Every website is unblocked by the school internet right now.

After playing Halo 2 extensively, I thought up some wishes for the next installment.


1) Fall damage. I don't like how humongous leaps can be made without any loss of health. Plus, bring damaged on large falls adds another layer of strategy.

2) Health indicator. More strategy. More fun and intense, in my opinion.

3) Give the shotgun the same power as in Halo: CE. In Halo 2 you have to be point blank. At least give the shotgun some power from 2 feet away.

4) No plasma sword. It's a novelty that I don't care for.

5) No duel-wielding. For some reason, I don't really like it. Maybe because some combinations are overpowering and plagued by spamming and auto-aim.

6) Bring back floaty physics. I want to be able to ramp the Warthog off the Scorpion again.

7) Lag the sniper rifle. In Halo: CE sniping took a bit more skill. It wasn't just aim at the head and fire -- you had to aim ahead of the target to hit. In Halo 2 what sniper is practically aimed for you be...

8 ) Auto-aim. Take it away! Nothing unbalances the SMG + SMG combo more than auto-aim.

9) More small deathmatchy maps. I miss playing on levels like Damnation and Prisoner.

10) More "open" maps. Like Hang 'em High.

11) Flying, spinning weapons. I don't like how fallen weapons in Halo 2 sort of "blink" and move a centimeter when you shoot them. I want the spinning of Halo: CE back. Also, the ability to blast weapons far away was very nice. In Halo: CE they could fly across the map. Not so in Halo 2; they will go a few meters and stop.

12) Faster squatting motion. Teabag ahoy!

I'm a freakin' SPECTACULAR artist.

So I'm riding my bike around and come to this incredibly ugly row of uniform suburbs. Like, I REALLY hate seeing straight rows of pearly white houses. It sickens me.

And what else do I do but make up an extremely long poem as I ride my bike. By the time I had concluded I was back home after a good 45 minutes.

I really wish I could remember all of what I said. At the time it seemed quite good.

I finally got back to Castlevania: SotN (beat it already, but doing the reverse castle portion now). So I load up a save and make towards an unknown map section. My Alucard has a good 450 health, so I should be okay. I make my way to the main gate of the castle through two hallways of strong enemies and arrive with around 300 health. I get the two items and head back. I die in the hallway. Try again? Yes.

Dead.

So I go a different route. I load up for the fourth time and head to the caverns. With my trusty ring equipped, I easily find some rare items from baddies. Niiice, a necklace which boosts my defense by 20. I pick up the Alucard Shield in the next room. I proceed to whore one lamp that drops 2000 gold every time it is hit, and later head to the waterfall for some shiitake mushrooms.

With some sexy new items, I head back to get what I left at the main gate. I thought +20 defense would protect me from the skeleton which attacked for 100 damage. Nope. Down to 90 health, I slink back to the save point.

Right next to the save entrance, the 100 point damaging enemy nails me.

Dammit!

Netplay rocks. I was just playing a match of Street Fighter Alpha 3. It lagged and the game is tough without a stick, but it was awesome. You people should join me and play some Street Fighter, Metal Slug, or Samurai Showdown. Weeeeeeeeee. Yay, I won a match! I almost beat the guy Sakura v. Sagat as well.

It's a battle I have fought before in a game I have ended once. Zombie-wrapping my way out of Threed, I enter the chamber of my last oppressor on the road to Saturn-town. He is a slimy fellow -- not one for manners. Trying to rob me of the precious Fly Honey, he engages in battle. I enter the fight with one man, Jeff, already down while the other characters are fighting fit but possessed by mini-ghosts. The ghosts swipe at the two remainders, damaging each around 2 hit points per swing. The small "Belch", as my foe is called, deals his own nasty set of burps. This further weakens my party, infecting both with sickness. My life is lowering; the ghosts and illness are causing my characters to be clumsy with their weapons. My only hope is prayer. I select pray. A small lightness surrounds me. Plus 10 hit points. A small lightness surrounds me. A rainbow shines and Jeff is revived. Excellent. Jeff is alive, free of hurt and sickness. I have a chance now. Keeping the prayer going, I heal the other characters to full percent. The girl has a case of the sniffles. Each go at a pray she suffers from a 4 hit point loss, practically cancelling whatever work the random pray does. Jeff's ingenuity allows him to fire bottle rockets without blowing his fingers of; I utilize this feat and damage mister Belch for 118 points. Critical hit. Dammit, Jeff goes down again. I try Paula's prayer again, while the boy swings his bat futilely. It's to no avail; Paula is downed by joint efforts of mini-ghost and cold. The boy is the only member left. I chance a heal, using his last psi points, and get him to full health. The ghost digs away. It effectively renders my character useless -- I can only connect an attack every 3 or 4 goes -- and my 140-odd health slowly decreases. As his health dwindled, I remembered the partners carried all the healing items. What a stupid mistake by me. SMASH! The boy hits hard. I feel Belch is nearing his end. So is my last character. CRACK! That little pile of s*** slams me critically. My rolling hit point system starts heading down to zero. As the number lessens, I get one last hit in. Bam. Belch is defeated. His body fades away. The boy has one health unit left. Text comes up informing me "You won". But did I? I lost everything. The menu screens were dyed red. My party members were dead. Their ghostly outlines were all that followed me. I didn't have the will to move on. My friends were gone; I couldn't continue to Saturn-ville without them. I shared a bond with them. It wasn't a forced emotional attachment as in Metal Gear Solid. I had formed compassion out of sparse text for these pixelled people. I climbed out of the neon-green dungeon. My lone character and his phantom friends turned south to look at me. Ness' face was one of half indifference. My mind drew the rest. He as a saddened boy. He missed his mother, father, dog and sister. Rotating north, the boy in the baseball cap walked past a friendly man. He turned east and his face changed. He was no longer saddened by the previous battle's loss. His eyes gazed across towards Saturn-town, ready for adventure. A simple turn made him change entirely. It was a turn to a new area, a new life, a new anything. A majority of travelling is done from west to east. I flipped the power switch and replayed the segment. Mother 2 makes you think like that.

Here I will probably go through this later and make adjustments. Here it is for now though. Edited it a bit. Here is the watered down GameSpot version if you care to thumbs up or trust.

If you actually read this journal, you know I have started up a website for myself. The design was made in one day and, while I enjoy it, I want something smoother and easier on the eyes. Which do you prefer from the new one and the old one? I also came up with a new name and simplified the sections (images seemed pointless since most will go into the articles and I catagorized 'reviews' as simply gaming as previews and writing on games will go there). Thanks muchly for comments. Edit: I may end up keeping the older design and putting the newer one up whenever I register a domain name and pay for a nice host. The site is really hard to work with on my Comcast page because of the links (each has to have the http://www... instead of a simple /index.html. If you have ever created a page you know what I mean... the former format is a ***** to transfer).

night valley I also put up a new article of sorts. Check the latest news on the main page.