I might as well do this before I forget.

I recently beat God of War (the first one) on the PS2. I played through it on Hard mode. It's an awesome action game, but does it live up to my love, Devil May Cry?

Devil May Cry is awesome. God of War is epic. That pretty much sums it up. They're both good in their own ways.

God of War's got a few frustrating problems, though. The camera, for one, really pisses me off. Sometimes, enemies will attack you off screen, which is really lame, especially since you can't control the camera. Or maybe a monster will get in front of the camera, blocking your view, and causing you to get hit a lot because you can't see any attacks to avoid.

Another thing about the combat that frustrates me is that all of your attacks are blockable by the enemies, but a lot of your enemies' attacks are not. At times, you'll find even your strongest moves will not make a monster flinch. You'll be in the middle of a combo, and the enemy just takes it in stride, then attacks you, breaking the combo, and opening you up to even further attacks from other enemies. You're also not able to cancel any of you special moves, which you'll do by accident often, since to initiate the attack, you have to hold the block button, then press an attack button. So you'll mean to block, then attack, but the game things you're attacking while blocking, sending you to your doom with a long animation sequence that cannot be broken unless an enemy hits you, or you finish the animation.

Another thing is that at times, I feel there is TOO MUCH combat. You'll be fighting waves and waves and WAVES of enemies before a door unlocks. You'll start thinking that the minotaurs coming from the ground are of infinite supply, while in reality, there are just a lot of them that you have to kill.

With all these complaints about the combat, you'd think that the game would suck, it being an action game, right? Nah, it's still awesome. The game is fun to play, as long as you're not dying. I guess it's my fault for playing the game on Hard mode. :P

Oh yeah, the story is cool. Kratos kicks ass.

If you wanna know my new gaming schedule, I'm playing Dead Rising right now. I'll have some other post on that game sometime soon.

I beat it. Finally. Yay.

On to Paper Mario.

God of War Spoilers

GOD FSCKING DAMN IT! I'M SO GOD DAMN PISSED!!!

Okay...after what seemed like hours of fighting Ares, I finally beat him. I beat his first form, the God-forsaken clone battle, and Ares's second form. And I FINALLY beat him. I saw an FMV of Kratos trying to kill himself (which would be foreshadowing of me wanting to kill myself), and then Athena comes up, says he can be the new God of War, then I get Athena's blades...well, I was like, "Cool. I wonder if there's anything new about these blades." So I press Start, the screen goes black...music keeps playing...screen is still black...screen is still black...the game froze. ALL THAT WORK WASTED. ASKFJlk34jtr;l4q3jt;lasjdf

Now I have to fight all three final fights all over again! I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT GOD DAMN CLONE BATTLE AGAIN! I can't even get past the first Ares anymore 'cause I'm too God damn mad to concentrate. UGH. I think I might've broken my PS2 controller, 'cause I threw it on the ground pretty hard... I have to go pick up my sister from school, but I'm not going to get in a car right now, 'cause I'm so ticked off that I might get in an accident... this sucks... this sucks this sucks this sucks.

Oh, and by the way, if you didn't know, I was playing the game on Hard mode.

I just got back from seeing TMNT. I have one thing to say about it: AWESOME.

Okay, I've got more to say about it.

The movie was awesome. Really awesome. In fact, I'll be so bold to call it the best Ninja Turtles movie. Yes, I believe it topples the original.

Anyway, I suggest you see it if your a Turtle fan, but DON'T EXPECT THE SHREDDER. Everyone who expects him to come back is going to be disappointed with this movie. But in a sequel...

Okay, I'm gonna continue to talk about the movie, except the text is going to be full of SPOILERS. So if you don't want the movie spoiled for you, don't read my further description of the movie and its awesomeness.

The thing that stands out the most in my mind right now is the fight between Leonardo and Raphael. That was pure win right there. The two turtles with the most dangerous weapons, that never get to use their weapons 'cause they're too violent, are actually using their weapons...against each other...on a rooftop...in the rain. The only thing that would've made this more epic is if it took place on a bridge. Okay, despite the presence and use of Leo's katana and Raph's sai, there's no stabbing or slicing (it's a kid's movie!), but it's still very cool. And it's an actual fight! With intensity! And since its CGI, no awkward cuts to break up the action and stuff. Much better stuff than crap like Ghost Rider didn't have (fight scenes).

Now, the plot. The movie kinda got me excited for an awesome ending. I only got an okay ending, though. The plot was about this guy wanting to open up a portal to another dimension. I was hoping that this dimension would be Dimension X, and at the end, they'd show Krang (who has never been in the movies), as he prepares to invade Earth. And with him, Shredder, who would return in the sequel. That would be pure win. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, but it's still okay. Just not awesome.

Now, speaking of the Shredder, I'm sure many people were disappointed that he didn't appear in the movie (well, he did, for a few seconds at the beginning when Morpheus was talking about the turtles' past). If this movie does well, and we get a sequel, Shredder will return. Karai, the new leader of the foot, hints at it. Saying something like, "In the future, we will see each other again, in familiar circumstances. Familiar faces will return." And Raph says, "She doesn't mean..." and he doesn't finish the sentence. Of course, it probably won't be the same Shredder. Karai will probably end up as a NEW Shredder. So people will be disappointed with that. Whatever.

Another thing that bothered me were the turtles themselves...not their characters or anything, but their character MODELS. They looked too skinny to me. I wanted them to be more buff. I'm talking Gears of War buff. That's how they are in the new cartoon, right? They look more menacing as buff, muscled turtles. The Foot looked awesome, though.

I also wasn't comfortable with April fighting, but eh, whatever. Not that big of a deal.

All in all, awesome movie. Everyone go see it, so they make a sequel and put Shredder in it. Now I'm off to find a Torrent for the 1987 cartoon series. I might even check out the 2003 series. I'm experiencing an resurgence of Turtlemania now...

I've been watching stuff on YouTube all day (instead of working on that take-home psychology test), and I came across some videos from Video Games Live (that video games orchestra concert thing).

Damn it...I REALLY REALLY wanna go to one of those concerts! The next one coming to Texas will be in Dallas, on June 20th and the 21st. Tickets go on sale sometime this month. I'll be back from the Philippines by then! My mom says I can go, and she'll give me money and stuff...as long as I don't take my car and as long as I go with some friends. So...who wants to go to Video Games Live with me? :P Let's hurry and plan this out so we can buy tickets...whenever they'll be available (again, sometime this month).

And it was easy peasy.

That night I played Sonic at Daniel's, we also started our Ninja Turtle marathon thing. We started playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game for the NES. Unfortunately for me, I sucked at the game, and I quickly lost all my lives and ended up not being able to continue. Daniel, being the ninja master that he is, was able to continue with his initial life count. He had like already completed 2 levels since I had died and he was still on his first continue. We weren't even sure if the game had continues, 'cause he hadn't lost all his lives yet.

Daniel suggested that maybe I could start playing the game on my laptop and see if I could catch up. Boy, did he regret saying that! I didn't have the NES version on my Macbook. I did, however, have the original Arcade version through MAME. So I started it up and tried to race Daniel to beat the game first. 'course, I had the power of infinite continues due to my large pocket of virtual quarters! But that's not the only thing that made, uh, things easy for me. Daniel had beaten one level and moved on to the next. When I made it up to the level that he had just beaten, he was still playing the next level. Once I had beaten my level, Daniel was still on the same level. So the Arcade version advanced to the next level...which was the level after the one Daniel was on! Get it? The NES version added an extra level in there, and to top it off, the NES levels are waaaay longer, and Daniel was actually playing. I was just attacking enemies and popping in more quarters. To say the least, I beat the game WAAAAY before Daniel did. In fact, once Daniel lost all his lives and used his next continue, I was able to join in on the game again. So we had a good hour of the game before we finally beat it. We even ran into ANOTHER level that wasn't in the Arcade version.

So, in conclusion, I totally helped Daniel beat the NES version due to my excellent knowledge of the game, considering I beat it way before he did. :P It was awesome.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday! Woo! GameXchange better sell Microsoft Point cards, 'cause I've got some store credit I have to spend...

Now, you might ask why I'm gonna buy SOTN again...I dunno. Just 'cause it's cool! Plus, I guess achievements or something. See, if I had run into Jessica this Spring Break, she could've received my Playstation version of SOTN, the game she wants oh so bad, but...heh...well.

And Splatterhouse comes to the Virtual Console tomorrow! Two games I've been waiting for digital distribution! Why couldn't NEXT week be Spring Break?

I keep wanting to call this game "Sonic Wildfire", which is understandable, as that was its original title. I also wanna call this game "Sonic and the Secret Wings." That one, however, doesn't make any sense at all...

But anyway, me and Daniel played this last night at his house. The game is...interesting. It's a Wii game, I'll tell you that. Not some lame port or half-assed piece of crap like FarCry. But...it's not a great game. It's an okay game. It'd probably be a good game to me if I had gotten used to the controls.

The controls are nice, but they take a while to get used to. I didn't really play enough of it to get the handle on things, but I can see myself having fun after a while.

The story sucks, but who cares?

The game also has this neat "Party" mode. It's like Mario Party, only not... It's got these modes of gameplay in which you go through rounds of doing something (moving on a "board", sailing down a river, collecting treasure...), and after each round, you all play a mini-game. The mini-games use the Wiimote in various ways, obviously. Some of them suck, some of them are awesome (like the violin and rug games). But, what this mode really made me feel is an increase in anticipation for Mario Party 8. Sonic's party mode made me realize how awesome Mario Party 8 is gonna be.

This apparently isn't really a review of Sonic. I guess it's an... "impressions" piece or something. I don't know. Who cares? Here's a video of me playing:

I'm thinking about blogging about cool stuff I find online. So here's the first thing of this "feature."

Here's this kickass Wii case mod. Obviously, Zelda-inspired. Found this at NintendoWiiFanboy.com.

It's an eBay auction, so click here to view it and some pics and a description of it. But beware...there's some HORRIBLE MIDI music there somewhere. So turn down your speakers before visiting the link.

I'm having trouble using MSN on my Mac. For the most part, I mainly use Adium, a multi-protocol IM client for OS X. However, it's been giving me problems with MSN lately. So I try out the latest version of "Microsoft Messenger for Mac", aka, the Mac version of MSN Messenger. This piece of crap is CRIPPLED to hell.

First of all, a biggy is that it doesn't support video or voice chat. That's stupid as hell, considering my Macbook has a built-in webcam. But I don't really do anything more than text chat most of the time, so this really doesn't matter to me, but the principle of the thing is that the OFFICIAL app doesn't support this standard feature of MSN Messenger, which is stupid as hell.

The most important feature of an IM client, however, no matter how silly it may seem, is the ability to rename contacts. Why would I want to rename contacts? Because I want to know who the hell I'm going to talk to. Let's say say I wanna talk to "Jim." 'cept his name isn't Jim on MSN...it's "<><><><>><><>~~~~~ (((( I LOVE FISH ))))) ------ <><><><:DD :D:P!!@!~~~~~" ...now, not only is that a stupid name, but it doesn't let me know who he is....plus it looks really really ugly! In Adium, however, I can simply right-click his name and give him a "Nickname." I give him the nickname "Jim." BAM, that long, stupid name on my contact list is now a simple, clean "Jim."

Unfortunately, Microsoft Messenger for Mac does not support the ability to rename contacts! How lame! Windows Live Messenger for Windows does support this...after a million years of not supporting it (I had to live with hacks to add this feature to MSN). Microsoft Messenger for Mac doesn't even let me use their e-mail as display names, either! I'd rather see "fishlover03@hotmail.co"m than "<><><><>><><>~~~~~ (((( I LOVE FISH ))))) ------ <><><><:DD :D:P!!@!~~~~~"

So...to make my life easier, everyone should stop putting these stupid phrases and symbols in their MSN display name. However, I don't want to deprive these users of their sick symbol fetish entirely, so I have a suggestion. MSN now has this feature called a "Personal Message." This is not your Display Name, but it a little phrase that appears to the right of your display name on my contact list. Put your stupid symbols here! That way it'll say "Jim - <><><><>><><>~~~~~ (((( I LOVE FISH ))))) ------ <><><><:DD :D:P!!@!~~~~~." At least then I'll know who I'm talking to, and it'll look a LITTLE bit better.

Better yet, everyone just stop using MSN. Switch to AIM or something. It's not like most of you guys NEED the features of MSN. I bet most of you don't even know MSN HAS any features.

It seems like...Friend Codes are here to stay.

Wow...I'm SEVERELY disappointed, but really, was I expecting Nintendo to do any better? Not really, but I had a slight glimmer or hope that they'd wise up to a good online experience. But now, we get title-specific friend rosters.

Now, some people are saying crap like "It's not that bad. Is it really so hard to enter someone's friend code?" No. It isn't. But, it is a pain in the ass to get someone's 12-digit friend code, and their 16-digit Wii code, and give them your 12-digit friend code and their 16-digit Wii code, and then you have to actually enter their 12-digit friend code and 16-digit Wii code. Of course, this is the worst case scenario, as I'm assuming you want to send messages and trade Miis with them. If you just want to play an online game with them, then it's just getting their 12-digit friend code, giving them your 12-digit friend code, and entering their 12-digit friend code...However, that's only if you wanna play one game with them. So you got each other as friends on Metroid Prime 3? Great, now, wanna play Mario Kart Wii with them? Well, first you gotta give them your 12-digit friend code, and they give you their 12-digit friend code, and then you enter their 12-digit friend code. Easy, right? Well, time for some Batallion Wars II! Just get their 12-digit friend code, and give them your 12-digit friend code, then enter their 12-digit friend code! Oh wait, one of your other friends ALSO has Batallion Wars II! To play with him, we just gotta get his 12-digit friend code, and give him your 12-digit friend code, then enter his 12-digit friend code. He also wants to trade Miis with you, so you gotta give him your 16-digit Wii code and get his 16-digit Wii code, then you gotta enter his 16-digit Wii code...and you have to wait an hour for him to become "active" on your list to send him a Mii. Oh, your other friend just bought Metroid Prime 3! Let's play with him online! Just get his 12-digit friend code, and give him your 12-digit friend code, then enter his 12-digit friend code.

Then lets say you're at your friend's house, and you want him to play against your other friend who is really good at Metroid Prime 3. Remember that guy's 12-digit friend code? If you don't, sucks. If you do, sucks, 'cause you're gonna have to give the other guy your friend's friend code, but you have no way of contacting him.

Yeah, friend codes suck.

I started trying to watch the Pokémon anime again...but...God, the new voice actors suck! What happened to my beloved James of Team Rocket!? I understand that new voice actors were necessary if they wanted to get rid of 4Kids...but...ewww. I mean, the original voice actors weren't that great either, but through 8 seasons of them, you get used to them. Then Season 9...BAM! Sudden change, and the dub hating starts all over again. Maybe by the time Season 18 rolls around, I'll be more used to it...maybe not.

I never really watched much Pokémon in the first place, so I don't care. But in other news, my anticipation for Pokémon Diamond is back.

First, I've got a few things to say before accepting these prestigious awards... God damn Raam. God damn lambent wretches. God damn reavers. God damn Theron guards. God damn troikas. God damn "Tip of the Ice Berg." God damn DOM AND HIS CRAPPY AI.

Two weeks since I sold Elebits and bought a Wii Points card, and STILL no Splatterhouse! Instead, today they released Sonic Spinball, Double Dungeons (not Dragons, btw), and some other game I don't care about. Where is my Splatterhouuuusee?

Oh yeah. Spring Break. Yay.

Do the math. The movie was awesome. GO SEE IT.

Pronunciation wise: Jeh-ROO-doh > Geh-ROO-doh > Guh-ROO-doh.

I've always said "jeh-ROO-doh" 'cause it sounds the best. It fits a race of deadly, sexy assassins, lead by a badass sorcerer guy.

"Geh-ROO-doh" sounds like a bunch of robots. I dunno why I associate it with robots. But robots are an inaccurate description of the Gerudo.

"Guh-ROO-doh" is a tribe of homosexual men. It just sounds stupid. >=[

So my way is best. :D

Y'know how a lot of Wii games look like crap now? Some people are thinking this is 'cause the Wii can't handle anything better. Untrue. It's called lazy developers.

Look at Super Mario Galaxy...




Sure, Nintendo created the system, so they know all the hardware tricks and all, but other developers should have access to them. Konami's "Dewy's Adventure" looks good, too, but then look at Ubisoft's "Far Cry Vengeance." WTF happened there, Ubisoft?

Developers need to start taking the Wii more seriously. They need to stop porting PS2 games and tacking Wii controls on them. They need to make games with the Wii in mind from the beginning.

That's another thing...the controls. A lot of games are using motion controls as "button replacements." That's lame and stupid. Free motion is where the money should be. That's why most Wii games that work really well are pointer games. Driving games work as you would expect them, too. But flicking the controller up to jump? You can do that easily with a button press. Flicking it reload? Lame. I don't wanna perform a movement, then watch the same old animation play in response to it. I wanna see objects move in conjunction with my Wiimotes movements.

Oh, and WTF is up with your online stance, Nintendo? Get that crap straightened out. >=[ I don't want Super Smash Bros. Brawl's online component to be half-assed with no options. I don't want your shizzy friend codes, either.

So...yeah...the Wii isn't anywhere near its full potential. I'm hopeful for the future.

My latest photo manipulation...I left my cane in my car, so I couldn't put it in the picture. Oh wells.

Haha, that was an awesome episode of House. Too bad I'm gonna have to wait 3 MORE weeks for a new one. =[

My Crackdown achievements may be down the drain for now, but my Gears of War achievements just keep comin' :P.

Well, I found another orb. It was the first orb on the map and I missed it. >< But still...I've got one more to find. I doubt I'll find it anytime soon.

Okay, for the past 3 days, I've been on a quest to collect all 300 hidden orbs in Crackdown. I had a map and screenshots of every hidden orb location. I thoroughly inspected all these locations, all the way from location #1 to location #300. In the end, I ended up with...298 orbs. TWO ORBS AWAY! >< God damn it! This friggin' sucks! Now it's gonna be even harder to find the orbs 'cause there are only 2 of them left that are actually visible, and I'm probably gonna have to go through all 300 locations again. ><

What really pissed me off though is that as I was going through the last few orb locations, the Internet went down, so I couldn't get screenshots of the last two orbs...which I found, but I was still left with 298. ><

That's it. I'm taking a break from Crackdown for now.

Time to go through "Tip of the Iceberg" in Gears of War for the 2304983240893th time...on Insane. ><

I've completed what seem to be the least frustrating of all the Crackdown achievements (but Repo Man was such a HUUUUUGE bitch. It sucked big time, 'cause the game is really picky about what counts as "commandeering a vehicle.")

Now, onto the big ones (aside from the co-op ones, which can be easily done, I just don't have anyone to co-op with). Finding all the stunt markers, then actually driving through them is gonna be tough... then there's finding the 20-something agility orbs I'm missing. Sure, 20 might not seem like a lot, and it really isn't, but the fact that there are 500 orbs in all, and they're all strewn about the four islands...well, it's like finding needles in multiple haystacks. And then there are the 200-something hidden orbs I have to find, which are actually hidden within building and in caves and out in some obscure location of the coast and stuff like that. That's gonna be a bitch, too.

In the past few days, I've continued to play Crackdown for achievements. Here's what I've gotten since I've beaten the game.


Man, those driving races were a total bitch. The stunt markers are probably gonna be worse, since I have to be creative with those. Oh yeah, and then there's finding all the 500 agility and 300 hidden orbs. That's gonna be a bitch. It'd probably be easier just to start the game over to do those and make a checklist. And, uhh...oh yeah, I've got some co-op achievements to do, but I can't do those 'til Dillon gets back online. >=[

As for Gears, I only need one more COG tag before I get that particular achievement, and I'm also taking care of beating the game on Insane at the same time. I'm not even gonna bother with the online achievements for Gears, since I don't like the online mode.

I started watching House again. I've been torrenting Season 2 for a while now. I've got 11 episodes fully downloaded, and waiting to be watched. :D

Tonight I watched Episode 7 of Season 2, "Hunting." This was an..uh..episode. I liked things about it, and I disliked things about it. Apparently, Season 2 is where House gets into the "relationships" scene. -_- House is trying to get his old girlfriend to admit she has feelings for him (though him being House, he does this is badass, manipulative ways, and he feels proud about it). Cameron gets high and has sex with Chase. Whoa, WTF? No way. This better not turn into some Grey's Anatomy shiz (though I haven't watched the show, I hear it's all about this stupid crap). At one point in my life, I probably would've enjoyed this "relationship" development stuff. I mean, hey, I read Love Hina and stuff, right? Back in the day, I probably would've been like "Awww. How sweeet." Now I'm like, "...damn it."

Good things about the episode: House gets this gay guy's dad to punch him (House) in the face by insulting the dad's wife. House then claims, "Good, now I can do this," as he hits the dad in the gut in "self-defense." House goes on to pushing the dad against the wall, and holding his cane up to his neck, saying something like, "Feel that? You can't breathe. Either that's the cane or you're suffering from those liver cysts I was just talking about." So, basically, he beat up a patient's dad and insulted his mom to treat both of them. House is awesome.

Haha...Blogger locked iJar because the spam-detecting bots thought it was a Spamblog. I dunno why they thought this was a spamblog. Maybe because I was constantly find mistakes in my original posts, then keep going back and editing them? I dunno...

But anyways, all is well now. They had a little thing to request that a Blogger human guy thing dude view the blog and find out if it's really a spamblog or not. So that means my site has actually come to the attention of an actual Blogger employee...or something. I don't remember what kind of human they said it was gonna be. And it's likely that the person views blogs just for that purpose all the time, so my blog probably didn't stand out as anything special. But..uh..yeah, at least I have proof that another human other than myself was reading this.