So I guess 2009 hasn't been a much better year for blogging, has it? Two months, three posts apiece. Sounds about up to par. Oh well. Consider it a concession to that nagging voice in my head that's yelling at me for not blogging about anything interesting.

But ho! Have I got something interesting to talk about today! If you look at video game news at all, you should know that there's a little gem of a DS game going around called Retro Game Challenge. It's packed full of NES games that never existed, and it's an absolutely essential play for anyone with fond memories of gaming in the 80's. Parish and his cronies won't shut up about Guadia Quest, the RPG of the bunch, but there is so much more to enjoy here! Me, I love me some Robot Ninja Haggleman!

Robot Ninja Haggleman is a simple action game, sort of a strange mash-up between Super Mario Bros and... Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle maybe? I'm not sure, really. The whole "map full of doors" reminds me of Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. The game is simple, requiring you, as Haggleman, to rid the room of enemies and then defeat the boss that appears. The twist is that each room has a plethora of doors, which serve many purposes. First, Haggleman can hide behind doors to avoid enemies, and a swinging door will stun/kill any bad guys that are too close. Entering a door also swings the doors of every like-coloured door, so you can set up combo kills by switching door colours. There are also items hidden behind certain doors, and the boss character can be flushed out before the peons are all dead by opening the door he's hiding behind. It's a pretty easy game, since Haggleman is not only able to kill enemies with doors and by stomping on them, but he's also got ninja stars which stun baddies and there are powerups that make him even faster and stronger. Not to mention that it's only 16 stages long, which is not bad by early NES standards. It's super fun though.

The sequel, Robot Ninja Haggleman 2, as you may expect is even better. It's the same basic game, but with many little improvements that add up to a lot. The title screen and cutscenes now have backgrounds, but otherwise the graphics are all the same. Gameplay tweaks like vertically scrolling stages (the original game's stages only move horizontally) and the ability to delay your special attacks seem tiny but add a lot more to the game. It's also noticeably more difficult, with smarter minor enemies and tougher bosses (they now take three hits to kill, as opposed to one in the first Robot Ninja Haggleman). It's really all you could ever want from a sequel: the exact same game with a ton more polish and some nice gameplay additions.

Haggleman 3, however, is where the series really shines. It is entirely different from the previous games, and is probably the best NES game that was never made. It's the last game in Retro Game Challenge and is truly a smashing finish to the game. Taking Metroid-style exploration and upgrading and putting a Ninja Gaiden mask over top of it is genius. It's even got annoying bird that fly out of nowhere and knock you into bottomless pits! The game's look is entirely different, with large, dramatic-looking sprites as opposed to the cartoony style of the previous installments, and the gameplay follows suit. It's awesome. I don't know how many times I'm gonna say that.

Seriously, Haggleman 3 is the apex of 8-bit gaming. The controls are fluid, and the stages are huge. Haggleman tosses ninja stars by default, but getting in close to enemies will get him to start swinging his sword. Stages are no longer a big series of halls and doors, they're now huge areas with tons of different paths and secrets everywhere. Doors now lead only to hints and stores. In the stores, Haggleman can buy life, special weapons, and gears. The gears can be installed to give Haggleman increases abilities, like stronger attacks or higher jumps, but only three can be equipped at any time and they have to be under a certain power limit, so that gives it a slight puzzle element in having to know what gears to have equipped at the right time.

I really can't continue and keep pretending that this is interesting for anyone but me, so I'll stop here, but let it be known that Robot Ninja Haggleman is my new hero. Truly, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of Retro Game Challenge if you own a DS and love 8-bit gaming (who doesn't?). What's even better is that the sequel just hit store shelves in Japan. It's not a huge deal yet because the first game took almost a year and a half to be localized, but maybe the mass of hype around it will speed up that process for the sequel. Early fall release, maybe? Please?

I've always secretly loved Valentine's Day. Not because I'm a big fan of love and mushiness or anything, but because it always gave me a good reason to mope. I looked forward to the day because it was a day where I could lock myself in my room and be gloomy and have a legitimate reason for it. It was a day that celebrated couples, and I was single; in theory everyone who wasn't in a relationship should be bummed. But not me. I love being sullen and whatnot, so it was always great for me. Don't know why I enjoyed being alone and moody so much, that's just how I was.

But now in 2009, I'm in a serious relationship, and Valentine's Day is exactly the opposite of what it used to be. I got home from work and had to work my ass off to get everything cleaned up and dinner prepared in time. I spent the whole night with her instead of being all by my lonesome, and for the first time ever, I had a ton of fun on Valentine's Day with someone other than myself. We didn't do much, just had a nice home-cooked dinner, played Rock Band, ate a cake (yes, we ate an entire cake between the two of us), and muddled around on Facebook for a while. It wasn't fancy or expensive, but it was perfect.

And now I'm sitting here thinking that despite the fact that this V-Day couldn't be any more different from the old ways, there is one thing that they have in common: both types made me happy, just in different ways.

Last weekend was my girlfriend's birthday weekend, masterminded by none other than me, and it was quite the awesome weekend. On Friday night, I took her out to Stereo to go dancing. While I still don't understand (or particularly enjoy) the club scene, she had an absolute blast, so it was well worth it. On Saturday we managed to round up a couple others so we could finally play the Clue game I bought her for Christmas. I've never played Clue before, and while it was a lot of fun, it's way too easy if you're only playing with three people. We also watched a shitload of movies. That you can pretty much take for granted, because watching movies is the activity we spend the most time on. Right now, I would like to share my opinions on those movies.

The first was her pick from a trip to Blockbuster on Saturday night: Room 6. Personally, I didn't think much of it. It started well enough, but then degenerated into madness, and not the good kind. Shit just kept happening and nobody ever explained any of it. I watched the cast/crew behind the scenes featurette afterward, and that gave me some answers, but didn't make me like the movie any more. It was like a boring, confusing version of Jacob's Ladder. I mean, Jacob's Ladder left some things ambiguous on purpose, but it at least gave you enough information that you could have fun thinking up and discussing your own theories on what was happening. Room 6 was not as thoughtful. There was a super-creepy little girl though.

We rented three movies at the Blockbuster, and it being her birthday, Steph chose the second one as well. Much more enjoyable than her first pick was Vacancy 2: The First Cut, the prequel to 2007's Vacancy. It wasn't a life-changing direct-to-DVD experience, but there were some bright spots, like a man-on-fire. I'll go easy on pretty much any movie that provides me with a scene where someone it running around on fire. I also give it points because while it's a prequel, the plot isn't entirely predictable, and does contain a couple little surprises. For example, I thought it would be the same bad guys and motel as from the first movie. It was not so. The first one was better though. If nothing else, because Frank Whaley's character was way more entertaining than David Moscow's.

I got to pick out a movie too, for the sake of fairness, and I think it's obvious that my choice was my favourite. I was jumping with glee when I saw that Blockbuster was stocking Dead and Breakfast, a movie that I had seen previews for, but had never found while browsing through movies at local stores. I absolutely had to rent it, and I loved it. Dead and Breakfast parades itself around as a zombie movie, but it isn't really. The monsters are more posessed corpses than zombies, but that leads to much hilarity, like when the leader "zombie" uses the decapitated head of one of his friends as a puppet and frequently talks to it. There's also a scene where all the "zombies" start dancing. Obviously, it's the "Thriller" dance, but to an original song. Anyway, it's hilarious movie, totally over-the-top in many places (especially gore), and I couldn't recommend it more. I'm actively on the hunt for this one now.

The last movie is one I picked up when we went shopping on Sunday afternoon. I picked up the two pack of Nightwatch and Daywatch because I'd heard good things about them on more than one occasion. We watched Nightwatch that night, and I wasn't disappointed. It was a really cool movie, and had a fairly interesting plot. I haven't explained any other plots, so I won't start here. I will, however, point out that it was a bit confusing. The plot seemed like bits were missing and maybe they spent too much time with subplots than explaining what was going on in the main story. They did a really great job with the subtitles though, as they kind of blended them into the movie to make them less distracting. Overall Nightwatch was neat and original, but not perfect. I'm hoping that the sequel is even better.