Never been much of a blogger.
I'll admit that much. But since people here at Giant Bomb seem to miss me (I know, I'm kinda surprised too), and since more and more old timers have either left the site or been victims of our beloved nazi mods, I decided to make a blog explaining my absence.
 
Fear not, Giant Bomb, I am still among you, and I don't plan to part with you any time soon. I, like many of you, am a Giant Bomb aficionado. I have been around even before what is entitled by the community as "Day One", the day when the site was launched as an actual website, rather than just a blog page. I created this account on August 1st 2008, and since, have posted many, many posts on the forums on a daily basis, watched thousands of videos, read hundreds of news articles, and read every review Giant Bomb submits (which unfortunately those are only some decades). But, in the beginning of August, I began my biggest hiatus ever as a Giant Bomb user. I was amazed at how long I could survive without posting on the Giant Bomb forums, and I don't think I would have survived without the amazing Giant Bomb app.
 
So why did I start this hiatus? Do not think for a second this hiatus was intentional. Oh, heavens no. Two letters.
 

I.B.

 
For those of you who don't know the International Baccalaureate is a very, very hard diploma to get, that requires a lot of work. I began this hiatus due to Summer vacay, actually, and its subsequent travels and trips around the world.  It all began when I went to New York City for little more than just a week, then, upon my return to Portugal, I hit Algarve and staty there for another two weeks and  a half. When I come back school starts. The IB starts... and you know the rest of it.
 
I have very little spare time, and you must understand that the activity that first comes to my mind is not "LOLOLOL!!!1!one! TURN ON TEH INTERNETZ AND POST ON GBBBBB!". Not anymore at least. I would rant a bit about how the community used to be a lot more awesome, but these days... I don't know.... MB might ban me. Or come to my house and rape me.. oh no. I don't want that.
 
So basically, you will be seeing a lot less of Snail around the boards.
That's all I had to say.

xoxoxoxo,
shnail.

My DSi is resting on top of my DS Lite, which is resting top of my DS. All of them were bought within the period of 2 days after release.

I AM ALL FOR PC!
I AM A WHITE!
THEN A BLUE!
THEN A RED!
AND A GREEN ONLY OVER MY DEAD BODY!

IT FEELS SO REFRESHING!
I HAVE A COLOR!
I AM FREE!
THIS IS WHAT I STAND FOR!
PC GAMING!

NOTE: If you want to skip to the "Why 2009 will suck" part, skip ahead to the third paragraph (fourth if you count this sentence as a paragraph).

Well people, tomorrow is the Christmas eve. Which means that my chocolate calendar is coming to and end. Speaking of which, in case you don't know I am very "religious" when it comes to chocolate calendars. I have 3 so I can eat 3 of those tasty chocolates per day with an irrefutable justification. I never open any chocolate of a day that is still to come, that would be blasphemy! (And that is why I feel bad ever since I opened a bit of day 21 on the 18th... Silly me). I live in one of those countries that opens the presents on the midnight of the 24th of Christmas eve (and even still some of us want to cheat... I usually try to hide the key to the room with the presents but my record is 23:37 aprox.). Soon enough I will have all the presents I asked for (3 games.. I am modest). And I know I will be getting tons of clothe from the female part of my family, books from my dad and a watch from my grandfather. And on the 31st it is my birthday. I asked for 3 games as well, hopefully I will be getting them.

Allow me to teach you something about having a birthday right after Christmas. Allways.Make.A.List. For both Christmas and birthday. If you don't they will treat all like only one "gift-receiving" celebration and they will split whatever they bought in two. To put it simple you would get half as much stuff in Christmas and Birthday as you could/should.

And the point of the whole blog aims for this paragraph. Why 2009 will suck. People, try to remember 2006. when al that stuff was announced for 2007. Now try to remember 2007, when all that stuff was delayed to 2008. Ah, yes. The wait made them even more epic and made them sound more awesome. Ah, yes how I remember the happiness of entering 2008 and to know that that would be the year of great games, and great constructions, and great Olympics! How I remember watching TV, and seeing all those epic contructions, such as the bird's nest (the 2008 Olympic Stadium) and other huge hotels and stuff of the sort... And these Olympics were the ones I enjoyed seeing the most. Every 4 years I sit in front of the TV in Algarve after lunch watching the Olympics, and I remember seeing the records those records being beaten in such a splendid way... great Olympics indeed.

Remember those games? The wait fot Fable II? Super Smash Bros. Brawl... Ha! When it came out Gamespot had 2 threads just for that game, because of all the hype! Remember waiting for Left 4 Dead? Metal Gear Solid 4? Fallout 3? littleBIGPlanet? Boy, was all that epic... These games were all great with no shadow of a doubt and some of them innovative in a huge scale. It is a shame that there was some creativity block among all game developers except for Valve, and all that they ever released were sequels. Go back to the list above and you'll see that only Left 4 Dead is a new franchise, though other good new franchises were released as well, such as Dead Space. But despite the creativity block this was a great year in gaming and a long-awaited one.

Now, let's take a look at the year 2009... what are we waiting for? Skate II, hopefully a new Start Wars MMO (and people will still stick to WoW), StarCraft II, the Sims 3, and a remake of Resident Evil 4 entitled Resident Evil 5. And even all these are sequels dammit! (Except one).

Sad.

By looking into gaming websites and upon seeing lists of "The most Expected Games of 2009" I find the list not even half as enticing as 2008's list. It's as if everyone planned the huge and epic stuff to 2008. Don't take me wrong, 2007 was a great year in gaming as well. 2007 was before the big party, we had great titles to entertain ourselves with before the big '08. Then there was the long awaited year 2008 (the numbers sound awesome, unlike 2007.. I like the sound of 2008... 2008! 2008! Ah, yes...) and we had all these fantastic games! and now it's.. *sigh* 2009... What now? Prototype? Tch.. Luckily we'll get a date for Splinter Cell Conviction, which I am tired of waiting for.

Do not think that I find 2008 to be a flawless year! Heavens, no! Just look at all the crappy movies that came out this year! I remember that by this time of the year we had There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Michael something.. with George Clooney.. Well point is that so far we have Milk, Frost Nixon, Wall-e and some few other not-so-popular movies out there. Jus see the Golden Globe awards.. It feels like they had to go search for movies! There just aren't enough great ones out there!

If the small rant above was not clear in any way just try comparing 2007 to 2008 movie-wise... Exactly! But then again we were blessed with the Dark Knight and Wall-e so it wasn't THAT bad.... During the Summer. We had all sorts of crap movies as well, such as Jumper and.. Oh God.. TAKE IT AWAY!

Oh, well. And these are my thoughts for the year 2009. This is why I am so depressed that 2008 is coming to an end and why I was so happy when 2008 began. I wish that, at least Game companies were to make new year resolutions..
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EA: We will stop rushing our producers and their games!

Bethesda: We will improve our engine dammit!

Take-Two: The Lost and the Damned will be available on the PS3, because it is fair! And we won't trust EA ever EVER again!

Eidos: We will stop buying out reviews and we will give a fuck about the next Hitman game.

Sonic Team: We will make Sonic games as good as they were when they started!

Sega: We will release more than 5 good titles this year!

Nintendo: We will start working on patches an online improvements such as retro-compatibility with Wii.Speak.
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2008 was great. Probably the only year when I thought "Finally it's [insert year here]".

Have said, I apologize for any typos, I am a typo person.

P.S.: Oh and of course, an economical crisis.

P.P.S.: While writing this I was too fundamentalist. 2009 won't be bad year in gaming, it just won't be as good as 2008.