So there's this weekly competition in the "Community Contributions Union" that highlights the top user reviews of that week.  I saw the thread in GGD and it got me interested, but I didn't have a recent enough review to enter.  So I figured, what the hell?  I've been meaning to crank out an Advance Wars: DS review (that had better not be a smiley instead of a colon and a "D"... so help me...) so what better time to do it than now?

So I sat up and did it.  It took me quite a while, but I got it to where I liked it, then I entered it.  And I won!  Yay for me! 

I've really been on the cutting edge lately!  Between getting the awesomefull (my blog; my vocabulary -- take it or leave it) Mario Kart DS at launch (or day after?...), seeing Harry Potter 4 (which was soooo much better than the first 3 craptacular snorefests) the day after it came out, then winning the first ever ReviewSpotting contest... man, I don't know if I can live at this speed!

Anyway, thanks to Draqq and everyone else for putting this together, and thanks especially for recognizing my genius!  MWAHAHAHAHAA! 

I kid, I kid. 

Until next time -
ShenlongBo

w00t!  I got Mario Kart DS today!  Hooray for me!  Hooray for the DS!  Hooray for having to go to work today!  Wait... scrap that. 

I wanted to whip out a quick poem to focus in on this topic, but then something occured to me:  I don't want to work that hard.  I'd probably laugh at myself for it later, and rightfully so.  Anyway... on to the topic at hand.

So, yeah, trading in games -- the glory and blah blah blah.  So I traded in some games recently.  A lot of games.  Like -- half of my already small collection "lot."  And I hate it. 

But sometimes I don't hate it.  I have to face it, I'm a daddy and a husband before I'm a gamer, and that means that if I'm going to partake in whatever flavors of the week that might entice me, sacrifices must often be made.  Like sacrificing some great games so my wife can get X-Men Legends II.  The only thing that really sucks is that I know after she beats it (if she beats it...) she'll probably never touch it again... and I'll want my Viewtiful Joe back.

I fancy myself a collector, and I'm proud to say that I don't own one single game that I think sucks.  But, the fact is, I don't still play all of my games regularly.  Tell me what gamer with 25+ games does.  I'd have loved to hold on to them, but my wife 'n kids need and want things too, so it's either forego my aspiration to compile these games, or watch as more and more games pass me by.  

Besides, what is the point in owning significantly more games than you play anyway?  If I had the dough, I'd love to collect.  But that's just not an option for me right now.  It's better to get some kind of return on my games than to just let them collect dust while new games remain out of reach.  In the end, it really is worth it.  It just sucks looking up at my collection these days. 

Hey, it's not like I can't buy 'em all again when I get the money.  Used games are dirt cheap these days.  Let's not forget the option of rentals too, but I digress.

Now that my head's stopped spinning from all the hurricane kicks and hundred-hand slaps in CvS2, all I can think about is getting a PS2 so I can play SFIII: Third Strike (among the now lengthy list of PS2 games I'd love to own).

I've finally shaken the CvS2 bug, only to be smitten by SFIII. 

Out of the frying pan; into the fire... or so they say.

So, this is GameSpot's new look.  I like it.  I really do.  Some things I could do without, like that I can't figure out how the hell I can stop tracking Battalion Wars, but for the most part I'm pleased.  Impressed even.  It's too early to nitpick about what's hot and what's not just yet, so more to come on that later.

Yeah, so, on the topic of the Evolution Tournament.  Well, I actually posted a lengthy spiel about how I'm so awesome at fighting games, Street Fighter games in particular.  Well, how can I put this?  Alright, it's like this:  I watched the finals match from the Capcom vs. SNK2 tournament in '04 and... wow... awesome.  After seeing that, I cannot but admit that even though I'm a better-than-average player, I'm not unstoppable, like I used to want to think.  I'd estimate that I'm in the upper-middle or lower-upper skill tier, if that makes any sense.  And while I still have plenty to learn and improve upon, I'm confident that I can take just about anybody who comes my way, no matter how confident they may seem. 

What was really amazing (and I mean amazing, slack-jaw an' all) was watching the Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike match where Justin Wong (Chun-Li) was upset by Daigo Umehara (Ken) in what was the single most impressive Street Fighting I've ever, EVER seen before.  Some kind of poly-parry/masterful combo frenzy.  In-freakin'-sane.  I need to save the loot and buy the Evo videos. 

In closing, I'll go ahead and log it in now that my little squad of players have been challenged by another little squad of players to some CVS2.  Here's to some more victories... and to finding my path to an Evolution tournament myself.

Once again, I've meandered back to the old GameSpot journal just to enter some musings sure to please the masses. By the masses I mean the one somewhat interested user curious about my oath and my loyal friends who tolerate my essays. Today's entry is going to be in compressed format as follows:

AdvanceWarsDS is awesome, but not as great as everyone's saying...I should write a review on it...probably give it somewhere in the low 8's after all is said and done...Battalion Wars is iffy so far too...nice game; mean gameplay...why don't I ever write about Japan in this journal?...I started to, but never followed up...I hereby solemnly submit this oath to eventually, someday, possibly never continue to write about Japan...and also to get back into this journal a bit more...not that I've never said that before...I should be asleep right now, and that's why I'm on GameSpot...figures...I'm gonna kick myself when it's time to get up for work...I hate work sometimes...maybe I'll take my DS today...that'd be nice...I already want a new DS game, but not Nintendogs...actually what I want is Animal Crossing for my GCN again...and that's only because I want Mike Tyson's Punch-Out...thank goodness Revo might let me get a hold of that game again...why is that game so hard to come by?...it's really not fair...okay, that's it...time for bed...

So here's to journal entries. May I uphold my oath to write to myself about gaming more often.

So I'm finally back from my deployment to the motherland of gaming, Japan. It was a great trip, but I'm so glad to be home. Besides missing my wife and two babies desperately, along with my extended family and long-lost friends, I'm glad to be back stateside where I know what the hell all the signs say (I talked myself into learing katakana, one of the three written Japanese languages, but I couldn't be bothered to learn hiragana, or the colossal kanji.) and I know for a fact I can buy a game that will work in my GCN. Come to think of it though, actually seeing the cool games and gadgets the Japanese are privy to makes me feel a bit jaded, but that's neither here nor there.

I learned a bit about myself when I was in Japan. I guess that goes with the territory when you deploy or just go to a new place for any appreciable measure of time without all the comforts of home. The good thing is, I did have one really nice piece of home -- my video games. Not the full collection, but enough to keep me pleased over the course of those four months.

Settling into my new room with my two roomates (stayed in base billeting... not bad) was easy as I was quick to learn that I was rooming with two fellow gamers. There couldn't have been a more exciting mix of us. There was me, the blinded, jaded, lamenting and self-righteous Nintendo crusader, Mikey, the new-school, hardcore, too-cool-for-school XBOX afficianado, and CatDaddy, the mellow, soft-spoken, unbiased hardcore lover of all games that don't suck kinda guy. Mike and I were adamant enough to keep up some entertaing, albeit pointless, arguments but reasonable enough to admit the qualities of our respective favorites. Cat, as usual, just wanted to play whatever was fun... and involved DBZ or any manner of gigantic robots of doom.

As it were, Cat and Mike each brought their own system... unfortunately each brought an XBOX. If only Cat had opted for his PS2 for companionship, we would have been the gaming epicenter of the whole deployment... to a greater extent than we already were. I, of course, brought my GCN, GBA and -player, and a healthy selection of games. Taunting Mike, and daring Cat to some extent, I "promised" them we'd spend a helluva lot more time playing Nintendo than XBOX. I was right too. HAHA!!!

We had a blast playing games together, and it's a time in my gaming life that I'll never forget. I was reintroduced to Halo, which wasn't bad, but I'm afraid I wasn't any more stoked this time around than when I first played it. What I particularly loved was playing countless hours of Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO on GCN (would have been a blast on XBOX had it been available) with these guys. I loved playing against Brian (Cat) because, frankly, he started to get really damn hard to beat after a few days. More guys started dropping by and soon we had quite an array of contenders. Stewie, the old-schooler, then Gary "All-D" Richards, Box (the whipping boy)... Mike started out as more of a Halo fanaticalunaticrazyman soon took an interest in our wee 2D fighter and got pretty damn good in no time. I haven't played so much StreetFighter with so many people in all my life, and I must say it was a great experience.

I have more, I really do, but I'm sleepy and would rather go hang out with my pals before bed. I'll continue on with this stuff some other time, but for now, it's almost lights out.

Earlier today, a pal of mine asked if I mind if he plays through my Golden Sun games. I don't mind, naturally. In fact, I was instantly looking forward to his impression of what my very favorite RPG series.

I turned the game on a few minutes ago and the music at the very beginning took me back. Knowing the ultimate outcome Golden Sun's characters and plot twists made my heart sob at the many memories I have of playing through this fantastic story so so long ago. With magically endearing story, rich visuals, and deep gameplay this was the first JRPG that ever made me "get it." But it took hearing the music at the mode select menu to remind me.

I can still remember seeing Golden Sun sitting on the shelf at EBgames trying to talk myself into dropping thirty bones on it, then being pleasantly surprised when I finally did, and eventually falling in love with the game. Perhaps because its my first playthrough of a JRPG, or perhaps because its just that good, the Golden Sun series has a special place in my heart -- as the music, perfectly composed for this game, so gently reminded me minutes ago.

I've never really had any interest in a Resident Evil game. It's not that I outright disliked the series, just that I never found it appealing enough to want to play. Enter the hype machine. Target: Resident Evil 4.

I'm pathetically spineless when it comes to all things horror -- always have been. In life, I'm not so much of a jellyfish, but when it comes to spooky movies, books, or games I've finally accepted the simple fact that I'm just too sheepish to enjoy them alone. In all honesty that's been the single most deciding factor in why I've never bothered to even pick up a RE game before. I always knew I'd never make it through the beginning levels.

Still, I have enough of an generalized interest in games that I read up on RE4 even if it was just for the sake of reading magazine X from cover to cover. I was also anxious to learn why so many people were stoked about this game. I read preview after preview, checked out some of the screens and cinemas here on GS, then found myself also becoming psyched about this game, even though I couldn't muster the guts to even finish the demo at my local GameStop. I couldn't believe I'd garnered such a fervent desire to play it from what started as a passing interest.

Now that I own it I'm startled to find that Resident Evil 4 is one of the most brilliantly crafted games in gaming history. I am so grateful for all the previews, reviews, screens, cinemas, the demo, and the entire gaming community for shedding enough light on this masterpiece that otherwise most certainly would have escaped my narrowed scope of interest.

I still can't believe that all of the gushing over this game I've heard and read has not proven false. In many ways, much of the gushing hasn't done the game its due justice. I've never been so blown away by any game. I'm not the type of person to try to go along with hype, but I honestly can't count the times I've had to make a point to pick my jaw up off the floor. In one review (I don't remember which) I recall the reviewer stating, loosely quoted that "...the illusion that the game is set in a real place is startling." I must admit that I always have the impression that I'm somewhere that really exists on earth while playing RE4. The scenes are as gruesome as many of us could imagine at times, the "not-zombies" so menacingly realistic and scary, but the desire to press on and uncover the game's mysteries is enveloping. I find myself petrified in my seat, pins up my spine around ever corner, yet I can't help but want to press on. Other times the game takes a time-out from the mounting tension in favor of some shooting gallery type sequences. And, so far, not one of the boss battles has been scary as much as completely, utterly, mind-alteringly exciting and just plain fun. Greatness is Resident Evil 4.

Of course, I still need to have somebody present to play through the game because, frankly, I'm too much of a wuss to play alone. My pals and I huddle around the TV and take turns playing from level to level and we all agree that RE4 one of the best games we've ever experienced. Experience. When a game transcends being a form of entertainment and earns the honor of being cited as a human experience, you know you're dealing with something great.

If there's one thing that's been inescapably true about me throughout my history with gaming it's that I'm exceedingly good at fighting games (I suck as much at FPSs, though). It goes way back to when I first started playing Street Fighter II on the SNES and in the arcades. At 8 or 9 years old, I fell in love with SFII despite my lack of tangible reason for it. I hadn't a clue as to the masterful craftsmanship that was unveiled in SFII's level design, character design, and most importantly, character balance. The only thing I knew was that for the first time there was a video game that really demanded that I invoke all of my "gamer-ness" past and present, just do throw a damned fireball. Frankly, that's all I needed to make this thing snowball into an obsession and ultimately into some sort of nerdy passion.

Back in the day there wasn't this easy-as-pie access to finding out how to make Ken or Ryu do the Dragon Punch like there is now. Oh no. Half of the allure offered in classic 2D fighters (at least for me) was just in trying to figure the freakin' moves out, another part in mastering when to use them. Once I could do it with my opponent standing to my right, it was time to test my dexterity and start hurling blue Hadokens with them on the left... double trouble!!

I played SFII so much in Jr. High school. So, so much. I knew how to fight as Ken so well that I had a definate nigh-flawless strategy for every single opponent in the game at the highest difficulty setting. Keep using Ken's hurricane kick on M. Bison as he's trying to recover from a fall -- he's a total sucker for it and once he's cornered that way, he's all yours if you just keep it up. Yeah. It has to be Ken though, because Ryu's H. Kick only hits one time and sends opponents flying. It's gotta be Ken. Against Zangief just keep jumping straight up (really, just hold 'up' on the D-pad) and keep fierce kicking that big dummy as he dopily plods toward you unto his defeat. I eventually got so into it that I would enter a basic attack command then quickly pause, unpause, repeat (ghetto slo-mo) and count out the frames of movement for Ken's fierce, medium, and light attacks. That's sick, I know. But as an adolescent boy with only one game (which I'd decimated in full, countless times) in my SNES library it was only a matter of time before the depths of my obsession would manifest in such a way, right? Right? Ummm...

What all of that amounts to is that now I find it hard to find a serious challenger in fighting games, especially SFII, and I sometimes feel kind of bad after brutalizing someone who's got serious pride in their game. Well, kind of. I just bought Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO for GCN, despite GregK's strongly worded advice to the contrary. As expected, I've adapted to the GCN controller (admittedly awkward though it may be) and have been enjoying the game thoroughly. I wonder if I've reclaimed the glory days of badassness from my youth, though.

I have a new buddy on base that is also a big gamer and, incidentally, thinks he's the man at SFII also. The first time he came over he promised to beat me down without failure since he was so good at Marvel vs. Capcom way back when. I didn't say much in response. Instead I hooked him up with a controller and, to be blunt, showed him that this wasn't no Marvel vs. Capcom -- and I ain't no punk. He quickly retired to the excuse that the GCN controller was too awkward for him and that with a DualShock controller he'd rule me. Unsatisfied, I made a deliberate and open dash for the internet in search of an adapter to make that dream a reality. I warned him that no DualShock controller was gonna save him, and I certainly hope he'd be able to bring his A-game when we got it hooked up. As usual, he quipped warnings at me. "I hope you're right man," was all he got from me, along with a few cocky grins and subtle warnings for him not to get his hopes up.

These days we still play the game together, me with a trusty GCN controller, him with his beloved DualShock2. He definately plays a bit better with the different controller, but he's still no match. HA! In 3-on-3 matches it's nothing for me to trounce his characters without ever having to employ my third. I've spanked 3 of his with only 1 of mine at least a dozen times. Maybe I'll get him an XBOX Controller-S adapter? He didn't like it when I offered. :P

Yeah, I'm the man -- at least at fighting games, and especially at SFII. I have a whole shop full of gamers who think they've got game too, and more than enough time to prove 'em all wrong.

NOTE: For what it's worth, I'm all lined up to go to my hometown and get smoked at MarioKart DD by my best friend's parents. They're both 50+ years old, youthful, wealthy, professional, and obscenely good at this game. Obscenely. There's not a powerslidable corner in that game that goes unabused when these two play. I don't have a hope in the world, but I can't wait to go play against 'em.