Finally I have attained another One Thousand points, bringing my total gamerscore to 2020. It took me 28 days to get 1000 points last time, but its been harder this time, as I haven't bought any new games until I got Hitman Blood Money yesterday. I enjoy attaining achievements and it adds an extra level to playing games and can sometimes prompt me to play a game when I don't necessarily feel like it. I plan to buy some classics in the coming weeks, Viva Piñata is top of my wish list. Oblivion, Crackdown and GRAW2 are others I want. Guitar Hero II I would really like, but unfortunately its too expensive at the moment. So I look forward to increasing my gamerscore significantly. In other news the GTA 4 Trailer has hit the net, not before bring it to its knees first. I waited up for the trailer at 11pm, and watched couple of times, then in HD when I obtained that from Bit-Torrent. I think it looks amazing, the graphics are excellent and the lighting is the best part. Since GTA3, my main concern with any GTA game was the shadows and lighting, it just looked too cartoony for me to enjoy it fully. But GTA4 looks outstanding. Some of the sunset scenes looked almost as good as Gears of War. I was a little miffed it was Liberty City again, but upon reflection I look forward to revisiting a revamped city. GTA isn't the first game to do things like this, its happened many times before and when it did, I was always curious to see what had changed etc. Spider-Man 3 has done New York 3 times now, no complaining there! They seem to have the verticality of it and thats great, the new scale should make exploring that bit extra fun. Speaking of Spider-Man 3, the movie and the game are nearly here and I can't wait for both. Idealy, I go see the movie, then go to the games shop and buy the game and come home to play it, fresh from being influenced by the movie. Two reasons I am really looking forward to gaming this year, especially GTA4 and Spider-Man 3 are; I have a HDTV now and a 360, so games look totally amazing in HD and they are on next gen consoles. And reason two is because of achievements. More challenges and bragging rights make 360 an excellent platform. Although with the announcment of Elite 360, coming in at $479, likely to be £350 in UK ($700+), the PS3 at £399 (cheaper in some places now) looks alot better to me. Don't get me wrong, PS3 is way too expensive and there isn't enough games to justify buying one yet, I would require at least 5 top exclusive titles, one of which would have to be MGS4, before I would even consider buying it. But for £350, 360 Elite doesnt have HD-DVD Built in and no Wi-Fi? For £50 more than the 360 Elite I can buy a PS3 with Blu-Ray, Wi-Fi and motion control pads. Its all something to think about in the coming year. Looks like a great one for gaming. I have been watching through the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise. Never seen it before, so thought I would 'obtain' the entire collection. I just finished season 2 and plan to start season 3 first couple of episodes when I finish with this blog post. Great series, I like watching them discover stuff and see how things progressed into the Original Series era from this era. Never been a total Star Trek nut or anything, but I do like Space and ships etc. Well till my next essay blog, catch ya later.

Since just before Christmas, I started using a VGA Cable for Xbox 360 to connect it to my HDTV, a Samsung 32 Inch. But from the start the colours looked washed out so I had my brightness and contrast settings for VGA down to really low levels to balance it out, trouble was it wasn't balanced at all and looked like there was a layer of smoke over the screen.

But just by chance, I was browsing an AV Forum and saw a 'Fix for Dell & Samsung Washed out VGA', after reading into it, I thought I would try it out, went into the Service Menu for my TV, which on a HDTV is understandably hidden, and edited the Brightness and Contrast settings as the article said. Upon turning the TV on and off, it was indeed fixed! So I adjusted the normal brightness settings back to normal and now I have glorious HD in VGA sharpness with excellent colours. Gaming just got alot better for me.

I am still playing Rainbow Six Vegas for Xbox 360 and I am finding it increasingly harder, so its interfering with my 'play to have fun' ethic. I find myself wanting to play something else instead of it. But I do have to persever, because even though its only on Normal and amazingly hard, its a great game and has tonnes of cool moments and when I finally complete a level it seems like so much more of an achievment as it was genuinely hard as nails.

I am upto the Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time, but I keep falling off and its pissing me off, so everytime I fall off, I stop playing. I am sure one sunday I will think 'arggh, screw it' and just play it till I complete that temple. This is as far as I have ever been in this game for various reasons, and I do want to complete it myself on my own metric. Because Wind Waker is next and then finally I should be able to get a Wii and Zelda Twilight Princess finally. 

I did it....I downloaded the World of Warcraft free trial and started playing with a friend. I tried human, nah too plain, tried dwarf nah too small. So finally tried Tauren and I like:



I am now a level 8 Tauren called 'HiroofTime' basically my new online name. The reason I have had time to apply to this game is because I am in the final stages of finishing one of personal projects, MC360, a GUI Skin for XBMC. Because of that, I have had alot more spare time where I could be doing other stuff, so WoW has filled that gap. And I truley do like it,

Blizzard have done something special with the game, its just simple fun. I think the first time I knew I was hooked was when i was fighting my level 5 tauren against a level 6 wolf thinking it was a challenge and awesome, then a giant dragon flew overhead with a player on it, when I targetted it, it was a level 39 player. Thats when I realised that this game is massive and I want to be a part of it.

Now I have done the very thing I thought I would never do, my true gaming todo list has been destroyed. It will probably be updated eventually. I have been dabbling with Call of Duty 3 a bit and Ocarina of Time is in the shadow temple, damn it everytime I fall off I have to start again. I am gonna have to start using the warp spell and set it in the big room with the falling blades.

So anyway, yeah. WoW has taken over my gaming time, I am screwed, I hope everything works out...

Heres a short clip of a glitch that happened to me recently while playing Gears of War on INSANE Co-Op with a friend. Gears of War is a fantastic game and the sequel better improve on the few mistakes that he first had. If the can do this they are heading for a 10.0 game.

[video=cXxmkDL75bkNvDTf]

Well I just completed Splinter Cell Double Agent for Xbox 360. I enjoyed the game a lot and I think it doesn't deserve the bad press it gets. I also completed Gears of War on INSANE mode, meaning the only reason I have to the play game now in single player mode is to collect the 2 remaining cogs which I missed first two times through the game.

I am now going to focus on Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell Double Agent on Xbox 1, just as soon as I buy that. I might finish Ocarina of Time, its been sitting there waiting for me, having just completed the Water Temple. Oh well I will decided soon whats next. I still have hitman to do too. Yikes.

I did it, I reached 1000 Gamerscore points before the end of the year!



I have finally joined the leagues of the quad-digit gamerscores. I can now comfortably settle into my gaming because I broke my first thousand. The actual achievement that did it was the PGR3 'Take a Photo in each City" achievement, which I didn't even know I was getting while taking the photos. Gears of War and Splinter Cell have been the biggest attributors to gaining me points, and seeing as though I only own 5 games, I think I have done well.

On the todo list front, I am still making my way through splinter cell, not trying to blast through it, just enjoy it as best I can. I am currently on the JBA HQ 3 mission, to those that know what that is. I hope to do a video blog entry in the new year so I can obtain the video blog entry. I like using this blog for my gaming blogging, because I can always look back on it in the future, providing gamespot doesnt dissappear, and I can see what I was playing in the past. Peace out.

So I finished Gears of War on Hardcore (normal setting) in co-op today, Extremely short, you could totally finish it in a 4-6 hour sitting, maybe it was just because I had help from my friend John via Xbox Live Co-Op, or maybe it really is that short, I would say its slightly shorter than I would liked but its in no way dissappointing.



I really enjoyed this game, I had previously not known ANYTHING about the game, I knew it was coming for Xbox 360 since E3 2006 and I didn't know what type of game it was or the story. Then when it came out in America, I watched Jeff playing it on Gamespot and thought "Nice, I will get that when I buy my 360", so I did. The gameplay is excellent, super satisfying, especially when you chainsaw anything, even in-animate objects like chairs and crates. I recommened it to everyone, my friend Mathias, who doesnt like FPS's or shooters in general, loved this game alot.

So next to do is Splinter Cell Double Agent for Xbox 360, I am currently upto the Shang-hai level, and this looks extremely interesting. More later, peace out.

After months and months of waiting, I have finally purchased an Xbox 360 and some games, I also got myself a new TV cabinet and a nice big HDTV to view it all with. Alls thats missing is a 5.1 sound system, but thats coming soon. Below is what my setup looks like (click for a bigger pic):



The Games I got where Gears of War, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Rainbow Six Vegas, Call of Duty 3 & Project Gotham Racing 3. So far I have played Gears of war for 5 mins while I tested my HDTV, Splinter Cell quite alot, Rainbow Six Vegas is still in its wrapper, being saved, Call of Duty 3 I am on the British missions, and I have only really played PGR3 a few times online. I plan to put some serious hours into this and I have obtained myself the gamertag of Hiro of Time in referance to Link from Legend of Zelda and also in referance to Hiro from the tv show 'Heroes', he has the ability to pause and travel through time. I totally need to re-evaluate my todo list now I have a 360, but I do plan on finishing at least Ocarina of Time and Hitman before I plan on starting through anything else. Till next time, nanoo nanoo!

So instead of playing Hitman Blood Money through to the end, I decided to hit Ocarina of Time up. I have been steadily playing through, after about 6 years I still remember most things from it since the last time I played it. I had it first time around on the N64 obviously, but this time I am playing the Collectors Edition for the Gamecube. I am having quite a bit of fun and have just finished the Fire Temple, I think I am off to the Ice Cavern next then obviously to the Water Temple there after, which is the hardest level, just because of its frustration.

I have also been playing another game on my PC, Agatha Christies - Murder on the Orient Express, which is a point and click Mystery game, which I really really like, I haven't actually played too many before, I have played a CSI game and I enjoyed that, but this is different its more interactive and not as linear. I recommend this game to everyone, its one of the best puzzle/mystery games I have ever played.

I should hopefully be getting my HDTV and Xbox 360 this week and thus my gaming center will have to be totally rewired (eep!), I will promptly post pictures of it all once its set up, I can't wait to start on Splinter Cell Double Agent for the 360. I think I might try to finish Hitman this week too, inbetween finishing Zelda and The Orient Express.

I have obtained an Xbox 360 on loan from a friend for a month or so while he sets up his Home Media room with Plasma etc. And I have to say my will to complete my gaming list has vanished.

I find myself drawn to the brightly coloured menus and glorious graphics. The animations of games make them oh so much more enjoyable. In a rather stupid move I purchased Splinter Cell Double Agent for the 360, not owning my own 360 of course and playing it all on my dieing 21"inch Samsung 4:3 tv. I know that my friend will come and take his 360 back and I will have to wait untill I have the money saved up for my own 360 and HDTV, sometime this year hopefully.

Anyway I have played through the first 2 levels of splinter cell in SDTV, which I must say ruins the experience, after seeing it on a HDTV, a normal tv just doesnt compare, I spit on normal tv. So my plan is to muck about on Xbox Live getting my ass toasted and leave the rest of the Single Player campaign untill I can finish it on my own 32" Samsung HDTV and my own xbox 360. I have also been downloading every demo nearly playing through them, enjoying the Smackdown demo, PGR3 demo and GRAW Online demo, I will surely be buying these titles when I get my own 360, did I mention I am getting my own?!

So yeah 360 stuff aside, I want to go through San Andreas, as I said previously thats a work in progress as its so big I will do it in the background of the other things I playing, so apprently I get to chose my next game as I am not so hot about doing Mario Sunshine yet. I tackled Ocarina of Time (the Gamecube version on the Zelda Collectors Edition Disc) last night and I might carry on with that as its saved just after becoming Adult Link, which is quite handy. Or I may continue on with Hitman Blood Money as I am already upto the Hick Wedding level. So thats quite a few levels in, infact I have decided just now while writing this that I will indeed play Hitman Contracts first, then Ocarina of Time, making decisions is fun.

So my plan is set for the games I will play, Hitman, Zelda and Mario. I shall update this blog of gaming thoughts often for the2 of you that read it :D. Oh yeah, on a side note I have roughly 530 points now in Battlefield 2142 and have unlocked all the Sniper Gear, working my way towards Active Camo, which I need 750 points for and finally the Lambert Combine Spec Ops Automatic Rifle, after that its anyones game what I unlock, I am not interested in anything other than blowing dudes up with C4, being invisible while blowing dudes up with C4 and finally Shooting dudes in the face from 500 yards away.