A little boy who lives in the outskirts of Eagleland suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night because of a loud noise, wearing his pajamas he decides to investigate the situation but his mother doesn't allow him. So before leaving the house Ness has to wear his regular outfit and cap, and equip his main gun, his baseball bat. Not your average RPG plot, right?

There are no Dragons, knights, swords, bows, cannons and huge armies, just you against a bunch of aliens and some animals that have suddenly gone really aggressive after that night's incident. The only familiar part of this whole storyline is the fact that one night you were a boy from an unknown town and after a couple of minutes you turn out to be the one who is supposed to save the world from massive destruction.

From a technical standpoint the game was not even close to impressive, especially when it came to graphics.In 1994, the year Earthbound, dubbed Mother 2 in Japan, was released, there were already some games that used all they could, and a little bit more, of the SNES engine such as Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct. But having outstanding graphics was never a goal in Earthbound.

The game had some amazing sales in Japan, so one year later Nintendo decided it would be a good idea to launch it in the US. I don't know if it was lack of interest in RPGs or if it was due to the upcoming N64 release, the fact is Earthbound didn't do well around here.

The years passed and Earthbound became a cult game, acclaimed by a small group of gamers, a group that would later get bigger because of Ness' appearance at Super Smash Bros. Nowadays it is really hard to find a Earthbound cartridge, the few people that bought it when it was released in the US can now sell it for up to $80 on sites like EBay.

Here in Brazil the only copy that I have ever seen was the one I used to rent back in the nineties, after that I haven't seen any, and if I eventually ask for this game in any game stores around here I will probably get the answer "What!?!?!".

Last year Mother 3, which would be called Earthbound 2 if released in the US, came out in Japan, but sadly Nintendo never even mentioned releasing it here. I'm still hoping for it, I think they will eventually notice how the Earthbound audience has grown over the past years and hopefully will give it another chance.

A good test for this eventual release would be sending Earthbound to the VC, if Nintendo is smart enough and has someone check some forums around the internet for them, they are already aware that if any game of the series is launched here again it will make them some money.

I miss Earthbound.

Battalion Wars II is considered by many people, including me, to be one Nintendo's Big Four releases for the Wii this year. The franchise is already known by most Gamecube owners. The prequel was indeed a great game, but it had two major flaws.

The first one is the short single-player adventure and the second one is the lack of multiplayer, which is a must-have in any war games that are released, especially in this one because it is based on a successful GBA franchise, Advance Wars, that featured one of the best multiplayer experiences on that system.

This time around it seems that Nintendo managed to fix at least the second flaw. As we already know, Battalion Wars will feature three different multiplayer modes, Skirmish, which has more strategy, Assault, which is more focused on combat and Co-op that is the one I'm more excited for.

It is very likely, I don't know if it has been confirmed, that all of them will make it to the Wi-Fi mode, the only question that remains is, how many players will Nintendo allow to play a match simultaneously? I hope we will see more than eight players, sixteen would be awesome! But in its few online experiences Nintendo is already known for underusing the Wi-Fi modes hopefully they will change that soon. Maybe I'll write a blog about that later.

One of the biggest allures in this game is the fact that you control both your army strategically and in combat. I can't remember of many games that gave players that kind of opportunity. That's the main reason why I think this game is so unique. The huge array of vehicles that can be controlled is also outstanding, different planes, tanks and even ships must be used to defeat your enemies in the ground, sea and sky.

The variety of missions is also outstanding, you can try to control an enemy base, survive through a couple of days until backup arrives, explore a forest while discovering hidden enemies, protecting your base and many others.

Another interesting characteristic are the graphics. In a war game you would expect realistic character models, blood and all those gory things, but Battalion Wars II presents war in a quite different way. The characters look more like they came from a cartoon than actual captains, and all battles have nice effects and scenarios.

From the few screens that I saw the game uses the Wii hardware really well, and it will completely stand out from the other port games released for the Wii so far. In my opinion if Nintendo manages to create an enjoyable multiplayer mode and if the single-player is as fun and longer than the one from the previous game, Battalion Wars II has great chances of becoming one of the Wii's first titles to get AAA scores from all reviewers, even here at Gamespot.

No spoilers this time. Today, as I predicted yesterday, I finished Metroid Prime 3, and it is a really amazing game. It is hard to even remember all the amazing parts and missions of the game, because there are so damn many unforgettable moments, I'm starting a new game in a harder difficulty as soon as I get enough time to do so, by now I'll focus on College until other games come around. I finished my mission in 15:46 hours, a good playing time, almost the same I had in my first playthroughs for Prime 1 and Prime 2, and 83% of completion. I got all Energy Tanks but I missed some Missile Expansions, but I'm glad I got to 83%.

I was going to finish it faster but as I was heading towards the end of the game I realized I had missed many Space Pirates Lore, so I decided to go back and look for them.

I'm reviewing it tomorrow and I'm seriously thinking of giving it a 10, if I do that it will become my third perfect game, the only games that I have given perfect scores since joining Gamespot are Banjo-Tooie and Ocarina of Time, both N64 games, so it has been a while since the last time a game made me feel so astonished.

But something bad also happened today, some hours after finishing Prime 3 I decided to play Super Mario Bros 2, and for my total dismay a black screen that said "Your Wii files are corrupted (No pun intended), check your Wii manual for more information.", the first thing I remembered was that the same thing had already happened to VGobbsesser's Wii a while ago and that he had to send his Wii to Nintendo so that they would fix it, but the problem is that Nintendo doesn't provide that kind of service around here since their last system that was officially released here was the N64. So if the problem continued I would probably have to buy another Wii, and that wouldn't be nice because they are really expensive here.

I then turned it off and decided to give it another try, I was praying that it wouldn't happen again, so I clicked on the Super Mario Bros 2 icon and it worked perfectly, after that I played Mario Strikers Charged with a friend for a couple of hours and it didn't present this problem anymore, I guess it was just a temporary thing, at least I hope.

Life has been tough lately, as most of you who keep track of all my posts probably know by now, I will be spending most of my days until December either at the University or working, so I haven't been able to get as much time to play games as I used to, it is bad because I wanted to replay some GC and N64 games I haven't finished in a while, but during my vacation I'll get time to play them.

On the past two weeks I have been getting home at around 11 pm, and when I don't have any homework or researches to do I always try to play something, lately I have been into Metroid Prime 3, I got to 70% yesterday and I intend to finish it tomorrow (Friday), which happens to be Independence Day here in Brazil, so it is a holiday and I'm spending it mostly at home.

My friends will drop by in the afternoon so that they can check Corruption out, they are crazy to play it since I have been talking about it a lot. They are all very fond of the series but unfortunately can't buy a Wii. The only problem is that we will need to share the Wiimote as we play it.

The good news in my very busy life (I don't know for sure if that can be considered good) is that there aren't any Wii releases I want to buy this month. In October though, I'm getting Zack and Wiki, thanks to IGN's hype, and Battalion Wars II, I'm actually surprised that we haven't heard much about this game in spite of its upcoming release, to me this game forms, together with Brawl, Galaxy and Corruption, Nintendo's Big Four for the Wii.

Warning! This post may contain spoilers.

Sunday, after finally discovering how to get the Grapple upgrade for my ship, I quickly assembled the bomb and finished Sky Town. By the way, that part where you have to protect the platform from Pirates is amazing!

I was then sent to explore the Pirate Homeworld, but when I got there I decided that I should go back and look for some pick-ups I could have missed, up to this point I have around eight energy tanks, I don't know if that's good, and 125 missiles which so far haven't been so useful, after finishing the regular mission I'll go for the hard mode.

By the end of the day I had ten hours of fantastic gameplay. Unfortunately yesterday I didn't have much time to play it because I got home from college at around 11:00 pm, so I just played it for an hour. During this hour I once again decided not to enter the Homeworld, it is not that I am scared but I want to enjoy this game for as long as possible. Instead, I backtracked and searched for the Energy Cells I had already some information about. I found one of them and now I just have three more to go.

Today I'll try to play some more and this time those Pirates had better be ready. :P

And one last topic. Would someone explain to me how is Corruption used online? I know there are some achievements you get during your journey that later can be traded for some nice extras. But what I want to know is what kinds of extras do you get? And if you want me to add you just put your code here that I'll add it this weekend.

First of all, don't read this blog if you don't want to know about what happens in the game!

According to the game timer I have been playing it for 8 hours now and I'm about to finish Elysha. The Norion Aurora Unit told me to go to Valhalla but when I got to the ship I couldn't go through the room where you have to place two energy cells to proceed since I didn't have any, so I left and went back to Elysha.

I think I just need to use my ship and get that huge nuclear weapon that is in a room protected by some Space Pirates, the problem is my ship doesn't have the Grapple upgrade yet. The Aurora Unit of Sky Town told me that there is a Federation Landing Site at the eastern area of the city and that I'll find something useful there, well, I have found the Landing Siteand I have already put my ship there, the thing is I have no idea how can I upgrade my ship! I assume that it is right there, on that Landing Site, but I can't find anything to scan.

I looked for a guide but I couldn't find it,so if any of you has any idea how I can upgrade my ship just tell me!

Today was quite a happy day! Metroid Prime 3 arrived exactly just a few minutes after I woke up, I was having breakfast when the doorbell rang and I ran to the doormat and opened the door, a couple of minutes later there I was in front of my Wii, turning it on and turning up the TV volume to as loud as possible and I started playing it.

While on that starting Federation Ship I was a little bit confused with the controls I even accidently killed a poor marine that was standing near a box while the pirates were attacking, after a while I was already feeling like I'm actually the one who is behind the visor blasting all those bad guys given the amazing graphics and gorgeous controls. Hyper mode is really something, and the plot is very compelling. Retro has also made some good and welcomed changes that the series asked for, the same Metroid Prime feeling is here although the game is slightly different.

The boss battles have been awesome so far, especially the second one, don't worry I'm not spoiling it. I just finished upgrading my ship for the first time and now I'm heading to the first generator in Byyon. I have already found some "lazy" doors that only open after a few seconds and they honestly haven't bothered me, because this game has worlds that are so big that we should be actually praising Retro Studios for avoiding to many loading areas instead of criticizing them.

Now excuse me because I'll go back to my Wii and play some more before going to bed.

Yesterday I surprisingly found outthat an online store here had already gotten a few copies of Metroid Prime 3, I didn't slightly hesiste to buy it although it was a little expensive $85 when most of the Wii games are sold by $70, but as it is a big release and the game has been out for less than a week I decided itwould worthy.

So today, between going to work and to the university, I got some time to make the payment, and when I got home earlier today I was baffled to learn that the game had already been shipped, which means that in one day I'm getting it. So don't be surprised if I spend the next week out of Gamespot because I'll probably be enjoying this awesome game! I'm quite excited since this is the game I'm getting closest to the release date ever, I wasn't expecting to get it until at least next week.

After beating Metroid Prime 2 and Mario Strikers Charged this month I started to remember some tough games I have played and how do I like them better than games that are a piece of cake. I usually think that older games are much harder than the latest ones becuase of the fact that twenty years ago developers were unable to create games that would take many hours to be beaten so they had no choice but to make them as hard as possible, so that the players would struggle just to get past the first stage of the game, this added a lot to the lasting appeal of those games.

As the technology improved and developers could finally create almost whatever they wanted to, games started to be longer, even though they weren't hard at all. For example, you can't even compare the first installment of the Zelda series with Ocarina of Time when it comes to difficulty, the former was much harder and if it wasn't players would probably do away with the game after they finished it in less than a couple of hours. That's very easy to notice, just go to your VC now and download Super Mario Bros 2 and Super Mario 64, not considering the fact that you may have already played one but not the other, tell me which one will be harder to beat?

Me, I prefer the hard games, sure they can eventually be seriously frustrating, but they will last so much longer than games that you can easily go through without even knowing how the Game Over screen looks like that the rewarding feeling you will get after you finally beat them, or at least get close to doing so can't be matched by any other games.

For instance, my favorite Mario Kart to ever be released is by far the SNES version, the reason? It took me many tries to win that 150cc Special Cup, I don't know if it happened because I was 5-years-old and therefore I didn't have many skills, but it still remains to me as that outstanding challenge that I managed to overcome. And as we are talking about racing games, what about F-Zero GX? That game is tough, beating the last cup on Master difficulty is almost like an impossible task, and up to this day I have never managed to win that cup, but every time I look at this game on my shelf I feel like giving it another try, and the more I fail the more excited I get about this game.

On the other hand, games that aren't quite as challengingdon't make me getcrazyto play them,actually I would rather stay away from them. The same thing happens whena friend who doesn't play games very well drops by and youdefeat him at every single game, the more games you play the more bored you are going to get, but if a friend who represents some tough competition appears then you can easily play a game for hours without noticing.

Today I finished Echoes for the second time, I missed one energy tank, I have no idea where it is maybe I'll check in a FAQ later and lots of missile expansions, I finished the game with 145 missiles and 70% of completion, I also forgot to scan some stupid things like the first guardian of the game, and some lore. And by the way, this game is outstanding I think that the only fact that keeps it away from the first Prime is the not so interesting Dark World, because the Light levels are amazing, especially the last one the Sanctuary Fortress.

Now I officially have no games to play until I can buy Corruption, I have been looking for it in some stores and most salesmen told me they would get it by September 6th so I guess I have no option besides waiting for this day to come, until now I can try to beat Super Mario Bros 2, although honestly I'm not so compelled to do that, but I may try it if I don't have to study this weekend.

Now I want to hear the opinions from the lucky ones that already have Metroid Prime 3 and are enjoying it, no major spoilers please ;). I have heard it is kind of different from the other Prime games when it comes to storyline, because this time around you will be informed of what's happening rather than have to find it all by scanning lore and computer logs and that it somehow feels different since you are not all by yourself during this adventure. Despite Gamespot's score I'm almost sure this game will be the best one in the series, and being the best one in a series that has given us two classic games so far is quite an achievement. So where do you place Corruption when comparing it to Prime 1 and Echoes?