It was my 18th birthday yesterday! It was slightly dampened by the fact I had an exam, but it was a good day nonetheless. I got a tonne of money as well as assorted gifts, including a Simpsons T-shirt, a Windy Miller (from Trumpton) T-shirt, chocolate and a Mr Bean DVD. Ghostbusters: The Video Game also arrived yesterday and I've already had a lot of fun playing it. In other news, I've ordered Rock Band, and the Sony Band In A Box instruments for said game. Hopefully me and my friends will rock out on it at my birthday party next weekend!

Games Well when Microsoft said about exclusives they first came out with two Xbox Arcade games - boring! Hardly exclusives to shout about. 'Microsoft have nothing for us today' I thought. But then came some notable games - Halo ODST and Splinter Cell: Conviction, Forza 3 - but nothing that rocked the boat. Then came Alan Wake, which for me was the only decent Microsoft exclusive as it looked ground breaking, in the way Heavy Rain is for the PS3. However, compared with Sony's stellar line-up this year, it isn't much to shout about. Oh, and they've got the next MGS - but not MGS4 as all 360 owners were bragging about. It's a bit of an own goal on their part. Social/Other Well Microsoft have always said that unlike the PS3, they focus on games rather than multimedia possibilities and internet interaction. However, today they turned that on it's head with their main announcements being not about games, but about Last.fm, Twitter and Facebook interaction with the 360. Ok it might please some, but to most this is mostly irrelevant. Okay you can now watch Sky on 360, but Wii and the PS3 can both browse BBC's iPlayer and any TV channel sites with live streams e.g BBC, ITV and also have PlayTV, which is cheaper since you won't need a Sky subscription. However, it was nice to see the video offering expand, even thought it's new name isn't very good. Innovation Well, today Microsoft made many claims about new ways to interact with the 360 with it's new (but already leaked some time ago) motion sensing camera, which worked with the menu system also. However, the system was shown to have it's flaws when the avatar they showed tried to do a back flip or something, when trying to imitate an action. Also, the guy doing it looked like a right idiot doing it. It's not much more than the Wii has done with it's control system, when it comes down to what it can do. I mean, hell, the Wii Balance Board can mimic a player's movements, and that doesn't even have a camera. Also, ever heard of the Playstation Eye, Microsoft? In conclusion: they didn't do badly, but it could've been a whole lot better. Now it's just the wait for the other two to make their conferences.

I've reviewed Singtar: Queen, read it here: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/puzzle/singstarqueen/player_review.html?id=652182

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone! I'm half Irish you see, and went into college with a Guinness hat and Irish flag, then went to the pub during our free periods (at the end of the day), it was great fun! I hope everyone else enjoys St Patrick's Day!

When came home today I was very shocked to discover that my PC had died -it seems that somehow the entire system has become corrupted. I hope we can sort it out because I have important work saved on there that I need to hand in very soon. Until then I'm resorting to using the PS3's browser for Internet access, which is ok but not the most conveniant way of doing it, and restarting the work from scratch.

I've been trawling the Internet since yesterday trying to find a solution to my Empire: Total War problem. After a lot of searching, it appears that Steam, for some unknown reason, thought I was downloading the game from the Internet rather than installing it from the disk, so attempted that. It was a simple case of reinstalling the game via the disks, which I have done. Now it's a case of waiting 2 hours for the day 0 patch to download. Not too bad, I hope now to be able to play it at the weekend, or possibly even tomorrow! I can't wait!

I received Empire: Total War: Special Force Edition today and tried to play it. I activated it on Steam easily, but now it's telling me I need to spend 11 hours waiting for it to update the game! This is ridiculous! What happened to installing a game then running it? Why, when I have a physical copy of the game, do I need to spend 11 hours waiting for it to update before I can play!? Why is the entire game not on the disk? What are Steam and Sega playing at? I think I might complain, this is just idiotic.

I've already managed to play two levels of Killzone 2 yesterday and I simply cannot believe how good the graphics are. Every cut scene is an amazing feat of graphical design that only the PS3 could handle, and the levels have such graphical detail that they'll visually stun you. The gameplay is excellent, with intelligent enemy AI and accessible controls. The only annoying thing I've found so far are the occasional times where you have to use sixaxsis to turn submarine-hatch type wheels to unlock doors. Luckily they only appear once per level. I'll write a full review in a few weeks time.

I've played the demo once at the game is shaping up to be really good. The graphics are as brilliant as we've come to expect the game to deliver. The gameplay is very good, with a very well-implemented cover system and good, stable guns and controls. I can't wait for the actual game now!

So, yesterday Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the U.S.A. This is a victory for peace and sensibility. Obama's position on everything is prefect, a marked contrast to the travesty of policy which marked Bush's Presidency. He wants to clean up the environment, fix the economy, make the administration more open but, more importantly, is committed to peace, not war. God bless Americans for choosing peace over war, freedom over imprisonment without trial and the environment over big business.