Tow months ago I made a decision, instead of saving up money for an iMac I just went and bought it, well my dad bought it only on the condition I would pay him back the full £1000 in two months. At the time I was just so crazy about getting the iMac so I agreed, I mean how hard can it be to live on a budget right? Well as soon as I paid the first £500 and my rent and a few birthday presents for people in that month I discovered how hard this was going to be. Luckily though not to many games came out in August, but it was hard not being able to just go shopping and not have to worry about the prices of things. It reminded me of when I had to live on £25 for a full month, I would try and find the game I wanted, then go round to every shop that had it then buy the cheapest one. I would be on Amazon and eBay hunting for games that seemed cool but was also at a low price. This month has been a lot harder though, Resistance 3, Driver: San Francisco, Warhammer: Space Marine, El Shaddai, Dead Island and Star Fox 64 3D all came out this month. If I had all of my money I would have bought them all, but of course I could not afford them all, in fact I could only afford one, so I went with Dead Island.

I completed Dead Island today, which is good timing because I finished it just before I get paid (The 21st-24th) so that leaves me some time to just chillax before I buy some god darn video games. But yes Dead Island was a very good game, I would be so bold as to say it is one of the best games I have played this year. I am a sucker for a good zombie game and hey it's a full open world too, great! I did burn out towards the end, when I was someway through the Jungle I just wanted to get the game finished. I did pretty much all the side quests in the resort and city just not to many in the jungle. I did a pretty speedy run according to what others have completed it in, I did it in 20 hours, so I'm pretty happy about that. I never tried the online, because frankly that's not my thing, but I may go back some time next summer and do a new game plus.

To keep my occupied until I have money I decided to play Gears of War, it's been in my backlog for about a year now so now is as good as time as any. This will be my first time even playing a Gears game, I know right, but then again this is the same person that has not completed Super Mario Bros. I'm about 40 minutes in and man does that game look good, I don't know how it compares to Gears 3, but dude it really looks good. The AI isn't all that great and I really don't understand whats going on story wise, but it's hella fun to play. Playing Gears though at least got me to turn on my 360, which was covered in dust at the corner of my room, I decided that next console gen I probably won't get the followup to the 360, unless the release a Banjo game or a Conker game I probably won't. I mean if I finish Gears it will be the 4th xbox game I have beaten, the other 3 are all Banjo-Kazooie games!

I have also decided to get a Kindle too, I'm not reading as much as I used to, so I think the Kindle will get me to read more due to its virtual store hook. I'll be getting the non 3G one and I will not be getting the cover with the light until next month. October isn't looking to game heavy really, I mean there are totally games coming out, but aside from Batman none that I care about. So yeah money is the best, in a few days I'll post part II of my N64 blog, if you missed the first one here is a link.

Oh and yes I'll buy some stuff from the Whiskey Store, Hardcore Dave Duder T-Shirt!!

With the blog initiative I have been compelled to do some more blogs, I know that i already do update type blogs but It is about time I put some proper effort in to making blogs. So I came up with the idea of letting you guys know why the N64 is the best console ever made, in Part I I am going to start with is one of the best things about the N64, the carts.

Nintendo had done well with cartridges previously with there Nintendo Entertainment System and there Super Nintendo Entertainment System so they decided to see if they could get lucky three times and go for cartridges again with the Nintendo 64. This was a risky move seeing as Sony launched there Playstation two years earlier with a disc format. Nintendo stuck with it and went with the cart, now I'm here to tell you why this is awesome.

Crazy Load Times!

Pop in Ridge Racer, one of the Playstations launch games, go on do it, I'll wait until you do, ok done, great. Now go and pop in Super Mario 64 one of the N64 launch games, go on go do it, I'll wait...I don't need to finish this sentence because you've already loaded it up. The N64 had crazy fast load times where as the Playstations load times are crazy long, which is not the Playstations fault, but the format that it uses. Games running on carts run faster than games on discs, FACT! Just to prove my point, what game can you get into quicker, Gears of War 3 or Mario Party 3?

Yeah I thought so..

Carts Are Men!

While popping in Ridge Racer you probably noticed all of the scratches on the disc, because lets face it, scratches seem to be on all Playstation discs and nobody knows how they get there, they just do. The smallest scratch to the disc can also mean that you may have broken the game, well thats cause the Playstation is such a girl. Now N64 Carts, there what you call proper men, they drink beer, watch football and eat meat, true men! The N64 carts are very well protected from any physical abuse you choose to bring to your cart, want to throw that copy of Conkers Bad Fur Day out the window? Well you can and it will be unfazed by this. Feel like etching your name on that copy of Doom 64 with a knife so people know its yours, well you can do that too. And look at the first picture in the blog, could you do that with Playstation discs, fuck no!

Memory cards are for jerks!

Ok so grab that old copy you have of The Simpsons Wrestling (A Playstation "Classic") and play on the Itchy and Scratchy arena, what, you don't have the memory card anymore? Ok go and grab Banjo-Tooie and load up Witchy world for me, thats right good sir you do not need a memory card, the memory is built into the cart! About 85% of N64 games had memory cards built into the cart itself, this was one of the best features of the cart format I enjoyed so much as a child. Because I don't know if you knew this but Playstation memory cards were pretty expensive, and they were easy to fill up. So I had about 5 Playstation memory cards and it was such a pain having to find the right card for the right game. The N64 being the man that it is does not need a handbag to store its data like the Playstation, no it caries that shit in it's pocket!

Thank you for reading, stay tuned for Part II, but before I go let me remind you of one thing...

I've been so lazy for the past few months, no wiki editing, no blogs, no reviews and hardly any comments longer than a "Yes" in the forums. It's time I get back on track, games are starting to come out and I need to get back in to the habit of doing this stuff. I've been generally pretty lazy with my games too, I gave up on playing through Bioshock, Alice Madness Returns and Sly Cooper in favour of just sitting there playing Call of Duty Black Ops all day for the past few months. Some may wonder how that is lazy, well instead of having to decide what game to play or play through a challenging game I just played Black Ops, which to be fair though I have mad SKILLZ. You can tell I have them because of the way I spelt skills,

Cause you know.

I'm cool like that.

I think I've burnt myself out of that now. I played pretty good there for a while, in the peak of it I was winning matches with like scores of 30-6, which is pretty decent. Although once I got to 50 again and had to go back to using old weapons, I got over my problem and now I think I will wait for MW3. But I'm afraid it may be too late to go back and try and finish at least one of the games from my backlog, because games have already started to come out. I do however have a money issue, you see until I get paid towards the end of the month I only have enough money for one game. And this week a ton of games came out that I want..

1. Driver San Francisco.
2. Resistance 3.
3. El Shaddai.
4. Dead Island.
5. Warhammer Space Marine.

So I had a choice, in the end I looked at this list and chose the game that would last the longest. Because if I chose a game that lasted me a weekend or two, I would have about a weekend where I could not really play much, because I don't want to start a new game that close to being able to buy all the other games above if you get me. So I went with Dead Island, the zombie open world game that according to others lasts about 25 hours. I have played about 4-6 hours of the game so far, and it is a really good game. I was worried at first because it has been compared to Fallout 3, which is a game I just never enjoyed, which is even more strange because I really enjoyed Oblivion. But no it is a fantastic game, I also completely agree with Brad, Analog is the right way to play that game. I've been playing it like that since the beginning, I went back and changed it about 4 hours in just to see what it was like, and I really did not like it. I really hope Skyrim has something like this, I do not know whether I can go back to playing in Digital.

Not much else to say really, just playing that and for some reason I decided to start a new game with Conkers Bad Fur Day, that game is also pretty great. I will try and write a new review of some kind tomorrow, possibly a review for either Portal 2 or Virtua Tennis 4. I will also get a few more lists up on the site, if that is of interest to anybody. Alright then, I'm off to kill me some zambies!

I am back, dude does it feel good to be back. My holiday was of course great and I really had a great time, but it still feels fantastic to be back home. For those unaware I went to Centre Parcs, it is a European based activity holiday park, it is in the middle of a forest and they have a whole range of activities. I took part in archery, badminton and a whole lot of swimming. There swimming pool is amazing and I literally spent a whole day in the pool, which had flumes, drop slides and the really cool rapids. I spent my downtime walking around and playing on my 3DS, although I never played any 3DS game. I spent my time on the 3DS playing Pokemon Black, even though I bought and played through Pokemon White, I went and bought Pokemon Black just before I went away and so played about 8 hours of that. So yeah holiday was cool, it was nice to be around nature and fresh air and I feel like I have lost a bunch of weight because of all of the walking and swimming. So that makes me feel better because I am going to now go back in to the dark, eat a whole load of crap and play some god damn video games!

This month is a backlog month for me, 100% no new games all backlog. I have like no money, I paid off the last £500 of my iMac debt and then I went and bought everybody's birthday presents for this month ahead of time so I wouldn't forget it later. I also spent a whole bunch of my money in the arcade on holiday, I'll be posting some pictures up later of the arcade but man it was kinda cool. There was a Guitar Hero Arcade where you put in a £1 to play one song, I played one song and managed to achieve a perfect score, which marks my first perfect score in any Guitar Hero game. Sure it was on easy but I still felt pretty happy, I even got a crowd watching me and a round of claps at the end which was awesome. I also played some Mario Kart Arcade GP 2, that game is bat shit crazy. Theres some characters from Pac-Man and Tamagochi, for real! Then there was this weird cel shaded pogo stick racing game that was neat and then of-course I spent way to much on the adult gambling machines. At one point I won £20 but it went all back in.

So yes backlog month, I have a huge backlog so I have a lot to choose from. Here are the games I hope to play and finish(?)

• GTAIV - I am shamed to admit I have not touched this games single player, as soon as I got it I went in to the multiplayer and burned myself out on the game on that and never went back to play it. I have the complete collection just sitting there so yeah why not.
• Bioshock - I started playing this just before I went away, I'm about 4 hours in it suppose so hope to get this finished.
• Wii games - I recently tided up my room and got my Wii back out, and there are at least 20+ unplayed games here so yeah lets all have a Wii Party! (Am I right?)

This month should be a nice relaxing month, because before too long games are going to start coming out, and If I don't complete these games now then I most likely never will. But if you will excuse me I need to go and catch up on all this Giant Bomb content.

Ok so just a small blog to say going on holiday to Centre Parcs, which is famous for having expensive crap WiFi so I will not have accesses to any internet. They either make you pay to have it in your villa, even then its pretty bad. Or they have those old 1999 PC's which you put a £1 in to and then you get 15 minutes, most of that time is spent loading up pages because it is such an old PC. So you can all rejoice that my Forum Topics will stop until I return, and then they shall return with a vengeance as I would have had a whole week to think of new topics!

This month will also be a cheap no new games month because I am still paying off my iMac, but after this month it is done and I will once again be able to buy all the new games. Which by the time I return will start to come out, I am not getting Deus X or Starfox 3D so it is not a big issue anyway. I shall be returning Friday, so see you then!

So I have finished the second Saga of Larten Crepsley Book, "Ocean of Blood". The main character - Larten Crepsley - in the middle of this book decides that he wishes to speak like his mentor, his mentor never uses words like don't and can't. Instead he has mastered the way of speaking proper by using do not and can not. Every time he heard Larten utter any of the bad words he would pluck our a nose hair, and in the end Larten was able to master it aswell. This appeals to me, not the pulling out the hairs part but the being able to say do not and can not natually. So I really want to see if I can achieve this, it's me just being an uber fan of the series, but I think it would be great if I could do that. It will be hard doing it solo but I'm really going to try and speak like that.

That is all, also going to see Planet of the Apes tonight, should be a cool!

Farmville has been a pretty hot topic on the forums over the past couple of weeks as Matt and Steve have been tasked with seeing who can make the most money on FarmVille across a peroid of time. At first I was just watching it because hey, it is Giant Bomb video content, there were some people at this point who refused to watch it as they hated the interns, but I have no problem with the interns and love how they are starting to step in to the spotlight. A couple of videos in I decided I would jump on FarmVille and have a go, that was my first and biggest mistake.

I have a bad record of playing games like this, Runescape, Club Penguin and The Sims 3, games that have no real end or structure or guidence. I end up spending way to much time on them and spending way to much real life money, I am shamed to say the same has happend here. But just as I started I decide to set up a topic, The Giant Bomb Offical FarmVille Community Thread, this thread has since become very popular and has a list full of members. This thread introduced a bunch of members to FarmVille and soon my friend list was almost double the amount.

Here is the first problem, I set up the FarmVille on my personal account, this ended up with the constant spamming of my friends who got pretty annyoyed. Which is understandable, because if I was looking apon tens and tens and tens of messeges pop up saying "A duck has wandered onto Williams Farm, care to lend a hand?" I would be pretty pissed. FarmVille does a really bad job at doing this because there are so many times when the share button comes up, it comes up far to often and you feel compelled to press it.

So i set up a brand new account just for FarmVille, this was not any better because my wall was flooded by hundreds and mabey even thousands of messeges telling me to help everybody fertalise there crops or help milk there cow. This became such a huge problem that I stopped checking the wall because even if I cleaned it all up, about 5 minutes later there would be about 100 more. Although I do apperciate some of the names people have given there farm Facebooks, Farmer Molyneux one of my personal favourites.

Then there is the game itself, which really is not any fun to play at all, it has that somewhat addicting feel of a game that is no fun to play but you seem to play it anyway. Your time is just spent plotting fields and planting seeds and being kicked out of FarmVille because you get to many messages saying come help me on my farm or because the game unsyncs. The game unsyncs a lot as well so often your forced out and it loses some of the actions you have done before it forced you out. Even if it was to run smoothly though if you take a step back and think about what your doing, you will realise that there will never be an end to all of this and its quite pointless, so you should stop right now and go and do something with your lives.

I will still keep updating the list and watching the videos, but I shall not be continuing to play FarmVille. Also I may be writing a review later on today for Virtua Tennis 4, so keep watching this space.

Darren Shan is byfar my favourite author, I am a huge Harry Potter fan and I love those books to pieces, but I much prefer the writing styles of Darren Shan. I was first introduced to Darren Shan years ago when I was going on holiday, my dad said he would buy me a few books for the airplane ride as the airplane ride was going to be long seeing as we would be going to America. At this point in my life I was not that big into books, the only book series I had read at that point was Lemony Snicket's series of unfortunate events. Those books were great and at that time I thought no books could ever compete with those ones, I also believed my Game Boy SP would keep my happy enough on the plane journey. But it was a free book anyway so I went and saw a book with a spider on the cover, it was called Cirque Du Freak.

I got home and packed it straight away, I planned to go on my PS2 but my sister was on it. My mother was watching TV and my Dad was on the computer, I checked my Game Boy but it needed charging, so I decided to go and read the book. So I sat down and started reading the book, my dad later nudged me and told me dinner was ready. He looked at the book oddly and asked why was I reading the ending before I had even started, I then revealed I had read the book all the way through. He was a bit annoyed that I was done with it already, but I could care less, I just read one of the coolest books of all time.

Cirque Du Freak is a fantastic novel, as I had only ever read the Unfortunate Event Books I was not used to this type of storytelling, to me this was an adult book as this made the Snicket Books look like a babies book. The book was just so well written and the dialogue was very well done, the overall plot was very cool and very emotional. At one point in the book I remember my heart going cold, I almost cried its that emotional. I was used to no happy endings in books as thats all the Snicket Books were, but this took it to the next level. I liked really like how the reader is Darren Shan, the whole book is I did this and I did that. Not Darren did this and Darren did that, we as the reader are in the eyes of Darren. I loved the characters in the book especially Larten Crepsley. Even to this day he is my favourite character in a book, it's his quick wit and his humour which I enjoy.

Anyway I went out the day before the holiday and spent some of my spending money on some more books in the series (I was happy to discover that this was a 12 book series) I think I picked up like 3 more. I read those on the plane and did not touch my Game Boy, my dad was surprised but I was no longer, these books were amazing. When i got back I spent all of my money on the entire series and read them all, it was such a fantastic series that I had to read it all over again. These aren't especially long books, on average each book is about 200-300 pages and the text is quite big, don't let that fool you into thinking theres no substance, it's just it makes the books readable in one sitting.

Fast forward top the present day and I just re watched the movie adaptation, I really hate that movie because of how unfaithful to the books it was, but its more watchable now. Anyway I then typed in Darren Shan quotes because I was going to write a blog about Darren Shan a few days ago, but then I came across a book called Birth of a Killer. After a few clicks I was just stunned to be looking upon a book that is a prequel to the Saga of Darren Shan (Thats what the 12 books are called), I didn't even believe it at first but its true. It's not a complete series yet as there are only two books out so far, but what they are is a prequel from the eyes of non other than Larten Crepsley. I went out and bought it straight away ovoiusly and read it in one sitting, and Its just such a great book. It fills in a lot of details of Lartens past and theres a ton of cameos from characters in the Saga of Darren Shan, despite this book taking place like 200 years before the saga takes place. I had a nerdgasem when characters I remembered pop up, its the same vibe I got in the Star Wars prequels when I saw characters like Bobba Fett and R2D2.

I have like zero money due to this computer, but I will probably pick up the second book this weekend, I am literally clawing at the clock to make it be the weekend already so I can go and buy it. But yeah, Darren Shans Pretty Awesome, and I recommend you all go and read The saga and this one immediately. Do not be fooled by the new book covers which make it look very kiddish, this book may be in the 11-13 section in most bookstores, but its still and incredible read.

A week ago today I got my iMac, it is pretty hard to believe it's already been a week, it seems like I have had it for at least a month. I've been spending a large amount of time on my Mac, most of that time has been spent playing The Sims 3. Now before you start to bitch to me let me point out that I had a lot of fun playing Sims 3, it is a really good game and I've sunk about 30 + hours into the game, but I think I'm done with Sims 3. Now I know that it is a never ending game as with all other main Sim games, which was great when I was a child playing the original Sims. However know I am a adult, I'm no longer at the young age of 10. My mind is not as easy to please as it once was, and here comes the issue that I find I have with Sims 3 and I suppose games like Sims 3 in general, is that there is no end.

That is not to say the game lacks a direction, you can choose to raise a skill to the top level or amass a huge amount of money or get to the top of a carer path. There are a vast variety of new jobs that were quite fun like the Ghost Buster job or the fireman job, and there are a bunch of new and fun ways to make a skill go up like inventing a time machine. But I am getting to the point where I am looking at the game and wondering what I am doing, why am I doing this? So I got to the top of my carer branch and can advance no further, now what do I do? I don't want to start a new career or really carry on with this one because I have a huge amount of money. I also have bought pretty much everything in the game so there is no need to buy anything else. My skills are pretty much at the top with most of My Sims and don't really find it all that fun to get my body skill up to 10.

So I really was depressed for a while as I was just waking up, having a shower, going to the toilet and then not knowing what to spend my time doing seeing as I've done everything. The reason i kept playing was because I always wanted to see what came after the next corner, what would I be-able to make now my inventing skill was a level higher or what machine would I get to catch ghosts this time. But once you've got to the top you either start another family and do it all again or just keep playing on the same family with nothing to do because hey you've done it all. Despite the fact I wasn't really enjoying the game at this point I was still playing a lot of it, It had turned into the bad MMO frame of mind at that point, it's not that fun anymore once you do all the quests and have all skills high but I still keep playing anyway.

The game has also had a impact on my real life to, since playing Sims 3 my mind has started to think from a Sims point of view. It's hard to explain but I've started to act like a Sim instead of me, so it's had a psychological impact on me too. It has also turned into Runescape and Black Ops in a way that I've spent far to much time playing it, I've avoided going out with friends, I've been staying up so late and getting up so early and even avoiding family and locking myself in my room to do what? To spend all my time getting lots of money that I can't do anything with because I've bought everything anyway so it just goes towards food and bills which will never end anyway so I'm in this constant loop which i am now releasing myself from!

From playing Sims 3 I think I have learnt that I am a fan of direction and overall end, I suppose my mind has become to complex for me to simply enjoy games like this, sad but true. This blog makes me look like a crazy person, well....

No this is not some odd anime or some book that was written in 1876, the Vanderbosh's was my first family I created in The Sims 3. I really could not tell you how long I have spent on The Sims 3, I got it the same day I got my Mac and have been playing it pretty much non stop since then. Most of today has been spent on The Sims 3, although at one point I did leave the house. Yes I decided I felt dirty after yesterday and would not do the same thing again, so I went out for breakfast at MacDonalds and bought all The Sims 3 Expansions...

So now I have The Sims 3 World Adventures, The Sims 3 Ambitions, The Sims 3 Late Night and The Sims 3 Generations. I also have all of the "Stuff" expansions which are just loaded with select items. I have The Sims 3 Design and High-Tech Stuff, The Sims 3 Outdoor Living Stuff and The Sims 3 Fast Lane Stuff. All in all that is a whole bunch of content. Added on top of that I spent some Sim Points on the Sims 3 Store, it's full of more things to add to The Sims 3. I works on a points system similar to The Xbox Live Marketplace, it is £7 for 1000 Points and you can even go as far as getting 16,000 Points by spending £112, which is an insane amount to spend on the things that you get. To give some more detail buying a new hair style is like 100 Points and a town is like 2000 points, I know that some day i will have everything on here and regret it all when The Sims 4 gets announced. The Store's got some cool happenings going on, like they have daily deals where an item is on sale between a day and a few hours depending on what it is and how big the price cut is. I haven't bought much from it,. but just for signing up you get 1000, so I got a few objects but nothing big.

Enough about all of the accessories though, how is the game doing. The Sims 3 is a fantastic game, now bear in mind I never played The Sims 2. I got the Sims 2 when it came out, but my PC was to old and did not run it. And I had the original Sims with all expansions so I decided to stick with that. So I've pretty much gone from that game, so a huge step up. The ageing thing was a bit of a turn off for me to begin with, because I get attached to my Sims, so it's pretty heartbreaking building up there lives and going through so much with them, to in the end watch them die. But I adjusted the setting so it will take a while longer, and I discovered that having a baby was a lot easier, so sure I would still get attached, but I would just keep the cycle going and it would be one big family tree.

I really do enjoy the trait system, it gives Sims more personality than just filling in a neat meter, it also makes it easier to make different Sims each time. My first Sim was called Victor Vanderbosh, an Evil Genius who was a snob, slightly insane and hopeless romantic. It makes for some funny situations. I felt that this game had a bunch of new stuff to do as well, I don't know what is expansion and whats not but I always had something to do. I became a ghost hunter at one point in my life and went around with my not Proton Gun zapping ghosts. Then at one point I was a fireman who stole from peoples houses as the fire was going on, I stole somebody's sports car at one point. You can visit any community locations at any point without having to wait for loading, it's all one seamless town and thats just so cool.

Victor went to China later on and went treasure hunting in some old ruins, later in that same day he discovered that he had feelings for a fellow explorer called Bob. They fell deeply in love, they even had Sex in the Shower. That is no joke either, it is a thing you can do in this game! Bob later died though in a house fire, but his memory lived on through vanderbosh. He then declared his neighbour a nemesis after his neighbour was caught breaking Vanderbosh's garden gnome, they fought up until the very end. As you can tell Vanderbosh passed away a good few hours ago, we had some good times creating evil potions and stealing candy from helpless babies. He was only a test of course, now I have a handle on the games mechanics proper I'm going to re-install everything (I installed everything in wrong order so has some technical issues.) and create a bigger and better family.

So yea The Sims 3 is kinda great, it's pretty cool also cause the next stuff package comes out later this week which adds town lot objects to the game so thats pretty cool. I also bought The Sims Medieval to, I don't know when I'm going to get to that, but man, I feel like this is Runescape all over again!.

VANDERBOSH!