Semjaza

I know that I made a thread on Bad Religion before, but what the hell. They're one of my favorite bands, so it's worth the time to write this. Anyway, they released a new CD this year known as "The Empire Strikes First". I bought it the day it came out for $8.99 at Target. I think you can still get it for this price at some places. At first I wasn't too impressed. It sounded an awful lot like their last CD, "The Process of Belief". Not that that CD was bad at all, but it definitely isn't my favorite of their catalogue thus far. However, I kept playing this CD and I really got into the second half of it in particular. Listening to it more, I love the entire thing... even the intro track, which is generally just something I skip on other CDs. Like "The Process of Belief", the sound on this LP is a bit more polished than their older work. However, the band really hasn't changed their style since their inception decades ago, so it's not a bad thing. Just sounds better heh. I love pretty much every track, although I like Los Angeles is Burning, Let Them Eat War, To Another Abyss, The Empire Strikes First and Boot Stamping on a Human Face Forever the most. I'd almost go as far as saying that this is one of their best CDs in general... definitely the best of the last few, at the very least. Has anyone else bought this yet?

[QUOTE=James]Although, that guy who posted the gory images...I think he has left a mark for some of us. But it's definitely not something I will ever look back on as being funny/interesting. Actually, it's quite cruel to allow people to unwittingly see stuff like that (especially if it's something they really don't want to see). Ah well. Thankfully the vast majority of the members weren't subjected to that. And I'm glad -- no kids/teens should be witness to that kind of stuff.[/color][/QUOTE] I don't think anyone would consider that funny, but I'd say I got the full brunt of that. Moreso than anyone else here. What a horrible day that was. For those that don't know, I was the only mod on that was actually able to delete posts across the entire board. I managed to ban the kid, but I was still left with around 20 posts that I had to remove. It didn't help that there is no "prune posts" option for Category Mods, so I had to do each one individually. Really time consuming, tedious and disgusting. It didn't help that the little drop down menu wouldn't work because the size of the picture threw the whole thread layout off. I had to scroll down and click on "edit" for every post, which meant I had to see pretty much the entire image each time. I actually kind of got used to it, as horrible as that sounds. IT also didn't help that there were a couple members doing nothing but creating threads that complained about what was going on. We're not automatic robots. I don't know what people expected. Anyway, I'm done.

There's random moments here that I've enjoyed... The first being the eventual removal of Herman/Shift from the technical support crew. The kid talked big, but couldn't do much of anything correctly. He's one of the main reasons OB had so many random issues when it went down. He was finally banned too, which was a great day, I think. He posted like crap in general and just annoyed me on AIM too. One of those people who would direct connect with you, show you some lame banner (that looked like every other banner they made), you'd say "cool" and they'd close the window. Never actually talked to you. All of his other conversations with me revolved around me doing stuff for him, like hosting a game for his stupid Quake 3 clan. Yeah right. He's back under unique.identity or some other nonsense like that, but luckily doesn't bother me anymore. Another favorite moment of mine was way back when we still had a Zelda forum. Some kid came in and posted a thread called "Who likes Link!?" which had nothing to it and was idiotic for obvious reasons. I absolutely went off on this kid because of how stupid this was and how tired I was of "What game character is the hottest!?" being the biggest thread in the gaming area. I don't think he ever came back. I also liked the time that Max Sonic created like three accounts and pretended they were different people. He had an argument with himself in one thread. Absolutely classic. It's a shame that all his posts were pruned. I'd love to read that again. Anyway, those are mine. I'm a jerk, obviously.

[quote name='Mad Acer']It's only overrated if you play it as a critic. If you fall in love with the game it will quickly become the best game you have ever played.[/quote] What the heck does this mean? I either enjoy a game or I don't. I didn't particularly enjoy Halo. You did. The way this is worded, you're basically saying anyone who doesn't absolutely love this game has no idea what they're talking about. I'm sorry, but your opinion is not fact. The way you play this game or don't play it has no bearing on my opinion lol. How am I suppsoed to fall in love with a game I don't enjoy? I'm apparently just approaching it from the wrong angle because I am not that into it? I really am not that into Halo. End of story. There's no agenda or mindset I had going into it. Hell, I mostly bought a Xbox for the game in the first place. If I want a good single player mode, I think MP obliterates it. I also think that a good portion of other FPS games on my PC do as well. Countless PC FPS games are far more entertaining for me as well in terms of multiplayer. LAN or online (something Halo doesn't even officially support on Xbox). There's a good reason why people with a PC pretty much ignored the title when it finally hit the shelves for computers, and it wasn't just because it was delayed so much. It's overrated in my mind because I don't see what is so great about it. Perhaps if I haven't played Bungie's previous Marathon titles (you might as well consider Halo a poor-man's Marathon 3), I would be more impressed.

I think they're both insanely different games honestly. The only comparison between the two is that they're both the major "first person" game for their respective system. That's about it. The gameplay and such of each game is really different, even just comparing something as small as control schemes. I do think Halo is overrated... I might be a bit more impressed if I never played a PC FPS game, which is really one of the PC's main strengths obviously. I got tired of how repetitive the game seemed. Crawling through what seemed to be dozens of vents and rooms that looked exactly the same at the start. Killing tons of aliens near a tower, only to walk around and find another tower that looked exactly the same and required the same objectives. I did enjoy co-op though, as it adds a whole new dimension to the game. I think that's really the main game's saving grace. Multiplayer is okay, but not too far beyond other games I've played. I really think the map design was pretty subpar overall. Obviously this has an upperhand over MP because MP doesn't even have multi. I can really only compare them via how much I enjoyed each game. Obviously, enjoyment is completely subjective.

I don't care so much about size of the things as much as I would appearance. I'm not into completely flat chested girls and I'm not into Ds either. I think at some point they just get too big and I'm kind of grossed out by them heh. I like Cs, I guess you could say. I've never made a judgement based on them either way, though. As long as there's something there to grab, I think I'm cool.

[quote name='James][color=#707875'] Also, bear in mind that when you haven't yet registered, there is a message at the top of the screen that tells you to read the Rules page before registering. So...that's kind of the equivalent to what you're suggesting here.[/color][/quote] Exactly. After that, I figure it's their own problem. They can be guided towards better posting quality, but they should have read the rules and glanced at the boards to see the expectations in the first place. I mean, when you post in a thread that forty people have posted clear, detailed ideas in... why would you think "OMG Goku RULES!!111" is acceptable? You only would if you didn't read the rules. There's only so many times the staff of this place can beat people over the head with that link.

Hrm. I don't really know what you are looking for. I don't listen to singers with absolutely perfect voices for the most part... they aren't involved in music I enjoy. If you want, I'd go to Amazon.com and just stream songs by these bands and see if you like it. Sonic Youth has Kim Gordon. She's definitely not for everyone as she does not have a typical style. However, she does have a nice voice when she really wants to use it. Be warned that the band also has a male vocalist that's used just as often (if not moreso), so you might have to search for a track featuring her. Kim Deal is part of the Pixies and does vocals for a few of their random songs. She's also lead vocals for The Amps and The Breeders, which are both great bands... although I think The Amps release is far better than any Breeders work, honestly. I'm completely in love with her voice. Scarling and Jack Off Jill both feature Jessicka. She has a childlike choir voice in most cases, but she also belts out a lot of screams... particularly in JOJ, which is more metal influenced than Scarling, which is more noise rock. Curve is another wonderful example. A lot of their music can be described as shoegazer, but they move away from that sometimes (especially lately). The vocalist, Toni Holliday, has an absolutely amazing voice. They're the main influence for Garbage (I'd say Garbage ripped them off too, given the situations). There's also Rasputina. They're a three piece cello-rock group. I don't know how better to describe them. They're definitely not for everyone, but they're a fun band to listen to sometimes. Good voices. Cibo Matto is another good one. A lot of the time Miho Hittori isn't even trying to sound good, but when she bothers to sing well, I do enjoy her voice. Stereo Type A is probably the more accessible of their two albums. They're generally described as trip hop, but there's a large rock influence on Viva! La Woman. My Bloody Valentine has a female vocalist. They're a good band, but the music is pretty much a wall of guitars and noise. It's still harmonic and the vocals are haunting, but it's hard to say who would enjoy them. Pretty Girls Make Graves have a female vocalist, who I feel is quite enjoyable. But again, she doesn't really try to sound all that amazing. They're stuck in "punk revival", according to anything I read. Worth trying if that's your thing. Death in Vegas is another band with two vocalists... male and female. Like Sonic Youth, they don't do duets. It's either one or the other. They have a lot of rock songs, but they also have a lot of electronica songs. The girl usually sings on the latter. I really like her voice, but I wish she sang on more of the rocking songs. I figured someone would mention Bjork by now. I don't really know tons about her, admittedly. I only own one CD and I have a hard time getting into it... but she's definitely worth a try. Her next CD is nothing but voices and human sounds sampled to make music. Sounds kick ***.

People should be glad we're getting the director's cut though. The original release was insanely buggy. I'm surprised Enix put that out at all.

I don't know offhand what the specific release date is, but it's definitely coming to the US at some point. Not that far from the Japanese release, I'd imagine.

This place is about quality, not quantity. There's plenty of people who have posted things that are barely longer than a sentence with no issues... myself included.

I have no real idea why some people will just randomly have sex with pretty much anyone willing to do it. I know people like this and I won't pretend to even understand it. Sex is incredibly enjoyable, but I find that sticking with the same person is more than good enough for me.

I think some of this may be needlessly overcomplicating the situation. If you like the girl, ask. If she says no, then just drop it. The only real issue that could come between you two if you are good friends would be created because you wouldn't give up. Constant badgering is not a good quality. If she says yes, well then you're all set heh.

I live in Chicago. I like to play videogames, play and listen to music, read comics, design websites, watch The Simpsons and have sex. That about covers my interests. In terms of goals, I only really have two. I'd like to own a music store... and I'd also like to do "nothing" like Peter Gibbons in Office Space. I guess that contradicts my store ownership goal, but what the hell. I would have liked to work with animals (as in a zoo, not a vet), but that won't happen. I'm stuck working with computers for god knows how long. I don't even really like them anymore and I cannot imagine doing this crap for the rest of my life. And since food was mentioned... Potstickers, deep dish pizza, cheesecake and Thai food are the best dishes ever. The best natural food is far and away portabella mushrooms. Orgasmic.

Okay, guys. I think I've waited more than enough time for sign-ups. I'm going to start reading through them tonight (I wanted to wait until I felt there was a decent sized selection before I started). I'll be posting in here again and letting people know who I've chosen to play. I'll also be setting down a few more rules and such so people know how to go about this. Nothing all that restricting, I think. If you still want to apply, feel free to, but there's not much time left. I was waiting for Charles to give this a shot, but since he's not posted yet, I just assume he is busy heh.

I only noticed those large thuds when Doctor Octopus was ramming his claws into the walls so he could climb up things vertically, heh.

The main issue with that is that if you go even farther with the idea it makes even less sense. Why would the webbing come out of his wrists and not his backside like a normal spider? Why wouldn't a doctor notice this things in his wrist in the examination room? As soon as he tried to check his pulse there'd probably be some issue. It also totally ruins any potential situations where they can change his web fluid. In the comics, there are points where he alters it into other things. This is impossible in the films unless they mutate him again, so obviously it's going to be completely skipped. Also, Peter Parker is a genius. While I have no problem with the film's idea about natural webbing, it's not out of the realm of possiblity for him to create that stuff. The films almost entirely gloss over his intelligence. There's times in this film where they show him being smart about things, but I think [spoiler]it's almost ruined near the end because he acts like he has absolutely no idea how to stop that fusion reaction. I don't think he'd have to whine to Doctor Octopus in the comics.[/spoiler] It's a minor complaint, but I feel this all changes the character of Peter Parker rather substantially. And really, if you read more about Cameron's treatment of the film, it was so offbase from the comics that I probably wouldn't have even gone to see it.

Thank god for people like ReFlux, because I really get the impression that 95% of the people who claim to love Outkast don't even realize that they existed before Stankonia (and now Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, even though that's more or less just two solo albums put under the Outkast name). My personal favorite release of theirs is Aquemini. That and Atliens are their best work, as far as I'm concerned.

Keeping this short: No, you cannot post in leet. This place revolves around reading and that just doesn't help. I would think people would be over that by now, considering how long it's been around. It's not funny or cool or whatever else you'd like to call it.

I can only agree with the above post. I read some things here and elsewhere about "problems" with this film and so I went in hoping to see these and figure out if I agreed with those criticisms or not. I have to come back and say... What the hell are you people smoking? There's such negativity towards this film, and I'm still sticking by my comments before: this negativity was already pretty much there before the film was even released. I really liked this movie. Any complaints I have against it are really just drowned out by the things I really liked about it. I think people are forgetting that this is a [b]comic book movie[/b], first and foremost. When I saw the scene in the surgery room, the only thing I thought of was "This is so Evil Dead" and because of that, I absolutely loved it. It was one of my favorite scenes in the film. There were two saws in that scene... The first being the small oscilating buzzsaw that was actually used on the tentacles, the second beying something resembling more of a chainsaw. The latter obviously referred back to Raimi's Evil Dead days, I thought. The former didn't seem really beyond what I expect from a modernized bonesaw. [spoiler]Why wouldn't they manage to acquire these tools to remove large, metal tentacles from a man's body?[/spoiler] How in the world is this unbelieveable considering what the hell is going on in the scene in the first place? It's not realistic to begin with. As for the performances, I did find Maguire's expressions to be a bit weird at times. He'd look completely glossed over at the oddest times... sometimes having these eyes that looked really excited, but a face that looked completely disinterested. He seemed drugged in half the film. I had no real problems with anyone else. Dunst did a decent job, although I really don't think she is right for the part AT ALL... but that's my personal opinion. There were also a few lines in the film where I was left scratching my head... not because they didn't make sense, but because they felt so out of place. Almost too cheesy, in a sense. At the same time, I think people are exaggerating this. Especially in the sense of overacting. Some of the things listed sound exactly like something I'd read in a comic book. Since when are big name supervillians not overdramatized at times? I could post dozens of pages showing actions similiar to what goes on in this film without even having to really try. I don't know, I don't think the film was bad and I don't think it was the best thing ever... but I do really think that people are being way too analytical over what is, undeniably, a comic book film. It's expected to take itself seriously, yet still poke fun at itself, just like most comics of this type that have been running for so long. I think it did a good job at this, in addition to being very well paced.

It seems like a lot of girls I know wind up dating guys way older than them. I don't know why. My last girlfriend had boyfriends that were several years older than her a couple times. I've never understood the appeal. Ironically, it seemed as though the older ones didn't really act any more "mature" than the younger ones... which is probably why they're 25 dating 17 year olds anyway. In terms of this, I don't see the big deal. Most of my girlfriends have been around two years or so younger than me. It's not a conscious decision, just seems to happen. I figure that as long as you're on the same level, you're fine... as in maturity, emotional levels, intelligence, etc. That sort of stuff. A couple years back I met this one girl who for whatever reason developed a crush on me. I'd say we were decent friends, but I didn't put much stock into it. She wanted to go out with me and eventually ignored me entirely when I refused. She mostly seemed upset because she thought I "wasn't one of the types of people who would care what people thought." However, she was barely 16. I was 20. I think that's just too much of a difference. Not because four years is a lot, but I refuse to believe that anyone that age can truly relate to someone who isn't even a teenager anymore. We definitely were not at the same level of experiences. At the same time, there was another girl who was around 24 when I was 20 and had I persued that, I think we would have wound up dating. She was four years older than I was, but I felt we could just relate properly... something I don't think would have been possible if I was 16 and she was 20. So yeah, I'm rambling, but if it works, it works... basically.

Other companies do keep track of numbers though... I asked on another forum and the numbers they have from sales listings are as follows: 835 PSX DRAGON WARRIOR VII Oct-02 ENIX AMERICA 889 177,147 $23.45 ** $20,847.65 Not horrible, but definitely not amazing. I'm sure it doesn't include Walmart though, as they never show their numbers to anyone for some reason. Edit - I should add that that was as of 2003, but I can't imagine it has sold a LOT more since then... so I'd guess around 250,000 heh.

I'm pretty certain that they will change it to Dragon Quest, just to keep it uniform. The gaming world isn't really as seperate as it once was and two different titles just confuse people. Plus, the reason it was renamed here was because another company owned the rights to the Dragon Quest name in the States... I don't know if that's still true anymore, but I don't think it is. Anyway, 700,000 copies is a LOT. Many successful games in the US don't go anywhere near 1,000,000 copies... let alone non-FF RPGs. I don't think Square Enix will be expecting anywhere near that amount as a good reason to bring DQV over. I believe the US sales totales for VII were actually somewhere around 250,000 though (I could be wrong, but I am pretty positive it wasn't near 700k). Not bad for a game with little advertising that was released when the PSX was pretty much already dead.

[QUOTE=Dragon Warrior]No :^O Where are they? I must see >: ) Like I said for DWM: CH, I await this game with open arms too. And it'll be so perdy :3[/QUOTE] I don't have the link anymore, but I do have the file. I could throw it up on my site and link it here later. Just watch this post for an edit with the link... It's really big though, like around 150 MBs, I believe. Three videos in one Zip file. I hope that's okay heh. They show all sorts of stuff. One is a medley of different things, one shows dungeon exploration and one shows town exploration. Fights, dialogue, the overworld and so forth are all shown. There are two things that caught my attention most. The first is the battles. They're mostly 3rd person, which will make some people happy. However, when choosing your commands the camera goes to the traditional DQ battle viewpoint. I think it's an awesome, nostalgic touch. The second thing is the sound. They kept a lot of the classic DQ sounds in this game, but they sound a bit updated (and not completely 8-bit like in VII)... plus it seems as though the music is [i]fully orchestrated[/i]. Thank god. I love Koichi Sugiyama's music. And if you have played V, there's a neat addition to VIII that's pretty damn cool ([spoiler]you get to ride a killer panther heh[/spoiler]). Anyway, here are some screen shots of the game for those that haven't seen it. Strangely DQ8 has yet to get a thread here... I was planning on doing it eventually, but never got around to it. [IMG]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/dragon40_1080205432.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/dragon6_1080205488.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/dragon39_1080205405.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/dragon35_1080205331.jpg[/IMG] I'm also really, really hoping that Square Enix brings the PS2 remake of Dragon Quest V out here. I love the Super Famicom original and while the PS2 version isn't the best looking game out there, I know it's a blast. It's interesting that V is considered the favorite in the series amongst fans in Japan. They've not said anything either way yet. If VIII does well, or they want to lead up to it, V might be worth putting out here. Honestly, considering how good this looks and the fact that Square Enix has more marketing muscle than Enix itself ever did, VIII has a very good chance. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the designs finally resemble Akira Toriyama's original artwork.

Holy crap, I love you. Dragon Warrior was my first console RPG... way back in '89 or whatever year Nintendo Power gave it away for free in. I absolutely loved it and have been a huge fan of the series ever since. It's my favorite RPG series. The only thing that comes close would be Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei series and its spin-offs. Favorites... I'm going with III or IV. They're both amazing games, especially for their time. I love the customization in III, especially. There's really so many different ways you can go about playing the game because of it, especially with the addition of the class change system that appeared in most of the other titles. IV is also great, I think mostly because it was the first to really emphasize the story and characters. Certainly not to the level of modern RPGs, but it was a start. I really loved Ragnar and Alena especially. The ending was simply awesome too... way beyond other RPGs at the time. The only game I'm really not fond of is II. The game is just too vague. As soon as you get the boat, the area you're able to access increases so dramatically that it's almost overwhelming. That and the stupid crest quest just annoy me. I don't play that one much. As for Dragon Warrior 8, I cannot ******* wait for it. It's my most wanted RPG outside of the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei games. Have you both seen the huge, direct feed videos that were released for it?