I hereby declare 2009 to be the year of the Angry Sun. If you have a problem with that, take it up with my friend the Angry Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3.

Speaking of which, isn't it strange how you can kill the sun with a turtle shell? Wouldn't the shell just burn up or something? And why isn't the whole world plunged into darkness after you manage to kill the sun with a turtle shell? Mario games confuse me sometimes. :?

By the way, I've already decided that 2010 shall be the year of the Castlevania 64 Motorcycle Skeleton.

So have a happy new year, and whatever you do, don't drop that Magical Nitro!

At long last, the missing nunchuk has returned from exile, along with *gasp* the controller port cover which was thought lost forever! And all the people rejoiced, and the children laughed and sang, and there was much merriment and dancing throughout the land.

*clears throat* Anyway, I'm pleasantly surprised that my brother not only remembered to bring the nunchuk home, but also took the time to look for the missing cover. Finally, the Wii looks complete again.

Okay, I lied. It's not much of a mystery, since I know exactly where it is. But here's the story anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, some people at the school where my brother works decided to have a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament to raise some money for the school. But they apparently weren't very well-organized, because at the last minute they called up my brother and asked him if he would be kind enough to supply the Wii. He agreed and took our Wii to the school, along with a couple of controllers. He brought the Wii back later that day, along with someone else's nunchuk (the big piece of tape with someone else's name on it was a dead giveaway that it wasn't one of ours).

Now, to say that my brother is forgetful would be an understatement. Frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't lost his head by now. After about a week and a half of constant reminders from me, he finally contacted the person who had our nunchuk and made the trade. Then he forgot to bring it home. To this day it remains at the school. I despair of ever seeing it again.

If that wasn't bad enough, he also somehow managed to lose the cover that goes over the Gamecube controller ports. It's probably still back at the school somewhere in the room where the tournament was held, but he's never bothered to go back and look for it, no matter how many times I reminded him to. I know it's really just a cosmetic thing that doesn't affect the Wii's performance in any way, but it still bugs the crap out of me every time I see it. If he doesn't find it soon, I'm going to make him order a replacement from Nintendo.

And that's how the past couple of weeks have been for me. I get frustrated because my brother keeps forgetting, and he gets angry at me because I keep bringing it up. And then I get mad at him for getting mad at me, because it was his fault in the first place.

But that's how brothers are, I guess.

I know it's not very original, but sooner or later everybody has to do it. So here it is: ten of my favorite games, in no particular order. . .

Dark Cloud 2 (aka Dark Chronicle, for those of you not in the U.S.)

There are so many things about this game that appeal to me: the colorful cel-shaded art style, weapon customization, all the minigames and sidequests (fishing, golf, photography), the list goes on. But the one feature that stands above the rest in my eyes is the Georama town-building system. Just playing around with the houses, trees, rivers, etc., can keep me busy for long periods of time.

Burnout 3: Takedown

Sometimes I just want to smash something. On those days I play Burnout 3. It's perfect for letting out a little aggression every now and then. Sometimes I'm in the mood for crash mode, where I plow my vehicle into heavy traffic and try to create as much wreckage as possible. But my favorite is rush hour mode, where I race around the course hunting down and demolishing one racer after another until my own car plows into a tanker truck and explodes spectacularly.

X-COM: UFO Defense

One of the great strategy games of all time, in my opinion. From your bases around the world, you scan the skies for UFO activity, send out fighters to shoot down UFOs, send a squad of soldiers to salvage alien technology and capture or kill any survivors, research alien weaponry, defend cities from alien attacks, etc. The turn-based tactical combat is intense and sometimes ridiculously unforgiving, especially when rookie soldiers panic, drop their weapons, and run out into the open where they become easy targets for alien snipers. Frustrating, maybe, but oh so much fun.

Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution

This is the fighting game for people who take their fighting games seriously. It's highly technical, with no flashy special attacks, no weapons, no ridiculously over-the-top character designs--just two martial artists in a ring for forty-five seconds. Virtua Fighter 4 is definitely not for everyone, but if you're willing to put in the time and effort needed to learn the ins and outs of the game, you'll find that it's worth it.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Deep down inside me there's a tiny little Nintendo fanboy yearning to be set free. I don't let him out often, but I'll make an exception today for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Sure, Brawl is basically Nintendo fan service, but it's also a really fun game to play, especially with three of your friends. No Virtua Fighter this: it's simple pick-up-and-play four-player all-out over-the-top fireball-slinging item-chucking mayhem, featuring a cast of Nintendo all-stars (and Snake and Sonic) and a soundtrack filled with great Nintendo music old and new. What's not to love?

Pokémon Pearl

I fell in love with the Pokémon series during the days of Red and Blue, and the "gotta catch 'em all" fever has never really died down. Now, I know a lot of people would pick Red/Blue or Gold/Silver over Diamond/Pearl, but I say their judgment is being clouded by nostalgia. In Pokémon, more is always better, and Diamond/Pearl definitely wins in this regard. As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too many Pokémon.

Perfect Dark

I don't play many first-person shooters. I never have. But Perfect Dark is such a great game that I had to include it on this list. It takes all of the things that made Goldeneye so much fun and does them better--no small feat, considering how great Goldeneye was. The single player campaign can also be played co-op with a friend or "counter-op" with a friend who's trying to kill you. There are more multiplayer modes to kill friends in, and more weapons to play around with, including the Farsight XR-20, which strikes fear (and bullets) into the hearts of all who hear its name.

Civilization IV

Ah, Civilization. A strategy game for the ages (literally). You start in the Stone Age with a settler and a warrior, found your first city, then grow and expand into a civilization, research new technologies, build military units and Great Wonders of the World, wage wars, trade with other civilizations, progress through history into the modern era and beyond, and try to emerge victorious. I try not to play this game too much anymore because when I do, I'm up all night playing "just one more turn".

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

That's right. I went with Majora's Mask over Ocarina of Time. At its core, it's very similar to Ocarina: find a dungeon, kill the monsters, get the treasure, beat the boss, rinse and repeat. But what sets it apart is its focus on the passage of time: you have just 72 hours to stop the moon from falling and destroying the world. Not a lot of time, but you can start over by playing the Song of Time. Some people were turned off by this, but I thought it added a sense of urgency and desperation that you can't get from Ocarina--sure, Ganondorf is scary and all, but he'll wait in his castle forever. That moon's coming down whether you're ready or not.

Tetris

I end my list with Tetris. There's not a lot to say about it, because there isn't much to it. You're basically just stacking blocks. But this simple concept leads to countless hours of highly addictive block-stacking gameplay as you struggle to increase your high score, or to clear just one more line than you did last time.

And that's it. Again, these aren't in any particular order, nor are they necessarily my top ten. But I like them all for different reasons.

It's been eight months since my last blog post.

Why? Well, laziness is definitely a huge factor. That, and I tend to put way too much thought into what I want to say, and ultimately end up not saying anything at all because I can't get it to sound right in my head. But mostly, it's laziness. So, why a new post now? Basically, I have nothing else to do at the moment.

So what have I been up to lately? Well, Brawl, for one. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, that is. Got it the day it came out. First time I've ever pre-ordered a game, and I wouldn't have done it this time either except for the free $10 gift card. I don't think I've ever played a game that hits me with the nostalgia hammer as hard as Brawl does. There's the little things, like the sound effects that play when Mario and Sonic jump; there are the levels (Mario Bros., 75m, Mushroomy Kingdom) that send me back in time; but above all, there's the soundtrack. Sometimes, I just sit on the couch listening to the music instead of actually playing the game.

Of course, I do play Brawl occasionally. It's really the most fun multiplayer game I've experienced in a long time. My brother and I brawl all the time, and we're pretty evenly matched (until he picks Marth, at which point I may as well just give up). I personally prefer Mr. Game and Watch, Zelda, and the Mario Brothers, and I also enjoy playing as Jigglypuff even though I'm not that good with him (her?). My favorite stage is the Metroid lava one, mostly because of the Golden Sun music that plays there.

Speaking of which, the Golden Sun music from Brawl got to me, and I started playing Golden Sun again. At this time I'm about halfway through The Lost Age, so I'm making good progress. However, this comes at the expense of many other games that I have previously started and never finished, like Final Fantasy XII, Dragon Quest VIII, and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, among others. At some point in the future I'd like to go back and finish all these games, but that won't be happening anytime soon.

In other news, my Pokémon adventure has hit a bit of a snag. I've managed to collect a grand total of 455 different types of Pokémon on my own and with the help of my brother, my old GBA Pokémon games, and the Global Trade Station. But to make any more progress, I'd have to seek out random people who have access to the Pokémon that I'm missing, and once again, laziness has reared its ugly head. As a result, I'm playing less Pokémon now than I was before, and my hopes of finally completing my Pokédex have been put on hold for the time being. So near, and yet so far.

I've also picked up a few new games. Bought Rogue Galaxy not long ago, and I'm enjoying it. Gameplay reminds me a little of Kingdom Hearts with its fast-paced combat, but the AI-controlled allies in Rogue Galaxy feel a lot smarter. For one, they actually ask my permission to use items instead of burning through my entire stash of heal potions in fifteen seconds (I'm looking in your direction, Donald and Goofy).

Also bought an expansion pack for Civilization IV, which was probably not the smartest thing to do. Civ is ridiculously addictive, and on more than one occasion I've fallen into the "just one more turn" trap and ended up playing far longer than I had originally intended. This new expansion pack just gives me an excuse to play more, which I really didn't need to begin with.

I recently borrowed Wind Waker from a friend. The colorful cel-shaded art style definitely went in a different direction from the other 3D Zelda games, but it works well. Plus, Link with his enormous head and huge eyes has never looked more adorable. For the most part, the game's pretty fun, but I'm a bit put off by the ridiculous amount of time I have to spend sailing from island to island. Bigger is not always better.

Finally, I've reinstalled Final Fantasy 8 (PC version) on my computer, a long process which involved reinstalling Windows XP, scouring the net for a solution to some hideous graphical glitches, and downgrading my video drivers to prevent a bizarre slowdown problem wherein the game grinds to a complete halt after about twenty minutes of play. However, it was worth the trouble, as I can now play one of my favorite Final Fantasies again.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I know, long post is long, but that's because I had eight months of crap to talk about (and I didn't even cover everything that I could have). Hopefully it won't be another eight months before my next blog post.

I was a bit shocked the other day when I cracked open my DS Lite only to discover that I have accumulated over 230 hours worth of gameplay time in Pokémon Pearl. On average, that works out to a little over an hour a day of Pokemon every day since I bought the game six months ago.

That's a lot of time for me to spend on a single game; usually, I'll play a couple of games for about a month or so, then move on to another batch of games, and another, and maybe a few months later return to the first batch of games again. But Pearl is different--it hasn't left my DS for nearly half a year, and I'm not bored with it at all. Not only that, but to take advantage of the capability to transfer Pokémon from earlier versions, I've started playing Sapphire and Fire Red again.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised by the amount of time and effort I've been putting into this game, though. I remember back when I first got my hands on Pokémon Blue--I played that pretty much nonstop until I finally managed to catch all 150 Pokémon (I believe I caught the last one while waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland). Of course, with nearly 500 Pokémon to collect this time around, it's going to take me a lot longer to finish Pearl...

A while ago, my mom asked me to set up the Nintendo for her so she could play Tetris. So, I dug the thing out of the closet, dusted it off, cleaned out the controllers, and plugged it into the living room TV. Then I turned it on and got a blinking gray screen. While I was jiggling the Tetris cartridge back and forth and turning the power on and off, I started to reminisce about times long past, when my NES lived on top of the TV and not in the closet under a thin layer of dust.

I got my NES for Christmas (or my birthday, I can't really recall which) back in my early elementary school years. It came with a Zapper (the original cool-looking gray one, not the ugly bright orange one) and a Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge. Over time, my game collection expanded to include several more titles.

Tetris was the only game in my collection that everybody in my family, including my mom, would play regularly. We would take turns with it, and as one person played, the other members of the family would sit on the couch and offer up (mostly distracting) suggestions on where to drop the next piece, or just laugh at the player's silly mistakes (my mom was a particularly entertaining source of such mistakes).

The Legend of Zelda was tons of fun. I played for hours trying to uncover all its hidden secrets, and so did my brother and dad (he was more open to video games than my mom, who stuck mostly to Tetris and similar puzzle games). To this day, I have yet to complete the game's second quest...though, to be fair, I haven't played the original Zelda in years.

Xevious, one of the earliest vertical-scrolling shooters, is probably the first game that caused me to develop thumb blisters. For a while, my dad and I would take turns seeing who could make it farther into the game, and I would invariably win. Well, maybe "win" isn't the best word to use when talking about a game that never really ends...

Another shoot-em-up, Super C (the sequel to Contra), also held my interest for quite some time. My dad and I would play together,and even though he usually died much more quickly than I did, it was fun for both of us. We actually managed to beat it once, though not without help from the handy 10-life code...

I rented several of the Mega Man games, but Mega Man 3 was the only one I owned. I played through it so many times, I could probably finish it today with my eyes closed. Definitely my favorite Mega Man out of the entire series. My dad played this one too, but he always had trouble at the level with the blocks that appear and disappear.

Deja Vu was one of the more interesting games in my NES collection. In this adventure title, you wake up in a bathroom stall in a seedy bar with a serious case of amnesia and somebody else's blood on your hands, and soon discover a body in an upstairs office. I had a lot of fun with this murder mystery, but I can't remember if I ever actually beat it (sounds like I've got a touch of amnesia myself :P).

Then, of course, there's Super Mario Bros. 3. This was definitely one of my top favorites. So many hidden secrets to find in this one, I'm sure I still haven't seen them all. I still remember the "holy crap this is awesome" feeling I got the first time I found the Hammer Brothers suit. Those were good times.

I owned other games, too, but they aren't really worth mentioning. I, for one, am not the type of person who takes the skeletons out of his closet and parades them around for all to see...

Aside from the occasional round of Tetris, my NES doesn't really get much use these days. Of my original collection of NES games, only Super Mario/Duck Hunt, Super Mario 3, and Tetris remain. My mom sold/gave away the rest (except for Zelda, which is currently MIA, though I suspect it may have been thrown away). I can still play Mega Man (thanks to Capcom's Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the PS2) and Zelda (thanks to Nintendo's Classic NES Series for the GBA), but it just isn't the same as it was all those years ago when these games were still fresh and new. I suppose that's just the way things go, though. At least I'll always have my memories.