This is being written on the family computer. Lately, my computer has been giving me tons of shit as it randomly turns off for no reason. My dad narrowed it down to either the graphics card or the motherboard causing power spikes, so until those are fixed, my computer is worthless. That's why I haven't said much in the past month or so, because my computer has been shitting itself into septic shock. The few comments I was able to make have been slowly and painfully typed letter by letter on a crap-ass Wii. Obviously, this also means no story work can be done until my computer is fixed. So you'll have to wait even longer for me to take forever to write those stories.

Oh yeah, I might get a date soon for when I go to basic training. I'm really hoping it's not until next year.

I've played a bunch of games in this time, and since nobody seems to object to them, have some minireviews:

1. Scribblenauts, for DS, which I own. If you are interested in this game at all you probably own it already. The graphic style is nice as is the music. The levels/puzzles are mostly pretty good, but unfortunately once you know the solution, the game's replay value drops to zero. The controls are horrible; this may be the single worst-controlling game in the history of mankind (yes, worse than Super Mario 64 DS). Not the worst-controlling DS game; the worst-controlling game period. The game makes up for it with the insanity of stuff you can summon, but you can NOT summon everything. THe game reuses a lot of art assets (for example, anything that is similar to a potato will have the same potato appearance), and a lot of objects that I thought were valid aren't in the game at all (like attack helicopters, okapis, and some other stuff), but for the most part, it's probably in the game if you can think of it. The best part of the game is screwing around on the title screen (a goal-less sandbox level where you are mostly invincible). I created this wedding with a bride and groom and flower girl and bridesmaids... then I got in a mech and blew them all up. It's a great mess-around kind of game, just beware that the controls are worse than every Wii game's controls put together, mixed with Lair for PS3. Final score: 8/10.

2. New Play Control: Pikmin, for Wii, which I rented. I like Pikmin, though I only ever rented the first game. If you like Pikmin at all, you most likely played the first one for Gamecube so you already know what this game is about. The Wii controls are the only different thing, and... yeah, they're a mixed bag. You can no longer use the C-stick (since there isn't one) to group your Pikmin together to throw them faster. The extra precision for throwing is meh because the Gamecube's stick was good enough in the first place; the main advantages are that you can move in one direction and throw Pikmin in another, and your throwing range is a LOT farther in this game. But yeah... the Pikmin are dumb as always and frequently fail to obey orders. Very frequently. So if you already have the Gamecube one, don't bother, but it's a good game on its own right. I say 8/10 again.

3. Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, for Wii, and I rented this. You know the drill... Lucasarts game for a Nintendo platform, so it sucks balls and it's retarded and it's the worst thing--- wait, it actually doesn't suck. I don't know what most of the whiny-ass pussies who write "professional" game reviews are doing, but I rarely had trouble with the game's motion controls. You have to remember: if you want Wii motion controls to work, you make the most minimal effort possible. Do NOT try to imitate the motion that the game wants you to think you're doing; flick your wrist, don't punch for real. Wii motion controls only work when you're doing the opposite of what the motion represents. With that out of the way, the game is okay overall. The adventuring is nice if linear, and the shootout stages (which are pointer controlled) are often the best part. The fist combat, which isn't as common (or as good) as in Indiana JOnes and the Emperor's Tomb, is the weakest part of the game, but as said above, it's not that bad. The main problem is that the enemies are very cheap; expect to be spammed by objects thrown from off-screen enemies way too often (as if you needed to know, the game's camera sucks, like in most third person games). Graphically, this is a PS2 port through and through. At times it looks absolutely shitty, but surprisingly, some levels actually manage to look good with sharp textures and everything; the game is very inconsistent. It doesn't help that there's bloom lighting EVERYWHERE. It gets sickening. Sound-wise, the music is okay and the voices are good. Overall I'm going to give this 7 out of 10. It's way better than I thought it would be.

4. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, included with the above game: Yeah, I'm not a retro-whore. I never played this game before. I know some people will be angry with me but from playing this game, I don't see what any of the fuss is about. Probably because the Wii version is inferior to the PC original, I guess. It's a point and click game with tons of backtracking and it relies heavily on noticing tiny, tiny, obscure details on the screen which are often blocked by the fat hand-shaped Wii pointer. That, and the Wii cursor has trouble clicking on these microscopic points of interest when you are able to see them at all; these issues, I assume, were not problems on a PC. I guess the story's okay, but the voices are some of the worst I've ever heard. Most of them sound like your younger brother doing an impression of a German soldier he heard in a movie; they're that bad. Then again, this game was released back in 1993 or something when standards were different. I don't know, the game just didn't do it for me. It's not that I hate point and click games (I have a few Sam and Max episodes, which I enjoyed, and SBGC4AP was the only reason I was happy to have a Wii in 2008), I guess I just don't buy into nostalgic hype-traps very easily. It's not fair to rate this as it *is* just an unlockable.

...yeah, that's pretty much all I do now. Play games. The past few weeks I've been playing all three Paper Mario games in a row. All I have left is to do the Sammer Kingdom Duel of 100, and the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials (both times...) in Super Paper Mario. It's nice to see Princess Peach actually speaking in complete sentences; so she's not a *complete* waste of programming like she is in... well.... every single other Mario game.

Oh yeah, my birthday is coming up, so I'll be 24 in two and a half weeks. Hopefully I'll be home for that. Until then, I'll just be here... petting my fat cat whenever she walks in my room. And now I'm sick of typing on this crappy family computer.