I was bored this evening (unlike most evenings which are super fun filled times of excitment) so I started my own blog outside gamespot. It's kinda cool, just being able to write what you want. Mine is going to be primarily about games. But my dilemma is as follows - how the hell do you get people to read the damn thing? I mean I don't want to force people to read the ramblings of a first year Arts student, but if reading said ramblings is what engages them, I'd at least like them to have the chance to know that my blog is out there on the World Wide [porn] Web.

So, any tips on how to get word out about this new, intellectual blog of mine that will soon take the world by storm? Or am I doomed to having only about ten hits on my blogs hit counter, half of which will be from people who will find it via this blog, never to look at it again, the other half being me. I quite honestly have no idea how people are ever meant to find it. I don't even know how to search for similar blogs, so I can comment on them and hope they comment back. Any experience bloggers out there who know what they're doing? Thanks :)

So just today I finished MGS2 for the eleventh time. Kind of obsessive you might think. I'd probably agree. For me, MGS2 is my favourite form of electronic entertainment. Give me any book, any film, any CD, any other game and I'd still rather play MGS2. Even if I am in double figures now.

Obviously, I just played it to refresh my memory of the story in preparation for number 4. Not that I needed to, after about the 6th play through, the story was permanantly committed to memory. Still, it doesn't hurt to play through one more time. The funny thing was, I was still noticing small details about the story that I'd never realised before. They don't add much, but it's nice to realise the attention to detail which you could never notice if you only played the game once. Having said this, for the first time out of eleven plays through the story, I thought, 'wait a minute, I've spent more time watching cutscenes than I have spent playing.' I'm not sure this is a bad or good thought. The cutscenes are awesome after all, but I guess it was just the first time I understood what people meant when they said there was too much story in the game. I suppose for me, it's neither bad nor good - that's just how the game is and I have no complaints.

Anyway, I'm now all set up for number 4, and needless to say I'm fairly excited. More than for GTA4? Not sure, perhaps, but in the end I felt GTA4 was over hyped - I don't want to let the same thing happen to me for MGS4.

Has anybody else played this game as many times as I have, or more?

With a few topics in the GS AU forum about favourite films etc, I thought I'd make a little blog on my favourite films and games with the hope that somebody will disagree with me and then I can argue with them :twisted:

So without delay:

Favourite Films (Beofre anybody points it out, I know some of these just plain suck, but whatever, I like them)

1.) Black Hawk Down

2.) Saving Private Ryan

3.) The Departed

4.) Ocean's Eleven

5.) Pulp Fiction

6.) The Matrix

7.) Gladiator

8.) Brokeback Mountain

9.) Terminator 2

10.) The Green Mile

Other films which narrowly miss out include Catch Me If You Can, Top Gun, Training Day, The Right Stuff, Blood Diamond and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Favourite Games (See if you can guess my favourite series of games)

1.) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

2.) GTA III

3.) GoldenEye 007

4.) SOCOM II

5.) Super Mario 64

6.) Metal Gear Solid

7.) Call Of Duty 4

8.) SOCOM

9.) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

10.) GTA IV

Other games which I'd like to mention include TimeSplitters 2, Hitman: Silent Assassin and Blood Money, Gran Turismo 4, Mafia and Red Faction.

I'm also making a list of my favourite actors (yes, very sad, I make lists of my favourite (x) all the time. So far it's pretty bare, the only actors I know will definitely be on there are Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Will Smith and Christopher Walken.

My GTA IV is here. If you have the time to read it and provide feedback that would be awesome. If you get trhough it from beginning to end and don't want to write anything to me about it, it would be cool if you could just give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, depending on what you think of it. Thanks.

I decided to change my avatar to something a bit more relevant to my username. Agent 47 is cool, but it was time for a change (I sound like KRudd now). So, enjoy.

I was surprised there were even about thirty other people there at midnight. The manager of the EB games was a bit of a tight ass though, he locked the shop at 11.55 and then even at midnight wouldn't let us in. In the end I had to wait until about 00.03! At least there was pizza for free!

So like any normal person, I played the game in the early hours of the morning. So far so good. Nothing amazing yet though, but I was tired and haven't really gotten into it yet. I just went around looking for people with guns who I could kill so I could try out shooting some people. It went well :)

The controls are a bit different, but probably won't take long getting used to. The cars feel much heavier and don't corner nearly as well as they used to. I think this is more realistic, but again will take getting used to. The shooting feels much better now, but is slightly harder than before. Again, all these things will come with practice I think.

The multiplayer was a bit non excistent last night, I tried a few times but it always said it lost connection with one or more players. Perhaps either not enough people ahve the game yet, or you cannot officially play it online yet and you have to wait until 29 April U.S time?

Generally the game looks good, I'll write a review once I've played more. I took pics of the box and map, but you've probably all seen them before so I haven't bothered with uploading them or anything, but just ask if you want to know anything if you don't already have the game by midday today :)

Anybody going to them? Is it worth it? Will there be many people there?

I'm tihnking of going to my local EB Games on launch night in Hornsby in Sydney....

So, what do you all think about midnight launches?

Ok I know this will mostly fall on deaf ears and nobody cares particularly and moderators will defend locking threads and all that but I'm going to have a cry anyway.

Why do threads which even in a minute, miniscule break the ToS get locked. I'm talking about the GTA4 petition thread. It got locked for not being allowed on GS. I'm sure if you look through the ToS you will be able to give a reason for it being unallowed but come on! Is it really spam? It seems almost anything which links elsewhere (unless to an article on something) is spam. So maybe the thread was a nuisance or just generally annoying? I don't think so, it had 21 posts in it when it was locked. At the time, the average number of posts in a thread on page one of the GS AU forums was just under 16, so this petition thread was better or more popular than average. I don't think it was a nuisance. It wasn't off topic either, it was very related to games, and a current issue in gaming nonetheless. Plus it did inspire debate about whether or not online petitions were useful. All in all, not a bad thread based on the points I've just made. It certainly had more going for it than some threads.

So yes, whilst locking it is probably fair because it probably did break a rule, was it necessary to be locked? I don't think so. Instead of just locking the 'easy targets' why not actually try and focus on making the community better in some other way? I really don't feel like the forums are a whole lot more civilised now that that awfully offensive GTA petition thread has been locked.

Wow those God of War ads on the home page are quite impressive. Wonder how much they cost?

So I wasn't too excited about having to go to Uni. It's only the 7th day of Uni and I'm not enjoying it all that much yet. But I met up with a friend and hit up the bar for an hour which was nice. And then went off to more tutorials :)

Good combination.