It's official. As of oh, five minutes ago, I beat Sonic Rush Adventure. Though it was without all the emeralds. And there's still tons to do. It was great. I loved the level design. LOVED it. I was shouting in panic when the pirate ship launched cannonballs at me, and I was yelling out woots and "booyah"s as I snowboarded around the Blizzard Peaks. What a thrill. I totally don't regret checking out this game, this first Sonic game of mine. I highly recommend it to anyone who owns a DS and enjoys platformers.

As promised, here's a review: SRA review.

Until next time, later scouts. :)

My mom called me a little while ago. My grandmother passed away. She had Alzheimer's for most of this decade and was very sick. So I'm glad she's moved on. But I'm still very much in shock. It's not particularly sad for me, so for the most part, I'm okay. But, I'm definitely in shock. You see, I've never lost a grandparent before. I've never lost anyone before.

It's going to be a swell rest of the week, that's for sure. =/

What a week. It's been crazy. I've been sooo busy. TGIF though! I'm gonna head back home for another weekend with my brother and his friend. Lots of Miis, Wii, and SRA for sure. And who knows what other crazy things will happen. Last weekend was a whirlwind of surprises, discoveries, and accomplishments, and I didn't expect any of it.

I've gotten better at SRA. I actually got an A rank on Plant Kingdom Act 1! I was playing as Blaze. I really don't like her, but if she's who I need to play as to get high scores, fast times, and A/S ranks, I'm just gonna have to tolerate her. :P I'm also still loving the boating minigames. They're just so much fun! And I love the music during them, too. Especially the fanfare at the end...sounds like something right out of Super Mario World, hehe.

In DKJC news, I finally managed to beat 5-2. I think I did it yesterday. Crazy boss. It was a miracle. Now I'm up to 6-3, which is even more insane. But I have to say, I do enjoy my K. Rool battles. Though I notice the croaking isn't there. He doesn't croak when you hit him. I kinda miss that. Well, regardless, it'll be at least another week before I think I'll have him beat. Wish me luck!

I'm apparently just not that good at speeding. I mean, I'm a fast walker, getting across campus in under ten minutes, but when it comes to platforming, I take my time and I try to find the most secrets the first time through a level. This is why it took nearly the entire weekend for me to get even somewhat decent at SRA (Sonic Rush Adventure, for those who are new to my friends' list). I repped the Plant Kingdom levels at least 20 times before moving on to the Machine Labyrinth levels. Now, I of course have not forgotten that the fact this is my first Sonic game and that has much to do with my current phailure at the game, but I mean, it's not really that hard of a game, is it? I know I'm never gonna get awesome enough at the levels to ever have a time good enough for the likes of Youtube or the game's website boards. I'm in awe of some of the runs I've seen. Literal *GASP* and *JAW DROPPAGE*. So, for me, the game will always just be about plain and simple fun. I love the boating minigames, and I love the fact that each time I play a level, I end up going through it a slightly different way. But like, I wouldn't have any skill in the game yet. I'm still working on mastering the controls, hehe.

Otherwise, all is good. I didn't progress any in DKJC because I didn't really play it much over the weekend. I got up to 5-2 either Thursday or Friday (can't remember which...) and I'm thoroughly stuck on the boss. But yay for hardness!!! It's DKC2's Lost World / DKC3's Krematoa all over again.:D

My weekend was great. My younger brother came home for his "late summer" break with his roommate. I spent a lot of time hanging with them and his roommate's Wii. Lots of Pokemon Battle Revolution. It was good times. School's gettin kinda rough for me, so weekends like these are very welcome. Fortunately, I have another weekend like this coming up because they'll still be around this coming weekend! So really, nothing can pull me down this week. Not even killer Abstract Algebra proofs or monstrous Modeling technical reports.8)

So my mom just called me...and said she was on her way home from work...and happened to be passing the Pathmark (which happens to be in the shopping center as my local Gamestop)...and I asked her to check if they had Sonic Rush Adventure...and they did...and she bought a copy for me (though I'll pay her back tomorrow when I go home for the weekend)...and I cancelled my order with Amazon...and I'm a very happy puppy right now.....

Yay!!!

GS has posted their review for Sonic Rush Adventure, and the verdict is.....8.0!!! That's doable in my book. It's not like their score was going to make or break my decision to get the game anyway, but still. Like I've said, it feels good to know that my decision has been backed by others.

The bad, or I should say, the sad news, is that I apparently won't be getting my copy until sometime late next week. Amazon isn't shipping it out until like next Monday. I don't know why, but that's what's happening. Ah well, the way I'm thinking now, it just gives me more time to beat more of DKJC, which continues to amaze me btw. =D

That's it. I can't stand it anymore. It's absolutely driving me crazy. And ya know, I was going to wait to do something about it, but the situation hasn't changed any and it needs to. What, you may ask? The user score for DKJC.

GS gave it a 7.5. My friend, seniorDK, who was eager and quick to write up a review for the game (and what a great review it is), granted it an 8.5. And yet, the user score remains an average 6.1-6.3 (over the last week). This is the first time I've ever seen the user score lower than the official GS rating. It worries me because I'm sure that score is turning prospective buyers of the game away, thinking that for once GS overrated a game or that many people genuinely think the game is terrible (about 25% of the user ratings say the game is abysmal...WTF!?). So, I'm going to do something about it. It is my belief that actual written user reviews carry more weight than the regular averaged user score (even though user reviews contribute to that score). So for the first time ever, I'm going to write up my review before having beaten the game(though atm, I am more than halfway through the game). Though I haven't calculated the score yet, I imagine it will fall somewhere around at least 8.5. We shall see tomorrow (er, later on today) when I actually go to write it up. The link will appear here: review of DKJC

Yay, a level up!

It's so great now that I'm actually on the site more and leveling up. It's been a while since I was really leveling at a constant rate, and I don't like that I've been a member for like three years and don't have the level to show it. But, ya know, there wasn't much goin on for me to feel like I had to keep checkin the site. Now, these days, I have all the upcoming DS releases to keep me glued to the site (in addition to all my GS friends, of whom I had none until about a month ago, hehe). So hopefully, I'll earn a more respectable level in the near future. =D

My goal is to be at least lvl20 by the end of the semester (mid-December). I've heard that it takes like three months to get through lvl20 so I wasn't going to aim for lvl21. Though, if it happens, then yay for me!

I got DKJC yesterday afternoon. Thus far, I've completely cleared the first world, which took some effort even though the levels were incredibly easy overall. It's just that I never played King of Swing and so I had to get used to the controls and the gameplay itself. All is well now, though. Even though I'm still really early on in the game, I'd highly recommend it.

Also yesterday, I ordered a copy of SRA on Amazon. I hope it comes by next weekend because my brother is coming home for his late summer break (I guess that's what you could call it) next Friday and I want to show him the two amazing games I've recently acquired that he really needs to get himself (though, he has one of those flash card things that lets you download DS games onto it so he probably would just download them...)!

And speaking of SRA, I am absolutely busting to break it in, even though I've got DKJC. The people on the SRA GS forums are raving about it (apparently, they've imported or illegally downloaded it already). Now I know I should take this observation with a grain of salt because they're probably all Sonic fans and Sonic fans drool over every new Sonic game that comes out, but they're raving about it, not just drooling. It seems to actually be a solid, high-quality game. And this has got me very excited. Because I don't like easy games and I don't like hyped games that turn out to suck.

So, thanks to the nice people over at the GS newbie forum, I found out what I had to do to get my banner to upload. So now I've got my first banner up! Woot!

So now just so I don't ever forget, I'm gonna write it all down here:

1) upload pic into GS. 2) Click on share, then copy the second link. 3) Paste it into the Banner URL slot in the Images page of the Prefs page. 4) Delete the quotes and everything that else that comes before http and after the file type. 5) Don't click Upload, click Apply Changes. 6) All done! =D