Hello there, I thought I'd celebrate my 100th blog but introducing those of you who didn't know to the face behind the Phoenix.

OK erections away now. If you were going to stereotype I guess you'd say by the look of me that I wasn't what you'd think of when it comes to gamers but that's what stereotyping is all about isnt it? Anywayyyy, here are some facts:

I'm the wonderfully young age of 19, although in my head I vary between 9 and 19. Wether this is a good thing I'm not sure.

I read more about games than I actually play them. Blame that on the distractions of social networking, having no money and spending what I do have on alcohol and partying.

I'm a university student.]

A newly single university student. My ex boyfriend was totally lovely but he was an Xbox 360 fan. It was never going to work (obviously I'm not shallow enough to end a relationship because of that, I just thought it'd make a good anecdote).

I'm a Sony lover, FINAL FANTASY whore and lover of games that usually involve hitting things with swords. Phallic symbolism? Mayyyyyybe.

My unachievable dream is to be a pop star, either solo or as part of a boy band. But not the cliched boyband who mime to rubbish songs and dancein sync but go down in history for being different, experiment and FECKING BRILLIANT.

Failing that, I'd love to be a voice actor. Disney, you may private message using the usual button.

Someone give me a fiver, since I KNEW that Gilgamesh would be in DISSIDIA 012 as a Chaos villain! That probably was the least important announcement Square Enix made at their little conference today.

They've changed the name of AGITO XIII to TYPE-0, since it's not really that related to XIII (and they want to make a new spin off series about it). It'll be interesting to say the least, Square have always made great PSP games (their ports of I & II, not so much. And the FFIV COLLECTION looks pointless).

Then again, how much has VERSUS XIII got to do with the original title. Not much so far going by the trailer but you know what? It looks mighty fine! Like a grown up dark version of KINGDOM HEARTS, speaking of which...

They've called KH 3D, DREAM DROP DISTANCE. Errrrrm.... what???? Oh, nevermind the gameplay looks ace! Even if it IS set in Traverse Town with the outfits from the original game. This is meant to be the next major installment in the series and had better not be a re hash of the PlayStation titles as every Nintendo KH has been so far. And there were loads of Soras in the trailer. And Xehanort's Heartless. AND Xemnas. Say WHAT?!?

A little less WTF is FINAL FANTASY XIII-2, it looked like it was an obvious choice but I thought with VERSUS/AGITO AKA TYPE-0 would they really overpopulate even more this quickly? The developers have said they have enough unused materials left over from XIII to make a new game, and I'd love to see more of Gran Pulse. This could be an interesting one, I really enjoyed XIII despite a few problems and this could rectify those issues. I thought X-2 was a great success and one of my highest rated Final Fantasies so I'm pretty excited, especially if 'next winter' means January or February 2012 for the UK.

200 words exactly, go me!!!!

POKEMON SOULSILVER MINI REVIEW

Even though Gold & Silver were released at the start of the noughties, the DS remakes have received such an upgrade, even from Diamond & Pearl; that the Pokemon experience is still fresh and fun in 2010. Being older and wiser, I was able to play through a lot of the quest from memory and not find myself losing as much as I did back when Silver was my first ever GameBoy game (nostalgia, ahh). It's a testament to the designers that the mechanics are easy enough for anyone to play and enjoy while deep enough to provide the hardcore with a competitive online experience. If I could put my finger on the one thing that has meant I haven't gone ten years without playing a Pokemon game; its that there is always something to do next and with HeartGold and SoulSilver, there are a collection of legendaries, minigames, gyms and other goals to balance out the meat and poke-potatoes (catching and levelling). I've transferred all my monsters from every GBA game onto this one DS card as a summation of not just mine, but Nintendo and GameFreak's accomplishments and dedication over the last ten years.

- Getting it down to 200 words was a toughie. Well, that's the most I'm going to type up over this holidays. University work can wait! :P

Little Britney Spears quite there for you.

Anyway, yes, I haven't blogged for an absolute age; mostly because Uni and all that entails (not having money, drinking, going out dancing with and snogging gays and the odd piece of work) has taken up my time. And I'm loving it, but its so full on that being home for the Christmas break (HAPPY XMAS EVERYONE!) is well needed. And I used the first few days of my R&R to power through and finally complete the legendary...

FINAL FANTASY VI!!!!!

The Advance version, obvs. And do you know what? I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. Now I know what you are all thinking (those of you who know what Final Fantasy VI is)...

'why man?'

eh eh, coz I got high, because I got high, because I highhhh, lalalalalala.

I joke obviously. Its because I used a walkthrough/guide to power through the entire thing basically, spoiling any sort of suspense or challenge the game threw at me. My reasoning was that I've not go the time to go following up every hint I'm given by the game and have to repeat bosses and dungeons over and over again. There are also a LOT of things that are VERY easily missable in this game and rather than just find a list of missable object and where to find them I basically played the entire game from The Cave To The Sealed Gate with a walkthrough open, often at times reading ahead and spoiling everything.

Now Im not an idiot, I've beaten harder games, Final Fantasy and in general, than this without the need of guides. Sure I'd probably missed out on a lot but it really isnt as if not getting the most powerful spell halfway through the game for my personal use and abuse is going to make me fail. Kids half my age with a lot less brain cells than my half age self (which would be 9.5 seeing as I'm 19 now, happy birthday to me 2 months ago, woop) could beat this game without a guide, using the tried and tested trial and error method that I have forsaken, along with a lot of enjoyment of this game.

So, I apologise to fans of the game, and to the game itself. I should have enjoyed you more, despite time and technology meaning a cliche-ridden 2D sprite game isn't as appealing to my older self as it would of had it been at little as 3 years younger. When I pick up where I left of on the much more challenging Final Fantasy V (Advance) I will endavour to proceed the way I had been playing it upto the point: using a guide if I was totally stuck.

But also, it is the game's fault that it is pretty easy with a little bit of looking to become INCREDIBLY OVERPOWERED towards the end, plus some of the character arcs (and characters) sucked in the World of Ruin, so VI has sunk below IV on my list of fave FFs, both of which, I've decided are narrowly behind XIII - despite the fact that the final trophy I need is an absolute nightmare to get.

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem but when I play a PSone Classic on my PS3 recently then as soon as a I press the PS button then the game doesn't recognise any controller input.

It didn't use to do this, I've tried it with every PSone downloaded game I have and I can still play the game fine until I press the PS button. Even for a second. While not being able to go between screen sizes isn't too much of a problem, how am I able to change Discs on the FF games and MGS?

Admittedly I play the PSone games on my PSP more but I don't have enough Memory Stick space for them all (plus the analog sticks are so much better on a dualshock) and it was something that wasn't an issue until recently. Can anyone confirm they have this issue too?

Well, Arnold my Nintendo Wi (I only just named him Arnold for the purposes of this blog) its been fun, well now and again but sadly its time to go.

Basically, my Wii and games are up for sale on eBay (UK) and Mario Kart has been posted away already while for PS3, Batman: Arkham Asylum is on its way.

I also just sold Wii Fit with the Balance Board as well, but stupidly I entered the postage costs as FIVE pounds rather than FIFTEEN. F My Life! Its going to cost more to actually post that thing! FAIL!

But hey at least Batman is on his way, with ModNation Racers being bought soon. My brother better enjoy his LEGO Harry Potter time while he can mwahaha!

That quote if you didn't know is from KINGDOM HEARTS 300-and a bit Days/2 on DS, and sums up my gaming pretty much right now.

Now I've got most of the legendaries on Pokemon SoulSilver I'm moving onto my Xmas presents last year. Birth By Sleep has got me mega exicted so I am gonna power through Days on DS and finish off Chain of Memories on GBA (on my laptop, but sssh).

I've also started one of my other Xmas pressies: Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier on PSP and its a bit of a disappointment, can't put my finger on it, the formula is there but its lacking. The humour is definitely lost in this one too :(.

Summer is here for me at least, my exams are done but not for all my friends. So its been a bit boring so far but I really hope it gets better (despite the fact I have no money, job time I thinks). On the plus side, I'm dedicating some time to gaming :) maybe I can persuade someone to get me Super Mario Galaxy 2 ;)

Well I've only watched Nintendo and Sony's conferences so far and I well, it's a change from last year. I went from being disappointed with Nintendo to totally loving them, new updates of the obvious franchises and a few suprises (Kirby and Kid Icarus mainly) and the 3DS stole the show. While I obviously couldn't experience the 3D from watching at home but the console looks amazing, I thought it'd be a disaster but the webs reaction has been positive. The amount of 3rd party support looks great, especially being Ninty!

Sony... welll... I knew they weren't gonna top last years incredible presentation but I was a bit underwhelmed. I feel like they got the exclusives out of the way far too quickly, Killzone 3, LBP 2 and inFamous 2 have already hit the press before today and a lot of what was shown (apart from Cole's ice powers) I had read about before. Twisted Metal was a really nice suprise but I wonder if it will be a triple A title. Dead Space 2 looks amazing!!! but its a shame they aren't full exclusives, but content exclusivity is better than nothing right? :)

Disappointed by the lack of Square Enix stuff, but hopefully trailers for the 3rd Birthday and KH Birth By Sleep will hit the net soon.

Well I finally finished FFXIII on Tuesday (took me so long because I have exams soon, and though not much of one currently, I do have a LIFE) and my feelings on it are mixed.

To get the undeniable positives out the way: spectacular visuals (even if the action CGI cinematics were far too fast to take it in), weird but overall good soundtrack, great battle system - not one I'd like in every game but refreshing and the move to more actiony corridors was a nice different change, and finally - Gran Pulse.

What didn't grab me as much is the story, I felt like despite the great bits it had (Chapters 7 and 8 mostly), the 13 days flashbacks and the setup, everything just sort of fizzled out by the end. Is this just a sign of me getting older and more cynical? Back when I was like 9-12 I was gripped by every little drip of plot development of VII and IX and was so absorbed by FFX that I cried my eyes out a few times.

Looking back at what the ending of XIII involved, I should have found it brilliant but I was underwhelmed and it may be that while I think these characters are cool, I just don't care for them. I'd easily put XIIs political drama, X-2s light vignette style fun and some of the older games' stories above this one. Some of the terminology dragged it down, l'Cie, fal'Cie and Cie'th are fine but some of the place names as well as the dialogue move away from being naturalistic anyway and just seem to be overlong fantasy-yarn talk. Major plot points weren't told in a very effective way, and the jumping of character motives was just befuddling and confusing, thank god for the Datalog.

I think this shows how much of an impact a good story has on a Final Fantasy game, it really makes or breaks it. For most of the game it's brilliant (in Cocoon, despite the areas you visit having no real relation to the plot, just created by a random area generator) but the underwhelming ending really let me down, which is why XIII would be sandwiched somewhere in the middle of my ranking of the main series. With a new entry in the series coming once in a blue moon it's disappointing. Square Enix have let the storytelling slip lately, many disliked XIIs plot and I agree it had a lack of character but is preferable to the dragged out philosophy which occured by the end of XIII. Dissidia suffered from this too, all the characters constantly debating what it means to life and cycles etc really does drag. Square need to re think how they tell the stories, which on paper sound great.

Yehhh random thoughts jotted down there, I'll post a review if I find the time.

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, exam-revision and Twitter have taken up my time along with every now and then being able to play FFXIII as well as some classic FFVII Chocobo Breeding and Pokemon Breeding too. Hmm helping japanese creatures make babies might be making up for something in real life.... :S

How've you nerds been? ;)