A Complete 360

My replacement Xbox turned up a week ago. Thankfully this time I've been sent an entirely new one, rather than a refurbished one. It's much quieter than any of the Xboxes I've owned or borrowed from work, and hopefully that's a good sign.

So, after two weeks of being Xbox deprived (so deprived in fact, that I even resorted to playing Haze on the PS3) I have finally been able to dive into Fable 2, which is amazing (but more on that later).

I just need to get the time to crack on with Fallout 3 now. And Gears of War 2. And Saints Row 2. And Little Big Planet. And FarCry 2. And Midnight Club. And finish off Lego Batman.

Bargain Alert

For anyone in the UK - Game are selling Overlord for £15 at the moment. It's definitely worth picking up for that price.

Too many good games.

Bioshock, Halo 3, Skate, Mass Effect, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Project Gotham Racing 4, Halflife Orange Box, Call of Duty 4.

And I'm sure there's plenty of quality out there that I've forgotten about, or aren't really that interested in*. Forget "is this next gen?" - it doesn't matter. It's a brilliant time to be a gamer.

* I'm saving "I think all 3d Mario games are rubbish" for another confessions post.

Develop awards

First bit of happy news - congratulations to anyone who won a Develop Award last week.

Misery-guts insurgents would like people to believe their "you didn't deserve it" propaganda, but fuck 'em, just bask in the glory of somebody - anybody - recognising your hard work.

In particular well done to Realtime Worlds. I've bleated on enough about how I love Crackdown, and you guys did a great job.

Cheer up, sleepy Jean

I've gotten a bit down recently about how fucking miserable everyone in the games industry seems to be.

I know it's probably not the case (I bet there are plenty of happy developers out there, and I know and work with a whole load of them) and it's more than likely just the horribly twisting looking glass that is the internet working its wonderful charm again, but it's still annoying me.

We have cool jobs. I know there are interruptions from management, marketing people sticking their oars in, tools that aren't brilliant, publishers who are out to rob you, budgets are up, innovation is down, there is unpaid overtime, there are bonuses that never materialise, and a world of other things. But I'd still rather be doing this than driving a bus along the same route for 7 days a week.

Misery loves company, or something. I bet happy fun time is getting a bit bored of no-one coming to its party. So I'm going to try and be more positive about the games industry in my infrequent posts from now on.