TMNT = Crack?

Well, I have been waiting for God of War to come out for some time now. However, being strapped for funds I have had to wait for Game Rush (at Blockbuster) to get it so I could get the $30 trade in deal. In the mean time I have been renting the various volumes of the first season of The Shield on my video freedom pass.

From what I have watch so far (half of season 1), the show to have some potential. The episodes are rather hit and miss. I would say that every fourth episode is really good, and the other are of average quality. I’m going to keep my eye out for the box set to come on sale for around $15-20. I was going to watch another four episodes tonight, as I have been watching one volume a night, but this day just kept on dishing out distractions. The worst, is probably TMNT: Mutant Melee. But, I’ll start at the beginning. As it is probably the most irritating.

In the middle of the night (mine aka morning) my dad had and office space moment, and destroyed his printer. So, I have to go up, and hook up the photo printer to his machine so that he could print out an urgent document. Normally, that kind of stuff does not bother me too much, but when I have to get up in the middle of slumber, well that is another matter entirely. To make matters worse, my mother needed me to stay up after I took care of that problem, because one of the daycare children got sick as school so she had to go pick up the creature. Eventually, I was allowed to return to bed, but I did get up later than usual since I had a two hour interruption. Apparently, I was supposed to just suck it up and get less sleep.

I woke up with just enough time to work out, take a shower, and rush to my brothers basketball game. Unfortunately, I had just missed a couple periods of it. He played alright today. He really needs to work on his overall level of aggression. I also took some pictures, since we brought the camera to this game, which is rather unusual. Anyhow, some of them turned out all right. For some reason we were sitting as far away as possible so it was a bit of a trick holding still enough with the zoom to get a good shot. After the game, we were rushed off to his next event.

The 4th, 5th, and 6th grade orchestras were all performing in some kind of concert. Today was the first time that the 4th grade students have ever been in a concert in Grand Haven. Traditionally, they have just performed in the morning at their respective elementary schools, for good reason I might add. When they jam packed all the different grades together for the opener, there was standing room only. I think they were trying to play Ode to Joy, or something like that. It sounded what I imagine a herd of cats would sound like as the life was slowly choked out of them. Luckily, the 6th grade group played first, so I did not have to suffer through the renditions of the 4th and 5th grade solo groups.

After the concert I ventured on over to Blockbuster. Upon arrival I walked over and picked up the next volume of the Shield, and then went to the counter to do the usual trade in deal. At the counter, I inquired whether or not they had yet received their shipment of God of War. Unfortunately, they got shafted on the release date, so I had no idea when they would actually get it. Luckily, they had got it today, and I managed to procure the last copy. I carried in my trade in games just in case. So, I traded in Dead to Rights and Jet Set Radio future, and got $8 in trade in value, plus the $20 off retail for the game, making it a grand total of $22. Not bad for a new release.

When I got home I setup the new printer that my dad purchased to replace the broken one. The new one is much better than the old one ever was, so in that respect I’m glad it occurred. The next printer is an OfficeJet 6210. It seems pretty decent. And, it came with good reviews. The setup took forever, which always sucks. I don’t know about HP’s new software/driver setup deal. I liked the old days when you could download just the driver and you were off to the races. Now, you have to suffer through 45 minute installs.

After the new printer ordeal, it was time to socialize with my grandparents for a while. They had come into town to view my little brother play basketball, and do the concert thing. Tomorrow, we get to break out the XL1 to film he last game, as my other pair of grandparents were not able to make it. After my grandparents had retired for the night, it was time to play some video games with my other brother. He is in town from Ferris on Easter vacation. Anyhow, this is obstacle that prevented me from playing either God of War or watching The Shield. I had rented TMNT: Mutant Melee yesterday, because I had not idea when God of War was going to come in.

We started playing around 11:30 PM and ended up playing until 4 AM. Those blasted TMNT games are very addicting. Mutant Melee kind of slipped under the radar though. It is a bargain title, coming out for the low price of $20. From what I have played so far, I would say that it was well worth the price. It is a brawler were you can play with up to four people in Multiplayer. In adventure mode, only one person can play, but there can be up to six characters on the field. The difficulty of this game runs the full spectrum, from defeating training bags to protecting April for a specific amount of time. At times, the difficulty of the game is infuriating, because no matter how good you are with a given character, it is almost always a roll of the dice as to whether or not you will defeat certain stages.

So far, we have played through Michelangelo’s and Leonardo’s adventure. By far the most difficult stage was one where you had to defend April for 60 seconds. At face value it does not sound very difficult, but believe me, it is. You have to defend her from Hun, and two whirlwind foot soldiers. Now, if it were just that it would not be too bad, but they threw and extra challenge into it. There is a control panel in the stage that allows someone to control a crane, if you snatch someone with the crane they are dumped into a pool of molten metal. Now, if you drop a foot soldier, or Hun in the metal they lose a little power and respawn on the field of battle, just like you do. However, if April gets dropped in she instantly dies, regardless of how much power she has remaining. Furthermore, it only takes the computer a split second at the control panel to snatch April. My brother and I tried that stage over and over again for over 45 minutes until I finally got lucky enough to defeat it.

Considering that this game stopped me from playing God of War, and watching the Shield, I am going to have to recommend it.

And, since I know Rusty doesn’t like video game rants, I included all the other mundane details of my day.