Well, I've hit the dreaded level 20. With level 20, coems new personal standards in reviewing. If any of you have been reading my recent reviews, starting with Endless Ocean i believe, you may have already noticed this new standard in place. I am making the reviews much more in depth and longer than before, and neater/cleaner, making them easier to read. I even went as far as to rewrite my first review I made here, you can find the URL at the end of the post. Also, my first review and contribution I've amd as level 20 is Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I'm sure some of you will be interested to read it. I also plan on rewriting most of my reviews to me this new standard in my spare time when I'm bored, I'll be sure to announce the redoner eviews in blog posts for those of you who care. Thanks to the people who read my blogs and reviews, and a special thanks goes out to Monkeystew, WTA2k5, Allicrombie, and anyone else I am forgetting that speaks with me often in private messages and/or responds to my blog posts.

My first review ever written on Gamespot.

My Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review.

Warning: Long Post!

Well to start things off I saw the movie 21 last night. Despite the medicore reveiws I enjoyed it. The acting was pretty solid and I'd say that I pretty much liked the cast as a whole. There were a couple cliche moments and the whole slowing down time thing was a little overused. Sometimes it actually succeded where most modern movies fail, by this I mean it did a good job of building suspense.

On another note, I'm a pretty big South Park fan, and when I heard that the Imaginationland DVD was coming out I jumped at the chance, because I think those are some of the best episodes ever and I don't feel like shelling out the cash for the entire season. I'd say its a good DVD, they added in a couple short scenes and its uncensored now. The scenes weren't really needed or anything because I thought it was already pretty awesome, but the ones they put in were pretty funny I think. To tell you the truth they were more like extended scenes rather than deleted scenes. The DVD also includes two episodes to provide some backstory on some of the imaginary creatures. The two episodes are Woodland Critter Christmas from season 8 and Manbearpig from season 10, it certainly helps the value of the DVD, especially because I consider them to be some fo the best the series has to offer.

Finally, my rant on Starcraft 2. Some may be offended by this rant, I ask that you don't hold it against me. Now, I loved the original Starcraft and its expansion. I have been waiting for years for a new Starcraft, and a Warcraft IV as well, but that's another story entirely. I was pretty darn excited when I heard about Starcraft 2, but when I saw it I was extremely disappointed, I held my tounge to see if it improved as it was a really early showing of the game, but from what I've seen since then, it doesn't really look any better. My complaint is this: its the same game we played ten years ago! There looks to be minimal additions to the game play. There's not even an announcment of heroes yet that I'm aware of, although its excusable I guess because Starcraft is more fast paced than Warcraft and heroes slow it down a little. Next, the graphics look like the same ones from the original but brought into fully 3D models and more clear/less blurry. Oh, and the lasers/lights look cooler I guess. There's a lot of RTS games already out that look better than Starcraft 2. If anything it looks more like a super HD expansion pack than a full fledged sequel. I feel that Blizzard is just pulling one over our heads, and that millions of people are going to buy it no matter what score it gets, but that doesnt matter because the game will get AA at the very least based on name alone.

For those of you who held back your disgust of me because of my opinion on Starcraft 2 and are still reading, thanks. Anyway, to sum it up, I'd really like it if Blizzard was actually pulling one over my head and that Starcraft 2 gets huge overhaul and turns out amazing. Lastly, it looks like I'll be hitting the dreaded level 20 soon, so you can expect a post when that occurs.

Well, Monkeystew tagged me so I guess its myjob to inform you all five things about my boring life.

1. I love games of all consoles...even PC I suppose, fanboyism FTL.

2. I'm registered as an American Independent and plan to vote for Obama if he becomes the Democrat candidate.

3. I've lived in the bay area of CA all my life.

4. When I was a little kid I thought I would have a lucrative career in martial arts after taking Tae Kwon Do for five and a half years, Jiu Jitsu for half a year, and Ken Po for a couple months as well. Turns out my ambitions changed with my age:P. I would like to one day try Ninjutsu. In a somewhat related issue I'd like to also travel to Japan at least once.

5.My favorite meal of the day is lunch (kind of stole this from monkeystew's answers)

Sonic Unleashed is a new multi platform sonic game planned to come out in november. Credit goes to Melchezdek for finding the video, and SilverXy3 for compiling it. Well, here's the video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-BnS9evG9vI

Now that lent is over I can drink soda again, although I'll try and hold backa bit. Anyway iw as really bored and goofing around with Listmania on Amazon, and ended up compiling a list of my favorite games ever, so here it is, my top 30 games ever, starting from absolute best ever made and ending with still pretty dam awesome, I would be completely satisfied if all 30 were the only games ever made, good thing that's not the case though!

1. Super Mario Galaxy

2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

3. Super Smash Bros. Brawl

4. Final Fantasy X

5. Bioshock

6. Halo 3

7. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

8. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

9. The Orange Box

10. Lost Odyssey

11. Halo: Combat Evolved

12. Grand Theft Auto III

13. Super Smash Bros. Melee

14. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

15. Super Mario World

16. Super Mario 64

17. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion-GOTY Edition

18. Perfect Dark

19. Golden Eye 007

20. Halo 2

21. Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt

22. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

23. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

24. World of Warcraft

25. Resident Evil 4

26. Warcraft III

27. Starcraft

28. Star Fox 64

29. Resistance: Fall of Man

30. Mass Effect

I went on Amazon today and purchased The Insider, The Big Lebowski, and 2001: A Space Odyssey on DVD. Well all except 2001, I got that on Blu-Ray because for some reason it was a dollar cheaper than the normal DVD version. Hey, I'm not complaining. I also ordered a couple of books and controllers and such. Oh by the way, everyone should check out ym Endless Ocean for the Nintendo Wii review when they have the time.

Having finished the single player in Brawl (I'll never be done with the multi-player.) I've moved on to Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360. I have put in about 1 hour and 20 minutes of play time so far, so I can't really comment on the story, or much of the combat for that matter because you don't seem to experience that much for the first hour or so. I will however, give my impressions of the graphics, visual design, musical score, cinematics, and more.

First off, the graphics and visual design. They are very nice in my opinion, very bright and shiny, with good use of blur effects. Now, many people dislike blur effects because they see it as a way to make up for technical deficiencies. I agree to a point, but at the same time I enjoy them and think they can add a certain something to the visual design. Everything is very detailed and the animations are great, both in and out of combat. The load times seem to be strangely placed, but they aren't as frequent as people make them out to be, nor are they anywhere near as long. I think the longest load time I've had so far was about eight seconds. There are some frame rate issues here and there, but its not nearly as bad the frame rate problems in Mass Effect, and it didn't bother me in that game, why should it here? As for the basic look of the game, it sort of looks like a medieval Japan brought into the future with a sort of magical twist.

The musical score is great as far as I'm concerned. I've heard several people complain about it being one of Nobuo Uematsu's lesser scores. I however, disagree and find it to fit the game well, a very epic feel with a hint of sadness. When I'm running around town though, it reminds me of the music from Final Fantasy VII, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The cinematics are all good so far. The dialogue is good overall, however there have been a couple really corny lines, but this is an RPG, when has there been an RPG that didn't have at least one corny moment in it?

I can tell you about the very basics of the combat. Its essentially the combat from Final Fantasy X with an added twist, the ring system. I don't really understand how to use the ring system just yet, which just says to me that i should have paid more attention to the tutorial. The insertion of rumble, neat camera angles, and fluid animations all make the combat feel surprisingly alive for a turn based game.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, so far so good. If you have an Xbox 360 and enjoy JRPGs you may want to give this a look.

Overall I would say it was great, especially good for a fighter, even better considering the boring adventure mode in melee. The storyline isn't the best, but is full of nolstalgia and has plenty of epic and funny moments thanks to all the neat cinematics.. Its also fairly long, much longer than i was expecting. None fo the characters talk in the story thank god. Anyway, it was really cool until the maze, then it just sort of felt like they ran out of stuff to do. The boss was a huge step up from master hand, and took me several attempts to take down. I found the best character combination for him was Meta Knight, Fox, Falco, Samus, Link, and Pit, just in case some of you were having trouble. Anyway, overall a lot of fun, i recommend everyone give it a go through.

Just finished up the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. It really is a great book once you get past the disturbing violence which made it hard for me to read at first without questioning my morals, and the made up words Burgess uses. While the made up words are frustrating at first, you soon get used to them, and I understand why he put them in, if you want to have a believeable future you have to have new slang. I'm also glad I got the original version with the 21st chapter, previously unavailable in America because the publisher thought it wasn't edgy enough. The 21st chapter supplies the story with a moral, rather than just ending it with stating everyone is evil. I also watched the movie, which unfortunately doesn't include the 21st chapter but other than that followed the book pretty well. I understand the reason they changed some scenes, because there are plenty in the book that would never have made it past a ratings board without being changed. Overall I'd say it was a pretty good movie, and you'll probably appreciate it more if you've read the book. I don't think its really worth buying though, as I already own the book, which I consider to be a far superior experience.

I can't believe I waited this long to see that movie. Its one of the most ammazing movies I've ever seen. Stanely Kubrik's best work as a director, no doubt about that. It was just overall an amazing film, and is now in the top 3 most wanted list for my ever growing DVD collection*. The similarites between the computer in this and the one in Portal are uncanny, the computer even sings a little song, but Portal was so awesome its forgivable, in fact, I think by copying this film some awesomeness rubbed off and made portal even more amazing. If you haven't seen this movie, and are patient enough to sit through the slower first half, I highly reccomend it, as it is now one of my favorites.

* To see my DVD collection and more go here:

http://club.ign.com/b/list/custom?&owner=Benevolentbob&mode=view&&lid=100019

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