Thoughts on couple games

No dominating game this weekend like Twilight Princess. In fact, my game hours were split between several games.

Friday night I bought my first Virtual Console game from the Shop Channel (Side note: after switching to using Channel 11 instead of 6 for my wireless router, I did notice a dramatic improvement in connection speed. Those complaining of slow connection for their Wii might want to give it a try). Partly because I bought the Classic controller several weeks ago in Chicago (only to find that the local Toysrus did have them in stock earlier), but mainly because Super Mario World is an awesome game. =) For those who don't know, I've never owned any console prior to the Wii, but I do remember playing this game at my cousin's place and had a lot of fun with the game. I worried that the A/V output wouldn't work well on my monitor but it turned out okay - probably would be better if I hook my Wii up to a real TV, but it's fine for now. The practice I got from DS's New Super Mario Brothers is definitely helpful. I don't remember blasting through 2 worlds this quick back in my younger days. Oh well - can't complain. However, I might have to try googling for a guide sooner or later though just because I don't remember how to unlock all the secrets. :P

Saturday afternoon I rented the newest Wii game - Sonic and the Secret Rings. I originally planned to buy this game but decided to rent it first to see whether I like it or not - since I've never played any Sonic games (maybe a stage or two from the original Sonic and that's it). Overall the game very enjoyable and quite often I found myself replaying several missions trying to get a better score. Only need to focus on moving Sonic left & right, jump, grind, homing attack... Things I think I can still handle. They added a skill set components to it which varies the game play a bit - you want to equip Sonic with different skills to aid your mission. However, there are a few skills which I have no idea how to use - could use some more instructions there. The sound track is okay - a couple catchy tones here and there but don't think they will become my favorites. The only problem I have is with the scripts and the voice acting - bad! To give a score, I would give it between 7 to 7.5 - meaning I would probably pick it up when it goes down to 39.99, just not now. Since I don't think I'll finish the game before I need to return it, let's just hope that I still remember how to play when I buy the game later. [With Sonic out till later, the debate on which game to buy next broils down to: Trauma Center - 2nd Opinion (Wii), Lunar Knights (DS) and Hotel Dusk - Rm 215 (DS)].

Wrapping up for the weekend is Children of Mana. I bought the game from King Snort prior to trip back home. I played a lot while I was back but really didn't pick it back up after I returned - probably because Wii's dictating all my video game time. Apparently, I was only one or two more levels before I beat the game. However, the problem is that I totally forgot how to play that game. So this weekend I decided to give it some attention and sharpen up by skills. Hopefully Poppen will join Luneth and Link in the next couple weeks.

[Note to self - still have Contact and Rayman left]

One more news before closing off, one of the best DS games is coming out with a sequel this year: 燃えろ！熱血リズム魂 押忍！闘え！応援団2 (Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Tamashii! Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan2). I'll import it, and so should you if you own a DS!

Stuck in Snow

Earlier this week, I was wondering if there will be more snow this year; and this weekend we got hit by another snow storm.

My car got stuck in the road when I got back from dinner (Outback - which was dead quiet - which means very good service. There were only a couple tables occupied). I realized something wasn't quite right as soon as the front hood hit the snow. As I was thinking whether my car would make it to the garage door - my car rolled into a stop! Darn - STUCK!

It wasn't snowing too heavily (yet). The main problem is with the wind blowing the snow sideways and piling up on the road leading to my apartment unit. Look like 12 - 18 inches deep. Luckily, I managed to wiggle my way through: Shift to Reverse, Gas, Shift to Drive, Gas, repeat... went outside twice (from the passenger side since I can't get out from the driver's side because of the snow) to clear up some of the snow in front/behind the front wheel. Finally made it through after half an hour or so. I wonder what's the tire damage. :P

There was another car trying to get through as I was pulling into the garage. Hopefully he/she will have better luck since I should already opened a path up.

Yikes!

Wow! 1000 Mii Parade - Impressive

Unfortunately it's not mine (which is at mere 74 right now)

  

Web sites

Is it just me or are people designing web sites have no idea what they were doing when they design the page or wrote those JavaScript?

In general there are two types of sites that i absolutely loathe. First, sites that only display content in like, half of the available space. You see this huge white (or some other background color) vertical band on the left (or right) side of the screen, and yet the text is either too small or the sentence is breaking a new line every 3 words. I think CNN used to be like this, and still is on the sub-pages. However, at least their main page is much better now.

The other more annoying pages I've encountered are those that resize your browser for you. While I understand that the page looks the best when the screen resolution is, like 1024x768 or 1200x960, unless you can detect my native screen resolution (currently at 1920x1200) and determines that you need to resize it - although to be honest, I prefer you NOT to touch my browser window size at all, NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER resize my browser window!!!!! Nothing is more annoying then seeing that after my browser window is resized, the majority of the screen is white and the content only occupies a tiny bit of the screen.

Rant over!

Chinese New Year

Comes the year of the pig!

Didn't do much cleanup this year (hahaha) and of course no day-off for me on Monday (even though it's President's Day =P) I felt good this year since I sent extra money home ^^ The phone card company must be handling tons of call tonight. My usual number (Chicago area) couldn't go through for like 15 - 30 minutes. I kept getting the busy tone. Finally I just logged into their web site and picked a number from some relatively unknown city.

Luckily relatives in HK hasn't made it to my parents home yet so I don't have to talk to every single one of them. It was a long call (2 hrs or so) since we have a 3-way conference call: me, my brother (once again in Chicago) and my parents in HK. Nothing meaningful was discussed, and as a matter of fact, I already forgot what we talked about.

It really has been a long time since my last Chinese New Year in HK. It probably dated back to the time before I came to the States for college. The problem with Chinese New Year is that it's typically in late January or February - definitely not vacation-time-friendly to college students. And despite the fact that I am no longer a student, I prefer to have my trips back home in the 2nd half of the year instead (so I don't go into the "hole" in the beginning of the year). Until I have one more week of vacation (then I can split them up and do two trips back home in a year), it will remain difficult to go back home for Chinese New Year. =P

Look who's following Luneth...

After putting in 62 hours, I finally wrapped up my first run of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess this weekend. It was a very fun game and very addictive once you start playing it. The story is compelling and I enjoyed every single bit of Hyrule. Despite some people thinks that it's too easy, the difficulty level is just right for me. I didn't have too much trouble with the different bosses (including the final boss - though with 18 hearts, I still need 2 Fairies and a Blue Potion to make it through). They were challenging, but not overwhelmingly hard to beat. They served their purposes of wrapping up their part of the storyline and let the story progress.

I know I didn't get to every single Heart pieces, Poe, min-dungeons, etc (I did get all the golden bugs! But I totally forgot to put on the Magic Armor in the last boss fight - Duh!). But for now, I am okay with letting the game sit on the shelf for some time. After all, fully completing all the side quests will be a heck of a task, and will definitely take me more than the 60 hrs I put in this time.

For those who don't know, Twilight Princess is a GameCube game in its core. It just happens that Nintendo pushed this game back to launch with the Wii. I can't even imagine what a true Wii Zelda game will be like, but just hope that it can surpass the greatness of TP. Some day, we will meet again; until then, take care Link!

P.S. Still like Impish Midna better~!

P.P.S Now that I updated my other TP post, my RSS feed is totally messed up...

Twilight Princess

is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday. Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday.Twilight Princess is not meant to be played on a weekday.

P.S. Funny that this post did not get into the RSS feed - interesting...

Finally! Good-bye Luneth~

Took time off from my Wii tonight and picked up its little brother that I neglected ever since I got back to the States - the DS Lite!

After a couple mishap in HK playing with FF III - didn't save properly the first time I beat the game; dead in the middle of the last stage during the 2nd time; friend erased the quick save record - I finally wrapped up FF III tonight!

Only Contact and Children of Mana left!

It's freezing...

Actually, it's past freezing!!!

Temperature below zero makes it not fun to go outside. I went down to campus again on Saturday with a couple friends from work for dinner. We were supposed to meet at 6 but they were late, so I stayed in the car until they made it to the campus. Since I don't want others thinking that I was leaving (I actually found street parking this week), I didn't have my car running. The moment I shut down my car, I could feel the heat dissipating already. And it was such an inconvenient timing because if I got there earlier, I probably would go to a cafe to warm up. However, getting coffee around 6 would totally kill my appetite. I also thought about going to shop around, maybe hop into the Gap and wait. However, I didn't think I would survive the walk to the Gap either. Without much choice, I stayed put inside my car.

When I got the car, I realized that it was already way better than the weather outside. Perhaps because of all the surrounding buildings, it was kind of windy walking down the street. Oh man, the wind chill was simply unbearable. I did the sensible thing - ran down the street trying to get to the place as quickly as possible. When I met up with my friends, it sounded like I wasn't the only one running. BW3 is on State street and I parked on Gilman - which is like a block from BW3. They, on the other hand, parked at the parking garage on Carol - like twice as far from my parking spot. Felt sorry for Chris since Aaron and Ryan ditched me and rode with me on the way back. :P The dinner is okay - it really has been a while since I dine at BW3. We used to go there for lunch when we were still working in CP. But ever since we moved to the new campus in Verona, going to the UW campus for lunch isn't quite feasible (unless we take a 1.5 - 2hr lunch of course).

Hang out at King Snort's place afterward - a hour or two of Wii followed by 2 movies. We called it a night around 1:30ish. Probably a good idea since I definitely want to wake up before 3 or 4 tomorrow for Jamie's SuperBowl party. When Chris called this afternoon around 1 or 2, I was still in bed. Zelda pretty much took all of Friday night (and Saturday morning) - didn't went to bed until 3 or 4. But hey, that was another 7 hrs of Zelda and I progressed by 1.5 temples. Perhaps another 20 - 30 hrs and I should be done! Simply can't wait.