Happy belated birthday, Samus!

While relaxing with "the fam" this past weekend, I missed a rather momentous holiday: The 25th anniversary of Metroid's release.

Thankfully, one of my favorite artists around, Andrew "Drew" Green, wasn't so absentminded (or careless). In fact, not only did he remember the anniversary of Samus Aran's debut, but he celebrated the occasion by conjuring up the wonderfully charming drawing that follows, too.



On his blog, the Atlantan says of his creation: "Nothing says 'happy birthday' like drawing the thing you love being munched on by an energy-sucking parasite." I can't say I disagree, Drew!

Back in the saddle again

Well, the 2011 Schochallagerdt Family Vacation is over. Actually, it ended a few hours ago--when my parents pulled away from our curb in their rental car and headed back to the airport.



Although my head feels as though it's full of cobwebs at the moment, I'm sure it will be cleared up by tomorrow. As such, expect this blog to return to normal--i.e., expect to see more than a single, measly post published to it per day--within the next 24 hours.

Dewprism's colorful Princess Mint, courtesy of Curtis Bathurst

I have to admit, I've never played Square's Threads of Fate (aka Dewprism in Japan).

Artist Curtis Bathurst's colorful sketch (below and here) of one of its main characters, Princess Mint, makes me want to track down a copy of this game and finally give it a go.

Have any of you played this PlayStation-based ARPG? If so, do you think it would be worth playing today--11 and 12 years after it was first released (in Japan and North America, respectively)?

(To see more examples of Bathurst's work, check out his Flickr photostream.)

At long last, I can play Dragon Knight II (once I, you know, actually buy it)

I'm not at all into women (duh, right?), but for some strange reason I've always had a bit of a thing--aesthetically speaking--for the kind of girls Japanese anime artists specialize in bringing to life. You know, the kind with huge, glassy eyes, tiny, pixie-like noses and rainbow-hued hair that runs the gamut from blue and green to orange and pink.

A number of such girls appear in Dragon Knight II, an eroge ("erotic game") RPG developed by the folks at ELF and released for the PC Engine CD-ROM2 system in 1992.

Unsurprisingly, I've wanted to play this saucy little title ever since I saw screenshots (like the one above) of it in an issue of PC Engine Fan magazine as a teenager. I've long refrained from picking up a copy, though, because I don't know a lick of Japanese--and based on the aforementioned screenshots, the Dragon Knight games definitely seem to be the sort that require at least a slight understanding of their language of origin.

Thanks to a handy-dandy guide recently created by The Brothers Duomazov's IvaNEC--check it out here--I (and you, too) can go ahead and pick up a copy of the series' second release later this year and finally play through, if not fully understand, it.

Hasta la vista, Google AdSense

As I'm sure you could tell as soon as you visited today, this is once again an ad-free blog.

I promised when I added Google AdSense to the site that if the ads didn't help me earn enough to buy an extra game or two a month I'd get rid of them.

Well, not only didn't the ads earn me enough to buy a game in the last month, they didn't earn me enough to buy a pack of gum! So, away they go.

Although I'll likely give them a second chance at some point in the future, for the time being this blog will be free of those oh-so-helpful ads that try to get you to buy heartburn meds or invest in retirement homes.