Just dropping by to inform you all how Christmas went here in California for the veray first time. For the most part, it rocked - there was some sentimentality in there too, for reasons I'm not gonna reveal, but yes, we had a great time all around, it was just cool to watch family members open the presents that they wanted and the presents that they waited for, to see their unsure look on their faces spring into a euphoric glee, to see the uncertain expressions leap into a smile of relief... okay, I'm getting too poetic. :P

Must be the Christmas atmosphere.

We all got pretty good hauls in terms of presents, me and my cousins. I got a fair bit of money to add to an already hearty fund, I'm getting close to $150 to spend on wares here and there.

I got two main presents - the first and most expensive of these was the skateboard I wanted. It's pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself - it's of McGill make, it's got a pretty cool underside/deck that I can't really describe but may take a photo of with a nifty little camera I also got, it's got smooth wheels which give off, yes, you guessed it, a smooth ride, and its pretty fast as well going downhill, much more so than my old one was, and my old skateboard was quite good as well. So that's that for the first present. :)

The second present is more game-related and I guess it could be called more relevant as well to the reason that the site is about. Two reasons that are essentially the same damn thing, dude! :roll:

I got Guitar Hero II! And my cousins love it, they won't stop badgering for a turn, they say "will you just lose the song already?", they are impatient for a go of the thing. It gets kinda irritating and I'm not a patient person at all, so it's been quite hard to share it around. :P

nevertheless, spent majority of Christmas Day playing it and I beat it on Medium already, unlocked most of the bonus songs and bought a hella lot of guitars for my favourite virtual metalhead Axel Steel. I'm headway into Expert mode, I'm just tripping up on a few of the more complex guitar solos, which is where the Practice mode comes in... ;) all in all I hate the fact that the difficulties are huge steps up from each other. Easy is crushingly tedious, Medium also gets kinda boring, and then Hard and Expert have their fair share of challenge and annoying infuriating moments that involve "how the **** DO I PULL OFF THIS ****ING SOLO YOU ****ING ******* OF A ****ING GAME?!" and for Guitar Hero II amateurs, there's not really a perfect difficulty setting.

The songlist is pretty good, actually, I'm not sure why there are so many people disappointed in it and in their delivery. Maybe it's because I'm not a classic rock junkie, who knows. I just don't think that there are any big lows in the setlist, and the vocals are done quite well on the whole. :? I actually thought that the cover vocalists did quite well.

The game is quite addictive, yes, but the novelty does wear off quite fast, which is why I'm probably going to be paying more attention to Starcraft now. After like 15 hours already, I guess that I'm actually a little bit disappointed in some areas of GH. But its a freaking awesomely designed game and I would recommend it to anyone with a PS2. I just don't think you should spend $80 or whatever on it if you don't have that cool plastic guitar. ;)

Overall, here's how I would rate it according to GameSpot's 1337 average scoring system...

Gameplay: 9
Graphics : 8
Sound : 9
Value : 8
Tilt : 8
Score : 8.7

Yeah, thats the exact same score that GameSpot gave the game - I expected me to enjoy the game much more than this though... its still criminally addictive and I still see scrolling fretboards everywhere, but I wish there was a bit more on offer here. It's hard to explain, really, maybe I burnt out in that 6-hour run I just did... :P

I hate to punish your poor eyes, so I'm gonna cut it short here. ;)