Necrotic

On the flip-side, I've probably spent close to or over 80 hours over the past couple years playing Guitar Hero with an assortment of friends alone, and maybe a grand total of 8-10 playing by myself. Maybe I'm a unique case here but I can't say I don't hang out with friends, it just happened that any time we were at my place all we felt like doing in the past was Guitar Hero, to the point where me, two friends and my brother would spend every second weekend playing it for 6 hours. I always feel terribly nerdy knowing I can finish every song in the game on expert but realize more optimistically that the entire time I was with spending it with people that I probably would've been hanging out with at some random place sitting around doing nothing. That, and my left hand's finger endurance has doubled. And I know Guitar Hero is completely different from DDR, but it's the kind of game where mastery just seems stupid until you start getting better not by striving to do it, but just through the competitive nature of being with other people.

Honestly, it depends on what you're going to be using each program for. If you're making signatures, banners, and want to learn the ropes of digital photo touch ups and digital imagery then use the GIMP, or any other alternative listed in this thread. I've used the GIMP, and while its interface is a little heavy, it's not impossible and it's free. Also, looking at the screenshots of that Paint.net program above, I like the look of the interface, you might find it pretty comfy. While Photoshop is the main reason I keep Windows on my PC anymore, it's technically for the type of person that has dual 21" displays, a Wacom tablet, and a desk at his front and right side with a plethora of artistic drawing tools and paper, along with access to a scanner. If this applies to you, I recommend Photoshop. If you're still doing professional or artistic stuff and have a budget get Paint Shop Pro or Corel Painter. Hell, I'm going to go ahead and recommend Paint Shop Pro anyways because I liked it back in the day and it's still pretty powerful and affordable.

Keep in mind that DNA unzipping isn't prompted by magic. Enzymes and other molecules are responsible for that process, and that's generally prompted by the cell's need to divide as it is. I mean, if we're talking strictly about keeping DNA molecules as a form as storage outside of the body then I think what you said could work. The practicality of writing small on the other hand, I wonder if there's some sort of application to this if it becomes cost effective. Like someone said, the need for storage capacity in hard drives is becoming greater and greater and we're reaching our limits. Actually shadowolf, quite fascinating is the fact that scientists speculate that memories are stored as molecular information sort of like DNA, although I have no idea how far we've come on this concept. My biology teacher just brought it up one day and I began thinking of the sorts of things our bodies are capable of. Imagine if we started to discover how memories were stored, and wouldn't have to deal with the issues of DNA being so delicate.

This is some sexy shit. So much raw, untained groove. Srsly. Love it. Edit: Out of Curiosity is beautiful by the way. I love the sax.

oh, you hahaha

I don't think games really "lose" their fun to anyone. To say that, is much too broad. It's something different. As I get closer to college, I'm beginning to feel what a lot of you guys here are talking about. At this point, I've come to realize something during this transition period between having to go to college later this year and being a high school student with cash to burn just a matter of months ago. The market is so saturated with games that it's literally impossible for me to have the resources to play them. And by that, I mean time and money. I can spend maybe two hours max on a weekday playing games, if i'm lucky. My course load is devastating. Also, the need for cash as you get older is substantially larger. If I buy 4 games at full price - $70-80 Canadian - that's $280-$320 I'm spending which could definitely be spent on smarter purchases. In that sense, you don't have time to experiment with games you might or might not like. I've noticed I've bought a lot of games over the past year or so, but the only games I'm willing to pay full price for anymore are the games that you know you can afford to buy out of preference. Things like Shadows of the Colossus, Okami, Mario Galaxy, Metal Gear Solid 3; we know they try something different or they meet our expectations so we become exhilarated to varying degrees by those games. Otherwise, I've spent my money on nothing other than games I can get for cheaper in the bargain bin, many of which are games for the PS1 or fighting games. And honestly, the games I've spent less money on are games I've actually been playing more unless they're the quality of the games I listed before. Even then, emulation has no cost associated with it regardless of how morally bankrupt it may or may not leave you. In the end, you realize that paying for games you might not like, constantly, is a futile waste because lots of games have nothing of value for your personal taste much of the time compared to the classics which have been made timeless by their guarantee to be good. When the focus of a new game is said to be about amazing graphics, revolutionary story-telling, or some other catch-phrase, you begin to feel numb about your expectations for that game. It's not like all of the games to come out in the next few years are going to be bad. It's that the ones that you end up playing will vary by how much they interest you and other people, and they will be immortalized as being classic games in the generations to come. I see MGS3 as an example of this specifically, estêvão, something I think we share in common. The direction game developers take with the new generation of systems ultimately decides how we regard each generation. While some may blame it on nostalgia, being so young there are games on the SNES and Playstation One which I enjoy for their sum of all values alone and can not feel that exact same nostalgia, making nostalgia impossible to pin as the sole reason for enjoyment. Believe me when I say the direction and flow of the games is entirely different between each of the generations. Just don't forget that each generation has thousands of god-awful games despite having ones that, over time, receive timeless acclaim. -Nick

Waiting for DMC4 right now. Huge recommendation for the PS3 is Uncharted. That game seems to have been highly overlooked. I rented it and it's definitely worth the buy, which I'm going to do soon.

Some of you think our pessimism is misplaced, but honestly, it really just comes down to a question of why the hell they're worried about putting Star Wars characters in when SC3 was a terribly imbalanced and unpolished game and so far my impression of SC4 is that it the developers seem to be focusing on tits and ass physics instead of the actual fighting itself. Good grief, Namco.

Haha, looks like a blast. We should get some games of this going. I'll download it in a few.

I'm so in on this. The gloves are comin' off, kids.

It's times like this where I'm thankful a place like Overclocked Remix can exist. There's been times where I've been obsessed with this place, and other times where it causes me nothing but grief and a great deal of cynicism. But nothing expresses the true essence of what we are as a community quite like this. Where we can all stop for a moment and remember someone who was important to us and pay him our respects. If this place didn't exist, I would never have even known who we was. I'm sure most of us could say the same thing. And then, most of us wouldn't even know about his death, which would have served no justice when he had so much to give. We would never have heard his talented musicianship. We would never have had the chance to talk to him. Nor ever gotten a chance to play Street Fighter with him. What little I knew of him, I had nothing but appreciation for him. He left us with many things to remember him by, and to become inspired by. Rest in peace, Reuben. Thanks for everything. I just wish I could have found something to give back.

I read like 3 different sources confirming it before launch. Must have been one of the beta builds of the game they tested it on, or something. Or maybe they were basing it off of IGN's article, but that's something no one should do. I'm going to be kind of stuck in the same boat, but when me and my bro bought our PS3 with Rock Band in mind, we already realized that it could be a problem and right now we can simply hope Activision doesn't fuck over consumers. Activision and RedOctane are pretty much the folks that decided it would be a good idea to go against the standards provided by Microsoft and Sony for their controllers, and since that's the case it was probably intentional to some degree. I really see no reason to defend the issue, though, in spite our supposed lack of foresight. I'll agree it's Activision and RedOctane's right to defend their interests as a company, but considering how many more people seem to prefer GH3 controllers compared to Rock Band's, it's a wonder they haven't tried to get GH3 guitars working with Rock Band yet when it would probably make them some money. Harmonix seems to be all for universal controller support. -Nick

Atma's fighting the good fight. But seriously, I've been bitter about the Wii's online system since I first laid eyes on it. It worked perfectly on DS because of the fact that it's not that inconvenient to look at a computer screen and hook up with friends on a handheld. On a Wii it's a million times harder and less practical, and lacks some features that could seriously make this game blow everything out of the water, no criticisms required. I think my favourite moments playing fighters with people were the days where me and online friends were playing King of Fighters while talking on Skype and just having a good time. It's been a while since I did that, but between all the joking and trash talk, you'd realize that being able to talk to the people you're fighting really makes a big difference in how much the potential for fun there can be when you actually have the option. Fighters for me have always been a social experience... a competitive one as well, depending on the game, but it's a good a reason I tend to play them more than most other games. You learn to appreciate having that opponent by your side for whatever you value having them most, whether it be to teach, to learn, or to talk and laugh. I don't take for granted what I'm given and I don't think Atma is either. If anything I've come to appreciate the fact that he's honest about what he thinks. Other than that, I think we're done here, like Arek says.

Yeah, the Core 2 Duo is actually pretty cost-effective for the kind of power you get out of it. You're not exactly hurting for RAM with 1gig of DDR 400. Unless you do something RAM intensive (Photoshop, 3D rendering, playing high-end PC games) you may not need to upgrade, but that's entirely your decision. Note that you will probably NOT notice an improvement until you get rid of what's primarily bottlenecking your computer in the first place, in other words, your processor (Celerons are pieces of shit no matter how hard you try to compensate) and quite possibly your motherboard. Your computer is only as strong as its weakest component. The problem with Celerons isn't clock speed. You can have the fastest Celeron in the world, clock-speed wise, and it will be slower than some of the slowest processors, clock-speed wise, of another series of processors. In fact that's true already. Technology is a complicated thing. A few years ago, Intel had to stop marketting their processors based on clock speed due to a court order because it was extremely misleading. It has to do with the way the processor is built, the way the pipelines are designed, how big and how fast the cache is (this is the Celeron's downfall), and some other factors as well. What you ALWAYS have to do before you buy a processor is don't look at clock speeds, go on to Google and look at bench marks of the processor you're buying. Usually you can find benchmarks which show a specific processor you're looking for, it's major competitor (probably an AMD chip) and about 5-10 other processors a few generations before it to compare.

The '10 characters' thing has to do with there being a minimum number of letters you can have in a post, otherwise the forum doesn't let you post it. It's just a way of getting around the system by people with nothing important to say and the mentally handicapped. P.S. Nice work on serving the justice, guys.

Got this game like 2 days ago. Deserves more love, seriously. It's been far too long since I've had a good point and click adventure game to play. It's creative and quirky, and I love it. The presentation really makes me smile, but I have a feeling it won't sell as well as it should because of it. Just overall a really creative game. The boss battles are a blast and the I find myself liking the music to some of the levels too, or at least the second boss battle track. Speaking of music, the rhythm minigame is annoying at first but the tunes are awesome.

My friend had the same problem. There's a cheat menu and some cheats you can look up on GameFAQs which lets you unlock every song in the game if you need. I personally think the whole "can only unlock certain songs in coop" was a stupid design choice.

Vigilante's May Fortune Smile Upon You song from Metal Gear Solid too. This is a great thread by the way. I need some sleep music.

I think making them cost money is definitely something that's going to be necessary to keep the blogs relevant. If the blogs cost money, only the people who matter (the artists, the project and community managers, and some forward community members) are going to be willing to use the blogs, and if they cost money, they're realizing it's a commitment and a tool, but not a throw-away. It's more valuable to everyone that way. BUT if people were to use their blog improperly having paid, you'd have to make sure that when they pay there's the understanding that their content is either restricted to something relevant like video games and music, or, look the other way understanding that they paid for their blog and give them some leeway on topics (well, assuming they're not filling it with porn.) If I were to pay for one it would be because I have something important to say. And since I don't, I won't buy one, but that's exactly my point.

Only problem is it's never going to change in this case because the game is still going to sell no matter what we get out of it. If the game was in jeopardy in terms of sales, Nintendo would have to compete harder. Sucks that that's not really the case now is it. I think part of it has to do with the fact that the internal storage in the system is so limited. But uhh, duh Nintendo why do you think SD memory cards exist. I have a 2GB card in my Wii and I'm waiting for a game to actually take advantage of it. (I bought it for multi-purpose use but it really gets no use otherwise so I just keep in in my Wii, you know, 'just in case'.) It's terrible and stupid just like their online system but it's Smash Bros so we're pretty much condemned to getting it unless the gameplay is terrible by some fluke. -Nick

I thought the same thing... then I went on youtube to listen to all the songs I couldn't identify and as it turns out, there's only about 3 or 4 emo/screamo songs on there. Still plenty of "meh" tracks. GH3 has more tracks with wide appeal to your average every-day person who couldn't tell you a single thing about music that's not on the 8AM radio, but a game designed around playing the guitar shouldn't be about "popular music" so much as it should be about "fucking amazing, dynamic music with excellent guitaring" and so it makes me kind of sad to see. Happy about the inclusion of In Flames and Killswitch Engage though. Still needs more Maiden and good metal in general. By the way, everyone should check . Wicked progressive rock that deserves some huge props. Song designed specifically for GH3.

Still no Downloadable Content because there's no way to regulate it on the PS2 but it may just so happen that you don't care about that stuff and if that's the case well then more power to you but if you do then don't fret, you're in the good

Zack and Wiki is out tomorrow? Fuck. May have to wait a month or two on it now. Aww, to hell with it, think I'll buy it now and suffer the consequences later.

Well, even if you do take what you said into context, none of you what you said really did "click" with my own personal viewpoint on the subject... and based on the response you're getting, I'm not the only one. You're generalizing too far, maybe. For one thing, I think you're going a little too far by saying that anyone in their right mind buys new generation consoles for the sake of playing old games. I don't even think anyone's implied that in this this thread but you, and aside from that, when a company offers to support their consumers in something it's hard to take lightly when they keep removing things after the product has been on shelves for a year now. Natural order of things is, they're going to complain. And depending on how hard they complain, that company may or may not change their stance on the issue. Seems to me a good portion of people are just as whiny about how they hate people complaining after getting shafted by a company when it's the complainer's right not to mention their job to defend their investment. The way I see it, the more I can consolidate my consoles, the more space I save and the more convenient it is to be able to take advantage of things like, say, wireless control of my games. Maybe you have an entire house or basement at your disposal, you're single, you like being able to throw a bunch of old analog TV sets in a room and maintaining a bunch of old consoles and whatever costs are associated with it. That's cool for you, but I'm not really in that position. Plus things like games being blown up and pixelated and upscaled on an HDTV don't bother me. I play games like Monkey Island on my PC all the time and get the same effect because my monitor is too many sizes too big for the way the game is designed but I'd rather take advantage of all the space I have. Games have a habit of bugging my eyes out on oldschool analog TV's because the quality on said TV's is just so shitty in general. Between the option of having BC and not having BC I see more benefits in having BC and I would (and did) pay for it. I think the issue is mostly that Sony is taking options away from consumers when it seems more reasonable to give consumers options. -Nick

yeah, backwards compatibility the new 40GB SKU completely lacks backwards compatibility the 80 gig has limited software emulation, and might be phased out in the future (for sure in Europe) the 60 gig can basically do everything but it's already been phased out of the product line so get one if you want one now I guess It all doesn't seem very rational... I mean, removing backwards compatibility could save them money and cut costs for both company and consumers right? Well, that is the case with the 80 gig, but this new 40 gig SKU is just stupid. EVERYTHING was software emulated in the 80 gig meaning the cost of time to develop the engine and that's it. They could have reasonably kept it in. And then I read this and basically decided Sony is the biggest stooge of a company ever. I mean, don't get me wrong, the PS3 is a great piece of hardware and I don't really feel many regrets (I went for the 60 gig), I just regret the fact that the PS3 is attached to Sony in any way, shape, or form.