In some people’s Zelda codec, boat = monotony. Wind Waker’s Triforce trawl and irksome wind realignment did for many of you, leaving jaded gamers in its wake. Well, get over it. Although a canonical continuation of Wind Waker, this is a custom-built DS outing, determined to deliver more than a control-scheme makeover. From the moment Link plunges his hand into a chest and pulls out… nothing at all to an off-key discovery jingle, you know you’re in for something quite different.

Ignoring the under-nourished connotations; Hourglass is Zelda Lite – throwing out the end-of-the-world bombast that producer Eiji Aonuma usually can’t resist. Ganondorf’s gone and the only thing standing in the way of Link’s life of leisure is a phantom ship that whisks away his pirate chum Tetra. Hardly a classic villain – it’s a boat for crying out loud – but it fits perfectly with the scale of this particular adventure. Hourglass is a smaller, tightly choreographed romp – a portable experience through and through.

Gone is the sprawling ocean, wisely squeezing all the islands into a two-by-two world map that takes only five minutes to circumnavigate. Unlike Wind Waker, where the lonely doldrums above water made those few submerged Hyrulian moments oh-so-special, PH knows not to push its luck – you just chart a course on to the map with the stylus, and off you go.

Music soars, seagulls tailgate your vessel and Link stands proudly on deck, beaming at the impressive draw distance. This would have been enough for us soppy romantics, but Nintendo know more is needed to keep people on board (har har). And so golden frogs explode from the ocean froth, horse-racing fences rise and need a tap of the jump icon to traverse, and a variety of pirates and marine-based nasties taste canon ball, courtesy of highly responsive screen-tap cannon attacks.

Link is drawn towards the stylus like a moth to a flame, giving him a fluidity of movement that far surpasses the old-school dual axis movement of previous handheld Zeldas. With silky movement at their disposal, the designers are allowed to lob all manner of dexterous spatial tasks Link’s way.

Via some supernatural means, the titular Phantom Hourglass enables Link to wander the temple without choking on pink fog – but only as long as the sand flows. Guarded by the armored chasers, you have to traverse each floor without wandering into their Metal Gear-ish cones of vision – they’ll give chase should they spot you. One swipe from their swords and it’s back to that floor’s entrance, minus some time. Padding out the stealth sections of Wind Waker and combining them with the level of puzzling usually reserved for the toughest dungeons means you’ve got a Zelda innovation of serious note.

Deeper floors reveal new dungeons on the “outside” containing the items and sand required to go deeper still. You’d think the back and forth would grow tiresome, but the Sea King’s Temple has been designed with repeat visits in mind. It’s a stunning piece of level design, constantly unfolding in surprising new ways.

And items? How did we cope before? When you realize that the boomerang can spell out your name, there’s no question what a godsend stylus-driven items are. Not simply content with giving you huge amounts of control – drawing intricate paths for the boomerang and bombchu never grows old – they’ve found new things to do with the most tired of items. If the hookshot’s tightrope tricks don’t make it into the next Wii Zelda, there are going to be some angry letters.

Handheld honing will annoy some factions of the Zelda community, though. Despite sporting a solid 15-hour story, side quests aren’t as plentiful as we’d hoped. Cannon-shooting minigames and letter delivery tasks are fine, but the main “fairy stones” task is somewhat voided by it only really kicking in after the main quest – which was when you actually needed the power-ups offered as a reward. However, this is a tiny gripe.

Robson Street is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from Burrard Street to Jervis were also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia’s entry into the Canadian Confederation, and Premier of the province from 1889 to 1892. Robson Street starts at BC Place Stadium near the north shore of False Creek, then runs northwest past Vancouver Library Square, Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery, coming to an end at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.

As of 2006, the city of Vancouver overall had the fifth most expensive retail rental rates in the world, averaging US$135 per square foot per year, citywide. Robson Street tops Vancouver with its most expensive locations renting for up to US$200 per square foot per year. In 2006, both Robson Street and the Mink Mile on Bloor Street in Toronto were the 22nd most expensive streets in the world, with rents of $208 per square feet. In 2007, the Mink Mile and Robson slipped to 25th in the world with an average of $198 per square feet. The price of each continues to grow with Vancouver being Burberry’s first Canadian location and Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood (which is bounded on the south side by Bloor) now commanding rents of $300 per square foot.

In 1895, train tracks were laid down the street, supporting a concentration of shops and restaurants. From the early to middle-late 20th century, and especially after significant immigration from postwar Germany, the northwest end of Robson Street was known as a centre of German culture and commerce in Vancouver, earning the nickname Robsonstrasse, even among non-Germans (this name lives on in the Robsonstrasse Hotel on the street). At one time, the city had placed streetsigns reading “Robsonstrasse” though these were placed after the German presence in the area had largely vanished.

Robson Street was featured on an old edition of the Canadian Monopoly board as one of the two most expensive properties.

Best Song In THE WHOLE Universe. Hi! I hope you enjoy this video. If you did enjoy, please do a favor and like this video above which will really help, and you can subscribe, follow my Twitch channel and Twitter account below!

I’m not against giving people some general health advice, since I’ve been asked to do this again. I’m fine with sharing information that will help people. I would recommend, for example, that people not eat sushi and bacon all the time. The sticky rice that’s included in sushi isn’t a good thing for a person’s digestive system. Moreover, when you’re eating foods such as sushi or pizza, which are not easy to digest, it’s naturally best to drink unsweetened liquids. I’ve checked what sweetened liquids leave behind after they evaporate on a solid surface. So, don’t drink liquids such as soft drinks or tea with sugar when you’re eating pizza. Bacon is another food that’s best to avoid eating all the time, at least the bacon that’s sold in stores because it contains preservatives and additives. Preservatives especially can cause harm to a person’s digestive system. For those people that are already allergic to plant foods, and to plant-based foods and drinks such as coffee, cheese, chocolate, and teas, I’d first recommend avoiding to eat such foods and drinking such liquids if you don’t want to walk around with a stuffed nose for several hours. Boiling fruits and vegetables doesn’t help. You have to avoid eating fruits and vegetables altogether most of the time. Eating meats and cooked potatoes is allowed. What can help to soften, or even to eliminate, an allergic reaction to fruits and vegetables are probiotics. But probiotics have to be consumed at the same time as when you’re eating the food that you’re allergic to. Moreover, you can’t consume probiotics all the time because they’re costly. Most of the time, it’s best to simply avoid eating whatever you’re allergic to. And not all probiotics are helpful. My mother is the one who told me about some of this because she’s the only person that I know who knows a lot about such problems. She orders her probiotics, which actually do work, in capsule form by mail from the Russian Federation.

Since I was recently reminded of the fact that Dark Souls (2011) has some good locations where one can sit and look at the bonfire and to listen to its sound and the music that plays, I began to feel glad that I have a PlayStation 3 copy of this video game. As it turns out, the remaster of this game that got released in 2018 is quite flawed. I did make the mistake of buying the remaster on Steam at the end of 2021 because I didn’t know about its flaws when I bought it. Fortunately, I bought it when it was on sale, and now I know that it’s not really worth playing. I can’t comfortably play the remaster on my laptop anyway because the RAM of my laptop (Samsung Notebook 7 Spin) is 8 GB. The remaster runs quite slowly on my laptop because of this. By the way, I now have two Notebook 7 Spin laptops in my possession. When my first Notebook 7 Spin ceased to work at the beginning of 2022, I first reacted to this problem by buying another Notebook 7 Spin on eBay in used condition. At that time, I thought that I’d simply take the broken laptop’s 224 GB solid-state drive out and then put it in the replacement laptop that I bought on eBay. It’s because many of my useful and favorite files were stored on the broken laptop’s drive. The replacement laptop cost me about $430, but my first Notebook 7 Spin cost me about $1,000 in new condition. However, before the replacement laptop arrived by mail, I realized that my Notebook 7 Spin probably ceased to work because its motherboard broke down. Therefore, I then ordered a replacement motherboard on eBay for about $120. When I replaced the broken motherboard with the one that arrived by mail, my Notebook 7 Spin began to work again. Still, I already had a second Notebook 7 Spin by then. This second laptop was in very good condition, but a few of the keys on its keyboard didn’t work. I suppose that this was the reason why the previous owner decided to sell it and why the laptop didn’t cost all that much. However, the previous owner didn’t mention that the keyboard malfunctioned. Still, I wasn’t all that upset after the replacement laptop arrived by mail because I managed to fix my first Notebook 7 Spin without much trouble soon after. What’s interesting is that several months later the replacement motherboard of my first Notebook 7 Spin also broke down. I then ordered a second replacement motherboard on eBay. While I was waiting for this motherboard to arrive by mail, I took the working motherboard out of my second Notebook 7 Spin and put it in my first Notebook 7 Spin so that it would work again. When the second replacement motherboard arrived by mail, I put it in my second Notebook 7 Spin. After I did this, the laptop obviously began to work, but its keyboard also began to work properly again. Therefore, a slightly malfunctioning motherboard was also the thing that was causing my second Notebook 7 Spin to not work perfectly. Well, this is how I ended up with two Notebook 7 Spin laptops. I’m not complaining. It’s not a bad thing to have two good working laptops on my table. Anyway, I generally dislike remakes and remasters of video games, but they can be good on rare occasions. For example, Nintendo manages to release good remakes most of the time, or at least this used to be the case. I think that Metroid: Zero Mission (2004) is a good remake of Metroid (1986). Metroid: Zero Mission is an excellent, though somewhat difficult, video game for the Game Boy Advance that I finished playing in the second half of 2022. I finished playing its excellent sister game, Metroid Fusion (2002), at the beginning of 2021. Metroid Fusion is actually the game that made me appreciate side-scrolling action-adventure games because it’s one of the most memorable video games that I’ve played. It has excellent graphics and designs for a Game Boy Advance game, it has a good music score by Minako Hamano & Akira Fujiwara, and it has enjoyable and memorable boss battles like Nightmare, Serris, Security Robot B.O.X., Yakuza, Nettori, and Neo-Ridley. Moreover, it’s one of the most story-driven Metroid games in existence. However, Metroid Prime (2002) is the game that got me interested in the Metroid franchise. I finished playing it on my Wii U before I began playing Metroid Fusion. I wouldn’t call Metroid Prime one of my favorite games, but it’s undeniably one of the greatest video games of all time. Like Metroid Fusion, it’s also a very memorable gaming experience. Metroid Prime features a well-designed, desolate, and often beautiful-looking world. The only downside to playing Metroid Prime was that I had to play it with a Wii Remote on my Wii U. I’m not at all a fan of playing video games with the Wii Remote. Motion sensing controllers are generally a hassle to use, and the Wii Remote is one of several reasons why I don’t think favorably of Nintendo. For example, Super Mario Galaxy (2007) is one of the very best video games that I’ve played. The different galaxies in this game are incredible, and reading Rosalina’s storybooks was another highlight. But I had to play this game with a Wii Remote, and doing this was often discomforting. Some of the best video games of all time got released for the Wii console, but they can only be played with a Wii Remote, and I just hate Nintendo for creating this hassle. Sure, one can say that the Wii was a successful home video game console, and that Nintendo games are made mostly for children, but this doesn’t mean that I can’t point out the negatives that Nintendo has created. The Wii Remote is the only reason why I don’t look forward to playing Wii games. If the Wii Remote hadn’t existed, I would have been playing Wii games a lot more often. Damn it. Simply thinking about the Wii Remote makes me angry and puts me in a bad mood. I’ll have to stop typing and go and do something else because I feel irritated now. Well, I’m back. So, as much as I enjoyed playing video games like Metroid Prime, Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, I have to say that these gaming experiences were still somewhat hampered by the fact that I had to use a Wii Remote. Fortunately, I didn’t have to use a Wii Remote when I was playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker because I played the HD version on my Wii U. Although the original game for the GameCube is great, The Wind Waker HD is perhaps my second favorite Zelda game, after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There was a time a few years ago when I tried to finish playing every Zelda video game that I could get my hands on. Because of this, at that time, I managed to complete Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, A Link Between Worlds, The Minish Cap, and Ocarina of Time before I stopped and began playing other video games. When I was playing these games, I sometimes got help by watching video walkthroughs by ZeldaMaster on YouTube. I haven’t played all of the Zelda games yet, but I enjoyed playing all of the ones that I’ve listed. It’s possible that Twilight Princess would have been my second favorite Zelda game if I hadn’t had to use a Wii Remote when I was playing it. I can say that the HD version of The Wind Waker on the Wii U looks beautiful. Some of the bosses in the game, such as Molgera, Gohdan, and Gohma, are unforgettable. I had a good time traversing the Great Sea and discovering the secrets of the game’s world and looking for treasure and useful items. Since I’ve become a pro at playing Breath of the Wild, I can give some advice to players. First of all, get the Stealth Set, which can be bought in Kakariko Village, as soon as possible. While wearing the Stealth Set, Link can walk up to lizards and insects and easily catch them. Just don’t run while wearing the Stealth Set if you want to catch something. Otherwise, if Link doesn’t wear the Stealth Set, he has to crouch in order to catch anything. The Stealth Set provides little defense for Link, but, if it gets upgraded to the max at a fairy fountain, it becomes useful even in battle. Second of all, elixirs are often more important than food, especially at the beginning of the game, when Link’s stats are low. In order to make an elixir, you have to mix insects or lizards with monster parts when cooking something. Elixirs can help Link regain his stamina, boost his speed, raise his temperature, and do other useful things. If you have a variety of elixirs in your inventory, you don’t even have to change armor sets. You can always wear the Stealth Set, which is made by the advanced Sheikah tribe, and use elixirs when they are needed. Third of all, the abilities of the guardians are very useful in the game. The only problem is that you first have to take back control of the divine beasts before you can use them. Daruk’s Protection can be very useful in battles against guardians because it provides Link with an impregnable shield. If a moving guardian fires its laser three times while Link is using Daruk’s Protection, that guardian is toast. Urbosa’s Fury is very useful in any battle, but you first have to charge a spin attack in order to use it. Fourth of all, it’s best to first activate all of the Sheikah towers in Hyrule in order to have the ability to fast travel to any region. In addition, I can mention another place in the game where it’s nice to stay and listen to the music and the sounds. This place is the cave where Noya Neha Shrine is located, in Hyrule Field. You can stay there, look at the entrance of the cave, and listen to the music that plays. By the way, the landscape of Breath of the Wild was partially designed by Monolith Soft, which is the studio that made Xenoblade Chronicles X (2015) for the Wii U. Xenoblade Chronicles X is actually another good reason to own a Wii U, and it’s a pity that this game hasn’t been made available on the Switch. The massive open world of this game if filled with incredible sights. A player can use transformable Skell mechs to get around and to battle, and this is one of the biggest attractions of Xenoblade Chronicles X because the Skells look great and they allow a player greater mobility when they become available. The only big downside to the game is that its battle system is not at all easy to master. I’ve managed to finish the game a few years ago, but I still haven’t mastered the battle system, and I haven’t defeated any of the huge, powerful, and frightening creatures that are scattered across Mira. So, although the game’s open world is often a joy and a wonder to explore, the many creatures that inhabit it are not at all easy to beat.

Another good remake is Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen for the Game Boy Advance. Pokemon Red and Blue are great games that, with the aid of the first season of the Pokemon anime series, turned the Pokemon franchise into a sensation and brought enjoyment to many children after they got released. I even played Pokemon Red and Blue again, for the first time since I was a teenager, in the summer of 2021 in order to experience these games again. As in other great video games, some parts of these games are unforgettable, like when I explored Lavender Town and the haunted tower there, when I explored Cinnabar Island and the abandoned mansion there, when I finally reached Viridian City after going through Viridian Forest, when I explored the Team Rocket Hideout in Celadon City, and when I battled against the Elite Four on Indigo Plateau. Pokemon Red and Blue are actually full of memorable moments, and I’ve got to say that these games aren’t all that easy to finish. I’m a pro at playing Pokemon games because I’ve played them all (except the ones that got made for the Nintendo Switch). But beating the Elite Four in Red and Blue, for example, wasn’t all that easy. I couldn’t simply sleepwalk through these battles. As much as I enjoyed playing Red and Blue again, I’ve got to say that I prefer playing FireRed and LeafGreen more. I must admit that playing Red and Blue felt clunky for me. For example, you can’t store a large amount of items in these games. There’s a limit, and, if you want to store more items, you have to drop some of the items that you’re carrying in your inventory. It’s also worth mentioning that Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver are great remakes of Pokemon Gold and Silver. In fact, the graphics and designs in these games can even be called beautiful, and I think that HeartGold and SoulSilver are my favorite Pokemon games. HeartGold and SoulSilver are perhaps the last good remakes of Pokemon games that Game Freak has made. I’ve got to say that I wasn’t all that impressed by Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire for the Nintendo 3DS, although I like Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire very much, and I don’t even want to play Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl for the Switch. By the way, the magazine Retro Gamer released two issues (#135 and #161) that feature big articles about the Pokemon franchise. I have both of these issues in my possession. Anyway, my opinion is that most remakes are bad. Why this is the case is simple. Almost all remakes and remasters are of old and great video games. These old games are great because they were made by certain people at a certain time. The “magic” that these games produce can rarely be replicated by different people decades later in remakes. It’s not the graphics that make a good video game. It’s the art style and the craftsmanship. If these are combined with memorable music, sounds, and gameplay, a great video game emerges. Simply creating newer, more detailed graphics won’t improve the experience but will only make it worse most of the time if the art style and the craftsmanship are different or if they’re worse. Therefore, Shadow of the Colossus (2018) and Demon’s Souls (2020) are bad remakes because, although their graphics are newer and more detailed than in the originals, the art style and the craftsmanship are worse. These remakes are poor imitations of great originals. I’m glad that I looked a the gameplay footage from these remakes on the internet before considering to buy them. So, when it comes to video games, remakes and remasters are almost always a big no no for me.

Hey, I need a glass of CAVEMAN.

The centennial of Ronald Reagan has just gone by. The former President is highly praised in the media, but in reality there is much evidence that Ronald Wilson Reagan did far more to harm the people of this country and this world than to better their conditions. Both at home and abroad, his legacy is one of gross economic injustice and interventionist foreign policy that led to widespread human rights abuses and mass murder. Reagan’s indifference to and the aiding and abetting of foreign atrocities committed in the name of anti-communism place a shadow of doubt on his “democratic” character as well as the methods he used to supposedly win the Cold War. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, United States support for anti-democratic regimes abroad reached an all-time high, culminating in massacres and even genocide.

The United States government, with President Reagan’s blessing, gave hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to dictatorial and fascist regimes in Latin America. Military governments and death squads received weapons, training and financing for decades even as they committed horrid atrocities.

“The death toll [resulting from US/CIA funding] was staggering — an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political ‘disappearances’ in Honduras and some [200,000] people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala” (Parry).

In Guatemala particularly, there was an internationally-recognized genocide of Maya inhabitants, who were seen as collectively subversive supporters of leftist guerrillas. “The one consistent element in these slaughters [in Central America] was the overarching Cold War rationalization, emanating in large part from Ronald Reagan’s White House” (Parry). All of these movements’ activities were well-known, and yet the Reagan administration’s policy remained unchanged.

The social effects of Reagan’s free market economic policies are rarely discussed in any serious manner in the mainstream media. Praise of the economic miracle that supposedly happened during his presidency is lavish. However, there is much evidence that Reagan’s policies only contributed to the well-being of a small percentage of the population of the United States. “While the richest one percent of the U.S. population saw its financial wealth grow 109 percent from 1983 to 2001, the bottom two-fifths watched as its wealth fell 46 percent” (Smith). In addition, “between 1983 and 1998 the average household net worth of the poorest 40% in the U.S. declined 76%” (Smith). In the eyes of many scholars in economics, Reagan’s presidency was marked by “a mean-spirited, economically unsound, and socially destructive policy agenda” (Miller).

Many praise Reagan’s tax cuts as creating an economic boom, but in fact “most low-income taxpayers missed out on the Reagan tax cuts […] [f]or the richest 1%, on the other hand, the Reagan tax cuts were pure elixir” (Miller). Any serious study of economic data from the period indicates that “Reaganomics” failed to achieve its stated economic boom. “When mainstream economists, such as Barry Bosworth and Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution, checked out the effects of the 1981 tax cut, they found […] men didn’t work much more at all; although women did work longer hours, their earnings failed to improve” (Miller). While the voodoo economics of the Reagan era certainly helped out those who were already well off, the “economic boom” wasn’t felt so much by working people.

Most will also remember the greatly increased military spending of the Reagan era, including CIA operations worth billions of dollars. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Soon after, “[d]uring the tenure of President Ronald Reagan, military aid to the [Afghan] mujahideen was greatly expanded and included various sophisticated munitions including advanced Stinger anti-aircraft missiles” (Lansford 3). Under the rule of Islamic fundamentalism brought about with Reagan’s help, Afghanistan has seen little improvement since, has legalized rape and supplies 80% of the world’s heroin trade.

This aggressive and interventionist foreign policy was pursued by the Reagan administration from its very beginning—in 1983, the Reagan White House invaded the small country of Grenada, an act which was condemned by the U.N. General Assembly as a violation of international law.

That same year, the Reagan administration bombed Libya and funneled huge sums of money to the Nicaraguan Contras, anti-communist death squads responsible for well-known atrocities in the Nicaraguan Civil War. Reagan was also a hard-line supporter of Israel and approved of its aggressive war against Lebanon.

Clearly, Reagan’s foreign and domestic policy cannot be reconciled with his media portrayal as a purveyor of human rights, justice and freedom. In fact, “[f]rom his eight years in the White House, [….] there are grounds to regard Reagan as the single worst purveyor of mass atrocity in the western hemisphere during the twentieth century. Very little of this surfaced in the nauseating encomiums to Reagan in the US media following his death in 2004” (Jones 146-147).

Reagan, who was allowed to die peacefully in his bed, could easily be counted as one of the greatest criminals of the 20th century, and certainly did not deserve the mantle of a fighter for democracy.