Triad Orion

QFE, QFT. The Move? Honestly, it couldn't be a more transparent ripoff of the Wii. Whether or not it'll work as advertised is another thing. If it works better than the Wii Remote, good on 'em, I guess. But they're still several years late to the party AND the fact that they originally were adamantly against this sort of thing. Really, people don't buy a PlayStation 3 for this kind of nonsense. Why bother, it's still bottom-line more than twice the cost of the Wii with no built in game-library for its target audience. Seems like a waste of time and development costs.

Honestly, I think all of that's a big in-joke at like, SquareEnix, Namco, and the like. Make the most ridiculous costumes they can and then just wait and see how long it takes for someone to cosplay it. But that's a little off-topic. Jade and Alyx are two female characters I really, really like in video games for a great deal of the reasons already mentioned. I liked Samus a lot as well, but moreso before people started making a big deal about seeing her in the Zero Suit all the time. Honestly, the aspect of her being the last warrior of a lost race was much, much more of a draw. And I don't mind the "attractiveness" factor in game design, so long as it doesn't go overboard, like Darlos said. Reasonable proportions, reasonable costumes and the like really make the characters more presentable. I'd present the three female protagonists from the Golden Sun games as good examples. Reasonably proportioned, costumes that made a degree of sense, and solid (if basic) personalities. Good design, that.

Downloaded Beta4 but haven't gotten a chance to play around with it yet. Out of curiosity, have the uglier hit detection issues been cleaned up a bit from Beta 3? I'm not expecting perfection, but I'm just wondering. It's a great mod otherwise and I look forward to playing with it some more soon!

Just as well. Something came up for me last minute too and I didn't get home until late, and I didn't see anyone on. Shall we try to just push it back another week or find another day?

Friday looks pretty decent. I'll talk to Feliks from back in the TF2 days to see if he's interested too.

Hey, congrats on the promotion, DA. How's it feel to wield the decisive power of NO?

You're criticizing Rush for that? Hell, Rush was downright generous about this kind of stuff compared to Sonic Advance 2. The "Gotcha" moments weren't really bad until like, the very end of the game and even then they weren't *that* cheap.

Permit me to respectfully disagree on the "mediocre" part. Playing other games of the era (especially on the Genesis) compared to Sonic games makes it clear that for their time Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 were seminal platformers. But I do agree on the second point. Sonic 4 is not Sonic 2, nor should it be. If they have a similar feel, that's all well and good. But it's 2010 now, not 1992. Things change, and if it's for the better, that's what ultimately matters.

For lulz? Just a guy looking kind of spacey standing next to a big tree with the text underneath it. For serious, it could be some sort of really trippy visual thing of a person looking introspective, and all sorts of colors and effects surrounding their head with the image of the world tree in the background.

That Aqueous Transgression shirt is *classy as hell.* Just sayin'. "A Clockwork Vampire" jumped out to me as a potentially awesome shirt. You know, just like, a steampunk Dracula robot. "The Passing of the Blue Crown" could be like, an 8-bit art shirt, with like, Mega Man being given a crown (or even just his helmet) or something by Dr. Light. In the background you can have all sorts of battles against the Robot Masters of Mega Man 3. And "Gift from Moscow"? Hell, just have a Tetris set up, and in a big "Next" box, have a 1x4 block with a big bow on it.

Roman Batman would've been fricking awesome. He could've made ancient Rome his new Gotham for awhile!

Try Dragon Ball Z. Super Sonic? XD

Can we call him Gunny for short?

Okay, I've been thinking. Sometime, we need to organize an OCR Versus night. I normally don't care for Versus Mode myself, mostly because I'm a wuss and hate playing with random people on the internet. I've recently gotten the itch to try it, and I'd rather play with you guys and my friends if I can. That said, I think we might be able to really get some good solid fun out of this game again if we can wring enough players into it. And of course, it's good for the community spirit too. I don't really have an idea for a date or night in particular. Usually, I can't make it on Saturdays. People who are interested, when are you available?

I doubt it. Remember, that's still a human mind in that cyberbrain. Being shredded in combat would probably cause massive psychological damage and severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in many of the cyborgs affected. Just because you can fully recover from something physically doesn't mean you'll never be affected mentally. The guys at Section 9 all have iron wills and represent the pinnacle of human capability. Sure, they can handle it, but your average soldier probably couldn't.

Well, think about it this way. Cyborgs aren't much different. Though they don't have a backup-data link to a satellite, a Cyberbrain can be moved between bodies, in some ways making them immortal as well. (Provided the brain isn't damaged or the stress was so bad the patient goes brain dead.) While it's not quite the immortality card that the Tachikomas have... body swaps happen with some frequency. And still, throwing cyborgs recklessly at things is frowned upon. (Due more likely to the fact that they were definitely human at one point or another.) Assuming the Tachikomas are immortal, like in your scenario, and assuming they have ghosts of their own, I would still fundamentally disagree with the idea that they're disposable. Philosophically, you're still throwing what is essentially a human mind into situations where they get decimated or destroyed with a great frequency, often thanklessly. Even though the Tachikoma's memories can be restored into a new chassis, it's not like they're going to forget what it was like to die. Over and over. And really, don't you think that an AI advanced enough would learn to resent being treated like a pawn in a chess game? I mean, like it or not, thanks to Batou's interference with the natural oil, the Tachikomas are no longer exactly what they were created to be. Yes, they're combat vehicles. Yes, they function unmanned and remotely. And yes, they were built to be somewhat intelligent initially. But the moment you have a group of these machines sitting around in the hangar contemplating their navels and talking philosophy, I think you've gone past the line where they should be treated as objects.

Ah, but here's an important theme from the show: The Tachikomas might be weapons and utterly not flesh and blood. But the question is... did they develop ghosts over the course of the seasons? And if they did, doesn't that make them no less human than say, the Major, Aramaki, Batou, or Togusa? Because if the answer is yes, the result is a truly tragic loss of life.

Ba-zing! ...Even though I liked Sakuraba's earlier work in like, Golden Sun. <<;

Yeah, I used to subscribe to Archie!Sonic for awhile when I was a kid. Started *almost* at the beginning, but I let my subscription cancel out sometime around Issue 55-60. Even as early as then, the comic was heading in a direction I didn't like. Characterization marches on, yes, but Sonic became more emotionally ambiguous (good with some characters, not really with Sonic himself) and they dialed down his smartass attitude. Also made the plot melodramatic and just batshit crazy. My favorite Sonic issue was probably 25, the Sonic CD issue. Good times.

Well, at least until the later stages. Later on it felt like you needed psychic precognition to know what you needed to do to not die. Early on it was "Hold Right, Jump Occasionally" and you can get through stages. Later on you had to be damn near perfect with your jumps and tricks not to fall in a pit and die. I don't mind a challenge, but at the speed you had to move at to even make the jumps? Jeez. Oh, and for the record, there *were* SwatBots in the BioWare Sonic game. But I can't honestly recommend that game due to the combat mechanics.

This. Chaos I'll take as a decent opponent. But it's unlikely we'll ever see him as a villain again. Which is fine. Robotnik/Eggman can and should be the primary antagonist. Really, he works both as a serious and a comical threat, so there's no reason not to use him. He's not quite as versatile a character as Bowser is, but he can work for just about any true Sonic game you can reasonably come up with.

Because they're awesome. And you know you totally want one.

I see. What I had heard was that by just playing on Realism the chance the AI director would spawn a Witch was considerably higher. Didn't know if there was actually any truth to that. Also what's always quite a surprise is when the Director spawns the third finale Tank right on top of the rescue vehicle. ...And it's not a lot of fun. XD

Yeah, really because of game and balance mechanics, in that case. XD In Left 4 Dead, though, it's a viable tactic that ensures higher accuracy and better ammo efficiency. (Generally. XD) I heard somewhere that there are more Witches on Realism too. Is that true?

The key to longevity with the M-16 or the AK-47 is to burst fire manually. The Combat Rifle does it for you in a very nice, accurate package, but it seriously lacks stopping power. 3-round bursting with the M-16 is generally sufficient on most targets, and you can get the job done with 2 rounds usually from the AK. Specials are when you want to lay into them with full-auto. Crouching helps your accuracy considerably with the assault rifle weapons and in my opinion makes it easier to control your bursts for that reason. And provided you're not playing on Realism, follow military protocol and aim for the center of mass. The Magnum's a lot of fun, but it's really not that useful, in my opinion. At least on the difficulties I've been playing on, it's generally better to go with dual pistols because of the rate of fire and longevity you have. Maybe it's better on Realism? Speaking of, has anyone really sunk their teeth into Realism? Sounds like a fascinating mode. How much does it really alter how you play the game?