Happy New Year and stuff!  I sure wish I was still at home sleeping instead of being here at work...

Is it an awesome fluke of nature that I decide to start building fanmixes for the entire Metroid Prime series last night when this fabulous game collection is set to be released next week?  IS IT??!!  I didn't know about it until TODAY!!!!

I pre-ordered it.  Must have.  Must have now.  Anything to actually give me a shot at completing MP2: Echoes is worth it.

Ahem.  And now back to your regularly scheduled fandom squee.

SQUEE!!!!*


*squee initiated while wearing a Metroid t-shirt.  That gives me bonus points, I think.

Two flying pigs.  Ha.

Lately, my dreams have been violent again.  I go through spells of this, usually related to the moon phases and hormones because I'm such a CANCER, and then things settle down a bit and I go back into my deeper sleep where my dreams are normal and I don't remember them.  

Saturday night, apparently, things were getting a little out of hand.  I woke up because I felt a sharp pain across the bridge of my nose.  I can't remember what I was dreaming then, except that I wasn't sleeping well and it was fairly violent.  I reached up to touch my nose and I felt kind of an oozy gash, small but painful to the touch.  I had a brief thought of  "I must have scratched myself in my sleep" and a less coherent one of "Holy crap, I'm going to bleed all over my pillow", but then I fell back asleep, now dreaming of invading governments with hovercrafts and the constant recurring theme in my dreams of me being chased and unable to hide or get away.

Sunday morning I wake up and go to the bathroom to wash my face and that's when I notice it.  It's half and inch long mostly on the left side of the bridge of my nose but across the middle as well.  And it's deep.  Not bleeding deep, but nasty, pus-colored deep. 

The damn thing hurts.  Of course my sunglasses sit right on top of part of it and it just throbs the rest of the time.  I'm not sure how I could have scratched myself that deep right neatly across my nose.  I've scratched my face before in my sleep, but it's been little nearly invisible scratches.  This thing I can't cover with makeup.

Last night I had some more violent dreams and I kept waking up and immediately falling right back into REM sleep.  The worst of the dreams last night involved ghosts, my other favorite recurring theme.  At least there were no tornadoes.  I'm sure if I had stayed asleep long enough, my brain would have thrown those at me too.

I'm a little disturbed with myself.  It's full moon this week so I'm hoping the worst of it will be over soon.  Maybe I'm secretly a werewolf?

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Dammit dammit dammit DAMMIT!!!!

I'm at 99%.

I'm missing one missile expansion.

And all of them are checked off on my sheet.

DAMMIT!!!!

I got all nine keys! Yay! It only took me an extra two hours to find them. :P

So, I opened the Sky Temple and was like, "Cool." I hopped in the happy beam of light that teleports me up there.

I walked into a couple rooms and suddenly, BAM! ENDBOSS! Oops. Wasn't quite ready for that yet. I still have like four more missile expansions to find. I mean I could have made an effort to fight him, but I already know that he has three separate ridiculous forms and then I fight Dark Samus at the end, so I wasn't really interested in trying to get through all of that before I go over to my parent's house for Christmas. In fact, since I'm sitting at 93%, I need to find my other 7%. Or I'm not doing it. Because I'm not playing through this damn thing again anytime soon.

And, get this, the room that the Emperor Ing is in is small, round, and you can't get within five feet of the walls because it's all covered in Phazon. Yeah. So I'm all excited about doing this. Yep. Count me all excited.

We're near the end, folks. HUZZAH! I might finish it over my break or maybe next week over my break, but I just don't know. Tee hee.

Yep. It's that time again.

I'm sitting at 91% folks. That's pretty darn cool. But tonight's mystery was "Where the hell are these keys I need to open the Sky Fortress?"

To which I must say, "Duh."

As soon as I made it to the fortress door, it clicked. Somewhere in my brain it clicked. Too bad it took me this long to figure it out. There's this highly original circle of standing stones outside that you must replace the keys to in order to get inside. Sound familiar? Yeah. It's the Artifact Temple from the other game. The keys? Well, I've been scanning all these dead Luminoth warriors to get their last journal entries (how exactly they did that, I'm not sure) and in every entry there's a room mentioned. At the temple, the fallen warrior that was there wrote somehow on all the other standing stones so if you didn't find them the first time, now you have a pretty good idea where they are.

So I'm off to track down nine keys that are scattered all over the freaking place. I should have found this place sooner and figured this out weeks ago since it's so obvious now, but I just never actually went up to the Sky Fortress door until now. And you know what's nice? I'm not ticked off about it because I thought that little mini-quest in Prime was cool. And this is even cooler because every warrior you find carried one of those keys at some point. It's kinda like finding Triforce pieces in the Legend of Zelda or something.

But that's it. Nothing else exciting. I won't have this game beat very soon, but I am almost done percentage wise. Cool beans.

Hello again.

( It came to my attention that this is insanely long. Sorry 'bout that. )

EDIT: Oh, and that mention yesterday of the "rabid wolverine doors"? Here's the paragraph that came from.

"Also, the key-collecting is kind of tedious. YES! in addition to doors, blast doors, dark beam doors, light beam doors, annihilator beam doors, super missile doors, seeker missile doors, hieroglyph doors, doors that are broken so you have to use the stairs, rabid wolverine doors, and doors that need to be painted black, they have to throw KEY COLLECTING at you because evidently in the world of Aether you can never be too concerned about the security in your dark temple."

And here's a link to the whole review. I think it's hilarious. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/review/R81630.html

Latest Metroid Prime 2 update.

( This is long. Why do I do this late at night and forget lj cuts? )

Yay! Back for more update-age. Aren't you happy? Blowing up Space Pirates is a healthy way to get rid of aggression.

Anyhoo.

I'm now up to like 57% or so. Forgot to check before I stopped playing. Oops. I've been merrily collecting missile expansions and checking them from my list. Of course, that meant back-tracking all over the place to make sure I hadn't missed any - which of the group I looked for, I had missed one - the first one you're supposed to find. To make up for that error, I managed to find the last one you're supposed to find. Which put me to like 130 or 135 missiles. So I'm nowhere near done.

After I had done that, I trudged back to the Sanctuary Fortress of Hell, which is still a pain in the ass even though now I have twice the Energy Tanks, more missiles, and more beam ammo. And I discovered my new least-favorite enemy in the game.

Ing Smashers. Such a clever name. Remember the juiced-up, big, hulking, slow ass Phazon Elite Pirates from Prime? You know, the ones who weren't Omega Pirate. Yeah, the ones that fell down after a Super Missile or two; they had a glowy-beam-shield-thing and an ultra-spiffy energy wave you jumped over. Well, once again they've taken an okay idea and turned into a severe pain in the ass.

When you first walk into the Sanctuary Fortress (of Hell), there's all these giant standing robots just hanging out. Being a long time Metroid and Zelda player, I crept around them, not touching them, of course, knowing that at any given time they would jump out and kick my ass. That time has come.

Apparently, these happy shiny little robots have turned on their masters and are out to kick your ass since none of them are around. Neat! The big difference here is they're fucking FAST! Holy crap! They like RUN at you, corner you, and either pound you with missiles or their big honking fists. Yikes! And to throw in some Metroid obnoxiousness, they can only be damaged by a "Reverse Polarity Beam" which means if their fist is glowing yellow, hit them with the Dark Beam, if it's purple, hit them with the Light Beam. Yay. And they switch because they're cool. My mistake was I walked into one area, woke one up, and then backed into where a second one was. Do not fight these guys two at a time. It's not a good idea. Especially in long, rectangular-shaped rooms with stupid pillars in them that you get stuck on while dodging around them. Very tough bastards. I did manage to kill them both, but I didn't see the first one die because I was fleeing in terror from where I was cornered. I'm such a brave soul. :P

Found several obnoxious expansion puzzles that I'm not interested in at the moment. I would be if I hadn't been doing just that for the last two times I played. Nope. Not even the Energy Tank one. I'll get back to that.

However, in all my wanderings of the fortress, both Light and Dark Worlds, I still haven't found any new Mini-bosses. Which is odd. The room that the hint system is telling me to go is locked by Power Bombs, and in Dark Aether. I did visit there briefly but couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do since both doors out are Power Bomb doors. I can portal in and out. There has to be a way into the big main room where you fought Alpha Blogg in Light Aether, I just didn't look for it hard enough I'll bet.

So that's my next objective since I really hate the Fortress and I've done everything I can do there at this point except some seriously crappy Morph Ball Puzzles for Prizes.

Going to bed now.

Yes, friends, it's back again.

After putting this game aside for an entire week, I decided it would be best to ease myself back into it. This means "don't immediately continue following the plot". Why? Because at a mere 42% and 17 hours + into the game, I'm simply not cool enough.

Don't get me wrong, I love Metroid. However, one of its grandest downfalls, and this goes for any of them, is the heinous amount of stuff they expect you to collect (This is also true for Zelda games...::cough cough:: Wind Waker ::cough cough::). I am not a Gaming Goddess, therefore I can't run through the first Metroid Prime in its entirety with 100% items collected and 100% scanned in under two hours. Once you've played through it half a million times, then okay, write the FAQ that explains how I can accomplish what I just mentioned. Unfortunately for me, I'm in it for the GAME and for the STORY (or lack thereof...but you know what I mean), but not to have all 6 billion missile expansions by the endgame. Maybe I don't care. That's probably it. But if I start having horrible things happen to me like my little instance of very obviously entering the Sanctuary Fortress (of Hell) without enough gear, then I sigh and go FAQ hunting so I can find more expansions and such without doubling my time since apparently I'm an idiot and can't figure these things out the first time.

The verdict? In little over an hour, I only managed to kick my percentage up like 5 or 6% - but those are an extra 5 or 6 Energy Tanks I did not have. I decided to do each kind of expansion by itself. I started with Energy Tanks. I have all but five now, I think. Two of them are hindered by lack of other gear and the others are in the stupid fortress. Dammit. Next I'll go through and look for missiles, although those aren't that big a deal since the once All-Powerful Super Missile really isn't anymore, especially against bosses. Most of the time you're better off just using the Charge Beam. How very sad. I'm more interested in finding ammo expansions for my beam guns. I still seem to run out pretty quick.

As for now, I'm taking a break and maybe finding some supper. Mmmm...supper.

No more says me. Not playing anymore tonight. I want to chew through my controller cords.

( The next big question. Why can't I get out of this stupid place? )

Yes, it's gotten worse.

( Why oh why do I suck so bad at this game? )

This first, before I forget stuff. Then I'll get to the other "more important things in my life" section.

( No, really. It's fun fighting the same miniboss for two hours straight. )

What a shock, huh? I haven't been doing much Scavenger Sam.

Once upon a time in the first Metroid Prime, I said something stupid along the lines of, "Gee, the underwater part isn't that scary because there's no monsters."

This is the part where Kristy wishes she hadn't said that.

Bloggs. They suck. Don't hit them unless you really want to start a fight, and you better have that Super Missile ready for when it comes for you, because they move faster than you do.

I want my Gravity Suit.

Oh, and of course, Dark Samus made a brief appearance to laugh at me. Thanks. That was great. I really needed that. Stupid Phazon-sucking whore.

Only good thing about the new part? They brought back my most favoritest of Metroid themes, the red Brinstar theme from Super Metroid. Yay. I can listen to that song all day long. Which is probably why I have about ten different versions of it in my mp3 list. It adds that nice and creepy touch to the already scary underwater stuff.

Underwater things in first person shooters are scary. Nothing scares me more in Half-Life than those damn alien fish things.

Anyway. Andrew should be coming home for lunch soon. I need a break anyway.

I have another update. Yay! Inside you will learn everything you needed to know about the creatures in Torvus, why I now hate pinball, and the agony of still not being able to go back to a room I've been in before.

( Behind here. You know you wanna look! Or maybe not. )

I beat Amorbis! Yay! I decided I was going to wander around until I found Super Missiles, and then a sickening thought came over me..."What if he's supposed to swallow Samus in Morph Ball mode so she can bomb him from the inside?" Yes, I was not entirely pleased with this idea. But it was an excellent guess. So ha!

Now I have a new problem. I have the Dark Suit now. Yay. The atmosphere doesn't suck my will to live quickly, now it's rather slow. Actually, it's the same speed as recharging from the light crystals, except in reverse. Anyhoo, that's a neat thing. So the Luminoth guys tell me I'm supposed to go to Torvus next, which is their swampland. Only problem? I got nothing. Until I find some Super Missiles, I'm pretty damn stuck. And since I've already retraced my steps a couple times to make sure I didn't leave anything behind, now I'm really annoyed. I've tried all the new portals to no avail. I can pinpoint exactly on the map where it is I need to go next, but the door is magically sealed with a lock I can't open on one side, and I require Super Missiles or Power Bombs to come from the area on the other side.

Very annoyed.

And Metroids suck. I miss the ol' Wave Beam. The Dark Beam works pretty good, but it's slow as hell, so you have to get kinda close to them. Never a good idea. And the Light Beam works too, but you have to charge it. Gah. But I've seen the baby Metroids. They're kinda cute. Until they fly over a puddle of Phazon and then they're not so cute.

So far, the most hilarious thing in the game that I've found was in the Space Pirate's Command Area; I scanned a console warning: "Metroids are not pets. Metroids are not to be used for target practice." I about died from laughing too hard. And later on I found a Metroid suffering from "food poisoning due to the ingestion of pet treats and rations" which "isn't good for their digestive system." A little Metroid humor is fun. My favorite ones from the first Metroid Prime was the vivid descriptions of the Space Pirates failed attempts to recreate the Morph Ball, leaving test subjects twisted and broken. That shouldn't be funny, but it is. Ha! I laugh at Space Pirates!

I'm done for the night. And since this game just came out, I can either figure out everything on my own or go buy a strategy guide. Grr.

Hopefully, I'll give it a break and work on my Scavenger Sam stuff this week. I hope.