Hello there :)

Looks like there's another tagging virus spreading around on Gamespot. Thanks to Sharon (Sandpiper121PP) for tagging me :D

So what's this tagging game all about ? Well, for once, it's game related. You just have to make a blog about your top 5 of favourite games in 2010. My list will include some older games, but I only played them in 2010.

5) Need For Speed : Hot Pursuit

Most of the time, I like racing games like Forza and Dirt much more but I really had so much fun with this game, offline as well as online. They added a feature called "autolog" where they keep track of the times your friends drove for all kind of races. When someone beats your time, you get an update and it's your turn to try to beat that time. It adds a lot to the game. I'm not completely finished with HP , I still have to go from level 14 to 20 as a cop, but I played it enough to have an opinion about it and it's definitely a positive one.

4) Assassin's Creed II

I was far from being a fan of the first game in this series, I quit after 3 or 4 missions, it was too boring. So I was very surprised by number II, it's so much better in every aspect of the game than its predecessor. Better story, more variety in missions.... I could go on. I loved this game so much that I spent I-don't-know-how many hours to get the platinum trophy for it and I enjoyed every minute !

3) Heavy Rain

I was sucked in this game from the first second till the last one. It was so hard to put down the controller, I wanted to finish this game and see how the story could end, in one gaming session. It's like playing a thriller on your console instead of watching it on tv. I know that there are some inconsistencies in the story but the rest of the game makes up for it.

2) Mass Effect 2

The first Mass Effect is still one of my favourite games of all time and when the second was released I wondered if it could deliver the same quality. It did and in many parts of the game. It was even better in some aspects (exploring planets, side missions, battle system...) of the game than the first in the series. But my RPG heart started to bleed when I saw how they had minimized the RPG elements. Customizing your gear and that of your team members was one of the things that made the first Mass Effect a true RPG. I can't say the same about ME 2, it's more a shooter with RPG elements. But the game was still so excellent that it deserves a high spot in my list.

1) Final Fantasy X

Surprise ! We just entered 2011 and my number 1 is a ten year old game ! I really adore this game. I've put already many hours into it and I'm still not at the end, although close I've heard (I'm at the Zanarkand Ruins). The only negative I can say about this game : don't put puzzle games in an RPG like those Trials !!! Never ever !! You can't solve them with logic, it's just trial and error.

So there you have my list. Now I have to tag 5 other people (the poor things :P ). I had a look at my friend list and realized that some of you already made this kind of list so I chose other people instead :

* AzelKosMos (you played so many games during 2010, I'm wondering which ones were your real favourites)

* celtic1962 (same for you as I said about Max)

* luc11044

* phoenyx9

* SavoyPrime

Cya another time and keep enjoying those games ! :)

Have a pleasant and peaceful end of 2010, my friends.

Hugs :)

Chris

Hugs,

Chris

So I was tagged by phoenyx9 in this new tagging game that spreads on Gamespot like a deadly virus. :P

Here we go :

In case you don't know the rules for this tagging game yet:

1. Put Your iTunes (or other music player, for example : Windows Media Player) on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.
5. Tag at least 10 friends.
6. Anyone tagged has to do the same, because fun pointlessness spreads like a virus.
Do it ! Don't cheat ! It's creepy how odd some of the answers turn out...

1. If someone says, "Is This Okay?" You Say:

"Sleeping Sun" - Nightwish

2. How would you describe yourself?

"Please don't Stop the Rain" - James Morrison (I really love water in any form so rain as well)

3. What do you like in a guy/girl?

" Ce qu'il nous faudrait" (what we would need) - Nolwenn Leroy

4. How do you feel today?

"Crawl" - Kings of Leon (ouch ! not too well I guess :D )

5. What Is Your Life's Purpose?

"I'm Alive" - ELO

6. What is your motto?

"Stand by Your Side" - Celine Dion (when I can, I'll always stand by my loved ones when they need me)

7. What do your friends think of you?

"Social Disease" - Elton John ( :o )

8. What do you think of your parents?

"All You Get from Love is a Love Song" - Carpenters (?)

9. What do you think about very often?

"Ne lui parlez plus d'elle" (don't talk to him/her about her anymore) - Lara Fabian

10. What is 2+2?

"You Don't See Me" - Keane

11. What do you think of your best friend?

"If You Should Fall" - Jill Knight (same comment as with number 6)

12. What do you think of the person you like?

"Big in Japan" - Alphaville (nah, it would be more something like "Big in My Heart" :) )

13. What is your life story?

"Romeo and Juliet" - Indigo Girls (aww, that's a sad love story :( )

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?

"This" - k.d. lang (Hehe, funny answer :) )

15. What do you think of when you see the person you like?

"Money, Money, Money"- ABBA (:o I really hope this isn't true :lol: )

16. What will you dance to at your wedding?

"One Vision" - Queen

17. What will they play at your funeral?

"Bobby Jean" - Bruce Springsteen (nice song from my favourite Springsteen album)

18. What is your hobby/interest?

"Fly Me to the Moon" - Frank Sinatra (Astronomy always had my interest :D )

19. What is your biggest fear?

"Run to You" - Bryan Adams (well, now you know it :lol: )

20. What is your biggest secret?

"Rocket" - Def Leppard

21. What do you think of your friends?

"You're Ok" - k.d. lang ( :o I really think more highly of them)

22. What will you put as the title?

"Rock and Roll Heaven's Gate - Indigo Girls

Ten Friends for Tagging (Sooooorrryy ! :P ) :

EDIT :You can have a look at my tagged victims list in my second comment.

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time since I blogged. What have I been doing since then? Lots of things.

First , I gamed, mainly Mass Effect : I love that game so much that I wanted it to be the first game for which I got all the achievements, I needed more than 120 hours to accomplish it. Hehe, and to know that I didn't like Mass Effect the few first hours, just shows how something can grow on you.

I also played Bioshock 2, a sequel and quite similar to the first game, but still so much fun. I'm not that far in the game but I can see its quality already.

But it's been more than 2 weeks since I gamed...

The weather started to improve so the gardening and bonsai season made their appearance. I worked a lot in the garden, it's so relaxing, I think I'm meditating while gardening ; I don't talk for hours and my mind is so quiet.

The last few years I've neglected my bonsai, ok, I still gave them water and fertilizer, but that's all. I didn't do any other bonsaiwork like repotting and wiring. That has changed this year.

I think I've been too focused on gaming the previous 5 years, I neglected my other passions and that's not a good thing. Someone once said to me "Life starts at 40" and I'll be turning 40 later this year. This year will be the year of changes, things have already started, I can feel it.

Maybe the thing I neglected the most, was my love for music. It has always been a very important part of my life, be it for dancing or just listening. When I was a teenager I wanted to learn how to play a music instrument but pretty soon another one of my passions took the upperhand : sports.

Since a few months, I started to feel that I want to go back to things I neglected or completely forgot about and learning to play an instrument is one of them. I was hesitant because wasn't it too late to start ? But then someone said "Well, in 10 years, you can say that you're playing guitar (cause that's the instrument I was hesitant about) or you'll still feel sorry and regret it that you never took that step". That was enough for me to make my decision : I was going to learn to play (acoustic) guitar !!

About a week ago I bought my guitar and started to practice every day. I still can't believe how relaxing it is, I found another passion that has the same effect on me as gardening and working on bonsai. In June I'm going to register for music lessons at my local music and ballet academy. Maybe I'll be the oldest student, but that doesn't bother me, someone has got to be the oldest. :D

Now you know why I chose this title for my blog but there's another reason. When the idea started to grow to learn to play guitar, the song that will represent Belgium this year in the Eurovision Songcontest, was announced, its title..."Me and My Guitar". I thought "This is no coincidence, it's a sign".

That's all for now. I hope everyone is healthy and happy. I'll leave you with 2 links to music videoclips. The first is of the song I just told you about, the second is a song that I love a lot, it expresses a certain "joie de vivre" so well. I'm sorry it's in Dutch (the title means "Three Days of Sun"). it's about everything and nothing, just listen to the music and rythm, I hope it makes you smile. :)

Take good care, till next time !

Edit : Here's a picture of my new guitar, an Ibanez SGT 120 E. It was difficult to get the right light (that's why I had to take it outside) so that it would show the real colour. Even on this picture, it's not like in reality...my guitar is more beautiful coloured ;)

Hello everyone :)

I hope everyone had pleasant holidays.

We're having the coldest Winter in 13 years in Belgium, it almost snowed every day. I like snow so much - even though I know it causes a lot of practical problems - cause it brings us light in a season where days are short and dark.

But let's move on to the next topic : gaming.

While I was reading forum posts yesterday afternoon, I stumbled upon a very interesting one about PSN cards. I read that you can open a PSN account in whatever country you want. What made it even more interesting was the fact that you can now buy PSN cards online, even me, an European gamer can buy American PSN cards and use them in the corresponding PSN Store (as long as I have an American PSN account). No need anymore to use your (European) credit card, which caused quite some problems for a few gamers when they tried to buy stuff on the US PSN Store.

After reading that post, I created an American PSN account and when I browsed through the PSN Store, it was as if I just opened the doors to the Walhalla !! There were so many games available, many of them will never appear in the European PSN Store. I was very interested in old PS titles, especially RPGs. A lot of good (to excellent) RPGs from the PS - era are very expensive and hard to get nowadays. You almost have to cut off an entire arm to get Suikoden II (average price on Ebay : 150 euro---> 200US dollars) in your possession....I would consider giving up a leg but for a gamer an arm is just not possible...although...with all that motion sensitive stuff coming, a leg would be as necessary as an arm.....

But back on topic.....when I saw all those PS titles for sale, I literally raced to my PC and bought American PSN cards online, a minute later I had the redeem codes and a handful minutes later I was the proud owner of Suikoden, Wild Arms, Wild Arms 2 and Final Fantasy Tactics.

I really hope Sony will continue to put old titles in its PSN Store, titles that were never released in Europe like Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Suikoden III (PS2).... and let's not forget the almost not affordable Suikoden II. It's nice for latecomers, like me, to the RPG genre, that you can now buy and play some of the real genre cIassics.

Do I have to say that I'm one happy girl after yesterday afternoon?!

That's all for now. Have a very nice weekend and take good care :)

Don't worry about the title, all will become clear in a few minutes :D.......

Ik wens jullie allen een heel gezellige Kerst en een prachtig Nieuwjaar 2010 gevuld met goede en prettige dingen !

Now, what does that mean ?

Well - you should know what's coming - it's very easy : I only wanted to wish you all a very pleasant Christmas and a wonderful New Year 2010, filled with good and pleasant things, but in my mother tongue. Why? Cause it comes straight from the heart then, not from the mind. :)

Take good care,

Christine

Hey everyone :)

It's been quite some time since my last blog, several months to be exact. This blog is only a small update. I promise I'll write a bigger one later with more gaming updates.

Today, before lunch, I went to my regular game store and picked up this :

The 360 Elite 250 GB - Forza 3 bundle. Yay !! :)

Finally I'll be able to download DLC for games. That was almost impossible with my old 360 : it only had a 20gb HD.

That's not all what gaming concerns. After waititng for more than a week, my copy of Uncharted 2 finally arrived today in the mail. The waiting almost drove me crazy. Every day I read blogs, saying how amazing and superb Uncharted 2 is and all I could do is waiting. They say patience is a good virtue, they're right...if you're not the one who has to do the waiting. :P

I hope you're all ok. Cya soon in my next blog, till then :

Take good care and have fun while gaming :)

Heya everyone :)

I hope you are all having a great summer. Here in Belgium it has been very warm for a couple of weeks, it was a real heat wave. It was too warm to even attempt to do something outside in the garden so I gamed instead. :D

There are 3 games on my "now playing " list : Fallout 3 , Lost Odyssey and FF X.

I was already busy with FF X months ago but somehow I never got to the end, I always started another game. Which is a shame cause, first, it's a great game and second, I'm very close to the end so I made finishing FF X one of my goals for the rest of this year.

About 2 weeks ago I started with Lost Odyssey (LO). I played for a couple of hours when the game was released but I went back to WoW (yep, that eternal Evil :P ) but now I'm completely into the game. I really love the story and it's a turn based RPG so it can't do much wrong in my eyes what the battle system concerns. I really suck at getting "perfect rings" though, I can forget getting the " 500 perfect rings " achievement, I would have to play through the game a second time, maybe who knows, even a third time."blushes" I'm now 35 hours in the game and I was in Gohtza Station (third disc), the last time I gamed ( a few hours ago). Some people in the RPG Temple (union) like Ron and Max warned me for this third disc, that it was kind of boring and difficult for people who get lost very easily (yep, look at me, I'm one of those !!!) but I enjoy this game so much that I don't think the third disc will lessen my enthusiasm.

The third game on my list is Fallout 3. I just finished the part in the Vault and now I'm standing outside ready to start my adventure in the Wasteland. My idea was to play LO for a couple of days, then go back to Fallout 3 for a few days, back to LO and so on. I wanted to do this to have some kind of variation in my game play cause Fallout is a more action oriented RPG where LO is a full turn based RPG. But I can't get into Fallout 3. First of all cause an open world game always reminds me of WoW and say what you want to say, but the controls and animations in WoW are so much better than in Fallout 3 (and also better than in Oblivion for that matter), I can't stop comparing those games. And second, cause I'm too much into LO and its story, I want to know what the next thing is that will happen and how this story will end. Which means that I think I'll focus entirely on LO the next few days/weeks and when I'll see the credits roll I'll start Fallout 3 again.

Something different now, but still game related.

Today , 11th of August, there's a big update for Xbox Live. When I fired up my 360 earlier, I immediately got the message "update is ready......". One of the new features is that you can personalize your avatar even more than before. But (there's always one!) you have to pay for the new clothes, 1 euro a piece, sometimes 2. But hell, I won't buy something new every day so when the update was installed, I had a look in the avatar store and saw some cool stuff, especially in the collection, called Recessionista. I bought several things and now I'm wondering what you all think of the changes I made to my avatar.

The first picture is how my avatar looked before the update. The second and third are after the update. There's only one difference between the second and third picture, the hat. My question is : which one do you like the most?

Ok, that's it for now. Have fun but don't forget to go outside once in a while, the weather is too nice to spend it all inside. Cya next time, take good care till then ! :)

......that is called Xbox Live. I have my Xbox 360 already 3 years, I thought it was time to join Xbl.

Yesterday, while I was at the game store, I bought 2 new games (finally I'm going to play Tales of Vesperia !)but also a wireless network adaptor for my 360.

As you can see, I have a very low gamerscore......blame WoW !!! :oops: :P During the years I played WoW, I kept buying games, even started to play them but after a while I went back to the world of Azeroth.

It's only since a short time that I really game on my consoles and WoW is only secondary : my WoW account expires at the end of August, it's possible that I will completely leave Azeroth behind me and focus on my consoles entirely. That's why I decided to go online with both of my consoles.

As on PSN, you can find me under the name ananda07 with "0" being a zero. Leave your gamertag in your comment and I'll add you or feel free to add me, just send me also a little message with your real first name or GSname if your gamertag differs from your GS name or your first name.

A completely different topic now. Some of you may know that I studied Garden Design and that I'm a passionate gardener. Well, here are some pictures of my own back garden. The gardens I designed for others are more modern, my garden is a bit .....wilder, maybe like the owner. :D

The first picture shows you what you see when you enter the garden (there's no back door at the house, very annoying !!) and you look towards the house. You see the back of the house, a part of the terrace and if you look very closely, you can see some of my bonsai tables (in wood).

The second picture is taken from the lawn towards the entrance of the garden. And finally the third picture shows a small part of the back garden.

Ok, that's it for now. Cya in another blog or maybe on PSN or Xbl, who knows. In the mean time, take good care and don't forget to have fun while gaming. :)