Spoiler Warning!

In the entire gaming realm there aren't many franchises that can compare to Metroid when it comes to big badass bosses. Throughout the years the series has presented a huge variety of evil creatures that try at all costs to stop Samus Aran to reach her goal, from a brain inside an aquarium to huge bug-like beings the list of amazing bosses goes on and on.

Picking five of them to represent the best of what the series has offered in terms of boss battles was not an easy task and many epic showdowns were left behind, something that reflects on the big list of honorable mentions. So let's meet the Top 5 bosses of the franchise according to me.

5th - SA-X (B.S.L. Station - Metroid Fusion)

After incredibly exciting chasing sections on which Samus was not strong enough to face this colony of viruses that absorbed the powers of her Varia Suit and became her clone, the final battle takes place after the bounty hunter searched through the entire Space Station in order to find enough upgrades to defeat this tricky creature.

Battling against a clone was pretty nice on both Echoes and Corruption but nothing can compare to a 2-D battle where there are ice beams, missiles, screw attacks and explosions occurring all over the place. Later in the battle the beast reveals its true form and the battle becomes a standard 2-D Metroid battle where you need to use all your missiles and shoot them as quickly as you can towards the SA-X.

4th - Meta-Ridley (Impact Crater - Metroid Prime)

Once Metroid Prime kicks off is hard to tell whether or not your old rivals will make a comeback and try to destroy you, but it doesn't seem very likely because they had been completely destroyed by the hunter on her first adventure. However, it doesn't take long for you to discover that Samus' archrival has surprisingly survived as he flies over the Frigate on which the game begins. During the game, by scanning a couple of computers, you will get some information on how Ridley has become Meta-Ridley after he was rescued on a critical state on Zebes and had part his body rebuilt with mechanical parts.

The battle is astonishing and extremely nostalgic as after more than eight years gamers encounter the main villain of the series in a new planet and battle him from a different perspective. With missiles and bombs Ridley has plenty of power to offer a really challenging battle that gets even harder when his wings are burned by the hunter and he comes to the ground to face you while charging at you at incredible speeds.

3rd - Quadraxis (Ing Hive - Metroid Prime 2)

A gigantic mechanical spider that shoots lasers and uses a tornado attack to suck you towards its claws, there really aren't many bosses more awesome than this one. Quadraxis was a robot created by the Luminoth to protect their sanctuary, however when the Ing managed to enter the fortress and take controls of the entire place Quadraxis was also a victim and it ended up being possessed by the evil entities.

The robot has three different forms of attack creating an extremely varies battle where Samus will need to use almost all the weapons she acquired during the exploring of the planet, from the spider ball to the power bombs, every single piece of equipment must be used. Quadraxis is probably the biggest Metroid boss ever and the battle against it is one of the Gamecube's most impressive displays of hardware power.

2nd - Helios (Elysian Leviathan Core - Metroid Prime 3)

A robot and lots of tiny bats, it doesn't look like a really great battle at first, but once Helios gets completely surrounded by the creatures you can tell something pretty big is going to happen in front of your eyes. The bats involve the circular robot and assume different forms that range from a huge human-like body to a powerful tornado. Helios therefore has many forms of attack and discovering the weakness of each one of them is a lot of fun, as it is avoiding its different forms of attack.

Of all Leviathan battles on Metroid Prime 3 this one is by far the most interesting of all. The battle against Ridley may be more exciting but that had already been done on Metroid Prime a few years before Corruption was released. Helios is an extremely creative boss battle and for me it stands as a symbol of the attention the Retro Studios developers paid to every single boss battle that we encountered during the Prime games.

1st - Mother Brain (Tourian - Super Metroid)

As players once again walk into Tourian is unavoidable that those who played the original Metroid had an amazing déjŕ-vu experience. Exploring the hallways of the Pirate's base while a tense song plays on the background is as atmospheric as the Metroid series can get and once you reach a room filled with lava and surveillance cameras you are pretty sure what you are about to face.

Reaching the aquarium where the huge brain-like computer is kept is a battle itself and chances are once you reach it you are already low on health. After breaking the glass with a big amount of missiles players are led to think they have destroyed Mother Brain once again, but did you really think it would be so easy this time around? The once immovable brain becomes a huge creature that roars at you and has incredible firepower.

The battle rages on and after you launch lots of missiles Mother Brain attacks you with a powerful beam almost killing Samus, but when her health reaches its lowest level and everything seems to be lost she is saved by the Metroid hatchling. Not only is this showdown an incredible boss battle but its drama perfectly translates in a few minutes why Super Metroid is such a masterpiece.

Honorable Mentions: Kraid (Metroid), Metroid Prime (Metroid Prime), Dark Samus III (Metroid Prime 2), Aurora Unit 313 (Metroid Prime 3), Spider Ball Guardian (Metroid Prime 2), Rundas (Metroid Prime 3), Gandrayda (Metroid Prime 3).

What are your favorite bosses?

It has been a while since I last downloaded a WiiWare game. Maybe that is because since the week on which the system was put online there haven't been many outstanding releases like LostWinds, Final Fantasy and Dr. Mario. But I am also to blame for that, simply because I haven't really paid any attention to the games that were released after May, chances are I overlooked some nice titles during the past three months. However, this apparent drought of WiiWare titles is about to end because there are at least four extremely nice titles on the horizon.

Two of them have already been mentioned on this blog. The first one is a game being developed by High Voltage - the company behind The Conduit - called "Animales de La Muerte". The setting is a Mexican zoo where the animals have become zombies and started attacking the visitors, to solve this problem the owner of the zoo summons his two grandchildren that come right away carrying enough guns and explosives to conquer a small country. The game blends colorful visuals with bloody action and looks very promising. The second one is obviously Mega Man 9, a nostalgic journey all the way back to the 8-bit era.

Besides those, two new amazing titles also deserve to be mentioned. Bomberman Blast is bound to take the crown of best WiiWare online game away from Dr. Mario Rx. The game can be compared to Bomberman Live that was released on Microsoft's online service a while ago. On Bomberman Blast players will compete either locally or via the Wi-Fi connection on frantic battles filled with explosions and lots of action.

The game has a nice variety of modes that range from the old-school multiplayer mode found on older Bomberman games to survival missions where missiles are falling from the sky and the last player standing will win. Up to four players can blast each other on the local multiplayer while the online mode allows eight characters simultaneously on the screen. The game will have ten different arenas, each one having two different sizes. The IGN team played the game on PAX and according to them the game is coming along quite nicely.

The developers are making sure they will use the Wiimote capabilities, so they created a couple of items that can only be activated by using the motion controls. The game doesn't have a release date yet but it seems that it will likely be ready by the end of 2008, but as we know that is no guarantee we will see the game before 2009 due to Nintendo's unpredictable release dates when it comes to their online services. Let's hope they will make use of the Wii Speak peripheral.

The last noteworthy title has been under the radar for quite some time now and I think most of you have never heard of it. It is a cartoonish RTS game called Swords and Soldiers, differently from most games that belong in the same genre Swords and Soldiers will have a side-scrolling perspective. Despite thinking that the PC has always been the best system for the genre I think the Wii could do well too due to its pointer. Moving troops and issuing orders may not be as fast and responsive as it is with a mouse and a keyboard, but I guess the side-scrolling camera will help a lot in that sense.

There isn't much information on the game right now but I am excited nevertheless due to the fact that it is a RTS on the Nintendo Wii and its unique look. There is no release date set yet and I don't think anyone from the media has got some hands-on time with it already.

It is hard to understand what is going on with Nintendo's most anticipated project among the hardcore crowd. When it was first announced everybody thought it would be an awesome game and Nintendo said that its release would happen soon, but then the promised date came and the game was delayed because the developers wanted to polish the package, some people inferred that the first version of the game was really bad and the game was almost completely reset.

Time passed and on August we learned the Australian Board had just rated the game as a Mature title which implied that the game would be finally released soon. However some people were still skeptical and thought the rating happened way too early and that the board had probably checked an early version of the game, thereby they thought the title's development was far from full completion.

But yesterday great news hit the Nintendo world, Disaster finally got an official release date for Europe and it is October 24. While many Nintendo fans are bursting with excitement I am slightly worried about the quality of the game. We all know Nintendo is involved in this game, therefore there is a close to 100% chance the game will be fun and epic but there is something that just doesn't look right to me.

The main problem is this game hasn't been showcased enough. Of course every single Nintendo fan knows about the game and has been looking forward to it for months, but the game didn't receive much official coverage, so the audience that doesn't check gaming websites on a daily basis has no idea what Day of Crisis is. How many hands-on articles have we read? How many previews were written by people who had actually played the game? Let's not forget that according to rumors - I know they are not always right - the first version of the game that was ready on its initial release date was very bad.

We all know the concept of the game is outstanding and very original, and the fact that Nintendo is involved on a more violent title is a fact many people who love this type of games must be celebrating, but I think the hype the game is generating is way out of proportion when you consider the fact that two months ago we all thought this title was cancelled since, as far as we knew, nobody from the entire gaming press had played an almost completed version of the game.

Obviously being a game with such a low profile won't make it automatically bad, and the same goes for games that are hyped by fans and media and end up flopping badly. Just look at what happened this generation with Zack and Wiki, a game that apparently only the IGN Nintendo team knew about, and Haze, a game that would supposedly change First Person Shooters forever and ended up being an average game.

The fact is that as far as we know Disaster: Day of Crisis could go either way, it can become a masterpiece or it can turn out to be a bad game that was overhyped by the entire fanbase. And two years from now we will all remember it either as a breath of fresh air, or as a lesson that taught us hyping games we haven't heard much of may wind up being a bad idea. The path we take will be chosen once the game launches, until then I hope I am terribly wrong.

Since almost everybody agrees that Oracle of Seasons is the better game I decided to go for Ages first so that I can fully enjoy the awesomeness of that game by using the password that I will get once I finish Ages. I guess you will all be as shocked as I am when I tell you that I am almost beating the game. I started playing it Saturday night and three days later I am already inside the eight dungeon of the game.

As far as 2-D Zelda games go I have to say that Oracle of Ages is better than anything I have played before, and that includes A Link to The Past. I love going back in time and solving problems that will help me in the present and I think that is one of the main reasons why this game is so amazing. The developers really connected both eras and were able to create tough puzzles involving lots of time travelling.

The dungeons are outstanding as most of them are not linear at all and can be done in many different ways. At first I thought they would all be pretty simple because the statues standing in the first room of every dungeon and the atmosphere created by the music reminded me of the original Zelda. And I actually believe that the NES game was the main inspiration for the Ages and Seasons duo.

The storyline didn't look too appealing to me when the game kicked off but things get quite interesting once you learn that the evil Veran is building a tower to reach the sky and in order to do so she stopped time so that night won't arrive and the poor workers building it won't stop their work. After that the game gets a really good flow and it is simply impossible to put down the Gameboy and do something else before finishing "one more dungeon".

I could have finished the game this weekend but I decided to take a break after playing it for many hours, but I will probably wrap things up before Friday. So expect a review next week as I start playing Oracle of Seasons.

Just a quick post today because I just got home and I am pretty tired because today was the final interview of the Disney program with the recruiters who came here to Brazil. Needless to say the three recruiters who did the interviews were incredible people as you can clearly see why they work for Disney once you look at their big smiles and amazing ability to communicate, which were more impressive if you consider the fact that they had to interview around 200 people. I did quite well on my interview but I am still slightly nervous since the results will only come out in three weeks. I hope I don't go insane before September 22nd.

After the interview me and my friend decided to go to the mall, since I had got a day off from work due to the interview. We went to the movies and watched "Tropic Thunder" which turned out to be very funny and different from anything I had seen on the movies before. Now I just need to watch the Mummy 3 and the new Star Wars and I will be satisfied.

Anyway, let's get to big news of the day. I realize that this is not news anymore because I am sure you discovered that plenty of hours ago, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to comment on the release of Super Mario RPG for the Virtual Console. After uncountable months of a long drought during which the VC didn't receive any big games, we finally get the title we were looking forward to the most. I guess this will slightly reduce the level of complaints that "Nintendo doesn't properly support the VC anymore", but it won't make them stop.

I haven't played Super Mario RPG in a long while so as soon as I heard the news I felt an urge to turn on my Wii and download it, but as you may know there are currently two games on my to-finish list so I will beat them before downloading, and starting Super Mario RPG. My adventure on Oracle of Ages is going very smoothly, but I will just give more details about it in my next blog since right now I just feel like sleeping through many hours until I have to wake up tomorrow and go back to my normal life.

See you guys.