Christmas is going to be on the modest side this year, so I tried to come up with a good list of things in the thirty dollar range and they can just pick out a few things from the list, or whatever they think I'd like. I hate it when I can't think of anything I want besides Video Games or Movies, but that's me. xD Anyways, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

Shin Megami Tensei is a series I've always wanted to try, but I've never really been able to for whatever reason. Devil Survivor seems to have an interesting premiss in it's own right, too. I love RPG and strategy games, so this game looks like a natural fit, and all those high reviews don't hurt either. The only problem I see is that despite being a fairly recent game, it's hard to find.

Phantasy Star 0

Another series I've always wanted to check out. The funny thing about it is that this game's lack of attention is what caught my attention. Those reviews were pretty slow to show up, and the only reason it blipped my radar was because there was a forum post complaining about that. Everyone has a lot of great things about this one, so I'm really looking forward to it!

Wii Sports Resort

Here's a game that I've always wanted but never wanted to pay for, and as my sister says, that's the best kind of gift. I know I'll find plenty of opportunities to play it with family and friends, the only downside is that I'll have to kick in the second motion plus myself if I get it.

Various Movies on Bluray

Since I've finally got my hands on a good TV and a bluray player, I've been looking for the bluray versions of some of my favorites.

For me it was anyways. I decided to treat myself, so I went and bought the Dissidia bundle a little while ago! I really like my PSP so far, but just like I thought, there aren't that many games I'm interested in. It's actually made me really appreciate how many great games there are on the DS. There's only one game on todays DS top ten I'm not interested in, compared to only one that I am interested in on the PSP's top ten, Dissidia... which yeah, is kinda sad, but if I can find six or seven games that I enjoy, I'll be happy. So far I have Dissidia, Final Fantasy Seven, and Prinny: Can I really be the hero? on it. I'm also waiting for Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days to arrive in the mail. :) I'm glad I'll be able to play Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, too.

I love the original Playstation. It's the only console ever that I've prefered over it's Nintendo competition. I have a lot of fond memories of Final Fantasy 9 & 7, Digimon World 3, Spider-Man, and others. So I was really happy to find my old Playstation lying around in my closet. Unfortunately back then I usually sold my old games to Bookman's, a local used entertainment store, but I still have a handfull of games.

So I decided I'd build up the old collection. Browsing at Bookman's I saw Spider-man for six dollars, so I was like, "what the hey" and bought it. I also found Mega Man 8 for ten and bought it, since Mega Man is so cool and all. But I'm still looking for cool games that I used to have or missed out on, so feel free to throw out some suggestions, faithful and still here readers.

But yesterday, My baby nephew pulled my Playstation down and broke it, so I have to buy a new one. I've seen the sleek PS1 on half.com for 25 dollars including shipping, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Luckily I've always wanted the smaller PS1 anyways, I've always thought it was just the coolest thing. Still a big drag right when I was getting in to it, lol.

Pokemon Battling is probably my biggest hobby. I do it all the time, I have a youtube channel for it, I've even let new games go unplayed while I continue to battle. But something that's always bugged me about it is the number of people who hack. The sad truth is that it's harder to find someone who doesn't hack than someone who does, and that's kind of depressing to me. I'm not talking about Wondertombs or 999 in all stats, instances like that are surprisingly few.

Basically, hackers in Pokemon (known as Pokesavers) play with Pokemon that are entirely within legal limits, they just put no actual effort into obtaining them. My main problem with it is that people who hack and people who don't have to play in the same arena when there's an alternative for hackers: Shoddy Battle. It's the same deal; plug a bunch of numbers into a machine and duke it out with other simulated teams, without having to deal with things that everyone supposedly hates, such as Voice Chat, Friend Codes, and the Nintendo Wifi Connection.

As I said, Pokesavers generally set their Pokemon within legal limits, but there are a few instances where they have a decidedly unfair advantage. Competitive grade Pokemon such as Zapdos, Raikou, Suicune, Latias, and Cresselia are all nearly impossible to obtain legitimately. This isn't true for Pokesavers; it's as easy to sav a Zapdos with HP Ice as it is to sav anything else. Finding at least one of these on nearly every team just adds insult to injury.

Then there are Pokemon such as Arceus, that can't be obtained at all without the use of a cheating device. This problem has always existed. Before Darkrai or Shaymin were officially released, I still had to battle them. In Platinum a new problem arises: Pokesavers can use platinum forms on wifi while legit trainers can't, for whatever reason.

One of the arguments I always hear from Pokesavers is that they don't have time to breed teams. But if I'm willing to devote a certain amount of time into breeding and you're not, then why should that be my problem? It goes back to my Shoddy argument, if you're unwilling to spend the time it takes breeding, there's an entire online community that feels the exact same way. Not to mention it's cheaper than buying an Action Replay.

So yeah, that's how I feel about hacking in Pokemon. Pokesavers are cheating; being widely accepted doesn't mean they're not cheating.

Hello everyone. I come bearing another rant, which I'm sure everyone is looking forward to. I've had many purchases from eBay but I finally got ripped off this week, when I ordered Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Now, oddly enough, the game seems to work fine, and it's flipping amazing. I'm almost done, lol. I think it might be my favorite, but that's not the point. When they're making a point over giving them great feedback, and to tell them before you do, you know somethings not right. x) Also, apparently eBay tried to remove the item before hand but it was already sent.

Anyways after getting it from my friends house since I sent it to the wrong address, I opened the package and it was just as I feared. The overall quality of the image is off, It's not supposed to be rated E, (there isn't even any ratings information.) and the back is completely innacurate. So, yeah. The Nintendo Wifi Connection logo is also absent.

[Update] I've officially lost my fight with eBay. They wanted me to ship them back the item, which would cost over fifty dollars. And why should I have to ship them their bootleg back? Mind boggling...

Their excuse? "That's the Chinese version." lol? :|

Okay, So I'm rewritting my previous entries on this and putting them together. Just because for some reason it looks really disorganized on my page and it's really annoying. I want the old Gamespot back. Anywho.

Basically, I bought my first DS light used. Which wasn't the best idea it turns out, because the hinge just randomly snapped one day. I beleive that this is a defect in the hard ware. Anyways, I called up nintendo to have it repaired. To make a long story short, it came back terribly dirty. Wouldn't you think that if you're paying eighty-five dollars they'd atleast clean it off for you? Make it look nice? But no.

Now, when that problem occured for the second time, I basically gave up and started playing my phat again. It had a few scratches that actually were my fault this time and I figured they'd come to the conclusion that it was an out-of-warranty break.

So, that brings me to my second story.

I eventually got tired of playing on my Phat and decided that I would buy a new lite. I didn't really want to even give my money to Nintendo, as I felt they were profiting off of shoddy workmanship, but I caved. I decided to try a reconditioned one, since I'm poor and it would still have the Ninty warranty. It wouldn't have the charger cord, stylus, or even GBA slot cover, but I have those things already so it wasn't a big deal.

Well, it came and it seemed to be in good condition. I put it into a case right away. I mean, I'm determined to take as good care of this one as possible. Honestly, I was already so tired of dealing with these people. But as luck would have it, I take it out of it's case at my desk, and I notice that the top is riddled with weird scratches. ( I could only really see them with my lamp shining on it.) So I call them up again, and they agreed that it wasn't normal and that they could buffer it for me.

He also suggested that I could just keep the scratches and do nothing, which was a tad annoying because if I wanted to do nothing I wouldn't have called. But I digress.

I get it back and the first scratches are gone. However, I actually had a creeping suspicion that it wasn't over yet. I open it up to discover that the top screen is now scratched ten times more than the casing ever was. Not only that, but they had to actually replace my good screen with that one. So, I don't even input any information into it and call nintendo again...

The representitive was very nice. She personally appologized and was very helpful. They're going to ship it up to washington and send it back with faster shipping. The problem is that I'm still waiting for my shipping labels and that was like two weeks ago.

So either this is a huge chain of terrible luck or someone up there is screwing with me big time. If I don't get the shipping labels today I'm going to have to call nintendo... again.

To be continued...?

Immediately

Okay so the shipping labels came a day after the cut off date but whatever. Now I wait to see if nintendo can get it right.

And they finally did! Hurrah.

Nintendo's official response?

"We have thoroughly examined and tested your Nintendo DS/Nintendo DS lite and could not duplicate the problem you were experiencing. We have returned your original system or exchanged the component that could have caused the problem you experienced."

Update

Two months later, after playing a game that required the mic for the first time, I noticed that it didn't work. At All. So I need to call nintendo... again.

Overall, a reconditioned DS may seem like a good deal, but plan on dealing with nintendo's underwhelming customer service if you plan on doing it. Probably better to just shell out the extra 10 bucks.