It's just the same old story all over again. We dominated that game. The Mancs had nothing in that game, they were rubbish and we were the ones with all the chances. That was the problem. We had so many damned chances and didn't take them when we should have. When Crouch had his shot saved I knew that was it, game over. The second they got a crappy decision I thought they would score from the resulting free kick. Surprise Surprise. One minute into the four mins of extra time they score off a stupid free kick.

Just annoys the hell out of me sometimes, football. Tell you what though. Liverpool play like that against Barca on Tuesday and take our chances, we'll thrash them. If we don't, then we'll be in trouble.

I was pretty frustrated to find out about the fact that the emotion chip was being taken out of the PS3 and so PS2 BC was going to rely on software emulation which meant there would be a lot of PS2 games that won't play on the PS3 from the off.

I get more annoyed at the talk of people saying that it's ok. Why would you buy a PS3 just to play PS2 games? Well that's not the point. There are some I'm sure who will be selling their PS2's to go part way in buying a PS3. There are those like myself who are passing it on to other people. In my example, I'm passing it on to my brother.

The point is, there are times when you like to go back and play the older games, and it's just much easier to have one system which would do all things in one. I mean how annoying would it be if you had to buy several computers. You had one computer which you use for the internet, another to do word processing, another for programming, another for printing and another for e-mailing. How frustrating would it be to have to switch between all those computers? You'd need a lot of power sockets to begin with, plus many monitors or would you be happy to swap between the cables all the time.

Backwards compatibility is just a convenience. Or at least it's supposed to be. But when you find out that you still have to pay the same price for something other people in other countries have which you will no longer get, well then you feel a little ripped off.

I'm not cancelling my preorder though. I've been saving up for a damned long time for a PS3. I've been saving up since Christmas of 2005 with the expectation of a March 2006 release. I kept saving up money which is why I can afford it now. Not because I'm rich and I can throw the money about. I just made sure to set aside so much money every month and now I can afford it.

Anyway, there are some of us out here who will get a kick out of the launch games on offer. I for one can't wait to play Ridge Racer 7. Loved Ridge Racer 5 on the PS2, played that game to death. Will do the same with this. Plus I've only just got Okami, God Hand and FFXII to play. Plus God of War 2 is yet to come out, so I'm hoping the PS3 BC will be up to date enough to play those.

I'm still glad I'm getting a PS3. Just a little more annoyed that I already am at how much more we're being shafted.

So I did it. I got an e-mail at 5:30pm which meant I was on my way home at the time from work. Got back home, found the e-mail and by 6:30pm I had preordered a PS3.

Yes, I preordered a PS3. I willingly preordered a PS3. I know a lot of people will think I'm insane for it but I'm happy with it. I'm excited. I can't wait to get it and then know I'll be in line to get some awesome games like MGS4 and FFXIII. Games that I'm really looking forward to play. In the mean time, Ridge Racer 7, Motorstorm, Call Of Duty 3, Resistance Fall of Man and Sonic The Hedgehog can tide me over till then.

I got the preorder from http://www.gameplay.com. I have to admit I was disappointed at being forced into buying a bundle. I remember preordering the PS2 and getting a choice of what I wanted. Not this time. I would have just bought Ridge Racer 7, Resistance, and Sonic, instead I had to choose between Ridge Racer 7, Motorstorm and Call of Duty, or Resistance, Virtua Tennis and Virtua Fighter. Not a fan of the Virtua series so went with the Ridge Racer one as I was more like to play Motorstorm and Call of Duty, plus it was cheaper.

So yeah, I hope I was quick enough to get it first day otherwise I have a feeling I could be waiting for some time. There was at least a one hour gap and most people would probably be on their way home from work. I guess I'll find out come March 23rd.

Yeah, I pretty much suck at it, although what do expect when you don't really have an experience.

So for the past few years I've started working on upgrading my PC a little bit by a little bit, but during this time I thought that cheap components were a good thing, especially if what it gave you was something big.

So occasionally I would buy new memory, a new graphics card, processor, motherboard, hard drives and so on. But of course, not understanding PC's too well meant the components I bought weren't necessarily the best. I bought a video card noting it had 512MB of memory and thought that would be awesome. What I bought was a GeForce FX 5500 around the time that the 7000 series were no longer the high performance cards.

I bought cheap brand 1GB memory only to find my computer crashing like mad a few months later and then not being able to turn it on. Only to find the memory was full of errors.

My most recent build was a new motherboard, high quality memory, and better power supply. However, when putting it together, I noticed my processor wasn't going to fit. I bought a new motherboard which would only fit the newer processors, whilst my current processor was an older version. Being the idiot I was, I went out and bought a brand new processor, and put everything together, only to find the computer wouldn't boot even after reinstalling Windows.

I put the old motherboard and processor back in to find everything ok again. Recently I tried it again and found that the computer wouldn't even turn on at all, so I think the motherboard is totally dead and probably was to begin with.

So I think over time I have slowly learnt from my mistakes and probably realised some of the things that requires building a PC. That also means it's pretty expensive and so I'm going to have to wait till I get a bit of money together. It's just frustrating though as I'm struggling to play games on it as it is. The biggest problem being the game just crashing, the screen freezing and the sound looping. So the only way out is to restart. My computer runs pretty hot too despite using a CPU cooler.

So I need to do a new complete build with decent quality components but without the money, it won't be any time soon. I get pretty jealous of people like jediskilz173 who are building these amazing machines and would love to do that myself. But I think I still have more things to learn before I start doing that. I've never completly built a computer from the ground up, just upgraded a few things here and there. Once I have the money though, I can't wait to build a good computer and be able to play games without slow down or crashing!

Yeah, so I was away for a week so I bet you guys missed me! Right! Right!?....right?...guys???

Anyway, I was in Milton Keynes for the week at a summer school/conference concerning my PhD and to be honest, I didn't really have a great time. I always get easily homesick and just couldn't wait to get home the whole time. There were some good parts, and a few horrible parts, but now it's over and I'm back...

...and tired. SLEEPTIME!

BTW, PS3 delay totally sucks!!!

So I just read the news that Assassin's Creed is not going to be a PS3 exclusive and will become a PC game. You know, I take that as good news. I plan on being a PS3 owner on the day of release. My PC is not good enough to play games being released now so it will have no chance in playing that. I also don't plan on buying a 360 any time soon. So why do I see it as good news?

Uhh...cause that means more people are going to get what looks like a pretty damned good game. If more people get that game, then that means that the video game industry does well. If the game industry is doing well then potentially cost of games for the next gen will go well. In the end it means good especially if the game is good quality.

So why are people arguing over the game being exclusive or not and then basically turning it into a what system is best argument. This is totally stupid!! More people buy good games, then more good games will get made, right? I know it's simplified but that's how I consider it in my book.

The whole exclusivity thing is such a stupid thing to argue about. I mean unless the developers say it will be out on the system then don't assume it will. Just wait till they say it will be out. I mean all these people saying Assassin's Creed will be out on the 360. That would be like me just saying Dead Rising will be out on the PS3. It's stupid to say so because as far as I know Capcom have not stated anything about there being a PS3 version.

Maybe I'm just fanning the flames but the whole exclusivity thing has been thrown about too much recently and then just taken out of context. I'm sorry for using Microsoft as examples, but they're all I have at the moment. I'm pretty sure the same things happen with Sony and Nintendo.

Just do what I do. Ignore the exclusivity sticker on games. Often or not several months later the game will come out on another system and if not, then if you want the game enough, buy the console. That's what I did with Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast.

EDIT: Ok, NOW you can say Assassin's Creed is coming to the 360 because they have officially confirmed it. But now I'm reading the comments and it's just bringing up the whole console war again and again the closed-mindedness of people. Sony fanboys saying the game will be "hindered" (WTF!?!?!) or saying they don't care about the game anyway (Are you a dumbass, this game looks great?) and the Microsoft guys are all going on about how it's one up for the 360 and one less reason to buy a PS3 (I can think of plenty of reasons why I want a PS3).

You know what, if these guys are really concerned about how the game is gonna look. They should just buy a PC. Don't know what you lot think but of the two games I've seen on both PC and 360 (Prey and Oblivion), the PC version pwns over the 360 with high-end specs, and I predict it will do the same with Assassin's Creed.

I hate how I bring this up again, but it really does infuriate me. Do people really have nothing better to do then quote their fact sheets on why the system they like is better than anything else. I seriously think they have some document saved to the computer with a list of facts, and they just copy and paste them.

I dunno. Assassin's Creed looks like a great game, and I can't wait to get it. I'm not gonna give a damn what those people say anymore because I know what I enjoy and if I need to start going to them for opinions, then I seriously have something wrong with me and I should just kill myself now!

Thank you. ^_^

...only I really suck at the guitar and so I never will be one.

I enjoy playing guitar at home in my room. I don't really write my own stuff. Anything I do try I end up completly hating the day after and so it gets scrapped. Instead I just stick to listening to lots of music, and then when I hear a song I really like, I try to play along. I have no plans of gigging or anything like that, I'm no where near good enough.

But anyway, I recently made a couple of clips of myself playing guitar and I thought I would share them with you guys. They're not full songs. Just small bits of songs I like that I play pretty well. When I say pretty well, I mean I'm still probably going to make a couple of mistakes. So enjoy.

This one is Suffocating Under Words Of Sorrow by Bullet For My Valentine. Just the riff after the solo and a little bit of the final verse. They're just bits I really like from the song.

[video=dnEzwzf65bsPvDDb]

Another Bullet For My Valentine song. This is Hand Of Blood and it's the second part of the solo. It's probably not even classified as a solo, more of a riff/melody.

[video=KyEwkDGo5bsPvDDY]

I've definitely come a long way from when I first started out!

Ok, I was moaning in my last post about fanboys and how you should just pick the system which has the most games you enjoy and go with that one. Well I kind of when back on that just recently.

When the Dreamcast first came out, I avoided it and went with the PS2 because I wanted to play the likes of Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo and Pro Evo Soccer. Also I wouldn't have come across the wonders that are Gitaroo Man and Guitar Hero. However, I kept track of the games on the other systems and one on the Dreamcast really caught my eye.

Jet Set Radio. Oh how much I wanted to play that game but I was never patient enough to save up for a Dreamcast. My parents got me the PS2 as an early Christmas/Birthday present and I felt, what was the point of paying all this money just to play only one game. So I just had to admire the game from a far and hoped that the most unlikliest thing would happen. Jet Set Radio would be ported to the PS2. I even e-mailed the guys who made it, begging they make a port, but no luck.

Well recently I noticed ebay selling Dreamcasts and well I just bought one for £25 with various other games like Sonic Adventure, and then I just entered a bid for Jet Set Radio and hopefully by tomorrow I'll win that, so by the end of the week I'll be playing Jet Set Radio!

And who knows, maybe I'll try and find a copy of Chu Chu Rocket. It's Alex Navarro's fault for showing that insanely amazing commercial!
ChuChu Rocket!

I think I need to get this out of my system now before I blow my top or something. Basically it's about the price of the PS3 here in the UK. I know everyone is shocked and annoyed with the announced price of $599 for the premium package, basically the 60GB hard drive and HDMI support and all that stuff.

At first I was worried because I thought I'm going to have to pay £599 for it which I had to do with the PS2 when it was £299 and $299 if mym memory serves me right. But when I heard £425 I figured it wasn't so bad. I was still annoyed when I noticed that from converting $599 to £'s it was less than £425. But I just convinced myself it could have been worse.

For some reason though, the conversion the other way shocks me more. I only realised this with the article Gamespot showed about the current bundle over at Play.com. I realised that £425 would be $799. That's right, a whole $200 more.

I guess my rant about this is people are complaining about the price in America but I just want people to realise that we're going to have to pay even more.

Anyway, now that I have that out of my system, the other thing that annoys me are the fanboys. Maybe I'm jumping on the bandwagon but I just feel the need to get my opinion out of my system like the price of the PS3.

The first problem with supporting a system over any other is that in the end the system shouldn't matter. The thing you should be looking at is the games that come out on that certain system. If you like a lot of games on one system then get that system. If on the other hand you really couldn't give a damn about any of the games then don't get the system.

Now this leads to the next point. Just because you don't like those games doesn't mean there are other people who won't like those same games. Just cause you love Final Fantasy doesn't mean everyone else does. Maybe you couldn't give a crap about Halo, well I'll tell you now, plenty of other people do.

Despite the price, I'm saving up for a PS3 because I am really looking forward to the games coming out on that system. I don't particularly want an XBox 360 because the games just don't really interest me. That doesn't mean I'm going to go hating all XBox 360 users and blindly love the PS3. I just prefer the games on one system over the other, and that is just my opinion.

I realise none of this is going to make a difference, and I'm not going to suddenly convert everyone. This probably won't help even one person but it's helped me since I won't be planning on talking about this anymore.

Anyway, now that's out of my system, hopefully I won't be ranting like that again.