The guy told me he was the same. This makes me wonder if I’ll ever end up like that. The chances of something like that happening aren’t even as small as you’d think they’d be. Currently I’m doing an HBO study in the Netherlands, which is a Bachelor’s Degree in a specific field. No, it’s not the general BA or BSc, but rather a Bachelor of Business Administration for example, and other degrees like that. If you want to get a BA or BSc you have to go to a University over here. Admission into a University in the Netherlands is not as easy as it is in some other countries, because of the fact that all the Universities are state-owned here. That means they all have a specific set of quality guidelines they have to uphold. Personally, I’m not made to go to a University, although some people seem to believe I should go. I don’t know. I think that HBO studies have an advantage over the WO studies, they not only teach you the scientific part, but they also teach you how it’ll go when you actually get a job later in life.

I don’t worry about something like that. I’m someone that would rather work than study. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I don’t really feel the need to get a higher degree. Although there is one side of me that’s sort of tempting… It’s telling me to give it a shot anyway, but then I realize that I’m no intellectual. I could probably finish it if I tried, but then I’d have to change my attitude and actually really start studying… Ah well, it’s not like the degree you have means that much. Sure, it makes things in life easier, but you can still get along fine with a lesser degree. I just want to do something that’s fun to do, and not something that’s not-so fun to do but makes you a lot of money. That reminds me of the other time I was sitting on my flight back to Netherlands from the US. Once again I found myself talking with someone who was also waiting. Apparently the guy was supposed to be promoted and get his PhD when he was younger, but he couldn’t do it. However! He’s living the life he wants to do now, and that’s something that really inspired me. Of course I would be nowhere qualified enough to get a PhD in the first place (but one can dream! ), but it’s something to think about.

To be completely honest? I’ll just go wherever life takes me. If life decides I belong on the back of a garbage truck… so be it. If life decides I should attend a University… so be it. Either way I just want to be happy in the end; that’s all that matters to me.

So yeah, there you have it. Finding things to write about it going to be a pain, and it may appear like the site is being run by some guy that didn’t even finish elementary, but that doesn’t take away that we shall indulge ourselves into the topic of… uh… we shall penetrate the fourth wall that keeps a distance between you, the reader, and myself! Yeah, it sounds fancy when you put it like that… Does it mean anything, though? No, it does not. Why am I even posting this? I have no idea. I can already foresee that this is going to be a pain.

You know what? I shall start off this blog by writing a little bit about myself. To some people I may appear alien and peculiar, but don’t let that first impression missguide you… No, for I am in fact just as human as you are. The difference between you and myself, however, is the fact that I’m not from a country where they speak the English tongue natively. Instead, we use a language so difficult that only about 0,003 percent of the world population speaks it. The fact that we’re just a small country is irrelevant! … Really! I was born and raised in a field filled with cows. The cows raised me into the person I am right now… Okay, not really. I was born and raised in the city of Enschede, near the German border, where I was always properly taken care of and given more than enough chances to do something useful with my life. Some of the chances I took, others I did not.

People often state that when you play a lot of video games, that one must also be automatically associated with being a person that spends his time in a basement writing articles for his own blog– HEY. I only do the latter! I don’t even do it a lot! I should update it more often. Anyway… The point I was trying to make here is that I do not fall under that category. The things I like to do in my spare time boil down to:

• Girlfriend
• Gaming
• Gaming
• Gaming
• Hanging out with friends
• Going to college
• Gaming
• Sleeping
• Beating someone up with a bat
• Gaming
• Finding a cure for cancer
• Gaming
• Gaming

And the list goes on. As you can probaby tell, I am not your average individual that spends his or her time working in some office and making a decent living and being happy with their family and… I want to be that person. All in due time, dear reader. If all goes well, perhaps one day I’ll join the ranks of the common citizen. Something I am already looking forward to.

I leave you with this seemingly useless and quite uninteresting information and I shall… I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m probably going to think of some things to write about in the mean time. Ah well, until next time. I shall be seeing you around. You cannot get rid of me that easily, internet! … I shall one day rule this source of information! It’s just too bad I don’t have the resources for doing a thing like that… What am I on about? Nothing. Why am I still talking? I have no idea. Until next time!

Pokémon Black and White!!

I jokingly said how they must be running out of colors and noble metals once, but it seems like this is actually the case. Then again, black and white aren’t even colors. Personally I think this will be a very interesting addition to the Pokémon series. There is one thing I wonder about though… What will the differences be between the two different versions? Does the white version support more jobs than the black version? Will the black version support other benefits such as… positive discrimination? Will the black version support gang wars– I’m just going to stop here, but Nintendo, please!! The names just ask to be joked about. Couldn’t you have picked some other colors such as Pink and… Uh… Cyan? I don’t know, anything other than this. You could have even used the metals again! You could have used other things such as Shade and Light! You could even go as far and use random objects such as Microwave and Dishwasher!

To be honest, I don’t think Nintendo really cares. I think it’s sort of a wasted generation by releasing it in the DS. Couldn’t they at least have waited for the 3DS? They could have made use of the new technological advancements the new system offers, instead of sticking with a system that already had a generation and remakes. Even the graphics look extremely similar to Diamond, Pearl, or any other Pokémon DS game for that matter. You know what? I was… *gasp* Planning on buying Soul Silver, something I’m still planning on doing, but what’s the use of another generation at the moment? Nintendo wantz ur monies, that’s what. D:

Excuse the lack of a decent image. I don’t have Photoshop anymore and I had to use Paint to create the image above.   I know I haven’t been updating the blog all that often the past few months, but I hope to change that! … Again. I hope you’re all doing well out there, though! What’s your opinion about the new games? Do you think Nintendo should have waited?

My parents had no idea when they bought an NES back in the day of course. It was meant for my sister, but something happened. A little Akiranon saw his sister play Super Mario Bros. He saw her jumping over pits and defeating enemies. He saw her being the hero that rescues the princess. He saw her… having fun. Something happened that would change my life forever at that moment in time. Everything fell into place as I picked up the controller. Not knowing what the controls were, I walked Mario straight into a pit. I did it again, and again, and again, until I started to notice that the A button made Mario jump. Could it be? What if I did this at the right time when I saw one of those pits? I still see it front of me. Mario, a pit… I walk… and… Jump! What was that? What did I do? Mario was alive and waiting for me to tell him what to do. I was in control and loving it.

Time passed and I got better at the game. My parents started noticing my sister wasn’t paying much attention to the NES anymore and that instead their son – a four-year old – was playing it and was actually getting good at it. They showed everyone how their son was able to play games so well. I still remember my grandmother being amazed as I pulled off a wonderful jump at one of those difficult pits. Everyone was happy and things wouldn’t get any better than this… I was playing games and loving it. However, as always… times are changing. New games were bought and thanks to my patience I got better at them. Mario 1, 2 and 3 were all finished without problems. I showed Donkey Kong who’s boss and popped all the balloons of Balloon Fight.

Generations came and went. The SNES days were wonderful: Games looked better than ever and being the kid with a SNES… Well, I was mister popular in school. This was the point where video games were actually beneficial to my social life, sad to say. Most importantly however, I played my first Zelda game. A game that would prove to be very important  to me later in life. A game that would allow me to meet– Not done here just yet. I was getting obsessed with video games. Before I knew it I was wearing Mario sneakers, I had a Mario backpack, a Mario mug, a remote controller Mario Kart, and even worse… Mario underwear. My life was Mario, I was Mario. During the night I would still be dreaming about rescuing that princess. Ever getting closer to the final stage where big bad Bowser would be waiting for me. Waiting for the day thay I would personally kick his green behind and be a hero.

Video games were good for everything. Originally every video game released was in English. At first the text appeared as mere gibberish to me and I didn’t even pay much mind to it. However, the more I read, the more everything seemed to fall into place. Before I knew it I had a faint idea what the video game was trying to tell me. Simple things such as “The princess is in another castle” started to make sense to me. I was actually learning another language. My parents were amazed when I was able to understand what was going on in Ocarina of Time years later.

As cheesy as it sounds, people are right when they say all good things come to an end. I don’t blame video games for this, but in middle and high school I became less social. My attention started moving onto other things. Where people would be worrying about girls, I was still worried about saving princesses. Something happened that I didn’t expect would happen. People started to become more mean to me just because… I liked video games so much? What happened to the old days where it was the coolest thing around? What happened to the times where every kid wanted to hang out with me just because I had the latest video game console? I started to think and came to just one conclusion… Video games had to go. I said goodbye to my much loved Nintendo 64 and moved on to bigger and better things… or so I thought.

Sure enough, I took hints from the other kids and became something else. I had a girlfriend, I wore the latest clothes and… Wait, if this is how it’s supposed to be… Why do I not feel content? Had video games really left such a big impression on my life? What on earth had happened to me? Why could I not be happy like those other kids? … Video games? Could I really… be so unhappy without them? It’s the thing that kept me from being one of the normal kids in the first place. With mixed feelings I asked my parents for a Gamecube. Was this the right thing to do? Would I not go on later in life and regret I even made this decission?

My parents didn’t want to pay for video games anymore and basically told me to get a job. The first job I had was pretty bad. It was delivering papers every two weeks and didn’t pay all that great, but what do you expect from someone that’s not allowed to have a full job yet? When the time finally came I applied at the local supermarket and got a real job: stocking shelves. If there’s such a thing as a golden age in anyone’s childhood, this would be mine most certainly. I worked and was able to afford any game I wanted. I was playing the latest and greatest games again and nobody could stop me. I lost my girlfriend, but I didn’t care. I was once again reunited with my favorite hobby. I made friends that were interested in gaming too and we had multiplayer sessions. I had the time of my life and as grim as things were looking before this, they shined like never before now.

The rest as they say is history. Nothing much changed after that. I still have the same friends and we still meet up at a regular basis to do gaming nights together. At the moment I have a Wii and an Xbox 360 both getting more than enough love from me. However… Being interested in video games  as I was… There was one series that always stood out to me. Only one series is a legend… and thanks to that one series I met someone I will never be able to forget about in my life. There is a forum out there called Zelda Temple. You can actually find a link to it if you search hard enough (hint: look to the right.) Anyway, I met someone on there. A really special someone that I’m going to meet in two weeks. Someone for who I am traveling to the other side of the ocean for. Someone that’s currently playing a bigger part of my life than video games have ever done. Someone that I… love.

You could say that I recently had an epiphany. For some reason the planets aligned in a certain way and I nearly felt like wearing a green spandex suit, but luckily I only needed to play Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland for the Nintendo DS to stop this awful craving. I know many of you readers out there are most likely weary of the 35 year old man, but let’s discuss his game for a bit to find out it isn’t all bad.

Introduction

After an introduction screen that’s enough to make Georgle Clooney ga– For the record, I’ll refrain from using homophobic terms from now on. Anyway, after the very colorful and ‘happy’ introduction screen you are presented with a screen that tell you to input your name. No, you’re not allowed to use Tingle. This is where I wanted to call him fa– ciggeratte, but much to my dismiss I called him ‘Maarten’. I’m just hoping that in the future people won’t confuse me with that green spandex wearing person.

You wake up in a house and a voice tells you to go to the West Spring to escape this ‘boring’ life. If by boring they mean relaxed and calm, then I’m afraid I’d pass but of course this wasn’t a possibility and I was soon told to go the spring anyway. At the spring an old man with a rupee-shaped head tells me of Rupeeland: a land filled with not only the most delicious food and the most beautiful women, but there’s also no need to work. To enter Rupeeland you have to accept Uncle Rupee’s offer to collect rupees for him and throw them in the pool. Of course this is a totally honest agreement that definitely won’t backfire on poor ‘Maarten’. After agreeing lightning strikes and you transform into -  Henshin a Go Go Baby! – …Tingle.

Apparently the name ‘Maarten’ is boring and no longer needed (D:) and your quest for hunting Rupees begins.

It’s all about the Rupees! It’s all about the dum dum duh dee dum dum

Where do you begin hunting for Rupees, you ask? Why not start with the town? As soon as you enter town a guard stops and surprisingly asks you for rupees. Oookay, I guess it’s just toll or something. Want to speak to the town’s blacksmith; you need rupees. Want to talk to the Chef; you need rupees. Seriously! Best of all they all don’t specify how much they actually want. If you don’t give them enough they’ll keep the rupees and ask you to try again, and if you give too many they’ll of course agree, but you’ll get ripped off. This isn’t all that annoying in the beginning, but as the game progresses the amount they ask just becomes higher and higher. Oh, I forgot to mention something… Once you run out of rupees you apparently die, because ‘Tingle needs rupees to survive. This makes me wonder how rupees keep Tingle alive. Does he eat them or something?… better not question something like this before I start regretting it.

One way to start making rupees is by cooking. Three bones for example make a ‘Tingle Fireworks’ which sells for about 36 rupees. The bones are easily obtained by defeating enemies, which brings to me an interesting point; combat. Tingle doesn’t have a sword, he doesn’t have a gun, simply puy he has no weapons at all. When you approach an enemy combat immediately starts and both Tingle and the enemy will form a cloud of dust. The longer you’re in combat, the more rupees you lose. This is where things get interesting because batteling just enemy will always end in Tingle losing some rupees. When you fight multiple enemies at the same time the rewards increase a great deal and will even yeild in profit.

When there’s too many enemies or the enemies are too strong for Tingle, you might want to hire a bodyguard. Bear in mind that these bodyguards won’t work for free and once they run out of energy, they require more rupees from you. As you can probably tell the combat system isn’t very amazing, but it’s unique and gets the job done.

One of the biggest annoyances in the game is the negotiation system. Basically people start asking money and you don’t know how much they want. I vented about this a bit before, but it really is a nerve wrecking system. Perhaps even worse is the reward system where you can input how many rupees you want as an award. Ask too much and they’ll only give you1 rupee… ONE FRIGGIN’ RUPEE. Another thing that annoys me is the tower/pool. Once you’ve put enough rupees in the pool a tower forms that’ll eventually lead to Rupeeland. The annoying thing here is that the tower needs rupees every now and then, and it has to be quite a bit too otherwise it just keeps saying ‘not enough’. People have been theorizing about a possible tax that increases depending on how much time you spend exploring.

The game certainly refers to the Zelda series a lot, because all the places are names after Hyrulian locations and the game even features the Zelda ‘get item’ and ‘found secret’ themes. The dungeons are lineair, but of good length and feature original puzzles… Still, I personally would consider it a simple spin-off.

The visuals are of good quality and are mostly 2D. The locations and characters are all very nicely animated and especially Tingle moves real smoothly.  The music and sound effects are nothing amazing, but are decent and don’t get on your nerves, which is always a good thing. I’d say the game is about 15-20 hours long depending on how much time you spend exploring and looking for rupees.

The story, while weird, manages to stay interesting until the end and has some interesting plotchanges. I won’t spoil anything for you guys, but Uncle Rupee is obviously not who he seems to be.

Should you buy Tingle’s DS debut? The game never saw a US release so finding it might be difficult for some people, but if you do find it don’t think twice about picking it up! Unlike what many people think, Tingle is a funny and somewhat charming character and I sincerely hope that the second DS game will see a release here in Europe. Sure, the game annoys at times, but it’s a unique experience that’ll definitely surprise you in a good way.

I don’t feel like grading games because I honestly know people don’t agree with my opinion, but I’d give it a solid 8/10 if I did. Har har.