So the week of E308 also saw the day of birth pass, and allowed me to gain another level in life. I have yet to distrubute the accumulated experience points amongst my wealth of abilities, so in the meantime I will do my best the entertain and converse with the masses.

First off, birthday has been fun. Drunken,yes, but also game filled. My work collegues did the usual and predictable of buying one of the male members of the team beer as the present contribution. As is tradition in out department, I rewarded their efforts with brownies, Doritos and various other snacks. I am wondering who got the better deal. My parental units then took me out for a meal, which was nice, and my brother, who is home for an extended weekend, then took me round to the pub where we got blitzed. We then returned home to play Halo 3 and shout abuse at each other whenever one of us died. Altogether, heartwarming fun

In terms of presents, I usual get money, and this year was no different. My parent put some cash towards a new iPod as mine has died two months outside of warranty. And seriously, I don't function well without music. Also my room's musical output is basically built around the iPod too. So it's death was not overly welcome. My brother bought me Gears of War, which I have completed at a freinds before, but is an awesome game for co-op play. We'll probably enjoy some of that later this weekend. I myself bought Brawl (finally ). So if anyone wants my friend code then PM me and I'll go get it for you!

Now on to E3. I didn't catch much (as my emblems attest to), but I tried my best to see the conferences and some of the Gamspot shows. I have to say that Microsoft pulled the best conference out of the bag - especially with the anouncement of FFXIII on the 360. I know this has already been discussed at many outlets before, but I personally am very excited to hear that Final Fantasy's main franchise is finally moving away from the PlayStation. I'm sure Square-Enix will produce an excellent 360 version, regardless of disc space issues, etc.. which people have been bandying about. I was also very interested in Fable 2 and Fallout 3, both of which are RPGs, a genre which I am a big fan of, and both of which are looking very nice. And then there is the almighty Gears 2 - I honestly cannot wait to play it.

Sony's conference was next best, but nothing interesting was really on show. Resistance 2 was a bit meh, and God of War 3 wasn't exposed as much as it should. Nothing really made me want to buy a PS3. Nor was there much in the way of new material for the PSP either - just sequels and PS3 crossovers. Also Sony and the Soft are trying to out do each other with the whole movie content thing, but to be honest, I prefer having a hard copy of my music and movies, and I still buy ordinary CDs and DVDs. Therefore, I don't care about your media wars.

Nintendo though, poor Nintendo. What happened there? Yeah Wii Speak looks like it could be a decent preferal, and Animal Crossing will probably sell loads as its other versions did. But other than that what was really on show? Nothing that really made me sit up and say "wow!". It's a shame really, because the Wii has so much potential, despite it's graphical shortcomings. The DS wasn't getting much love either

While the conferences served to whet appetites, it was GameSpot's own stage which really allowed us all to see the new games, and experience something of what they could do etc. I haven't finished watching all I wanted too, but there are some very interesting games coming out. Skate It for the Wii looks good, especially with the balance board option thrown in. Also the demos of Gears, Fallout, Far Cry 2, and so on were all exciting stuff.

Overall, it has been a good week. E3 hasn't been the best, but there have been some moments. My personal favorite from this year - FFXIII coming to the 360 - my sole reason for owning a PS3 is now gone. All I need is a PS2, so I can play all the other Final Fantasy games.....

It's been a while since I managed to do a reasonably well fleshed out blog! The main reason behind this is limited time due to work, and also the games that I have been playing. In all honesty I blame Mass Effect - that game has a hold of me like nothing before. I haven't enjoyed a game this much in quite a while

Anyway, I'm bringing things in these games to a close now. I just finished Crisis Core this evening, although I still have many more missions to complete etc. Still I wanted to see that final cutscene badly, and boy was it worth it! I'll hopefully put a review of the game up sometime over the weekend.

I'm also close to completing Mass Effect too. I've just completed the Citadel for the final time, so I'm about to head out to Ilos for the final confrontation. Mass Effect is also great in that you can get loads of 360 achievements (if you're into that thing) just by playing through the game. There are very little that require you to do awkward things to accomplish them. But Mass Effect has most impressed me in the way that it plays out just like an epic Sci-Fi movie. The voice acting and motions are (mostly) fantastic. Altogether a great RPG. Again, I'll post a review once completed and probably over the weekend.

Completing these means that I can finally return to Lost Odyssey and finish that off, which in turn means that I can start getting into Alone in the Dark some more (I've only played the first episode so far!). As for the portable front, I'm hoping to get a copy of FFIV on the DS (hopefully my local gaming store might have an import copy avaliable), which will fulfil my needs for a game to play on my breaks at work

All in all a good time! I feel a lot better as my collection of games that are partially completed is slowly decreasing!

What are the chances of the legendary Chrono Trigger coming out on the DS?

Maybe this little site might help boost them?