Happy December!

Holy crap it's been a long time! I hope that everyone had a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday and that you also bought loads of cheap games over the weekend. I know I did.

I had the whole week off from school. Which meant, of course... VIDEO GAMES!!! In fact, I've made some significant progress on my 108 in 2008 goal in the last couple of weeks. Since the 18th of November, I have conquered TWELVE games, including SBCG4AP Ep. 2, Mario Party Advance, and Viewtiful Joe 2. In fact, I beat 3 games on 21st alone. That means, for this year, my list of beaten games has reached an astounding... 106. That's right, only 2 more games to go and I shall beat my goal! Hoo-hah! 'Twill be a glorious day indeed.

In any case, I've started quite a few games recently and I would like to share with you some of the good and bad things of these gameses.

First of all, let's talk about Animal Crossing: City Folk. The newest iteration of the strangely addicting pull-weeds and buy-furniture sim is a lot of fun. It's basically the same ol' good ol' Animal Crossing we all know and love. Plus, now you can go the city, which is a small area outside the town where you can buy fancy furniture, go to an auction, or get your shoes shined. And get this: Cap'n is the bus driver! Cool! Plus, you can go see Dr. Shrunk every day and get a new emotion. Awesome!

One thing I like is how they took some good things from the Gamecube and DS versions and mixed them. Like presents. They appear anywhere in town like in the GCN version, but you still have to shoot them like in the DS version. Plus, they brought back the cool bi-level town design from the cube AC.

All in all, it's still a lot of fun. My only complaint: all the music is the same as the DS one. I was hoping they'd write something new for this one, but there's not much new stuff. Ah well. At least you can listen to Totakeke twice per Saturday instead of once. So yeah... so far, so good.

Another game I started recently is Mercury Meltdown: Revolution, also for Wii. It's one part Monkey Ball, one part Marble Madness, five parts awesome. You tilt the Wii remote to control a blob of Mercury and guide it to the finish line. There are different floors, such as a sticky floor and a slick floor. There are different modifiers, such as a heater that makes the mercury break up easier, and a cooler, which makes it stick together better. And, of course, there are mini-games, which are kinda cool, but not nearly as fun as the main game.

To be honest, I'm kinda surprised at well done the game is. It controls very well. It doesn't get as out-of-control as Monkey Ball can get, either. Plus, there's over 150 levels. Schweet! And don't expect all of these levels to be drop-dead easy, either. One level I played yesterday took me about 25 minutes to beat. But it was cool. It's one of those games that you can really get into, but it's also set up so you can play for a few minutes at a time and still make progress. Awesome. All in all, it works well. The included mini-games aren't completely stupid, but what can you do, right?

So there you are. Some foist impweshuns. Will it be one of these games that ends up being the straw that breaks the 1o8 Camel's back, or will it be something else? The answer shall be revealed soon. Stay tuned!

-benjamines

Currently Playing: Animal Crossing: City Folk, Mercury Meltdown Revolution, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney