I WOKE UP EARLY TO SEE NINTENDO AT E3...

...IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Okay, so they only actually announced three games I'm super excited for, but the last was just about the epicest thing ever. Yes, epicest. I'll discuss my opinions about the three...

First up is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Well, it was a sweet thing to kick off the conference with, that's for sure. It's basically a 2D sidescroller for the Wii that looks a lot like its DS predecessor but adds the awesomeness of 4-player co-op/versus in the vein of Zelda's Four Swords games. It also showed a new item, the Propeller Suit which lets you fly up by shaking the Wiimote. It just screams potential if you ask me, and it will be GREAT if they add a bunch of characters (the trailer showed Mario, Luigi, and two colors of Toad), a bunch of returning items as well as some new ones (I want to see some suits from Super Mario Bros. 3), and make it differentiate itself from the DS's version.

Next is something of a surprise: another Mario title for Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2. Hax, right? This one will likely be an awesome game just like Super Mario Galaxy 1, but I'm afraid it will feel too much like a rehash. But it has Yoshi! YOSHI FOR THE WIIIIN!

And finally, the HUGE surprise of epic proportions... Metroid: Other M. A new Metroid for the Wii that screams epic. It looks like it will be an early title in the timeline, as Adam from Metroid Fusion shows up in an alive form. It is also going to be a more "mature" approach to the series, and as long as it doesn't just randomly throw curse words and blood in there I'm totally game. Oh, and it looks like it transitions between third person sidescrolling, third person free-roam, and first person free-roam. EPIC.

No Zelda, though. But that's okay. I just really wanted to see Pikmin 3... Metroid makes up for it, though.

OMGGGGGGGG It's GSDS!

Finally.

Well, it certainly took them long enough, but Pokemon Gold's and Silver's imminent remakes have finally been officially confirmed! They are called Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver. Not bad, but I personally think they should have flipped them for GoldHeart and SilverSoul or kept the DawnGold and DuskSilver ideas, but whatever. I can't complain! At all! I'm psyched!

Well they just got announced in Japan, though, so we won't see them translated for a while. Since they're supposed to come out in Japan this fall, I'd wager that they show up in the U.S. 3rd or 4th quarter 2010. Just a guess.

I think the big question on everyone's minds is what they'll add to the remakes. I mean, FireRed and LeafGreen, while still definitely remakes, added the Sevii Islands to the mix (along with all the newer gameplay mechanics, of course) and even officially introduced Deoxys! Maybe Hg and Ss (as I will refer to them now in the same style as "Fr and Lg") will add some new Pokemon Formes? Maybe to correspond with the Arceus movie? Maybe. I'll go ahead and list some more stuff I'd like to see:

-Leaf added into the official plot - In the original G and S (and C), the protagonist (Red) and rival (Blue) from the original Red and Blue show up as a final battle in Mt. Silver and a replacement Gym Leader, respectively. Now that Fr and Lg have introduced a new female protagonist (or "Leaf"), I hope to see Hg and Ss put her somewhere in the story as well. In other news, we'll have Blue's name reconfirmed, so I can't wait (there's been controversey since he was called Green in Japan based off of Pokemon Green and since LeafGreen was called the same thing in all the world...)

-Maybe another region? - Now, G/S/C already have you traveling to Kanto after you beat the Elite Four the first time, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some bonus area added to their DS counterparts, much like with Fr and Lg. Maybe it could be one of the more recent regions re-added? Maybe Hoenn? Eh, probably not, but it's possible...

-Better Underground - Sinnoh introduced the Underground, so why not optimize it to the extreme? It could be Wi-Fi compatible, even! That'd be great.

...Wow, I expected that to end up longer. Oooooh well. I just want to hear them remix the Champion theme to epic DS proportions... I love that theme...

Failtastic Localization FTL

You know Stafy? The little starfish who was Japan-only? Well, if you don't know, he had a series of platforming games (five, I believe) and was quite the popular little bugger. He appeared in cameos in a Wario Land game, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Super Princess Peach (as a special enemy that was super-rare, no less), and most recently as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Well, I've never played any of his games before, but for a while now I've been really wanting him to show as playable in the Smash Bros. series to up his chances of being brought out of Japan. Well, he has been brought out of Japan, and now I'm going tor ant about it. Why? Because of weird localization changes that FAIL.

Okay, so the series was recently confirmed to be coming to America. YAY! Right? Well, yeah. Buuuut... they really screwed up on the pointless re-translations. The title changed from The Legend of Stafy to The Legendary Starfy... not bad at all until you realize that they changed his name. Which wouldn't even be that terrible, but his name had already been officially translated as "Stafy"! And they change it! But that wasn't terrible either, certainly nothing to rant online about. Then I got my Nintendo Power...

Okay, so Stafy (or Starfy, as I guess it is now) has a sister. Who basically looks just like him except pink and with a bow. Her name was Stapy, which I can only assume wan't pronounced like "staple." But yeah, that was official too (she had a trophy in Brawl). But with Stafy being changed to Starfy, we'd probably end up with Stapy being changed to Starpy, too, right? Nothign too bad, right? WRONG. Instead, they changge it further. Her name is now Starly. Ess-tee-ae-arr-ell-why. And "Why?" indeed. They fail so bad at localization that now Starfy's sister is a freaking POKEMON. STUPID. STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID.

...okay, optimism... at least its not 4Kids... then it'd probably be called "Starfy the Starfish and HAPPY FRIENDS" or something. I hate 4Kids... and I can safely add whoever the heck decided to rename Stafy's sister to the list or people who PHAIL at localization.

On the plus side, I CAN'T WAIT for Punch-Out!! Wii and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. Though Why it's not Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations is beyond me. But that's certainly not a big issue or anything, and the former does sound a little better. Eh, they should've just called it Miles Edgewroth: Perfect Prosecutor and been done with it.

Jameson's Five Rules of Sonic Musical Quality

DISCLAIMER: These rules are not meant to be literally factual and are merely my opinions stated in a factual manner to perhaps be moderately amusing. Thank you.

I have noticed that one of the things that Sonic games usually to pretty well with is their music quality. And thus, I have put up a list of things to test a song or Sonic game soundtrack with to see if it sucks or not. If you happen to find any exceptions to this list, please inform me and I will add it to the list or shoot it down. One last thing: the list goes in order of priority, so if your song is already awesome by rule #1, it can't be shot down by rule #3. Get it? I'll put examples at the end.

RULE #1: If a song is by Bentley Jones then it is automatically awesome.

RULE #2: If a song is by Crush 40 then it is automatically awesome.

RULE #3: If a song is a love/romantic/*ahem* "special friend" song, then it automatically sucks. The exceptions to this rule are the love songs in a few games that are more peppy and happy than really "romantic", such as the ones in Sonic R and "Follow Me" from Sonic Heroes.

RULE #4: Any Sonic game developed by Sega or Sonic Team will have at least a decent soundtrack. No guarantees for other companies.

RULE #5: It is difficult, but possible, to make an already good Sonic song worse in a remix. While I can't think of any instances of a remix being worse, I will leave this one open juuuuuust in case.

And there you have it! Okay, now examples:
"Dreams of an Absolution" (SONIC the Hedgehog (2006)) could fall under Rule #3, but is saved by Rule #1 and thus is awesome.
"Dear My Friend" (Sonic Unleashed) fails and sucks due to Rule #3.
The soundtrack for Sonic Chronicles has no guarantee for quality due to Rule #4. Sure enough, it had probably the worst soundtrack of any Sonic game ever.

Thinking Outside the Box of Failure

Y'know, I can come to terms with my weaknesses. And one such weakness is my general inability to think outside the box. It tends to hang me up in certain video game puzzles, I'll tell you. XD

A great example is in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS. Well, in PH there's a part where you need to get a stamp from a map on the wall onto the map you have to mark the next place to go. Well, when you examine the map on the wall, you get your map on the DS' bottom screen and the wall's map on the top, upside down. Perhaps the solution seems obvious to you, but I spent ages tapping and sliding on the touch screen, trying to get something to happen. I actually got the solution accidentally... my DS' battery was getting low and I, since I was in the car at the time and had no interest in saving and having to start over the dungeon, closed my DS to save power. When I opened, wow, what do you know, that was the puzzle. I had to close my DS to line up the screens and transfer the stamp... wow.

I guess that's excusable. Buuut you know there's a problem when you can't figure out in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption that you need to actually examine and press a button instead of scanning it as is a Metroid Prime staple... jeez. I guess I had the excuse that it was a demo in a public place. I guess.

At least I can hope that I'm learning from the Ace Attorney series, what with having to think outside the boxes on plenty of cases. At least I can hope.

Coraline + Pikmin 2 or something

Today, I went to see Coraline. In glorious computer 3D of epic! Now, I haven't read the book (though I probably will now), so I can't judge it based on that, but I really liked the movie. It seemed like it was really well adapted. Just about the only problem I had with it was the animation had some choppy parts, especially at the beginning... however, it seemed like it actually might have been on purpose, as the entire movie seemed claymation-esque. I really did like the movie, though. Especially the story.

...Still not as good as WALL-E, though. :P

Oh, and just recently I beat Pikmin 2. Which is saying something, since I've had it since, like, its initial release. Which was ages ago. Well, technically I had done the first part of the game ages ago, but had never finished the main story part two or gotten all the treasures. Which I did. And I must say, the final boss is EPIC. It wasn't too hard (probably in part due to the fact that I started that game when I had the terrible moral of playing games with the guide in my lap the entire way) but required a lot of startegy and was just... pretty cool overall.

...Still have to beat Challenge Mode though. DANG Challenge Mode. HATE IT. >_>

---

Currently actively playing:
Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero
Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia
Elite Beat Agents
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
Animal Crossing: City Folk
Super Smash Bros. Brawl

A rather random question

I PROMISED I'D KEEP REGULARISH UPDATES AND I INTEND TO KEEP THAT PROMISE!

So, yeah. I just got done adding printed box art to my used games without it, so yay. For the moment, I can't say I have much to say. I know there was something I wanted to rant about, but I can't remember what it was...

Oh, well.

Random Question of the Day
Please give your opinion in the comments.

If someone was theoretically able to travel faster than the speed of light while maintaining their standard physical form (as in, not turning into energy), what would that person see?
1)Normal
2)Things ahead of them
3)Things behind them
4)They wouldn't be able to see