After a friend of mine clued me in that he had written much of the the Wikipedia entry for Metroid Prime Hunters, it occured to me I still have yet to post my opinion on the game.
MPH is a lot less forgiving that the the Gamecube original. Lock-on is gone, ammo is required for all additional beams, and with the Hunters running around randomly from planet to planet, you could walk into a confrontation when you’re least prepared.
The title is kind of a misnomer too. I’m not 100% on the game yet but there has yet to be any reference to Metroid Prime, the final enemy and title character of the first gamecube game in the series.
Anyway, starting is a little easier than prior games because you’ve still got your boost ball, Varia, bombs, missles, etc. And you won’t lose them either. Progress is hindered rather by not having certain beams to open doors, and sometimes confusing number of teleporting pads.
Its unlikely any Metroid fan will be disappointed with this game, though the hardcore few who firmly beleive in the games time honored sequence breaking and massive exploration might be kinda let down its such a straight forward shooter. Its not quite as brilliant as Super Metroid or Metroid Prime, but from a technical standpoint I am amazed by how well the DS handles this game, as its very visually rich and often times VERY fast.
I’ll take time to sample the online aspect and multiplayer tomorrow, but I can reccomend this game purely based on its single-player, beleive me.

And to those who preferred Retro studio’s console games, theres always Metroid Prime 3

I guess the first one didn’t take.
If region coding wasn’t an issue, I’d have surely imported one of the ones stores are selling for under $200.

I want one. Like right now. But I don’t have the spare cash, and if I get a second job then I won’t have time to play it or anything else for that matter. Whats a gamer to do?
I’m going to try to gank one for free. After examining security and risk factors of my local Best Buy, I decided the safest way is to follow up on one of the billions of pop-up and banner ads telling me I can get one free or win one.
First things first, I made up a new gmail account just for email pertaining to these offers, surveys, and contests. I want this free, but I’m not going to flood my own inbox with new spam.
Next I just dropped “Free xbox 360” into google and clicked the first link. It asked me for simple information first like “Where should we ship your free gift?” and then asked me to check out some “great” offers. After clicking “No” to college degrees, cell phones, and diabetes treatments… i was taken to another page of offers. And a lot of them were repeats.
After turning down roughly 70 offers, I get to the meat of it. I have to complete 2 trials off a list before proceeding to the “shipping” phase. At this point, I finally go down to the disclaimer at the bottom. I must complete 2 trails now, with 4 more trials in the future in order to get to the 360. That doesn’t sound too bad, as long as I can cancel these when I’m done and still get my Xbox.
I’ll update later as I get closer and detail any time or actual dollars spent in pursuit of my reward.

By the way, within 20 minutes of starting I already had 3 spam messages in my new email.

NBC’s remake of the Merchant/Gervais BBC comedy “The Office” has managed to become surprisingly brilliant on its own, exceeding the originals depth of characters and uncomfortable humor.
Taking it a couple steps further NBC presents 16 fake “More You Know…” PSAs featuring the cast of the show.

Since I was so enraged by both the Matrix video game and the delay of New Super Mario Brothers, only one thing could make up for it.

A shot-for-shot remake of a scene from Matrix Reloaded with Mario and Luigi.

Its a good thing this show is free.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

I heard Maurice LaMarche on Al Franken this week doing voices for a skit about a Werewolf Senator that bites Dick Cheney in the face. When it was all over, Franken introduced LaMarche by his most notable role: The Brain.
So its with great please that I see Pink & The Brain hit dvd along with the series it spun off with, Animaniacs. Both of these shows offered rare inspired lunacy from Warner animation that picked up right where the Looney Toons shorts of yesterday left off. Tiny Toons was OK, but derivative. New Looney Toons cartoons are passable at best. Animaniacs created a massive cartoon world with a cast of dozens and never let a split second pass without a gag.
As far backed up as I am with my DVD collecting, I’ll still have to add these to the list.

I get frustrated sometimes deciding what to play.
Do I play Pac-Man or do I play Zelda? Puzzle or adventure? Reflex or Logic?
Now I can do both