Thus, after a long evening and a short attention span in full force it feels a good time to finally post. That and I have a link worth sharing which seems worth posting.  Sam Houston created a post of all the Games devs/publishers currently on Twitter, over the course of the day it’s taken off with a RockPapersShotgun post from the legend that is Kieron Gillen. It’s a pretty awesome collection of names from across the industry, covering some of the big boys and small boys of the industry. 

What I find interesting is the different way people use twitter, now there’s no hard and fast rules on twitter obviously especially as a developing(ed) format and I’ve certainly been meaning to write up my thoughts on its place within the videogame family. The likes of Valve have obviously gone for the clearly much more “marketing” orientated approach, using twitter as an advertising platform. Whilst others use it much more as a general, “hey here’s me” approach which I guess provides a nice insight for gamers into day to day lives. 

I know that some companies certainly don’t know how to deal with twitter, and there are a wide range of policies in place at different companies as they try to figure out how to balance PR / Marketing with the insight and updates that Twitter could potentially offer. This has gone as far as outright bans, limiting access to just the community team or leaving it open as a free for all with the individual entrusted to manage themselves. 

In a world where a single miss-type or accidental post can spread around the world quicker than you can think I can understand the caution felt by some. I certainly think it’s going to be a while though till twitter becomes fully embraced across the industry and the quite figure out how to handle it. 

Apologies that’s mine is broken at the moment on the right but you’d only be able to read about how tired I am and not getting enough done on my “to-do-list” 

Check out Sam’s post though and start following!

 I’m well aware that it’s been almost a month since the last update, but this “blog” serves no real purpose other than a place for me to vent and write when I want to. I’ve seen various posts written out there by people on top tips to grow your blog, etc. They normally involve statements like “know your audience”, “write with a purpose”, “have your own style” and “update regularly”, I’m fairly confident I fall down at most of those hurdles but m’eh. I write this for me, I sort of know me, and I guess I have my own style…so maybe I’m not far off. Not that I don’t like having other people read it, it’s always nice to feel a little less ’small’ in this world. 

That’s a fairly extensive aside for an intro, it’s a round about way of apologising to the one reader that complained about no update (even if they were taking the piss!). Its been a busy time and 2009 isn’t going to get much quieter with a Q2 release to get out so when I’m tight on time I guess I’d rather be playing games than venting and there have been some goooood games to play! 

In an attempt to give myself something to write about tomorrow, I’m limiting this post other than to say, my “Holiday Mission” isn’t going as well as I’d hoped despite a decent start and in the top left corner you’ll see “The Ninja” a sneak preview of the new look coming to the site when I can actualy get some time to sit down and figure out wordpress templates (unless anyone wants to help?). 

Holiday Mission being to complete a number of games that I’ve not got around to playing over the course of the year.

The list includes:

• Braid
• Call of Duty - World at War
• Bioshock
• Portal (already done it on PC but want to do it again on XBOX)
• Tomb Raider Underworld
• Gears of War (Never did finish that last level before)

Braid’s been completed, and is an awesome game, was one puzzle piece away from finishing it in one sitting. Had to tap out around 3.30am 

COD 5 is also down, single player nothing online done, good but I still prefer COD4 just for the setting. See the epic fail in action @ my gamer profile.

Tomorrow - The over use of the word “epic” in videogame marketing. A subject close to my heart! 

For amusement value, courtesy of applegeeks I shall leave you with this:

That to me represents a pretty solid list of games to be playing over the course of 6 weeks, assuming a week to two weeks a game that sees me good till Christmas. However, and it is one almighty however, that doesn’t include a whole host of other games that are more than worthy of attention. It leaves out: Dead Space, Red Alert 3, Endwar, Farcry 2, Fable II, Fallout 3, Little Big Planet, Call of Duty 5 & Left 4 Dead.

It’s insane, there is really not enough time to try out the games. Now obviously some will be better than others and not worthy of the hype some will also not fall under personal preferences of “games I’d like to play” but still that’s an extraordinary number of games to come out in the same 8 - 10 week period. Edge-online ran a light piece on the “Holiday Crush” I understand the Christmas mentality for holiday sales, etc but this year does seem worse than others, last year was more a good title a week where as now it seems to be 2-3 good titles a week. 

It’s awesome that so many companies are making really good games and is something that can only benefit the consumer in the long run. However it can’t help but feel a little non-sensical at times, I don’t think the release schedules are going to change though and Christmas buying will continue to be the pinnacle target for all games publishers, with good reason obviously! It’s a proven model and has continued to work for the last 10 years, but I’m curious to see what sales numbers will look like at the end of the year after such a crowded Christmas. But then my games coming out in April so what do I care…

I offer nothing more, need offer nothing more than to tip my hat at his speech writer and go to bed with the warm sense of what’s to come. 

Meanwhile in Russia they are moving short range missiles closer to Poland and talking of extending the length of term that a president can remain in office…echoes of history?

Watch this and feel temporarily lifted: