I swear the PS Network Store is going to kill me or at least make me broke. I have never ventured into the Xbox 360’s store even once and was never tempted. The way they do the pricing by having you buy points always put me off. I want to know how much I’m paying up front and not some arbitrary point amount MS has assigned to thhe game.

The PSN Store got me a few months back with the additions to Dead Space. From that moment on I was truly addicted.  Every Thursday I check the store for what’s new and worthy of my attention. And almost every week there’s some game that’s been released that I want. And unlike the xbox 360 store, I actually kniw how much I’m paying for the game I’m buying.

Last week saw me give way to my carnal desire for yet another puzzle game and Zuma got downloaded. I also grabbed Asteroids on crrack, Super Stardust HD.  Me and City were istantly addict4d to Stardust and played it most of the weekend.

This week sees me Numblast, another puzzle game, and Topatoi The Great Tree Story, a 3D platformer, have both found their way onto my PS3 somehow. It’s really hard to say no to games when they cost less than a tenner. This of course is always my excuse.

As I sit here writing this I’m very impatiently waiting for Numblast to finish downloading so that I can play it before I have to start working.  I fear I may lose my life to this simple little game though. Puzzle games are seriously going to be the death of me.

As mentioned here, Patapon 2 will be a digital only release in North America. Now while I can understand the irrational attachment to having a physical UMD disk, I really do think this is the way forward. I have an irrational attachment to my physical disks, but I’m trying to let that go and embrace digital only releases. I like the idea of being able to just pay and poof I’ve got my game. No more waiting for the postman and hoping it doesn’t get lost. No more cursing at the cost of postage or hunting down a site that doesn’t charge me postage.

I actually have several small games on my PSP and PS3 that are digital only. And ya know what? I’m actually rather happy with them. They’re on my HDD or mem stick and if I like I can download them again whenever I like should I lose them. So all those people bitching about losing it forever if they lose their memory stick can fuck off. And those saying that memory sticks are exensive, they can fuck off too. I paid £20 for my 4GB memory card for my PSP. That’s cheap.

I do think digital only prices for major release games should be cheaper than what buying them physically. Here in the UK Patapon 2 is £20 from the PSN. I can buy it from Game for £18. Not a huge price difference, but it’s enough for me to buy it from Game instead of buying it directly from the PSN digitally.

Besides, if people hadn’t noticed, this is the future. Memory and HDDs are getting cheaper by the day. There’s really little reason these days to have a hard copy pther than an irrational attachment to it.

I completely forgot to let people know that the Look at Book 7 piece for Lord of the Rings Online was up.

Book 7 is live in the States, but we’re still waiting for Codemasters to pull ther finger out so we can have it here in Europe. One of these days we may actually get a book release when Turbine actually releases it instead of a week or two later, but I won’t hold my breath.

I nearly forgot to tell you about LocoRoco 2. Absolutely brilliant game. You can see my review here.

So today I got to have a special guided tour with the Turbine devs of the upcoming Book 7 for LotRO. I’m absolutely in awe of what they’ve done with Lothlorien. It’s beautiful beyond words. They’re doing a lot of work with this book and I’m more impressed than I ever was.

Whenever I feel my interest in LotRO waning it seems that  I get a chance to interact with the Devs for the game. They always manage to inspire me and make me fall in love with the game all over again.

I’ll be writing an overview of Book 7 for MMORPG.com soon, so I’ll let you know when that’s up.

The review for RotA is up and has been for a little bit. I’m not terribly happy with the game. It really could have been so much more story-wise.

Rise of the Argonauts

Got 2 more games in today for review. LocoRoco 2 for the PSP and Rise of the Argonauts for the PS3.

I’ve actually been playing LocoRoco 2 since I bought it so that’ll be easy to write. Brilliant game. I love it.

I’m not so sure about Argonauts. I love Greek mythology and I know this is going to be a terrible butchering of it. If I can get past that then I think maybe I can enjoy the game.

I have forgotten to pimp my most recent reviews. For your reading plasure, you can find them at the below links.

Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria

Everquest II: The Shadow Odyssey

I realise the EQ2 one went up months ago, but I forgot to share it with you.

Now how the hell did I miss the news that Jack Thompson was disbarred and can never practice law ever again? This happened way back in September so I’m guessing my head was so caught up in the upcoming releases that I jsut missed it. After all it is news involving Jack Thompson and these days that jsut gets ignored. The guy was a dick and did no one any good, not even the families he was supposedly helping.

A little more info here.

Today was my last day at the piece of hell I’ve called a job for the last 2.5 years.  On monday I start for real as the CS Manager for an online game that’s coming out soon. I wish I could share what the game is because it’s quite good. It’s not my normal game genre, but it’s fun and interesting.

Still now both of my jobs are in games and I’m returning to somehting I enjoy in an industry I enjoy.