Breaking News this weekend...the legendary Rally Champion and Video Game uber-endorser, Colin McRae has sadly died. He was killed in a Helicopter crash at his Lanarkshire farm. R.I.P. Colin - The guy who brought Rallying to the masses! The first British winner of the World Rally Championship.

On to a brighter note, my GamerScore has surpassed the 10,000 mark. Am currently working away at getting the remaining points from Pro Evolution Soccer 6. The new Fifa is released on the 28th September and if I trade in Pro Evo after that date, i'll get very little for it in the way of store credit. So am trying to finish it before then, so that I will get a little more for it. Its nothing personal, its simply business! :D

Am also currently enjoying the Fifa 08 demo and I managed to get onto the COD4 Multiplayer Beta on Xbox LIVE. Trust me, COD4 Multiplayer RULES!! Its very "Counter-Strike" like in the way it plays, but the maps are excellent and its fast-paced, all action fun. This game is going to be awesome when its released in Novemeber. It shud be just in time for wen we are all starting to ween ourselves from Halo 3 Multiplayer!! :D

Hello Everyone,

I am going to try and keep this as short as possible, as is my new approach to blog posts.

So without further ado, I completed BioShock on the 360 this Tuesday just passed. Without giving away too much to those who haven't yet played it. I got the "good" ending, with 800 points out of it. I now need to go thru it one more time. That shud be enugh to get the bad ending and the remainding 200 points. :D

O YEAH, AND IF THERES ANYONE OUT THERE STILL UNDECIDED ON BIOSHOCK, GO AND GET IT ASAP....AMAZING GAME!

The next few snippets of news I missed off my previous post. In my rush to get an entry on the blog for the first time in ages, I forgot to tell some of the none-game related news tid bits.

First up, I got a new car in August. I used my new post-graduation employment money (i.e. my first proper career job) to splash out on a new motor. I purchased a 2002 BMW Z3 Roadster in Black, complete with 18'' BK Racing Alloys wrapped in SCUDO Racing rubber. The car came with the optional chrome pack, wind-deflector, CD & Radio with Full Service History. Its in excellent condition inside and out, and has only done 36000 miles. I have wanted one of these since I saw Pierce Brosnan drive one in Goldeneye back in 1995....I always sed I wud buy one...but I don't think many people believed me. This is what kept me going when I was pulling all-nighters to finish work for uni-deadlines and working part-time in freezers working deliveries. I knew this time wud come!! :D All the hard-work has finally paid off!!

Secondly, The Formula 1 British Grand Prix that I went to, was amazing (again). This was my 2nd year attending the event, but my first as a Platinum group member. That meant we had prime seats for all the action and had full-access to all parts of the track. I am a massive F1 fan...so this is my dream holiday!! :D :D :D

Ok, so its been a while since i posted on my blog.

So much has happened it wud likely tak me just as long to type it all up.

So i will summarise the big news in as short a post as possible.

I bought Bioshock and Forza 2 - Both are great. I lost the internet connection at home, so at the moment i have no connection to Xbox LIVE. Therefore, the Gamerscore you can see on my GameSpot profile isway out-of-date. Current GamerScore stands at: 10150.

I got all 200 points from Sonic the Hedgehog on Xbox LIVE Arcade! :D

Almost completed Bioshock! NEARLY THERE!

....And that's it. A Nice short summary! :D

Cya Later!!

Hey Everyone,

Its that time of year again. The British Grand Prix 2007 is this weekend and I will be there!! :D

Those who have been reading my blog for a while will know that I went for the first-time last year, when I was still a University Student and it was a gift from my girlfriend for my 21st birthday. For this reason we only had Bronze+ access to the track, which meant we only had access to non-restricted areas. Whilst we had an absolutely fantastic time, so good we decided straight away to go again this year, the limited access and view did hamper the event some what.

(For those not in the know, the track is split up into Zones, with each Zone awarded a level. Only those people who have the designated level or higher can access that particular Zone. The available levels are: Bronze, Bronze+, Silver, Gold and Platinum). Bronze+ passes last year gave us about 50% access to the track and its facilities.

This year, now am working full time as a Software Analyst, and the cost is split between me and my girlfriend, we have been able to fork out for Platinum access, the best access a general member of the public can purchase. This means we have unlimited access to all parts of the track, and grandstand seats at the best part of the track for the actual race on the Sunday. This year is just going to be phenomenal and am really looking forward to it.

However, it does mean that I won't be on GameSpot for the next 5 days!! :D

Hopefully, the new British Rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton can get his 3rd win of the season!!!

See you all when I get back!!!

Hello Everyone,

Some good points to start off with first.....I have completed the Single-Player portion of Perfect Dark Zero and completed PAC-MAN CE, including all 12 achievements, this past week.

On the subject of Perfect Dark Zero, I have completed the Single-Player on "Secret Agent" difficulty, which is the 2nd of the 4 available difficulties. This brings me onto the next point regarding this game....WHATS WITH THE STINGY POINTS GIVING RARE? :D

Having spent about 8 hours with this game I still hadn't unlocked a single achievement from it!! There are 50 achievements to unlock and only around 8 of them are for the Single-Player portion of the game, the rest are awarded for CO-OP or Deathmatch play. Now having completed the Single-Player and having spent arond 6 or 7 hours on Multi-Player, I have managed to squeeze 165 points from it!!

The next bit of achievements related news is that I completed PAC-MAN CE for Xbox LIVE Arcade. This isn't like "Perfect Dark Zero completed", this is "properly" completed. I have managed to get all 200 points from it!! :D

On a more disappointing note, I haven't managed 2 get around to buying Forza 2 yet. I'm going to be buying a new car in the next 2 or 3 months so am saving all my hard-earned cash for it. With still having a lot of achievements to unlock from the games I already own, its hard to justify shelling out for it just yet. The idea is that in 2 or 3 months time when I have bought the car and finished off some of the games I already own, a Forza purchase will make a lot more sense!! :D (So I keep telling myself anyway). It's hard to fight the urge, sometimes!! :D

I will however be purchasing 2 LIVE Arcade titles very soon. First up is the excellent Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and the well redesigned Prince of Persia. I have recently played the demo of both of these and they are definately what I want to see from the LIVE Arcade in terms of quality and value for money!!

Hi Everyone,

It really is "long time, no see" on this blog of mine!

Apologies for the delay in getting something up on here, but the weather has been nice and time at the computer has been short. The main things that have happened over the last few weeks for me are detailed below, once again I welcome comment and hope to hear from everyone soon.

Firstly, my Gamerscore now standards at 7480 (i think) which is a pretty big leap since I last reported on its progress. The majority of the points have come from Dead Rising, which I have now played through once and plan to play through again to try and get some of the more "specific" achievements. These involve killing a certain number of enemies or photographing so many things, which I didn't really have the chance to complete on my first play through. Other points have come from mainly new titles, which has also helped bump it up a little (G.R.A.W., Pinball FX and Perfect Dark Zero).

On a bit of side note here, I have so far been pretty much dissappointed with G.R.A.W.! I don't want to be too harsh on it here as I have only spent a few hours on it, but so far I have been left feeling a little underwhelmed by it. I think after all of the superlatives and great press I remember it receiving on its release and me waiting sooooo long to getting around to picking it up, I may have built it up a little in my estimations, which might have something to do with it, am not sure.

Anyways, back on point, BIG NEWS is that I have reached the lofty heights of Level 22 here on GameSpot, which is quite suprising considering I haven't been posting any blogs recently! :D Although I may not have been updating info on my profile I have been checking the news section at least once a day and also checking out the odd review/preview here and there.

I still haven't gotten around to putting up the photos of my trip to Dublin. I am hoping to do it this weekend if I get time and as you may already know, I haven't written the detailed blog about it yet either....another thing on my to do list.

I am going to have to do it soon tho, as I go on another trip in about 3 weeks time. I am going to the British F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone in July. Those who have been my friends on here for a while, may remember that I went for the first time last year, despite being a massive Formula 1 fan since I was around 9 yo. My girlfriend, got us tickets for the event as a present for my 21st birthday and we enjoyed it so much, were going back this year. It was actually 12 months ago last weekend since we were there last, as the race is a few weeks later in the F1 calendar this year, but hopefully we will get the amazing weather we got last year! (am not greedy honest) :D

The new British sensation on the scene is Lewis Hamilton who has recorded 1 3rd place, 4 2nd places and his first win, in his first 6 races of his rookie season. With his winning coming this Sunday just gone. Due to him winning the Silverstone website went down on Sunday evening as glory supporters hammered their servers trying to order the last remaining tickets for the event. My concern is that I have supported the Team he races for (McLaren-Mercedes) since I got into F1 all those years ago and bought loads of merchandise (T-shirts etc) to wear at the event last year. My plan was to do that again this year, but now the place is going to be swarming with "glory" supporting McLaren fans and i'm afraid I may be tarnished with the same brush!!! :( But what the hell, you cant have everything!

On that note, I will end this really long coming and just generally really long post!

Peace Out!!

CHAMPIONEZ, CHAMPIONEZ, OLE, OLE, OLE

YES, Manchester United lifted the trophy yesterday, despite a 1-0 defeat to West Ham United. Although we all knew mathmatically that United were champions a few weeks back, that didn't stop the amazing feeling of achievement all our fans got, when we finally lifted the trophy!

Congratulations to all the lads for the hard work they have put in over the season and hopfully this is the first of a few league titles we will pick up in the next few years. It has been a long, hard season, that ends this coming Saturday when we play "Chelski" FC in the FA Cup Final. Hopefully this time next week, i'll be writing a blog with a toast to a double.

In gaming related terms, I got two fantastic bargains at my local Blockbuster Video. Even though I am not in the market for new 360 games at the moment, as I am still trying to get through a few other titles, I just had to pick these up as they were just too good a bargain to miss! I got Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Game of the Year Edition for £14.99 and Perfect Dark Zero Limited Collectors Edition Tin for JUST £10!!!!!!!

The Italian Job 2 (Part 2) turned out to have a sad ending! :(

Unfortunately United failed to turn up for the 2nd leg of the tie and were rightly beaten 0-3 by a very competent Milan team. Without using excuses it was obvious to see by the way Milan hounded us off the ball, that they were by far the fresher team and I think playing 5 games in the space of 14 days finally took its toll on a team ravaged with injuries.

Luckily for us, our pain was short-lived as Manchester United's main concern, The Premiership, was won this past weekend as United tip-toed past a rather poor Manchester City side, in the "Oldest Derby in the World", the Manchester Derby. United's 1-0 victory and Chelsea's inability to beat Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium meant that United were the Champions of England for the first time since 2003.

United play Chelsea in what was originally billed as "The Title Decider", but as United's now unassailable lead has been confirmed, its merely a dress rehearsal for the F.A. Cup Final. It will be great to watch the Chelsea players give United a "guard of honour" as we did for them 2 years ago in the same fixture. Roman Abramovich's Billions unfortunately couldn't buy them the title this year!! :D

Well, this is my first blog post in a long while now. The main reason for my sustained absence is because I have been away on holiday. Me and the girlfriend travelled to Dublin for 5 days and we had an absolutely fantastic time. It is an amazing city and I would recommend it to everyone! (I think I am still suffering the effects of all the Guiness I consumed!!)

Unfortunately I do not have my digi-camera with me as I write this, but I'm planning on uploading some of the photo's onto my profile here for peeps to check out at their leisure.

And that's it for today. I don't want to say too much about my holiday to Ireland, as I am planning to do a post about it in the not too distant future, which will go into more detail (hopefully, with some pictures to accompany it).

Bye for now!

OK, well to begin, it has to be said, that its a good job am typing this instead of talking it, because I'm starting to lose my voice.

AND the reason for that is because the Manchester United Vs AC Milan Champions League Semi-final has just finished. We (Manchester) have taken the tie 3-2 in the first leg, in our usual dramatic fashion and this has given us a great oppurtunity of making the final in Athens.

The game got off to a fantastic start from our point-of-view in a very similar way to the 2nd leg against Roma, which we won 7 - 1. Before the first 10 minutes were out, we were leading 1 - 0 after a superb headed finish from Cristiano Ronaldo. Then things started to go wrong for us and by the time we struggled into the dressing room at half-time, we found oursleves trailing by 2 goals to one, due to two sensational solo efforts from Brazilian playmaker Kaka.

We came out in the 2nd half and immediately looked stronger, with Michael Carrick almost equalising a few minutes after the restart. The game went on and around 10 minutes into the 2nd half, the equaliser came and it was scored by WAYNE ROONEY after a fantastic chipped thru pass from Paul Scholes, who showed both great vision and skill in not only spotting the pass but executing it perfectly.

After we equalised, we played the kind of pressured, attacking football that we are famous for and were really pressing for an another goal to give us the advantage for the 2nd leg away in Milan. With the 90 minute mark having passed and only 2 minutes of "stoppage" time remaining, it looked like United had wasted the opportunity to capitilise on the current state of play, then it happened.....

United won the ball in midfield and Ryan Giggs started to run with the ball into the Milan half at pace before slipping in a pass to Wayne Rooney for him to run on to, BANG, just like that, with his first touch, Rooney smashed the ball into the net, beating the goalie Dida at his near post and in a flash, with around 20 seconds remaining on the clock, Rooney and United had done it. 3 - 2

Now obviously we don't want to get carried away. The tie is only at the half way point as we must play again next Wednesday at the San Siro in Milan, but no doubt we have given ourselves a great chance to make it thru to Athens in order to face either Liverpool or Chelsea.

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick update to the blog today. The big news being that on Saturday 14th April 2007, my Xbox Gamerscore broke through the 6000 points barrier.

It has actually taken quite a while for me to from 5000 - 6000, mainly due to me purchasing only one new title over the last few months, with my time spent concentrating on getting more points out of the games I already own. The one game that I did purchase was Virtua Tennis 3, I have taken around 450 points from the game, which has contributed alot.

The rest of the points have come from Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (around 40 points), Gears of War (around 60 points), The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (50 points), Geometry Wars (20 points), Tony Hawks Project 8 (around 150 points) and a few others here and there.

Anyways, heres to the next few weeks of gaming and trying to hit 7000! :D

(P.S. My Gamercard has not yet updated, as I haven't connected to LIVE for a week or so)