Red Dead Redemption

I finished Red Dead Redemption last night and I have to say the ending left me a little bummed out. The story through the first three acts wasn't anything special, hunt down some gang members, round up some cattle, play both sides of a Mexican Revolution and charm that Bonnie McFarlane broken up by some awesome bullet time and in game physics, but the game's fourth act was much more than that. In the brief fourth act, we meet John Marston's wife and son and see him try to again reclaim a normal life after putting aside his violent past again.

He tries to do the right thing by his wife and child, but it just isn't mean to be. What really strikes me is John's ability to run down horse thieves, shoot would be killers off of whores and clean out gang hideouts but he struggles to provide a simple untangled life for his family.

I need to collect 8 more bounties tonight to get the 100% completion achievement but I'm not sure if I'll play after that. As fantastic and involving as the world of Red Dead Redemption is, I'm not sure that there is anything left for me to enjoy after John Marston's story comes to a close.

Link's Awakening

Still pushing through Link's Awakening, although I haven't had much time to play the last three days or so.

Dungeon One went down (twice, due to save issues) pretty quickly and Dungeon Two was just as fast. I think if I actually get a little time to sit down I could probably knock this one out in maybe four or five hours.

Link's Awakening

Okay, I really did try Zelda II, but it is so damn awful. Is it a shitty adventure game? Is it a shitty platformer? How about both? I'll go back to it, but I'm not going to waste what is left of my weekend on that crappy game.

So...Link's Awakening. This is actually one of my favorite games of all time. I got this game for Christmas probably 16 years ago and had some really fond memories of playing through it.

Since I don't have anything to play it on, I'll be running this on the Wii.

The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventures of Link

I'll admit, this is my least favorite game of the series along with Majora's Mask. In fact I've only played though this once, and that was about twelve or thirteen years ago. Thankfully a site like Gamefaqs.com exists today so I can blow through this and get into the Zelda games I enjoy.

Well, Dungeons 4 and 5 blew by pretty quickly, but I started running into some trouble in Dungeon 6. Mostly because of these assholes:
So I ran out and snagged the Blue Ring and a Magic Shield which helped a bit.

I honestly thought 7 was the easiest of all the Dungeons, I think the whole thing took me about ten minutes after I snagged the Magic Sword. 8 was also pretty easy, but Death Mountain was a pain in the ass. Thank god someone put together a good map online.

My final thoughts for The Legend of Zelda, it is pretty hardcore. Most newer Zelda games spoil you a little in dungeons. You restart with only three hearts but they usually scatter hearts pretty liberarly so you can refill and keep going. This game like to kick you when you're down on the other hand. Nearly every dungeon attempt I always made sure to go buy a Red Potion and hit a Fairy so I could start the dungeon with as much health as humanly possibly because this game isn't going to give you a break at all.

The Legend of Zelda - NES

Well, I got the NES out and hooked up, popped Zelda in and got that familar tan screen. A little blowing into the cartidge and adjusting it in the NES and I was welcomed with the ever familiar title screen.

Picked up my sword because, "It's dangerous to go alone!" and off I went. Knocked out level one no problem, but couldn't for the life of me remember where the second dungeon was. After a little bit of wandering, I finally pulled up a map and found the bastard.

Dungeon Two similarly posed no real problems, ran in, droped some bombs for Dodongo and snagged my second peice of the Triforce.

Dungeon Three is a little tougher than the first two, mostly because of these guys:

Bombs generall do a good job of handling them but since they're in short supply, I think I'll run out and grab the upgraded sword.

Funniest comment while playing so far,

Wife: Doesn't the music ever change?
Me: This music is classic.
Wife: Your face is classic.

Summer of Zelda

I've recently cut back on my WoW playtime and it might actually end up ending altogether. This is going to leave me with a large chunk of spare time on my hands and nothing to really do with it. With that in mind I've decided to try and replay the entire Zelda library excluding the CDI and Four Swords games.

I'm going to play them in this order:

Legend of Zelda - Nes
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Nes
Link's Awakening - GB
A Link to the Past - SNES
The Ocarina of Time - N64
Majora’s Mask - N64
Oracle of Ages - GB
Oracle of Seasons - GB
The Wind Waker - GC
The Minish Cap - GBA
Twilight Princess - Wii
Phantom Hourglass - NDS

I am going to play the NES versions on the NES, , but the GB, GBA, N64 and GC games will all be played on the Wii and Phantom Hourglass will be on my DS.

I'm going to attempt to limit my use of Faqs to a minimum and blog my playthough of each game and how it is progressing.