I am so happy right now my PS3 is back in it's rightful place currently downloading the recent update and I can finally get back to the task of serious gaming!!!! Not much else to say right now I just had to post this blog On the other hand though the repair was damn fast, they got it Monday morning, dispatched it yesterday and now back here. Sony FTW!

The time has come once again when upgrading another part of my PC has become possible, after buying my new PC a few months ago my video capture box simply isn't good enough compared to the rest of the PC. Ontop of that it really doesn't like Vista too much at all but then again it was only a cheap one I found on Ebay. It has done the job for quite a while and my videos can be found on my YouTube page Here!

I am thinking about getting a Dazzle Video Creator Platinum which cuts out all of the TV tuner stuff which I dont need or use and is dedicated to recording and displaying only composite RCA / S-Video feeds and has full hardware MPEG 1/2/4 compression so I wont get poor quality or lose frames because the PC is getting bogged down by the huge data files that capturing makes. Also for those who don't know yet you can get the Dazzle to function perfectly on Vista but ONLY 32-Bit, 64-Bit at the moment will only accept HD capture cards so be careful if your looking for one yourself.

Just over 1 year of faithful service and one week after my warrenty expires my PS3 finally decides to break. Thankfully the wonderful people at Sony UK have taken away my black box and are repairing it for free anyway which is pretty awesome. The issue is an easy fix the Blu-Ray laser in my drive has decided it doesn't like to fire anymore and it needs replacing and when I take into consideration that I use my PS3 daily and also that by this timeframe when I was using my Xbox 360 alot I was on my 3rd one! Then in the big picture it's really not that bad at all.

I just hope they get it back to me a damn sight faster than Microsoft did, they have told me it will be no longer than 10 working days but also to expect it back way before that time as the fix is quick. So fingers crossed here

After 6 years of faithful use my old Intel 2.66GHZ PC has finally begun to show signs of age and a major loss of performance. Well in truth it's more a case of smoke blowing out of the case as the motherboard dies. So yesterday I ordered a new PC which will be here Thursday and it's a nice spec too. It needs some upgrading out the box but only the graphics card and PSU really.

Processor Type Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 |

Clock-Speed 2.4 Ghz / 9.6Ghz Total |

Front Side BUS 1066MHz |

Cache 8 MB |

Operating-System Windows Vista (R) Home Premium |

RAM Memory 3072 MB |

Hard Disk Capacity 320 GB |

Optical Drive 1 Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer |

Graphics Memory 256mb MB |

Graphics Description nVidia GeForce 7050 |

Sound Card Onboard |

Media Card Reader 8-In-1 |

No of USB connections 6 |

No. of Firewire Connections 1 |

I will be replacing the onboard GeForce 7050 with a PCI-E GeForce 8600GT shortly after it arrives and upgrading the PSU to 600W just to make sure it can handle all I can throw at it. Then I can finally play Crysis and Age Of Conan without uber lag and slowdown

I have now got a USB video capture device for use with my PS3 and 360 and I have started to make videos and upload them onto my YouTube page. For anyone who is interested the link is

www.youtube.com/shadow106

Well i finally got my 360 back on Friday with a letter of apology they also gave me a brand new one with 2 months free XBL probably to shut me up. At least it is back where it should be though.

In other news since my last blog i now have Assassin's Creed for my PS3 and damn that game is awesome and then some i strongly advise anyone to get it it's like nothing else i have played before in any genre.

Well I haven't posted a new blog entry in quite a long time and way overdue for a new one. My Xbox 360 has been sent off for repair and is FINALLY on it's way back after almost a month + in the repair centre. I actually got so aggrovated while waiting that this weekend I bought a PS3 so now I have 2 current gen consoles and I have been enjoying some marathon sessions of Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall Of Man. I am glad I did finally get a PS3 as it is a great console and in many ways it is better than the 360 but in others it is way behind especially when it comes to online use. I wont rip on either side as I aint no fanboy and I will be keeping my 360 and playing it as much as normal, I can't not play Halo 3

To any of my friends on here my PS3 ID is Shadow0410 so feel free to add me to your buddy lists and message me and I will hook up and play some games when your on. As it stands right now I have no buddies on there and it's kinda sad considering I know tons of people on the 360.

Anyway I will draw this to a close and hopefully it wont take me another few months to post a new blog here!

Well I haven't posted many blogs as of late due to spending all my time on my 360 playing Forza, I have now got the game fully complete and I have every achievement accept the online credits which I am quickly approaching. I now have tons of tuned cars for each class so I am all set for anything anyone may want to race online so it should be awesome no need to sit and monitor AH sales as I have a ton of credits thanks to selling all the unwanted cars from purchasing every car in the game.

From what E3 is showing off this year there is alot of awesome reasons to own a 360 right now some of the games due for release very soon look really impressive and I can't wait to get my hands on quite a few of them but like everyone else I need to wait patiently and watch for release dates and new info about content. This fall is going to be a very interesting time as far as gaming is concerned.

I have finally completed the single player career in FM2!!!! 100% total and now working towards owning all the cars Exhibition mode is also finished and only 2 races left to do in the time trials. Once I get all that out of the way I can focus on getting online and hitting it hardcore without that being in the back of my mind and wanting to finish up lose ends. I have racked up 73 hours driving so far and I know for a fact there is alot more time to be spent behind the virtual wheel of this one.

Over the past 2 weeks I have picked up a trio of racing games Forza Motorsport 2 DiRT and FlatOut Ultimate Carnage. All three rock and offer a totally different driving experience still FM2 is the best closely followed by FlatOut and then DiRT which is still very cool but could have been so much more than it already is. FM2 and FlatOut have kick ass online play DiRT really doesn't but all have awesome single player modes and I keep jumping between them all now. FM2 still holds my attention more than the others though and I dont honestly think that is too suprising. Being spoiled for choice in some cases is a very good thing IMO.

It's finally begun just like I did in Forza 1, the end of the career is in sight and now it is time to get online and start mixing up the race action in FM2. After alot of tweaking and upgrading I finally have a drift racer and man is it fun to drift in Forza 2. The physics are so real that it follows the exact same rules and it is so challenging and precise that it is so satisfying when you pull off a perfect drift and manage to chain them together around the entire track

I picked up a copy of DiRT today traded in my copy of TDU purely because it can't compare with FM2 at all both online and offline. Thankfully it was a good move because DiRT is one seriously cool game, online is a bit disapointing because you can only do Rally or Hillclimb events no track races with the trucks but offline is a total riot and it works well to offer a totally different driving experience compared with FM2 and both games really do blend well together.

Where to even begin on this one, I got my copy on Friday June 8th and I can't stop playing it!! All weekend I played it all day and I am seriously hooked. It is without question the best racing game on the 360 and thanks to the damage modeling I personally think it is even better than Gran Turismo. There is so much to do both online and offline. The auction house is one of the smartest ideas I have seen for any racing game and the car painting and customisation is off the scale. I can honestly say FM2 is the most fun you can have on a set of virtual wheels and it will keep you entertained for many many months to come.

June 8th is almost here and that means Forza 2 will be released!! Finally we will get our british mitts on this long awaited racing game that looks set to sweep the racing genre by storm on the 360 and rewrite how we look at racing games in the future flat out. I so seriously can't wait to get to the store Friday morning at 8:30am and then get home and play that game until I simply have to sleep. Yeah I know it's a bit extreme but what do you expect? all my US friends have been playing it for over a week and it's been like an itch that you just can't scratch so finally I get to do so.

Tonight I finally found a hole in my gaming schedule to finish off the final 2 acts of GeOW, so now I have killed RAAM on Insane and the saga is finally over until GeOW2 that is sadly I dont particularly like the online competitive multiplayer in Gears.. R6V and GRAW2 are much more enjoyable for me to play so I have to wonder if it is now time to trade in possibly the best game made for the 360.

Well I figured I would quickly knock up a new banner for my profile as FM2 is almost upon us, you Americans get it in the morning but us brits have another 7 days to wait, I am seriously not amused about that but oh well at least it is coming out. It's all good it just means you lot get a head start on us so we will have to play harder to be competitive

Well summer is here again and as always the ambient temperature is so darn high that it is making my PC run over 10 Degrees C higher than it should on full load. Idle is only 2 or 3 higher but still...... Kinda sucks because I have to keep an eye on the temps while playing LOTRO which is quite distracting but I would rather keep my PC up and running than fry it.

 

In preperation for Forza 2 I have ordered the Microsoft Wireless Wheel with Force Feedback so I can get the full experience and enjoy the game how it is meant to be played. I know it is more expensive than some others available but I like the wireless functionality and force feedback in itself adds a whole new dimension to racing games that support it, granted it is only PGR 3 and Forza 2 for now but I can still justify that. Now roll on June 6th so I can finally hit the track online!!

Well I have been playing the Halo 3 Beta now since it was released and I have to say I am quite impressed, it has a better feeling than Halo 2 had which was already superb IMO anyway. I seem to enjoy running around in 3 alot more than Halo 2, the controls feel really tight and responsive and the gameplay is alot smoother and more fluid so it makes the pace higher and the enjoyment level is way up on most of the available maps.

I will post more after some more serious sessions but so far this beta is fantastic and I am seriously looking forward to the full release of Halo 3 like everyone else.

It's finally here! the demo of Forza 2 is available on XBLM and of course I was downloading it the second I saw it when I turned on my 360 this morning. After only one lap around the track in a C class car I quickly realized that FM2 is even more realistic than it's predecessor. Now the smallest mistake will have dramatic effects on how the car behaves, so if your driving down a straight and clip the grass the wheel that hit will become instantly unstable and normally you will spin off. To me this shows that the developers were definitely trying to make the most realistic racing simulator that can be done, granted it is very unforgiving but that in itself makes the game much better than the original. I don't see how FM2 will appeal to the arcade racing fans but for hardcore simulation fanatics I think that it is going to be exactly what was promised.