October Entry

- Work -

Tolerable, yet still sucky. For a while I’ve been working off of 4 computers and 2 offices. It’s not bad or work heavy. It actually does help make time go faster.

I did have to go to Florida (10.20.07-10.23.07) for a trucking convention. THAT sucked really so much. Firstly, I’m there with our ex-president Kyle (why is he still with us when he decided to leave months ago). At least his brother Butch is cool. Secondly, the motel lost our reservations (not really too big a deal since we just got the rooms anyways). Thirdly, the room itself was really dirty. Less than 5-minutes of walking around and my socks turned black. It was that dirty. I ended up putting a trail of towels from the bathroom to the carpeting in the room so I could cleanly jump onto one bed to the other one I chose to sleep on. There were also little…mites or something crawling around. AND the A/C unit was messed up. At first I thought it wasn’t cold because the vent was pointed down. So I tried to point it upwards, but that would require me breaking it. Even on full blast the air wasn’t blowing strong enough making it hard for me to sleep (would take 1-2 hours to fall asleep from originally wanting to sleep). By the way, something interesting, (well, not “interesting”) it took the freezer one whole day to freeze a small tray of ice cubes. Yeah…and not a night went by without me hearing sirens.

By the way, 3 morning of eating Denny’s…ugh…

And then there’s the convention itself. Trucking convention…boring…not many people there…little activity. At least the first convention I went to was for almost any kind of company. This one had almost nothing. There was one booth that had a Deal or No Deal theme, one had a large vase full of pennies where they got people to guess how many were inside, 4 booths had putting, 1 had a loading truck driving simulator…and that’s probably all worth mentioning. I did participate at a General Electric booth that had a Wii and Madden playing. Winner of the field goal competition would win a Bret Favre autographed helmet. I got 2^nd place. But yeah…I think we maybe got less than 15 contacts after 3 days of 2 and half hour convention time…and I want to say I got more than half of those.

So Florida sucked bad. Howard Johnson motels suck bad. Going motel-convention-motel sucked bad. No internet sucked bad. Flying…wasn’t that bad (I just can’t handle take-offs, turbulence, and landing all too well). Just glad to be home.

- Currently Playing -

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (DS)

Final Fantasy VI Advance (GBA)

*November will be a full gaming month

**Beat Metroid Prime 3 and Zelda-Phantom Hourglass lately (reviews up)

- Random -

Bai siang guo oolong cha.

Dance.

Andrew’s/Ryan’s birthday was really fun.

BoA* watch strap broke. Don’t want another watch.

Started Christmas shopping already. Have most of them.

No new car yet (due to things happening). Soon.

Appreciate my room/bed, helpful hair products, home cooked meals, internet, and more (stupid trucking convention in stupid Orlando).

Go Koopa Troopas.

- Cheon Sang Ji Hee -

- BoA* -

Guess there wasn’t much to talk about this time. Most of it was about work. November will bring game reviews and other things. And then December/Christmas is soon.

- A Girl and Her Dog -

Take care.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Review)

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Nintendo Wii)

Rated “T” for “Teen”

Space, where evil seems to come from. In Samus’ case it is where she stays employed. Her first outing on the Wii is filled with what she has spent years doing. This time the Aurora unit has been corrupted. Samus herself is not immune from it as she herself becomes corrupted. Corruption…bad. Corrupted sheep…ba-a-a-a-ad.

Getting rid of the corruption in your body surprisingly is not your main objective. It is after all just a little infection, only deadly after much ingestion. You travel throughout space to de-corrupt the Aurora system. Doing so involves destroying seeds filled with phazon and of course it is never easy to do as you need power-ups and upgrades to yourself and ship to fulfill this.

As this is the Next-Gen age of consoles, Metroid-Wii is not too much of a big difference from the Metroid-Cube. Things are shinier and areas are vast and large. Space hunting as pretty as it can be. Enjoy the large areas and planets you visit before the baddies come after you. You will visit some areas more than once because…well, Samus does that. Back tracking and item collection is a Metroid thing.

By the way, welcome to the first Metroid game with voice acting. No, you do not get to hear Samus spitting out one-liners or give a monologue on how she may have chosen the wrong profession. Other than grunts, all other voice acting comes from NPCs. Not the best in the world, but it could have been worse. Thankfully they did not go with the latter.

This may be one of the first times that Samus starts her space trek without losing everything she had and having to find them all again. Must be the new Wii controls keeping them together. That is the obvious difference from the Wii from the Gamecube. As with most Wii games, the controls take some getting used to. Soon enough you will feel like the controls were made for Metroid. The lock on system still exists, but acts more as a “center” as you are more dependent on actually aiming and hitting your targets.

Other hand functions such as hand sensors and pull/push switches give your hands more to do. Your nunchuk also gets use instead of just moving around. Once you get the grapple, you will have your left hand flinging around more. Grappling does add more to just shooting in a fight and it just feels cool pulling stuff off with your hand. It adds to the fights and gets frantic is some close-quarter fights.

Remember that Samus is corrupted? Yeah, that adds the new Corruption mode ability also. You can switch back and forth by using up a full energy tank and serve up some phazon-filled shots when needed (and you will HAVE to at times). Careful though as enemies can force Corruption mode leaving you to crazily shoot out as much phazon as possible before you become fully corrupted and die/lose. Again, never easy for Samus.

At least the boss battles are huge and tough…WHAT?! Oh yeah! The boss battles are HUGE and TOUGH. Any Prime player from the previous platform knows how these battles can and will be. Big bosses that cover the screen and if they are not big then they are strong or fast or has extra cool special abilities or is strong, fast, and has extra cool special abilities. Walks in the park are pretty much nonexistent in space (are there even any parks in space).

Does Samus bring it to the Wii? She does. Some may have hoped she brought more with her to help push Nintendo’s new system to the forefront. The game does not really do anything new except showcase how well the Wii controls can be put to use when worked heavily on. But you will not be disappointed in this installment which wraps up the Prime series nicely.

4 out of 5

The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass (Review)

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS)

Rated “E” for “Everyone”

The sequel to “The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker” jumps from your cube to a dual screen. In Link’s latest outing, you take to the seas again for adventure. Starting after the events of Wind Waker, you take on the role of Link as you and Tetra go sailing for pirate adventure. But like every journey Link takes, trouble brews. You come across a Ghost Ship and lose Tetra. Link is woken up by a fairy and you meet her Grandpa. One event leads to another and you find a sword, which means you are now entitled to do stuff. So it is once again time to rescue your damsel in distress and restore greatness to the world.

So what is the same about this Zelda adventure? Since it is a Wind Waker sequel, it shares the same cell-shaded art style that football headed Link had on the Gamecube. Along with that comes a bit of humor to go along with the light-hearted world-saving theme. Your standard array of Zelda items are here like always (boomerang, bombs, etc). Item collecting, treasure finding, sea sailing, and sword fighting is all here. Sounds good.

So what is new? This game is on the DS so as much of the DS’s functionality is incorporated (even the microphone is used a few times). Link, as well as everything else, is controlled fully by the stylus. It will take a little getting used to, but after some time with it you will appreciate how easy it is. A few buttons and the d-pad can be used to open menus, but everything can be done with the stylus. Sword play has been simplified to easy strokes and pokes of the stylus. Nothing gets rid of evil like a poke-of-doom.

Your items also are stylus…ized as you can draw paths with your boomerang and guide bomb-chus down dungeon paths. Ship sailing is also simplified as you just draw your ship’s path to sail and then take down sea evil with your cannon.

The top screen serves mainly for maps. That is actually a lot more useful now as you can draw on any and all maps you have. You found a crack in the wall and you are out of bombs, mark it and come back later. Find hints in dungeons that sound important to remember, write it down. Someone tells you a telephone number while you are in the middle of dungeon crawling, just write down 867-5309 and call Jenny back later.

There will be occasional activity from time to time. Zelda always delivered on boss battles that required you to utilize your items in various ways. This leads to great design and fights that you might not thought imaginable for your DS.

You can customize your ship as you find various ship parts all over the world. Putting certain sets together gives your ship more hearts to last longer. You most likely will not be able to find all ship parts that exist, but that is where trading with other DS players comes in. Not only that, but there is a multiplayer mode that plays out like certain parts of the game pitting one player as Link and 3 others as Phantoms.

The story is your normal Zelda affair. Fans will enjoy it. This game packs plenty of sea-faring adventure and fun for Link and the rest on the little DS. While it might not be as long as standard console Zelda titles, you will have little to complain about with this one. It has all your familiar parts of Zelda and a few alterations that keep a franchise like this alive and fresh.

5 out of 5

Peach Motorcycle

From the new Mario Kart coming out on the Wii in 2008.

That's my girl looking hot on her motorcycle!

14th Korean Entertainment Arts Award

Best Female Group

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass