Hey Guys...

So I've been a little quiet on Giant Bomb recently (and by 'recently', I mean the last three months). There are a multitude of reasons for my inactivity, and I'll do my best to explain what they are in due course. Before I do, I want to stress this is not an "I'm back!"-style blog. I framed my last blog entry as one of those back in August, and look where that got us. Nope, this is just me touching base with you guys, to let you know I'm still here and still playing those video game thing-a-ma-bobbins from time to time.

The biggest reason for my lack of presence on Giant Bomb through the autumn has been real-world developments. Work continues to be a drain on both my energy and what should be my free time. Between mid-July and mid-October I clocked up almost 150 hours of overtime. That's 150 hours of un-contracted work, time that would otherwise have been mine to spend however I wished, covering for staff who were either sick or on annual leave. I wouldn't mind so much if that figure wasn't so much hideously higher than those of everyone else I work with, but that is a different story that should probably be told on a different platform. I've also been enrolled in a pretty intense course which should make me a qualified dispenser by the end of March 2015, but I get no study time during work hours, which means I need to use a hefty chunk of my already drastically depleted free time to study and complete coursework.

Alongside all these responsibilities, I decided back in September that my bedroom could do with sprucing up. I was pretty non-committal to begin with, taking delight in stripping off the old wallpaper without much regard for the mammoth task I was setting up for myself. As a newcomer to DIY and decorating, it's certainly been an eye-opener, as each apparently complete job has revealed another unexpected obstacle to overcome. As I write this blog near the end of November, I've managed to finish the ceiling and walls and will hopefully soon be laying new flooring to replace the tired old carpet. It's been pretty disruptive, particularly to my sleeping patterns (I'm currently having to sleep on a mattress on my bedroom floor, having long since dismantled all my bedroom furniture to make enough space to do the decorating). Hopefully it will all be worth it when it's finished.

It's played a minor part, but I also think that the whole 'GamerGate' debacle has influenced me to keep my distance from games media in general over the last couple of months. A lot of shitty things spiralled out of that movement, and I guess I felt reluctant to weigh in on anything video game related while that shit-storm was still raging for fear of getting caught up in it all. Now it seems to have largely blown over, I feel a little more comfortable coming back to Giant Bomb and taking up my blogger's mantle again.

I'm still playing games, although right now I'm in a bit of a weird place when it comes to what I'm playing. The 'one game at a time' philosophy that has served me well for so long has been cast aside in recent months, in favour of the slap-dash, haphazard approach of playing several games at once. It's not been a conscious choice, more just a lack of discipline that's managed to creep into my gaming habits. To be honest, I'm happy for things to stay that way for a little while - if it keeps my tendency to deviate from schedule away from the more important things like the aforementioned coursework and decorating, then I'm happy to finish a few less games in the back end of 2014 than I might have done otherwise.

Lately I've been playing bits and pieces of all sorts of games:

• I started playing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword back at the start of October. I made it just past the first dungeon, and was really enjoying it, but then the decorating situation demanded that I disconnect my Wii and I haven't got around to setting it back up yet. As a result, Link is now hanging in suspended animation until I finish my decorating and get everything re-connected. I'll probably start a new game when I do, so I can experience the whole of Link's latest journey uninterrupted.
• I'm playing the HD remaster of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on Xbox 360, in celebration of its tenth anniversary. The original plan was to dig out my PS2 and play it the same way as I originally did ten years ago, but the lure of a better framerate, crisper textures and Achievements managed to sway me in the end. I haven't put much time into it and I'm still in Los Santos, but it's been great to revisit one of the video games that played an integral role in shaping my tastes.
• Also on the 360, I'm replaying the original Borderlands. Up until this month, I'd only ever played the Borderlands games solo, but this playthrough is a co-op effort between me and my good friend Duncan. We decided to take a break from our co-op run-through of the Halo series to get our shoot-and-loot on, and so far it's been an absolute blast. We're both lv19 and should be moving out of the Arid Badlands soon.
• I've been dabbling with a bunch of sports games over the last couple of months. I picked up FIFA 15 on the PS3 at the start of October, and that plays pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to. I've also found myself getting caught up in Don Bradman Cricket 14 on the 360, which offers pretty much everything I've wanted from a cricket game with the exception of licensed teams and players (I really wish EA would stop sitting on those licences and either make a game or let somebody else snap them up). After the real-world team I used to play for folded this year, its compelling Career mode has been the closest I've come to replicating that feeling of playing an actual game of cricket.
• Pokémon continues to maintain a vice-like grip on my gaming habits. In the run-up to the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (which don't launch here in the UK until Friday), I've kept myself occupied with a couple of Nuzlocke challenges. The first was an Egglocke of Pokémon X, for which several of my friends donated eggs to the cause. Despite a lot of losses along the way, we managed to beat the Elite Four and Champion, making it my first victorious Nuzlocke. Currently I'm running a Randomizer Nuzlocke through the original Pokémon Red. It's another variant on the conventional Nuzlocke format which randomizes all Pokémon encounters, turning every battle into an unknown quantity and throwing up some really interesting scenarios. I'm documenting it by way of a YouTube series, which I've embedded below:

So that's what's up with me. I'm not sure if I'll have much of a blogging schedule for the remainder of 2014, but I'll try and get something sorted out before the end of December. At the very least, I'd like to throw together some kind of End of Year Awards blog to celebrate some of the fun games I played this year. Until then, thanks for reading, and I'll see you around.

Dan