Well I'm back on Gamespot now. Alot has changed since I was last here in January 2008, the site looks alot better and there appears to be a whole new staff running the place. In the next weeks I hope I find all the new features and slip right back in as though I never left.

Well firstly a lot has changed with myself since I was last here. I've moved away from home, sharing a house with a friend and I've got an excellent new Graphic Design job. I'm learning to drive, as of now I've had 19 lessons and have my driving theory test booked for October 21st 2008, then my final test hopefully after that. I've played quite a lot of new games, I've bought quite a lot of new 360 games and I've also got a whole new PC.

So I'll start with my new PC as theres not too much to say about it. below are the specs:

AMD Athlon XP 64bit 6400+ 3.2ghz Dual Core
4GB of Corsair 800mhz 6400
Nvidia XFX 9600GT XXX Edition 512MB
2 x 500GB SATAII HDD's
Mobo: Gigabyte GA M57SLI-S4
700watt Eazycool PSU

and I've gotten a Logitech Wave cordless Keyboard and Mouse desktop set and a Samsung T220 22" Widescreen 1680x1050 Monitor to top it all off. Unfortunatly I don't have nearly as much time to you use it though due to work and life etc.

So onto 360. I've gotten GTA4 and completed it, Battlefield Bad Company which I don't enjoy the campaign at all so I spend all my time in that game on Multiplayer. I've also bought a lot of other games I missed out on. I'll do another blog post in a little while about my 360 gaming in more detail.

In other gaming news I've been sampling SPORE, Crysis, Crysis WARHEAD and LEGO Batman, all fairly decent, just waiting on Farcry 2 now for my PC. I also finished Zelda Twilight Princess during the summer on my gamecube. I believe I finished it with 44 hours+ of gameplay. Such an amazing game, hopefully I will be able to play it again one day, on wii with the wiimote.

So thats pretty much me getting myself back upto speed with blog and gamespot. I still need to finish some older games, but with Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, etc coming out fairly soon, I will struggle. Games I want to finish are Bioshock, Mass Effect, Orange Box (HL2, HL2:E1 & HL2:E2), PGR4, Oblivion, GRAW2, Rainbow Six Vegas 1, Viva Pinata, Crackdown and possibley Bad Company single player. So until next time folks, peace out!

Happy New Year everyone. 2008 should be a great year even if my start to it wasn't so great. I ended 2007 in bed ill with this virus taking the UK by storm, I was better again for New Years where I went to a friends party, but then right after that I developed a chest infection and have spent pretty much all that time in bed, not eating, not wanting to play games, only really watching rubbish TV.

Thankfully today (Tuesday 15th Jan) I'm feeling much better, the pain is subsiding, my appetite is back and I'm wanting to play all those games I've been missing out on. Mass Effect, still can't start it as I've not finished the prequel novel. I'm upto chapter 8 and its been slow going, I really should push myself to finish that and get back to the game. BioShock is another game I've got just dangling there ready to finish. I'll be moving to that once Mass Effect is done with.

Driving. Driving is going to be a big part of 2008 for me as I actually NEED to get my licence now. I'm hopefully moving jobs to another town and I'll need a car, so until I pass my test I'll be living with a friend who also works there already. While living with him I'll be pushing to get my lessons done and my test passed so I can get my own car. This has also increased my interest in driving games. I've always liked cars, watching racing, Top Gear etc, but not greatly. But now I've noticed that I'm starting to recognise most cars, so I think my interest must be growing. I often find myself in PGR4 lately just cruising around the London Westminister tour in an Aston Martin DBS, oooh!

I'm really looking forward to GTA4 and Splinter Cell Conviction this spring, hoping neither slips back. Loving having my 360, no need for a PS3 yet, maybe when MGS4 is released I won't be able to stop myself, but for now I'm safe. No Wii yet, I'll get one one day maybe, we'll see, a new Zelda will probably do that job.

I've also updated my banner and profile pictures to reflect where I'm at with my 2008 gaming head, all about the Splinter Cell, bring it on. I know nothing about the new game pretty much and when I know nothing about a game before I play it, it always turns out great (MGS1, Ocarina of Time, Splinter Cell 1, GTA3, etc). What is everyone else looking forward to this year?

Well with exactly one week to go until christmas I feel precisely ZERO christmas spirit and I don't know why. For some reason this year just isn't doing it for me, maybe last year was the last time I'll ever experience the christmasy feeling until maybe I have children and go through it with them. I'm not depressed or anything, just can't seem to get into this year.

Anyway, games. I've been playing Call of Duty 4 online in stints, pushing myself to get to the ultimate unlock that I want, the Baretta .50cal Sniper Rifle and also the Desert Eagle. I want to run around with a gold desert eagle blasting people until they shutdown the COD4 servers. I've also been continuing on Project Gotham Racing 4. That game just has the sense of speed and fun perfected. The controls and handling are just right for me. I recently spent the weekend at a friends where we blasted through Guitar Hero 2 & 3 on the 360. Unfortunatly on HIS profile, so I didn't unlock any new achievements from that.

I did however get 10 new Xbox Live Arcade games free thanks to the 10 free games offer Microsoft where running. I can't remember them all, but I know they included Small Arms, Bomberman, E4, Sonic 1 and a few others. So I've obtained a nice few achievements from that. I also need to revisit Assassins Creed and pick up the achievments I'm missing for pickpocketing knives, throwing poor people around, fighting for more than 10 mins and fighting over 25 peeps in one fight. Then I'll be done with that game as I sure as hell am not collecting all the flags or templars, what a waste of time.

I've been reading Mass Effect: Revelation, the prequel novel to the Mass Effect game. I don't read too much as I don't really have the time, but this book is pretty good. I played the first 5 or 6 hours of Mass Effect so far, but I've decided to hold off continuing until I finish reading the book. Then I am planning on starting again. Its been a while since I started playing and I'm already forgetting what I've acheived, so it should be good to redo things with a better knowledge of the Mass Effect universe and how things work within it.

My plans for the holidays have been thrown into chaos. I was supposed to be paid twice this month, once at the begining and once nearer to christmas, but what has happened is that the company I'm currently freelancing for have decided they'd merge my cheques into one and pay it at the later date, Dec 21st. That is this friday. Now if I get that into the bank that day, its going to take 5 WORKING days to clear, so thats maybe the following friday, so I'm not going to have ANY money until then. My mums birthday is on the 19th and I am supposed to be going out for christmas eve with friends. So now I may not be going out, no-one is getting any presents. What a load of crap eh! Welll at least I'll have my christmas dinner to look forward to and at least I don't have to go christmas shopping with all the packed crowds.

Well I wish everyone a happy holiday and hope that you all have a great New Year, I'll be back on Gamespot next year.