satan665

[quote name='Dark Pyro']we need to have more info on ff7-2 so if you have any post it and dont close the thred!!!!!!!!!![/quote] I don't really have any idea about it, but it sounds like a rumor. Way back when they were planning on remaking FF7, but scrapped it when the Spirits Within movie tanked. I don't think you mean Advent Children, but there's a thread for that already in movies section from a while ago.

I agree with your question on the use of the word mature, but its pretty much widely used for this sort of thing, maybe just because of the ESRB rating system. The two big ones to get you up there are sex and violence though. The original 12 angry men was definitely a mature movie and not for kids, even though they could conceivably watch it. The things like politics and issues like abortion aren't going to be easy things to put into games. Politics is always a good framework for storylines, but I can't think of any non-ridiculous way to incorporate it into gameplay. The story for Metal Gear games is always pretty political, and RE4 actually has some funny anti-american comments thrown in from the villians. That stuff is always sort of second stage though to the gameplay. Being able to kill random innocent people in GTA brings attention while Slaughtering and conquering a whole country in Romance of the Three Kingdoms isn't noticed because you don't so much play it out. Basically its tough to bring many of these other elements forward since the focus is almost always the player input. Proposed game: Timber Industry Lobbyist: Game where you must convince the government to include logging friendly law changes into bills and pass them in the Senate by "greasing the wheels".

Its funny because cranky old white politicians really like to harp on videogames for mature content even though its still a pretty big step down from movies. My question is, do you think that game content should be pushed further and have a few more mature type games? Should we keep it at the current level? Should we get away from the GTA mold of heartless killing and violence and make less of these games? I don't think that games are nearly as graphic as movies, mostly because of sexual content. The USA is actually pretty conservative about sexuality in a lot of ways, TV is one of them and videogames is a big one. There have been some games lately with a little bit of nudity, but its pretty much been stupid nudity like "the guy game". In my opinion there could be games that are content wise the same as R rated movies. Would it be that wrong of a game to have a sex scene if it fit in with the story. There could even be husbands and wives in games, but I can't think of any games where you woke up next to someone in bed, just a few implied sex scenes. Metal Gear Solid 3 has the closest to a sex scene I can remember. To go even further, I don't think that there is a very big market for pornographic videogames but it might be funny to have one or two out there. The biggest reason not to would just be the backlash I would expect from an AO PS2 game. There are people who watch porn out there, its a billion dollar industry. A porno-esque videogame would be interesting I would say. Trying not to directly conflict with what I just said, I don't think that in general games should become more sexy or violent. I really love games like Wind Waker and Katamari Damacy which are pure fun and a little bit silly. I'm happy that not everything is being pressures to get more serious, violent or sexy. I'd like to see the borders of content stretched both ways.

So I know that there are some players that visit here, so I was hoping for some opinions. Should we ressurect the Card thread? The card advice thread was a staple before Version 7 when there was a YugiOh section. If we had a forum to talk about cards and strategies I think it would be fun. Simple discussions of what good stuff is coming out in the new boosters and whatnot. Basically is anyone interested in that to make it worthwhile?

Its a mixed bag, the more casual gamers, or any gamers out there at all means that we will get more games. The more people buying games in general will makes companies successful and everyone will be happy. The problem though is that if they are only buying big name sequels then the quality of VG's overall will get watered down. GTA clones come out because that is easy logic for game companies; to make a game similar to the one thats selling well. I think that still there are enough hardcore gamers that everything is going well. We still get cool smaller titles like Shin Megami and Katamary Damacy to play even if they are a little harder to come by. Good games like Prince of Persia eventually bring people around to trying them. Casual gamers haven't killed us yet.

I think that it still was a little scary the first time around. maybe it was just more ominous. There are a lot of Oh, Sh** moments in RE4, but not too many creepy or scary ones. You worry about whats coming next, and RE has always been good at foreshadowing stuff. Parts like crossing the lake when you just know what is going to happen, and also when you get knocked into the water; Defrosting the cold room; the microwave; the weird meat bag thing near the end. Its a good game, and it makes you worry about whats going on moreso than scare you with the unexpected. I think RE2 was the most scary one. Still they mostly used the now classic tricks of having things jump out at you, but it wasn't an old trick then. The Lickers in that game were the best monster in that respect. Whenever you ran into them it was like "AHHH! and then you hope that the shotgun can bring them down for you. The one way mirror in RE2 is still the most memorable PSone moment for me. I love that part. So RE4 I'd give a 5/10 in scariness which is only good the first time around.

[QUOTE=Kazuko][size=1] I was going to argue against your statement on The Killers, but then I saw you put Modest Mouse in both Underrated and Overrated, all because they became popular or something of that sort. I realized it was then useless to argue against you, because you would come up with more nonsensical BS. *Shrug* [/Quote] I realized that your reading comprehension is low, or that your perception is just clouded (jedi mind trick) so that you can just assume things, rather than try to understand what I was saying. It pisses me off to have you not even read my post and call it BS. Just give your list and don't comment on mine unless you actually read it please.

[QUOTE=ChibiHorsewoman] Yeah, I'm 23 and I listen to Good Charlotte and NEw Found Glory. I bet nobody on here can actually name their first albums or tell me which track on New Found Glory's third album was also on their first. [/QUOTE] That brings me back to when I was in middle school and wore a NIN broken shirt to school and these kids kept asking me to name songs of the album (assuming I was just a poseur or whatever since Downward spiral was out then). I think there are enough reasons why Good Charlotte is bad that I don't have to add mine. [B]Overrated:[/B] 50 cent. I think they basically just dragged out someone with street cred and built an album around him. Seemed like he ascended on hype alone. Green Day. The MTV world is all like "oh, now we think they are good again!" for some reason, but they don't sound much different than what they have always been doing. Not bad, but overrated. Modest Mouse. Honestly this is my all time favorite band ever, so its kinda weird to say. The latest album is indeed great, but its not their best work. It feels weird to me for them to be popular because if it. I never really bought into some of the indie scene's complaints about their major label stuff being over-produced, but going back and listening to Building nothing out of something makes me realize that they lost something. Interpol. Very generic, and to me they don't really add anything to music. Darlings of the semi-popular indie scene are definitely over-rated. Bright Eyes. I have one album from bright eyes, and I think its all I will ever buy. Teen tirades about medications and girls were the specialty of Conor, but he never really evolved. The latest work is being praised so much, but I think its just people trying to sound cool by digging up indie bands and spotlighting them. [B] Underrated:[/B] Children of Bodom. The metal scene shuns them becasue of their weird Doors-esque keyboards, but really its what sets them apart from the growling D-chord metal that gets boring fast. Ratatat. Not so much well known, but people I share their album with should be falling in love with it but they are not. This is my ultimate subjective choice, but really whats wrong with you? Modest Mouse. People who like Float on should realize that its the tip of the iceberg. Seriously prepare yourself because this band has a huge library of music now that is almost infallible. Pope-like if you will. At the Drive in. So many people out to be pissed that this band broke up and spawned really bad "side projects". So many people should be pissed that we should go find them and make them live in a Real World TV show type experience until they get back together. Their final album was such a huge step that I hate them with passion for breaking up. Franz Ferdinand. Not really overrated except in the sense that they spawned a movement where every other 80's new wave sounding brit pop band came out and overshadowed them. Be honest with yourselves, the Killers and Zutons are crap. Especially the Killers are so boring that I wonder why people like them. Just go out and buy an 80's collection from the TV infomercials and realize how useless they are. Wow, that sounded like it should have been in the over-rated column.

Well I made it on there as both a person and as my comment about Shinmaru, so I guess the hours spent posting and reading wasn't all such a blatant waste. Overall I'd just say that once you find a few people on here that are cool and spend some time posting and replying, the boards and the blogs have a lot more meaning and are much fun. After looking around here for more than a year you pretty much find and stick to the things you like, and those are different for each person. Its almost like some sort of community :) If I wasn't scared of losing all my precious videogaming time I'd try to talk to some of the people here on IM or something, but for now I can be happy and sit back and be voyeuristic, learn about how much Shin hates phones and bookstores. I'm not sure why, but its not a bad time.

You can teach yourself to use the knife by playing in mercenaries mode as Krauser. Certain levels you really need it, and slashing at the feet or head of one nearby enemy can give you a kick opportunity which can clear out the area a little. I didn't use the knife much until the second playthrough, but even then I'm not brave enough to use it much. If the ganados don't have a weapon at all it works great, but otherwise its too risky. Last thing I did in RE4 was finish the second half of the game with the Chicago Typewriter and saved up all of the Magnum ammo I could. I'm ready for playthrough number 4 with about 90 shots with the Broken Butterfly. Its a good stress reliever. I did notice that the first boss (the wet one) was 10X harder on the third play. Everything else seemed the same though. Also I'm going to try to tackle professional mode, since I'm not good enough to get 5 star ratings on Mercenaries. Has anyone else tried Professional mode and how have you done?

I've kind of always been able to get into games and movies, so I forget my surroundings and scare pretty easily when they are well done. That being said I would say Fatal Frame II was the scariest game I've played. I never tried the first one so I can't compare it, but literaly I never finished the game because I was too scared to keep playing it. Its just so unnerving that I didn't really want to pick it back up and start playing again. It doesn't help that I only play videogames 99% of the time at night. Its really bad in the game because to get good camera shots you need to let the ghosts get really close to you and snap a shot right before they hit you (usually). In RE4, the creepiest part was the first confrontation with a regenerator. You know its going to happen, but they are mad freaky.

[quote name='Morpheus']The best easter egg is the Insomniac Museum from Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando. You get to go to a alrge room designed after insomniac's building and see stuff that didn't make it too the game. There are 3 vehicles to ride in, enemies to see, a punching bag, the test environment from the first game, a screen that shows a large video of your own, mini planets, voice overs by the staff, customizable blaster shots and explosions, and all sorts of weird things. I'd say it was worth the $40 just to play that, let alone the great game.[/quote] Wow, what do you have to do to get there? I have R&C II, but didn't play it too much past beating it the forst time.

I was pretty ok with the ending of 4 also, the game itself gives you a pretty good sense of satisfaction for having completed it. Its mostly just relief for surviving the whole thing. I think the best ending for the series was in Code Veronica. It was pretty simple just like the rest, but there is a good sense of closure since [spoiler]Claire finally reunites with Chris and you have sacked the best that Umbrella and the Virus had to throw at you. Even Wesker was punked out by the boss of Code Veronica, probably because he didn't save enough Magnum ammo to take him out.[/spoiler] So yeah, RE games are usually good enough with story throughout that they don't really need to do some over the top type of ending. If they threw in cheesy twists like Ashley was really [spoiler]still infected[/spoiler]it wouldn't really fit.

This game is definitely replayable, I'm to chapter 4-1 on my third time around. Mostly I went through a second time and upgraded all of my weapons to the max, then the third time is a money gathering mission so I could buy the Chicago typewriter. If you haven't figured it out already, stick with the broken Butterfly Magnum when you get it. The Killer 7 is pretty cool, but not nearly as powerful when its fully upgraded. I also like the Red 9 as the handgun of choice, it makes a really cool sound and really blasts through the first few levels like nothing. My biggest problem is some of the ammo quirks. I really like the Exploding dart gun, but you never really get much ammo for it. The only way I was able to keep using it really was to upgrade it every time I ran out of ammo. Does anyone know a better way to get ammo for it?

[quote name='Rhian][size=1][b]*sighs* Morpheus, hon, I'm a witch. I feel things on a spiritual level. *snorts* As I said, if you can't feel it, it ain't my fault. My friend tried to be a vegiatarian, but she had to have red meat. She almost made herself sick one time trying not eat red meat. I don't hate vegetarianism, its perfectly acceptable for those with a concious like that. What I hate is when people do what some Christians do: eating meat is bad! You shouldn't do it! And then they try to MAKE you vegetarian. *shudders*[/size'][/b][/quote] Do you hear the cries of the carrot? Sorry that is from the secret track on a TOOL album. I think there is a great Ghandi quote: "I probably would have been a christian if I hadn't met so many of them."

One thing I really dislike about vegetarian food is that the freezer section meat substitutes are good, but if you look at the ingredients there are like 10,000 weird different chemicals in there. It is pretty much the ultimate in processed food, which is bad. I'm pretty sure the Morningstar farms brand is owned by Kellogs too, which isn't exactly the picture of responsibility. There also is a pretty reasonable environmental angle to vegetarianism. Since beef has become so popular across the world, cows have replaced indigenous animals in a large portion of Africa and South America etc. Its not particularly good for the land there to have a different animal grazing, because cows eat the grass or whatever down to the roots whereas something like a wildebeast (awesome name) in Africa is effectively like a lawnmower. One of Africa's biggest environmental concerns is desertification, to which cows definitrly contribute. There's also the whole thing of rainforest being cut down for grazing land which isn't very good either.

[QUOTE=Morpheus]I know everyone will call me cold, but I really don't care what happens to my meat before I eat it. I'm not for torturing animals, but I don't care. THEY ARE GOING TO DIE. We kill them fast. Who cares what happens in between as long as my meat isn't affected? On the subject of things that look like meat, Why in the hell do Vegetarians eat tofu that looks like meat? Just eat the frickin meat. Do you actually think you not buying the 25 pounds of beef a year families eat will do any good? The market always changes, so they slaghter every available cow for market. You are just depriving yourself.[/QUOTE] Read my post two up from yours and you will find that I predicted your oh so intelligent question and pre-answered it for you. Next time I'll try to include some smaller words if that will help.

[quote name='EVA Unit 100']I love eating meat. Animals eat other animals in nature, so it is fine for humans to eat meat. However, I you need to eat it responsibly. I eat beef, chicken, lamb, and some seafood, but I would never eat an endangered animal or an animal with high intelligence. Besides, most of the stuff I don't eat probably tastes yucky and isn't healthy. I keep Kosher at home and try to eat Kosher species at resturaunts (though I can't resist a good soft-shell crab), so I think I do a good job keeping my boundaries. So IMO being humane is less about if you eat meat, and more about how you eat it.[/quote] Wow you are totally in the dark about this sort of thing. I try not to get too mixed up in Vegetarian debates, but obviously I'm not very successful. The biggest issues really are vegetarians who don't think animals are supposed to be eaten. Philosophically that can be true depending on the person, but naturally we are pretty much designed to eat meat and plants. Why do vegetarians eat thing that look/taste like meat? Well we usually grew up eating meat and miss the taste of things. If you just want to avoid contributing to abuse of animals in slaughterhouses, then it totally makes sense to eat meat substitutes. What the hell, your wearing leather shoes! Well, you look at how hard vegans have to live in order to avoid animal products and have to make some choices. If you totally avoid all animal products you ave to pretty much devote yourself to veganism and worry about it 24/7. Since converting to vegetarian isn't truly going to affect the world much, its more of a personal thing where it makes you feel better about what you're doing. In a way its a selfish cause, even if its a just one. My biggest problem is vegetarians who are really preachy. Based on what I just said, it makes little sense to me to try and convert people, at the most share a little information if someones interested. I used to respect PETA, but they've gotten really weird lately and extreme in a not so effective or useful way. "the point" of being vegetarian for me is to make me feel better about myself. I know a lot about messed up things that go on in many places across the world where animals are raised for food. I don't want to contribute to it, so avoid eating meat altogether. Hunting for food is fine, and free range well treated animals are fine, but I still don't eat them cause I've gotten used to no meat. Also I think that the dumb dumb I eat meat every second and touch myself in the mirror while the juice drips down my chest people can be more defensive than most vegetarians. (Sorry, I felt I was being too nice)

[QUOTE=OtakuSennen] Casual gamers talk about sports games a lot. Too much, as far as I'm concerned. Never has a football game, a soccer game, or any other sports title (spare that recent Tiger Woods one, for whatever reason) caught my interest, and with a new one coming out every year, I'm not surprised. Maybe it's just personal preference making me biased, but when you have a new version of what is basically the same game ever year (this isn't really limited to sports games, either), things get tired. Quickly.[/QUOTE] It probably is just your preference, sports games are the biggest lock for sequels because they can just slap an updated roster of teams into the game and put out basically the same game year after year. It seems like a real scam especially since the internet would conceivably allow you to download updated rosters. Its ok though, because most decent companies will make improvements yar after year as well, and the biggest thing with sports games is that you can (I can) play them way longer than any other game without getting tired of it. Theyhave the most replay value out of any genre basically because they are sports and every game is different. I think as far as PS2 goes GTA is overhyped. I really like the series and all, but each new game feels like more of the same with just bigger cities and more weird side things you can do. The novelty of running people down on the streets and killing cops or whatever wears out, but they never seem to fix a lot of the problems that the game has. You still have the same difficult control scheme that makes it tricky to shoot and fight etc. It still bothers me that if you roll over a car it explodes in 5 seconds. They add new stuff but rarely fix the old problems.

I was pretty satisfied with the game overall, definitely one of my favorites of last year. It was hard to track down in stores when it first came out, but last weekend I saw that Toys R Us had a stack of them which is suprising since their game selection is usually really bad. My favorite thing about the game after having finished it is the way you can progress through the game. The main character is very customizable, which this game pulls off very well. In a lot of games you can use different strategies with character development, but there really is one best way. In SMT you can be just as effective focusing on Magic or power or defense. I gained a lot of turns in battle and saved my butt a ton of times by having my character resistant to magic. You can void or absorb almost all magic attacks, which in turn made my character nearly impossible to kill. Earlier on in the game I had a lot of elemental attacks and that works pretty well too. The game feels kind of empty in that there are very few characters to interact with besides the demons in battle, but I think the weirdness of the story makes it work. It doesn't feel like they were just lazy making the game, more like it was intentional. The storyline is pretty cool, and I like the multiple endings. The game does a good job of giving you an ending that reflects the way you played the game. Each NPC that was trying to mold the world you can choose to side with, and they all have pretty specific ideas or you can go it your own way. I didn't particularly agree with any of their views of how a new world should be created and basically went neutral. I won't spoil the ending but things actually worked out exactly as I would have wanted them to in that situation. For an added challenge you can buck the system and go after the true source of the death/creation cycle (more and tougher bosses). I didn't do it yet but I hope to eventually get that ending. It should reveal more about whats going on. Yeah so its a good game. The battles are very frequent, but not tedious because you really need to level up a lot and it eliminates pointless wandering around just to get encounters. It also can be challenging if you are in over your head or in an area with no save points.

If you're not a jock, then you are a nerd. Cut and dry.

Hmmm, my very first gaming experience was with the Commodore, but it wasn't really all that great. Atari was fun, but I definitely didn't play it that much, most of the games were too hard. I really had a good time with River Raid though. The NES was the big first start, and I think there were a lot of games I was hooked on. I'd say the Tecmo Bowl series, Bionic Commando and Kung Fu were my favorites. Really what got me into being a "gamer" was Final Fantasy 7. It got me to buy the playstation, and was the first series where I was super excited about the next game coming out. It was the first game I bought a strategy guide for, I started to get PSM magazine. So its not so much the first game I liked and played a lot, but more or less marks the point where I followed new releases and read reviews critically. Since then I have amassed my game library and have become more of a real gamer nerd and can hold conversations about systems, graphics and styles of gameplay.

[QUOTE=Charles] I agree with you about the lab too, satan. [spoiler]The light, difficult breathing of the Regenerators is startling. Not to mention their imposing size, fierce attacks, and initial invulnerability. It's especially creepy when you encounter the upgraded form that wears a parasite on its back and has the ability to project sharp spikes from its body. Do you remember when Leon and Ashley fall into the dumpster and are pursued by several of them? I had a difficult time there until I discovered that you could shoot out their legs in order to expose their back. But imagine my surprise when one began to belly flop across the ground at an astounding speed towards me! The portion of the castle in which you play as a relatively helpless Ashley is tense too; especially when the suits of armor come into play.[/spoiler] Scary indeed. lol[/QUOTE] Yes indeed. [spoiler] The thing flopping towards you and chomping onto my neck was pretty nasty. Once it stretched out its arm and grabbed me when I thought I was at a safe distance too. When you get to the two in the garbage disposal, its pretty freaky but you can pin them by shutting those cell doors on them and snipe away at their parts. Once I panicked and blasted ones legs out from under it, then unloaded my full 16 shots from the stryker until I managed to pulverize all of the paracites. Its a nasty waste of ammo though.[/spoiler] I think that if anyone has any reservations about how they will like this game, then you WILL like it. It doesn't so much follow the formula of the last few games with the T-virus, but it hasn't lost any of its Resident Evil-ness. Comparing this game to the movies is like comparing the Batman comics to Batman Forever, or whichever is the terrible one with Clooney.

[B]What is it?[/B] Semjaza Azazel [B]Why is it Nifty?[/B] Tony is great because he almost always makes really really long posts that actually are informative. His Play It forum posts are consistently big and informative. They are a little subjective to his tastes, but other than that they are on par or better than the reviews that I read in game magazines. Seriously you might want to try submitting some as a guest review, which I think some magazines/websites take. Without him I wouldn't have played Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Even better than that though is his music knowledge and taste. I think half of my favorite albums of 2004 were reccommended by him, which is pretty impressive sice I consider myself to be at least a little bit of a music nerd. We'd probably get along pretty well in the real world. Without him I wouldn't know about Say Anything (the band). [B]What is it?[/B] Shinmaru [B] Why is it Nifty?[/B] Shinmaru is the very popular myotaku site that I go to, so I can be jealous about the number of people that comment there. He actually posts on his site every day and puts some effort into making the post entertaining, which I don't really do. He's a big videogame nerd too, which always scores points in my book. He also seems like a pretty cool guy though apparently he is very shy. [B]What is it?[/B] Play It boards [B] Why is it Nifty?[/B] The Play It boards are my favorite, because there is a good core of people that post there about games. People who are sick of Otaku Lounge, where after being here long enough you start to see the same posts over and over again. I can actually find out about games which haven't came out yet, and get pretty comprehensive information about them from posts here (especially from the two people listed above). 99% of the time this is the only place I will post.

[QUOTE=Charles] Also, there are sequences later on that pretty much put the opening attack to shame if you think about it. [spoiler]The cabin scene where Leon fights alongside Luis remains one of the best sequences in the game. I also greatly favored the escape on the bulldozer. The near head-on collision capping it off was the icing on the cake. In addition to those scenes, when you take the left route after rescuing Ashley, Capcom shows how crafty they are by using close quarter environments to exhibit some truly intense enemy challenges by facing you off against two chainsaw-wielding maniacs and a whole horde of not zombies.[/spoiler] Only a few examples of great stuff that deserves recognition. I was a bit disappointed that enemies applied the kamikaze rule to their attacks, simply walking into gunfire instead of seeking cover; but I think it's just an example of their lost humanity and single-minded focus.[/QUOTE] Hmm, maybe you are right, I forgot about the [spoiler]cabin part[/spoiler]. That was pretty messed up and reminded me a lot of Night of the Living Dead. Maybe the difference is in the weapons, since the later you go through the game, the less I used the pistol. The villiagers are a little more scary when you can only peck away at them with a handgun, raather than take it to them with the shotgun etc. Every time I pick up a key item in the game I hold my breath waiting for some door to pop open and bad things to come flooding out. Late game spoiler: [spoiler]The oh so obvious part in the cryogenic freezer where you need to defrost the lab to get the heat vision scope is the kind of stuff that freaks me out. Those regenerators are creepy as hell, especially when you get hints that they are around. I knew it was going to come for me when I defrosted it, it still pinned me and I barely managed to take it out while frantically firing the rifle at way to close range [/spoiler] But yeah, the knife works just by holding L, which it wasn't until halfway into the game where I realized that it was good for breaking boxes instead of wasting ammo.