GrahfZilla

Well I have Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, and I really don't like it much. And I'm a big Resident Evil fan who has played through every RE out there. I played it with a friend for about an hour and a half and we found it to be mindless and kinda boring. So I'm sort of expecting more of the same out of House of the Dead and Dead Space Extraction, unless they're just hands down better than Umbrella Chronicles. As for Fire Emblem, I don't know. I played Path of Radiance on the gamecube, and although I liked it at first I grew tired of it after a while. It's possible though that I just wasn't in the mood for it, that sometimes happens to me. I'll probably give Fire Emblem another go on the DS, and if I like it a lot then I'll take a look at the one on the Wii, and maybe revisit Path of Radiance while I'm at it.
 
If by DeBlob you mean a boy and his blob, yeah I'm sort of interested in that but once again, not sure. It's a puzzle game, they're usually not really my type, I bought Braid on Xbox Live Arcade and I just can't get into it. I might get the original on VC, and if I like it I'll take a look at the Wii version.

pays 25$ for Wii points on eBay when you can get them for 20$ in every store? Heck, go on amazon.ca, or bestbuy.ca, or futureshop.ca, buy two 2000 points wii cards for 19.99 and BAM, free shipping! It's even cheaper than buying them on the Wii itself, since, in a move that I would classify as being very dumb, they sell the points in US dollars on there to canadian customers. The hell is that about? My console is set to Canada, and I'm being sold stuff in US dollars? That ain't right. And even worse than that, I'm still paying the same amount of taxes as if I was buying locally! So US dollars + same taxes equals LAME. Now granted, the canadian dollar is so strong right now, but it basically costs me one more dollar for every 1000 points I buy. That's the equivalent of a free NES game after 4000 points. 
 
So yeah, I have a Wii now. Sort of. It's not my Wii, it belongs to my friend, but he never plays it and couldn't care less about it until the next Zelda comes out so it's almost like if it was  mine. The first day I got it I bought New Super Mario Bros Wii for it, plus Trauma Center: Second Opinion. I also bought an ethernet adapter to go on the internet with it, since I don't have a wireless router. And since then I've bought a bunch of Virtual Console games, namely Blaster Master, Ghosts N' Goblins, Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 for the NES, plus the original WiiWare title 'Castlevania Rebirth'. And I'm not done, oh no, I bought a classic controller + a 2000 points card on amazon.ca, and with that I'll most likely buy Super Mario 64 and maybe Super Mario World, but I haven't decided on that last one since I already have the game on the Super NES. However I also have SMB1 and 3 on the NES and I still bought them, but they were only 5$. I figured it would save me the hassle of having to chug two consoles with me, and the same argument holds for the 8$ SMW.  As for Super Mario 64, I just want to give it a second go. When I first played the game back then It was released, I was just starting my rebellious teenage years and I had a hard time getting into the kid-like atmosphere of the game. In fact, I hated that game for a loooong time. I figured that now that I am a grown and mature man, it's time to go back and see what that game is all about.  I also have the version of the game on my DS (although I didn't pay for it, erm...), and it's supposedly somewhat improved with the inclusion of four characters instead of only Mario, however I'd still rather play the original on my big TV. Maybe I'll regret that decision once the DSi XL becomes available in North America in a few months. BTW, speaking of that thing, when the heck are we going to get an official date for its North American release? Japan already has the console, Europe is going to get it on March 10th, but what about us!?! Lame :( 
 
I'm also thinking of eventually getting a Link to the Past on the Wii virtual console, even though I already have it on the Snes, just like most games I bought on VC so far. The reason for that is that it would just look better on the Wii than on the Snes. The Wii plays every VC game at its native resolution and in 480p, if you have the component cables of course, while the Snes of course runs at its own lower resolution. And it would allow me to box my Snes for good. Sad, I know.
 
So what do I think of the Wii? Well, I think it's superb as a collection of retro games. Virtual console is awesome, even though the emulation isn't always as good as on the free, but illegal, emulators on the PC. However, playing the games on a big TV in 480p is sweet, and I really like the user interface with all the small TV's. I think it's a better interface than on the Xbox 360 with its endless menus. Here, you get your little TV's on the front page, you place your virtual and wiiware titles on there and it's awesome to look at. Very visually appealing, and it really gives you a good sense of your collection, unlike the 360 where even if you have 35 Xbox Live Arcade games you won't know until you go digging in the menus. However we have to remember that the Xbox 360 is an entertainment hub, and not only a game console, so it would be kind of hard to make an interface as simple as the one on the Wii. But personally I don't give a shit about all of that entertainment stuff, I have a game console to game on it. Going back to the Wii now, the WiiWare service is interesting, it has cool remakes of retro games, as well as a lot of adventure game releases such as the Sam & Max Series, or the new Monkey Island series. So in that sense it's a sweet console.
 
However, as far as retail games go, it's a disaster. There's very few excellent titles out there to choose from, and a lot of them are of the dumb party format. If I'm looking at Wii only releases that actually interest me, there's Super Mario Galaxy, Punch-out,  maybe Super Paper Mario,  Metroid Prime 3, and then what? Okami looks great, but it's a PS2 game. I'm still interested though. I don't like Super Smash Bros, I've been burned out on Mario Kart for years, I played RE4 and Twilight Princess on the gamecube, No More Heroes doesn't appeal to me and I already have New Super Mario Bros. I like the Trauma Center games, but I don't love them, so I don't know if I'll be getting the other games in the series. I'll probably get Silent Hill: Shattered Memories though, and I could investigate Little King's story and Zack & Wiki, however I don't know if they're really my type.  That's pretty much it. Not a lot of content on there. I didn't pay for the console though so I can't complain I guess.
 
So what am I playing now? Well I'm getting back into Bioshock, since I stopped playing it in early January. I like the game, but I'm not amazed by it so far. I didn't really like System Shock 2, and now Bioshock seems to follow in that same vein. Oh well, I'll see what happens down the road!

..or the other week. A couple weeks ago at least. And it really rocked my boat! It's nice to finally be able to play Zelda AND know what I'm supposed to do. See, back when I was a wee little kid, I tried and tried to play that darn game and I had no clue, absolutely none. Think about it, you start the game, you enter that cave, the stupid old man gives you a frikin wooden sword AND THEN WHAT? I kept running around and around all over the place and I never got anywhere, I never understood the point of it. And the worst of it all, is that the game was good. It had to be, with it being in a gold cartridge! Those of you who were young at the time probably remember that cartridge, the gold really made it stand out. It made the game feel special, like it wasn't anything like the other games on the market, that somehow it was better. And still, I didn't understand shit. And to put shit on the cake, a lot of my friends PARENTS (the hell?) were saying that it was a sweet game. Gold cartridge, people who really didn't play games saying the game was sweet, those truly were crazy ass times. Of course, now that I am old and have played a whole bunch of zelda games, I know what I'm 
supposed to be doing, it didn't take me long to find that first dungeon, and then to find hidden heart containers and whatnot. The game also wasn't that hard, except for the wizards. Man I hate those sons of bitches! They're hard as hell! Harder than the bosses! The bosses are pretty easy though I have to admit. Overall, a pretty satisfying playthrough. It stands the test of time! 
 
So then I played Zelda II. It is of course seen as the black sheep of the series, the one that is different. The one with sidescrolling action gameplay! Yay! So how is it? Does it suck like a lot of people think it does? HELL NO! It's good! Real good! But it feels like Miyamoto spent a little too much time in his flower garden before designing the game because it feels like a collage of haphazard elements. The experience point system is broken, no doubt about it. First off, you have lives in this game. Lives in zelda! WTF this ain't Super Mario Bros! The life counter was taken right out of Super Mario Bros 1 too, it looks fucking stupid in Zelda. Second, the way the whole XP system works in conjunction with your lives is crazy. Basically, you lose all of your accumulated XP if you lose your three lives. So if you need 5000 XP to reach your next level, and you have 4000 so far, well if you lose that last life of yours, BYE BYE, you start of at 0 of 5000 again. Now granted, everytime you go up a level your XP counter also goes down to 0, that's the way it works, so at first you need 40 XP to level up, and then 80, and then 160 etc, and you always start at 0 again, but it's annoying to be close to leveling up and then losing that last life. It also greatly influences the way you play the game, since if you are on your last life but are close to leveling up, you start to play it safe and find a safe spot to grind until you level up. And then you kill yourself, to reset your life counter to 3. The only disadvantage to doing that is that you're back in Zelda's temple, but it only takes a couple of minutes to get back to where you were anyway. Also, anytime you kill  a boss, you get an automatic level up. But the way the game does that is that it fills out the remaining XP that you need to level up. So if you have 4000 out of 5000 XP, well your XP is going to go up 5000 XP and BING, level up. But it also does the same thing if you're at 0 of 5000...see my point? Often I'd get to the boss, look at my XP counter, and realize that I was quite close to leveling up. So instead of wasting the free level up, I would instead backtrack into the dungeon to grind a little bit, level up, and then go fight the boss and get a huuuuge XP boost for a free level up. It's kind of annoying, I'd rather not have to do that, it doesn't feel natural. On a couple of occasions, I would get to the boss, backtrack out of the dungeon to reset the monsters, get back in, grind a bit to level up, and then make my way back to the boss only to realize that I was close yet AGAIN to leveling up, so I backtracked once again into the dungeon to level up. That's crazy, only a pot smoker would design such a system. 
 
Also, Zelda II is kind of an empty game. You don't really get items in the game per say. You get static items, like the hammer, which allows you to break boulders on the overworld, or the gloves, with which you can break some blocks in dungeons. It's awfully unexciting. You also get spells, like jump, which permit you to jump higher, or shield, which obviously makes you tougher. You don't find new swords, you don't find new armor, there is no boomerang, no bows. It's only you, you small ass sword and your shield for the duration of the game.  Personally, I like finding new equipment in games, it's sweet.
 
Aside from that, Zelda II is pretty sweet. The ending sucks though. The ending of Zelda 1 also sucks. Zelda tells you in both games "You are the hero of hyrule!". Sweeeeeeeet...
 
So I think both games are pretty fun today still. They're not the best games of their genre on the NES though, I think Crystalis is hands down better. Heck, it's probably the best NES game ever. I haven't played either Startropics games though, so I'd have to play those before passing my final judgement.
 
Hmmm, I'm done.

Can't see what's wrong with the video, I use one of those every night before going to bed. In fact my model is actually worse than that, since with my model I have to force the water in by squeezing the plastic bottle, while with a neti pot like that the water just flows through naturally. It doesn't clean the sinuses as well though, so I prefer mine for that reason. There's nothing to it really.