RealFolkBlues

Happy birthday to you Jose! I've been listening to your track off of Heroes Vs. Villains a lot lately and it is amazing! Hope your celebrations are the same!

Hey man, congratulations!!! Being a dad is frickin' sweet (including the stinky parts; good diaper-changing is an art to be appreciated and cultivated.) My son is certainly my favorite thing in the whole world. Speaking of, I'm not sure what you guys are hoping for, but I'm hoping you have a boy, as Alexander Wolfgang Getman is a SERIOUSLY sweet name 'dude. Like damn. The world needs more people who sound like they could be SNK bosses. Three points of advice: 1) Pregnancies and labors vary in the extreme, but my humble opinion was that pregnancy was nine pretty lame months followed by a terrible day and a half followed immediately by the most beautiful, awe-inspiring ten minutes of my life. Well worth it, of course, but hang in there man, it could be a bumpy ride. The absolute worst part for the dude (or Mazedude in that case) is just how damned useless you feel. Horribly frustrating. There's nothing you can do except to do everything you can. You'll understand what I mean soon enough. 2) There's lots of good books out there. Probably you've already got What to Expect When You're Expecting. I don't know how you guys have been using/reading it, but I would suggest treating it more like a reference book than anything else. That is, if you have random questions about stuff you guys are or are not experiencing, What to Expect will probably have a pretty good answer. It also has a bunch of scary stuff in it, so if either of you are the type to become a hypochondriac as soon as you see a medical dictionary, scan, don't pour over the pages. Also, Fatherhood by Bill Cosby. Awesome. 3) If nobody has told you about meconium yet (and they tend to neglect this bit until you're already having the baby,) do yourself a favor and look it up. It's really not that big a deal in real life, but it's good to be mentally prepared. Others reading this post, look it up at your own peril, because yes, it's nasty. Enough new father pontificating from me. Once more, congrats and the best of luck to the both of you!!!

From one sexy lady to another, happy birthday, Jimmy!

He actually gets out with about 21 days to go. He gets back to Gotham with about 18 hours left until kaboom time. Not quite 19 days sounds entirely plausible.. He doesn't need resources, he's the goddamn Batman.

Happy birthday DJP! Take a shot of rye whiskey for me! :pretzel::pretzel: :pretzel::pretzel::pretzel:

Yeah this probably could have been done better, but as has been pointed out a few times, when they were creating the Legend of Korra they had only been promised a six-episode run, which was eventually extended to twelve. Not until the finale was released to much fanfare was a second (and then a third and fourth ZOMG) season announced. We'll see where they go with it in those. This was posted along with a pretty sweet graphic earlier in the thread. Basically Amon used Dim Mok techniques(the Chinese martial art of pressure and chi point manipulation which can roughly be translated as "death touch") assisted by blood bending to achieve maximum effect. Pretty damned awesome in my opinion. As to the questions of how quickly the world could advance and how the Fire Nation could be forgiven in such a short period of time; Bryke and company flat out stated that one, the Legend of Korra took place 70 years after the end of Last Airbender and two, that the new show was set in the 1920's of the Avaverse. This leads to a couple conclusions. The technological difference actually is fairly realistic if you look at the Fire Nation's greatest inventions in each series: in Airbender they have steam ships, hot air zeppelins of monstrous size, and a freaking enormous drill and in Korra they have advanced to electrical wires and cars. This is not very different from what our own industrialized world was able to produce within those very same 70 years, and we didn't have magical kung fu. This leads to a second thought. The Damned was totally on point with the Nazi Germany example, and that one definitely illustrates how everyone can just make nice after wartime atrocities, but possibly an even better example is East Asia. Nobody has done racism like those guys. They have a LONG and EXTREMELY nasty history (look up the Japanese occupation of China if you want to see some really messed up stuff) and yet they work together now to greater or lesser degree. Hell, we dropped a couple nukes on Japan and we're good buddies now. A big part of what shifts the attitude of nations is how vital another nation is to you, and it would certainly seem like the Fire Nation led the technological charge in the Avaverse.

Lulz, yeah that would do it. I thought it was pretty funny how much my wife resembles/likes Korra. It definitely helps if you can put yourself in the main character's shoes.

Bump. What do you guys think?

@Ectogemia; yeah, I can respect that opinion. The last third to 40% of the show is where it really grew the beard and got epic, with relatively little "wacky time-wasting nonsense" or kid-oriented stuff. Agreed on Iroh, Zuko, and Toph, as those were probably my three favorite characters from TLA, though I really did end up loving like everyone in the cast. I suppose one reason I feel like I'm still not ready to put Legend of Korra on the same scale as Last Airbender is that I identify more with Aang than with Korra. Just fits my personality more, I guess. @Charlemagne; I think they made most of the heroes fairly flat since they didn't think they were going to have much time to develop them, but yeah, hopefully that will be rectified over the rest of the series. As for why the United Republics didn't just come in and bash Amon and company in the face, I see two possible explanations; one, the violent part of the uprising only seems to have taken a relatively short period of time before it really got out of hand and the UR did get involved. This makes sense anyway as it seems like something any national or international government wouldn't step into until it was completely evident that the local authorities couldn't sufficiently contain the damage. This leads to my second point, which is that this kind of conflict would not seem to lend itself well to a mass military response. The Equalists are essentially terrorists, and as such, a conventional military would have a very difficult time rooting them out, whereas a small, local, elite force (of which Republic City had three at the time: Lin's metalbenders, the only airbending master in the world, and the freakin' Avatar) should have been the better way to go. Here again, once the Equalists change the game by revolting en masse, all bets are off and shit gets real. I think this format is going to work great, and I don't know how much work they could have gotten done before they heard the news of getting three more seasons to work with, so I'm really excited to see what they do.

Lots of truth getting spoken in this thread. That's nice to see. @Charlemagne: def watch Last Airbender series. 'Tis AMAZING. My vote for like the third best television series EVAR. Serious business. After M*A*S*H and Star Trek: the Next Generation in case you're wondering. And yes, of course, don't watch that godawful live action movie. I hate M. Night Shyamalan so much. More importantly, WTF! 4 books of Korra!

Wellllll, it could be great. Good plot, solid action sequences (KALROS,) wonderful characters, and enough fantastic dialogue for like six action flicks. That having been said, there's a lot of unknowns here. The two biggest problems for me are that one, Bioware did a shitton of world building. Where do you even start to make the cuts there? In a TRILOGY of big ass games, it's a lot easier to take in than over the course of even a trilogy of movies. Meh, I think it could be done, but another big problem is which version of Shep do you go with? The series had so many great points where more than one decision was reasonable. Do you just go full Paragon in the movie and call it a day? There would be a fair few Renegade players who would feel a little shorted. That's without even mentioning the romance subplots. Again, nothing that couldn't be surmounted, but those are two problems that spring to my mind ON TOP of all the various and sundry issues that come with adapting a beloved series from one medium to another. That having been said, it could certainly be done, especially with the right crew and enough creative control from the writers, and I guess we shall find out, as a movie has been announced. Thus far, it looks like a pretty solid start for the film, especially the fact that they are going with just the first game's events. Here's hoping it turns out amazing.

^NICE^ @Mirby: Hell yeah, thanks! That's pretty much what I was thinking. Blood bending assisted dim mok (an esoteric Chinese martial art that translates to the "Death Touch.") Pretty frickin' badass. Remind me never to mess with Sifu Kisu. That guy could kick your ass in like eighty different ways.

Alright, voted with my wife's account too now. Come on people, we must hold the line! Sorry, I've been on a real Mass Effect kick lately.

This. So much this. I've heard of people saying how the whole series was ruined by the endings, and while I will admit that even with Extended Cut they are the weakest part of the series, that still doesn't invalidate the fact that everything up until then is nothing short of brilliant. Mass Effect is one of the greatest works of fiction I have ever experienced across any medium. I have cared for few characters more than those of this series. Indoctrination Theory? Pfffft. I'll admit it's super cool to consider and would have been an interesting way to go, and at least the video I saw on YouTube explaining it was really well made, but no way. Especially after Extended Cut can we please just let it go? I don't know, I liked the idea of refusal. I just think they executed it pretty poorly. Really par for the course with the endings here. What I think would have been awesome is if they had had Shepard say something to the mass effect (sorry) of "You've given me no choice but the ones you want me to make. None of these are right. Destroying the Reapers at the cost of the geth and EDI? Becoming as bad as the Illusive Man and enslaving an entire race of super-powerful beings? And I would be no better than Saren if I willingly sacrificed everyone to become like him; a husk, slowly being warped to your desire. The next cycle will do what we couldn't; put an end to you once and for all, on their terms." Sorry, nerded out there a little.

I gotta say, as a huge Avatard, I'm very happy with this whole season of the show. Come on, 2013 and the next season. Take all the time you need Bryke and company to make the next two seasons as awesome as the final two in The Last Airbender. As for the idea of having the second season being Korra learning how to bend water, earth, and fire again? Well, I think we may have seen more or less that exact thing before. And no way is Asami gonna go bad. She's Team Korra's Sokka. You know, the badass normal who manages to hang in there with super-powered benders? I think her and Bolin are gonna get together, but we shall see where they go. I have faith. Also, I thought it actually worked pretty dang well that Amon turned out to be a blood bender. That makes his removing people's bending (and Korra being able to return it) make a shitload more sense. Basically, he's not actually energy bending, but instead just really potent blood bending inside of people so that they can't bend until this is put right. That's why it didn't look anything like what Aang did to Ozai. It's a small matter then for the avatar to make it better. Pretty solid fridge brilliance really.

Well this is some unexpected news. I'm not really sure how to take it, frankly. Smash is pretty close to my heart, and even though I liked Melee better than Brawl, it's hard to imagine an outside developer would really help matters. We shall see. That having been said, since Namco is involved, maybe we can get some of the ridiculous Soul series announcer gems. "MARIO was seriously wounded, but his soul still burns!"

Liked, and not just because the Hinsons are good people. My wife would totally dig those earrings actually. Maybe they will be a present soon...

Really, no one has mentioned Mass Effect yet?!? Well, I'll admit to that one. A few games have gotten me emotional (Majora's Mask, FF6, Skyward Sword, etc.) But there have been very few plot developments in any medium that hit me as hard as Mordin's death in Mass Effect 3. That was just rough from beginning to end. Terribly bittersweet and ultimately a beautiful treatment. When they started playing the menu music from ME1 I got a big lump in the throat and couldn't stop blinking. No sobs, but damn. ME3 did it to me a couple other times after that, but not quite as bad as that one. I still have trouble talking to people about it without getting a little choked up. Bioware, you magnificent bastards, you really know how to do some world building and characterization.

THIS. I am really happy with this series thus far. I'm still waiting for the awesomeness to pick up like it did after the first half of the first scroll in Last Airbender. I guess I have some high standards to meet though; Airbender is like my third fav fictional show on television EVAR. I am such an Avatard. I have faith though, it's basically the same team working on this, and they're not messing with the formula too much thus far. I'm loving this show overall. P.S. Sorry, Momo, you might have been outdone. Pabu is freakin' adorable.

You remember the creepy music they play in the church in 600 AD right before you get Frog, or in Medina (you know, the town of mystics in 1000 AD?) Yeah, with the piano runs and the simulated flute and then the choir in the background. Also, credit should go to Yasunori Mitsuda for the bass line, which is surprisingly funky and interesting. One of the more forgettable songs from what I consider the best OST in games, and that having been said, it's still pretty good. There's this track in the Chrono Trigger OST that would be easy to forget unless someone on a forum linked to it, but it's surprisingly good. It's got this great bass line which is easy to overlook because there's some really creepy synth choir and piano runs and a great flute section in it that draw your focus. Still, it's nice to hear a composer who doesn't neglect the rhythm section. Reminds me of Megaman in that respect. Mitsuda did the CT OST, and yes, he is pretty great. Game music can be pretty awesome, as long as you can appreciate how music is made given the limitations of a certain instrument. This track, for instance, uses 16 bit sound (like what you would get out of a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis,) but still manages to be pretty fleshed out and distinct. There's a pretty good bass line that could be easily overshadowed by the outright creepiness of the background synth choir and then a flute and these great-sounding synth piano runs in the foreground. Yeah, I might have messed this one up a bit. Sorry. For me, so much of game music (and really most sensation) is important within the context and is usually directly linked to it. Especially when speaking to a fellow fan, the music evokes something that they and I can relate to, and I probably wouldn't talk about the piece or describe it without at least some kind of context, being as the music is generally so connected to it. No prob! Hope this helps! Interesting choices, btw. Why these? P.S. Disclaimer: I also didn't try to maintain objectivity in my descriptions. There are some opinions in there, for sure. I didn't want to start a flame war, I just would have a hard time describing just about anything without a judgement call of some sort. I know, I'm a judgemental a-hole. Sorry.

Woof. Just finished listening to the album. Fantastic. Great variety, and all of it solid. Standout tracks for me would be Skyward, Thunderstruck, Hey, Listen, and Last Dance of the Giants, but it's all great. As a self-professed Zelda fanatic, it was nice to hear the wonderful music of the series being explored in a so many interesting ways. Nice work!

I enjoyed the Silent Realms as well, but I could see how they could be frustrating. I had to restart Din's Trial after getting all but one or two of the tears and that was pretty annoying. Still, I thought they were well done, beautiful, and a great way to put some variety in the game play. Speaking of which, another thing I felt was great about the game was that the pacing was pretty fantastic. The break points are a really nice touch as well.

Yeah she is adorable in a Taylor Swift way like the whole game. Very charming. Still only like my fourth favorite incarnation of Zelda, though (my first three are in order WW, Oot, and TP.)

So, beat Skyward last night. Fantastic. Maybe not as much emotional kick as some of the other games of recent years, but damn. HUGE. And so much cool. For the size and fun factor, I'm thinking this has to be my new favorite. Also, yeah, Groose is the shit. Just wait you guys who aren't there yet. The ole' Groosenator will win you over soon enough.