So I created an account on Giant Bomb about a month ago and haven't done much over there, heck I don't even do much over here on GameSpot, but I thought I'd tell everyone that I'm going to be on both. I can't just leave GameSpot after being here for nearly three years but I will be supporting both for now and maybe later decide on one or the other. So just letting you all know I'm over there, send me a friend request if you want my name is also JohnTheGamer.

Well I finally got the red ring of death this week. My 360 started to go wonky and just freeze after 10 minutes of playing a game or watching a DVD and then after a day of this it just would give the RRoD. I filed a report online and should get a box soon, and after a few weeks have it back. The good part of in this tragedy is that it'll give me time to focus on other games on other consoles.

In the majority of my free time this week I've been playing Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy. It's not really a FF, it's actually the first game in the Mana series. It was just titled a FF cause most people would rather play a FF than a no-name game, which is a disturbing trend these days. The game is just like the original Legend of Zelda, the gameplay is nearly identical, as is the quest, what sets it apart is, and presumibly gives it a right to use the FF moniker, is that you level up and distribute points for different attributes. The item system is close to LoZ as well, the A button is used for your weapons while the B button is what triggers your assigned item or magical spell. The only downside I can think of is the poor localization, also the story is quite weak and generic.

Outside of FFA I've been playing my Wii more, mainly Mario Kart Wii, I have plenty of unlockables to get and can devote some time to the online portion of it to get better. I'm thinking of starting a new game in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and finally beat it, but I'd also like to start Dewy's Adventure, so I don't know what I'll do.

I finished my volunteering this week on quite a weird note. I got more than enough hours to cover my scholarship requirements so I'm glad that's outta the way. I worked with two people primarily, the owner of the company and his secretary. Most of my time was with the secretary, she was very nice and almost too kind, she'd always offer to get me a drink from a gas station and would always apologize for everything. The owner was kinda condescending but he was rarely there so I didn't get a chance to know him. On the final day the secretary told me she was quitting because he hadn't been paying her. As she was writing her letter saying she was quitting he came in and then they had a fight I guess you would call it, but either way it was quite awkward. I don't know if she's still gonna work there but they had sorted it out, at least he thought he did, the worker at the bank was putting the checks into the wrong account. On two of the days there was another volunteer there, a girl named Yur, I think that's how you spell it. Didn't talk to her the first day but we talked for a good half hour and then went to lunch the next day.

Well my past week playing games hasn't been to extraordinary. As you may remember I have like 200 games to play and I started 2 new games to cut the list down. First off is Musashi: Samurai Legend on the PS2. It was developed by Square Enix and is an adventure game reminiscint of The Legend of Zelda series. From first impressions, I love the art style, it's a unique cel-shading different from others, the gameplay is rather slow however and the voice acting is over the top but I should play to the end.The other game I started was Beowulf on the 360. My first impressions of this game is that it's a stinking turd of a movie game. That's it. The only redeemable trait, and the only reason I'm playing it is for the easy achievements which are beginning to not be worth it, especially on hard.

I have stopped playing Breakdown (Xbox) at the last encounter because it is nearly impossible. I know that there's a slim chance of beating it but I've read what happens so I don't have much reason to do it. But I will still give it one more shot... eventually. I'd give my highest recommendations to Breakdown, it is truly a gem in the rough, the story is great and the perspective you play in is even better, the gameplay is so-so and if you play it save yourself a headache and play on easy. Now that I'm done plugging, I'm also in the last chapter of Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law on the Wii. I love the show so it's no surprise that I love the game. The writing is gold and the cases are intriguing, my only complaints stem from a lot of trial and error and that Steven Colbert didn't lend his voice to it. I also started playing Drill Dozer on the GBA which is another gem in the rough. It's a great 2D platformer done by the Pokemon guys showing that they can branch off, and do it well. The game is innovative, fun, and it pushes the GBAs hardware to the limits.

I bought my first WiiWare game and first impressions are good. Basically Gyrostarr is a Tempest clone. The graphics are actually really good, it's very neon to say the least. It has 4 player support with what looks like some fun controls (2 people sharing option) but from playing a few levels with the Classic Controller it's kinda jumpy but well worth it for $7.

I started volunteering at a business Tuesday and Thursday. It's called The Men In Pink and they offer support to people who have spouses or relatives going through any type of cancer. What I'm doing however is entering companies into a database, which I love. It's just the owner who is rarely there and the secretary. I'm volunteering for a scholarship and must get 40 hours by July 7, I've done 2 days and have 13, and I work there all next week except Friday.

No that is not a spelling error, that was a reference the flagship Dreamcast RPG, Skies Of Arcadia. Well I just beat the Gamecube port, Skies Of Arcadia Legends. I thought I'd brag about it, I've had this game since summer of 2002 and got within a few hours of the end and just gave up for some reason, I don't remember. Well I have finally laid it to rest, I also found 80 of the 88 discoveries (hidden islands, items and well discoveries around the world) and defeated everyone on the wanted list and might go back to finish the few secret quests and remaining discoveries. Well that's all I'll say for now.

Well last month I got a new car. I was forced to because my sister had wrecked my daily driver (a 94 Buick Regal, a grandma car) and my other car (a 77 El Camino) is not fuel efficient, at all. So I got a 94 Trans Am. It is a teal-ish color, has t-tops, and overall is just sweet. It gets better gas mileage than my El Camino but not as good as the Buick but it's better than nothing and this is easily the coolest car I've owned. I think I'll end up selling my El Camino just cause I rarely drove it and probably won't now.

More than half way done with this semester of college. I'm doing okay in Humanities, I have a D right now but I'll bring it up before the end, I'm doing great in Financial Accounting, after all I'm majoring in Accounting, and mother class Strategies for Academic Success is a complete blow off class but a requirement. I'll need to sign up for the fall semester within a week or two and am pretty sure of what classes I'll take, another Accounting class, Intro to Psychology, Philosophy, or Biology. I was stupid though and didn't do my 40 hours of community service required for my scholarship so I'll have to pay next semester so I'l be getting less games, or just working more.

Game wise I'm into samurai action games right now. I just beat Genji: Dawn of Samurai the other day and am playing Onimusha right now. I started Splinter Cell: Double Agent and bought Ikaruga. I'm going through and getting all the achievements in Tomb Raider: Legend, I've lost interest in Ridge Racer 6, and have gotten back into Rock Band buying a couple new songs as well as Guitar Hero III. I've become addicted to the sudoku in Brain Age, I play it every night before bed and think I might buy a sudoku game on the DS. Other than that I've made a list of games to play and it exceeds a hundred so yeah I've got alot to do, fitting in games, school, work, and trying to get a social life.

I just finished my first review in a long time. It's for Vanark on the PS1. I am mildly happy with it, I haven't written a review in so long and I'm never really happy with what I write so I finally finished it and put her up. Please read or at least browse through it.

Without doing a huge blog I'll tell you what I've been up to in the past couple of months.

Broke 750 games in my collection
My sister wrecked my car so I'll have to get a new one
Just reached mid-term in the spring semester of college
Adding all my songs from my iPod to my laptop (5,000 plus songs) and correcting everything down to the composers
Work is great
Currently playing: Ridge Racer 6, Professor Layton, Family Guy, Halo 3
I'm making a list of games to beat because I buy games to often to beat them all so I'm going through to shrink the list of unbeaten games
Gong to have a Game-A-Thon for the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, my most anticipated game of the Wii ever, I'll be playing it for years, just like with Super Smash Bros. Melee
Broke 25,000 GamerScore

I'll have to do a new blog next week and detail you guys in better but I probably won't so don't be expecting it. :)

In case you were wondering.

Well as most of you have heard (in the States) there was a massive ice storm throughout the central US. Sunday night I was reading for my finals on Monday and Wednesday, I remember going to bed at 12:20-ish and then woke up thinking I was late, got dressed as fast as I could and went downstairs to find my parents on the couch with a fire going. This was odd as my mom is a teacher and should be at school and my dad works out back on semi trucks, but wasn't. They told me the news and I was kinda relieved, just really wanted to take the finals after doing all the studying.

So all of Monday was spent inside w/o electricity, no cell phones because we couldn't charge them, no radios, communication with the outside world. Well on Tuesday we still didn't have electricity, in the morning we went out and ordered a generator, bought some car cell phone chargers, a radioand got something to eat. My mom only had one day out of school, her school was acting stupid, whilst nearly every other school was out, hers went. We finally got electricity back today on Friday.

I had to work on Wednesday and Friday, Wed. was crazy trucks never came on Tues. so we had nothing, and today the truck came a day early!?!

My school decided to let the teachers decide how to give us our final scores, haven't looked at my grades yet, don't have to take the finals though. Turned my books in on Thursday, had to go into downtown Tulsa, which I'm not used to driving in very urban areas so it was a confusing/entertaining experience.

During the time of no electricity I played my DS/PSP/GBA a lot more than usual. I'm around 16 hours into Final Fantasy Tactics: The War Of The Lions and it just continues to get better and better, I have a few puzzles left on Picross DS, I'd have to reccommend it to anybody with a DS as it is one of the longest lasting games I've ever played. I found my copy of Brain Age and The New York Times Crosswords after losing them for a month or two. I decided to start playing some GBA games again during the storm, don't know if I'll continue them, Tales Of Phantasia (too old-school) and Sigma Star Saga (too slow/too hard/great idea though)

I got the notion of playiong a GTA again (probably after seeing the new trailer and box art reveal of GTA IV. I decided on Vice City, I've been playing that for the past couple of days and am thouroughly addicted, again. After I beat it I'll try San Andreas, maybe GTA IV will be out by then. I've never beaten any of them, gotten very far in GTA III, mainly would lose interest, too damn enjoyable to just screw around. Also downloaded the new Halo 3 map pack, only checked them out by myself but they seem okay, probably not worth $10, especially since they basically gave us a blank map with the intents of us making it our own. Great idea but maybe should've been packed in or sold seperately.

Back to the storm, it was the worst ice storm in Oklahoma history, most power outages in Oklahoma history, and I'm sure tons of other records for the other states. Totals were:

1.5 million people w/o power
35 deaths as of Dec. 14
24 inches of snow in North Park City, Utah

At the link I provided there's a more detailed report, out of the 1.5 mil power outages, 600, 000 were fm Oklahoma. Well this was one of my lengthiest blogs in a while, maybe my longest ever. What was the longest any of you have been w/o electricity? Also brought back my current gamerscore part, don'really know if I should keep it though since I have my Gamertag on my profile.

Ice Storm Link

CURRENT GAMERSCORE: 21, 975 (+1, 380)

F*** Swords, yeah I can't say it for real but everyone who plays Halo 3 knows what I mean. The BS that is the sword. This is the only game I can think of where you can be great one match and then get dead last the next. This is a great gametype...when playing with friends, and only friends, after Bungie put it into Ranked Lone Wolf matches, they had all but lost my trust and I always hear the same crys from the other players when it doesn't get vetoed, the only people who leave happy are the ones lucky enough to get in the top 3. It is so cheap, the best tactic is to wait until other people are fighting and a) throw a grenade or b) sneak up behind them.

The stupid idea to have the "sword dashes" might've sounded good on paper but it's terrible in action, not to mention all of the WTF moments where somehow the other player swung his sword .0000001 second faster than you did and kills you. BS! The same goes for the Hammers and the melee problem that they're "looking into."

Had to get that out after what I describe just happened to me, get second the first match with 20-ish kills and the next I only get 6. Other than that I still love Halo 3, just wish they would take swords out of ranked and put Social Doubles back in.

So Nintendo released the Check Mii Out channel on the Wii this past week and shows Nintendo might be turning over a new leaf, if ever so slightly.

For those who don't know what it is, it is a channel on the Wii (duh) where you get to share the Miis that you have created. Anyone in the world can get your Mii and download or vote on it. That is quite appealing because it's just pretty cool to know that somewhere in the world someone is playing with one of your creations.

Well anyways down to the details of it. When you first boot it up you have to choose one of your Miis to be your Mii Artisan, aka your identity on the channel and the maker of your Miis. All you have to do is assign a Mii. Your profile contains how many Miis you've posted on the channel, which one is the most popular and your rank. The rank is out of five stars and there is a leaderboard of the top 100 Mii Artisans. Another page on your profile regards the Contest part, but more on that later.

After you get your Mii Artisan made you have two choices on where to go, you can go to the Posting Plaza or the Contest section. The Posting Plaza as the name suggests is where you post the Miis you've made. While here you can see the current popular Miis, top 50 Miis in your region or the world, a grab bag which selects 50 Miis at random, or your favorites. You can see the top Mii Artisans and their creations, or search for Miis. The search function draws a big complaint from me for two reasons. There are two ways to search and neither of them are effective. The first option is to pick some criteria for the search, what gender they are and what there skill is, the second option is to enter in a code of the Mii, aka the dreaded friend code.

Posting Miis is easy all you do is a select a Mii to post and then it asks you for that Miis initials and what their skill is. One thing that bugs me is the inability to assign a name to your Mii, only initials. I can see why Nintendo went down this route, to avoid copyright infringements no doubt, but that would make it so much easier to figure out who these random Miis are and searching for them would be less of a hassle. But to be truthful, figuring out who the Miis are is oddly enjoying, try it with friends for a laugh.

The contest section of the channel is pretty straight forward. Nintendo posts contests with certain criteria for the Miis to be posted. As of now there are two contests and they are: Mario without his cap and a pilgrim from the first Thanksgiving. The contests look like they will stay up for about five days and afterwards you get to judge on finalists. Now I'm a little sketchy on the judging part, neither of the contests have finished the posting phase and I don't know if you'll be able to judge every entry or if Nintendo will pick a top five or ten or whatever. The winner or winners will be displayed for all to see or save to their own Wiis.

Seeing just how creative some people can be with so little features available to use is amazing. Take a look through the top 50 and you'll realize these are definitely worthy of being there. You'll also see just how accepted the Wii is worldwide. When playing on Xbox Live you're mostly going to run into people from the U.S., a few people from Europe and Canada every now and then, and if you browse the leaderboards for the Japanese based arcade games (Frogger, the Pac-Mans) you'll find a Japanese person, and of course people from other countries but not too often. Whenever you view the top 50 worldwide Miis however you see people from, just a guess, around 20-ish countries. I'm actually looking at the top five worldwide Miis right now and their country of origins are: U.S., Japan, Canada, U.K., and France, now they're big countries with tons of consumers but search furhter on and you'll find people from Venezuela, Finland, and the Netherlands.

Another complaint about the channel actually stems from the limited amount of resources to make a Mii. I've always wondered (and hoped) that Nintendo would release more features for the Mii editor but as far as I know mum's the word. With the release of The Check Mii Out channel hopefully Nintendo will bring it upon themselves to release more accessories to make a Mii with. There are a few other complaints, it would be great to have your friends Miis that they've posted as a page for you to see, or the ability to see for a Mii Artisan. When I say that you get to vote for a Mii in the Posting Plaza, it's not actually like "I'd give this one a 4 out of 5", the only way you vote is to say you like the Mii and it gets added to your favorites.

So Nintendo might finally be getting their act together with the online (no hopes though). If not it's still nice to see that they're developing cool and unique ways to utilize the Wiis online functionality. Maybe they'll begin to move into territory akin to YouTube where it's all about the user made creations like Sony's own upcoming LittleBig Planet and Homeor Halo 3's video and screenshot abilities. Either way it's easy to see that the industry is further moving into this type of future.