Friday, December 28, 2007

My Guitar Hero III & NiGHTS Progress

Well, I played Guitar Hero III more and more and I can say I'm definitely addicted to it. I've played it more than NiGHTS & Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles combined! So far I only have finished Easy mode. I tried the first song on Medium mode and lets just say it was a train wreck for me :(. It is going to take a lot of progress for me to get good at this game, hopefully I can achieve it someday!

Anyways, I've also played one of my friends online, and I can say it all ran smoothly and there was absolutely no lag, which makes me and everyone else using Nintendo WiFi happy. It gives you a bunch of options such as face-off, pro-face off, co-op, and battle mode on various songs on the internet. You can also link your game to your account on guitarhero.com. You can see my account here: http://www.guitarhero.com/accounts/20611

As I said before, I've only played NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams for a couple of minutes. I'm only up to the third mission. What I'm most upset about really in the game is the graphics. There is no excuse for the game to look bad compared to Sonic and the Secret Rings, what are they doing, being lazy or something? They spent all this time making the CGI so beautiful yet they let the in-game graphics suffer miserably. Come on Sonic Team, get your head in the game. I haven't had anyone to try out against on WiFi Racing, Battle modes, or the My Dream feature as I don't know anyone who really has NiGHTS yet. I guess all in do time. NiGHTS isn't bad but it isn't great either, and it's not as amazing as the videos I've watched of the first game even, which I heard is a really awesome game. It would be nice if it was on the Virtual Console! Anyway, I guess I just need to play NiGHTS more to get into it!

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Guitar Hero is FUN!

Yeah, so I got Guitar Hero III for Christmas, and as you may or may not know, it was my first GH game. Ofcourse I only tried it once at first and couldn't hit any note at all. Anyways, I just got done playing through the "Quick Play" Mode on Easy and I started doing very well on all the songs. My highest score was a 90% on School's Out For Summer, so go me. I never thought the game could be so much fun, I actually felt kinda like dancing to the music while playing, and that is a rare thing for me to do! I definitely can't wait to be an expert someday, I just know it takes practice like anything else.

Oh yeah, I also got my friend code: 0774-2987-9303

Guitar Hero rules!!! ^_^

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope each and every one of you has a Merry Christmas! I hope you get what you wanted for Christmas, as well as surprises from the masses!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Here is what I got:

  • Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
  • Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
  • NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams
  • Wii Zapper with Link's Crossbow Training
  • LifeSigns: Surgical Unit
  • Ontamarama
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) DVD Set
  • Labrador Puppies Calendar
I'll be getting more stuff in the coming months. No More Heroes & Super Smash Bros. Brawl are coming in February!!! So what did yall get?

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Shopping and a Stench

Yeah, sorry I haven't updated. Been busy shopping since its the holidays and all. The most annoying thing that is going on right now is the stench in this house. We believe it to be dead rats or something of the sort. My family doesn't seem to care about getting it fixed and would rather everyone suffer from this horrible smell, I can't even breathe!!! Dear God, get this dead rat out of our house or make the smell go away at least!!!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

MidnightGaming IRC Chatroom

Hey yall,

I decided to make an IRC Chatroom for this blog, where you can chat with other people. The chat is located on the IRC Highway server: irc.irchighway.net with the channel being #MidnightGaming - regular members will be Autovoiced at my discretion, and will be subject to promotion at any time. The channel is set on Moderated, to prevent any unwanted spam from taking over the chat!

Thanks and I hope to see you soon!

~Scott

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Guitar Hero III: Wii available direct from RedOctane.com

Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero III have the game available on their website right now. The bad news is that if you want it by December 24th you need to do 2nd Day Air, which is $20 for it to arrive on time. Today is the last day for 2nd Day air! Regular shipping won't bring it till the end of the month probably. So go there now if you want it! I just ordered a copy of it for myself, so hopefully it arrives by Christmas Eve!

Thanks to my friend Lindsy for telling me about this! ^_^

*Update* Out of Stock now.

~Scott

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Nintendo DS Rhythm Games

Well, I decided to write a post on a couple of the Rhythm games for the Nintendo DS. I've played several and I really enjoyed them, I'll talk a little about each and why you should get them!

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (Import)
One of the first music games on the DS. Ouendan is about a group of Ouendan (Japanese Male Cheerleading Squad) who help people get through difficult challenges by cheering them all. Basically, all you do is tap Hit Markers in order when the little diminishing circle is of equal size to the hit marker. There are also Phrase markers where you hold down on the circle and move across the bar, and there are also Roll markers that you use the Stylus to spin really fast. You do this all to various J-Pop & J-Rock songs with different stories and animations. The game is pretty import friendly, you don't need to know Japanese to really play the game, and there are translation guides for the menus (you'll learn the menu in no time). I mean the only thing you won't understand is the music, but that didn't bother me, I just played through the whole game again on Easy mode. Anyway, the game features 4 difficulty modes properly entitled: "Easy", "Normal", "Hard", and "Insane" modes. So you'll play through each song a bunch of times trying to get S Ranks. The game cost around $50 to import (as do most import DS games), but it is definitely worth it considering the game is Japan-only and very fun! (The game didn't do that well in Japan, but was a hit among the importing crowd - Play-Asia once reported they received over 2000 orders for the game!)

Elite Beat Agents
Well, EBA is actually the Western Style spiritual sequel to the Ouendan game. However, the characters are now styled after the FBI Agents and Men in Black who try to help people through Song and Dance. It's basically the same idea as Ouendan, except with crazy western ideas and mainstream pop music. You'll get a little bit of old, and a little bit of current music. However, some of the songs may annoy you like Avril Lavigne and Ashlee Simpson songs (though the cover versions of these songs actually sound awesome compared to the originals.) The game didn't fail per se, but on launch day it only sold like 100,000 copies, while NoA's president was hoping it would sell 300,000+ more copies. Anyway, this game was developed by iNiS, the creators of Ouendan, so it's still good if you wanna tap out to American. The game was also released in Europe & Australia.

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2
(Import)
The sequel to the popular import game Ouendan, is back with a new rival Ouendan team and tons more songs to play. Of course you do the exact same thing in this game, there isn't much difference except for the graphics being a bit better, new stories, new music. The whole premise of the game is pretty much the same. The game was released in Japan back in May of this year and was once again, a hit among the importing crowd. I preordered this game because I absolutely loved the first one. (Elite Beat Agents was okay, but it could've used better varieties of music instead of the main stream.) I can say that I probably liked the music choices better in the first game, but this sequel still delivers some awesome game play. It also features the improvements of Elite Beat Agents such as being able to save your replays in up to 20 slots so you can show it off to your friends! So if you liked the other two games, this should definitely be part of your collection!

Ontamarama
Ontamarama is another one of the niche music titles for the DS out there. It was recently released in the US by Atlus (who often releases niche games in the US). It's exactly the same as the Japanese version, same music and everything. It doesn't really feature any mainstream music, it seems to be built with its own music from the ground up. In Ontamarama, you play as either a boy named Beat or a girl named Rest who are both in the anime style drawings. Basically you have to have "music battles" with opponents who are being controlled by an evil bat-dude. In Ontamarama, Ontama (the little animals) appear on the screen and you have to tap, or circle them. They then fill in scrolling circles on the top of the screen. You have to press the D-Pad or ABXY buttons in coordination when the scrolling circles are inside the circle at the end. You don't necessarily have to fill in the little circles at the top, but you won't get a high score and will never get an S Rank that way. The game is very short and has several difficulty modes. It also has some unlockables such as extra songs which you can buy using your Ontama Points which you get after finishing a song. I would have to say that this game is good for short gameplay on the go. I recently got it on sale for the generous price of $20!

Taiko no Tatsujin DS (Import)
Well if you follow Japanese culture, or the gaming scene, you have probably heard of the arcade games called Taiko no Tatsujin (Taiko Drum Master in the US). So far it seems that this game is Japan only, and I haven't heard any news on it being released in the US. If it does get released in the US it won't feature the same music, so it's definitely import friendly. Basically the game comes with two special styluses that you can use on the DS screen. Also, for gaming on the go where you can't use the stylus, you can use the various buttons on the DS to play the game. Similar to Ontamarama, you have to wait till the red or blue circle ends up in the circle at the end, then tap either inside the drum for Red circles, or outside of the drum for Blue circles. If you time it just right you will get a higher score. The game features various music from Videogames, Anime, JPop & JRock and various other kinds of music. (Ex. Pocket Monsters "Together" theme song and Super Mario Bros.) I would say this game is definitely import worthy for the music game enthusiast. You don't need to know Japanese to play the game, and there are translation guides out there for the menus. The song has several difficulty modes, 4 player wireless multiplayer, and bunch of unlockables. It even has a mode where it gives you random songs to play each day and rates you with a score. The game will cost you $50. (I'm waiting for a price drop, I'm not rich!)

We need more music games, they are great fun for us all! If you have one of the above games or want to recommend any other music games (but I don't think there are any others worth playing), you can email me about it and I'll post what you think on here! Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope you guys consider at least importing/buying one of these games!!!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Added Game Lists

Hey yall,

I just wanted to let you know that I added all the games I own for Nintendo DS, Wii, and the Virtual Console on Wii. It's on the right sidebar so scroll down. Apparently it has my most recent games at the top of each list, so I guess that is okay for yall right? Do you think I should do it differently? It won't let me just put an expandible/collapsible list.

Also, I haven't beaten all of those games that I have. I hope to do so someday, so I'm trying to focus on one game at a time now and try and beat it from start to finish. I guess if I get stuck I can at least try and play one of many of my other games and make more progress on them, too. My New Year's "Gaming" Resolution is to try and focus on one game at a time and finish it! Wish me luck! ^_^

* next to a game signifies that I have at least finished the story mode of a game. It may or may not mean that I have collected every little thing in a game, it's based on my standards depending on what kind of game it is.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Darkrai Silhouette on Pokemon.com

Well apparently the Legendary Pokémon "Darkrai" who has it's own movie, and event in the Diamond & Pearl videogames has it's silhouette floating around Pokémon.com

The 10th Pokémon movie which stars Darkrai is due out next year in the US on DVD. I have a feeling this is either the release date of the movie, the Darkrai event, or most likely both. If anything, if there is an event, they will probably give out the Darkrai in the Cherish Ball that the Japanese fans got (I have one myself hehe!). The same Manaphy that we have was given out in Japan as well. So time will tell, but let me say that Darkrai is an awesome Pokémon! ^_^

My thoughts on the Virtual Console Gift System

Well anyway, I knew it was coming...Nintendo now has introduced a new feature to the Wii Shop Channel that allows you to buy Virtual Console games and send them to your friends. However, the system is not only Region Locked, it's even country locked. So I can't send it to friends in Canada or Mexico. However, there is a way around this. If you have an NTSC Wii, you can change it to any one of the countries you are trying to send it to and it will work.

Basically why Nintendo did this, is because Wii Points cost different amounts of money throughout the world, and probably licensing and other stuff is involved (that would be my guess anyway). I mean it's not too bad, and I think even the Europeans could get around it if they just change what country the Wii is set to.

I've actually sent a few games out and it works great. (However I need to change the channel on my router to 1 or 11, because I tend to get lots of error codes while try sending something, it's on Channel 6 right now -_-;)

Anyway, my final thought on the system is that it's a cheap and inexpensive way to give a gift during the holidays or whenever the time may be, it even allows you to send a personal message to that person. I think this is a great system. Now all we have to do is wait for the Everyone's Nintendo Channel and people will stop complaining! :D

I finished Phoenix Wright 3 & got a Wii Zapper

Hey, sorry I haven't updated! I finished Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations on Thursday, and I can say that I had a little tear in my eyes; it's sad to see the Phoenix Wright chapter of the story come to the end. However, the good thing about this, is that the next game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is due out in February, and Phoenix Wright will be in it, but he isn't a lawyer anymore, he's kinda like a hobo now.

Also, I was at Target yesterday (we were looking for a car charger & case for my mom's new phone) and I decided to see if there were any copies of Guitar Hero III Wii available, I didn't see any. What I did find was the Wii Zapper, which apparently is pretty much sold out everywhere. They had two copies left so I got one anyway. The funny thing about it is that when me and my mom play Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles together, she's gonna use the Wii Zapper, not me! The Zapper doesn't look much like a gun, compared to the gun like accessory Nyko is putting out, might be interesting!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations


So I've been playing the third game in the Phoenix Wright series for a couple of days. I just finished the 2nd case, which was one of the most interesting cases in the whole series. I only just got the game after ordering it on September 25th direct from Capcom...I mean boy did I have to wait. I don't think I'll do that ever again!

I actually find myself surprised that I would end up liking such a niche title for the Nintendo DS. My parents think I should be a lawyer, but that just sounds way too difficult for me to take on. I would rather be a Journalist, at least I would get to cover various things, especially Videogames! It's kinda sad that this is the last game where Phoenix Wright is the star, the next game in the series stars a new rookie Apollo Justice, but old characters will make cameo appearances or be involved in the storyline directly. Take that!

Welcome to my gaming blog!

Hello,

My name is Scott Reed (aka MidnightScott) and I made this blog to discuss what I'm playing in certain games and stuff. I was inspired by the cool Japanese videogame blogs out there, so I decided I wanted to talk about what I'm playing and stuff like that. Thanks for reading and I hope you will consider reading more in the future! ^_^