My twin brother 2 years removed, Harrison (or .harr to some, hehe) is visiting from college for the Zombie-Jesus weekend. Sitting side by side, him with my sister's DS lite and me with my PSP, we began to discuss the variety of hand held games we've been playing over the past few months. Back in the good ol' days, Harrison and I would spend many brain power hours in tandem getting through various puzzle and adventure games on the PC such as The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary, The Castle of Doctor Brain, and Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate. Naturally, our experiences with Professor Layton and the Curious Village surfaced between our discussions.

Harrison mentioned that he had a chance to try a few puzzles at GameStop, remarking that he had a little bit of trouble on a couple of them. I immediately related as I too had run into a bit of a jam on what seemed to be some of the most simple puzzles. Our subconcious sibling connection was revealed when we both brought up issues with the 10 picarats Strange Hats puzzle.

I present to you the exact Strange Hats puzzle below. If there's one thing I hate, it's being told that I'm stupid by a simple mind puzzle on my DS. If there's another thing I hate, it's finding out my super smart electrical engineering brother had the same problem. Here's your chance, faithful reader, to further convince me of my own stupidity by trying to solve the puzzle yourself! If you've played the game already you probably already know the answer, but if you haven't have a go... and don't cheat!

puzzle description

which one!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Ms. Glass

After seeing The Helio Sequence at The Independent last week, I was really looking forward to visiting the venue once again for a performance by Crystal Castles this Saturday. But alas! Reports from Pitchfork claim that the female vocalist, Ms. Alice Glass (as pictured so elegantly to the left), is impaired due to a car accident. No Glass, no Crystal Castles. No Fun.

Patapon!

Fortunately for me, while I await patiently for the next tour to come around (and fixate an innocent crush-gush gaze upon Alice) I have plenty of things to keep me busy. The puzzles and brainteasers featured in Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS is enough to keep my mind juices from becoming stagnant, and I equally can't wait to get my paws on my freshly purchased Patapon for the PSP.

When I'm not gaming, I'll litter my free time with impromptu dance parties in my apartment to the tune of Vanished, and if I'm lucky enough, maybe I can convince someone to fix me up with a large Broccoli ocarina so I may do a proper vegetable cover of it:

Big Broccoli Ocarina : Angels We Have Heard On High

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Genesis Represent

While I will always stand firmly besides my gamer upbringing as a Genesis child, there were certainly moments of console weakness when it came to the Nintendo and the exclusive titles it kept close to its bosom. Upon occasion my siblings and I would trade our Genesis with our friend's respective Nintendo system for a week long liaison. Naturally our inbred gamer instincts drew us to Mario, but what really set my geek-genes ablaze was when I played Zelda: A Link to the Past.

It wasn't until middle school that I finally completed Link to the Past and abruptly became hooked to the entire Zelda franchise. Despite the fact that the main gameplay, story elements, and characters only change slightly from sequel to sequel, Zelda is dependably comfortable while simultaneously manages to enliven its classic content with new environments and features in every additional release.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

With all that being said The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is a fantastic addition to the Zelda lineage, one which I've only recently been able to fully appreciate while commuting from my house-sitting home to work. Nintendo knows the meat, bones, and heart of its platforms, and in the case of the DS they would not disappoint by making Phantom Hourglass almost entirely stylus oriented with a few bonus DS-savvy actions to boot.

I love managing my stylus like I would a sword, prodding and swirling it around the screen to skewer baddies, but the adventure for me really started when I had to tackle the more unique challenges such as yelling through a door or blowing out a candle. As you might imagine, this involved the microphone proponent of the DS and my voice and/or breath ... applied amidst a large conglomerate of Muni commuters. I had a choice in both cases: close the DS and keep my interjections to myself or solve the puzzle as necessary despite the fact that there were a good 5 faces aimed at my direction who would witness what could seem like a brief instance of insanity.

Of course, I chose the latter. What else could I do to get the fortune teller's attention from the other side of the door?  I elegantly brought the DS up to my lips and spoke as quickly and as loudly as I could to solve the puzzle.

HEY!

 A few awkward glances, (a puzzle unlocked!), a following round of awkward re-glances, and then it was back to the crabby commute home. I laughed to myself and thought If only they knew how much farther I got in the game after that, only then would they understand.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Phoenix Wright

Exciting game-related updates at bay! First on the agenda, thanks to my saucesome brother Harrison I got a gold Xbox-Live account for my birthday.  This prompted me to get a gamertag last night before I started my freshly opened copy of Beautiful Katamari (a gift from Steph!), so if y'all want to know the gamertag is, its: oTIFF. Big surprise, right?

While exciting, that news is not what I want to gush about.  I finally got my hands on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney this past weekend, along with a few other DS Lite classics that I had been neglecting to try. While the weekend was stolen from me (no thanks to YOU Bobbin, my incredibly kawaii Shiba Nintendog), I started to play Phoenix Wright on my commute and it is A-MAZING. 

I found myself L-O-L'ing in RL to the erratic Anime antics of the characters, already crushing on the dorky novice lawyer Mr. Wright, and pumping my noggin' to remember all details of the investigations before I take them to court. How did Capcom manage to take court sessions and make them fun? You'll have to play to find out for yourself.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend