No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle: The sequel to one of my favourite Wii games, Desperate Struggle fixes a lot of what was wrong with the original, but also feels a little hollow. Although the first NMH had a lot of filler, the sequel has essentially none, and the game feels oddly paced because of it.
I love the 8-bit mini-games, but now they’re entirely optional, and there don’t seem to be any side-quests. Without the need to make money between boss fights, I feel like I’m just blasting my way through the game instead of taking the time to really enjoy the experience.
As I announced on The Dungeon this week, my main GameCube memory card recently became corrupted, and I have lost hundreds of hours of game progress. For the most part, the data was for games I had already beaten, but it does set me back in a few cases. I am now forced to start over on one of my most hated nemeses, StarFox Adventures, for example.
Newbs here, I just wanted to let you, the readership, know that Shufflingdead is bringing on a new writer. He’s Jiffy the Intern, and he’s going to be helping me out with all the news stories I haven’t had time to post.
You’ll see news posts by Jiffy popping up regularly over the next few weeks. When he’s finished his job and I no longer have use for him, he’ll be summarily executed and then fired for being dead.
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Much of what was wrong with Phantom Hourglass has been avoided in this game: the central dungeon which is returned to throughout the game no longer requires you to play through the same floors over and over again. I would still count Phantom Hourglass as a better game, however, because it featured that wonderfully amusing character Linebeck, and because Spirit Tracks introduces the extremely dull train transportation and the flute item which must be played via the DS’s unreliable microphone.
With the new year comes the start of a new gaming resolution. In 2009, I tried, and ultimately came up short in my attempt to beat three games for each one that I acquired. This year, I’m pursuing something far crazier and ambitious. My plan is to evolve my collection into something a little cooler, a little smaller, and a little more diverse, and to simultaneously reduce my backlog to no more than 10 games, all by the end of the year.
Comments on all posts here at Shufflingdead are now open. If you hate (or, unlikely though it may be, have some other sentiment) toward any individual piece of content here at the site, you may now announce that opinion to the world.
Look to the navigation bar at the far right of the site, and you will see a “Login” heading which provides you with everything you need to register and start posting here at Shufflingdead.com.
When viewing an update while logged in, you are now able to scroll to the bottom of that update and enter your comment. You’ll see a nice big box just ready for you to fill with your precious words. We at Shufflingdead are attention whores and we thrive on your participation. I thank everyone in advance for whatever they may have to say.
Why not start your commenting career by throwing something at this particular update?
Until now, only phases 1-5 of “The New and Thrilling Shufflingdead.com” project were known. They were:
Phase 1: Finish porting site over to WordPress
Phase 2: Update at least minimally
Phase 3: Promote site
Phase 4: Expand the Shufflingdead empire
Phase 5: Increase quality
Phase 5, I feel, has gone superbly. The “News” section of the site was introduced under this phase, and with it came an endless march of stories that I’ve had fun writing, and which I suspect have been fun for the Shufflingdead readership.
And now, it is my pleasure to introduce Phases 6 through 8 of the project:
For most things in life, I am a procrastinator, even when it comes to tasks I enjoy. That includes school work, site work, cleaning, and email writing. Man, writing emails sounds like a lot of work before you sit down to write them. The one exception to this rule is video game playing: my anticipated start date of January 1, 2010 hasn’t even arrived, and yet I’m already deep into passionate gaming.
Last week, I discussed my experiences with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and F-Zero: Maximum Velocity. I had already beaten those games by the time I wrote about them, and so, of course, I have moved on to yet more games. This week, I will be talking about some games that I am no where close to beating, Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II, from the Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls GBA collection.
Once my quest for a higher plane of gaming existence begins in earnest, I plan on making posts at least monthly in which I will detail those titles that I am either currently playing or have recently beaten. I will describe the joy and pain which they bring me, and generally treat my gaming collection like the beloved child that it is. Although that won’t be until 2010, I have games I’ve been playing that I’d like to talk about, some of which have been haunting me on the backlog for some time. Think of this as a sort of non-canonical prequel to those upcoming posts.
Preparations for my 2010 gaming strategy continue. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time debating with myself the particular issue of GameBoy games, and how to play them. I have a GameBoy, GBA, DS, Super GameBoy, and GameBoy Player, and just about any one or two of them are all that’s needed to get through my many pre-DS handheld games. Having said that, the only one that’s truly comfortable is the SNES controller that goes with the Super GameBoy, and that won’t play GBA games. The DS cuts into my hand, the GBA screen hurts my eyes, and the GameCube controller’s d-pad is horrendous.
January 28th, 2010 by 
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