Some Background

I am an Australian and trawl the internet a lot looking for good content and use it thoroughly in my everyday life. I like to spend time with family and friends and am married. I am a qualified Chemical Engineer who is a student/unemployed currently completing a PhD in coal research.

Others describe me as dependable and honest with a dry sense of humour.  I’m reserved and not into sports but could hardly be described as a nerd or geek, although it’s starting to look like some kind of fashion on the internet these days.

Games

Besides my addition to the internet I also spend a lot of time playing PC games.  I prefer the role-playing (RPG) and strategy games.  I also enjoy non-flight simulators and adventure games.  I like a lot of detail and tend to desire realism, but will accept fun as a substitute.

I detest flight simulators and don’t really enjoy action or First Person Shooter (FPS) games very often.  I find the flight simulators cover an interest I simply don’t have (i.e. the pilot dream) and find the action and FPS games brain dead and boring.

Despite my extensive gaming experience I am not all that fantastic a player in real-time games and will frequently wimp out on easy or normal difficulty modes.  I’m much more challenging in turn-based games.  I do not own a console games machine.

I prefer fantasy, space or medieval settings.

Books and Movies

I read and watch movies in both the cinema and on video.  I wouldn’t call myself all that devoted a reader or movie watcher but I do keep up.

Other

I do my fair share of the housework including cooking and that.. um.. toilet thing.  Actually I always seem to be doing that one but it lets me extract some good trade-offs with my wife.

I don’t enjoy modern music enough to follow it much and my tastes seem to be stuck in the late 80s early 90s.  I loathe (c)rap.  I never listen to the radio and rarely watch TV.

In what may reveal more about me than other comment, I am a trekkie.  No, not quite so strongly that I have the urge to dress up as a Klingon for every movie but strong enough that I watched every New Generation episode I could.

Epinions

I’ll read a lot of reviews but know I’ll never cover this entire site.  I primarily focus on PC games and ‘unusual’ reviews but am willing to squiz at anything.  I usually read more from those who trust me or those who I trust.

Before I came to Epinions I did have some writing experience through extensive report writing and a smattering of essays and letter writing.

I focus my opinion writing primarily on those interests I have as well as what I feel I am well positioned to advise on.

I like to structure my opinion writing and you will notice strong similarities in them, particularly in the same category.  In this way a reader familiar with my style can optionally go straight to the part they’re interested in.

All of my opinions are prefaced with a background of myself hopefully giving the reader an idea of my level of ‘qualification’ in the subject as well as how well the reader might relate to me.

Being Australian my writing will be distinctive and hopefully this will add interest though you will notice some Australian English spelling differences like ‘colour’ to the U.S. English ‘color’.  I may also occasionally use local phrases or words that will confuse the reader for which I apologise and hope you will kindly point out.

Current Issues

One of my friends calls the picture my Gestapo look but I like it.

Played a lot of demos lately.  E3 you know.  Arcanum looks damn good.  A lot of Fallout nostalgia in this game.  Startopia looks OK but the gameplay looks kinda lean.  Tropico was slick but ultimately boring.  Pity, it had an awful lot of potential.  The others weren't good enough to mention much.

I am not currently avidly playing any new releases.  The market seems to be rather slow at the moment.  I expect it will improve when the U.S. summer holidays come through.

Yahoo! Birdmail is all replaced now.

Just got cable internet.  A miracle in Australia I assure you.  My homepage contains several broadband links.  It has strongly distracted me from review writing.  I'll have to do a few to catch up hey!

Somebody called me an advisor without me noticing.  How nice.