I certainly don't...

Anywho, putting away the practical blog title, this is a REAL blog update, and I got a lot to talk about...

The Living Section

Well, my GameCrazy finally closed down, causing three employees to be jobless. I ended up moving next door to work with the Hollywood Videos, so I'll still be getting my free rentals over there. It was a bit of a pain to find out we're closing this day, for them to suddenly throw that date out the window, to tell us we'll be open for a couple more weeks, just to close us down quite abruptly two weeks in. Quite confusing, but it doesn't entirely matter anymore, seeing how we had already sold Super Smash Bros. Melee weeks ago, which took away one of the activities we could do when we were bored at work. The last week was really a decline in workmanship, regardless we did do everything we were supposed to, and did a pretty good job of it. I mean... The manager sits over by the 360 playing Halo Wars all day while my coworker(I refer to only one person as this, and he's an anime freak) just waits around until he can switch over to the PS2 and play Grimgrimoire for a countless amount of time. The latter week he ended up renting Tekken 6, and that was quite a bit of fun.

Aside from the store closing, I'm broke again, but this time it wasn't my fault! Too many really good deals floated my way! I swear! Let's see what I picked up...

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time- $25 Used

Metroid Prime Trilogy(buying back the copy I traded in for DJ Hero)- $20 Used

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon- $10 New

Personal Trainer Cooking- $10 New

Headphone Splitters- $1.50 New

F-Zero GP Legends- $2.50 New

Punch-Out!!- $25 New

Up(Blu Ray)- $20 New

Gameboy Player- $4 Used

Some iPod apps- $10 total

You can see why I went on a shopping spree this time around... And these were just accidental bump-ins to be precise. I didn't know Fire Emblem was gonna be $10 at Wal-Mart, I was simply lucky to find my company throwing a massive sale on popular titles, and I was lucky to find out my store was running the 80% off this past Tuesday, the day it closed. Right now, I'm having fun with a few of those games, and Up. Anywho, moving on...

Video Game Spot

DJ Hero is awesome... Unlike the store demo over at Best Buy whose Renegade turntable records more scratches than you actually want to make, my board actually works wonderfully, barring aside the fact that my analog stick was broken from the day I pulled the hardcase out of the box, to open it and find a flimsy, out of center analog stick there. The analog stick isn't too much of an issue since it's only used to navigate the Wii menu. The analog stick can be put back to center, but it tends to easily fall back out with even the tiniest flick... I'm getting that looked into, so no worries, regardless it is only a minor annoyance rather than an unplayable issue.

The gameplay is typical of most instrument based rhythm game: you play according to the note highway, which sends notes out at you. The game seems complicated, just looking at it since most people aren't used to seeing the game. I can completely understand people that cannot play Guitar Hero, simply because I've watched at work several people try and coordinate both the buttons and the strum bar, pressing the buttons in accordance to timing, but forgetting that you need to strum each note. One of the main things to note about DJ Hero is that you cannot fail. This is actually more of a good thing than a bad thing when you think about it. To the newcomers, this is a bit of a welcome treat. Nobody's ever played DJ Hero before. So hopping into the game and getting the basics downpat can be a rather bit difficult, especially working both the crossfader and scratches at the same time. The crossfader alone is very difficult to master, since there is no before or after delay. It's activated with an immediate flick of the crossfader bar to the other side of the board. Thankfully it has to be to a certain poitn in order to activate, so pulling off the crossfade doesn't mean you have to go dead center, since you can easily over shoot that spot and accidentally crossfade to the other side.(happened to me plenty enough times during the demo at GameStop...)

The No fail aspect is also a turn-off to difficulty seekers. This I can respect, simply because Freestyle games could have done what Rock Band did and have made no fail an option rather than the set standard. But the suprising thing they pulled off actually was making beginner mode so utterly confusing to understand, not even the expert players would even interpret what those charts mean... o.0 Anyways, the good aspect that Freestyle had run by with the game is that everything runs on stars. In order to unlock this or that venue, you must earn a set amount of stars to progress. To put it blatantly, if you suck, you'll only earn 1 star. If you do very good on your performance, then you'll earn 5 stars, which requires quite a bit of talent to pull off. Hardcore fans of Guitar Hero shouldn't have too much issues making the migration over. They've got the coordination and the button mashing skills. The crossfader, again, will really be the main issues, but after getting used to the board, Expert players of Guitar Hero shouldn't find too much difficulty playing on Expert in DJ Hero.

Oh, shoot... I took too long on describing DJ Hero... Hmm...

FFCC: Echoes of Time is actually awesome. F-Zero GP Legends is harsh, but fun. Metroid Prime Trilogy nearly broke my Wii... Fire Emblem I just can't entirely seem to get into... Personal Trainer Cooking seems more fun to make fun with than Fire Emblem, simply because you can tout random words in the mic and see if it actually continues.(my friend shouted "SHINIGAMI CHOP!" making a chopping motion at my DS after it failed to recognise my voice, and it actually continued! XD) Up is a brilliant movie as always, and Punch-Out!! brings back memories... ^_^ I haven't even been able to use the Gameboy Player yet, since I'm too lazy to hook up my GameCube... Looking forward to finally play Borderlands, as well as hopefully getting New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Phantasy Star 0 as well.

Art Corner!

OH! There WAS one more thing I forgot to make mention of for things I bought!

NEW NOTEBOOK! X3

My last notebook had apparently filled up much faster than I had anticipated, so I had to wait a while before I had enough money to purchase another. DJ Hero was the reason I couldn't buy myself a new notebook the last paycheck, but I made sure to get one this time around. Now to spam a couple of pieces. :3

Well, I suppose this marks the end for a long overdue blog. I'll see you all next week I suppose for my next blog post!

*EDIT!*- I have one more thing for this blog...

HOLY !#$@ HELL YEAH!!!! XD

~SomeOddGuy