Wow! Happy New Years everyone!

It's been a while huh? I've finally finished my first semester of Animation school and have had my first day yesterday (still feels like today since I didn't sleep yet). So far so good, I wish I did better (not that I did badly) but improvement is always something everyone strives for :)

I have been able to play some games over the holidays. I've played and finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for Gamecube, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Wii and Guild Wars: Eye of the North for PC.

As well as played a bit of Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 3, Taiko Drum Master, Mario Party 8, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, WarioWare, WiiPlay, blah blah blah... the usual party games lol

I've also had a chance to watch some Mario Galaxy and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. The Mario isn't mine and I didn't really feel like playing it at that moment, but it looked amazing, the graphics, the gameplay, this is definitely on the summer list (if I get to do all the drawing things I've wanted to do!). I didn't play Resident Evil 4 because 1) I'm not very good with 3rd person controls on a console and 2) Ever since the first Silent Hill I've never liked playing survival/horror on my own (I'm sure playing it at midnight with 5.1 surround sound didn't help either lol). But, it was fun giving my friend advice as he slashed and shot through villagers, as well as keep him company, we were both pretty freaked lol

I'm pretty sure I've already talked about all the party games, so I'll skip over that...

I've bought Gears of War for PC, Black and White 2 and the Expansion, Age of Empires 3 and the Expansion and Tabula Rasa as well as bought some Game Boy games to be sent overseas for a friend. I bought Tabula Rasa because it was cheap, there was a sale at EB and I picked it up in the hopes to check it out later since there's a free month included. Gears, B&W and AOE were 40% off so that's pretty self-explanatory I think... luckily I convinced myself not to get the World of Warcraft battle chest for $20... I would have failed school for SURE.

Ok, so on to the games that I did play for a few days. I finally got through Guild Wars: EOTN, and the verdict was... it was alright. I had no urge to boot up my comp and log in like I did with Factions or Prophecies. The story wasn't the most engaging, but I did enjoy most of the missions. If you're thinking about getting it and aren't sure, I'd either get one of the other campaigns or wait for Guild Wars 2. I realize that this was the only expansion, but it didn't really keep my interest like I thought it would.

Fire Emblem for GC was one of the titles I kept looking at my shelf but put off playing because of god knows what. I finally played it and it was great. Same old Fire Emblem (with obvious graphics upgrades). I find the battle animations tedious and turned them off, doing that really speeds up the game (especially if you're like me and reset the system everytime one of your guys dies). I think there is definite replay value in this game, and I'll probably do that in the summer too.

The Fire Emblem for Wii was a delightful surprise! I didn't realize it was a direct sequel to the Gamecube version so when I popped in the disc sad that I'd never see Ike, Lucia, Nephanee, etc. again, there they were! And older and cooler looking too! :D Schweet! I liked the little tweeks in the game play, the option to add all the enemy attack areas together was awesome. However, I noticed a huge difference in difficulty with Normal mode in the Gamecube version and Normal mode in the Wii version... Wii version felt way more difficult, but maybe that's because all the guys you start off with get killed in 1-2 hits. Needless to say, I had to play it on easy to beat it as quickly as possible before my break ended. Oh, the controls on the Wiimote were awkward to get used to, especially after I played the GC version. But, it's a small learning curve.

I definitely want to do write ups on these games, but not sure with time constraints so I hope you guys don't mind casual banter like this. If you have specific questions, I can answer them in the comment section.

Cheers!

pic from IGN