Annual Summary (2010)

Whoa! What a year, in total I've bought 2 games consoles: a PS3 and a DSi XL, dozens of games, accessories, used the DSi Ware shop for the first time, made my very own online game FAQ and made my very own blog - Nintendoheap!

I'm so happy about all of the gaming achievements I've made this year. I finally reached level 65 on Call Of Duty: Waw for the Wii thus being rewarded with a flamethrower and an M1 Carbine rifle (many hours of hysterical laughing whilst burning Nazi soldiers ensued). I made a online strategy guide and FAQ for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS system and posted it on GameFAQs. I also finally beat Rayman DS after years of hatred towards it. I've finished many games this year, but there's still loads more to complete. I was also introduced to Minecraft by a couple of friends - and i haven't stopped playing it ever since! The first game i bought this year was Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings for the DS system. I have yet to finish it. The last game i bought was only this afternoon... I'd been eagerly awaiting it... Red Dead Redemption! And... of course a PS3 came with it too!

Now onto the main subject... my personal game of the year!

This one is a toughy. I've enjoyed many great games but these are the ones that stood out to me the most...

• Monster Hunter Tri - Wii
• Dragon Quest IX - DS
• GoldenEye - Wii
• Minecraft - PC

Monster Hunter Tri has kept me going for way over 40 hours - i thoroughly enjoyed the single player campaign and online multiplayer. Buying new weapons and armour was great and beating the crap out of massive monsters (especially the Jhen Moran) was really fun. The music was great and Cha-Cha added a certain humour to the game. It has its ups and downs - especially when i kept getting Disconnected online and when my friends weren't on. I still love this game and continue to "Lol" when a high level Great Jaggi kicks my ass!

Dragon Quest IX is this years best RPG for me. I've loved every second of it. The 3D battling was great, the storyline was compelling, although i was unable to connect online with friends - beating bosses was just as fun and grinding through grottoes was too. Some parts were a little loathsome such as scaling the big tower at the end and any big caverns where you don't know where you're going. After i finished the game i found there was not much else to do so lost interest a bit. Multiplayer is key if you want to play more after the single player story. I loved playing this DS title too!

GoldenEye Wii was a great FPS for the Wii and a remake of its N64 predecessor, it didn't have the best graphics nor was it as good as Call Of Duty, but this game has a certain charm and character i don't get when playing through all out battles in COD. It's more a stealth game where sneaky about unnoticed is the key to survival. The weapons were very cleverly made-up and suited the spy feel. The scenes where you had to use the wii remote and nunchuck to dodge and avoid attacks whilst fighting Alec or Xenia were brilliant. The Multiplayer, needles to say is amazing although it doesn't have the clean smooth matches and feel that COD does. The only thing that lets this game down is its graphics as the Wii is no match for the PS3 and Xbox 360s superior visuals - this leaves some scenes ruined by out of key mouth movement and bodies morphing through objects etc.

Minecraft is this year's best Indie game for me (yes, it's even better than Linerider!). It may not look that good... in fact it looks terrible but that's the charm that Minecraft has - it's made of blocks! The gameplay is good... if you know what you're doing! There are no instructions or anything so online walkthroughs and FAQs are a must see for new users. I enjoy playing the game because it's so addictive! There's not much i can say (well... type!) about it, it's strange but so fun, try it out.



And..... my game of the year award goes too.........................

~~~ Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels Of The Starry Skies - DS ~~~

GAME OF THE YEAR AWARD 2010

http://www.nintendoheap.blogspot.com/

Have a happy new year everybody, may your gaming continue and your blogs as well!

Retro Finds: 2 - Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, Metroid: Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission

Wow! I made a few good finds in the past couple of days. I bought all of these together for no more than $30.00 i don't think so good deal i suppose.

My first impressions of these games are okay. Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced is great - it reminds me of FFXII: Revenant Wings for the DS through its similar TBS gameplay. It also has some of the same enemies from FFXII as well. I haven't done much yet but I'm still finding it fun. There are laws against using certain spells which annoys me a bit and it's a bit limited and linear for a Final Fantasy game.

Metroid: Fusion came out 2 years before Metroid: Zero Mission, but i prefer it as it seems to have a more professional, informative and overall more lengthy introduction and i personally think the music's better!  I've always loved the Metroid series and it's good to see it in its original roots. It took me a while to get it to work - there must of been a little bit of dust inside the cartridge.

Metroid: Zero Mission is also very good. But I'm not enjoying it as much as Fusion. It doesn't tell you much, so you're just left running around having no idea where to go. The hunter ship doesn't seem to have made an appearance yet either. I still enjoy blasting enemies with the arm cannon and the game also seems to require more thought and more adventure than its predecessor.

3000 views!

This blogs been online since March, i think - so that's about 9 months. Anyway, i've just reached my 3000th view which is pretty cool - only 8 followers, but i hope that figure will soon rise!

I just wanted to say, thanks for reading my blog guys - and happy holidays!

Gaming All The Time

 ~ Gaming All The Time ~

Playing through my games

In a suped up gaming room

having fun beating bosses

eating all the way

Doughnuts and chocolate

Making my tummy full

Oh, what fun it is to play

all of my fun games

Oh, video games, video games

Gaming all the time

Oh, what fun it is to play

All of my fun games

Video games, video games

Gaming all the time

Square Enix, Rockstar Games

Very good design 

A day or two ago

  I though i'd buy some games

And soon my game collection

Was too big for my shelf

I had to find some room

Before my shelf collapsed

I went and bought a brand new cupboard

And shoved them all in that

Oh, video games, video games

Gaming all the time

Oh, what fun it is to play

All of my fun games

Video games, video games

Gaming all the time
PS2, PS3,
And even the DS

 



Retro Finds: 1 - Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

I don't know how rare this Game Boy Advance cartridge is here in America but where i live back in England it's worth a good £70 or more online. I just bought it for $9.99 which is like £7... I don't know if Gamestop realized it was that rare or whatever, but I'm pretty chuffed i managed to get a hold of it! I've been playing it on my brother's DS Lite as my DSi XL doesn't have a GBA slot.

It's pretty interesting to play. I've played through all of the Kingdom Hearts games and i think it is nice to see the series portrayed through sprites instead of 3D modelling on the home video consoles. The game does look good and the animation of the sprites is very well done - it looks good compared to some other lazily animated GBA games I've played in the past. The controls are good when your travelling the overworld but when it comes to battle it can get a little frustrating. The game revolves around cards and you have to keep switching through them and playing it strategically instead of some small time button mashing. This sometimes leaves you accidentally using one card and wasting it when you wanted to use a different one.

But hey, Kingdom Hearts rocks and this is the game that bridges together the first and second one. At the moment i'm finding it fun going back to worlds I remember from the first game and beating the bosses again.

There was actually a Playstation 2 port made, but that was never released to the UK as far as i know.

An Island Of Adventure

Yesterday i got up at 8 o'clock (which is hard, i know) and had my breakfast. Reason: Iwas going to Orlando, Florida's Universal Studios - Island Of Adventures theme park! Well that's a mouthful in itself!

Anyway, I'll skip the boring parts and tell you what i did all day...

When i got there, I went through the entrance and made a new world record of "Fastest time that foot has been run over by baby stroller after entering a theme park." The first thing i did was get a ticket for "The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter" which was available to me between 11:00am and 12:00pm.



The exterior temple of the "Poseidon's Fury" tour



It had only just turned 10:00am so i went over to "The Lost Continent" section of the park and joined the 20 minute queue for "Poseidon's Fury" a tour around the (fake, of course) ruins of Poseidon's temple. It turned out to be a terrible 3 roomed nightmare where your "Tour Guide" was just talking and screaming most of the time - no-one was listening and only stopped to watch a short movie projected on a waterfall which involved Poseidon and some evil jerk fighting in slow-motion. It kinda sucked yeah.

The massive Hogwarts Castle which holds "The Forbidden Journey" ride

After that I managed squeeze into the overcrowded "Wizarding World Of Harry Potter" and join the queue for "The Forbidden Journey." I had to store all of my loose belongings in a locker and walk through the line till i arrived at a moving platform where a robotic arm held dozens of benches (with 4 seats) aloft. You get in them and pull the guard over your head. Then it takes you high up and starts dropping, ducking, diving, ascending, descening, turning so your on your back, weaving and rotating in the air whilst you're constantly moving and watching clever hologramic images give you the impression that you're flying over Hogwarts. After I got off my legs were weary and i only just managed to retrieve my belongings from the locker narrowly missing being trampled by hordes of overexcited Potter fans. It was fun and awesomely cool - but i prefer to stay on ground level!



Butterbeer!



After that dizzying ordeal i ampled over to the Butterbeer stand. Incase you haven't read the books, butterbeer is a frothy beer like beverages served at the bars in Hogsmead - the town the park was built to look like (snow and all)! It turned out to be an overpriced cream soda but much, much sweeter - it was very nice and i got funny looks from passersby on many occasions after taking a sip as it tends to give you a nice frothy moustache!



Honeydukes Sweet Shop!



After visiting both a remake of the Honeydukes sweet store from the books and buying a "Chocolate Frog" and some "Berty Bott's Every Flavour Beans" and visiting Zonko's jokes store i sat down at a seating area and chomped on the "Chocolate Frog."



The Flight Of The Hippogriff rollercoaster!



The chocolate frog gave me enough energy to enjoy "The Flight Of the Hippogriff" a small 30 second rollercoaster ride. Once again i faced an obsurdly long queue but in the end boarded the front of the rollercoaster with my sister and quietly savoured the last few moments of my feet touching the ground. My brother actually chickened out on this ride! But i cannot blame him - he's not the rollercoaster type. Anyway, the coaster took a sharp drop right at the beginning which gave it enough speed to turn fast curves at uncomfortable angles thus making everyone scream - happy days!

It was a really fun day - and now i'm exhausted and my legs ache from both the Harry Potter rides... especially the first one! Youtube it.

Phantom Hourglass

I got Phantom Hourglass for $15.99 dollars preowned yesterday at a local Gamestop. I thought that was a pretty good price for a very good game, so i went in there and bought it.

I hadn't played a DS Legend of Zelda game until i bought this, and, i have to say, it is fresh, new and amazing! The first thing i liked was the fact that everything was in that sort of toon style - the colours, their faces and everything, it made me laugh looking at some of the earlier characters in the game. The second thing, and the thing i most enjoy about the game so far, is how well the game uses all of the DS' functions. whether it be simply using the stylus to move Link rather than the D-PAD, to blowing into the microphone to put out burning candles. At one stage you even have to close the DS to imprint a crest onto your sea chart!

I'm really enjoying this game and it's a fresh RPG without the typical leveling up system like Dragon Quest IX and Final Fantasy. It's just you and the game! I'll post a review soon!

Gamingheap Review - Geometry Wars Galaxies

  Geometry Wars Galaxies  -  Gamingheap Review

I bought Geometry Wars Galaxies for the Nintendo DS yesterday. It cost me $19.99 at Gamestop.

Geometry Wars Galaxies is a retro arcade shooter, and a remix of previous versions. The aim of the games is to survive as long as you can in over 60 different planets and get the highest score you can get before losing all 3 of your lives. Endless hordes of enemies spawn in from around the planet and you must utilize your laser and your drone to defeat them before they get too close and destroy you. There are 14 enemies including everything from Snakes to Weavers. Each one acts differently. Whilst some may home in on you, others will randomly move about the planet. It is possible to obtain bronze, silver and gold medals by getting high scores. The more medals you get, the more Geoms you collect. Geoms are currency and you can use them to unlock more galaxies and planets. You can also use Geoms to upgrade your drone (which fights alongside you) with different modes such as Defend and Snipe. Killing more enemies in planets rewards you with experience points which in turn level-up the specific mode your drone was using.

You can use the touch-screen to direct your laser or the A, B, X and Y buttons to fire in different directions. Using the D-PAD you can manoeuvre your ship in and out of enemies. Your drone will move on its own and carry out different tasks depending on what mode you set it to.

After an enemy ship has been destroyed you can collect Geoms from them which add to your total at the end of the level. Collecting Geoms from deceased enemies also rewards you with a multiplier. Each one you collect adds to the multiplier. The maximum multiplier is x150 which gets you very big scores! When you die your multiplier is lost and resets back to 0. Sometimes there are enemies all around you and it is necessary to use a Smartbomb. Smartbombs are activated with the L and R shoulder buttons and destroy all enemies on the screen. This however has its setbacks. It doesn't add to your score and not all the enemies wiped out by the Smartbomb drop Geoms for you to collect. You usually get 3 per planet and lives and Smartbombs can be recollected by killing more enemies and collecting their Geoms.

The music is also very fast to match the games fast-paced gameplay. There is a lot to watch on the screen as all of the geometric shapes are different colours and bullets fly off every surface making the game look more appealing, but also making it harder to spot where enemies are creeping up on you. The stages are all different shapes which adds variety and some of them have obstacles and even vortexes that suck enemies to the centre of the planet!

Overall the game is very impressive and the online Nintendo WFC support allows you to post your scores online and compare with players from around the globe. The music is great, it all looks great, but there could be a little bit more to the gameplay and it can get a bit repetitive. This game isn't for everyone, but it is a nice arcade shooter that draws you in. I personally really enjoy playing it!

My Rating: 7.5/10



Christmas Holiday!

Yipee! That's right, i'm going on holiday for christmas this year... to Florida! It'll be my 10th visit to the sunshine state - and at christmas time, it better still be hot! I'm staying in my normal villa with 5 bedrooms a lounge, a garage and a private swimming pool! I've taken in the fact that i will, hopefully, be getting my new PS3 when i return to England. But, hey - there's a load of Gamestops i know out there so there's no worry in just buying a dozen DS games (DS games are the only games i can buy out there that will work on an English console).

The only thing stopping from getting there is the 9 hour journey by plane - i hate travelling by plane because it's really cramped and the food is... Bleugh! There is movies on the plane though, they ought to keep me occupied for at least 3 hours!

Gamingheap Review - Minecraft

 MINECRAFT  -  Gamingheap Review

Minecraft is a brick-based First-Person Sandbox game that can be downloaded from http://minecraft.net/ for 50% of whilst it is still in the Alpha version. I actually got it for free when the servers crashed in late September.




Title Screen for "Minecraft."
It always has a irrelevant, meaningless comment at the top right


Basically - There are 5 different worlds you can save your game in and it autosaves when you exit Minecraft itself. The Minecraft worlds are all randomly generated, so you'll never get the same map twice. Minecraft cycles through day and night, each lasting about 5 minutes from my experience. At night, if the difficulty setting is set to easy or higher, monsters (mobs) will spawn at night and will come after you to kill you. When you die you drop all of your items where you died and return to the world's spawn point. When you get back
to the location you died you can pick them up again but 1 item will usually be missing.

It is highly recommended that when the game starts (in the day) that you collect wood by demolishing trees with your fists and making planks by going to your inventory and putting the wood into one of the crafting squares.


 

Chopping Trees for lumber


Then by putting 1 plank in each of the 4 crafting squares you have a 3x3 crafting workbench instead of the standard 2x2.




Making a Workbench in the Inventory


After crafting tools like pickaxes, shovels and hatchets from the planks, you can begin to
mine ores like coal and iron from cliff faces. By this time night should be drawing in. Next, most people construct safe places away from the mobs by making caves in the side of mountains and patching the entrance up. They also put up torches to keep monsters away and light up the darkness.

Minecraft is all about collecting materials from around the world your in and crafting them into useful objects which you can build with. For example arranging 8 cobblestone pieces around the edges of a 3x3 crafting grid will reward you with a furnace and smelting iron ore and coal within that will give you iron bars. These can then be used to construct iron tools, armour, weapons, mine carts and mine cart tracks. There are many things to make and places to explore. You may stumble across a cave at some point and with torches in your inventory you can light it up and begin to search for rare ores. Animals also roam the Minecraft overland and killing them will give you the specific animal's produce (chickens will give you eggs and feathers and cows will give you leather hides.)




Watching sheep trying to enter my
house and failing miserably


The further down you mine, the rarer the ores you will find, but it will get dark so you will need to place torches to light up your mines. But, mind out! You may come across some lava! Lava will drain your life hearts killing you slowly find some water quickly and put yourself out! The good news is around lava - diamonds tend to appear and they can be used for all sorts of things.




The entrance to my vertical mine.
It reaches to the very bottom of my world!




Climbing down a ladder to the bottom of my mine.




Creating a "Branch Mine."




A natural cave at the base of my mine.




A large red-brick tower i constructed. It reaches
Minecraft's vertical height boundaries!


Minecraft is a great little game with a big idea. The game's mechanics work very well most of the time and when they do slip up a bit it's only a minor glitch which is expected in an Alpha version of an Indie game. The gameplay is addictive and will get you working on large scale buildings and models in no time. The controls and gameplay are also really easy to learn and exploring is fun to do. The large scale of the worlds mean you rarely have nothing to do. This game may not look very appealing - but... boy... this is living proof that graphics aren't everything!

My Rating: 8.5/10

Woot! Snow! And Minecraft!

Yessss! Over here in England we've finally got some of the good old white powder! Too much of it! Gatwick airport has shutdown and all of the roads are covered in it! There's more due tonight as well! There's already 6 inches of it. When my Dad returned home after being stuck on a stationary tran for nearly 3 hours we went up town to get some provisions such as milk, bread etc. It was freezing cold and our treck through the snow was extended when all of the local stores were out of milk except the furthest possible shop away from us.

When i got back i took of my wellies warmed up and sat down to another session of Minecraft! Yes, i downloaded Minecraft for free when the game's servers crashed back in late September - i haven't played on it since last weekend. If you've never heard of Minecraft then don't be suprised. it's a new Indie game that's just had a massive popularity increase so you should here loads about it pretty soon!

Basically it's a large first-person sandbox game primarily made out of bricks named "Chunks." 2 of these chunks are equal to the player's height and it's possible to destroy them with your fists to obtain materials from them to craft certain objects. For example collecting wood and crafting it in your Inventory into specific shapes will reward you with a variety of new tools such as hatchets and pickaxes to doors and minecarts. The official forums are booming with information and there's now even a Wiki site, "Minepedia"

Check those sites out for more info - here's a link to the offical site... http://www.minecraft.net/

And... A video - the first of a 40+ series of X's Minecraft adventures!

Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright

No... i'm not kidding... they are ACTUALLY contemplating making it...

I have no idea how it will run or anything... it's apparently going to be released for the 3DS sometime next year when it's released. I suppose it sounds pretty good - it certainly looks impressive in the trailer and could be a very good cross between two, already brilliant, game series. I find myself wanting to know more about it!

I'm still not sure where the 3D effect comes into the equation though. The artwork will certainly look amazing, especially the Professor Layton art!

Gamingheap Review - GoldenEye Wii

 Goldeneye 007  -  Gamingheap Review 

Yes, whilst everybody's going hypernova over Call Of Duty: Black Ops, i'm fiddling around with my Wii Remote gunning down evil masterminds and cronies in the pure Bond fashion!

Hopefully COD 7 will be spinning madly in my new PS3 after christmas, and then i can tell you about THAT!

But for now...

I bought GoldenEye Wii in "Curry's. Digital" for £29.99 which was much cheaper than the £35.99 rip-off they were advertising in "Game" and seeing as the shops are about 30 paces apart from each other it was a bargain!

My first impressions were that the box art looked a little bland - but certainly moody for the Bond series of games i suppose. When i started it up i was kinda surprised that i couldn't here the Bond theme song. Actually i've only heard it once so far whilst escaping a cargo boat and i'm in Chapter 6! Anyway i dived into the campaign and within a minute or two i was already subduing guards stationed around the dam i was meant to be infiltrating.

The first "awesome" moment was when i took out a sniper with a headshot and stole his thermal-scoped sniper rifle. Reinforcements arrived and it was pretty cool look down the thermal whilst picking them off one by one.

30 seconds later i'm in a truck with enemy Russians on both sides firing mounted MG's at me. Of course, in true Bond style i blew up a conveniently placed oil tanker, blowing them to smithereens... I also punched some guy that was trying to hi-jack the truck in the head causing him to fall backwards and slam into the wall of the next building!

That's enough of the Campaign though!

The online... doesn't LOOK that good. Sure it's got all of the different skins for enemies and the Maps look okay for the Wii. But i just cannot compare it to Call Of Duty 5: Waw for the Wii too. The screen is too jumpy and nothing fades to black - instead it just switches to the game in a flash - and you're left unprepared just as some nob with a shotgun takes off your head.

It's still cool though! There's a LOT of variance in the guns, you've got SMG's, Sniper Rifles, plenty of Pistols, a Revolver and even a Rocket-Launcher!

The only thing i'd say about this game is that you should only really play it if you've got internet connection for your Wii or have some friends to play Splitscreen with. I play with my brother and i'm usually Odd-Job who instead of grenades, throws his hat. I thought that was a nice touch!

I think it's definitely worth a look at, and seeing as it IS a remake of the much older Nintendo 64 version - it's all the better!

My Rating: 8/10

Belgium tomorrow and some Harvest Moon DS grinding!

I'm going on a school trip to Belgium tomorrow! I am going there to visit a town called Ypres (pronounced "Eeep!") to learn about World War I and visit the cemeteries etc. where they all died and even get to visit some real, preserved WWI trenches!

I''m really looking forward to it and am taking loads of sweets to eat on the 5 hour coach journey (as we're going on the Eurostar thingy across the English Channel, through France to Belgium) and my old DS Lite and a copy of Harvest Moon DS, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and i would have taken Dragon Quest IX, but i don't want to lose it!

Recently i've returned to Harvest Moon DS as i never actually got married on it and lived a happy farm family life! That's what the main aim of the game is so i hope to achieve it soon! I have to get any girl's affection points to 60,000 and then propose to her. But i also need to get 60 Harvest Sprites before i can propose. I only have 51...

Anyway, got to go as i have to get up at 5am and i'm back at gone 12am the next day!!!

1 Metroid game, 3 years, completed!

My brother purchased Metroid Prime: Hunters for the Nintendo DS about 3 years ago, maybe a bit less. He doesn't really play it and  hasn't got very far so i thought i'd have a little go on it. I plowed through it, killing hunters and obtaining new weapons... then he found out i'd stolen it from his room and nicked it back!

I usually play multiplayer with him (and beat him!) and be Samus because she rocks, and she's the only character you can play as without a game card.

Anyway, a couple of days ago i stole the game card again and have playing it ever since. I got to the last boss, Gorea, and i have to say...

He was pathetically easy. All you have to do is run a bit, stand still and should his shoulders a couple of times. Then he turns upside down and you shoot him again till he dies... there really wasn't too much thought process whilst battling him apart from the fact that he changes weapons a lot. Your normal power beam is affective against him 100% of the time so there's no reason to switch.

I finished the game with 50 deaths, 83 hunter and guardians killed and 1300 enemies killed! I thought that was pretty good for 11 hours 10 mins gameplay.

Another game off my Pile Of Shame!

It was fun!

I'm also currently making a game with RPG Maker VX... but more on that next time!

Powerup #2 - The Wii Wheel

The Wii Wheel

Primarily designed for Mario Kart Wii, the wii wheel came bundled with it. By placing your Wii remote in the hole in the top the sensor could pick it up and by holding the wheel vertically you could easily control the vehicle on the screen, no hassle!

I first got 2 wheels when i bought Mario Kart Wii. Of course, they take some time to get used to and suprisingly are very light and can be easily stored unlike other items for the Wii.... (the massive Wii Board)!

Many other models have been made of the Wii wheel, most are cheaper, but very ugly. I like the original the most as it has the nice logo on the back and i'll always remember getting it. The price when they first came out was a little steep (£10 - £15 if i remember rightly) for what it is, but it's a nice piece of equipment for racing games on the Wii and worthy of my collection!

I rate the Wii Wheel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8/10

Powerup #1 - The Overshotgun

This is my new little section called powerups. Basically it's just me listing a load of hardware that can help you with your gaming! The first one is...

Powerup #1: The Overshotgun

Holy Crap! This baby is HUGE! I picked up one of these in Game for no more than £15. They take a lot of getting used to and i'd say they're more for the novelty when with friends rather than playing online on your own.

Basically, you open the top section and put the Wii remote in side. Upon closing the compartment you slide the little nobble on the side of the gun forwards and the integrated nunchuck will fix into the bottom of the Wii remote. Neat! Then you're ready to go, load up Call Of Duty 5 and get killing those enemies!

The only problems i found were that the (-) and (+) buttons were both on the Wii remote inside the gun, so when you want to throw a grenade you have to open it up! But, then i found out you can change the control settings, lol! Also, this i found quite dissapointing, the pump-action is not needed to reload in the gameplay, it just activates the A button which is rarely used in most FPS' i play.

Overall i have enjoyed playing with it through the campaign modes but when playing multiplayer i prefer to have more control over what i'm doing.

I rate the Overshotgun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/10

Let's hunt some clay!

Today i went to my friends 14th birthday party, the main event was... Clay Pigeon Shooting! I'd never actually done it before so, a little nervous, we all followed the instructor down a boggy field in our wellington boots until we came to a land-rover jeep. He taught us all about the shotguns (we were using the smallest, a 410) and how the cartridges worked and so on. I was last in the line of fire and had 4 shots... no pressure, i shot down 2, skimmed 1 and missed the other. Not bad for my first go! We turned it into a competition and took turns firing 4 cartridges each. In the end there was 3 rounds, the last one being a 'Joker' round. If you called 'Joker' before the clay pigeon was fired and you hit it you'd get 2 points... BUT, if you missed a Joker, you'd lose 2 points! In the end i was 1 above everyone else on 6 and i called no jokers, hitting 1 meaning i finished with a score of 7/12. The birthday boy scored 6, my brother scored 2 (he missed a joker), and my other friend hit a few but missed all his jokers and ended up with a big fat 0!

So I won a gold medal... cheap rubbish, but i still won it! After we finished we all went down to the field and gathered any clay pigeons we found and any used cartridges.

The picture shows the exact same brand we used in the 410.

We also got to fire a 12 bore shotgun which would of blown our arms off with the recoil had we not been provided with the protective shoulder padding.

Oh, yes... and of course we wore ear protectors! When we got back we had some fish and chips and then let all hell use with a couple of Nerf guns and a massive heap of bullets.

It was a great day!

Maple Story!

Yay! I finally downloaded Maple Story! It took like 1 hour 45 mins to successfully install it and so-on, but i got there in the end!

Basically, Maple Story is a side-scrolling MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). If you haven't heard of it, then your obviously living under a rock! It is the second best MMO in the world next to World Of Warcraft and the best thing is... it's FREE! over 90 million people play it from around the globe. It's in a 2D side-scrolling format based on a host server download. It seems to have a few compatibility issues with Vista but i got there because i kept loading it over and over!

It's actually REALLY good! This is coming from an (embarrisingly) old Runescaper. Its graphics are 2D which isn't too unique to the MMO world but Maple Story as some, somewhat, crisp and nice visuals which suit the feel of the game perfectly with the small chibi style characters. You go around talking to NPC's and accepting quests which you can do on your own or with other players and level up in the process. You can pick up items dropped from monsters that you've defeated and obtain money to buy new weapons etc.

It's all your average RPG with better visuals, better gameplay and some awesome LOL! moments.

I haven't played it for that long... ya know... like 4 hours+... but it is AWESOME! It's gonna last me a while too, there's 200 levels to grind for the warrior class which i chose and there are like 4 or 5 other classes to grind so i make that like 50 years for someone to complete the whole thing... let's get started then!

Legacy Boss Monster!

Dragon Quest IX again!

I managed to scrape by and complete a random quest that ended up giving me a treasure map called "Baramos Lv.1". I was just like, "meh', level 1! This is gonna be brutally easy!"... but i was wrong!

Turns out it was a legacy boss monster map. It has only 1 floor, the boss' floor. I have to admit i was a little bit intimidated by it, anyway i pressed a to speak to it and then the battle began against "Baramos."

Okay, let's think, i know i'll egg-on my best warrior and make him defend till he gets an 100 tension rate, the other 2 warriors can use falcon slash combined with their falcon blades to hit 4 times! Easy!

I managed to egg on my best warrior and hit a measly 100+ with my other two before Baramos came bounding down with Kafrizz taking off 130 from one of my warriors and a normal attack that evolved into a critical hit downing my best warrior in one with a 250+... Damn it! It's back to hunting for king metal slimes!

In other news, i've set up a poll on this blog and this week there is a tournament to see what the best nintendo series is... they'll be 5 rounds

and today is the first. Basically the winners from each round will go

head-to-head in the 5th and final round to see which the best nintendo

series is voted by viewers of the blog! Vote now before you forget!

P.S.

No I didn't manage to kill Baramos... though i reckon i dealt a good 1000... he has 6000+ according to GameFAQs though!

Game Collection List

I made a new page called 'My Game Collection'. It should be on the top toolbar next to 'Home' check it out and you'll see all of the games i own, there age rating, when they were developed and who made them!

Check it out now, tell me if you own any of the more obscure game titles, i'll be interested to know!

Oh yeah and... Happy late birthday Mario!

Dragon Quest IX Done!

Yep, that's right i finished it at around 10am yesterday morning. The final boss battle was pretty hard and i actually played through the whole game without changing vocation... and with 1 Minstrel and 3 Warriors!

My party was level 45 all-around which was the recommended level that most people said was good for the final boss battle. I won't give it away though... i'm not mean like that!

Anyway, now i've got over 120 quests to complete along with the post story and when i finally find out how to connect ot the internet, some DLC quests to finish! Of course i've also got to beat all of the legacy boss monsters and level up to level 99 and revocate so that i'm level 1 again... but with the same stats so i can only go higher. In the end it took me a total of 42 hours to complete the main story-line... and it was definitely worth it!

Dragon Quest IX Game Guide In Development

I've been working on my DQIX game guide for a while now. My previous (and first ever) game guide for GTA: Chinatown Wars was 194 KB. I've just reached the second boss battle on my Dragon Quest IX guide and it's already 124 KB. I aim to include info on all of the weapons and armour, a completed bestiary, locations for all of the treasure chests within the storyline, a full basics section, FAQ and the completed Walkthrough.

I'd say it should be no more than 600 KB after that. I'm really enjoying the actual game though and have defeated my first grotto boss, Equinox.
My party are all level 31 now and i am now working my way through the massive volcano, The Magmaroo!
At the top lies Greygnarl. He's 300 years old and there's been no info that has actually pointed towards him being human so he could be a dragon of some sort. Anyway, the game's plot gets increasingly interesting which does make you want to finish it, but there is loads of other stuff to do like level grinding and grotto, treasure map hunting!

Dragon Quest IX

                                                       Wow! This game is good! Really good!

I have to say, i've never played a Dragon Quest game in my life and now i'm ashamed of myself!

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels Of The Starry Skies is an amazing RPG game, purposely full of content so it's impossible to finish it and get 100% completion! I won't go too much into the story but you're an angel and you lose your wings and halo and become a normal, mortal, human being. From then on you get 3 more party members which you can choose from the Stornway Inn then collect some equipment and begin your travels around the... err... world!

There are loads of monsters for you to battle. Some of them less serious than others. For example, the Cruelcumber is a hilarious little cucumber with a spear that jiggs and dances around when it's battling you.

Then there's the cyclopses that amble around with massive clubs and deal critical hits all of the time that kill your party members in one blow. Thankfully, there's more of the silly kind of monsters. My personally favourite are the first few monsters you meet in the game: The Slimes, Cruelcumber and the Teeny Sanguini.

The Teeny Sanguinies are fat bats that have cow patterned skin and apparentely only follow you because they want to play.

My party is a strong level 30 all around. The only problem being there are 3 warriors and 1 minstrel. No priests or mages to use their powerful magic. Meh' who needs them... i only want brute strength!

Every town seems to have a story behind it that you must solve in order to get a hefty reward. But, it's not all that easy... Bosses... lots of them... Lol, no, they're not really that hard! Basically, you just have to have a full party and a little luck and you're done. The annoying thing about this game is that i always seem to run out of money. I half solved the problem by slaying Gold Golems which give you 500 Gold per kill. But, it does take a while so i kinda gave up. The best way to level up i've found is to grind on hard monsters or find an area with lots of metal slimes (preferably Metal Medleys or Liquid Metal Slimes). They are extremely easy to defeat yet you get like 3000 EXP for 1 kill! The Liquid Metal Slimes actually give 10,000 EXP to each party member! Lol, as you can see i was pretty shocked at first.

Anyway, it's a great game and i'm actually kinda scared i'll finsih it soon! I better lay off it for a while... nah!

Dragon Quest IX and another game completed!

Yay! I have now got Dragon Quest IX! I'm actually typing this about 2 minutes after getting it. See, i heard a heavy fall on the doormat and my brother looked over and said, don't get your hopes up. Then i checked... a big brown parcel in the lovely familiar shape we all love.

Anyway, i've already started my second ever walkthrough on DQIX and i'm probably never gonna finish it!
The game's so big! I'll start playing it in a minute or two.

In other news....... I finished Metroid Prime 3: Corruption! I'm so happy, i've been working on that game for ages trying to get through it all. I eventually got stuck on finding the last energy cell i needed. But, that wasn't gonna stop me from eliminating the Phazon scourge! Yeah... so i headed over to the planet Phaaze, the final planet, made completely from phazon! Samus Aran goes into a phazon 100% corrupted mode and has to vent her energy tanks! Now she is stuck completely in hypermode. If the yellow bar fills up on the top of the screen Samus is dead. Easy! Not! Phaaze's atomosphere depletes her energy over time! Kill some metroids and you'll get your health back. Man, it was really hard. If you die once, it's back to the beginning!

I won't go into much detail, but you have to kill a leviathan infant! Then, battle Dark Samus and kill her when she merges with the aurora unit stolen from the S.S Valhalla... It was really cool!

Now, time for some Dragon Questing! Embarrassingly, this is my first ever Dragon Quest game...

Hunting Spree

Over my summer holidays, so far, i have had a strange urge to play monster hunter tri non-stop!
I have leveled up over 10 levels to level 42. It's strange i also used to think my armour was so great until i found out you could get + armour sets.

Basically when you hit level 31, you reach the 'Elite Hunter Rank'. This means you can hunt + level monsters. For example, the Great Jaggi is the easiest boss in the game. Right now it takes me no longer than 2 minutes to kill it with a "wyvern sword 'flame'. (online is harder than offline. An offline Great Jaggi only takes 30 seconds to kill)" When i reached level 31, i checked out the new quests and went against a Great Jaggi + on my own... Bad idea. I didn't think it would be that hard! I abandoned quest and gathered some of my online friends to help me.

Since then i have obtained rathalos + armour which has 70 defense per piece. The best offline armour is Helios with 24 per piece! But, i'm rubbish compared to the legendary level 200+'s you rarely see online. They have full Alateron armour, the best in the game. Basically, it takes a long long time to get it!  have played on it for 180 hours and have enjoyed every bit of it... except the hard boss battles!

Anyway, if you haven't got Monster Hunter Tri yet, i can't explain anymore... Just get that game!

GTA: Chinatown Wars Game Guide

I have been working on one of those online game guides you guys may have used in the past when you're really stuck on a game and don't know what to do next.

If you don't know what they are then i'll tell you...

Sometimes people really get stuck on a game and they have no idea what to do to continue and progress through the game. You can either find out what to do on your own, or cheat and lookup an online walkthrough! GameFAQs is full of brilliant user submitted guides to help people get through hard levels on games. You can write anything about the game, but the most helpful guides include a complete and in-depth walkthrough of how to complete the main storyline of the game.

I have been working on an in-depth walkthrough for GTA: Chinatown Wars for the DS. I finished the walkthrough and uploaded it a couple of days back. It includes data on all of the cars, bikes and boats as well as a complete walkthrough, a basics section and a section on all of the oddjobs which you don't have to do to complete the storyline, but you do have to do them for a 100% completion rate. That much only took me 9 days!

What i do is i sit with my DS and play the game whilst typing up the walkthrough. I recommend doing it. It's really actually quite fun and it's another way to express my literacy skills. See... i'm very modest!

Here's the link: 

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ds/950922-grand-theft-auto-chinatown-wars/faqs/60697