Yesterday, I saw Twilight along with my girlfriend and her cousins. I’ve read the book but wasn’t expecting the movie to be any good.  It caught me by surprise as it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. There were a few cheesy scenes but it was tolerable. With a budget of “only” $37 million, I suppose the production values weren’t as top-notched as the bigger releases nowadays.  I’m glad it’s made over $175 million so far, that way, when New Moon is released, I expect it to be much better than the first.

Oh, and Ashley Greene is awesome…

Yes, this post was just an excuse for me to post this picture.

A few things I want to do/get done in 2009. I suppose you can call them resolutions but I never end up getting them done. So here’s my attempt to make 2009 better than 2008.  And 2008 was a great year for me.  Let’s recap.

$3,100+. This is the amount I spent on video games and video game-related items in 2008 alone.  Fuck, that’s a lot of money.  I took a quick glance at my collection and I’m asking myself “what the hell did I buy?” Well, I bought three Nintendo DS Lites, a PSP, a new computer, Rock Band special edition and dozens of other games.
Schwinn. Got myself a nice, authentic Schwinn Cruiser SS bicycle. I never knew biking can be so fun yet so tiring when you haven’t been on one in a long time.
Vegas. Went to Las Vegas…twice. Lost monies both times.
Boardwalk. Finally went to the beach in July.  Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, so fun, memorable moments, would go again.
Photography. After receiving my tax return, I splurged a little and bought myself a Canon XTi, a few books, and a portrait lens. I shot a ton of pictures when I first got it but didn’t shoot in the latter half of the year. I took a little over 2,000 pictures with my DSLR in 2008.
Twenty-Five. Number of games I finished. I had 18 in 2007 and 11 in 2006.  Looks like I’m improving every year.

Here’s what I plan to do/improve in 2009:

Read more books. I read quite a few books last year with my favorites being The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. I’m looking to broaden my reading this year.  I’m currently reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. I’m enjoying Kafka very much and will definitely look into more books by Murakami.
Finish 50 games/Get 20,000 Gamerscore. I’m looking to double my number of games beaten this year and also double my Xbox 360’s gamerscore. Fifty has always been my goal and if I take my video games one at a time, I’m sure I’ll reach it.
Take more pictures. There’s been so many “I wish I had my camera” moments last year.
Keep this blog updated. This post is a start.
Run. I want to start running again. I need to be active and working in an office is not helping, although I do get to buy nice things whenever I want.  I’m looking into the Nike+iPod program and can see myself going through with it.  I just need to get an iPod Nano since the iPhone is not compatible with the Nike+ sensor.
Save money. Not sure how much but I better not spend $3,000 on video games. I’m going to limit myself to buying one new game a month.

There you have it.  Happy New Year’s.  Good night.

Game Title: NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Nintendo Wii)
When: August 3rd, 2008
Completion Time: 3 hours 49 minutes

At one point, I did own NiGHTS: Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn.  I, however, never did play it.  When a NiGHTS sequel was announced for the Nintendo Wii, I still didn’t care for it.  And you know what?  Even after playing the successor on the Wii, my thoughts are the same.  Sega should’ve left this series in the vault.

Journey of Dreams start you off by allowing you to play through two children’s dreams, Will and Helen’s.  I chose Will’s and figured I can play through Helen’s if I enjoyed it enough to play through it again.  Fortunately, I never had to do that.  I don’t know what the hell Sonic Team is doing to their games but I haven’t enjoyed a single one of theirs since…well, never.  Sonic Adventure was so-so, Sonic Adventure 2 was shit, Sonic the Hedgehog (on 360) was even worse; and now this.  The game revolved around you, playing as a hybrid of the character NiGHTS and the child you chose, going through loops and saving the dream world from the Nightmareans.  The game is split into three worlds with five levels in each one.  Each world lacks variety since you’re doing the same missions in each one.  Save for a few where you’re actually on-foot going through a “maze” and levels where you’re in a boat/coaster.  The coaster one is actually pretty fun but aside from that, everything is just flat-out boring.  I couldn’t wait to finish the game and I’m glad it took me less than four hours to do it.  I can’t possibly put in another four hours in Helen’s Dream if I wanted to keep my sanity.

As for the musical score, I actually liked it.  As corny as it sounds, it was quite pleasant.  Very bubbly.  I didn’t play the game for the music, though.  So what I was left with is a horrible gliding game with a decent soundtrack.  Sonic Team fails again.

Do I recommend playing it? No.
What games am I playing next? I have quite a few that I’m juggling.  I started up Space Invaders Extreme (DS), Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (360) and Call of Duty 4 (360).  I’m also playing Endless Ocean (Wii) and Halo 3 (360) in between my main gaming sessions.  The only reason why I played NiGHTS was because I have a potential buyer and I gave myself a time limit of two days to finish it before I ship it out.

Fact: I bought an Xbox 360 for Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.  Watching videos of the game in action made the wait for getting an Xbox 360 even more unbareable.  So when I finally bought one off of Amazon, I was psyched to get online and download it right away.  And I was not disappointed.  But as much as I loved it, I couldn’t get pass the 1 million barrier.  I came pretty close with 985,000 points, though.  I never did try again to see if I can get above my personal high score.

Just about a week ago, Bizzare Creations released Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 on Xbox Live.  Honestly, I was not stoked for the game…at all.  I haven’t really been keeping up with the latest games but usually if there’s a sequel to a game that I loved playing, I would’ve at least read a bit more on it.  Hell, I didn’t even know it was out until I booted up my 360 and saw the advertisement for it.  I figured I’d give it a download and see how the game plays.  Bizzare improved the game in every way possible.  The game now features six modes of play and there’s at least something for everyone.  There’s still the Retro Evolved mode, where you play endlessly until you’re out of lives.  Deadline is a timed game where you try to get as much points as possible within three minutes.  King is a unique mode where you can only shoot when you’re in circles that appear on the playfield.  Once you’re out of the circle, you can’t shoot.  Therefore, every trek to a new circle will be filled with enemies that you have to dodge.  In Pacifism (my favorite, so far), you can’t shoot at all.  The only way you score points is by going through “gates”.  Once you go through a gate, it’ll explode any enemies near it.  Waves was included in Project Gotham Racing 4 and is a featured mode in Geo Wars 2.  Every few seconds, a wave of zip-lining fighters will cross the screen.  It gets frantic when you have waves of enemies appearing from every direction.  Finally, there’s Sequence.  It’s comprised of 20-levels where there’s a fixed arrangement of enemies in each level.

Even the smallest details in the game amazes me.  For example, as you’re playing, you can have your HUD display either the next best score on your friends’ list, your personal best or the highest score on your friends’ list.  It makes reaching a goal much easier since you’re not aiming for the top, but just enough to top the next high score.  If anyone wants to add me to compare high scores, my Xbox Live gamertag is Sochie.

I’m actually interested in setting up my own saltwater aquarium.  I’ve been reading how to maintain one for the past few weeks.  When I was younger, my parents had a 50-gallon freshwater tank where we housed sucker fishes, a crawdad, and a ton of goldfishes.  We had the tank for a long time before it started to leak.  It was then that we decided we wouldn’t be able to keep the tank as we have invested a lot of money into it already.  That was nearly 10 years ago.  So a few weeks ago, owning an aquarium again caught my interest.  But I didn’t want goldfishes, I want the more exotic-colored ones that saltwater have to offer.  I plan on purchasing the tank and necessary equipment in the next month or two and I’ll keep a detailed account of my ventures here on this blog.

The thought of owning a saltwater tank also led me to see what sort of fishes I would be interested in.  Sure, there are websites, forums, magazines, books, etc. out there that I can peruse but as I glanced at my video game collection, I remember that I own Endless Ocean for the Nintendo Wii.  Earlier this year, I only played it for about 45 minutes before my mind wandered off to other games.  But as I stared at the case on my bookcase, I decided to play it and see what I can learn.  Let me tell you, this game is amazing.  It didn’t grab me before but now, I’m learning to love this game.  It’s very relaxing and informative. I can see myself playing this game more extensively after a day’s work at the office.  I can’t explain why but seeing a scalloped hammerhead slowly swimming towards the reef that I was inspecting gave me chills.  Just discovering anything new in the ocean is a pleasure in itself.  I’ve seen an ocean sunfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium just a year ago but seeing it here in the game is just as comparable in terms of the amazement of seeing one.  It even swims like a real one.  I have to give it to Nintendo for crafting such a fine piece of software.

While going to the potty, I brought my Nintendo DS with me and started up Space Invaders Extreme.  I was going to buy the PSP version but since my PSP was recently stolen, the DS version will do.  I’ve never been a huge fan of Space Invaders (feels a bit too slow for me) but Extreme does everything right to keep my interest.  Taito modernized it with groovy backdrops/effects, a riveting soundtrack and even boss battles.  More people need to play Space Invaders Extreme.  I can’t wait for my next potty outing.

In less than two days, I managed to spend over $1,000. O_o

All that money went towards my hobby/entertainment. $665 bought me a digital SLR camera and a memory card, $80 went to my Amazon Prime membership, $100 went to The Lady’s formal dress/shoes I said I would buy for her, $80 went to a pair of new kicks and the rest went to video games. I’ll take pics as soon as they arrive.

I still need to buy myself a new tie and a white belt. One of my friends/co-worker is having her 50th birthday party on February 15th. Semi-formal, black/white attire, and adults only. Gotta look fresh with some new gear.

On the upside, I received a $10.00 refund from Amazon.com per their price drop policy.  If you purchase an item from Amazon.com and the price drops on that item within 30 days, you can request a refund for the difference.  I bought Enter the Dragon and Corpse Bride for $19.95 total (Amazon was having a buy one get one free) and now they’re $14.95 each.  That’s correct, even if you bought the items in some sort of deal like I did, you’ll still get the price difference on its “original” price.  So in the end, I payed only $9.95 for Enter the Dragon and Corpse Bride (both on Blu-Ray).  I also have Children of Men and Knocked Up on HD DVD; I bought them in a B1G1 free for $27.95.  Both movies are now $19.95.  I could’ve got $16 back but it’s been 35 days since I purchased them.  *sigh*  You win some, you lose some.

Four more Blu-Ray movies to my collection, for a total of 16. And I haven’t even spent more than $20 on a single Blu-Ray movie. Here are the new things I got in the mail today:

I got Cooking Mama: Cook Off ($29.99) for the Nintendo Wii. I was expecting it to be somewhat more fun but it wasn’t. I also got a Disney/Pixar Collectible Pin Set from registering Ratatouille and Pixar Short Films Volume 1. And my new Blu-Ray movies are Paprika ($19.49), Tekkonkinkreet ($19.49), Dragon Ball Z – Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan/Broly the Second Coming ($13.99) and The Prestige (Free from the Blu-Ray Retailer Training).

 Looks like I have a lot of things to watch in the next few weeks.

So I bought myself a 2GB microSD card to go along with my M3 DS Real.

 I got The Lady hooked on Cooking Mama 1/2, Ouendan 2 and Brain Age.  Speaking of Brain Age, that is one spectacular game, especially for someone who hasn’t been in school for a while (read: me).  The colors game makes me light-headed, the calculations made me realize how much math I’ve forgotten and this game tests my memory like no other.  And I’m lovin’ it.  After I’m “done” with Brain Age (and its sudoku portion, which is something else I’m hooked on) I’ll move onto Big Brain Academy and then Brain Age 2.

My awesome memorization of what Australia looks like

What game did I finish?
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

When?
January 7th, 2008

How long did it take?
10 hours 14 minutes

My thoughts.
Wow. Easily the most fun I had with a video game in some time. I don’t know why Super Mario Sunshine received a lot of flack; I had fun with it even if it wasn’t a traditional Mario game. If I still had Sunshine, I would play it all over again. To be honest, while playing through Galaxy, I wanted to perform certian moves that were only available in Sunshine. Such as sliding on water to quickly travel from one area to another, although it wasn’t necessary since the worlds are small and doesn’t need much traversing.

I really love the gravity engine in Galaxy. There’s nothing like it that I’ve played. I wonder if other Wii games will imitate this style.

Mario have a few new transformations: Bee, Spring, Boo, Ice and Soar. I never had a chance to get the Soar ability since I finished the game with the minimum amount of stars (60 + 1 for finishing the game). The Bee transformation allows Mario to hover for an extended amount of time and he’s able to stick onto honeycombs. The Spring transformation allows Mario to spring onto high areas that normally couldn’t be reached. I can see why some gamers dislike the ability due to a slight misstep, Mario can easily fall to his death. Boo Mario assumes Boo’s shape, is able to float and go through certain objects. Finally, my favorite new ability, is Ice Mario. Walking on water is possible since Mario automatically freezes them into tiles and with a shake of the Wii Remote, he can skate on it.

I’ll put more time into the game to see if I can get all 120 stars.

Do I recommend playing it?
Absolutely.

What game(s) am I playing next?
A bit of Brain Age and Cooking Mama.