I’ve encountered a bit of a snag in several games.

In Tales of Phantasia, I am entrenched in the the Forest of Ymir, which has numerous paths branching out in all directions without any sense of direction. I was told by an NPC that I should “enlist the services of the wildlife”, which I assume means “go through the exit that has animals nearby”. However, this does not work like it did in Tales of Symphonia, so I have been wandering around recklessly for hours.

In Metroid Prime Hunters, I was stuck, until Kevin managed to point out the vast wealth of areas open to me in the Celestial Archives. I have no obtained 5 Octoliths, and 5 weapons (WMDs). As a result, I am only missing Trace’s disturbingly powerful sniper rifle. Upon acquiring it, I will become the most elite bounty hunter in the galaxy.

As for Tetris, well, I’ve got some decent scores. I have 1.5 million in Catch, and a little over 100 000 in Standard. The Touch mode and Puzzle mode are coming along nicely, as is the Mission mode. The Push mode is giving me grief. I have no luck with it whatsoever. I keep losing.

After playing Tetris for a while, I got bored and decided to see if - by some act of God - my DS could connect to the Nintendo Wi-Fi network using my piece of shit router. To my surprise, it did. And I was able to get four matches of Tetris in before my DS died on me. I scored 3rd, 3rd, 1st and 2nd. It was decent for my first outing on the web.

All in all, these games are good fun. When my DS is charged, I’m going to try playing Metroid Prime Hunters on Wi-Fi, now that I have learned of the possibility being available. Will I get my ass kicked? I hope so, otherwise it might not be interesting.