It’s been far too long since my last update. I’ve spent most of my time looking for work, and I usually just feel too burned-out by the end of the day to say anything intelligent. I wrote a few half-finished articles, and came up with a load of Weekly Game Ideas that I haven’t got round to drawing, but that doesn’t really make up for this much slacking.

Finding a job in games is tough. I don’t want to rake through the details just yet, but my initial experiences of life within the games industry have been generally negative. It’s a little galling to hear games companies blame the government for a lack of fresh talent in the industry when many of the same companies are knocking you back for your lack of experience, but I’ll save that discussion for another day… it’s a complicated issue, and I’m in no mood to write a balanced analysis right now. In any case, it hasn’t been enough to put me off – I have had some good news too, but I’d prefer not to write about those chickens until at least one of them has hatched.

That aside, I’ve been playing yet more Team Fortress 2, hacking through another dozen stages of Fire Emblem, finishing Fable (again), Fable II, Black & White 2 and Mass Effect (again), failing to finish Left 4 Dead on expert, and having a terrible time trying to run Quake Wars on my knackered old PC. I’ve had a few cautious forays into GTA IV ranked play, but having to listen to XBox Live comm chatter makes for a painful experience. I can’t begin to understand why I can’t get the co-op achievement for playing with my friends.

As a result of all this, I have quite a few things I want to write about. I’m still not sure where I’ll find the time, but a lot of it will just involve adapting things I’ve already written – I found an excellent forum post I drafted out years ago, about golden rule growth models and the three dozer build. I feel like writing some reviews too, but (obviously) it all depends on what I’ve been playing. Right now I feel more inclined to write about reviewing, and games journalism in general.