Tis the season to be a robbing bastard

Take a look at this.

Now bear in mind that the Wii has a rrp of £180, these pikey ass-raping fucktards decide to pile a load of crap with the console and whack it out to you, the poor consumer, at fucking monkey prices.

Gamesbuyer: £289.94, no games, bunch o' CUNTS!
Kikatek: £334.95, 3 games, mario party 8, big brain academy and wii sports, mario party is ok, big brain academy is a cheapo and only good for 15 mins and wii sports comes in the box as a freebie. Fucking leeches. Amazingly they're even selling an ex-demo console for £285.

Even Dixons are jumping on the 'fuck em' bandwagon and selling it for £350 with 4 games, all shit by the way.

The worst culprits are micro direct who are selling it for £352.49 with no games. Bear in mind that this is more expensive than xbox elite with 120gb hdd.

For anyone who's going to pay these stupid prices you need to listen to me now:

They're not that good. They're certainly not worth £350. The gfx are far inferior to the xbox, the motion control is but a novelty that wears off after about an hour and your wrist gets tired pointing at the screen constantly.

There's approximately 3 good games out for it now and none of them have that all-dayer staying power, not even Mario Galaxy.

Wii Sports is good, don't get me wrong, but you'll get bored of it after about 2/3 hours of playing. The golf and boxing are rubbish, the tennis is fun but very simple, it's only really the bowling that's any good.

Save your money until after Xmas, yes your kids will probably be disappointed, after all it's them that make us go out and get raped by these high-street fucks, and smile all the way through it. But these prices are just stupid. You'd be better spending £20 on a load of boxes and building a fort with your kids.

This is like when we had the petrol strike and the few remaining petrol stations that had any left saw the opportunity and bumped up the prices to £1.50 a litre. Of course, when the strike was over these places soon went out of business as everyone hated them and didn't buy there any more. I'd love for that to happen to micro direct and all the other cunts who are profiting from your desperation.

Sodding XBL

Had a dream last night that i got banned. It was one of those wake up and can't work out if it's real or not.

Need to plug it back in the network tonight just so i know. It's not like i use XBL for much but it's nice to have it there, you know. Just. In. Case...

Great piece of trivia

Just finished watching Futurama: Bender's big Break. It's the new Futurama movie, they're doing 4 over the next few years and Comedy Central has picked them up, the first one's out on dvd and i would recommend watching it. Either that or wait a short while and i'm sure it'll be on Sky One soon enough.

Aaaaanyway, the great piece of trivia is:

The guy who plays the voice of Bender; John DiMaggio, is the voice of one gruff Marcus Fenix from Gears of War!

Not bad that is it?

Now how many people will be whacking in GoW to have a quick listen...

Oh, the film's very good by the way, typical Futurama standard.

A big bunch of crap

There's bog all out at the moment that i actually want, it's so frigging boring...

Let's just go through the list:

Blacksite: Area 51: Woo, just what the world needs, ANOTHER generic shooter.

Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal: Load of wank.

Mass Effect: I would, but having a child i just don't have the time needed to devote to a game like this any more, it's one of those 100-hour games so bollocks to it.

Kane & Lynch: Saw a video review on Bravo the other day. They weren't impressed and they said that you'll just repeat most of the levels about 10 times for each one due to the amount you'll get killed and then have to restart the level only really completing it when you've worked out the pattern of all the baddies. Bit upset about this one as it looked really good.

Guitar Hero III: Doesn't interest me in the slightest, that novelty has passed, roll on Rock Band.

Need for Speed ProStreet: Christ, another sodding street racing game. How many do i need to play in one lifetime. Need for Speed: Most Wanted was the best one, everything else was shite.

Ace Combat 6: Not really that bothered about this. Dogfights always sound good in theory but in practice they just get boring and tedious very quickly. Never had one that i'd actually stick with for more than a few goes.

And you'll be annoyed to know that there's absolutely frig all coming out between now and Exmas that might possibly be good, there's a new soldier of fortune game out next week but whoopie doo, doesn't exactly fill me full of excitement like Skate did.

Ho hum, looks like it's back to being bored on Assassin's Creed or getting frustrated with Smackdown ladder matches until Xmas day.

Unplugged and not live

I've unplugged my 360 from my network at the moment so i won't be popping up at the moment until i can do some research into this.

The time has come, the end is near

Looks like i've got something to look forward to when i get home...

Microsoft Starts New Ban Wave on LIVE Against Modified Firmwares *update*

It looks like Microsoft started a new wave of bans against modified DVD firmwares or DVD+/-R DL discs.
Several users on our forums and on IRC report their Xbox 360 has been banned from LIVE today. We get reports of Toshiba-Samsung and Hitachi-LG drives banned with both Xtreme and even the newer iXtreme firmwares. However we also see many reports of people who are currently on LIVE and have no been banned (yet). No reports of banned BenQ drives yet (but few of these drives have been flashed yet).

If you have the 'Z Code' 8015-190D it means you are banned. As always Microsoft bans the console serial from LIVE, not your LIVE account.
If your console is banned or if you have been playing on LIVE today with modified FW without getting banned, report you findings in this thread (include at least your live status, full drive model (swapped drive?, spoofing?) and firmware version used).

*UPDATE*
It appears that modified fw is NOT being detected, and is instead once again due to 'bad' discs. Keep in mind that the only full proof way to make a 1:1 backup is to do it yourself. iXtreme is as fullproof as it can be, in that it validates everything it possibly can from a firmware point of view, but a game can have slight data change somewhere, most commonly in DMI. Or it can be due to early copies being watermarked so to speak.

This is why you run the risk of being banned on xbox live if you pirate games. Always remember that you run a risk doing such actions.

In regards to game data being properly validated, xdvdmulleter is a tool that has a constantly maintained database to validate backups against retail copies to ensure full stealth. If you have a samsung SH-D16x and would like to contribute to the project to prevent future Live bans, please join #stealth360 on Efnet, IRC.
Discuss this news item on our forums:

A serious cry for help

I was listening to Moyles interviewing Jeremy Clarkson on Radio 1 yesterday morning and they were discussing the time on Top Gear where they all made limos out of cut n shuts. Clarkson then drove Moyles to the Bafta's or some show like that.

Anyway, they were saying that they stopped at the garage to get some nibbles. Moyles came out with 'a very popular brand of snack' that he obviously couldn't mention by name. They then let leak that it was a crisp or crisp based style snack.

Clarkson told him that he doesn't ever want to eat them, took one off him and put a lighter to it. It then dripped a shit load of kryptonite style green fat to which Moyles expressed his disgust and said he would never eat them again as long as he lived.

I have to know what crisp or crisp based snack that was so can everyone, every time they open a bag of crisps, try and burn one with a lighter.

I know it's not Pringles coz we bought some especially this morning. They just go black and stink a bit. I'm reckoning now that it's Doritos coz they have so much fat and sugar in them. John in the office reckons it's Walkers. Something different like Wotsits would probably be a good bet too.

Help me out peeps. I'm getting obsessed.

Yet more scraps from the table

Harmonix have announced the prices of the downloadable content and also the dlc that's coming out between now and the end of the year

Rock Band will still feature preselected three-song packs for download, but they will instead cost $5.49 (440 Microsoft points on Xbox 360). Songs will also be available individually for $1.99. Harmonix has said future songs will be sold individually for as little as $.99 (80 Microsoft points), and as much as $2.99 (240 points). However, "the vast majority" will come in at the standard $1.99 price point. The developer did not say how much full-album downloads would be, or when the first albums would be released.

The DLC (Some rather nice stuff here, gotta admit, I may even actually spend money):

Week of November 20, 2007: (*--asterisk denotes a cover version)
Metallica Pack
"Ride the Lightning"--Metallica
"Blackened"--Metallica
"And Justice for All"--Metallica

The Police Pack
"Can't Stand Losing You"--The Police
"Synchronicity II"--The Police
"Roxanne"--The Police

Queens of the Stone Age Pack
"3's and 7's"--Queens of the Stone Age
"Little Sister"--Queens of the Stone Age
"Sick Sick Sick"--Queens of the Stone Age

Individual Tracks
"Fortunate Son" as made famous by Creedence Clearwater Revival *
"Juke Box Hero" as made famous by Foreigner *
"Bang a Gong (Get It On)" as made famous by T-Rex *
"My Sharona" as made famous by The Knack *
"Cherry Bomb" as made famous by The Runaways *
"Joker & The Thief"--Wolfmother

Week of November 27, 2007
David Bowie Pack
"Moonage Daydream"--David Bowie
"Heroes" as made famous by David Bowie *
"Queen Bitch" as made famous by David Bowie *

Week of December 4, 2007
Black Sabbath Pack
"N.I.B." as made famous by Black Sabbath *
"Sweet Leaf" as made famous by Black Sabbath *
"War Pigs" as made famous by Black Sabbath *

Week of December 11, 2007
Punk Pack:
"Rockaway Beach"--Ramones
"I Fought the Law"--The Clash
"Ever Fallen In Love" as made famous by Buzzcocks *

Week of December 18, 2007
Individual Tracks
"My Iron Lung"--Radiohead
"Buddy Holly"--Weezer
"Brass in Pocket" as made famous by The Pretenders *

The show must go on

I went to see Lord of the Rings stage show last night at the West End.

It was a bit wank, really.

It's supposed to be the most expensive stage show ever made costing £12.5m and it's certainly impressive to look at. The stage is completely circular, revolves and breaks apart in segments so they can climb and descend. Looked pretty cool. The choreography was great, costumes looked good.

Only 2 things prevented it from being excellent. The actors and the play itself. Some of the actor choices were rubbish, Frodo had an awful whiny voice, Gandalf was bouncing around the stage like a 35 year old and Boromir sounded like Willie the Groundskeeper.

And because everyone's now seen the movies and they were so vivid there's no way you can sit and watch the stage show because the movie actors were so perfect for the characters, you just see Elijah Wood as Frodo, Ian McKellan as Gandalf, no-one else.

Imagine how truly awful it would be if they did a stage show of Harry Potter replete with the obligatory singing and dancing. That's exactly what LOTR was like. You wanted to like it, but it would really be a travesty if you did.

I wanted to see Spamalot anyway.

Ocarina of Time has finally been pummelled into second place

Sorry Link, there's a new 'highest ever rated game' and that game is, drum roll please... Super Mario Galaxy. It has an AVERAGE rating of 9.7 out of 10.

Which is pretty damn impressive you have to admit.

I do have it, and it is good. But the only thing that lets it down is something the game has no control over, the controller. My wrists still ache after pointing the wiimote at the screen for over 2 hours so i have to play it in bursts.

Then i just put smackdown 2008 back on.

I've been playing Smackdown for, at a guess, over 10 hours so far and how many achievements do i have to my name? None, nada, zip, zilch, bugger all, Planck constant, the square root of zero, any number minus itself. In one word, fuck all.

Then i had a look at the achievement list for it. It's bloody stupid. How hard do they want to make it. Some of them i don't even know how to do!

Below is the list of achievements for Smackdown 2008 (i didn't know the secret ones until now, some of them might actually be possible):

1. That's gonna leave a mark
Powerbomb an opponent on top of a steel step in any match type. 20 Points

2. Possession is 9/10 of the law
Steal your opponent's taunt 3 times in any One on One match. 20 Points

3. Put'em in a body bag
Turn your opponent's entire limb damage meter red in any match type. 20 Points

4. I'd like to thank the academy
Defeat a Powerhouse Superstar with the Possum Pin in any match type. 20 Points

5. You've got a bit of red on you
Get busted open by your opponent on legend difficulty in any match type and win. 20 Points

6. Who says originality is dead
Create an original CAS, ring entrance and created Championship. 20 Points

7. King of the mountain
Place first in every type of tournament in Tournament mode. 20 Points

8. If it bleeds..
Bloody every ECW Superstar on the roster. 20 Points

9. Submission-sensei
Win a Normal Submission match without having your Struggle Submission hold broken once. 50 Points

10. Stop yapping and fight
Argue with the referee 4 times in a match and win. 20 Points

11. That's one for the record books
Eliminate 20 opponents in a 30-Man Royal Rumble. 20 Points

12. Now that's hardcore
Bloody and defeat a Hardcore Superstar on legend difficulty in an ECW Extreme Rules match and win. 20 Points

13. The best there was..
Win a 20-minute Ironman match on legend difficulty without surrendering a point to your opponent. 20 Points

14. A fighting champion
In ranked online matches, defend a CAC title 5 times against 5 different players within 24 hours. 75 Points

15. Gold digger
Win a Created Championship 10 times in ranked online matches. 70 Points

16. On fire
Win 30 consecutive ranked online matches. 75 Points

17. Escape Artist
Wiggle free from every Ultimate Control Grapple at least once. 20 Points
Secret

18. What The..."
Preview the Mexican Stretch Turnbuckle move in Create a Moveset. 10 Points
Secret

19. Secret Achievement
Secret achievement. 10 Points
Secret

20. You've got guts
Complete a ranked online title match. 20 Points
Secret

21. Send'em back to Louisville
Lose to an opponent who has more limb damage than you. 10 Points
Secret

22. Now offering non-stop flights
Stand on a ladder and suplex your opponent out of the ring in a ladder match. 20 Points
Secret

23. Rope a dope
Perform a succesful springboard attack off each side of the ropes. 20 Points
Secret

24. This year's inductee
Play as a GM in 24/7 Mode and obtain the GM of the Year Award. 350 Points
Secret

25. On The Job
Lose 5 consecutive ranked online matches. 10 Points
Secret

26. Better luck next year
Be the first Superstar eliminated in a 30-Man Royal Rumble. 10 Points
Secret

Gotta know when to stop though...

Oh and they're doing a Princess Bride game.

And a Joust movie. I'll just say that again slowly; A Joust.... movie!

where knights on ostriches hit each other off, and that's it.

2008 - The age of the 80's movie in 21st Century game

Yep, you heard it here first. Next couple of years you're gonna see an explosion of old movies getting reinvented as games.

First off the block we've got Ghostbusters 3. It's the game sequel to, well, Ghostbuster 2 obviously!

All the main 4 guys have all granted their likenesses to it and will even do the voice acting as well, as will Annie Potts and William Atherton. Aykroyd and Ramis will even write the script although i have heard that they wrote the official script to Ghostbusters 3 donkey's years ago so maybe they'll use some of that.

Anyway, here's some early footage and screenshots. Must admit, Dan Aykroyd looks pretty funky.

A fantastic exmas prezzie idea

If you've got a prezzie to buy for a young nephew or son that's under 10 then this is just the best present you could get them, remember how cool microscopes were when we were kids, putting salt and dead ants and money under them. Oh how we had literally minutes of fun with them before James Greenwood knocked it over with his big flapping feet and broke the lens.

Well, now you've got the new microscope for the modern age. It's called the eyeclops. It's this big eye that you hold in the hand, plug it into the vga socket on the telly and it magnifies anything up to 200x, on the telly!

No more squinting for 3 hours and nearly going blind coz it's now all on the telly.

It's on amazon for £35, bargain at the hour of fun they'll have before their mate wrenches it from their hands and smashes it against the wall.

Just a quickie

I have been so fucking ill recently and have been getting about 3 hours sleep a night for the last 3 nights so i don't have the mental capacity to write my usual witty repartee at the moment.

Here's something from those amusing chaps at HISHE (How it should have ended). This one's Spidey 3. It's most amusing and would have been a hell of a lot better than the actual film itself. Still can't believe that fuck-ass butler waited until the 3rd film before he told Harry his father killed himself. 'Yeah but your father killed himself, no doubt about it. Oh you didn't know? Shit, meant to tell you. Completely forgot. Doesn't really matter though does it'

If 24 started in 1994 it would look very different

The manliest name ever in existence

Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster

That is the greatest name in the history of anyone's name, ever.

'Don't fuck with that guy, don't you know that's Max Fightmaster?'
'Not Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster!'
'The very same'
'Oh shitting bollocks, we're so fucked'
'Yup'

It's a real guy too

C'mere, and there's more...

And Kane & Lynch is supposed to be another 'style-over-substance' game as well. Pretty but underwhelming. I'll probably still get it anyway.

Getting a bit annoying, this...

Assassin's Creed - Final word

It's good, but it's not great. There, I said it

It's pretty repetitive, it's not 'stealthy' enough to be the game you want it to be. The story is superfluous and you don't really care. It's basically 'Go to this point, kill this guy, come back'. There doesn't seem to be any 'Go to the place, follow him until he's on his own, kill his guards one by one so no-one notices anything, kill him only by stealth then hide him in his bed' kind of stuff. That would have been ace.

But that doesn't happen. You just kill them then leg it from the guards. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are absolutely amazing, the city looks great and for one of the first times ever in a game it does feel like a living breathing city. You'll get beggars running up to your face and asking for money repeatedly, even when you push them away. You've got mad folk that'll shove you if you get too close. The city really does feel alive. And the climbing is fantastic, much better than prince of persia or any other game that does climbing. It just feels so organic.

The sword fighting is pretty rubbish and it's far more enjoyable to escape over the rooftops. It's pretty much limited to 3 things to do, hack (press x), hard hack (keep x pressed) and counter-attack (press x when blocked). Oh yeah, you can also chuck em off buildings. As you can see it's not exactly God of War here.

And the main problem it's just a wee bit too slow.

I know it looks absolutely amazing and the best thing since forever and i'm really sorry to do this to you but it's just, well..., not!

If i were you, i'd hire it, i wouldn't buy it. You'll probably complete it in a couple of days if you played it solidly. And there's no replay value other than achievements but isn't that the case with every 360 game?

Rock Band just gets better all the time.

Posted from gamesradar:

Is Rock Band too good to be true? Not only does it threaten to take Guitar Hero to its logical multiplayer evolutionary state, but now Alex Rigopolus - Harmonix CEO and lead drummer – tells Official Xbox Magazine (on its spiffy new website) that you’ll be able to take your band out of the game and into the real world with shirts, stickers, and - wait for it - figurines.

Rock Band gives every player the chance to customize their character, down to tattoos and face paint, save it all on the hard drive, and watch as their name appears in lights on stages, tour buses, and billboards. But Alex says “all of that stuff, we're going to be able to export to your web pages, and from there you'll be able to take your band avatars, pose them, create album covers with your band logo and different scenes with your avatars. And then you'll be able to turn that into real world stuff. For example, figurines based upon your Rock Band avatars, t-shirts with your fake band's album art and your tour dates on the back from your accomplishments within the game, bumper stickers, old records, things like that. Really cool real-world merchandise based on this fictitious band that you've created in the game.”

Couldn't be more awesome. Whether or not it will actually happen is another matter entirely. First, we gotta make it to the game's launch next week.

---------------------------------

The only problem here that I see, is that the figurines and avatars of my band would consist of a lead singer who looks like Jack Black and about as fat (edit: apparently he's not fat, he's big boned; cuddly; water retained; jolly; however you big chubbers want to approach it). A fat balding guy with his shirt off behind the drums. A tall thin guy on bass with a paunch, A short guy on lead with a paunch and a beardy weirdy with long megadeth style rock hair on rhythm, with a paunch. We're not exactly Slipknot here.

I can't see McFarlane toys making these any time soon...

Oooooh...

Yes yes yes, I've got Assassin's Creed. Who wants to touch me?

I said who wants to touch me, goddammit.

I'd love to tell you what it's like but i've only played an hours worth of the game so far and i haven't really got into the meat of it yet.

So i'll tell you what i can.

It's a little like Hitman but not as hard.

The storyline is very different to what you expect it to be. It's like an end of story twist but right at the beginning.

Climbing is fantastic, it's so easy and it looks so frickin' cool. You just keep rs & A pressed down then run into a wall, Altair will jump and climb as high and fast as he can. Fantastic when you're giving it legs away from the guards.

It's a slow game. VERY slow. This isn't a game where you rush around killing everyone in sight. It's a game where you have to walk slowly past guards with your head bowed and then blend into the crowd. This isn't a game for kids, they'd just get too bored.

The crowd is excellent, so is working your way through the crowd. The way Altair weaves between the traffic of people putting his hands on peoples shoulders so he can get past and giving them a gentle push so they get out of the way when necessary is amazing.

Gfx are just superb but that goes without saying.

On the bad side, there doesn't seem to much depth to the game yet. You can walk around one of the 4 cities (that take you about 20 minutes to travel between on horseback) and do various things. As usual you have your main quest and numerous side quests dotted about. My main quest was to find out 2 things about something which i did, then you can keep wandering around the city helping beggars by killing the guards who are pushing them around or you can find the 9 lookout points at the tops of towers. These open a large radius of the map quickly, which is always useful.

I hope it gets more depth further in the game as it's a little too freeform for an assassin game but, admittedly, i am only at the beginning at the moment. I'll update in a couple of days.

OMFG - Fuck Freebird, Rock Band has the greatest song ever

One word.....

Go on, say it, you know you want to!

What a wasted opportunity

The more I play Smackdown vs Raw 2008 the more i see a wasted opportunity that i'm very surprised they haven't done yet.

Where's all the trash talking you can do? You can invade someone elses fight but it would be cool to get the mic and call your rivals out from the main stage. Or trash talking to the audience where you have to whip them up into a frenzy, then your opponent could come legging it down the ramp and you could have an impromptu fight right there and then with no rules. Or ambushing your opponent on the way to the ring.

There's so much here that i'm so amazed they haven't even attempted anything like it. It's not like they can't put it in the next version. Christ, a new one comes out every 6 months.

Nevertheless, still a great game, but it could just be so much more.

And how the hell do i turn off entrance movies, the damn things take so long to load and they get very tiresome very quickly.

What every home needs

And i was just thinking the other day that they should bring out a plush weighted companion cube

Xbox Live

This is why i'm apprehensive about playing on Xbox Live with the mic and everything. I know it's american and they're all stupid yankee teenagers obsessed with homophobia out there but the principal's the same.

Smack-a-down: Number 1

Got Smackdown vs Raw 2008. Amazingly, this one is very good. I'm actually getting into it for the first time ever for a smackdown game. Been trying them all since Bring the Pain and haven't got into any of them at all.

Maybe coz i've finally worked out how to play the game properly. Simple things like tagging out, double teaming, jumping over the top rope onto the mats below and submissions are all damn tricky and there's no tutorials to work through so it's just a case of button mashing until something works. So without further ado:

'Introducing... from the United Kingdom... PENNNNNCCILLLLLSSSS...'

You get my point?! (That's my little catchphrase, Pencils, You get my point?! Get it, coz a pencil has a point, and it can have a double mea... Oh forget it)

It's-a ME!!!

So Super Mario Galaxy is finally out. What's it like i hear you cry.

Well, it's pretty fucking mental to be honest. The level design is superb and very trippy, you find yourself tilting your head to try and make sense of running upside down on a floating ball in space. It's certainly the best game to come out on the Wii since the console's launch a year ago.

Might actually restore my faith in the Wii finally.

Drunkenmoney's Mii

This is about as close as you can get, Dan needs his hair a little longer, but the resemblance is pretty uncanny...

Halo 3 Dependency

This one's for RubberDave who is going through a equally difficult time right now...

An IQ of 148...

Did this test last night: http://www.iqtest.org.uk

Got a score of 148. Thank you, i'll have some of THAT! Isn't that 2 points off genius?

Give it a go, let me know what you get. You've got a limit of 20 minutes but i finished it with 8 mins to spare.

Stupid rings of death

Has anyone else noticed how stupid the rings of death are?

Drunkenmonkey received the fabled rings last night trying to play bioshock but he's just realised today that it might be 4 rings instead of 3 so there's a glimmer of hope there.

I mean, when they were developing the console, what knobhead created those 2 error codes so close to each other?

4 lights: Your AV cable is slightly out, needs jiggling.
3 lights: Your console is proper fucked, needs chucking.

There must have been a shit load of people who have sent their console back thinking it's knackered only to have been told 4 weeks later that their console is fine and it was 4 rings, not 3.

How about:

Top left ring blinking: AV cable out, needs jiggling.
All rings on solid: Fucked.

Then at least there'd be no confusion.

Fucking clown shoes.

Damn you dirty Sony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_III

The next chapter to the two greatest games in the world is PS3 only.

[Gets on knees raising hands to the air in slow motion while it's raining]
Noooooooooooooooooooooo.......!!!!!

How to ruin a game in 1 easy step

Answer: Let the British media get hold of it.

Manhunt 2.

Just read the review of it, now the brutal murders (which, let face it, were the only decent things on Manhunt 1) are heavily blurred so you can't tell what's going on. What a load of shite. The reviews even say it's not as brutal as the first game but it's STILL banned in the UK. Fucking nanny state is getting right on my tits.

Who the hell are these dickheads to say what I can and can't watch and play. Censorship pisses me off more than most things in this world (second only to marijuana prohibition).

I am of the generation that grew up with most video nasties banned as the government believed I would go out and do copycat killings. Amazingly, no-one did. The videos eventually got released and everyone realised how rubbish they really were.

Now i believe there's going to be a spate of banned video games. Mark my words, the Daily Mail brigade will be banning anything that has a suspicious title left, right and centre.

Can you honestly say you care?

Activision reported that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock took over $100 million in North American retail sales in the seven days after it went on sale on October 28.

"It is, by far, the most successful launch in Activision history," said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

Guitar Hero III is the game you clamber over to get to Rock Band. Like the ugly but faithful female friend the high school jock pushes aside at the prom to get to the fit bird with big tits.

forgot

I nearly forgot, I've got Virtua Fighter 5 which i had a few hours on Saturday but then gave up after 25 consecutive wins without losing a single fight. Got a bit bored after that.

Gfx are very attractive but it's still no Tekken 3. Just doesn't have those kick-ass moves that Tekken executed so beautifully.

Ah, Tekken Ball, how I loved thee so.

Official reviews

With all the new games i've got recently here are the official reviews.

Metroid Prime: It's good, for a Wii game, but it aches your arm having to point at the bloody screen. Maybe that's why Wii games aren't great for any length of time.

Timeshift: Pretty good, but the powers aren't REALLY good, they're just pretty cool. The freeze time only works for about 3 seconds so it's not massively useful. Maybe it gets longer when you get further through the game. The slow time feels like that bit in The One (the Jet Li film) where the bad Jet Li is kicking the shit out of the coppers in slo-mo and just zipping to one after the other.

The Simpsons: Funny but not as fun. It's a good game, but it's certainly been done before. It's saving grace is the humour which makes it into one of the funniest episodes for a while.

Naruto - Rise of a Ninja: Tres cool, see below.

What a lovely surprise

Isn't it always nice when you come across an undiscovered gem. Well, Naruto certainly is that gem. It's really, really good. In fact it's so good it warranted two really's. The gameplay is nothing new; action adventure, doing errands, running around collecting things but the cool thing is the fights. It's proper Dragonball style fighting, earth shattering special moves (literally). Only bugger is, you need to have the reactions of a puma. On top of that it's got some very enjoyable anime cutscenes that really do make you want to play more to futher the progession of storyline.

It'll certainly keep me going until...

Assassin's Creed is out on the 16th Nov. 10 days and counting. Nearly as excited about this as i was with Skate. I stress 'Nearly'.

If you get next months issue of PC Zone you'll get City of Villains free. Played City of Heroes and it was a lot of fun. It's a subscription game but you get the first month free. Certainly worth playing for the free month.

I hope you fucking die, real fucking soon - An Open Letter

I don't want the best smileys on the web and i'm not in any rush to create my own fucking zwinky.

That fucking flash banner with the smileys that shouts 'Helloooooo' when i accidentally roll over it has to be the most annoying advert on the interweb.

Also why, in 7 shades of FUCK, would i want to create my own Zwinky? They're not even very good designs, they just look pre-2000 shitty flash artwork. I'm sure i could do better myself and maybe even make them possibly useful in some manner.

Words cannot express how much i hate Zwinkys and smileys. If i ever meet the people who created these abominations of the internet i'm going to throw them in a pit along with the fuckers who keep sending me spam about cheap Rolex's every fucking day of my working life. You, sirs, are the lowest form of single-celled amoeba on this disgusting marketing saturated planet. I weep for the future, i really do.

Rant over, you may go about your normal business.

Now that's funny

It's official. The funniest 5 points has just been officially allocated.

Forget completing Episode I with only 1 bullet for 10 fucking points. for The Simpsons game you have to do the tricky task of pressing Start to play; 5 points...

Just give me a catheter and let me be

It's games-a-cock-ho this weekend. Got Metroid Prime 3, Simpsons game, Naruto and Time Shift for this weekend.

Missus was bitching at me for not playing on my Wii that much recently and as luck would have it a game actually came out in the last couple of days that i actually want to play so this'll keep me going until Mario Galaxy comes out. Plus then i've got a whole 3 hours sat behind a drum kit AND i've even got a new screw for my double-bass pedal.

Oh, if there's better things in life than lots of gaming followed by stress-releasing drumming i've yet to experience it.

There are times where i wish i had a daughter instead of a son...

I've said it before...

And it's certainly not the last time i'll say it but some people have too much time on their hands!

If you don't know what this is depicting, then you're not my friend.