Some exciting bloggage goin on down Gamespot road at the moment. NeoJedi has launched his new site, Brian Fishman has just been offered the oppertunity of his lifetime, resident user/reviewer please_write is driving forward in his quest to become a games reviewer, visionary is touring Europe and Boz got a Vasectomy!

In comparison my life is pointless, cheers lads - but none-the-less ive caught the bug, so heres whats been going on in casa O'Dwyer over the past few weeks.

Comepletely aware of my whoring the name of my website around these parts, ive decided to change my user banner and my picture too. You can come off as a self-obsessed moron with a picture of yourself online, so instead im going with a Grim Fandango / Orson Wells jumble. Its still a reference to my site i guess, but i still like how it looks. So get off my back!?!

Speaking of the site, we've just uploaded a 37 minute long video of our exploits at the Blizzard Invitational in Paris. The footage of the cosplay and dance events you wont find anywhere else, and overall im pretty pleased with it. I feel we mgiht have cheapened it a bit with the narration. That boils down to my lack of experience. Link here.

Last months hilarious debt situationhas passed as a web contract i was working on cashed in. After i paid off my debtors, i bought some nice games in the July sales. Pretty happy withthese bad boys;
- Serious Sam 2 on PC(Zavvi - 5 euro)
- Gunpey on PSP (HMV - 3 euro)
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars on PC(HMV - 6 euro....no joke!)

Also finally completed GTAIV (spoilers inbound) and felt totally sick when my decision to work with Dimitri backfired in the most brutal of fashions. Amazing game, was sad to have to finish it. Also got Battlefield: Bad Company on a week long rental to review for the site. Looking forward to digging into it later tonight.

In DVD land i must have watched the latest Futurama movie around 20 times (The Beast of a Billion Backs). Its rip-pullingly hilarious from start to finish, the highlight being a soliloquy from a posh robot in a secret den (if uve watched it, u know!).

Without rambling on about it too much, my time at the Blizzard event was eye-opening. Myself and my mate Denis ran are asses off playing games, taking notes and recording footage non-stop for the 2 days and I have never had so much fun. Being surrounded with so many random games, let alone all the designers and producers, had an amazing enerygy. I have no doubt in my mind that i want to work in video-game journalism now. Havent stopped working on the site since we got back, im still high from the experience. If anyone reading is from Europe, seriously consider getting tickets to Leipzig GC this year.

Ive been having one those counter-culture months with a high ammount of media exploration pertaining to Banksy, Bill Hicks & Tool. Its to be expected in the weeks following the death of George Carlin. I now wear my hood up during the day 32% more, check every streetcorner for CCTV and talk to strangers about the positives of anti-capatalism as im waiting for the ATM to feed me.

Oh, if you play WOW, were giving away the free Blizzard Invitational pet on my website, click here for details. Its a fairly limited edition pet, only attendees of the event can have them. Blizzard burned down the Chinese the factory that made them after the last box was filled.

I also have another few drops for my revenue stream as the radio station from my home county i left back in May is now paying me to record and produce a technology and gaming section for thier weekly news highlight show. Around 100,00 people heard me talk about Solid Snake last week, aww i love radio

Thats about it, gonna hop into Bad Company and blow up some buildings now. And lads 'n' lassies ff your interested in doing some review/editorial work for a UK based website, let me know. Ive always been a fan of only being as strong as the people around you, and right now the site staff is pretty small. If your passionate about games and are willing to work for close to nothing (free email account! ) let me know.

Otherwise hope summer is going well for everyone. We had 3 thunder storms in a row last week. God bless Irish weather.

Slan!

-Danny

Currently Listening to:
Coldplay - Viva la Vida
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Creedence Cleerwater Revivial - Chronical

Editing all our footage of the Invitational for my own site, and said id throw this up because i havent seen it mentioned anywhere else. Amazing weekend, I cant recomend going to a gaming expo any more, its an experience in itself.

- danny

Also got this Video of the Diablo 3 Announcement from live inside the exposition hall. Way better when acompanied by thousands of cheering gamers

At 9:30 last night myself, Denis and thousands of Blizzard fans poured onto the streets of Paris with ignorantly big smiles. What a show.

We spent most of the day running between the superb open table discussions, writing notes, recording screens and checking the swag cue for our time to pounce. The exposition center is amazing; Every wall is covered with massive Blizzard artwork, speakers pump music form every angle with cosplayers posing at every corner. At the end of the night we managed to get into the front row of the main stage sitting beside the developers and owners of Blizzard. Mike Morhaime was taking pictures beside us as we recorded the cosplay and dance competitons up close.

We hit a snag not being able to connect to any wifi on site (and no access to the hard-lined press area) so these brief summaries in the worlds smallest web cafe is all we can do while on site. Suffice to say we have awesome news, pictures and video when we get back next week. We also have some nice swag to give away on next weeks late podcast so tune in!

Video Games Live and Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftan aare playing tonight, a perfect warmup to the European Cup Final afterwards.

So were about 3 hours into our Blizzvitational experience and its been pretty awesome so far. Denis owned me in a Starcraft II LAN game, we recorded the entire opening speach including the horrible presenter ladies lack of game knowledge and the announcement of Diablo 2.

A Diablo 2 demo followed the games trailer which totally blew the crowd away. The game looks amazing in its isometric heritage with 2 cl4sses confirmed (barbarian & witch-doctor), co-op play and huge battles. Nothing said about alternative platforms for the game but it seems very console playable.

The event is spread across é floors with hundreds of computers available to play Lich King and Starcraft II. Competitions and open panel discussions on soon so we gotta run.

More on swag, loot, sexy cosplayers and Lich King later.

I hate French Keyboards. This took 25 minutes to write.

Danny

Hey lads 'n' Lassies,

After about a year of talking,im finally doing some walking. A 50% build of my website has just gone live (link here) and im currently in the middle of packing for the Blizzard Invitational in Paris.

This is the first global games event ive ever covered, and im as excited as i am nervous. Been writing scripts, thinking of shots and hoping all the equipment works for the past week, which meant a few restless nights. But I really just cant wait to get overe there, its so exciting to think ill be surrounded by gamers, games and industry leaders on all sides. None of the big sites seem to be covering the event with video, so we have a unique opertunity to record content that gamers dont usually see.Were gonna record as much of the floor as we can, some of Paris and as many interviews as possible.

As i said last week im going to post copies of my daily impressions articles in here on Saturday and Sunday (hotel lobby Wi-Fi i think) but check out the site if you want more detailed ramblings. For now im dismantling & wrapping up the camera in various peices of clothing to make sure the baggage throwers dont ruin my weekend

See you in Paris!

- Danny

The first job I ever had growing up was in a tiny single-manned videogame shop back home called "Games Dimension". I'd wake up every morning before work and think "exellent...i have work today!", a feeling which I use as a benchmark for every job ive had since. Simply put, selling your hobby is the most easy and enjoyable job you can imagine, just ask any drug dealer or prostitute. Well, since ive completed my formal education (2nd cIass honours Grade 1, w00t!) ive naturally used my degree to full effect and now work in the same industry i did all those years ago; entertainment retail! Only now my wages are spent on rent, bills and alcohol, as opposed to stickers and crisps,

Granted i spend most of my day selling & stacking music and movies, HMV's game section still attracts a decent number of gamers. Unlike Games Dimension and my other retail experience Gamestop, HMV's gamers are a more eclectic bunch. Jumping at any chance to advise anybody on game or console choices, ive met some pretty refreshing gamers. Today a teenage girl came in with her boyfriend asking for any of the Monkey Island games on PC. Being a discontinued game i had no remorse in pointing her toward the internet. A bloke in his 50's was in yesterday buying Twilight Princess for his Wii, after some probing he told me he'd completed both the Windwaker and Ocarina of Time. Ive sold more three times more PS3's than 360's, easily double than in Wii's and more than all those combined in DS's. About 9 out of 10 of all the DS's i sold were either with Lego Indiana Jones or Brain Training. Our store has had about 7 Wii-Fit's sold in the month ive been there, proabably the same number of people ask me for it each day (someone in Nintendo needs to get fired). Parents who buy Guitar Hero or Rock band for their kids always smile, parents who spent half as much on GTAIV for their kids, never smile. Metal Gear Solid only sold to people who already had PS'3, more people bought them with Lego Indiana Jones than Solid Snake. A teenager bought Sins of a Solar Empire on its retail release morning, and the majority of people buying DS's are attractive women in their late 20's - 30's.

People generally smile when they're buying games. It does nothing but make you love your hobby even more.
Though its just a way of funding my life & site for the year, I feel the same way i did when i was waking up as a 15 year old.

Selling Games is Awesome.

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PS - Totally in debt after saving for my flights, kip and tickets for the Blizzard Invitational in Paris next week. My Xbox Live has cut off cos my card is overloaded, so sorry to any1 sending me messages. Though im doing it for my own site, im gonna post daily updated on here too, more on that later in the week. Im giddy with anticipation at covering my first games event and sick that i cant share information ive learned about whats going to happen over the weekend. Now i know how poor Gamespot people feel when they cant break embargo's. AAAgh!