Mathurin47

Much has returned to normal. I’ve settled nicely into my new abode. Now that the last vestiges of winter have finally lifted, I can comfortably begin moving the remainder of my stuff out to the garage. Mainly books and my larger gaming accessories. That massive Steel Battalion controller just takes up too much space right now…

Spring’s arrival also means it’s time to bring my bike out and get back to cycling. My route was approaching 10 miles last year, though I’m sure I’ve lost some endurance over the long winter. The bike is another thing that will be remaining in the garage. I suppose I could keep it on the back balcony, but that would involve a flight of stairs and a trek through the apartment. Something I’d rather avoid, that and the traffic around here is crazy. 2-lane backroads vs. a 6-lane divided highway…

The trip to Pittsburgh went well. I’m working on a post about it with plenty of pictures, though I fear the text has sounded far better in my head than it has on screen. I fear I may end up scrapping it in favor of just including a link to the gallery when I’ve finished sorting through the pictures. We’ll see. Of the original 926 pictures, I’ve scrapped 253 outright. I’d like to narrow it down to about 50-75 pictures per zoo for the gallery.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger	Super Mario Galaxy 2	Nobunaga's Ambition: Rise to Power	Secret of Monkey Island
Breath of Death VII	Jagged Alliance

March Gain +275 – 15 Achievements unlocked

March Gain – Level + 0 Trophies + 0

Backlog increased by 5 in May

Rank 42 on the MyGamercard.net RPG Leaderboard -11

Game spending vs. ‘09: Monthly -68% | Yearly -36%

Could have been a little better, Galaxy was the only game of the bunch that I went into the month knowing I would purchase The rest were used or rather cheap. I couldn’t pass on Monkey Island 1/2 off at $5. I’ve avoided the Indie games section on the 360, but I’d been hearing real good things about Breath of Death and it was only a dollar…

57:39 | Badges 10 | Pokédex 148
Grabbed a few badges in Kanto, but didn’t play it much the latter half of the month
Empoleon Lv 66 | Ampharos Lv 50 | Infernape Lv 57 | Torterra Lv 59

2:57:06| Bootes/1F
Grinding a bit before I fight the boss and clear the sector. Alignment keeps bouncing between law and neutral, and has made building an effective party difficult. Watch me fuse my party back to neutral and get bumped back up to good when I get to the next sector…
PC Lv 17 | Moh Shuvuu Lv 17 | Morax Lv 15 | Pele Lv 10

33:44 | Chapter 26 – Clash!
I’ve been wanting to beat this for awhile, but misplaced the memory card years ago and had no intention of starting completely over again. Guess what turned up while moving? Still no idea where it came from, but there it was. 4 chapters remain, so I should have it cleared within a few week.

World 3 | 37 Stars | 16 comet Coins
Mass Effect 2′s first contender for Game of the Year. I enjoyed the first Mario Galaxy (I gave it a rare 10), and this sequel is everything the first game was plus more. The game is far more streamlined. Challenge has thus far been right where it needs to be. And it has Yoshi!

19:45 | Chapter 8 | Nautilus
Sazh & Vanille
I had planned on playing Resonance of Fate once I get everything hooked back up, but after listening to a friend talk about XIII the whole to Pittsburgh and back I ended putting it in. Enjoying it so far. It’s no VI or XII, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. The beginning could have been explained better, but things pick up quickly. Can’t wait to get out of the tutorial…(120/1000)

Beaten. Look below for my write-up. (135/200)

All eight of the bosses have fallen. All that remains is taking on Wily. Currently running recon in Wily Stage 1. (20/200)

I had completely forgotten LucasArts was remaking this game until I saw it advertised on the XBL dashboard for 1/2 off. Instant download. I never played the original 1990 version, though with a button press you can switch seamlessly between the original and this remake. I found myself flipping back and forth at times, seeing how the game looked 20 years ago.
A point-and-click adventure game, it has made the transition to controller fairly well. Moving and looking are the default commands, while the other verb commands are accessed from a menu. My only complaints about the game came with the verb/item menus. Once you select a command it usually took you to your item menu automatically, even if you didn’t want to use an item. While in the item menu, the analog stick changed items, but the d-pad would change the verb command. Something easily forgotten when you only have a few seconds to select your items and your verb. Infrequent, but still annoying when you have to backtrack and pick up the items again.
My goal was to beat the game without consulting a FAQ. I did manage that, though I did have to make use of the in-game hint system. Often useless, as it would parrot back to me exactly what I was doing. On a few occasions it did actually give me the hint I needed. It’s certainly a lot more fun to put things together yourself, though a few of the solutions really had me scratching my head… The yellow flower certainly stands out as a clue I missed somewhere.
The game is hilarious and never puts you in a position where you can not proceed forward. Highly recommended unless you have a thing against old-school adventure games. 8.6/10.

One more Baltimore Consort piece. One of my favorite songs by them. This one is A Trip to Killburn from a 1996 recording starring the bears (brown? grizzly?) of the Cleveland Zoo.

1 Pickups, 1 Additions

Atlus & NIS America

Persona 3 Portable

Trinity Universe

Others

Alpha Protocol	Arc Rise Fantasia	Metroid: Other M	DeathSmiles
Fallout: New Vegas

Eye on 2010

I had a speculative article all ready to go and then Nintendo went and spoiled it for me. Playing through Path of Radiance, I got to wondering what Intelligent Systems has been up to since Shadow Dragon, well over a year ago. With the 3DS on the horizon, it got me to thinking that a 3D Fire Emblem for launch would be downright awesome. That was not to be, however, as a few days later word that Monshouno Nazo was being remade. An interesting choice as half of that game was a remake of the original Fire Emblem. Which we just got last year… Though I’m certainly interested in the 2nd half, which was a direct follow-up of the first game.