Bloodseeker

[quote name='Morpheus']I'd say there is little chance of another crash. 3 games per genre X 8 genres = 24 + 8 rpg+ 5 Fighting= 37x$60=$2,220. That's way more than I can spend every 4-5 years. Seriously, look at the games that you have. You have more than 37. That's because there are more than 3 good racers, 3 good fps's or 3 good sports games. Let's take FPS's for example. UT04 has good deathmatch and CTF, Half-life has a good storyline and physics engine, Doom 3 is scary, Ghost Recon is strategic. Each fills there own niche, and each has several iterations so that we can make that experience longer. Before gaming crashes, people will have to stop buying games, and '04 was the second peak of the industry.[/quote] But over the course of 5 years, that's not very many. And when you consider that most people don't enjoy every genre, you can take a few off of that list. But you're missing the point. My point is that is that once you play those, you start to feel like you're playing the same game over and over again with little tweaks here and there, and I don't know about you, but I stop buying when it gets like that. Its the reason why the only genre that I've bought more than 3 games in with this last generation are RPGs.

Berserk or Love Hina. The Berserk manga is even better than the anime, and that's saying a lot when you consider that Berserk is my favorite anime. Some actual comedy, and even more blood and gore than in the series. Love Hina is also awesome. Its the only manga that can get me to laugh on the regular basis. It gets a bit repetetive during the middle volumes, but asside from that...

Inuyasha. I collected the first 13 volumes until I decided that it was too similar to the show.

The crash of the videogame industry sometime during this decade has been a point of speculation since the early days of the 64-bit era. I was one of those that always blew the doomsayers off as professionals that didn't understand the mindset of a gamer. But now, as a gamer, looking at the present, I'm starting to think that the crash might not be as farfetched as I used to think. First, and the most minor of my points, is the new focus on online console gaming. How many people do you know that play online games? On the face to face basis? Probably not very many. Why? Because most people aren't willing to shell out an extra $50 for the hardware and $30 for the subscription. If the next generation of software tries to lean heavy on online play for sells, well, they're not exactly standing on solid ground. Next is the lack of innovation. I'm going to sum up some of the most popular genres for you. FPS: Halo, Half Life, Rainbow Six, Wolfenstein Racing: Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, Burnout Football: Madden, Blitz Every genre with the exception of RPGs and Fighting can be summarized in 3 or 4 games. You play those, you've played them all. Sure they have tweaks, but at the core, they're pretty much the same thing. This one's the biggy. First, about how long was the average game 5 years ago? If memory serves me right, the average time for a single player game was about 25-60 hours, right? Even action games ran for at least 20. Now what have we got? God of War, the Onimusha games, Fable, most FPS games... they all take less than 20 hours to complete if you're average. Games that take over 30 hours to complete are becoming a rarity. This isn't a good sign. What's the current outlook on the cost of the next generation systems? XBOX360 is looking to be about $500, and though recent reports suggest that the PS3 will be about $350 at launch, I can't say that I buy it with all of the expensive technology that's being used to in the PS3. Most people are going to be hard pressed to spend that much on a console, especially when most of them already have the extras that Microsoft and Sony are trying to pitch as selling points. I'd be willing to bet that the cost of the games are going to go up as well. I'm no specialist, but I'd be willing to bet that putting together a game's graphics at the level detail demanded by the next generation consoles is going to take some elite skills, and that hiring people with that level of skill isn't going to be cheap. And how long is it going to take to put all that mapping with photo-realism together once you do hire the right people? Time costs money when you're trying to get a product on the market. How do you make up for that lost money? You either cut the quality (in this case, the length and fine tuning) or you raise the price, or both. How many of you would continue buying games if 10 hour games with a $70 price tag became the norm? How many of you would spend a whopping $500 on a console to play those games? If you're willing to let them get away with that, you're both an extremely hardcore gamer and a dumbass. I don't think that a crash in the near future in an inevitability, yet. But if things keep going in this direction, if games continue to get shorter, if console prices continue to rise, if developers continue to settle for generic gameplay, if online play is what developers are counting on for the future of the videogame industry, most gamers will lose interest, and if or when that happens, it won't take long for the crash to follow.

He's not linked to the airship in 8! You find that thing at random floating around in outer space!

Some guy trying to look cool in his suped up Scion. Nice toaster, thuper man!

Cid is in every Final Fantasy game, that's a known trend. FF6: An engineer working for the empire. FF7: Airship pilot that joins your party. FF8: The head of Balamb Garden. FF9: An airship engineer. FFX: Rikku's dad. Final Fantasy Tactics: Very powerful party member. I know that he was in the others, but those are the only ones that I remember well. The main characters in the Lunar games both have little flying cats that are actually dragons. Nall > Ruby

[QUOTE=Kiyu-chan]I. Hate. Chicken. It is food from the devil I tell you! Granted, this comes from eating nothing but chicken breast for months on end...(I'm still eating chicken...) :animedepr Ground turkey is disgusting as well. However, potatoes are good any way but mashed. I don't like the texture mashed potatoes have. Same with Jello though. :animeswea What can I cook? Hmm...what can't I cook is the better question. I don't particularly enjoy it, but that's only because it's expected of me. I don't like to make dinner. I do that every night. But when I'm not required to cook, I really enjoy it. Recently I learned how to cook a mean meatloaf. Meatloaf is my friend. Except...I'm sick of ground turkey. So I guess I won't be having it for a while. Usually when I make meatloaf I use a pound of ground turkey and a pound of sausage. It's good that way. Then add some garlic, some oregano, some basil, some chili powder, some celery, some bread crumbs (or rice, either one's good)...I'm too lazy to look up exact measurements right now...but it really is good. :catgirl:[/QUOTE] Try using ground buffalo for that meatloaf. Or if you're feeling unadventurasm, ground beef. Using turkey for things other than Thanksgiving is a crime on par with using low-carb substitutes. I love mashed potatos! Put some cream cheese in there... some butter... Speaking of cream cheese, here's nice suggestion for a quick snack: take a piece of salami, spread some cream cheese over it, and rap it up. That stuff's addicting! Back to the crimes, anybody else here hate ricotta cheese? Using that instead of an extra layer of mozzarella is a great way to ruin a perfectly good lasagna!

I'm going to go with the generic option and say Super Milk Chan! I watched a fair amount of it, and I never laughed, not once. I was even tired and pumped full of suger one time, and I'll laugh at almost anything when I'm like that. A little girl saying "You dumbass!" does not equal comedy. Besides that, the animation is terrible. I don't care if it was intentional or not, I hate that drawing style.

Naru's taken blasts from Su's weapons and Motoko's sword. I'm pretty sure that she can take a few paper cuts. She'd knock Anita almost into orbit, and I doubt that she'd survive the fall. (seeing as how she's not immortal like Keitaro)

Ran out of room there! Dangerous tomboy vs. Annoyingly happy goddess! My only rule is to not spam up these threads. Don't just post the character that you voted for's name. If you're going to say who you voted for, then explain why you voted for who you voted for, even if that explanation is just quoting someone that shares your sentiments. It doesn't need to be complicated. Even something as simple as "I voted for Asuka because she has a lot more spunk than Rei" or "I voted for Asuka because she has a lot of spunk" will work. So long as it has more substance than "Asuka" or "Asuka's better", its fine. Belldandy will probably win. I've seen people on several message boards list her as their "obsession", and I can't say the same for Kei. Kei (Dirty Pair Flash) [img]http://img231.echo.cx/img231/7699/dirtypair210248ax.jpg[/img] vs. Belldandy (Ah! My Goddes) [img]http://img231.echo.cx/img231/4473/drip9ir.jpg[/img] Another case where I haven't seen either series. I've checked into Dirty Pair at the recomendation of one of my online buddies on a different site (I might pick it up if I ever feel like watching a fun action show), so I know a bit about Kei. Tomboy characters are usually pretty cool (Ryoko and Aisha for instance), so I think that I'd probably like her. Her hair's [i]almost[/i] as stupid as Temari's when she grows up. From what I've heard from other people on Belldandy, she sounds like Deedlit without the harsh side. In other words, a character that I'd be seriously tempted to kick around the room out of sheer annoyance if she were real. For that reason, I'm going to have to give this one to Kei. Belldandy at least looks cute, though.

Blade bate vs. Sand chick! My only rule is to not spam up these threads. Don't just post the character that you voted for's name. If you're going to say who you voted for, then explain why you voted for who you voted for, even if that explanation is just quoting someone that shares your sentiments. It doesn't need to be complicated. Even something as simple as "I voted for Asuka because she has a lot more spunk than Rei" or "I voted for Asuka because she has a lot of spunk" will work. So long as it has more substance than "Asuka" or "Asuka's better", its fine. Methinks that Ceres will win, only because I've heard the name mentioned positively so many more times than Temari. Ceres Victoria (Hellsing) [img]http://img136.echo.cx/img136/5403/hellsing081024x7685hm.jpg[/img] vs. Temari (Naruto) [img]http://img136.echo.cx/img136/5003/narutotemari00640gn.jpg[/img] (Damn, that hair's stupid! It even puts Yugi's and Aramaki's to shame!) I haven't seen either series (though I want to see both), so judging purely off of appearances... Ceres looks better. You can't see it too well in that picture, but Temari has another set of those... pinned up lumps of hair right below those ones. She must have lost a bet to one of her fellow ninjas or something. Besides, vampire characters are usually pretty cool. Note on the image search: Damn, I hate cosplayers! Do both of us a favor and don't put pictures of yourself online wearing a cheaply made costume and looking like the king/queen of dorks. Well at least there weren't any fat acne covered Sangos this time...

Helba: 1 vote Nyu/Lucy: 10 votes [b]Here you winner... Nyu/Lucy![/b] To quote Carlito Caribbean Cool: Das cool.

Anita: 5 votes Naru: 9 votes [b]Here is your winner, Naru![/b] Naru may be a flawed character, but she's still a whole let better than Anita. That's good. Oh, and don't worry Solo, Naru just [i]almost[/i] doubled Anita in votes.

1. I agree. Smarter AI is something that should take priority. 2. Those genres sound really boring. That's probably why they haven't been done yet. 3. Nobody with half a brain falls for those anymore. 4. I've seen some SNES roms that fall into that catagory... 5. Exactly, the sales say that sex sales, and that the prime demographic for gaming are younger males. 6. Again, I agree. Being able to quick save right before a hard boss would be ideal. Too bad that's part of the bullshitting with difficulty that they refer to later. 7. Really now? You learn something new everyday... 8. Its cheaper and less time consuming to have less spoken dialog. Its really not that important, especially when I usually have the TV's sound turned off and my radio blasting when I'm playing games. 9. Just make it so that the game's physics don't usually allow the players to hit the "top". Easy as that. 10. Again, not something that I'm too worried about... Sure the plate on the table realistically breaking and shattering under a clip of your machine gun bullets is cool at first, but once you really get into the gameplay, you stop noticing those sorts of things. 11. I HATE CINEMATIC CAMERA ANGLES! Ban em'. Eternal Darkeness didn't even sell 278 copies across the nation? It sounds like he's the one that's bullshitting this time. That's too much of a sub-abysmal number to believe. Link? 12. These piss me off too. You'd think that enemies with guns would have ammo on them. And I hate one sided catch-up. (That's called rubberband AI, right?) Why not just give them high performance cars that can keep up with yours? Thankfully, I'm usually smart enough to rent my games before I buy them. 13. This one's just stupid. They weren't bullshitting you, you just had to work to get the best stuff. I get a fair amount of satisfaction from finally saving up enough money to buy the million dollar + Formula 1 cars in Grand Turismo. 14. Its a traditional symbol that all gamers are familiar with. Why get rid of them? Bad situations in a generally okay future > post-apocalyptic future 15. As long as gamers continue to buy them, developers will continue to make them. Patents on gaming technology need to be banned, though. Whiny selfish sons of bitches. 16. Unfortunately, its probably profitable in the long term to force gamers to go out and buy a system that works... 17. I love that my PS2 can play DVDs. I'm all for entertainment systems. 18. I'd stop playing games if they did this. I'm not joking. 19. Yeah, that's bad. 20. Who cares? One thing that I really don't like is the decrease in the length of games. Were as 50+ hour games were common in the 64 bit era, it seems like 20 hour games have become the norm. I don't like that at all. If game length continues to decrease, I'll stop buying games and find a new pass time.

There's a stupid attitude. You'd rather kill everything that you've worked for (starve) than walk alone and on your own. That's weak.

Yeah, just leave him be so that he can convince himself that he should go back! Its just like leaving it in the hands of the judges... probably not the best idea. What do I reccomend? Take that $850 and put it towards a vacation. Ask your best friend to take care of the kid for a while, and head over to a place where the two of you can relax and have fun. Hawaii is definitely not overrated, if he likes that sort of thing. And there's plenty of places to see on the continental US too... the national parks, the monuments of Washington DC, the nightlife of Las Vegas, the amusement parks at Los Angelus and Orlando... Another thing, if you have any other really bad habbits, like drinking or smoking, quit. I know from my dad's experiences that those sorts of things can destroy a relationship. Also, you said that you aren't always the easiest to get along with. Try harder to relax and get rid of any emotional problems. High strung emotions can really kill a woman in the eyes of a man...

I'm bored, so that means that its time for a random thread about whatever's on my mind! As you might have guessed, this thread is for discussing cooking... recipes, good meals, bad meals, good seasoning, bad seasoning... For starters, worst possible crimes possible in the realm of cooking: -Defiling tater tots with season salt! I was very tempted to smack my mom for this one! -NOT covering the casserole with a thick layer of chedder cheese! The melted cheese is what makes the casserole! -Using low carb substitutes! Ugh, I think that I'm going to throw up in my mouth... that low carb spaghetti was some nasty stuff. -Baking a potato. Potatos belong in the frying pan! And God's gifts to cooking: -Garlic. It goes good with just about anything! -Potatos. Potatos are to side dishes what garlic to seasoning. Good stuff. -Pork. There's no better meat. Best ribs, best roast, great chinese style... Want to add to those lists or share cooking experiences? Great. Have at it!

If you can find me a better pic of Helba, I'll be happy to replace the one that I posted. I don't like it either. Seriously, the only other pics that I found of Nyu/Lucy were pics of Nyu in her joker hat (I would have set that thing ablaze if I were Kouta... stupid Yuka), pics from the opening (which don't say anything about the character), and group pics (I'm trying to avoid those during round 1). Besides, that pic kills two birds with one stone... you can tell a lot about both sides of the character just by looking at it.

Somebody mentioned that Adam Sessler is an overactor as of late. Let me ask you something: how easy do you think it is to convincingly deliver a bad comedy script? Trying to look and sound funny and when you know that the jokes suck? A lesser man would have fallen flat on his face a long time ago. Adam Sessler is the only thing keeping X-Play from turning into Judgement Day: Morgan Webb's Boobs Edition. Speaking of Morgan, has anyone noticed that her looks have gone downhill lately? I was never one of her drooling fanboys, but she looks like a vampire as of late, and an unhealthy vampire at that.

You guys really need to play the .hack games! Pick up the first one. Its a good guage for all of them, seeing as how the only thing that really changes between them are slight (yet noticable) differences in AI and a much harder challenge in OUTBREAK and QUARANTINE. (I hate the enemies with immunity to regular attacks!) Helba is a constant factor in the games... she shows up on the regular basis throughout all of them. Yet despite that, the only things that you learn about her are what I said earlier. Well, that, and that her and CC Corp (that is the name of the company that runs The World, right?) don't seem to get along. Anyways, its great that she's getting flattened by Nyu! :animesmil That would have been ridiculous if the no-character beat the cool character... Glad to see that the shallow fanbase doesn't exist here!

That's not the way that it works. Once I post the winner, the poll is just around for the hell of it. Plus, I don't see a "lock/delete poll" option... I actually considered changing the rules to what you're suggesting a few weeks ago, but that would give people more incentive to continue bumping older matches. That isn't a bad thing when just a few older ones are bumped, but if it became really common, it might lead to flooding. And if that happened, people might start accusing me of flooding the folder with versus matches, and then people would probably start trolling (not that this is a board with a lot of trolls, but easily irritated people are everywhere)- I'm sure that you see the problem.

What do you mean by "things that one needs to know"?

Damn, its been ages since I even considered picking up a gaming magazine! I used to subscribe to XBM (it must be a good two since then), and it really was underrated. Everybody was always ripping on it, but I always enjoyed reading every issue and being amongst the first to catch the Halo 2 videos and check out game demos. And its not terribly expensive if you subscribe to it... PSM was crap though. I picked it up a few times, and not only were the editors anti-funny, their opinions sucked too. I don't remember what they reviewed exactly, but I do remember laughing at how bad their tastes were... But if you want to know about the extra stuff, why not just pick up an issue from your local store? Most of the stores around here sell all of the gaming magazines. I doubt that that changes too drastically in other parts of America.

I only remember her unreasonably belittling Keitaro towards the beginning, before she really knew him. (most of the stuff towards the middle and end were things that pretty much anybody would made fun of him for) Sucking on her nose instead of kissing her on the mouth? I think that most girls would have made fun of him for that. Gets on his case whenever he talks to another female? The only time that she got unreasonably upset over something like that was when Su was sleeping in his room. Wasn't she the one that thought that it was sweet that he was taking care of Shinobu? There was also one point when she was pushing for Keitaro to go for Mutsumi because [spoiler]she thought that it was her that Keitaro had made that childhood promise to.[/spoiler] It might have been some screwed up logic there, but its not like she had only herself in mind when she did that. [spoiler]Yeah, she was a bit of a hypocrit towards the end (getting mad at Haruka for not confessing her feelings for Seta), but she ultimately got over that, even if it did take an over-the-top chase by Keitaro to get her to change her mind.[/spoiler] Then again, I'm going off of what I read in the manga, so maybe her character is different in the anime. I haven't heard of any major changes in character between the two though.