Polling Station

So, I’ve decided to run a little poll, much like mooog35 does with his blog in order to identify what weirdo's are actually taking their time to visit my site. The poll is off to the right, so I’d appreciate your votes.

The choices are all search terms that people have used to find my site, as monitored by SiteMeter. Just vote on the funniest or silliest one. I only track the last 100 visitors, so I’ll do a quick poll like this every so often.

 

• Captain Falcon iPhone app
• fucking a horse jockey
• DHARMA Initiative jelly
• last ned Pokémon silver

They’re not that funny, but it might be worth a laugh.

I need a holiday

Why are the banks still having these damn holidays in these tough economic times? Surely they need to be working harder, not kicking back.

Bank holidays have never really affected me though, as Mondays have been my regular day off since I started work at 16. However, if you work in retail like I do, bank holidays mean nothing but stress and sweating.

Bank holiday weekends are no different, as most stupid customers (interpreted in retail as “all customers”) assume you’re shut for the Monday, and proceed to do an entire week’s shopping as though the world will end because you’re shut, even though our store is open every day, including Christmas Day. And yes, whilst it’s nice taking a few more grand than we do, I don’t earn any extra money nor recognition for it, so it doesn’t bother how busy we are, though I must pretend I give a crap when the boss is about.

I was working this most recent bank holiday on Saturday and Sunday for about six hours each day, with of course, minimal staff. So the days were pretty fucking manic and we took an extra £5,000 or so from each day, and everyone was pretty stressed out by the end of it. Thanks to all the staff I did work with. You made it a hell of a lot less stressful for myself. Well done, if I didn’t say so already. I’m never working a bank holiday weekend again though, you can stick it up your arse as Bernard Black would say.

I’ve been driving in my car

Well, not really my car, someone else’s car. Let me just clarify, I don’t know a whole lot about cars. Adding extra sub woofers or lowering your car so that you can’t pass over speed bumps without scratching it makes very little sense to me. Nonetheless, I still need to learn how to drive.

So that kind of explains whilst I’ve been driving another person’s car. Before this recent new slew of driving lessons, it had been about 6 months since I last drove. So, I managed to stall the car a total of four times while driving for an hour.

My second lesson was slightly better, managed to bay park it, swung around a difficult bend perfectly and my gear changes were excellent apparently. Just got to remember my POM (preparation, observation, movement-ation, easier to remember for me) and MSM (mirrors, signal, movement) for my lessons and start getting through some highway code learnings. My teacher is pretty sound, and I’ll be playing poker with him in a few weeks, which will be good. I’ll let you know how Friday’s lesson goes.

Mortal Kombat: Deception Review – Multiplatform

This is a review of the sixth Mortal Kombat game in the series, which was released on various consoles in 2004/5. The version I’m using for this review was the PlayStation 2 PAL version.

Story

The Mortal Kombat story has always been the best of the main fighting games to me (Street Fighter, Tekken etc.) and the characters remain interesting. The Konquest mode in which you control Shujinko and play along an interesting storyline to save all of the realms, and interact with a large amount of characters and learn their attacks and special moves is the best aspect of the game to me.

Gameplay

Gameplay doesn’t differ much from previous Mortal Kombat games, save for in the Konquest mode, which I’ll state once more is the gem of this game. Your basic kick, punch, combo breaker style of play, with blood and gore mixed in.

Graphics

Graphics here obviously vary a lot depending on what console you’re actually playing this on, but for the PS2 version, the graphics are certainly up to scratch, but I can’t help but feel that certain things could be smoother, such as entering buildings, and juggling.

Soundtrack

There’s no official soundtrack for the game as far as I know, but the soundtrack’s solid, and certainly aids the flow of battle. With Konquest, the music’s a little lacking, but it’s where you get most of the soundtrack from.

Replayability

This is where, like with most fighting games, Deception falls flat on it’s face. Yes, the multiplayer is fun, and Konquest is long, but you could never really redo Konquest and enjoy it fully again. It’s fun, but won’t keep you occupied for long after you’re done.

Story: 7.4/10
Gameplay: 7.1/10
Graphics: 7/10
Soundtrack: 6.2/10
Replayability: 5/10

65.40%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII- Review - PSP

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII- is the PSP prequel to Final Fantasy for the PS1, where you take control of the rarely seen but often discussed Zack Fair as a starting 2nd Class SOLDIER, and see where it all started to go wrong.

Story

A new enemy in the form of Genesis is introduced at the start of the game, as Sephiroth has yet to begin his descent in to madness, and it deals well with setting him as a questionable villain and uses the play, LOVELESS, seen briefly in Final Fantasy VII well. Familiar faces such as Cloud & Yuffie are seen and new faces such as Cissnei are blended in well. By the end of the game, you don’t care about Cloud anymore in Final Fantasy VII and wish that he had died instead of Zack. Great story, even knowing the ending already.

Gameplay

That’s an example of a battle above, there are random encounters as usual and then battle flows by choosing your next attack from the materia you have equipped. Crisis Core allows you to break all the usual Damage & HP Limits, meaning you can deal 99,999 in a single hit later in the game with the right materia (Costly Punch). Outside of battle, you are usually wandering an area with a certain objective, there is no free-roaming world as you’re shipped off to certain locations by ShinRa. The DMW Limit system is great. The more people you meet in game, or items you collect, the more faces fill up. The reels roll each time and if three match up Zack unleashes a limit related to that character.

Graphics

The summons kick up some astounding FMV, even though the first time you see them, you know some great pain is coming your way. The other cutscenes are up to PSP-specs, but I don’t think it uses anywhere near all of the PSP’s power, which would have been nice to see, but I’m always harsh on graphics.

Soundtrack

The Crisis Core soundtrack has some great tunes and uses some variants of Final Fantasy VII tunes, which is in no means a bad thing as I think VII has a good soundtrack, and even has a theme song named “Why”. The best thing to do though, is make a playlist of all songs titled “Theme Of Crisis Core” and listen to them all.

Replayability

The “missions” section allows you to play about 300 missions of varying difficulties. Very Hard in these missions means, if you don’t have Phoenix Downs and Costly Punch, you will die. Crisis Core keeps up the Final Fantasy tradition of having a superboss, in this case, Minerva who has 10,000,000 HP on Normal mode and 20,000,000 on Hard. New Game Plus is also an option, where you will keep all items obtained, and also your level, if the missions were too tough for you the first time through.

Story: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Graphics: 8.5/10
Soundtrack: 8.7/10
Replayability: 6.7/10

84.5%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Poker in the ace with the nuts

I found the title witty, screw you. So, you may not know but my parents both play poker, and even teach it to new players, but I’ve never quite got on board with it. This is Texas No-Hold ‘Em Poker by the way, because what else would you play?

However, I was invited to my stepfather’s usual play at a place called “Dusk ‘Til Dawn” so thought I’d better get some practice in. I’ve been practicing on the following site:

I started off with about $1,000 of Play Money, and am now down to $400 after nearly losing it all on an all-in. Hopefully, this is my bad luck getting out of the way before I play tonight.

If you use that site, I’m “PkmnTrainerJ” and my avatar is a panda, because that was perhaps the best thing.

PSP Go?

I don’t keep up with PSP news, even though I do already have one, but only have three games for it, one of which came with the console. However, I’d seen that Sony are thinking of releasing a new console.

Could Sony just stop stealing ideas from Nintendo? These are just a mock-up, but it’s rumoured that it will have a sliding screen, and no UMD port. Yes, no UMD port. So your old PSP games wouldn’t work on it.

Rumours are that you download games via the PlayStation Store and put them on your memory stick, and play them off there. This takes away from shopping in game stores, which I really like doing, but maybe it’s dying out. We’ll see at E3.

Podcast Mention #3

Okay, I get a shout out in the FullSignull podcast almost every time, a tech/geek/gaming podcast hosted by Trevor Smith & Andrew Cyr, two American buddies, who take topics via Twitter or e-mail on Tuesdays prior to recording the podcast and cover other news. If you’re not listening to it still, after my previous two mentions, at least give it a try, if it’s not for you, feel free to ignore it.

Superman & Ms. Pacman

Some of you may be aware of the fact that I draw, and am trying to draw well enough to start a few projects. I often find myself drawing my dreams if they’re interesting enough and I had a particularly strange one about a month back that it took me a little time to put to paper.

Yes, it’s Superman getting oral from Ms. Pacman. Yes, I do not dream of normal things. I have come to accept that. However, all in all I was happy with the drawing and thought I’d add my latest batch to my DeviantArt page and flag it as mature content, just in case.

But, no, it got flagged due to:

“Prohibited Content”.

A member of staff has reviewed this deviation and has determined that this content is unacceptable for submission here.

I’m not sure what rules I broke, but apparently I did. Are you shocked by the drawing above? Like it? Let me know,

I suck at DIY

I got a free futon about two weeks ago and decided on Friday that I would finally construct it. I had some allen keys, some spanners and some screws from when it was dismantled to fit it in the car. Here’s the frame to show you how I began.

I worked out where some bits went, had the thing start collapsing on me, and not quite fit, and working out which keys went in to what screws. After about a half hour, I was at this point.

So I basically had the two parts connected, and had a third part to go, so that it could be all well and good. However, once it was all together it didn’t look quite right.

It may not look too bad, but if you look closely you can see that it’s actually the wrong way around, with the “headboard” being used as the legs and vice versa. It still stands pretty well, and is usable, but yeah, I suck at DIY.

Brawl Review – Part IV

Let’s try and get this review of characters finally finished off, this has been hanging on for about a year now.

Wolf

Wolf seems much better than Fox or Falco, but do we really need three characters that have the exact same move set and the same Final Smash?

Toon Link

Much better than Link in every way to me, and I prefer Toon Link’s adventures (Spirit Tracks, Minish Cap etc.) to the main adventures. He’s pretty quick and has a decent Final Smash.

R.O.B

I know ROB is hated by many fans, and seen as a waste of roster space, but at least he is not another clone. His Final Smash is the worst aside from Peach, but his laser (B) is great. Play against him with Kirby and nab his laser. BEEEP!

Sonic 

 
I remember how excited people were when he was first announced, we saw gameplay, he looked great, but then…he was terrible in actual gameplay. Very hard to control final smash, almost no killing moves. What a waste.

Snake

Our other guest character is the complete opposite. Good killing moves, very useful and powerful. His Final Smash is fun during 4 player matches, but a bit annoying in one on one.

Lucario Give me back Mewtwo. Lucario isn’t bad, but when he plays so similar to Mewtwo, it just makes me want him back on the roster.

NessBlech. Go and use his much better clone of Lucas instead.

Start eating healthily

I get an e-mail that says this almost every week from my past self via the Amazon owned site, 43 Things to try and remind myself to start eating really healthily. However, I constantly find it difficult to do, even though I enjoy healthy foods like salads, celery and other greens and smoothies and such.

Alas, there’s usually another green that stops me from eating as well as I could. It’s that little thing called money.

Unfortunately, especially with the current recession, the price of all the healthy foods seem to escalating. I thought they were pretty bad before, but when it’s costing more than £1.20 for an iceberg lettuce, it’s a step in the wrong direction. When I can walk up the road and get some chips from the chip shop for £1 instead and make some kind of meal out of that.

Of course this may just be a ‘get-out clause’ for myself to not start losing weight or anything, but I have always felt that the things that are greasy and fatty are cheap, the items that are healthy and slimming are more expensive. Surely, this is the wrong way round and probably partly to blame for the obesity “crisis” but I know that it won’t change.

I’m still going to keep getting these e-mails and try to turn around to healthier eating, but it might take me some time.

Brawl Review Part III

Part I & Part II of this character review were posted a year ago (with part 1 posted a year ago), when I had full intent of finishing them, so now is that time. Now where the hell was I? Ah yes, secret characters, let’s knock that out of the park.

Captain Falcon
Falcon is a very mismatch character for me, I usually die via Falcon Kick, and his Final Smash can be a bit tricky to hit. His throws are pretty good as I recall though.

FalcoFalco isn’t a character I use a whole lot. He’s not bad and has some nice quick combos, but I still prefer using Fox, though he ranks above Wolf.

Ganondorf

See Falcon, replace Falcon with Ganon.

Jigglypuff

I mean really, who uses Jigglypuff? One useful move of Rollout. It can float about, but so can Kirby and he’s the superior choice in pink balloon things in Brawl.

Luigi

Always in his brother’s shadow and rightly so. Luigi’s Final Smash is perhaps his saving grace because he can then Up + B everyone to death,

Marth

Use Ike instead. Better moves, better Final Smash and he doesn’t look like a woman.

Ness

Use Lucas instead. Read previous Marth statement, replace woman with something else.

Mr Game & Watch

Mr Game & Watch is a bit of weird one. Odd Final Smash and no heavy hitting attack besides his 9-Judge Hammer which is usually a KO.

Aaaand…I’m bored of writing about Brawl. Hopefully Part IV will be up by the 16th, then I can finally stop writing about this.

Lost in time…

So, maybe you don’t know, but I also run a Lost blog for my thoughts and the like about the TV show Lost, of which I am a big fan. I haven’t updated it for a long time, but now that I can write blog posts offline in a nice looking interface, I will try to keep it up to date again.

 
Click the logo to view my Lost blog!

I also run another blog, but it’s one that I can’t keep updated any more and may even be deleted by the time this blog post makes it to the internets. I may eventually split up the reviews on here in to a separate blog, but that’s something that’s only recently come to mind.

@austenw Hey man, how goes?

If I’d made that a tweet a few days ago, everyone would have been able to see it if you’d got the setting turned on to see all the @replies that users send and maybe you’d see an interesting conversation unfold, even if you didn’t follow me, or @austenw.

 

However, as I’m sure every Twitter user has seen, some changes have been made. Changes that users were not consulted upon, or given an option to change back.

Now if I made that same tweet today, you’d only see it if you were following the person mentioned in the tweet, and then if they replied to me, and you follow them, you wouldn’t see their tweet to me either, unless you were also following me, but you wouldn’t know about me via the tweeting, because you’d be blinkered to it. Confusing? Yes, but it wasn’t before.

We've updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we've learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it's a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don't follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today's update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

 

That’s Twitter’s official wording on the situation. Some people have suggested that they use an option similarly to facebook’s privacy settings, where you can control how much certain users see, so if you don’t want someone to see all your @’s you could switch them off that, or if you would prefer not to see any tweets with the hashtag “#lost” in over fears of spoilers for the finalé. I’m sure Twitter will cave and revert back in a few days, but to help with that, people have made the #fixreplies hashtag, which is currently #1 trending topic on Twitter, and there’s a Get Satisfaction thread (which Twitter uses for problems and such if you didn’t know).

Another headache this is causing for users who don’t want all @ replies, is that people are retweeting their replies, so that everyone can see them (as if it’s prefaced by text then everyone sees the tweet).

Hopefully twitter fixes it promptly.

Joe’s CD II

So, earlier today I found a CD marked “Joe’s CD II”, which is how I used to mark my CD’s of music. This would mean that it was the 2nd CD I ever burned on a computer.

Despite some tracks not working I’ll start off a post about them
(Ha, ha, screw you CD. I’ll make them work)

This CD was a bit of a goldmine for myself. Here’s the track listing.

1. This track didn’t want to work and would “crash” any CD program, and make the rest of the tracks silent, so I kind of skipped this one.
   
   Okay, by process of elimination, this song must be:
   Andrew WK – We Want Fun, as it’s marked on the front of the CD, and it’s the only Andrew WK song that comes to mind.
   
   He’s a bit of a twat really isn’t he.
   
2. blink-182 – What’s My Age Again
   Holy crap. When I first listened to this song, 23 seemed an age that was far from me, and now I’ll be 23 next year. In 2010. :-( Oh well, at least I never act my age.
   
3. David Bowie – Magic Dance
   Okay, it’s no secret to the people that know me that Labyrinth is perhaps my favourite film, with David Bowie and a young Jennifer Connelly in a magical world where can you go wrong? Now that I know David Bowie makes all the baby noises, it makes the song even more funny to me.
   
4. Dragonball GT Japanese Theme Song
   What? I remember being interested in Dragonball Z, then fading out in GT, so why in the heck is there the Japanese song on here?
   
5. Evanescence – Bring Me To Life
   Obviously I’m going to have their big hit on here if the CD states Evanescence on it. I do really like this song and it’s Amy Lee too. She looks better in the My Immortal video though. I wonder if this version has the bloke who’s name I can’t recall at the moment singing the extra bits of it.
   
   Okay, it’s at this point in our story that iTunes decided it didn’t want to finish ripping the previous song, and just crashed instead. It was going so well. Let’s try again. Nope. Eject. No. Eject. Oh, there we go.
   
6. Faye Wong – Eyes On Me
   Makes sense. Final Fantasy VIII was a pretty good game for me and I’m a sucker for an asian girl with a good singing voice. Not as good as Ms. Hikaru, but she’s still good.
   
7. The Rembrandts – I’ll Be There For You
   Friends theme song, first getting in to downloading music and stuff, I guess I downloaded a few theme songs I recognized.
   
8. Good Charlotte – Emotionaless
   I remember being quite acquainted with this song, because I think it was around the time of my parents break up. Not that I really care these days, but I think I did back then.
   
9. Good Charlotte – Girls & Boys
   I seem to remember that I had this song because I really laughed at the old woman Avril Lavigne in the music video (which now seems to be missing whenever I see it on TV)
   
10. Good Charlotte – The Motivation Proclamation
    Why so much Good Charlotte? I don’t even like this song very much.
    
11. ???? – ????
    midomi doesn’t know what it is, so no help there. It starts off “I was raised…to believe…” but I have no idea.
    
12. Good Charlotte – Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous
    More Good Charlotte? Go away! It’s a good song, but I really don’t remember being that in to them.
    
13. Jimmy Eat World – The Middle
    Hey, don’t write yourself off yet. I do like Jimmy Eat World and The Middle is almost my favourite song by them (it’s Work by the way) but this song is certainly very good and I remember listening to this song a lot back in my youth.
    
14. Linkin Park – Somewhere I Belong
    This song must have recently come out. I didn’t really “dig” Meteora, the album this was on but have since come to like it a little more. I’ll still always like Hybrid Theory/Reanimation more though.
    
15. Linkin Park – Step Up
    I’m sure when I downloaded this it was marked as “secret unreleased song” and I was glad to have it to rub in people’s faces as a kid. “Have you heard Linkin Park’s Step Up?” “No?” *scoffs* Actually I’m not sure I scoffed a lot then. This is still a good song to me now, and perhaps the gem of this ancient CD.
    
16. Powerman 5000 – When Worlds Collide
    I’m thinking this was influenced by Little Nicky, when the surviving brother starts to rise up on the throne of Hell to Earth. That image certainly comes to the forefront of my mind when I’m listening to the song.
    
    Actually, this was on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 as well. I feel I had the soundtrack at some point.
    
17. Simple Plan – I’d Do Anything
    How Simple Plan have grown up. Looking at this song they seem like kids, but when listening to their latest single When I’m Gone or hearing them at Download 2008 they seem to have matured in to better musicians.
    
18. Tatu – All The Things She Said
    Underage lesbian schoolgirls kissing in the rain anyone? I’m sure they were fifteen when they filmed the music video for this, which was the shocking video to old people, the video you had to see as a kid and the video that parents gasped at, at the time. In regards to the song, eh, it’s not bad. I can’t remember whether it’s “taTu” instead though.
    
19. The Androids – I Wanna Do It With Madonna
    My brother and @AimlessAmy get props for remembering this funny novelty song that I thought was long forgotten. I wonder if The Androids actually made any more songs, or were just a one-hit wonder? This song does make me laugh a lot.
    
20. The Calling – Wherever You Will Go
    Now, why do I have this song? Oh yes, the girl I had the hots for really liked The Calling, so I was trying to get in to them in order to try and break the ice. As I can’t even remember her name, so I’m going to call that one a critical failure. The Calling…they’re not good really.
    
21. Dub Pistols – Cyclone
    I know exactly why this is on here. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. It was on the soundtrack and eventually became the only song I had on when I skated about busting mad 360 Ollie twists. I couldn’t remember the artist for this song at all, but midomi provided it.
    
22. Violent Delight – I Wish I Was A Girl
    There’d be certain advantages, and guys are lying if they said they haven’t thought about and it’s certainly another funny song. I wonder if Violent Delight (oxymoronic, I get it!) are still together.

Hope you enjoyed a glance in to ghosts of music past with me. If I ever manage to find “Joe’s CD”, I’m pretty sure it’ll just be full of porn.

Jelly, jelly in my belly, belly

I just made some jelly. Some jelly that’s probably been sat in my fridge since January.

 

It is nowhere near as good as that.

I found my scissors and cut up the jelly bits, inhaling their delicious smell of pure orangeyness and chucked them in the salad/fruit bowl. What’s next?

Boiling water, okay, whatever amount was in the kettle went in and dissolved the little blocks to make a very warm orange soup.

Then I’m sure you add cold water or ice cubes to it. I have both, but went for some regular water, but not too much. I like a firm jelly.

Right now, it’s in the fridge, steaming up everything else in there, ready to be eaten by me in a few hours. I really want to eat it now. Knew I should have made a pre-jelly jelly, but then I’d need a pre-pre-jelly jelly.

I can smell it from here, even though the fridge door is closed. Let me have it!

I assume jelly is one of those things that’s impossible to balls up, but you never know, I once sliced my finger in half with a potato peeler. That’s a story for another day.

Oh, some whiskey and wine may have fallen in the mixture when I passed it by.

Erm…but…hmmm…well, look here’s the thing

I’m sure we’ve all been in a situation wherein you want to tell your friends or even some stranger something but you feel held back by what their reaction might be to this shocking change of events, before it suddenly bursts out.

One of my friends recently had to confess something to me that I think had been bugging him for some time, and I think he expected more of a reaction that a simple “Okay”. I’m not going to tell you what it was, or who it was as apparently I was the first one he’d mentioned it to and he doesn’t really want to tell people yet. It doesn’t really affect anyone but him, and it’s not like I’ll suddenly shun my friends because of these things that make them the people they are.

After he’d told me, I realised how strange it is to think that the people we know and trust would be so objectionable to change. I always feel I should be able to tell my friends anything and vice versa, and I know there’s people that aren’t that lucky or accepting of flaws or differences. Am I saying I don’t give a shit, as long as there’s some companionship and support with the weirdoes I know? Perhaps.

I’m eternally grateful for all the friends I have, and know I wouldn’t want to distance myself from any of them. There are certainly people that I’d like to get to know better, including those I’ve met on social networking sites where 90% of you will have come from. I know there’s people out there with no-one to fall back on, and that does make me a little sad.

I guess that’s all for this post, I just wanted to get it off my chest to make sure I didn’t leak this secret out in the real world. You owe me one man.

Benji won’t shut up about Resident Evil 5

  That is all. Go about your lives as normal.

Pokémon remakes confirmed

Everyone knew it was coming since FireRed & LeafGreen were out, but now remakes of Pokémon Gold & Silver are officially announced, named Pokémon Heart Gold & Pokémon Soul Silver respectively.

People that use ROMs and emulators have had the above game, known as Pokémon Shiny Gold, to keep their Johto hopes up, but as the new official games will be on DS, it will allow for much more, and finally allow people to catch ‘em all this generation, as it’s currently a pain to get all of the starters and legendaries without GBA games.

Some features I’d like to see in the new games are:

• Wi-Fi Bug Catching Contest
• Expanded Kanto (it was severely cut down to fit on the original cart)
• I’d like the PokéGear to stay. I prefer that to any other system introduced later.
• Ranch & Battle Revolution compatibility

The fansite Bulbapedia have their speculation about the release date for the games.

HeartGold and SoulSilver will be released in Japan this fall, possibly on or near Nov. 21, the 10th anniversary of the original release of their namesakes. International releases will likely come in mid-2010.

Let’s hope they’re correct in their assumption and that we see the releases soon.