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Well technically I was never gone -- I've been here the whole time, lurking about, posting from time to time and reading blogs. I was never really into posting blogs on a regular basis but geez, it's sure been a while since my last one. Anyway, it's past my bed time so I'm just going to *messily* summarize what I've been up to lately.

For starters, I bought GTA IV -- I've been massively hyped about this game since before it was even announced, which is rare for me. Anyway, to briefly sum it up, I beat it, best game I've played it a while, met all my expectations. Was it better than San Andreas? Probably though I had more fun with San Andreas. Did it deserve a 10/10? Hell no! No game does in my opinion, not even Ocarina of Time. I know that many people are saying 10 doesn't mean perfect but even with a .5 increment scoring system, 10 has to be damn close to perfect. I'd give this game oooh, I dunno ... 9.7 maybe, at best? Any game that scores above 9.0 is amazing in my books.

Online play? Could care less about it to be honest, haven't played much of it and I do not care to. Online gaming hasn't been my thing since CS 1.6 and I'm really not into console online gaming. I've played the GTA online and it's not bad but I'm gonna cancel my Xbox Live Gold none-the-less.

Rebought a copy of Final Fantasy VII from eBay yesterday which should hopefully arrive tommorrow or the day after. I only ever beat the game once and I recently felt a sudden urge to playthrough it once more. Unfortunately I sold it a while back so I had to buy it again. I paid a little more than I would have liked to for it but eh -- what the heck? It was an original copy in mint condition.

Speaking of retro games -- actually can the PS1 be classed as 'retro' just yet? Probably not, whatever -- I've decided to start rebuilding my games collection. Current generation games are too expensive for the likes of me so my money would most likely be better spent on old cheap games. I bought a megadrive from eBay as well as Sonic 2 and Aladdin, both of which are excellent games.

Uh, what else .... thinking of buying a GameCube -- I could just buy a Wii but Gamecubes are crazy cheap these days.

Saw the new Indiana Jones movie ... I wasn't too impressed but to be honest I wasn't expecting much from it either. It's an alright movie that doesn't really live up to it's predecessors. There's my impressions for you, see it if you want though I wouldn't reccommend it.

Oh and I just watched this -- Ugh ... I dunno what my thoughts are on this:|

Achievement unlocked!

Finally! Bring on Through the Fire and Flame!!

Speaking of Guitar Hero, I was ecstatic to find out that the 360 version of Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock has no region-locking. I imported the US version of the game and it should arrive late this week or early next week. A long wait but at least I don't have to wait all the way untill November 23rd for the European release date! :D

Due to spending way too much time rocking out on Guitar Hero II for the 360, my wrists are officially... well... hurting. On the bright side, I am officially a satisfied customer. Definitly £65 well spend. That game is flat out, awsome! Not only does it play much better than the original but it looks brilliant. The only complaint I would make is that the track list, I'm sure you have heard, isn't nearly as good as that of the previous game. Never-the-less, the songs are really fun to play.

But despite the title of this blog post, this is not what I am here to talk about. A few hours ago, I headed off to Gamestation with the intentions of selling my PS2 with all it's games. Well, I wasn't expecting much money, I just wanted to see how much they would give me for it.

I didn't really wanna trade it in for anything below £80. The guy at the counter was half way through scanning the games when he asked, 'How much are you expecting from this?'. I replied, 'Erm, about £50'. He looked at me and said, 'Well we're already £30 above that.'

Wha-- £80 and still more games to go? I thought that seemed pretty good. It came to £98.50. Luckily I had brought with me an unwanted copy of 'Saints Row'. That brought the total up to £110.50 which was enough to buy a DS Lite with a starter pack and free chart game of my choice. I picked Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney Justice For All and walked out of the store feeling generally happy with my purchase.

You may be thinking a PS2 with around 20 games + a copy of Saints Row is not worth a DS lite. Well consider this: I do already have two other PS2s in my home that aren't mine but have access to with a decent line-up of games including GTA: Vice City, Bully, Kingdom Hearts, a bunch of sports games...uh...Gran Turismo 3 + 4. Plus I have a fairly new and unused PS1 with games such as Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro (legendary) and more... Plus I still have a copy of Final Fantasy X which I was unable to sell because there was no manual.

So to sum up: I now have a brand new DS Lite, 5 stylus's, Phoenix Wright 2, a cleaning cloth, screen protecter, a leather wallet thingy for storing the DS and in return I no longer have a PS2 to call my own plus I lost a bunch of pretty decent games.

Totally worth it in my opinion but I'm sure many people will say otherwise.

Uh huh... this guy has three PS3s...

Sorry, it's slightly out of sync... that's my bad

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So I beat Call of Duty 3 on Veteran mode and got the nice little achievement to go with it :D I found it a little harder than COD 1 and 2 but then I guess a mouse and keyboard always makes first-person shooters a little easier (not in a bad way). Anyway... it's a great game, definitely a worthy successor to the previous two games... I think I enjoyed it a lot more the second time through even though veteran mode can be insanely frustrating at times.

I'm coming to realise that the Xbox 360 has turned me into a total achievement whore... it was a good call on Microsoft's part to put them in, I believe they give games a whole new level of replay value and everybody knows how popular they have become. I rented King Kong, completed it in two nights (about 4-6 hours), gaining me an easy 1000 points. It was a fun game though, regardless of it's difficulty, but I do feel that anyone who bought that game got kinda ripped off as there is no replay value to be found there.

Found myself playing some Gears of War over the weekend which was fun. I was playing ranked matches pretty much all weekend. After playing through Gears on all three difficulty modes a while back, I thought I was pretty good at that game... turns out I couldn't be more wrong. Maybe I just need practise but man do I suck at the multiplayer... my kills count rarely goes into double digits even on those 19 round games and I am continuously being headshotted by shotguns. I do, however, make up for being absolutely abysmal at Gears by being, if I may say so myself, absolutely awesome at Call of Duty 3 :D

Anyway, I'm probably gonna go back and play some Saints Row as 30 points out of 1000 is just laughable and considering I'm not getting anywhere in Gears, it's probably be a wise decision. Hopefully Swap-Game will send me a new game tomorrow... I'm hoping Crackdown or Tony Hawks but they are in pretty high demand so I doubt it. Next week is my last week at school before my two week Easter break which is always a good thing :D

Pffft... I'm just typing things as they come to me now which is a sign that I should end this blog... See ya! ;)

 

 

Well...it's not as if I want one...I mean there is never any need for a break from Xbox 360, right? Wrong...when a game you've been waiting for, for six years that goes by the title of Final Fantasy XII is released...a break from 360 can be deemed neccessary. Well...it came out in the UK (and the rest of Europe, I think :?) last Friday and I just so happened to see it for sale at Sainsburys for £29.97 while I just so happened to be carrying £29.97 with me :D



I haven't gotten around to actually playing it yet...in fact it's still sealed and lying on my desk. I figured, I've waited six years to play it...I can wait one more school day so that I can enjoy it over friday night and the weekend...well...hopefully, I will enjoy it...I've heard good things about it :D

The couple of days have been education free for me due to the wonder that is snow! Many schools in London and other parts of the UK have been closed due to the weather which is, of course, a good thing :P Plus, it's half-term next week so I won't be in school for another week :D

Anyway, gaming...that's what most of us are here for, right? I bought The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion a couple of weeks back and let me say it is amazing. Best game I've played for the 360 so far. Not only is it extremely impressive in terms of graphics but the gameplay is outstanding. The amount of stuff packed into the game is insane!

Um...what else...started Final Fantasy X yet again (which I'm ashamed to admit, I have never finished) but then I bought Oblivion which replaced it. I also bought a new monitor because my other one broke. It's pretty decent, Samsung LCD TV Monitor. Oblivion looks awsome on it :P

Anyway...I need to go play some Oblivion...I'm feeling the withdrawel effects already *Wipes sweat off head*

See ya!

Well, if you didn't know already, I spelt my old gamertag wrong...not only that, it sucked. So instead of paying 800 microsoft points, I decided to create a new gamertag while my gamerscore and rep are still relatively low. I did lose 700 achievement points but what the hell...

The new gamertag is Harry9125...I know it's lame and unoriginal but I don't care...I prefer it to my last one :D

Update: Um....*coughs*....I changed again....sorry, I'm fussy about this stuff...the new gamertag is MasterXploderer...yes, as in the Tenacious D song :D

Well...christmas has come (but not quite gone yet) and santa has been pretty generous to me this year :D I was lucky enough to get my hands on an Xbox 360...well, I already knew I was getting one but whatever. Anyway...it's freakin' amazing, bearing in mind this is pretty much my first taste of next-gen.

To start with, the graphics are insane, I mean...I knew they were gonna be good but man...they rock! Call of Duty 3 came free with it in some kind of bundle and I got Gears of War from my Dad as an unexpected bonus :D Both of them are amazing, not just graphically. I'd say Gears of War is slightly on the better side but they are both brilliant games. I also downloaded a demo of Fight Night: Round 3 from Xbox Live Marketplace. The gameplay isn't too different from what I played on the PS2 (which is by no means a bad thing) but the graphics are f**king excellent! I mean...the boxers look damn near real and the slow motion replays of dudes getting their face punched in are unbelievable...and this is only a demo!

Anyway...I dunno if you guys know this but I was unlucky enough to be born on the 25th. It sucks but it has it's advantages in terms of money for me to piss away in the sales. I invested most of it...no, wait...all of it into my 360 (I know but microsoft accessories have ridiculous prices). Firstly, I bought a wireless adapter, which was 60 quid :shock: Rip-off but it was a neccessary investment. I'm now hooked up to Xbox Live which really does boost your gaming experience. I got a 1 month free Gold free trial which is great...Gears of War and CoD3 are great online :D

I also dropped £20 towards a quick charge kit for my wireless controller. I didn't really wanna spend so much but hopefully it will pay for itself after a fews weeks seeing as I don't have to buy batteries...I will however need an extra battery pack for my second controller.

Um...what else did I buy...whoa I think thats it...jesus £80 for those 2 accessories...didn't realise how little I bought for so much money...but I reckon it was worth it. My brother bought Bully which is fun...kinda like GTA...I get to play it quite a lot, we just swap...he plays 360 and I get to play Bully. He also got Vice City Stories which is probably the best PSP game I've played...but I don't have a PSP so I have to use his :(

Anyway...I've only got about £25 left so I'll either buy a new 360 game or save it or something...I dunno. Add me on Xbox Live if you play either GeoW or CoD3 and maybe we can play sometime...my gamertag is SuspestFire...oh yeah hehe, funny story, I spelt my gamertag wrong and didn't realise till' I had finished creating it :P It's supposed to say SuspectFire but I'm stuck with SuspestFire untill I have a spare 800 microsoft points lying around...ridiculous, I know :(

Anyway...see ya in 07'! :D