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I should clarify from the start: I’m not a great example of a “hardcore” gamer. Well, maybe in some respects: I own multiple game consoles and spend way too much money on games. On the other hand, I’m not threatening to rival Ice T’s prowess in Call of Duty 4 any time soon.
I bought two video games this week, Animal Crossing: City Folk and Demon’s Souls. One of these games occupies that odd grey area between ultra-casual and slightly nutty hardcore, offering to take only five minutes of your day but willing to take many hours more. The other is a staggeringly difficult game that involves sticking sharp objects into demonic monsters or soulless humans driven insane, shortly before dying and starting all over again. Guess which is which?


I thought this would drive me crazy, and I think it has, a bit. This game is well worth it though. I don’t typically go looking for “challenging” games. I’ve never played Megaman 9 and I’ve had a lot of frustrating experiences with the GBA-based Metroid games. The only game I’ve ever played and thoroughly enjoyed that I can compare this to is Ninja Gaiden. The secret to both games, I realised, is that although they will drive you up the walls with the level of concentration required, neither game becomes cheap at any point. The end result is that once you’ve figured out how to defeat a certain type of enemy or negotiate a certain type of scenario, you can do it again. And again. And again…
Animal Crossing does not exactly overflow with such moments. Still, the game has its own way of drawing you in, whether it’s collect various fish or be at the right place at the right time. The genius of the game is the adherence to a real world clock. I always knew I could cheat at the game on Gamecube just by changing the game clock, but this was one game I didn’t want to ruin. Ok, I’ll more than likely never see the New Years party in the game. It’s become one of the great appeals for me, a central facet of this wonderful illusion that there is a living breathing town going on whether I decide to play or not.
So, this week, I am going hardcore in every which way. Loving it, too. Now excuse me, I’m off to battle evil demons in the dark and maybe get a hair cut, if I can afford it.

Righto, so this is my first blog... a time of celebration indeed. I might start posting a blog about every week or so and maybe I'll get into a routine. So yeah if you enjoy reading this feel free to buddy me because my buddy list is.... uh.... EMPTY.
Any hoodles I just got a GameFly account about a month ago and I figured I'd start posting some of my impressions (and some reviews) of the games I've been playing. I recently rented a few older games that I never played like The New Super Mario Brothers and Call of duty 4. There's not much to be said about NSMB I enjoyed my time playing it but after awhile it did start to grow a little repetitive. It was a lot less difficult than the original mainly because of the inclusion of the storage box which allowed me to almost always be showering myself in fire flowers since there’s so many of them. I’m glad I rented this game because I don’t think I’d ever play it again after beating it. If I wanted to play a Mario 2D platformer I’d rather play SMB or SMB3 then NSMB. It was a fun game I just don’t think it stacks up well compared the originals.
I know a lot of you are probably going to put me on your hit list for not playing COD4 until now…. Well… I probably deserve it because I should have played this game a lot earlier. The reason I rented COD4 is because I bought COD:WaW around when it came out and I just wanted to save some money. That said I prefer COD4 over WaW just because Modern Warfare gives me a stiffy much more then WW2. I think I’ll save my money for Modern Warfare 2 though instead of rushing out to buy COD4. Without going in to too much detail since this game is oooooooold and most of you have probably already played it I’m just going say the Story is a hell of a lot better than WaW and the ending was very satisfying. The Multiplayer is addicting and stuff but you probably already know that so…. moving on.

Another game I’ve been playing a lot of lately is Animal Crossing: City Folk. I really liked the original Animal Crossing and Wild World so naturally I was eagerly anticipating City Folk. I hate to say it but in my opinion City Folk was a big disappointment. There’s a few neat features added like being able to customize every side of your shirt, the city adds a few things but nothing major and there’s USB keyboard support. The major one is of course WiiSpeak… now I didn’t really use wiispeak that much but mostly just because I don’t like the concept at all. Having to yell at my TV is just weird and I don’t like forcing people to listen to my Dog barking at squirrels outside of the window in my room. Using a keyboard to communicate with people is fast enough for me so I don’t really have much of a desire to use voice chat with a game like Animal crossing since it doesn’t require you yell tactics to other players and fend off zombies at the same time. I’m aware that voice chat is more convenient but hearing my friend’s deep manly voice coming from the TV while playing Animal crossing makes it a lot less charming which is why I prefer use a keyboard…. Also I’d really just rather use a headset over Wiispeak.
Alright, that’s enough of my ranting about WiiSpeak…. MOVIN’ ON! I also don’t like that now you can only get a 3 room house opposed to 6 room super mansion in Wild World. I suppose it’s because you can have 4 characters living in different houses now but still that mansion in Wild World looked badass. To summarize what City Folk is I’m just going to say it’s Wild World with a few things tacked on. It’s still a lot of fun but it doesn’t bring anything new for people who already played Wild World.
Those are a few of my impressions of the games I’ve been playing lately. I also just posted a review of LittleBigPlanet so go check it out it’s my first review. Just to be completely random I also upload some of my crudely drawn fan art. It’s all artistically bad so go check out my gallery if you’re in the mood to punish your eyes... I drew most of them out of boredom and I made them a long time ago. Feel free to post feedback or debate any of the stuff I discussed. Oh, and lastly HAPPY PRESIDENT’S DAY!... WOO!...









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Nothing will snap you out of your post-GDC haze faster than a live broadcast, I always say. |
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This Week's Video Game NASCAR Update
Vroom? |
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And now it's coming to North America. In 3D. |
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Lead & Gold Pre-Orders Open, Play The Beta Now
Pre-order the wild west shooter now to start playing right away. |
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Chibi PlayStation Dudes ModNation Attack!!
120%! |
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