Advance Wars: Dual Strike

I got the new Advance Wars game for the Nintendo DS today. The official release date was Monday, but nobody seemed to have it on Monday. EB Games got their shipment today, so I bought it. So far it really kicks ass. How much ass? Well, I sat down around 8pm and told myself that I'd play it for an hour. At 11pm, I realized I was still playing. If you have a DS, get this game now.

I'll post a review once I've beaten the game.

Shooting Trip

As you have probably deduced if you monitor the photos in the sidebar, I went shooting last week. A couple of coworkers and I had been planning a trip to the shooting range, and on Wednesday we finally went. I had never shot a handgun before, only a rifle in Boy Scouts, but fortunately one of my coworkers had extensive experience and demonstrated everything to me. I shot a Ruger .22 caliber, a SIG-Sauer 9mm, and a GLOCK .45 caliber . It was fun, and I'd do it again. It's a little expensive (since I needed to rent a gun and ear protection and buy ammo), but I can see myself doing it a couple of times a year.

Nintendo DS

My mom won a Nintendo DS a few weeks ago. Since she had no use for it, she said she'd give it to me when I came home this weekend. After playing with it for the past few days, I am very impressed.

When the DS came out last November, it sounded interesting, but I was also worried that the dual screens and touch screen were a bit gimmicky. This was reinforced by the fact that all of the DS launch titles either didn't really take advantage of any unique DS features, or were more like technology demos than full-fledged games. [1] But, even though I was a little skeptical of the DS, I was still happy to receive one for free. Before I went home, I read reviews of all the top-rated games for the DS and decided to pick up Kirby: Canvas Curse, since it was being praised as the first truly complete DS game that wouldn't be possible on any other platform. I was also excited to learn that a new Advance Wars for the DS was in development, since the original Advance Wars was an awesome game.

When I got home on Friday and saw the DS, I quickly started marking out . It wasn't as bulky as I thought it would be, the screens seemed bigger than I remembered, and the prize package that my mom won included a really nice carrying case. Then I started playing Kirby and was amazed. The game is incredibly fun and totally unique from any other game I've ever played. You draw lines on the screen to guide and protect Kirby, and you can tap Kirby and enemies to produce various effects.

Although the DS had a slow launch, now seems like a great time to be getting one. Kirby: Canvas Curse is a great game and was released in June. Advance Wars: Dual Strike comes out tomorrow, as does Nintendogs. Mario Kart (featuring Internet play), New Super Mario Bros. (working title), and Animal Crossing DS are all supposed to be out by the end of the year. Also, Nintendo just dropped the price of a DS from $150 to $130. I recommend picking one up if you are at all intrigued by the DS. Definitely get one by November, so that I'll have some people to play Mario Kart with on the Internet. :-)

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[1] I also thought it was stupid that Nintendo was positioning the DS against its own Gameboy Advance and confusing the market, but that's not a criticism of the DS itself.

Andrew's Visit

My friend Andrew visited Pittsburgh this weekend. He is living in Osaka as part of the JET Programme , but he got to come back to the U.S. for a month during summer break. He got to Pittsburgh on Thursday night, and I took him to Taqueria Mi Mexico for dinner and Rita's for desert. After that, we came back to my apartment and watched SmackDown! and played Bust-a-Move 4 .

On Friday, Andrew went to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History while I was at work, and saw the bog people . After work we went to dinner at Rose Tea Cafe. I got the Taiwanese chunk squid, which does not appear on the menu, but was revealed to me a few weeks ago by a coworker. Then we decided to meet Andrew's friend Katie from Oberlin to see a movie. We saw The Wedding Crashers, primarily based on strong reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. I thought it was hilarious (much better than the trailers made it out to be). Many comedies these days feel like each joke was tested on a focus group - this is not one of those comedies. After the movie we hit Eat'n Park for the midnight breakfast buffet. When we got back to my apartment I made the mistake of flipping on the TV and we ended up watching the last half of Who's Your Daddy? , which is a horrible movie. You have been warned.

On Saturday we joined Katie and her friend Tom (also from Oberlin) for lunch at The Church Brew Works . I had heard of the restaurant quite a few times, but had never been there, so I was pleased to go. I had an excellent pulled pork sandwich and the obligatory beer (pale ale). Next time I think I'll get the homemade ginger ale or birch beer instead. After lunch we came back to my apartment, after making a detour through the Allegheny County Cemetery for some sightseeing. I 0wn3d Andrew at Bust-a-Move 4, and then he went over to Katie's to eat dinner and spend the night.

Andrew spent Saturday night and most of Sunday at Katie's, but he did come back to my apartment on Sunday night to sleep, since Katie's family gets up early for work. It was really fun to hang out with Andrew and show him my 'hood in Pittsburgh. Hopefully I'll visit Osaka next year, and he can show me his 'hood too.