Howdy folks.  Today I have an old-fashioned rant for you all to read.  Bet you're thrilled eh?

But this rant isn't about any game in particular, just a particular type.  In case you haven't guessed by the rant's title, I'm talking about online shooting games (and LAN games I suppose).  But even then, I'm still not ranting about the games themselves, but rather the people that they attract.  People like you and me.  And others, not so like you and me.  I'm sure everyone who reads this (yes, all one of you, fishdalf ) has had some experience with online gaming in some way, shape or form.  And I'm certain everyone has had their gameplay tactics badmouthed by at least one person.  Let's start with a commonly thrown about term that practically everybody knows.

Camping:  Ah, camping.  The art of hiding away in a spot waiting for the opposition to wander by so you can blast their brains out.  You'll hear this one screeched at you throughout any first-person shooting game, such as Counter-Strike, Battlefield: 1942 or Quake.  Good camping spots include around your home flag (if you're playing Capture the Flag), an enemy's respawn area and if you're a terrorist in CS, then where the hostages are or where you plant the bomb.  But camping is so forbidden in many circles of gaming that it would almost certainly result in a kick and/or ban if you do not come out of your hidey-hole when politely asked "OMFG STOP CAMPIN U FG!"

DTing:  I recently encountered this term while playing GunBound.  It seems DTing means 'Double-Teaming' which is another way of describing two teammates ganging up on a single opponent.  Like camping, this is frowned upon (God help us if there's a TT or a QT).  There's no exception to the rule.  It doesn't matter if you were blasted down to an area that blocked off three of the four opponents, if you go for that one available enemy while someone else was still firing upon it... Then my God, you're a horrible, horrible person.  Even your teammates would abandon you, as you 'stole their kill'.

Aimbots:  Even if you play perfectly, that's not good enough.  If you pull off a move that by all means should fail, but happens to hit, then it didn't happen because of skill or luck, but purely because you're using an aimbot.  Even if you proved to be a no-hit wonder, if you get lucky once, then you're using an aimbot.  There's no other way.  Because after all, you're the n00b, while the one that got hit is a masta, a pro, the L33t of the L33t.

Now, I find all the above rubbish.  Yes, I'm a camping, DTing aimbot.  Well, maybe not the last one.  But I do camp and DT.  And I don't see anything wrong with that.  I honestly don't.  The aim of the game(s) is to win, not to be fair.  You don't rack up Fairness Points for every camping spot you run by and don't use, or not firing upon someone that's already been targeted by someone else.

Now, if someone on my team, said something like 'dont dt, this ones mine' and there were other enemies about, then yeah, I would probably leave them alone.  But otherwise, everyone's fair game.  No matter how.  I'm not that good at CS and the like, so if I see a way to attack while being pretty well defended/hidden, I'll take it.  All's fair in love and war.

And speaking of war, I doubt there were sergeants running around the battlefield yelling at their soldiers, "FOR GOD'S SAKES, PRIVATE JOHNSON, DON'T SNIPE FROM UNDER THAT OVERTURNED JEEP!  YOU TWO, STOP FIRING AT THE SAME ENEMY!  HOW DO YOU EXPECT HIM TO FIGHT BOTH OF YOU AT ONCE?  JOHNSON, I TOLD YOU TO STOP CAMPING YOU F-ARRRRGHH!  DAMN AIMBOT!"

My Final Word: Games were made to be won, and I play to win.  Fairness shouldn't be, and is not, an issue.  Fairness is not shooting your teammates on purpose.  It is not shooting from a place with no cover to hide behind because your opponent asked you to.  You want to face me out in the open, find me before I find that place in your base no-one bothers to check because who in their right mind would hide in the opponent's base?

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I don't know how Amy puts up with those two...

I made this comic after I had an idea after playing Sonic Heroes for a while.  Most of Cream's line are truly ones that make you stop and do a double-take.  And to hear them in that voice of hers, ugh.  Not that I hate Cream or anything, it's just that she was very hard to listen to.

For those of you who don't get some of the jokes, (not surprising if you haven't played the game) here's a short list of what I was thinking when I was putting this together.

Panel 2: On the surface, this line looks quite innocent.  And it is fully 100% innocent.  However, everytime Cream said this or similiar, I could not help but think of that one F*R*I*E*N*D*S episode where Rachel overheard Monica calling Chandler Mr Big.  So you see why it icks me (and Amy) everytime to hear a six-year-old say Mr Big...

Panel 3: After playing as Team Dark where everywhere you turn, there's a swarm of enemies nearby, to go from that to Team Rose where the largest group you might encounter at any one time is four robots, it's laughable when Cream freaks out about 'so many bad robots'...  She's right here though.  That is a bad robot. :p

Panel 4: Jellyfish?  When I first saw this thing, my first thought was not a jellyfish.  Jellyfish do not have two long arms with big 'hands'.  And save you?  Gee, I had no intention of saving you since you're our team's only flyer, but since you asked so nicely, sure.

Panel 5: This is without a doubt my favourite panel.  From Big and Cream telling off Robotnik and him responding with "oh ok", to Amy facepalming, I love it.  I mean, c'mon, what did those two expect Robotnik to do after they tell him not to be 'bad'?

Panel 9:  Tails' voice isn't as bad as Cream's, but it's close.

Well, there you have it.  I hope you enjoyed reading my first comic strip.

Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for the lack of... well, anything.  My computer finally died late October so, if you sent me messages during my down-time, I'm sorry for not being able to respond.  Anyway, let the thoughts begin...

Sonic Heroes.  It's a strange game.  It's been hailed as the saviour of the Sonic games, and also as the demise of the Sonic games.  So which one should you believe?  The answer is: Neither.  You have to judge for yourself.  Don't believe me?  Look at this example.

Ages ago, my friend reviewed this game.  He hated it.  So much, that he took it back the next day to get his money back.  That's a pretty strong statement, right?  Everything he said about it made sense.  So I ended up avoiding this game.  Every time I saw it on the shelf, I scoffed at it and its $99.95 price.  Days went by.  Days turned into weeks, which turned into months.  All the while, the price went from $100 to $80 to $60 then settled at the standard half price, $49.95.

Eventually, with each passing of the game, I would stop and look at it a bit more often.  I began to wonder, "Exactly how bad is this thing?"  But the price was still too high for me to buy a 'known' bad game.  (Renting the game wasn't really an option to me, it seems that every damn video store here has the Gamecube on some sort of blacklist.  But they'll quite happy rent out Nintendo 64 games. o_O  Someone wanna explain that to me?) Then a month or so ago, it went all the way down to $30.  I've never seen a store mark a well-known game that low that wasn't second-hand.  I gave in to curiosity.  I had to know if this game was really as bad or as good as they say.  So, was it?

In a word, no.  In many words, it was neither brilliant nor crap.  It was just an average game with some very good points, and some very bad points.  Let's look at each part of the game and see where it both excels and fails.

First, the story.  Four teams of three each have a different story, Team Sonic are out to stop Robotnik (yes, I know his name has been changed/reverted to Eggman, but I like the name Robotnik, so there.  ), Team Dark are also out to find Robotnik but in order to destroy him/steal his treasure/find out information.  Team Rose are out to find Sonic, who apparently had Froggy and Chocola (every time I hear that name, I think of chocolate milk mixed with Coca Cola.  Bleah..) with him at one point.  And Team Chaotix is a detective agency who must help a mystery client. (A mystery to those who have never seen such a plot twist anyway...)  Sounds good?  Yeah, except when you find out they all go through every stage the exact same way!  So the plot doesn't really matter, it's just a way of filling in the gaps.

Next up, is the characters.  You have three characters, a speedster, a flyer and a powerhouse.  Sounds reasonable.  You immediately think of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and it fits.  But what about the other teams?  Namely Team Rose?  Who's the speedy one out of Amy, Cream and Big?  Who?!  AMY?!  Amy, the pink hedgehog, who has throughout the Sonic history been noted as slower than a turtle with a three-ton weight on its back, is the speed character?!  And not only that, somewhere between Sonic Adventure and Sonic Heroes, she has turned from an admirer of Sonic with a huge crush, to some sort of psychopath fangirl, obsessed with marrying Sonic.  That is not the Amy I intentionally liked.  This isn't the Amy you're looking for.  Move along.

The bosses are really really... uninspired.  It's all the same thing.  Run run run, jump, hit hit hit, run run run, punch punch, hooray a winner is you.  Either that, or you'll face regular enemies in an arena for three minutes or so before Robotnik gives up and says, "Don't get too excited boys, those were the easy ones!" *disappear*  Yeeeah.  I'm playing Team Rose with two girls out of three and he still says that.  Nice editing job guys.

But speaking of bosses, I have to admit I really like the final boss fight.  Possibly because IT'S A TOTAL REMAKE OF THE FINAL FIGHT FROM FINAL FANTASY VII!  Don't believe me?  Metal Sonic transforms into a giant mass of... metal which really has the same shape and look as JENOVA.  Not only that, teams of three attack it from different points to weaken it.  Then the main team attacks it in midair before defeating it.  It's FFVII with Sonic characters.  The only thing missing is Sonic attacking a regular Metal Sonic afterwards with multiple Light Dashes or something.

Oh, and another thing about the last story.  When I saw Team Sonic about to transform with the Chaos Emeralds, I was really excited.  I thought, "Finally, Super Tails and Knuckles!"  I mean, they were in Sonic 3&K, so it's not totally unreasonable.  Instead, we get Tails and Knuckles covered with a bubble shield or something.  We got Bubble Tails and Knuckles.  Come on!  All I wanted was a Super Tails and Knuckles, it's not like I was after Super Amy (though that would be cool) or anything.  I just didn't want Goku with two bubbles.

Oh yes, Super Sonic in Sonic Heroes is Goku from Dragonball Z.  Apart from the obvious Super Saiyan look (which I don't really mind), Super Sonic's lines could've come from Goku himself.  Read these lines while looking at a picture of Goku:

"You thought you could actually defeat me, by turning into a MONSTER?"

"Too bad it's all over, FOR YOU!"

"Anytime you want a rematch, I'll be waiting."

Uncanny, isn't it?

But despite those downfalls of the game, it's not that bad of a game.  Sure, sometimes you'll have to remember to move a little to the right after flying of a pole because the game has angled you so you'll fall into nothing instead of onto the rail, and the game may decide to swing the vines backwards instead of forward when trying to outrun the giant alligator, and doing the Ring Dash across a chasm may leave you falling to your death but...  I can't think of a way to end this positively.  Oh wait, yes I can.

Compared to the other Sonic games, it's a terrible sequel.  But look at it by itself, and it's a fun game to play and well worth the $30 I spent on it.

I resumed playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker recently. I had continued where I left off (that being near the end, just before the big fight with Ganon), beaten it, and continued onto the second quest (that being exactly like the first one with a few differences) and beaten that as well in a few days. My thoughts? I hear people complain about how easy this game is (true) and how crappy the graphics are (false). But one thing I've never heard is how powerful the game tells the story.

I guess I never realised it when I played it the first time, but the second time... man. For example, now being able to understand Hyrulian (one of the second quest changes) the scene where the Deku Tree talks to Link in Hyrulian is both cool and perhaps a little sad. As TWW is supposed to be set hundreds of years after Ocarina of Time, surely the Deku Tree would remember someone who wore a green tunic (let's face it, who else wears a green tunic?) and indeed he does express surprise at Link's outfit. That's great for continuity's sake, but it's also sad because at first he had thought the original Link (a.k.a. The Hero of Time) had come back.

But I do love how the game keeps referring to the original Link throughout the game. It's simply not a case of "There was this guy who saved us all hundreds of years ago, but forget about him, we got this new guy now!" Plus there's all kinds of throwbacks to OoT: The two sages of old (a Zora and Kokiri), a Rito who looks like he very well could be a descendant of the Running Man (or his Majora's Mask alter ego, the Postman), the stained glass windows of the OoT Sages in Hyrule Castle, plus the exact same music from OoT when Link pulls the Master Sword out is used in TWW for the exact same thing! It really does all help make you feel like this is more than just a sequel.

And then there's Ganondorf. Remember the big fight back in OoT? He had a brief Phantom of the Opera thing going, then he got right into the fighting, slinging energy balls at you. (I never get tired of that deadly game of tennis) Anyway, end result is, power-hungry guy who turns into a giant pig. But here, he's a bit more chatty (I guess being couped up all by yourself for hundreds of years would make you want to talk a bit more often when you get out...) and the end result is power-hungry guy who turns into a giant pig. Damn, I forgot what my point was.

But speaking of Ganondorf, I loved the end scenes of this game. Sure, you're Link the Hero of Winds, you've got the Master Sword, the Triforce of Courage, the green tunic... but you're still only twelve, whereas Ganondorf is a powerful wizard (who's quite handy with a sword too...) so as logic dictates, he's gonna overwhelm Link. And he does. With ease. And you can just see the look of hopelessness on Link's face when Ganondorf lifts him up.

That's one more thing, rarely have I seen a game that shows expressions when they're due. Oh sure, you've got the standard happy face when something good happens, sad face when something bad happens, but there are quite a number of instances when Link shows an expression that's used only once in the game. When he sees Puppet Ganon forming, his body actually wavers as he looks on in horror at the thing he's about to fight. When he obtains the Fire and Ice Arrows (by having fire and ice fairies fly into him...) he grimaces and looks concerned as both fairies set up home inside him. Then he does a twirl and the standard 'Look at what I got!" pose. Oh well.

But I'll leave you all now with one small rant, about the long trips between islands. Seriously Nintendo, if I can set sail from one point, leave the game to go to the toilet, wash up, go to the kitchen for a snack, and come back to find I'm still halfway to my destination... that's bad.

A few days ago, I bought The Simpsons: Hit & Run. I had been very wary of Simpsons games since they had usually turned out to be not very good at all. But I had heard good reports of this game so I decided to risk it and get it.

I completed it in three days.

One hundred percent complete in three days on a game I paid fifty dollars for.

Three days after completion, I'm still playing it.

Nw, logic tells me I should be outraged at paying fifty dollars for a game I could've rented to get the same result, but I'm having too much fun to care. Strange how I had just last week finished a game that took me forever (Super Mario Sunshine) and I'm not likely to be playing it again any time soon, and now I'm constantly playing a game that I have completed in just three days.

Sure, I like The Simpsons, but surely that's not what's keeping me coming back to the game, is it? Who knows, it might be. But it could also be the thrill of driving around. I remember when I had Driver for the Playstation, I would just drive around the Free Map section trying to get the cops on my tail and then try to shake them off. Then again, it could be a mixture of the two. In fact, I think that's what it is, the driving is the first layer, then you put the Simpsons on top of that, with a sort of plausible Treehouse of Horror plotline as the icing, and then sprinkle on a crapload of gags and you've got one nice cake of a game. Mmm... game.

That said, I am sort of disappointed with the limited amount of things you can do once it's all over. I'm currently going through all the Wager Races with every car, but having bought all the vehicles and outfits, I simply don't have anything to do with the money. I suppose eventually it'll just build up to 9999 coins or something. Maybe they could've added more outfits that cost much more than usual or something? Don't get me wrong, I love the outfits we get, (I've had Lisa permanently in her Cool Clothes since she became available. Quite funny though, when Lisa later meets Milhouse and he says, "Hey, is that a new dress you're wearing?" and Lisa responds, "No, I've been wearing this for years!") but just four outfits per person, (and the Bart/Homer outfits aren't even interchangeable between their levels) seems kinda limiting. I do know when I first went to buy an outfit for Apu, I was disappointed to not see his alternate Kwik-E-Mart uniform, (seen in Homer and Apu) and it could've been fun to see the Simpsons in their Sunday Clothes.

But then they probably would've had to remove the extra drivers such as Frink, Skinner and the Comic Book Guy (now revealed to be named Jeff Albertson. Meh, I prefer CBG) and they usually make me laugh more than the Simpsons (and Apu). I can't imagine the game without Frink's cry of "Ow! That hurt... because I didn't..have a good...ow....", CBG's "I can fly! Temporary." as he makes a jump, or Skinner's chuckle as he says "Don't worry, Ralph Wiggum has the same problem," as you try to enter the driver's seat when he's already there. Even Smithers proves himself to be quite humourous often, especially when you call him and he says, "Sure! I'll be glad to help you out. Sometimes, I just feel like a secondary character."

On that note, the game refers to itself quite often, sometimes it doesn't quite work such as Marge's "Where to now, Video Game?", but others often work, whether it's a sly reference such as when Homer collects all of Ned's stuff and he remarks "Now to get back to Flanders before the police find me talking to myself!" or the more direct approach such as when you fail a mission and Homer says, "Aww, this video game su-ucks!"

Now this is starting to turn into a review rather than a few simple thoughts so I'll sign off here. I don't know how much longer this game is going to hold my interest, but at the rate I'm playing, I think it'll be a while before I'll look at another game. Not bad for something that logically has the lifespan of a rented game.

Well, this is my first time using an online journal, so let's make it a good one. Since this is on a gaming site, I figured it'd be logical to talk about my gaming experiences. Here goes...

I've just finished Super Mario Sunshine yesterday. As in 'every last Shine Sprite collected' finished. And I'm pretty damn disappointed. I knew I wasn't going to get anything good by reading some online guides (Which I really didn't want to do. Previously, I had for some reason read an entire guide for Mario 64 before I even had a Nintendo 64. As a result I wanted to beat SMS without using a guide. But some of those pesky Blue Coins were murder to find. And nevermind the fact I didn't even try to re-enter the Secret Levels due to the fact I hated them so much. Ah well.) Where was I? Oh right, even though I knew nothing spectacular was going to pop up, I still wasn't prepared for the complete lack of bonuses. I mean, really. Is it worth collecting all those extra hard to get/find Sprites and Coins just for a brand new picture at the end? Wow, a new picture. That was certainly worth the 30 or so lives I lost in the second attempt of the first Secret Level in the hotel. There was so much they could've done. An unlimited water pack perhaps? A harder boss battle maybe? Giving Yoshi the ability to survive in water? Sheesh, they didn't even bother to add worthless sparkles to Mario's Triple Jump.

I just don't see the point in collecting 120 where 80 or so will pretty much give you the same results. Even Mario 64 had Bowser say something different at the end.