My wife and I coach volleyball and the team we coach together got us a blue DS so now we both have one. They also got us Are you smarter than a 5th grader and brain challenge so maybe my wife will play something besides Brain Age 2. After selling Zelda and Hotel Dusk and getting 100% through Professor Layton, I realized I had nothing but time wasters and Mario to play on vacation next week, so I stopped for some travel ds game cases and Mario Kart DS. I have loved this game since we used to skip classes in college for all day/night Mario Kart 64 marathons, and it sounds like the ds version is just as good. I am now prepared for the eventual sunburn that will keep me inside at least some portion of time while in mexico. Wish me luck.

Now that the weather is getting nicer, it's time to stay inside and play some video games. So I finished Zelda on the DS, then used gamespot and their wonderful walk throughs to pound through Hotel Dusk. Both on ebay and sold for $20+, which is not as much as I should get, but more than trade in, so that's nice. Dusk was fun, and I liked the story, but I got so tired of saying the wrong thing, I plowed through the walk through just to see the ending before my ebay auction ended. I have since ordered Professor Layton and the Curious Village and since I have to be gone all next week for work, I plan to steal the wife's DS again. Maybe I'll have a chance to finish Mario as well.

As for the 360, I am about 30 min away from being 85% done in Lego Star Wars, and I think that is far as I am going to go because the last 2 achievements just aren't worth the hours it will take to get the rest of the gold bricks and get to 100%. Then its time to finish the Simpsons as I am still only about 10% through that, and hop back into Conan just in time to lose my current challenge on xbox360 voice. A challenge that didn't have someone gain 4000+ points would be a nice change of pace, considering I am still not at 10k yet and will never stoop to 2k6 games to get points and couldn't muster enough time to finish that many games even if I was sick for a week. But I digress, and realize I don't know what that means, so back to work.

As you can see from the new banner above, I can't wait for lego indiana jones. This series is such a great idea that I hope they go past star wars, indiana jones, and batma. It would be fun to play as spider man, james bond, or a number of other characters.

I finally had a chance to fire Zelda Phantom Hourglass back up when I was gone over the weekend and stole the DS from my wife. I didn't realize it but was just about at the end of the game already, so I was able to beat it the same day with a little FAQ help. You end up not really needing to find everything in the game to beat the last level, which is nice. I hope they make another Zelda DS title. Games that use all stylus are fun and I would play another one. Speaking of that, Hotel Dusk is frickin hard to not say the wrong thing and have to restart. FAQ here I come...

As for trying to finish Conan's achievements, some of these are proving pretty hard. I can beat the game, but it will take multiple game completions to master all the various weapons, get the 1000s of different kills you need, and find all the treasure chests, power-ups, and topless maidens. Good for replay value, bad if you are in an achievement challenge.

360voice.com allows you to register for free and then it tracks your achievements and gameplay to write a little blog about your gaming automatically. It also has 360 specific forums as well as a new challenge sponsored by Old Spice that you can sign up for and win daily drawings for Msoft points, tshirts, Zune players, and more. Plus in the challenges you compete with 9 people (or more) for stuff like best buy gift cards, msoft points, etc. but the beauty is that someone in that group of 10 wins.

So this is not just a chance against a million people for a tshirt, but an actual contest against 9 others to see who can gain the most achievement points in 2 weeks. The last challenge I was in, a friend won a $50 best buy card. And now I joined a challenge that needs 8 more people, and the winner gets 4000 Msoft points. You must be under 9000 points and agree not to cheat or just pop in 10 2ksports games or any other games you can simulate for a free 1000 points. I know some registrations are dumb, and there are a million sites out there, but this one is legit and I plan to keep using it and signing up for new challenges every couple weeks even if I don't win. The urge to go back and finish old games, try arcade games, and actually play the games I have just bought increases a lot when I know I might win something for playing.

Zeldahantom Hourglass is my favorite game of the year. Better than Halo 3 and even better than Lego Star Wars (man I'm a geek) and the other games I have sitting on my shelf. Everyday I mean to play my xbox360, and since I got it back from Msoft at Christmas, I have played the 360 on 3 or 4 days, and Zelda the other 16-20 days when I have had time to play a video game. It helps that I can take it on the road of course, but even at home, I turn on the DS instead of the 360 unless my wife gets to it first. I hope more DS games come out that are all stylus.

Conan and MMOs are making me jealous that I am not still in college. We had Diablo and C&C and Goldeneye and we played those for more hours than we attended classes I think. I would have loved for a social RPG for the hours when I didn't feel like hashing it out with roommates for goldeneye and mario kart. I was just about to order Conan, have been thinking about trying the trial of WOW, and was pining for online Star Wars from the day I heard about it, but I end up not buying these because I don't have the time to be an active clan member. Same as Halo 3, where it is hard to suit up knowing that everyone else is level 40 and I haven't played since November (stupid broken xbox...). If anyone has a part time job available to play MMOs all night so I can justify it to my wife, let me know.

Not really spoilers, so feel free to read away without ruining your expereince.

I'm not sure how far I am through this game, but I have played it a bunch over the past few weeks, unlocked a handful of stuff on the collection screen, and am currently exploring the ghost ship, and I haven't even unlocked the other 1/2 of the map yet. I am thinking this game is my favorite of 2007 even though I loved Halo 3 and Lego Star Wars and a bunch of other games. I have also never been a big handeheld console fan going off the thought that bigger is better, but I think I stand corrected. And I am going to get a ton more hours out of this game, which puts the value way up there. Plus, using the stylus for all the moves has been very addictive and fun, as well as talking and blowing into the mic for actions like putting out candles or haggling with merchants. I will probably write a review which I haven't done in months because I like this game so much.