More game updates.

Well, I played "Kingdom Hearts II" on Friday night: at Beast's Castle, the Beast was throwing a party. He got some uninvited guests: besides Goofy, Donald, and I, a member of Organization XIII (Xaldin), Nobodies, and some Heartless showed up. My group took out the Nobodies, then Beast discovered his rose was missing. He wanted Belle and my group to leave, but I talked him into letting us help him find the rose. Xaldin showed up again, grabbing the rose and Belle. Belle broke free of his grip and ran off with the rose. My group took on Xaldin, who has some tough wind and spear attacks. It was a difficult battle, but we won.

I also played "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" this weekend. As Iron Man, I led our group to the Bifrost Bridge, beating the stuffing out of various Viking warriors who attacked us. At the end of the bridge, we met the Wrecking Crew. Their enchanted tools were no match for us, and we beat them soundly. I switched Iron Man out for Thor and went on to Asgard to free Tyr, Heimdall, and Balder. Using the lightning attack (Thor's Wrath), I dropped dozens of enemies. I was surprised at how many of Spider-Man's enemies we ran into: the Lizard, the Scorpion (who I thought we had taken out back at the Helicarrier), the Rhino, and Shocker. We beat them all, then faced off with the Enchantress and the Executioner. This pair was tough to beat, especially with the Enchantress healing the Executioner. We took them down, then headed back to the Hall of Warriors. After that, we had to go to Niffleheim to search for Odin. We ran into Volla (some kind of prophetess) and tracked down her ring for her. We faced off with Kurse and Ulik. It took a lot of hits to drop them. After fighting a lot of dark elven warriors, we faced off with Ymir, a really big frost giant. He was really tough to beat, but the secret was to grab one of his warriors' spears (after beating them down) and climb onto him. Using the spear, it was just a matter of beating him down and draining out his cold energy. To my relief, this battle didn't cost me any of my team.

Kingdom Hearts II gaming update.

Well, I played more "Kingdom Hearts II" on Monday (I took the day off of work). At Port Royal, I faced off with the Heartless Monster (the Reaper) with Jack and Goofy backing me. I used the joint attacks with Jack a lot ("Bluff" and "Final Trap"), as well as the Reaction commands. After a long battle, the Reaper was defeated, and the cursed gold was sent to a watery grave. I moved on to the Land of Dragons and spotted a member of Organization XIII there. Mulan was chasing him, and we caught up to him and an army of Heartless birds on the summit of the mountain. I managed to beat him solo, and he ran off. Mulan and the others joined me, and we saw a huge Heartless Monster (the Stormrider) fly towards the city. We ran into another man in black (another member of Organization XIII), some Nobodies, and some Heartless on the way to the palace to warn the Emperor. We spoke with the Emperor, then went outside and fought the Stormrider. Like the Reaper, he was a tough foe. I used Mulan and Goofy's join attacks, then used the Chicken Little Summons. After beating the Stormrider, I moved on to the Beast's Castle.

Game updates, Ghost Rider weekend.

Well, I made more progress in "Kingdom Hearts II" : ran into cursed pirates and Jack Sparrow in Port Royal. We learned from Elizabeth that Will had gone to Isla De Muerta to see if something happened with the chest of Aztec gold. We went to see what was up and ran into Will on the Interceptor. A member of Organization XIII had stolen the chest. That same member showed up on our ship with the chest and a monster Heartless. After beating the monster, we confronted the hooded man. He said, "parley" and stole some of the gold pieces. The Interceptor got attacked and sunk by the Organization's ship. We wound up on an island, but Elizabeth came to our rescue with the Black Pearl. Jack joined my group (Goofy and myself), and we chased down Nobodies to recover the 4 pieces of stolen Aztec gold. All that remains is to confront Organization XIII back at Port Royal.....

You could say this was a Ghost Rider weekend for me. I went to see Ghost Rider (the movie) with Harry and Liz on Saturday. On Sunday, I was playing my "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" game and (after unlocking the character) played as Ghost Rider in Mephisto's Realm. I even ran the Ghost Rider simulation in Valhalla and barely managed to beat Baron Mordo in Mephisto's Realm. I used the projectile attack a lot, and I learned that Mordo could be injured by my fire attacks. I decided to switch out the Thing on my team's roster for Ghost Rider. If I ever unlock the remaining slots, then I may put Thing back in. Currently, my four heroes on the field are Captain America (classic), Spider-Man (classic), Iron Man (classic), and Spider-Woman (Secret Wars). My three standby's are now Human Torch, Iceman, and Ghost Rider. What do these characters all have in common? They all have range attacks.

Game update and some other stuff.

Played more "Kingdom Hearts II" on Friday night: I faced off with Nobodies at the Postern. After beating them, we (Goofy, Donald, and me as Sora) ran into Mickey at the Bailey on our way to join the fighting at Hollow Bastion between the Heartless and various Final Fantasy-esque characters. He wanted me to go look for Riku and Kairi, but I refused, and the others went with me. We ran into Demyx (the Organization XIII guy I encountered in the Underworld while looking for the Olympus Stone) and fought him. On my second attempt, I beat him (thanks largely to the joint attack with Goofy "Knocksmash" and the reaction command "Wild Dance"). During the next film clip, Goofy spotted someone hurling a large crystal at Mickey. He pushed Mickey out of the way and got stunned by the crystal. We thought he was finished, so we made our way to the Crystal Fissure. I teamed up with Leon and the woman in black from Ansem's study to fight various Heartless I encountered while running through the fissure. At the far end, Goofy rejoined us, to our delight. I fought dozens of Heartless in a ravine at the other end of the fissure. I used the reaction command a lot, seizing a floating robotic Heartless and using it like a ray gun to blast the Heartless warriors around me. After that, I encountered Axel. He explained that the Keyblade was unleashing Hearts every time I struck down a Heartless. The Hearts would drift in darkness until they linked with each other to form Kingdom Hearts. The leader of Organization XIII (Xemas) showed up and sent Axel away. Maleficient showed up, and there was a fight between her and some Nobodies. Somehow, Donald, Goofy, and I ended up on our Gummi Ship. I flew around and set us down in Port Royal where another adventure awaits.....

Other stuff: Harry came over on Saturday, and we watched The Emperor's New Groove on DVD. I had never seen it before, but Harry had and thought it was really funny. It was, and then we played "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance." I had a new memory card to use for the game, so we formed the team I wanted to play with (Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Woman II) at the first checkpoint in the game. We played our way from the Helicarrier to about two-thirds of the way through Atlantis. Today, I played alone as Iron Man and finished Atlantis, then gave Spider-Woman II a go and played through the Valley of Spirits. Harry loaned me a few movies on DVD, and I watched one of them today: Mosaic, an animated tale by Stan Lee about a teenage gal who gets super powers when lightning strikes an ancient artifact near her and goes on a quest to save her Interpol agent father from an ancient race of shapeshifting humanoids......

Another game update, movie with Harry.

I made more progress in "Kingdom Hearts II": a week ago today, I paid a visit to the Pride Land. My character (Sora) changed into a lion cub, Goofy turned into a turtle again, and Donald turned into some kind of parrot/cockatoo bird. I got to fight some weird Heartless that looked like bony animals. We encountered the hyennas, then got saved by a lioness. She said her pride was ruled by Scar, the brother of their former king, Mufasa. The land had suffered under Scar's rule, but the lioness didn't want our help dethroning Scar. We left the Pride Land, and I went to Atlantica. After a few tries, I finally got through the second musical number ("Part of Your World"). After that, it was back to Space Paranoids to give Tron the password (which turned out to be the names of the Disney Princesses). The MCP caught us, and we got sent to the game grid. I played the Light Cycle game and made it out after one of the tanks blew a hole in the wall. We got back to the Pit Cell and got the password to Tron. The MCP tried to take over, but Tron changed the password. We (Tron, Goofy, and I) headed to an I/O Tower, fighting Heartless on the way. I recently enabled Goofy and Sora's joint attack (knocksmash), so I got to use that a lot. At the Tower, we encountered and beat the Dangerous Program using the joint attack. Tron fixed the system, changing the password to Sora, Donald, and Goofy. I got the Photon Debugger Keyblade. After returning to the Ansem's study, we were asked by Leon to access the DTD database and download its data. That was everything from last Sunday.

This Friday (2/02), I was looking at a walk-through for the game and realized I wasn't done with the Pride Land. When I turned the game back on, I made a trip to the Pride Land. At Pride Rock, I wandered around and had a confrontation with Scar. Things started to look bad for us (especially when Pete showed up looking like a lion), but a lioness distracted Scar long enough for us to escape. We fought Heartless as we travelled across the land to the Oasis. While there, we met Simba (all grown up at this point). Nala (Simba's childhood friend) showed up, and we (including Simba) decided to go back to Pride Rock. During Simba's confrontation with Scar, Scar admitted to killing Mufasa. One of Simba's friends from the Oasis (Pumba?) had some troubles with the hyenas, but I was able to bail him out. We went to the top of the rock and watched Scar and Simba fight. For a minute, it looked like Scar was finished, but Pete showed up. Scar returned with new powers, and Goofy and I came to Simba's aid. Using the joint attack with Simba, we defeated Scar. I got the Circle of Life Keyblade. I returned to the Postern in Hollow Bastion and tried to access the DTD. The computer kept giving me errors, then a picture of Ansem the Wise appeared. Mickey showed up and explained the Ansem from the first Kingdom Hearts game was actually a Heartless version of the real Ansem. There was an explosion outside, and we went to investigate. There were Heartless and Nobodies fighting, but then they stopped fighting each other and went after me and my group. We beat them, and that's where I stopped for the weekend.

Today, Harry and I finally went to see Epic Movie. Aside from some gross stuff, it was a very funny movie. They parodied a lot of movies: The DaVinci Code, X-Men, the Harry Potter movies, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Nacho Libre, Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Snakes on a Plane, Superman Returns, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They also poked fun at Paris Hilton and MTV's "Cribs"