Hiya everyone, monsieur aaron’s back again. Anyway just some random thoughts for the night. Life is certainly beautiful, but it’s filled with plenty of ups and downs, no? Though I wish to digress that recently in my life, I have been hit with lotsa down moments instead, heh like what’s new right? Get used to it.

Have I lost faith in God? No I don’t think so, I still think he’s looking out for me, waiting patiently there for me whenever I need Him. However sometimes when one gets caught up with his or her own problems such as real life issues, one starts to wonder whether his faith in everything has wavered. To be honest, I also tend to question abt my life occasionally to Him when things starts to go wrong for me, but sometimes things will just eventually get better or find a way for itself, when I tell myself I can definitely pull through this. And I think God has been very good to me, even though I haven’t been a very faithful one to Him, to be frank especially.

I believe somehow, that the role Mr. Resetti plays in Animal Crossing: Wild World, is that of something like a God, someone who tells you abt how life works in the game itself, and wakes up your bloody idea about resetting without saving first, lol. I took these screenshots quite sometime ago on my DS, but always forgot to post them up. Now I finally found a use for these pictures, heh. Yes, resetting yourself in Real Life is not allowed, it’s either you get over it and move on, or you just have to try to solve these problems with your own strength and try to adapt yourself to such drastic changes in your life. Only like this then you will grow as a person, and learn to be a stronger person. That’s how life works I guess. Remember, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, not weaker.

Anyway, enough abt all these. Let’s move on and take a peek at some happier stuffs in my life, shall we?

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Went to the IT fair held at Suntec City Exhibition Hall last fri with the guys, all just purely for a single reason. So what was that reason? It was to check out that new Nintendo DS Lite hardware in person. For the past few weeks I had already heard so much about it from several sites, seen the pictures of the launch of it in Japan from the internet, but to be able to see it in person was like so freaking enticing, not to mention exciting. So off we went to the Nintendo booth (which was quite surprising that Maxsoft had two booths instead of one) at the IT fair last week. Another reason was because Brendam, Chengkai and Xiangyao was working at the Xbox 360 booth there, so Val, Brandon and me decided to head there to meet up with those guys as well. Ronald came down to join us too despite not having a wink for more than 48 hours and counting (he’s just exhibiting his FFXI craziness at his best again heh) and then to end off the night, all of us went to Marina Square for dinner at Carl’s Jr for some good o’ Super Star goodness.

Now onto some pictures taken at the Nintendo booth from this gadget otaku heh.

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Finally. The long-awaited title from Sega finally arrives for the Sony PSP. As usual, since VpostJapan ships their japan parcels with all the processing duration crap involved, I only managed to get it via Singpost late last week. Preordered 3 copies since Jimmy (seizure) and Kaiwei was interested in this game as well, and it also comes with a free bonus UMD for the Japan R2 copies only and is only bundled with preorders in Japan.

Now onto the pictures and my hands-on impressions for this game.

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*roll drums* Another game-related entry for today. Got my copy of Bleach DS 蒼天に駆ける運命 last Sunday from Gamescore, since I had it preordered sometime back. Actually could have gotten it much earlier by Lunar CNY one, but cause stock was low everywhere and Deli’s supplier cannot meet the demand of the local shops, so it came in very limited quantities. I was unlucky that I didn’t manage to secure a copy of the first batches since only five copies came in that time, so I had to wait. Then finally Jimmy (gupster) who has been working there told me that stock finally came in last week, so I had him reserved for me a copy. Didn’t actually had the time to play till yesterday, and after trying out the first 1 or 2 hours, finally managed to complete Ichigo’s story. My impressions of this game is that it reminded me alot of the old Sega Genesis’s Yuu Yuu Hakusho, and gameplay style is quite similiar to Guilty Gear-XX too. As a 2D-fighter, this game is actually pretty good. Requires some depth in mastering the fighting moves, and technically the controls are pretty tight too and of course the animation cutscenes are pretty good as well. BGM soundtrack is also a plus, OP is the Ichirin no Hana theme by High & Mighty Color (which is also the current OP for the anime), and some of the BGM tracks inside are derived from the same anime too actually. Overall this is a pretty good and fun game, didn’t really regret buying this. (as opposed to Bleach ~Heat the Soul 1~, which is a fucking short and sucky game on the Sony PSP)

And on a side-note, the Nintendo DS Lite (Crystal White edition) gets released today. Sigh, can only see it online, no chance to even touch it. Sadly I don’t think I will be buying it anytime soon, maybe end of the month or even next month. Bank account is a little dry for now so I can’t make any implusive purchases for now, since I spent quite abit on preorder of games for last month. Will try to take some pictures if I do spot any of my friends having it when I drop by Gamescore the next time round. (I know there will be some crazy asses who will buy it within the first week…orz)

Sorry for the late updates. As promised here are some pictures of the games I gotten last week. And also both Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII soundtrack and Gackt’s Redemption single arrived earlier on this week, so I figured it would be good to do some photos update together along with the stuffs.

From top-left to bottom-right: Bleach PSP preorder goods, Bleach: Heat the Soul 1 and Heat the Soul 2 for PSP. Bleach: Selected Soul, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII: Reflections DVD and finally Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII for PS2.

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Recently been playing more actively in Animal Crossing: Wild World, and just yesterday I finally finished the list of tasks that Tom Nook (one of the crucial NPCs in the game) asked me to do, so I’m free to roam and do whatever I want in the town for now. Managed to hook up to Nintendo’s WFC service for the first time too yesterday via my router at home, got my friend code and started adding in people like Timothy and Jimmy into my friend’s list. Had fun in Timothy’s town (see above pic for reference) for awhile, and then we hopped over to Jimmy’s town too, then finally my. Timothy helped me planted some trees that’s originally not in my town, like apple trees, coconut trees and pear trees. I have too much oranges in my town so it’s good for a change. Those of you who do play ACWW and wishes to add me to their friend list, please either msn me or leave a comment in this entry, and I will try to msg you directly or something.

On the other hand, thanks to Speedpost my new batch of order from Playstation JP was delivered to my house yesterday morning, and I finally got hold of the Bleach PSP games that I wanted, alongside with my Bleach: Selected Soul and also FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus for the PS2. Will post up some pictures when I have the time, am heading out for a jog now before I meet the guys in the evening for dinner, it will be a belated birthday-celebration for Val today as originally planned.

Have a nice weekend ahead everyone. : ))

To summarise in my own words, a true gamer’s spending is worth a million dollars. Ok maybe that’s just me trying to be exaggerated, but I think the most hardcore of the hardcore gamer could actually achieve that. In other words, it’s never easy to be a true gamer. Think of the hardware or software that you have to splurge each month, especially when keeping up with those game releases schedule, and you have one hell of a headache and finance planning to deal with already.

So my preorders from JP Playstation.com finally arrived earlier on this week. I spent quite alot this time for this order purchase, but what shocked me is the incurred shipping costs when I received my online shipping billing from VpostJapan, almost costing me a cool 50 dollars, and it’s not even some limited edition or special bulk order. I was puzzled as to why the shipping was so expensive this time, and when the parcel package finally came, I finally understood why.

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Sometime ago, I came across this article online titled “Can Videogames Make You Cry?” and I thought I should mention it, since it was a pretty interesting read.

So most of you might ask, can a videogame literally make you cry or weep? I personally think that it’s possible. Nowadays, we’re not just talking and emphasizing on the killing and violence in games anymore (think Counterstrike). Good videogames does more than that; it tries to reach out the general audience by conveying intended emotions through it, either with good character development in the seemingly linear story-line, or through interesting gameplay fundamentals in a game itself. Graphics and music plays an important role as well; a state-of-the-art technology if used correctly in a game can certainly help to heighten the sense and emotions as well as convey the hidden message in a game which the game developer originally wishes to convey to the audience who’s playing it.

These days, I feel that a videogame is not just simply a videogame anymore. It’s on the same kind of entertainment level as what a book, a movie or even a piece of music could achieve. It’s a kind of vision that game developers wishes to share with the public out there. That same kind of feeling that you experience after watching a good movie or had listened to an excellent piece of music, which can be done with a good videogame too, if done correctly. But how many game developers can actually achieve that, with their games? Sadly, not much.

Frankly, nowadays alot of major game companies emphasize more on the marketing factor and the revenue that their games could bring, rather than the core aspect of how ‘fun’ and ‘interesting’ their games should be. This is sad really, but that’s how the current industry is right now. Not to mention even more so with some American game companies. I for one do not really consider myself to be an ‘American’ gamer, I’m actually more of a ‘Japanese’ gamer myself, because most of the games I like and play are developed by Japanese game companies. Game industry prodigies like Hideo Kojima, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Shinji Mikami, Yuji Naka and Keita Takahashi has certainly earned my respect with their games and I consider myself to be very fortunate to be able to play and experience them, cause it was one of a kind of ‘vision’ that they manage to input and convey with their games to all the gamers out there. Not everyone can achieve this through the games they create, so if you thought that this was easy then you are absolutely wrong about it.

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Kugatsu Juuyokka is a special day to me, which also means September 14th, which is today and also my birthday ( 誕生日). Will be meeting up with Jimmy (gupster) and the rest of the gang later today in the evening for a dinner gathering and celebration, gonna give them a small dinner treat. Actually it was a rather spontaneous thing, cos actually Jimmy msged me late yesterday night while asking me if I wanna meet up for dinner today. I figured that he wanted to help co-organise something for my birthday, so since he was so kind I can’t reject him can I? Probably will bring them to Marche for dinner or something, will decide again when I meet up with them later in the day. And earlier on last weekend, I actually advance celebrated my birthday with Kaiwei and Jerm at Ichibantei, cos Kaiwei wanted to meet and pass me my birthday prezzie, which was a very nice jade bracelet, though it seems rather unusual to me, since I seldom wear anything like that (I prefer metallic bracelets actually) but still, I really appreciate it, thanks bro. (^ ^)

So after a scrumptious meal of delicious ramen and stuffs at Ichibantei, Kaiwei drove and sent his gf home, before we headed off to Geylang Lorong 9 at the famous You Tiao Da Wang for more delicacy goodness of dao huey (beancurd) and yew char kuey (dough fritters). Haven’t ate them for quite awhile so I was actually quite elated to go back there to eat their yew char kuey. Pure heavenly food bliss, heh that’s all I have to say.

So aside from these happy stuffs, I haven’t been posting some game-related stuffs for sometime, so today I will post a few, that has caught my eye. Let’s start with some upcoming new PSP releases.

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Ok I’m here blogging again. So freaking stressed, frustrated and bored, cause I just finished burning midnight oil for tonight, was busy the whole night mugging hard at my books with only my Sony NW-HD5 been my sole companion. I didn’t even touch or logon MSN today man, blame it on my laziness earlier on in the day, no mood to study or do anything, so just slack off and watch animes lor. *lol* So just now, earlier on in the evening after I had my dinner, decided to give a go at my NDS and continue with my Jump Super Stars, but oh boy, it was damn wrong mistake, cause it was seriously fun fun fun and I was totally sucked into it, and before I knew it, 3 hours just went passed like that. (._.'’)

But I really have to say this. Jump Super Stars for the Nintendo DS is seriously one of its own. Anyone who’s into anime or manga culture, even just abit, would love the playing experience in this brilliant game. This is just like the ultimate cross-over, in terms of any anime or manga-licensed game ever, it’s like heavenly karma or nirvana for any otaku-alike. This is also one of the more serious games for the DS platform to-date, compared to the current crop of innovative and yet weird games, like for example Nintendogs, or even one of my personal favs, Pac-pix. Gameplay-wise I guess I would categorise Jump Super Stars under the RPG-fighting genre, and the rewards system is pretty good. You get to unlock komas(read: manga strips) that form up like any other pages in any mangas, and when you match a koma with the right character, you get to unlock the manga characters most famously from the Shonen Jump history, be it whether it’s a support character, or a playable character. Heh, who knows probably after completing this game, I would be interested in watching some of the animes that the characters were in, pretty cool stuff yea.

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