May 2011

Jon here.

I'm working on a schedule that will allow me to update the blog more often and with greater regularity. Look for updates on Tuesday and Friday. I'm off to a horrific start as it stands now since today is of course Wednesday. A momentary lapse that will be addressed.

A few notable games are coming out in May, such as Brink and LA Noire. I'll try to talk Carlos into picking up Brink, since he is much more into shooters than I am. I may pick up BlazBlue Continuum Shift II for the 3DS, which looks to continue the solid lineup of fighting games on the system. It's kind of funny that I probably cannot name 3 fighting games on the DS, but here we are a little over a month into the 3DS's lifespan and we've already gotten Street Fighter, Dead or Alive and BlazBlue. It's a brave new world. I just hope we don't lose out on the Phoenix Wrights and Trauma Centers and Professor Laytons that made the DS such a fantastic system.

To hold me over until BlazBlue, Wes and I have started another round of Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver for our Gotta Train 'em All segment. We decided to go with a few monsters we've used before and one newcomer: Magby, Elekid, Smoochum, Totodile, Larvitar and Sunkern. I'm inside the Ilex forest right now. One thing I love about Gold/Silver is the quick pace at which the game moves: the first three badges can be obtained within four hours.

Look for regular updates on the team as May moves ahead. So far all I have to say about them is that Sunkern is not that bad. We'll see how long a Grass type can be useful.

I've also been playing a lot of Majora's Mask, and you can check out my retrospective on it here. I've been thinking a lot about a remake of it since Ocarina of Time's remake releases on the 3DS in a couple months. So, here's my Top 5 Necessities for a Majora's Mask Remake:

1. 1080p - a high resolution remake of the darkest Zelda game ever is a must.

2. touch panel mask selection - Project Cafe's touch screen would make swapping masks infinitely easier that assigning them to item buttons.

3. iron boots - the ocean temple is a bitch, but some boots to hold Link in place would help.

4. time-proofing - i know it's a basic mechanic of the game for Link to lose all his arrows, bomb, etc... but being able to obtain a quiver or bomb bag that retains their contents even when time is reset would be awesome. they should not be easy to get, though. maybe if they were sold for 500 rupees in the Curiosity Shop or something...

5. debit card - Link saves and saves and saves, and the money stays in the bank no matter how much time is reset. a debit card that allowed him to access the thousands of rupees that would never otherwise be spent would make buying much needed items a whole lot easier.