High school, done and done! Finally! I feel free, for lack of a better term, it's amazing how people's attitudes toward you literally cahnge right after you graduate high school. At least, that's what it's been like for me. Anyways, I'm releaved. I'm going to move back to my home town soon, and go to college and speciaize as an EMT. You would probably know them as people who save lives in ambulances. Pretty heavy, huh?

On the games side of things, I've been on a big portable games kick lately, mostly due to sales on Amazon and at GameStop.

Half of these I got new for $9.99. And so far, I've only played Crisis Core, Patapon 2, Space Invaders Extreme, Street Fighter, and Henry Hatsworth. Which is completely unlike me, because I never play this many games, but I am enjoying them a lot, especially Crisis Core and Patapon 2.

I missed out last year when Crisis Core came out, but when I saw it on sale, I knew I had to take the plunge. And for a Final Fantasy game, I'm surprised, even moreso since it's under the Final Fantasy VII name. It's probably one of the best RPGs I've played in a long while.

Also speaking of RPGs, Patapon 2, is another series where I missed out on the original, and just picked this up yesterday. And it's completely taken over all my time with everything else, it's soooo addictive, the rhythm gameplay, the RPG elements, the visuals, OMG this game is absolutely fantastic!

That's it for now, I'm off to celebrate some more!

• New Katamari from creator Keita Takahashi, titled Katamari Damacy Tribute, and only on PS3. New and old stages and music, Full 1080P, and new (optional) cel-shaded graphics.

• Ninja Gaiden Σ 2 announced exclusively for PS3. Σ 2 is Ninja Gaiden II remade for PS3, with improved performance and graphics, improved camera, tweaks to difficulty and level design, new weapons, new multiple playable characters, new bosses and enemies, and two player co-op!

• Ratchet & Clank Future: A crack in Time, no info yet, but it is the conclusion to the Future story arc. Teaser trailer tomorrow night!

• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, new Zelda for the DS, it features trains in place of the boat mechanic from Phantom Hourglass. And hopefully doesn't feature monotonous backtracking to the same dungeon over and over again like in Phantom Hourglass.

• Modern Warfare 2: it speaks for itself, just wondering why they're dropping the Call of Duty title now.

Still the rest of the day left, and tomorrow as well, lets hope for more announcements!

P.S. Where are you Microsoft!

Hey all,

Just felt like posting a blog entry with all the crazy releases going on, I've been swept up into buying lots of games. Some old , some new.

These are the games I managed to pick up between the beginning of Febraury and now. Pretty unusual for me since I like to keep my purchases modest, so I can appreciate my games more, but I kind of splurged this month. In the end my final tally came out to,

Burnout Paradise - $20
Ninja Gaiden Sigma - $20
BioShock - $30
Left 4 Dead - $40
Street Fighter IV - $60
Killzone 2 - $60
Resident Evil 5 - $60 +

$290
7%(tax) x

$310 - Total

Luckily I managed to pick up a couple of them on clearance, and some were just discounted for being in the 'Greatest Hits' library.

But, yeah, I felt like playing BioShock again, because I remembered how much I loved that game, and felt it appropriate to support them for delivering on a fantastic game. So now I have two copies of the game.

Left 4 Dead I had been meaning to pick up since it came out, but after looking over what you get in the box for 60 bones, I decided to wiat for a price drop, and Target just so happened to have a sale with it for $40, so I picked it up.

Also managed to get some older games like Burnout Paradise and Ninja Gaiden Sigma for ridiculously cheap prices. Well, just ridiculously cheap compared to what I'm used to paying for games now, $20 is an insane bargain nowadays. And I'm definitely getting my moneys worth out of them both, they're both fantastic games.

And for new releases I picked up Street Fighter IV, Killzone 2, and Resident Evil 5, all of which I'm very happy with. I'm kind of holding off of playing more Street Fighter though, because I'm trying to find a good arcade stick to really play it, controller just doesn't cut it.

That's all for now, be back soon with more.

I really want to blog more often, I really do. But I find whenever I want to write a new entry, I'm required to go write this long soliloquy of which I really find time consuming. So in effort to blog more often, and cut off the rest of the baggage, I've made an account on Twitter.

Fot those of you who don't know, Twitter is a webiste that brings the functionality of a blog, but with a more loose structure, smaller entries, and the ability to update from practically anywhere, even through phone texts. Even a lot of industry people use it as a blog, like Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, a lot of current and ex 1UP staff, etc, and I frequently come across lots of useful information.

This won't be my last update to this blog, but my main focus will be to update via Twitter. So if you're interested in following me, here's my profile.

With that out of the way, I put up a review of Flower, one of this years best games, and one of the best experiences I've had in my time with any entertainment medium, it really is that impactful. You can find it here.

And that'll do it for now, look for more later on Twitter.

The first media to come out of Square about Final Fantasy XIII is almost 3 years, I hope it's worth it. I might have to be late for school on Wednesday.

In case you don't already know, the gaming webiste 1UP was acquired by UGO a couple weeks back, and a whole mess of talented people got layed off, so sad. And now, my long boring days are filled with long boringness again because my favorite podcast 1UP Yours was canned, it truly was the highlight of my Friday. There was nothing like going out for a night with friends and then coming home at night to download and listen to what was probably the best podcast ever.

Rest in peace 1UP Yours, and good luck all ex-1UP and EGM staff.

First off, I got modded last week for calling a bunch of people idiots for not knowing how to read. So today is my first time being back in a week, and I've since then done some stuff, so please bear with me, it might get a little long.

Let's go ahead and get the bad stuff out first, I traded in Gears of War 2, and Fallout 3. Saddening, yes? I gave plenty of time for Gears of War 2 to sink it's hooks into me. And with an average single-player, still dysfunctional multiplayer, and the fact DLC is already out, shows that Microsoft is content to treat this game like it's totally the s*** like Halo. No thanks.

Then there's Fallout 3, which is a great game, but felt kinda lacking in personality, and the fact it always freezes on me doesn't go in it's favor either.

So I got $60 bucks out of those two games, which felt like a complete ripoff, but I probably wasn't ever going to play them again, and I might as well trade them while the value is as high as it will get.

So now that that's out of the way, I did make a few other purchases.

Persona 4 - Went to get a copy earlier this week, and surprising enough, the game has been selling. But before I get ahead of myself, I went to my local GameStop to get a copy, where the game was practically sold out, except for one copy they told me. This actually had me excited, until I see them pull out a gutted copy, which I refuse to pay for, and I just told them no thanks, and call me when you get brand new UNOPENED copies of the game in. I hate getting the guts! And they're the only one's in town who are selling it.

WarioWare Smooth Moves - Haven't bought a Wii game, let alone turned on my Wii in months, but I went ahead and got this for my Madre for Christmas, I think she'll dig it. Slightly off-topic, I just had a realization earlier, I don't like what Nintendo does now, to keep it short and simple, but in a strange way, it's the only way I can get my family to enjoy games as much as I do. Backwards kinda thinking, but yeah, Nintendo can have my money to fund their casual crap, whatever.

MotorStorm Pacific Rift and Naruto Ultimate Ninja STORM - Got a real good price on both of these during Amazon's Gold Box deal yesterday, both total at $80 with shipping. So I should get both of them in the mail sometime next week.

That's it for purchases, but I plan on getting plenty more over the holiday break.

Oh, and how 'bout them VGAs on Sunday? Quite disappointing, but the premieres were pretty cool. I can't wait to see more of God of War III and Uncharted 2, those games look hot! Hopefully both come next year too. Backtracking a little bit, though, what is the deal with all these complaints of God of War III's graphics? The footage was entirely too short to make any kind of judgement, just because it didn't show off any giant set pieces yet, and the environment is supposed to be dark, just like the ending of God of War II, people will never be satisfied.

Brutal Legend looked pretty awesome too, and people were disappointed with it also! Bunch of ingrates if you ask me!

That's all for now guys!

P.S. Metal Gear Solid 4 LBP content, looks sooooo awesome, can't wait for it next week!

P.P.S I was right about Metal Gear on the iPhone.

Gears of War 2 - Downloaded the patch right after I got back from vacation and finally got into a match of Horde, and Warzone. I don't know if it's just me, but it felt like there was always bullet lag. I'll give it more time in the near future.

HOME - Guess what? I still haven't touched it enough to say anything.

Left 4 Dead - Such an awesome game, probably the most fun I've had with friends ever. I rented it, but now, I'm definitely going to buy it.

New Games

SOCOM Confrontation - Great, great multiplayer game, so tactical and team oriented, it reminds me of a couple years back playing Rainbow Six nonstop. The headset is also very, very nice, this is one of the top five best buys for PS3 this year.

I was planning on getting more, but it was either SOCOM or Yakuza 2 and Okami for the Wii, I'll probably pick up both of them later on.

That's all for now, later peoples!

$199 PSP 3000 Crisis Core Entertainment Pack

• Pearl White PSP 3000
• Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy VII Advent Children UMD
• 1 GB Memory Pro Duo
• PSN Voucher of somekind

I want a PSP, but I want a white one, and only a white one. Make it happen Sony.

Doesn't have to necessarily be that specif bundle, but it would be pretty sweet, and I'd definitely pick it up. A price drop would be nice too, the PSP hasn't had a price drop since like winter '07, so I think it's about time for one, and I think Sony knows that as well.

p.s. Those HOME impressions might take a while, haven't spent more than 10 minutes with it so far and I'm leaving tomorrow on vacation again for the holiday, and wont be home until Sunday.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

EDIT:

p.p.s. Left 4 Dead is freaking awesome. That is all.

So Gears or War 2 has been out for little over two weeks. And it's great, single-player is much better than the original's, I beat it on Friday. The end was pretty abrupt, and extremely easy, I mean so reaking wasyit's over in like 15 seconds, kind of disappointing, but a good single-player overall. I plan to go through on Insane pretty quick here.

I wish I could say something about the multiplayer, but as of now, I haven't been able to get into one match of anything pertaining to multiplayer, except for co-op with my buddy, which felt a lot like the first games co-op, except with the addition of some serious glitches. I'm really dying to play some Horde and whatnot, but playing alone sucks, plain and simple.

I hope EPIC or Microsoft acknowledge these problems soon, because as of now I haven't seen them give one word on the subject. It's like publishers can't ship a game this year without something not working pertaining to their multiplayer components.

So I went to the Gears of War 2 midnight launch last night, got myself a bunch of downloadable goodies like the gold Hammerburst, an NXE theme, and the code for the five remake maps(the latter comes in every new copy).

Sounds great, only missing one thing now, a 360. I guess you can consider this an update to my previous blog post too, but I sent my 360 off to Microsoft on Monday, free of charge. UPS tracking says it was delivered on Wednesday, so I'm going to give them a call today and get a status update, as a matter of fact, I think I'll call them right now.

But yeah, there you go, Gears of War 2 without a 360, how sweet it is.

Oh, one other thing I just noticed, I got a nice little new emblem.

Not that I give a crap anymore about achieving anything on GameSpot anymore, but for just watching the Gears of War 2 live marathon for 5 minutes got me this.

The Red Ring has struck me at the worst time, a week before Gears of War 2. I'm taken care of at least, since Microsoft isn't going to charge me for it. Suffice to say, I don't recommend Fallout 3, the game is very unstable, otherwise, the game is fantastic.

The holiday season is in full swing now, and I've just started making my rounds of what I'm getting this year.

If this is any indication, these are only for one week, I might go insane if I am to buy anymore games! Too bad, Gears of War 2, Prince of Persia, Resistance 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Chrono Trigger DS, Persona 4, and Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories are still on my list.

So luckily enough, I'm one of the many to have accrued a code for the LittleBigPlanet Beta! I'm in the process now of downloading, and am about to die from anticipation! I might do some impressions soon after I've had some, ahem, quality time with it.

P.S. How awesome is this totally out of the blue blog post?

Well I got my wish, Final Fantasy XIII at least teased, but what's this it's on Xbox 360!?! Wow, just wow, the edge is certainly tipping in Microsoft's favor now, with the biggest and best selling RPG franchise ever to make it's way to their console. Will Sony recover tomorrow? CAN they recover tomorrow? I hope to God they can, because right now, my faith in PS3 is dangling by a thread, I hope I didn't just spend $500 bucks for a paper weight.

In other news from the press conference, Resident Evil 5 has online co-op confirmed! God I can't wait for that game, March can't come soon enough!

#1

Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy is one of my most loved and long running series ever, and I can't wait to see this game in action, and even more to have it in my PS3. I hope we get a trailer at least before they show the big reveal of the gameplay later this summer at the Square event.

#2

God of War III

God of War on PS3 would be freaking hot. I want it at least teased at E3, hopefully it'll be demoed. There you go, have fun.