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[quote name='KarmaOfChaos][color=deeppink][size=1] If you're antsy about other people touching something before you buy it, then you might as well stop buying all your books, clothing, food, etc, from stores right now because just about everything you buy has probably been touched by somebody else first.[/size'][/color][/quote] But I don't buy half eaten food or used clothing for [i]full[/i] price (or at all in the case of the food lol). I really don't think I should be stuck paying full price for a book that's been passed through the hands of a bunch of greasy manga fans that are too cheap to buy the same issues they apparently have no problem reading through in their entirety at the shop. For me, this isn't really didn't seem to be about people who rifle through a few pages and check out the covers so they can inform their decisions for purchase. I read this as more or less being about people who read entire volumes in the store and don't spend a penny. If you did that at the comic shop, they'd kick you out. I think that's how it should be. I know a lot of comics and such I buy have several page previews online. I know that some manga has this, but I'm not sure if all do. I suppose at some point they could shrink wrap the manga and set up little scanning machines that show you previews and a synopsis. That'd be nice.

To be honest, I have only seen The Who on TV once. I actually think it was on the Smothers Brothers when some cable channel here used to show re-runs. I was a little kid and I remember asking my mom why they were busting all their instruments lol. It's hard to pick a favorite song. The only one of theirs I really am just not into is Boris the Spider. I just find it obnoxious... mostly thanks to the super low voices. Everything else pretty much just rocks. I think I'd probably go with "Won't Be Fooled Again" though. Nearly nine minutes of pure awesomeness. Definitely one of the best rock bands ever.

[quote name='Dragon Warrior']And as for Family Guy, don't expect season 4 soon. It premiers next summer.[/quote] In that case, it sounds like his local Fox station just got the rights to show reruns in syndication...

[QUOTE=Morpheus]GBA Mario ana Luigi: Superstar Saga. It showed me(like Dragon warrior monsters in '99) That rpg's don't have to have final fantasy's horrible gameplay.[/QUOTE] Are you in the US, because that actually came out late last year. Any good comments for it are good though, I loved the game heh. As for Riddick, I'd probably include it as one of the best games of the yea thus far, but I really wasn't that blown away by it. I've complained about it enough on other places that I won't bother here... but it's defintely good overall. Psi-Ops was fun... for about two hours. After I got most of the psi powers, it kind of just descended into tedium. Exploding heads and throwing guys into ovens and electrical wires is only fun for so long without other things to do. Sadly, I had almost no interest in the story, level designs, enemies or really anything else. Once the fun of throwing people against walls and such wore off, it just became obvious that this game wasn't that much more advanced than Doom... and by that, I just mean that it's a key card collection fest. It doesn't help that the game apparently won't bring out chracters carrying important items if you drop an object near their entry point. Really dumb bug.

Well, Nintendo isn't making it... Vivarium is. As far as I know, they've made nothing outside of Seaman on DC and PS2. Last I heard, the game doesn't even have a definite publisher. Nintendo apparently wasn't on board even though it was at their booth at E3. I don't know. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt right now heh.

It didn't seem to be so much the concept as the fact that it just wasn't pulled off that well in its current state. I have been led to believe that it just wasn't that fun and didn't really seem like something that'd be worth paying for in the long run. However, who knows what'll happen between then and whenever it comes out.

Certainly not the most original topic, but while sitting around last night I wondered to myself what games I've enjoyed most so far this year. Especially considering that games I'm [I]really[/I] looking forward to are still set for the coming months (Shin Megami Tensei, let me touch you...). Anyway, I don't care if you want to do five or twenty... your choice. Just make sure it came out this year. [U] [B]GBA[/B][/U] [B]Mario Golf: Advance Tour[/B] - I wasn't really planning on buying this, but I was at the store looking for something new to play on the train and this screamed out at me. Reviews and impressions were all glowing, so I figured what the hell. I bought it. I'm really glad I did. It's hands down my favorite GBA game, beating out even Mario and Luigi and Advance Wars... something I didn't expect whatsoever. The game has so much to do, it looks and sounds great and the old school play mechanics (although still pretty damn deep) are wonderful. A must buy, I think. [U][B]Xbox[/B][/U] [B] Rallisport Challenge 2[/B] - Sadly, I don't own this one yet. I have the Blockbuster Game Pass, so I rented it for almost three weeks. I played it almost every day. It's just really damn good. I love rally racers more than any other type, excluding F-Zero and kart style games. This is the best one that ever existed. It has a great career mode with an insane amount of tracks and unlockables. It completely skips over the money idea that makes GT so plodding at times. I just think it's better paced. Amazing game. [U][B]GameCube[/B][/U] [B]Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life[/B] - I wrote a huge set of impressions on this game here. Sadly it got very few posts, but I'll link to it if you want to know what I liked and disliked about the game: It's still an amazing additiion to the series and it looks and sounds surprisingly good for a Marvelous/Natsume game. Definitely makes up for the PS2 title. [B]Tales of Symphonia[/B] - I've really been enjoying this game. Sure, the plot is full of cliche moments, but it is peppered with some interesting ideas. The characters are rather two dimensional, but I like how they're so upbeat compared to characters in other RPGs as of late. The battle system is amazingly good and really rewards you if you're good at it. The game actually has dungeons with puzzle elements and such, which is another thing I miss in most RPGs nowadays. Really good game overall, despite the flaws. Definitely worth the price for any RPG fan. For PS2, everything I really want isn't out yet... Everything I've bought for it this year so far was actually released in a previous year. I suppose at this point I give the nod to[B] Transformers[/B]. A great looking, fun game that really does the show justice. I hope it leads to more games because it's much better than I ever anticipated. There's still a few games I would like to play, but haven't... like R-Type Final and Four Swords Adventures. I might think of more for this later. Any one else?

I don't know if anyone cares or not... but Best Buy is having a pretty decent sale on anime this week. Should end Saturday. The one that stood out the most was the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex set. It's the one that comes in a slotted black case with a free audio CD. Normally $40, on sale for $15.19 at my local shop. Definitely worth that price.

Yeah, this has been known for awhile that they were making new ones... I just didn't know there was a date yet. Fox paid for something like 30 new episodes. If they wanted to keep them, they had first dibs. If not, they'd debut on Cartoon Network. Either way, CN gets to air them eventually. Hopefully Fox won't be stupid this time and will put it in a good time slot and [B]leave it there[/B], instead of moving it around every time people get used to its air date. I wonder if McFarlane's second series for Fox, American Dad, will debut soon.

[quote name='The Nameless']where can i find a download for GIMP or do you have to buy it?[/quote] It's Open Source, so it's free. I've been recommending it to people for a long time now... No clue why people stick with crap like Paint when thye can get GIMP for free. [url]http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html[/url] The easiest thing to do is to go to that page and download and install GTK+ and GIMP. Otherwise, the official page is here: [url]http://www.gimp.org/[/url]

[quote name='satan665']What console is this for?[/quote] It's for GameCube. Apparently people weren't too fond of it at E3, though.

I'd have to say my favorite system right now is really the Game Boy Advance. I put more hours into the thing on a weekly basis than any console I own. I think the fact that I only really play it on the go strengthens my interest in it though. If I only played it sitting on my couch, I wonder if I'd love it as much. But with games like Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Mario & Luigi, Ninja Five-O, Mario Golf: Advance Tour, the Castlevania titles and so forth... I just think it's a great system. As for consoles, I go in phases I suppose. My favorite is generally whichever one I have a new game for at the time. I rarely buy Xbox games (in fact, I only own two), but I rent them somewhat often. While I really like some games for the system, it's far from my favorite. On average, I don't find it that much more graphically impressive than the other systems, honestly. I couldn't care less about most FF games (I don't personally think FF is a great series, so I disagree with that comment lol), but I do love RPGs, so PS2 is up there. In the next few months, there's really going to be an explosion of amazing RPGs for the system... Star Ocean 3, Shadow Hearts 2, Phantom Brave, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Mega Man Command Mission (although it's supposedly better on GCN). Not to mention some of the RPGs already out for the thing. Plus it has Amplitude and Frequency, my two favorite music games outside of Samba de Amigo on DC. GameCube is probably the one I play the most... mostly because I think it has the best balance of pick up and play games and games that require you to invest time. I have some random RPGs for it that I consider the among the best in the last few years, plus most anything from Nintendo that I own is definitely worth purchasing the console for. To be honest, outside of the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei games, all of the games I'm looking forward to most are on GameCube for the rest of this year. So I don't have a clear favorite other than the GBA.

I think the thing is pretty interesting. It's not amazing in any way, but it's a nice waste of time. Personally, I'm growing tired of all the games on PS2 that require me to invest tons of time and thought into them. Something like EyeToy is a nice alternative. And it's only like $50 here. I've never seen it going for $100.

[quote name='maladjusted][color=firebrick'] But I do read about two pages to see it's worth my money.[/color][/quote] Yeah, I think that's a good thing to say. When I buy a comic book (I admittedly don't buy much manga anymore), at the most I read a couple of pages and quickly flip through the rest to see if I'm even interested. I don't physically sit down and read these books for hours at a time like many people seem to. It's always the most crowded section of the book stores I go to and most of the people in it literally just camp there. You can hardly get by to actually get things you'd purchase. It's a book [I]store[/I], not a library.

The only reason I don't like that these stores let people read the books is that I'm not getting something new. I hate paying full price for a book that people have read through already. It's even worse when the only copy left has bent pages and finger prints all over it... that's what you get when people are allowed to bring unpurchased books into an eating area.

I usually avoid these threads, but I didn't give an answer to this one yet and I'm bored... so what the hell. Picking five musicians is rather difficult for me, to be honest. 1.) David Bowie 2.) Marilyn Manson 3.) Apocalypse Hoboken 4.) Pixies 5.) Modest Mouse There's a lot of bands I'd consider favorite beyond these. Other than the first three, I'm not even sure of what I've selected here. It's always rather random. I don't have any specifics other than Bowie, AH, Pixies and Manson usually. To me, David Bowie is the epitome of rock music. This includes not only him, but members of his backing band like the amazing Mick Ronson (responsible for a lot of the string arrangements and guitar pieces). I don't think anything has ever topped Ziggy Stardust in terms of a complete album. Not only is it amazingly well written and played, but the feeling and meaning behind it are unparalled. Bowie arguably released more impressive sounding albums since then, but I don't think any have topped the overall effect of Ziggy Stardust. To me, it's the best album ever recorded. I'd say that Bowie was easily close second to the Beatles in terms of influences for the coming decades. I remember a rather recent survey of current popular bands and the most popular choice for an influence was David Bowie. That has to mean somethnig. Marilyn Manson is a band I receive a lot of crap for. Back in 1996, they gained a lot of fans due to their image. Now that same image has been biting them in the ***, even though it's been altered a few times since then. I personally feel the band plays some great music and Manson is an excellent lyricist, but very few are willing to look beyond the image. I've been a huge fan of the band for almost a decade now. I own all their LPs, most of their import singles, bootlegs, etc. I probably listen to them more than any other band in existance. My favorite of their releases is probably Portrait of an American Family, but Mechanical Animals is unarguably the most impressive even if I am not always in the mood for it. I consider it the second best album ever, personally heh. Apocalypse Hoboken is a local punk band that's now disbanded. I love all of their word and really relate to the messages the band puts across. They're without a doubt my favorite punk group. Seeing them live was a dream come true heh. Best day of my life, I think. The Pixies sometimes are my favorite of all of these, but they're usually at least in the top 5. I absolutely love their music, I love the attitude and I love the nonsensical side of it all. I cannot wait to see them in November.

[url]www.nintendo.com/metroidprime2.jsp[/url] [QUOTE]Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, the highly anticipated sequel to Metroid Prime, won't be available until November, but you can get a sneak peek into the adventures of Samus through a playable demo on the Metroid Prime 2 Echoes Bonus Disc! Bonus Disc Contains: * Metroid Prime 2 Echoes playable demo * Metroid Prime 2 Echoes movie trailers * Metroid art gallery * The Metroid Chronicle This offer is available for a limited time, while supplies last, and only to My Nintendo members, either with a Nintendo Power subscription or by registering Nintendo products.[/QUOTE] You need to have five Nintendo games registered to receive this disc. Luckily, I already did, so they reserved mine. It's supposed to be sent out August 20th.

I didn't like the movie at all, but I do honestly think you should see it before forming any more deep opinions on the film. Really, you're not going to approach this film with a remotely clean slate at this point. Even if you tried to ignore it, you already know all the twists, plot points, character developments contained within the movie. There's going to be a bias that is going to affect your judgement of the film... I think you should just see it and then complain, because really, you'll just be given more things to complain about once you see it (as I have lol).

I remember way back James and I were discussing single character chapters. I asked if I'd have to do one and he said it was up to me. I promptly told him I wasn't interested. At the time I had no interest in developing Persona. Despite writing things about him that alluded to his past, I really didn't to make him a deep character. To me, he was simply a killing machine and that was that. In fact, I honestly mainly joined Kill Adam because I wanted to write posts where I got to kill people off. Not for character development or story progression, but just deaths. However, I suppose there's only so much you can do with that and I had considered approaching James about making my own chapter. However, I never did, and so I was rather surprised to find that I was the first writer after the opening post. I put it off for awhile, but forced myself to do it eventually. I didn't want a repeat of Kill Adam Vol. 1 where there were literally weeks between posts. I sat down, wrote it all stream of consciousness with no prior planning and cleaned it up. That was it. I ditched a couple scenes and ideas I had as I wrote it, but it's really just the first and only draft of the post. I'm honestly still surprised it turned out decently and even more surprised by some of the nice comments I've gotten about it. The ones from Shy and James in particular, since they're obviously the mainstays of the RPG. So yeah, my basic point is that character development is good and really makes the violence aspects that much more enjoyable heh.

[spoiler]The Elders lived in the "real" world. Mr. Walker was a history teacher. I would think he, of all people, would know what he was doing with this situation and lifestyle. The only ones that have an excuse to be ignorant of the situation are their children who simply wouldn't know any better.[/spoiler] I don't think a movie that portrays itself as an intelligent thriller should be free from being "thought about too much", personally lol. As for the age comment, I doubt it meant anything. Probably just a case of older people playing people younger than they actually look... like every single movie that involves teenage characters. [spoiler]I had no problem figuring out Ivy was blind. She obviously knows the more traveled parts of the town because she's lived there all her life. She also has seen it in the past since the movie says she wasn't always blind. Her actions from a few minutes after she is introduced make her problem rather obvious, I think.[/spoiler]

I don't have any particular problem with the purple stripe, although it is slightly distracting. I've never been a fan of this style of artwork, but this is cute and very well pulled off. I didn't honestly know you drew... guess I need to come in this area more often again heh.

Halo isn't [I]that [/I]good... maybe you'd enjoy it, but it's definitely not something I'd run to the store for. I hardly played my copy of it beyond the first week and I don't miss it at all. At least it's finally around $20 new now. In my opinion, the best game on the system is Rallisport Challenge 2. I don't know if you're into racers, but it's an amazingly good game.

[spoiler]I think the entire 1800s change was ludicrous in and of itself. This is a secluded village. What exactly would change if these people wore clothes from the 1980s? Would they magically have access to modern weaponry and technology? No, of course not, because either way the Elders would keep it away from them. Basing their lives in the current century would not have changed the effectiveness of the creatures or anything else because none of their children know any better. Really, all it is is a thinly veiled plot device to lead you into the "surprise" that it's actually modern times. It has no reason whatsoever other than to try and trick you into thinking it's somehow intelligent and thought provoking. The only real argument could be that life was more simple in that century and so they wanted to stick with that instead... but I really don't see how acting like modern farmers would have changed a thing for them. Another one of these twists that the director likes to feed into his films and subsequently beat you over the head with in case you're too dumb to figure it out. Instead of seeing a billion and one glasses of water like in Signs, I see a billion and one logos and signs proclaiming that the Walker family owns the surrounding forest. Meh. I'd still like to know what it is exactly this movie is supposed to make me think about and take in like has been said in this thread. I still can't figure out what that may be lol.[/spoiler]

[quote name='terra']Really? Even Milton? I find him a little unbelievable ... like a lot unbelievable.[/quote] Not realistic in the sense that you'd know this guy in a normal situation... but none of the characters are portrayed in such a way (through acting or writing) that makes them seem out of place or cartoony, which is something I think the movie could have suffered from if it wasn't casted so well.

The movie doesn't need an amazingly complex storyline because it wouldn't suit this sort of movie. It does what it should and nothing more. I think that's a nice quality for it, personally. I absolutely LOVE this film. I bought the DVD years back and I watch it rather often to this day. Every character is absolutely perfectly casted. I believe all of them, even the most ridiculous of them seems realistic. I also love the use of music in this film. Random gangsta rap style songs thrown into what is really a movie about a bunch of computer geeks... and it just [I]works[/I]. The opening with Michael Bolton in the car as the guy selling stuff on the street walks by just sums all of it up so well heh. I think that movie has more funny quotes than anything else I can think of.