without coming across as boasting, i have over a years worth of xbox magazines in my house but i looked through all of them over the weekend and found that i am missing a few issues from late last year.

last week, i bought the latest issue that had arrived in new zealand after delivery problems from australia and was dissapointed with the content in the magazine and what is on the disc. a department store here, i believe, the warehouse, has stopped selling xbox magazine for $9NZ as it has gone back up to almost double, $17NZ.

three games have me interested in this issue and they are dead space 2, medal of honor and nier.

nier came out recently and has not done well. i think off the top of my head, without looking in the magazine, the game received a four or five out of ten. nier was a game i had been tracking but stopped and i guess i should be glad i did. dead space 2 is a game i am tracking now.

in another entry, i was talking about the gameplay of the medal of honor beta multiplayer. it is the only game that has the coalition forces battling taleban insurgents and will go up bravely against the call of duty franchise. it is also a game that i would like to own and play in my home on xbox live. of course, i would likely fight on the taleban side often. what the game is about makes it more realistic but one thing, having the characters jump so high in the air and over obstacles isn't. however, i guess it is required to make up a functional game.

as you know, i own dead space. i fired it up on the console two weeks ago and it wasn't long until i died. i have died three or four times. dead space is my first experience of what is called a "horror shooter" on the xbox 360. i think about the game now but feel let down by my first impressions. perhaps i need to get others games i own like red alert 3, viva pinata and that time i hired avatar, out of sight and out of mind before i can feel comfortable about dead space and play it many times to come eventually beating it. i am feeling less enthusiastic about dead space 2... because of the glitch with the gamespot site at the moment, i can't remove the game from my tracking list.

i am, on the other hand, feeling pumped about 50 cent: blood on the sand. the arcade method of play which is evident in the screenshots looks encouraging and would be fitting of a game with 50 cent in it. the achievements in the game seem to me are those of which i can gain, gaining gamerscore as well.

so soon, i might be battling my way through the middle east hunting those down who have crossed me. he is after millions of dollars after a concert gone bad in that area of the world. that storyline was called something like weak by one reviewer of mightyape.

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"he's a window shopper... i think i know why... he's a window shopper... tryin' to get a test drive..."