XeNonX

If look back into the archives you’ll find that XeNonX was started as a lowly blog for a games forum just one year ago. Not for one minute did I realise that it would be this blog that propelled me into wanting a career in video games journalism. Sure, I knew I wanted to write and I knew a hell of a lot about games. That’s why the blog was created. What I didn’t realise is how much more it would come to mean.

As the months passed the XeNonX comminity grew and the blog became something that, occassionally, members would read. Then it fell apart, a stupid, yet poignant argument split the group into two ‘facttions’ leaving myself and Ad’s the task of managing the forum ourselves or shutting up shop. After a few failed attempts at keeping it going we called it quits, but the blog remained and grew.

The blog became it’s own thing. We began to concentrate on real games news and move on from our old forum roots.

We got to April and the release of GTA IV, we began to count down the days until release and soon after my PS3 broke. Turning the countdown into, pretty much, what I was doing without it. We started to do regular features like the PlayStation Store Update and What Games Do You Game. There were also many failed attempts at new features (there are to this day). We also saw the release of the new PlayStation Store and the Metal Gear Online beta was released. We also welcomed some of our ‘old friends’ back into the fold from the XeNonX days, however this was shortlived after a tirade of daft comments (and multiple deletions)  from them we split once again.

May came around and brought with it fresh rumors of in game XMB, a new special edition PlayStation 3 (gun metal). I had more PS3 trouble and focussed on a backlog of older games, none of which were ever finished. BioShock was confirmed for the PS3 (finally).

Another new, regular, feature began in June. ‘This/Next Week In Rock Band’. After my swift acquisition of Rock Band I decided this needed addressing. E3 came and went and we had our first liveblog, videos came to the U.S. but we’re still waiting in Europe. Metal Gear Solid 4 was released and I swiftly went into hibernation until I finished it. There were still some good posts though :). We had rumors of a PS3Mote, but that never surfaced.

Moving into July we got news of Uncharted trophies, platunum games, Bionic Commando rearmed and a hell of a lot of LittleBigPlanet info.

August brought news of TrICO, the £2 screensaver Linger In Shadows and much more. There was, as their always is, rumors on firmware and Home. As well as a lot of stuff announced during the lull. We eagerly awaited what the end of the year would bring. August also saw the introduction of a new editor, Steve. This helped me out a lot. Cheers. Our reviews started here too, I think we were gaining some kind of credibility thanks to appearances on N4G and Kotaku.

September saw the post count step up considerably with the ammount of news going up increasing each week. At this point I thought we were onto something go0d. Develoepers were interested in talking to us and overall I felt we were doing really well. The Killzone 2 beta began and everyone was eagerly awaiting keys. We got our first video courtesy of Ryan Gray, who we’d just brought on as a contributing editor (he’s now a regular). Facebook was the word as Darren Uddenbeg joined the crew. Burnout got it’s long awaited trophy patch and everything was going pretty damn well. We were introduced to Ad’s as a full editor, king of comments he may be but his addition to the writing staff once again lifted the pressure a little. We had an editorial team!

October saw Harmonix announce a game based on The Beatles music libarary. The release of Sony’s next big thing was October too. LittleBigPlanet finally hit shelves under somewhat extrenuous circumstances. We also saw MotorStorm 2 released in the first of a slew of cool stuff hitting the PS3. Chimera invaded Los Angeles and the trophy whoring continued. We also brought in Ryan Gray and Giancarlo Feltrin, who helped take the weight off my shoulders a hell of a lot. Original content was more than introduced too as we started to gather speed and views.

By November we’d started to get interviews with people and developer Q&A’s. Things were going well and I was thinking expansion (more on that later).

December rolled around and the ammount of games released subsided. We got reports of TMNT Sackboys and the release of Dead Rising PS3. Writing news has now become an extension of me, I was now realised I was obsessed with writing.

January brought fresh thoughts of expansion and XeNonX invaded the U.S. of A. Pop Cap brought their games to PSN, Criterion announced more paid-dlc. The closure of EGM caused a swift interview to one of those laid off and reviews became more frequent.

And now we get to February. This month saw us posting news even more, gearing up for Killzone 2 and I had big dreams once again.

That was really self indulgent and I bet everyone hates it, I just wanted to show everyone how we’d progressed in one simple post. Sadly, XeNonX will be closing it’s doors today but don’t worry we’re still around.

Over the past two weeks or so (that’s why there’s been no posts) myself and Ad’s worked on an expansion. We tried to move XeNonX but the man kept us down. We’ve had to change the name, but the spirit is still there.

From here on our you can find us over at ThePlayStatioNetwork. The new site which keeps XeNonX alive. We’ve got a great new layout and hopefully a new chunk of credibility. You didn’t really think we were gonna go just like that did ya.

So go on, go forth and check out www.theplaystationetwork.com. We’ll be moving this domain to redirect there soon. On behalf of the team, and i’m sure they’ll agree. It’s been a pleasure writing here and I hope you’ll follow us to the new site. We’ve got some cool stuff coming up over the next few weeks including a review of Killzone 2 and more. So please, do it.

Thanks, Anthony Barlow editor in chief of XeNonX & ThePlayStatioNetwork.

Anyone else please feel free to add to this or comment below, cheers, Anthony.

Yes it was self indulgent but I needed to give it a good send off. Thanks peeople. As Garnett Lee would say, we are….ghost!