ok, ive had more time with pokemon diamond and heres the rundown of things that ive done and observations ive noted.

made it to oreburgh city and found rourk and sent him back to his gym.

with a friends help, got a chimcharr sent to my game.

caught an abra and machop.

sent rourk back to the mines with my piplup and chimcharr (both of which have evolved at this point)

went to flouroma and saved the valley windworks by kicking the team galactic commanders kester.

found berries and received watering can.

moved on battling continously eventually evolving my abra to kadabra.

found myself in eterna city, got the exp share and the explorer kit and fullfilled all the missions except capturing the flag of an opponet. (will do that tonight)

moved on fighting along the way.......

ended up in..... some town... the name escapes me at the moment......

beat the gym leader which enabled me to use cut.

used cut to enter galactic building and saved several kidnapped pokemon.

recieved a bike from the owner of the bike shop. 

went down cycling road.

met up with proffesor rowans assistant who gave me two poketch apps. (dowsing machine, vs seeker)

went to hearthome city, received poffin case and made a few poffins.

thats all.

its a brief summary but it gives you an idea of all thats available to do. this is truly the best pokemon title yet and well worth looking into.

my current team

pen-pen (prinplup) lvl 25

chuck n. (machop) lvl 25

ifrit (monferno) lvl 25

psycho (kadabra) lvl 25

note that this is my battling team... not including my hm slaves.

other notes:

played online with another friend. it was pretty easy and painless to do, swapped friend codes, logged on and we battled a free battle.using the ds headse, the voice chat was very clear and easy to us. there was little to no breakup and while using the mic its easier to understand what people are saying a good deal easier than with the ds internal mic. the ds headset tends to pickup ambient noise like tvs and such so its a good idea to play in a quiet or quieter environ. even if you do play in a noisy environment, your voice is usually easily understandable no matter whats in the background.

and thats all for this update.

keep on playin!

slasher 

after getting really really lucky and finding a store nearby that borke street date... ive finally gotten my hands on pokemon diamond!

ill detail a few changes and noticeables that i could see from the new game.....

!!!!WARNING! POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!!

1) graphics. 

the world has taken a psuedo 3d look now but its still pretty close to the other pokemon games.

2.) interface

the touch screen controls are only used in battles, manipulating the poketch and some of the other minor features as far as i can see. ive kept my stylus holstered so far unless actively called for. the battle controls are done pretty well this time. its easy to select whatever you want at a moments notice, however, unlike other pokemon games the screen in battle doesnt describe what your moves do and i find that a little unnerving......       menus are pretty easy to use and luckily they put the menu button on x so yo dont have to reach down and push start or select. 

 3.) pokemon!

i started with piplup because i love penguins and the first gym is rock so he pwned easily, as far as the pokemon... i saw the standard "crappy pokemon youll never catch" along the way. mostly a bird named starly and a....... something..... called a bidoof which looked and sounded pretty dumb but seems to have high defense. i caught a shinx because i need a good electric pokemon but its physical attack seems low and he doesnt know any electric attacks yet..... if i run across a pikachu ill prolly grab one instead.  

 4.) music

the music seems to have been upgraded and it shows, with some more melodic beats and just overall better tone... but there is a few too many recycled songs and sounds.

5.) overall

the game is alot like its older ancestors but the formula worked there, the formula works here, and im enjoying my time with it so far. if youre  a pokemon fan.... buy this one without hesitation.

The year: 1993.

The goal: copy the success of sonic and mario.

The game industry had been utterly and completely ruled by nintendo with mario being their main man, so when a newcomer named sonic appeared on the scene and stole mario's clout, companies took notice. Why was sonic so successfull? Sega was able to portray mario as the slow old guy while sonic was the fast guy with attitude. Seeing the previously unstoppable nintendo falter in the face of sonic brought hope to other companies who thought to themselves"if we make a character who has attitude and appeals to younger kids, then maybe we can get rich too!" This line of thinking made several characters from the good, like sparkster and earthworm jim, to the bad, like puggsy and aero the acrobat. It also gave us the character in this feature story........ bubsy.

For those of you who missed bubsy.... consider yourself lucky. Basically, he was a bobcat with a white shirt that had an exclamation point on it for no good reason whatsoever. Bubsy was "filled with tude!" according to the developers, but I mean they made him, they cant be trusted with the actual amount of whatever tude is in bubsy, if you made a video game i'm sure you'd be a little biased in your opinion of your game and im not quite sure they realize tude is one letter away from turd. Bubsy was voiced by a "comedian", I say that in quotes because the voice technology was so bad you might as well had been listening to vacuum cleaner sucking up an angry cat, tail first and also because the guy who did voice bubsy played tier four characters in cartoons and such. Later in the other games the voice technology was fixed but the phrases which were spewed at you a dozen a minute would still be grounds for ripping your eardrum with an ice pick. mario was an exploring plumber, sonic had speed, heck sparkster was a possum... with a jetpack.... with a sword..... THAT SHOOTS ENERGY...... so what did bubsy have to make him different from the pack? he could glide ..... fantastic......... a bobcat that can glide. thats right.... it seems bobcats can glide.... well at least accolade thinks so... look for their next game mascot featuring turtles that shoot laser beams and lobsters that can spit fire! ok, so bubsy is a "tude filled" bobcat who wears a white sweater with an exclamation point on it for no real reason and can also glide while spewing hip catchphrases at you in an increasing amount depending on what you do. So now that you have an idea of how annoying bubsy is, i'd say you're pretty primed to learn more about bubsy. next time we'll dissect his games and see what makes this fourth rate mascot soooo craptastic.

i am 100% and completely bummed out. i always try to stay up on the hottest and latest gaming news, but i fear game developers have truly lost sight of whats really important. how so you may ask? simple.

rand theft auto 4 

as many of you know  the trailer for grand theft auto 4 was just released, people kept yapping in my ear to go watch it but ever since the fable and black and white debacle i decided against it. my curiousity got the better of me and i did watch it. in retrospect, the most useless, pointless, garbage trailer ive ever seen. watching the trailer you realize the ONE SINGLE THING they want you to notice.......

ZOMG!!1!!1 SHINEY!!!!1!!1!!1

and thats the problem. remeber the trailers for rockstars other games? watching the chaqracters ride in helicopters in vice city, flying jets in san andreas, demonstration of the mischeif you could acheive in bully. all of the trailers showed something new, exciting, fun to look forward to.

not so in gta 4's trailer. just graphics and a very tiny smidgen of the character.

this isnt the only game to fall into the graphics first department.

ratchet and clank - tools of destruction

being a ratchet fan from DAY ONE i have been awaiting the trailer for the newest one with majorly bated breath. unfortunately, the new trailer was disappointing. what would they announce? newer, sharper, ai for enemies? better upgrade system? new abilities?! i could hardly wait..... but what was the features given to us by captain quark? "so you can see me in eye poppin hd!"

thats it captain douche?! all of a sudden clank comes up and brings out the footage for hte game. my mind raced "here we go! show me something new!" little did i know, less than tw ominutes later id end up looking at the insomniac signia wishing they were dead. there was a few slightly new enemies, though most of the enviroments looked like holdovers from the older games they did look a bit sharpish...... but that was. ok fine, they pulled a rayman and had their enemies dancing to one of the new weapons exclusive to the game.

very innovative guys.

im beyond my patience limits.  nintendo said this crap was gonna happen, they said they would put and push graphics before everything else and so far theyve been right. as of right now, im 100% disenchanted with the ratchet series and insomniac. the guys who reinvented the platformer, gave it an attitude, made it fun and interesting and most importantly, innovative....... all they seem to care about now is graphics. remember deadlocked?! when they showed that off they told us about the combots, the online play YOU GET THE IDEA!

now its just ZOMG ITS IN HD1!!1!!1111!!

remember gamers, a turd in hd is still a turd... just a shinier one... as evidenced by genji, untold legends, and over g fighters.  

so what game could be so freaking awesome to commemorate two different landmarks?

none other than the awesomeness of okami of course.

so what makes the awesomeness of okami absolute? lets get cracking!!

1. dramatic artwork!

the artwork in this game makes next gen look hollow and dull by comparison. the game is brought to life in pure awesomeness that cannot be denied and even the most hardcore against stylish graphics such as these cannot deny theres something beautifull and magical about these graphic types..... well they could.. but theyd look like the idiots that they are..... and their gaming profile probably only includes need for speed games and halo 2.

2. excellent feel!

attacking, defending, moving,heck, just looking around feels right in this game, if there was any problems in the controls its in the paint mechanics, while most of them time it does exactly what you want sometimes it just doent work right but in the whole scheme of things, it is but the drop in the ocean that is awesomeness that pours from this game.

 3. battle mechanics!

enemies themselves are not hard to defeat usually, but if you want proper rewards youve got to earn them. floral finishers in which you use a certain power on an enemy in the throes of death rewards you with demon fangs allowing you to obtain items that will help you on your journey. some enemies have different quarks some even taking advantage of the canvas you pull up to make their own spells and such which leads me to number 4.....

4. celestial brush!

being the sun god, okami is given the ability to draew out her spells on a canvas that can be pulled up pretty much anytime during gameplay. need some wind to put out that treasure chest thats curiously on fire? draw a loop to call the wind! need to bomb a wall? draw a circle with a line through it to make a bomb! as i said earlier at least one of the enemies can draw on your canvas so if you need to draw a spell during a fight with it make sure you do it quick so it doesnt get the chance to use your own canvas against you.

5. personality!

by personality im including storyline. even though its steeped in japanese mythology its told in such a way it can be just as easy for an american gamer to get into it as a japanese gamer... in fact this game sold better in america than japan by at least a million copies. the story is awesome and the characters all have a personality that makes them more than guy a and girl b. issun, your fairy thing, talks in a mannerism more akin to modern day speak reffering to boobs as melons and flirting in ways that makes the females go "what does that mean?". okami herself has her own behavoir, such as taking a quick lie down while a boss sputters out how much theyre going to annihilate okami...... then fly into a rage when they realize she doesnt even care what they say, okami even goes as far as staring at some of the more "well endowed" female characters with a look of surprise and wonder.

these five items of interest have come together to make a game thats completely unforgettable and completely unskippable..... ok you can skip playing this game.... but you wont ever know the full extent of the word awesome untill you actually do play this game.

untill next time gamers!!! keep on playin!!!!!

anyone who knows me in real life knows i have very little love for the ps3. the problems thats been popping up and sony's better than thou attitude really gets my dander up as well. aside from blantantly ignoring the consumer they at some points blantantly take our faces and rub our noses in their particular pile of crap. the europeans are the newest ones to recieve the "bad puppy" treatment. they claim their delay is ver beneficial.... and theyre right... it is.... BUT ONLY TO THEM! 

the three month delay has allowed them to rip out the emotion engine, raise the price tag, and take a huge metaphorical dump allllllll over the europeans faces.

europe gets all the games usually after everyone else, pay much more for them, or never even get some games at all. why do they need to be screwed over in the system department as well?

with a recent article about SONY, announcing the exclusivity of final fantasy 13 being up in the air, one can wonder how they are going to get along. of course, no onegame can destroy a console, but look at this list of games that are jumping off the exclusivity list.

ace combat

devil may cry 4

tekken 6

virtua fighter 5

beautifull katamari

theres rumors of metal gear solid 4 coming to the 360 as well and if that and ff 13 lose exclusivity...... well.... it could be over for the ps3.... before it even starts.

why is the ps3 losing all these titles?

1. difficult and expesnsive to develop for

2. too expensive for mainstream gamers 

3. lack of needed power.

now wait a minute you say.... the ps3 is the most powerfull! yes it is. its cpu can handle many lines of instructions at once...... however..... the blu ray disc access speed is so low sometimes it can lead to crashing. with oblivion bethesda planted copies of various files all over the disc so that it can get to at least ONE ofthe copies of files in time before the game simply crashes. also, isnt it odd that resistance: fall of man is ONLY available in 720 tops? according to the developers it simply could not keep an acceptable framerate at 1080. 

sony took the atari jaguar way out. sure the atari jaguar WAS 64 bits.... but in order to get those 64 bits they used techniques that artificially brought it up to 64 bits. exactly whats happened here. sony has increased its cpu beyond major proportions but their blu ray technology is not up to snuff.

sony, you have to do something and soon or you wont last more than three years.

keep on playin gamers.... but be wary of sonys new system......as its still very much in turmoil.