PiroMunkie

[quote name='Dragon Warrior' timestamp='1295972183' post='704310'] Haha, you are the second person to say I look like him. I have a very long list of people I'm told I look like. (And yeah, you BETTER say sexy 'cause that guy ain't >: O) [/quote][color="#006400"]That's the first person that pops into my head when I look at your picture. You have better hair, though.[/color]

[color="#006400"]This all reminds me a lot of [i]FlashForward[/i], except you're jamming it into five days instead of several months. So like [i]FF[/i] meets [i]24[/i], lol. Sounds interesting enough, though the time frame seems a little intimidating.[/color]

[color="#006400"]Lately I've been pretty much watching every season of the modern (2005+) Doctor Who. Up to the fifth season right now. Enjoying it a lot. Although up until the fifth season I didn't like every single one of the Doctor's companions. Matt Smith's facial structure is a bit creepy. Good show, though. Doesn't seem to leave any plot or character unresolved.[/color]

[color="#006400"]I've never used it or anything similar when speaking with other people, but one time in high school when I was taking French we had to keep a sort of "journal" of our day to day activities for a while, but write it in French. The teacher said we were not to use translators and that she could tell if we did (because of things getting lost in translation). Not heeding that warning I went ahead and used one anyway; continuously translating and retranslating until I got something that worked and didn't sound like I was using a whole lot we hadn't necessarily learned. I got an 'A' on every turn-in, lol.[/color]

[color="#006400"]I've been pseudo back off and on for a while now â?? mostly lurking â?? but glad you took notice. You can also find a handful of oldbies down in the "Anyone here from 2001-ish?" thread, though many posts go way back, lol. Then you have people like Desbreko, Shy and Gavin who apparently have 100 years of servitude before facing their final judgment.[/color]

[color="#006400"]Anyone can look like a great shot if they shoot first and draw bulls-eyes later.[/color]

[color="#006400"]The only thing I want to see resolved is something I have no control over.[/color]

[color="#006400"]I got a new pair of pajama pants, some new brown corduroy pants, [i]Metroid: Other M[/i], the movie [i]Who Framed Roger Rabbit?[/i], a $25 gift card to a movie theater, and my mom's old digital camera since she got a new one recently, lol. Oh, and I got a knitted scarf and new stocking from friend of mine. :] And yeah, Apples to Apples is definitely a fun game, lol. I remember one time debating with the "judge" for like five minutes as to why two cards he was trying to decide on were no more fitting than the other one (he had already, immediately, dismissed my card). He eventually got so frustrated with trying to decide which one that he just put both of them down and picked up mine again and went with that one even though it had nothing to do with the adjective, lol. Great times.[/color]

[color="#006400"]I was never really in the realm of asking for things and not receiving them as much as it was knowing I couldn't ask for them in the first place because they were too expensive, lol.[/color]

[quote name='Desbreko' timestamp='1292979004' post='703101'][color=#4B0082]The future is probably [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri]Calibri[/url], actually. :p[/color][/quote] [color="#006400"]I'll give it points for being a nice break from the serif eyesore that is Times New Roman, however, the apparent fact that it's replaced both Times New Roman [i]and[/i] Arial as default in many common programs only drives my point home a little more, lol.[/color]

[color="#006400"]Man, I remember I used to have a shoebox [i]full[/i] of old notes and stuff from girlfriends and girl friends in high school. And I'm not talking about stuff like "man this class is so boring LOL," they were practically letters, often front and back of the sheet of paper and sometimes multiple pages. Looking back, I find it pretty intriguing that we kept that sort of communication going (mostly in such length). I can't imagine doing the same through text messages. E-mails could come close, but it's just so much less 'meaningful' than actually having a handwritten letter. There's just so much more character. I mean, here on this forum even, we're forced to format our text with different predetermined colors, predetermined typefaces, avatars and signatures to attempt to convey our own personality to others. Handwriting, however, even though it can be mimicked is inherently unique. I know going through grade school with the same people all throughout, you could identify someone's paper merely by their own handwriting. I don't exactly fear or shun the idea of this sort of new-age communication (though I'm not exactly a fan of things like Facebook or Twitter), but I think in the shift from handwritten letters to instant messages and e-mails you're losing something a lot more significant than simply the aforementioned shift from quill and parchment to pen and paper. In the future, everyone "writes" in Times New Roman or Arial (or Comic Sans if they're [i]that[/i] person). Even if electronic messaging allows people to communicate with people from all over, there's still no real sense that you're actually communicating with a [i]person[/i]. You can't see them or hear their voice. Their "writing" is indistinguishable from the next person. So in that regard, I could see it (sort of worst-cast scenario) being a problem that people become more and more socially inept when it comes to dealing with people in person.[/color]

[color="#006400"]I loved Origins. So much that I nearly melted my friend's PS3 on multiple occasions when I was vegging at their place for a while. There are some things that bugged me, but the story and the interactiveness of the overall plot just really kept me in. Awakening was really short and disappointing in that regard. I treated that hussy bard like crap almost the entire time in Origins, and yet scampered off into the sunset with her in Awakening. I heard of a Dragon Age II pretty much while I was playing Origins/Awakening, and I [i]heard[/i] that it was supposed to build off your main character from Origins (if you had one), which had me pretty excited for it. I guess there's already a DLC for Morrigan's storyline called Witch Hunt, but I haven't played it. I can't imagine Dragon Age II wouldn't be designed to allow you to import previous data. Awakening and Witch Hunt both do.[/color]

[quote name='KittyLynn' timestamp='1292528017' post='702821']I hope everyone here has the same experience as my "generation" did, haha.[/quote][color="#006400"]Unpossible. We had people like kuja, Shinji, and BigPoppaHump. They'll never have to suffer the emotional and psychological scarring we did. OB seems like a relatively safer place to be these days, lol.[/color]

[color="#006400"]Being out of the cultural loop is so OtakuBoards. I refuse to say "totally," especially with as much excitement as all caps conveys. I'm simply not that hip.[/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I'm going to make a bonfire of all religious texts to symbolize that America is supposed to be the great 'melting pot.' Surely this will work.[/font][/color]

[quote name='James' date='10 September 2010 - 02:45 AM' timestamp='1284104716' post='700368'] [font="Palatino Linotype"]And Samus has always progressively unlocked her weapons, giving her the ability to re-visit previously locked areas and so on. Other M's handling of that seems very canon to me. Other M does have a number of little intentional surprises that aren't immediately apparent - I've noticed a few of these as I've been playing. But even some of the things you have to do that are part of the regular experience are pretty surprising, anyway [spoiler](e.g.: the way you have to access terminals to de-cloak parts of the ship, being one example)[/spoiler]. I don't know if I'd want those secrets that border on glitches, especially in a modern game.[/font][/quote] [color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I definitely agree on not wanting the "glitches," which is why I was leaning more toward designing [i]intended[/i] secrets in the games instead of just completely stripping players of their free roam. Backtracking isn't quite the same thing, but I understand what you mean. Most of what you could do in Super Metroid or other games was more just being really good at wall jumping or bomb jumping to get into areas you'd normally need one of your later upgrades to get, which leads to saving time, and then leads to people doing speed runs and people competing to see who can beat the game the fastest and/or with the least amount of items. Or, for example, in the original Metroid, you could get the Varia Suit before ever stepping out of Brinstar (your starting zone), which involves you finding a secret location of the Ice Beam and just a little non-glitchy creativity (aside from a mob getting stuck when break-away blocks respawn if you can really call that a glitch back then) on top of that. Normally you'd need the High Jump boots before you could get the Varia Suit, which if I remember right was in Norfair (Ridley's area, sort of the 'second' dungeon of the game, though most people hit it up first because it has pretty much all the good upgrades). The [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N025nnrcGrc]Shinespark Secret[/url] in Metroid Fusion is probably the best example. You get out of an area before getting the upgrade you would otherwise need to do so, and it's actually designed in the game, no exploit. It doesn't have to be such an extreme feat as that (I don't even know how people even come up with being able to do that), but just having hidden rewards for people who make creative or advanced use of their surroundings, without hindering those people that don't. While I've seen some energy tanks or other pick-ups in some pretty ridiculous areas, there isn't much of anything that let's you [i]advance[/i] (not backtrack) off the beaten path.[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I was actually fairly sheltered as a child, it took me a while to really discover music on my own. My parents were never really big into music, and so I was basically left just sort of getting 'hand-me-downs' from my older brother. I get a bit jealous when people say they've been listening to what took me most of my current life to discover since they were kids. From when I was really young, all I really remember is a [i]Ghostbusters[/i] soundtrack on record, and somehow I came across Michael Jackson and liked his music a lot. I even think I still own that movie of his, [i]Moonwalker[/i], on VHS somewhere (though no means to play it obviously, lol). Outside of that, everything I was exposed to trickled down through my brother, which for the most part was rap and hip-hop (from Kris Kross to 2 Pac, lol) with some mainstream bands (I recall having a GreenDay [i]Dookie[/i] cassette at one point). Eventually that turned in to Top 40 radio (yeah, shamefully there was a time when I enjoyed N'Sync). It's kind of funny to think how long it took me to figure out where a friend of mine got this crazy "Blinded by the Light" song he would sing on occasion, lol. I think there was another song he used to sing, but I don't remember what it was ... probably something from Journey. My first CD ever was the [i]Men in Black[/i] soundtrack, lol. The oldest albums I still own today are probably some Weird Al that I got from my brother when he didn't listen to them any more â?? [i]The Food Albums[/i], [i]Alapalooza[/i], and [i]Even Worse[/i]. Actually I'm not sure if I still have [i]Alapalooza[/i], but I wish I did. That being said, when I finally got really into music I was in high school and a friend of mine introduced me to punk rock/hard core. I spent a lot of time in that culture. Pretty much most friends I made in high school had the same general interests. So I sat in punk/hardcore/ska for a long time. There was a little alternative/metal/classic rock exposure, but not much. I don't know when I got the Smashing Pumpkins' [i]Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness[/i], but that pretty much sealed the deal for the rest of my life. There was a time when I pretty much listened to the Pumpkins exclusively. When I can't decide what I want to listen to, I know I can always fall back on them. I still don't really actively follow the music industry or anything, I'm rarely impressed with what I hear anyhow. I'm always trying to dive back in time and really experience music from past decades. Like, I know of Led Zeppelin, but I've never taken the time to really listen to their music in depth. Same with Pink Floyd. Rush. Queen. Dio. And others I'm sure. My iTunes has a pretty wide variety of stuff on it, including random hip-hop or rap songs I remember from my childhood. Some catchy Mexican music I was exposed to when I worked at Taco Bell, lol (I swear every song has the same beat, but some are really catchy). Though the vast majority of it fits into some variety of alternative/punk/classic rock. I can put it on random and never really feel like opening it up to change the song, unless it happens to land on a lot of long songs repeatedly (I'm looking at you, Dream Theater).[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I've been following an Other M video "walk-through" (albeit incomplete) because I don't really care about spoilers, but it's good to hear the gameplay has been positive. From the commercials and previews I definitely liked the coloration and overall design of the game. Though, when watching the walk-through I was a bit disappointed in the lava areas, in that the lava has no dynamic to it. It's just remains flat, never waving or anything when creatures pop out of it (aside from arbitrary splashes, but the base of the lava stays the same). A small detail, but one I thought was kind of disappointing. And as for Samus' VA, 'soulless' is right, heh. This was probably one of the most frustrating things for me when watching the game. Not only the VA, but a lot of the dialogue and her reactions to certain things [spoiler](cowering in fear of Ridley, for example)[/spoiler] just make her so emotionally fragile and pathetic, when even in earlier games, despite her silence, she always exuded a sort of confidence and vindication at all times, even in the face of what might be her biggest nightmares [spoiler](when she first encounters Ridley in Metroid Prime she's [i]angry[/i], not afraid)[/spoiler]. It really made it hard for me to believe that the Samus in Other M can just turn around and be the kick ass bounty hunter we all know and love her to be after displaying so much insecurity. Though most of this just falls back on her VA. I felt a lot of her dialogue would have carried a lot better if she had a strong, mature voice. Just changing how she says things would have made them completely different. As for her holding back on her weapons, I agree that it didn't seem [i]too[/i] unbelievable in the way it was presented (Adam does indeed have a commanding presence, and obviously the respect of Samus). Though as a whole the game seems to undermine Samus' level of experience. It almost would have been nice to see her maybe [i]call[/i] for permission of use of different functions at times. Maybe even giving the player the option to try to call for different functions and open the dialogue of Adam saying "Yes or No" would have been cool. Even if they were still set to be activated only at certain times, giving the player the illusion of control would be a bit satisfying (at least the first time through, lol). Which bring me to my next point: the game seems painstakingly linear. Other M definitely seems to take a different turn from previous titles as there seems to be very little free exploration and pretty much a complete inability to break sequence (primarily having to do with getting your upgrades when Adam says it's okay), which has basically always been a hallmark of Metroid. I know Retro Studios also tried to take away a lot of the sequence breaking in the Prime series (especially when they released the Trilogy edition for the Wii) and even Fusion was more linear than most games but you still had a little leeway (and a nice little bonus if you were pro at the Shine Spark), but Other M seems to take it to a whole new level. I can understand wanting to prevent people from exploiting terrain glitches and general [i]faults[/i] to cheese their way into certain areas, but I think intentionally designing surprises in the game to reward people who get creative with the game and its exploration isn't too much ask. In the case of Other M, for example, if you managed to find a hidden room that had extreme heat (for whatever reason), Adam would allow you your Varia Suit function earlier in the game than you normally would, or even just hidden dialogue or cut-scenes like in Fusion. Super Metroid really shined in this department whether it was intentional or not. Aside from maybe the "Mockball" (which rides a fine line of being a glitch, or just skill, lol), you can access a lot of things earlier than you normally would just by being good at, and creative with, the game. It adds a lot of fun and definite replayability to the game to give the player different options in how to progress through it. Lastly, I agree with you on the 'isolation' factor. Aside from the first boss, it's not like you're running around with a team of space marines at your back, and your encounters with them after that are often brief and limited to cut-scenes. Without wanting to spoil much (though I'll still use tags just to be fair), [spoiler]events in the game definitely create a sense of isolation even when among peers[/spoiler]. The game definitely creates a good dynamic in that regard, and I'm intrigued to see how it pans out. Overall I'm satisfied, I sort of expected a little more from it, and at first it was definitely hard for me to look past their characterization of Samus. While I think there's plenty of room for improvement, I'm still very eager to play it myself.[/font][/color]

[quote name='Jagan00' date='06 September 2010 - 02:36 PM' timestamp='1283801766' post='700276'] Just for clarification the Metroid Prime series are NOT FPS games They are FP Adventure games Comparing them to Halo is absurd [/quote] [font="Arial"][color="#006400"]They're first-person, and you spend a hell of a lot of time shooting things. It's just as much a shooter as it is an adventure. Metroid and Halo settings are also generally similar. Similarities can be drawn between the races present in both games. The Prime series (Hunters and Echoes) introduced a multiplayer "battle your friends" mode which I found a bit ridiculous considering how poorly they were done (in comparison to multiplayer modes of games [i]like[/i] Halo, which imo were the best part of those games), and just that Metroid never really struck me as any sort of multiplayer game to begin with. Why would anyone think to put a multiplayer battle into what's always been a solo adventuring game unless they saw the success of multiplayer in a certain other space-shooter title? Thankfully they didn't waste time with multiplayer past Echoes. There are a lot of differences in how they're set up for sure, but to think either of those games (Prime series specifically out of Metroid) never had any influence on each other is pretty absurd, imo.[/color][/font] [quote name='James' date='07 September 2010 - 03:02 AM' timestamp='1283846550' post='700291'] [font=palatino linotype]I just wonder if by forcing everything onto just the Wii Remote, they haven't limited the game in an artificial way that need not have been the case.[/font] [/quote] [color="#006400"][font="Arial"]Thanks for reminding me about that. I keep forgetting Other M is all on the Wii remote and always imagine it with the nunchuck extension, which is probably why I have/had a hard time understanding the need for auto-targeting. From what little I played of Corruption I enjoyed being able to use the Wii remote to look around at any time (as opposed to being forced to stop and hold the R-Button in the earlier games). Having watched a Let's Play of Prime done on the Wii Trilogy edition almost made me hate the GameCube just to see how much more convenient that free-aiming ability is in most cases, and not to mention having access to the Spring Ball (though that has nothing to do with controls, just extremely convenient). I just sort of assumed the remote/nunchuck would carry over into Other M. It's actually a pretty comfortable set-up compared to the GameCube controller which has it's limitations as to what button combination you can press without being a contortionist. I loved the Seeker Missile in Echoes, but you had to pretty much do the whole 'stand still and hold R to look around' on top of the fact that you also can't jump while using them because the B-button is in an awkward place compared to the Y-button which you're holding to charge your Seekers. With the Wii remote and nunchuck you have all buttons available to you without much fuss. So I could definitely see where the control system would be awkward in being limited to only the remote, and having to switch from its horizontal and pointed positions.[/font][/color]

[quote name='Desbreko' date='03 September 2010 - 08:05 PM' timestamp='1283562312' post='700221'] [color=#4B0082]Well, the Prime series doesn't really play anything like Halo. For better or worse, the lock-on targeting system in the first two make them completely different from other FPS's. Can't comment on the pointer aiming in Prime 3 and the Trilogy collection, though, since I've not played those.[/color][/quote] [color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I couldn't respond to this in-depth without feeling like I'd be going way off-topic (talking about the wrong game in conjunction with the relationships between PC and console gaming), but I guess my TL;DR version is that I feel FPS's simply play better on a PC than on any console. I remember reading a few articles about how Microsoft was trying to bridge XBox Live with their Windows Live or whatever their PC counterpart is, but they had to can it because even average PC gamers could annihilate seasoned console gamers (testing FPS's). Whether that was the sole reason the idea was shut down or not, I don't know. I've played the Primes, only took the time to beat the second one, but I could just never get into the whole first-person view. Maybe I've just played too many third-person games, or ... maybe third person is just a lot better than first person when it comes to a console now that I think about it, lol. One of the biggest things that bugged me with Prime was the inability to look around [i]and[/i] strafe at the same time. You would have to Stop. Look around. Lock on. Strafe and pray you don't lose your lock. Also the inability to toggle your "Lock" between objects/mobs within your field of view (constantly locking on to a piece of the environment when your trying to get the mob right next to it). In third-person, however, your field of view is a lot bigger and you're not forced to stop and look around for anything flying above or below you. Other M pretty much does this for you with it's auto-targeting system, which I honestly had mixed feelings for at first but I can sort of see how it benefits the game. Even if you look at a game like Castlevania, though, which shares a lot of similarities with Metroid (and god help us if they ever remake Kid Icarus), when they took it out of a side-scroller into a 3D environment they put it in the third person. Metroid is a lot more about solving the puzzles and finding secrets than it is just a straight shoot-'em-up, which is why I was just so ... uncomfortable(?) playing Prime, and was so relieved to see Other M in third-person. Watching videos of Other M, has me pretty excited to play it. Really my only beef with Other M from what I've seen of it so far is it's lack of Kraid. Poor guy has only been in three games which were sort of all re-tellings of the same story. :P[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I've been looking forward to this game since I heard about it, though I'm pretty much broke at the moment so probably won't get a chance to play it any time soon. I keep trying to get a friend of mine to lend it to me since he beat it already, lol. I was never really a fan of the Prime series. To me it just looked like someone was trying to bank off Metroid's name and Halo's popularity. I've never imagine Metroid as an FPS, and even trying to play those games I just get irritated at the slow controls â?? and by that I just mean that FPS's just really aren't meant for console gaming, in my opinion. The Prime series would probably be a lot more enjoyable if it was made for a PC. When I saw that they were making a new Metroid from a third-person adventure perspective, I was relieved. I always thought that's how Metroid should have made the switch from 2D to 3D. The introduction of 'melee'/'grapple' moves was pretty exciting to me. The gameplay looks pretty fun, I'm mostly just curious as to how it translates to the Wii controller. My friend said he enjoyed it a lot, and might even give it another play-through, and that it contends with Super Metroid as to which of the games is his favorite. I look forward to getting a chance to play it whenever that may be.[/font][/color] [quote name='The Tentacle' date='02 September 2010 - 04:57 PM' timestamp='1283464620' post='700169'] I lost interest in the series afterwards, especially with some of the later games going FPS, but I do admit that this latest sequel (or prequel?) does look pretty sweet.[/quote] [color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I think I remember reading that it's supposed to take place between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion (Other M even features a boss from Fusion, and my favorite one at that, lol). As to the complete chronology of Metroid, I have no idea.[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]What exactly does it mean by it can't have cliches? lol ... Seems like a pretty broad statement. When I was in high school I took a Multimedia class where we were split into groups and had to make a short movie. A guy in my group said his dad does theater in the city and had a sort of "tin man" costume. So I basically took that idea and made a silent, black and white movie about a robot being in school (being shunned, picked on), and at the end he runs into a girl (the other person in the group) who's wearing a shirt that says "I <3 Robots." I, of course, had to include an obligatory subliminal frame of "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" during the credits.[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]I managed to see this the other day, and yeah, nothing new with Michael Cera there. However, the dialogue in the movie was fast-paced enough that you usually didn't have time to want to punch him in the face. That, and even his friends were arguably cruel to him more often than not. Having not read the comics (and probably won't), I don't know if I could agree with James saying he [i]is[/i] Scott Pilgrim ... I don't get that impression even from the illustrations I've seen of him. Scott Pilgrim seems to have a lot of charisma, Michael Cera doesn't. The movie was pretty good, though. I enjoyed it for what it was. And yeah I definitely noticed the old school Zelda music in the movie, lol.[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]Clearing cookies seemed to work. They still open in a new window, but you get the website you were looking for. If it's an issue with cookies, though, would this just be a temporary fix? I suppose it isn't a huge deal to clear your cookies every now and then, and actually I just had them set up their browsers to clear their cookies and whatnot every time they close it â?? so crisis averted probably. Though it still leaves me curious.[/font][/color]

[color="#006400"][font="Arial"]So my parents just had me set up their new computer (because apparently they don't know what plugs into where, lol) and I encountered something peculiar. When I first opened up their internet browser (IE by default) it automatically redirected me to some other site about buying movies or something. I just brushed that off because it's a new computer maybe it was just set up to launch an advertisement when it was first opened. However, when doing a Google search, the same thing happened. When I clicked on a search result, I'd be redirected to a different website â?? and not malicious sites, just legit places like Cisco was one that popped up often. They also open in a new window. If I went back and clicked the link again, I'd be brought to the correct website. At first I thought this was just because I was using Google, and Microsoft was just trying to be a dick so unsuspecting people would want to use Bing instead (though I didn't think to try searching using Bing to see if I'd get the same problem). So I tried installing Google Chrome, and the same thing happened. I tried looking this up online, but all I really get are people saying it's a malware infection or something along those lines, however I have a hard time believing that because: 1. This is a new computer. 2. These sites aren't malicious, basically just advertising (and not even like a normal pop-up, actually brings me to the homepage of the website, lol). My mom said she's been experiencing the same thing on her laptop. I've never had any such problem (though I think they're both on Windows 7, whereas I'm still on Vista). So I'm checking to see if any of you have heard anything about this and/or how to fix it. [b][color="#C0C0C0"][size="1"]PS - I have no idea if this actually qualifies as a 'Hardwired' topic, but that forum is basically nothing but gaming regardless of what the description says. [/size][/color][/b][/font][/color]