Welcome to my first blog, and seen as were on Gamespot, I thought a 2006 round up of my game life would be appropriate thought fodder.

2006 started bad, after buying a PSP on release I still only carried three UMD's to my name, Spider-man 2 the film, Wipeout and Ridge Racer. I guess I jumped into handheld gaming with my eyes closed and got burnt bad. I didn't realise there would be so much uninspired content out there. And another thing, where exactly do I use my PSP? It had been a lunch pass time for the first few months at work with a couple of work colleagues. Let it be heard here for the last time, I Suck at Wipeout, I suck so bad. Ridge Racer however, I made my own crown out of paperclips because I own, sorry, Pwnd that game. Yes, I Be L33T. Getting back on track, I found myself looking round for places to use my PSP that wouldn't result in me getting a blade to the face and the white strap snapped from my wrist. These places were rare. The PSP became permanently placed inside its carry case, or its "Tomb".
That is until July when the heavens opened and a little yellow blob landed in front of me, asking if I would tilt his world and help him find his friends. He came to Zante, Greece with me for two weeks and we had so much fun in the sun. The sun sang to us in fact and we sang back. I didn't know the words but it didn't matter, everyone smiled. I came home with a quality sun tan and a PSP tanline across my face.
With my faith restored I sought after more games. Instead, I found a girlfriend and my once proud "Gaming budget" became "Date Budget". Fortunately, she is equally keen on games, not as good, but keen. However I changed my focus to Playstation 2 releases as they were more mass audience friendly for us to play. Plus I didn't want nail varnish on my PSP. And so once again the PSP became abandoned.

And so all was well in Gaming land, then my Slimline PS2 got cancer. Laser Cancer. Its bad, a man should never see his console in such pain and torture. 20 minutes to load burnout 3 with no music and no traffic and crashed half way through a race. it didn't look good. Most games made him sick and he couldn't even remember how to play DVD's. I was in a tragic state, sure my girlfriend had a PS2 but it wasn't the same and my lengthy sessions of gaming were reduced to a few hours a week. I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, I didn't need my PS2, my buddy who I bought to replace my big fat older PS2 on the same day as San Andreas. The PS3 was just round the corner and that had all the bells and whistles to play old and new, DVD, Blue Ray...wasn't it?
A text message, "PS3 dlayed til Mar.GutTed". What....what! where's the punchline, wheres the comical pic attachment, You have to be having a Giraffe! But alas, it was true. Those Sony wombles had once again cast us to the kerb and kicked us in the teeth. That was the winter of my discontent. No PS2, no PS3, the 360 suddenly became a viable option for me, but I tightened my wallet strings and resisted.

December came knocking on my door and brought with it advent calenders, a santa hat, a girlfriend present list and a launch-day wii!. Hallelujah to the wii. That little white angelic box on its little grey cloud stand with its tech filled wiimotes and cool nunchuk accessories. Hot damn I love accessories! Even the connecting wires are grey so I don't lose them in the spaghetti junction behind my television. I don't have Hi-Def, I don't have LCD or Plasma, and my wii didn't care, he was hardcore, he was old skool spelt with a K. He even had a silver sensor that said "I wouldnt match those new shiny black TV's". All he wanted was a colour screen and my time. I gave him both.
We stood side by side, leaning slightly backwards and faced the world. We stayed up late making Jesus wii's and playing tennis. I played Zelda, my first experience of Zelda in fact. Many hours swept by, Grapple, swish, sound-effect, rumble, smack, swim, scoop. All that went down. I tell you what else went down, battery life. Thank god someone thought to use square batteries for smoke alarms because otherwise those bad boys would of been ransacked and my house would be one unsafe abode.
While my wii sat there for the first few days, he looked sad. He looked sad because every time I turned him off his light went red. And I said to myself, I don't want that light red, I want it orange, orange is a colour of contentness. How do I get orange? I get Wi-fi! Or Wii-Fi, whichever you prefer. So that's exactly what I did one late night, Currys, £80 (thank you credit card),home, set it up and sure enough, the orange light of happiness appeared. My Wii and I had a stronger bond then ever. We shopped together, checked the weather, we even browsed the net. Mario 64, a game I had never played before, was now a permanent fixture on my Wii screen and Nintendo gained a permanent place in my heart.

It was the end of December, it was cold, it was full of presents (Optimus Prime, Slippers, Super Ted) and my wi-fi connection lay on my mind. I first wondered if wi-fi could give you cancer and if it could, would foil bed sheets help. Then I sat in my foil covered bed thinking of things to use wi-fi for. My phone, my wii, my girlfriends laptop, my PC, my "possible future 360" my "Definite Future PS3"...My PSP! My abandoned PSP was sitting in his tomb with wi-fi capability. I charged him up and gave him the breath of life. MSN, Wipeout, Gamespot, all on my PSP! My wii had not only given me a new gaming experience, but it loved me enough to let me fly away and use my PSP as well. I came back to my wii and it smiled with a radiant blue slot illumination that it always does, and I felt whole.

And so 2006 was over, almost. I raided the net on my PC, my PSP and wii and stumbled over so-called PS2 surgeons who thought they could rid my PS2 of its terminal illness. I picked up my fragile skinny console, now looking like a grey PS1 due to dust coverage and sent him via helicopter, or "recorded delivery", for the procedure.
He came back 2 weeks later and almost jumped through my front door. I had my PS2 back! I had 60 more games that I could instantly play from my archive. I had the PS2 section in GAME to look at again! Even my wii looked happy to not hold my entire leisure enjoyment on its shoulders. This was the kind of boost I needed to enter 2007 with. My love of games has been resurrected and my eyes once again light up with D-Pad reflections. Bring on the PS3, Bring on the DS, Bring it all, and more importantly, please, bring prices down because I'm maxed out on everything and there threatening to take my wii and put it into foster care.

NoP.