Yep another year has gone past and a lot has changed. And to signify that change I am aiming at bringing a tad more colour to my otherwise bland blog. It certainly makes a difference to the vulgar and barbaric days of old. So expect pictures in my blog from now on. I also intend to write an editorial at some point this year and my major Gamespot Anniversery resolutions are to:

a) Stop being a pest to the gamespot UK staff and

b) make a fan fiction/art/music video related union by the end of the year and take care of it this time around.

Ok now I would like to say a few thanks too for making me last this long on this website (I would save these for the day but I am intending to do a little bit of a catch up on revision for my GCSEs and writing GSUK legends so I might not have time for blog posts!) . First of all I would like to thank my mother for paying the internet bills. No internet bills no internet. No internet no Gamespot.com so a shout out must go to her. I would also like to thank Azzaz...sorry playfulparasite who I seem to have become an internet version of blood brothers with. Without his chirpy kindness and occasional cheekiness I would have abandoned ship long ago. Also a major thanks to the Gamespot UK podcast team for posting the best podcast around every fortnight and never failing to deliver a quality show and a good laugh. I would also like to thank everyone on my friend list who keep me amused for hours with their blogs and their friendly comments on mine. So I guess thats about it thanks wise. On to other matters!

I briefly posted a blog yesterday about voting for my storyline for a videogame. It turns out you have to be a union member to vote and this combined with a poll glitch means no one but a few members can vote at the moment. So I thought I should update news on that front. Wish me luck! :D

Also I have something to wait for every week on TV again! Futurama (infinatly better than the Simpsons in my opinion) is back on Sky three every saturday! *Dances like Zoidberg as a celebration*I never got why the show was cancelled but repeats are better than nothing and I am now avidly watching these every week. Cancel my series record at your own risk...

Anyway thats it for this blog and (another thanks is about to appear. If sick and tired of them after my paragraph full of the ruddy things look away now) thanks for reading!

5)Metal Gear Solid 4: It would have featured higher on my list if I owned a PS3 to play it on but I don't. So I am waiting for all those anxious players to upload all the cutscenes on to youtube or some other video website so I can get the full story. The one thing you should look out for is the climatic battle between metal gear rex and metal gear ray.

4)My own vista capable laptop: My mum keeps saying that as its my 16th birthday this year she is going to get me a big present. Last week she let slip that she will be getting me my own vista ready laptop and she will allow me to connect it to a wireless connection :D Left4Dead here I come!

3)Left4Dead: A game I am anxious to get my hands on now I am getting a pc that can handle it. With randomly spawning zombies and a game engine that forces you to work as a team it really sounds like its going to be a mix of tactical shooting and halo style run and gun.

2)Republic commando order 66: The game all star wars fans were anxious to get made where you played commandos at the end of the clone wars and the beggining of the empire sadly never made it past the planning stages but they made a compromise, another sequel in the book series by Karen Traviss. And as one of the clones have fallen in love with a jedi who is now carrying his child expect some real gritty drama!

1) Star Wars the clone wars: The start of the future of star wars. Not to be confused with the 3 minute shorts with a similar name this is a new show which will be in cannon. The teaser revealed last year did nothing but increase my thirst for more information on the series but info is scarce. I just hope they hurry up and leak something!

Anyway 2008 seems to be a great year for my two fave franchises and I am hoping that a lot more will be revealed later on in the year, maybe making this list obsolete! Anyway now I have finished my list what are you guys hoping 2008 will deliver?

So although I am a bit late with my first new years blog I have decided to compile a list of the top ten confirmed things about 2008 I really am looking forward to.

10) My 16th Birthday:

Why is this in my top ten? Because as soon as you reach this age you get a say in how the goverment shapes the world, you can get a job, own property, the ability totake part in most of gamespotUKs competitionsand some other things I would rather leave off my blog due to thehigh embarassment factor ;)

9) Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull:

Not something I reveal as a series I like, hell I don't even own any of them on VHS or DVD, but I absolutely love all theindiana jones movies. And with all hopes this sequelwill not get the phantom menace treatment. The story seems to be quite promising, if a bit of a mix of the previous three's storylines and seeing an old Harrison Ford doing what most Grandpa's can only dream of doing would be something that would get my ticket fee quicker than you could say Crystal Skull.

8 ) Force Unleashed on the PS2:

Graphically it will be slaughtered by its younger siblings but the gameplay will be very similar to the versions with the extra coat of paintand due to the slow decline of PS2 on the shelves it will be incredibly cheap. As a huge Star Wars fan the story also means a lot to me and playing Darth Vader's secret aprrentice (or force sensative slave, its never been officially announced you play his apprentice only assumed) hunting down jedi and slaughtering stormtroopers has great appeal.

7)Work on Metal Gear movie will start:

The release date has been slated for a 2009 release and to stay on schedule the movie must start work this year.So whats it about? Most rumours say it will be a faithfull adaptation to MGS1 on the PSX but I like to believe it will be based on the original metal gear or metal gear solid 3. I am also praying that Harry Gregson Williams is on the soundtrack as his soundtracks for the games are phenomenol.

6)Cloverfield:

I have not been one of those nuts that keep coming up with crackpot theories that are just so stupid its a wonder why I didn't come up with them first but I have been following the movies progress ever since I first saw the trailer. I can't really find details on story but what I can say is Blair witch meets godzilla? Sign me up!

My PS2 has now officially broken down and after a kicking and screaming frenzy I have calmed down and decided to occupy myself with writing a blog about the christmas aftermath. So everyone has opened their presents and the last of the turky dinner is now either being pumped out of the sewers in to the thames or left to rot on some scrapheap and all I hear from friends and relatives is the inevatible question 'What did you get for christmas?' After getting over the offence of my friends poking their noses where its not wanted I tell them what I got and as you have not bombarded me with the question yet I'lltell youout of the way. As you can see by my now playing list my PS2 collection has grown larger by six games.I now have crash of the titans, heroes of the pacific, Ace Combat: Belkadan war, Red Star, From Russia with Love and Star Wars Podracer: Revenge (the last three I bought my self with my christmas money along with the FFXII game guide, all three lord of the rings movies in extened formand a star wars novel) I also got an MP3 player, A set of nice headphones to plug in to my electric keyboard and a character mug of yodaand that was about it really. So I hope you all enjoyed your christmas and respect the fact that your consoles and games machines are still working because I didn't/mine isn't

I must say thank you again gamespot for another wonderfull experience from Square Enix (this time in the form of Valkryie Profile 2) which I am enjoying quite a bit. Just as an explanation to people who have not listened to the gamespot UK podcast before, I won a copy of VP2 a few weeks back after answering a question correctly and my prize came through the post this morning. Winning two things in a year is now my personal best! Anyway I'll be playing this for a little while and hopefully not scream about how the game's AI cheats and throw the disc in the corner of the room like I did with FFXII.

Also I think I can say that the prologue for Gamespot UK Legends has gone down really well and I can't wait for reactions and feedback on the first chapter. It will focus more on certain characters at first but everyone will get at least a chapter where they are the hero of the piece! Anyway if you did not read the prologue or if you just want to read it again you can find it here!

A more annoying piece of news too. I am being nagged at by my grandparents about "why am I not courting?" Of course replying "Because I'm uglier than Gollumn from Lord of the Rings!" is not an acceptable answer I just sat there. Now I don't know what they think :? Now its not as if I don't want to go out with a girl, quite the opposite actually, but the thing is I can't pluck up the courage to talk to one I like in that way. (that and the fact that they run as if they saw Satan himself when they see me coming up to them) So yep I'm in the dog house with my grandparents now too.

Anyway I think thats about it for now. I probably won't blog again untill after boxing day (my christmas day for lengthy reasons that I shall talk about next time) but I shall behanging aboutin the forums every now and then and if you want to talk to me elsewhere then PM me or addmy bebo thats on the GSUK legends page!

As anyone with half a brain can tell it is now in the middle of the festive season. Christmas lights, same foods as before but wrapped in 'special' christmas packaging and drunks in santa hats are now popping up all over towns around the world. And I hate it.:evil: Christmas is just one of those things I hate for noreason. Maybe its the fact that its celebrating another year gone past reminding you that your life is now another year gone (I also hate birthdays for this reason) or maybe its the fact that over the past nine years I have never had a christmas where I was healthy, always catching the flu or a cold by christmas eve. So I have adapted to hating those lights and the tinsel and the poor tree that gets cut down for no reason but to sit in the corner and be adorned with tacky decorations. So at the moment I am an exact duplicate of Harry Enfield's Kevin the teenager.

Anyway enough about how I hate christmas and on to the more nice things in life. I have recently gone to the cinema to watch The Golden Compass, The christian angering movie about how a little girl sets out to savea substance called dust (not destroy god like the church has said.:evil: ) Now I went in to the cinema expecting the worst but I came out thoroughly happy with the end result. It was extremely well acted on all fronts with an excellent effort from even the children in the movie, and it was fairly faithfull to the book with the only differance being a weaker anti-christian theme. Only problem with the movie I could see was its ending, missing around fifteen minutes screen time the new ending also seems to change the whole tone of the first parts story. Its an 8/10 movie.

And also this week I have been a little busy as I have been writing the plot draught for my GSUK tribute. Im not going to give anything away as I have some of the main characters tracking my blog but I can say that there will be a few twists which I hope you will enjoy :)

Additional News:

*tumble weed flies past* I guess I don't have any today. Anyway I think thats all for now. Thanks for reading!

I have got quite a bit of news today first of which I have got a new emblem for getting my question to the GSUK podcast read out. It was quite a surprise really because my question was read out under feedback not questions so I got dissapointed at first. But anyway its there for all to see now :D (Its also good because I won a runners up prize in the contest a fortnight ago ;))

Also this week I have seen two movies. First of which I was a little naughty with as I watched it online for free.:oops: It was 28 weeks later, sequel to 28 days later which invented the super fast zombies that seem to have bled into all of the new zombie movies. I have never seen 28 days later so 28 weeks later did have a few moments that went straight over my head without even realising it was important but most of it was done so you could just leap in to the movie without caring its a sequel. Its not really a horror movie, in fact its not scary at all as there is no moments in the movie dedicated to building up tension making the whole movie an action movie with blood, guts and zombies. That being said its a great action movie with some great set pieces like a helicopter mincing a whole legion of the ghastly undead or a scene in a completely blacked out london underground viewed completely through the night sight of a sniper rifle, even when one of the zombies grab it to beat someone to death! It was fun and I am a bit upset that I am not yet old enough to stroll in to town and pick up a copy on DVD but its only 3 more years to wait! Anyway it's a really enjoyable experience and I highly reccomend it!

The other movie I went to see I saw 100% legally at the cinema. Ratatouille is a tale about a rat that loves good food and the measures he goes to to get it which leads him to working for a top restraunt in Paris. This movie rings so many bells for me because like Remy the rat I also love good food. I dont eat french but mediterranian foods but the message was still there to me, you don't have to eat garbage! And its not a subtle message either, infact it isabout as subtle as recieving a smack from a heavy wok around the head. So if you eat what the world sees as fattening garbage you better go in to the cinema with the knowledge that this movie may insult you. But I loved it with the humour in good taste (no pun intended) the best CGI effects I have ever seen and a story that is enjoyable on so many levels. Like 28 weeks I highly reccomend this movie but for so many different reasons. This is the best pixar movie since (if not better than) the mighty toy story!

Back on the subject of GSUK I have also offered to do a story for the GSUK community where the contributers are the charactersand I can safely say that the places are filling up fast!:D And I have decided that if recieved well I will publish a book with the proceeds going to aid the website! To have a look at the list of names and if you want, to sign up for it then click here.

Other news:

I got over excited at the propect of a ghostbusters game being what ghostbusters 3 was going to be. What makes me even happier is that is coming to all platforms including the ps2! Roll on 2008!

Finished the newest Alex Rider book! Back to the series old glories with some great set pieces. You shouldn't care that its a kids book the series is addictive and I do suggest picking it up!

Anyway I think thats it for now. Thanks for reading!

Rety5

...and all of them freak me out! And the thing is it's not even bonfire night yet! I know this sounds wierd coming from someone who can run through black without even flinching but I just can't stand the noise fireworks make. I don't know what it is about them I don't like I just don't. They make me jumpy and rather nervous. Which is terrible for me due to the fact that as I type this everyone in the street is launching the things :(

Anyway I got freedom fighters and lord of the rings the third age through the post today alongside the books I ordered so at least the daytimes of enjoyement are balancing out the nights of absolutetorture I'm putting up with this week.The only problem with all this gaming and reading material is that I am struggling to find time to write my book let alone write this blog. Anyway although this is my most hated time of year tell me what you are doing this bonfire night! Might as well read the stories of people who actually enjoy it to cheer me up!

Yep I went ot see VGL on monday and it was absolutely awesome! The strobe lighting and the cinema screen added a rather video gamey touch to what would have been an amazing event with just the musicians playing the songs. There was allsorts played like Metal Gear solid, Final fantasy, Mario, Pong, they even played the halo 3 trailer with only cortannas voice being pre-recorded! It had humour and competitions galore and I tell you one thing it was an excellant bonding experiance with my mum. what do i mean? Well she laughed at every joke done. When a soldier came on the stageand an exclamation mark appeared over his head when the alert phase song in the MGS segmant was played, my mum burst out in tears laughing and even more so when a cardboard box ran behind him. She even laughed at the gears of war jokes which I barely understood myself! when I came out and asked how she understood the jokes she laughed and said "I watch you play the bloody things enough!" Neither of us shut up aboutthe showon the train home. If you want to listen to a sampler go to www.videogameslive.com and download the Advent Rising track from their upcoming album!

Other news:

I have a beard!:cry: I reached up to my chin this morning as it iched like crazy to find that I had hairs all over it. I nearly screamed like I saw the elzibub himself it scared me that much.

I have the new alex rider book on pre-order! Yes its a kids series but I have been following it ever since I started and I want to see it through to the end as it was also these books that introduced me to the rather addictiveworld of reading.

After much delays I have finally re-wrote chapter two of the imperfect assasin. I am heavily behind schedule now so I have now decided that I am going to write it in time for a christmas 2008 release rather than the spring one I was aiming for.

Anyway I think thats a big enough update on my life and thanks for reading!

Yep. What seemed to be the inevetable has happened, sony has admitted to making a mistake and have released the 40GB ps3 for the fairly decent sum of £300. Now considering how late in the next gen market this price cut has come it does still sound rather expensive but alot of places are throwing in free games to sweeten the deal and this is Sony im talking about. So yep I might just save for a cheap ps3 now, especially with metal gear solid 4 around the corner and me being eager to try out games like assasins creed and (if my mum will let me get it after the church of england fiasco) Resistance fall of man so I can finally get my first next gen kill on my own console! :D