I was doing some YouTube surfing and watched some of the highlights from Australia's last World Cup (Soccer) campaign and I stumbled upon this...

As most long term readers know, GiganticHeadStu and I partake in FIFA 08 challenges and similar to State of Origin, the win-loss and for-and-against are frightfully close after so many games. Well at least they were until last night.

I won the first game 8-3 but much later in the night and MANY drinks later Stu decided to challenge me and my sobriety again. The previous record for a drubbing was Stu 16 Brad 4 but this paled to the

25-5

destruction I dished out in the wee hours of the morning. Wayne Rooney had twelve goals on his own! Moral of the story kids is don't drink and competitively game. Thank goodness FIFA is here to tide me over until Euro 2008 starts otherwise I'd be all out of soccer to watch. Anyone see Dean Windass' goal for Hull City to put them in the Premier League for the very first time? A volley of a lifetime.

How is everyone going with GTA IV? A number of people who know their games had a word to me that I absolutely MUST try the multiplayer so I will get to it once I've finished Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance again on the Xbox v1. Speaking of the big black box, I can't believe I called it "old school" the other day... how time flies. Switching between the S Controller and the Xbox 360 Controller really highlights what an exceptional job Microsoft did doing the little things right to make such a superb controller upgrade. For those keeping score I abhor the pathetic and archaic PS controller. SixAxis doesn't not count as a revolution in design. I know people who love the PS controller so its certainly a personal taste for every gamer.

Ninja Gaiden II is not far away and I wonder if my n00bish skills will be sufficient this time around. I am truly a Ninja Dog! It does look sweet though and will be getting a good hack 'n bash 'n slash.

I am turning 28 this coming Sunday and I am wondering what game I should play for some online fun with some Aussies and minimal lag. Suggestions?

The mystery with the "who wants more LAN's" is still unsolved and in the works, so keep those fingers crossed!!

I have finally finished the main story in GTA IV and in a word it is superb. There is twists and turns throughout and it certainly evokes strong emotions as you play through it. It certainly has one main fact that defines a great game which is the "just one more mission" effect that makes you get to bed at 4am, miss work or assignments and generally pause your life until its complete. Case in point this blog not being updated in a week

Taking Metacritic.com and GameRankings.com as gospel, GTA IV ranks pretty much as the greatest game ever made. Now don't get me wrong - GTA IV is an utterly amazing game that has redefinied the open world genre that previous iterations of GTA defined, however I don't know if I can call it my best ever game due to one single question.

"Will I play through it again?" The answer is "probably not".

Now that I've finished the main story I really don't have the desire to play it again, and I certainly don't feel the need to go and complete the 20 race missions or the 10 package delivery jobs or whatever other mundane and repetitive side missions there are. I feel the same as I did when I finished BioShock in that I knew that I'd finished an epic single player campaign but in doing so I condemned the game to the trade in pile.

Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to do so with GTA IV as I haven't given the multiplayer a go yet, but I honestly think I'd rather play Call fo Duty 4 online right now. Maybe in a few weeks I'll change my mind about this and all that I have written above but as it stands right now, I've finished the main story of GTA IV - I enjoyed it immensely and it certainly is an all time great but to me, games such as Civ 2 and Rise of Nations rank higher in my view only because they kept me coming back for more.

So my question to you guys if you can get away from GTA for long enough to read my blog is where does it rank right now for you and if you have finished the main story, will you go back and play it again?

Where is Tangramayne you ask?

It was the first city that I ever visited in a video game; the starter city to Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight on the Apple IIe. A 22x22 grid of a maze of buildings and passages in 16 colours, it left a lot to the imagination to give it life.

What a long and colourful journey it has been to arrive in Liberty City for the third time. A pure masterpiece of programming and design genius, Liberty City in GTA IV has far surpassed any other world/city/dungeon before it as well as anything in my wildest dreams as a kid playing AD&D Gold Box classics.

After finally getting off the PC to head up to my good mates at GAME Chatswood to get a copy yesterday I have been in awe of what Rockstar have achieved. I'm not going to review GTA IV - I honestly don't see the point as it has been done to death already and a number one ranking at GameRankings.com and Metacritic. All I can recommend is that you all take a moment to appreciate the journey from your very first city you visited in the world of video games to the magnum opus that is Liberty City. I'd love to hear what people's first virtual cities are so leave your comments below.

GTA IV is here and most of you who read this blog are most probably enjoying what could be the best rated game in history. I know a lot of mainstream press like to add that its violent and shows drug use blah blah blah (just to be provocative for the sake of it), but it is a great positive to see more than a few liken it to a great gangster/mafia film. From what I have read it surpasses them all... games or movies.

I haven't had the chance to play it yet but I did load up the original GTA from 1997 for the PC just for a quick laugh and you certainly can see the heritage that is prevalent in the later titles. I'm a big sucker for the history of gaming so if you have only played the 3D GTA's from III onwards I implore you to find a copy of the original and give it an hour. It's worth the giggle to experience some gaming history.

GTA IV is a game that is going to take a load of time to get through so I'll be taking my time to play it and enjoy it, just like a good scotch.

Good luck to tranceVib for his wedding on the weekend. I've had the pleasure of meeting his bride a few times and he's done exceptionally well for himself!!  Hope the wedding goes spectacularly well guys. Marriage... <shudder>

Speaking of weddings, I'm off to the Gold Coast tomorrow for Stu's buck's weekend which will include the trots, some golf and a few drinks. It should be a great deal of fun... as long as my golf swing is on song! I'd like to get close to my dad at least once in the next few years as beating a 90 year old at golf in a few decades times really isn't a victory to celebrate too much!

I need to play the new Mario Kart. Period.

I find it mildly amusing that the UEFA Champions League final will be contested by two English sides.... in bloody Moscow?!?! I hope for a Man Utd-Liverpool final just due to all the history between the two sides. If only there was a way to move the final to Wembley Stadium.... imagine the atmosphere!

Who wants more LAN's? Vote with your comments below. If a certain opportunity comes off in the next week or so it could be a reality. Everyone have their fingers crossed for me!!

I did load up Galactic Civilizations II the other day and if you like 4X games then you must play this. Deep, challenging and diverse.... pure gaming excellence.

Well as my fellow Sydneysiders can attest to, it has been wet and miserable in the Emerald City for what seems to be an eternity. However we must remember that we were in drought not that long ago and the rain is filling our dams and making Morris Iemma's insistence to spend billions on a desalination plant look pretty foolish in the short term. I do know one little quadruped who is very unhappy about the rain.... little Oscar is furious that his park walks are being curtailed by the downpour!! Although he has a raincoat both his mother and him are big wusses and won't go out there. Aren't you Katie

The rain has allowed me to enjoy an old favourite of mine and that is Sid Meier's SimGolf. I have always enjoyed golf games, all the way back to World Class Leader Board on the Apple IIe which I still have. One of my favourite features on WCLB was the ability to "design" your own course by taking holes from the four included courses and plot out a dream course to play. I did always dream of a game where you could actually design every aspect of the course and then play it. SimGolf was that game... however I missed it when it came along in 1996. I certainly did not miss Sid Meier's SimGolf in 2001 as it combined the genius of Sid Meier and Will Wright to create a business/strategy sim based on golf. Pure gaming goodness in my books. As you design and expnad your course, your Sim becomes a better golfer, allowing you to win exhibition games and tournaments which of course bring in the simoleons to expand and upgrade the course... and thus the addictive cycle begins.

The lack of posting here on pidgeo.com has been pretty much due to my re-addiction to Sid Meier's SimGolf. Should I post myself on "The List" again, or should Sid Meier get the blame? At least it fills the six days until the global phenomenon known as GTA IV arrives. For those who own both the PS3 and Xbox 360 I'd be interested to see which console you will be buying it for? Considering this audience is very pro-360 I pretty much know the answer to that, but I do wonder how the general gaming populace will be investing their cash. If Call of Duty 4 is any guide it's the 360 by a wiiiiiiiiide margin!! How long will it take to complete the main story I wonder but I certainly plan on finding out in good time.

Do we have any Star Trek fans out there? Oh lord I hope no-one of the fairer sex who is single is reading this post hehe. The reason I ask is that my introduction to Star Trek was Enterprise, a show that seemed to garner its fair share of criticism from Trekkies. I personally really enjoyed 97 of the 98 episodes (let us never speak of the finale again) so I wonder if Voyager, DS9, TNG and TOS are so much better? Maybe if I don't want to stay single I shouldn't bother finding out hehe.

When will Zune come to Australia I wonder? Just wondering out loud as I enjoy using mine as my bedroom entertainment device. Minds out of the gutter people!! Great screen, good software and it's not a boring old iPod. I do like the Creative Zen Vision W but I'm too cheap and too used to free stuff to pay for one!!

Anzac Day = Australia's greatest public holiday. I still want to attend a dawn service at Splendour Rock, the war memorial for bushwalkers about 25kms south of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains wilderness. I have been there a number of times in my hiking days (long ago!) and it is one of the most amazing places on the planet, and a fitting tribute to the fallen. I will get there one day... maybe I should aim for 2009?

Blake Lively is the most beautiful woman on television even though a) she has a bloke's name and b) Gossip Girl is a horrendous TV show! I dare you to try and watch an episode!

I wanted to give a shout out to a fellow (and MUCH more successful) blogger Samantha Brett who has a blog on SMH.com.au which is all about sex and relationships. Now I don't want to get all sensitive and such but I will say that such blogs are wonderfully informative and let's be honest... we males can use every bit of intelligence on the fairer sex as we can get!! Evil she-devils  Sam (who is utterly stunning btw) was nice enough to reply to my e-mail of praise for her excellent and award winning blog so I thought it only right do my tiny little bit to advertise hers. I somehow don't think the majority of her audience will have an interest in my nerdy ramblings hahaha.

Family Guy = awesome. A mate of mine who now works at the Microsoft Mothership once said that Family Guy was better than The Simpsons. MightyOat and I bagged him out but he may of had a point after all. So Nic - I apologise for the bagging from four years ago as you may have been right.

Where does Call of Duty 4 rank all time for online and LAN shooters? I am crap at it but I can watch Stu play it for hours... bet that stops after the wedding mate hehehe.

I caught up with tranceVib today for the first time in over a week as he is chaotically getting things organised for the upcoming wedding to his wonderful fiance. As usual we solved all the gaming world's problems, laughed at the rumour that MGS4 will be 576p (HAHAHA if it's true) and discussed plenty of crazy ideas that may come to light if a few things go well next week for me. Seriously if Project "Train Tourney" comes off it would be beyond awesome for those who got to the finals. I'll leave it at that.

Six more sleeps to GTA IV!! 

We'll start with the winners and it was a tough choice because each of the lists were of the highest quality, but there has to be three winners so here they are.

• DarkArmada for his exceptional list that I have wasted eons of time on
• Mojo XP for not only admitting he owned a N-Gage, but he bought 10 GAMES FOR IT!!!
• Barnzey for his irreverent humour

I was having a look at what I actually installed when I loaded up Civilization Chronicles and to my delight I found Civ 2: Test of Time, which is a range of modded Civ games based on the Civ 2 engine. My instant favourite was the Fantasy mod as one of my all time favourite turn-based strategy games is Master of Magic, a 4X classic as I've said a number of times on this blog. Combining fantasy with the greatest 4X engine in history equals a new time destroyer in my game collection!! Just what I need in the lead up to Civilization Revolutions which arrives June 6 for Xbox 360 and PS3. I'll be playing it on the Xbox 360... Xbox Live > PSN by a wide margin

Have you seen the Don King Presents Prizefighter trailer? This could be another launch in Winter to stay on top of as just the training modes look awesome. Right click HERE to download. For some stupid reason it won't play when I embed it so I'm being lazy.

IGN UK has got this absolutely right....

Mario Kart SNES > Mario Kart DS > Mario Kart GBA > Mario Kart Double Dash > Mario Kart 64

Sorry but Mario Kart 64 was not even close to the orginal goodness of the SNES classic. Double Dash was a massive disappointment too so its great to see that it looks like Mario Kart has got back to its exceptional roots. About time I say!!  I know there is that silly wheel thing for the WiiMote but I will be playing this with the Nunchuk as if I could I'd drive a car with a controller... scratch that... an Xbox 360 controller. Think Tomorrow Never Dies but substitute the phone for a wireless 360 controller. I was THIS close to buying a second hand BMW 750iL but got talked out of it due to the uber-expensive parts.... still a cool car anyway. For those wondering I went with a Monaro instead.

The van is still going strong!!

Oscar visited today and he still rules. Don't you love ex-girlfirends who need help with their IT dramas?!? Just stirring Katie She is still a Burnout Revenge guru!!

Thanks to Stu and my sis I now have the 'flu. If it gets worse I will have to bail on DarkLAN this weekend...

Stu and I have been playing a bit of Tiger Woods 08 of late. As my character is maxed out I am really enjoying crunching drives well over 300m... just like real life Actually the only thing accurately portrayed on my character is my large jaw.

If you like wrestling make sure you subscribe to JR's Bar-B-Q Blog. It's my favourite blog on the internet as JR tells it straight with honesty and no BS, without the arrogance often found out on the 'net. Next time I'm in the US I think I will make the trip to Oklahoma just to try his world renowned Ribs!! I constantly try to lift my game to match his excellent standards so keep the feedback coming. All (sensible) comments are welcome.

One thing I hear all the time is whinging and moaning about the length of games to complete, specifically their campaign mode. Now doing some simple maths, if you compare it to buying a DVD @ $20 which gives you at best 3 hours of entertainment plus extras barely anyone watches, you'd expect a gaming to deliver 15 hours of play time. Should games be given additional credit as they are interactive? To me, it's about quality. I'll take Gears of War on Insane, Call of Duty 4 on Veteran or Halo 3 on Legendary over pretty much any DVD I own and those who say these games are too short... stop playing them on Easy

On the whole value for money thing, I thought I'd put together my Top 10 Xbox 360 games in terms of value for money... if I'd actually paid for any of them hehe. I've estimate the amount of game time spent on them between Stu and I as well as our thoughts about how good the game actually was to come up with the rankings. Now I'm looking for your contributions and I have three XBLA games to give away to the best three Top 10 I get in the comments section. I'll edit this to put what games they are later on (can't remember right now)

Pidgeo and Stu's Top 10 Best Value games for Xbox 360

Honourable Mention: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, Crackdown, GRAW, GRAW2, Smackdown vs RAW 2007 and 2008 

10. Fight Night 3 (20hrs)

The campaign was short, and the bouts between mates even shorter as I'm not very good ("I AM GOOD"... Happy Gilmore rules) but due to the nature of boxing this is to be expected. Probably the first game that really showed what next-gen was all about... as Perfect Dark Zero sure as hell didn't!! Fight Night still gets a play on nights with adult beverages being consumed!! 

9. Gears of War (25hrs)

Yes the campaign was short but on Insane it was just awesome and we both are waiting for more later this year with the second installment. There is next gen and there is Gears of War. The PS3 wishes it could do something as nice as Gears (yes I know there is a game using the same engine but its not close to GoW) Good multiplayer added to the mayhem... but let's be honest Stu and I aren't that great at it!! Watching the elite play at WCG was a sight to behold. 

7. Puzzle Quest (ummm...)

Let's combine an RPG with a Tetris style puzzler.... a great way to ruin my productivity for three months!!

6. Call of Duty 2 (50hrs)

Superb. Just superb.

So many games try to do WWII but none are even close to COD2 on Veteran. Pure hardcore gaming at its finest. Stu and I still shudder at the Normandy landing scene. 

5. FIFA 07 (200hrs)

FIFA 06 was an abomination on 360, World Cup 06 was good but FIFA 07 got the most time of the three. It showed glimpses of greatness but due to the sheer amount of playtime it has to be on this list.

4. Halo 3 (100hrs)

It's the end of an era with more of the excellent multiplayer that made it a household name... who would have thought a certain Infinity Ward game would overshadow it on Live?!?! Still, we got some excellent value out of the Spartan helmet 

3. Oblivion (550hrs)

We keep asking ourselves.... when is the next Elder Scrolls game coming?? This is the epitome of what a WRPG should be which means some hate it, but those who enjoy what RPG's are all about loved this and lost similar amounts of time to it as we did.

2. Call of Duty 4 (750hrs)

Admittedly Stu accounts for about 700 of those and not because I dislike it at all. I've played through the campaign a number of times and think the multiplayer is glorious... Stu just plays it ALL the time!! Plus unless I'm playing with him, Barnzey and/or Atomic HellCat its not as much fun... because I suck!!  

1. FIFA 08 (Too bloody many)

Do I really need to explain this one? We're now 33-28 my way and most of those are 40 minute games. On top of that we've both played numerous managerial seasons.... bring on '09!! One quick question... what happened to the long shot control that was suppose to arrive in '08? Maybe I should be thankful considering Stu has Steven Gerrard.... for those who need a lesson of his greatness watch this clip.

Well there you have it. Get those lists in and I will announce winners on Friday.

How awesome is this?!?! Xbox and GAME are giving away an $80k Xbox 360 chopper as part of a huge competition where you can win loads of prizes out of a prize pool of $200k! Here's the press release with the details

Have you ever wanted to get your hands on an Xbox 360 that moves at speeds of up to 200km/hour? Aussie gamers now have the chance to live the dream with the Xbox 360 Chopper Bike, the main prize in a current retail promotion by GAME stores across the country. 

Handcrafted from the ground up by GHL Custom Choppers, the Xbox 360 Chopper Bike is the first of its kind with slick flowing lines to evoke the Xbox 360 console’s organic design. The massive 1200cc engine rolling on 18 and 21 inch billet chrome wheels makes this bike a dream to ride.

World-renowned airbrush artist Wayne Harrison is the creative brainchild behind the artwork. The bike is a must-have for any gaming guru, motor head or an admirer of fine design. With a string of awards already in his trophy cabinet, Wayne was the artist chosen by the builder of the V8 Trike which was used in one of the series filmed in Australia for ‘Orange County choppers. The Xbox 360 Chopper Bike is set to be one of Wayne’s best designs to date. 

Throughout April and May customers who purchase a special Xbox 360 console bundle at GAME will go into the major prize draw for a chance to win the Xbox 360 Chopper bike – which is valued at up to $80,000 -  and also receive one “scratch to win” game card. The instant win prize pool is valued at over $200,000 and includes prizes such as Samsung LCD TVs; exclusive GAME/MTV/Microsoft party tickets; Xbox 360 games; Xbox LIVE® trial kits; Halo® 3 hats; and GAME discount vouchers.

For a look behind closed doors of the Chopper bike workshop check out the following video:        www.xbox.com.au/chopper. 

For terms and conditions please go to

http://www.game.com.au/choppercomp

If there isn't a better excuse to get an Xbox 360 or a second or third Xbox 360 I'd like someone to show me it! Go to GAME.com.au to find out more!! NOW! GO NOW!!