I've been quite the busy bee this week what with covering a extra few shifts at work for some people and seeing a few friends before they head back to Uni. Aswell as doing a lot of gaming and spending money i really shouldn't be spending. And the title was picked mainly because this seemed like such a long blog, i did try to keep it easy for you all to read.

First off i've bought a few DVD's...

The Incredible Hulk

WALL-E

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

No Country For Old Men

Iron Man

I did already pre-order Iron Man but decided to cancel it and order the collectors edition aswell, i just really liked the film so much i didn't mind paying the little extra for it. All new films i've probably mentioned in previous blogs but films i enjoyed none the less and WALL-E in my honest opinion was better to watch than the Dark Knight. Yeah you read that correctly i said a digital animated family film was better than the most highly anticipated film of the decade! *queue the flames!*

Also i would like to say a big thanks to a user on Gamespot, Velocitas8, who provided me with a beta key for the WAR EU open beta. He/She did so out of the blue and for that act of kindness i'd like to say cheers, good on you sir. I just wish i could have actually put that key to use.

Because i never did manage to get into the WAR EU open beta. Why? Well the organisation for the open beta was an absolute shambles. Honestly it was just so poorly handled that i genuinely have to ask how some people still have jobs or contracts for the game. The open beta started on Sept 7th and finishes today, Sept 13th, and those at GOA who were given the job to handle WAR over here in Europe totally screwed it up.

I think they only allowed account creation on their site late on Sept 6th and it soon was broken and so was the key validation system meaning they were both taken offline rather quickly. At first GOA had the cheek to say "Its because we didn't want to stress the beta servers too much by allowing too many players online at once" and eventually they admitted it was their fault. They never had the infrastructure in place to handle anywhere close to the amount of people who had open beta keys to take part.

So out of around 200,000 people with open beta keys only a very small portion of them actually got into the game from what i understand. And naturally it took GOA days to bring account creation back online. I believe it was on the 11th or 12th that they managed to get it back online and even then it was still not working correctly. So when i finally managed to create an account it said everything was successful and valid only to deny my login details over and over. After waiting another day for an email back from customer support to help me atleast try and get a few hours play they totally missed my problem.

The GM who replied to my email seemed to think i couldn't login to the site, when i wrote a detailed email saying it was the client/patcher i couldn't login to. So really it was a complete and utter shambles and a big waste of my time. Honestly after Age of Conan being a disappointment and now seeing how WAR in Europe is being handled by a bunch of morons i don't think i'm going near another MMO for a very very long time.

Aswell as this i've been following the reaction to Mercs 2, Spore and STALKER: Clear Sky and i have to say its been interesting. Mercs 2 got a lot of love and hype from the Gamespot crew only to get a less than pleasant review but a fair one none the less. From what i've heard it seems most reviews, both professional and amateur, have found the same faults with the game. And it seems that fault is the game has more bugs in it than a rainforest.

Spore on the other hand seems to have been recieved rather well and that didn't really surprise me that much. Most of you will have been following this game since it was announced and it generated a lot of love amongst gamers for the creature creation and evolution aspect to the gameplay. And i'm tempted to just go and buy it, although i probably shouldn't since i'm on a budget these days.

STALKER: Clear Sky however seems to have sort of passed by casually much like the first game did. Infact it took me about 6 months to buy the first game after its release, i just seemed to ignore it for so long. And i think i'll be doing the same with this game aswell, it just doesn't seem to appeal to me that much now compared to when i heard it was being announced.

An a pleasant surprise for any PC gamer is that Crysis, Crysi: Warhead and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition are now all available for pre-purchase on Steam. Looking through the "Coming Soon" tab in Steam there is a nice number of strong titles going to be released on the program this year. And i honestly think its awesome that more big titles are being released on it. Not long ago Age of Conan was added to the list which i think is the first MMO that you can buy from the store, pity it isn't such a good MMO...

I just think its awesome that Valve's online store is picking up some big name games now and generally becoming a more improved and amazing service for PC gamers to use. While still releasing small name and indie games aswell. Valve really is just the most awesome thing to happen for the PC as a gaming platform in my opinion. Now if only Blizzvision would team up with them....kind of like a Marvel team up

Other than continued COD4 gaming i haven't been doing much. So i'll see you all in room 0 for another On The Spot show over at Gamespot . Because we all know its the place to be on a Thursday evening after the walk home from the pub, unless your Joe...who can't legally drink lol

PS - GiantBomb users may not understand those last two sentences...