Inspired by the likes of NeonNinja and hart704 (a.k.a. HartKnight), I've decided to start up my own GOTY series. Since my hobby of playing video games began in 1994, that is where I shall begin, even though a few games I own were released prior to that year.

Here's how I've chosen to make this work: I will display a list of up to five nominees and then choose the GOTY and two runner-ups from that list. The nominees must be games that I have played. The games are categorized by release year, not by the year in which I first played them.

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NOMINEES
Mega Man X (SNES)
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (SNES)
Donkey Kong Country (SNES)

And the winner is...

1994 Game of the Year - Donkey Kong Country

What can I say about this game... Lots of gaming memories...

While it was the third video game to enter my now 173-strong game collection, it's the first video game that I ever played that I can c1assify today as not just a video game, but a video gaming experience. Back in the day, at the age of eight, I was absolutely mesmerized by the diversity of the different locations on DK Island. Beyond how solid the gameplay was, it was the atmosphere and rich attention to detail and the accompanying music that swept me away into Kongo Jungle, Vine Valley, and the like. My brother and I would play "pretend/imagination" games both in our bedroom and outside where we'd pretend we were exploring the different locales and encountering the different enemies and such. Sometimes, we even pretended our bedroom (with the door closed) was a treehouse (the window looked out to the forest in the backyard), like DK's hut!

Back in 1995, I would frequently lay on my bed with my dad's cassette player and listen to a tape a friend from Scouts had given to me that had the DKC soundtrack on it. More recently, when I was student teaching in 2008, every weekend I'd grade homework assignments to the "DKC123" playlist I made on my iPod. Even then, Dave Wise's tracks still had the magical power to wisk my mind away from my bedroom and all the student-written print into the very worlds I could have sworn were real when I was younger.

By the way, I still have that cassette tape. It's gaming memorabilia to me, a part of my gaming history.

Runner-Up - Mega Man X

I admit, it's kinda silly having two runner-ups when there were only two other games to pick from, but it is what it is. Mega Man X is still considered to be a very great Mega Man game. I've never beaten it, though I have gotten to the final stage. I'm okay with that. Each stage is unique, the bosses are fun, and of course, it's highly entertaining to play on bosses' weaknesses to ruin their day and other bosses' stages.

Runner-Up - Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

The Sega Genesis version of this game may have featured the Green Ranger and Goldar, but it was a fighting game, whereas this game was an actual platformer of sorts. The Rangers had to fight lots of Putties, sure, but they also had to climb, swim, and do lots of jumping in between. I enjoyed playing it for that reason, because it was like the only other game I owned at the time (Super Mario World) and the next game I'd get (DKC). It took more skill to beat this game than I thought it would to beat the other. And so, even without Tommy, I felt proud to own this title.

Anyone else besides myself looking forward to the release of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn later this year? Yes? You are? Then you might be interested in clicking the links below. They lead to high quality Youtube mp3 vids of the game's battle music and boss theme. I'm already hooked on the battle theme. I can already see the Djinns and summons and endless grinding to such an awesome song as that.

Battle Theme

Boss Theme (starts at 3:05)

Sounds like the Golden Sun will shine brightly once again. :D

P.S. One can only hope that DKC Returns experiences a similar musical consistency with its predecessors...

I didn't get a job. There were two, possibly three, up for grabs, and I didn't get an offer for any of them. At least I can say that my interviews were the best I've ever had, especially the one on the Friday. The plan is to continue working where I am and hope once again that next time, things will be work out differently.

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Okay, enough real life stuff. I beat Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time for the first time yesterday morning. I played through on Hard, simply because I knew I could probably handle it since I'd played a R&C game before and also, the trophies for clearing the game on a certain difficulty stacked like they do in Uncharted, so I knew I'd get all three if I survived my way through Hard. I have to say, Hard mode was actually hard. I died a lot. There were some tough combat sequences. I don't know if it was the difficulty setting or the weapon selection or the game itself or a combination of any of the three, but ACiT definitely felt tougher than ToD. I'd read in reviews that ToD felt a little easy compared to previous R&C games, so maybe ACiT was just returning back to regular form. Either way, it was a challenging romp. It was never impossibly difficult (here's looking at you, Super Mario Galaxy 2!), but you really had to show some skill and finesse in order to make it through certain segments.

It took me 25 hours and 20 minutes to beat the game completely. I still missed a few Skill Points and didn't clear the final Tournament at the Battleplex, but you can't say I didn't try (Hard mode is hard, remember?). I did, however, collect all the Gold Bolts, Constructo Mods, and Zoni. I also gained access to the Insomniac Museum, which is this awesome place designed to be a near-exact replica of Insomniac's real life studio. Inside, you encounter weapons, game mechanics, enemies, and actual game content that was all cut out of the final product for this reason or that. There are also a few behind-the-scenes videos hidden throughout, as well as a few plaques explaining Insomniac's developing and game philosophies, as they pertain to game design in general as well as to the Ratchet and Clank game. I found it all to be very amusing and interesting, as I'd played ToD prior to ACiT and can now consider myself a seasoned R&C player and fan.

I got lost several times. I suppose that was to be expected, what with the monotone, futuristically white walls and the fact the place was a museum and all. At any rate, I thought it was a really cool idea, putting something like this into the game. You really get to learn a lot about the developing process and when the panels start using words and phrases you don't understand, you realize how truly challenging and complex the game-making process really is (take that, stupid whiny ignorant gamers on the internet!).

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ACiT is actually the fifth game I own for the PS3 that features access to concept art right on the game disc. Is this a current-gen thing? I can't recall any of the games I own for other systems showcasing concept art at all. It's helped me recognize something, though: a love for concept art. One thing I've really noticed this year, gaming-wise - besides my newfound passion for online bargain hunting - is this newfound love for concept art. It's really blossomed in the last few months. I've got my PS3 game collection to thank for that.

Even if the games don't turn out looking identical to the concept art, it's still fun to look at the utterly frameable pieces of artwork. If they're of environments, they can take you away to another place, much like regular paintings sometimes can (if only they worked like the paintings in Super Mario 64...but I guess that's what the push for 3D is all about, eh?). What I also find fascinating about concept art is it provides a gateway back in time to when the game wasn't a game yet; instead, it was just a bunch of tentative ideas. We get the opportunity to see what the developers were toying around with, what the designers had to work with when they went to work actually creating the character models and environments and such. In that way, concept art is at once art and history. Pretty cool, huh?

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NeonNinja's really not going to like this very much, but I have some bad news. I seem to be avoiding Final Fantasy XIII. At first it was just Uncharted 2 and PoP: The Forgotten Sands. After beating those two games (and hopefully earning a Platinum trophy in the process), I was going to jump to FF13. When I finished TFS, however, I didn't feel ready for FF13. I don't think I was ready yet for the time commitment I knew I'd have to invest. That's when Ratchet and Clank entered the picture (in retrospect, I'm very glad that they did). Now, I still want to play through Challenge Mode in A Crack in Time, but after that, in theory at least, I should be moving on to FF13. Except, I was thinking about it yesterday and I still don't think I'm ready. Part of it comes from the fact that there may still be teaching positions open somewhere and I wouldn't want to happen to get a job and have to stop playing a lengthy RPG halfway through. For me, that's a "doomed savefile walking". I'll never pick it up where I left off, and I'd have to start over again. So I'm thinking one more game, preferably something I already own that either hasn't been touched yet or hasn't been played that much. I came up with ModNation Racers. If you remember, this is the game I actually bought the PS3 for in the first place! And yet it's barely been played! Yeah, I probably have 10-15 hours clocked in, but most of that is just me browsing through other people's creations and tinkering with a couple of my own. I've barely scratched the Career Mode. So I'll play that for a while, maybe get through the whole Career Mode, make a couple of tracks (I've had one planned for months now, the blueprint of which is sitting right on my desk), a few characters and karts too (I've wanted to make an Eagle Scout and some MMPR Ranger cars for about as long as I've wanted to make that other track). You know, get my money's worth out of that game, or at least begin to do so. It definitely got shafted when Nathan Drake came to town.

After some quality time with MNR, then (hopefully) it will be time to move on to FF13. Until then, those of you anxiously awaiting my impressions (probably just NeonNinja :P ) will just have to wait a little longer.

GAMING UPDATE

I beat Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction...twice. Once on normal difficulty, once in Challenge Mode. I found all the Gold Bolts, got the Smuggler to make the RYNO IV for me, and almost got all the Skill Points. It was a really fun and funny game. So much so, that I decided to buy the sequel, A Crack in Time. I'm still waiting for it to come in the mail. After I play through that game, the plan is to finally jump into FFXIII, but I have no idea how much time I might have to play anything soon because...

LIFE UPDATE

...I got calls yesterday for interviews at high schools that have open full-time math positions! It was the craziest thing. I had just about figured that I wasn't going to get any calls at all this August for interviews and that it was going to be another stagnant professional school year for me at the tutoring center (although I do like it there, working there as my sole job does not help me move on in life). Heck, I think I even said as much as I sat in Panera Bread with my mom and brother, having lunch there yesterday. And then, my shorts began to buzz. I wondered who it could be, since Dom had been texting and calling me earlier in the day, wanting to know when we were going to be picking him up and such. It was a random Maryland number. More likely than not, it was a high school calling me! And it was! Interview tomorrow.

When we got home, I looked up the school online and then went on Twitter and Facebook to tweet about the good news. As I'm doing this, I get another call, this time from a high school in Delaware. Interview on Monday. I was freaking out. I was in a state of utter shock. I couldn't believe it!

Now, I'm going to an Adam Lambert concert tonight, so it's going to be kinda crazy to head out to an interview the following morning, but it will be done! Damnit, I'm determined to get a full-time job. I need to start teaching in an actual school!

Now depending on what happens after Monday, I may or not be on Gamespot as much as I have been. Don't cry, but it's the truth. If I get a job, it won't just be my time playing video games that gets cut in spades; my time doing pretty much anything else other than writing lesson plans and grading work will greatly diminish, too. Such is the life of a teacher...until I learn to make it all work.

Well, that's all I got. Wish me luck!!!

Some of you may remember, some day last month, I bought the PS3 version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands at Kmart for $39.99 (twenty dollars off) and ordered the Wii version of the game off Amazon for only $10, thanks to my pre-order bonuses - two credits totalling $40 that could be used on any future video game purchase.

I beat the PS3 version yesterday afternoon. I even earned the Platinum trophy. Before I carry on with my story, though, I want to pause for a moment and tell you all that it is a great game and I recommend it to anyone who's already a fan of the series or who's never touched a PoP game before and is interested in seeing what PoP has to offer in the realm of 3D platforming. It was everything I hoped it would be, despite a few slightly irritating flaws. It was my first PoP game, and I'd certainly hate for it to be my last.

I had hoped that I'd hit a two-run homer with these two completely-unrelated-except-by-name titles, but this was not the case. I turned on my Wii, pushed TFS into the CD tray, and began to play what I hoped to be more of the same, except with elemental powers swapped with sand-based powers. It wasn't, or, at least I didn't find it to be. I don't want to knock the game because it really could be a great game for the Wii (in fact, I'm sure it is) and a good PoP game (I've only played the one, so my opinion in this respect means nada), but it just wasn't doing it for me. It didn't do it for my brother either, after he'd beaten the PS3 game weeks ago while home on summer break. I'd hoped that he was wrong, but I came to the same conclusion. Graphics aside, the gameplay for the two of us was just far more fun and entertaining in the PS3 version than it was in the Wii version. And so, I texted him last night telling him as much and we decided to trade-in the Wii game.

Some of you might be wondering, "does that mean drummer131 actually went to a Gamestop and actually traded in a game, even after all his remarks suggesting that he rarely goes to Gamestop and despises the whole trading-in process unless he absolutely wants to utilize it?" If you are, then you're right. If I find myself in my local Gamestop, it's 95% of the time because I'm just wasting time. In recent years, I've tried to avoid the thought of trading in games because I typically end up never even needing to think about it, since I usually end up buying only the games that I know will stay in my collection forever. Again, I thought I'd found such games in both TFS titles, but I didn't. I'll admit that...and I'll do something to remedy it.

I wasn't about to let my Amazon credits go to waste, so Dom and I went back and forth via texting, trying to figure out which PS3 game we could get that could take the place of the ruefully underwhelming TFS game. Eventually, I suggested a Ratchet and Clank game, since neither of us have played one and they seem to be of high quality. He thought it sounded like a good idea and so I came here to do some research.

I ended up buying a pre-owned copy of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. I wanted to buy a copy of A Crack in Time, but they were selling it new for full price ($40) and I knew from my research late last night that I could get it new for $21 on Half.com. So here's what happened.

I got $8 for my copy of PoP: TFS (Wii). If you know anything about me when it comes to video gaming, you know that I keep my games in perfectly flawless condition. It looked like I could have opened the game out of its sealed plastic during the car ride to the store. Naturally, the instruction booklet and other paper materials were included. Still, I couldn't complain about the $8 trade-in value, especially when you consider that I'd only spent $10 on the game (back when it was still $49.99). I brought a new copy of R&C: ToD to the register (priced at $29.99), but my cashier asked if I'd be interested in him checking to see if they had a pre-owned copy in stock. Save a few bucks, ya know? I said yes.

Now, I am always worried about pre-owned games. Even online, when the seller cl@ssifies their item as "Like New" and even says in their comment box something along the lines of "Near perfect condition, includes booklet and case. No dents or scratches on disc!", I still worry. Other people's definition of "near perfect" and "like new" may not necessarily match my own. Call me obsessive-compulsive if you'd like, but things in my possession are known to remain in the condition in which I first acquired them, so I want my stuff to be in great condition when I get them. Anyway, I was standing there at the register, waiting for the guy, hoping I wouldn't have to try explaining why I was such a freak in turning down an ordinarily satisfactory pre-owned copy of the game.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention! While standing by the PS3 game wall, attempting to configure a wise strategy that would save me the most money between the two R&C games, I was accompanied by these two guys who seemed about my age. They were talking back and forth about games they saw on the wall. It didn't take long for them to strike up a conversation with me. "Are you much of a gamer?" they asked. "Yeah, sure." I replied. They went on to disrupt my train of thought for a good twenty or so minutes, all the while I'm holding a copy of Tools of Destruction in my left hand and A Crack in Time in my right. They kept finding shooters on the shelves and asking me if I'd ever played them. "No," I kept responding. "I'm not really a fan of shooters." They LOVED Fallout. One of the guys could not shut up about Fallout. When a trailer for New Vegas came on the TVs in the store, I swear he fangasmed on the spot. They were so annoying. But, I was polite and occasionally asked them a question of my own. For example, they seemed really educated on the PS3 game library so I asked if they'd ever played one of the Uncharted games. They hadn't. When I asked - given their adoration for Fallout - if they've played any other RPGs on the console, like White Knight Chronicles or XIII, one of the guys actually asked me what XIII was. I said it like "13", so I guess I could understand his confusion, but then again, how many games for the PS3 can be referred to as "13"? When I clarified that I was referring to Final Fantasy XIII, he was like, "ohhh. I don't get those games. I played like five minutes of one of them once and I didn't get the point. What is the point of those anyway?" I didn't want to lecture them on what a real RPG is, so I just took a step back conversationally and explained that I'd only asked because among what little I know about Fallout, I know that it has some strong RPG elements in it, even though you can't really call the game in general an RPG. Yeah, it was good times. It was almost educational in a way because like here, you never know who you're going to run into, what kind of gamers you'll encounter. I'm one way, my brother's a little different, and then there's the lot of you who are all quite different from myself. With these guys, I feel I managed to strike a comfortable balance between casual ignorance and comparable intelligence. No one came out sounding superior to the other party, and no one started a console war. Although, we were all standing by the PS3 games so a console war would have been highly unlikely.

ANYWAY, let me take you back to where we were in the story. The front registers. My cashier is rummaging through a top drawer, looking for a pre-owned copy of the R&C game I'm wishing to buy. He sees two: one is a Greatest Hits copy while the other is not. The new copy I'd picked out was Greatest Hits, so he grabs the pre-owned Greatest Hits copy. From appearances, the case seems to be in genuinely like new condition. He opens the case and....the instruction booklet is actually present! And in great condition as well! Things are looking awfully promising for this pre-owned copy. He pops out the disc and gives the sensitive side a once-over. I see smudge marks from my angle of perspective, but nothing a little rubbing with a cloth shirt won't fix. I don't spot any scratches. "Not that they'd affect playability," he explained. He explains the double layer or whatever that Blu-rays have. I know this already but choose to play the role of stupidly ignorant customer. Everything seems to be alright with the used copy, so I agree to buy that instead of the new copy I'd plucked off the shelf. This pre-owned copy is $19.99, so automatically I saved ten bucks. Add on top of that, the store credit I accumulated only a few minutes ago from my trade-in and I was buying a "Like New" Ratchet and Clank game for only $11.99.

Technically, I lost $2 by purchasing the PoP TFS Wii game, but what's $2. Combined, both the TFS game and this new R&C game still cost me less than half the price of a new PS3 game. If I happen to like Tools of Destruction, if I get A Crack in Time, I'd still only be spending about $30 for the pair of R&C games. That also isn't bad.

Closing Remarks: Mark another pleasant experience at my local Gamestop. I go there so rarely that every time I am in there, different employees are working. These last two times though (the other recent time being the day I bought my blue DSi XL), have actually been kinda fun. This time, I had another pleasant exchange with my cashier. I wish I could have skipped on the random conversation with the fratboy-esque shooter fanatics, however.

Manuals. Strategy guides. FAQs. Youtube videos. I've been using them pretty much since I started playing video games seventeen years ago. My first manual was Nintendo Power's player's guide for Donkey Kong Country. Ever since then, the softcover guides have been a major part of my video gaming hobby.

First and foremost, I use them to help me through rough or confusing parts of a game. In some cases, I use a guide the entire time I'm playing a particular game because I don't want to miss anything. The Final Fantasy games are a good example of this.

In addition to actually being used as intended, strategy guides - at least for me - can be a sort of collector's item, a form of game memorabilia. I'm not just talking specifically about the Collector's Edition hardcover strategy guides they come out with these days. I'm talking about any physical guide that you could buy at a store. Yes, they can be used to help you play the game, but they can also enhance your experience with the game through their layout, the illustrations or pictures featured throughout, or simply because they can help you remember elements of the game when you haven't played the game for a while and feel like being nostalgic. Just as games have a personality all their own, so too do the accompanying strategy guides. They mesh well on purpose.

So, on to the question at hand. Are walkthroughs, no matter which form they come in, a form of cheating, much like using a Gameshark device? My primary belief on the matter is that no matter how detailed the walkthrough is, it is still the player that is inputting the commands via their controller. The walkthrough might be telling the player exactly where to go, what to do, and how to do it, but it's still the player getting the in-game avatar or whatnot to carry out those actions. In this respect, I find absolutely nothing wrong with using walkthroughs. If anything, they allow the player to gain more pleasure and entertainment from the games that they play.

I saw this on raven_squad's blog and laughed so hard reading theirs that I thought it'd be worth doing myself. I don't really have an eclectic collection of music, so I'm eager to see if I can get anything funny out of my iTunes!

1. "Put Your iTunes (or other music player) on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.

1. If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say:

Godspeed - Anberlin

2. How would you describe yourself?

Macy's Day Parade - Green Day

3. What do you like in a guy/girl?

Beautiful Disaster - 311

4. How do you feel today?

Click Click Boom - Saliva

5. What is your life's purpose?

Oxygen - New Found Glory

6. What is your motto?

Firestarter - Prodigy

7. What do your friends think of you?

Warm Fuzzy - The Cynic Project

8. What do you think of your parents?

Dragosta Din Tie - O-Zone (open for interpretation)

9. What do you think about very often?

Chainsaw - DJ Fresh :?

10. What is 2 + 2?

Fa Fa - Guster (partial credit! haha)

11. What do you think of your best friend?

Show Me Love - Robyn

12. What do you think of the person you like?

Mutt - Blink-182

13. What is your life story?

Too Close - Next (lol)

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Human - The Killers (Well, thank goodness for that!)

15. What do you think of when you see the person you like?

High Road - Fort Minor feat. John Legend

16. What will you dance to at your wedding?

Dirty Little Secret - The All-American Rejects :oops:

17. What will they play at your funeral?

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John

18. What is your hobby/interest?

A Modern Myth - 30 Seconds to Mars

19. What is your biggest fear?

Hardcore Vibes - Dune

20. What is your biggest secret?

Little Willy - Sweet (Oh, random shuffle. How you betray me! :cry: :P )

21. What do you think of your friends?

Rogue World Asylum - Machinae Supremacy

22. What will you put as the title?

I Like to Move It - Reel 2 Real

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I thought it'd be interesting if I included my various video game soundtracks into the fray. What would they have to say?

1. If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say:

Wind Garden - Super Mario Galaxy (Soo, I'm guessing this would be a very eloquent yes)

2. How would you describe yourself?

Neighborhood of Water - FFXII

3. What do you like in a guy/girl?

Face Down - The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus :|

4. How do you feel today?

Predicament - Chrono Cross

5. What is your life's purpose?

Space Travel - Yellowcard

6. What is your motto?

Unlocking the Past - Uncharted

7. What do your friends think of you?

Nothing Ever Changes - Donna Lewis :cry:

8. What do you think of your parents?

The Face of Lost Pride - FFVII: Crisis Core (not very kind)

9. What do you think about very often?

Swamp Gases - OC Remix of Bayou Boogie from DKC2, created by Another Soundscape :?

10. What is 2 + 2?

Through Glass - Stone Sour

11. What do you think of your best friend?

Game Over - Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (SNES)

12. What do you think of the person you like?

Queen of the Abyss - FFIX (How nice)

13. What is your life story?

Forest Frenzy - Donkey Kong Country

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?

The Secret Tune - Diddy Kong Racing

15. What do you think of when you see the person you like?

The Chemicals Between Us - Bush

16. What will you dance to at your wedding?

Blitzing Decisions - FFX (lmao)

17. What will they play at your funeral?

Great Warrior - FFVII (This would actually be kind of cool.)

18. What is your hobby/interest?

Dragonrider - Chrono Cross (awesome.)

19. What is your biggest fear?

Ending - The Legend of Dragoon

20. What is your biggest secret?

The Boys of Summer - The Ataris :|

21. What do you think of your friends?

Purple Comet - Super Mario Galaxy (a.k.a. Severe Pains in the ***, lol) :lol:

22. What will you put as the title?

Area 6 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl

From the day I watched this trailer, I hoped beyond hope that they'd bring at least one of those colors (though preferably, not just the yellow one) over to the States. Just six days later (it felt much longer), we got this news. I really could have gone for either green or blue, but I'm glad blue was chosen at all. I've never owned a blue handheld, but the idea of such a thing has always made me go YUM. It was released ten days ago, but I held off. $189.99 is a steep price to pay, especially when you already have a smaller version of the same thing, minus the camera, that's in perfect working order. The color blue is not worth $190. But then my brother was home for his summer break and I noticed how his DSi had the matte finish all over and the volume controls were buttons instead of a slider and all the regular buttons didn't feel so cheap and wobbly. It was official; someday, I'd buy a Midnight Blue DSi XL.

I was going to wait until the price got dropped, but then I had a magnificent idea. The credit card I have lets me use accumulated points to nab gift cards to various stores or to buy actual products using the points directly. I chose to use some of my points to get a $25 debit card. Today, I drove to my local (ghetto) Gamestop and picked one up...for $164.99. Isn't that neat? I rewarded myself for spending a lot of money by spending a little less money on something that would have been a little more expensive otherwise.

Don't think about that last sentence too much; I don't. If I did, I might come to believe I still paid too much and broke down too soon.

Anyway...so I'm bummed the top of it doesn't have the matte finish, but I like everything else about it (and apparently all XL models lack the matte finish on top). I just hope the fingerprints don't get too crazy.

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Okay, so now for the meat of the post (that was just the potatoes up top :P ). The other day, I was casually looking at my DS game collection and it dawned on me that while I definitely don't regret buying any of the games I have, there are a few that stand out beyond the others. These are games that define my collection, that make me proud and pleased - more than any of the other games do - that I own a DS. I should cast out a warning to those who would continue reading: Don't expect to find the games you'll think you'll find on this list. Not that I've left folks like Link and Mario "proper" out on purpose, but this is just how I feel.

1. Meteos (Release Date: June 27, 2005)

I knew of this game's existence pretty much from the day of its release. But, because of its lackluster graphics and the fact it was a puzzle game (I don't get inexplicably excited over many puzzle games), I practically ignored it completely...until for whatever reason, my brother asked for it for Christmas that year. He ended up getting four other DS games that Christmas, and while he was preoccupied with any one of the other four, I ended up trying out Meteos. I was hooked. And by hooked, I mean HOOKED. I could not stop playing it. I bought a copy for myself a week later. The gameplay is unique even though it's very similar to other Connect-Three styel puzzle games, and it is also solid. The elementally themed planets also help (you know by now that I'm a sucker for good games with any kind of elemental theme). Even to this day, I still play this game when I have nothing else to play but want to play something.

2. Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (Release Date: September 11, 2006)

I can still remember the moment when I first discovered this game. I was sitting at my desk in my bedroom, perusing the internet on my then-spanking new laptop. As in, I had just finished setting it up. I was on 1up.com and out of nowhere, I found this game. A Mario-themed arcade basketball game with cameos from Final Fantasy!? I was sold right from that second. In contrast to what I said about Meteos, Mario Hoops is a very beautiful game. I daresay, it was the first downright gorgeous game I came to own for the dual-screened handheld. Youtube gameplay vids truly don't do this game justice. The number of playable characters and courses were excellent, the diversity of the different challenges unique to each course were very well thought out, and the ways to unlock things were pretty cool. If anything, my one complaint about the game is that the AI gets way too out of hand far too quickly. I wouldn't call it cheating; it's just overly aggressive, as though you killed its puppy and burned its house down. It doesn't start out that way, but it doesn't take long for it to get P.O.'d that you're doing well. Even so, in my opinion this game is a gem, one of the more creative and less "cookie cutter" Mario sports games out there.

3. Yoshi's Island DS (Release Date: November 13, 2006)

The music may be lackluster, the sound effects may tick off purists, the lack of well-defined world themes and truly memorable bosses may bother most, but the game is still awesome. To this day, I cannot deny how much I love this game. These days, we discuss the excellently superb level design that exists in Super Mario Galaxy 2. A few years ago, there were more than a few discussions about how the level design of Yoshi's Island DS seemed to more than compensate for any flaws or complaints anyone could find. Much like Mario Hoops, the game gets really challenging in its second half; with the lack of items, getting perfect scores of 100 on levels becomes an extreme challenge. But again, if played casually just for fun, the game is very enjoyable.

4. Mega Man ZX (Release Date: September 12, 2006)

An elemental-theme strikes again; this time, Mega Man is the star. My history with Mega Man is not as tumultuous, nor as detailed, as many of yours' might be. I've played Mega Man 7 and X...and that's it. That was it, until this game. I started out wanting this game because of the different power-ups and the story, but other elements had me falling in love much more than I could have imagined. This game has music that is on par with the other MM games I've played. I also really enjoyed the "Metroidvania" styel of gameplay, wandering through areas, looking for bosses, accessing new areas with new powers you didn't have the first time you walked through. It's a real shame the sequel was a disappointment on many levels. I was really hoping to have fallen in love with a new Mega Man series that would have gotten the typical Mega Man treatment (= countless sequels).

5. DK Jungle Climber (Release Date: September 10, 2007)

Everyone that loves Donkey Kong Country and owns a DS needs this game in their collection. Why? Because prior to last month's E3 announcement that DKC was in fact "return"ing, this game was the closest DKC fans were able to get to playing a somewhat true DKC "4". This game has Zingers, it has Neckys, it has those blue dragonfly enemies. It has bananas, banana coins, and DK Coins. It even has Dixie, Funky, and Cranky Kong. It has K. Rool. None of the bongo games, not even Jungle Beat (which does come kind of close), come as close to looking and feeling like a DKC game as Jungle Climber does. It's for this reason alone that I was first drawn to the game and it did not disappoint me. I got my DKC fix. It was challenging, just like the original games were. The story parts had some definite cringe-inducing moments brought on by lame dialogue, but the gameplay more than makes up for it.

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And there you have my "Five Games I Couldn't Be Without"!

Well, my brother left to go back to school yesterday night. I won't go into much detail, but he decided to move out of school-sponsored apartment housing because the roommates he kept getting were absolute inconsiderate, ignorant slobs who loved nothing more than to strive subconsciously to trash the apartment even more one day than they'd manage to do the the previous day. On top of this, he had a group of about eight squatters consistently occupying his "family room"...and using all his toiletry items for who knows what (on more than one occasion, a new bottle of shampoo or toothpaste would be found near-empty after one weekend). Dom's living with a very good friend now, at this friend's townhouse. He'll be commuting to school. He'll actually be able to concentrate on his work in these final quarters that he's got left before he graduates. So that's good, but as for me at the moment, I'm going through that depression phase where I'm getting over the fact he's gone again after three weeks of brotherly gaming bliss.

We played a good deal of Super Mario Galaxy 2 together, especially towards the second half of my quest to reach the final battle with Bowser. He was a very good Luma sidekick.

Besides that, we also played a lot of PS3 games. At the moment, I own seven PS3 games. Here are the games we played:

So in other words, we played everything, at least a little bit.

• We raced in Pacific Rift until I got a few trophies.
• I played through the first Uncharted so he could see the game firsthand (he didn't think the zombies were scary and gave me crap because I still couldn't play that part in the dark, not even with him in the room).
• I played through most of Uncharted 2 for him.
• We played some LBP user-created levels.
• He played through The Forgotten Sands twice.
• We each played a bit of MNR's Career mode, in addition to racing split-screen offline and making a few mods and karts (United Front really needs to put out a game update that allows P2, P3, and P4 to log in themselves if they have their own savefile on the console.). For those interested, Dom made a stellar Black Power Ranger from the MMPR days and a kart to match, while I remixed said kart and turned it into a bad-A Blue MMPR Ranger kart. You guys already know my ID; my brother's is Zacharael. Dom made a few other karts and mods, so check those out too.
• Dom started a savefile in FFXIII; he's about 10-15 hours in. I've been in the room to witness bits and pieces so I don't really have much to say in terms of impressions, but I will say that it's not as much fun to watch as FFXII was. FFXII's just more magical like that, haha. I will say that FFXIII's futuristic "metallic everything everywhere" motif is going to take some getting used to. Dom enjoyed what he was able to play, although he wasn't too fond of the Sentinel role and the fact he couldn't pick who his leader was.

It was a great three weeks. The Fourth of July was especially awesome. It was close to 100 degrees outside at my uncle's house in central New Jersey; his pool was a very nice 81 or so degrees. After spending a lot of time in the pool, we played some casual volleyball using the net my cousins had set up. Then we went back into the pool. Then we got out and played wiffleball. Perhaps the highlight of the whole day, however, was when my other uncle broke out the $300 worth of genuine fireworks that he got at half price when he and my aunt drove the 4.5 hours to and from New Hampshire to buy them. He had bought actual mortars, people. When they exploded, the blast lit up and spread throughout the whole sky over the front yard. It was unreal.

So what else is there to mention...you already know about my WoW account being hacked. I've since regained control and have ordered an authenticator. Even though I may never go back to playing the game, at least I know it'll be much, much harder for hacker slime to gain access a second time. Last Friday, I actually went with my brother into a guild ICC 10 raid and picked up a few nice gear upgrades. Even in Tier 9, Dom told me I was undergeared, but now I'm probably okay, if I ever did it again. Professor Putricide cracked me up. I was laughing so hard I forgot to press my spell buttons at times.

In my good friend Minishdriveby's most recent blog post, he mentioned a slew of books he's considering reading in the near future. This inspired me to end this post of mine with a recent book-related tale of my own. I've been a member of the SFBC (Science Fiction Book Club) for almost two years now, but not since my initial signing-up had I bought a single book...until now. I was kinda forced to. When you first sign up, you're able to get four or five books for like, $1 each, plus shipping and handling. Then, you're free to do whatever, BUT you must purchase at least four books within the first year or two years (I was never sent any notification last year so I guess it's two years) or else you'll be billed for four books even though you haven't bought any books. It all sounds very harsh and unreasonable, but in truth, it's fairly easy to want to buy that many books. Their prices are low, they typically carry everything in hardcover, they very often have incredible deals and offers and incentives...my problem's just been that I signed up back when I was reading Star Wars novels like a kid consumes candy and I saw it as a great way to pick up the newest Star Wars novels at a really great price. Then I stopped reading Star Wars novels. I have a backlog of at least fifteen books before I'm caught up, chronologically speaking, to the most recent series (which is already about five books in) aaaaaand I've had no interest to start up again. So here I was in this situation where I needed to come up with four books to buy or I'd be charged for invisible books that don't exist. I ended up finding a few, saving over $70 in the process.

With darkness come the corelings—demons of sand, wind, rock, wood and flame, who rise like mist from the ground and terrorize the humans sheltering behind fragile wards, magical symbols whose origins are lost in myth. Once, men and women battled the corelings, armed with powerful wards that could harm the demons and stop their advance. But those days are gone. The fighting wards are lost. And the demons grow stronger, while human numbers dwindle under their relentless assault.

Now, with hope for the future fading, three young survivors—brave Arlen, musical Rojer, healer Leesha—will risk everything in a desperate quest to regain the secrets of the past. But they may find their personal strengths may prove the greatest wards of all…

Welcome to Hallandren—a world in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined in the capital city. Where a power known as BioChromatic magic utilizes the essence of Breath—gathered one unit at a time from willing individuals. Where armies of Lifeless—corpses animated for servitude by spoken Commands—stand ready at a word to invade the austere and colorless nation of Idris.

By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be achieved. It will take considerable quantities of each to meet all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; the incredibly powerful Susebron, God King of Hallandren, whom one of them must marry; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery; and Vasher, the Warbreaker, who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made centuries ago.

For there's a conspiracy afoot to plunge Hallandren into war, and only a miracle will stand in its way…

Kvothe ("pronounced nearly the same as 'Quothe' "), the hero and villain of a thousand tales who's presumed dead, lives as the simple proprietor of the Waystone Inn under an assumed name. Prompted by a biographer called Chronicler who realizes his true identity, Kvothe starts to tell his life story. From his upbringing as an actor in his family's traveling troupe of magicians, jugglers and jesters, the Edema Ruh, to feral child on the streets of the vast port city of Tarbean, then his education at "the University," Kvothe is driven by twin imperatives—his desire to learn the higher magic of naming and his need to discover as much as possible about the Chandrian, the demons of legend who murdered his family. (This book was highly praised back in March by Gabe of Penny Arcade.)

In the Seven Satrapies, each color in the spectrum has its own magical attributes. Mages mostly specialize in one color of light, though some can manipulate two, three or even more. Gavin Guile is one of the rare few known to history who can work all colors at once. As such, he has become the Prism—the most powerful mage in the world, whose power, wit and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace with rival kingdom Tyrea.

But Prisms break under the strain of their magic, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: five years to achieve five impossible goals. Then Guile discovers he has a son, born in Tyrea after the war that put him in power. It is a secret that could tear his world apart...a secret even more imperiled when he and the son he has never known are thrust into the middle of a burgeoning civil war. (I preordered this one. It comes out in late August.)

Now like I said before, I have no idea how good these books are - primarily because I haven't read them yet - because prior to the day I ordered them, I'd never heard of them before (with the exception of TNotW). But as you can read in the descriptions, they certainly do sound interesting. I'll have to see. Of course, I need to find time to read them, in between playing my long list of incompleted PS3 games, lol. :D

So I just beat the game for the first time with 107 Power Stars in my possession and here's what I think two stars into the Special World: I don't like it...

...as much as I liked the first Super Mario Galaxy. I think the rock-spitting blue Goomba things are far too obnoxious this time around, the Chimp challenges are overly demanding, and nearly all timed challenges have timers that are too brief. The game also looks exactly the same as its predecessor. One would think one of the elements of a sequel would be improved graphics, but apparently that's not so in this case. Now I'm no graphics whore, but I really would have thought things would have looked at least a little bit better in numero dos.

Now I know that many of you have already expressed how much you really enjoy and love this game and I am by no means a hater of this game. There is no extreme hatred here. It's just that they weren't kidding when they said this game was tougher than the first game. This game makes it seem like there were no difficult challenges in the first game whatsoever!

Things I did like: Bowser Jr. battles actually had substance this time around, most times being harder than confrontations with Bowser Sr.; checkpoints; an attempt at remarkable variety with fleshed-out ideas; a select few Power Stars I came across along the way that made me say out loud the words "wow, this is cool"; being able to play as Luigi in certain galaxies; the clever uses of the Drill Mario power-up; THE 2P CO-OP!!!

I LOVE the 2P co-op. Yes, it makes the game easier in most cases, but that only happens if your #2 is a competent little Luma helper. My younger brother, for whatever reason, cannot handle the spherical business that well (it throws his visual senses and he just doesn't feel comfortable with it), but he can sure wield the powers of a Luma. For the latter 40 or so Power Stars I've obtained, he's been right there beside me, stunning, killing, and collecting anything he could. It's been great teamwork. It's not just collecting and shooting Star Bits anymore for a second player. To be quite honest, this is the best new feature to be found in SMG2. Better than any of the new power-ups, better than the fact there are far more galaxies to explore, better than the fact Yoshi appears a whole lot more (and thank goodness for this!) than he did in NSMBW. This is how co-op always should have been; it makes me eager to see how DKCR's co-op plays (my brother would want to be Diddy anyway).

And so there's my opinion of the game. Two years ago, I gave Super Mario Galaxy 1 a perfect 10.0, but today, I'm giving Super Mario Galaxy 2 a 9.0. That's nothing to become enraged about, but it is significant in its own way. The sequel of a Mario game has been given a point deduction compared to its predecessor. Having played, I guess, what's about half the game, I simply do not agree with the resounding sweep of perfect 10s. Whereas SMG was fun and amazing throughout, SMG2 rarely evoked moments of shock and awe and rather than being fun and enjoyable the whole time through, about 75% of what I've played straight up felt like work. I'm all for challenging platformers (I've missed them!), but some of the Power Stars here are just ridiculous. I can just imagine if this game came out at the time when I was a young boy playing Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island. I think I would have slammed my Wiimote into the floor a bajillion times (I've never thrown a controller ever) and cried myself out of the room countless times as well. Boo on that thought.

On a final note, I know this is Mario games' shtick, but I'm getting really tired of Mario and Bowser fighting over cake. It's not that hard to bake a cake, people! I've done it before myself! Just screw Peach and her utter mindlessness and bake yourself a freakin' cake. UGH!