First of all, let me get this out of the way: I do not believe that there is a single good printer on this earth. Sure, most will get the job done, but none are as efficient as they ought to be by this point in time. Now let's talk about my printer. I used to love it. It's an HP 1510 All-in-One printer that includes a printer, scanner, and copier. Recently, it's been showing its age and the ink cartridge cradle has been getting stuck a lot. I remember my dad literally lubricating the bar on which it runs in order to give it smoother motion, and that worked for a while. Today, it started again. I gave it a good rub-down with liquid silicone, but that didn't work. I thought the cartridges were messed up, so I tried replacing those. Nope. I broke out a flash light and began to examine the inside of the printer. A shiny blob of goo shown in the bottom of a small mesh tray near the bottom of the printer. I took a pencil and poked it. This was a gigantic blob of ink just sitting in the printer. No wonder the printer was getting stuck - it's constipated! Yep, I can say that my printer was constipated. 
 
...that's all for now.

I thought I'd go on to something that doesn't have anything to do with video games. XD I want to talk about coffee. Some people draw their energy from sugar, others from power drinks - but most people prefer caffeine, usually from coffee. I'm okay with coffee. I'll drink it occasionally - less than once a day. But here is something that I don't understand. Some people - let's take my mom for example LOL - will drink coffee knowing full-well that caffeine makes them sick. I don't get it. Is it that addictive? You will fight your bodily instincts to have something that you don't need? I know that Starbucks, not caffeine, makes me sick because it is too strong. It also does this to my mom, so why does she continue to get it? Maybe I'm just crazy, but don't you think that's kind of strange? XD

 Nintendo has a lot of things going for them. After the fall of video gaming in the early-80's, it was the Nintendo Entertainment System that practically resurrected it (don't quote me on that. :P) Over the years, they have captured the hearts of many a kid - and adults as well, I suppose - with their unforgettable characters, whimsical stories, and great games. Nearly everybody on the planet is aware of the Mario Bros. and Zelda. Their most recent console, the Wii, has a great variety of casual games to draw ordinarily non-gamers into the world of video games. Nintendo also has a few games that they almost seem to keep buried. Pikmin, Star Fox, and F-Zero are some examples of series that haven't seen a title on the Wii thus far, much less any decent titles within the past few years. The Mother series has only 3 games, the second of these being the only one released in North America, spanned over a period of almost 20 years. This is my favorite series from anything Nintendo has produced - and I have not legally played a single one of them (I hope I don't get arrested for this LOL.) Why? You are about to find out all of these things and more.
 
How did the Mother series come about? I'm so glad that you asked, kind sir! In 1989, Mother 1 was released in Japan on the Famicom (Japanese equivalent to the NES.) I was not fortunate enough to have played this because I have not found a decent translation anywhere (again, I will explain later.)  Mother 2, released in 1995 on the Super Famicom, was not limited to Japan however - it saw an international release on the SNES called Earthbound. This game was not very popular. This game was not well-known and it did not sell very well. How could that be? Mother 2 sold well in Japan and it was exceedingly popular! What went wrong in North America and the rest of the world? Perhaps it had something to do with the advertising. Across every magazine page, flyer, and postcard read these words: "We're warning you... this game stinks." This advertising campaign was launched in an attempt at reverse psychology AND as a way to draw in its primary target audience - young male children (who, I suppose, stereotypically enjoy being dirty and smelly.) Did it work? I think not. The game flopped in the States and abroad, so Nintendo was discouraged from releasing its sequel - Mother 3 - in North America. Over 10 years later, in 2006, Mother 3 was released on the Gameboy Advance in Japan. While this game was exploding with popularity over in Asialand, the underground followers of Earthbound in North America were expecting an international release. It wasn't released, fans were disappointed, and something had to be done. The guys over at Starmen.net (an Earthbound fansite) got a team of over 30 people together to do a fan translation project of Mother 3 and make it available to the public outside of Japan. After a couple of years of development, the project was completed, and Mother 3 was brought to North America (on the condition that everyone who plays the ROM on an emulator promises to buy it if Nintendo actually releases it outside of Japan in English. :P) I have played Earthbound and Mother 3 on emulators on the computer, and I think that they are amazing games. I eagerly await the day that a re-release, of sorts, is conducted by Nintendo in order to please its neglected Mother fans.

So what makes these games so amazing? I mean, you've written two rather large paragraphs already, so why not just tell us? Well, alrighty, then! Let's start with Mother 1. As you know, I have not played this game (although, I REALLY want to.) However, from my knowledge, this game focuses in on the life of a seemingly average boy named Ninten who has been endowed with PSI powers. He works together with his friends that he meets along his path to accomplish some mission that I'm not fully aware of (I have kept this information hidden from myself because I don't like spoilers. XD) Anyway, on to the games that I have actually emulated -- errr... played. XD Earthbound. This game certainly does NOT stink. The premise behind Earthbound is basically the same as that of Mother 1, except it's more of an extension of the storyline of Mother 1. Ness, a normal suburban child in modern-day Eagleland (a parody of America), is asleep one night and a meteorite strikes in his hometown of Onett. He goes to investigate and meets a being from the future that tells him the fate that is awaiting him. Ness goes on his adventure, meeting new friends along the way, in order to stop an evil alien force named Giygas (whom... I really don't know that much about because he is explained in great detail in the plot of Mother 1... which I haven't played :\) Ness and his friends defeat Giygas, and the world is saved. I promise you, I cried at the end of this game. It is a beautiful story. Now here comes Mother 3. Holy crap. Earthbounds has a very quirky and upbeat plot - even through to the end - with some serious turns here and there. Mother 3 is just the opposite - it is a dark and emotional story with some quirky and upbeat turns thrown in here and there. I'm not going to type it all out, but here is the basic summary: a young boy named Lucas and his twin brother Claus are with their mother visiting their grandfather in the mountains. Flint, the father, is back home tending to the farm that they operate in their rural hometown of Tazmily. On the way back home, the twins and their mother have a serious accident, and, through a series of unfortunate events, the family is torn apart. The years pass by, and some mischevious people in pigmasks come to Tazmily and introduce modern conveniences such as cars, trains, and most importantly - money. These things were never in Tazmily before, so, as you can well imagine, the town changes dramatically. Lucas sets out to stop the pigmask army when he discovers that they have been altering local wildlife into mindless creatures called chimeras. His quest is an unforgettable journey that... made me cry at the end again. XD I hope I didn't give away too many spoilers, because this is just something that must be experienced to be fully enjoyed.

Now for the gameplay - story isn't everything, y'know! >:O Otherwise, I woulda gone to go see a movie. DUH. Okay, try to stick with me because this isn't going to sound nearly as cool as it actually is. XD The Mother games are RPGs - just like Final Fantasy or any other thing like that (we'll use Final Fantasy as a base for simplicity.) Take the characters from Final Fantasy - sword-wielding adults that fight goblins and zombies - and turn them into pre-teenaged American children wielding baseball bats and yo-yos with PSI powers. ... ...okay, for the time, that was unheard of. XD That's actually been redone a few times over by now. Now take Final Fantasy again, and you'll see the monsters you're fighting on the left and your party members on the right. You pick the attacks and watch them play out. You're going to get really turned off from the Mother series if you don't keep an open mind here, okay? XD In the Mother games, the enemies are in front of you accompanied by a trippy, moving background, and your characters are behind you - offscreen - or, if you prefer to think of it this way, you are in first-person view. Your attacks aren't exactly shown, but PSI abilities have a colorful light display. In Mother 3, attacks can be timed to the beat of the background music and you can pull off combos - up to 16 hits! I believe that by now, the Mother series just dropped in appeal to you. LOL Take heart! There are many things that make up for this. You know how in Final Fantasy, you attack, your enemy gets damaged. Then the enemy attacks, and you get damaged. Simple as that. If you die, you're dead. In the Mother series, there is a scrolling bar type HP system. If you got critically damaged, you have time to quickly select a healing spell and then your ally can be healed before they die and they are spared! This game involves not only the right weapons and techniques, but also good timing. The battles are exciting, and the insane enemies that you battle always keep you on your toes. Every character has unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses so that you are required to utilize all of your party members in order to be successful in battle. You are given a variety of different items throughout the game that are good for a chuckle and can sometimes save your butt in a tight squeeze. The point is... on paper, this game sounds pretty stupid. It's just something that you have to play to appreciate.

You now know why I am such a Mother series fanatic... well... at least I hope you do. At any rate, now comes the most important part of this thing: WHY? WHY does Nintendo keep this to themselves? WHY is Nintendo making Super Mario Galaxy TWO instead of re-releasing the Mother series? Why does Nintendo continue adding Ness, and now Lucas, to the roster of Super Smash Bros. as well as items, stages, and trophies of the characters and still continue to ignore the series? Why has Nintendo said nothing in response to the petition constructed by Starmen.net with 80,000 signatures of fans who have promised to buy an English translation of Mother 3 or a re-release of Earthbound? I've concluded that it's a combination of two things. First, Earthbound didn't do well in North America. Producing a re-release of the series is a pretty big cost and there is no promise that it will do well here. That's a lot of money wasted on a series that seemed promising but didn't work out. Second, Earthbound takes place in modern-day America - that's a problem? How, BUFFALODUDE, how? Living in the United States, you see a billboard or advertisement at every turn for some name-brand product. Earthbound plays on this - and countless other references to pop-culture - a LOT. This causes some uneasiness with the attournies at Nintendo. They work hard to make sure that they avoid lawsuits - lawsuits are not fun. These two reasons make the perfect chemical balance to keep Earthbound out of the Virtual Console on the Wii (which was officially announced recently) or any possible re-releases. However, Earthbound is not the only game in the series. Brownie Brown, who were the main contributors in the development of Mother 3, have said in a recent press release that if Nintendo gives them the word, they will happily remake Mother 3 for the DS and release it internationally. Now it's up to Nintendo. The rest is a mystery. Hope you enjoyed this, even if it was rather long. XD

 Hello again. Now that we have established that I own generally all Nintendo systems, let's establish right now that this will change very soon... if my time and resources provide it. :P I was trying to figure out the best way to demonstrate my newly "expanding interests" without this turning into what is basically a wishlist. Well, I've concluded that to do this, I will just describe what kind of games I like and those that I dislike. I'm not really sure how well this is going to go over, but we'll just have to wait and find out, I guess. Skip the wall of text below to the summary if you don't want to read it in detail. LOL
 
Let's start with games that I dislike. As a person, I think that I have a fairly mixed variety of interests. That is why writing this is so difficult. It is really hard to pinpoint the kinds of games that are right for me. However, I CAN tell you things that I dislike or have absolutely no interest in. I'm going to start off by saying this: I hate party games. You know what I mean. I'm specifically talking about Mario Party hear, but I think that this encompasses games such as Wii Sports and Guitar Hero as well. These games make absolutely no sense to me. I've been playing video games since I was 5 years old (maybe younger) - I generally KNOW how they work. How my sister - who doesn't play games hardly at all (and I think secretly makes fun of me for it XD) - can pick up a controller and beat the living snot out of me in Mario Party is beyond me. While writing this, I think I can correct myself on a point here - I don't really hate party games. I hate it when people play party games competitively. I mean, LOOK AT IT. This game requires nothing more of you than to rapidly (and randomly, I might add) mash the A button and move the control stick occasionally to mix it up. That's not skill. That's randomly mashing the A button! The funny part is that lots of tension hangs in the air when my cousins and I try to play one of these games. It's really discomforting. Games are supposed to be fun and unwinding, not stressful channels of hate (man, that was good!) I actually enjoy party games when you can play with light spirits, but generally... they're just annoying. The opposite can occur sometimes as well. Someone you're playing with can get way too good at the game and you don't even want to play with them anymore because they always win. This happens a lot with games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I'm not very good at these. :P I also hate the first-person shooter genre in general. This is really a more specific look into a bigger problem that I have with particular games: overuse of/realisticness in violence. I'm not particularly disturbed by these things, but I think that maybe since I'm generally a pretty immature person, this maturity found in video games gives a dark, and quite undesirable, twist to something I've loved all my life. Okay, back to first-person shooters. It's not that these are bad games or even that I'm overly disturbed by blood and gore (although that does have something to do with it.) I don't know why, but I'm just really bad at first-person shooters. I can't aim well, my timing is atrocious, and I never know what weapon to be using at the time. I am so incredibly bad at these games that I could be shooting my own team mates and not even realize it - in fact, I would probably be proud that I got someone for once. LOL Another thing that I can't stand about this genre is its tendency to appear to be the same game over and over and over. I honestly couldn't tell you sometimes if somebody's playing a round of Halo or Call of Duty. Maybe I just haven't played them enough to see major differences, but I just think that most of these games look exactly the same. Also, you don't have to keep re-inacting WWII - we get it now. This isn't really something that I dislike about games that is bad, but here is something that I dislike about games because it digresses from the real issues of video games today - the focus on graphics. I'm an artist (I guess... a wanna be art student, presently XD), so I know the importants of aesthetic pleasure. But when the focus of the presentation of a game actually shifts the eyes of the developers away from the gameplay, in the words of Sonic the Hedgehog, "That's NO good!" I don't CARE if the fire in this game looks like it's about to burn off all my hair - that's not going to matter when I tell my character to turn right and he turns left off of a cliff because of a bug. On my Christmas list this year - this is a fact - I have not listed a single current-generation game that I want. Everything that I want is from the past. What does that mean? These games look like CRAP compared to games today, but they are still amazing! All I ask is that I can tell what I'm looking at and that the developers aren't trying so hard to make a game look good that it actually looks bad. Now, I haven't listed everything that I dislike about certain video games, but that is because I can't think of everything right now and it would be too hard to organize into a readable format. :B
 

Summary:

Just joined the site, and this is a pretty cool place. I thought that I would make my first journal about video game systems that I already own and the highlights of each one.  Keep in mind while reading this that I'm a bit of a pack rat, and I can honestly say that I have never returned a game (and up until recently, I didn't buy used games either.)
 
My first system was the SEGA GameGear, and I got it when I was 5 years old with TWO games: "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie" and "Super Columns." I've gotta say, there is probably a reason that this handheld was not that well-known. If not for the pure nostalgic value of the machine, this thing would have been on eBay a LONG time ago. No matter what the reviews say, I love these games - my MOM loves these games. They're simple, slightly challenging, and incredibly fun. I think I might hang on to these for quite a while.
 
Following this, about a year later, I got the ugliest little lime green Gameboy Color (as chosen by me)  you've ever seen. And I loved it. The funny thing is, though, that I only had a couple of games on this handheld as well (accumulated over the years): "Pokemon Gold," "Frogger 2 ," "Pokemon Silver," "and "Pokemon Crystal" - in that order (and a couple of years later, Pokemon Blue.) More recently, I rediscovered the greatness of this little jewel and ordered "Donkey Kong Country" and "Tetris." I love this system, and I give it the credit for opening the door to video gaming to me. I was satisfied completely with just Pokemon Gold for the longest time (plus the other two... don't ask me why I have all three versions. They're all awesome.)
 
It was at least 2, maybe 3, years after I got the Gameboy Color that I finally moved on. When I was 9 or 10, I got the Gameboy Advance with "Mario Kart Advance" and some other games that I can't seem to remember right now. After that, things became a blur. About a year or 2 later, the GBA SP came out and I got that. This system was awesome. It is decidedly my most played and loved system. My absolute favorite games that I had while the system was still really popular were "Fire Emblem [7]," "Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland" and "Sonic Advance." I recently added some more games to my collection and among these were "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" and "Megaman Battle Network 3: White." Two of my now favorite games of all time.
 
Before I got the SP, however, I got my first actual console ever - the Nintendo Gamecube. Are you seeing a trend here? Anyway, I love this little magical box. It is an important aspect of my childhood. My first games were "Super Monkey Ball 2," "Sonic Adventure 2 Battle," and "Pikmin." These games were beautiful, and I come to appreciate them more and more as the years go by (I'm looking for a decent copy of Pikmin 2 right now because I loved Pikmin so much.) I have a pretty small collection, but I like it. My favorites on the Gamecube are "Animal Crossing," "Super Smash Bros. Melee," "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker," "Megaman [15th Anniversary] Collection," and "Pikmin" (as mentioned before.) I would go on, but I would pretty much list all of my collection (except for maybe "Billy Hatcher." Yech.) The funny part about the Gamecube with me is that I missed out on a lot of the "classics" (such as Super Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion, etc.), but I still love this system. I would go on with this, but I am obviously boring you. :P
 
A few years later (maybe 3 or 4 years), the Nintendo DS came out. I was sold by its touch-screen technology and some of the games that Nintendo promised to release on it. I don't really know what to say about this system. I like it, but I don't use it enough to say that it has been spectacular. Most of the games are fun, but they lost the magic of the games in my childhood. My favorites on this system include "Tetris DS" (yeah really), "Pokemon Diamond," and (I guess) "Animal Crossing: Wild World." The main problem that I have with this system is its complete dependence on innovation in technology rather than quality in games. Touch screens are pretty flippen common nowadays, so Nintendo has to step it up now, I guess... which, frankly, I don't see happening at all. I've used this system more as a Gameboy Advance 3 in case my SP runs out of battery power and it needs charging more than anything else. Another problem I have with this system is that it gets updated every FRIGGEN 6 months. I refuse to buy any of the newer models (such as the DS Lite or DSi) until my current, original DS is broken in half, corrupted, or the screens get so dirty that I can't see anymore and they can't be cleaned.
 
A couple of years after THAT, I got the Wii and "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" (and it was a real surprise. That's probably one of the reasons I still have it.) What can I say about this system?... the motion sensing was fun for about 20 minutes, and then I started asking where all the games were (and now, the Wii's competitors are following in its footsteps and doing as good or better of a job with it.) That's a pretty good summary. In all seriousness, though, this system has an utterly pathetic selection of games. I only signed up on this site as a Nintendo fanboy because they practically molded my childhood. Now they're evil entities that steal souls with every $49.99 that they receive and sit on the top floor of a billion-story corporate building with ominous, dark clouds and lightning swirling all about. Honestly, I can't complain about the stuff that I DO have for this system. I absolutely LOVE every game that I have (except "Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn"... blech.) My favorite games from my small collection include "Animal Crossing: City Folk," "ExciteTruck" (...YES, REALLY), and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." (That last one... you don't even KNOW.) The Virtual Console is a blast from the past for old-school gamers and a great exploration of the classics for people like me who were cooped up with a GBC for too long to notice anything going on around him. :D WiiWare, although still developing, is an awesome new thing for me, as I was never exposed to online gaming or downloadable content until now (MEGAMAN 9. GET IT. NOW.) The main problem I have with this system is this: Nintendo has found a niche. When they release something like Wii Fit, it climbs up the charts and explodes in the market with popularity. What do they do? Give us the same thing again with a new title. I am NOT trying to bash casual gaming - I think it's great. But when your childhood molders (yeah, let's just call them that LOL) turn their backs on you, it's... depressing. I like this system and all, but I'm not liking Nintendo very much lately.
 
Now for something a little cheerier. Before ANY of those, we got our first computer. Packard Bell with Windows 98, $1600, 2GB hard drive and 64MB RAM. STATE OF THE FRIGGEN ART, YO. This, I suppose, was where my gaming experience really began (but we didn't buy it for games, we bought it for... the sake of having a computer. XD) Anyway, I can't really describe the kinds of games that I played, but I can tell you that they are really, really cool. "Frogger" (the... 3-D one. IT'S AWESOME, SHUT UP), "Beast Wars," "Chip's Challenge," and "SkiFree" were absolutely my favorites during this time. I also, of course, enjoyed the old DOS games that used to come with the computer like "JezzBall" and "Rodent's Revenge." I'm not big into PC gaming anymore, but I still pull out these suckers whenever I get in the mood. >:3 More recently (well, some not as recently), I've gotten things such as "Roller Coaster Tycoon Collection" and "SEGA Smash Pack 2" that are also very enjoyable. 
 
Well, if you've read this far, congratulations. You now know my video gaming history. XD My next journal I'll redeem myself and talk about things that I want to get very soon in the future. My taste has been slowly expanding as I age, and my scope of desired games has increased in size ten-fold (that's just an expression... I'm not going to try and figure it out for you. :B) That's all for now. Go do something productive now. LOL