So that's another year finished. I don't know why but the older I get the faster the year just shoots by. I use to wish when I was smaller that time would hurry up; now I wish it would just slow down a bit. I want to play all these great games, especially a year like this which has had some many good games that I think I spent hundreds trying to buy them all, and still didn't manage to get all I want.

If you remember I was doing a challenge to see if I could finish off 50 games before the year came to an end and well I guess I kind of did and didn't make it in some sense. I know I certainly should have spent more time on single games. I just couldn't help it though when I got a brand new game in the post that was suppose to be awesome. Don't worry though; Assassin's Creed didn't spend long in my 360, god I nearly fall asleep playing that game. It likes to repeat over and over again, kind of like when an RPG changes the colour of the baddies to make them "different". Assassin's Creed just changes the people you are suppose to kill, but does the same stuff following up to that. Ah well, maybe the sequel will learn from that mistake.

So the games I finished with recently are:

Halo 3

Jackass: The Game (Didn't buy it, was a review copy)

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Bone: Out from Boneville

Tekken: Dark Resurrection/Online (Finished it with all characters!)

So that makes 37 games finished for the year. That's pretty far off really. I needed to finish off 13 more to make the 50 mark. I was just sitting here thinking about something. What if I added the games that I finished on the 360, but didn't get 700 or more achievement points, would that make up to 50? So I sat down and through about all the 360 games I'd done. This is what I came up with.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Wasn't half bad in co-op!)

Stranglehold

The Darkness

Earth Defense Force 2017

Virtua Tennis 3

GRAW 2

Bullet Witch

Crackdown

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Rainbow Six: Vegas

So yep, the final count is 47 games. I've just missed the target by three games! Oh so close! To be honest through I think I've learnt something about myself from this little challenge, that I have a very bad habit of buying too many games and playing between them all, rather than focusing at one of a time. I never use to be like that, I guess that is what money does to you when you've got it in front of you to buy all the games you want.

I guess these leads to my New Year Revolution, which is to try and focus on a smaller amount of games at once. It be interesting to see how many I actually complete in 2008 when I try to stick to this. There's not going to be a challenge this year, but I'm still going to match it up to 2007 and see if the results are a lot different or not.

Well have a good 2008 and remember to play lots of games! Oh and if you want to know what my top five games of 2007 were then here they are.

Super Mario Galaxy

Persona 3

Uncharted

Call of Duty 4

Orange Box

Game On!

As I write this the date is December 6th 2007. That's only19 days to Christmas and only 25 days till the end of the year. I guess my challenge looks like it's going to win over me. I'm not going to give in though! I'm going to fight to the end! I shall try and get 50 done before the year is over. I've gotten so many games over the past month though it is unreal. One week I got 8 games in the post at once. I've just been overwhelmed with them that I never know which one to play, kind of an evil position to be in. It's probably one of the reasons why I'm behind in my list, that and I've got some weird feeling about 360 games. I've got to get 700 or more points in the game if I've finished it already and didn't reach 700. Don't know why; just want to have some points from the game! I'd probably be pretty near the target or past it by now if I didn't have that to do.

So the games I've finished since the last time I posted are:

Sam and Max Season 2 Episode 1: Ice Station Santa

Call of Duty 4

Unreal Tournament 3 (Single Player Campaign)

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

Crysis

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

That makes it 32... 18 to go, erk, oh dear oh dear!

Just a quick update here as I have to get back to play games!

There's a new review up, can read it at this link http://uk.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/persona3/player_review.html?id=506134

On the game completion side of things I've manage to finish these games:

Persona 3 (Woo brilliant as hell, as you can tell from my review)

Heavenly Sword

Portal (Bloody comical genius of a game!)

Streets of Rage 2 (XBLA)

Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting (XBLA)

Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (Great stuff too!)

That makes it 26 now, finally past the half way mark! Oh god help!

My 360 has finally died...

well melted insides more like after my friend was playing Bioshock, it overheated the system till it fried. I owned it a week after the U.K launch. The system has lasted 21 months. Seems to be a record as everyone else's has already died. Damn crappy launch machines! I now wait for the brown UPS man to come and pick up my pile of white mess and sit and wait for a new system. It's a good job that I wasn't actually playing any 360 games at the time. I do miss out on the new ones that arrive this and next week though, sucks! Ah well. I'll just keep playing Persona 3.

Persona 3 is the game I've been playing for the past few days. I've clocked up 38 hours so far and I love every minute of it. If you don't know what it is then I'll explain a little.

Persona 3 is a Japanese RPG. It's certainly not like most other JRPGs out there. It's something that could be ****d as bizarre to some extent. For starters the characters put guns to their heads and pull the trigger to release their inner Personas, kind of like summoning monsters to do an attack for you. They are your magic so to speak.

Half of the game is like a life sim, which includes going to school, hanging with friends and lady pals. All this helps you create much more powerful Persona links. Your other half is crazy story about a 25 hour and people turning into coffins. Don't want to spoil much but the game is very good and interesting, highly recommended to any RPG fan out there. I'm hooked on it and I can't get off. Hardly touched Bioshock because of Persona 3! It's that good.

Haven't completed any games since last time, although nearly done with Streets of Rage 2 on XBLA, would have been done with now if it wasn't for the breakage. I'm starting to get a little worried now, like 4 months left and 30 games to finish, crazy **** May have to go to the back catalogue and hunt down some short games! Damn you RPGs! Spoiling my free time, but I love it! Persona time!

Just letting you guys/girls know that I have a new review up if you are interested in reading it.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/swordofthenewworld/player_review.html?id=487650

Haven't let you known for a while what I've been up to since the last update. Well I have managed to finished more games, and also play a lot of games, but not actually finish them. Don't you just hate it when that happens? It's mainly when you are enjoying a game, then a new one arrives in the post and it's one of them that you just have to play as soon as you get it. So you decide to start it and then forget about the last game you were playing and ended up never finishing it. I've done that... a lot of times, heh.

So the games I've finished since the last update are as follows:

Resident Evil 4 Wii

This is certainly the best version of the game. I have finished it on the Gamecube and decided that a Wii controlled version would be interesting to test out. I can say that it works really well with the controls. It's much easier to aim and blow those Spanish trouble makers heads clean off than ever before. I'd certainly celebrate if the rumours of older Resident Evil games getting a makeover with the RE4 Wii control method, I'd cream most likely.

Colin Mcrae: Dirt

Great racing game, although it feels more arcady than the past versions of the series. None the less it's still a great mud racing game and easily recommended to racing fans. I manage to get 975 gamer score from this game, guess which achievement was left over?

Rule of Rose

I was in a mood to play some horror games over the past few weeks, so I get my hands into this game. Wasn't the greatest horror game I've played, but certainly interesting, if a little slow paced as well. One for the fans I think.

Project Zero

Having played and finished the second game, I thought it be only fair to go back and finish the first game. Excellent and creepy, it's one of the spookiest games I've ever played.

Fight Night: Round 3

I had this game since release but ended up missing one achievement as I played through it. I decided to restart it over and finally get that achievement, woo 1000 points from this game.

So as you can see I'm now at the total of 20/50, still somewhat of a way to go, but I still never give up! Never!

The past week or so I've been playing Dragon Quest VIII, Pokemon Diamond, Ninja Gaiden: Sigma and Forza 2. I hope I can manage to finish one of these off, I need to!

I haven't posted in a while to let you know how I'm getting on with my challenge. Well it's not actually all going that well at the moment. I've been on a binge of watching some programs that I should have watched a while ago.  Over the month and a bit since I last posted here, I have watched Lost season 1, Bleach episodes 1-127 and another anime called Chobits. So because of that I haven't really been playing that many games.

Oh I have completed some though! Over the same period of time I finished:

Sam and Max Episodes 3 - 6 and Bleach 2nd DS

That's another five to add to the list. Wee that helps a bit now. Now I'm on 15/50

Ohhh that makes it 10/50 now!

This is just a quicky blog. Just telling all you dudes that my Tekken review is up. You can see it by clicking this here link http://us.gamespot.com/ps3/action/tekken5darkresurrection/player_review.html?id=439883

I've been playing alsorts of games since my last post. At the moment I'm jumping between Command & Conquer 3, Virtua Tennis 3 and Genji (Yeah I bought the famous giant enemy crab game, it was £17.99!! So shush!) I just got Earth Defence Force 2017 in the post today. I plan on playing that with my friend when she comes round tonight. See if I can try and do it all in Co-op, in all the difficulties to try get those points.

No games finished since last time. I'm starting to get behind, it's evil, must speed up. I still think I can do it though. Don't have that doubt in my head yet.

I also have a driving test this Thursday, Ack! First one, let me see how it goes eh?

God of War 2. A few words that after you’ve played the game, should make you cream your pants like no tomorrow. It’s not your typical pant creaming neither, this is full on looks like you’ve got a jumbo hotdog down your pants filling. That’s what this game does to you.  Everything about it is near perfect. It also manages to still make you go “Whoa this looks bloody awesome” on a system that is 7 years old. It’s a remarkable technically achievement that the Sony Santa Monica team have done. The game only loads when you die or save. It streams the whole game on the fly  so you’re only ever interupted by brilliant in game cutscenes that look stunning. There’s one part where you’re on some giant stone horses and the camera zooms out to show you the island you are heading towards. Man it’s pure jaw dropping beauty.

Every respectful gamer should really own a PS 2 just for this game alone. It’s how bloody good it is. It is one of the best games on the system and also the best game I’ve played this year, hell it’s the best game I’ve played since Twilight Princess (Ok so that isn’t that long ago, but before that it’s probably Resident Evil 4!)

Can’t wait for  God of War 3 now. It so sets the next game up perfectly. The End Begins! 9/50

Last night I managed to to get to the end of Resistance. I just happened to be two levels from the end from when I last saved the game. Hell if I had known that I would of finished it abit sooner, but ah well. It’s a very good First-Person Shooter.

While everyone complained that it wasn’t doing anything new, it doesn’t really need to. The launch title on the PS3 plays really well and is truly great fun to play. The weapons are fantastic and some of them are original. Oh and multiplayer is bloody brilliant, so fast paced, somewhat reminds me of Unreal Tournament in that sense.

7/50 it is. I’m still behind as it’s like week 11 in the year. I’ll catch up though! I WILL!

I’ve just preordered a couple of games today. I’ve got Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2 for the 360, Motorstorm for the PS3 and Trackmania United for the PC all coming at somepoint in the future. Woooo!

Minor Update! Just finished off GRAW on Hard and getting some achievement points as well. That is now 8/50

Just come straight back from finishing Sonic and the Secret Rings.

Sonic and the Secret Rings is a good Sonic game. It's probably my fave one to come past since the Sonic Adventure 1/2 days on the Dreamcast. The game has basically gone back to the roots somewhat and now it's all about Sonic. There's no other playable character in the game. To be honest that's how it should be (Although I really do love Shadow, he's such a cool hedgehog!)

At first the game can be frustrating, but once you stick with it and get past the initial learning curve and unlock more moves for Sonic. The mechanics come out alot less clunkier than they seemed to be at the start of the game. All the unlockable skills improve Sonic's speed and reactions plus they learn him new moves as well.

Levels are great. The game doesn't contain enough of them but the ones that are there are fun and fast. I've got to ride on cannon balls, speed around on some Gargoyles colourful line (that comes from his back passage? I have no idea what it actually is, just some magic line I guess.) Hell I even got to run from Dinosaurs.

A special mention has to go to the music. I'm in love with some of the tunes. Tunes for the first level "Sand Oasis"  and "Evil Foundry" are amazingly addictive. They've been on repeat for the past couple of days! People have had a dislike for the music, but I can't see anything wrong with it. It fits in with the setting of the game. I was more into the mood becasue of the songs, well apart from the Dino level song. I know it's a jungle for god sakes, stop telling me "Dino Jungle!" *hums beat*

So yeah, fun game that you should all check out. I know there are plenty of Sonic fans who are interested in it. It's the most fun you've had with the blue hedgehog since his Dreamcast days.

Wooo 6/50! Lots to go.......

I’m just supplying a quick update to say that I’ve finally finished my fifth game. It just happens to be yet another adventure game, heh I’m playing too many of those at the moment.

Hotel Dusk is certainly an intriguing game. It’s made by the same group that did Another Code (Cing.) It’s got a much more interesting story than Another Code had, and the puzzles are nicely done again. It seems Cing were using the cool puzzles from Another Code and implementing a much better presentation and story. The game does start off somewhat slow paced and unless you’re a fan of the genre, you might find it somewhat hard to get into, but if you stick to it and are interested in a excellent mystery novel then go check it out.

5/10, damn still behind!

TAKE THAT! Finally got my fourth game completed, which was Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All. Phoenix Wright fans should snap it up in an instant. While I do have to say overall the first game was better, the second game however contains the best case ever in the series so far (that has been translated into English!) Case 4 in the second game is fantastic. It’s very interesting and pushes Mr. Phoenix Wright to the extreme of brain hurtage!

I ordered myself a nice gift last week. It arrived on Monday. This gift was a Playstation 3! Yep I decided to import one since they were going for £330 on videogamesplus.ca (Great import website by the way!) I don’t even need to use a step-down for the U.S system too. It works fine with a U.K 5amp fused kettle plug. I found out on the net that the PSU in the system is universal, so it takes any power socket. As Borat would say “Very Nice!” I got two games with the system. Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance: Fall of Man. I’m a huge Ridge Racer fan so it was a no brainier in getting that game. It plays very well; pure arcade fun is what the series is all about.

Resistance is also very good, while it’s not a Halo style revolutionary launch title. It is on the other hand a very solid first person shooter. It plays like you would expect any good FPS to and it’s actually quite fast and fluid. Everything runs at a nice smooth frame rate. Insomniac has done a great job and since the company doesn’t specialise in first person shooters (they make a lot of Ratchet games instead.) They deserve the good reviews the game has been getting. It looks lovely too. If you’re a fan of the genre it certainly is worth checking it out.

Well time to go play games! Might see if I can get through Hotel Dusk now on the DS!

4/50

Another short adventure of Sam and Max played through. Everything that I said about the first episode pretty much applies to this one. It was very short and yet funny and entertaining. I actually got semi stuck on this one at one point. I had to put some tomato sauce onto the birthday cake, so it was classed as “Tomato Icing,” nice. Roll on the next episode! 3/50

I got some new games in the post this week. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror and Yggdra Union. I’ve only played Syphon Filter out of the three so far, just been busy with other games, they will get played eventually. Syphon Filter is pretty darn good. It brought back memories of the fun I had with the PSX games back in the day. It’s somewhat stealth based, but you never really have to be. I just basically go around wasting the hell out of the baddies. It’s what makes Syphon Filter so damn fun. Oh and the taser rocks as usual, the trademark burst in to flames is still there.

I’ve never played Sam and Max before. I’ve heard plenty of people speak of the original game. That game is supposedly one of the best adventure games to date. I always say I’d get round to playing it, but I never did. So I got hold of Sam and Max Episode 1: Culture Shock and completed it.

Sam and Max Episode 1 is a very short game. It’s probably taken me around 2 hours to finish it. Yes it’s really short and easy too. I don’t know if this is because it’s the first episode and they want to introduce you into the works of the adventure genre, but most of the stuff I manage to think up pretty fast. It is however very witty in jokes and the comedy is really light hearted and cleverly funny. While playing I never once thought about turning it off, because I just wanted to hear the characters speak. The characters are truly loveable and the dialogue is fantastic. Although it still doesn’t touch the almighty Phoenix Wright in that aspect.

Short and sweet I guess the saying goes, but really it’s more of short and funny. I can fully say I’ll be playing Episode 2 at some point. I might even try and find the original and give that a play as well.

So now there are only 48 left. 2 games in 10 days isn’t too bad, but they have mainly been short games. I’m a RPG nut so that is where the real challenge will start to come in. There are plenty of them coming in the months ahead. I also get Wario Ware: Smooth Moves and Lost Planet: Collectors Edition tomorrow. So I’ll be taking them for a spin all day.

Yesterday I finally received Rayman: Raving Rabbids in the post. I was supposed to have this game at launch with my Wii system, but I had some problems. GAME.co.uk didn’t get any in stock on the day so I thought I’d order from Gameplay.co.uk instead. Only when the order came in the post, it wasn’t Rayman… It was Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Now if I didn’t already own the game I would of kept it, but I do. So I sent it back and had to wait over the Christmas period waiting for the damn game to come. So yeah it did finally come and I’ve finished it already, heh.

While the game’s story mode is fairly short. It lasted around six hours. The game is bags of fun, well apart from Bunnies can’t slide (GRR FRUSTRATING!!) There’s also bonus content to unlock in score mode if you so desire. I’ve been unlocking a few videos. It’s mainly the ones that Ubisoft released on the web. Those Bunnies can’t (insert what they can’t do here) and so on. If crazy mini games are your thing, then it’s certainly worth checking out.

49 to go!

Well 2006 is finally over. We’ve had our ups and downs, our highs and lows, our wet dreams and diarrhoeas of the gaming world (I poo on you The Fast and the Furious! Bah that title requires more poo than I can type.) Now that 2007 is here we all have a new world of games to try and finish. I have some sort of fetish of keeping a list of games I’ve finished. So I thought since it’s a fresh year, why not try a challenge? So the challenge is that I’ve got to push myself to complete 50, yes FIFTY games before 2007 clicks over to 2008.

It really does depend on what games I buy, although I do have well more than 50 in my collection to finish, so I can always go back to some oldies and get them out of the way. I’ll be using the blog to fill you all in with the details of the games I’ve finished. It’s going to be pretty hard I think. Through my life I’ve finished about 500 games. I’m 22 years old, so you can do the calculations and see this would be a hefty challenge. I started gaming at 4 years old, so really 18 years is the calculating age. Can you work it out? It’s about 28 games a year. Ouch I’d best go into overdrive.

 I suppose I could also use this time to name 10, yeah… 50 would take a while really, so 10 is enough, games that I look forward to a lot in 2007. So in no order and classic Mario style, HERE WE GO!

 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 2

John Woo Presents Stranglehold

Resistance: Fall of Man

The Darkness

Rogue Galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl

God of War 2

Halo 3

 I’d best stop writing and start cracking on with the task! I may just need a group of male cheerleaders to get me through this.

N-Europe just put up a tribute Gamecube video. It features me and another member of the team. Franklin has done a good job getting the video all to go very well. Enjoy it! There's more than just the emotional 2 min+ cube burial ground. Myself and Franklin read a poem out!

Now back to Final Fantasy XII! Got to finish it off before Zelda and my Wii arrive on Friday, just 2 days left...