If there was one word to describe my week it would be “oof”. As I discovered on Saturday night/Sunday morning, it’s a huge mistake to drink three quarters of a bottle of vodka all by yourself. Lesson learned, the wagon has been boarded. It didn’t ruin my whole week though, if you want to know what I’ve been up to, carry on….

Prior to recording said disaster-cast, I’d taken delivery of a review copy of SoulCalibur V in the early hours of Saturday morning. It came on PS3, so I figured it would not hinder my achievement ratio challenge, but I forgot just how much time I would spend with it in order to create an accurate opinion of the title. Luckily, it’s the sort of game that you can pick up and put down very quickly, so I’ve pretty much been playing it in every available minute this week.

Sunday was a write-off, on account of the bad drinking I did, so I just curled up and died on my sofa playing The Last Remnant in an effort to get further. I’m now at the end of Disc 1 and want to strangle whoever created this accursed title. At times it can be fun, but some of the enemies completely destroy you in ways that seem ridiculously unfair. I’ve got a bit of grinding to do before I can kill the boss I’m stuck on, but I don’t know if I can be bothered.

As you can see, all my efforts have been rewarded rather poorly, it seems the The Last Remnant is a game that gives out most of it’s achievements right at the end. Currently I’m at 240 out of 1000, so it falls far below my comfort zone, though as much as it pains me I think I’d be happy to just leave it a while and eventually get back to it once I’ve pumped that score up a bit to match the time progress.

Aside from those games I had some time this week to visit the cinema – twice – to see Chronicle and Don’t Think. The former is a coming-of-age superhero movie in which 3 teenage lads come across a strange meteor and develop telekinetic powers. How they use them, and for what end, becomes the ultimate source of conflict, culminating in an Akira-esque showdown.

The real highlight of the week for me was seeing Don’t Think, the cinematic release of the Chemical Brothers concert at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan last year. A mashup of stage footage, crowd footage and the psychedelic background visuals, this was a chance to experience the phenomenal live performance without actually being there. Sadly, it was for 1 night only, so I’m glad I went when I had the chance. Can’t wait for the Blu-ray.

And that’s my week, I could waffle on more but I really need to go and write this SoulCalibur V review for Gadgetoid. Au revoir my lovelies!

If this one doesn’t get your toes tapping, your head bobbing and at least 3 other nondescript body parts moving around then there’s something inherently wrong with you. Thanks to this video I’ve found a few other excellent French electropop tracks from the group Yelle which have brightened my outlook in the frigid February mornings. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it too!

This is the one where I have no idea what happened during the recording of TMPGOTI episode 142. Me and Steve discuss some of the finer things in life, such as video games like SoulCalibur V, movies like Jacobs Ladder and tv shows like Breaking Bad. All that and we find out who won this weeks #stevevsjohn challenge, answer your “Dear John” questions and thank all the lovely folk who attended our Halo 3 game night.

Here’s the iTunes link and the direct link if you want to get it. Happy listening!

This week was a quick one eh?! I don’t know if it’s the effects of that solar flare or some other perception-altering phenomena, but this recent batch of days has flown by. So much so that I’m not entirely sure I’ve kept track of everything I’ve been doing. Read on for my attempt at an accurate 168 hour spanning brain dump…

Remember last week how I said I couldn’t wait til February so that I could get my hands on Final Fantasy XIII-2, well my anticipation knew no bounds and so I’ve had to placate my cravings by playing another JRPG in the interim. Fortunately this fits in quite well with my attempt to achieve a 75% achievement completion ratio by the year end, as the game I chose to play was one I’d previously started back in 2009 – The Last Remnant.

I remember playing this game at the time it came out and thinking that although it was somewhat different from other JRPG’s I’d played in terms of the battle mechanic, the story and flow of the game suffered due to the exorbitant loading times. Spanning two discs, I knew this was going to be a time-sink, so I abandoned it in favour of other, faster games.

Thankfully nowadays, you can install games directly to the Xbox 360 hard drive, which (for most games) will vastly improve the load times. I’m pleased to say that that is the case for The Last Remnant, so I’ve been ploughing through it like a trooper. It has a strategic turn-based combat system where you have to utilise groups of units at a time and place them around the battle like chess pieces.

Being such a huge game though, I’ve not made terrific headway on the achievement front, most of them are tied up in the end section and I’m finding myself getting stuck on some of the meatier sidequests. Next week I’ll hopefully be somewhere closer to starting Disc 2, providing I don’t get distracted by my latest purchase – a black Nintendo Wii.

If you haven’t heard me mention it on The Monkeychunk Show, I’ve got a bit of a penchant for black coloured gadgets. Currently my entertainment stand contains a black 40″ Samsung telly, a black Xbox 360 S, a black PS3 slim, a black Sky+ box, a black PS2 and a black Gamecube so you can see why I was after one of these. Also, since the release of Skyward Sword I’ve been increasingly eager to play it.

And if that’s not enough of a distraction, Soul Calibur V has turned up today to review and I’m also making my first guest appearance on the The Most Popular Girls on The Internet podcast. Yeah yeah, a whole bunch of #firstworldproblem, I know, so I’ll cease my moaning and get on with the million things I need to do. Hope you all have a great weekend!

To quote the uploader of this video – “The pinnacles of art and music combine at last”. Despite it being totally cheese-tastic, I’ve got a special place in my heart for groups like LMFAO and this video makes me smile so much. And if anything, I needed a new video for this song to get the image of old men dancing out of my head.