Ah, Black Friday. I've honestly never been out shopping on Black Friday before today. I had tried to get up early to go with friends in the years past, but never really saw the point when I could just sleep in instead. I actually decided to pull an all-nighter last night so that I'd be ready to leave this morning. So at 4:30 this morning, with a 16 ounce cup of Wawa coffe in my hand, I set off with my friends to go experience Black Friday for the first time. I must say, my day has ended up rather well. The whole experience was fun despite being crowded and rushed. I'm sure some of you already know GameStop was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale on all pre-owned games. So the one thing I'm here to tell you about today is my DS pickups. I've got 7 new titles to show you, two of which were free. Yay!!!

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Number one... Scurge: Hive.

I've actually already played through this one before. My friend gave me the game when I first got my DS, but he didn't have the original case. Because I like collecting games, I like to have the original case. I'd seen this one in stores before for around $12 on average, but I knew I could find it for cheaper. Today I got my break at FYE. They had this one sitting on the shelf for $4.99 so I grabbed it without a second thought. Now I'll finally have the case in my collection.

Number two... Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor.

What else can I say. I'm sure you've heard it's fantastic, just as I have, so I can't wait to get started on it. Atlus rules.

Number three... Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

This is the first Castlevania game I've picked up for the DS. It's been on my want list for a while now.

Number four... Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.

The second Castlevania game I've picked up for the DS.

Number five... Big Bang Mini.

This shooter never really caught my interest until recently. I'd heard good things about it, it just never took hold of my curiosity. So I finally decided to pick it up today. This one was free.

Number six... Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

I've played Advance Wars games in the past. They've always been a fun portable strategy outing, so I'm going to try it out on the DS.

And lastly... number seven... Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen.

This was the second title I got for free. I've never played a Dragon Quest game before so I'm ready to find out what I've been missing.

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It was a big day for me. 7 games may not seem like a lot, but it'll sure provide a lot of play time.

I hope everyone has been enjoying their Thanksgiving holiday. Hope the rest of it goes just as well.

Thanks for reading. See you later.

I just had a long night with some friends. While we were out we stopped at a few malls and as I was browsing through the used DS section I found Chrono Trigger.

What else can I say. I loved it when I was growing up and I can't wait to play through it again. It's been so long.

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Today I have impressions on the game Orcs & Elves. It's decent. I wouldn't call it stellar or brilliant, but it has some decent moments and some decent gameplay. It's pretty much a turn based dungeon crawler role playing game. It acts as an old school dungeon crawler due to the linear movement one space at a time, but you won't find any random encounters or battle screens. All enemies are in the actual world and your combat with them is based on turns. Basically, you take your turn... enemy takes their turn... until one of you is dead. You'll deal with more than one enemy at a time frequently, so there can be a bit of strategy involved, but really all you need to do is hack and slash then down some health potions.

Here is a list of commands that will constitute as one turn for you:

-Moving One Space

-Attacking

-Drinking a Potion

-Using an Item

-Interacting with an Object

-Skipping Your Turn

Like I said, you really don't need to do much to win a battle, but occasionally the skip your turn option can help lure enemies closer giving you the upper hand of a first attack. Enemies are easy and you'll only really find a challenge if your completely surrounded, but even in those situations downing a strength or defense potion will allow you to triumph.

I listed RPG in the genre description, but that is almost hardly the case. Yes, you do level up, but you don't get to choose which stats you want raised. The game does it for you. As far as I can tell the game doesn't even randomly roll for your stats either. It's just set out for you as you go along. This leaves no character customization at all.

The game is short. I could finish this one in a day if I wanted to. But it looks nice, it sounds nice, and has a decent story. Nothing along the lines of brilliant writing, but it has something to keep you going. You won't find anything dreadfully boring basically.

Once it's all said and done, this is a game that you should probably check out. It's cheap if you can find it used, and though you'll probably only play it once, it holds a good amount of entertainment.

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My impressions might have been lacking today, but I just want to get some sleep.

Thanks for reading guys. Take it easy.

Today I was out with friends at a mall far away from home. While I was in GameStop I checked the used DS section and found a title that's been on my list for $5.99.

Orcs & Elves

I know this title was originally a mobile phone game, but it looks fun. So we'll see how it goes.

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Now for my latest game impressions. I've been playing Etrian Odyssey. Etrian Odyssey is a dungeon crawler made by the awesome company known as Atlus. The story goes as such; there are stories of a forest labyrinth beneath the land of Etria filled with mystery and wealth. Many adventurers are drawn to Etria to try and conquer the labyrinth (which the citizens of Etria call The Yggdrasil Labyrinth) but the labyrinth has swallowed all who dared to face it. As you may have guessed, you are the leader of a new group of adventurers who have just arrived at Etria to delve into this mystery for yourselves.

There are two main areas to this game. The town, where you'll spend all of your time outside of the labyrinth, and the labyrinth itself.

The town is set up as a menu screen. The list is as follows:

The Rooster Inn - You can rest and save your game here.

Ceft Apothecary - This is where you'll revive team members and buy healing remedies.

Shilleka's Goods - This is the merchant who you'll be able to buy and sell items from.

Golden Deer Pub - This is the area where you'll accept and manage quests to take while exploring the labyrinth.

Explorers Guild - Here, you can organize your team by adding members and choosing how they'll be lined up in battle.

Radha Hall - This is where you'll receive missions and report your findings from your log book of enemies and items.

Forest Entrance - This is simply where you'll enter The Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

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The town menu is all simple 2D art, but it looks very nice and it's easy to manage.

The labyrinth has a nice beautiful 3D environment. The first time I entered I was rather taken back by how vibrant the atmosphere was. There was a long hall of bright green trees and a bright green grass floor with colorful flowers. However, this was no place to be taken lightly.

When you first arrive in Etria, you'll be sent to the Explorers Guild to set up your team. This won't take you terribly long, but you're going to want to grab at least 5 people. After your team is set, you'll be directed to Radha Hall for your first mission. This first mission will introduce you to a very important feature of Etrian Odyssey; complete a map of the first floor (or Stratum as they call them) of the labyrinth. Yes, like in the old days, when dungeon crawlers didn't have maps and you'd have to scribble your way through on a piece of paper, you'll be required to draw your own maps. The labyrinth and town screens will both take place on the top screen. On the bottom screen you'll have your map. Using the stylus on the touch screen, you can draw your walls, paint the floors, label items/events and write memos. This is a neat and nostalgic feature.

Once this mapping mission is complete, you'll be free to explore The Yggdrasil Labyrinth at your own pace, and believe me, you're going to need to pace yourself. This game is not to be taken lightly. Some serious level grinding and backtracking is going to be required here. The difficulty is steep, and though at times it can be frustrating, I believe it's in the games benefit. It makes it feel more traditional.

Money can be tough to come by in Etria. Reviving lost teammates and staying at the inn to heal up can be quite pricey services, but you'll usually find plenty of ways to make money by doing quests acquired at the Golden Deer Pub or by teaching gathering skills to your characters and going to various places scattered throughout the labyrinth to gain resources to sell to Shilleka.

The game has a great original soundtrack. The music fits the action and always keeps me interested.

The graphics are great by my standards albeit being a bit repetitive.

I'm really enjoying Etrian Odyssey so far and I can't wait to play more, but I've still got to grind a few more levels before I can descend any farther into The Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

It looks great, it sounds great, it's tough and it's fun. I think if you're into RPG's and you don't mind a bit of the traditional level grinding, then you should definitely pick this one up.

I was in best buy today when I noticed a box of extremely unorganized PSP and DS games. They were all just sort of thrown in there. I hate trying to sift through large piles of stuff to find anything decent, but my overall curiosity got the better of me and I started digging. There were a few decent DS titles but most were at a price of $14.99, which is a good value for a new game, but I had ultimately decided I'd be better off buying them used. Toward the end of my search I found one title priced $9.99.

That title was Robocalypse.

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I've had my eye on this game for a while. The reviews give it a good amount of credit and I've always been a strategy lover. $9.99 for this new was too cheap to pass up, so I grabbed it.

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Now let's change subjects to a different game I've been playing. Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ.

I must say, this is more fun than I'd originally expected. The reviews are mixed, but this little shooter has more good than bad I'd say. The concept for the story is great. A zombie plague has taken over the world of all your favorite fairy tales. You'll come across many familiar characters as you blast your way through the fairy tale world in order to eliminate the zombie plague.

The gameplay is well presented. You can think of it as any other arcade shooter where you control the bottom portion of the screen while enemies roll down from the top. Your character is at the bottom of the touch screen and the view ahead extends all the way to the top screen. Across the bottom, there are seven spaces where your character may stand at any given time. You may use the arrow keys (or face buttons for left handed individuals) to move your character across the screen. You may also touch a space farther away from your character to jump to that space, allowing faster movement for quick dodges.

As far as shooting is concerned, you're not limited shooting straight forward. The game requires use of the stylus. You are free to aim wherever you please on the screen. Simply touching will fire your machine gun (the default weapon with unlimited ammunition) in that direction. You do have to reload. Reloading is simple though. After firing your weapon for a short period of time the reload warning will appear and all you need to do is release your stylus from the screen. Reload complete. See, painless. However, it sometimes creates a problem. You see, double tapping the screen causes your character to shoot a powerful grenade and sometimes, while trying to reload, I'll accidentally use one of the grenades due to the tapping. It's never affected me in getting to the end of a level though, so no worries.

The weapons included in the game are the aforementioned machine gun which you'll be using most of the time (has a long range and does decent damage; it actually becomes a ninja star if you use Momotaro, the other character you can play as), a powerful shotgun (good for only close range attacks but does a number on the zombies), a flamethrower (has a medium range and does fast damage), your grenade launcher (accessible at any time with a double tap; does lots of damage), and a rare super laser (this one has a long range and does a lot of damage but can only be fired straight; you should save these for the boss fights.) Weapons are selected via the touch screen. There are icons on both sides of the upper touch screen and they'll never get in the way so weapon selection is simple.

You'll go through a decent amount of levels and good boss fights. The difficulty seems just right. The boss fights can be a bit challenging, but it's all just a matter of trial and error trying to find ways to dodge or nullify their attacks. There are a number of different enemies with different strengths and abilities and you'll have to adapt to.

The graphics in the game are great. Think Doom; 3D environments with 2D sprites for enemies. Now, not all the enemies are 2D. The basic zombies and your own character will be 2D, but bosses and the special enemies will all be 3D. If you've read the reviews you probably already know that you'll run across some slowdown in the game. Honestly, it wasn't a big problem for me. You'll see the slowdown in the very beginning of the game and toward the end of the game. I didn't notice any slowdown at any other points and it wasn't enough to bring my game experience down. The environments will all change based on where you are in the fairy tale world. This makes for a fairly diverse set of levels even though you'll always be traveling straight.

I love the soundtrack for this one. Music in a game is always a huge factor for me. I felt like the music here fit the levels and was always pleasant to listen to as I blasted my way through a pack of zombies.

There's a lot to do here. I've already played through the game on Normal and Hard difficulties, but not the Extreme difficulty. The harder difficulty you beat the game on, the more of the true story ending you reveal, which gives you a good incentive to go back and play it again. Completing the game on Normal mode will unlock Boss Attack Mode which lets you face all the bosses back to back to see how fast you can kill them all. Completing the game on Hard mode will unlock Survival Mode. Survival Mode consists of waves of enemies bombarding you. Killing enemies adds time to the clock, but the game will end if the clock reaches zero or if you die. One thing I felt the game was lacking was a multiplayer element. I believe it had a lot of potential there.

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The good things:

-Cool Concept

-Fun Gameplay

-Great Graphics

-Great Music

-Good Replay Value

The bad things:

-Minor Slowdown

-No Multiplayer

-Minor Control Issues

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My final word on this game:

For the price I picked it up in GameStop, it was definitely worth it. Don't be wary because of the mixed reviews. This is one game that deserves a play through.

8 out of 10

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Thanks for reading guys. Take it easy.

While I was out today I stopped by my local GameStop and managed to find three new titles on my DS wish list for under $10 each.

The first one on the list is GRID.

I've always been a big racing fan and I've heard some good things about this title so I decided to pick it up for $6.99.

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The second one on the list is Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ.

Taking all of the childhood fairy tales I learned as a kid and twisting them into a zombie massacre? This sounds like one of the best concepts ever. I know this title has some mixed reviews, but I just think it sounds plain fun. I picked this one up for $8.99.

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The final game I picked up was Nanostray 2.

I'm also a big arcade shooter fan. The first Nanostray is already in my collection and I've heard this one is much better so I couldn't just let it sit on the shelf. I paid $6.99 for this one.

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That's all for the 11/8/09 pickups. I look forward to playing them, but I'm currently spending my time on a few other games. If you'd like any game impressions just let me know and I'll help you out as best as I can.

Later.