During my nine year absence from Gamespot, I got to visit Europe a couple of times. My first visit to Europe happened in 2017. It was worth getting a passport. Mom and I had to do several connecting flights through especially one at NYC's LaGuardia. The first city we visited was Paris. It did live up to the hype. Such a beautiful city. Had no trouble figuring out the public transport like the Metro. Got to see the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie alongside famous landmarks like Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, and Champs Elysees.

Then we went to Florence. Definitely my favorite city that we visited on that trip. Got to see Botticelli's paintings, Primavera and Birth of Venus at the Uffizi. After that, we went to Venice. Sadly, we didn't stay long in the city to explore it like the others we visited. Also, it didn't help that we got lost when trying to visit Murano. Did get myself a Venetian glass pendant and a mask shaped like a cat with blue ears.

The last place we visited was Rome. We did see the Colosseum. It was worth the visit. We did a guided tour of the Vatican. During the tour, we noticed there was an ancient Egyptian exhibit. Wanted to see that for a moment, but it was fun visiting the Vatican. Also, mom and I did another guided tour, this time it was Pompeii. We only got to see a small portion of it. After that, we came back home through NYC's LaGuardia again. We managed to get back home safely in Alabama. I will talk about my 2nd visit to Europe later.

Haven't been on Gamespot in nine years or so. Now, I'm back. Not sure why I stopped coming in the first place. Guess I was busy with other things.

I picked up my pre-ordered copy of Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds on its release date, November 22. So far, the new Zelda game is awesome. The graphics and music are awesome. Also, the 3D effect looks great as well. Right now, I'm just wandering through both Hyrule and Lorule. The item renting system is kind of pointless. I've been a fan of the Zelda series since I was a kid. So it makes me miss finding key items in dungeons. The wall painting ability is pretty awesome.

I was so excited that they were doing another X-Men movie about Wolverine. I was dissapointed by Wolverine's last solo outing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. So I went to see the new Wolverine movie in regular old 2D yesterday since that's how I watched the other X-Men movies. The Wolverine is one of my favorite X-Men movies besides X-Men 1, X2: X-Men United, & First Class. The latest Wolverine solo movie takes place after the events in the 3rd X-Men movie, The Last Stand. Logan hides out in the Canadian wilderness because he feels guilty about the death of Jean Grey. Through out the movie he dreams about both Jean Grey & the Japanese soldier Yashida that he saved from the nuclear blast that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945. Yashida sends one of his servants, Yukio, to Canada to find Logan/Wolverine to repay him for saving his life. Yukio takes Wolverine to Tokyo, Japan so he could say goodbye to Yashida since the former soldier was dying. Over the years, Yashida started his own company and had a son named Shingen and a granddaughter named Mariko. After Wolverine arrives, the old man mysteriously dies. While at the funeral, Yakuza thugs attack the proceedings and Wolverine protects Mariko. I won't spoil the rest of the movie for those who hadn't watched the movie yet. It was great seeing a world weary side to Logan/Wolverine. The movie had a pretty good story. It was based on the Frank Miller Wolverine miniseries. In the movie, it shows Wolverine as the outsider. There was a lot of action & Wolverine slicing up his enemies. It was awesome seeing Hugh Jackman return to the role that made him famous. I enjoyed his performance as Wolverine. Also, I enjoyed the performances of the other actors. I really liked the actresses who played Mariko & Yukio a lot. The Japanese setting was lovely & I liked seeing a bit of the culture in Japan. There is an awesome mid-credits scene that features the return of Sir Ian McKellan as Erik Lensherr aka Magneto & Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier also called Professor X. Seeing Patrick Stewart as Professor X in the Wolverine makes up for the character's supposed death in X-Men: The Last Stand. Professor X & Magneto team up to tell Wolverine about a threat to mutants worldwide. This sets up the next movie in the X-Men movie series,X-Men: Days of Future Past, with the original X-Men cast & the cast from X-Men: First Class which I can't wait to see when it comes out.

There are several awesome movies coming out that I'm so excited to see. I'm really excited to see the new Iron Man movie that came out today. I loved the other Iron Man movies. Also, I'm excited to see Star Trek-Into Darkness. Seeing Benedict Cumberbatch from BBC's Sherlock in the new Star Trek movie just adds more to my excitement to see the movie. I've been a big fan of both Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes and having a Sherlock Holmes actor in Star Trek makes a very happy fan. The new Superman movie, Man of Steel, looks really good. So, I might go see that. I can't wait Thor 2 and the Wolverine. Both movies look awesome and Christopher Eccelston (9th Doctor) from Doctor Who is gonna be in the next Thor movie. Also, I'm excited to see The Hunger Games 2-Catching Fire. One of the movies I'm excited to see the most besides Iron Man, Thor, Star Trek, and Wolverine is the next Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug. I loved reading the book and watching the Lord of the Rings movies along with reading the LoTR books.

I finally gave in and got myself a Nintendo Wii today. The main reason why I got a Wii was because I wanted to play both Legend of Zelda-Twilight Princess and Legend of Zelda-Skyward Sword. I never bother getting one until now because I really wasn't interested because its motion control didn't appeal to me. Another reason why I got a Wii was because I wanted to download the original N64 version of both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask along with A Link to the Past. Also, it's a lot cheaper to buy a Wii than a PS3 since that game system still costs around two hundred dollars or so. In other words, I mainly bought my Wii just to play Zelda games. I also bought Twilight Princess with my used Wii. Played a bit of it today, but I couldn't play too much of it since finals are coming up in a few days. There are some other games that I want to get for the Wii. I might get Goldeneye 007(Daniel Craig version), Okami, and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World as well. I wish the Wii version of Tales of Graces was released in the US. That's another game I want to play. It's gonna take me a while to get use to the controls though.

I definitely had a run of good luck finding old PSOne games in the past week or so. Last week, I found actual copies of both the original Final Fantasy Tactics and Star Ocean-The Second Story. Yesterday was another lucky day for me. I went back to the store where I found the two awesome PSOne games I found last Friday and I found an actual copy of the 1st Parasite Eve game. It's the black label verison of the game. One of the workers at the store told me that I missed it when I bought FFTactics and Star Ocean last Friday. Can't believe that I missed seeing it the other day. On the other hand, at least I got my hands on Parasite Eve 1 along with FFTactics and Star Ocean-the Second Story.

I had a really cool find today. I went to the Replay's used game & DVD store in town and found a couple of good PS1 games. The two PS1 games I found were Final Fantasy Tactics (Greatest Hits version) and Star Ocean-The Second Story. The good thing was the previous owner traded in several of their old PS1 games along with the two I found. That is why I love going to the used game store. They normally have a good selection of games for various game systems along with DVDs and Blu-Rays. They also had a couple of copies of FFVII along with FFAnthology and FFIX. I paid about $12.99 for FFTactics (Greatest Hits) & $8.99 for Star Ocean plus sales tax. Also, I bought season 2 of Burn Notice on DVD for $23.99. So I was lucky to find those two games. Couldn't pass up the chance of owning both of those two games.

I finally beaten Fire Emblem: Awakening yesterday. It was definitely worth the searching I had to do so I could find an actual copy. Playing the game was a lot of fun. This Fire Emblem game is worth getting a 3DS for. I enjoyed the game a lot. Fire Emblem: Awakening is definitely worth playing through multiple times. Now, I'm going to try and find some more really good games to play on my 3DS. I've already played the 3DS remakes of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Tales of the Abyss along with Kingdom Hearts 3D and Dead or Alive: Dimensions.

I'm really enjoying playing Fire Emblem: Awakening on my 3DS. It was really lucky that I found a copy at one of the Gamestop stores were I live. This game was hard to find because most of the copies for Fire Emblem were pre-ordered copies. It was definitely worth getting. I like the story a lot. The graphics are really amazing for a handheld game system. Turning on the 3D for Fire Emblem is great as well. There's no double image like in the 3DS remakes of Zelda-Ocarina of Time & Tales of the Abyss. The story, graphics, and characters keep me playing for several hours. I'm already on chapter 12 so far. Fire Emblem: Awakening definitely has a lot of replay value.