January and the subsequent months seem to be awards season- after all, what better way to summarise the previous year of media and culture than hand out accolades, or, as a significant step-down, a neat text summary or two?

So the Game Developers Choice Awards, not as prestigious or perhaps renowned as they should be certainly, but all the same, a highly pivotal event in the games industry calendar. Voted for entirely by other game developers, and theorhetically people-in-the-know, the chances of tat like EA's Fifa Street series picking up anything is thankfully low. Naturally the nominees then are all the big hitters from last year- Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Phantom Hourglass and Rock Band. The other big game of the year The Orange Box also being included, but thankfully the games that make up the package are rightly regarded as separate entities here, rather than a collected awesomeness. Portal receives five nominations, while HL2 Ep2 and Team Fortress 2 get one each, again, rightly deserved.

As with the previous awards post, here's my predictions and preferences, this time though, nigh-impossible to pick a favourite when all nominations are, imo, completely worthy.

Game Developers Choice Awards 2008 Nominees
*who I would like to win *who I predict will win

Best Game Design
BioShock
Call of Duty 4
Mass Effect
Portal
Super Mario Galaxy

Best Visual Art
Assassin's Creed
Team Fortress 2
Crysis
BioShock
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Best Technology
Halo 3
Crysis
Call of Duty 4
Portal
Assassin's Creed

Best Writing
Portal
God of War II
Mass Effect
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
BioShock

Best Audio
Call of Duty 4
Everyday Shooter
BioShock
God of War II
Mass Effect

Best Debut
Crackdown (Realtime Worlds)
flOw (ThatGameCompany)
The Witcher (CD Projekt)
Everyday Shooter (Queasy Games)
Aquaria (Bit Blot)

Innovation
Rock Band
Portal
flOw
Peggle
Mass Effect

Best Handheld Game
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Phase
Contra 4
Peggle (for iPod)

Best Downloadable Game
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Everyday Shooter
Peggle
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (XBLA version)
Flow

Game of the Year
BioShock
Call of Duty 4
Portal
Rock Band
Super Mario Galaxy

The winners are announced on the 20th of February.

The nominees for the upcoming 2008 Brit Awards have been revealed tonight.

As ever it's the usual line-up of tat and UK trash, in an awards ceremony that becomes ever more irrelevant with every passing year. That said, despite the usual annual musical fads and scenes there are some nominations that are exactly spot-on.

The first of which and mostly deserved is the inclusion of Bat for Lashes in British Breakthrough and Female Solo, and although they continue to creep more into the public eye with every month, the two nominations for Klaxons seem somewhat appropriate too. Casting away my stereotypical genre fan persona for a minute or two, i'm glad Take That and Girls Aloud got nominations each as well, two of the few remaining pop bands that actually exist nowadays. 'Course, it's still full of rubbish, but given the awards' placing in society that pretty much a given- with the past year being full of musical irritation from both Kate Nash and Mika it would've been more surprising if they hadn't been included.

Brit Awards 2008 nominees
*who I would like to win *who I predict will win

British Male Solo Artist
Jamie T
Mark Ronson
Mika
Newton Faulkner
Richard Hawley

British Female Solo Artist
Bat For Lashes
Kate Nash
KT Tunstall
Leona Lewis
PJ Harvey

British Group
Arctic Monkeys
Editors
Girls Aloud
Kaiser Chiefs
Take That

British Album
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Leona Lewis - Spirit
Mark Ronson - Version
Mika - Life In Cartoon Motion
Take That - Beautiful World

British Breakthrough Act
Bat For Lashes
Kate Nash
Klaxons
Leona Lewis
Mika

British Live Act
Arctic Monkeys
Kaiser Chiefs
Klaxons
Muse
Take That

British Single
Leona Lewis - 'Bleeding Love'
Mika - 'Grace Kelly'
Take That - 'Shine'
Kaiser Chiefs - 'Ruby'
Sugababes - 'About You Now'
Mark Ronson ft. Amy Winehouse - 'Valerie'
Kate Nash - 'Foundations'
The Hoosiers - 'Worried About Ray'
James Blunt - '1973'
Mutya Buena - 'Real Girl'

International Male Solo Artist
Bruce Springsteen
Kanye West
Michael Bublé
Rufus Wainwright
Timbaland

International Female Solo Artist
Alicia Keys
Bjork
Feist
Kylie Minogue
Rihanna

International Group
Arcade Fire
Eagles
Foo Fighters
Kings of Leon
White Stripes

International Album
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Eagles - Long Road out of Eden
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Kylie Minogue - X

The winners are announced on the 20th of February.

MOO, as their site suggests, "love to print".

Using photos direct from your Flickr, Live Journal or Facebook stream as well as some of the other inferior social/photo sites out there, they can print your shots onto something nice such as greeting cards or stickers, for whatever use you intend. Intrigued -and dazzled- I ordered some of their MiniCards recently, and they are rather nice.

The cards have a matte-laminate finish, and despite their seeming small 28 x70mm dimensions, photos look great on them. The site doesn't designate any one use for the cards, and instead offer a handful of ideas and creative options for you to decide from or to get started with. With the option of text on the back of the cards i've made mine into mini-calling cards, or rather, personal hand-out url cards to anyone interested in seeing some of my photos, reducing the need of a pen & paper or an awkward follow-up email later in the day.

Obviously some photos will work better than others, but the small size means that bright/colourful photos will look neater than something laden with detail. The end result, a photo distinctly abstract and fun is a nice outcome. The added bonus, obviously, is the dual-function of the cards- this is not mere tedious numbers and names, but rather, a teaser of the rest of your gallery. Best of all, it's finally a chance to print photos... just for fun.

£100, twelve days of shipping, a minor confrontation with both the postie and the post-office, and my delivery is finally here!

No Indiana Jones Lego as I ordered before it was in stock, but im hoping to try again in a few weeks.

 

Like all good stories, the plot to Bioshock begins with little introduction and a huge emphasis on impact.

Beginning with the crashing of an aeroplane into the ocean, within seconds the player is subjected to the brightly-lit 1960's underwater universe that is Rapture, and subsequently, the psychotic and on edge population that comes with it. As an introduction it ticks the list of emotions like no other, these opening minutes being exciting, epic, unnerving and altogether tense. It is not only one of the best videogame openers of all time, but rather, one of the best fictitious openings, that truly has to be played or witnessed once by any fan of the medium.

Thankfully, this is no cheap-trick, and throughout the playthrough Bioshock continues to evoke a multitude of emotions while still providing consistently good gameplay. Okay, so on first impressions this is nothing more than just another mere first-person-shooter, but beyond the visuals, the game also innovates in many areas. First and most notably Bioshock adds a layer of RPG gaming to the experience. It may sound baffling, and while there's no battling mages or the like, there is a surprising emphasis on levelling-up and abilities, such as casting fire or freezing enemies. Again, it sounds odd, but in conjunction with the game's tone and story, it soon becomes second-nature.

The story though is one of the game's biggest draw, again, going against pre-conceptions and conventions of the FPS. Here there is no multiplayer, but with a single-player adventure so very on par with that of Half-Life 2, you don't need it. Beyond your arrival into Rapture the game world will continue to dazzle and awe, despite the ugly, sinister subject matter it occasionally represents. Full of backstory and with more than one significant plot-twist through the playthrough it's better experienced rather than described, but the game is undoubtedly an adventure in this respect, rather than just a mere shoot-em-up.

So it stands to reason then that mentioning the gameplay and shooting elements of a FPS last in a review is batshit insane, especially when the actual gameplay is so entertainingly satisfying. The gunplay on offer is successful, responsive, and in keeping with the rest of the game, always visually stunning and innovative. It is...fun, but with the game such an overall rewarding and enjoyable experience from beginning to end it is easy to forget about the characteristics of the weaponry entirely, simply because of the visual fireworks that will be going on around you. That said, judged simply as a shooter and nothing else, Bioshock is fantastic, the rest of the optional gameplay elements, obviously, just making the game all that bit sweeter.



Bioshock was released in August last year. While there's no doubt i'm completely late to the party in declaring this game's awesomeness, having just completed this game myself recently I am now all the more aware of the error of my ways in not playing this much sooner. The game is a rollercoaster of emotions, great gameplay, and audio/visual heaven, and if you didn't play it last year, then please do so, as soon as humanly possible.

Team Fortress 2 is fantastic. A FPS that demands the players work together to complete their combined mission, with a real sense of co-operation amongst strangers. Here's what happens when that simply isn't the case- an awesome video full of PC gamers getting annoyed with their comrades. (Via Team ROOMBA)

You maybe have to have an understanding of the game mechanics to appreciate this fully, but what the hey, i'm blogging it anyway.

Most started, all unfinished. This is my games backlog. Oh, and i've got some more conventional resolutions too, but I wont bore you with my reasons for why I enjoyed 2007, so don't worry.

Presumably i'll be typing the exact same things a year from now unless I get a major personality-transplant, but there's nothing drastic there so i'll try them a little.I'm also going to be unemployed in a month's time, ending whatever hopes I have of buying something nice like, I dunno, more games to not play. If anyone wants to employ me or just send me money randomly for fun, please get emailing immediately.

Finally, Happy New Year to anyone reading or subscribing, and thanks for being here reading this.