My presence on gamespot has been gradually fading and likely won't return much. There that sums most of my blog lol. I died off shortly after I discovered Starcraft and partially due to the leaving of many of the members I knew best. I also have had AP classes that would like to see me at a table working on homework 100% of the time. None of those are excuses neccessarily, I was already begginning to lose interest in gamespot altogether but they contributed. For those of you who still gave a crap about me when I left, sorry for such an abrupt dissapearance, I didn't really give any notice that I wasn't going to be around much anymore. I just kinda faded.

So why won't I be making a big return? Well most of my favorite unions died a horrible death. Strangely enough within weeks of my dissapearance it would seem that the Nintendo All Stars Union died and that was definately the community I was most attatched to. Other communities I liked died as well and soon enough there wasn't really much to do and still isn't. I've considered finding new unions and communities to enter but I just feel like the whole union concept all together is beggining to fall apart and to be honest that was one of my main reasons for staying here at gamespot. Without unions the site feels empty and disconnected. To be honest, I'd much rather have a fresh start in a smaller more connected community rather than try and relate to 150 some friends that are all doing their own thing. After all, a small community wouldn't be much diffrent than the dying unions I so loved.

I'm not dissapearing entirely from gamespot. This is still a frequent game news source of mine, and the game related forums do have an interesting thread from time to time, but you won't see a signifigant presence out of me. This is likely my last blog post, and I had a good run. I went for around 3 years and I will continue to, just a little less noticably. I also haven't dissapeared from the internet, rather I've moved on to diffrent communities. If you do remember me or was a good friend or really even care about me at all (and for the several months I've been gone, I really don't expect anybody to care but I'll just put it out there, just in case) I'll introduce you to the communities I have been involved in.

Hatena:

I'm a fairly avid animator now and while I'm not real connected with the community there, I do still do a decent bit of animating. I also have a slow moving but building up series called Equinox on there.

Link: http://flipnote.hatena.com/5879092031CD9CC6@DSi/

I also participate in a related forum as of recently called Restoring Hatena, but it isn't for everybody so I'm not providing a link.

Starcraft 2:

I can't really provide a link for this. I just play a lot of Starcraft 2. A lot of it. I'm really involved with people who like to play with me from time to time and while I don't have a lot of friends currently, if any person reading this has a Starcraft 2 account and plays it a decent bit, PM me and I could add you. I mostly play with my actual-real-life-know-em-well friends for the most part but I'm willing to play with anybody who wants to play with me. Not gonna give out friend codes or anything, don't want any chance (even if a small one) of people I don't know or haven't approved messaging me on starcraft.

Justin.tv:

This is fairly recent but I did just start streaming myself doing playthroughs of games with commentary. It hasn't picked up really, and it's really recent but if you wanna see me try and inject my own personal (and hopefully humorous) take on whatever game I'm playing then this is the place to look. Again I don't really interact closely with the community there, but if you come chat on my channel, I'll respond.

My channel:

justin.tv/frogloe

My friends channel (he streams starcraft which sometimes I participate with him on):

justin.tv/rusty212

I also have a youtube but I don't use it enough that it matters.

I don't really know if anybody will read this or even remembers me. I don't really expect anybody to in all honesty. But I'm just throwing it out there. If there is anybody out there that remembers me or wondered what happened to me, this blog is adressed toward you.

For the last time, frogloe

I like to call it StarCraft 2 fever. It's awful. You can't spend time with family or friends. You can't even get fresh air! You're just stuck in a room all day! The worst part is no matter how hard you try you can't leave for anything but the essentials! Why? WHY?!

Please, if you want to help cure me, tell me your name and code and maybe we can play together. Send it to me in a PM though cause I don't want to play with random people I've never seen or heard of. Oh, and I live in the Western US so if you're in a diffrent region then we may not be able to play. Oh dear, I fear I'll have to take a break from GS...

CURSE YOU STARCRAFT 2 FEVER!

In all seriousness though, I sense that I will be considerably less active so don't freak out if I'm an officer and I'm inactive. (Only like one active union that matters lol)

StarCraft addict, frogloe

Not much to talk about although I'm thinking about doing something special before E3 and sticking to my word. Haven't quite decided yet however. Haven't blogged much lately, although I don't have a whole lot to blog about. My 2 year aniverssary(sp?) passed but I didn't have the time to write a large blog about it. Summer is approaching and so my activity should boost despite the fact that my AP classes want to kill me with summer projects. Things to worry about will be a thing of the past.

Lastly I got Monster Hunter Tri which is really good as far as the online goes. In fact I even posted 3 videos about it. Oh! That's another thing. I hope to post more videos now that I've solved my issues. I plan on doing an entire playthrough of the new Zelda for Wii when it comes out and probably will post just random monster hunts and other types of things until then. I can't do walkthroughs for too many games at the moment because I just don't have that kind of time but I'll do what I can to entertain. So without further ado, here are the videos:

[video=JXE7nzOr5bMNvT7f]

[video=dnNhkDur5bMNvT_a]

[video=J3QyxTWs5bMNvT_Y]

So yeah. I no longer want any sort of capture card because my HD TV gives me a great picture without one. I plan not to seperate so much in the future but GS's 100 MB rule made it difficult at first. There probably isn't much of a quality sacrifice to be made so whatever. One last thing on the videos: should I add commentary. Obviously I do a little through subtitles but that's fairly ineffective and doesn't allow me to express views on a game. So what I mean is that I talk while I'm playing. I won't be too annoying but I can point out interesting or funny things and perhaps tell you whether I'm having fun or not. XD I'll probably start adding commentary anyways so that I don't really have to edit the videos that much and I can go straight to uploading them but if any of you are strongly against the idea then please speak your mind. For anybody who's watching I want them to have the best possible experience.

To finish the blog, leave a comment telling me your name and region in Monster Hunter Tri. Obviously if you live in Europe you can't really play with me but if you knowyou can or think you can just tell me your name and maybe we can play sometimes (when I'm on). I'm lonely on that game so feel free. And that just about finishes this blog.

Monster Hunter, frogloe

Alright so a lot of the people on my roster no longer play. That is very unfortunate but I've learned to move on. So basically I'm asking you, my friends, to give me your FCs so that I can play you. My grand plan is to fill my roster full with 60 friends or whatever then there should always or most of the time be somebody to play. So if you play Smash bros online frequently or even occasionally give me your FC so that we can play sometime. I'm not really doing the whole rating thing anymore, I just never change my header. ^_^;

So if you play atleast a decent amount, let us exchange. My FC is in my header and my name will be M.F. I only play on weekend nights though so only friday and saturday but nonetheless I'm sure there will be people to brawl. So thank you and FCs please. I get lonely. ; -;

Well I beat the heck out of Spirit Tracks. I beat the game in four days flat and I had to restrain myself from beating it in the first 2. XD The game isn't neccessarily short but there wasn't enough dungeon in it for me. Not that it had to have 8 dungeons it's just the dungeons were sort of short like its predecessor. Not as linear thankfully but still short. In any case I was satisfied witht the ending for the most part. The final boss part reminds me of.... well you can find out for yourself. It was much tougher that PH's final boss thankfully and despite GSs bashing it I think the difficulty was actually ramped up a bit this time around. The final part of the Spirit Tower made me feel like jumping off a cliff.... well that is until I discovered the other magic powerz of the whip. Defeating demon trains made me happy because the frustrated me to no end when they were roaming the lands. XD

Well I'm gonna talk about the ending now so for those of you who haven't beat it or wish to not spoil the ending for yourselves I suggest you don't read between the spoilers.

*SPOILER BEGINS*

Alright so the final battle was alright. Malladus almost seemed like a sidekick though and Cole was the real villain imo. Cole is doing all of this evil junk and Malladus makes this brief epic end of game battle appearance. It's sort of similar to TP except Cole was already insane lol. The Demon train was a fun battle, puppet Zelda was tough and annoying but overall somewhat enjoyable. I though it was hilarious that Cole persistently launched electrical mice at Zelda. Guess he knew her weakness. Oops.

Malladus in Cole's body was not enjoyable at first. The very first part was pretty stupid, defend Zelda from fireballs. It seemed like it was put in there to tag a little more time into the "epic final battle". It was for the most part senseless taping and I could have done without it. However the final part was the most satisfying part of the battle. It reminded me of of two battles. It reminded me of a Ganon battle from either TP or OoT combined with the Ganondorf battle of WW. It was probably the easiest of the four stages of Malladus but the most thought out and creative and honestly difficulty just doesn't triumph over that.

Now to discuss the ending. OMG ZELDA AND LINK HOLD HANDS. *whistles* Nintendo took it a step farther right thar. Not to say I didn't see it coming. By the end of the game the strength of the young couple is powerful and you're just thinking "gosh something is going to happen". The reason why I say Nintendo took it a step farther is because I believe this probably triumphs over a kiss on the cheek. I mean when you think about it that could be a sign of just gratitude. The holding hands thing in my opinion signals more of a relationship especially when occuring between seperate genders. A kiss on the cheek is just meh. I'm sorta surprised Nintendo did it too. It seems like in the past they have innitially just avoided the whole Link x Zelda or Mario x Peach thing and just left you to speculate.They always want to keep a more light hearted feel to their games. Now I could see it happening in a more realistic Zelda with a more mature theme but in the toon link games they seem to keep it as nice and easy as they can. Then again Zelda and Byrne both technically die (Byrne explodes and Cole laughs which frankly creeped me out) so even the toon link games are approaching mature. So to sum it up Nintendo seems to be granting some fan appeal by confirming what we had previously speculated even in something as small as holding hands. It wasn't any kiss on the lips but it certainly did help confirm speculation.

Now was the ending believable? I thought so. Did you guys? I mean it seems like at first they were just doing this whole thing to get it over with and they kept to that but secretly missed eachother. I thought PH had a nice ending too. The DS Zeldas seemed to have the most pleasing endings to me next to OoT or MM. So needless to say I felt a sense of accomplishment with the words "THE END" appeared on my screen.

/walloftextinsideofaspoiler

*SPOILER ENDS*

In other news I beat N.O.V.A. If you don't know what that is chances are you don't have an iTouch or iPhone and/or you don't play games on it. Anyways I'll have reviews for both of those games up sometime soon. And that means in the next month. XD

Well that's it for this blog I guess I'll see you later.

The iTouch gamer you never knew, frogloe

I GOT ZELDA SPIRIT

TRACKS OMFG I'M SO


HAPPY I COULD CRY AND-

Oh.... it's christmas aswell. In other news I got spirit tracks for christmas yesterday and shortly after stuck my nose into the game. Needless to say after not having a new Zelda game for 2 years I continually played it. So far I would put this game on the higher end of the Zelda spectrum or whatever. I mean it's kinda like Phantom Hourglass minus the annoyingness of a backtracking temple and the super linear temples. I mean these ones are still linear but not near as linear as the last one. In any case I'm 3 temples through the game which is I don't know how far through. Normally there are 6 or 7 temples in a Zelda game but I don't know how many there are in this game. It may have only 4 or 5 yimeples like a select few Zelda games. Anybody mind telling me how many temples there are?

Anyways so far I like the game. The puzzles are even more fantastic then the last game. I mean so far I've only seen three items but all of the items have been put to good use. The boomerang was used in a way I've never seen before the whip was kind of meh control wise and unresponsive occasionally especially duing the boss but otherwise it made for some good puzzles and interesting ones too (THROWING KNIVES MUHAHAHAHA). The wind thingy majiger was nice too but reminded me of something from an older Zelda game.... (gust jar). My favorite part though is surprisingly the spirit tower. It has by far the trickiest puzzles and is the hardest portion of the game. The game still lacks difficulty but atleast this section was okay. The phantom is quite a nice addition it can create some very nice puzzles.

My least favorite part would have to be the train rides. They are much better than the boat was but my gosh do the last forever. It can be very dissapointing when you encounter a demon train and have to restart aswell. Also the game seems to like to extend itself with side quests. It took my about an hour to get to the ocean temple even without the spirit temple involved. There was simply too much to do and it got annoying after a while. Maybe I'm just slow but I don't think I really slacked.

Anyways for Christmas I got a new HD TV. Now I really hope I get a PS3. I mean all I have is a Wii. Although I actually noticed that HD doesn't really look that bad on the Wii. I thought the Wii wasn't an HD console... maybe I took that into the wrong context. I also got M&L Bowser's Inside Story, Empires Total War, Wii Sports Resort and that's about it. I of course haven't played any of the others because I have been obsessed beyond belief with my ST. Well that's just about it. See you later.

Currently a Spirit Tracks addict, frogloe.... oh and merry christmas. *turns on DS*

No this is not a rant about a game or anything. Actually you see I've been longing for a soundtrack to some of Nintendo's most recent games because I just enjoy their music (DON'T JUDGE ME) but for more recent games their are no sountracks. This makes frogloe sad. As much as I'd love to cruise the Internet looking for ripped sountracks I decided to play it safe and consult Nintendo.

I emailed them with this request:

Hello there Nintendo, I really enjoy your games. One of the enjoyable aspects of your games would be the music. I enjoy many soundtracks of your games and will and have purchased the avalible soundtracks that I enjoy. However some of the soundtracks to many of the games you have produced lack an official soundtrack therefor it is difficult to obtain these soundtracks. Soundtracks to games such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl have no official soundtrack yet I wish to obtain one to listen to. I don't want to perform any illegal actions of any sort and would happily buy these soundtracks to games such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I am willing to do quite a bit to obtain these as far as everything goes but I do not wish to perform any illegal actions. As I have mentioned before one of my most wanted soundtracks does not officially exist. So I was wondering if there was any legal methods of obtaining this soundtrack. As I have said I am happily willing to pay money. If I could just obtain the Super Smash Bros. Brawl soundtrack I would be thrilled but if there are others than can be obtained through other methods I would be happy to look into those soundtracks aswell. To sum up the above paragraph, is there any way to legally obtain the Super Smash Bros. Brawl soundtrack and perhaps others alike to it?

I just wanted a soundtrack to listen to on my MP3 player. Nothing much. There isn't a legal one though that I know of so I decided to see if I was wrong. Here is the response I get:

Hello,

That's an interesting request! I can understand your desire for soundtracks to our games. While we have produced some soundtracks in the past, we haven't produced any new ones in years and I haven't heard of any plans to do so.

Plus,we appreciate the interest in Nintendo and in all our video game products. To us, it represents a great sign of success and recognition of the Nintendo brand.

"Nintendo" is a registered trademark of Nintendo of America Inc. Nintendo owns extensive intellectual property rights in all of its products, including video game systems, game titles, characters, game software, graphics, artwork, and screen shots. Nintendo also retains rights in content on Nintendo's websites, including articles, artwork, screen shots and other files. Trademarks and copyrights for third-party games and characters are owned by the companies which market or license those products.

While we are grateful for all the requests for permission to use Nintendo properties, we are not able to grant such requests. We receive thousands of requests and do not have adequate staffing to review them all. Therefore, our general policy is to decline requests for permission for the use of Nintendo properties.

Although we are unable to grant permission, use of Nintendo's properties without formal permission by Nintendo may still be allowed under the relevant laws of the particular jurisdiction involved. Thus, we encourage you to seek your own legal counsel if you have any questions about whether your particular proposed use is permitted without Nintendo's authorization. Nintendo cannot provide legal advice.

We appreciate your support. For more information about Nintendo and its products, please visit our website at www.nintendo.com.

Sincerely,

Sue Page
Nintendo of America Inc.

lolwut? Talk about indirect! What does this have to do with my request?! I didn't want to know if I could sell it, I wanted to know if I could listen to it. I was being nice, offering to purchase a perhaps existent soundtrack rather than being like somebody else and just downloading it off some site without knowing the consequences. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough or something. Should I have mentioned that I wanted to listen to it on my MP3 player. I suppose I sounded a little like I was trying to take it and claim it as my own but I'm not sure. In any case this isn't exactly the response I had expected. Do you have any ideas for what I should do next? Should I send another email?

Well through a collection of recent events including the lowering of the PS3s price and the possible addition of yet another HD TV to my humble house I may just end up buying a PS3. No I will not throw away my Wii or ditch my computer but this certainly opens up an exciting amount of possibilities to me as a gamer. I don't have much time to blog but I have quite a few games I'm considering!

• Uncharted
• Uncharted 2
• Little Big Planet
• Lost Planet 2
• Battlefield 2 Bad Company
• Fat Princess
• Batman: Arkham Asylum

That's about it for now. I've been researching quite a few games but these struck me as priorities for my possibly soon to be PS3. If you guys could recommend me some good games that would be fantastic or tell me if any of the games I'm considering suck and should be dodged at all costs. Now keep in mind I can't get M rated games.

Anyways Wii wise I'm very excited for New Super Mario Bros. Wii and I just got Excite Bots yesterday. I'm impressed with Excite Bots, they really put an emphasis on the craziness and gave the formula a turn for the better. I would currently recommend it but then again, I've had it for like one night so...

Anyways sorry about my recent lack of blogging, don't worry I didn't dissapear from GS, I've actually been pretty active. I just never seem to find the time or attention span to blog anymore. See you guys later!

PS3 maybe, frogloe

I'm still having a little trouble understanding why so many people feel the need to complain and give up on Nintendo. I don't want to offend anyone but come on! For the past twenty years Nintendo has delivered top notch games that have hardly even hit 7.0s and such then for one or two years they have decided to experiment. Yes it seems a little money crazed but it was only one year or so. Now I can understand a little frustration and perhaps some sophisticated and well thought out criticism but it was much more than this. You see some of us decided we were too impatient, not to wait one year of our life to perhaps try other things maybe take a break from Nintendo but to let go off Nintendo entirely with the notion that Nintendo had betrayed you and gone down the crapper. And only a little over a year! What baffles me even more is now Nintendo begins it's return with a good looking bunch of games such as SMG 2, Metroid Other M, NSMBW, and two Zeldas and you complain further. You complain that there is no star fox or F Zero. Yes these games may be absent for another year but their not dead and Nintendo can't release a new game for every franchise they've created every year! Then while Nintendo continues its return you complain that they milk their franchises. Now yes they go overboard I'll admit to that but no matter how much they milk it their games still end up great in the long run! You complain that NSMBW is just a DS game with a Wii box and four players slapped onto it- hey wait a second. Your complaining that one of the most popular game series back in the 80s and 90s that went missing for 10 years and now returns to fans delight isn't good enough. Wasn't it just a few years ago you were complaining that it was absent? Mario galaxy 2 is called milking too. Yes it's not as original as it was but call me crazy, the original could have had more. Such a concept has yet to be explored in depth. You should be happy that they're taking the time to explore even further into the worlds beyond ours and continue to explore a new concept. Metroid Other M appears to have dissapeared from your radar and I don't know why. Finally there are the two Zeldas. When Spirit Tracks was announced only god knows how much flaming Nintendo got. Honestly? Nintendo didn't give you exactly what you wanted and boom here comes the armada.Let's face it people no matter what platform it's on Zelda is Zelda. Then Zelda Wii is just about the only game I haven't seen a lot of complaints on. So to be honest there just isn't a whole lot of reason to complain. It's not going to be what everybody wanted, it's not going to be the next Halo shooter, it's not going to have graphics that make us drop our jaws but was it that way back in the age of the NES and SNES? No and yet we still enjoyed the games. I'm not implying that the 360 and PS3 suck, they deserve an applause aswell, I'm just saying Nintendo isn't dead or betraying us. They just want us to enjoy the gameplay and not enjoy a game based off how mature it is, or how good the graphics are, or how next gen it is. No matter what system it is Nintendo is still being the Nintendo from 20 years ago whether you recognize it or not. :)

I posted this rant in the comments somewhere. Took three posts. :P I just thought you guys should see it. I though it was a nice little rant. I didn't flame anybody so hurray!

Well would you look at that! I finally got a new theme on the Conduit. I'll admit that it's been ages since I've designed so I feel like this wasn't top notch work, but I'm satisfied with it. So if you will tell me how my new look is.

Next I have to say that E3 is a mere week around the corner. You know what that means? Niether do I! Hopefully this year will be good and surpass last year. Not to sound pessimistic or anything.

Anyways to countdown to E3 I'll be posting a review blog of the best of every Nintendo Series. Now the review in my blog will have pictures while the review will also be posted in my reviews. So you might want to catch the blog review because it'll be a lot better. So I decided to start off the week with Metroid. Here I go:

-------------------------------------------

Review: Metroid Zero Mission: 8.5

The best Metroid game experience but is it a little short lived?

I'm going to give it to you straight this is probably the best Metroid game made, atleast in my opinion. I'll start off with the story. This game is basically a re-cap of Samus's very first adventure. While it does follow some of the key points of the original Metroid it is not entirely the same. The game has more to offer and some spit shined levels. They've taken the original game a buffed it up with new features, graphics, and more.

The first and most easily noticed change between the two is graphics. The graphics in this game have been signifigantly changed. The game has come a long way since the 1980's and now has beautful 2-d side scrolling graphics. The graphics are definately detailed and clearly had effort put into them. Enemies look more menacing, enviroments tend to look more impressive and bosses are massive and threatening all with the new graphics.

Metroid has come a long way in graphics since it first came in the 1980's.

The sound will accompany the graphics and also has changed a lot. Although the sound isn't your surround sound movie type of sound it does do alright. The music isn't impressive hollywood music but it is pretty good.

However more important than sound or graphics is the gameplay. After years of building side scrolling shooter games, the metroid series has finally delivered it's prime experience. From the minute you start you are blasting with your arm cannon. You can get enemies from all angles with the ability to aim up, side, diagnol or even down. You'll never miss an enemy and you're ensured the maximum 2-d experience. Switching weapons proves to be easy as ever, you can press a button and your ready to fire a barrage of missiles. The game is so easy to get a hang of that the metroid nooby could pick it up and enjoy this fine adventure.

Besides the enemies the exploring is also well done. Traveling to any point on any part of the planet can be easy with the right tools. There are endless amounts of items to hunt down as you explore and they all give you a reason to explore the planet even further. As you get more tools, more of the planet will become accessible and you can explore more to gather more items. Although backtracking is frequently required and can get annoying at some times it still isn't near as upsetting as other games. With a map provided you can find that area that you haven't explored and get to it without too much hassel.

The game provides an endless amount of items tofind while exploring.

Fighting is also a great experience. Most enemies you can wipe out just by shooting them a number of times but others will require a strategy. Enemies despite this, are still very unique. Some will hang off theroof while other hop from place to place. Some can move across any surface no matter it's angle. Then the bosses, while there a few of them, theyare large and menacing. Most of the bosses require a strategy to defeat them. The bossesprovide a good difficulty and are by no means dissapointing. My only complaint would be that some of them still only require shootingmaking them too simple. But never-the-less they are still fun.

Bosses are often large and menacing.

One of the big downsides of the game is the length. Your first play through you will most likely be to simply beat the game. You can accomplish that in a very short amount of time. Unless you aim to get all items it is unlikely that the game will last you very long. The replay value is also very small, especially it you'll gotten to the Space Pirate ship. At some point you won't be able to go back and get items. Your best bet is to restart the game and that can be annoying if your trying to get all items.

Overall this game is a great experience. It may be short but it is still the best that Metroid can offer and that's pretty good. If your a Metroid fan or your just searching for a good game, this is a must buy.

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More is to come! Well that's it for this blog, see you tommarow!

Has a new theme, frogloe