I Beat The Mother Brain

I beat Metroid Prime 3!

After receiving the code from the spaceship, I flew to the planet Phaaze, where I was CONSTANTLY in hypercharge Phaazon mode. This turned out to be less annoying than I thought it'd be, and aside from a retarded amount of Metroids, the planet wasn't very hard. The final boss(es) weren't really all that difficult either.

First up was Dark Samus. Now, I know from the box art of Metroid Prime 2 that Dark Samus is a big-time playa in this story, but I'll be damned if there was one mention of her in THIS game up until I had to fight her and her stupid clones. It's weird playing the third game in a series first. I had no idea, at any point in the process, what the fuck the story was, or what I was doing in the grand scheme of things. But, since it's a Metroid game, who really gives a shit? Maybe I'll read a wikipedia synopsis or something.

Anyway, Dark Samus was fairly easy. Just blast blast blast, and her clones provided me with energy fairly regularly. After that I had to fight a big thingie that looked like Mother Brain. Also not very difficult, but very fun! Finally, the brain detached from its tethers and I had to fight it as it bounced around. This was a bit harder, since by this point I had very little energy yet. It took three tries, but I finally beat the bitch. The bosses in this game, in general, were fairly easy but very fun. I think the hardest boss in the game was the very first one, the iceman who flew around.

So there you have it. The game's beaten. What's next? Well, I still have Zack & Wiki to work through, and a lot of little extra things I have to do in Super Paper Mario. I'd also like to at least TRY to get all the stars in Super Mario Galaxy. I also have to play Super Monkey Ball, which put me off a bit with its controls, but deserves another try. Whew, that's quite a bit to do, without even considering the fact that I am planning on getting Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and LEGO Star Wars soon.

Viva la Wii!!

ZZZZZap.

I got the Wii Zapper. Contrary to popular opinion, I actually think it's pretty cool. I like the way it feels in my hands, and I think it makes aiming a tad bit more precise. It's kind of a pain in the ass that you have to go through a huge process every time you want to assemble it or take it apart, but no biggie. The only real issue I have with it so far is that I find it difficult to move while aiming/strafe in Link's Crossbow Training. Not sure if the blame lies on the game or the zapper or myself. Probably myself. The Zelda game is pretty fun, and fairly challenging. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Umbrella Chronicles. A old friend and I have agreed that we're going to play that game together, sitting around passing the controller back and forth until we beat it, just like we did when we were kids. Can't wait!

In Metroid news, I decided to go look for the energy cannisters (or whatever they're called) that I'm missing before I tackle the Valhalla. I made the decision to do this with the aid of a walkthrough, and it's a damn good thing I did, because I never would have found them otherwise! I had two left to get. One of them was a long and confusing quest through the planet of Bryyo. The other, which took place on the first planet in the game was a shorter quest, but ended with a boss encounter: The Metroid Hatchling. Here's what happened. I entered the room and encountered the mighty METROID HATCHLING. As I usually do when I reach a boss, I scanned it to get some info. According to the scan, the process involved blasting its phaazon parts, and then ripping off its tentacles, or some such thing. I got out of scan mode and prepared to battle. I shot the Metroid Hatchling one time. It died. Boss fight over. What the fuck? Hey, I'm not complaining. I wanted to get this pointless fetch quest over with, and a one-shot-kill boss certainly helped.

So I have all the energy thingies now, and I returned to Valhalla. I need to find the code, get back to the Space Pirate ship, fly to the Phaazon planet and, I assume, face the final boss. Almost done! Yay!

Ridley!

Whoo! Ridley is so cool. I just beat his ass. But, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here.

When I first started playing Metroid Prime 3 again after beating Super Mario Galaxy, it was as if my worst fears had come to life. You see, part of the reason I was so conflicted by the decision to pause my Metroid progress in favor of Mario is because I know what happens when I do shit like that. I have a long history of it. If I stop playing a game for a significant amount of time, and then try to go back to it, I find myself flustered and confused, like a lost little puppy in a chainsaw factory. I don't remember where I am or where to go or what I was supposed to do next, and this almost always leads to me turning the game off in disgust and self-loathing, and never touching it again.

And it seemed like that was happening with Metroid. Stepping back into that world, I was absolutely confounded and overwhelmed with confusion. Part of the problem was that, for some reason, I was positive that I had completely finished the Space Pirate Homeworld before I stopped playing, but the game was prompting me towards a location within the Homeworld. And when I tried to make my way to that location, I got pathetically lost. It's not a good feeling being totally lost on your way to a place that you're not even sure you're supposed to be going to anyway, and it led me to turn off the game. I was worried I'd never turn it on again.

The next day, I bit the bullet and put the game back on. This time I found my way to the location I was being prompted to - and lo and behold, it turns out I wasn't done with the Pirate Homeworld yet. Not by a long shot.

I made my way to that location, which was some kind of power generator for the shield that was covering the planet, and had to shut it down while fighting off hordes of pirates. Curse their reptilian hides. Then I met up with Admiral Something-or-other and I had to escort a crack team of demolition soldiers through a series of passageways densely populated with horrible space lizards. I was really nervous about this task, because generally I hate escort missions. I'll never forget my rage at a completely helpless Minnie Mouse when I had to escort her across ONE SINGLE FUCKING ROOM in Kingdom Hearts 2. Luckily these soldiers were a little tougher than Minnie and the task was actually fairly easy. I lost three men in the process, but hey - war is hell.

After that, I was able to reach the planet's seed, and that's where I met up with Ridley!! After battling him waaaaay earlier in the game, I sort of didn't expect to meet him again. I figured this game was downplaying his involvement by getting him out of the way quickly, but I guess I was wrong! Anyway, the battle with him was pretty shockingly easy. I did die once, but that was because I needlessly used up too much of my phaazon power trying to blast him. It turns out, that's unnecessary. He's a fairly simple boss, but really really fun. I thought I'd have more to say about him, but I guess I don't. Except this: Ridley for Brawl!

Anyways, after that I still wasn't done in the stupid Space Pirate Homeworld. I had to go find a battleship that could warp me to the Phaazon Planet or some shit. I found it, but I didn't have the code to activate it, so I was prompted to go to the Valhalla to find the code. I worked my way back to my ship, flew to the Valhalla, saved, and turned the game off.

I MUST be fairly close to the end now. Maybe by my next report, I will have this game licked. Stay tuned.

Who Has Two Thumbs And Just Beat Super Mario Galaxy?

This guy!

Galaxy

Wow, I realized I haven't posted a new blog entry since I got Super Mario Galaxy. And now I'm nearly done with it!

Okay, here's the deal: This is possibly the best Mario game ever made. I am a member of the minority that actually really loved Super Mario Sunshine. My time with it ranks amongst the best video-game-related experiences I've ever had, and to tell you the truth, I thought it was a huge improvement over Super Mario 64. But Galaxy motherfucking blows it out of the god damned water.

It's actually pretty astonishing how amazing Galaxy is, since it's a subtle kind of amazement. There are points when playing it where the realization suddenly strikes you that you're doing things that you've never, ever done in a video game before - crazy, fresh, brilliant new actions - and you didn't even realize it, because those actions are so intuitive and natural. Once you get over the initial bout of motion sickness (and this WILL happen when you're first running around on spherical planets), the game's input and output feels as instinctual as any other Mario game, even though the corresponding in-game actions are completely off the wall.

I'm not going to go into any more detail than that, because I've played through way too much of the game already to properly cover here. But also because these are discoveries you should make yourself. Buy this immediately, and make sure you're able to devote at least two afternoons worth of free time to it right off the bat.

So, what about Metroid? Well, I've broken my biggest Wii rule. Before I bought the Wii, looking at my library of unfinished Gamecube games, I promised myself that on the new console, I'd only start on new games when I'd beaten the previous game. I was REALLY hoping to have Metroid beat before Mario came out, but it just didn't work out that way. And, for the few days prior to Galaxy's release, I was actually considering buying it, but not even unwrapping it until Metroid was done. Of course, once I got home with the game in my hand, that was completely impossible and I dove right in. I am pretty sure I was very close to beating Metroid though (I had just finished the Pirate Homeworld), so here's the plan: "Beat" Mario Galaxy (as in defeat Bowser, which I am 7 stars away from being able to do), go back and beat Metroid, and then go back to find more stars in Mario. Oh yeah, and I gotta fit some Zack & Wiki in there too! Hah, rules were meant to be broken I suppose.

On the DS front, I've been completely ignoring Zelda. In the last update, I said that the annoying repetition of the hourglass temple hadn't gotten to me yet. Well, it's fucking gotten to me now. I really dislike that portion of the game, and at the moment, I'm right in the middle of it. I'm sure once I finish with that and get back to normal Zelda shit, I'll be giddy again, but for now it's just plain annoying. It's a clever idea, and I like that they're tweaking with the same-old-same-old Zelda formula, but I don't much care for the end result.

In lieu of Zelda, I've continued to play a lot of Picross. In fact, I "beat" the game, insomuch as one can claim to beat a game like this. It's sort of like saying you beat an issue of Games magazine. But it was a long, wonderful journey, so I'm counting this as a win and giving it an "I BEAT A GAME" tag. The last "level" of the game was a total blast, with the theme being all of Nintendo's past consoles (even including the ill-fated Virtual Boy)! Hopefully Nintendo keeps the downloadable puzzles coming, because I just can't get enough fucking Picross!

See you next time.

Zeldametrossiki

It's been a while! I've been pretty busy, but rest assured that I've been playing plenty of video games!

I'm just gonna do a quick, not-too-detailed update here, letting y'all know where I'm at in the various games I'm playing.

I've been making a lot of headway in Metroid Prime 3. I just (as in, literally five minutes ago) got to the Pirate Homeworld, which is pretty intimidating. If I come away from this game having learned only one thing about myself, it's that I fucking hate Space Pirates. I don't care if it's racist; I fucking hate all of them. They shouldn't be allowed to vote. Anyway, those of you who have played the game should realize that I just finished the Sky Town portion of the game. So in addition to being scared of the ominous Pirate Homeworld, I'm also very sad to be leaving one of the most beautiful levels of any game I've ever played. I was shocked how much I enjoyed Sky Town, because it's pretty much the antithesis of what a Metroid environment should be. It's not cavernous, claustrophoic, dark or scary. But whatever, it fucking ruled. I am guessing that I don't have very far to go in this game. My total out-my-ass guess is that I'm maybe 2/3 of the way done...? I am hoping against hope to finish this game before Super Mario Galaxy comes out in one week, because I know if I don't, I'll callously toss it aside in favor of Mario, and then god knows if I'll ever get back to it. We shall see.

In other Wii news, I purchased Zack and Wiki yesterday. I played through about 4 of the levels, and then put it aside, because I want to save it to play with my girlfriend. It's definitely the type of game that requires heads being put together. I had to force myself away from it, because it's god damn addicting, but after I finished the fourth level (out of a total sixteen), I turned it off until I can play with my gal by my side. The game is absolutely fucking brilliant. I guess I'd describe it as an amalgam of a point-and-click adventure game and an Adventures of Lolo type game. For fans of puzzles, this game is like winning the lottery. I am sort of in awe of the cleverness of it all, and I'm sure it's only gonna get better. I'm not spoiling shit, though, so make sure you get this game and check it out for yourself.

I am also currently playing a borrowed copy of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS. I'm enjoying the fuck out of it. Before I played, I was pretty intimidated by the notion of a stylus-only control scheme in a Zelda game. I totally ignored that option in Animal Crossing in favor of traditional d-pad controls, and I wasn't too keen on the idea of being forced to use them in my favorite video game franchise. But check this out: The controls are GREAT! For me, there wasn't even a "getting used to it" period. I just jumped right in and found them instantly intuitive and satisfying! The game itself is great too, incorporating all the best elements of Wind Waker without the really annoying ones. I have not yet formed an opinion on one of this game's main gimmicks - the Temple of the Ocean King, a temple you return to repeatedly, advancing further each time. This part of the game incorporates two of my most-hated video game mechanics: stealth, and timed levels, so I was all prepared to totally hate it. However, my first run through the temple pleasantly surprised me - I actually found myself really enjoying it. However, I am currently in my second run-through, and I'm enjoying it far, far less. Having to backtrack through the same environments a second time (solving every puzzle again, finding every switch and key and item again, etc) is really frustrating and annoying. Still, this hasn't really fucked with my enjoyment of the game (yet), so I'll reserve judgment for now.

Finally, I am still sneaking in games of Picross, mostly on the subway to and from work. I am up to the very last level of the Free Mode, and holy jesus has it gotten hard. I'm not gonna lie - I'm pretty much using the Hints on every single puzzle now, and I still usually have to do them over two or three times before I complete them. Perhaps my subconscious realizes that I am almost done with the game, and it's trying to delay the process... because at this point, the thought of a train ride without a game of Picross is kind of really depressing. Hopefully Nintendo keeps the downloadable puzzles coming!

So that's about it for now. Hopefully by the next time I check in, I will have beaten Metroid, and will be waist-deep in the pure bliss that is Super Mario Galaxy.

Phazon, Phazoff

I've been getting into Metroid a bit more. Bit by bit, which is how I think the rest of the game is gonna go. But now I anticipate playing when I'm not playing, instead of thinking of it as a chore, so that's a step up. When I am actually playing, the game is incredible, and I love every minute of it. Except when I have to open doors, but more on that later.

Blogging my progress in this game is way more difficult than it was for Resident Evil 4. That game was very linear, and I could easily tell the story on my quest to get from Point A to Point B, and then to Point C, and so on. Metroid is obviously far less linear. If I were blog about my gameplay in as detailed a manner as I did with RE4, it would be like so:

Then I entered a room. I looked around. I didn't know how to get out of the room. I tried jumping to a platform. I couldn't reach it. I scanned the platform. Nothing happened. I looked around. I looked around. I looked around. I shot random things to see what would happen. I turned into a ball. I couldn't fit anywhere. I took a cigarette break. I looked around. I jumped. I cried.

...and so on. Pretty boring.

Anyway, since last time, I got the ability to freeze fire, which is pretty fun. My favorite is freezing horrific flaming waterfalls and then using them as platforms. I also met a lot of golems, who helped me in various ways. I like the golems. I destroyed the first energy signature on Bryyo, and fought a pretty cool boss. The boss was a space pirate with a giant alien beast as a mount. It was a pretty perfect boss, because defeating him was a multi-step process, but not too difficult to figure out. It also didn't take 3 hours and leave my arm a limp mess like the last boss. I killed the pirate rider, and then focused on the beast itself. I shot it in the mouth until it got stunned, then I bombed the shit out of its belly. Then I pulled its tail, which caused it to expose its belly again, at which point I shot it repeatedly. This was fun.

So next, I have to destroy the second energy signature on this planet, which is in the Thorn Jungle. I'm looking forward to it.

One thing I don't particularly care for in this game is the Phazon system. For those who don't know, this is a process by which you can temporarily give yourself massive offensive power, at the expense of a full bar of energy. Also, when you're in this powered-up state, the system can overload, eventually killing you. Perhaps I just don't have my mind wrapped around the mechanic yet, but I find it terribly frustrating to decide when to use this. The hit your energy takes is fairly large, and the power boost lasts such a short time, that I usually try to go without it, especially if there's no nearby save point. But then, I feel like I'm wasting time needlessly. And it IS an immensely satisfying rush to activate this power and see how quickly and efficiently normally tough enemies can be plowed through. Meh, I'm sure I'll learn to enjoy this ability once I learn to gauge its practicality more precisely.

Another HUGE problem in this game is load times when opening doors to new rooms. Now, I'm a pretty patient dude, and normally I don't mind load times. The problem here is that the game does not acknowledge that a period of "load time" is taking place. I guess they wanted to avoid the stigma of the "Loading..." message, but it seems pretty fucked up to me. There were times in the game where I shot a door to open it, and then it took literally a full minute to open. That's pretty unacceptable, especially in a game like Metroid, where some doors are locked and whatnot. One time, I shot a door, and it didn't open, so I assumed it was locked to me and I went around the whole level searching for another way to progress. Eventually I discovered that the door was unlocked, but that it just didn't fucking open when I shot it. It's really annoying, and I can't believe this is such an issue in a game from the year 2007. But anyway, the rest of the game is so magnificent and beautiful that this issue much easier to forgive.

See you next time.

Metravoid

So I've pretty much been actively avoiding Metroid Prime 3. Last time I played, I defeated the boss I was bitching about in my last post (which was really awesome by the way, even though my arm really hurt afterwards), and then immediately saved and quit, and I haven't been back since. I'm not sure why, because I was really, really enjoying the game. I think I just needed a break from epic video games for a little while. I'm hoping to get back into it soon.

Yesterday I took the opportunity to unlock the last character in Mario Party 8, the Hammer Bro. This took an annoyingly long ammount of time (I listened to four CDs while doing so), and was fairly boring. But, now he's fucking unlocked. Hooray!

Another thing I did yesterday was blow the dust off my copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee and play it for the first time in a couple years. I've been obsessively following the progress of Super Smash Bros. Brawl - when I wake up in the morning, the very first thing I do is check the Smash Dojo to see what the daily update is (today it was motherfucking SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!!). So I figured maybe it was time I actually, yknow, PLAYED some Smash. And oh boy am I rusty. Not only at the game itself, but also at the Gamecube controller. Shit is mad old-school, yo. But it was fun to play it again, and it reminded me why I love the Smash games - not just for the Nintendo fanboy who loves seeing all the references, but also because it's such a fun game! Can't wait for Brawl!

I'm also still playing Picross on the DS. It still owns me. I'm on the Free Mode now, which is hard as a bitch. Plus I still have to do most of the classic puzzles I downloaded. I want to get The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass but I can't really afford it right now.

Anyway, hopefully my next post will be about Metroid again. See you then!

Not Ready For Prime Time?

I puchased Metroid Prime 3. Before I tell you about my experience with the game, I should first brief you on my history with the Metroid Prime series: I have very little history with the Metroid Prime series. Here's the extent of it: Long ago, I bought a used copy of the first Metroid Prime game and played it for a little while, until the game freaked out... the disc was a little scuffed up, which I had shrugged off, but now those little scratches and imperfections had prevented me from advancing. So I borrowed my friends copy of the game, figuring I could just continue with my save data and his disc, but the problem was that I also borrowed the brilliant Shadow of the Colossus at the same time, and decided to play that first. Of course I got swept away into the wonderful world of Colossus, and by the time I had finished with it (note: "finished with it" does not equal "beat the game" in this case, sadly), I had pretty much entirely forgotten about Metroid Prime. My friend's copy of the game is still sitting in my room, staring at me with its dead eyes.

But before all that happened, I had really been enjoying my experience with the Metroid game. I was really impressed at how the spirit of the classic Metroid series had been faithfully translated into this crazy first-person game. So I had been excited to enter that world again on my Wii.

The first thing I noticed about the game was that it was going to take a LOT of getting used to, control wise. I spent the first hour or so bumping into walls, spinning around, and generally having a tough time. Even at the worst of times though, I acknowledged that this was my fault, not the game's. Still, for a period of time long enough to freak me out, the experience was more frustrating than fun.

It didn't help that the very beginning of the game is extremely action-heavy. I participated in many battles with Space Pirates in wide-open arenas, with comrades fighting by my side. Not exactly the scenario you expect to encounter when you pop in a Metroid game. I want my Metroid experience to be dark, solitary, and focused more on exploration than combat.

I got my wish soon enough. Moments from when I touched down on the planet of Bryyo and began exploring, those wonderful old Metroid feelings came rushing back. I wandered around, confused and frustrated, looking for means by which to advance and finding nothing, and I loved it. Metroid!!! Somewhere along the way, I got a little bit better at the control scheme, but I don't think I've completely mastered it yet. Hopefully I will before things get too tough.

I really enjoy the game's scanning function. When I have no idea what to do or where to go, it's nice to be able to just relax a moment and scan everything in sight, searching for clues. It fits in really well with the feel of a Metroid game, and it has helped me many times.

So, I am currently in the Fire region of the Bryyo planet, and I made my way to the arena in which I am to fight the boss. Two spaceships circled around me, sending a couple of waves of Space Pirates down to fuck my shit up. I took care of them fairly easily, and then the boss emerged: My ice-themed bounty hunting colleague, who I suppose is bad now. Unfortunately, as soon as his entrance cutscene was finished, the game totally bugged out on me. The screen went black, as it normally does when transitioning from a cutscene back to real-time action, except this time it stayed black. I sat there patiently for a moment, hoping it was just an extraordinarily long load time, and then the Wii reset itself, bringing me back to the system's main menu screen. The disc channel had the default image showing, as if there were no disc in it. I clicked on it, and the Metroid 3 screen did finally load up, but I decided not to have another go at it right then.

Luckily, I saved right before the boss battle, but I'm worried. I hope that was some kind of isolated spazz-out, and not a fucked up bug that won't allow me to advance. I've read reports of people getting buggy Metroid discs, so I'm a bit worried. Oh well, at least that would be consistent with my previous Metroid Prime experiences.

Stay tuned...

I See Grids When I Close My Eyes

I got Picross DS, and it's amazing. I've been attached to my DS for the past few days. I got in the car with my friends to go to the bar, and sat in the backseat silently playing Picross until we got there. I sat with my girlfriend and played Picross until she yelled at me. I sit and play Picross in my bed. I play Picross on the subway. I play Picross while I take shits. Picross is amazing. That is all.

I Finished Seperate Ways!

I finished the first bonus game I tacked in Resident Evil 4, Seperate Ways.

This was really fun. I enjoyed going through the events of the game from Ada Wong's point of view. I also liked her hookshot ability quite a bit. My favorite part of this sub-game was probably the scene with the warship where I had to use the big cannons. Fun!

One thing I was pretty disappointed by was the fact that the game just played the same Leon/Ada cutscenes from the main game. I was hoping to actually play out those scenes as Ada, instead of just watching them again. It would have been cool to lower myself down to a window and blast the Village Mayor in the back, or to shoot the barrels that allowed Leon to escape from Saddler. Oh well. Still a very fun, quick, fairly easy little game!

So now I just have to play through the Assignment Ada bonus game, and I'm done with RE4, except for the Mercenaries game which I don't really plan to spend all that much time with. Then I guess I'm going to buy Metroid Prime 3.

In other news, my wonderful girlfriend bought me a DS Lite! Almost just in time for the new Zelda game too! God bless her kind soul, and god bless Nintendo.

I BEAT RESIDENT EVIL 4!!!!

It only took 117 saves! Yeesh, that's an embarrassing number, but fuck it! I beat the game! Whoo hoo!!!

Chapter 5-4 was a god damned BITCH. I spent most of the first part of the chapter cowering in fear inside a tent while my buddy in the helicopter killed the bad guys. Every so often I would inch forward, scared to the point of tears, until I was prompted to take cover again. It didn't help that I constantly lost my sense of direction, and that I could never tell where the chaingun dudes were shooting at me from. But I made it through somehow. Eventually, the copter went down, and I was on my own again.

Luckily, the chapter gave me everything I'd been hoping for in terms of items. Ammo and health items were EVERYWHERE. I loaded up on enough ammo that even when I found myself in a room with about a thousand ganados, one of them with a chaingun, I took care of them with no problems.

I reunited with Ashley and we got the parasites removed from our bodies, thus ending the chapter, and leading me into the terrifying battle with the final boss.

Except it wasn't really all that terrifying. In fact, it was easy as shit. Between exploding barrels, grenades, and buttons that sent things crashing into Saddler's mutant body, I took care of him pretty easily, and in one try. Satisfied with a job well done, I figured I'd breeze through the token escape sequence and end the game with no problem.

The escape sequence sucked. It was ten times more annoying and difficult than the actual boss fight. I died at least twenty times while fucking jet-skiing. Jet-skiing! Are you fucking kidding me? If I had to hear Leon do his fucking Han Solo / Sawyer-from-Lost impersonation one more time, I was going to lose it. "Hang on, sweetheart!" Suck my balls, Leon! After a million tries, a lot of pattern memorization, and a cigarette break, I finally did it! Ashley and I escaped from the horrible island of the mutant Spanish insect monsters! Ashley wanted to fuck me, and I said no. I wanted to fuck Hunnigan, and she said no. The game ended.

The credits were really beautiful and sad. As they rolled, still pictures appeared of the ganados living their lives prior to being infected by Saddler and his goons. They farmed, tended to their families, played, loved one another. I thought of how many of them I mercilessly gunned down, and it made me sad. I'm not being cute here; it actually kind of got to me emotionally. I came close to crying at one point. Before you recoil in shock, I should qualify that statement by pointing
out that I cried not only while watching Home Alone, but also while watching Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. So it doesn't take a whole lot to make me cry. Still, good job, Capcom. That was the perfect way to end the game.

Having beaten the main game, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new options opened up! I played through the first chapter of Seperate Ways, and it was slightly harder than I thought it would be... mostly because Ada's supplies are much
more limited than Leon's. Yo, but check this out: At one point, when I was entering the church, I had ZERO bullets in either of my guns, and my health was in the red zone with no healing items. So I went into the church like that, and was
suddenly swarmed by a roomful of ganados. I figured it was all over for poor Ada, but no! I DEFEATED THEM ALL USING ONLY THE KNIFE, AND FINISHED THE CHAPTER! How awesome am I? I very rarely have amazing video game moments like that, so I think I deserve to pat myself on the back a little bit. Of course, this means I'm going to start the second chapter in very, very bad shape, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, I'm reveling in having finally beaten this amazing game!

Yay!!!

I See You've Played Knifey Gunny Before!

Chapter 5-3 was intense! It basically consisted of two long drawn-out boss fights. Neither were all that difficult, but they were both pretty intense and stressful, because they spared you not a second to think about your strategy or figure out what to do.

Last time, I was in the middle of fucking around with It on a bunch of suspended cargo containers. As it turns out, the realization I came to after dying a couple of times was right: It was unkillable until after I got through the cargo puzzle thingie. Once I knew this, it was fairly easy. I wasted not one bullet on the monstrosity, and just avoided his attacks as I made my way through the crates. Once I was back on solid ground, I found a nice little deposit of ammo, which couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Then it was time to face IT. This was shockingly easy. At first, I just ran around in circles for a while (my default strategy in all video games), scouting the area and avoiding his attacks via button prompts. My first line of defense was blasting two exploding barrels, fucking him up good. After that, it took just a handful of magnum shots to send him back to Hell. No problem!

Then it was time to face Krauser again, which nearly gave me a heart attack. I screamed at my television a lot. Mostly things like "FUCK YOU!" and "WHAT IS THIS, A FUCKING MEDAL OF HONOR GAME?? EAT SHIT, GAME!" I take it all back. It turns out, it was all my fault. You see, I had heard a hot tip that the knife was the most effective weapon against Krauser, and so I thought I had the upper hand on the game. As soon as Krauser first attacked me with his insane super-powered jumping around, I tried stabbing him and nothing happened, except that he brutally murdered me. This scenario repeated two or three times before I realized that something wasn't right. Remembering my problems with IT, it occured to me that Krauser was probably also unkillable until I completed my other objective in the area, which was to find two pieces of some stone. So, in the next go-around, I just blasted his ass with shotgun fire when he showed up, and low and behold, he retreated, allowing me to advance. He showed up to annoy me a few more times during my quest for the stones, as did some crazy flying robots. I was actually pretty grateful for the presence of the robots, because they went down with one handgun shot each, and left me good prizes. Finally, after finding all the stones, it was time to face off against Krauser fo' rizzle, which meant that it was finally time to use the knife. Sure enough, three or four stab stab stabs, and he went down. I grabbed his piece of the stone, and exited the area, ending the chapter.

Chapter 5-4 seems badass. My rescue helicopter has finally arrived, and while I'd like to just hop in and leave Ashley behind, I guess that's not an option. I died early on in this chapter, and then quit. I'm not sure exactly how to approach this situation: Do I just hide in the shadows and wait for the helicopter to kill everything, or do I slowly advance through the level, killing things on my own? I'm honestly not sure what the game expects of me here. I'm guessing a mixture of the two. We shall see! I'm so close to the end, I can taste it!

In other news, Super Metroid really is one of the best games ever. It's been so long since I played it last, I forgot just how beautiful and perfect it is. Everything is balanced so perfectly, particularly the balance between being confused and frustrated, and the feeling of satisfaction when you finally solve the problem at hand. Plus the graphics are so pretty, even 70 years later or whatever. I'm plowing through this shit. If you've never played this game, definitely download it; you won't regret it. If you have played it, download it anyway, and remind yourself how wonderful it is. One of the greatest games on one of the greatest consoles ever.

The Best Post Ever

Last night I played Super Metroid until 3 in the morning. That is all.

Hello, Umbrella. How've Ya Been?

After a not-so-brief hiatus, I have dived headlong back into Resident Evil 4. Well, if by "dived headlong" you mean "played through one more chapter". But oh jesus christ lord mamma, WHAT a chapter!

It started with me having to kill a few more Arghs and ganados, thus wasting much of the little ammo I had left. Following that, I reached the infamous "wrecking ball" segment. A few friends had warned me about this segment, claiming that it was one of the hardest parts of the game. I must say, I don't see what all the hoop-dee-doo was all about. Basically, I had to fend off enemies for like half a minute while Ashley smashed a hole in a wall, and then run through that hole. It really wasn't that big a deal; I did it in one try without wasting too much ammo or getting injured, and the worst thing that happened was that Ashley got hit and required a herb. No biggie.

What came next was, in my opinion, much harder. I had to ride on the back of a truck and fend off ganados that ran at me as Ashley drove through a series of tunnels. I died several times attempting this, mainly because I kept running out of ammo after the first couple of ganado swarms. Finally, I utilized a balanced mix of grenades and gunplay to get through this part. Unfortunately, this pretty much completely depleted my grenade supply, so now I have no grenades AND no bullets for any of my guns. The most frustrating part was that as the truck barreled away from the ganados I'd just blown to shit, I could see all the little red ammo indicators popping up as their bodies disintegrated. I even tried to jump off the truck a couple times, hoping to grab some of that sweet sweet ammunition, but the game wouldn't let me. So close, and yet so far.

And thus ended Chapter 5-2. I played through a bit of 5-3, but I got to a point where I was running around on cargo containers, trying to open doors while being hounded by the horrific "IT". I got killed a couple of times trying to do this, and then gave up. I think I have a decent strategy for when I tackle the segment again though: I will just run by IT and avoid his attacks, rather than wasting magnum ammo trying to kill his ass. I'm sure that once I get past this annoying door puzzle nonsense, I'll have to battle him for reals anyway, so I'll save my precious magnum bullets for that. I know I keep saying this, but oh god I hope there's a bunch of ammo lying around somewhere soon!!

At one point in the midst of all this, I had a fairly awesome encounter with Krauser. He was all like "Umbrella, Umbrella, Wesker, Umbrella, Umbrelladee-doo... oh wait, did I say Umbrella? I have said too much, comrade. (knife knife knife)". I must say that after all this crazy Salazar/Saddler/ganado/gigante/plagas stuff, it's pretty satisfying for elements like Umbrella and Albert Wesker FINALLY come up in this game. Don't get me wrong - I love the game, but as a big Resident Evil fan, it does seem very disconnected from the rest of the series. It's nice to see some connections, even if they turn out to be loose or superficial (which I'm thinking they probably will). This game is a masterpiece, no question, but their decision to change up both the storyline AND the gameplay style really makes it feel like something completely different. Different is good, but in the world of video games, part of the satisfation of playing a new game in a franchise is that sense of familiarity mixed in with all the new stuff. I hope they take this into account when creating the next Resident Evil game.

See you next time, when I will hopefully boast of toppling the mighty IT.

Goodbye, Mushroom Kingdom

I finished Paper Mario.

I can't believe that this game, which is two generations old, and which I'd already beaten years ago, captivated me so much that it led me to totally blow off Resident Evil 4 for so long! Paper Mario is a wonderful, brilliant, addictive game, and well worth the $10 I spent on it. If you never played this game, and you have a Wii, download it IMMEDIATELY.

It's always a sign of an excellent game when you feel sort of melancholy upon finishing it, sad to bid the game world farewell. This is especially the case with RPGs, where you spend so much time in certain locations and get to know them so well. I remember that beating Earthbound (aka, the greatest game ever made) for the first time, years ago, actually left me depressed for a couple of days. I'm gonna miss Toad Town, just like I miss Onett.

So, now it's time to get back in to Resident Evil 4, which I will hopefully do in the next couple days. I am so close to finishing the game, but it's probably still gonna be a while until I do so. This game is so intense, that I've found I can't play it for too long at a time, so progress has been slow. I was hoping to finish this game before the release of Metroid Prime 3, but it looks like that's not gonna happen (especially if you take into account all the bonus content on this version of RE4). Perhaps I'll hold off on getting Metroid and just let Super Mario Galaxy be my next game, and save Metroid for the next time there's a long stretch between game releases. Anyway, the next post here will hopefully be about Resident Evil 4 again. Stay tuned.

I <3 Toad Town

Ugh. So yeah, I've been completely neglecting Resident Evil 4 to play Paper Mario on the Virtual Console. If you're going to follow this blog, you had better get used to me flip-flopping like this, because that's kind of what I do when it comes to video games. I assure you, I am not giving up on Resident Evil 4 (although, honestly, my ammo situation is a major problem, and I have no clue how I am going to overcome it), but I've sort of been hypnotized by the Mario game.

The crazy thing about Paper Mario is that it almost feels like it shouldn't be a VC game. It's so (relatively) recent! I still remember a LOT of the game's nooks and crannies, as if I played it for the first time yesterday!

I am currently in the middle of the Shy Guy's Toybox chapter, which is really fun. This level almost has an adventure game vibe to it, due to the fact that I have to constantly run around searching for items, and then giving those items to people in different locations to get more items, which in turn give me passage to new areas where I find even more items. I enjoy that sort of thing, for some strange reason. This episode has me running around in Toad Town a lot, and while I'm doing that, I'm also taking care of a lot of unrelated side missions. Toad Town is awesome in this game! I totally love towns in RPG games. They are so relaxed and full of activities and plot advancements that are fun, but not dangerous. When I die and go to heaven, it had damn well better resemble the first town in Chrono Trigger or I'm going to sue Jesus. Anyway, Toad Town is great, and pretty damn big and chock full of stuff to do.

I'm guessing that in a few days I'll beat this game, and then return to Resident Evil 4.

Speaking of Resident Evil, have you read this article from the Village Voice? This is the kind of shit that enfuriates me, and all I can do is hope for Bonnie Ruberg to live an unfulfilling life and then die painfully, violently, and with the knowlege that her presence made the earth a slightly shittier place. But as a side note, it makes me wonder why Resident Evil 4, in which every single enemy is Spanish, didn't receive similar criticism?

Paper

I haven't played much RE4 since the last entry. Basically, I finished off that chapter, which was accomplished as soon as I backtracked my way back to Ashley's cell. On the way, I found a bit of ammo but evened it out by wasting a bunch of ammo on some ganados.

Here's what I was up to today, video game wise: Being a hopeless slave to my addiction to the Virtual Console. I downloaded a ton of new games today, including an old favorite: Paper Mario. My Nintendo 64 was my constant companion during my college years and this was one of the very last games I played for it back then (third last, in fact, right behind used copies of Pokemon Puzzle League and the surprisingly fun side-scroller Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers). Since then, I've played the two Paper Mario sequels (including the absolutely brilliant Super Paper Mario for the Wii). So it's nice to revisit the game that started the franchise, and it's a nice way to offset the grim nature of Resident Evil 4. I played Paper Mario for about an hour today, and stopped just after I added Kooper to my party.

Oh, another game I got on the VC today was Devil's Crush, the sequel to Alien Crush. This shit is even better than the alien one. Why do I love pinball video games so much?

What're Yeh Sellin'?

My answer to the question posed by the title of this entry is always the same: Everything! Take it all, take all my spinels and gems and other treasures - anything to get my precious, precious weapon upgrades!! When dealing with the merchant (who seems to have chosen some rather unlikely locations to set up shop, by the way... which makes me wonder if he's also providing weaponry and provisions to my enemies - a thought that fills me with indescribable rage), my strategy is to always sell, and sell quickly. Since the beginning of the game, I have not had the patience to wait until I can combine treasures to increase their value, because I am always too anxious to immediately upgrade my weapons (except for one instance in which I just happened to stumble upon two combinable treasures before I reached the next merchant). I regret this impulsive behavior, because patience might have led to a greater bounty of goods in the long run, but I am making no steps to change it. This has led to me never having any extra money lying around. I sell stuff, I upgrade the shit out of my weapons, and by the time I bid the merchant farewell, I am nearly penniless again.

This has become a problem lately, because as of Chapter 5-1, the merchant now sells body armor. The body armor costs $60,000 which is twice as expensive as even the most lofty of weapon upgrades. Obviously, I have nowhere close to $60,000, and it will take a significant amount of time (and the sacrifice of weapon upgrades) to pull the cash together. My dilemma is: SHOULD I sacrifice weapon upgrades for this body armor? What's more important to me right now, increasing my offense or my defense? It seems like enemies are going to become harder to kill from this point on, and also will be learning new and fascinating methods by which to kick my ass. I'm not sure what I should do. I'm sure this isn't a problem for most people playing this game; by this point they probably have hundreds of thousands of dollars racked up as a result of wise and conservative business decisions. Sadly, as in real life, I haven't quite learned the value of a dollar yet.

Anyway, having left the merchant, I forged onward. Soon I ran into my first Argh. I call these monsters Arghs because every time one of them shows up, I scream "Argh!" (out of an instinctual mixture of horror, repulsion, and hatred for the God who would allow such creatures to exist), and they started thinking it was their name. I first saw an Argh laid out on an autopsy table in a hellish laboratory that could only exist in the Silent Resident Hill Evil universe. In the same area was a little note left for me by my dead Spaniard friend. I read the note, learning that I would need some sort of infrared something or other in order to kill these things. It suddenly struck me that the instant I finished reading the note, the Argh on the autopsy table would surely rise and attack me, and now I knew that there was nothing I could do to kill it, except for hoping it would drown in my tears. I left the note on the screen and went to smoke a cigarette and sooth my nerves.

I returned to the game, and sure enough the horrible, horrible thing on the table rose and attacked me. Argh! He hit me with a swing so powerful that it knocked me on my ass, and reduced my health into the red zone, forcing me to use one of my herbs. I ran away from the monster, knowing it was invulnerable to my puny weapons. After evading another couple of Arghs, I finally found the infrared scope, and I attached it to my rifle. It turns out they're not so hard to kill once you have the scope, but my shitty aim means I had to stop shooting to distance myself in several battles. No big deal. At one point though, one of the abominations ejected porcupine-like spikes out of its body as some sort of nightmarish death twitch, which fucked my shit up again, requiring yet another herb. I followed Ashley's screams to find her locked up in a cell guarded by big-ass dudes in crazy armor. I killed them, only to find that her cell was locked. Consulting the map, I followed it to the destination marker, where I killed an Argh that left me what I'm guessing is the key to Ashley's cell.

After that, I ran into another merchant. As it turns out, I now had enough cash money for the body armor (the Arghs leave you a TON of money when they die). I purchased it. I hope it helps. I also bought some first aid spray to make up for all the herbage I'd just consumed. Nearby I found a typewriter and saved, deciding to take a break for now.

As this fairly brief gameplay session ends, one truth is ringing loud and clear in my mind: I'm hopelessly screwed on the ammo front. I have exactly TWO bullets left in my handgun. My shotgun is fully loaded, and I have one more clip for it, but that's it. Luckily, I have tons of rifle ammo, which be useful in fighting the Arghs. But I have a feeling that the presence of the Arghs will be similar to that of the invisible insects I encountered earlier in the game... they'll show up, fuck with me for one chapter of gameplay, and then disappear never to be seen again. I hope I find a ton of ammo soon, or I really think I'm screwed. Pray for me.

How Much Wii Can You Take?

Hey everybody, this is Chadd Derkins.

This blog will serve as a log of my progress in the video games I am playing. Doesn't that sound exciting? Here's some information about me that will make it even more so: I suck at video games. Seriously. I love them, and I spend ungodly amounts of money and time on them, but I really, really suck at them. This blog will consist of little else besides the endless repetition of the phrase "And then I died" and a record of the circumstances leading up to these terrible deaths. Perhaps once in a while, my avatar will experience some sort of minor victory, and we can all be excited together! It should also be noted that pretty much all of the adventures within will be taking place on the Nintendo Wii, the finest video game console ever made.

As I begin this blog, I am already deep into a video game, that game being the Wii edition of Resident Evil 4. I wish I had thought of creating this blog when I had started the game, but it's too late for that now, I suppose. I believe I am in the middle of the first stage of Chapter 5, having just arrived on the island. There are lots of military looking bastards here, including some with machine guns that kill me with one shot. I am running low on ammunition and health items, and that is beginning to seriously worry me. The fact that I've survived to this point is not so much a testament to my skills, but rather is a result of a million tiny miracles: Finding a herb at just the right time, being beaten to within an inch of my life by an enemy but surviving, etc, etc. At some point, I figure my luck has to run out, and the results will not be pretty. Will I become frustrated and abandon the game before I finish it, like I've done so many times in the past? Or will I forge onward until I save the president's daughter and destroy the weird Spanish insect cult, or whatever the fuck I'm supposed to be doing in this game? Stay tuned...