We moved to Tumblr.

As you may have noticed, our blog has been collecting dust, we are not dead.

In the light of trying to blog again, we have moved to tumblr.

Visit Respawn Point at:

http://respawnpoint.tumblr.com/

2012 (2009) - Movie Review

The Year 2012 - Back story

Lets start from the beginning about the whole controversy regarding the year 2012. It is said that their is going to be huge event occurring in the year 2012 that will affect the lives of everybody in the entire world. Based on my readings and overview, I have heard the following:

1.) The world is going to end.

2.) The world will be govern as 3 different branches of government.

3.) The world will rid of the human race.

4.) Sidd will go outside and get a life.

There is a lot of talk, I personally think its all just hype. You remember when they said the world was going to end in the year 1599, 1701, 1850, 1979, 1999?

I don't either...lol...but what I'm trying to say is, they said, "The world will end," throughout history. Has it happen, sure why not, it may have happened plenty of times before our faggetry raided and polluted the Earth, but to accurately analyze our doom? Come on... :\

And so, all the hype, media attention, and controversy lead us to various films, cartoons, flashes, and other types of media about 2012. And the biggest one is the recent theatrical film, 2012

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2012 is a science fiction film was written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich. The story as a whole is obviously the destruction of the Earth, but I honestly think the real challenge the film had to face was storyline, which...actually did pretty well to my opinion.

This film has a multiple set of characters and story lines happening at same time. I usually do not enjoy this method of film at all, but to my surprise, it was well done because all the characters came together at the end and it made sense.

The first set of characters is a group of scientists and political people that predict the odd occurrences happening all over the world. The second is an average family who's father works for a very rich person as a limo driver. And finally, the last group are rich people. All characters have their own set story that intertwine with each other along the way.

Towards the end of the film, we see a logical live action portrayal of "The Arc" being seen just as the bible or some myth/legend story said. Where all animals get into this big boat and survive the big flood. Well, you will see something like this, but in a modern depiction.

The film was greatly done, the cgi effects are unbelievable and astonishing. It makes a person feel very little in the world and leaves the audience in shock that if this really were to occur, we are all doomed. An exciting movie to leave someone thinking, but please don't take it seriously, the world will end when it does. This is only a movie!

Sidd approves of this film :)

lol, sorry I haven't blogged in so long <3, been busy with college ya know. I only worked out today for the first time in a month and I gained weight. >.<

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – Quick Review

In a world where most gamers will never get to experience the pure joy that was Super Mario RPG, we must all suffice for this spiritual successor. Will it be full of the great JRPG action, fantastic support characters, and amazing story we’ve come to expect from the original title? Well, not really. I find the dialogue to be a bit childish. No, sorry, it’s really childish. Is this a big problem? Not really. I just find it a bit off and really just shows the new kind of Nintendo we’re dealing with. Or maybe I’ve just matured over it all, don’t know. Well what does it do right?

Gameplay.

Like the previous Mario & Luigi titles, this DS title uses what it’s given in spades. The X, Y, A, B interface control different elements and all focus on whichever character they have been assigned to. The brothers are controlled using the lower two buttons, A + B, while the now playable character Bowser uses the top two buttons, Y + X. This allows for more input from the player when both attacking and defending. Each enemy and boss has it’s pattern of attacks and it’s up to the player to find each tell and plan around them. Maybe the enemy lifts his leg toward a certain character, expect that attack and jump, punch, or maybe don’t do anything respectively. It’s a great addition to the tired old turn base system that I love so dearly. (The Pokemon series could learn a thing or two from it.) New specials for your characters are found by the traditional Mario styled platforming outside of the game. Since, throughout most of the game, you’ll be inside of Bowser, the plumber duo will have to accomplish certain tasks to help their villain turned home through his obstacles. These small mini-games throw in a little change that is needed after so many battles. Leveling up allows for the player to choose a certain quality and add a few more points through a slot machine style number generator. With a keen eye and some good timing, the player can often land the highest points each time (also helps to check each one to see which has the highest gain.)

As I had already said, the story is a bit childish (as well as the main villain) but with the familiar cast of characters and the amazing gameplay quality, there is no reason you shouldn’t own this title for your NDS.

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Must Play!

As close as you’ll get to Super Mario RPG in handheld form.

Halo 3 ODST – Game Review

The Xbox Live servers are going to be on fire this weekend. Halo 3 ODST finally dropped down into stores this week, with a new campaign, new characters and enemies, new guns (and the addition of an old favorite), as well as a new match type that changes the way you play Halo.

Campaign

The campaign starts off with an introduction to your main character, The Rookie. A silent new recruit who everyone believes if very wet under the ears. You are also introduced to the four other ODST members. Buck, a main contributer to the main story line of this title, takes on the role of leader, even if other members find reasons to dislike him. Romeo is always carrying his trusty sniper on him and arguing with Buck as mentioned, Mickey is the explosives expert of the group, and Dutch is the all out assault trooper. Each one has a different way of playing (well as much as you can get out of the Halo gameplay), and you experience them through your travels as the rookie. The ODST group is dropped down in their HEVs (Human Entry Vehicles) on a mission to assault Regret’s ship (Halo 3 villain.) Just as they were going to land, Dare (a UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence agent and person of interest to Buck) changes their trajectory and forces the squad to drop into New Mombasa. The Rookie is unlucky enough to crash into another HEV on his way down and stays unconcious for six hours. From this point on you take control of The Rookie (who plays like a weak Master Chief.) You’ll notice right away that you have the same SMG from the past two titles but it has been silenced (adding to the feeling of being a human and not a Spartan) as well as the return of the Halo 1 pistol (though it much more balanced.) You won’t be capping everything in three shots or less, but if you play it right, the pistol can be the most deadly and sought after gun in the game. Other balanced guns include the Shotgun and Plasma Pistol. The Shotgun has been amazingly weakened and may take every shell on one load to kill a single brute, while the Plasma Pistol has returned to it’s supreme grace of homing and removing all shields that cover the victim (a welcomed friend to the pistol.) The Plasma Rifile, Carbine,  and Assault Rifile make a return to the game, while the deadly Battle Rifle of Halo 3 has been removed (again probably for balance.) The ODST members cannot dual wield their guns as Master Chief does, but they do get to carry one extra grenade each. Also, the energy shield of the past games have been replaced with a stamina meter and health bar. The stamina bar acts like the energy shield if you only had quarter of it at all times. The stamina makes the ODST more realistic, as you begin to hear them breathe harder during tough fights as they try to recover. Now, before you say that the ODST are a bunch of weaklings, they do have one tool that can help out in the dark new stages of the title. VISR mode allows the player to see through the darkness and even highlight key targets or items around them. Enemies will have a solid border around them as well as key items glowing with a distinct shine. The troopers also use their VISR to show their next checkpoint or whichever position you need to go.

New Mombasa plays out like a large sandbox, in which, The Rookie plays hide-and-seek with his fellow members beacons. It can be quite frustrating having to walk these long distances with a shotty radar and nothing really to do. You’ll encounter a Covenant group at times, but it never becomes a really heated battle. You can also search for the audio tapes located at random glowing terminals throughout New Mombasa (sorta like Bioshock’s tapes) that tells a side story of what happened to New Mombasa. Once you reach the beacon you must search for some clue as to what happened to each of your ODST companions. (For some reason picking up the said item and acting like a complete child with it is how The Rookie finds clues.) Once found, you take control of that trooper and play through his role during the six hours The Rookie was out. Each segment has it’s own enjoyable moments, but really makes the game feel like just an expansion of Halo 3. The truly great moments in the game are found toward the end of the title when you really take control of The Rookie and get to show off what you can do. I don’t want to really mention all the details but you do discover a new alien creature (later called The Engineer) and it’s questionable if the creature is on your side or on the Covenants. It’s also nice to know that the AI in the game still has no clue how to control a vehicle (often the biggest moments in the game as well as the hardest.) If the AI is driving you, be prepared to be flipped over or stuck on the oddest things, only to likely be killed by the Wraith that you should have been avoiding that entire time. Also if you’re driving, it’ll most likely make that particular level three times longer then it should be. The AI does not, NOT, know how to control the gatling gun in the warthogs. I’m sorry but you don’t have to pace your fire..you just hold the god damn trigger!

All around a more enjoyable campaign than Halo 2 as well as Halo 3, though those two were much longer. The true shine of Halo 3:ODST is covered in the next section.

Firefight

The true reason to buy Halo 3 ODST is the new gametype, Firefight. You choose your trooper of choice (starting with the Rookie) and face off against an unbelievable amount of Covenant soldiers. Think Left 4 Dead survivor mode with a Halo twist to it. The troopers are given seven lives to start and must share them amongst the players. The maps vary from wide open spaces to tight quarter sections, all based on game maps. Windward (one of the later stages in the campaign involving Romeo’s story) is my favorite of all the maps. It’s the perfect mixture of indoor and outdoor segments to allow an even map all around, plus you start off with a sniper. Gameplay is measured through sets of three stages, separated by six reinforcement drops. The last of the reinforcements drop is always the hardest, normally involving two hammer brutes (maybe four depending on your difficulty) and a collection of jetpack flying Brutes. After the last drop, the troopers are given two additional lives as well as a chance at a few more if they achieve a certain amount of points during the 60 second bonus round. During these bonus rounds, all skulls are turned on and only grunts are spawning.

You might be saying, “Oh that doesn’t sound too difficult..” Well try racking up the points with the skulls on. Lucky Throw for instance makes any passing grunt a potential death, as grenade after grenade explodes around you. Maybe you were unlucky and Black Eye was activated. With Black Eye, you must melee just to recover your stamina, an almost impossible act when playing on Legendary.

The only tips I can give for those brave enough to join the firefight is:

1. Conserve your pistol ammo. You can get away with using the submachine gun and using Covenant dropped weapons. Especially when sharing the ammo between other players over co-op.

2. Plasma Pistol is your best friend. Believe me, if you want to clear out a group of Brutes, nothing is better than the Plasma Pistol and Pistol. It’ll even earn you the achievement.

3. Learn how to get around the brutes for assassinations. Very important for those troubling Brute Captains and Hammer Brutes.

4. Avoid view of vehicles on Legendary. They are killers!

Join the firefight today!

Theater ODST

Two words: No Rewind.

The f$#k Bungie? Alright maybe..maybe I can understand not putting it in. I did read about the trouble the devs had putting it in the first time. But really…why couldn’t you just copy it from Halo 3 Mythic? You eventually got it right the first time guys. :/ It’s really hard going through a 3 hour firefight match only to notice you skipped the part you wanted to record by accident…

Halo 3 Mythic

ODST comes with two discs. The first involves everything listed above, and the second disc covers the best feature of the original Halo 3, the multiplayer. The original 21 maps on a single disc as well as the new addition of Citadel, Heretic, and Longshore.

Finally! A remake of Midship from Halo 2. One of the more enjoyable maps (really anything from Halo 2 was enjoyable..except for the campaign mode) from the previous title and is every bit as the original. From jumping to the top of the map, to the placement of every single weapon, as well as design. A perfect remake unlike that terrible remake of Lockout.

A very tiny map compared to most. Citadel has most of the best weapons just out in front of the players spawn, ready for the opposing teams to fight over. Rockets for example are smack dab in the middle of the map, similar to the Halo 1 map Prisoner.

The largest map of the three. Longshore is like playing on a harbor. It even has a few boats on the underside that you can knock into the water.

I can’t say much about these maps since I never actually get to play them (thanks Bungie), but I can at least say that Heretic is a welcome addition to the otherwise boring maps that have been released. Something about the Halo 3 Multiplayer just makes me dislike it more and more over time.

Amazing trailer with Live Action characters of the series. Why hasn’t this series become a Live Action movie yet? Jesus Hollywood sucks.

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Rating: Must Play!

It’s a bit on the short side, but the introduction of Firefight is just something that no Halo fan can pass up. Plus that addition of the Halo 3 Mystic disc, makes it cheaper than buying up all the map packs separately. You have no reason to buy this title and enjoy it. Unless you hate Spartans. O_o!

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 – Game Review

Haven’t played the original Dirt yet? You haven’t experienced the raw joy of winning the Le Mans in Grid? THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! You have another chance now so don’t screw it up! Dirt 2 brings the excitement of rally fun with the great gameplay of Grid and makes one hell of a racer.

What’s back from the original? Pretty much just the style of the game. A few weak points from the original was it’s lack of enthusiasm in the actual rallying. It got you into the race, did the track notes and the course maps great, but if you weren’t racing, you weren’t doing anything. Really, don’t get me wrong I loved Dirt, but this new title just does everything right.

What’s new in Dirt 2?

The addition of a cast of real Rally drivers from the likes of Ken Block (as you can see blasted on the cover poster), Dave Mirra, Travis Pastrana, and many others that you can befriend throughout the game and partner up with.

Profiles can be filled in with your name (if you’re lucky and have a simple name) so that the rally stars can call you by your name during the menu selections and races. It’s a cool addition compared to Grid when they only used nicknames (which you can still do if your name isn’t listed..)

Menu selection has become surprisingly realistic. Again like Grid, the menus move to certain areas depending on what you choose. For Dirt 2 you move between the outside section, littered with your fans, your car, and the Rally set up and inside of your trailer, where you can choose to play the dirt tour, multiplayer or check the options. Dirt Tour is shown off a world map and lets you choose which region you’ll be racing in as well of which course type you want to play.

Great music plays during the menu selection screens as well as after you win your races, getting you nice and pumped for the next race. Music like “Little Sister” by Queens of the Stone Age, “To Lose My Life” by White Lies, and others.

There are a few different game types including rally, rally cross, trailblazer, land rush, last man standing, gate crasher and throwdowns, and raid.

Rally: This game type follows the generic time trial with the track notes for when turns are coming up and what speed you should be going to make it. You can choose who you want to read the notes (between some chick and some guy) and how detailed they are about them. I actually love how they react when I suddenly decide to do a barrel roll in the car and hear them continue to read the notes.

Rally Cross:  The main attraction of the Dirt series,  lets you race against the many legends in the game and share some paint with them.

Trailblazer (my favorite of them all): A mix between a time trial and a normal race. Each racer starts at a certain interval after the racer before them and is timed throughout. The racer with the fastest lap time wins and it’s just amazing for those speed junkies who like knowing that their doing good when they overtake another racer who started a few seconds ahead of them.

Land Rush: A little bit like King of the Hill. The racers follow two laps on a course that’s been breaken up into five sections. Depending on the time each racer passes a sector they are given a place. First place offers 10 points, second place offers 8 points, etc. During the second lap, racers can either hold on to their respected position on that sector or dominate a section and win first place. Racer with the most points wins.

Last Man Standing: As the name says, you need to be the last racer still on the course. Staying out of last place is the goal as every 20 seconds a new racer is eliminated. Stay infront and stay victorious.

Gate Crasher: This fun, mini-game of sorts, is great for learning the turns of each course as well as just being enjoyable to play. The gates are placed throughout the twists and turns and you must drive your car through them to break it. Each break adds +2 seconds to your time and the racer with the most time wins.

Throwdowns: Seems like someone’s been winning their races and the pros have noticed. In certain regions, the pros of the rally world will challenge you to a one-on-one in their specific specialties. Winning means earning some respect and a new life long friend.

Raid: It’s like the Rally Cross of the truck world. Everyone gets their own gigantic truck (or tank if you’re using the Hummers) and races with the full force of the beasts. Pretty entertaining to see the pick-up trucks going sideways.

Each new race is unlocked on your map and lets the player travel to such hotspots as London (Battersea Power Station), Morocco, China, Japan (Shibuya), United States (Los Angeles, Baja, and Utah) and Malaysia. Each offering up a unique experience to get your car dirty.

Now lets talk about the beautiful cars the player gets to choose from.

- Subaru Impreza WRX STi n14 (Best for Rally/Rally Cross.)
- Subaru Impreza WRX STi n12
- Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX
- Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X (Great for Gate Crasher.)
- Mitsubishi Eclipse GT (Love this car for Trailblazer.)
- BMW M4 Coupe Motorsport
- Pontiac Solstice GXP
- Nissan 350z
- Colin McRae R4
- Hummer HX
- Toyota FJ Cruiser
- Mitsubishi Racing Lancer
- Chevrolet Silverado CK-1500
- Honda Ridgeline Trophy Truck
- Dodge Ram Trophy Truck

As well as a few more cars, trucks, and unlockables. Each car will have to be bought (besides your initial Impreza, driven by Colin McRae. RIP.) and will needed to be upgraded depending on what race it will be used in. Each new rank (Rookie, Pro, All-Star) will also add on upgrades to make your car fast enough to hang with the big boys. You’ll even get to outfit your cars with windshield and dashboard toys. My personal favorite is the 360 Avatar that hangs by it’s leg and dangles around as you make your turns. Finally a good use for them!

All those races won’t just count for your paychecks, as a new level up system has been added to the game. Each new level unlocks a new race and large milestones may unlock a new country to visit or one of the bigger events like the X-Games or World Tours. Depending on what difficulty you put it on, ranging from easy to hardcore, you’ll earn some extra green and may have more of a challenge. The difficulty also determines how many instant replay saves you get.

Multiplayer also gets some love with the level up system as you race in pro mode or just fool around in the unranked races. (Sort of like Call of Duty or Halo..which is a nice add on for people who want to achieve something.) The multiplayer is well rounded and fair, but I’ve seen some weird things happening while racing. Cars would start floating as they race down the track and sometimes disappear. Hopefully a patch can fix it, even though it never effected the races badly. Along with the multiplayer races are the tournaments in which a certain task must be accomplished. This week for example is a time trial on Battlesea Power Station. Everyone is ranked by the leaderboard and thrown into ranks such as 1st, 2nd, top 10%, top 100%, and earn points to up their multiplayer rank.

Any problems with Dirt 2?

Just a few that seem like they could have been added on quickly.

My first problem is the lack of cars. It was a similar problem in Grid but both games have such great gameplay that it feels like a minor trade off. Also I really can’t think of another car that would qualify under the Rally flag besides just the older Evo generations and maybe the Dodge SRT.

My second problem involves that wonderful instant replay that Codemasters has created. We can see the new trend of being able to record and even edit (thanks Uncharted 2 <3 you sex ps3 exclusive I’ll end up having to waste money on) in game clips for such purposes at Machinima movies and just showing off. But, those great gods that have given us lowly mortals such a fantastic racer…didn’t even give us the option to record our crazy stunts! Instead I get to rewatch my own performance..and share it with no one! That great barrel roll I landed a mile away from the finish line will never be seen because of this! Unbelievable Codemasters! I expect more from you!

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Rating: Must Play!

You get a great experience out of this game that I never really see in racing games before them (I’m talking about you Need for Speed!) I’d like to see how this game is going to compare to NFS: Shift even though they’re two different racing styles. Maybe EA has actually remembered that racing isn’t about pimping your car. :3

District 9 - Movie Review

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(This following blog post is written in a personal perspective view, it is fan made to be like as if I am in the world of the movie, but I am still living in the same area as a college student.)

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Web Log Entry #0146

Title: Regarding the District 9 Situation

Time: Friday April 11, 2010 10:03 P.M.

Well, the aliens were around ever since I can remember. I was born about 5 years after they crash landed at Johannesburg, South Africa in 1982. My dad told me about how the whole world literally stopped what they were doing and focused all their attention on the  massive spaceship which was just simply hovering over the city like God finally came to Earth.

Its pretty interesting to be in the first generation of children to encounter aliens because we tend to feel a bit more comfort-able then our parents do. We been living on Earth with the aliens all our lives that we just saw it as a natural occurrence. As me and my friends grew up, we were told to refer the aliens as Prawns. They looked like humanoid insects, kind of like a cockroach, but that's my opinion. None the less I’m probably more uglier anyway.

My friends and I would literally have a whole line of discussions about the future of Earth itself if the aliens were to continue to live here. We would predict that either we or future generation of kids would go to school with aliens someday and many other surprising changes in order to co-exist with the aliens. I honestly wouldn’t want to go to war with them. Based on the news reported to us about their weapon design, I would never want to mess with that, especially the gravity gun…I hear someone got killed by a pig when it was launched from the gun. I would never want to mess with that.

Well, as my dad told me, he said that the military cut their way into the spaceship and found a mass amount of Prawns just nearly dying of starvation, so they setup an area below the spaceship and called it District 9, and sheltered the Prawns until they can raise them to good healthy condition.

It was suppose to be the beginning of a bright new future for mankind and the Prawns, working together to live in harmony, paving the way for a better tomorrow, however, it never turned out that way. District 9 became a slum for the Prawns and was boxed up with fences and high military guards.

People are wondering what is going on? The media is telling us one thing and the illegal underground news feed is giving us real horrifying stories about what we the human society is really doing to the aliens. It was said that they were experimenting on the aliens, trying to figure out how humans can use alien weapons, and even murdering them, all in the name of research and advancement. Now that's fucked up, your destroying a person’s life.

And then came an organization called MNU, Multinational United. I personally believed they were a bunch of faggets thinking they can do whatever the hell they want with the aliens without their given rights. I mean come on now, their spaceship isn’t working, they got no where to go, and now they want them to move 200 miles away from the city. They planned to move them to a new shelter and call it District 10.

While MNU tried to evict the Prawns out of District 9, something happened to one of the workers. I don’t remember what his name was but he was in charge of the operation. I think his name was Wikus van de Mery? Or was it Merwe? Names really don’t mean anything nowadays, but anyway, we were told that he had sex with a Prawn and got infected that made him mutate into a Prawn. Everybody was shocked by the images of him having sex doggy style with a Prawn, which was literally in every magazine, newspaper, and the internet. It was actually pretty hilarious when people made comics, parodies, flashes, etc etc. The best was AmazaFAIL’s new song, “Prawna Lover”.

Then come the conspiracy theorist talking about the mysterious control ship that fell off the mothership, I can’t believe they made an entire 20 minute documentary about some mysterious object falling from the mothership. Then there was one about how Wikus was actually tortured into being a research specimen for MNU, one clip they showed of him firing the alien weapons looked pretty real…but then again it may have been edited with special effects. Later it talked about him escaping from the secret lab 4 stories under MNU.

I honestly don’t know what to believe, the year is 2010, the spaceship that was hovering over south africa was said to have started and left earth shortly after. Maybe Wikus managed to escaped MNU and ran away to the spaceship. Not sure why he left 1.9 million Prawns on Earth, should have taken them with him or something. Now the population is 2.5 million in District 10, where they were all moved to, and their clearly here to stay now, since the spaceship is gone. Or maybe it wasn’t Wikus, maybe whoever was the pilot of that ship finally got it to work and left to get help. However…if the underground source is right and the media was lying to us the whole time, I wonder if they would wage war on us?

Who knows what the future might hold. Until then, I should just stop thinking about current affairs and just focus on my school work and how I’m going to shoot this film for my final exam. Hope my friends are available Wednesday Night. Damn…its getting late, there's so much I wanted to say, but I blanked out, I always seem to do this, maybe I’ll write down main ideas and topic focuses before I make a blog before hand.

Anyway, goodnight and thanks for reading my fellow subscribers. <3 All 6 of you.

Log End….Saturday, April 12, 2010 2:15 A.M.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - Game Review

One thing I loved about my birthday this year was the fact that the sequel to a game I absolutely loved was released. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is puzzle game that takes you far and beyond the brain activity you're used to. It makes you think really hard to solve one puzzle, and then tricks you with a simple answer for the next. Professor Layton and the Curious Village was a great DS game, and this new sequel is no less than magnificent in all ways.

The game begins with the introduction of the story- a murder. What would a mystery game be without MURDER?! Apparently, Professor Layton receives a letter from his mentor about a mysterious box that is rumored to be cursed; the "if you open it you die" curse...haven't heard that before...

So Professor Layton, being the wonderful Englishman he is, decides to take a trip to Dr. Schrader's house to make sure all is well since the dude hasn't been answering phone calls. He takes Luke along, his trusty apprentice, and they head into their next mystery.

I don't like spoilers so I refuse to release more info about the storyline, as it does have its twist and turns and it surely does have its laughs. I will tell you that our beloved Flora does make a cameo but I will leave it at that since other people do as well.

The sequel does not disappoint with the different levels of puzzles and interesting new Look & Finds. After rebuilding a camera (you get the camera parts by answering puzzles correctly), the feature to take screen shots of certain areas is available allowing you to go into Layton's briefcase to solve look & find puzzles.

Another nice addition is a sort of mini game that can be played whenever you need a mind break. During the game you meet a cook who has a hamster in his kitchen, yes i know its disgusting...but you feel bad because the hamster is very overweight and you feel the need to help him lose weight. By solving puzzles correctly you get little toys and healthy snacks for this hamster which you then set-up on a board to make him walk to each item with-in 3-steps of him. It's a good mini-game and a little tricky.

The last new addition to the briefcase which has little to do with the story line i the ability to make tea. Yes, you read that correctly..Layton and Luke can now make tea for the people they are interviewing. The trick is, they all want something specific and the only way to make the tea is by unlocking the ingredients by answering certain puzzles correctly. Each tea has a distinct quality to it. Some teas make you feel better, others make you feel refreshed..one even makes you feel beautiful (I wish I had that one).

I feel the new add-ons to the briefcase a re important to the game's success. I know that I have spent a large amount on a puzzle and was happy with the outcome of it leading to a piece of my camera, or a new ingredient...or a POOL for my hamster (which I named Noodle). The add-ons give you a sense of accomplishment besides the normal picarats you get from puzzles.

The game puts a new twist on the puzzles since you can now open the Memo Pad separately a-top the puzzle making it easier to work on a difficult puzzle and be able to switch between your notes and the actual puzzle screen.

All in all, I love this game. I play it when ever possible, not only because of the puzzles, the hamster, tea time, and a mysterious box that is rumored to kill those who opens it...but because I'm just head over hells in gamer love with Layton! There...the cats out of the bag!