I feel like I'm the only one that buys my games offline at an actual store anymore.

I see alot of people complain that Gamestop charges shipping fees but Amazon doesn't. 'Amazon doesn't have the game listed so I may have to order from somewhere else.

I figure I'll be on my way home for most games so i' can pick it up there. Never have to worry about shipping prices, possible delays because of weather and if God forbid something was wrong with the game I don't have to ship it back.

Granted i can't stand the lady that runs the GS by my house. When anyone refers to Madden '12 as 'Are you here to pick up a copy of The Madden?' that means your too old to actaul work behind a counter at a gaming store lol. I like going to get my game at the store anyway. When I picked up SSBB, I met some kid from down the street from me and he was the first person I destroyed online lol. There is just something better about going to get the game. Its like someone sent you on a treasure hunt but you know where it is already lol.

Anyone else notice this trend or maybe area part of it?

So I guess I won't be looking at GS at work anymore. I was out the last two days and apparently the computer network crashed and they are blaming it on me lol. My boss is cool about it and said he wouldn't fire me but that i was lucky my wife was pregnant. I have never been part of a negative effect of a video game before. So I'll be cooling it down until I get home.

Good news is I hate my job anyway. I thought I had borrowed time from my work so I thought if I quit I would have to pay it back. Turns out I don't. So I am hoping to find a job at night soon so I can get the hell out of the job.

I know I should feel lucky I have a job in this economy and I do feel lucky. I just also feel trapped because i hate it.

There is my afternoon rant! Hope all is better around the GS world!

I was looking at my sidekick bracket today and voting on round 2 and realized that alot of the greatest heroes and greatest villians that were voted on are having their sidekicks voted on as well. It got me thinking that this whole voting and setting up brackets doesn't work.

I think we can all agree that one of the greatest heroes and villians are Link and Ganon but hell if I'll vote for Navi the fairy. She was annoying. My point being that just because Half Life or Chrono Trigger were good games and may or may not have had good heroes and villians doesn't mean we should vote on their sidekicks because we liked the game as a whole.

I'm actually working at a polling site today for voting on who will run for mayor of my town. I will be voting on the candidate that has the most experience and that plans on doing something for our city. That doesn't mean I will be following the party I am associated with.

I understand politics and video games are pretty far apart as far as importance but if your gonna take time to vote you should vote for who is the best sidekick, not what game was best that they were in or which sidekick helped the best hero/ villian.

A quick update on my year of the replay, I am at 55 games now with my completion of Zelda TP. One more game and I am taking a break from it so I can try and finish Rune Factory Frontier before Tides of Destiny comes out. I'm currently on Winter 15 so I'm gonna keep up my runeys and rush through it.

Hope everyone has a great day and remember to vote today both with sidekicks and candidates in your region of the states!

I finally finished that last puzzle on Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. That will offcially be the 54 game I beat this year but as i assigned 54 to Zelda TP, it will be logged in as 55.

Thinking I might end my conquest there for the year. I have to beat Rune Factory Frontier before Tides comes out and between then and Zelda SS release I will have my hands full with prep for my baby girl coming on the 17th of Nov. Maybe I'll just make sure I beat Rune Factory and we'll go from there.

My Year of the Replay has just been updated to 53 games beaten! Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is done! Next up is Twilight Princess.

So I went and preordered Zelda Skyward Sword Bundle and Rune Factory Tides of Destiny today which are both titles I'm very excited about. I walked into Gamestop and the cashier looks at me and says "Madden?" I said no and he looked shocked. He then asked me if I had gotten it already and I told him no and that i wasn't planning on it.

I'm I sick for not liking sports games? I mean I can play them just fine but I'd never want one for myself.

So its been almost a year since I was on. Hope everyone has been well.

I was just thinking about how I met a few of you and played Animal Crossing oh so long ago lol.

So what has everyone been up to?

I have had quite a year since January 6th. I have started a personal conquest. Like everyone else I know, this economy has beaten my gaming budget down quite a bit so I started something I call YotR (Year of the Replay). I have taken every single game I have and played them through. Each game I have done has been logged, dated and timed each one to see how many I can beat in a year. After that I'll see how much time total it takes for me to beat the other ones. Excluding any games I get this year if any. I've played across many different systems and I am currently at 52 games beaten. These vary from Mega Man to Onechanbara to Fire Emblem.

I would have more beaten but in February I found out that I will be having a little gamer girl in November so I have had to do a lot of work on my house to prepare for the little one. Not a bad thing at all. And of course I've been living life as usual.

So I will start to keep everyone updated and when the year has ended I'll post a linkto the video I will make of all the stills I've taken of end screens and post time and dates played.

On August 8 of last year, I came face to face again with a moment in life that mademe wish that there was a reset button to life, that you could just press and have it all be better. I lost my Mom, Christine Koenig, to the worlds greatest villian. It was the unwavering, emotionless disease that is cancer. Her diagnosis came to surprise us in Julyand her timewas short, the disease aggressive. I wish everyday to see my mother again.

A memory that comes to mind, appropriate for this website, is when she would get me a new game for my Birthday or Christmas when I was young.No matter how much she never understood the things I like or the games I played, she sat by at the dinner table or while taking care of some other business around the house and listened to my ramblings of how my new game worked, the story line or how I just killed a bad guy. Simple, the memory is but one of many that showed how much my mother loved me. I love her very much

When she came to face her own 'bad guy', I could do nothing. There was no do over. That is why I am here now.

On June 26th, 2010. Roswell Park Cancer Institute will be holding their 15th Annual Ride for Roswell to raise money for cancer research. For those who don't know what Roswell Park is, Roswell Park is one of the world's leading research hospitals for cancer. With their research, they have helped thousands and have made great leaps towards the management, treatments and towards the cure.

I will be riding in the Ride for Roswell in two weeks in memory of my Mom. I am hoping to raise money for cancer research not just in the memory of those who have lost their fight but for the hope of those fighting and waiting on the cure. I am reaching out to the gaming community because I have been a life long gamer and we are many from different corner's of the world who have this similar enemy that we all have the ability to battle for us and for the one's we love.

I am looking for donations to sponsor my ride. My ride donation website is: http://giving.roswellpark.org/netcommunity/mike12

If you can donate, I thank you. If you can't I thank you for rading my story. Please pass this on to friends or share the link to my donation website with everyone you know. The more money I can collect the more help we can give in the fight for cancer. Thank you everyone and God bless.

For the pastweek or so I have involved myself in forum discussions and I've practiced what I could in Monster Hunter Tri Demo but I can say that I have been beyond the hype and waiting so intensely for the chance to start hunting for real.

Me and a few of my buddies have a group assemble already (as I am sure most who are going to play this will) and since I am new to the series, my friend has been filling me in on what to expect.

I'm excited to use my Wii Speak for once. I got it with Animal Crossing but it wasn't fun there at least for me.

So I have decided I will be makinga character with the new Switch Axe first. Even have her name picked out. yeah I am going to make my character a girl. In a none perverted way, its more visually appealing to me. Not that there will be much need because i think I'll be focusing more on the huge monsters in front of me.

OnceI get my license and am online, I'll set my my name so if anyone finds me online, you will know who I am. Has anyone else atthe same place I am? Only two more days! I hate they I pick it up on my lunch break and then have to wait 3 hours to play it. Well if I don't hear from any of you for some time. HAPPY HUNTING!!

First things first. I don't mean this article to attack in any way, shape, or form critics personally. I'm sure most are decent people trying to make a living in the world, family men and women who live day to day doing what they love. I respect this aspect of critics. That being said, we have all been deceived.

Its crazy how much some people trust in the judgement of one individual. What made this person so influential? Why does he or she have so much sway over what we like or what we buy, which food we eat and things like that? I'll tell you why. Its the marching on of a phantom idea that was agreed upon by a phantom opinion.

Take fashion for example. One person invents the T Shirt. (Mind you this is all just a way to explain myself, its not accurate) This person knows more people in their location, tells them how comfortable and niceT Shirts areso the T Shirts catch on. From there, the people who love the T Shirt spread the word and so on until everyone loves T Shirts.

T Shirts are in. That is off course until someone else makes T Shirts with logos on them on the other side of the world, the same events unfold and they become popular. These kinds of people are the same people who tell us what video games we should like. I mean how many times have you been excited about a game, go to some website where someone tells you its gonna be crap, scores it low and tells you you're wasting your time and you turn around and agree. Just because they have a job that allows them to get their opinion out to more people does not mean they are right.

I'm taking Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles The Crystal Bearers as an example. Now this game isn't even out yet and some highly educated (maybe or maybe not) guy from Game Informer magazine tells everyone its crap and now everyone is ready to crucify Square Enix for something no one is really sure of. I am sure the man who wrote this review has status in the video gaming community but strip the title and the paycheck away from him and he is a normal gamer who doesnt' like certain games.

I took a lot of classes on this kind of influence in college and its not just video games. Everyone has their strings being pulled one way or another by all sorts of media. I think we all need to focus on what opinion matters to us, our own.

I have high hopes for this game and if they turn out to be crushed well then oh well. Ironic thing about this blog is that this is my opinion and no one has to listen. Some may agree, some may disagree but I would rather people disagree then just flat out conform.

Recently I wrote an opinion about not wanting the Zelda series to turn into a multiplayer online game. Thats a fear I have that I'm not even sure will happen but even with my strong conviction to not follow the leader, I've fallen a bit off my path and have got caught up in pre-release hysteria.

I am getting FF CC CB tomorrow (Gamestop says its out tomorrow not Dec 26 for those buying it) I may or may not like but I will write about it and I hope people read my review when it comes and form their own opinion of it, maybe even adding points or constructive counter points to my review.

We are all critics whether we get paid to be one or not. Our biggest fans are ourselves and I would want to be told the truth about a game and the only one that can be that accurate is myself. Don't be controlled, buy it or don't buy it but make the decision yourself don't let Joe Smuck do it for you.