2009 was one of the worst years for me. Coupled with the loss of my Job, I also lost my Grandfather. The depression and stress of that year will forever be marked as one of the worst years of my life.

2010 has been an infinitely better year, starting with my new job. It was a stressful but exciting move to Texas. Not my first choice of places in the world to live, but the company is awesome, and the projects are fantastic.

I have been playing games, but not as many as I would like. Here are a few choice ones I can recall off the top of my head.

· Red Faction: Guerilla

· Transformers: War for Cybertron

· Section 8

· Alien Swarm

· Red Dead Redemption

· X-Com: Enemy Unknown

The past 6 months have been a whirlwind blur and I have hardly had time to breath much less write blogs on Game Spot. I will try to keep up the writing, but based on how the last year has gone by I am not going to promise anything.

I just got back from the 40th anniversary of the San Diego Comic Convention. I brought my girlfriend for her first visit. I have to say, it was very entertaining to watch her as she encountered each new level of geekyness.

Two guys fighting with miniature key-chain light sabers was her first winner for the crown of geeks. The next day she heard some lady with a plush tiger strapped to her head "meowing", and before she could ask me why she was doing that, her (husband/boyfriend/etc.), also with a plush cat strapped to his head, meowed back to her, so she could find him in the crowd. And lastly, she was nearly crushed to death by a 400 lb dude waiting in line to see Kevin Smith. We didn't get to see Kevin Smith, but at least she survived mostly intact…I think there might have been some slight damage to her psyche from the Meowing lady.

All in all it was a good show. I think the saddest part was the diminished space of small and indie comics. The big movie studios and game companies have made the competition for space impossible for the little guys to be seen and heard. One person summed up the show with a hand written sign reading:

"Twilight ruined Comic Con".

Some of my previous posts have made mention of me being extremely busy because of work! Well no more!

For the last 6 months I have been the Design Director working on the Hellgate license for Hanbitsoft. We have been making massive changes to balance, skills, levels, adding PvP, an Auction House! And unfortunately, none of it will be seen here in the US. All of it will only appear in Korea.

After 6 months of working like a dog, I'm kicked to the curb! I guess the felt they could run the creative direction just fine without me, well I wish them the best of luck, burning in the 9 circles of Hell!

Well, now its time to figure out my next course of action! Get a job? Or start my own company?

Happy New Years everyone! I hope you all got what you asked for from Santa, and not what you probably deserved. And where have I been since October? Well let's see?

1) I have taken over a new project at work that had us in crunch mode until Dec 12th.

2) Started looking into iPhone Game development for fun on the side.

3) Finished Fallout 3

4) Finished Age of Booty

5) Finished Gears of War 2

6) Still painting some figures (however slowly)

Some people are making a killing with the iPhone App Development....maybe if I can do the same I will be able to retire before I am old and to decrepit to enjoy it.

I hope to find the time to write more soon, but I cant promise anything since, as I have said many times, I'm lazy!

Just a quick update from me before I leave for work this morning.

I have both Dead Space and Saints Row 2 bought and paid for but I have not been able to get to the store to pick them up. I was stuck in a business dinner last night until 10 (long after the store closed) and I have to get to work before the stores open this morning.

I am hoping that, by 7pm tonight, I will be knee deep in space zombie gore or gunning down the thugs and cops of the newly renovated Still Water.

Stay tuned for reviews!

I just finished "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" last night (Review coming in the next hour or so). So while I was playing Lego Batman with my girlfriend she asked me what game I was going to pick up next. I looked at her and just smiled, not wanting to tell her just how many games are coming out.

Oct 14 -- Saints Row
Oct 21 -- Dead Space
Oct 21 -- Fable II
Oct 21 -- Little Big Planet
Oct 21 -- Legendary
Oct 21 - Spider Man: WoS
Oct 28 -- Fallout 3
Nov 07 -- Gears of War 2
Nov 11 -- Banjo & Kazooie
Nov 17 -- Left 4 Dead

When I told her she said "So, should I go find myself a new boyfriend now or what?". I told her she needs to get her game skills up so she can play with me…she just laughed.

There are a few games that are still labeled as Q4 2008, so I don't know if they are going to ship this year or next. So these are a "Maybe This Year".

Q4 2008 (Oct – Dec) -- Dark Void
Q4 2008 (Oct – Dec) -- Heavy Duty

Needless to say, I will be very busy with way too many games.

I get sick about once every three to four years, but when I do it is not pretty. Most of the time its a little scratchy throat or sour stomach…24 hours tops and its gone. But not this time! I have been feeling it building up over the last week and it came crashing down last night. Coughing, soar muscles, headache, and enough snot running out of my nose to drown a fish.

Off to the couch with some Theraflu and a movie.

I was playing Too Human, and I guess since I haven't removed it from "Now Playing" list I guess I still am, but the fact of the mater is that several other games have come along that have distracted me away from it. Its not a very good game and I have a review for it so I guess I am finally over the whole MSG4 review that got yanked from me and I didn't back up o its gone for ever.

I finally got around to picking up Hellgate….and you know all in all it has so much potential that I am hopeful that the rumors of Hanbit soft putting a new team together to continue working on Hellgate are true. Maybe they can fix the problems of this game and make it great….here is hopping.

Spore is my latest distraction….its enjoyable but I don't know that I can actually recommend it to anyone. It's not hard core enough for most true gamers and its not casual enough for non-gamers to play. I might do a review….we will see what distractions come down the road.

As usual my life has gotten more interesting that I would normally care for if it wasn't completely necessary to get out of the last situation I was in. Just to give you the simple version. Around 3 years ago I left the game studio I was working for, started my own with several friends. We carried on for about a year until we ran out of money. We shut the company down and a few weeks later we got an offer to start something up with something up with funding. That turned out to be a scam and a year later we closed down again, but this time it wasn't just me and my friends this time, now we had a whole team to worry about. So we did some fast negotiating and got the whole team picked up as a brand new studio…it was a sweet deal and it saved our team. We got used as grunts going in and cleaning up all the problems our new parent company needed fixed….but wouldn't you know it they got bought out and almost a year to the day after that got started we had to leave that home as well. So here we are at yet another new start up….3 years and 4 new companies…man I am hoping that life stays stable for at least a little while….I would be happy with a solid two years.

Is it two much to ask?

I wrote a blog about 10 days ago, but seeing that its not here on my game spot page I really have no idea what happened to it. Maybe I never wrote it and it was just a horrible dream. Or maybe the Game Spot team is punishing me for talking trash about them, you never can tell these days.

I am sure I wrote that I have been playing a lot of Civilization Revolution of the 360. Not bad but the AI diplomacy leaves a lot to be desired.Considering how many hours I have put into it I really cant complain to much, I have more than got my moneys worth.

I have also been working on my Necron Army for Warhammer 40K (Not RTS computer game, this is much geekier than that, table top war gamming). I had a set back last night where I dropped my Necron lord and broke him off of his base. I should have my army ready for play this coming weekend, assuming I don't have any more accidents.

I picked up World in Conflict, but haven't cracked it out of the plastic yet. Gave up on Age of Conan because it's a steaming pile of Bat Droppings. I think that's it!