After 5 long years, I've finally graduated from University. Today I got my final grades and did well, and now convocation is set for June. 

My program was a mix of Business and Information Systems and I hold a Bachelors of Commerce degree. The only problem now is finding work, which is proving a lot harder than I was hoping it'd be. Guess I just have to keep applying; but that loan needs to be paid back ASAP.

Ah well, cheers to being done and finally having some spare time to play games again, read books for leisure, watch movies and work out.

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What? When did this happen?

I know there have been rumors that Iwata is on his way out (despite just recently being promoted), and the Wii U being the absolute wrong thing to have been made in the upcoming next-generaiton (despite both the PS4 and the rumored Xbox having touch controllers), but maybe it's time to face the music.

After all, for this week's Chalk Talk, we got three suggestions for topics: 

All three of those topics assume as part of their underlying basis that Nintendo is in huge trouble. Are they in trouble? Of course they are. Are Synthia's suggestions valid? Well....

1. Relying on Nostalgia 

This has interested me in that it is something many say Nintendo is doing; exploiting people's memories of the past so that they would buy the same stuff over and over again. It's an interesting idea....except that's not what's happening.

Let's take a look at the New Super Mario Bros. series, a series that people commonly refer to when talking about Nintendo exploiting nostalgia. It's a valid assesment; after all, the games always bring back a lot of stuff from the older games, from power-ups to themes to sound effects. 

And yet, the series is one of the most popular of the previous generation; the Wii one alone selling over 26 million copies. You don't get to numbers that high by "exploiting the nostalgia" of people that played the original Super Mario Bros. in 1985. These games aren't big because they are selling to the "old gamers" (in fact, theya re the ones that complain about them), but because they are selling to kids.

Kids! These people don't have any kind of nostalgia for 1985, 1995, or even 2005. These kids are playing these games on their childhood, the NSMB games will become nostalgia for them. The truth of the matter seems to be that Nintendo is creating nostlagia, not exploiting it.

After all, how can you rely on something that doesn't exist, especially when those that would have nostalgia for the stuff aren't going to like it?

But what about new IP's? "Nintendo certainly doesn't seem to create new IP's anymore. It's always Mairo, Zelda, Yoshi, Kirby, whatever." Well, that's a cool idea, one that shows how little they care about Nintendo's new IP's in the first place.

This game obviously doesn't exist.

Neither does this one (or it's sequel).

What the heck is this supposed to be anyway? (or it's sequel)

Is this some Sony game?

Well, those games up there don't have Mario or Donkey Kong, or Wario in them; so how can they be new Nintendo IP's (other than being Nintendo IP's, of course)? 

Some people are willing to rely on their nostalgia to make sure in their mind that Nintendo doesn't change at all from the way they saw them decades ago, I guess.  

2. Nintendo giving up at E3 2013

Certainly an interesting opinion, mostly because there is no way you would have come up with that opinion unless you already had a pre-existing idea that Nintendo can't compete with Sony or Microsoft. 

I mean seriously!

Nintendo can't compete with the PS4 or Xbox Infinity, despite Nintendo being the one making dozens of Nintendo Directs outside of E3, each containing subtantial new game announcements?

Despite still having two (2) planned private meetings with the press to show off their games at E3 2013, as well as repeatedly mentioning in past Nintendo Directs about the games they will show off on the show floor?

Despite Nintendo most likely bombarding the entire week of E3 with Nintendo Directs, which serves the exact same purpose of an E3 conference, except with Iwata being in front of a white background instead of some big LCD displays?

You had to be convinced Nintendo can't do anything right that they would cancel their E3 conference just because "they have nothing to show and are therefore giving up".

As for Nintendo's actual decision, I don't know if it's a smart play yet. It obviously didn't go well with the massive misinformaiton and pre-existing image of the company (which is comically incapable of explaining itself for anything, seriously!).

How Nintendo's plan goes ahead on E3 2013 will be an interesting experiment to see; with SpikeTV certainly giving live primetime coverage of the PS4 and Xbox shows, I doubt they will do the same for any Nintendo Direct show Nintendo does.

3. Will the Wii U become profitable?

No.

Not in it's current form, at least.

Nintendo will have to redesign the console so that it doesn't cost so much to produce and finally be able to give it a price drop (similar to what Sony did with the PS3 slim), they will also have to rebrand it completely to get rid of the confusion about it being a Wii add-on or not (in a similar way to how the PS3 was rebranded to be more appealing), and of course, Nintendo of America will have to reach across third parties to give the system some more games (in a similar way to how Nintendo of Japan got the 3DS to have such a killer Japanese library).

I don't know what Nintendo plans to do, but if it's not one of those things; then it's not going to improve. 

But does Nintendo deserve all the doom and gloom? No, the Wii U could fail and they can just try again with something different; it's not like they are Sega who had no money by the time the Dreamcast launched. It would be nice for major gaming sites to stop promoting such poor views, but hey, I understand. Nintendo is supposed to be dead, can't blame ya'll for trying to fix the narrative. 

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• Discussions used to be fun in the main forums during the 6th generation of video gaming (that is, during the PS2, Xbox, and GC era). Things kind of went slippy during 7th generation but it wasn't too bad. 
• Unions. Oh man, these were the best things about GS. I fondly remember having fun, especially the Nintendo Dream union. There's nothing more better than being with my favorite users: kansasdude2009, Willy105, nintendofreak_2, darkspineslayer, and LegendofNerd. Then things started to die out. Is it me, or else union just slowing fading away? They don't seem to be as popular as they used to be.
• System Wars. Oh man, where do I begin here? Why did I ever waste my time there? I mean, okay, maybe it was funny in my younger teens, the place got more boring over time mainly due how it strict it got until last year's ToU change. I thought it would bring funnier discussions in the place. How silly of me. :roll

So yeah, most of my time here in GS was great, until last year where I started losing motivation to even login here. This isn't the same that I knew. Obviously things change, change needs not always be negative which is what happened here. It's funny too, because I remember being happy ToU change and now I want it reverted. It's just nothing but immature posts even by users older than me. Yeah... Other stuff I guess I should mention. I remember the awesome reviewers GS before most of them left. The glitches in GS, oh man, never a time when something odd wouldn't happens. I never liked the Off-Topic board as long as I was here. Sorry to anyone who frequents the OT reading this, but I only ever went there when I was extremely bored and would leave in distaste. I kind of think it's worse than SW at times. 

So where does that leave me? 

Well I have account at TheWiiU.com It's taken some time for me to get used to, but I like the site so far. I still post frequently at GameFAQs. As crazy as it sounds, thanks to the new ToU it makes GFAQs even more mature. Or does it? I dunno. But what I do know is that I travel game forum after game forum to settle a new home if you will. I don't think there's anything left for me in this site.

As far as gaming goes, well the console isn't looking pretty right now. I can only see myself owning a Wii U, but after that, I'm planning to become a PC gamer. Yep, consoles just don't hold it for me anymore. Before I forget, I own a 3DS and it's a great handheld. I'm not too sold on the PS4, so I have no plans on getting that in the near future. I'm not the least bit impressed with how Microsoft has been handling the Xbox 360 and I can't see myself getting excited over its next system. The Xbox 360 was my least favorite of the three consoles. 

Oh yeah to show that I'll be PC Gaming sometime in the future, I created a Steam account. It's magiciandude1 (yes there's a 1 at the end, someone dared to steal my honor :evil. 

I think that wraps up everything. Don't be offended if I didn't mention your username, you were most likely an awesome user too. In the off-chance that the old ToU is brought back, you may inform and I'll see if it's worth coming back.

Well, so long everyone and take care!

Yours truly,

magiciandude

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Now this game is starting get fun as hell.

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I don't post anymore on gaming forums. It's not because I hate my fellow gamers, it's because forums attract the people who are the least in-touch with the gaming world. The fact of the matter is, consoles don't matter anymore. Harsh? It's the truth. PC Gaming has rocketed ahead in terms of innovation. The latest trend-setting games: Farmville, Minecraft, DOTA 2, CS:GO, Guild Wars 2... they're all on PC. Equally important are tablets, where a host of multi-million dollar games, from Angry Birds to Scrabble, define what's hot.

Consoles just don't shake a stick at it, and the NPD numbers show.

So why the, would Wii U matter? Well, because Wii U is a console. Strange? Not really. In patent filings Microsoft has already made clear the next Xbox will be an upgradeable device, one where users dump in more money for fancier graphics, more storage space and other ammenities. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's a PC. There's nothing special that distinguishes a PC from such a device... except a PC isn't tied to a single OS, vendor or hardware configuration. I can choose to buy a Mac, Windows PC, build my own or tinker about with various free operating systems. I'm not tied down, so like the guy with the cool car and the glow kit, I'm free to define the hardware for myself.

Sony is in the same boat, selling us an outdated PC with much the same games, and software features, bundled in... and it's showing in the sales. Why should consumers pay $60+ a year for Xbox LIVE to get features like "Facebook, Netflix, and more!" when, the same features are available on cell phones, tablets and PCs without a fee? Why will consumers buy expensive hardware ($300+ for the next gen consoles) when their existing devices off them the games they want already? Much like 3D movies, the fad of graphics won't hold up, especially when more functional android and apple devices offer impressive quality in a mobile package that also provides more day-to-day functionality.

-

So why then, does the Wii U win?

Frankly, three reasons:

1. It's cheap

2. It's aimed at families and children

3. It does something different, and does it well.

-

Theses are killer points, and ones that Sony and Microsoft will need to address with their own consoles. The original Wii didn't compete in the marketplace against the Sony / Microsoft crowd because it couldn't appeal to the same audience. The lack of full HD support, the lack of commentary games, and a controller that didn't want to support traditional play worked against it for major titles. However, the Wii U rectifies these problems, and goes a step further, it adds something that allows play that won't happen on rival systems.

Imagine the Wii U decides to launch at $250 - it's an easy holiday pickup for parents looking for a fun system to play with their kids. The games are oriented to parties, and it does something that existing systems don't do... and more importantly, PC and tablet don't do, with its group multiplayer and arcade-style entertainment.

While I'm always skeptical of consoles in general, I put my money down to pre-order a Wii U. Come November, it's the only next gen console I see doing something different that makes me actually want to drop some money. While my 360 and PS3 gather dust, I know that I'll at least get my money's worth of entertaintment from the Wii U, while continuing to see tablets and PC as the "real" gaming platforms... and that's something Sony and Microsoft should truly fear.

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Vega sneered at her and lunged at them with fists of fire, swinging wildly at Jace and Draca who did all they could to avoid until Jace, under pressure, swung the sword in his right hand right into Vega's arm. It made a clank, but then reflected right off of his skin.

"One of you! Haha! That's a good one. Why would I want to be a stupid chimera or some fake-human elementura! Gimme a break!" Vega's yellow fire turned into a bright sword and he slashed at Draca, who thought she was a goner until out of the sky, a burst of lightning broke the sword and shocked Vega, who immediately fell over.

Draca looked behind her and saw a boy her age pointing his finger down at the ground. He was directing the electricity. He had messy blond hair and green eyes. His teeth, his eyes, everything about him resembled an animal even his stance. Jace took this opprotunity to wildly spin, swinging both swords fiercly into Vega, who didn't even flinch as he got up.

"Hey you two!" the boy yelled, "Only amateurs fight like you two. Run away and lemme handle this."

Jace was thrown back into the grass by Vega, but he got back up and assumed a battle stance. Draca too prepared herself, looking as threatening as possible, even though she knew this man couldn't be beaten.

"Sorry, we're not running away from this freak!" Draca replied.

"Yeah, thanks for the save, but we're not cowards!" Jace added.

"Fine, I guess I should help you then," the slim boy said walking up next to them, keeping his animal eyes focused on Vega. He stamped his right foot on the ground which immediately crumbled upon impact. He was wearing heavy metal boots that began snapping with electricity. "The name's Hunter! I'll be your savior today."

Draca laughed, and Jace still readied his swords.

"Oh," Hunter noticed, "kid, you, with the swords. Use your elements. Don't want to be mistaken for a filthy human right?"

That was about a year and a half ago. Now take a look at this, a new draft of the same book, rewriting the intro for this character. The following isn't his intro, but it's a part of his intro chapter:

"We get the crowd excited!" he claimed as they met yet again. "Besides, that's the point. Get them to watch us while I think of a way to get us out of here!" Jace was dumbstruck at Hunter's logic. The mere thought of ever having to take advice or strategy from the performer again was out of the question, and downright vexing. Still, the plan did accomplish what it set out to, the natural sins of sapience and intoxicating rays of the neon lights kept the people for intervening. The rays also kept Jace In the moment. He was excited, he was nervous, he was anxious, but most of all he was having fun. Sharing this moment with someone, deceiving an entire crowd of people to think of away to escape using a plan that had extremely flawed logic, it was fun! Jace grinned as the two continued their duel, neither one swaying from fatigue or fear, and neither one losing sight of the neon lights that kept them caught in the moment.

Without warning, a crackle of electricity erupted from Hunter's feet, both of which were now planted firmly on the ground. They spit in every which direction, lashing out at the throngs of people gazing stupidly at Hunter's finale. The finale, however, was cut short as firm hands grabbed each of the boys by the ears. Darkness sprung out from around them, and Jace knew as he descended into darkness that Draco had caught on.

It was odd though, as Hunter struggled, he noticed that it was not Draco who held him so firmly, but the man wearing the coat. His light, dew sprinkled hair gave off the essence of the forest within it, and his person smelled of pine trees—a smell Hunter was all too familiar with.

"Cut it out, you know better than that," the man said, and with those words he shoved Hunter out of the darkness before breaching its walls and escaping himself.

Meanwhile, Draco shoved Jace into the center of the dark zone, standing above him in an interrogative position.

"You idiot, fighting elementura out here when you can't even control an element yourself, what's gotten into you?" he scolded like a father, surprising Jace.

"Sir, I barely know…"

"Can it," Draco barked, he pushed his amber hair out of his eyes. "Next time, if you're going to take my daughter away, at least have the common decency to inform me. It spares me the trouble of going off to make sure that she's safe."

The darkness wisped away, leaving a perplexed Jace to stare at the commanding figure that sauntered away into the night. The neon lights that had been apart of his night, the fight with Hunter, disappeared and Jace accepted that young hand that boosted him up. It was with this acceptance of a hand that he accepted the task at hand would be an arduous one, and that he could not do it alone.

The fated trio smiled as they quickly left the city of the neon lights. Jace didn't know if his childish desire to return would be sated, but he knew the long path to his dreams and destiny would not be fulfilled if he returned.

He vowed to forgive them. Hunter and Tamara. The two were completely knew concepts for him, but he knew that they would offer an experience like none other. They didn't have the letter, but that didn't matter as long as they got to the temple first. His days as a wanderer nearing an end, Jace strode the land with two friends and a renewed purpose.

What do you all think? A good improvement?

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789shadow has taken over NDU RISK, and is doing a great job.

Iron 'Shop was a hit. Congrats again to LegendofNerd, and thanks to everyone that participated. Willy would be proud.

I got to 10,000 posts and level 40, marking the first time I paid any attention to either.

Ladies and gentlemen, my work here is finished.

...

...

....

Later, y'all.

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Now I'm not going to say my reviews are perfect, they're not. My vocab is severely lacking and I often either tend to ramble on or be way too brief with making points, so sorry if even just the idea of making this comes off as egotistical or self promoting. Its come to my attention however that reviews are becoming less and less of what they should be, and more and more just stupid, controversial or a sad attempt at comedy. So without further attempts to justify myself, lets get into it, 5 rules every reviewer should realize.

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1. Every fantasy universe has the right to set their own rules, whether it takes place in the real world or not. Don't complain about recharging health because it's unrealistic, don't complain about how people should die in 1 shot to the face from any gun, and don't you dare bring up the scientific effects of what radiation does to a man. Most of the time this directly applies to people demanding realism, but it can also apply to other stuff. Example, people complain about the anime style "power of heart and friendship" in kingdom hearts and other such stuff. So what? In their universe it's a mysterious physical power, let them make it that way. If the street fighter devs want their characters to be bullet proof, so be it. Fantasy is fantasy and a game designer can be given whatever rights to the rules of the universe as they want. Otherwise we don't have a fantasy world, we just have world number 2.

2. Balance the good and the bad in what you write. If you write a review purely to address how much you think it sucked, you will definitely overlook what some people actually play the game for. If you write a review raving about how amazing the game is, you're most likely overlooking an very brutal flaw just to tell us about all the features we already know. In this respect, I don't mean your reviews should be 50/50, but just try to address the other side. People looking for bad, try to understand what the maker was actually trying to accomplish and give it a small shot before ripping it a new one, and goody goodys should try to admit a flaw here or there at the very least and continue the good act talking about how you got over it or how it wasn't that big a deal in the end.

3. Don't give in to hype, no matter what side you take. Many people take this advice the wrong way and these people are some of the most obnoxious reviewers I have ever met. Not giving into the hype doesn't mean yelling at the fanbase about how wrong they are and arbitrarily hating a game, it's about not giving into heaven or hell on this scale. You should always be out to give an honest review, not just out to rip the game to shreds in an attempt to balance out all the people who are giving the game a perfect 10. outside influence shouldn't play a part and the game should be reviewed as if you just got it as a birthday present and had no prior knowledge about the game.

4. Play a game as far as you can before you decide to review it. I don't care if the game just came out and you're eager to tell everyone about it. Your love of it should build up over the time you play it and shouldn't be just a blinding light in your face. further more you also shouldn't quit a game you got frustrated with and just dub it not worth playing half way in. Let the hate or love of the game build up over time so you actually get the full experience of it. The only reason you should ever review before you finish is if there is a game stopping moment that happens on multiple occasions which is literally almost impossible to get past, or if you've beaten the game, little extras excluded, and seen the end credits of all it has to offer the average player. Until then, keep your comments and criticism to what you tell people in your IM buddy list.

5. Play the game to enjoy the game. What is a videogame? A videogame is a interactive experience made with computers to bring pleasure to the user. If you walk into every game with this mindset, your reviews become a lot better. This isn't to say you're supposed to enjoy every game the same way. Some games are enlightening and others are just about delivering a punch to someone's face. This also doesn't mean you're going to like every game either, there are good and bad games in this world and that's why we do what we do. I just say this because a lot of people walk in with the wrong mindset when turning on a game and that immediately sabotage the review one way or the other. This is just the way to walk into it without any problems and with reaching the most people.

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Take my opinion as the opinion it is, even if it's an opinion on how to form proper opinions, but these are rules to keep in mind. Can you never ever break a rule? No, otherwise I'd be calling them laws of reviewing. Are these the only rules? No, there's probably more, but I just felt like addressing whats in the media today. Reviews are becoming a joke and it's almost saddening. People say never to take their advice, but we have the good intentions of just trying to guide you into what's worth your money and not. People are also making reviews almost a complete parody. Rather than giving a structured review, we're fed a reviewer trying to be a character while throwing trash on a game to be funny. As entertainment, I won't question whether it's funny or not, but as these becoming real reviews, we're entering a dark age of reviewing here.

Now I've gone on way too long of a rant on this. Thank you anyone who read all that, and as for personal life, nothing much other than continual progress of my own game and college which is a drag. I'll brief you more on the game when I can get a tiny bit further, art is hard to make when you're no artist.

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That's quite good, cause though I've waited a bit not to post in the heat of emotions, it's still hot. On the other hand, this might feel like - who am I lying to? This is just another little piece of the Michael Jackson craze. But here goes a little story on how I came to enjoy his music, and specially why.

I was born twenty years ago, in 1989, during the Bad era. But even though the Michael mania had reached worldwide proportions years before, my constant changes of addresses with my parents and their more conservative tastes prevented me for even realizing there was a 30 years old man (can you believe it? That full grown man still looked like a teen back then) owning the pop universe. Michael Jackson still had 20 years to live. Or should I say, to endure. After Bad, his life was going to change - and so would his music.

The earliest memory I have of Michael Jackson? Some images of the Ghosts video and his constant appearances on TV because of hanging his third child over the window and later because of the child abuse trials. That's kind of funny, I'm not sure if those images of Ghosts in my head are from its release. That's 1997, and it coincides with another memory of mine, the kids from my clas.s arguing whether Michael did rock or pop (he did both, after all, though a lot more of the latter), so that may be it. And then there were the trials, so that's 2005 and by friggin 2005 and my sixteen years I still did not know what was the big deal about him. I knew he was supposed to be insanely famous, and supposed to have been black.

What I do perfectly remember is what my maths teacher said to his (and therefore my) clas.s in 2005 or 2006, when some of his students were laughing at the composers (like Mozart or Bach) he mentioned in his many off topic dissertations:

"Look, people have been listening to Mozart for three hundred years now. Do you think people will be listening to Michael Jackson in three hundred years?"

Back then, I was already deep in my flute studies, I didn't play anything pop at all, so I couldn't agree more, and that summed my feelings on MJ up pretty well.

Jackson was acquitted and faded out. He still had four years to live.

My life went on, and now it's December 2007. A friend, spending his holidays in Paris shows me Elite Beat Agents. Because of this game, our hot topic is music. For some reason he insisted I checked Michael Jackson, specially his Billie Jean performances. Why not? So, I checked it. It was electrifying indeed. Unique dancing. Loads of s.tyle. I couldn't stop checking all Billie Jean renditions he performed. But it felt like, you know, my new fad. I would eventually tire off of it.

I decided, however, to check the lyrics I couldn't catch by listening to it.

"She says I am the one..."

Your average love pop song, I thought. Only enhanced by the performer.

"But the kid is not my son..."

My jaw literally dropped. I'm not kidding here. It did drop, it dropped big time, and for one second I was in absolute haze. That song, that very song I had been listening for days, the song the audience was going crazy for, the song that young man was singing with such passion, was it really talking about such a serious matter?

I. Was. Sold. Pop was, as far as I knew, an easy, mainstream, shallow genre. But that was deep. The man who wrote that had to be at least that much profound. To date, I believe Jackson's strongest ability are his writing skills, above dancing, composing and singing. Given how he dances, composes and sings, that means a lot.

Faced with some concerns of my own, I forgot about Jackson for a while. Until I met a guy, who would become a great friend, and who was obsessed by the King of Pop, early 2009, this very year. Right when Jackson was getting ready to announce his next tour. He had five months to live.

And I would jump back into his universe. Not limited to Billie Jean and the Thriller era this time. I listened to everything I could, watched all there was to watch, read all that was available... I couldn't stop it, I had to find an answer to the enigma Michael Jackson was. And then came March 2009 and the new shows were officially announced. I was aware Michael was way past his prime and obviously didn't expect a new Thriller - but to witness a new development in his career was exciting nonetheless. I never planned to attend the tour, but to know the artist you are fascinated for is an active one has a totally different feel to it and it refreshed my search for that answer: what's Michael Jackson from the inside? How can a person like him even happen?

June 25th 2009, I was bored and decided to check a movie. There was that Notorious B.I.G. one. I only knew his stage name, so I thought it might be nice to have some insight on him. It was a great movie for a newbie like me and I was really moved by the ending and the images of his funeral. I asked myself:

"If such a young rapper, with such a short career and development, could trigger that much reaction, I wonder what will happen the day Michael Jackson dies..."

As that thought crossed and frightened my mind, Michael Jackson only had a few more thousand heartbeats to go, and I had my answer that same night. As a matter of fact, I couldn't sleep because of the worse storm I've seen ever since I left Brazil. I was fully awake when I received a text message on my cellphone, telling me the immortal Michael Jackson had died.

The Blood on the Dancefloor album second track, Morphine, had called for it:

"A heart attack, baby!"

That seems ages ago. But it doesn't seem that long since Michael Joseph Jackson invented - he didn't reinvent anything - pop. Or when he sang with his brothers with crystal clear voice.

Jackson invented pop and invented it so well no one has done significant pop ever since. I don't know much about pop aesthetics, but any meaningful music has got depth, sincerity, magic. All of those died with Michael Jackson, as pop music became an industry. Today, I am not so sure people won't listen to his music in three hundred years.

With Michael's death, we lose our chance to witness what could have been the biggest comeback ever. But my mother, who isn't really a fan of Michael Jackson, but knows her share about him, had a nice thing to say about it: Michael Jackson has done everything he could. Instead of mourning what his broken health took away from us, we should celebrate what his fight against it has provided: nothing less than Bad, Dangerous, HIStory, Blood on the Dancefloor, Invincible. All of that instead of This is it, yes, I take that deal. Thank you Michael for not giving up halfway through, where so many wouldn't be able to take it.

Why didn't he give up when all the trouble in his life started? Well, because of one belief:

"If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with."

- Michael Joseph Jackson

And he sure knew he was loved. For he knew that, I'm at peace.

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This isn't fake at all, he's just promoting his music. Each week he has a new webcast/music video in which there are hidden symbols to find. There's a quiz on his website involving identifying the real hidden symbols from look alikes. If you get all of the questions right (only 4 or so), then you'll be entered into a raffle for a prize!

Here's the latest webcast, with me unboxing my PSP: click here

So now that I have a PSP, what games should I get? Only one I know for sure of is Crisis Core. Tekken 6 and Dissidia later on. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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Luckily, I live in the city where the most prestigious med school in Mexico is

BUT, it has the highest standards and the most difficult admission examn ever!

I am confident I am going to enter, but as the exam is approaching my confidence level is going down!

CONFIDENCE TODAY

PROBABLE CONFIDENCE BEFORE THE EXAM

D:

Well I think the only thing I could do is wait and study for it.

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Geez. Almost a month without a blog? That's not like me !

I know it's a little late, but Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas or whatever you will to all my friends out there. I hope you all got some wicked gifts! I personally nabbed Rock Band 2 which I was and still am extatic about! I have taken to the drums far quicker than I imagined

I haven't blogged or posted on Gamespot pretty much since my last blog, thus leading to a load of gaming instead! I've been using my 360 a lot more than my Wii lately, since my last blog I've gardened my way through most of Viva Pinata which I was strangely addicted to for awhile . Shot my way through Gears of War 2, online and off. Borrowed The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from a friend (which I have yet to return ), fried my brain with Braid, got creative with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and finaly rocked out with Rock Band 2! Phew!

Out of all of them, Gears of War 2 recieved most of my attention. The single-player was rather epic with hardly any dull moments, too bad the same can't be said about the multi-player. Sure it can be a great laugh with friends and the like, but constant laggy matches, game-ruining gltiches and quitters just lower the bar. These issues haven't swayed me from Gears completely though, but honestly, the game is starting to lose attention. Oh, and I have racked up 26,000 kills for Seriously 2.0

You've probably noticed that I've chnaged my Gamertag to x RetroRob x from CaptainBurnardo. Feel free to add me if you wish! I've also been quite the achievement whore surpasing the 10K GS mark in only 4/5 months or so!

I've probably left out a lot of stuff and hopefully I will be able to blog about everything in the future if I can keep posting on here again! I plan on doing some exciting stuff in the new year, as to what that is, or if I will bother my behind to do it, you will have to wait and see

~Later

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I freaking love it! So many puzzles, including DLC. I've never even played Picross before. Anyone have some puzzles they want to send me?

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Brainstorm Events For Nintendo Dream -

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Half-Life, the second you looked at this screen with a first person view and a crowbar the game sprung to mind.

And why not it was revolutionary.

The situations I was in and how interactive the game was just ridiculous.

I had to take crates, push them in water, jump onto the crates, then get sucked up by the sticky rope from a man-eating creature, kill the creature at just the right time so when I fell I would be angled to fall on that broken bridge to get to the other-side.

This is yet another interesting event. This forces you to jump and stand ontop of that metal crane to jump and (automatically) grab the rope holding the crate, slide down to the crate to jump and climb the next rope, to slide down again and jump to the ledge and open the door.

Here's another event. Earlier finding a open vent it is obvious that you the player must get to it. However it seems that there are some crates some time back. So in order to reach the vent one must break a crate then physically push the other two to the area of the vent. After that one must jump towards the top crate to push it back a little to jump on the bottom crate then jump on the top crate again to jump up to the vent and then progress.

It wasn't just the first person perspective that had high level interaction it was other perspectives as well.

Everything in the game was used for the games main focus "platforming". Not only that but everything was used towards your progression, and when I mean everything in the environment I mean everything. To pipes to the side, giants, to even enemies themselves, and the game even rewarded you for exploring and tackling on these areas (whether it be a "puzzle piece" or a power-up).

What was even more awesome was that at times these areas would have ways to transport to other areas so you could progress even more.

to

These games were truly 3D, everything in your environment you interacted with to your progression. You the player had to think, look around, and most importantly explore to progress. In Half-Life the maps didn't guide you where to go, you had to throughly look around the area for any crack in the wall, hole in the ceiling, etc. But that wasn't all there was to it you would have to look around your environment to and use anything you could just to get to that one opening. Banjo-Kazooie had you explore everything just to progress with nearly every object used to get to a desired area. But it just wasn't these games doing these things there were many others during their time as well: Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, System Shock II, Donkey Kong 64, etc.

I just feel disapointed that 3D gaming didn't take forth of these types of games.

I mean most games despite being bigger and having more detail in the environments now give you one way to do things and only let you interact with certain objects that are obvious to be using in the first place.

I mean in this game I HAVE to "rocket" platform to platform to progress. I can't interact with anything else or use anything to my advantage. Hell I couldn't even if I wanted to because there's some barrier the pushes me away from the pipes, the metal ball, and the barrels.

Immersive? Immersive my ass. The only way I progress in this game is by staying on the floor and killing enemies that appear. Sure there may be a switch here and there but I'm never in situations where I have to jump or climb. Never mind interacting with things by constructing them and use them in clever ways to progress. The most interactive this game gets is me getting a wrench to bat this scuba-diver......thing or better known as a "Big Daddy".

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying 3D games now suck. I mean lots of things got fixed (the camera, combat, etc.), but it seems to me that many developers forgot why 3D was so intriging for games in the first place, INTERACTIVITY that includes situations, exploration, and progression that just isn't possible in a 2D interface.

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Of course they are desperate. They are desperate to get out of the completely illogical and idiotic cycle of self-fulfilling prophesies created by developers towards Nintendo.

Basically, developers just assume that Wii users only want kiddie games or Nintendo games. So they make a crap kiddie game and when nobody buys it, it must be because they only want Nitendo games...and not because their game sucked. Or when it comes to NON-kiddie games, they say "Mature games won't sell on the Wii because if they did people would be making them" or "Mature games don't sell on the Wii because people only want Nintendo games which are kiddie". Both of these are wrong and totally make no sense at all.

Then when somebody does finally put out a Mature title for the Wii that is good, nobody buys it because it's made by some small company that casuals don't know of and has a crazy look that casuals don't typically identify with. Yet if this game fails for its lack of commercial appeal...it will only once again fuel the developers self-fulfilling prophesy that Wii owners don't want real games.

So of course the sheep are desperate to help a Mature Wii title get the recognition it deserves. Imagine what lemmings would be like if developers looked at the RPG sales compared to FPS sales and said, "We're not going to bother making RPGs for the 360 because 360 owners only want FPS" and yet when they do bring out an RPG it isn't Mass Effect but some crap PS2 port that sucked back on the PS2 and sucks now.

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Wii games link - http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25463965

DS games link - http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25846973&tag=recent_topics;title;4

photobucket account- Nintendo_Dream password- nintendodream link - http://s198.photobucket.com/albums/aa34/Nintendo_Dream/

MORE LINKS INSIDE

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My wii gamer tag

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