The Venture Bros.

The Venture Bros. is a show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. It mixes action and comedy together as it chronicles the adventures of two teenage boys named Hank and Dean Venture. They also have an emotionally insecure, ethically challenged super-scientist father named Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture. There is also the family's bodyguard, named Brock Samson and a former supervillain named Sergeant Hatred. The show is said to have the primary theme of "beautiful, sublime failure" and be about the failure that happens to all of us. The show is also largely based off of an older show called Jonny Quest, which is a really old show that aired back in the 1960s.

From what I have heard, this show is extremely funny, but I have also heard it is extremely stupid. Of course, stupid isn't always bad. I love Robot Chicken and that is probably one of the most stupid things on television. I hope that I can see this show one day and decide for myself whether it is stupid funny or just plain stupid.

Code Geass

Code Geass is yet another anime put on me from my guild leader in Guild Wars to watch (she really likes anime). Although this one was also watched by a few other people in the guild, and they all said it was good so I have more than just her opinion to go off of.

Code Geass is set after Japan's conquest by the Holy Britannian Empire with their powerful new robot weapons, the Knightmare Frames. After taking over, the Britannian Empire stripped all rights and freedoms from the people and renamed the country Area 11. Lelouch is a Britannian prince that is the main character and was disowned by his father after his mother was murdered. Since his father disowned him, Lelouch has vowed to destroy him, the Emperor, and Britiannia. Lelouch gains an ability through a mysterious thing called the Geass. With this power, he became the leader of the resistance movement so he could fulfill his two wishes: get revenge for his mother and construct a world where his sister Nunnally can live happily.

This anime seems like it would be nice after I got into it. At first, it seems like I might be to confused with all the different names and terms, but after watching it a bit more I think I could get it all down and start to really enjoy it. Although it is a mech anime, and for some reason I am not a huge fan of mechs. Not to say I can't enjoy an anime with mechs, but I would find it easier to enjoy one without them and with something else cool involved such as a medieval setting or steampunk setting.

.hack//Sign

I discovered this anime once while I was looking around for new video games and found a .hack game. Someone then told me it was also an anime, and I have wanted to, but never have gotten around to, watch it since.

The story is about a guy named Tsukasa who wakes up in a dungeon in an online game known as The World. He has no recollection of where he is or how he got there. He also can't log out, so he is trapped in the game. He then goes on a quest to figure out why he is there and also why he can't log out and meets other people that play the game along the way. There's also an item called the Key of the Twilight, which is a legendary item rumored to have the ability to bypass the system in The World. While some want it just for the powers it could give them, others believe it would provide Tsukasa with a way to log out. Even if they don't want to help Tsukasa, everyone believes that the item is related to him in some way.

It is said that this anime relies more on character development and does not really have any action scenes. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I would probably have to be in a certain mood to watch it. I like action a lot, but every once in awhile I don't mind if things slow down and there's a talking scene. Now could I handle a whole series of just the talking without the action? I guess I will find out when i watch this anime.

Black Cat

Black Cat is another manga/anime my guild leader in Guild Wars wanted me to try and watch.

It is about an organization bent on world peace named Chronos, which rules one third of the world's economy. Since that makes them required to maintain balance in the world, they need protection. So they have thirteen special elite assassins called the Chrono Numbers, all of which wield unique Orichalcum forged weapons. The thirteenth Chrono Number is the main character, and he's named Train Heartnet but is also known as the infamous Black Cat. He meets a licensed bounty hunter (known as a Sweeper) named Saya Minatsuki and his morals and values are changed from that of Chrono's to his own. Instead of killing people like he is told, he just stops them. This leads to tension between him and the Chrono Elders, and culminates with Train leaving the organization. Another assassin named Creed Diskenth resents the way Saya changed Train, and murders her. After six months pass, Train is an easygoing Sweeper when Creed appears before him again.

This looks like a fantastic anime that I would love. I don't know why, but it just seems very interesting to me. The story is not extremely extensive or intricate, but it still has something that just makes me want to watch it. Although I probably did read to far because I am pretty sure knowing that Saya dies is a big spoiler, and I am a little disappointed in that. If all anime summaries made me want to watch them like this one does, I would probably be watching non-stop anime and have no life.

Invader Zim

I have heard many people talk about Invader Zim, but I have never actually seen anything for it. Since it has such a large fan base, I think it would be something worth looking into.

Invader Zim was produced by and aired by Nickelodeon. The main character is an alien invader named Zim from the planet Irk that is trying to conquer or destroy Earth. His plans usually end up failing due to his mistakes, his robot named GIR, or by his arch-nemesis Dib. Zim was exiled when he accidentally destroyed his own planet, and was banished forever to "Foodcourtia", the food court planet. After so long, he was sent on a "secret mission" to Earth to get rid of him for good. He takes his mission seriously, however, and is determined to vanquish Earth to reclaim his honor.

I also read that this show has heavy use of black comedy, which makes me wonder why it is on Nickelodeon. They were pitching to eleven to fifteen year old kids, but a lot of parents might still say eleven is to young for things like Zim eating organs stolen from school children (an example that was given). I don't have a problem with it personally, but that seems like it could be a risky choice on Nickelodeon's half. Of course, I have not seen it, so I don't know how serious it really is. It could just be a few serious black comedy bits and the rest not so bad.

Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell is an anime I have been curious about for a long time now because I saw the video game of it and was curious as to where the game came from. After a long time I realized it was an anime, and many people have mentioned it to me, but I still have seen even a part of any episodes. There are actually two different Ghost in the Shell seasons, the first one being named Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and the second one being Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG. There were also three films about the manga which were Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, and Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society.

The story is about a fictional counter terrorist group in Japan called Public Security Section 9 in a cyberpunk setting. The main character is a cyborg named Motoko Kusanagi, who is a member of covert operations in the Public Security Section 9. Even though all members of the squad are equal to each other, Motoko has the leadership role in the group. Other members call her "the Major" because that was her past rank in the Japanese Self-defense Forces. She is biologically enhanced for her job, the only thing not mechanized being her brain and a part of her spinal cord.

I have not watched many futuristic anime, so I do not quite know whether I would like this or not. I suppose I don't have any reason to worry because most of the futuristic shows I watch have a great story behind them. Hopefully, this one will be added to that list of great futuristic shows.

Blood+

I have heard some good things about Blood+, but I have also heard that it is overrated. It was inspired by the film made in 2000 called Blood: The Last Vampire although there are few allusions to that film.

The story starts with Saya Otonashi, which is an anemic and amnesiac schoolgirl whose happy life crumbles when she attacked by a chiropteran (a bat) and finds out that she's the only one that can defeat them. When she finds this out, she arms herself with her katana and takes her family and friends to rid the world of chiropteran and rediscover her identity. During her journey, the background of the chiropteran's is revealed and Saya learns she has a very deep past that extends to the mid-19th century. Throughout the series, she goes around the world fighting chiropterans and trying to discover her past.

I am a bit iffy on this show. It doesn't make all that much sense to me in text. She gets attacked by a bat that only she can kill? I am going to assume that the bat is a vampire, and Saya is some form of immortal (or something similar) since her past goes so far back. I think I would have to watch the show to be sure of any of this, but I am also afraid that this show might have been overhyped for me by twilight fangirls that just love vampires.

Ergo Proxy

Ergo Proxy is a science fiction anime with both steampunk and postcyberpunk elements. The setting is a futuristic domed city called Rondo that was built to protect its citizens after a global ecological disaster. This city has humans and androids (called AutoReivs) coexisting peacefully under a management system. However, some of the AutoReivs have been infected with a virus called Cogito which causes them to become self aware. Becoming self aware has led these AutoReivs to committing murders, which has upset the domed city's social order. This has made the government start secret experiments on a humanoid life form called a "Proxy". Proxies are described as God-like and immortal and are believed to hold the key to the survival of mankind. The main character's name is Re-l Mayer and she is assigned to investigate some of these murders with her AutoReiv partner Iggy. While investigating, she encounters one of the infected androids along with a Proxy. After so long of investigating, Re-l discover the truth about the Proxies and the domes, which I am not going to find because I don't want to spoil it for me or anyone else.

This show does seem intriguing to me. You don't see that many steampunk themed shows or games, much less ones that are set in the future, and I kind of like the steampunk look. Hopefully I can get around to watching this as soon as possible.

Rurouni Kenshin

Rurouni Kenshin is one of the anime my guild leader on Guild Wars always tells me to watch, yet I've never gotten around to it. It seems to be one of her favorite shows, so I'm guessing it's pretty good (at least to her).

The story is about a peaceful wanderer named Himura Kenshin who used to be an assassin known as Hitokiri Battosai. After fighting in a war, he offers aid to those who need it as a way to atone for the murders he committed as an assassin. When he's walking into Tokyo one day, he meets a woman named Kamiya Kaoru who was fighting with a man who claims he is Hitokiri Battosai. Kenshin helps her and defeats the fake Battosai, and she finds out that he is the real assassin. She realizes that he is a nice person, so she invites him to stay at her dojo. Kenshin lives there and starts to make new friends and enemies, and after several months of living there he finds out that his successor as an assassin of shadows plans to conquer Japan. To do this he plans on assassinating the government, one of which is one of Kenshin's new friends.

To save myself from reading spoilers, I'm going to stop there. So far this anime looks like it would be pretty good. Of course, sometimes all an anime needs for me is some flashy swords and I'll like it so this will most likely get watched by me sooner or later.

Carcassonne

I saw this game named after a town in southern France on wikipedia and it made me think of the game Zombies!!! because it also has tile laying as the way of making the map. Except it this game, there is no zombie killing. It's more of a strategic tile placing and follower placement.

The game is two to five players and you're basically trying to lay down and control as much land as you can. There are 72 tiles in total, so the games would most likely last quite awhile. At the beginning of each player's turn, they draw a tile and place it on the board. Certain tile have to connect to each other so they keep extending, like roads have to connect to roads. After the player places their tile, they can place a follower that claims land for them. However, they can't place a follower on the same tile as another player's follower although it is possible for terrain to be shared if two terrains are connected with a follower on each one that got connected. During a turn, if something is completed then the points are added to the owner's score. So if there is a town that gets finished somehow then whoever owns that turn gets points right then. Once all the tiles are laid, then the incomplete tiles are also added to the score.

This game seems really confusing at first, but I think playing it once could get me used to it. There seems to be a lot of thinking in this game because you have to think of the best place to put your tiles and followers to get the most points. Of course a lot of thinking isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The Settlers of Catan

The Settlers of Catan is a board game that was published during 1995 in Germany and since has been translated into 30 other languages. It's a game where you are establishing settlements on the island of Catan. The games original design was actually supposed to be a large game of exploration and development in a new land but had to get downsized. The expansion combined with the game is close to what the game was originally supposed to be.

The game board represents the island and is made up of hexagonal tiles that represent different land types that are laid out randomly at the beginning of the game. Players collect the resources on the different land types and build up settlements. On each players turn they role two dice to determine what land produces resources. If they role a seven, they can move the thief, which keeps that hexagon from producing resources until it's moved and that player takes someone elses resources. You can also trade resources with other players and the offshore non-player bank (at a rate of four to one unless you own a dock). There are also different types of development cards you can get to help you by trading resources for them. The goal of the game is to get ten victory tokens, and you get victory tokens by building settlements, upgrading settlements to cities, and other achievements such as building the longest road.

This seems like a good family game to play. It is a simple game to understand so kids could play easily, but interesting enough to keep me interested. Since there's some thinking involved in how you're going to obtain the resources you need, I think that it requires enough thought to keep me immersed in the game. However, I don't think that I would be able to play it extensively like some other card and board games.

Wyvern

Wyvern is a card game I found while browsing wikipedia. The reason I wanted to look into it was because I found it odd that an entire card game would be called Wyvern, unless the whole card game was played with dragons. I'm not saying a dragon-only card game would be bad, but it might not be as fun.

First off each player has two decks. One deck is made of dragon and terrain cards, and the other is made up of action and treasure cards. You start with six face-down dragon and terrain cards on the battlefield with 25 gold pieces. For each turn, a player can have limited card movement, play actions, and have a single battle. As the game goes on, each player pays to turn their dragon and terrain cards face up to use them, which cost gold pieces. The damage triangle goes dragons can kill smaller dragons, but are weak to terrain, smaller dragons can kill terrain but are weak to bigger dragons and terrain can kill bigger dragons, but is weak to smaller dragons. The game ends when one player loses all their terrain and dragons. After that game, a scoring system is usually used to reward players that use their resources efficiently. Usually these scores are added up from all the games into a match, and whoever reaches the set score cap wins.

This game seems ok, but I would want to just try it before I got into it and started buying cards. I would really like to see all the types of cards that are in this game, because it really depends on how those work and what they look like for me to see if I like it. If I can't use neat strategies to confuse and beat my opponent, I don't think the game would be as good. This game seems like the only things you could use to make plans are action cards. I believe treasure cards would probably just give you money so you can use your dragons and terrains. So I think as of now I would much rather play Magic: The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh, but you never know, if I ever play Wyvern it could surprise me and be extremely good.

Shadows Over Camelot

Shadows Over Camelot is a game I found while browsing a list of board games on wikipedia and thought sounded interesting. From what I have seen, the game doesn't look like it would be terribly difficult if you had the board in front of you while reading an explanation.

The game is basically the Knights of the Round Table (the people you are playing as) trying to defend Camelot. They do this by taking their turns and trying to help win. At the beginning of your turn, you must suffer a "progression of evil" and either lose health, add a siege engine to the ones attacking Camelot, or draw a black card that will make quests harder to complete. After that, you take a heroic action. A heroic action is when you move to or return from a quest location, advancing a quest towards victory, playing a special white card, discarding three of the same cards to gain health, or accuse another knight of being the traitor. The traitor is a possibility in the game where, at the beginning, everyone is dealt loyalty cards. There are seven loyal cards and one traitor card, and there can only be a maximum of seven people, meaning there won't always be a traitor every match. You can also lose one health to do another heroic action during your turn. Quests are completed by having the right cards, and completed quests reward white swords to the table. The way to win is to have more white swords than black on the table by the time it fills up. Black swords are a result of failed quests, failed accusations of the traitor (one white sword turns black), and if the traitor is still there at the end (two white swords turn black). Another way to lose, however, is if twelve siege engines surround the castle.

This game seems similar to Arkham Horror in the fact that there are many ways to lose, and a very hard to achieve way to win. That's not always a bad thing though, because I think that way when you win you feel more accomplished because you just beat an extremely hard game.

Zombies!!!

As you can probably tell, this board game is about zombies. It is another game my friend's roomate has, and he says this one is pretty good as well. I decided to look up what exactly you do in it to see how good of a game it actually is.

The game starts out with all the players (2-6 people can play) on the town square with three cards in their hand, three hearts as health, and three bullets. The cards can be used for many things such as summoning more zombies or equipping items to make you move faster. The bullets are something you can use against zombies when fighting them to help kill them. The way the combat works is when you are attacking a zombie, you roll a die. If that die is a 4, 5, or 6, you kill it. If it's a 1, 2, or 3, you lose one heart or use the amount of bullets to bring it up to a kill (one bullet equals one digit on the die). Then people start going and as they start their turn, they have to take a tile and put it down. This starts to make the city that you are playing in and also starts putting zombies on the map. You can draw both roads and buildings, but the buildings are the ones that usually have more zombies and also let people use certain items. You move by rolling a die, and the object of the game is to either kill 25 zombies, or get to the heli pad tile when it gets flipped up.

This game does actually sound really fun, and doesn't seem like it would take that long to learn. It also has eight expansions, so if you ever get bored of the same old buildings, there's always more. So every once in awhile when you get that sudden urge to start killing zombies, this game fits perfectly!

Arkham Horror

Arkham Horror is a board game one of my friend's roomates owns, and he has told me that it is one of the greatest board games he has ever played. I decided to see why he thinks it is so good by looking up what it's about.

The board is made up of locations in HP Lovecraft's fictional city of Arkham during 1926. The actual story behind the board game is that there are strange things happening and you're an investigator that has come to try and find out what's behind it all. The "strange things" are actually portals opening into other dimensions that are spawning creatures that will attack you. The way that you kill these enemies is by rolling dice. If you roll the right amount of successes (successes being a five or six) then you kill that monster and keep it as a monster token. The way to win is to close all the portals that open up to other dimensions. To do this you have to explore that portal then attack it. However, whenever a portal opens you place a token on the Old One (an extremely powerful Lovecraft monster). If you get a certain amount of tokens on the Old One, then it is summoned and you have to fight it. If you have to fight the Old One, you are probably going to lose. Although if you do manage do defeat the Old One, then you win. If you couldn't tell, this game is extremely hard to win. The game has also been around since 1987, so if a game can stand the test of time like that, it's probably really good.

This seems like an amazing game that is extremely intricate. It has a wide variety of items and spells at the investigators disposal, and the fact that you're working with people instead of against them on a board game is kind of new. Usually, you're playing against people in board games. I would very much like to play this game and see if it lives up to my expectations.

Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering is a card game that I have actually wanted to learn about for an extremely long time now (my friend said he would teach me if I ever had the time, so I can't wait until I get time). Although before I learn how to play, I thought I would take the chance to learn a bit about it first.

Each game represents a battle between powerful wizards that use magical spells, items, and creatures to fight each other. There are five different colors for spells, all of which represent something different. There is white which is the element of light and is good at healing, blue which is the element of water and good at countering, black which is the element of death and good at destroying creatures, red which is the element of fire and good at destroying non-creatures, and green which is the element of nature and good at creature summoning. All five of these types have their weaknesses and strengths, and combining some of them could probably make some powerful combos.

This game seems extremely intricate and looks like it would take a lot of practice and money to get cards and organize them into good strategies. I would start to explain what I have read about how to play the game, but then this blog would probably seem more like a book. There are many rules and many abilities which seem like they will be extremely confusing to learn, but also extremely fun when you finally do learn them.

de Blob

De Blob looks like an interesting game just from the cover. It's colorful, has a funny name, and has a crazy blob. What more could you want to draw you in? I saw this in a game case once and just kinda read the name out loud. Some guy looked at me funny I'm guessing because when you say "de Blob" for no apparent reason, you're wierd.

Anyway, it appears this game is based in the fictional place called Chroma City. This city was invaded by the evil INKT Corporation which has a war on color. Your job as a blob of water is to bring back color for the citizens by getting paint from paintbots and hitting anything (buildings, lampposts, billboard, etc.) to change it's color to the color that the blob currently is. This game brings in something that seems interesting by making the music play faster or slower depending on how fast you are painting things.

I kind of want to get this game just to see how the music would sound, because I think I would like the music speed changing based on how fast I was moving. Seeing as how this game got a lot of good reviews as well, I think I would also like many other things about it.

No More Heroes

No More Heroes was one of those games that I just wanted to randomly buy before but never did. It had a cool looking cover and I had a new Wii and was looking for games, but I just stopped getting games for my Wii before I had the chance to get this game. Although now that I think about it, it would have been a good idea to have looked into the game before buying, so I figured I could do that now.

The game has a free roam world, which is already surprising to me because I had no idea any Wii game had a free roam world. The story is you're Travis Touchdown who spends the last of his money on an internet auction for a beam sword. After realizing he can't buy any more video games, Travis takes a job to kill a person named Helter Skelter. After killing Helter, Travis is told by the person who gave him the job that he is now ranked number eleven in the United Assassins Association, which is a governing body of assassins. Realizing he can get to the top by killing the other ten, Travis tries to become the number one assassin.

From all the positive reviews, I'm dissappointed that I didn't buy this game now. It looks great and the fact that it's one of the few M rated games on the Wii makes me want it more. Sometimes I look at my Wii and sigh because of the mostly kiddie games I would have to get for it so No More Heroes would be a good addition to my Wii game library.

Knights in the Nightmare

This game I saw while browsing gamespot and I got drawn in by the cover art and name. The cover looks sort of like a Final Fantasy cover might, and the name sounds kind of dark. I figured I could learn more about this game and see if I would like it or if it's just a pretty cover.

It seems that this game has a intricate story as well as battle system, which will either be confusing or extremely good. I've read that the cast of characters is so big that you'll have trouble remembering everyone, and the learning curve is to steep. The battle seems like an interesting, yet confusing concept. You're a wisp, controlled by your stylus, that is in battle trying to dodge enemy fire while commanding your units. So it's somewhat of a real-time strategy shooter RPG, which is really hard to believe. I would never expect all three of those to go together at once.

This game got overall good reviews, and the only complaint was the steep learning curve. I actually kind of want to get this game just to see how they could possibly combine all three of those genres together.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy

Dissidia is a PSP exclusive game that pits Final Fantasy characters against each other in a fighting game. I've heard a lot of people say it's good, but suprisingly no details as to why it's good. I plan to find out those details so I can know if those people that say it's good are just Final Fantasy fanboys or if it actually is a good game.

From what I read it seems that the fighting system is good. You have Brave points (BRV) and you try to take them from your opponent by hitting them. Once you get enough BRV points, you can use skills that deal damage to your opponents HP. So basically you fight until you can get enough BRV points and then hurt them, then repeat until their HP runs out. There's also an "EX mode" that let's characters collet EX cores to fill a bar until they can use their limit breaks (special moves) that they have in their actual games. And it's Final Fantasy, so you know it's going to have a good story for a fighting game.

All the game sites have given this game a good rating and describe it as "fast paced fun". Seeing as how I don't have a fighting game and this is a fighting game with a lot of characters I love, I would like to get this game soon.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife

Trauma Center is a game that I have seen around, but have pretty much forgotten existed since I got a DS. It looked interesting when I first saw it and has an interesting concept of surgery as a game, although I've just never thought to buy it. I figured I could look into it now since I never actually learned about it before.

I started to read about the plot and realized it was much different than what I expected. I was just expecting a hospital setting with some doctors, but it's actually about a man who had trouble with a surgery. After a patient almost dies because of him, he has to operate on a car crash victim with bad heart injuries. During the operation, the main character unlocks a power within him. This power is the power of a healing touch, also known as Asclepius. This power also takes from his strength to the point of if he uses it to much he will black out. He then has to decide whether to use this power or not use it so he doesn't put a toll on his body. He eventually decides to use it to help out people with a new sickness known as GUILT.

I will say that is a more intricate story than I ever imagined for an operation game. The reception from game reviewers was overall good. I plan on learning more about the gameplay before buying this game, but so far the story looks really good compared to what I thought it would be.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney

This was another game that I never thought I would buy and put it out of my mind until one of my friend's said it wasn't that bad of a game. I decided I might as well look into it just in case it ends up like Professor Layton and the Curious Village where it looks like something I wouldn't want on the outside, but actually looks like a good game.

The gameplay is split into two separate parts which are trial and investigation. In the investigation part, you try to gather as much evidence as possible. While investigating you can do things such as look for blood, dust for fingerprints, or ask people for information or evidence. In the trial part, you try to defend your client with the evidence you gathered. Whether you actually have to know the proper law terms and laws is unclear, but when you make a big enough mistake the judge punishes you and you can only be punished five times before you lose.

This game got overall good ratings. It is criticized for being to linear, although everything else was pulled off well. While this game doesn't seem horrible, I would want to play it before actually commiting to buying it.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

This game I actually thought was a joke when I first saw it. I instantly dismissed it as a child's game that I need not waste my time looking into. Or at least that's what I thought until my friend told me it actually was a pretty good game. I laughed because I thought it was a joke, but he was serious. So I have decided to look into this game to see if he was right or just thinking of the wrong game.

The first thing that I found out was that this is actually a japanese series and the curious village is actually the fifth one. That kind of surprised me because this game didn't strike me as a japanese game, much less the fifth one in a series of them. The next thing I saw was that the game has 120 puzzles, and you can download new ones if you wanted. That is rather impressive to me. Also there's a reward system for puzzles, which I think I would like. I'm not sure what it is about reward systems, but I just like to get stuff when doing tasks.

Most game sites gave this game a fantastic rating and after looking at a few the only thing I saw that they said was bad about the game was annoying music. So with that many puzzles and the only thing seeming to be bad about this game is the music (which I can turn down my volume no problem), I don't really see a reason not to get this game and I suppose I should stop judging games by their covers.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Another game I found while buying Puzzle Quest was the second one, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. I wanted to see if this one was just the same game with a different theme or better so I decided to look up info on it.

This game has a space theme instead of a medieval theme, which I find odd since each of those themes are kind of complete opposites. But in this game there are more differences than I thought there would be. For starters it has a hexagonal shape instead of the standard square. It also brings gravity into play, so when you make a move and there's gravity, the new gems fall straight down into play, but if there isn't gravity, then they fall from the way you made your last move. The RPG elements don't necessarily seem better, but they are just as good. You still have the skill system, but now you also get to mine for materials in which you can use to craft things like ships. Along with this there's also many different races you can interact with.

For some reason there's not as much information on this game, but it seems the game sites are having trouble rating it. One gave it a 5 out of 5, while another gave it a 6.5 out of 10. The one that rated it poorly said that you have to "rely on luck as much as skill and the controls are a bit iffy". I don't really know how the controls to a puzzle game can be very "iffy", but that doesn't seem likely. Although I can understand how you would need to rely on luck. Sometimes you just can't get the right gems. Even though the ratings are split, I'm confident in saying I think that this will be a good game.

Gyromancer

I was looking around on the Xbox Live Arcade after purchasing Puzzle Quest when I saw this game called Gyromancer. It looked kind of the same as Puzzle Quest, but with a different story and look. I decided to look into to see if it was the same kind of Puzzle/RPG as Puzzle Quest, better, or worse.

After looking around on gamespot, I found that it looks like the same basic game, although with some key differences. Instead of fighting with skills, you summon creatures to fight for you. This kind of brings a card game feel to it (gamespot actually said "Puzzle Quest meets Magic: The Gathering). Also, you have to start thinking about your moves because you can't line up gems with the enemy monster or else it will help them, and some gems get locked so you can't move them after awhile of playing.

This game doesn't seem as good on the RPG side as Puzzle Quest because it only mentions leveling up. There is no customizable citadel like in Puzzle Quest, and you can't tame creatures (although you can summon them so I guess that doesn't matter as much). It is also criticized for a poor tutorial and short playthrough, although it has replay value because you can't go into some paths on you first playthrough. So this game doesn't seem quite as good as Puzzle Quest, but it does still look like a good game.

Puzzle Quest

While browsing through puzzle games, I came across another interesting looking game. This one is called Puzzle Quest. What made me interested in this one is that I saw it combined puzzle gameplay with RPG gameplay. Wondering how it managed that, I decided to learn more.

After reading a few descriptions, I found out that this game looks pretty intricate in its RPG half. The puzzle half is essentially bejeweled style in the way that you match up three of the same color tile in a row and they disappear. However, you also get things like mana, money, experience, and damage to your opponents health when you match up three or more in a row. Once you get enough mana, you can use some of your equipped skills with it. You get more skills by leveling up with experience. You can also buy things that will help you out in matches (like a sword that gives you extra damage) and tame some monsters to learn there skills and ride them as mounts. Your tamed creatures go to your citadel, which you can upgrade to make more items and spells with strategic mini games.

This looks like a fantastic mix between a puzzle and RPG, which I didn't even really know was possible. It is extremely more intricate than I thought it would be at first glance with its RPG elements, and got good ratings from many sites and magazines.

Meteos

I was browsing puzzle games for the DS and Meteos caught my eye. I don't know why my eye was attracted to the little blue outline people and blocks rocketing off into space, but it was. Anyway I decided to see what the game was all about because I saw some comments saying it was the best puzzle game ever.

What I found actually interested me. From the pictures I saw it looked just like a standard match the same color puzzle game, but when I saw videos of it, it was actually much different. You have to make rows of three of the same shape and color of objects called meteos to make them turn into rockets which then boost other shapes out of play. It seems the point is to just not let those shapes go to high off the screen.

I also found out that this game has a story, which really is surprising for a puzzle game. It turns out there's this evil planet that is trying to destroy other planets by sending these meteos to the planets it's trying to destroy. These objects put so much weight on the planet that it collapses. However, some people of the worlds find out that if you line three of the meteos up, they ignite and send the blocks back into space.

This game looks much more interesting than your standard puzzle game, and I hope one day I get to play it.

Rogue Warrior

For this journal I'm going to do a game I've heard only bad things about. The game is called Rogue Warrior and what brought it to my attention was that I noticed it got a 2 rating out of 10 on gamespot.com. I have never seen such a low rated game, and I was even more confused by the fact that it was published by Bethesda, who also published The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3, which were great games. I wanted to find out why this game had gotten such a bad rating when it had such a great publisher.

Right when I started looking around I found out that the developer of the game was Zombie Studios, which after I looked at the games they had developed I realized why the game might be bad. All the games on their list of what they have developed were games that I hadn't even heard of and if I haven't even heard of a game the chances are it's not that good or else it has a very small fan base.

After looking further, I found out that the game Zombie Studios was making actually got scrapped because Bethesda didn't like what they saw and brought in Rebellion Development to develop it. I looked at a list of games that they developed and saw a few that I recognized but mostly never played. A lot of them were games for the PSP and PS2, and I haven't played many of them. Although the games that I did see and recognize I had never heard anything great about.

What I believe made this game get such horrible ratings is the fact that the developer made mediocre games for PSP and PS2, then jumped to the 360 and failed. One thing this research has taught me is to look into the games developers before buying. It will most likely save me many bad purchases I would otherwise make.

Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3: ODST, as most people know, is the newest Halo game that has come out. I have been curious to see since the trilogy is over if they can continue to pump out good games with this same kind of story, or if Bungie will fail because it's just trying to milk all the money it can from the Halo fanboys.

What I found is that what this game is about is you're an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper that is about to assault a Covenant ship about the city of New Mombasa. When you start to attack, one of the new members on your team changes course to miss the ship and you crash land in the city. You wake up alone and the rest of the game you spend trying to get out of the city to safety. I'm guessing you are also trying to find the new member of your team that changed the path of your vehicle while you were dropping to find out why they did it as well.

The multiplayer was praised for this game because of the new concept it had. It's called firefight and it is you and three other people trying to survive as long as possible against a horde of covenant enemies. That somewhat reminds me of nazi zombies at the end of Call of Duty: World at War (same concept except you're a WWII soldier fighting zombies...that are nazis) which it is my guess that could be where they came up with the idea.

Overall the game got great ratings (just like every halo game). I am starting to wonder, however, if these ratings are because of the space marine story that is Halo, or because they are actually good games. I suppose I will find out when I finally get to play ODST to see if the ratings are based on the gameplay or the name they slapped on it.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is the newest addition to the Silent Hill series. From what I have heard of Silent Hill, it is supposed to be a pretty good survival horror series. What has brought this one to my attention more than the others, however, is a friend has told me he thinks it is one of the greatest stories in a video game ever. I found this hard to believe for a survival horror because usually the best stories go to the RPGs.

I found out that the story is the main character, Henry Mason, is searching for his daughter, Cheryl, in the town of Silent Hill when she disappears after a car accident that left him unconscious. Apparently the game starts in a therapist's office where Henry is talking about everything that has happened, so the therapy is after the actual game. While he's explaining what had happened during his search, you're playing through the explanation. Apparently he had amnesia and was left with few memories, and his reality keeps changing throughout the story. I tried to see what it was about without spoilers and found out that on his quest to find his daughter, Silent Hill freezes over before your eyes often and you have to go through nightmares in icy mazes.

From what I have seen the game has gotten an 8 or higher out of a scale of 10 for most game sites, all of which praised the story but did not like that it was to short. I'm guessing that since every explanation I've heard of it's pretty good, so I know that I want it. I'm sure it being the best story ever like my friend says will be debatable, though.

Holograms

Holograms have been used in many movies for quite awhile now, and I've always kind of wondered if they could one day become reality. I would love to have a world with actual holograms like in Star Wars and Star Trek. I started looking around, and found out this world might not be as far off as many people think.

I found this picture at www.laser-magic.com. It still needs a projection screen, but it looks like an actual hologram of a screen. I also read about holograms at electronicdesign.com where it talks about hologram keyboards at places that require good hygiene like hospitals. The keyboards can detect finger presses for entries, but since there's nothing there except light, there's no germs spreading from touching it. It also talks about when we're going to get actual videos in hologram form. We have actually discussed that in our N100 class, and it raises the question of are we ready for it? Would it actually be more enjoyable to watch an action movie with explosions going on in our room? There's also the fact of it would scare many people because someone might walk into a room where someone left the hologram machine on and it looks like there's actual people the person doesn't know walking around in there house. The police might see an extreme jump in the amount of burglary reports. I believe it would be nice to have a would where you can have a message like the one in R2-D2 from Princess Leia, but whether or not we have hologram movies is undecided for me.

Playstation Home

Playstation Home is something on the PS3 that looks pretty much like Second Life. It's kind of a social network for PS3 gamers. At first I didn't really like it because it just seemed like a way for people to waste their time asking for pictures of each other (at least that pretty much all I saw when I got on with my PS3). Although I looked into and when it's explained more as a gaming social network it sounds like a really good idea. You can meet new people to play games with if you don't have many friend's on your list. Sony can even profit for it by selling people stuff in the virtual world for actual money (I don't really know who would buy stuff for their in-game avatar, but apparently people do). There's also events with prize-giving events to entertainment events in the game world. Since it's free to join, it's at least worth a look for anyone with a PS3.

Playstation Network

Plastation Network is the PS3s online community. It's what you use to play online and buy things from the online store. One thing the PS3's online store has started doing is selling PS1 games as full games for the PS3. This seems like a really good idea on their part, because some PS1 games are really hard to find and instead of having the people that want to play them look for a used one somewhere and buy it so a store can make some profit, Sony can just sell them a digital copy of the game and make the profit themselves and make it more convienient for the consumer. The only thing that seems like they could improve upon that would be to put PS2 games in that market, but they can't do that since PS3s cannot play PS2 games. There was a program on the marketplace that supposedly would let you play PS2 games, but I tried to get it and it didn't work. I also have talked to other people that have downloaded the same program and they couldn't get it to work either. I think if they could get that software up and running, their profit would be increased immensely by all the PS2 games they would sell online.

Singularity

Singularity is a Sci-fi shooter that takes place in present day (2010 which is when it comes out) and takes place on an island called Katorga-12 where there's Russian experiments involving the element Einsteinium which took place at the height of the Cold War. During 1950, an event known as Singularity occured on the island. You play as Nate Renko, who is an Air Force pilot sent to investigate bizarre radiation coming from the island and crash lands there. Nate finds a Time Manipulation Device and finds out the island is constantly changing between the times 1950 and 2010. The goal is to stop the Singularity from happening back in 1950. This seems like a great concept for a story since there aren't many games that have to deal with time manipulation like this, and definately not during the Cold War. This game looks like it will incorporate interesting uses of time control with an interesting story. It could be a good game, but there's not enough information about it out there yet to make a definite opinion.

Braid

Braid is another game that is on the Xbox live arcade that I've seen on gamespot.com's front page quite a bit, but never actually looked into. Turns out it's a puzzle/platform game with a guy named Tim trying to save a princess from a monster. Gamespot describes the story as a deep plot that makes you feel what the character you're playing as is feeling. Tim has lost his love because of a mistake he made and throughout the game you see Tim's thoughts on subjects that are eating away at him. The puzzles also emphasize clever thinking over quick reflexes, so it would probably be a fantastic puzzle game because you're encouraged to think more than act fast. It got overall great ratings ranging from 9-10 out of 10. A game that got that good of ratings from everyone seems worth looking into, even if it is more expensive than most arcade games at $15.

Castle Crashers

I've only heard of Castle Crashers because every once in awhile people tell me it's a good xbox live arcade game. Other than that I know pretty much nothing about it. It's eesentially a side scroller with RPG elements. The game got overall high ratings and seems to be mostly geared towards multiplayer play. In each level, the objective is to save the princess and if you're playing with more than one person the players have to fight it out at the end to see who gets the princesses kiss. In the game you can level up and purchase items with coins you get from defeated foes, so it seems like it has a certain party fun essence to it. It seems to me like it's a 2D Gauntlet game, which was an extremely fun multiplayer hack and slash game (although it was a lot less fun when not playing with other people). This game seems like it would be a good buy if me and a friend or 2 are just bored one night and looking for something to do, but other than that, I think this game might be not for me.

3D Dot Game Heroes

3D Dot Game Heroes is a game that will be coming out on the PS3 and will be taking an old graphic style, 8-bit, and popping it up into 3D. It brings up nostalgia for the old days in a new way. The play style will be based on The Legend of Zelda in the way it's designed gameplay wise. The story is that the king of Dotnia decided that things were to boring in 8-bit land and decided to make everything 3D. This caused demon's to come out and steal the 6 magical orbs that were keeping the place safe. The game seems to have a good new concept of trying to merge the old and the new graphics and bring in the old dungeon delving concept. It also seems to have a good variety of items to use such as different swords and boomerangs. It is set to come out May 11, 2010 and will cost $40, so I might wait for the price to drop. It looks like fun and everything, but a game I would buy just for nostalgia doesn't seem worth $40.

Xbox Live Arcade

The Xbox live arcade is an online place where you can download smaller games for about $10-$20. It used to be when I think Xbox Live Arcade, I thought about a waste of people's time and money since they're wasting small amounts of cash of many games, which adds up. I also thought that this would probably make bigger game companies stop making good games and start making tons of little games with half the effort. After looking into some of the games I found that many of them are made by just little companies or single people that are just looking for a way to make money doing what they like. Also since I actually got live at college, I've seen some of the games and have become interested in some of them myself. Now I've only bought one, but I wouldn't be ashamed of buying more because they actually can make fun games in the arcade. Now I actually think the Xbox Live Arcade is a great idea because it provides little time waster games for when you only have 10 or 20 minutes to play, which isn't enough time for a fully immersive game on a disk, so you can just play a little arcade game to take up some time. Along with being easy to pick up and put down, it's also providing business for the little people out there.

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins is yet another game that I have bought, but have had no time to play. This game is supposed to be one of the greatest RPGs ever released, and it's from Bioware so the chances are that's a pretty good possibility. From what I've seen, the reason it's going to be such a good RPG is because there's so many different stories you can have. The three races have different origins such as noble or commoner as well as different classes like mage and rogue. Each combonation has a different story, which makes quite a few to play through. The battle system is just a click and attack thing and you can use skills, kind of like a standard MMO. Which is a thing I kind of wish they could've put in the game. Multiplayer. It kind of makes the game less RPG-like, but I think that if you had the option to play with another person in your party, it would be more fun. Although I think they made it single-player just to complete the entire RPG experience. There is only you in there story, and no one else in most RPGs and it's kind of what makes them better. So I kind of hate myself when I want to play with another person when I'm playing a great RPG, but the feeling is there, nonetheless.

As for the ratings of the game, it got great reviews. Most of the reviews were around 9 out of 10 and some things even said it was "the RPG of the decade". I hope I get the time to play this soon and see for myself just how good it is.

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood is a game that I randomly decided to buy on a trip to Gamestop because I saw somewhere an advertisement for Magna Carta 2, so I just figured if it was good enough for a second one, it would probably be safe to buy the first one. Unfortunately, due to an overload of homework, I haven't even gotten to start the game yet, so I decided to look up information about it. It came out November 16, 2005 and is an RPG.

The story takes place in a land called Efferia, where a war is taking place between it's two species of human and Yason. The protagonist, named Calintz, is the leader of a mercenary group named the Tears of Blood hired by the humans to deal with problems that they can't touch. After a battle where the humans try to use forbidden magic and fail, Calintz finds himself being healed in a cavern by a woman named Reith who has amnesia. Calintz offers to take her to a city of powerful priestesses as thanks and because he thinks she is one of them. As the story progresses, The Tears of Blood realize that Reith is more important than anyone thinks.

The battle system seems rather complicated. Three characters move around the battlefield in real-time (you being one of them) and can only attack when a thing called the leadership meter is filled. When it is full enough to attack, you must have a series of three button presses for an attack to succeed. If you fail, the meter empties and you have to wait for it to refill. I'm hoping there's more to the battle system overall than just that, because that seems like it would get pretty boring.

The reviews were mostly 6-7 out of 10, so unless the battle system is a lot more fun to play than it is to explain, that means the story pretty much saved the game from being terrible. Which if the story is good enough, I can stand bad gameplay. Hopefully I won't be to let down by this game.

Bayonetta

Bayonetta has been on the front page of gamespot.com pretty often for the past few weeks, so I finally decided to look into it. The game's release date is sometime in January 2010 and looks like it will be a hack and slash game. It is being made by the same person that made the Devil May Cry games, which are extremely popular. It takes place in a fictional city in Europe named Vigrid. The main character is a witch that who shapeshifts and uses various guns, as well as magic attacks she performs with her hair. She initially wields four handguns, two in her hands and two in the heels of her shoes, but can wield other weapons such as shotguns, rocket launchers, and two-handed katanas. The story is wakes up after a 500 year sleep and can't remember anything about who she is or where she's at. As the game goes on, she starts to remember what caused her predicament that she's in, which is not mentioned.

Gameplay video

After watching that video, I think that the story has more depth than I thought there would be, although the battle system looks pretty much like a carbon copy of Devil May Cry's battle system. If I hear it has a great story after it comes out, I'll consider buying it, but if the story is weak, I'd rather just try to finish the Devil May Cry series that I can never seem to get around to beating.

Monster Hunter Freedom 2

I haven't heard anything about Monster Hunter games, good or bad, although I have played Monster Hunter Freedom (the first one) on PSP and was kind of skeptical about it. The only thing that seemed like it would've been fun on it would have been the multiplayer, and I didn't have anyone to play with. I mentioned that to my friend and he let handed me one of his copies of Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and said "This game has way more content and we can play multiplayer!" He says it's better, but I'm still skeptical. There really isn't a story, which can actually work for this game since it's just set in a town that needs to kill monsters for their materials to make random stuff, just like in any villlage. The combat system is hack and slash, which is usually boring alone when there's barely a story if at all. So I'm hoping playing with someone else will fix my problems with the game. The ratings the second one got ranged from 5-8.3 out of 10 and the first one got about the same. My rating for the first one when I played it would probably have been around the 5.5 range, but I'm thinking with multiplayer and some new content, the second one could be in the 8 range. Of course I suppose I'll only find out when I get around to playing it with my friend.

Darksiders

This game caught my eye one day while I was browsing gamespot.com so I decided to look further into it just because the name "Darksiders" piqued my curiosity. It turns out the story is rather different than most. The Apocalypse has started prematurely so on of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, War (you), has been sent to Earth in response to the final battle between Hevaen and Hell. After Hell wins, War is accused of being the one that started Armageddon early and is stripped of his powers and is banished to the desolate Earth forever as punishment. War sees this banishment as an opportunity to clear his name and find the real culprit that preemptively started the Apocalypse.

I don't really believe in all the religious prophecies such as the Apocalypse and the four horsemen, but I do think that this is a great idea for a game. It is basically the plot of a person wrongly accused of a crime and they have to find the real criminal, but in this setting it seems more interesting. It is said to be an action adventure game with puzzles, and is compared to The Legend of Zelda games. If it's any way like The Legend of Zelda games, that makes it even better in my opinion. I'm hoping that when this game comes out on January 5, 2010, it lives up to my expectations.

Dark Void

One day I was talking to a classmate about games when he mentioned a "vertical shooter...with jet packs!". It took him a few moments then he recalled the name of Dark Void. I started to look into this game to see that it's release date is January 19, 2010, and stated to wonder why I hadn't heard of it yet. The story is a cargo pilot named William Grey crashes in the Bermuda Triangle and is teleported to a parallel universe where he meets other humans, called Survivors. The Survivors are battling an alien race known as the Watchers to get back to Earth. The Watchers are creatures that came to Earth and started making humans do their bidding. Eventually people called Adepts emerged and banished the Watchers to the realm that William gets sent to. What draws me in is the introduction of vertical cover. This story seems interesting, but usually in shooters stories are just kind of there to give you a reason to blow stuff up (not always, but usually) so I'm not necessarily excited about the story that sounds interesting. Although what does interest me is the combat. When in combat, you can climb up walls with your jetpack, which brings in new ways to defend yourself and attack the enemy. Also, the developers seem to be trying their best to make the flying of the UFOs and jetpack as responsive as possible to avoid the annoyances of some flying games where you try to turn and just hit a wall. I'm looking forward to this game, but I'm going to wait until the reviews are out because when you're dealing with something that has physics like jumping up cliffs and flying around with jetpacks, it could be easy to make the game hard to control, therefore not fun.

Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno is another hack and slash game that is set to come out February 9, 2010 (assuming there's no pushbacks). The game is supposed to be loosley based on Inferno, the first book of Dante Alighieri's poem The Divine Comedy. You will play as Dante, a veteran of the Crusades, who pursues his lover Beatrice to try and free her soul from Lucifer, who needs to wed a heaven-bound soul to break free of Hell and make another attempt to take over the Throne of God. On his way through the nine circles of hell to Lucifer, Dante must face his past sins and war crimes. This story is definately a change from the norm which makes me interested. Instead of trying to save the world or something from being destroyed, you're just trying to save a person you love from being damed to Hell for an eternity. Although when you bring in the fact that the only way to save you loved one is by helping Lucifer try to retake the Throne of God, it makes the story even more intriguing. In the end will Dante realize he could be damning the world just to save his loved one? Even if he does succeed and save her, will they live in the world that Lucifer has taken over and probably just turned into hell? It makes you curious about what the ending will be, and whether or not you'll be able to decide what Dante does or if it's a set story. Either way, I'm fine with it because I think that the whole "choose your way - good or evil" is starting to be overused in video games. It seems like a good concept, but when every game starts using a form of it, it gets old quick. Either way, I'm looking forward to the reviews of this game.

Brutal Legend

Brutal Legend is a action/adventure game AKA hack and slash. I played the demo and got a good feeling about the game, but other than the demo I've seen nothing for it. The only reason I really knew about it in the first place was because I heard Jack Black was in it. Technically it's a character voiced by and modeled after Jack Black named Eddie Riggs, but since Jack Black has something to do with it will probably be funny nonetheless. The story is Eddie Riggs is a roadie who is transported to a fantasy world after an accident where he gets killed that is inspired by the music genre of metal. In this world the human race is enslaved by a demon, and Eddie is trying to save them. Being a fan of Jack Black and metal, this game looks pretty good to me. I also found that the game incorporates real-time strategy which is pretty much the last thing you would expect in a hack and slash game, so I'm interested to see what that turns out to be like. Also, the game features 107 heavy metal tracks from 75 different bands which means the chances of me liking the soundtrack are pretty high. This is yet another game I hope to get and play through soon.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Now this game I actually know pretty much nothing about. The only thing I've heard is that it's Sonic and it's an RPG. Which, to me, makes it look pretty good already. Not to mention it was made by Bioware who also made Mass Effect and the new Dragon Age: Origins game, so they know their way around an RPG. The story is split into two acts, that are divided further into chapters. The first act is Sonic and company keeping the Master Emerald from being taken, and the second act is them travelling to a new dimension called the Twilight Cage to stop a threat to their world. The game opens with details on Sonic defeating Dr. Robotnik by destroying the Egg Carrier. Robotnik is presumed dead, but anyone that has played more than one Sonic game knows that he isn't since he's usually the main bad guy in every game (or is behind the main bad guy). Although this looks like it may be different since Sonic has to go to a different dimension. I'm not sure if Robotnik could pull off threatening the world from another dimension. Not having Dr. Robotnik be the bad guy could be a good change of pace for Sonic since after seeing Robotnik's plans get foiled is only amusing for so long before you just want a break from the same villain.

The game got mixed reviews ranging from 6.5/10 to 93% and an A rating. I think that even though some reviews were in the 6.5-7 out of 10 range, I'd still feel safe picking this game up since I'm a major sonic fan and I'm extremely curious to see him in an RPG game.

Scribblenauts

Scribblenauts is yet another game I've heard about from a friend that has said nothing but good things about it. He got me interested in it with two sentences which was "I summoned Cthulhu and God and they fought. Cthulhu won." Now I'm not saying God losing is good or bad, but just the fact that you can make those two things in the game is impressive. I looked it up and saw that the game is pretty much just a sandbox game to screw around in, but the point of the game is to collect "Starites". You get these starites by bringing up a text entry table, writing what you want to appear, then using it in some way to get the starite. There's one level where a starite is up in a tree and I've seen three solutions. One is making a ladder, another is making a beaver gnaw down the tree, and the last one was making a lumberjack and an axe and watching him chop down the tree. I'm sure there's tons of ways to do just that simple action of getting something out of a tree. I want to get this game not to play for a story, but just to see what kind of wacky things I can do with a Cthulhu and God and say....a skateboard and a shotgun! Oh wait...it has been done...

Skateboarding God vs Cthulhu in Scribblenauts

Chrono Trigger

I was told about this game about 5 years ago by my friend who had played it on an emulator and said it was a good game. I thought nothing of it at the time since I didn't have a way to play it (back then I didn't even know what an emulator was...dial up will do that to you). Although now they have re-released it for the DS and my friend here at college got it and has been playing it non-stop. It is also my other friend's favorite game, and both of these friend's love RPG's so I knew it couldn't be bad. I decided to look into it's story, since I already know it has a turn-based RPG battle system. The gist of it is a group of adventurers travel through time to stop a global catastrophe. This seems to be a concept that isn't used very much, and since the fabric of time interests me, it seems like it would be an intriguing story. The DS version also included a New Game+ concept where you start a new game after beating it with the same stats you ended the game with. This seems pretty useful since the game has multiple endings and it makes it easier to see them when you start out really powerful and can speed through the game instead of going back to the beginning when you were inexperienced. I'm guessing I'll either try to borrow this game when I get the time, or just purchase it myself sooner or later.