I have no impulse control. When i see something i want, i won't think about it, and how it will effect my financial situation; all i'll do is see if i can get it with whatever cash on hand i have. I have no strength of will whatsoever. Thus, today I bought Modern Warfare 2 and Borderlands. I also bought the 2 disc special edition of 'Watchmen', season 3 of '30 Rock', and seasons 1 and 2 of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'. Finally, i bought a book, 'Coldheart Canyon' by Clive Barker (i've gotten to the point where i just buy anything with 'Clive Barker' written on it). Last week i also bought Tekken 6, even though i had planned to wait a few months. In the end, i just suck at rational decision making.

Tekken 6 is a mixed bag. The graphics are disappointing. Scenario campaign is very 'meh', being a pseudo streets of rage game but with tekken characters. The story is bad, to the point where i stopped watching cutscenes after the first few, and it's repetitive. It is, however, the best way to gain money and unlock costume parts for your character of choice. New characters are interesting, and the movelist changes are either nice or annoying. Online is a complete lagfest to the point where it is almost impossible to enjoy a proper match. You end up having to deal with freezes and massive lag that makes combos impossible to pull off. The load times are bad, especially for a fighting game. Also, the new boss character, Azazel (giant dragon pharoah) is a tool.

The best part of the game is, thankfully, the core fighting, which is best in ghost attack mode (just like arcade, you continually fight against characters until you decide to stop) This mode is great since it just gets to the fighting, and doesn't waste time messing around needlessly. I could just play match after match continually, and always have fun. Thus, Tekken 6 maintains my interest mainly because of the main backbone of the game: the fighting.

I haven't played much of Borderlands; i really just did a quest in Fyrestone then stopped. I like the game so far, and searching for more cash, ammo and loot is great fun. There have been a few technical issues. It froze up initially, and it occasionally stutters needlessly. There is a lot of texture pop-in, and it sometimes ends up looking quite jerky. One major sound annoyance, which i think is the fault of the PS3 or something, is that sometimes the game doesn't pick up dialogue. If i stand next to a character, like the robot at the beginning, i can hear him. If i turn to the right, i can hear him and he is louder than normal. If i have my back to him, i can still hear him, yet less loud. Finally, if i turn to the left, i can't hear anything. Even if i am standing directly next to a character, turning to the left causes a lack of sound. This happens in a lot of games, like Resistance 2 and other FPS games, and it really annoys me. It even happens in cutscenes. I have no idea how to fix it. I haven't tried any online, and i don't have a microphone so communication is basically impossible. Regardless, i like it.

Finally, Modern Warfare 2, which marks the fourth COD game i've played, and the second i own. I have COD2 on PC, but haven't played it in years, while i rented and finished 4 and 5 when they came out. I never played any online though, but i enjoyed the campaigns (i though 4 had a better campaign than 5; can't remember much of 2). So far, i really like MW2, although i'm not impressed by the campaign. From what i've played (up until the russian terrorist mission in the airport) things are far too short and abrupt, and largely dull. The training mission is fine, but the following parts aren't very exciting, especially in comparison to COD4's opening ship mission. I can only hope it gets better. The graphics don't have too much of an impact on me either, and seem a little average.

The main pull of MW2 seems to be the multiplayer, and i have to agree whole heartedly that it is the best part of the game. Fast-paced and fun, it's great. The level of customisation available is astounding (provided you level up enough first). I suck, but i still have a lot of fun, and i'm slowly getting better. Even special ops is fun, with enough variety in missions to provide good co-op. Admittedly, one of the reasons i bought MW2 was because i knew that almost everybody would be getting it. Sure enough, most of the people i know have already gotten it.

I've finally gotten over trophies. It's funny, considering my last post was about my trophy addiction, but it sees like my addiction has just sort of ended, as my interest has waned considerably. I no longer feel any need to go after them anymore, and it's all thanks to Tekken 6. Just by playing the game, you get trophies. Seriously, if you play scenario mode for three hours you'll get something like twenty trophies. It makes things less interesting, and just a matter of course.I still get trophies, be it progressional (playing through games) or accidental/incidental (killing three people with one explosion accidentallywithin ten minutes of playingMW2).

One source of annoyance with my newly acquired purchases is that my PS3 now officially has no more space left for installs or downloads. My 40 gigs have been depleted to barely any megs. Tekken 6's install takes five full gigs, and all it does is mildly shorten the long load times. Borderlands takes 2 gigs, which is acceptable, but takes me to my limit. I'm going to have to start deleting installs, starting with the unnecessary ones, like Valkyria Chronicles. Once i've played through Tekken 6 enough i'll delete the install, since five gigs is too much for what little it does.

Anyways, i'll be enjoying my purchases over the weekend and beyond. I've made the decision to not buy any more games this year, until maybeMarch, soi can focus on buying other, more important things. Of course, knowing myself,i'll last about ten days before buying something else.

I think i've become addicted to trophies. I've noticed that recently i've been aiming for trophies in games, out to get as many as i can. My first platinum, Dead Space, took me a few months to get, since i gradually got there. inFamous took me shorter than a month, while BlazBlue took me a fair while (largely due to playing 350 online matches).

I got the Uncharted 2 platinum earlier today, which i enjoyed getting, but once i got it i realised that i've had the game for barely longer than a week. I've breezed through it on Hard and Crushing, then went through and found all the trophies. moving forward at a shockingly fast pace. I realised shortly after just how fast i had done everything, all for the urge to get trophies. I enjoyed everything, of course. There wasn't any moment where i felt like it was becoming a chore. Uncharted 2 is a very entertaining game, but it's also very short, which is why it can be finished in just over four hours once you know what to do. At this point, i've finished the game four times in the space of ten days, and got all the trophies in the process.

Trophies seem to have become an obsession somewhere down the line. I don't know why, but i guess i've started to enjoy fulfilling the random criteria to get the trophies. I think the real problem is that i've always tried to complete my games to 100%, trying to find every secret, every unlockable, every everything. I only ever feel a game is truly completed once i've done everything there is to do. The addition of trophies adds to this, since now i aim to get trophies as well.

It's funny, since i've had my PS3 since before trophies were implemented and i never thought they were anything special, at least at first. I had already done everything in the original Uncharted, but now i've started doing everything again to get the trophies. I've always consideredmyself somewhat of a hardcore gamer, enjoying my JRPGs moreso than my FPSs, and i feel like going for trophies cheapens myself as a gamer somewhat. I haven't gone so far as to renting out horrible games for their easy trophies, but i have become more conscious, scoping out the trophies in games i'm interested in, then thinking about how hard they would be to get.

Strangely, i've had a X360 for a few years, and yet i've never had any real interest in Achievements or Gamerscore. I don't know what allure trophies have over achievements (is it because the bronze, silver, gold system is much more fun than the xbox's massive meaningless number system?)

Anyways, i haven't gone completely over the brink. I only go for trophies that i can get with relative ease, none of those soul destroying ones, like getting 10000 online kills in Resistance 2, or getting into the top 1% of players for the week in Killzone 2. No, i'm not even going to attempt any of those. I like my challenge easy, and attainable with very little strenuous effort.

So far, i've got around 500 trophies, with 4 platinums. That number looks to continue to climb so long as there are trophies available for games i'm interested in. Does enjoying getting trophies make me a trophy whoar?

(Gamespot won't let me spell 'whore' correctly, hence 'whoar')

October is nearing the end, so here's a new blog.

I got my pre-order of Uncharted 2, and have been playing it for the last two weeks or so. (I've finished the campaign on normal, now going through on Hard).The game is completely fantastic. If Uncharted was like playing an awesome action movie, then Uncharted 2 is like playing an awesome action movie sequel. There's more action, more explosions, more of just about everything. Even the characters are like movie characters, such as the thieves Flynn and Chloe, and the crazy Russian soldier Lazarevic. It's completely awesome, to the point where i don't mind that it's rather short (Barely longer than the first one by my reckoning).

I've been playing a fair amount of multiplayer, and i'm really enjoying it. I've played a lot of co-op, and have pretty much memorized each of the three maps. I actually think i like competitive multi a little more, only because of Plunder mode. It's just a variation of capture the flag (with treasure), but i love it, since you can still shoot pistols when you have the treasure, and you can actually throw the treasure (like a grenade). Even deathmatch is cool, although there doesn't seem to be much equality in team balancing (since some teams are filled with experienced players, and others with newbies). My only complaint with multi is that is seems to take a while to get started, around five minutes more or less from my reckoning.

If you're playing Uncharted 2 and you want to play some co-op or something, just message me over the PSN if i'm online. I'm not currently focused on any particular game, so i'm open to whatever.

I got the Platinum trophy in BlazBlue! The only trophy i was having trouble with was the Leonidas trophy, which is gained by beating Score Attack. Score Attack is a game mode where you fight against all twelve characters in order on the hardest difficulty mode. If you lose one match, you have to start from the beginning again. I could do fairly well, getting up to the last few fights usually, but i would always always get beaten by Unlimited Ragna. He's horrifyingly aggressive, his distortion meter fills up on its own, and most of his attacks heal him, turning the fight into a strategic endurance match. If he hits you with his distortion drive 'Carnage Scissors' (which he uses constantly) over half your health is taken off, and he is healed completely. I was so glad to finally beat that bastard.

I've become somewhat overhwelmed with the incoming onslaught of games at the moment. Tekken 6 is on the way, which i'll most likely get around release, while games like COD MW2 and several others are sure to be good, although my interest in them is somewhat diluted. Even games that have already been released seem to call to me. I wouldn't mind getting Borderlands, but i would want online functionality, which ruins me since i've heard the PS3 version is inferior, while my X360 isn't online. I wouldn't mind getting Prototype, which is on sale (i'd probably get it on 360) but nobody i know has played it. I'm also strangely interested in Darkside Chronicles on Wii, just for the Resident Evil nostalgia, so i'll probably rent that.

All in all, i'm feeling a little overwhelmed with gaming goodness. There are still PSP and PS2 games that i haven't finished yet, which all demand my attention, while online gaming has got me somewhat addicted as well. I just don't have the time to enjoy everything else in my life, and my games.