Catfighting, circa 2325

First, a history lesson:

Way back, ages past, OSK and j_vert tried a new game out for size (no idea where I was at the time, but if you ask them, the response would probably be "somewhere lame"). They went for Metroid Prime, on ye olde gamecube. Turns out the in-game map isn't bad, but j_vert's internal mapping abilities left them mostly lost (sorry man, truth hurts).

After this failed attempt, OSK revisited the game with myself months later. We beat and bludgeoned our way through about 20-25% of the game before hitting a wall. We spent a good amount of time wandering around with no idea of where to go before giving up and moving on. And so metroid remained until just recently.

Now, I've been taking solo hits at it in my spare time. A few days ago, I finally passed the high water mark of the koopon-OSK team, and managed to steam ahead. The exploration and adventure elements have really been great so far, and the difficulty has been easy enough this time through that I've been able to use a pretty cavalier attitude towards health and saving. No longer. I finally reached a section that has a succession of actually difficult encounters, all with net loss of health and annoyingly effective enemies. So, today I've died 3 times without reaching a new save point. The hardcore gamer in me is thrilled- perfect chance to get some real gaming done. But the casual gamer in me is disappointed. It's been really nice, just kinda cruising through things, nothing so difficult as to really frustrate me (j_verts should appreciate this, considering how he does rts).

So yeah, I figured I'd let y'all know what's been happening on this, and I think I might keep this up, especially if the difficulty keeps increasing. Also if my theory about red energy balls is true (they were totally +50 in the beginning, not +20. I swear!).

And one last thing: anyone know what breaks benezidium? It's frakking EVERYWHERE. ugh.