BardicKnowledge

The only real sad part about the game is that the Morph Ball sequences just suck completely compared to the awesome stuff that the Prime games had. Now it feels more like Morph Ball is used when they don't feel like putting enemies or artwork in transit tunnels.

And how else would it have been recorded? :p

Modding your console opens up so much functionality it's ridiculous. It's hard for me to justify the price of my Wii without all of the cool stuff I do on it now -- none of which involves running Wii games that I don't own. Short list for those curious: DVD Video playback Rebalance Smash Bros. Brawl via fanmade patches Enable use of the Wii Balance Board as a digital scale Wiimotes as replacement for liquid levels Awesome fangames Ports of games Original homebrew games All this and more (I also play Jazz Jackrabbit and Quake 1/2 on my Wii now -- awesome)! In addition, it runs emulators for every system PSX and before, making it a great emulation box for your television...useful for playing games that will never be released on the VC (Final Fantasy 3j, Mother series, Seiken Densetsu 3, etc). Incidentally, I do own all of the VC games that I regularly play. That being said, it's still nice to have the emulators around to play Super Demo World: TLC and Super Metroid: Redesign now and then, among others. Why would you _not_ do all of this awesome stuff with your console? I'm sure even more stuff is possible on the PS3 -- stuff that Sony explicitly allowed you to do on launch day with OtherOS that now no longer exists.

Nice arrangement! I agree with everyone else about the Paper Mario train of thought. I enjoyed the exposed intro btw -- really light work is what this piece needed, it seems.

that's awesome.

Happy birthday guys!

This brings me to a complaint I hope is eventually addressed in a future balance patch: Terran turtles a little too well now. And it's not the kind of turtling that allows you to build up an army and counter-attack, it's pissy turtling that just drags losing games on for too long. I think reducing Viking air range by 1 and/or increasing Siege Tank transition time by 2 seconds would help this without having a negative effect on the rest of the metagame. Thoughts on this?

^winner of the thread, right here.

Don't you think that was for the trailer only? Can't imagine them actually doing that in a level.

If you're _completely_ new practice league can be helpful, but be aware that the only acceptable "strategy" there is to rush air units and rock house. This is because in order to get ground units to the other guy's base (without dropships or nydus, which are also decent) is to plow through an extra 10,000 HP worth of rocks. By the time you get a ground army punched through, the other player's void rays / muta army / banshees will have eaten half of your base. Once you get away from the "novice" maps you need actual play because the rocks are no longer there. I'd advise that everyone learn how to do the following strategies at least once so that you understand their weaknesses -- bronze league seems to be dominated by these types of cheese: 1) 6pool zerg rush. To beat it as terran, make a wall at your choke point with your first supply depot and barracks -- pump marines to come out safely behind asap. For protoss you'll have to attack with probes while you chronoboost a zealot out -- don't burn CB on your nexus more than once until you know you're not being rushed. Counterattack once you fend off the second set of zerglings. Zerg get two spine crawlers up while you attack the first wave with your drones. 2) Reaper rush -- terran rush marauder, protoss CB a stalker out (don't even get any zealots to start if you scout this), zerg either spine crawler or queen (roaches probably won't be ready in time). 3) Cannon / proxy gateway rush -- Those empty corners of your base? Scout them early...which I will cover in a moment. The single most important thing I can recommend for a new player is to scout early. Terrans should use the SCV that builds the 9/10 Supply Depot, toss the probe that calls the first pylon, zerg once your spawning pool goes up just send a drone. Sweep it around your base to check for proxy pylon, then head over to the other guy's base. The important things to check for: How much gas does he have at this point? Does his barracks have an attachment -- which one? Did the zerg player try a rush (check for low # of drones)? If they have no attachment to their barracks but are pumping gas, they are trying to tech up quickly at the expense of an army -- attack now! Once you feel that you have enough data to give yourself an idea of what to build, either take your drone to his natural expansion (so you know when he uses it), or to the watchtower nearest his base. Either will make good use of your scout for some time.

While I agree with the idea of not getting too specific in an introductory article, some mention that Sega consoles exist would have been nice, even if you only reference Sonic the Hedgehog and maybe Shining Force as "gateway" games. Feels Nintendo biased without something else in there.

Hooray birthday! Have a good one -- any big plans?

Do the legacy games come on the Wii, or the actual carts? Hard to tell based on how you've organized it.

imo Corruptors aren't especially useful unless you plan to get Brood Lords...but I don't play a lot of zerg

I really enjoyed A_Rival's intro and outro with the harpsichord-ish sound and rhythm... ...but Tony's guitar work took my vote. Too bad you guys can't mix your two pieces, as that would be the ideal for me. Both of you are doing well in the poll though -- good luck to you!

^lol -- Majora's Mask severely underrated though, it's amazing. I'd like to see the 3DS remake of Ocarina have a Dark World future overworld -- the N64 game was supposed to but they ran out of memory to do it.

They've posted part four over at Unity -- check it out!

No, this is something different, as the name isn't the same. At least I'm assuming that to be the case until Unity posts otherwise.

Agreed, it looks like they're just taking the best of all of the MM series. Still, I want

Story mode unlocks a new character, so you'll do it regardless of quality.

lol this. I did play through story mode to unlock 12 though, well worth it.

I agree with "all-in" early strategies being cheesy -- but mass infestors is hardly an "early" move unless the very first offensive units he built were 2-3 infestors. Similarly, mass dark templars is not an early move, it's a midgame play. Taking advantage of your lack of detectors, whether that is with infestors, banshees, or dark templars is not cheesy, it's just good use of tier 2 units.

Agreed, anything that requires more than 5 minutes of time to research / produce is not a cheese strategy. Similarly, imo rushing any tier 3 at the complete expense of early defense is a terrible idea and the opponent should wreck you at the 2:00 mark with their first harassment attempt. (Exception: in 3v3 or 4v4, having one person rush void rays or banshees isn't terrible if you know that the rest of the team can cover for him).

Happy birthday, melody!

lol, at least sniper has two actives. Leo only has one