8 full weeks of Christmas night-shifts in work are done. Banksy's 'Consumer Jesus' strikes home twice as hard.

Im leaving the ugly scenes of consumerism in about 3 hours. My bag is packed, exploding with presents for my families back home; the silver lining of my job being a 30% discount, or as i like to call it, an excuse to spend more on pressies! Hypocrit? Never!

The past 2 months have been spent dreaming of waking up my 2 year old neice on Christmas day, my gran in the room next, my brother, sister and brother-in-law I haven't seen in 5 months. My Parents. Eating warm food in warm company. Seeing daylight, glorious daylight. Today was the first time I saw daylight since last Wednesday, now I have 4 days of it to look forward to.

I'm doing 2 shifts in my old radio stationover the weekend, and the speakers & projector were delivered back home last week ahead of another game-night with all my local Waterford buddies.

So like most of us, I'm making the best of a brilliant time of the year. God bless to those of you who earn his blessings & Happy Christmas to my fellow agnostics. For me the true meaning of Christmas is family, and whether you visit your respective churches tomorrow morning or not, I hope you have a fun & loving day with people who are fun & loving.

Happy Christmas Gamespotters!

:D

I love radio, and jump at the opertunity to get back on air whenever I can. I started by accident during a publicity run for a website I made when i was 15, and It's been second fiddle in my career of choice ever since. Both world colide once a weekly game-news slot on Beat 102-10, but every once In a while I get some airtime on 'The Last Word', Ireland's most listened to radio slot (drivetime current events.)

Last week I had the oppertunity to talk about this Christmas's biggest games, and enjoyed 10 minutes on air to give my 2 cents to an audience of 'normies'. I think they appreciated the light tone, as the slot before this was about legalising euthanasia :?

[video=KyYxlWH-5bIOuzPc]

I keep these as a record for prospective jobs, and juding by the fact that Ciara (the girl on air) is now working with The Irish Times (national daily-print publication) and was previously freelancing for a tech site, stuff like this seems to work. Ill have another post before the 25th, as I finish off the 2008 roundup video, but to all you who depart internetland early for mince pies and turkey sambo's at home, have a great Christmas. I hope you enjoy the time with family and/or loved ones. Peace out.

I haven't slept in 2 days but I don't care because Democracy is ALIVE! Register on Citizen Game and Vote for your favourite games of 2008.

Also this weeks podcast is up right over here but I must warn you Denis was also just coming off a nightshift when we recorded it so It dances over the line of acceptable content from minute to minute.

Now I have to go play that Doritos Gamerpoints game. Have awesome weekends folks. 2008 In Memorium video will be around next week.

For those of you who are interested, the staff roundup of our favourite games is available on Citizen Game right HERE.

User voting will be opened on Friday, so be sure to register to get your in :)

And last, that end of year roundupvideo is coming, thanks so much to everyone for their input on my previous blog. Sorry i havent been around much, im currently doing 11 hour night-shifts in work to battle the economy, horah!

At least my website takes no time to manage and earns me loads of dosh. pfffff! :|

Hey guys, Im currently recording and compiling a video feature about the most memorable developments in the games industry in 2008. The slot will have 10 of the biggest industry stories of the past 12 months.

I have most of what I think are the biggest stories scripted allready, but I'm interested to hear some outside input, as I'm sure im forgetting something.

Examples are:
- Burnout Paradise Free DLC
- The success of Braid and its influence on Indy Game Perception

Its Not a Game of the Year Video
Its not the best 'News' of 2008.
Rather a look back on the past 12 months and the things we will remember about 2008 in the future.

Im going to edit this over the next few days, so if you have anything you think was important this year, I'd appreciate the input. Thanks in advance :)

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Thanksgiving Video:
Thanks again to everybody who voted for my video, im flattered and appreciate the time used to send in your vote. As a non-american I apologise for bogarding an emblem so unique to your nation, but It does make me feel better about missing out of the St.Patricks Day emblem earlier this year :P - thanks again.

Yea I'm addicted to Emblems, what you gonna do about it?!
Why the same thing any friend of addict does, feed the addiciton!

The Gamespot Community crew set up a Thankgiving video competition, whereby users had to give thanks to their favourite game in a video of less than 30 seconds.

Mine makes me cringe, though at 5am when I recorded it (after my night shift) it seemed to be okay for a 30 second clip. Who knows. I'm not even American or living in the states, so I should probably be disqualified anyway. In fact I'm not even voting for mine, I'm voting for this one.

Im not making a very good case here..so yea...here it is:

 

[video=KyA7njf_5bINvzXd] 

Whoever you vote for, make sure you vote. Details are here.

As much as i Love Left4Dead, I am totally bewildered by the awesomness that is the new Mortal Kombat. Though I've played many in friends houses, I honestly haven't bought a fighting game since MK2 on the Amiga 600. I forgot how much the genre owns when the basics are executed well.  

Also beating 7 shades of **** out of Superman with an Ice-Ninja is the reason God invented video games. 2008 was ayear of arty imaginative genre-breaking games, so It's only right we end it with a balls-to-the-wall stupidly theatrical punch fest. 

Thats all for now, thanks for stopping by.
Remember, if you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true.

 

Gaming sites have been in conniptions ever since GiantBomb.com released a tid-bit of information about the possible location and timeframe of Assassins Creed 2. The rumour speculates that Ubi's sequel will be intimately tied to the studios heritage, set in the eithteenth century during the French Revolution. It certainly falls in line with the historical importance and revolutionary ideals of the first game, but I can't help feeling its too close for comfort. I've been working on a list of alternatives to send onto Ubisoft's 'ideas' department and I'm hoping you guys can help me with this one. So far I've come up with:

- Assassins Creed 2: Assassin Harder
Set in the mid-nineties, Altair Mclaine just wanted a normal Christmas with his wife but s*** goes down on airplanes.

- Jussassic Creed
Set in 256,000,000,000 BC, you play as 'Ughmong', caveman & assassin of Dinosaurs.

- Assassins Hood
A spin on words; you play as Altair 'Fifty Cent' Jackson seconds after he's been transported to fifteenth century England. Using his second to none 'mic skills' Altair must unite the houses of Lancaster and York, ending the War of the Roses and seeming rap music intro the social tapestry of English culture.

 
- Mortal Kombat Vs Assassins Creed Universe
Altair Vs the entire MK back catalogue. Though I'm sure this is also on Ed Boon's 'next game' list.

I'm sure there are loads more Ubisoft haven't thought of. Let me know in the comment section below.

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Podcast News:
For those of you who listen to the CG podcast, today's podcast had to be postponed as Denis is currently in hospital. I'm pretty sure he has Boneitis.

Last week staff from my website got to chat with Mike Fass producer and star of arguably the best & most popular video game online-mini-series of all time: 'Street Fighter: The Later Years'. Mike took time out of his piledriving practise to answer Dale Cantwell's questions about the original series, what we can expect from the TV follow-up 'Street Fighter Reunion' and the game both projects spawned from.

Check out the interview here.

Before I start, I just copied my Gears of War 2 review to Gamespot.

I tried to give an impression of the content without touching on even minor spoilers. Let me know what you think if you have a few minutes reading time.

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Today millions of Xbox 360 owners around the world will turn on their television sets, boot up their beloved consoles and BAM! RROD. 

Stranger things have happened, but global hardware failures or not, the NXE or 'New Xbox Experience' is moments from arriving, and its here to stay. Boasting a host of new features, including Mii's, the total interface overall is sure to enrage as many as it pleases. My friend Dale has been using the NXE for over a week now and over the weekend he expressed concern that the avatar creation was even more limited than Nintendo's. Right now the only thing I'm looking forward to is that aspect of the update, so lets hope more options are available on launch. Let me know what your own feelings on the update are after you have your own play around.

As a complete GUI whore (I only stuck with Gamespot as a teenager because I thought it the pinnacle of website design growing up), I was pretty disappointed to here my beloved blades system was being canned. It's probably my favourite menu system on a home console and in my opinion far easier to navigate and better looking than the X-media bar or Nintendo's Channel viewer. Better or not its nearly gone, so I took one final photograph that will sit in my wallet next to my photoshopped polaroid of myself and Gabe Newell on a rollercoaster.

Farewell Dear Friend. We barely new thee.

 

I've just come off another week of night shift and insane work on the website, thus I feel the need to compartmentalize my thoughts. Leeeeeeeeeets......go:

1) According to Brian Ekberg, the true way to spell 'Pimp' is, in fact, 'Peeump'. Take note.

2) For years I've had a rule that I only play scary games with all the lights off, wearing headphones. Call of Cthulhu was previously my benchmark for scary, but Dead Space took over earlier today. Im at least 50 minutes into the game and already change my underwear like, 14 times.

3) One line in the Gears of War campaign made me cry  lilttle; 'I dont know what to do, i dont know what to do man'. Really wasn't expecting any emotion from GOW but there you go. It joins a very small list of games that have made me leak.

4) Fallout 3 is neck and neck with GTA4 for my game of the year.

5) I havent played Fable 2 in over 14 days. What a November release calander.

6) Im sort of looking forward to the new Xbox dashboard.

7) I was working the Lich King launch in my local HMV. Interesting Night.

Ate) Daily visits to the site are up 150%. Thanks to the increased popularity of our podcast and an amazing review team.

9) We had a great responce to the Citizen Game community nights last weekend and expect as much frantic Left4Dead and Gears 2 action this weekend. If you play games on Steam, join our community.

10) Next week we have an exclusive review with the creators of the insanely popular Street Fighter: The Later Years, ahead of the show's convertioned to mainstream television.