I haven’t been this impressed by a new album in quite some time. Frank Turner’s second collection of songs delivers in every respect, from the super catchy opening numbers to the softer folky tunes at the end. It is an album that both impresses on first listens, but gets better every time you hear it. Go buy!

Now I need to track down his first album…

My review of the 360 version of Football Manager 2008 is up. As enjoyable as ever, once you get past the idiosyncrasies of the control scheme…

With Pokemon increasingly niche, it surprises me that there’s enough room for a clone on the DS system, but having spent the last couple of weeks reviewing Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, I think I’m closer to understanding what the fuss is about. The Pokemon series (with the exception of Snap - a favourite of my girlfriend) has always left me cold, but this “I can’t believe it’s not Pokemon” title is charming, graphically rich and compelling.

Bravo Square Enix!

Like buses, after a spell spent missing out on games promos, a few to review turn up at once. This one, I was particularly excited about, being a massive Phoenix Wright fanboy.

For whatever reason though, this one left me a little cold. Still enjoyable, but missing that special something… maybe I’m just getting tired of the series.

This blog post is notable for being the first to be written on my dinky new ASUS eee PC. The tiny keyboard’s going to take a lot of getting used to, but I forgive it for being generally beautiful.

See? The land slide has started, 3 new reviews in my del.icio.us tab there - I can be a lot more productive when I’m on holidays.

This one is of Nizlopi’s Make It Happen album, and it’s a bit of a shame. Y’see, I enjoyed their big hit “JCB Song” (partly because I used to frequent a forum with it’s video cartoonist, possibly, thus hearing it years before it became a hit) but could understand people who found it Twee-City. Here, their wide eyed enthusiasm too often falls into the same kind of cloying sentiments which ensure the stand out moments are lost within a cavalcade of mediocrity.

One interesting thing from this though - the album’s sure divisive. Actually, it’s divisive in a strange way - everyone agrees on 2-3 stars (almost), but people pick different stand out tracks every time, and slate the ones that other people love. That’s what happens when your album is just this diverse, I guess.