It doesn't take much effort to realise I enjoy gaming but over the past few weeks I have noticed something, I am actually addicted.

My last gaming session was on July 22nd, and no the DS does not count for me, its fun but its not the same as good old consoles. Here at work I went to numerous sites playing flash games here and there, registered for random games and tried to play on the DS. To cut the story short, its not working and its getting to me.

Only going back to England on the 30th and I am long overdue for a binge gaming session. I know this is wrong but I am feeling withdrawal symptoms. Can't stop thinking about it, getting all stressed and books arent really helping. Tried cartoon network, movies, pubs you name it but there is this huge chunk that is missing and I need it soon.

They say there are clinics to cure gaming addiction, maybe I need to check into if there are any around here, only so I can get a gaming session somewhere!

I realise this is a far cry from my more reasonable blogs, but this is making me nervous, frustrated and a host of other things. I have to blow off some steam, hence this post so please just put up with this rant, its kinda pointless for all of you I know...

Anyone else addicted to games??

We have all had time to digest the startling price of the PS3 upon release, and its a damn good thing Sony announced the price early on, many are getting over the shock including myself and now concentrating on the potential of the system as opposed to the price. I am not a brand fanboy, but a gaming fanboy, I will go with whatever fulfills my needs best and to the end I will try to make this as objective as possible.

It seems people are generally reluctant to splash out on things that are not included within their system beyond memory cards and remote controls. Accessories not included within a bundle have generally failed to excite the industry; mice, keyboards and the PS2 hard drive. Mice and keyboards didn't pick up for one reason, product differentiation. The last thing publishers want to do is try to tackle PCs, they will lost and it is too costly. With these accessories a console becomes a computer that receives an upgrade once every 6 years, not great by PC standards. As for the hard drive, if it was USB enabled and you could connect your own drive then we could have seen much more support, though this is not my point of discussion here.

Today I came across the announcement from Microsoft regarding its $199 HD-DVD add on. It is not the most beautiful thing around and will take up vital space with can be better utilised by other consoles and when thought about properly, one can conclude that it brings up the price of the X360 to equivalent levels to those of the PS3 except the PS3 manages to pull it off within one package with higher specs.

While Sony plans to sell the PS3 as a complete package, Microsoft sold the X360 in pieces, a smart decision since it means you can upgrade slowly but not so when the console prices fall in 3 years unless they manage to integrate the drive as part of the X360. Sony are arrogant we all know that, their momentum seems to be on the rise now and that's good. I would hate to see the PS3 trailing by a large margin.

Any gamer worth their mettle would know platform exclusives make or break a system, they are the system sellers. Both companies have some great intellectual property on their hands either in-house or 3rd party. As of now, I think the race will be closer than envisaged in the aftermath of the late E3.

According to a senior in Sony, he expects this generation to last for 10 years, enough time to recoup their initial investment, and gives them more time until they start developing the PS4, less cost, everyone is happy. PS2 is still developing as we speak and I maintain that this generation has come far too early, there is still juice left in the original Xbox and the PS2 but no harm done I suppose, it will still be good to see the next generation.

Sorry about my complete lack of updates recently. Not in England for the Summer I managed to nab an internship at a Project Management company in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Huge project $500 Million for a set of towers (mall, hotel, apartments and conference center). Will post pictures as soon as I get my hands on a few files.

I was feeling down yesterday when I realised my multi-million dollar idea for my graduation project has already been pulled off by the electronics giant 3M. Here is the link to that section on their website.

For those not interested in reading it, it basically involved tracking down folders automatically to increase efficiency and so on. While I am sad the millions are no longer mine, I feel flattered that the idea had potential and that I was on the right track, even the program was nailed to the letter relative to how I had it in my notes.

Expect a gaming update soon and I will be reviewing my games starting as early as today perhaps! Work is a bit slow at the moment so what's better than sharing my time with the GameSpot community!

I will be mainly reviewing the RPGs, since I am quite casual with the others in general, but here is a question to ask. Would you rather have detailed long reviews or just short summaries? Can't wait to be an active member again, and I admit my inspiration has been Jirair with his great contributions so I felt I should offer something myself. Thanks, I owe you one buddy!

A few days ago on June 26 I finally succumbed and bought a DS Lite. This marks quite a historic time for me as it is my first Nintendo product in 12 years (SNES). So far I am really enjoying it and even more so because it is my first handheld so it is pretty special.

I originally wanted to get the black DS but it was sold out and I didnt want to wait for an extra few days and settled for the white one instead. Now I realise that I actually like the white one much better than the black one (blends in better with the surroundings...)

I was getting excited and wanted to pick up New Super Mario Bros and then I was told it is yet to be released. It didnt take too long to buy Mario and Luigi Partners in Time as my bundled game which is the one I am playing now; a very enjoyable game and really reminds me of the good old Mario days.

Thankfully I researched a few games before I went out for the purchase and had a few games in mind for the collection to be, but my luck that day has been nothing short of phenomenal because I managed to nab 2 gems for an excellent price.

I picked up Riviera The Promised Land ($44) and Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories from another store. Riviera looked quite promising during a 5 minute playtest at home while Kingdom Hearts is strange and will take a bit of time getting used to, the quirkiness is something I am intrigued in though. Same day I go on eBay and I happened to come accross Tactics Ogre Knight of Lodis($44) which was on sale by a lady who I am sure did not recognise how much she can charge for this game. I got all these games sealed and at this price I am a very happy gamer.

I am looking forward to buying a few other games soon like Fire Emblem the Sacred Stone, Advance Wars Dual Strike and other top games out there which I am sure will make my collection complete in my opinion.

If this is a long post I am really sorry but I had to share the excitement with all of you!

In the spirit of gaming, I have just insured my Summer is eventful as I have bought 5 games from my wishlist.

Kingdom Hearts 2
Suikoden V
Grandia III
Shadow Hearts : From the New World
Tales of Legendia

How I am going to have time to play all these is beyond me since I will be leaving England to go on a placement in another country for around 2 months, but no matter, I am still looking to getting my hands on these babies!

I got around to beating Jedi Academy 2 days ago, the ending is disappointing to say the least but the gameplay is excellent, it warrants another run some other time.

After beating Academy I think I will shift my focus back to Shadow Hearts Covenant since I am almost near the end of the game I think. Currently messing about with Digital Devil Saga in my spare time and I know I must get round to Dragon Quest VIII since I never really had time to play it since I bought it 7 months ago. Excellent game and should be worth many many good hours.

Looking forward to the summer! Just one more exam to go on Friday and then I am going to grace my sofa and play the consoles to death!

It really gets to me when people start saying Square Enix is a really bad partnership and that the merger made the Final Fantasy series go down. What those people do not realise is that the merger has nothing to do with any games that have been released so far!

FF in all its incarnations have been dealt with by Square's own staff and none from Enix. FFXII is made by the group of people who made FF Tactics. The merger has hardly been given enough time to showcase any co-developed games between staff from either company. All the games released were planned before the merger and had staff assigned to them, so where does Enix feature in all this?

In the current development world there is no room for small developers anymore. Namco-Bandai, Square Enix and Sega Sammy, with all the development costs it will be too expensive for profitability. The combined talents from all these studios should bring around some great games and ultimately this is what the casual or dedicated gamer wants.

Well here is the link I promised earlier. This is the thesis based in FFVII. I remember it being an interesting read, the standard of writing is questionable but as mentioned on the website, it begs the question, is the writer sane? Thats a matter of opinion, a crazy fool for some or a videogaming pioneer, the choice is really yours to make.

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazines/anime/TheElectricNovel.pdf

I have a small rant on water prices, I received my water bill today and it turns out that my unmetered water supply costs £0.65 ($1.13) per unit. It is too expensive in my opinion but I would like to know whether it costs this much around your parts...

So every time I look at my game collection I start thinking, am I getting my money's worth? I am not doubting the quality of games the industry outputs rather the fact that I buy games and never seem to spend much time playing them or beating them.

Perhaps the truth as much as it is a feeble attempt at raising my morale, I have thought of this little idea. I have always placated myself when I look at the games that I have not actually beaten that many of them, and up until recently this was the only measure I had for getting my moneys worth out of a game.

This may sound quite silly to anyone reading this but it was a Eureka moment for me when I realised that my money's worth is in how much time I spent playing the game and enjoying it rather than beating it. Of course beating it would help me go that extra mile in feeling better and thinking I have squeezed as much of this game as I can without the use of a guide. There are so many games I own that have over 40 hours spent on them without a "Complete" star on them for lack of a better expression. I have not played some of those games for a long time now but when I think about playing them again I come to the conclusion that I would happily scrap the many hours I put into the game and do so all over again simply because I enjoyed it and think it is worth my time doing so.

I do not see gaming as only an escape route for life's daily routines but it is a worthwhile experience in its own right that can further develop my real life character and guide me into new interests and unexplored areas of knowledge (sounds cheesy, but try to think of it otherwise). There are many games which I have played and beaten without a flicker of emotion on my behalf, and I most likely will not play those games again. On the other hand there are some games where beating a boss or simply going through the storyline provides me with a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.

Bottom line is I am proud to be a gamer, it has taught me so much in the past few years that I have become hooked as such. I have in turn become an avid reader of books (fantasy novels, history and philosophy) I got introduced to GameSpot where I can safely say that though I have not met many people and had a personal level of interaction, I really do feel at home when I am on these forums.

Am I getting my money's worth? Yes I am, because gaming is so much more than an adventure which you switch off a few hours later.

ps. There is an excellent thesis by some guy who argued the videogames industry has as much potential as an arts venue as television, cinema and literary works. The thesis was based on FFVII and should I find the thesis I will post a link to it soon.

An update, something that does not happen very often with these blogs.

I have been thinking about my old gaming days and how things seem to evolve. I always bought games and had a good number of consoles but was never a serious gamer by all means. In 1998 I was in school and I heard my friends talking about a game and how to beat a certain area (FFVII and Temple of the Ancients respectively) I never paid much attention but the way they spoke about it stayed with me for a long time, but I never got the chance to play it. Fast forward to 2000, I was on a holiday and saw the game on the shelf of a store, and immediately took the game and bought it. Naturally I did not have my PS with me but for one week I must have read the manual religiously.

I got home, and thats when my life really changed... Nothing has been the same since, I am now a serious collector of what I perceive to be gems of the gaming world, a collection which I am proud of (with few blemishes though) I have to admit I was quite annoyed when I lost my Good-Taste badge for my profile, but I also realised that I wouldn't trade my collection for anything. I went to a store to sell off those games that I really hated, but I simply could not part with them. Sounds strange, bordering obsession, I suppose it can be thought of that way at times.

My collection is getting slightly out of hand, I realise that there are no less than 10 games that have never been taken out of their case and a further 12 that have only been slightly played (under 10 hours). For this reason I will be restricting purchases for the time being until I can get through this huge backlog, which is no easy task considering most of these games are excellent by all accounts. There are still some games I am interested in getting but I will take my time buying them, this should really help the financial side as well.

Well my rant is over and the guilt intensifies as I think of all those games on the shelf, we'll see how many I can get through from now until my next update.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=24055311&user=Hunter_Shuemais

You are making a valid point here, and one such game that depicts America's reaction to sex is Xenosaga. If you remember there was a scene were Albedo "probes" Momo (i use the term very loosely here) with a psychotic laugh, rolled eyes and looking up to the heavens. This scene was modified for the American release when the cut the portrait of his head and only showed Albedo's mouth. They also cut back on the amount of psychotic laughter. Another scene is where Albedo rips his head off and sticks it on again (if my memory serves me correctly) but again this was deemed too much and was censored to something simpler...

The religious issues in Xenogears almost made it such that the game was never released in the US until it was deemed acceptable. There are many cultural differences between nations, and the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction did not help the US in its stifling fear of sex.

I have been playing Digital Devil Saga, and though there is no sex the game is rated M for its blood, gore and violence. I am happy the game was not toned down because this is how it is meant to be played. I can understand that most of the money comes in from the T rating, but watering down an M storyline is flushing down much of the character of the game. This is what is being done, games are watered down, and I tip my hat for all those publishers (mainly ATLUS for me) who refuse to go down that path and release a game in all its gory mature glory.

I want to see banning of videogames being played by teens, even if it is under the supervision of parents. There is so much violence around us that I would not want my children (don't have any yet) to be exposed to anymore than they already are. I would like to do my bit and expose them to as little as possible through the means available to me which are limiting what they watch and what they play.