Now eveyone who reads this can find out where my free time has been going this past week. Opening the game file inside the memory card, it says that I’ve been immersing myself in the land of Hyrule for over 20 hours. Wow!

For the uninitiated, The Legend Of Zelda series is one of the most prolific and successful game series ever, alongside of the Final Fantasy series. The objective in all the games in the series is to guide a young warrior whom, by default, is named Link, through several quests and a number of huge dungeons to save the land of Hyrule and/or the princess Zelda who rules over the land. Very few of the games stray away from that formula. While you lead Link in his quest, he’ll pick up all sorts of new abilities. The epic scope of the adventures, the imaginations behind the storylines and the sheer quality of gameplay is what has made these games so successful. Also, each of the Zelda games rely on a different theme, especially the later games. One dealt with music and time (Ocarina of Time), one with masks and music (Majora’s Mask) and one dealt with the element of wind and conducting (The Wind Waker). In this game, The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Link needs to mainly utilize an ability and theme very new to the series: Animal. He gets to shapeshift between wolf and human forms and also talk to other animals. This makes for some very interesting puzzles! Of course, the puzzle aspect is also what draws gamers back to the series time and again.

I’ll be making an in-depth review of the whole game as soon as I finish it. Luckily, I haven’t needed much help in the way of hints, mainly because I’ve gotten used to the kind of puzzles in these games (but they’re still a challenge!). Right now, I’d say I’m more than halfway or maybe two-thirds of the way through the game. From what I’ve seen so far, Nintendo did an outstanding job polishing off the finer details of the game, like individual personalities and character nuances. They also added some things that simply made my jaw go through the floor! I only wish I had a way to record my entire gameplay. I’d love to show some of the juicier scenes to everyone (especially you, T—-s!). If I had to compare this game to Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, arguably the best in the entire series, Twilight Princess just might have a good try at replacing the beloved Ocarina.

Just wait for the review…

Technorati Tags: Zelda, Twilight Princess, Ocarina, Wind Waker, Majora, Hyrule, Link, Nintendo

Ok, ok, of course I had to cheat just like most of the world’s population.

Ever since acquiring one of the most diabolical puzzles in all of mankind’s history, I’ve wanted to try my hand at some of the solutions I’ve found on the web. Most of these solutions are advertised on the author’s pages to be “fast”, “foolproof”, “easy to remember” and/or “efficient”. First of all folks, there is no easy-to-remember solution with this puzzle. All the permutations and formulas I’ve come across, even on the “simple solutions” are quite complex and only memorizable through many solvings. There are workarounds to the formulas to create what they call speed-solutions but, again, these are hard to burn into the typical mortal brain.

The only solution page I’ve come by recently which I actually like is at chessandpoker.com. Certanly not easy, but the author makes the solution easy to understand… much easier than the maps, keys and formulas other people have offered. Pictured above is my Cube, solved and again re-solved to make the center “cubies” different.

And, no, the solution is not taking it apart or peeling off the stickers, though you’d swear by the picture that I’ve done just that. It’s actually an “imitation” Rubik’s Cube from a no-name manufaturer, and cheaply made at that. Thus, the stickers are slowly becoming ratty from constant use. I’ve recently ordered the actual Hasbro brand from Amazon.com, which are supposed to be more durable. In fact, I ordered two of them; one to play with and one for collection’s sake.

For those of you who have one of these brain-killing Cubes, and are still stumped, feel free to check out the solution page I’ve linked to. You’ll like it. I’m also exploring other solutions to see if I can speed up the process. I’ll keep the blog informed…

Technorati Tags: Rubik’s Cube, Puzzles, chessandpoker.com, Hasbro, Puzzle Solutions

Hello all! Last year, I started off the new year with a video game review. Well, I guess we have a trend going here! Hopefully, the rest of this year will go like the last one did. It was a good year for me; even so, I’d like this year to go a little bit better.

In my last two posts, I talked about my new toy, the 5.5 generation iPod. Before I went video-download crazy on it, I just had to get a new game for it. It comes with simple games pre-loaded on it: Solitaire, Parachute, Music Quiz and Brick (a “Breakout” style game). Even though these games are fun, I say they’re simple because in quality they are about two steps above Pong. Apple recently caved in to their consumer’s demands and contracted some developers to make some high quality games.

After looking at all the choices, I decided on Vortex. This game is another “Breakout” style game, with features similar to Arkanoid and Tempest. The similarities end there… this is “Breakout” on caffeine and crack! You control a paddle that, like Tempest, moves in a 360 degree motion around the rim of an arena. The object is to clear the arena of all regular bricks. Like Arkanoid, there are power bricks that give special qualities when caught by the paddle. The game seems simple enough but, once you progress further, the challenges naturally increase.

The graphics are awesome, the sound is great and, even on a small screen, you can find yourself becoming immersed in gameplay and time completely forgotten! Each stage’s backdrop is rendered beautifully and every piece of the game is made out in crisp detail. There are options to change the way you control the paddle, difficulty settings and separate volume settings for music and sound effects. While the game music is great, you can even opt to have your own iPod’s music selected as the game music, though you have to have the music playing before you select the game. Even though I primarily listen to metal, I recommend some good trance music (Astral Projection is my personal favorite!). You can even save your game in play, if the need arises, and come back to it later!

All in all I highly recommend this as an immediate download for anyone who has a video-enabled iPod. Even though it’s $4.99, it’s defintely worth more than that. Compared to the other games offered, the 360 degree gameplay lends itself very well to the clickwheel control scheme. I have played this game for awhile now and, even on “Newbie” setting, I’ve only gotten to the around the sixth level. A very challenging game, for sure!

There are other good quality games available on Apple’s iTunes Music Store. My other considerations were Mini Golf, Zuma, Tetris and Bejeweled. Cubis 2 also looked good, if not a little confusing but I may be wrong.

This concludes yet another review, brought to you by The Esoterik Blog. On a side note, I stayed home from work today to recuperate from a head cold. I’m sick at the beginning of the year, just like last year! I feel ok, aside from lower energy and a scratchy throat. UGH!

Technorati Tags: Vortex, iPod, iPod Games, iTunes, iTMS, Game Reviews, Arkanoid, Tempest, Breakout, Astral Projection

Ok, I just had to do this! While cleaning, I was detailing the entertainment corner of the living room and put one Nintendo next to the other. Suddenly I had the crazy thought to drag out Christine’s old original Nintendo Entertainment System and put all three systems together. From left to right:

– The original NES. The one that started it all. No equal in sight for pure 8-bit gaming fun. The flagship game for this system was Super Mario Bros.
– The Nintendo 64 System (N64). Arguably the best Nintendo system in between generations. The Super NES came out between the NES and the N64, and some hard-core gamers say that one is the best… but I digress. The flagship game of this console was Super Mario 64, and both the game and the system set new standards in 3D gaming for the industry.
– The Nintendo GameCube (GCN). When this bad boy came out, it had fierce competition from Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s X-Box. Because of the nature of the different games across the competing consoles, gamers woefully labelled it as a console geared for the kiddies. However, the game offerings from Sony and Microsoft were found to not have as much substance as Nintendo’s so-called kiddie games. Of course, another Mario game was the flagship game… Luigi’s Mansion.

Also, I had “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” game sitting in the N64 bay (I was playing it earlier). In the spirit of the picture’s theme, I thought to display the other great Zelda games for the other consoles. Again, from left to right:

– The Legend of Zelda. Again, the one that started it all. A very complex (for it’s time) adventure game that forced the gamer to think for a change, not just hack-and-slash.
– The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Do any search on the internet and any site will tell you that this is one of the top 10 games of all time. Every gamer’s mouth dropped when they played even a few minutes of this, and left them crying for more. The gameplay was nothing short of revolutionary. I bought the N64 system just for this game!
– The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Another milestone in gaming, this time from the graphics perspective. The cel-styled animation, at first making Zelda fans cringe, eventually won them over with how expressive the game’s characters are.

(Another copy of the pic to accompany the last paragraph)

Well, three awesome generations of consoles and games that Nintendo can be proud of, as well as any gamer can be proud to have in their collection. I also have a Sega Genesis console, but it just collects dust. Maybe I’ll drag it out just to play Earthworm Jim sometime. Cheers!!

Well, I couldn’t get the game for the Mac. When I found out there’s a GameCube version, that made me happier, since playing these kinds of games on the computer can be murder on the hands!

I discussed the game in a previous entry, hence calling this part II. The only other thing I can say about this game is: simply a lot of pure fun. If you liked Legos when you were a kid and, at the very least, like Star Wars and have any of today’s gaming systems, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this!

I may add on to this later… I’m tired. Stay tuned!

(Addendum: I was tired because, little did I know, I had gotten the beginning stages of a very nasty cold virus. See the next blog entry.)