Well i'm here to make a bet. I originally put it in the System Wars bets thread but i got my head bitten off for forgetting to put my user-name, so here i am instead.

Halo 3! I love Halo. And i have high-hopes that this will be the best one yet, but many people are anticipating a flop based on it being nothing new (apparently). I was going to play it safe and just 9.0, but i'm feeling lucky so i'll take a slight risk and say that:

"If Halo 3 doesn't get at least a 9.5, i - ninja-vox - will take my computer out into my back yard and destroy it with a rubber mallet. I'll film it/take pictures to prove it happened."

Roll on Review-time... :P

I once saw Epic as the people's developer. They made awesome games, for gamers. They weren't another corporate entity harping on about business plans and quarterly revenue. Sure, they have to make money. But i got the impression that they went to work to make an awesome game; not to keep the green rolling in. Positively motivated, you could say.

I'm beginning to think i was wrong, however. Simply down to my time spent with Gears of War. As it stands right now, online multiplayer gaming with Gears of War is the laggiest, glitchiest, most infuriating game i have ever experienced in my life. Yell about sales figures, Cliffy. Tell me it's a success. I dont care. Because playing this game online frankly, is torture. So much so, that i'm on 8,500 kills and honestly cant bring myself to keep playing for a week or two to get the achievement and the coveted gamerpicture. Its really not worth my blood pressure.

Because playing this game is not remotely entertaining. Unless you're host, it really is a complete mess. You'll be melee'd from ten feet away. Watch someone sprint clean past you only to explode seconds later as if they just shotgunned you in the chest. You'll have a boomshot cleanly miss but lord knows you'll go down anyway despite their crappy shot. On and let's not forget the one-hit-insta-down sniper rifle. That's a balanced weapon right there.

But nevermind that. Let's talk lag. Because Gears of War showcases it about as much as it does its lovely graphics. Single player is a beautiful experience, but take this baby online and boy will you be throwing it on the trade-in pile before long. My only conclusion is a lack of maintenance. A lack of giving half a damn about the millions of people who dropped their cash on your product. Ghost Recon 2 shipped with an issue whereby one rifle was vastly over-powered, along with some hosting issues whereby you'd connect to the game before everyone else and might get a kill or two before everyone is in the game if players are from around the world. You know how long it took for the team to fix those bugs? Three days. Three days and it was fixed. Gears of War still has the same roadie-run glitch it had at launch. The patch which supposedly fixed these glitches fixed nothing, and actually added two more whereby the game crashes if you try to launch just as someone in the lobby leaves, and also a rediculous thing whereby players can catapult themselves off the map and shoot you from places you cannot reach.

Thanks, Epic. Its been like this for months. The new maps also caused some form of error whereby custom match searches will only give you four or five results. Finding a game has been pretty much crippled since the update, yet still no attempt to fix it.And believe it or not, ipaid for these maps. Again, thanks Epic.

And now the final insult, this game they've all-out abandoned to leave their fans horribly disappointed trying to play online, is now moving to the PC with nicer graphics, a new game mode, map-editor and single-player content. Despite the 360 version already being too short, its already been confirmed that we will receive none of this. Thanks again, Epic.

Yet you want me to buy Unreal 3? Will i automatically win if i'm host on that, too?

Get out.

So a few minutes ago, i make one of my Caption Contest threads. I've been doing them for months on end. Not "Ninja-Vox's Caption Contest" not "caption contest: ninja-vox edition", just "caption contest". I post a picture... people make comical captions, i pick the best one, people have some fun, the end.

Like i said, i've been doing these for months. Then one day a while back, i see "Create a caption!" by freeky_zeeky. I have nothing against the guy. I point out that he's pretty much stolen my thread, but like he says "lots of forums have these!" so i just let it go, not wanting to kick up a fuss.

But then the thing is, he posts them every single day. He creates his own little system of rules, a list of previous winners. He makes it his. I dont mind, because as i've said already, i just made them for something to do. There was no name recognition, and there still isn't even with the thread i made a few minutes ago.

I'm disappointed however, to find more posts saying "hey, only freeky zeeky is allowed to do these!" and other such posts saying "what makes you think YOU can do a caption thread?" rather than actual caption submissions.

"But i invented these threads on OT!" i cry. But it falls on deaf ears.

My thread has well and truly been stolen from me. Not only was i a nice chap and allowed the caption contest to be an open affair, but that politeness has been taken and thrown back in my face.

Nothing is sacred. :P

Hello again, everyone. I made a thread about this in OT, but it was inexplicably locked, so i'll stick it here instead.

If anyone wants these, please be my guest. They're all old sigs i came up with when i was trying to learn Paintshop.

Some Muse:



Some Radiohead:



Some WTF?:



Some football:


Some Beck:



Some Vines:





And finally some Boy most likely to:

Apologies for pulling a maddox but i've had rather a lot to do lately. Sleeping... eating... watching Prison Break. That sort of thing. What a tangled web i weave.

Right now i'm suffering from jet-lag of epic proportions. Flying from Australia to the UK isn't what i'd call good fun; especially when they provide you with the freakin' lion king as in-flight "entertainment." They had "16 Blocks" too, which killed a few hours, but other than that i was faced with the single most boring task of my life. Sitting on a plane for a huge lenth of time.

I got home to find a pay check from a small architectural firm which was two and a half years late. No kidding. And with that in mind, i decided it was time to get a "real" job and quit taking pretty pictures of things for a living.

Blog posts are a curious matter. I often find myself in the mood to post an entry, only to find i have very little to say about three and a half words in.

Never mind, i'll start posting in image-form from next week. That should be at least slightly entertaining.

Until then, take it easy good people of Gamespot.

Is off to a rather slow start. For those of you who don't know and/or care, i recently set off on what was intended to be a repeat of a trip around Europe i embarked upon a few years back with some friends of mine. This time however, the plan was to make it bigger, and better. We start off in Italy, then move in a line heading east until we go 360 degrees, and end up in Italy again. Hurrah!

The first three days were delayed due to the wonderful folk at EasyJet. They delayed our flight for a charming eleven hours, but refused to inform us of this, despite clearly knowing all along. Instead, they seemed quite happy to keep telling me we would be "boarding shortly". When it hit the ten hour mark, i demanded to know what was going on in my finest Jack-Bauer voice, and was eventually told that the eleven hour delay would be extended to a 28 hour delay; and we'd all be staying in an airport hotel over night, on the house. Bollocks.

I got some free cash to spend as i pleased in the airport too, as some form of apology i suppose. Needless to say i blew the whole lot in arcades and coffee shots. Another pile of cash well spent.

Not much of an update sadly, but there's not much to update you on. I've taken loads of pictures already, and there will be many more i'm sure. Soon as i'm back i'll be sure to upload them all and show you our wonderous adventures, unlike the AWOL Ninja comics which were promised weeks back (i have a good reason for that by the way, but it's a long story involving broken scanners and an unfair returns policy)

Until then, i'm told that our first stay in Messina (Italy) doesn't have any internet access, and even if it did i doubt we're staying there long enough for me to get bored and get the laptop out anyway.

I'll write when we hit Australia, which if all goes according to plan (no more of that easyjet crap) should be two to three weeks from this very day.

Laters all.

Hello all.

Being the summer 'n all, i decided it made sense to have a bit of a clean up, as inevitably i'm going to be having friends over and all that jazz and, well, month-old lazagne found under the couch didn't seem to do me any favours last year.

While spring/summer cleaning is an incredibly dull activity, it did pay off on this occasion, as i found a mountain of old exam papers i'd been given by random teachers back in the day to do at home in preparation for the real exams.

I very rarely turned these things in to be marked, mainly because i wasn't the most studious of youths, but also because of the things i used to draw on them. Things involving Ninjas.

BOOYAH!

I'll scan a couple of them tomorrow and throw them on here so you guys can have a looksee and most likely, lose a lot of respect for me and send kind PMs recommending i seek psychiatric help.

Peace out.

Well here i am, back from my very first suspension. In a thread asking "have you ever been suspended and why?" somebody posted "many times, lastly cause i said something about Jesus." To which i replied "well Jesus moderates here; you should no better than to badmouth him."

And for that harmless joke i was not just moderated, but suspended. Make of that what you will.

In other news, having thrown a "PM me for a sig if you like" in my very own signature space only a week ago, i've already made 14 sigs for various people. Maybe i'll start putting "made by Ninja-Vox" on them to gain myself a little sig-monopoly.

While i'm here i may as well shamelessly plug my website. It's over there in that "About Me" thing.

And with that, i'll bid you farewell.