You are now aware that Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is over 25 years old.

I am sorry I missed the actual anniversary. Hell, I am sorry for the lack of posts in over half of a year. In the meantime, I got a job and managed to develop some new opinions about my beloved hobbies. I have recently lost that job due to a car wreck, so I have time again.

But yeah, January 14 was the big date, and Gamefaqs did their daily poll to commemorate it by asking whether you had actually played the original game:

I think it is safe to say I have. A whopping 40% of the users who voted had not played it. Shocking! It seems that the Nintendo 3DS is actually beginning to maintain the interest of my peers lately. I was planning to buy one before the car wreck, but that is now on hold. Unfornuately, having not played one is making it hard to review. However, the library is looking interesting now, even it is only franchise AAA rehash. Portable gaming has always been about bringing portability to the last generation (a wise move, reducing internal competition between products), so I can live with it. There were concerns of the second analog stick and the peripherals needed last year, but the design looks promising if a little awkward.

2011 was an eventful year for gaming. The 3DS launched. Deathwing erupted out of the Pacific off the shore of Japan. Video games are now protected free speech in the United States as a Supreme Court precedent (always nice to have and shows we do have allies in the real world). Sonic the Hedgehog turned twenty. The PS Vita launched in Japan. And the game launches were not half bad either. Half bad I say? Well: DC Universe Online, LittleBigPlanet 2, Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Pokémon: Black/White, Dragon Age II, Ocarina of Time 3D, Bastion, Dead Island, Disgaea 4, Dragon Quest Monster: Joker 2, Dark Souls, Arkham City, Skyward Sword, Skyrim, The Old Republic, and blah blah blah.

I made extra sure to hit up The Old Republic (forever known as Tor) for Christmas. Admittedly, the release felt rushed and hackneyed, but my experience with MMO's is very limited. My repetoire includes: Maple Story and WoW. Suffice it to say, it was an unfair opinion of an MMO launch. However, I very much enjoyed diving right into the Sith lore; Force Lightning was a tool of disposal by level 3. Sure, I picked the Horde of Tor, so to speak, but it was really enticing. I fully intend to see all of the individual class stories. Tor is seperate from WoW in one capacity only: it is purely optimized for a single-player experience. Yes, there is PvP. Yes, there are instances and raids (groups of four and 20). However, it is very much Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 Online. I think they just did not  want to call it that. That said, after recently downloading a copy of Dragon Age: Origins, Tor is much prettier graphically, the improvement is noted. The problem is, DA:O is old and you feel too inclined to want to compare them. Why? Because they are simply not the best graphics. I reached level 24 before the subscription ran up. I already feel I got what I paid for out of it and still want to play more when I have disposable cash. That is the crippling difference between Tor and WoW. Being away from WoW was not acceptable, I sold plasma to afford it when I was into it. Will Tor have longevity? Time will only tell.

GAMING MUSIC:

I was greeted to this jewel after installing the game. No complaints here. However, it is difficult to shake the feeling of LotR while listening to DA:O's background music. It camps an otherwise brutal game. I can live with it or listen to something else.

You say piracy, I say homebrew.

Disclaimer: Yargh! Pirates be bad, me mateys. Be sure to keep a wethered eye out fer them scoundrels. Never tary into pirate behavior and commit crimes of piracy, lest the gallows be for ye!

So, as video game technology gets closer and closer to the standards of a PC, we see shared features. An advent of these shared features is the ease of recoding the complicated firmwares to play whatever "back-ups." That excuse loses weight as the homebrew community managed to use the Jailbreak and then softmod the OFW to be a CFW. This means you can play back-ups on your PS3! Oh my God! Wait, aren't games ranging between 3-50 gigabytess? Only half of them really work so it takes forever to find something cool? The games are Blu-Ray anyway and that means they're scratch-proof? Come on, don't let us fool you. If you want to keep up to date, read into this stuff, it's interesting.

I do not condone or condemn piracy, as it is not my prerogative and I will not disclose whether I participate (yeah, right). However, I do not want more pirates out there. Ease of piracy means increasing numbers. Increasing numbers means the companies fight back. Also, you want your favorite game to have a sequel, right? They only do that if there is money. Even though we put the info out there, because it would be hypocritical if we do not,  but we definitely do not need more pirates running about.

That said. What about you that are vehemently against piracy? Not my problem, pay for your games. However, if I will keep my mouth shut if you also stop renting, selling, and buying used games. That is the same thing as pirating a copy. What of that do the developers see?

The funny thing about piracy is that Nintendo is the only company new to that game. However, who blames them? They were a generation behind on CD's, which is not a complaint. I do like cartridges more. Sony has been handling piracy with the PSP for years and held off the PS3 piracy for a very long time. Microsoft handled piracy well, considering it is used to the PC issues. The Nintendo Wii' System Menu was cracked in no time as soon as the buffer overload was figured out in the Twilight Princess save file. Now, every new System Menu update attempts to wipe out the Homebrew Channel and the exploits, but it usually takes Bushing and Team Twiizers roughly 6-12 hours to get the new System Menu cracked. We have definitely come a long way from GameBoy Advance flashcarts and the Sega Dreamcast bootdisc.

GAMING MUSIC

A great way to lead into this psycho adventure. Easily containing the most anti-climactic end-boss ever. However, the quirky humor, rugged gameplay, and amusing cooperative make things worth blowing away some hours. New game+ merited some replay, but you really have to like the environment and World of Warcraft elements, which is admittedly weird for an FPS. This game was worth it. Get it cheap now.