Christmas was a lot more fun than I thought. During the morning, me and Neko went for a few good rounds of Mario Strikers Charge on the Wii for the first time online. The battle was pretty intense where both of us keep hitting goals one after another to tie the match. However some of the matches were really pure ownage, where we own each other like crazy. During my ‘ownage’ I own my winnings on Neko’s low bat wiimote. During the final match he couldn’t move his players up and they ran downwards on their own. He then requested that we play “half-court” over Skype lol.

Mario Strikers Charged is definitely best played online

I do wonder if the proper team line-up (leaders and teammates) affects the overall performance. Both of us have experience a time where our players are literally avoiding the ball like a plague.

Before our online match, I was caught by a nice surprise. After booting up my Wii I received a new message indicator and opened up the message board. I saw two messages wrapped with ribbons and was puzzled. After I opened them up, I realized it’s a virtual console game gift from Neko. He gave me Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Pokemon Snap for my girlfriend. Thanks for the great gifts man. Who says virtual presents can’t be great?

A great classic Zelda game for the Nintendo 64

Snap all your favourite pokemons and send to friends!

I then spend the rest of the afternoon with my girlfriend. We cooked lunch and spend some time together. It was really great.

I know that things can’t be the same as they were few years back but I will try my best to look forward. Don’t think the future will always be that bad.

And it’s the anniversary of someone very special to me. It has been .. 8 long years?

I was actually deciding … to get Bionicle Heroes or Custom Robo Mania for the DS. In the end I made up my mind to get the later one even tho the ratings aren’t as high as other games. So today I went to the game shop with my girlfriend after lunch. The moment we enter the shop, her eyes went sparkling as she caught the sight of Pokemon Diamond DS. Firing off her cutie puppy eyes … guess which game I ended up with? Yeap you guess it!

I was actually a bit worried when I purchased this game. The last pokemon game which I played seriously was Yellow version dated back about a decade ago. I was worried that I might not be interested enough to replay the game. But since my girlfriend is very much into pokemon, it was well worth the purchase.

Upon boot-up, we were greeted with a different intro (as compared to the previous versions). Music were slightly updated, with more tunes this time. More of a remix I would say. Graphics were updated as well, featuring more animations during battle and 3D graphics as you roam through different cities. Not as bad as I first thought … in fact this might get me playing again.

I was given a free NDS Pokemon stylus when I purchased the game. Not too shabby tho. Its a lot bigger compared to the original stylus which I feel would be good for FPS games or other games which requires a lot of usage on the touch screen. The huge size (similar to a pen size) makes it more comfortable when gripping it.

A close up on the stylus

Closing comment : First impressions were pretty good. With remix tunes and upgraded graphics, it certainly does make it feel “fresh”, along with new mini games and WiFi capability. I’m certainly glad its not just a direct port from any of the previous games. If you are a fan or someone who wants to kill some time until games like Ninja Gaiden arrive, I think this one will fit in the bill just nice.