My Gaming News

So first off, I'm super excited that Nintendo decided to use Virtual Console to bring some titles to us that have never been commercially released in the United States before. This is bloody brilliant. I've also heard it suggested that we could even one day see "new" titles developed directly for virtual console. I'm not sure we'll see that or not, but to be able to play the real Super Mario Bros. 2 (and not the re branded Doki Doki Panic) is really cool.

On a personal gaming note. I took advantage of Toys 'R Us's recent "Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale" to pick up Guitar Hero 2 for the PS2, Heavenly Sword for the PS3, and got Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for free. This clearly violates my "I only buy games for $20 or less policy", but I can explain...

Metroid Prime 3 is a game that always got an exception to that policy. I would gladly pay the full retail price of $50 for that game. Likewise Guitar Hero 2 needs a custom controller. Given that the game retails for about $80... I was willing to spend $50 for that game with the controller. Finally, Heavenly Sword was worth $20 to me. So all told I was willing to spend $120 for the three games. Well, Guitar Hero 2 was $20 off for $59.99 on top of that sale. Heavenly Sword retails for $59.99 and that meant Metroid Prime 3 was free. So I was willing to spend $120 for the three games and I spent exactly $120 for the three games. Given that their full retail price for all three right now is $189.97 (a savings of $75.76 when you could sales tax)... that's not too shabby. Especially considering that Heavenly Sword had just come out that week (and Metroid Prime 3 hadn't been out real long either). BTW, it appears that Toys R Us is going to turn around and have this sale again!

I have not touched Heavenly Sword or Metroid Prime 3, but I have complete Guitar Hero 2 on both easy and medium. I'm going to spend some time completing 5-star ratings on all the songs before moving on to Hard.

I've also finished Enchanted Arms. I think it took me somewhere between 45 and 50 hours. I may go back and spend some garbage time playing around, but for the most part I'm done here.

As far as I'm concerned Metroid Prime 3 is the next "real" game I'm starting. Guitar Hero is something that's really fun that I can pick up and put down. That said, I'm finding myself picking it up a lot.... and I haven't started Metroid Prime 3 yet. Hmmmm....

One last aside, I hooked the PS3 back up in the study to play Guitar Hero 2. I did pick up Pelican's PS2 to USB adapter. My initial thoughts are that it didn't work too well, but I didn't realize that I need to "calibrate" the game for my television and if the adapter is introducing any delay, I expect the game's built-in calibration mode should compensate for that. The fact that you have to switch the adapter from "menu" mode to "Right Hand" mode to play (or "left hand" if you are actually playing left-handed) is super kludgy and Pelican admits that Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs will not ever work. So on the whole not real great. That being said.... this adapter does let you use PS2 controllers and since I only have one SIXAXIS that might be useful for multiplayer PS2 games. Also, Guitar Hero 1 is supposed to work perfectly (GH2 is the only one that's so difficult to use) and finally, I will need this adapter if I ever get around to playing my couple of Taiko: Drum Master.