Starcraft II - Complete

Wow, two games in the space of a weekend... the planets have aligned, unicorns are breeding, cats and dogs livin' together... mass hysteria! It almost goes without saying that this is something that doesn't happen all that often. But I took a little bit of time away from watching Farscape to actually attempt some of the more difficult missions (that turned out to be not all that difficult).

As it turned out, I only had two missions left to finish the game, and I had left it in that state for a few months. My typical MO is to play games until they get difficult, but I was pretty proud that I'd kept up with that one. But then (during the course of the missions), you get to a scary, ominous "point of no return" sort of scenario, and I guess I chickened out a bit.

The last mission "All in" was a pretty basic defend-the-base-from-hordes-of-attackers sort of thing. Defending a base is something the Terrans excel at, so it was really a piece of cake. In the previous mission, you could choose to either disable the Nydus network (which keeps worms from spawning hordes of incoming baddies), or disable the air support (which prevents a couple of painful air units from spawning). I chose the latter, since I didn't want to defend every angle on my base, just a few choke points.

I'm debating what to play next. When I'm on public transit, I'm working through Final Fantasy III on my DS. When I'm at home, I think I might try to finish either New Super Mario Bros. Wii or Kirby's Epic Yarn.

I briefly debated getting a 3DS when it came out, but I think I'll wait until later in the year, when a) they are possibly cheaper, and b) Legend of Zelda 3DS is out.

Note: Chiana is ten kinds of hotness. It's a scientific fact!

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass complete!

I just defeated Bellum, the big baddie of Phantom Hourglass. It was actually pretty easy, given that I'd collected all the spirit gems (it allows you to avoid damage and hit harder). You end up using the spirit of courage to stop time so you can hit him when his eye is open. And there's four phases to the fight, including ship-to-ship combat! It was all very cool.

Feels good, man.

I'm not sure what I should go for next. Maybe Starcraft 2?

Back in the saddle

I haven't had much time for single-player games lately. Since the baby is growing up and the other child is starting to get quite active (school, piano, etc), it seems like all my free time has been taken up with either a) World of Warcraft or b) Netflix.

Fortunately, I have resurrected my Nintendo DS from the depths of the electronics basket in our computer room. I've since finished Super Scribblenauts and now I'm working on The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass (both of which are excellent, btw).

My only complaint is that Zelda features a timed dungeon. In hindsight, the "Hourglass" in the title should have given away that there was something in the dungeon that was subject to timing, but sadly I'm really dumb. But I've decided that this is one of those things I have to change about myself. I've faced the timed dungeon about seven times now, and emerged victorious.

I've also decided to go for some semblance of completeness. I'm at the point where I could fight the end boss, but I want to collect all the power, wisdom, and courage gems and level up the little spirits that help you out.

All in all, it's a stylus game, which I thought would be a bit gimmicky and lame. It's turned out that it's actually a Zelda game and it's actually very lovely to play.

Though I think I'll get the 3DS when it comes out later this month. I hear it has a bigger stylus and brighter screen.

Netflix has been something of a time thief. Everytime I think I'm done with a television series, it saps me with something new. These days it's been Farscape and Better Off Ted.