BardicKnowledge

I definitely identify people as I scroll and skim by avatar. As for the sig, there are a few people I always check (Coop, Doulifee) because they change a lot and it's always awesome. Other than that there's not much association for me.

Happy birthday, starla! What are you doing to celebrate?

As long as it's out by 8pm Central time tonight, I'll be happy -- gotta shoot zombies today as a reward for getting my paper done.

Again, this is what makes homebrewing Nintendo consoles so popular -- it does what Nintendon't, if you will. Edit: Realized I already used this quote. I like the joke I just made so I'm keeping this as a repost of last page's ideas anyway. Wait -- suddenly Shining Force isn't one of the "universally accepted classics?" It didn't have to come out for a Nintendo system to be a significant release, you know.

Have you apologized to your roommates since blowing up at them? You might be surprised how far a little good will / maturity on your part will go. Hope you figure things out soon.

I'm still looking for a floor on which to sleep. I'd prefer to room with people I have met in person before, or short of that, someone I "know" on IRC. Anyone with extra room, let me know -- it's just me this year, Addie has a conference in CA that week.

And this is why everyone pirates their Nintendo consoles -- because their tech support absolutely blows for this type of thing. Give us real online support in your next generation and just maybe everyone won't be getting a Wii 70% for the purpose of having portable emulation boxes.

Wow, what a great series. Does this mean that all the rest of us hoping for a zerg buff are just going to have to get better? haha.

Lack of broadband penetration in the rural US is definitely the biggest hurdle to this whole process. A town of 6000 people ranks as a "big" town in Iowa btw -- my wife is from a city of 1200 people (I jokingly call it a "village" after the old Sim City nomenclature). The lack of available broadband is rampant in the rural Midwest, and I don't see a good way of solving the "gamestop problem" until broadband gets to more places. Edit: This does affect content to be unlocked already on the disc, as rural players have no way of hooking their machines up to the Internet to confirm their code.

Agreed. Also, the new stuff is super fun so far -- I wish I had the extra cash to grab it all, but as is I just have the new spy knife (badass as Paranoid discusses above) and the gun (not great with new knife, but good for DR spies for sure).

FruitDealer is going to go all the way imo -- he's just such a beast right now with a race that no one has adequate practice against. Can't wait to see the finals!

Google "Name1 vs Name2 GSL Round of X" and you will find the other sets on youtube.

I've got her album, it's amazing. Definitely worth getting if you enjoyed the music she did for OCR.

Happy birthday!

Controls are a subjective opinion I suppose (I prefer the Wiimote aiming). Widescreen though is incredible, especially in Prime 1 Edit: And yeah, if you already own both GC games there's not much need to get it.

I'm assuming you're not a diehard Metroid fan -- if that's the case I would definitely pick it up used. Not nearly as good as Prime Trilogy (which every Wii owner should have).

Bumping this to advertise another awesome GSL game, this time with Zerg play: http://www.gomtv.net/videos/1122/0 Note the use of the island expansion -- do that if you're not already, terran players. Couldn't track down game 2 on Youtube, but here's game 3 of that set (ogsTOP wins game 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7TECOphnJM also amazing. The best Zerg games of the tourney.

Have we all just experienced a successful discussion on the OCR boards without the conversation degenerating into rampant fanboyism / hatred? Outrageous. And awesome -- thread of the month

Awesome video -- could be my favorite yet. The musicologist in me would have liked to see some more discussion over what makes game music unique compared to other media (the Yamaoka segment touched on this). The "dual-axis" (quality of music combined with quality of integration) evaluation of both film music and VGM is something that needs to be explored further, as are concepts unique to only game music. Edit: It comes to mind that there is a video game character whose games are always very nostalgic of "the way things were" to me -- Kirby's games recall the early days of gaming in a way that few franchises dare to do these days. The music shows it also with the focus on melody. Thoughts?

I've always thought that Metroid Prime did this very well. There's a _lot_ of story there, but if you don't want to deal with it, just don't scan everything. Prime also leaves enough gaps to allow our imaginations to fill in the blanks -- equally important. Morrowind is the king of this idea. Not a big fan of long, epic stories? Stay out of the library. Like a lot of narration and background? There's 2,000 pages to read.

Separate story from gameplay -- story is done poorly (I'm with Bleck some of the overall concept isn't terrible, it's just executed awkwardly). Gameplay is pretty good, though nothing compared to Super or Prime, of course. That's part of the problem I think. For a _game_ this has pretty good gameplay. For a _Metroid_ game it's near the bottom of the barrel...but still leaps and bounds better than most other titles.

Is there a JRPG where "defend" is ever a useful option? And I specifically mean the "take 1/2 damage from physical attacks" kind of defend, not the "take 0 damage" or even FF5's ridiculous "take 0 damage to you AND one other person, AND counterattack for free". DQ4 and FF3(j) both eliminated "ineffective" attacks, so that's been gone since the Famicom days. Though I think that magical attacks misfiring on empty targets stuck around until DQ5/FF4, the SNES era.

I agree about controls definitely, as having the run button causes weird artifacts (e.g. walking a step THEN running builds up speed faster than just running). Super has the best physics engine though I think. I really dislike how midair morphs in the GBA games kill your upward velocity, making it impossible to jump into a ball-passage (unless you grip the ledge, which is admittedly an awesome addition). ^That's much more fair than the last post. Have you tried Prime Trilogy, Muramasa, or Lost Winds (downloadable)? They are the high points for the system right now, I think (not counting the Mario games which you will either love or hate before playing them). My big problem with Nintendo isn't the presentation -- to me, they've proven they can deliver a quality experience. But give me some online support! Tatsunoko vs Capcom is so much fun...and I never play it because the online play blows so badly. Similarly, Brawl+ (homebrew ftw!) is extremely well done, and playing it online is just a waste of time. I chose not to buy Monster Hunter 3 because I felt that the online would suck. Hopefully the 3DS rectifies some of these problems. Edit: And yes, get me a Shadow Complex sequel NOW. I'd happily pay $50 for games of that quality.

I very rarely post in the review threads, something I should really do more often. But this track was so awesome I had to speak up. Anso, more of this please!! And Deia, awesome work -- how much material did you actually record for this? Anso really working the filters here to great effect. <3 to both of you!

Cerrax, "production values" (by which you mean HD graphics) aside, you're not going to find a better platformer than Galaxy 2 on the 360 or PS3. You're not going to find an adventure game better designed than Zelda or Okami on them either (note: Okami was on PS2 first). If you want HD graphics, go play your 360. Great gameplay innovations (pushing the medium forward!!) have always been the realm of Nintendo. If you're really that set on graphics, look at Muramasa or Kirby (when it comes out) -- great art styles and great graphics, just not in HD. Now, I have a 360 and use it a bunch more than my Wii. That being said, there simply aren't any $8 (or $10) games on XBLA with production values approaching Other M. There are only two or three XBLA titles that can even come close. I'm surprised you didn't mention Shadow Complex specifically, as it is essentially a re-skinned Super Metroid sequel with ridiculous production values at $15, and the best value to gameplay ratio (imo) for any game of this entire generation. (edit: and yes, it's better than Other M by miles. Go play it!) As far as Other M being "well done", I think it looks great and you'd be hard pressed to convince me otherwise (though Galaxy 2, Prime 3, and Muramasa are still the best looking games). Story wise it falls flat more often than not. But let's talk about problems, not things you're making into problems. If you're just in this thread to bash on the Wii, you're going to have to come up with better arguments than "my HD FPS games are better lol". That being said, if we really want to talk about "art" games, I think the PS3 is the place to be for now -- Heavy Rain, Flower, Journey (soon) are all amazing experiences. But if you don't think that Galaxy (2) is a work of art, you don't like video games. Oh, and people actually still talk about Mario Clash for Virtual Boy, and how awesome it would be on the 3DS. Red Alarm wasn't "above average", it was "Star Fox 1 in all red". Did you actually play the system?