Snakejake1112

At the beginning of the last semester, I began playing Borderlands 2 with some of my friends here at school. They had played it and beaten it before, and I had not. I had gotten fairly far in Borderlands 1, but hadn't beaten that one either. So, I had some essential idea of how the control scheme and basic gameplay worked, but didn't have much to go on from there. I own both Borderlands 1 and 2, but this is Borderlands: The Handsome Jack Collection, with Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel included, with all prior released DLC, and we played it in conjunction on 2 separate PS4's. We ended up beating the main campaign, as well as all side quests, and did a lot of the DLC campaigns and quests, but we ended up stopping before anything else. Quests went unfinished, some DLC untouched, challenges not completed, and definitely not all trophies gathered. It was put aside due to conflicting schedules, school work, and regular work all piling up. Though we still played other games, this one sat in the back of my mind, something I wanted to go back because it felt like it was just left behind. It was even given up on, it just sort of happened.

So, we are back on it. Been playing the game again, and went straight into True Vault Hunter Mode, which is effectively the New Game+ of Borderlands 2. Haven't been back into it for too long, in fact we only just got to Sanctuary for the first time (thankfully), but along the way I was able to finally complete three more challenges (such as killing Bullymongs, shooting there projectiles, etc.) and come close to leveling up once more, which is also a necessity. This is a pretty short one, as its more of just a catch-up, without any need for any added discussion that I usually do. This may change later, as I know that I can't get pretty rage at most any game, and I usually develop some sort of thought, statement, or stance after that. Only time can tell, but as it stands, this is what I'm doing and I hope I can complete this one in a decent amount of time. I have other things I wanna do, try out, and Yooka-Laylee is coming out soon too. and that'll definitely take up a chunk of my time.

Hello again I'm talking about a mobile game that I unceremoniously dropped $10.00 on as soon as it came out back in DECEMBER!!!!! Ok, for real though, I actually do like this game a lot, it is fun to play the main game and I like to vs other people in the world in order to obtain more Toads for my Kingdom. However, this is sort of in the same vain as Miitomo and Pokemon Go (Both games which I had at one point and now I don't have) in that there isn't really a whole lot going for it. Sure, it is fun to play, which is a leg up on Miitomo, and it isn't consistently broken, like Pokemon Go. But there isn't a lot to do in the game. I have all of the coins (Pink, Purple, and Black) collected for each level of each World, as well as having beat and collected all coins in each of the special pipes (which sucks because they don't mark that in your records). As well, I have all of the characters unlocked now, so whats left to do? Well, continue versing other players in order to max out your Toad count and unlock more decorations for your Mushroom Kingdom along the way. But although versing people is fun, like I said, I'm starting to, once again, not really care. Is it worth maxing out the Toad count and unlocking decorations if that's all they are. This argument has been used to undermine the purpose of playing video games as a whole plenty of times in the past, and while I understand that, that isn't where I'm coming from. Perhaps its just a matter of personal goals, what one hopes to get out of a game, because my progression along with the actual game was pretty specifically skill based, as you needed to collect certain coins in the game, and I care about the character unlocks because for the most part, they all play a little differently. But I don't care about getting 10 more blue toads to unlock a different Luigi-specific flagpole, because what's the point. Again, I guess, what is the point in playing games anyways unless its a reasoning specific to you. That's my case though, and with a drive to sort of see it through, I don't think I'll be playing the game consistently, but maybe I'll keep this one around compared to the other two aforementioned Nintendo products, and complete it slowly over time. Not really because I care for the collection of these "decorations" for the kingdom, but rather in order to keep having fun playing what I'm playing, and to see it through. Because although the main reason I play games isn't for fun, I'm driven by different motives, it certainly isn't something to lose sight of, because if you don't at least slightly enjoy what you're doing, then what's the point?

Ok, I just "completed" The Talos Principle, and I have a MAJOR gripe with it. Something that just sets me off, which also as it happens is a problem that I have with plenty of current games out there. Firstly, I would like to say that I loved The Talos Principle, as I do other puzzle games, because they make me feel smart without me actually having to be intelligent. That is why I enjoy puzzle games like The Witness and this game. I only had to play through twice and still got all four endings by using the Revert Backup feature. I collected all pieces of written information, audio logs, stars, sigils, and even all three Messenger icons without using any of them (Naturally, anyways. I did have to use one to get an achievement, but did it and immediately restored my previous save). Overall, it was a joyous experience and I would definitely recommend the game to others. Now comes the part where I complain about something frivolous that may seem small to some but never fails to utterly piss me off.

I was not able to collect all of the achievements for this game, even though I did. And that's all because of the DLC for the game, Road to Gehenna, which in itself has 4 achievements of its own. Why does this bother me? Well, I'm not upset by the existence of the DLC, that in and of itself is common for most every game, and even though I'm deterred from buying it right now because of its $15.00 price tag, I will eventually get it, because it means more The Talos Principle, and therefore more puzzles. However, I always hate it when the achievements lock up because you can't afford or don't feel like purchasing the DLC. What would be the solution to this? Not having DLC achievements at all? Having the DLC achievements under a separate name or tag? Neither of those ideas appeal to me, I don't find them viable, but I would still rather either of those ideas than this garbage that keeps my total games completed stats from updating on Steam, or worse yet (though not extremely common in my experience) when they keep you from getting a platinum trophy or the final achievement for collecting all of the other trophies/achievements. It seems dishonest, almost as if you aren't paying to have the full story necessarily, or at least in my case, but you are buying the DLC to say that you have had the full experience. Sort of like purchasing DLC to get the TRUE ending of a game (cough Asura's Wrath cough). Easier done is a game like Batman: Arkham City on PS3 specifically, because it is the first example that came into my head, because when you go through your trophies, the B:AC bar is not at 100% if you haven't completed the game AND all of its DLC. BUT, when you click on it, various tabs pop up showing a bar for the full game and each DLC, showing what you have fully completed and what you haven't. That, I like. I understand that doesn't really work like that on Steam, or at least the way it is currently set up, but dammit if I'm not still angry about this for every day, month, or even year that I don't throw down $15.00 for what is essentially 4 more achievements and a slight boost to my completion stats.

However, the main game. The Talos Principle... I still love you. I'm sorry baby.

First things first, regardless of whether these are read or not, its a great way for me to log my thoughts and I really should be doing more of these, whether they be general thoughts on something, a catch-up like this, or just a post regarding what game I am in the process of trying to complete. This will definitely be easier given that I just got a new laptop, my previous one having been broken for quite sometime. In fact, first thing I did when I got my computer is set up Steam again and downloaded 4 games: Stardew Valley, The Talos Principle, SpeedRunners, and Pony Island. For Christmas, I am also proud to say that I was able to get a hold of the NES Classic Edition, and have been using that as a little something to go to occasionally just to play a game of Mario or a few rounds of Bubble Bobble before I try going through and actually attempting to finish any of those games. In addition, I am nearing the end of Crash Bandicoot on PSX and might be posting about my progress and struggles with that game soon. For now, I want to go through and discuss the Steam games though.

Firstly, SpeedRunners I have wanted for a while, because it will be a really fun game for me and my friends to play together. I have not even downloaded it yet, let alone played it myself, but have seen various others play it and am convinced that we will have a great time.

Pony Island is a game that I was introduced to through Jesse Cox, who played the game for a Fan Friday he did a little while back, and I just got hooked from watching that, but had no way to play it since my computer was pretty well busted at the time. I downloaded the game, played through it, got all of the tickets in order to get the "secret" ending, if you can call it that, and got all of the achievements for the game. I hate to say that I had to look up two of the tickets, both of which were in the Second Act when the player is roaming the inverted adventure world map. One involved going way down and below the castle (which is in reality your actual destination) in order to talk to a demon who says some dialogue and proceeds to give you a ticket. The second involved going to the Pokemon-inspired section of the map, going in the water, and moving up and down on the shoreline which will spawn a sprite of MissingNo. from Pokemon and a ticket, which is in its entirety a reference to the MissingNo glitch in the original Pokemon games. As soon as I obtained the ticket I understood what the puzzle was alluding to, but going into that area I had no idea that's what I was supposed to do there. Just an instance of not putting two and two together I suppose.

I played up to the first 20 days of Stardew Valley before stopping and moving on to The Talos Principle. I like the game, but I feel like its one of those where I'll have to go back to it every now and again for fear of growing to loathe it. Its just the style of game and how it effects me, because I'm interested thus far and I've had fun playing it. Just need to step back for a little while before going back in.

Finally, The Talos Principle, and I am by far closest to completing this compared to the other 3. The Witness was a hoot to play and I love puzzle games in general, so I got The Talos Principle hoping it would be like The Witness. Well, I was only sort of correct in my hopes, because the game features areas with puzzles that you must solve, but it has a fully-coherent story that uncovers itself as opposed to you trying to piece even a tiny one together, and The Witness has one style of puzzle that they add variations to, whereas The Talos Principle is more like Portal, with multiple objects and motifs added in throughout the games progress. Regardless, I still love this game, and am currently in the middle of my second playthrough. My first time through, I just went through the motions of the story, but know, I am fully aware in what I'm doing, going through and gaining all of the Messengers while also making sure that I don't use any hints, gather all sigils, all stars, all terminal files, and all audio logs. Which is a decent amount of things to collect, all things considered, but I am going through without a walkthrough for those items, looking up minor hints if I end up stuck for, like, 20 minutes or more. The only guide I have continuously up is the terminal interaction guide, in order to minimize playthroughs. There are various outcomes of dialogue that you can achieve while talking to the Milton Library Assistant in the terminals that assist you, mainly involving getting to a certain point, choosing specific dialogue choices, and then reloading a previous save to obtain the others. This is made more important by that fact that there are three outcomes you can get in terms of talking to the terminal, but only one of them gives an endgame achievement, impacting the end of the story. As far as I know, there are 3 or 4 endings, because I still am not sure if gathering all of the stars will effect the ending at all, and I have gotten 1 of them in my normal playthrough, which by all accounts is the "neutral" ending. So, I persevere, with not that many left to gather and most of the normal puzzles still fresh in my mind, which is allowing me to make it through much faster this time than before. After this, I'll probably play a little bit of Stardew Valley and then see about completing Crash Bandicoot.

I have been sort of M.I.A. since a day or two before Thanksgiving, but that's just what happens when it nears the end of the school for the semester. Taking finals in order to either raise your grade by a letter or getting the bare minimum in order to keep the grade you have takes a lot out of you, especially when you're nearing the end of your school career. However, that didn't stop me from playing games, and I haven't really completed anything since my last post (unless I'm forgetting something), but I did play a lot of new things and came pretty close on a few occasions, so I'm off to the races discussing those now.

I played a game for the PS called Divinity: Original Sin, a game I had never heard before but resembled a ton of RPG's a had already played before. This time, however, which hasn't been all that common in my experience, I got to play a turn-based RPG with one of my housemates through Co-Op. It being the end of the semester, and therefore the end of what were the current classes, we didn't get a lot done in game, and in fact participated in less than 10 battles. The majority of the time we spent in town running around attempting to do side quests or at least get them started before we headed out. I couldn't tell you where the game would be going, however, because what started in a semi-standard RPG setting, with what felt like a normal D&D world, soon lead us into the future to the end of time where a goblin at a telescope told us that a dragon was devouring time. I would love to spend more time with this game and find out where its going, but we definitely need more time in order to effectively do it. As for completing an RPG, I usually just max stats to the best of my ability and finish all of the side quests, and for newer games, get all of the trophies/achievements in addition. I don't quite know how the trophies are though, as I didn't get to look at them all. With the second one coming out, which is apparently 4 player, that might be the game we are all playing in the near future, and I will certainly be trying to complete that.

Second of the four was Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed for the PS3, and I picked it up mainly as a joke. Like when you pick up Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 for the GameCube and you just stare at it realizing there really isn't any occasion on which you would play it. Hell, I didn't think anything of it because I remember Sonic R. However, I LOVED the game and it was made even more pleasant by the fact that I went into it not expecting much. The game was so tight and beautiful looking, I ended up loving it more than I think any Mario Kart game that I've played. I should've expected more, seeing as how it's just a SEGA game, and I don't think a Sonic Team game. Yet, most anyone will know what you're talking about if you say that seeing Sonic on a game now makes you cringe. So many unlockable characters and mods, and an online community that is still thriving (I never once had trouble finding a lobby) gives way to tons of fun. I got fairly close to completing that, having every challenge in story mode completed on at least 3 stars, with every character unlocked and all but one mod unlocked. There are a ton of badges in game to collect and a fair amount of trophies as well. The majority of these are just for completing the badge set and the unlockables, but there are a few that are for doing special tasks. I''m fairly certain that all of the trophies overlap with the badges, but some of the badges expand past the trophies, so as long as I go back and play to collect all of the badges, then I will have all of the trophies by extension.

Rayman Legends for the PS3 was next, I game I had never played and it being years since I had even played a Rayman game, and with 3 of the 4 players being utilized, we had a lot of fun. To be honest, we played a fair amount of the game and collected all of the Lums and Teensies that we could, but we were having a ton of fun with the chaos that resulted from us playing it. For the first time in a long time, I was playing a game not to complete it, but just to be playing the game itself. Not to say I don't enjoy playing games or completing them either (I make myself do it, and wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it), but the game was so much fun I wasn't even thinking about those things. I have no idea what the trophies for this game are like, and know even less about how long it is, because every time we finished a level, it seemed like 5 more opened up. In fact, we enjoyed the Castle Rock level (which featured the song Black Betty playing throughout it) multiple times because we enjoyed it so much the first time through. The backgrounds, the sound design, everything together, it is a game that I would love to go back to and thoroughly complete, though I don't know if I would want to do it without others playing with me.

Finally, there was Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution. I checked that title 4 times before I decided it was correct, in all transparency. I'm not very familiar with fighting games outside of the Smash series of games, but I have played some others here in there. I loved, and still love, Dragonball Z: Budokai, but a lot of that stems from me watching and loving the Dragonball series growing up. Same can apply to Naruto, which I never watched religiously but did watch here and there, and so there was a certain level of familiarity going into this game. And, again, this game surprised me in how much I liked it, or rather, how well I think it was made. It stood out immediately to me compared to Dragonball Z: Budokai in that there weren't a list of Mortal Kombat style button combinations that needed to be remembered in order to succeed sans button mashing. The circle button is attack, there is a dodge move, and there are a few ninjutsu that each character can perform that all function differently, yet operate on the same combination of buttons (triangle circle, triangle(x2) circle, and triangle(x3) circle). It's easy to recall during battle and its fun to see all of the different things that each character can do. Even though there is a VS mode for 2 players (because why wouldn't there be?), the main mode and challenges are 1 player, so I would focus on completing this and boy howdy were there a lot of collectibles, unlockables, challenges, and trophies to collect. Compared to the other three games I have already mentioned, however, this one was definitely the closest that I'd gotten to fully collecting everything. There were a few collectibles left to get, though I don't know how I was to get them, but every single challenge and tournament in "Ninja World Tournament" was completed. I still have to go back in order to finish the jobs that are available, but I skipped them for the time being since there was no trophy based around them. I also got close on trophies, with only 2 left to collect before platinum, and they weren't even that hard, I just ran out of time to do so before coming home for the break (so back to Playstation for me!). The only trophies left on that game are to finish the Advanced League Challenges, and to survive Ultimate Survival for 30 battles. I attempted it one night and got to 22 wins, until immediately being taken out by Tenten. However, yet another enjoyable experience that I was able to use as escapism between studying for my final exams. That is so rare, that within 2 weeks I played 4 new games and enjoyed every single one of them thoroughly. Hopefully come next semester I can complete 3 of these 4 (no way will Divinity get touched next semester, not with my schedule) and come to love them even more than I already do. Will attempt to keep in touch more now that I'm on break, if I don't have anything that I'm in the process of completing I'm thinking about just going back and doing some throwback posts, talking about games that I've completed in the past since there won't be any way that I'm going at them now.

Note that I went a little crazy today in terms of completing things, but these games aren't that complex to begin with, so is it REALLY an accomplishment? However, I have mixed a second game into this post as I am not in the middle of completing it, I did it right in the middle of the last blog post and the actual subject of this post.

So, I finished Nicktoons Racing, not that there was much left to do. I obtained all of the items on the Trophy Board and I then proceeded to wipe that smug Amy's scores straight off of my game, saved straight to the memory card. All down the board are now pictures of Stimpy and no one else! Thankfully, since Time Trial is just going through the track as fast as possible with no opponents, it didn't matter what difficulty I played it on, so I set it to easy and just went with it. After this was complete, I went back through my games and found another racing game (what with these racing games all of a sudden?) and found Looney Tunes Racing, a game that confounded me in my childhood because the Acme Challenges and Despicable Cup were so difficult for me that I could never beat it and unlock all the characters and tracks (without cheating) in one sitting, because I grew up without a memory card to my PSX. This was, however, also my favorite PSX game to play, so I would always turn it on and start right back at the beginning without actually caring. It wasn't until a few years ago I went back to the game and tried completing it now with a memory card, and found the despicable cup much easier, allowing me to unlock all of the ending movies easily. Note, you obtain these ending movies for beating the final cup with each main racer, beating the final cup with one unlockable racer, and the final movie was unlocked by beating the all of the Acme Challenges regardless of medal. Come to find out, I still struggled quite a bit, but was able to accomplish this task in the end. My final test, however, was gaining Gold Medals (and for one challenge, even a Silver Medal) on all of the challenges, and I remember it being so hard that I quit. Again, never been a racing game person, yet I apparently have an abundance of them.

Anyhow, I picked up this one again today, and set out to accomplish this feat I had never been able to do, and low and behold, I did it in the span of a few hours. I had two challenges on the second floor that I needed to gold, two on the third I needed to gold, and one on the third that I hadn't even gotten a silver on, let alone a gold. Let it be known that due to putting in the "every character" cheat code when I was younger, I knew who all of the characters were, and so going into this, I had 4 left that hadn't been unlocked that I still needed to get. I knew who they were, but not the methods in order to unlock them. I looked it up online, and found nothing. The closest I got to an answer was a GameFAQ created for the game, but it was missing the same four characters that I was, with just question marks in their place. So, before I elaborate, I am going to clear up these methods in case anyone else is ever curious. Then, maybe they can find this through their searches (though I do doubt it). These lines are taken from the Looney Tunes Racing GameFAQ (credit to Beno Jange), here are the missing spaces in his FAQ. If you beat Floor 2 with at least gold medal, you unlock Smokey the genie. If you Beat Floor 3 with at least silver medal, you unlock Rocky, and with gold medal, you unlock Evil Scientist.

That should be it. Now, the important thing is that if you don't PowerSlide like its going out of style, you WILL NOT get Gold (or in the case of the Gossamer race, Silver) on the a few of the last missions. I had to train on the Integrating Pistol mission, which requires you to race against the clock on More Opera Doc, a track with a lot of twists and turns, and leave at least 11 seconds left on the clock in order to obtain a gold medal. This was, suffice it to say, that this was the last Gold medal that I was able to get. It isn't even enough to just PowerSlide around tight corners, I found myself by the end of things PowerSliding through whole sections of the track, pretty much even going straight through the garden area, in order to finish with a total of 12:12 seconds left on the clock. I would literally never have done that when I was a child, but that's the whole point of growing up. To beat hard sections of video games that you couldn't conquer when you were a child.

After surprisingly finishing that game in a few hours, I felt I wanted to keep moving at a fast pace, keep the ball rolling as it were, and so I picked another game I had when I was a child (but had to repurchase pretty recently), and that is Superstar Dance Club. It's a rhythm-based game that apparently utilizes the DDR dance pad peripheral, but since I don't have that, I played using the controller, which is perfectly fine by me, because I didn't want to use the dance pad anyways. Besides, the game doesn't use symbols for directional arrows, it actually uses the X, square, circle, and triangle buttons, and that's a lot easier for me to perform what they are asking of me without getting confused. Which is necessary because the game has a system that consists of two bars, each with four buttons you need to press. As you are pressing the four buttons within one box, you cannot move on to the next box until flashing yellow arrows appear under the next box. Once those show up, you move on to the next box and the symbols in the last box get replaced with new buttons for the next time around. This would normally be fine. But sometimes in later levels I can't see when I'm supposed to switch because the flashing yellow arrows are phased out by a seizure inducing flash of disco lights and crazy nonsense happening in the background in an effort to distract you and create difficulty. Still, I managed to complete all three levels of all the main areas, and all that's left is the third level of the special area. Which is locked. Still. I completed (with S-Rank) all levels of all main areas and the first two levels of the one special level that exists and the final level of that area remains locked and I cannot play it. All I can think is that maybe there is a certain amount of money I need in the game to unlock it. This is strange, because as far as I know, the money you receive for completing levels is more like a high score than anything and wasn't used to unlock any previous areas or levels. Yet, since I don't seem to have any other option, I am currently grinding areas with high drop rate of cash upon completion in a vain effort to unlock and beat this final level. Its hard playing old and sometimes obscure games like this too, not really because of in-game difficulty, but more so because its a pain to find any information about it online. No one has talked about this game normally, let alone to tell me about what I'm supposed to do in order to get Level 3 of the Akhiba stage. The game was even re-released on Steam, and I found someone in the forums asking the same question that I'm posing, but no answers for him, and therefore no answers for me. So, I am stuck here, grinding at least until I reach 10,000,000 gold, or yen, or WHATEVER, and then I guess I'm lost. Oh well, there's always another PSX game to go after, like Metal Gear Solid or Crash Bandicoot or... Disney's Dinosaur......

Well, now I'm home for Thanksgiving Break, and all of my consoles have been left behind. It isn't much of a problem, Thanksgiving Break is only a week long and I'm sure to be kept busy with other activities, but its worth noting that Kirby: Air Ride is not currently on the table due to that. Instead, I was going through my library of PSX games, as its the only console I have with me at the moment. Given this, I forewent the likes of finally completing Crash Bandicoot or Metal Gear Solid, and am currently in the process of getting everything in Nicktoons Racing. Nicktoons. Racing. Why? I don't know. I saw it and maybe I just wanted to go as far back into my childhood as I could possibly reach. As well, I remember as a child locking up cheats for various racing games just to see who else was available for play in the game, and I distinctly remember various websites stating that in Nicktoons Racing, by beating all three cups on all three difficulties (9 cups in total, 36 races), you could unlock multiple "Super" racers, including Otto from Rocket Power and Doug from...well...Doug. Today, if you look this up, very few websites have this listed, because it obviously isn't true, yet still there are some remnants of false information that remain to this day, ever since I was little and first played Nicktoons Racing. I have already verified this for myself, via beating the game three times, once on easy, medium, and hard, and then by going back to easy and just beating it three more times in order to seal the deal. These characters cannot be unlocked, in fact, what is unlocked for beating hard mode is... 2-Player Bonus mode, which is ridiculous, because I have already obtained a new high score for 1-Player Bonus mode and received nothing, which means that there is no reason to play 2 player bonus mode other than to play with someone else, and who in the hell is gonna wanna play this with me!?!

Pretty much the only thing I have left to do is obtain all the trophies that you get for each race you finish completing races in Race for Fun. I'm not sure when it will be done, but after that I might get new records on all of the Time Trials, if only because I don't know who Amy is, but I don't like all of the high scores being in here name. Besides, getting all new high scores in the game is the last vestige of hope I have for unlocking any new content before I put this one to rest.

Keeping with what I have been doing to my Gamecube games on the Wii, I figured I would go for a game that I haven't played in a VERY long time, that being Kirby: Air Ride. Summing up Super Smash Bros. Melee, I have completed it in most every sense, I was able to get the last two trophies I was missing. I beat Adventure on Hard without losing all of my lives (using Pikachu) and was able to keep the time under whatever amount it is that triggers the Giga Bowser battle. Also, by utilizing Dash Dancing, a technique I wasn't aware of, I was able to obtain the Tom Nook trophy in a fairly short amount of time. I basically started Adventure mode on Very Easy, and right before the end of the first half of the Mushroom Kingdom Stage and right before the end of the Hyrule stage, I Dash Danced for what at times seemed like an eternity in front of the goal. Then, as soon as the next battle started, I quit out of Adventure Mode. This gave me an average of 55 coins each time I did it. However, it wasn't until I had restarted the game that I actually received the trophy (I restarted it because it crashed). Whether this is due to the crash or just a part of the game, I have no idea. So, I have all of the trophies, stages, characters, and special bonus items. Yet, there is another completion aspect I had never though about, that I now know that I need to do: Special Messages. I don't have that many left to get, but the last few consist of beating all 1-Player Challenge modes on Very Hard with only 1 stock, and playing a total of up to 1,000,000 V.S. matches...confronted with these numbers, and the fact that my wrist hurt from Dance Dashing about 10 times, I decided to call it a victory for now, and moved on to Kirby: Air Ride.

Now, I'm not quite sure what has compelled me to do this game, because I am AWFUL at racing games of any kind. It has kept me from completing any Mario Kart, Excitebots, NASCAR: Kart Racing, Nicktoons Racing, Looney Tunes Racing, etc, etc. Yet I loved this game truly as a kid, and recalled that it was a lot more than just racing, so i figured I would go back to it. So, slowly but surely, my task for right now is to go through the checklists for the three game modes and beat them all (preferably without having to use any of the free space icons you can unlock), and I'll see how far I can eventually get. Thanksgiving Break is coming up soon, though, and with that I'll be going back home to my family for about a week, so my Wii and Gamecube things will remain here at my house, and I'll just have my PSX and laptop to play with. Or who knows, maybe I'll just talk to my family and watch the countless runs of "It's a Wonderful Life on T.V". It's hard to say.

P.S. Why countless marathons of It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Story just because Thanksgiving Day means that much closer to Christmas? I understand the notion of classics, but if there is any non-Peanut related Thanksgiving Day move we could be marathon-ing, it's "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles". Never been a huge Steve Martin fan, but I LOVE John Candy and that movie!

Alright, I love the Super Smash Bros. Series, and own and have played the first three iterations (not owning a Wii-U or 3DS keeps me from playing the other one(s)), and I have fully completed in everything in two of them. I have unlocked everything in the original Super Smash Bros., and after years of attempting, I eventually unlocked,completed, AND gathered every trophy, disc, virtual demo, and sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It's become a real bother, however for me to complete Melee, and I am SO close. Years ago I unlocked every stage, character, and even the Score Display. In fact, I even gathered every trophy that you can get in the Lottery and most every challenge based trophy too. However, I had looked over and measured up my trophies by comparing them to a complete list earlier this week, and I was only missing three trophies: Diskun, Mew, Giga Bowser, Tom Nook, and Crazy Hand. In order to get Diskun, I looked up a list of bonuses, and finished all of the ones I didn't have, which simultaneously allowed me to obtain the Giga Bowser trophy, which requires you complete Adventure mode on Normal or higher in less than 18 minutes, and then beat Giga Bowser without using a continue. Mew wasn't too hard either, I just had to beat All-Star on Hard or Very Hard, however I was allowed to used a continue in that mode, and I did with the coins I had accumulated 4 or 5 times(40-50 coins). This leaves Tom Nook and Crazy Hand, and the undertaking is way more difficult than I anticipated. Tom Nook requires you to obtain 1001 coins total since you first started playing the game. Sounds easy, since I've had the game since around 2004, however, I get fed up grinding for it because my coin count is no actual indicator of how many coins I have left to go, having used most of them in the lottery early on, obviously. And Crazy Hand, whew, I literally just put the controller down in frustration before typing this out (slamming isn't good for them). This trophy requires beating Adventure Mode on Hard or Very Hard, similar to the Mew trophy, but you CAN'T use a continue. I've actually made it close to the end but lost to the final Bowser fight two times. One time, though, I actually beat Bowser and threw up my hands in excitement, screaming "YES!" and frightening my roommate playing Dark Souls 3 next to me. To my dismay, I apparently completed Adventure (on HARD, mind you) in the correct amount of time to trigger Giga Bowser showing up. I only had 1 life left and wasn't able to survive his onslaught. Basically, in an attempt to remedy this. I have been playing through it still, yet whenever I get to the end of a progressive level, like the first bits of Hyrule and Mushroom Kingdom, right before I end it, I run out the timer just to try and avoid Giga Bowser if I get to the end (this is known as the coward's way out). This keeps me from wanting to go back and play it though, since these levels have a 7 minute clock and I usually get right to the end a minute in. It's really discouraging to run out a 7 minute clock right at the beginning of the game and immediately lose 2 lives to some well timed item placement when versing Mario and Peach. I'm starting to get discouraged, as I was with Super Meat Boy, but at least I keep going back to SMB every now and then, even if only for an hour playtime. It makes me feel like I'm not completely throwing everything out the window. Hopefully I can get these last two trophies before I leave for Thanksgiving Break. Not for any particular reason, just so I can have ease of mind.

P.S. In response to my last blog, I played Kingdom Hearts again in an attempt to finish those trophies, played for 20 minutes, realized yet again how much I despise the damned Gummi Ship, and put it down again. Instead I started to play InFamous, a game I had never played before. Maybe I'll talk about that one next.

I've been debating what to pick up in between working on Super Meat Boy. That game is one that I cannot continue playing for very long, despite how much I enjoy it. I get overly frustrated (which is par for the course) at myself, and eventually put down a game in anger and won't go back to it for months if I can't accomplish what I'm attempting to do. And since Super Meat Boy's remaining trophies are fairly difficult to obtain, I need to enjoy playing something else every now and again. I need ideas for a new game to go to, and I have plenty of games that I'm not sure I've ever even touched, having saved a lot from garage sales and thrift stores over the years, however, in the back of my mind is Kingdom Hearts. Specifically the 1.5 Remix edition, as although I do have the PS2 copy of the game, I have not owned a PS2 for a long time. In addition, the model of PS3 I have does not play PS2 games, and I would much rather eventually get a PS2 then buy a new PS3. Anyways, I love this game, and have put many hours into it, grinding up to max level and churning through crafting materials in order to make the Ultima Keyblade. In fact, the reason I've been thinking about this game is because I haven't yet completed it, with just a few trophies remaining that have kept me from a Platinum. However, I checked these trophies, and to my dismay, they are all Gummi Ship related. I have everything else, even the Speed Run, No Death, and No Changing Equipment trophies, but everything that remains is for the Gummi missions. If you're a sane human being, you probably have some sort of problem with these missions, yet I know I have to finish them AND collect the remaining ship blueprints that I don't have in order to complete the game wholly and get my Platinum trophy. At the moment I'm debating it, because I'll basically be throwing myself into something I know I'm gonna dislike and I'm not even going to be playing the actual game. But, I could just get it out of the way and then maybe I'll finally play Bioshock or something.

-Snakejake1112