My life is complete now. Yesterday I finally achieved 100% in the greatest racing game ever created, Burnout 3: Takedown for the Xbox,



granting me the elusive Euro Circuit Racer in the process : ). 100% has eluded my grasp for almost two years and finally it is mine! Getting 100% in Burnout 3 entails getting a gold medal in all 173 race and crash events, getting every car of course, getting all signature takedowns within the tracks, and getting all takedown targets, the most INSANELY frustrating of which include getting 2 Bus Takedowns in one race and getting 2 Tram takedowns in one race. Whoever decided getting two bus takedowns in one race was only an intermediate goal was OUT HIS DAMN MIND. Getting those achievments was just hours and hours and hours of starting and restarting races over and over and over and over . . . and over . . . o.o;;

There was much hair-pulling.

After all that for the gold medals and achievments I'm actually surprised my file only has 80 hours on it.

Man, I love that game. I don't even want to stop playing it now. I just wish there were some more races left to do. Except that I CERTAINLY don't want to have to worry about gold medals anymore o.O Makes me tired just thinking about it.

There's always Burnout: Revenge. But I'm definitely not gonna kill myself trying to get and 100% on that steaming pile . . . Okay, it's not that bad, but it's definitely a step backwards from 3. The fact that almost everyone likes it more just makes me hate it more. : /

And I SO can't wait for Burnout: Dominator next year : D

Also, I'm replaying through the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy (currently on Warrior Within, the second installment). AMAZING series. Also trying to beat Kingdom Hearts on Expert. Pretty hard. Shut up, I find it pretty hard. Another amazing series. If you havent played prince of persia or kingdom hearts, you suck. And you should go play them. Or kill yourself. Because if you're not gonna play Prince of Persia or Kingdom Hearts, what good are you?

Just finished Zelda: Twilight Princess last night at like 3AM after a 19 hour marathon. o.O No joke. I would tell you my total play time but it's embarassingly long. Whatever. It was a really cool game. That, coupled with the fact that I'm just plain lazy is the reason I haven't added and blog entries or videos for like three weeks. It happens.

*kinda Twilight Princess spoilers*
I wish it had had a little more to do with Ocarina and Wind Waker. I was hoping for some really cool ending where the world gets flooded or something, but it just doesnt happen. Kinda lame. In fact TP doesnt appear to fit in to any games really. Except maybe Ocarina, but since it clearly doesnt come after wind waker, and doesnt really fit in before wind waker, it like screws everything up. And the the director had said he wanted to start connecting the games with this installment . . . laaaaame . . .
*end kinda spoilers*

It's a great game, but anyone who says that's a perfect 10, the best Zelda game, or even just better than Ocarina of Time is totally crazy. It takes all my restraint to not start arguing with all the idiodic fanboys every time i go on a Zelda forum. 8.8 is a little low, but it's not a national tragedy. Get over it.

and after spending all day yesterday playing Twilight Princess, what did I do today? Spent it playing The Wind Waker o.O I just can't get the Zelda out of my system, I guess.
It's pretty hard to go back to aiming with an analog stick after getting the awesome point shootness from TP.

Now I'm workin on Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. It's pretty fun. Not nearly as good as Super Monkey Ball 2 though. I hope to get Trauma Center before the months is out. Yep . . .

Oh! Urgent! If you have a Wii, and you're thinking of downloading Donkey Kong . . . . Dodge that bullet. Seriously.

[edit]: Oh and thank God! The finally added Columns to the Virtual Console! Forget releaseing more N64 games, I've been DYING to pay 8 bucks for Columns!! *YAWN* -_-

On that note, the Virtual Console is totally screwed up. The only games really worth buying are N64 games, because 10 bucks is kind of a deal for those, but no SNES or Genesis game is worth $8 unless it's really good. Same with NES games. Sure, Zelda is EASILY worth five bucks, and Wario's Woods is fair, but Donkey Kong?? Soccer?? Give me a F**kin' break, Nintendo. [End Edit]

On the other hand, Mario 64 is awesome. Obviously. It's good all by itself, but factor in that I not only no longer have to take out and hook up my N64 to play it, but even have to take the disc out of my system, or even get up out of my seat. Easily worth $10, even though I just bought the DS version in August. I'm kind of disappointed that it's not a straight port though. I guess I'm making mountains out of molehills, but it just kinda bothers me that they changed some things. For instance, when Mario becomes invisible, he doesnt look a mass of tiny particles or whatever like in the N64 version, he's just staright up 50% transparent. Kinda bothers me. I'll have to dig out my N64 sometime to really see if the environments look different.

Well I wanna get back to Monkey Ball, so that's all for now.

Oh, and you can leave your Wii number if you want. If you leave yours I'll send you mine . . . if I like you lol.

and I got this new emblem for logging on on Thanksgiving:



Delicious.

Yep. I got one. Fourteen hours outside the Target in Woburn, but I got one. Actually, I say it like it was horrible or something, but
actually it was pretty fun. I ended up next to a bunch of people that all worked at my local Gamecrazy so I sort of recognized some of them. We threw down on some madz 6/7 player Mario Kart and Tetris and Bomberman and stuff. Pretty cool. I'd definitely do it again.

Here are some pics I took:

I went there as soon as possible because I had heard there was already 15-20 people there. I was Twelth.

The line when I got there. (4:30 PM EST)

Mine is the red chair.

The line about an hour or two later


There was many much a DS being played




WTF?!? People still play these things?!


These guys were the first ones in line and organized our whole list. Without them, there might'a been some drama. Big ups.

Only not that big because they were SCALPING A PS3! And probably doing the same with at least one of their Wiis. Lame, guys . . .

heh heh ...


A few hours later . . . (also getting dark . . . )



Night sets in at the Target . . .


. . . As does fatigue . . .




. . . Or not . . .




This fool jacked an unactivated Wii gift card . . .


Did I mention it was F**KING FREEZING!?!


And still there was much longer to wait through the wee . . . *ahem* excuse me, wii hours of the night . . . .


Day breaks and we line up by number to recieve our tickets . . . .


And promptly get back in a second, differently located line . . .


My Golden Ticket . . . and look at that beautiful twelve . . . twelve out of one hundred and twenty : )


They let people in 5 at a time. Right now we're on deck, waiting patiently.


Inside, they had 120 Wiis, and 120 of every game and accessory. It's so beautiful . . .


It's mine!!


As I exit, I see what is left of the night before, even AFTER people pick up


Wiictory!!

I got a Wii system (DUH), Zelda (What else?), an extra remote and nunchuck for multiplayer, a classic controller, and I already had Monkey Ball. I still need to get some Wii points, but I have $20 in credit to EB/GS, so once they get some in stock I'm all set.

The first thing I did with my Wii was take my SD card out of my camera and used the Photo Channel to look at all the pictures I had taken over the long hours.

And when I signed back on to Gamespot, I found this new emblem waiting for me!


HUZZAH!!

In case you're keeping score, I think it took me longer to make this blog entry than it did to get a Wii . . . I was a young boy with hopes and dreams at the start of this thing . . . .

I hope to get a new video blog up soon to talk about the Wii. Maybe. I don't know.

Peace.

Well it's almost time for me to get in line for the wii *sigh* I really don't want to have to wait this long, but there are already 15 people lined up there, and I didn't get a preorder from an EB or Gamestop, so im off before it gets out of control.

It's gonna be long and cold : (

But I'll have my ipod and plenty of handheld games so im sure it wont be too boring.

I'm also gonna bring like a sleeping bag and some food, maybe a pillow and two sweatshirts. oh, and an umbrella (please dont rain!!! :0 )

I getting a wii, zelda, and an extra remote and nunchuck. I already bought Monkey Ball today at EB with some trade-in credit.



I wish I had a laptop, but oh well. I'm gonna take some pictures, including a before and after shot of the line (the store is getting 120 wiis).

wish me luck : P

Peace.

Oh ya, and http://i7.tinypic.com/2vcwzf8.jpg

that's real btw. Sad.

Oh ya, and I got the new PS3 launch emblem-

Hey it's November 7th 2006 and you know what that means! Ya! It's EMERGENCE DAY!! Or to all us way cooler people, It's Guitar Hero II day.

Okay, let's break it down.

[Sun]
I bought Okami Sunday night because I had $150 burning a hole in my pocket and I needed to get rid of some. I had heard nothing but good things so I decided to pick it up. It was a very descision because Okami is a great game. The visual style is beyond fantastic. If you don't know, basically the screen looks like a peice of paper and all the objects look like a Japanese painting. and the brushing feature is pretty innovative. The game could almost ride on those two things alone. I'm loving it so far but I have to get farther in the game to have anything really meaningful to say.

[Rock]
I was the first in my Local Gamestop today and I got my copy of Guitar Hero II with a brand new Red mini SG. yay! I so I couldn't wait at all. I showed up like almost twenty minutes before the store opened and sat in my car playing Lumines.

Once I had it, I drove off to a friend's house and rocked out on a 50" widescreen like all day. By the end I could barely lift my arm. No joke. Okay, well I could lift it, but it was really sore.

I made sure to play Co-op mode first. Me and my friend tore it up in tandem. Co-op is amazingly fun. Far far beyond the 2p mode in the orignal. Even face-off mode is better, simply for the fact that you can choose seperate difficulties. As a Guitar Hero verteran who can beat Expert, you can imagine I found few friends to challenge me with the old formula. My only complaint is that you can only play unlocked songs in co-op so my friend would have to wit there and watch me play five songs before we got something new to play in co-op.

The new guitar is also great. Almost everything about it is better, including the feel of the plastic. My only complaint is that they made the Select button easier to press, which made me accidentally trigger star power with my palm TONS of times in today alone.

All-in-all totally great!! I'm still wokrin on the songs. Psychobilly Freakout is driving me INSANE!!! thank god for practice mode. Not only for practice, but just for the fact that I can now do any solo whenever I want. : )

[Fire]
I got Diablo II years ago. I love it and I've beaten it multiple times but never got the expansion. Well now I have. I bought Diablo II: Lord of Destruction about a week ago and havent really gotten into it that much but I will eventually because Diablo II never gets old. I wish my characters weren't expired so I wouldnt have to go through the entire game again, but it's all good. : )

[Strength]
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out came in the mail!! W00t!! That game is just so much fun. I managed to get up the third championship without getting knocked out on my frist try on my NES console. But I think I might be getting burnt out on it. I played it a ton already.

That's all for now. I want to make a new video blgo to talk about Guitar Hero II, but I just feel so lazy. Like . . . I wanna do it . . . but I don't wanna do it . . . Ya know?



EDIT: Oh ya! and I got this new Emblem!



FINALLY. My life is complete lol.

WTF?! My Old School, Good Taste, and Serious Collector emblems are gone!! . . . . . . . WTF?!?!? :0

EDIT: Ya, I got them back . . . whew

Hurray! My new NES cartridge connector came in the mail today! I installed it and it works like a dream : ) Gone are the days when I shall live in fear of the dreaded blinking red light and his horrible blood-curdling monotone gaze!

I looked at the new peice and despite the fact that it wasn't 27 years old, the only visual difference was that where as the metal prongs that connect to motherboard on the original used only a little metal bump that was about 1mm wide to connect, this new one used the whole tab, to it was like at least 7 times wider.

The only downsaide right now is that the connector is so tight that it take me like 5 minutes to get a cartridge out of my NES lol.

So far my NES exploits include getting one level higher than where I usually get Game Over in Super Mario Bros. (World 8, Level 2) and getting 98 lines in Tetris. SO CLOSE TO 100!!

I'm still scared to play Zelda though. I really don't wanna play for like hours and hours just to turn on my system one day to find that my data has been erased :0

Now when's that copy of Punch-Out gonna get here . . .

That's for now.

Peace.

EDIT: Ha! I got 101 lines in Tetris! w00t! The blocks went back to blue : ) That's definitely the farthest I've ever gotten in that game.

The copy of The Legend of Zelda I ordered came in the mail!



Unfortunately, the new NES cartridge connector did not. So I can't really play it.I put my NES back together and I actually got it to work a little.



I played it for about twenty minutes and then the system just went into its oh-so-lovable blinking red light charade. So I did it all over again, but then it turned out that it didn't even save my game! I hope it had something to do with the connector and not my game. And now my NES wont work at again : / *sigh*

On the bright side I ordered a copy of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out today : )

Well I certainly had an interesting night at home on Saturday. I was searching on eBay for new NESs because mine is broken. All of them were like $30-50 not including shipping, depending on whether or not they included games. I mean, I know that's a great deal for what is easily one of the best systems ever, but when you have no money, $30-50 is too much. Then I thought of just buying a replacement connector, and opening up my NES to replace it. So I won and payed for a replacement connector on eBay for ninety-nine cents, and then saw that the item page had a link to instructions on how to go into your NES and replace it, so that got me wanting to, so I just decided to open up my NES and go in without reading the instructions. I'm not really sure why I didn't read them, but it wasn't brain surgery.

check out some pictures I took (click to enlarge):







The culprit:


You know how like tribal warriors would sometimes wear the skulls of beasts they slay?



I also bought a gold cartridge copy of The Legend of Zelda and I'll be ordering Punch-out!! soon, so I can't wait for that stuff to get here. At all. I can barely hold a train of thought for ten seconds if it strays too far away from NES.

I also wanna get Super Dodgeball and Super Mario Bros. 3 (of course), and I've hear some good things abotu Ninja Turtles. If any of you guys have any suggestions please tell me.

Peace.

here's my second video blog. massive lighting issues lol. and also too long. But I think the music at the end makes up for it : ) enjoy.

[video=JXdhkTX45bgOuj7Y]

edit:
HUZZAH!


I have FINALLY recieved my Tagger Maker Emblem!!



Only took two weeks :