OtakuSennen

[color=navy]Are they even going to release it in the US? Aside from puzzle games, cell phones aren't really considered "gaming devices" in the US. In Japan it's a much larger market, with more people playing such games. For example, a full 3D port of Kingdom Hearts is being put out over there, but the odds of that coming out over here are next to impossible. The feature where you take pictures of things in real life with your phone to use Materia (or however the hell it goes- I haven't been keeping track) sounds interesting, but for me that would get old after five minutes. If Square Enix tries to put a shred of dialogue in it, they are doomed. Most people don't sit around for an hour playing little games on their cellular phones (though I admit I have done that with Bejeweled). They play the puzzle games because they're quick, portable, and you can close at any time without losing mountains of progress. [/color]

[color=navy]AnimeBooks.com is another good resource for manga supplies in general, and they have a few "manga starter kits" which provide all of the necessary tools. I got one last year, and it came with pretty basic ones. Just solids and gradients. Maybe it's the way I'm using the tool, or maybe the blade is messed up, but I've never really figured out how to do screentones [i]well. [/i]I've never intended on using them in excessive force, though. My work gets cluttered enough before screentones are thrown into the mix. Maybe if I had a decent manga program, I would toy around with it more, but for the moment I'm just cheap and lazy.[/color]

[color=navy]The way I see it, an actor is good if he or she is convincing. When something is in a foreign language, with various dialects and customs, it's sort of hard to sort through the good and the bad. Facial expressions and body language can help in non-animated entertainment, but with anime it's sort of difficult. You can still distinguish annoying from cool-sounding, but you can't automatically dismiss a seiyuu because their character sounds annoying (assuming it fits the character). In animation, a lot of characters are made to sound annoying. I do think that if a character's voice is unique the seiyuu deserves some major props. Far too many characters sound like duplicates, and if somebody can come up with something that stands out and doesn't make you want to blow your brains out, that can be a positive attribute.[/color]

[QUOTE=Semjaza Azazel]I don't know, I honestly do feel the amount of demons that have death/expel magic is a bit high... I think the main issue for me is that I do not have lots of time to dedicate to this game and getting killed in one single hit by some weak demon after spending almost two hours in a Kapla can be really, really frustrating. If I could just play again, then I'd not care... but sometimes I only have a couple hours to play within a few days time. I feel like I didn't accomplish anything in the game lol. [/QUOTE][color=navy]I know exactly what you mean. I can never seem to find time to fit Nocturne into my day, and even when I do I'm still spending it running around the Ginza Underpass leveling up to beat the first Fiend. After picking up a certain special Magatama and fusing my [spoiler]Angel and Lilim to make a Nozuchi,[/spoiler] I did fine until [spoiler]he pulled out Taunt and that fencing technique..[/spoiler] I suppose leveling up will remedy that, though. The characters in this game are incredibly entertaining. Even the unimportant ones that you just talk to in passing are interesting and, in their own ways, sort of funny (See: Manikins). [spoiler]I can't get over the pedophiliac junk salesman in the Underpass.[/spoiler] I am really, really itching to get farther in the game, but I think that is going to have to wait until the weekend. It's rare that I buy a game and go insane when I can't play it for hours on end- I think the last game that did that to me was Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. At least Nocturne lasts longer than five hours. :p [/color]

[color=navy]While it may not be the "real deal," artists such as Fred Gallagher of [url=http://www.megatokyo.com]Megatokyo[/url] have been able to create anime-based franchises that are actually respected by anime purists who shun things such as Teen Titans and Totally Spies. I'm pretty sure that Megatokyo isn't known in Japan, but Mr. Gallagher was one of the guests of honor at Anime Expo Tokyo 2004. That's admirable, and inspiring to aspiring artists. And then there's Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga competition, which publishes the top ten entries and gives the grand prize winner a chance at creating an ongoing series. Some people might complain about having to do things left-to-right and not being able to use color, but it's better than nothing. As for me, it's just like Shugo54 said: I draw and write purely for entertainment. Sure, it would be awesome to eventually get something published, but I'm certainly not investing all of my time, money and hopes into making comic books. But it certainly isn't pointless. Anime is just a visual style, and anybody trying to become a mangaka is no different from somebody trying to get their screenplay published or getting noticed at a film's casting call. They're all dreamers, hoping to be one of the few people in the world who have a chance at international fame.[/color]

[color=navy]I picked up my copy of the game today, and I must say I am incredibly pleased. I have had high expectations for it, but I never thought that the game would be [i]this [/i]cool. Even before the menu video was finished I was amazed. IGN's little gameplay videos don't do the game justice. The cel-shading is well-implimented, and works well with the eerily lifeless (in a good way) character designs. I had heard that the battle system wasn't really that amazing, which had me a little worried. It's true that the fighting itself isn't groundbreaking, but enemy interaction makes up for it. Even after three hours of playing I've had numerous conversations, and all of them were cool in their own way. My favorite, so far, is when [spoiler]a Shikigami approached me and said, "The weak do not prey upon the strong. Snakes do not devour dragons. Does this mean that the weak are unnecessary?" I said that they were needed because the strong aren't considered superior without anybody below them, but he disagreed.[/spoiler] Highly entertaining. People tend to complain about the game's difficulty, but I haven't seen anything that unfair yet. I'm only at [spoiler]the part where you're going through the Amala Network to get to Ginza,[/spoiler] so I'm not really basing that off of much. The music is impressive, too. It enhances the already vibrant atmosphere.[/color]

[quote name='Sword Breaker']In turth? It is more like a decline. Now that 4KIDS got its claws into so many potentially awsom Anime, most people are being turned off. When you turn on the Fox Box on saterday morning and see a horrible 4KIDS anime, like waht those morons did to One Piece! My god! They killed it! You just gona think, "Ohhh, Anime? It is all like this, it is sooo gay!" Then people stop watching it, and miss the more serious ones they show later, like Inuyasha, Which Hunter Robin, God, Even DBZ is better then a 4KIDS anime. Disgusting Dubbing. Subs are much better anyway.[/quote][color=navy]It's not a decline if it was never at a peak. The infamous "all cartoons are for kids" stereotype has been associated with anime for a very long time, and there has never been a real pause where most people didn't associate all anime with Dragonball or something in that caliber. As for Syk's club, I am surprised that almost fifty people showed up. I can't really think of any reasons why so many people would show up, aside from anime growing in popularity. It's good that there were only one or two Inuyasha fans, too. :p I have noticed a slight increase in casual and hardcore anime fans in my school this year. It's not nearly as drastic as fifty people showing up to watch Akira, but I noticed a girl reading Hot Gimmick, a kid who watches most Adult Swim anime, and a few kids who have adopted manga-esque styles in art class. One even understood an obscure Eva reference I made in math the other day.. Of course, if anime becomes incredibly popular it will then become even more bastardized through commercialization and the like, then it may lose heart as it gains fanbase. I've always thought that even semi-casual anime fans, unlike some fans of other forms of media, have never accepted everything that is thrown at them. If major motion picture companies start cranking out star-studded dubs, the spirit of the otaku may fade into obscurity. Of course, that all is just a possibility.[/color]

[quote name='Zero Tolerance']The Prince of Tennis. It used to be in there, then it got taken out. And they took it out before I ever got the chance to read it.[/quote] [color=navy]The Prince of Tennis was only in one issue of US Shonen Jump for the sake of promoting the graphic novels. It was never meant to be ongoing in the magazine. Shaman King, Hikaru no Go and Naruto are really all that I read in SJ anymore (I follow One Piece too, but not religiously).. I would be happy if they just emphasized these series a bit more than Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragonball Z. That, of course, is probably not going to happen, unless One Piece magically becomes a hit series when it appears on Foxbox later this year. I really don't know that many Shonen Jump titles that haven't ended up in English, but I would like to check out Hunter X Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi (The Yuyu Hakusho man). It seems appealing.[/color]

[color=navy]If I recall, there's a major bidding war going on between all of the major American licensing companies (Bandai, Funimation, Viz, etc.) about who gets to bring Naruto over to the states. 4Kids put out quite a deal of money to get their hands on One Piece, so a lot of people are thinking that they are out of the running. Thus, considering all of the Foxbox anime titles have been dubbed by 4Kids, Naruto would probably not end up on Fox's saturday morning lineup. Naruto is an insanely popular property, though, so it's just a matter of time until it ends up on this side of the Pacific. If Funimation, Bandai or Viz gets it, it could very well end up on Cartoon Network.. I'm just praying 4Kids doesn't somehow pick it up and change the target demographic to eight-year-olds. Hikaru no Go isn't as likely to end up on US airwaves, I think. As entertaining and intense as the series is, I imagine a major television network wouldn't expect most viewers to get into it (There aren't any collectible monsters). That doesn't mean a DVD release isn't possible, though.[/color]

[quote name='HitokiriBanzai']And i like cause like you said "it felt real". Well ofcourse Lovehina was wierd but that's just totally diffirent type of story, real funny though. But the point is i just watched Voices of a distant Star and was kinda looking for something in the same mood to watch/read.[/quote][color=navy]Well, I'm all for weird (FLCL, anyone?), but I got tired of Love Hina by the second volume. How many times can you watch Keitaro accidentally grope or catch a peek of one of the girls and still laugh? No offense to the series, of course. It's all right, but it's not something that really interests me. Voice of a Distant Star is another thing I want to see. It looks like it may be a bit more on the melodramatic side, though.[/color] [quote]But honestly somethings were kinda scary, like when she transformed into that huge ship, and i can't really even imagine what will happen next, how can they see each other or how can she come to school if she can't return to her human form anymore?[/quote][color=navy]When Chise said she can't return to her human form she meant that she will always be the ultimate weapon, without a heartbeat and all that jazz. Remember how she pulled her wings back in so quickly when Shuji saw her floating? She's still able to return to a form that at least [i]looks[/i] human.[/color]

[color=navy]I don't recall that ever being answered. Many, many things were left open and unresolved in Metal Gear Solid 2, possibly so they could be answered in a figure game. I'm guessing Acid may explain [spoiler]Helga's baby,[/spoiler] considering it doesn't have much to do with [spoiler]the Patriots, and Helga wasn't even alive during Metal Gear Solid 3's timeframe. But who knows? Raiden didn't exactly receive a warm welcome from the fans, and he was very important to the whole Helga's kid thing. It may never be solved.[/spoiler] Unless there was something in Snake Tales that I missed (It bored me five minutes in), Substance added absolutely nothing to the Sons of Liberty storyline. The VR Missions were cool, and the Skateboarding minigame was pretty fun for a while, but if you have played Sons of Liberty there's no real reason to get Substance. I rented it just after I got a Playstation 2, and I had never played any form of MGS2 before, so I got my money's worth. It's not worth buying or renting unless you want to do some VR Missions or you've never played Sons of Liberty. I suppose there are some diehard Metal Gear fans out there who will buy anything Kojima puts out, though.. [/color]

[color=navy]I'm assuming you have never played Metal Gear Solid 1 or Twin Snakes, paco3? The wolf Otakon was referring to was most likely [url=http://guidesarchive.ign.com/guides/14593/images/sniper.jpg]Sniper Wolf[/url], one of the members of Foxhound that took over Shadow Moses Island. Otakon developed a sort of infatuation with her while he was imprisoned. As for your question about [spoiler]your question about the Patriots, your wording makes answering it a bit difficult, but I'll try. Metal Gear Solid 2 left everyone at quite a cliffhanger. Otakon discovered that the Patriots, who are supposed to be the real brains behind America, had been dead for 100 years. I suppose that Metal Gear: Acid may resolve some things, but I'm betting that Metal Gear Solid 3 will hold most of the answers. If MGS3 is going to be the last Metal Gear [b]Solid[/b] game (I believe that has been confirmed. There will be more Metal Gear games, but none with "Solid" at the end, until they put out more remakes), it is probably going to close the whole Patriot story. The next Metal Gear after that will most likely start up an entirely new arc.[/spoiler] Heh, got a bit rambly there.. And I've never really wanted to play Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel (The GBC one), but I do remember hearing somewhere that the story somewhat parallels MGS1.[/color]

[color=navy]Finally, I've been waiting for someone to make a thread about Saikano. I'm too lazy to do it myself. I've been anxious about this series ever since I first read about it on Viz's website months ago. I had never really heard of the series before, except for its brief apperance in Anime Insider's "Best Anime You've Never Seen" mini-article, but it looked like the sort of dramatic series I was looking for. My first real taste of the manga came at Anime Expo when Viz was giving out their obligatory free preview manga. One of their volumes had a few pages of Saikano in it. It wasn't the greatest scene in the series (It was when there was the air raid on Sapporo and Shuji discovers Chise's secret), and it really didn't throw me, but it didn't stop me from buying the first volume, either. I finally found a copy of the first volume in Waldenbooks a week or so after it was released. I skimmed through the first few pages, just to see if it was worth buying, and I found it to be even better than I anticipated. It felt real. Every other romance manga I've ever read was rather shallow. Either it was a perverse "comedy" full of groping and panty-shots or a sappy, melodramatic series filled with bishounen. Saikano reminds me so much of my own experiences. The awkwardness of a first-time relationship, and the shyness that's involved. It had its funny moments, but it's more of a sweet and innocent chuckle than a "Haha, Keitaro, that's what you get for accidentally coming across four half-naked girls when you fell through the floor!" The artist's way of drawing cartooney expressions is funny, too. The one that sticks out most in my mind is when Chise is talking with her friends about a TV drama they were watching, and Chise calls it exciting while everyone else things its annoying. That frame made me laugh so much. I'm smirking at the thought of it. The second volume is coming out in September, and I can't wait. I don't think I've ever been this entertained by a manga- not even Naruto. It really deserves its place in Viz's "Editor's Choice" section. Oh, and on a note about the anime version, I don't think I'll be buying the DVDs. I'm perfectly happy with the beautiful art and story that has been presented by the original writer, even though the anime version seems very nice as well. That money is going towards Shingetsutan Tsukihime later this year, though. *wink* [/color]

[color=navy]Yeah, I picked up a copy of the imported DDR MAX2 soundtrack for less than $20 off of [url=http://www.cartoonpassion.com]Cartoon Passion.[/url] Considering most sites' prices for DDR OSTs (Can you believe Amazon sells them for $50?), it was one hell of a deal, heh. A couple months back I went to an electronics store in San Diego and picked up a copy of DDR MAX2 and a pad. The pad itself isn't brand-name or anything (It wasn't the official Konami pad or Red Octane), but it has a 1" thick foam insert and hasn't acted out yet. The only sign of wear-and-tear I've found so far is that the pad itself- not the foam- has stretched out a bit. Other than that, it's good as new. Not bad for someone who plays nothing but Afronova an hour at a time. Well, for a $70 foam pad, at least. When I bought the game I picked up where I had left off a month or two before when I stopped spending a ton of money at the arcade on DDR- a rather low Standard. I improved quite quickly, though, and soon enough I was getting high C's on Heavy Afronova. Not a huge accomplishment, I know, but I'm proud of it. [/color] [quote name='Syk3']*eagerly awaits US Extreme coming in September* I still can't believe there's no solid release date yet. >_

[color=navy]I saw the first ten minutes or so of American Dad, and I didn't find it to be all that great. The only part that made me do more than chuckle was when the dad brought the really old dog home. Other than that, it had the same basic setup as Family Guy, minus one kid and a talking dog, plus the alien and the German goldfish. I'll probably still watch it, but only to hold me over until Family Guy's glorious return. Also, hasn't TBS been running Family Guy episodes for a while now? I haven't been watching, really (Adult Swim's showings are all I need), but I've caught it a couple times. [/color]

[color=navy]Out of a severe lack of anything else to do today, I decided to make a new myOtaku scheme. I started out with very little direction, other than I wanted it to be "Darker than my [url="http://otakusennen.250free.com/mO-ComicPartyIntro.jpg"]current one[/url]." While brainstorming, I was browsing IGN, and found a rather interesting Silent Hill 4 picture. I then toyed around with it for a while, and found what I wanted to do with it. The end result is here. I'm pretty damn proud of this one. It really turned out how I wanted it to. I just threw the avatar together, though.. I may do something better with it later. EDIT: Now that I'm looking at it, it seems to be moving slower than I originally had it. Bah, Jasc must have compressed it or something..[/color]

[color=navy]PhotoShop is certainly one of the best all-around graphics editing programs available, but I've found that there are other programs out there that specialize in the field of anime. [url=http://www.deleter.com/eng]Deleter[/url] is a little company that specializes in manga-making materials, such as "professional-quality" paper and screentones, but they also have two manga/anime-oriented graphics programs: CG Illust and Comicworks. If you're looking for getting pictures to look professionally inked and colored, CG Illust is what you're looking for. Once you're experienced enough with the program, you can make the beautifully colored, detailed images that seem to be in most high-quality dating simulation games. I've never actually touched the program myself, but from what I have seen it seems to be fairly simple to use. Some of the end-result sample images are amazing. Comicworks is more for doing professional-quality, black-and-white manga. I went to a workshop about this one at Anime Expo and had an awesome time. They had digital drawing pads and pens for each computer which took a while to get used to, but it wasn't so bad once you got the hang of it. Unless you use a particular tool, all of your lines will come out looking as if they were professionally inked. The coolest part was the screentone options, but I won't get into that. Unless you want to spend $100 or more on one of those programs, plus the pricy digipad, you really should just hand-ink your drawings. I normally ink drawings I want to color, and it makes it so much easier. If you just take a little time every day to toy around with PhotoShop's paint bucket and selection tools, you'll get something good sooner or later. If you still can't figure that out, though, you could purchase Paint Shop Pro 8, which is considered to be more user friendly than PhotoShop, and seems to give equal results if you put some time into it. Good luck, and happy drawing.[/color]

[color=navy]Tom looked down at the odd group of tenants. "Oh, um.. Hello," he said, joining them at the bottom of the steps. "I just came downstairs to see about the power, or, well, the lack of it. None of you happen to have a very tiny ice pack handy, would you? You see, my little friend here-" He paused, examining the puzzled faces of the group. His eyes then drifted to the woman on the floor. "Oh, you're worried about her, right? It looks like it's just a flesh wound- OH SWEET JESUS, A HELLO KITTY BANDAID." Tom, you see, was still in the 'recovery' phase of his fear of Hello Kitty [font=Palatino Linotype]paraphernalia.[/font] The girl in the men's pajamas tilted her head inquisitively. "What's so wrong with Hello Kitty?" She looked at the body to her right, revealing her Hello Kitty hairclips in the process. Tom was breathing so heavily due to the shock of the multiple images of the menacing little cat-bastard that he ended up blowing out his candle. In a desperate move to feel secure in the darkness, he leaped down the remaining stairs, rather close to Kenneth. "..What the bloody hell is up with you?" "Um.. Eh, sorry." Tom stepped back slowly, in an attempt to not anger the man, and applied some cream to his rash that had suddenly appeared at the thought of human contact. And so the group continued their search for the circuit breaker, with Daisy and Candy blissfully cheery, still thinking about the wonders of the Slinky with delight, Emilio still smoldering a little, Tom shaking at the thought of Hello Kitty in the immediate area, and Ken dragging the unconcious Indian woman behind him.[/color]

[color=navy]Tom sat in his room eating a year-old granola bar with a box of Juicy Juice by his window. He could hear gunshots and tires screeching outside of the building, but all of the street lights that weren't broken yet gave an illusion of real moonlight. ..Well, they would be more convincing, if the moon were orange with lots of shoes tied together hanging from it. "Ah, fine dining with the mood of a Victorian ball," Tom said to nobody in particular, as he took another bite of the rock-hard granola bar. The electricity was out, yes, but Tom didn't really need light right now. He felt like resting for a moment, after a hard day of deep-frying the fries at McDonald's. This rest would not come, however, as he heard a very loud thump come from an apartment on the other side of the building. "Hm," Tom muttered, as he stood up, resting his half-empty (not half-full) Juicy Juice on an empty cardboard box that once held illegal fireworks, before its current owner had found it behind a dumpster downtown as he was searching for Pogs. "That was distinctly the sound of a human body dropping." He lit a candle, grabbed his tried-but-true "Trusty Whackin' Hammer," patent pending, and headed out into the hall. After all, there was nothing else to do, except for finish the sculpture of a devestatingly obese gerbil he had started to make earlier that day. Perhaps finishing it with no possible way to see the sculpture could give the piece an interesting touch, but that could wait. As Tom walked down the hall, he did not hear that odd Far Eastern music that seemed to always be coming from one of the many delapidated apartments. "You would imagine that someone so into that strange little game would have some sort of auxiliary power in case of emergency like this." For a moment Tom was silent, but it was not long before he began to snicker strangely. In a few minutes the crazy chuckle became a deranged uproar of laughter. God knows why Tom did this, but it happened several more times as he sauntered down the hall, talking to himself about the insane housemates that he had ended up with. There was some rustling sounds coming from the apartment in which that odd Indian woman resided, and Tom would have entered the room if he wasn't afraid of the doorknob being booby-trapped. You see, every once in a while he has a sort of paranoia phase, during which he is afraid of some random object. A week ago his worst fear had been Jolly Ranchers and their too-good-to-be-true tastiness, and just a few days ago he refused to come within fifty feet of anything Hello Kitty-related, especially those "shoulder" massage wands.. So, instead of seeing if the Indian woman had fallen over and died a slow, painful death, Tom decided to head downstairs and try to engage in small talk with the people that he had heard conversing a minute ago. Tom continued to walk down the hall, his legs making rustling noises as they waded through the sea of ugly-*** shag carpet. This was no ordinary ugly-*** shag carpet- it measured half a foot high with each individual patch of carpet its own special shade of disgusting orange or green. Bits of various snack foods were stuck in the carpet, which gave it all a very chunky, disgusting look. The whole thing, in the end, looked like vomit-patterned carpet. The quiet of the hall was shattered by a crunching sound, followed by a squeak of pain. Startled, Tom jumped with a slight yelp. As he landed, another crunch followed by a squeak was heard. Slowly, careful not to make another crunch-squeak combo occur, Tom took a step back, kneeled, and sifted through the shag rug carefully, so that the candle wouldn't light the carpet on fire. He then found a group of squirrels, all sizzling and warm. Two of them happened to have shoe prints on them, which were quite obviously made by Tom. "My, my," Tom said as he poked one of the deceased rodents with a 12" long novelty pencil. "What unfortunate animals." He then saw a squirrel who was not quite dead yet- in fact, it was running from corpse to corpse looking for something, as a mugger would look for his victims' wallets. "Hello there, little squirrel," said Tom, as he picked up the survivor, which viciously tried to escape the hands of the human. Upon closer inspection, the squirrel seemed to have an ear missing, patches of missing fur and one leg that wasn't persistently trying to kill Tom with its claws. "Well, it seems that you broke a leg. I think I'll take you back home with me, once the power turns back on." The squirrel bit Tom's hand, so, to discipline the rogue rodent, he hit the squirrel against the wall a few times. "I shall name you Irwin, for I knew an Irwin once, at work.. Rather unfortunate fellow. It seems that he came to a very tragic end during a shake machine accident. And you remind me of him!" He smiled at the squirrel, which seemed to be knocked out. He sat the squirrel on his shoulder, not expecting a response, and turned the corner which led to the stairs. --- [i]No animals were harmed in the making of this God-awful post. [/i][/color]

[quote name='SonicSlash']I think the PSP is Sony's attempt to just getting everyone's attention off of Nintendo, because it seems like Sony is an attention whore. Just think about when they realeased PS2, how they brought attention away from the Gamecube and Xbox, who, in my opinions, are much better systems, by saying "ooh! the PS2 is coming soon! dont buy those because we're coming! we're coming!" and not even making enough systems to support the market they created.[/quote][color=navy]The technical term for "attention whore" is advertising. Sony, Nintendo, [i]and[/i] Microsoft are trying to get money, right? If I were to work in the video game business, I wouldn't put in countless hours perfecting the movements of a character just for fun. To get people to do such work, those people will need to be paid. It's only logical to try and grab attention, which is what gets them money. And I don't recall Sony trying to get any more attention than Nintendo or Microsoft when their systems came out. And if they did, it was simply because of marketing. Typical business stuff.[/color] [quote]But here, let's look at it at the specifications. First things first, you NEVER EVER make a portable system run with CDs, even if they are those chinky little mini-discs. The thing is, they are flimsy, and if your carrying them around *PORTABLE*, then you might break them. remember the Gabe Boy cartridges? How they all came with cases? Most people didn't use them, because the cartridges just wouldnt break. But with mini-discs, you HAVE to use the cases, which is just a time-waster, not to mention a complete annoyance.[/quote][color=navy]It's true that the information on a disc can get scratched rather easy, in comparison to a Game Boy cartridge, and that the Sony UMD will be somewhat large in comparison to a GBA game, but I wouldn't call putted discs in a case a "time waster." I'm sure that a third-party company will make little cases that will hold the disc and nothing else, reducing size and increasing portability.[/color] [quote]Then there is the fact that with CDs, you are gonna have load times. When you're playing something portable (like I know I do), you want a game that you can pick up, play, and turn off when you have to, not one that you turn on, wait for it to load the main screen, wait for it to load a game, and just load load load. By time you get to play you have to turn if off![/quote][color=navy]This, however, is a point that I agree with. I hardly ever play portable games on the run (I just play the games at home, heh), but I remember my parents getting angry simply because I was waiting for Pokemon Gold to save, and that was on a cartridge. Load times on PSP, not to mention saving, should make for inconveniences to a lot of people. Let's just hope that the system gets a good enough disc reader for it to have half-tolerable load times.[/color] [quote]Then there is this graphics thing. Portable games aren't meant to be visually amazing.[/quote][color=navy]And does having good graphics hurt? [color=black][quote]They are meant to be playable.[/quote][/color] And the Playstation Portable won't be?[/color] [quote]The DS does push a bit more on graphics, but Nintendo still understands that graphics aren't everything, and I wish more companies would understand that, before graphics become so advanced that only Bill Gates and people from NASA could play.[/quote][color=navy]Let's also hope that the majority of the public realizes that graphics aren't everything, and simply buy a system because it has better visuals. I don't think that most casual gamers will look at a commercial of a DS game, without knowing too much about the story or gameplay, but they [i]will [/i]notice the N64-level graphics. Now, if the DS commercial is followed by a PSP commercial with pre-PS2-but-superior-to-N64-level graphics, how many people who aren't going to take the time to read up on gameplay say, "Hm. I think that the DS game looks better"? I know that most real gamers will do more research the said games and figure out which of the two is better, but I know a lot of "casual gamers." They just buy the games that look good, you know? And it's going to be sort of hard for Nintendo to show DS gameplay on a TV screen, with two screens- one showing the gameplay and one showing the player's interaction. With a PlayStation Portable you just have one screen showing you "normal" gameplay. Some people may go to the DS commercial and simply go "...What?" [/color] [quote]And even if you ignore all of these things (and there are a lot more problems I just can't think of right now), there is the price. Who is going to pay $300+ for a portable system? Certainly not me.[/quote][color=navy]I'd bet money that Sony's going to try and emphasize PSP's multi-function capabilities, and try to justify the price that way. Keep in mind that Sony still hasn't announced a price for Playstation Portable, and the $300 thing is pure speculation. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I'm remaining optimistic.[/color] [quote]That is why I hope that the PSP becomes the biggest flop in Video Game History.[/QUOTE][color=navy]Eh, we'll see. I probably won't buy it immediately, mostly because the launch titles aren't particularly wowing me, not even Metal Gear Acid (Kojima isn't even working on that one, is he?). Of course, the same goes for the Dual Screen. I'm holding out until a price drop, and even then, I still might not buy either. I need to see more games before I make a decision. I have nothing against Nintendo, but I simply see their gameplay innovations as novelties. I just want to pick up a game, pay attention to only one screen, and hit buttons to make characters do things. Of course, I may just be old-fashioned.[/color]

[color=navy]I've seen forums that do the auto-delete thing before. I've never joined them, mind you, but I've seen them. I wouldn't support the idea coming to OtakuBoards. Such a thing would remove some of the inactive members, and clear out banned ones, but I have nothing against anyone who made an account and forgot to ever use it again. They're not doing anything to hurt the boards, or inconveniencing anybody else. They're just there. Not to mention the insanity that an automatic account deleter could cause among people who are too lazy or un-knowing of the feature to use it. What if, hypothetically, a member suddenly got cut off from the internet and had no possible way to get back on and keep their account alive? I would find it devestating if such a thing happened to me, and I finally came back only to find that my 800-something posts and countless hours spent on this forum had been erased. Such a feature is unnecessary, especially with James and Charles clearing out inactive accounts every once in a while. [/color]

[color=navy]Charlie sighed. "One whackjob down, eight more to go.. Well, I may as well just get it over with. I don't want to leave poor Charles alone for too long. Why do we always end up fighting on Rent Day..? Maybe I'm too tense. Charles would never [i]want[/i] to fight with me. Such a sweet guy.." As he smiled at the thought of his warm, literally bright companion, he came to the next tenant's door. [i]Knock knock.[/i] "Open up, Tom, time to give me your rent." Charlie stood there for a moment, scratched his ***, with no response from the oddball occupant. "Come on, Tom, I know you're in there." A rather faint "Just a minute..!" was heard through the door, along with the sounds of clanging and a diminuitive psycho frantically shuffling about in his room. A loud thud came from the back of the apartment, there was a long pause, but eventually Tom, in all of his greasy glory, came to the door holding an ice pack to his head. "Oh, um, hello, Charlie.. You came for the rent, yes?" He scratched his skinny face, where his antisocial hives were beginning to show. Charlie just looked down the hall for a moment, rolled his eyes, and sarcastically muttered, "Of course not, Tom, I'm just here to chat." "Ch-chat? Um, well, let me just.. Well.. Put away some stuff- certainly legal, non-threatening stuff- in my bedroom. Heh, I don't have guests here very often, and-" The ornery landlord didn't want to waste any more time on the poor, sick freak. "Tom, no- actually, I wouldn't mind a cup of coffee.. Well, nevermind, just give me the rent, and I'll.. Um.. Come by [i]later,[/i] yeah.." "Oh, okay then. I'll just go get my wallet, then.." With that, Tom went into his room, and came back a minute later with a peach-colored wallet, crudely fastened together by blatantly amateur stitching, and an "I Love Darleen" 'picture,' all in blue ink, and some rather unsightly pimples. Charlie couldn't help but stare at the odd wallet as Tom pulled out $110.84. The tenant seemed rather panicked when he looked up at his landlord's face, and quickly said, with a strange, somewhat threatening tone, "Oh, this old thing? It's, um, just a rare wallet, imported from.. Italy. You know, that country dominates the imported, one-of-a-kind, collectable hand-crafted wallet market." There was a long, awkward pause, as Tom waited for Charlie, who, quite honestly, had nothing to say about Italy conquering the obscure wallet market, to respond. The gruff landlord then took the liberty of shutting Tom's door on himself, with no form of a goodbye, and then carried on to the next room. [/color]

[color=navy]..Eh, why not? [b]Name:[/b] Tom Wesley (Or so his "poorly funded" ID says..) [b]Gender:[/b] Male, though not much of one.. [b]Age:[/b] Early forties. [b]Description:[/b] Tom is about five foot six, with greasy black hair that never seems to get much aesthetic attention. He wears rather large, 80's style glasses, normally with a heavy blue jacket (even in the middle of July) and some old jeans. He has lots of cranberry juice stains on his clothes, which are supposedly there because of the creepy short man's shaky hands. He seems to have only one pair of shoes, which are very old, worn knee-high rain boots. ([url=http://www.icept-fr.com/images/geek.jpg]Click here for a very flattering portrait of Tom.[/url]) [b]Biography:[/b] Tom was born and raised in peaceful little town known as "Captain Generic's Happy Fun Fun Town" in middle America.. You know, one of those peaceful little suburbian areas that has a cheerful name like "Cheersburg," "Pleasantville" or "Chicago." He was voted "Most likely to be a pasty white nerd with no friends or family" in high school, and attended Captain Generic's Community College / Family Restaurant for three and a half years, until Captain Generic's headquarters, apartment complexes, public school system and all related materials were mysteriously burned down. Mr. Wesley then moved into the middle of an unnamed forest, which coincidentally gathered many unsavory urban legends about insane knife-wielding hermits around that time. One day Tom decided to finally follow his dream to see the world, but had to settle for moving from city to city for about twenty years because his job as a freelance journalist wasn't well-paying. Recently, however, he's become rather partial to working the grill at any McDonald's he comes across. He has also written several semi-non-fictional novels titled "The Memoirs of a Knife-Wielding Freelance Journalist Who is Certainly not the Author of this Book", which, obviously, have sold only five copies. He also collects porcelain figures of cuddly forest creatures, as well as decorative and/or historical weapons. [b]Reason for moving in:[/b] This town's just another "stop" on his "extended vacation." Tom chose this particular apartment building because there happens to be a very nice cutlery / decorative weapons store across the street. [b]Idiosyncracies:[/b] Tom is a very quiet, introverted person who tries to act "normal" in social situations yet seems to always break out in a rather nasty rash whenever he's near someone of the opposite sex.. Or of the same sex. It seems to not really matter. He also has many coolers, refridgerators and penguin tanks with the glass walls painted black in his apartment, though most of the time he does not let anyone in. Tom seems to suck at lying, and shakes as though he's having a minor seizure whenever he's questioned. He also has a stuffed monkey with an eye and several appendages missing named Rocko, which Charlie has seen Tom talking to on various occasions. --- Well, this is going to be an RPG to look forward to.[/color]

[color=navy]I'd be happy to assist in the Fanart section of TheOtaku. Almost every day I find myself looking through the new pieces, examining each one that catches my eye, and I always vote yes or no on the ones that deserve it. Unlike a lot of people who have applied here, I have not really been around TheOtaku and OtakuBoards too long. I'm going on my one year anniversary here pretty soon, but it's been said many times before by many wise members of this community: It's not how long you've been here, it's the quality of what you've done in the time you've been here. And I'm quite active around myOtaku and OtakuBoards, though it might not always be very obvious. Every day I spend at least two or three hours on the computer, and most of that is spent browsing through members' myOtaku sites, and threads on OtakuBoards. I'm also an artistic person. I'm certainly not the greatest artist in existence, of course, but I draw whenever I have the chance. You don't find a lot of my art on TheOtaku simply because I'm very selective about what I like to show people. Often times I just sketch for hours at a time, and when something good comes up, it's already surrounded by a hundred less worthy things on the same paper. Rarely do I find a drawing of mine on a paper by itself that's worth displaying, and even then I don't show most of them because I'm sort of a perfectionist with this sort of thing, and if I find a single flaw, even if it's just a subtle problem in shading, I just forget I ever drew it. I am a very fair person, though. I'm never biased when it comes to judging other people or their work, and even when I heavily dislike a drawing I go about telling them in a polite and constructive manner. [/color]

[color=navy]Throughout the course of history, I have created banners and such out of sheer boredom. Today was a dull Saturday, and just like on every other, I ended up opening PhotoShop and toying around with the first image that comes to mind. Today's excursions proved to be very worth it. I browsed through Konami's official Metal Gear Solid 3 site, and found that they had a new wallpaper up. I found it to be the only two-dimensional Metal Gear picture that interested me- most of the time the faces don't really match what you see in the game. This time, however, things were perfect. I decided to use the image for a new banner and avatar. [center][img]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19454[/img][/center] [center][img]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19453[/img][/center] The banner was fairly simple to make. I just copied part of the image, resized it, and cut-and-pasted M, G, S and 3 from the logo. The avatar, however, took more time. I didn't want it to be simply a resized crop from the banner, because that would be too plain. I tried taking a bit of the background of the image and making it into an avatar, but it was all too plain. That's when it hit me- the game is basically all about the camouflage, so why not try and add Snake in there, in a more hidden way? I copied Snake's face over, darkened some areas that were too light, and there you have it. My MGS3 avatar. And to think it only took fifteen minutes to make. God, I love PhotoShop.[/color]