharpest tools in the box either... forget support like you might find from Sarge, Sweets or Haggard in Bad Company... Here the squad is slow to respond, or simply have a death wish - order them to move to cover and they run towards the enemy; line up the perfect headshot only to have a squaddie run in front of your shot... grrr!

Still, small nidges aside OF2DR does exactly what it says on the box... you scan the treeline for enemies; issue orders and move slowly from one objective to the next, with full freedom to go where you want and attack (or not) at wish... Let the enemy patrol pass or gun them down? You really do decide!

It took me two missions to get the controls down and adapt to thinking about my squad and not just myself, but it is deeply absorbing and is becoming fun pulling off head shots at 300 mts, or pulling off a flanking maneuver... things which other games just don´t offer these days...

In short, it was worth the wait and I definitely recommend this anyone who is tired of simple Call of Duty style gameplay and looking for something which requires more thought, more skill and less pace... A kinda "Generation Kill" episode, played out on your XBOX - fun, absorbing, but not as action packed as you might like.

It´s been a few days since I discovered that Microsoft could achieve something even good ol´Queen Lizzie couldn´t manage - stop me changing company...

Thanks to a totally unbelievable blunder in their admin system which means I cannot change my country (something which is SURELY FORBIDDEN by the data protection laws???) I had two choices - start afresh with a new Gamertag or continue with my present tag Krystian77 but without the possibility of buying online or using XBOX LIVE offers such as the videos or downloading games from XBOX ARCADE....

At first this left me enraged, miffed and in shock that a company like Microsoft could bring us something amazing like the XBOX, then be so short sighted in not allowing for the possibility of people changing their country and updating their details...

As I set up my new account my mind began racing as I remembered the awards I´d managed to obtain in the past and the more I remembered, the more daunting it seemed to once more roam Africa glued to a green light in search of diamonds in Far Cry 2 or choosing wisely each answer to win a conversational challenge in Fallout 3... The Mile HIgh Club challenge in COD:MW; finding the time to play 100 online matches in Bad Company... (ok, the last one is not that big a deal..)

Then it dawned on me that, in actual fact, Microsoft has actually done me a favour in forcing me to start from scratch and re-visit the classis I have in my collection. I´d forgotten how much fun sniping terrorists in TC:Rainbow 6 Vegas was; or battling to get to grips with the targetting system in Resident Evil; the sheer enjoyment of fighting the Axis in the muchly under-rated Medal of Honor:Airborne....

I´m rediscovering these games like the first time I picked them up and the anger is slowly waining to be replaced with joy...

My only problem now is finding the time between work and my girlfriend to start unlocking the awards... It´s gonna be a long journey, but fun!

Wish me luck!

Welcome to my new Gamespot account, with a new gamertag, all because Microsoft don´t let their customers update their personal details (which is surely against the data protection laws, right?).

For those of you who like XBOX LIVE and feel proud of your hard earned awards (like me) a word of warning - DO NOT GO AND LIVE IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY!! If you do, you won´t be able to use XBOX LIVE or buy more Points without a whole heap of problems...

Take me for example... I opened my hotmail account when I lived in good ol´ Blighty (or the UK as it´s also known). All was fine until I made the mistake of moving to Spain, falling in love and making my home here! Recently I´ve changed job, have cash at last and naturally want to take up an Xbox Gold subscription... but CAN¨T! My "billing address" is the UK but, naturally, my credit card is from SPAIN.

I sent a message to Microsoft on a Sunday and to be fair with them they did respond quickly, but only to tell me that I can´t do anything other than set up a new account, loose all my hard work, and start from scratch...

So I have... Bitter, twisted and angry, but I´ve done it... facing the joys of once more achieving awards such as finding all the diamonds in Far Cry 2; playing through FALLOUT 3 again and finishing the Mile Hile Club in COD:MW...

So I probably won´t be online anymore until I manage to recover all that I had before...

This whole experience has left me both angry and shocked in disbelief that a company which has brought us something so technically advanced as XBOX 360 can commit such a stupid and basic error as not letting people update their PERSONAL DETAILS and change country... In today´s world people go where the work is, and this means in some cases changing country...

The message is simple kids... MICROSOFT DOESN´T WANT YOU TO CHANGE COUNTRY!!!