Here's That Later I Promised

I recently got a new amazon rewards credit card. The idea was that I'd switch from my old rewards credit card to the amazon one because it is more fitting with my shopping habits, and I would keep the first credit card but not use it anymore. I still had some points accumulated on the old card and Yesterday I tried to get my bank to transfer them from the old card to the new one. After being informed this was not possible, I looked for a way to use these points in as convenient a manner as possible. My old rewards card's points can also be used directly on amazon.com, so I went looking there first.

I found a game called Metroid Other M was fairly cheap, but so cheap that I'd get shipping charges. So I kept looking and I found that Batman Arkham City was also fairly cheap, and both of those games combined would get me the prized free super saver shipping.

Here are the results of my digging:

As it stands, I've used my rewards points on the old credit card. I can now retire it. 

Additionally, I've paid $9.20 for two new games.

Total number of games I have finished since starting the mission: 18

Total number of games I have bought since starting: 4
Total dollar amount spent on those games: under $25
Time since mission beginning: A year and a half.

So, all in all, for a year and a half, four games and twenty-five dollars? That's not too bad.

Batman Arkham City will go to "B" after this list is finished. I haven't decided if Metroid Other M can go to "M" this time around, or if it must wait till the present list is finished. Thoughts?

Slight Course Correction

After careful consideration, I've decided to post Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 on eBay. If they don't sell there, I'll trade them in at the local used book store, sell them on craigslist, or donate them at goodwill. The truth is that I really do want to play these games, but I'd rather get them as Metroid Prime Trilogy.

Hey, you

Yeah, hey you

You're outta my league

There are a few reasons for this. First off, I read reviews and I'd rather play them on Wii with the Wii remote, than with the Gamecube controller. It's just a better control system, with better visuals, and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. No small potatoes. Second, I've been having problems with my wavebird wireless controller and it's very annoying to have the controller desynch when you're in the middle of gameplay. Finally, purchasing Metroid Prime Trilogy doesn't technically go against my self-imposed rules. Rule Number 4 states that if I want to buy a new game, I have to beat an old one. Well, I've beaten 18 games since I started this ordeal, and I haven't bought 18 games in that time. More on that later.


Furthermore, I have amazon gift card credit and paypal credit, so buying Trilogy from either amazon or eBay will cost me virtually nothing.

About the only thing I would lose by selling Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 for gamecube is that the first Metroid Prime had an extra feature where by hooking up a gameboy advance and jumping through a number of hoops you could unlock a free copy of the original Metroid. I don't really have much use for the original Metroid. I've played and beaten that game numerous times. If I ever wanted to play it again, I could just download it for the Wii... and even then, why would I download a game I know every inch of, and is good-to-very-good-but-not-amazing, when I could download the immensely superior (pardon the word choice) Super Metroid?

I'm fine with getting Trilogy. It's still a rare and pricey game and I have every intention of being as frugal as possible. I might not get Trilogy today, I might not get it tomorrow. I'm in no hurry, I just wanted to set the record straight.

Time for Another Executive Decision

Very well! I've been playing Mega Man Anniversary Collection. This is an anthology of all the classic NES Mega Man games I grew up with, plus a couple of them from SNES and Playstation. It has 8 Mega Man games plus two bonus arcade Mega Man games.

I've played Mega Man 1 through 7. I'm missing 8.

Eight is terrible.

I think the time has come to invoke the Final Rule. Mega Man 8 is bland, boring, slow, boring, uninspired, boring, uninteresting, and boring. I'm moving on.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a game where I've not gotten my money's worth. I played nine out of ten of the games. I played Mega Man 1 through 7. I unlocked the two bonus games. Every other aspect of this game is awesome. Mega Man 8 is just plain bad.

And I want you to know that I'm a big Mega Man nerd. I may not be the biggest MM nerd, I may not have gotten into Legends, Zero, Battle Network, or many of the other Mega Man franchises, but I still dig the classics.

I originally came into contact with the Nintendo Entertainment System in 6th grade when my grade school classmates were all getting it for Christmas. The summer before going on to 7th grade, my friend Luis Fernando brought his NES to my house and he had this shiny new game with him: Mega Man 2. It blew my mind. That was the first Mega Man game I ever played and is still my favorite. Anniversary Collection has allowed me to replay fond memories, from 1 to 6; memories of times gone by.

There were times I got in trouble with my parents because I was hooked on Mega Man. (I once got out of class early and went to play Mega Man 2 at this video rental store where they'd let you pay to play NES games, and I missed my dad picking me up. I made him wait for me for like 40 minutes until he got sick of it and left me there and I had to take a bus home. This was junky level addiction.) Memories like this abound in my head and Mega Man brings them all back.

Mega Man 8 does nothing for me. I feel no obligation to finish it. In fact, the longer I play it, the worse it gets, and it takes away from the specialness of the other games.

I'm calling this a game now. I'm going to Mega Man X Collection.

Very Well, Moving On Now

I'm missing the mirror mode on Mario Kart Double Dash. I've seen the credits a bunch of times now.

I'm on a time table here and I'm moving on.
Up next is the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. I've beaten most of these 8 games, but I'm going back to finish Mega Man 8 (which is a really lame game.) As a reward to myself, if I finish Megaman 8, I'll replay some of the better Megaman games. Wee!

Mario Kart Double Dash

I'm currently about 70% done with this game.
I guess much has been said about how this game is not as good as other Mario Kart games, and all I'll say really is this: I've had worse.

This game is good but not great. They added a lot of annoying voice clips and some of the gameplay mechanics are annoyingly different from Mario Kart 64 (which is still very high on my list after all these years.)

Give you an example: Mario Kart 64 you used to get a triple mushroom turbo. Mario Kart Double Dash, you can still get a triple mushroom turbo, but now you see that your character is juggling these three mushrooms as the other character drives (oh, you have to pick two characters, hence "Double Dash") BUT if you got hit in Mario Kart 64, nothing happened. If you get hit in Double Dash, you lose two of those three mushrooms cause your character felt the need to juggle and showboat in front of everybody else. Of course you're going to get a shell to the face!

Same thing happens with three shells. Because your character has a glandular need to grandstand, he juggles the shells and if you just so happen to get hit at that time (which, let's face it, it's gonna happen a lot), you lose 66% of your projectiles. LAME! This is just arbitrary! There was no need to change from what Mario Kart 64 had established.

By the way, there's going to be a lot of that in this post. There's going to be a lot of comparing this to Mario Kart 64. I know, living in the past and all that, but I can't move on. MK64 is the crowning jewel (I confess I haven't played the portable mario kart games.)

Next, not every character has access to all power-ups. Each character comes with a special attack exclusive to that character. Mario and Luigi have these fireballs. Bowser and Bowser Jr have a giant, spiked koopa shell. The items are all fun, but I hate it that I can't have a chain chomp drag me along the track simply because I don't feel like playing with Baby Mario. Give all characters all power-ups!

Also, these are not go-karts. These karts are more like buggies and trains and barrels and strollers. Because of weight classes, you pick a character and then a vehicle from a selection available to your character's weight class. Wrong! I just want to pick a character (or even two) and start racing.

One good thing is that this game still has miniturbos from MK64. This is the last hardcore Mario kart to feature them before Mario Kart Wii dumbed them down into inconsequence. Double Dash has difficult, challenging mini turbos, and if you don't learn how to do them, you will fail. My friends still say I'm cheating when they see the blue sparks shooting out of my exhaust. That's cause they never learned to do miniturbos.

Right now, I'm done with the 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc categories for the Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special cups. I'm down to the All-Cup Tours for 50cc, 100cc and 150cc and those, at 16 races apiece, are probably going to be a bitch, especially considering how hard Special on 150cc was.

Ok, back to the races!

Little Big Planet

I've been playing Little Big Planet since Thursday and now I've finished the story mode levels.
I know the big deal with Little Big Planet is the community of users and user-created content, and to some extent the cooperative play side; however, I tried some of the levels people created and it's hard to find the good ones. I even went as far as to look up "Best of LBP" lists and sure enough, I found many, but the levels listed in the sites are hard to find within the game. LBP's search feature is not as awesome as the game.

Little Big Planet offers you some very impressive level editor tools so that really, your imagination is the limit. You can create your own levels and I've seen some pretty impressive levels (on youtube) but I couldn't find them to play them.

I'm done with it. I played the story mode. I earned some trophies. It's been good for my PSN gamer score (is that even what it's called on PS3 or is that an X-Box term?). I'll be moving on now.

Chalk up one more for the good guys.
I said I wasn't going to play Mario Kart Double Dash, but after finding out in February that the save file on my memory card had been all but decimated, I'm going to back to it. I like it a little less than Mario Kart 64, but it's still a decent game (and better than Mario Kart Wii, if you ask me.)

See ya around!

Wow, This Seems to Be Working

I just talked myself out of spending $70-$100 for a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii, even though it would have cost me virtually nothing.

It all started with some chats with a former student about games we'd been playing, which led to Metroid, which led to me wanting to close some of the Metroid gaps of games I haven't played yet.

I do have Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 for gamecube, and Prime 2 is on the list of games to be played, but I thought "Wouldn't it be cool to play it on the Wii instead of on gamecube?"

I have Paypal credit from stuff I've sold and I have amazon giftcard balance, so either way I could have bought it on eBay or amazon and it wouldn't have hurt my pocket. However, I started thinking about it and rationalized, "Hey, don't you have a drawer full of games you have yet to play? It would be nice, but do you need to buy Metroid Prime Trilogy? Couldn't you just play something else and be done with it?"

And the honest answer is no. I don't need to restart Metroid Prime, or play Prime 2 on Wii, or even add Metroid Prime 3 (which I don't yet own) to my list of games. It would, indeed, be nice, but it's not a need. I could just as easily continue with my ordeal, much the same way I have for over a year, skip Prime, play Prime 2 on gamecube, and then when all is done, go back on eBay and find Metroid Prime Trilogy for Wii. I could even sell Prime and Prime 2 to partially pay for buying Trilogy (which is a rare game and pricey.)

So it's done. I've talked myself off the ledge. I saved myself some cash.

I feel like I'm growing.

PS: Keep in mind that even though in my own rules, I've beaten enough games to justify this purchase, I'm still leaving it for later. Go figure. I guess I always knew I'd be bending rules.

Can I Get Away With Just One More Majora's Mask Post?

The game is geared toward collecting masks. Some masks are given to you, some masks you get by healing the heart of somebody in pain, in which case their pain which is like a curse is lifted from them and the pain becomes trapped in a mask. So you're helping people and trying to make them happy. Nice!
Some masks will actually transform you into a different creature.
Ok, so like your first mask. Somebody turns you into a tree-shrub creature.

You manage to lift the spell, keep the mask, and use it to turn into a shrub creature at will. In the course of the game you meet the shrub race and the shrub king and shrub royal family. Neat.

The next transformation mask is slightly different. You meet the ghost of a goron warrior. He died before he could do something for his people so he's suffering. You heal his suffering, it becomes a mask, you put it on and become this:

But the weird thing is that when you put on your mask, people you talk to call you by the dear warrior's name. Not only that but some are surprised to see you, "Darmani? You're alive?!" Except he's not. You're just wearing his mask. People buried this guy! I thought it was a little creepy to be running around giving people false hope that this guy had come back to life.

The next transformation mask you obtain by talking to a wounded guitarist. He's like a fish person. He's troubled because he couldn't help his band and save his people too. So you heal his pain, it becomes a mask and he dies in your arms. When you put on the fish person mask, you turn into this:

And this is where it starts to get even creepier. Nobody knows the guitarist died. No one saw it happen but you. And when you put on the mask, everyone calls you by his name. You even play with his bandmates in a rehearsal. They just go on with life thinking you're him. What happens at the end of the game when you just leave this land and don't come back? Link never reveals to anyone that he's not Mikau.

I thought that was it, but I found something else in the credits. Back at the beginning of the game when you were the tree-shrub creature, you met the shrub-king's butler. After talking to him he tells you that you remind him of his son. It's a very downplayed line. It just gets completely glossed over, but this was the first indication. As the credits roll you see a scene in a forest and this is what you see:

The figure on the left is a shriveled tree with a sad face. The figure in the middle with the green danish-like things on his head is the king's butler. And he's crying. He's visiting his son's grave. His son died and you were wearing his son.

Fun game, Nintendo. I loved walking around wearing dead people's faces.

Free!

Oh geez, finally! Tonight I finished The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask, and in case I didn't say it, I thought that game was weird. I got all the masks and all the bottles, though not all the hearts.

I finished, then I turned off the Wii. When I went to heat up some water to soften my doggies' food for the next morning, I looked at the clock and it was exactly 12:00am.

I thought it was kinda poetic to finish a time travel game at the exact beginning of a day.

Neat!

Gah! Again!

This is now the third time Majora's Mask shitty Gamecube conversion bites me in the ass! I finished the last two temples and it froze on me again in the middle of trying to reunite Anju and Kafei. It hadn't frozen up on me since the Goron temple, so that's good, but now I have to start the Anju-Kafei quest all over again. At least it's saved and ready to go now.

Have I Said This Game Is Weird?

This game is weird. Majora's Mask has got to be the weirdest Zelda game ever. I fully believe no more than half the people who bought this game ever finished it.

HOWEVER! I have found something interesting about it, something very interesting. Something I have never heard anyone else mention about this game. There is a connection between this Zelda and another, one of my favorite Zelda games ever!

Majora's Mask is an odd game because of how familiar everything seems. It's all done in the same graphics engine as Ocarina of Time, so things are going to look alike, but it's not just that. So many character designs were not changed at all. I mean, many characters are new, of course, but SO MANY characters are just lifted from Ocarina and are not changed in any way. They may have different names. Although in one of the weirdest quasi-changes, the twin witches who were the boss of the Light Temple are in this game, their names are the same, they just happen to be good and run a business. Go figure. Enemies. Weapons. People. Music. Items. So much is so familiar.

The point is that this very familiarity affects you cognitively and emotionally because it's at the same time so goddamned different! It's different in layout, it's different tonally. This game is both a lot darker and a lot weirder.

It is essentially an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass story. (Except it isn't. This game is not supposed to take place in an imaginary world, or even a parallel dimension.)

It gets better! There is a link between Majora's Mask and Link's Awakening. There is a band of Zoras that play a song called The Ballad of the Wind Fish. This is the same name as a song from Link's Awakening (the song in Majora's Mask, as far as I could tell from listening to the band's rehearsal, sounds nothing like Link's Awakening Ballad.) But it was very interesting to me that they would include the name of this song. Why? Because Link's Awakening is the other Zelda game that is an Alice in Wonderland Story.

Link gets trapped in an island, he can't get out, and he starts to realize he's inside the dream of the Wind Fish and to get out he must wake the Wind Fish up. (By the way, this is the point in Zelda history where Link starts to learn different songs.) That is the connection! Both games are about trips and self discovery and about distortion of the familiar. Let's acknowledge that by dropping the name of the song. I did find this out, both games play The Ballad of the Wind Fish in the credits. Coincidence? I think not!

Well, I'm almost done with Majora's Mask. I will keep you posted.