Ending B

Wii Fit called me fat. I no longer feel pretty. He's just being a bully because he's having trouble at home. But it still hurts... STILL HURTS!!!

I'm not going to eat again until I'm pretty!

For the past few months, I've been playing Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People. It's been a long time since I've played a point and click adventure game, and SBCG4AP (wow that's a lot of letters for an abbreviation) was happy to oblige. Each chapter is released one month apart and takes about... two to three hours to complete. The game is a lot of fun, though I may recommend you wait until all episodes are out before you buy (you have to have some patience to wait in between).

Come on, Pom Pom. Let's go get Strong Bad's autograph. I hear there's a pretty big line building up.

PC Version - Telltale Games (also available on WiiWare)

Homestar Runner Website

Hello everyone, it's our favorite video game journalist that doesn't post pictures! Of course, the main reason for this is I'm at work, so I don't have access to my home pictures, though I believe the posted web address should be sufficient.

I spoke of this game in person with a few choice members of this website, but I found that I did not go into enough detail about this game where it should be talked about.

Yes, I was the first one here to give my analysis of Cave Story, and like that, another independant game has caught my eye. This game is entitled "World of Goo".

Before I begin, I'll point you to the website: World of Goo main website

I love physics based games. Whether they are first person shooters or otherwise, anything that requires some use of the basic physics equations that I already know are interesting games. In this particular game, you control these happy little goo balls as you try to stick them together so they can reach their destination: a pipe.

Their destination sucks, by the way. After you play the game, feel free to groan at that statement. From playing the few introductory levels, I got a huge "Lemmings" vibe from playing this game. If you don't know what "Lemmings" is, either get out from the rock you've been under for the past 20 or so years, or if you aren't even that old, try to research a little bit into classic PC gaming.

Anyhow, I've said my piece about what the game is. What makes it good is the fact that it seamlessly integrates quirky humor into the physics puzzles, and believe me, the more interesting puzzles of the demo will definitely make you think. Purely making a bridge out of the little Goo balls makes for an interesting use of brainpower, and of course, the "OCD" challenges further increase the level replayability.

And then there's the metagame. The game even refers to it as some kind of metagame. As you finish levels, the game uses a simple formula to give you extra balls for the online portion. That is: metaBalls += (ballsSucked - goalBalls), where metaBalls = the amount of balls you recieve for the online portion, ballsSucked = the amount of balls you bring to the goal, and goalBalls = the amount of balls needed to finish a level. After these balls are acquired, you use them to build as high of a tower as you can muster, and on other people's computers, this will be denoted by a cloud that shows your username, and the height of your tower. With this information, I hope I can deter people from picking a username that might cause them embarrasement (I already saw a "buttsecks").

tl;dr, in short, etc, play "World of Goo" if you like physics based games, and feel free to support the indie programmers if you like the demo enough to get the full version.

Shining Force II, one of my favorite RPGs of all time, just came out on the Wii Virtual Console TODAY! My life is now complete... except in the areas that aren't.

Looks like my friend "Cecil" (aka INSERT NAME HERE) is about to kick/slash some mage butt!

Well, this is late, but I just found out that a new Suikoden game is coming out! And on a system that I own! I love this series, and I was quite concerned that the new games would come out on the PS3 and I wouldn't be able to get it. It's coming to the US... at some point in time...

Ooooo... pretty logo... This could be a good one!

According to Wikipedia, Tierkries is German for "Zodiac", so it looks like another set of myths will be put into the series (besides the 108 stars of destiny). I was pretty stoked about this, but then...

... I saw this screenshot on IGN

Now, some may be wondering, "Why is this a cause for alarm?" Well, one of the fun aspects of the Suikoden series is that parties usually consist of six fighters (and sometimes some followers). The only game in the series that didn't have six fighters was Suikoden IV, which was less than stellar. Oh god, I hope that this game doesn't turn out like IV. Nothing good came out of that!

Oh, wait, that's Jeane's costume from Suikoden IV...

Huh, suddenly I feel a whole lot better!

IRO Ragnarok Online

I'd rather not quote it verbatim, as there's certain hard-earned work that I'd rather not steal. For those who don't trust my links, International Ragnarok Online has opened up a free-to-play server. While it sounds interesting, one of the things that put me off about it is the fact that it has lower experience and item rates than the normal servers.

I'll let that sink in for a few moments before I continue.

I don't hate grinding, while I don't need to make that clear, some of my games have evident grinding for certain things. In Final Fantasy VIII, I once brought Seifer to level 61 so I could draw awesome spells early on. In Final Fantasy IV DS, I outfitted my entire party in Adamant Armor, got most of the summons, and a few of the worthwhile Onion Equips. If I got any farther in Earthbound, I'd probably get Poo the Sword of Kings.

However, I am against the idea of lower rates on these free-to-play servers, because while I listed a few heinous examples of grinding, I believe they would not require near the commitment that a lesser IRO would. I don't even have proper internet to play the game and the thought of playing something with that much grind scares me (for the record, when I DO get a proper internet connection, I'll probably spend the majority of it on TF2, possibly Guild Wars (or the second if that happens to release in a timely fashion), or maybe Diablo III (of course, the 2nd wasted enough of my time).

I'm just a simple guy who wants a little skill based gameplay over time in his games, I want things that break the established mold and add something greater into the iconic pile that is the current video game market. Above all, I would rather that games are not overhyped, otherwise we get things that we hope are bits of every game that we grew up enjoying, and in turn, deal with LOL, I KNOW UR FIGHTAN THE GROX, BUT WE HAVE AN ECOLOGICAL DISASTER.

Seriously, that gets old. Does anyone else want the soap box now?

According to Anime News Network, the sequel to Clannad will start airing in Japan on October 2nd 2008. Clannad: After Story takes place right after the events of the first, and should hopefully answer all my questions from my first thoughts (that situations were left unresolved)

Peeka-boo!

"September 28th, daylight... The monsters have overtaken the city... somehow... I'm still alive..."

- Jill Valentine

For those of you who are wondering why this was posted, or what relevance this has, September 28th 2008 is exactly 10 years after the incident at Raccoon City set in the Resident Evil series (specifically RE3). Plus, it's the only date that I can remember because Jill actually says the date in game. Happy... Zombie... Day? Hmmmmmm... maybe I should come up with something else.

Yeah, sure, you're a police officer... riiiiiiight.

I've recently downloaded Mega Man 9 for the Wii (getting it on any other console just seems blasphemous to me). Anywho, it is a lot of fun... it's just really REALLY hard. Sometimes to the point of me wanting to throw the controller into the TV to make the madness stop. Now, my question is this: Is it hard because it was designed to be so, or because I'm out of practice? Needless to say, I'm not done with it yet, but I hope to complete it soon. Then I will give a full report.

I swear, this f***ing flower clock mini-boss thing was made just to annoy ME

Hey everyone, I know you like hearing music once in a while, so here's something I've been messing with. This is by no means a final piece, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless.

Something for Piano