......Rainbow Six Vegas. And it's AWESOME. I really like the online play in it, and the single-player so far is really fun too. It's a more forgiving experience than what I've had previously with the Rainbow Six games, even borrowing the whole "screen-blur" mechanic from Black to let you know that you're on the verge of death. Much better than just dropping like a sock of coal.

Also got Twilight Princess for the Gamecube....and man alive, that's probably one of my immediate favorites ever. I've never beaten a Zelda game before, and yes I'm ashamed to admit that, so I guess it's a really, really good thing that I'm so instantly taken to Twilight Princess. Just shows ya how great a game it is. Definitely worth the wait to play it on the Cube as opposed to shelling out $250 for a new system....

Which brings me back to the 360. Unless Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy are absolute, flat-out, no-doubt-about-it must-haves, I won't be getting a Wii any time soon. This is because I went with Nintendo on blind faith with the Gamecube, and it didn't turn out quite like it should have.....

I got two games on that Sunday launch....Rogue Leader and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. I haven't even bothered to play Underground 2, American Wasteland or the latest Project 8, but I'm a Tony Hawk fan for life. It's one of my favorite series ever. So it was *ultra* disappointing that the GC's d-pad controller was too dang small to play Tony Hawk 3 properly, and despite the fact that I put a pretty good number of hours into TH 3 on the Cube, that whole experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. And while Rogue Leader's a great game in its own right, it's a single-player experience.....which brings me to......

The original Xbox. I remember that I decided to buy one the first Saturday in December of that year. And boy was that a great decision.....co-op goodness on the next great First Person Shooter. Wow. I knew I should have gotten an Xbox first, that I could have at least waited on the Cube until Metroid Prime came out. The other games I got after Rogue and TH were NBA Street (EEEEGAAAAAD) and probably one other game. I still have my Cube and almost 30 games for it, but I could've done without it that first year.

So in conclusion, that's why I'm going with a 360 for the foreseeable future. I love Nintendo, as I've often claimed (but don't know if I'll ever follow through with it) that I would not consider being into videogames much longer if Nintendo failed to produce a home console. I don't believe the Wii is going to be the last hoorah, but Nintendo's got something to prove to this older, wiser game-player and consumer.

As for other games besides that, Bully and Portrait of Ruin have been nice diversions as well. I'm also wanting to get Okami, but I've got to watch my spending habits now that I'm going to have to support myself and my girlfriend once she gets here to the States. So, I'll wait at least until I beat Twilight Princess before I beat Okami.

Which brings me to another thing.....it really is worth getting a game new if you're going to get the most out of it. Over the last 5, 6 years, I've bought most of my games almost exclusively second-hand, for like a fraction what they sell for new. I often wouldn't play them, and I'd accumulate quite a bit. Not as much as I have now (500+ games on a variety of systems), but still....so yeah. I want to get the most out of the games I own from now on, especially before I go off and buy another one that I might not even have the time (or, *gulp*, the desire) to play.

Just another one of life's lessons I suppose, and a good one at that. :D

As for what I think of these games I've named in this blog...here are my scores so far.

Rainbow Six Vegas - 9.0
(haven't beaten it yet though, around 10 hours online multiplayer)


Twilight Princess - 9.7
(28 and a half hours and still tickin'. Can't wait to beat it.)


Bully - 9.1
(Beat it. It has the best story for a game of its type ever. I'll beat it again)


Portrait of Ruin - 8.6
(7 hours and 12 minutes. That's how long it took me to beat it. Still, it's a heck of a lot of fun.)


Oye vey....I need sleep. Peace!

Jeez, been ages hasn't it?

I brought my PS2 and 8 games with me down here, and We <3 Katamari, Soul Calibur III, and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne have tided me over fairly well.  I'm almost 44 hours through Nocturne, got like, 56% of the creatures, and my main character's at Level 72.  Just gotta keep cutting through the throng....man can that game be a pain sometimes!  But it's sooo good.  :D

Also brought my GBA SP and 13 games with me, been playing Golden Sun and Astro Boy: Omega Factor, with a splash of Sigma Star Saga and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

Don't sue me for not being big into the bar seen!  There's one near where I work called "Casa de Las Brujas" that's chill as hell that I want to spend more time in.  And I also wanna go to Portobelo to see the hundreds-of-years old forts. Also wanna go to the Chiriqui province in the north-west part of Panama. 

I got two sealed copies of Suikoden II for $80 while I was down here.  Legit, original sealing.  :oops:

Catch you guys later, but in the meantime, here's the magazine that I'm working at, and here's my Game Trading Zone userpage with all the information about the games I own. 

www.panama980.com

http://gametz.com/user/Jamaican_MoN.html

Take care!

I got Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for the PSOne off a friend today, and I'm pretty psyched.  I'm also psyched about taking my pre-order off of Black and placing it on Suikoden V.  Now if ONLY GameRush would actually get IN Suikoden V, THEN I'd be one happy camper.  :D

This keyboard's space bar is pissing me off, so more will come later.  And w00t, I'm part of the Black Lotus Society group.  Bittchaaaaasss.  <3

Lates

I just got through playing a demo for King Kong (on an Xbox 360 no less, w00t) and wow......I'm switching my pre-order over to Criterion's FPS Black.  :!:

The graphics were more detailed than what you can play on an Xbox, but the gameplay with Kong was really stubborn.  I was knocked over easily by two T-Rexes, and Kong only had a throw move and a punch.  Oh, and you could keep a T-Rex from chomping at your neck.  Woop di frickin' do. 

This game has a LOT of hype, and it was something that I was all excited about playing.....until I actually played it.  I might rent it, but $50 for this:question:

NO THANK YOU.

Oh, but I'm happy.  I got Unreal Championship 2 from Game Rush for $12.  Can't wait to get home and play it online.
Woo hoo:!:

Life's alright at the moment. I'm not doing as well as I want to in my courses right now, and I'm not making the strides that I want to make in my own personal life, but I think I have managed to do some things right. I'm taking steps in the right direction, even if they are only baby steps sometimes.

Golly, I wish I could write better though, with clearer thoughts. It seems like I can't think about what my writing is like while I'm writing. I have to see the finished product before I can see where I should have done better. It's difficult, because nowadays, it seems more and more that people are pressed for time and should strive to get things done the first time.

But when you're kinda lazy like me, and a bit of an underachiever, how easy is it to get things right the first time?

How easy is it to get anything exactly right the first time?

It's not, and life does not end because success is not immediate, or exactly the kind that you want. These are pretty comforting thoughts, and they don't mean that I should give up on myself. On the contrary, they are encouraging and can help me realize my potential.

It's ok to screw up the first time, to not get it right. The point is that you keep trying until you can get it right.

Love you honey. :oops:

TJ