I don’t get sick very often, but this is definitely an exception. I’ve been waking up every morning with my mouth feeling like it had been filled with sand and then the contents scooped out with sandpaper. More water, please.

What have I been doing? To tell the truth, I haven’t done anything overly exciting so far. The bulk of my time has been occupied by apartment hunting with my sister, fixing up bank accounts (thank you sis for taking the initiative and getting it all set up while we were at home), getting mobiles in order, and getting work sorted out - so far, no dice. To tell the truth, I’m a bit wary of the agents here. One of the recruiters I saw offered to charge £500 to write my resume and a set of cover letters. I guess there are people out there with more money than English skills, but £500? “Don’t you step that line, girlfriend”

Anyway, I’ll be taking a break from all this and going out for a wander in the city…

After a gruelling day’s worth of flying, I’m still alive and kicking.

The apartment is pretty good - it’s quite spacious and it smells like fresh Air Wick. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be staying here for but I wouldn’t mind settling down.

We went out for a quick wander in the city today for lunch and yes - the Chinese food I’ve had so far in London is teh suck. Here’s to humouring mothers wanting to see “how they do things here”.

The London Tube is pretty good. CityRail is not exactly a fair comparison but they both have the same “look and feel”. They too have a unified card system like Hong Kong…oh, the convenience.

Hmm…there’s nothing much else to say without resorting to accents (I say “G’day” and you say “Charmed”). I’m sure we all can imagine the hilarity that ensues.

I think my brain is still about 60% mush from the lack of physical activity on the plane…time for a twilight jog and a kip.

Yep, I’m still here. It’s nice to leave huge tasks to the last minute when you’re planning on taking an extended trip.

As much as it pains me I’ll be leaving my faithful 360 behind, as well as my trusty rig, leaving them in the capable hands of my associates. I’m not really comfortable with lugging my console over to the other side of the world, especially when there’s a whole region to explore. Yes, I’m well aware that I’ll be missing out on the heady joys of new releases, and will be reduced to finding tidbits of news instead of writing reviews, but it won’t last forever.

Other than that, I have no idea what I’ll be doing over there in my downtime. Reading Facebook, I guess. Jesus.

Well, I guess my mother will be happy that I’ll be off the games for a while…expect to see me coming down hard with withdrawal symptoms within the first month or so.

Enjoy the reviews while they’re here - I probably won’t have much opportunity to write while I’m on the other side of the planet, especially on the review front.

Jericho exceeded some expectations, and fell hard on others. Read the review to see which way the scales tipped.

Man, that title is a mouthful. I wish I could just say “Click here to read what I just wrote” instead, but that wouldn’t be very informative.

It’s been a while since I’ve done an actual product review - thankfully this is a good one. A review on Jericho is coming up and definitely in the works.

I’ll admit it - I’m thinking of bringing my 360 overseas. Yes, a 6 month adventure should not be sullied by the presence of a gaming console. Maybe if I was staying there for a couple of years, sure. Then it would be a necessity - you can only go to so many places in so short a time frame. But 6 months is still a bit too short for my tastes. Plus I’d probably get arrested at Heathrow…all those electronics = bomb, obviously.

Anyway, some titles I’m looking forward to this year:

• Devil May Cry 4 - But of course. I have the sinking feeling that they’re going to screw it up; it’s going to be like DMC2 but next-gen. Oh well, I’ll always have DMC3 to fall back on.
• The Club - I suppose the “battle royale” concept behind this game isn’t terribly unique. In fact, it’s just glorified deathmatch. But it’s piqued my interest, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on it.
• Army of Two - A game that is actually based on co-op? Woohoo, someone was listening.
• Silent Hill 5 - There were 4 games before it: they must be onto something. Seriously though; the series is so fucked up that I can’t pull myself away. Eagerly anticipating this one.
• Condemned 2: Bloodshot - The original was a bit of a sleeper hit, and I can imagine it wouldn’t have connected well with the “when the fuck do i get the big gun” audience. Personally I liked it, a lot. There’s just something about hitting someone with a locker door and watching their teeth go flying.
• Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 - Hooray! The trailer for this was pretty uninspiring, but if it’s anything like the original then definitely looking forward to this one.
• Spore - Control the fate of your species as it moves through the various evolutionary phases. Can’t get much more original than that.
• Grand Theft Auto 4 - We’ll see if the dates get knocked back, but that multiplayer mode is looking good, as well as everything else.
• Alan Wake - So…it’s going to be released this year, right? Right?

I’m certain some have slipped my mind - feel free to jog my memory.

Just this minute I managed to bowl over Clive Barker’s Jericho. Overall it was an interesting idea (not to mention some parts were a bit trippy), but as a whole it really could have gone an extra mile or three. A shame that there’s no co-op.

Plus it has a bit of an understated ending. Kind of like an “oh, it’s over now” feeling. I’m not all that disappointed because of it, since I’m not 100% sure I want to see a sequel. However (from Wikipedia):

Clive Barker has revealed that a sequel is on the cards. Stating that it may be set on an aircraft ship with 666 children in the hold.

;)

I’ll go into more detail on the game soon. I’ve also finished writing up the AD700 review - just a few more days of aural evaluation and I’ll finalise my thoughts.