Wooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooo! Finished 1st term of uni! I'm so happy! Its-the-holidays-and-its-time-to-play-games!!!!!

I haven't written much on GS during this 1st term and probably won't the next coz damn is my course hard! Well it is the 5th best uni in the world for engineering - but damn its hard! So yeah, I'll only blog during the holidays k doods?

Anyway, my 3 loves: Training, reading and games! Starting a new martial art in January - haven't been able to afford it till now but once I get my grant money I'm putting some of it into my savings so I can finally afford to do it! Oh yeah, more happiness - spread some love.

Read a ton of books - mostly done 2 and from uni on the train. I've read 3 Discworld novels, To kill a mockingbird, The assassin's apprentice, A storm of swords and am now reading Eragon (film and games are rubbish apparently but the book is quite good, though it is aimed at a slightly younger audience than me.

And-now-games! A big stand out during my 1st term in uni - MGS 3. This game is awesome. Not quite as shocking and good as MGS, but far more coherent than the narrative mess that was MGS 2 - I still don't understand the story in MGS 2 (what were they smoking at Konami?). Ah but MGS 3 - wow. This game felt REAL. It is far more "believable" than MGS 2 - you could almost "believe" that the events that took place actuall happened and well, I don't know what to say. A lot has already been written that my input would be meaningless, but nonetheless my opinion still counts and it is still in awe.

And now Guitar Hero. When I'm feeling stressed this is the perfect game to play. And now I am finally on hard mode! (ok, yeah u guys have been there for ages but I'm not good at rhythm games because, er...well...I have no rhythm! :P )

Of course I play a few others but these are the ones that stand out. And now for games I just can't get into.

I just can't do it. I'm sorry but FF X-2 is a mess. I've spent 10 hours on this game (possibly 20 with all the resets) trying to complete the game on 100% using about 4 guides (3 internet - Gamefaqs and 1 official guide) but I'm not having any fun. The stress of worring about 0.1% missing because you missed some tiny thing is not worth it. I want to see the full ending but IMO meticulously picking through the game at a snails pace with a fine-toothed comb is just no fun. And I don't want to put more hours in and not see the full ending. I loved FF 7, REALLY loved FF 8, loved FF 9, loved the first half of FF 10 and loathed the 2nd half of FF 10 but FF X-2 I just can't love one bit. A game should be fun. You shouldn't have to worry about details. It should be let and rip and let loose, not having a care for what you do - the opposite of real life. Playing FF X-2 felt like a full time job - not a game. Could this be the end of my love affair with the Final Fantasy series? Or will FF 12 come and give me a warm apologetic embrace come its release in Europe? Time will tell...

 Disgaea. Now I can see why people like this game - its bloody massive and you could loose 1000s of hours in it and customisation is near infinite. But it is WAY too hardcore for me. Now I like Advance wars and Fire Emblem - more universal strategy games but like I said, Disgaea is too hardcore for my tastes - anyone else feel the same way?

Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2). Its funny how I always get hyped about playing Level 5 games and then end up not enjoying them at all (hope this doesn't happen with Rogue Galaxy - I really like the look of that). My problem with DC 2 is that I don't find it fun. The combat feels broken and jagged, the dugeon design is horrible, the menus and tutorials are a mess and overall, crawling through dungeon after same old dungeon is just boring. There is also very little story - little good story anyway and I need my games to either be really fun, or have a really good story - preferably both. On the plus side, the sound and graphics are very good - I love listening to the music in the game. But is this what DC 2 is like? Crawl through loads of dungeon levels and then rebuild cities? Is there anything else besides? If not, then this game is not for me.

Finally - I got an American (NTSC) PS2! I can now play all the games that a lot of you guys take for granted! Here is my list of games I bought - bear in mind that these games never/will not get released in Europe:

• Final Fantasy Tactics (ps1)
• Final Fantasy Chronicles (ps1) - chrono trigger never got released in Europe - can you believe that!?
• Chrono Cross (ps1)
• Xenogears (ps1)
• Xenosaga 1 (ps2) - They don't release Xenosaga 1 in Europe but they do release Xenosaga 2 - can you see how much we get screwed!
• Xenosaga 3 (ps2)
• Grandia 3
• Valkyrie Profile (psp) - psp is region free anyway but this game never got released in Europe.
• Valkyrie profile 2 (ps2)
• Tales of legendia (ps2) I loved TOS  on GC - so I want more tales games!
• Tales of the Abyss (ps2)

As you can see that are all RPGs - we do get most games; action and sports games do really well in Europe but RPGs don't  - only the big hitters like FF have any chance of success.

Wow, long blog and I usually hate typing and writing about stuff - especially myself. Enjoy ur Hols guys and gals - I sure am gonna enjoy mine! Stay happy and spread some love - peace out.