So now everybody can play Corruption after many months of high expectations, and Metroid Prime 3 reviews are out, I am quite disappointed with the way Gamespot reviewed it, I liked the IGN review much better, although I still disagree with some points such as when they stated that the you will have to wait for some seconds before some doors open. Well, I have been playing Metroid Prime 2 for the past week and it happens too, but I don't think (I might be wrong here) that they complained about that while reviewing the past to Prime games, maybe now that's occurring more often.

They also complained that the game doesn't present any major changes when compared to its predecessors, which may be true, I haven't played it yet to say that for sure, but it is a series, I wouldn't expect the gameplay to change drastically from one game to another, take a look at The Legend of Zelda for example, since coming to 3-D with Ocarina of Time, the game's core remains the same, beat the temples collect an item and get to Ganon, and yet the experience is still awesome. But the score at IGN was fantastic nevertheless, I won't dare to grumble about a 9.5, but I do think Gamespot should have given the game a slightly higher score. Anyway, let's not get to carried away talking about scores, what is actually really important is having fun while playing it.

By the way, today was my first day at the University, my major is Computer Science, and as it is a tradition here in Brazil, I don't if it also happens in other countries, the veterans like to play pranks on the freshmen, so as I got there I was completely painted, my face was pink, and there was ink all over my body. Then I had to make a little boy, that was actually a drawing on a blackboard, laugh by telling him jokes, I don't need to tell you that I wasn't able to make him laugh, I was so embarrassed. After that we had to all ask for money on the street so that the veterans could spend it to make a big party, fortunately I was with some friends that I know since High School so we managed to get a few bucks. Then I returned home and I have been removing ink from my body for the past half hour. I wonder if the same thing is going to happen tomorrow. I took a picture of me and my friends painted, maybe I'll post that later.

One day left for Metroid Prime 3 and I'm almost done with my mission of finishing both games before I get Corruption. I beat Super Metroid on Friday with 72%, I missed three energy tanks and some missile expansions, but Mother Brain was still really easy to beat, I think that it was way harder to break her glass than to defeat her. I got lost during some moments of the game and it took me some time to figure out I had forgotten to get the Charge beam! I only remembered it when I was facing that Chozo statue before Ridley.

I just noticed that I have never written a review for Super Metroid so I'm working on it now, I still don't know what score I will give because of Gamespot's new rating system I was thinking about an 8.7, sadly I can't give this score anymore. Now I'll have to choose between 8.5 and 9.0, I'll eventually make up my mind.

As for Metroid Prime 2 the playthrough is being much smoother as I already know most secrets. I finished the Sanctuary Fortress and now I'll go find the Sky temple keys, but once again I missed some Keybearers Lore, I have to find 2 more before I can look for all the keys, I don't think I'll do this today though since I have already played it for too long.

By the way, tomorrow will be an amazing day. First Metroid Prime 3 comes out and second I'm starting at college, but this means that I won't have too much time to either stay at Gamespot or to play games because I work from 9:00 am to 5 pm, and from work I'll have to go straight to college because my classes start at 6:00 pm and only end at 10:40 pm, so it means I will only be at home to sleep, the rest of day I'll be either working or studying, so if I stop replying to your bolg posts it is because I'm too busy, but I'll try to keep up with your posts.

Finally, IGN's review for Corruption will be online 12:01, I can't wait. What do you think it will get? I'm thinking 9.7 or 9.8.

As we keep on hearing about new characters, and the Super Smash Bros Brawl roster keeps getting more and more exciting, there are still a few franchises that seem to have been forgotten, franchises that because of their success deserve more fighters. While Mario games get up to ten different characters in they just get one, or even worse, none.

The first franchise that comes to mind is Metroid, not because we are 3 days away from Metroid Prime 3 release, or because everybody is talking about this franchise on the past weeks, the reason is obvious, since Super Smash Bros the only character fighting under the Metroid emblem is Samus. This can be explained and comprehend, because this franchise only has a lone heroine, that fights everybody by herself, and that the other main characters are way too gargantuan to fight against guys like Pikachu or Kirby.

Most fans think about Ridley, and they keep mentioning his appearance on the opening video in Melee, saying that he doesn't look too big, actually that's true, but only if you have exclusively seen him on that video, because in the Metroid games it can be clearly noticed that he is much bigger than Samus. Still, with the addition of Assist trophies it is likely that Ridely and his fellow villains may appear on the game.

Star Fox and F-Zero are other series that haven't been getting enough love from Nintendo. Star Fox actually had two characters on Melee, but they had exactly the same movesets and sadly that's not enough.

F-Zero has been represented by Captain Falcon since the first installment of the series, and as I heard that Brawl's roster would be a lot bigger than Melee's I started thinking that if they added someone from this series to the game it would probably be Samurai Goroh, when I saw him on the site update I was very happy until I noticed he was going to show up as an Assist Trophy. Goroh aside the only characters that are remarkable enough to make the cut would be Dr Stewart and Pico, that have been around since the original F-Zero, or Black Bull that has been acting as the bad guy in the series since F-Zero X.

The Legend of Zelda can be considered a series as successful as Mario, especially when considering the critical acclaim, yet it only has four characters when it could have many more given the deep array of characters on this series, Skull Kid would certainly be awesome. Zant, Midna and Tingle would also be cool additions, and I wouldn't be surprised if either Midna or Zant made it because it looks like they are using the Twilight Princess' models for the characters.

I would like to see more fighters that come from the Earthbound games since I love the SNES game. Any other series you guys can remember?

It's been a while since I don't comment on the newest characters announced by the quirky Sakurai. The biggest surprise among all those newcomers is perhaps the Pokémon Trainer, who could have seen that one coming? A guy who instead of fighting by himself stands on the background yelling orders to his Pokémon, Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard is a really strange kind of fighter, I wonder if other characters will behave the same way.

I must confess that when I first thought of how it will be playing as that guy I got to the conclusion that it would be odd, but later when I read how would his controls work, pressing down + B in order to exchange Pokémon I really enjoyed the idea.

The previously announced Ike wasn't such a big surprise because as Melee had Roy and Marth it was highly conceivable that Ike, the main character on the Gamecube's Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance had a chance of making the roster. His main move will be Aether, which will be awesome, and now I'm not sure whether both Marth and Roy will make a comeback or not, although I don't think Ike is enough to represent the series.

On Wednesday our simian friend, Diddy Kong, appeared. Another character that I was kind of expecting, from what Sakurai has stated we can already be sure that he's going to be really fast and have some stylish moves, I'm looking forward to see how he is going to use his Barrel Boost.

Now on other updates, I was kind of disappointed when he announced that Zero Suit Samus won't be a separate brawler and that we will only be able to use her when we perform a Final Smash with armored Samus, it seems that we won't be playing as her for a long time, because I think that once you are KO'd she will return to her standard form.

Also, judging by the Smashville stage and the pitfall item it looks that someone from Animal Crossing will make the roster, but it is hard to figure out who, because on the background of the Animal Crossing stage you can clearly see Tom Nook standing there, and I doubt that a character would appear at the background and on the stage at the same time.

I was also going to write about underrepresented franchises, but I'll keep this subject for another day given that this blog is way too long.

It seems that lately an odd and, honestly, stupid fad struck the gaming world, the assumption that every single game released has got to have some kind of multiplayer mode and that this mode has got to somehow connect to the internet.

It can be clearly noticed everywhere on Gamespot's forums, some weeks ago I heard a couple of people say that "If Metroid Prime 3 doesn't have an online Multiplayer I'm not buying it.", well too bad for them because they will miss an outstanding single-player experience.

If this statement had been made about another game such as Super Smash Bros Brawl or Mario Kart Wii, I would be able to understand, because new control scheme aside, some online multiplayer is the probably the main reason why people are buying these games, obviously there are other reasons such as new characters, new tracks or stages, but I think they are not as compelling as some worldwide competition.

But when it comes to games like Metroid the situation is completely different, the origin of the series is dated from 1986, a time where simultaneous multiplayer games were extremely rare and most releases were adventure games that sometimes featured the option to a 2-player mode where each one would play separately, since then the series has evolved, Nintendo even got to try a multiplayer mode in Echoes and later in Hunters, but none of those modes were deep and successful enough to be given another chance.

I believe that the only reason Nintendo put that Wi-Fi mode in Hunters was because they wanted to test how the game would behave, since the DS was their first online system. I don't think you can count the GC whose broadband adapter was a major flop because it was only used by a few games like Phantasy Star Online, Kirby Air Ride, 1080° and Mario Kart Double Dash.

As the series evolved it changed in many different aspects, gameplay, storyline, and others, but one characteristic remained untouched, Metroid is basically a Single-Player exploration game! It is not supposed to have any kind of multiplayer, instead I prefer that the developers keep focusing on building great scenarios, plots and puzzles that will keep adding to the awesomeness of this franchise.

The month of Metroid continues and not only are expectations for Metroid Prime 3 high but I have also been playing many Metroid games, as you are already aware of I started my second playthrough on Echoes, yesterday I defeated the Boost Guardian after being owned by him 3 times in a row, I think he is one of the hardest bosses ever, and probably the hardest one in both Prime games.

So now I'm collecting the keys to enter Torvus Temple. As I was playing Metroid Prime 2 I remembered that Super Metroid was already available on the VC, a fact I completely overlooked since Monday, so I quickly left the game and entered the Shop Channel, bought some WiiPoints, and downloaded both Super Metroid and Super Mario Bros 2, I still have 1100 points, I was thinking of buying Metroid, but as I have Zero Mission for the GBA I decided it would be a waste of money.

So I played a little bit of Super Mario Bros 2, finished the first 2 stages and I started playing Super Metroid, a game that I had already played some years ago on my SNES but that for some strange reason I have never beaten. So I started a new game thinking about coming back to Echoes later but I wasn't able to put the controller down until I got to Kraid and destroyed him, then it was too late and I had to sleep otherwise I wouldn't wake up to go to work. I didn't remember him being so easy, the Kraid from the original Metroid is way tougher than this one.

Therefore I'm now officially playing three Metroid games at the same time, I expect to finish all of them before Metroid Prime 3 gets to Brazil which I think will happen one week or so after the US release, so I still have plenty of time. And about those 1100 points I have left, do you have any suggestions? I already have The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Paper Mario, Mario Kart 64, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Bros 2, Donkey Kong Country 2 and Super Metroid. I was thinking of keeping them for Earthbound (I hope it will come out soon), or other upcoming releases.

After watching the Metroid Prime 3 title screen video over 15 times on the past few days I decided to write a blog about those screens that first present the game to us, most of those screens are just ignored by gamers, as they press the start button insanely just to skip them, after all, playing is much more important and exciting, but some of those screens are different.

In a few special games you just can't even touch the start button before watching that scene completely, among those few games I can remember of some that are really remarkable, for example who doesn't feel completely moved when Link appears riding Epona in Hyrule Field while a beautiful song is played and the usual The Legend of Zelda logo appears kind of blurred on the screen. I don't know about you, but it just thinking about it makes me want to play it again.

And when it comes to N64 games no screen can even compare to Super Mario 64! How awesome it is to be able to mess with Mario's nose, ears and eyebrows! Is Nintendo's way of saying "Welcome to the 3-D world!"

I also recall that since I was a kid I just love to watch the whole intro on Donkey Kong Country 2, the song that is played while the Rare logo is appearing is very exciting. Another great Zelda game that has an outstanding intro is Twilight Princess, the footage brings you a feeling of nostalgia because it is almost the same as it was in Ocarina of Time, the same field, the same horse and the same hero, but it is when Link Wolf howls you notice it is a different game.

And as we are talking about Zelda what do you think of Wind Waker's title screen? It shows that huge ocean, full of mysteries to be unveiled and lands to be explored, and the song is also amazing!

Other games that I can remember now and have great title screens are Earthbound, Metroid Prime 2, the dark background with that strange being(Is it an Ing?)perfectly matches the sinister mood in the game, Metroid Prime is also great.

Can you remember more unforgettable Title Screens?

After one year with the same Banner I decided to make some changes to my profile, first I changed my blog's header, replacing my Pokémon Trainer card by all my Friend Codes, and yesterday, after playing Metroid Prime 2 for a while I was bored and I decided to make a new Banner.

As a result of the huge hype for Metroid that has been taking place this month my Banner couldn't be about anything else, Metroid it is! I got picks of Kraid, Samus, Ridley, and the Super Metroid. I also tried to do something with either Mother Brain or Dark Samus but somewhat it made the Banner a little bit strange.

Instead I put a picture of Zebes and everything seemed right. I wanted to find a picture of that silver Metroid Logo, similar to the text on the title screen of Echoes but I didn't find it, but I am happy with the one I got.

My Icon has also changed, Wario is gone, and the Super Metroid takes his place, maybe after the Metroid Prime 3 hype is over.

Don't read the first three paragraphs if you don't want to know about the videos content.

Yesterday I finally watched the Metroid Prime 3: Corruption videos that Nintendo posted, they are awesome! The PED(Phazon Enhancement Device) looks really cool. On the second video we could se how awesome the battles are going to be, the Bridge Battle video was already exciting, it actually reminded me of the part in Phendrana Drifts where you fight some flying pirates at the top of two towers, I forgot the name of the place.

During the second video there so damn many things happening on the scree at the same time, Samus blasting Pirates, Pirates shooting Samus, ships dropping more Pirates, it is very impressive, and when Samus uses the Phazon tank, well, I think that's a Phazon tank, the same that was shown in the PED video, she completely destroys all of them!

By the way, do you know how she was infected by Phazon? I don't remember it happening during the first two games of the series. And what the hell is Valhalla? Do you have any idea?

I've been also watching some cool videos on Youtube, there is one that shows the first hour of the game, I have only watched the first five minutes and it looks extremely awesome! The second video I watched shows the Title Screen and I love it, the song is very dark and sets a good mode before the game even starts.

Title Screen Video

First One Hour

Today I have played Mario Strikers Charged and I managed to get quite a good record, I won 20 and lost 3, I finished the season with a 51-13 record when I stopped playing I was ranked on the top 1000, I'm happy about that because this week I could only play it online on the past two days, so I got a pretty good rank for someone who doesn't play so often.

As I'm already done with the single-player mode in Strikers, Challenge mode aside, I decided to playthrough Metroid Prime 2 again, I have only finished it once because I don't feel too compelled to play it although I really like this game, but today I woke up and I felt like playing it so I'll try to beat it before I get Prime 3 which must happen in the beginning of September.

When I woke up today I didn't have anything to do so I decided to give it another try at the Strikers Cup, yesterday I said I was going to play it, well, I did but I was eliminated in the first Knockout Round, and as it was already too late and I was really sleepy I went to bed.

But this morning it was very different, I played 9 games in order to qualify to the Knockout Rounds, I lost my first one but I managed to win the following eight matches, so I got 1st place. In the Knockout Rounds I defeated Daisy, Diddy and Yoshi by surprisingly large margins and finally my best-of-three series against Petey started.

During the first game I was up 2-0 with one minute to go but I think I kind of relaxed and Petey tied the score, we then went to sudden death and I lost because my Goalie wasn't able to block a silly shot! I was really mad because I had blown a huge and comfortable lead, but I guess that in a game like this one you can't do that or you will get punished.

The second match started with Petey pulling off a Mega-Strike, I blocked three of the four balls that were fired towards my Goalie, but after one minute my team scored three more goals, one of them by Dry Bones teleporting into the goal and I got the win and I was heading to the win or go home game.

For my total despair Petey scored two goals just at the beginning of the game, I was already thinking "Ok, here I go again, getting this far just to lose to this stupid plant!". After those two goals I made a Mega-Strike butthe Goalie defended all shots,but somehow I pulled myself together and scored a goal, but I was still traling by one so with 5 seconds on the clock I once again teleport into the goal therefore tying the game. Then sudden death started and after about a minute my Toad fired his special shot, a fiery ball, that usually just burns the Goalie, and it miraculously went in!! I won!!!

I'm so happy, now in this last week of vacation I can try to get a good rank Wi-Fi because this week I've just been trying to finish the game, there are still some challenges to beat but I'll try them later, now I want to enjoy victory for a while! Just a question, what is Petey and Birdo's gender?