Hello everyone! A pleasure to see you all once again.

Wow, I can't believe I haven't made a new post since September 9th. I'm very sorry for not keeping in touch with you all more frequently but I'm afraid that the usual stuff has come up. School, my offline friends, and...well, you know. This is always the case once school starts though In the summer, I'm always keeping you guys updated and making reviews but things always slow down around this time so just bear with me and keep in mind that I'm always around here, even though I may not make it very obvious.

So, how have you all been? I've been pretty good so far. School is treating me very nicely in particular. Things have been pretty easygoing thanks to my balanced semester and the work isn't overwhelming at all. I got quite a few new games too and things with my family and friends, while not always so smooth, have been pretty peaceful lately.

In terms of gaming, I have a lot to talk about. It's been such a long time that I've gotten myself a few new games and I'm working on an older one that I never got to finish.

You guys will remember that I purchased Shadow of the Colossus some time ago if you read my last blog. Well, now I've finished it! I have to say, I was actually getting tired of the game towards the end. I felt as if it was getting redundant and I honestly wanted it to hurry up and end already. The last colossus and the ending did not disappoint though! That was probably one of the most satisfying and interesting endings to a game that I've experienced so far. Overall, I thought it was a very solid game. If I have the time, I'll make a review for it.

Touch Detective is one of those games that I never really had any intention of buying but I decided to pick it up because of a friend's recommendation (you know who you are ). I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. While it wasn't that superb, I liked it more than what most professional critics seem to think of it. It definitely has a certain creepy charm (especially the 2nd case) and it was worth playing through. I'm definitely thinking of picking up the sequel!

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a game that I honestly wasn't planning on buying this soon but my friend REALLY wanted to try out multiplayer with me so I went ahead and bought it. Of course, you guys know how I can be with games sometimes. I just blaze right through them to get them over with and by the time my friend bought this game, I was already at around Day 200 so she was too weak to go on any worthwhile missions with me So I just went ahead and finished the game and agreed to help her get extra stuff in Mission Mode if she needs any help. I have to say, this entry in the Kingdom Hearts series doesn't really live up to the PS2 games (which, while not the best RPGs I've ever played, were tons of fun). The story in this one was an absolute bore. I hated how, since Organization XIII was a "stealth" organization, they couldn't interact with any of the Disney characters. I admit that a big part of the appeal of console games was that I was able to traverse all these different Disney worlds and see these characters who I thought I would never see in the same game (and a Squaresoft RPG for that matter). Sure they were held together by some ridiculous story about hearts and whatever that wasn't that interesting to me but still, it was quite interesting seeing what happened when Square and Disney worked together. Much of the appeal is gone in this game though (there are zero Final Fantasy characters and a ridiculous lack of Disney with all the worlds having been present in the past games), and the gameplay isn't quite as good either because of the DS hardware limitations (controlling a game like Kingdom Hearts with the d-pad isn't exactly the most comfortable setup). Still, it's a nice attempt and still a game worth playing through. Just don't expect too much. I'm looking forward to the PSP one much more though.

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars (Director's Cut) was a bit of an impulse buy for me. When I even heard that there was a Director's Cut of Broken Sword, I remembered playing another version of it on the GBA (I haven't played the superior PC version unfortunately). I actually liked that one and thought that it would be interesting to see how the game would be if it wasn't held back by the GBA hardware limitations. Since the PC one isn't quite as readily available as this version, I picked this one up when I saw it. After playing through it all, I have to say that it was a very enjoyable experience! I liked those cool new animation scenes that were thrown in together with the extra Nico sidestory segments (as short as those sections may have been). Being an updated version of an old cla$$ic, I can't really go too in-depth into this. There's not much I could reveal that you couldn't find out by looking up the Broken Sword games yourself but I'll just say that I enjoyed this game and I recommend it!

I've actually owned The Witcher: Enhanced Edition since last year but back then, despite how nice this game looked and how much I wanted to play it, our computer simply couldn't handle it well. Well, my brother did some heavy upgrading and now the game actually works pretty smoothly and I've been able to play it a lot lately. I'm really enjoying it! I'm glad this didn't end up like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to me (which was a game I really couldn't get myself to like). The way that this game pulls off the fantasy setting is very realistic and convincing. I also love how the choices you make can really have some weight to them and how the events of the game can unfold very differently based on what you do. The political tension is also something that really gripped me here. I honestly can't decide on whether I should side with The Order (the humans) or the Scoia'tael (the non-humans). They both really seem like they're doing horrible things but if I just say neutral and do nothing, I miss out on a lot of quests so I try to balance the choices I make regarding them. It's pretty difficult to stay neutral in this game though. I'll keep you guys updated on how things go with this game.

----------

Well, that's pretty much all I have to say for now. I could talk about school and all the sort of stuff but I'm kind of tired so I'll stop here I hope you guys all have a great Halloween if you're celebrating it! See you all soon.

Hello everyone! Nice to see you all once again!

So as you all probably already know, school has started for me (it started on September 8th) so I haven't quite been blogging as much and don't expect me to make blog posts too frequently for a while since school is proving to be somewhat busy and I don't have much free time. It's the weekend though so I have time to make an update.

I've been liking Grade 10 so far. I've been learning quite a bit and things have gone well for my first week. As some of you know, I posted my schedule two blogs ago so I thought I might add some impressions as to what I think so far of my classes (since I don't have much else to blog about )

Principles of Mathematics: Blech, I have to start the day of with Math. This class isn't that bad and I have a somewhat good grasp of things so far (especially since everything for the first week is pretty much a review of Grade 9 stuff) but this is the class where I get the most homework. We get around 40+ questions to do everyday and I'm not looking forward to going into the more complex stuff. Still, you can't really escape from Math in life since it's necessary in a lot of things so I'll just deal with it.

Christ and Culture: Yeah, like I mentioned before, I go to a Catholic school so I have to take a religion-centered course once a year. I'm not really liking this class that much so far. Not only is it pretty boring so far but I'm finding some of the students to be rather annoying. I still have to see how things go and whether or not my teacher does well at teaching or not.

English: I love this class. I honestly find doing some writing assignments fun and we started with the short story unit, reviewing literary devices, and blah blah blah, the usual Reading stories and myths is interesting for me so I'm looking forward to seeing more of this class.

Civics: Well, this is an interesting class. I actually had no idea what Civics even was before coming into this class >_> but the teacher explained that it's studying the rights and citizenship of a nation and stuff like that. Some of the stuff is interesting I guess, but my teacher is the really odd and interesting one. He really likes to stare at people and stares at me from time to time. It doesn't make me uncomfortable though so I just stare back at him and we have some staring contest for a few seconds He also talks to us about comic books, Spider-Man, Batman, The Lord of the Rings, the Wii (which he hates his wife and son decide all the games for him to get though and they get stuff like Lego Batman and Wii Fit. I'll have to introduce him to No More Heroes and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition), his experiences from his younger years, and random stuff like that. I'm amazed we actually get anything done with how off-topic he strays but I guess I don't mind.

Well, there you go. I know it's not the most interesting topic but I thought I might as well share what I think so far of the classes I've been having this semester.

In other more game related news, I got myself Shadow of the Colossus!

First impressions of the game so far are great. I'm not really too familiar with what the story is all about and everything since the beginning was kind of confusing but I really like the game. The isolated and desolate atmosphere that this game has is really effective since it really seems like it's just your character, his horse, and the colossi out there in the land this game takes place in. I also like how the game controls when you ride the horse (I believe his name was Agro or something like that). He's a bit difficult to control and unstable at times but he's much faster than you are. Kind of like a real horse!

Of course, the best parts so far are definitely the colossi battles. Scaling them and slaying them is tons of fun (well, until they die and you start feeling sorry for them of course). The music that plays during the encounters with them is amazing as well! I really need to look up the composer and see if he's done any other works. Anyway, I'm only up to the big flying bird colossus so far (I think it's the 4th or 5th one, I forgot) so I still have quite a way to go, but I'll try to finish as much of the game as possible soon.

Well, that's all for now! I'll talk to you all some other time.

Hello everyone! Nice to see you all again!

Life hasn't been very busy for me lately, but that should change soon since school is starting for me in five days. However, I have been playing a game recently to occupy my time. After my last foray into the land of fan translations, I played an interesting RPG called Persona 2: Innocent Sin. The experience was pretty good and I was very satisfied with the dedicated translation which allowed me to play one of my most wanted games that wasn't released in English...in English.

Well, now a similar situation has presented itself. As I was looking around some forums on an adventure game site, I came across a thread talking about the fan translation of Policenauts, a very old Playstation adventure game directed by Hideo Kojima (which was also released on several different formats before the PS version). Intrigued, I went ahead and looked some stuff up. Apparently, many people who played it in Japanese and understood it hail it as Hideo Kojima's "hidden masterpiece" as plans for the official localization by Konami were cancelled. The translators also seemed to have been working on it for a very long time so I felt very obliged to try the whole thing out and I honestly found that the game looked interesting as a whole so I went ahead and played the game which was translated thanks to the patch.

Now, I haven't played this long enough to give my definite opinion on what I think of the game (I've played around 5 hours) but it left a very good first impression on me.

I'll say it up front though. Policenauts is a cla$$ic adventure game. If you don't like adventure games, don't play this. The only action sequences that it has are these (very intense) shooting sequences that have so far happened rarely. Also, this game has a very heavy science fiction feel to it. If you hate science fiction, don't bother with this game as it throws a large amount of scientific terms at you.

For everyone else, I really suggest you give it a try. Like I said earlier, the game left some very good first impressions on me. It's a game that takes place around the year 2040 and follows the adventures of Jonathan Ingram, a man who was...er, it's kind of hard to explain. It's probably easier if you guys read up on it yourself.

Anyways, that's all I really have to talk about I just thought I'd give you guys an update since it's been quite a while since my last blog. So I guess that's it for now. I'll give you guys an update on how school goes when it starts this coming Tuesday.

Oh yeah, and like I predicted, The Greatest Adventure Game Hero of All Time is turning out to be one big glorified popularity contest. I mean, honestly. Frogger is beating Garrett? Little Mac won over Phoenix Wright? It's clear that this is more of a "Who do more people know about?" and "Who looks cooler?" contest instead of a Greatest Hero one. Well, I guess that's a given. Although this honestly isn't turning out to be anything more than those Character Battles they have over at GameFAQs (except with less candidates since they're only including heroes).

Hello everyone! Nice to see you all once again.

Anyways, as you can see by my blog title. School is coming pretty soon for me. Some of you (depending on which part of the world you live in) have already started school, some of you might still even be on vacation, and some of you might be fully working adults but my school year starts on September 8th which is coming pretty quickly. I'm always a bit nervous before the school year starts, mainly because I don't know what teachers I'll be having and whether or not they're going to be any good but I guess I'm also excited too in a way to meet everyone again and start getting busy. I'm not too terribly excited for this year though. I'm going into 10th Grade (which is 2nd year high school) and from what I recall, this is what my schedule is:

First Semester:
Principles of Mathematics
Christ and Culture (Yes, I go to a Catholic school)
English
Career Studies/Civics

Second Semester:
Canadian History Since World War I
Introduction to Business
Core French
Science

So yeah, not the most terribly exciting schedule but that's probably just what the first two years of high school are like. All the courses I'm taking are mandatory except for Business and French which I chose on my own. I'm not really interested in Business but I'm taking it to get the credit out of the way (on the other hand, I kind of like French). Religion was a total bore last year and I'm expecting it to be one again this year (it supposedly doesn't get interesting until Grade 11) and everything else looks alright to me.

I know my school schedule isn't the most exciting thing in the world but since school was on my mind, I thought I might as well share I'll give you guys updated impressions of what I think once my first semester begins.

Also, I ended up getting a new emblem which is related to the All Time Greatest Video Game Hero contest.

This looks like a nice and interesting activity for the community to take part in. Although, someone like Link or Kratos or Snake will probably end up winning in the end no matter what Still though, I'm going to vote whenever I get the chance to. I also took a look at the brackets and tried making my own. It was actually pretty amusing because my choices were so far off from what would probably happen After all, you guys know what sort of taste I have (I'd take Phoenix Wright over Cloud Strife any day). It's horrible of Gamespot to put Samus and Jade against each other as their first match though. I mean, making two of the most likable gaming heroines going off against each other on the first round? How criminal! Well, I'm probably voting for Jade in that case since she talks a lot more and has the courage to wear green lipstick. This suddenly reminds me of how much I'm looking forward to Beyond Good & Evil 2...

Also, I made a new review for The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. Go check it out if you've got the time and I hope you guys enjoy it!

Well, that's all for now! Excuse me as I continue to wait for Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth to come out... (I do hope school makes the months fly by until February)

Hello everyone, it's a pleasure to see you all again! How have you all been?

Things have been rather quiet with me. This summer has been lots of fun and all but it's coming to and end quickly so things are settling down. I doubt I'm going on anymore camping and overnight trips for the rest of the month and my "fun" will probably be limited to browsing around the internet, reading, or hanging out with friends until summer vacation ends and school starts once more.

Speaking of school, I'm quite looking forward to going back to it. It's certainly going to keep me busy and it'll be nice seeing people again. Not to mention that I actually enjoy classes and taking down notes (since I'm weird like that ). I should study a bit before it gets started though. If I don't then I'm going to get off to a very bad start with some of my classes like French since I'm quite sure I've forgotten most of it over the summer.

On the gaming side, I'm really pleased with the announcement of the PS3 Slim.

It's $299, 33 percent smaller, 36 percent lighter, and uses less energy! Sounds good to me. I'll see if I can get myself one before the end of the year. I honestly can't wait until I get myself one. There are lots and lots of games that I'm looking forward to playing that are on it. I'll probably start off buying the games that my friends really recommend to me like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and LittleBigPlanet so that I can actually talk to them/play with them when it comes to some games and then slowly work on building up my collection with games like Valkyria Chronicles and MGS4 (after I get all the other MGS games first...). My PS3 purchase cannot come soon enough!

Anyways, in other gaming news...well, I haven't been doing much lately. I bought Golden Sun: The Lost Age a few weeks ago.

That was quite some time ago though so I already finished the game. It was a solid typical JRPG. It had a much larger scale compared to the first game and was nice. As usual, taking the GBA's technical limitations into consideration, the special effects in battle were very impressive. The puzzles were done rather well too. I recommend it! (but then again, who buys GBA games anymore these days? )

I'm also getting really hyped up for Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. I'm rather disappointed that it's still coming out in February, 2010 but at least I know it's being localized. The Ace Attorney series is what sparked my interest in the Adventure genre after all (as I got The Longest Journey some time not too long after playing the first Phoenix Wright game). Anyway, to commemorate the announcement of its localization (which happened quite some time ago actually), I've decided to replay all of the Ace Attorney games. I'm currently in the middle of Trials & Tribulations which is easily my favourite entry in the series. After I'm done with this then...well, I guess I enter the waiting phase for the Miles Edgeworth game

I've also made a bunch of new reviews. If you want to check them out, here are the reviews I made for God of War (those who have been keeping track of my blogs for a long time will know my stance on this game), Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (a review which got featured on the weekly community blog), and Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All (which I should've written years ages ago but just never got to it ). I hope you enjoy reading them!

Well, that's all for now. Yeah, not much has been happening lately Expect a meatier update from me next month!

Also, since I haven't been too busy lately, if you guys want me to write an opinion blog or a "Top 10/Top 5/Top Whatever" blog then you can request it. I honestly wouldn't mind since it'll keep me busy.