Hello everyone! It's nice to see you all once again. How have you all been doing?

Nothing much has been happening with me. It's kind of sad that I'm spending my summer vacation at home most of the time but I still do stuff occasionally. I'm going camping this coming weekend with some family friends and my family and I are watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Tuesday or Wednesday (I honestly don't know if I'm looking forward to it or not with how weird the editing of Order of the Phoenix was but I guess I'll still stay cautiously excited about it). As for now, I just got a few games and watched a few movies so it's time for another one of my usual irregularly posted update blogs

Games

Astro Boy: Omega Factor

The story behind me getting Astro Boy: Omega Factor begins many weeks ago. While I was looking over my Gameboy Advance section, I said to myself "Wow, the DS has been out for FOUR years and the GBA system is pretty much almost dead. I can't believe that I only bought this many games for it" so I decided to work on my collection before all of the games for the handheld went into obscurity and would never be seen again. So I went lurking around Gamespot looking for some interesting games and found Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Seeing how it was going for a decent price on amazon.ca, I had it ordered.

I must say, it's a very solid action game. Now, I was not very familiar with the manga or anime that this game is centered around on but I was still able to enjoy it. It plays like some sort of arcade shooter/beat em' up hybrid where you fight bad guys to progress through the stage while collecting points and getting high scores at the same time. Not something I'm very accustomed to but a system I eventually warmed up to throughout the game.

I was also surprised that the story was able to capture my attention. The game moves at a blisteringly fast pace so there's never much focus given to it but the concepts are all pretty interesting with the whole robot and human racial tensions and such. It actually made me watch a few episodes of the 1980 anime online and it almost creeped me out a little. Also, am I the only one who was reminded of Pinocchio with the storyline of the whole thing? Except this one was kind of more exciting since people almost get killed and it involves a little robot boy who can shoot lasers out of his fingertips and fly. Anyway, I recommend this game. It's old but fun and I'm very satisfied with my purchase.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

This game was a bit of an impulse buy for me. I decided to expand my Adventure game collection so I decided to look around my brother's Steam account (who says downloadable games can't be part of my collection? ). Of course, the first thing I pretty much saw was The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. I had heard a lot of the hype over this new special edition and I've read some impressions on the old game and why it's such a cla$$ic AND it was only $10 so I thought "Wow, this sounds like a great deal" and bought it.

I do not regret doing that one bit. I don't know how I'm so impressed over a Special Edition of a game made in 1990 but I guess that just showed that this game really knows how to stand the test of time. Well...I guess the humour and the writing anyway. I switched to cla$$ic mode a few times and the difference in quality between the new graphics and the cla$$ic one was too big that I just stayed with the modern version (the animation is very similar though). I might do a playthrough of cla$$ic mode one day though.

I can also see why this is considered one of the most accessible adventure games of all time. The hint system was a lifesaver for me a lot of times and the game doesn't carry any heavy philosophical themes. It's a lighthearted, fun, and very humorous story about pirates. Don't expect anything on the level of The Longest Journey here in terms of story. It's rarely ever as serious as some parts in that game. There's tons more humour and fun puzzle-solving in this one though and I highly recommend this. Now, just in case LucasArts ever stumbles upon this blog...

PLEASE make a Special Edition of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. By releasing The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, you have somehow made a new fan (almost 20 years later of the release of the original game no less...) who wants to play through all the Monkey Island games. If you do this then I will be eternally grateful.

Also, is anyone else getting pissed by the people who bash on this game? For some reason, this game seems to be attracting people used to RPGs and the like who are probably complaining about the lack of combat. I even read a guy's post comparing this game to Chrono Trigger of all things. Sheesh, they're two different genres people. If you like one, you might not like the other. No need to needlessly criticize one because of your tastes.

Movies

So, other than my Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince watching that will be done next week, I also watched one movie in the last few weeks which is...

Yep, I watched Drag Me To Hell (from watching Up to Drag Me To Hell, what a change )! One of my friends was ranting about this to me about how scary the trailer looked and everything so I looked the movie up and found out that Sam Raimi, the guy who made the Evil Dead movies is directing it! This made me more excited to watch it so my brother and my friend (not the one who said it was scary) decided to go ahead and give it a watch.

After seeing this movie, the best word that I could come up with to describe it is HILARIOUS. I don't know how my one friend thought the movie was going to be scary. I was laughing the whole time and was almost never scared. The general consensus between my brother and the friend who watched it with me was pretty much the same. This movie seriously works better as a comedy more than anything. If you can still find it airing in a theatre or if it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray, I highly recommend giving it a watch just for the lulz and if you're scared about watching this, don't be. There's like one or two "Boo!" moments here but the rest is comedy gold.

Profile Redesign

As I was looking over my Gamespot profile the other day, I just realized something. I'm really getting tired of my usual design. My avatar is fairly new and I like it so I'm cool with that but I really want to change everything else.

KOS-MOS is cool and all but it's been forever since I've played Xenosaga and I want to try another theme. I also kind of want a new blog header and signature.

So, if there are any people out there who are experienced with programs like Photoshop and the like and you wouldn't mind helping me out, you can send me a private message or leave a comment about it. If you could, I'd greatly appreciate it!

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and that's all for now! Until my next blog post!