Shoot 'em, shoot 'em shoot 'em! Who would have thought that a first person shooter (FPS) for the Wii could be so gripping, so exciting, so invigorating! Come to think of it, who'd have thought ANY FPS could be like that.

My PC gaming is limited to playing the Sims 2 and on the odd occasion, Neverwinter Nights, and so FPS games are virtually non-existent in my life. This weekend I bought my first ever FPS. I am not good with the whole mouse and keyboard navigating thing, but the Wii offers a new type of mechanics in terms of game play and I was keen to try it out, and so on a quick visit to CNA in the Pav I picked up Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

Oh my WORD! The graphics are good, better than I expected actually. (Yes, I'm waiting for all the little PC gamers' sneers) The concept of using the Wii remote as your weapon arm is fantastic, making the canon attached to your Varia suit an extension of your own arm. You use both the Wii Nunchuk and the remote as you navigate through the various sections of the space station you start out on, and later different planets, etc...

You play as Samus, a female soldier of sorts, who along with a few other characters is tasked with finding and removing a computer virus that has been uploaded to the main system. (Yeah, I'm not 100% sure of the details... need to go through that section again). The remote is your "action" arm... you use it to open doors, fire your canon at certain items, change the settings on your visor, etc whilst the nunchuck is your movement and directional (with the use of the remote) controller.

I initially had my reservations as to whether or not I would enjoy the game, however after my very first boss battle in the game I was actually shaking from the adrenalin rush that was screaming through my body. It's bloody fantastic! Gamespot gave it a rating of 8.5 and I certainly agree with that.

Nice story, good game play, beautiful graphics and (in places) nail-biting tension all make for a superb game.

This game is right up my alley. The game features characters from the series, and even has a side quest in the form of collecting bugs for Grisham. As the lead character you play in a first person view, collecting and analysing evidence from 5 separate crime scenes. The overall game play is simple, and the entire game can be completed within 8 hours if you sit and play one crime scene after the next, however it still seems to be able to hold your interest.

I played the 5 crime scenes through in two days and have started again to see if I can achieve Master status on all of my scenes. Oh, that's something I forgot to mention. After each case has been solved Grisham will evaluate your performance and rank you.

This is a great game if you want to kill an afternoon, without too much effort. And although the age restriction is 16+ I think I'd let my 14 year old play the game.

Ok, I admit it! I bought the ultimate in girly-girl games. I just couldn't help myself. It's... so cute... and well... when cute calls, I tend to go galloping off after it.

Bratz is based on the live-action movie of the same name. The story follows the 4 Bratz girls; Cloe (Angel), Yasmin (Pretty Princess), Sasha (Bunny Boo) and Jade (Kool Kat); as they try to put out a magazine, manage school and their new teacher Burdine Maxwell (Editor-in-chief of the rival magazine 'Your Thing') and deal with the 'Tweevils' Kaycee and Kirstee; twin sisters and Burdine's interns.

The game is a collection of mini-games, some are required to move through the story and some are there to help you earn "blingz" to spend and other rewards. The required mini-games help you fill your magazine, which you can view at any point in the game by returning to the Bratz office.

As you move through the game you get to buy or create your own fashions, pick up a pet that you can enter into competitions, take photographs, pick up tasks from your mobile phone, hold a fashion show, and a whole whack of other little things that all help you in your quest to put out the best fashion magazine on the market.

The controls are simple. Using only the remote (no Nunchuk required) you point your character in the direction that you want her to move in, and hold down 'B'. I found the camera controls to be a tad iffy though, and when your character is on her inline skates, the remote isn't as intuitive as it should be. Meaning, you end up getting stuck in corners and heading off in the wrong direction.

The graphics, although not terrible, are not as good as they could have been. However, this is all forgiven thanks to the bright, rich colours and cuteness of both the towns and the characters.

This is definitely a game for your girly-girl up to the age of 12, although, this girly-girl is enjoying it so far.

To be honest, I don't really have much to say about Spore.

I think the downward spiral of the game, for me, began right in the beginning when the game wouldn't see my internet connection. After much frustration I eventually clicked cancel, and the game launched. No, I have no idea what happened either.

The game, visually, is very entry-level (on my pc, of course). Although, I do think that the EA took the whole 'minimum spec requirements' to the extreme. My pc just meets the specification requirements, except for my graphics card, which is slightly better. The graphics quality, although adequate, leaves much to be desired.

The concept of the game is good. Create a creature and evolve it. The execution of that concept is not good. Yes, you create a creature and evolve it, but I find myself asking where the finesse is? Where is the part where I can turn my creature from a ghastly looking alien into a cool human (or at the very least, humanoid type creature)? Why can't I get the eyes to look the way I want, and what the heck is up with the mouth?

Once I'd gotten through the cell stage and was onto the creature stage the game became repetitive quickly. Initially I started out creating an herbivore. This lasted all of 2 hours. I then scrapped my creature and started again as a carnivore. It would seem that survival of the fittest is the way to go. Perhaps it's my personality, or perhaps it's just the way the Spore universe works, but my anti-social, kill everything in my path attitude seemed to be effective and after repeatedly performing the same actions (charm, spit, attack, bite, etc...) I got to the tribal phase.

Defending my meat was the end of the game for me. I switched it off and went back to playing Bratz. Although, I have to say, watching paint dry would also have topped the excitement factor of the game.

I keep asking myself, were my expectations of the game too high? Was I expecting it to be on the same level as The Sims2, of which I am an ultimate fan? I don't know the answers to those questions. What I do know is that Spore did not 'wow' me in a way that I thought it would.

I think I suffer from permanent Gamers Block. Well, it’s either that, or I’m just not a “concept getter.” I envy my friends with their 200 odd finished games under their belt. I look at someone like retrosepa, who is just a natural gamer; taking to games on various platforms like a natural footer surfer takes to the waves, and wonder if I’ll ever be one tenth of the gamer that he is. The answer is “I doubt it.” He is a living, breathing gaming machine… in human skin. However, such is life and so I’m happy to contend myself with the odd console game and, my latest endeavour, Magic the Gathering.

Yeah, I’m pretty much completely baffled by the game. Don’t get me wrong, the minor bits that I do understand, I enjoy, but the rest is like living in a dream… kinda foggy, mostly nonsensical. But anyways, I’ll keep plodding at it and hopefully it will begin to make sense.

Living in SA certainly has it's upside, like any country. However, a very large downside would be the price of games in general. Your average PC game goes for R300 (+-$46 with the current exchange rate), and your average PS2 game goes for around R450 in stores (+- $72). What really grates me is that buying games online is infinitely cheaper than buying them in your average store. CNA at the moment is stocking God of War for R499, whilst Take2.co.za has it for around R162. 

I constantly get this feeling that we’re being ripped off. Not to mention that unless you have a chipped PS2, you cannot under any circumstances play games from the US. It gives me headaches. 

Gaming in South Africa should be considered a full sporting event considering the costs that you have to outlay in order to play your average PS2, PC, PSP games. Actually, don’t get me started on the cost of a PSP. It starts at R2500, then you still have to buy a memory card, and the games start at R400 each. Movies are around R350 each. 

I know I sound like I’m whingeing, and I probably am, but today has been a bit of a rough one and I need something and someone to complain to. ;)

I've heard the hype, read the reviews, but never in all my life would I have imagined enjoying World of Warcraft as much as I am. It took a while for me to decide what character I'd like to play, but one thing I had in mind was spells. I am, and always have been, drawn to the more spell casting ability driven characters, however knowing that they're not as strong as I'd like them to be I've gone for a kind of mix between a lower level fighter and a mid to higher level spell caster / healer, like a cleric in NWN, or in the case of WoW, a druid.

And so my character was born. A Night Elf Druid, named Willowa. She is remarkably pretty with her long blue hair, deep blue skin, dark full lips and deep purple, butterfly style facial artwork. She is, undoubtably the prettiest character I've ever played in any game to date.

World of Warcraft is certainly a new gaming experience for me. I've played the odd online game, but not for any substantial time. R.O.S.E. Online kept me busy for a bit, although, as cute as it is, it doesn't have nearly same amount of appeal as WoW. I've also discovered that being in a guild or group of sorts certainly makes the game a far more entertaining and worthwhile experience.

If nothing else, WoW is pretty. Oh so very, very pretty. Every creature, building, every bit of landscape and every character is beautifully done. A favourite place for me to go are the moonwells. When I stumbled apon my first one, I stood and looked at it, not wanting to move incase it dissappeared. Visually, this game is outstanding. Flying a hippogriff, running through the woods, fighting with beasts and monsters, everything in this game is exquisite.

Special abilities are fun. I've finally levelled up my druid enough for her to shapeshift into a bear. This was actually a whole lot easier than it would have been thanks to Ross (Nosehair), who bumped into me in the game. Having someone who is a whole lot higher in rank than you are is a huge help when you're completing particularily difficult quests. He just ploughed through the monsters while I was analysing and seeing how I was going to get through the situation. Before I knew it, he had killed off the monster that I needed to kill, and although I didn't get very many experience points, I did get what I needed for my shapeshifting skill. And so, I am now able to transform myself into a bear. A rather ugly bear actually.

Being in a guild certainly helps with the social aspect of the game. It's nice to be able to say hi to friends and find out what they're doing... although, all of them are far higher in rank than I am, and so going on quests with them is pretty much an impossibility. I guess that's another reason why is was so nice when I got to go questing with Ross. He did, however, discover how bad I am with direction. Getting lost in the game is something that I've become an expert in. The maps are, to say the least, awful. I seem to also have mountain trouble. Meaning, everytime I need to get somewhere, there's a mountain in my way and I need to go around it, or through it, and by the time I've gone around it, I've completely lost the way.

However, overall I have to say that I'm loving WoW. It's a game that is so worth playing if you can get to a decent net connection.

Silly moments in the game for me:-

• Running headlong into a group of shadow sprites and getting my ass handed to me.
• Being hit on by a dwarf (I think he was a dwarf... he was like half my height). "hey you beauty" was the line I believe. I nearly fell on my @$$ laughing.
• Being stalked by another player who wanted to duel with me. I eventually had to jump off a bridge into a canyon below to get away from him.
• Looking in an empty cave for a monster when he was RIGHT behind me. Thank heavens for friends coming to the rescue.
• Figuring out that my NE Druid dances like a stripper o_O
• Watching Xav's succubus smack her own @$$ whilst growling with merriment. I giggled myself silly at that.
• Being asked to join a group about 30 times by someone called Hiooiil (sp? or something like that).
• Morgoth (sp?) asking me if I was Ash from Pokémon.

.Hack//Infection is a game I've had in my cupboard for ages now, infact almost a year, and I've just never got around to playing it. Actually no, that's not entirely true... I started playing it, but the concept of playing an online game that screwed up your head so badly that you ended up in a comatose state freaked me out. So, after my initial introduction to the game, the disk went back into it's box, never to be seen again, until this weekend. So, getting over my intense wussyness I popped the disk into my PS2 and spent the next 5 or so hours glued to the television. I can't believe how addictive that game is! The hours just flew by!! And that is what I did during the sunny hours of Saturday.

Sunday saw me pulling out .Hack//Mutation, another game that's been collecting dust in my cupboard. Mutation is the continuation of the story of Infection. I have to say though, I far prefer Mutation, as you start out as a Level 30 character, as opposed to the Level 1 character in Infection. You also start the game with a handful of friends which really goes along way against the tougher monsters.

I have to say, both games are fantastic, but by no means easy. I've never ended up dieing so many times, and any game, as I did in Mutation. That's the one thing that bugged me about the game, was it's lack of saving points. You can only save if you're in a root town. If you're on the battle field, or in the dungeons, there are no save points, so you have to make sure that you go in with enough strength, potions and scrolls to make it out again. If you don't you have to start again from your last save. That aspect of the game drove me a nuts, and it's the reason why I gave up with Infection and moved onto Mutation.

Otherwise, I recommend that if you can get your hands on this game, play it. It's worth the time.

Day one...

This has got to be the most complicated profile I've set up to date. Thank you to retrosepa (retro) for the help in getting going. It's much appreciated.

Where to begin... Well, this is about gaming, so we'll start there. I've been a gamer in the least l337 sense of the word since before I can remember.

Remember those old video games that you plugged into your TV, long before Sega ever arrived? That's what I started out on. My mom used to buy me the cartridges of 110 games and I had everything from Ducktails to Milk & Honey. I have to say, those oldies still rock. I then progressed to PC games with the first Tomb Raider being my first real pc game. I've played a variety of games from the older Carmageddon and Theme Hospital, then moving to Creatures 2 and more recently the odd PC game such as Sims 2 and Sid Meirs (sp?) Pirates.

I have to make something clear here... I'm not a PC gamer. Not by any means. I'm a console gamer, and as such my pc gaming experience is limited. Currently I own a PS2, and that is predominantly the platform I play on. I've played the odd Xbox game at a friends place, but nothing worth mentioning.

So here I am, starting a blog on a gaming portal, hoping to learn more about the hobby that I enjoy so much.