Hey everyone...

Sorry for the huge delay in posts. Truth is, I haven't found anything of interest to write about! (Yes, I realize a lot of things have happened this month. That doesn't, however, mean that I feel like writing about them )

These past few weeks I've been subbing at Lowell Middle School, getting some middle school experience (and pay!) before summer starts - unfortunately, there's only a few days left. (Speaking of subbing - apparently high fives are out, fist bumps are in, keep that in mind when you're interacting with GenConnected) Subbing is cool, though not knowing whether I'm going to work until 6 AM the morning of kind of sucks.

ACEN 2009 (AnimeCENTRAL, www.acen.org) was awesome - I actually own two manga (Scrapped Princess, sadly, is not among the two I bought). I bought Zyword and Threads of Time... Zyword was.... a little jumpy in my opinion. I'd give it a 2.5/5. I haven't started the other yet.

Majora's Mask was finally released for Virtual Console. Had some trouble getting my SD card to work on the Wii, but finally got it downloaded. Of course, something else had to go wrong afterward: my Nintendo 64 to GameCube controller adapter stopped working in the middle of the game. (I paused to get lunch, came back, and the controller wouldn't respond).

Spore still hasn't come back from EA. It got damaged while I was at school (because I'm stupid and don't put my CDs back in their cases)... so yeah. I sent it to EA to be replaced ($16 vs $60... you make the call) and then contacted EA to see how long it would take to be returned... they never replied. I'll just have to wait another week or two and see what happens.

Scored Evaluation:
Storyline: 10/10 - Engrossing storyline, pulling you in from the moment the game starts.
Gameplay: 4/10 - Entirely linear. The game holds your hand until the credits roll.
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Graphics: 10/10 - Exceptional graphics, with cutscenes produced by studio AIC (Gun X Sword).
Audio: 9/10 - Repeated sounds can get annoying after a while, but still good quality.
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Controls: 10/10 - Excellent use of the touch screen - it's not even necessary to use the other buttons. Still, the other controls are mapped comfortably as well.
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Total Score: 43/50 - 86%
ActualBlizzard Weighted Score: 45.3/50 - 90.6%
(ActualBlizzard's Weighted Score is a formula based on a weighted average of the above categories, with the addition of a small boost for perfect scores and a small penalty for scores below 5.)

Written Evaluation:
Spoiler Alert!

In Time Hollow for the Nintendo DS, you play as Ethan Kairos, who is able to use a 'Hollow Pen' to manipulate things in the past in order to change future events. He lives with his family (sometimes) and friends (not always alive) in Eterna. Ethan's life with his parents goes quite well, until the day of his 17th birthday when he finds that his parents have been dead for 12 years and he now lives with his uncle. This type of "shift" happens frequently throughout the game, wherein Ethan has a 'flashback' of an event that changes the outcome of his life - in this case, an explosion, which killed both of his parents 12 years ago.

Throughout the game, you have to use these flashbacks as clues to lead you to discovering how to alter an event using the Hollow Pen. Many times this leads to unintentional events occurring, such as another character dying due to incorrectly altering the situation. Of course, there is no way to correctly alter a situation without incorrectly doing so first. Thus, the gameplay score of this game.

The storyline itself is what makes this game worth playing through. Do not go in expecting an epic game with intuitive gameplay - think of it more as an interactive anime and you'll find Time Hollow is that much more intriguing. Personally, I felt as if I were reading a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, as I was unable to put it down until the story was complete, and for that, I feel it deserves its perfect storyline score.