Hey guys,

I'm still really enjoying Dragon Quest IX :)Seriously, it's so awesome!
This is first ever Dragon Quest experience, and it's certainly one of (maybe the best) RPG i've ever played. To be honest, I haven't actually played many RPGs at all...but even so.
So far I've put in about 6.5 hours into it. I've completed 8% of the monster list, 8% of the item list and 4% of the wardrobe. The fact that I've already put 6.5 hours into it suggests this is going to be one epic experience :) I currently have 3 recruits in my party - my main character Calum (Level 12), a Warrior called Molly (Level 9) and a Thief called Daisy (Level 9).

Currently, I'm in the village of Zere, about to make my way to Brigadoom to find out more about the Wight Night. I was so annoyed withKing Schott. When I defeated the Wight Night I was so chuffed as it was a pretty hard battle. But he didn't even say thank you!!!

Anyway, I'm hoping this game will keep me busy on t he plane to Canada and at the airport too! It's a long old journey (about 9 hours) so yeh, should be fun!

Only downside I currently have with this game is the fact that it has no online multiplayer, only local. I know of no one who actually plays this game locally...GRR!

That is all.

Hey guys,

I got back from Summer Camp with Explorers on Saturday, it was AWESOME :D
Only downside is when I got back I got used to not playing video games and haven't gotten back into Zelda. Oh well.
Since then I've been looking around for new games to try to get into.
I've tried Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Pokémon Heart Gold, but I didn't end up sticking to them. I'm going to Cananda on Friday and wanted something portable, so I felt Oblivion wasn't appropriate at this moment in time. With Pokémon, I've decided to wait until Black/White come out. Either that or I'll relive the original Pokémon Crystal...hmmmmm.

ANYWAY

The point of this whole post is that I've settled on Dragon Quest IX! I started playing it and really loved the missions of doing things for people to gather things for the holy tree. I was truly gutted when that was taken away, but in a good kind of way. Shows i'm getting connected to the game! I've putted in 2.5 hours so far and am really enjoying it - i've just got the message from the soldiers that the path will be cleared soon, woohoo!

Anyway yeh, imma try and complete the last few stars on SMG2 before I neglect that as well as OoT :)

That is all.

Hey guys,

Okay, I started a top list of my favourite old games recently, but it didn't go too good. I kinda lost interest to be honest XD
Anyway, I figured something I KNOW I won't lose interest in is music. Those of you who have read my blog posts before will know it is my passion. Anyway, I'm gonna start writing about music a lot more, so I hope you enjoy my first episode :)

Mr. Bungle - California

Experimental music is one of my favourite parts about music. I would say I love every genre of music from Dance to Black Metal. However, what I appreciate most about musicians is when they experiment. When musicians don't just create more of the same, but they have fun and create a unique sound. Well Mr. Bungle certainly do this a ton, and their album 'California' is a perfect example of this. This album is perfect - it contains catchy and at times humorous tracks, that still manage to be crazy and experimental enough to really shine. In each track, the obviously extremely talented musicians often fly from one genre to another, be it ethnic, metal, surfer, pop, vocal virtuoso...the list goes on. Seriously, this album is CRAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZY :P Mike Patton's wonderful vocals really show off his ranged vocal chords as well. Seriously, this guy is a genius.I don't really know what else to say about this album. It's just one of those albums that you can listen from start to finish so easily, despite it's ridiculousness! This video perfectly sums up this album - if you're up for something different, there's nowhere better to start!

That is all for the music side of things today. I hope you enjoy my recommendations :)
I'm off to a Summer Camp with Explorer Scouts tomorrow, so I won't blog again for a while!

That is all.

Hey guys,

This question has been asked many a time, but I'd like to get your opinions.
Are video game walkthroughs cheating?

The reason I ask this is I am currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It is my first Zelda game, and I am loving it. However, I am finding it quite challenging, and am struggling to know where to go at certain points. Therefore, to avoid myself becoming bored due to constant pondering, I have been using walkthroughs online to find out where to go next. I am slightly annoyed with myself for doing this, however if I didn't I wouldn't be able to enjoy the rest of my game.

So what do you guys think about walkthroughs? Is it cheating? Should they only be used at certain bits?

Be sure to comment :)

Hey guys,

Today I had a really strange day...the whole experience was pretty surreal to be honest...
I woke up as normal and walked to my local bus stop at 9:15 to catch a bus to town. This weird guy with his weird family drove past and offered me a lift. They then offered a lift to some random 80 year old man called David. Apparently he owned a restaurant :p

When I got to town I met 2 mates and caught 2 buses to some completely random place called Badgers Farm. I mean seriously, who calls a place that? I never even heard of it! AND there were no badgers >:(

In reality it was so much more awesome. As I'm writing this it sounds like a s**t day old lol :P

Anyway, then we went home and watched Toy Story 3. What. A. Film.
Then I beat Frogger 2: Swampys revenge in about 1.2 hours. lol

Hey guys,

I'm thinking of starting up a review website at some point soon :)
I do a bit of web design, and I think this would be a great opportunity for me to take it further.
I've always loved reviewing CDs, Video Games, Films and the rest, so I think this would be great fun.

The reason I'm writing this...anyone out there passionate about writing? Cos I would love your help!
The project won't be ready for a while, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of planning!! :P

Cheers,

Calum

#6.5 Frogger Beyond

Frogger Beyond was one of the several 'Frogger' games that I owned as a child. I don't really know what it was about this games - they are so simple, and from recent replays of the game, I have learned that they weren't exactly amazing :P
However I LOVED it as a child! The were so cool XD
But then came number 6!!!

#6 Frogger: Swampy's Revenge

This game was even more awesome! I remember absolutely loving the level design of this game! One crazy memory of this game is that I remember eating a grape flavoured fruit stick whilst playing the space themed levels. Now, whenever I eat one of these fruit sticks, it's so nostalgic!! :D

#5 Lego Island 2

Wow! I LOVED this game. I really need to get my hands on it again! I was always a massive fan of lego, and I remember loving the Lego PC games including Lego Alpha Team, Lego Roco, Lego Creator, and especially the Lego Island games. Well, I remember the day me and my Dad went to town together and we went into our local GAME shop. I must have been so young when this happened, cos I remember it being in the old parts of my town which I can't even remember what looked like!!! We were just browsing, and my Dad found a little package of Lego Island 1 + 2 together for under £10! It was an amazing deal, so we bought it. To be honest, I only remember playing the first installation about twice :lol: But I never stopped playing the sequel! It was amazing! I always remember glitching the boat sections, ending up in a never ending sea, lol! I just bought this game on ebay about 1 minute ago, as I simply can't get enough of reminiscing about it! Hopefully I'll actually complete it this time! lol :)

As a child, I didn't own any consoles. I still gamed on my PC, but we didn't exactly have the best games in the world :P
Even when I finally got my Gameboy Color at the age of 7 I only had one decent game and the other 2 were rubbish!!
But despite these games being bad, I still had so much fun with them, and they bring back so much memories! I thought you guys might wanna see my list :)

This should be an 4 part list with 2 games on each part, unless I suddenly remember another game, where I'll add an extra part :)

#8 Rayman

Raymanwas platforming genius. We've all seen Rayman evolve over years, first turning 3D and then changing into Raving Rabbids - which some would argue is a bad thing. Either way, I'll always remember Rayman on the PC. The thing that always brings me back to the 90s is the awesome graphics and sound effects! Obviously, the game play is great, but the graphics and level design are truly awesome! I've sometimes thought of going back to that game, as I was too young to complete the game really. Also, the sound effects are just great! I remember always thinking that golden fist was so cool! And the other characters! And the plums! AHH, I love this game :)

#7 The Neverhood

I'm gonna be honest here, and it's gonna sound stupid. I don't think I EVER got passed the first level of this game. I don't even remember the game case, or anything about the game to be honest. I honestly think I was about 4 when I played this game. I remember getting it for free (along with some other games in this list) with my first ever 'Tiny' Windows 95 PC :p So yeh, me and my family gathered around the computer when I was 4 and got stuck on the first room inThe Neverhood. Then, I forgot about this game for about...11 years!!! Then all thanks to @kasiabartek I found it again about 3 months ago. Seriously, it was an amazing feeling! She made a blog competition where people had to identify games from screenshots, and one of them was the screenshot of the room that I was stuck in! My mind was just BLOWN! I found the game again, and I am determined to play the game again some day. Funny thing is, I tried it briefly and completed the first room in about 15 seconds. My family were such dumb arses XD Anyway, if you're reading this kasiabartek, thank you so much :D

See you in part 2! :-)

Hey guys!

I've FINALLY finished this week of school. Seriously, this week and last week have been super stressy, so much coursework for my GCSEs :( Only one week left, but that should be less hectic. Anyway, here's what's been happening recently in my life...

Games

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Poor Mr. Tree :(

I finally made a start to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Timeon the Wii last night! My mate Nick at school was coming to school EVERY DAY asking me 'HAVE YOU STARTED IT YET?' :lol: Well, I figured that on Super Mario Galaxy 2 I'm only doing the green star challenge at the moment, and it was a Friday night, so I gave it a crack :)

First impressions - it's damn awesome! When I started, I was getting a bit concerned with the camera angle, but I've got used to it now, so that's fine. I'm feeling much more drawn into it than I have in previous Zelda attempts, so fingers crossed this will be my starting point! This morning I got as far as to complete the first dungeon, 'Inside the Deku Tree'. Seriously, as soon as I walked into the Deku Tree, I immediately thought 'Wow. This music is incredible!' I've always heard about the Zelda music being great, but seriously, this was something else! :)
I struggled on a certain part of the dungeon which involved burning the spiders web. You know, when the answer is looking right at you but you some how manage to not see it? XD

Super Mario Galaxy 2

lol wut

I'm loving the green star challenge guys! It's really good fun, and it's nice to see that it's not just a repeat of the previous galaxies, with Luigi instead. So far I have about 155 stars in total, but I'm hoping to increase that massively today and tomorrow :) Can't wait to review this. I'm thinking a 9.5 out of 10 at the moment :)

Life

Life is pretty great, still. Last 2 weeks have been very stressy, but oh well. It's over with now :)BIG NEWS - tomorrow afternoon, me and my band The Shydogs have our first ever proper gig!! It's at a local venue that I regularly see other bands perform that, so it's an honour to be playing there! In addition, Invisible Train Records (my record label) just bought ourselves an acoustic drum kit. This means we can start doing some proper recordings as opposed to rubbish ones on my electric kit :P WOOO :D

That is all.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

I've been on holiday in Wales with Explorer Scouts for the weekend, therefore I had to leave SMG2 on star 119! SO CLOSE! Anyway, last night I beat the final star (prankster comet on Boss Blitz) FINALLY (it was f*cking hard dude!) and I was left completely in the blue on how to get the green stars! Well, after a long time exploring the hub area and not getting anywhere, I decided to go on youtube and find out where to go next. So I learned that I had to go to Bowser's Galaxy Generator, and I went from there. That mean I had to go through the end credits for the 3RD BLOODY TIME but it was worth it :)

I was quite exhausted from searching how to get the stars, so I only ended up collecting 3 green stars -1 on Sky Station galaxy and 2 on Mario Squared galaxy. I'm kinda sad I've fully complted Mario Squared as I loved that galaxy! Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next week or 2 trying to find all of the green stars.

In other news, I now have my DSi back which means I can use the internet again, not just my DS brick :P Yaaay :D

That is all.