Gone 2 Europe 4 two months!

"Gone gone, forever on-
wards toward the flashing lights and sounds
of another realm"

See you in a few months!

Dear Reader, (there is only 1 of you right?)

I have finished Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, much to my chagrin it was cute and mildly humorous till the very end, but the story was complete and almost all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I'm not too sure what I was supposed to do with the girl pirate, and I never found the mermaid. So even without those tidbits or add-ons I still give this game a 5 out of 5, particularly because it was on the DS. I've never enjoyed an RPG / Action game so much on a handheld.

Now I've moved on to Final Fantasy III, which has filled that emptyness inside that appears when you finish a good game. Having never played FF III before it is a real treat. I believe this is the first FF game where they introduced job classes, which are annoying when you switch back and forth, but add enough interesting aspects to the game that they become enjoyable. I'll have to wait until I return to give a full review.

However, dear reader, I do want to leave you with something to tide you over. Here are a list of my favorite webcomics, the majority of which are gaming related, and most of which are excellent wastes of time. Read them all from the beginning of the archives, you will enjoy them much more that way.

Hookie Dookie Panic
CTRL-ALT-Delete
Goblins
8bit Theatre
Penny Arcade
PVP Online
The Adventures of Dr McNinja
The n00b
Three Panel Soul - (from the creators of Machall)
Girl Genius
Looking For Group

Enjoy! and feel free to leave your comments :)

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass DS ... Plus More!

So many things to say, so little time. This post will be a brief overview of some of the key features of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass DS. I won't go into too much detail because so many others have covered the bases. What I will say is that as far as DS games go, the hype was well deserved for this little title. It's taken me about 20+ hours to poke through about 85% of the game, and everything that keeps the game cute and interesting is still prevalent.

Issues - the saving "anywhere" feature is deceptive, and though I'm sure it was an engineering limitation that prevents players from saving in the middle of a castle / dungeon, it would have been really nice to see. Instead, whenever you save, if you were in a castle, you keep any doors or switches that you've hit open, but you start back at the beginning of the castle again.

As for the gameplay and the cuteness (plus most of the original reliable weapons / tools) everything works well. As many other reviews have pointed out it's the stylus that makes this nugget of triforce goodness fall into the "legendary" category. Taking the ability to draw paths and making it integral to the game really expanded the puzzles and style of play that a portable Zelda game can offer.

Anyway, no more babbling. Go buy it, it's good, you won't be dissappointed, I'm not going to use any more commas ... I swear ...

As for the other stuff! Well, I've finished a few additional games and decided I'm going to start tracking them over there---------------------------------------------->
Each has a relative rating, but if you want details or to form your own opinion (which I highly recommend), take a look at any posts on said game, or click the title to get to the official site (that's what's usually linked there).

That's all for now, and may the triforce be with you ... (nerd thought .. I wonder if the triforce is like a focus for "The Force", Link woulda kicked Luke's ass anyway ...)

-JW