Been a while since I wrote a blog on here, discussing... whatever

As of recently, I've been getting quite into the Mass Effect trilogy. I already beat the first one and second one as a Paragon Female Shepard, right now I'm on a second playthrough of Mass Effect 2 and will get into ME3 soon (yeah, despite the BS, I'm more motivated to play that than Street Fighter X Tekken, also thankful that these games came out before EA got on my s***list last year).

Recently, I bought the GOTY edition of Borderlands 2. I haven't started playing it yet, but since I love the first Borderlands, I am looking forward to it. Oddly, while I have the PC version of the first game, I got the second game on 360.

Also playing (well, some of it):

-Guitar Hero: Metallica (Wii) - I already played the PS2 version when my parents had it, but boy do I still have fun with it.

-Civilization: Revolution (360) - Love the DS version and the console version has similar reception

On hold:

-StarTropics (Wii VC)

-Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)

Hey everyone! I hope you're all having a good holiday season.

Might as well share what I got from family:

-an eShop card worth £15 (British Pounds)

-The Complete Scott Pilgrim (containing all six books)

-two LEGO games: Harry Potter 5-7 (360; humorously enough I own 1-4 on the Wii) and Star Wars: Clone Wars (Wii)

This is a spinoff, but still, considering that I've already played one of Koei's Warriors games (not Dynasty, but Samurai Warriors on the PS2) with my little sister and was bored to tears, I can't say I'm interested in this...

That's not to say I don't like mindless hack 'em ups, because I do. Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy for the N64 and PS2 is a favorite of mine and part of me is curious to play some Sengoku Basara and maybe some Mystic Heroes, but being that this game in particular is based on the Warriors franchise, count me out.

So, on this day, my fellow Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving (which is what I'm doing abroad) and I am celebrating my seventh year anniversary on Gamespot. Jeez, 2007 didn't feel that long ago...

Anyway, here's what I'm playing...

-Assassin's Creed III (360) - Still on Haytham's early parts

-Okami (Wii) - Replay

-Tetris (3DS) - Time burning, mainly

-Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) - Same as Tetris

Yeah, that's all I'm going to ask here as that is another thing about this layout. They made finding blogs harder.

It's giving me a headache. Turns out, other than unions, some other forums I visited (like OTAH and Legacy Games) are either gone or bunched together and there's the fact that I can't get my avatar and sig back (especially, when I need to get my resized sig back up).

*massages temples*

It's been a long wait, but so far, my little brother has gotten a 3DS (I'll get my own soon enough) and, as he let me play it, here are my quick thoughts on it so far.

I like it, especially for one thing, the circle pad. Testing it out on not one but two of my regular DS games, I can say that it feels far more natural to use that even there.

The games I tested it with?

Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing 

Admittedly, it gave me a few seconds to get used to (in fact, I lost to Amy Rose), but boy did it feel better than using the D-Pad for driving Sonic's blue car on this game.

Dragon Ball: Origins

While you can play it like the Zelda DS games and control it with just the stylus, the game also allows D-Pad (and in this case, Circle Pad) support for controlling little Goku while you can just leave the touch controls for combat, which is exactly how I play as I feel it's best. Controlling the young Saiyan has never felt more fluid as when he walks or runs around, it almost feels like most of these DS games that have 3D control were developed with a stick in mind, only to be held out thanks to a D-Pad. Interesting to note is when I slotted this in the system and, as I own the US version, it still recognizes Atari as the publisher, rather than Namco Bandai (who published it here in the UK and Japan).

Unfortunately, it's not region friendly for DS games with DSi features, so I'm still holding on to my DS Lite for that.

Meanwhile, here the first 3DS game I played:

Well, the visuals really do look better for an AC game (which aren't really graphically high games, but they are charming), but it really gives off a better intro seeing that you can pick your own lot to start buidling your home (by paying off Nook of course).

Well, that's it for me here.

Yep, an obvious (and kind of bad) parody of Eminem's Without Me, which honestly I wasn't expecting to do, considering rap isn't my favorite genre of music (though I don't hate it anymore, I used to though, but I'm more of a rock guy despite a folk-parody duo from New Zealand being my favorite band) and I'm not huge into many of Eminem's songs, though I do like Lose Yourself from the 8 Mile soundtrack.

Enough on my stance on a rapper, let's talk about another Smash guest star making a quite expected, but still an awesome appearance in Super Smash Bros. 4. The blue hedgehog himself, Sonic. He's the second (and likely last) guest star (don't expect Solid Snake to return and DON'T expect Bayonetta to pop up either) to appear in the game. Being a fan of Nintendo since the SNES, there is nothing more fun than two rivals, the plumber and the hedgehog beating the snot out of each other. :twisted:

In other news:

-DKC: Tropical Freeze delayed to early 2014 (either stupid or for the best)

-Wii U pads can now view Wii games, but still require a Wii remote (kind of pointless add-on now that I think about it, especially since it would have been kind of cool to actually play CIassic Controller games ON the pad without the need of Wii peripherals)

And... well, I got nothing else.

Link

I may be criticized for writing this because, I admit, looking back in Nintendo's past history, they did some controversial things back in the NES to N64 (though let's be honest, some things under Iwata's role warrants criticism as well) era that I did not like (his treatment towards Sony while the PlayStation was being developed as an add-on for the SNES was a major one and backing of censorship was another) and at one point, thought stuck out more compared to anything else. But as a longtime Nintendo fan SINCE the SNES, I can't help but write this because even I have to admit that Hiroshi Yamauchi also did some good for Nintendo. DAMN GOOD I might add.

He helped get gaming consoles back in the business with the NES, he hired Shigeru Miyamoto (who's in quite a controversial point right now) and the late Gunpei Yokoi. He even gave up his retirement pensions to Nintendo saying that Nintendo could put it to better use, and I can still respect all that.

RIP Hiroshi Yamauchi. :(

What makes me happy and pissed off at the same time? Here's the source (which is sort of old news considering their release dates are different, but still as recent as I can find due to it being a couple months ago).

Online retailer Amazon lists the North American DVD releases of "Saint Seiya - Sanctuary Classic Complete Collection," "Zatch Bell Collection," and "Yu-Gi-Oh! Classic: Season 2" by New Video Group. The Saint Seiya and Zatch Bell DVD collections are slated for November 5, while Yu-Gi-Oh! Classic: Season 2 is slated for September 10.

The MVD Entertainment Group lists Saint Seiya and Zatch Bell with 12 discs each for US $99.95. Amazon lists Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 2 in one US$44.95 set or in two US $24.95 volumes.Anime News Network

I've been wanting to get Zatch Bell! DVDs for a long time. I'm not holding my breath for any uncensored releases although it would be nice, I'd be more then happy to take what I can get considering the edits I watched will still hold my nostalgia well. I can also hope that, since several US Cartoon Network watchers (like me) who were faithful in watching it on Toonami and Miguzi, were shafted while our northern neighbors in Canada got more airings on YTV (though I think Toonami Jetstream aired a bit more than what was shown on CN). Though I can't fully fault Viz Media in not airing all episodes considering Makoto Raiku (Zatch Bell/Gash Bell creator) sued Shogakukan (former affiliate in distributing the series) for lost artwork (Raiku won... to an extent).

But the killer here... the price (and here's where I'm mad). $100 US for a show that didn't have many episodes aired in North America to begin with? Unless you're going to be treating the collection like you're treating the Yu-Gi-Oh! Collection where I can slowly buy it piece-by-piece, that is a bit much.

There's also the slim chance of it not releasing in the UK, but I can overlook that and region encoding. Still sucks though!