Hello everyone! It's nice to see you all again!

I hope you have all been doing well. Things for me are going great. Summer is a lot of fun so far! I've been going to a lot of graduation parties recently since school just ended and I have a lot of friends who are at the stage where they either go from elementary school to high school, or from high school to university/college/whatever post-secondary school activity they're going to be getting in. It's all starting to make me feel a bit old actually That's alright though. Summer vacation is certainly a lot busier than I thought it would be. I got some gaming done, went to watch a movie (I'll give you three guesses as to which one it is...), and read some books.

In terms of gaming, I tried playing games from my backlog like God of War in hopes of finishing that game. Unfortunately, it ended in failure. I started a new game since I figured that I'd have forgotten what happened in the story anyway and I would suck in combat since I haven't played so long. Now I'm saved somewhere in Athens and I feel even more unmotivated to play than before. I really don't know why I can't get back into it, maybe it's just not a series that's for me? There's so much hype going around for God of War III though so I just can't help but feel like I have an obligation to finish the first game but...I guess I can always do that later.

On a happier note, I finally got myself Rhythm Heaven! (Yes, I took graf's recommendation to heart! It isn't Rhythm Tengoku Gold but...it's really similar at least!)

I really like this game so far! The reviews weren't lying when they said the difficulty can limit the game's audience though. I finished the first 3 sets of games in Rhythm Heaven and the 4th set is giving me hell Nonetheless, I'm having a lot of fun! The game also has a really quirky and unique $tyle in terms of the music and the art which I found appealing. Don't confuse this with a children's game though, it can get rather difficult to the point where I could only handle the game a few bursts at a time (I can't imagine playing this game for 2 hours straight). I highly recommend it! However, I don't recommend it if you get easily frustrated or if you are not rhythmically inclined. I might make a full review for it if I have the time.

I also watched Up. (if you haven't found out already)

We were planning on watching this movie when we got to the movie theatre, but we saw that Transformers and The Proposal was also playing and we wanted to watch those too. However, after considering it, we just decided to stick to our original plan and watch Up.

I am REALLY glad that we did. This movie was amazing! It's not realistic (alright, it's about a house that is being held up by balloons, if you watch this expecting realism then there's something terribly wrong with your logical skills) but it's animation so who cares. It deals with a lot of realistic issues though. The beginning of the movie was really quite moving and it only got better (and thankfully, more light-hearted and wackier). Up was just full of so much stuff. There were emotional moments, some really thrilling moments (seriously, the number of near-death experiences the protagonists experience is ridiculous, don't watch this movie if you're horribly afraid of heights), and also a lot of hilarious moments. I highly recommend watching this movie! We also watched it in 3D but...to tell you the truth, I really didn't think it was worth it. It already has a solid visual $tyle as it is and a lot of substance to back it up so don't bother using up more money to see it in 3D.

I've also been catching up on a lot of reading lately. I'm usually too tired or too busy to read when there's school so I do it as much as possible during my summer vacation. Here are the books I've been reading recently:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (or Alice in Wonderland, whatever you want to call it)

I bought this book after learning that Tim Burton was going to make a film based on it in 2010. I realized that I never really had any knowledge about this book's universe other than watching the Disney film so I decided to go ahead and get the book myself. After reading it, I do have to say that it was quite entertaining. It's a children's book so it's not very long but it was very odd and interesting. I enjoyed the book so I recommend it. It might be a bit too short for some though.

I haven't read The Perks of Being a Wallflower so I won't say anything about that for now. My friend just recommended it to me so I went ahead and bought it.

Slaughterhouse-Five

This is certainly an interesting book. I actually found it a bit difficult to follow but I'm holding up Basically, it's supposed to be about this man named Billy who was a prisoner of war and gets kidnapped by aliens who teaches him about the concept of time and everything. It certainly has a unique $tyle and a lot of the issues the book brings up make a lot of sense. I haven't exactly finished it though so I'll keep you guys updated later on.

Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress

Buying this book was more of "on the whim" thing. As I was looking around Chapters, I saw this book and I vaguely remembered my friend Brandy having talked about it on the previous website that she posted articles for. She gave it a recommendation so I picked it up. Unfortunately, I'm really not the target audience that the author was aiming for With the way she writes the book, I can tell that it's very effective, especially for the typical girl who's never gotten into D&D (Dungeons & Dragons for those not in the know) before and wants to, but I could not relate to the author at all. She constantly used terms I couldn't recognize (I still don't know what jelly bracelets are) and while her $tyle of writing was interesting, it would probably be much more effective if someone else were to read it except me.

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Well, that's all for now! See you all soon!

Hello everyone! It's nice to see you all again!

Pardon me once again for my long absence (these seem to be happening more often lately). I was busy studying for final exams of the school year and whenever I wasn't studying, I was feeling too lazy to write any blogs. Summer vacations is finally here though so there's plenty of time for me to start blogging.

In terms of gaming, nothing much has been happening. I still haven't finished Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon because...well, I just lost interest in it actually. I was at the last dungeon too! Hmm, I guess I'll just get back to it someday. It can stay in my backlog together with God of War until I find some motivation to play it again. It's a wonderful game though! I definitely recommend it.

This also marks the end of my first year of high school (which, I have to admit, was ridiculously easy). My brother says it doesn't get hard until our 3rd year so I guess I should enjoy it while I can So far, I really liked it, especially compared to elementary school. I actually found the classes interesting since each teacher focused on a particular subject area (unlike before where one teacher teached everything except for French) and meeting tons of new people was definitely cool.

and...that's it for now! Yes, I know it's not much of an update However, since I had not blogged in so long, I just wanted to let you all know that I still remember all of you guys. Also, I forgot to mention that...I didn't include any pictures in this update! This will simply not do.

There we go! (I haven't watched this movie yet but I plan to eventually)

Also...

Hello everyone! It's nice to see you all again.

How has everyone been doing? I've been doing well myself. For once, I've actually been a bit busy with gaming.I also watched a movie with some friends and have been busy with school. Since it's almost the end of the year, our teachers are finally throwing our final tasks at us and cramming what they couldn't finish into the last few weeks of school so if you guys don't see me so much, then you know what I'm doing I can't wait until summer vacation starts so that I can post more blogs and have more free time to play games!

Well, onto the updates...

Professor Layton & The Curious Village

I know that grafkhun recommended Rhythm Heaven to me in my last blog, but the game's price was ridiculously high for some reason when I went to take a look at amazon.ca so I decided to hold off on purchasing that for now (I definitely will though, it looks like a superb game) and got Professor Layton & The Curious Village instead! I have to say, this is certainly a bit of a unique game (well, for me at least). I haven't played a game that focuses on puzzles and brain teasers in a long time and it's refreshing seeing something like Professor Layton. I tried going through the game without a walkthrough but I must admit, it's pretty hard Since I'm not too accustomed to solving brain teasers like the ones in the game very often, I found it to be one of the most challening games I've played on the DS so far. I use a walkthrough occasionally to solve puzzles that I absolutely cannot find the answer to but I try to make my way through the game by myself. The story is pretty interesting too and that huge tower in the middle of the village keeps me playing since I just want to find out what's in there. I'll keep playing and see how long I can last

The House of the Dead: Overkill

Well...this game certainly was interesting. Out of the games I recently bought, this is the one that I finished the quickest. While it was really short, I have to say that it was a LOT of fun. I convinced my brother to play the game with me and playing through the game was just really enjoyable. It was ridiculously easy with two people but shooting zombie after zombie was just fun. This game really wasn't anything special (well, except for the dialogue which I'll get to later) but it was just plain fun. If I had fun with the game, then it was worth the rather low price I ended up paying for it.

Oh yeah, and the dialogue and pacing in this game is hilarious. The characters swear like there's no tomorrow and the game throws so many plot elements and plot twists at you all at once to the point where it ruins any sort of emotional value and becomes hilarious. It's a c.lassic case of being "so bad, it's good" like the voice acting in Resident Evil (which was horrible, but had value in the fact that it made everyone laugh). I'll try and get a full review up as soon as I try out the other modes.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon (with plushie!)

After the long period of waiting, my pre-order has finally arrived! When I got a huge delivery package box, I just knew this was going to be in it I was actually a bit hesitant to open the box because I thought to myself "If this is Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha 2...then shouldn't I play Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha 1 first?" but I just told myself "Screw it" and opened the box with a heart full of regret (because we all know that the shiny plastic and cardboard box is the best part of the package), put my new plushie on display, and played the game.

...and I certainly am glad that I did. Now, I never played the first PS2 Devil Summoner game so this was a totally new experience for me, and so far I'm really liking it! The combat is a lot of fun and while exploring at first was really boring, the story got interesting pretty quickly and everything became lots of fun! The boss fights can be pretty epic too (well, except for those insects..). The fiend battles in particular are really cool. Especially with the music that accompanies them.

Getting eased into the story was a bit difficult at the beginning but I got up to speed with things pretty fast. Lots of random characters would come out of nowhere and start talking to me like they've met me before Of course, I'm betting that they're from the previous game. Lots of my conversations pretty much go like this:

Talking Cat: Raidou, it's good to see you again...You do remember me, right?
Raidou: Nope

Narumi: Raidou! It's been a while! Don't tell me you've forgotten me now.
Raidou: I forgot.

Tae: Hey Raidou! Do you remember my name?
Raidou: No, I don't remember.

It's kind of sad seeing this happen because they all seem to have some pretty deep connections with him and I always have to see them be a bit disappointed when I say I don't know who they are. Well, that's what I get for playing sequels first!

As for my status in the game right now, I'm at the Nameless Shrine in Tsukigata Village trying to help Nagi accomplish her training while her master is away. I'll keep you guys updated as I keep playing.

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Well, that's all for now! See you all soon!

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention that I watched Angels & Demons with some of my friends. I thought it was a pretty good movie but probably not for everyone.