Huzzah! I have now been signed up at GameSpot for a grand total of five years and two days.

Stats:
L43 (Sword of Sodan)
Posts: 44980
Blogs: 128
Admin at DanC1989's Gaming Arcade (bestest board evar), Mod at Mina's Mansion, OCC, VGTA (RIP)

Now am I a veteran or what?

DannyC

PS - Uni is still rather good, wish I could write more but I'm so sleepy...I've had two hours sleep and am about to try to hit the sack again

Freshers week is bloody awesome.

I was soooo tempted to end the blawg there but I probably owe you a little more than that (just not a lot more cause I've not had a great deal of sleep xD). Basically freshers week is there to get everyone to be friends with everyone else, with the main catalyst in all of it of course being the alcohol! To be honest I've definitely not drunk half as much as some other people have, I've never been a binge drinker and I don't intend to change that one bit. But suffice to say I've still had quite a lot, and I fear that life will seem incredibly mundane after these first few weeks when you actually have to pull your finger out and do some work. And I've got absolutely no idea what I'm going to do when that time comes, I've barely even looked at a pen in months.

I'll find a way though..

DannyC

PS - Shall catch up on blogs tomorrow hopefully seeing as I've not planned to do much in the day. Here's hoping eh?

This blog is a goodbye. Thanks for all those great memories, I apologize for being an idiot from time to time but I can't help myself..I'm naturally a bit of a prat. Not to worry though! I don't mean GameSpot in general, it's a fond farewell to my twenty years in a suburb of the Birmingham, England. This Sunday I will be taking all of my worldly possessions and shifting them a fair distance in hope of a better life, a better future. Yes...UNI!

Considering the current economic situation it was a no brainer, having GCSE's and A Levels isn't enough in the 21st century so I have decided to embark on a course that I feel is my best bet for a career and encompasses my greatest academical skill. But what is it? Where am I going? I'll keep that a secret for now! Moving onto other matters, I finished packing today and I never knew how much stuff I truly had before I tried to cram it all into what initially looked like a huge suitcase. Suffice to say after emptying half of my wardrobe it now looks rammed. Maybe I'm just taking too much stuff? I just don't want to have to do washing too often. But at least I can operate a washing machine, on the other hand my culinary skills leave a chasm to be desired. This uni thing is going to be really interesting...

PS I'd like to ask you all one or two questions:
Are there any iPod Touch apps that you can recommend?
Mac users: do you use iWork or Office for Mac? (also considering that the University system WILL be Windows)

Advice is greatly appreciated and given an address possibly rewarded (Note: UK bloggers only ). Good day.

DannyC

Continuing the Apple theme from the previous blog, Dan went a step further in the past few days towards complete nerdiness and got a new 16GB Apple iPod Touch. Now every night before I sleep I pray beneath the picture of Steve Jobs on my bedside cabinet! Joking aside, the iPod is a nice bit of kit. However..one or two things have started to get on my nerves and unfortunately that's more to do with the creators of the device as opposed to the iPod itself.

Want Video? Cough up for it!

FIrst of all, when I was getting the Touch I thought that I'd be buying a device that you can listen to music, view photos and watch videos on right out of its little box. Alas, this was not the case! When I first plugged it into my MacBook, iTunes popped up and informed me that I would require system software update 3.0 if I wanted to do anything apart from play music or use some of the older applications. And that aforementioned update wasn't free..it was 5.99GBP. Greed or what? I tried to hold out and stick one finger up to the mighty Apple but my one man crusade lasted all of 24 hours. They had me right where they wanted me.

Shinyness!

Why on earth must the back of the iPod touch be so shiny?! We all know that after a few months its going to look rather scratched because its almost unavoidable (without getting a proper case of course). Plus its also susceptible to FINGERPRINTS! Gah.

Other than that the iPod is awesome of course. Maybe next time I'll moan about the other more expensive Apple product but you may be surprised to hear what I think about that one. Thanks for taking the time to read this and until next time..toodlepip!

DannyC

PS - pictures of both should be up hosted on here soon, if not I'll put them in a future blog.

For the first time evar, sitting here..I'm not posting from any old ordinary PC or laptop. I'm posting from yes, you guessed it, an Apple MacBook. I've actually had the smexy little thing since yesterday but haven't since been around to test out the internet on it or play with it much but all in all I'm really starting to like it. Hopefully I can post a moresubstantialreview when I have a little more time as..

I haven't got long to post this as tommorow I shall be working to the bone clearing up after the V Festival in Chelmsford, Staffordshire where The Killers played and Oasis almost played. With time not on my side I just wanted to ask a few small questions regarding the thing I have purchased..

What do I do about using MSN?
Any hints and tips about learning the little quirks of the Mac?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and with that note I bid you goodnight. PS: I apologize for not posting in any blogs in the last week or so..for one reason or the other I haven't visited my profile page a lot and thus I shall catch up by the weekend! Sayonara.

DanC

Another PS- it's my birthday on Friday!

Let it not be said that I don't keep my word, and in the last blog I promised a prize to the user that could guess what stupid thing Dan had done to turn his Sixaxis into a deadly weapon! The top and bottom of it all was quite simply death by foot: I left the pad close to the stair door and when I rushed down and turned into the middle room I trod on the pad causing the cover to slip off the right analog stick. It also snapped it slightly and also the right shoulder buttons will never be the same again!

There you have it. Congratulations Funka! Thanks for reading and until next time..

DanC

Seen those funny clip shows that ask you to guess what happens next? Well I'll be asking you to guess what happened last, to my poor Playstation 3 Sixaxis pad. It's the first time that I've ever broken a pad..

There it is...barely alive. Actually looking at that photo it doesn't look too bad but the R1 button doesn't work anymore and the right analog stick you see there is as sharp as Sunsha's tongue. Anyone who so happens to correctly guess what happens will receive some sort of prize curteosy of your friend DanC1989. Good night. ^.^

DanC

Every now and then I have random people tracking me for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Call me cynical if you so desire, but really what's the point?

DanC

I don't get the popularity of the OutRun series.

Basically I purchased Outrun: Online Arcade a few weeks ago from the Playstation Store, which is practically the same game as every single one of its predecessors bar the fact that it's now online. But anyway...it could only be a game made in the land of the Rising Sun, a game where you as the player have to smash over blue cones and pick up stray coins to impress your 'girlfriend'. Does this work in real life or something? =P Plus once again it's a game involving cars that seems to neglect the thing called a brake pedal: literally after the fifteen continuous course mode my right index finger feels like it's about to drop to the ground because it seldom has to lay off the accelerator apart from drifting here and there.

But it does hark me back to an era where games were harder than they are today. Today you can buy Need for Speed then spend a small fee to unlock everything without playing it, but back then...things were tough. Simply completing the stages within the time limit is the easy part but to give the game any sense of direction whatsoever there are a small selection of 12 trophies to collect. And the silver ones upward are HARD. I don't like trophies/achievements when they're too easy but these are just solid as nails to collect. For example, finishing five stages in 4'30" for a silver: my ultimate best time was 4'48" on the easier route to the finish! Maybe it's because I'm rubbish but still in any case I'm absolutely miles away. =P

Does anyone else have it? Then maybe PM me and we could have a game because the last time I tried there was no one else in Europe online playing it. =(

Thanks for reading and toodlepip,
DanC

PS - 60K Party at my Gaming Arcade if anyone wants to partake in the festivities!

Yesterday brought forth the day that I've been almost dreading for quite some time, and dreading for rather selfish reasons. It's the day that three of my best mates embark on a EuroTrip. Seen the movie? This is for real, two and a half weeks of seeing the best of what mainland Europe has to offer us Brits. Great you say? But unfortunately I haven't partaken on this little adventure, I'll be stuck here at home in England (probably) pretty bored thinking of what I could've been getting up to in Amsterdam or even Prague..

The main reason why I pulled out is the fact that it would be financial suicide for me to even contemplate going. The overall cost of the trip I believe is in the region of a thousand pounds, I have that kind of money but there's something looming large over me that I can't avoid: University. I'm finally going to a University in September and need to save up fast. Which Uni? Who knows. I could've come to America to study but the debt I'll be racking up is high enough when staying in my own country! Maybe I'd have gone if I had got the chance to revisit Poland, the place I visited three years ago.

Here's the itinerary of destinations: Amsterdam, F1 German Grand Prix at the Nurgburgring: Qualifying + Race, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Milan (fly through ), Paris.

Quite a tidy selection (the one I'd most like to visit is probably either Prague or Venice) I think you'd agree with plenty to see and do..the only bug bear being the driving: thousands of miles and hours a day. I just hope to God that he knows what he's doing in that car! And beware..I may be rather grumpy for the next three weeks or so so talk to me at your peril. Maybe if this turns out to be okay I can save up and go in 2010..

DanC

Another short one I'm afraid.

I've resubscribed to Gamespot Total Access, and thus made the executive decision to re-open the Gaming Arcade to everyone that wants to pop by. If you didn't already know, the Gaming Arcade is my UCB which I created over three years ago and my departure subsequently almost killed it but now its back! Please take a look around and join up before I get moody and close it again

DanC

PS - RIP Michael Jackson 1958-2009

...modesty has never been my strong point.

Yes there are (apparently!) a lot of problems about how games are age rated here in the UK, and this week's report from Tanya Byron is here to recommend what changes are needed to combat what's going on at the moment. Lovely, you know...if it improves the situation it's all good but as they say, first impressions are paramount. Now look at the cover of this thing! Are they having a laugh, or what? I know it doesn't matter one bit, and I haven't read it (never planned to, it's 250 pages plus for starters!) but this sort of publicity is a joke on the part of the gamers of this world.

IMO the real problem is with parents buying games for their kids when it's been already slapped with a massive '18' rating on the front, not the rating system itself. They really can't make it any more obvious, and apart from that some of them don't seem to care which is the real worry. I despair...but then again I've bought games underage before (and asked my parents to get them) so I don't want to be a hypocrite. I'd have done anything for a bit of Grand Theft Auto. In other news, I went to see the mighty England Under-21 international this week at Wolves' Molineux ground which looked a bit like this full of English and Polish fans hoping to see the stars of tomorrow duke it out in a good game of football. Let me say, the highlight of the whole game was the Polish fans (I believe) starting a good ol' Mexican wave. Because the football was awful beyond comprehension, I can't really remember getting anywhere near getting excited about any passage of play throughout the 90 minutes. Thankfully the tickets we used were complimentary, else I'd have asked for my money back with compensation on top for such a wasted night!

DanC

PS- The big PSN blog I promised last week is still coming, I just haven't had time to finish it plus I checked and I wasn't online straight away so it should be here on Monday or Tuesday early next week. Thanks for reading, and I hope you all had a good easter, I'm "too old" for eggs now so mine was rather naff.>_>

Oh noes! Disaster! My PSP has been stripped, stripped of its dignity...the other day I got home after using the PSP on the bus as an MP3 player (I don't have the collection to really warrant ad decent IPod.) and when I pulled it out of the little sleeve it looked like this.

On a side note...how the hell anyone gets decent pics in their blog is beyond me. Any tips? GameSpot doesn't like them at all, and you can't even squeeze them down to the blog width without them expanding back again as soon as you've clicked submit. Glitchspot FTL.

I know it looks like it's had a rough time, but it is a good few years old and the sleeve isn't the best protection. But where's the God darn analogue nub?! I've no idea what happened to that, must've fell off sometime during the day because I've looked up and down for it since I took it out of the sleeve. And yes, I've tried playing it like that..and if you thought that the normal controls were bad, just try it without the nub.

Any recommended replacements? I'll have a peek on Amazon/ebay tonight..

DanC

PS- That'll probably be it for the week, next Sunday's the PS3 launch anniversary so I'll be doing something for that. Something big...

It seems like such a long time since Metal Slime to me, the infamous GameSpot user level that is a lot harder than it should be. (think Through the Fire and the Flames even on easy, to noobs playing GH3!) Infact I'd give you the exact date thanks to the Achievement threads that once lurked within the Gaming Arcade but it'd take a while plus it's not that interesting anyway. Maybe if I compare it at level sixty?!? Now that'd be interesting..

Away from the memories, and back to 2008 and the present day. I've hit Level 40 (Abobo)! It's about time too, 39 has been the slowest ever thanks to many things but I won't dwell on that. Does anyone care about levels anymore? I sure don't, but after about L35 it's tiresome and the same goes for post counts post 10K and it is only the nets after all. Question answered.

Here's to another twenty?>_>

PS: The other day I was lurking around on my old PC that is a bit of a dust hoarder at the moment and I found a load of old GS stuff, like screens of the old site, old sigs and reviews that I've got in Word Docs. Shall post some of them soon if anyone's interested. (bar the reviews, obviously!)

DanC

EA in trying to buy yet another rival publisher shocker! ! After snapping up Pandemic and BioWare, plus controversially buying a 19% "hostile" stake in the French giant Ubisoft, you'd have thought that enough was enough and EA was one step away from taking over the world. No doubt though, as you've heard they're this time going after the struggling Take Two Interactive for the princely sum of $2 billion, who of course have a vast list of developers (Irrational, and more importantly...Rockstar Games) under their wing who would be more than useful to the Redwood giant. Good or bad? What do you think? I might sound rather cynical and biased so far but there's always another side to the argument so here's a few Pro's and Con's (to us ordinary gamers) of such a deal taking place:

Good?

EA is mega rich, so Take Two will struggle no more (even though with GTA more than around the corner that's possibly a moot point?)

They surely wouldn't be daft enough to tinker with the big franchises, eg the BioShock's and Grand Theft Auto's of this world?

This isn't any worse than the major coming together of Activision and World of Warcraft creators, Blizzard...creating (the well named!) Activision Blizzard is it?

Some decent press recently, thanks to some decent (and even good..) games. For example, Battlefield Heroes' fresh approach whereby the download is free but if you want extra content you have to pay a small fee every time. Plus, Fifa's getting better. Better than PES for me (last year) which was pretty unthinkable a few years ago.

Better than having Sony or Microsoft taking them, imagine the uproar a proper forever-exclusive Grand Theft Auto would cause for any company's system. Maybe Nintendo could surprise us?

BAD.

No competition for the EA Sports games, as their major rival (2K Sports) is, wait for it, made by subsidiaries of Take Two Interactive. Surely then that's a monopoly, even if they're selling more Madden/NHL games than 2K anyway. Monopoly = BAD. Even if I don't care about American Football!

Remember Bullfrog? Westwood? (Oh noes, not "that" Westwood!) I'm pretty sure that the former created the Theme Park (and Hospital etcetera) series, but what about the latter? All I know is that talented studios such as the aforementioned have disintegrated under the ownership of EA.

Their bad reputation for churning out yearly cash cows such as every single decent sport (also Nascar!) on the planet and Need for Speed. IMO the latter needs a few years off and a different development team to get it out of the doldrums and back to any remote sense of decency.

Think of it what you will, but it is big news and probably much more so than the other recent mergers thanks to GTA alone and I don't see EA giving up on Take Two very easily. Prepare for Niko Bellic ProStreet and Bioshock Team Racing, and soon. Stay safe, feel free to comment and see you around..

DanC

It's me, heaven forbid!

I'm not quite used to such a gap between updates for you lot but circumstances have conspired against me somewhat and while I've been on a little...I've not got around to writing a blog, until now. Here comes the grovelling! Oh, hai. ^_^

I thought I'd now try to explain why the hell I've slowly been dropping away from posting and blogging, but it's hard to put my finger on it. 'Growing out of it' isn't a nice thing to say seeing as it isn't exactly childish and plenty of mature, semi-older users do visit this site, but at the end of the day it's a brief generalisation of the situation. As I'm approaching the crunch time of my life (ie. Uni, PS3 (;P) etc) I've got less time to play around with. And of course...exponentially the little hobbies such as sites like this get squashed further and further away from the forefront.

The way I see it is that GameSpot is essentially three things; a games news site, a games preview/review site and a gaming community and once upon a time I was interested in all three but not so much now. As for the news, I find it a lot better to visit www.eurogamer.net which is obviously a little more specific to our region (nothing against GSUK!) plus there's a lot more stories to go around instead of just the big ones. Onto the games reviews and previews, to be brutally honest they don't hold much ground with me either anymore and that's got nothing to do with Jeff or anyone who's left under a cloud. Maybe it's because I've got a PS3 and they've made a mockery of it but some of the reviews I've read have been a little poor in my eyes, not good enough for a site with such a vast history and pedigree within the games community. Other than that I don't really use reviews from any sites anymore...I basically know what I want to get and I'll get it. Like the recent release, LocoRoco goes tactical, PATA! PATA! PON! Thankfully the vast majority of the community I'm interested In still exist because if it weren't for you I'd cease to exist on this very page, so take that as a bloody warning. You wouldn't be reading this pap for a start

Sorry about the last few weeks, and I know I've said this before but things might well get better. They can only get better, can't they?

DanC

It's that time again on the pages of DanC1989 land...it's hype time. As much as I hate hyping anything ever, the only video game that seems to always live up to that in my eyes is a mere 77 days, 22 hours and 50 odd minutes away*!

And in what's probably the staple of the series, what with the witty faux advertisements, billboards and the radio stations..it's always been top notch. And I mean top notch, Rockstar have a sense of humour...it's almost worth the entry fee alone when the game rolls around. This weekend if you hadn't noticed (I didn't, only by chance...honest), the official Flash site is finally up and running and now you can explore the new Liberty City like never before. And if you're under eighteen, stop reading right now. This is strong stuff. Plus you shouldn't be playing games like this at your age...I did, and look what happened to me! (and don't put in your correct DOB on the site)

Take the Love-meet Personality Test.
I came out as a "douchebag".
"Typically there's no hope for narrow minded jerks like you but you'd be suprised with the extents lonely, desperate people will go to avoid dying alone". Liberty Swingers
"It's a different game every night."

Visit the Steinway Beer Garden.
"Pop in for a drink on your way to work!"

Banging Trash Can Lids For an Hour.
Exactly what it says on the tin. o_O

Just go and have a look for yourself, you know you want to. More to come as we home in on that release date..

DanC89

*Disclaimer: time may have elapsed since time of writing >_>

Now I'm beginning to see why exactly Guitar Hero has such a whopping great fanbase for what in essence is a hit the coloured buttons in time rhythm game that's usually a great deal more expensive than most other games on the market. For a lot of people, actually playing a real guitar is nothing more than a pipedream so this gives a chance to at least feel like you're playing one and some of the greatest songs on it known to man. People like me. Yup, another blog about that game. This is my update for all you people intrigued about my rise and rise from the lows of not even being able to do very well on the easiest difficulty. Welcome back, and enjoy my tale.

When I last left it, I was still basically on easy mode and flirting slightly with the level above and that next extra blue fret button. I was also still having a rough ride with some of the more difficult easy tracks and all in all it wasn't a great start by anyone's standards. But then, something just...happened. Something clicked.

In my opinion it was the fact that I've probably had around twelve or fifteen hours game time already in these four weeks, but whatever. Things have drastically improved. Okay, not just like that but the old 'practise makes perfect' cliché is darn well right...I've practised, and practised, and practised...hell my fingers have been doing some serious overtime. Now, for me, the easy mode is just what it says on the tin. Easy. Or as I call it, the mode that I look to get perfect on every single time, and if I fail (usually by a solitary note here or there!) I'm disappointed but I have another go...nothing to lose. And I'm onto the last easy tier on the career, but to be honest I've been much too busy with that...preferably my time has been spent on the much vaunted four note medium tier career.

Hell yeah! And I've got a lot of five star ratings for it too, right up until Knights of Cydonia...and never mind Raining Blood. The only real sticking point was beating Mr Morello over again but after a good dozen attempts (death drain ftl) I cracked him...just. God knows what he's like on hard, or even that other mode that people speak of! Whatever. Negativity is a sin!

But then again this report is the same as last time in that respect, on a lower level...flirting with the one above with it's scary extra note to try and get my fingers around. Yes, I'm dreading finishing the medium career in the near future...and there you go. The boy's done good, for once. Shame it's only a video game but it feels good none the less. Thank you GH, and thank you for reading this once again...I must apologise, my imagination is somewhere else at the moment so this is all I've got. ;P Also, here's to me updating this again soon, because you know that I've got to at least ace Hard before the latter days of April you know else it'll be game set and match GTA.>_> Maybe I'll call it Hit With It's Best Shot....stay safe out thar (especially from poor jokes)..

DanC

Where were you on the ninth of March last year? What quite possibly is the only record I hold in the world, my Shindig more than ten months ago was very easily the bestest party that the Off Topic Discussion board had ever seen. Thanks for all of that everyone and welcome to Act two...or as I'd call it, one point one.

Here's what happened. All 200 pages!

And today, a long time on I've made another 9,999 posts (I made more than 200 during the party ;P) (it's been tough but I'm finally there ;P). So where's the sequel to the main event? Here. I've basically stopped going to the OT board mostly so I won't bother so infact this little blog post is the party, now lets break that record of 2,072 posts. Come on!

Joking. Take care, and enjoy the beverages...onwards and upwards.

DanC

*sips a Dr Pepper*>_>