Cerrax

Woke up this morning and randomly decided to fire up an old Final Fantasy game and grind through about 10 levels or so. Haven't touched it in months and probably won't touch for another few months. I guess I figured it was better than watching TV and I could stop at any time to go to work.

For some reason, every time I go into the cooler at work, I want to play Oblivion. Weird.

I've tried all 3. The Intec started smoking so I took it back and got an Innovation. It died in like a year. Bought a new one (Axion) and it lasted a good long while. Until I moved and I guess it got bumped a little too hard or something because after I had everything unpacked and wanted to use the screen it was dead. They're all crap.

The only memory I have of this sort of thing was right when I bought Mirror's Edge. I must have played it for hours on end every day. One day I walked into work and immediately started looking for an escape route. "Jump onto the file cabinet, lunge to the pipe, climb up the pipe, into the ventilation shaft...." I stopped myself and realized maybe I was getting a little too into the game..

QF Fucking T. Yar's Revenge is the shit. Anyone remember Starmaster for the 2600? That game was bad ass. There were so many controls for the game that a joystick with one button wasn't enough. You had to use buttons on the console to run the game. The B/W-Color switch turned your map on and off, The Game Select switch ignited the hyperdrive. The difficulty toggles on the back switched the targeting computer on and off. It was freakin awesome to see the hardware used in such an unusual way. My dad kicked ass at that game.

So I was watching Independence Day today and the way the aliens are depicted in the movie bothers me. If these creatures are intelligent enough to built massive ships that travel unimaginable distances through space that are equipped with shields, why is their plan of attack so damn stupid? According to the film, these aliens simply want to eradicate life on Earth and consume its natural resources. First of all, why wouldn't they simply enslave humanity (and maybe even other species)? There's an awful lot of resources wasted in the destruction of human civilization when it would just be simpler to send down armies and capture all major government installations. That would devastate the chain of command and a leaderless population would fall into anarchy, leaving ample room for a tyrannical regime (the aliens) to take hold. But for the sake of argument, let's say that they do not understand or have no way of indicating how we organize or react and simply don't want to take chances with revolution and whatnot. So they plan a massively destructive campaign to kill us all. Why use such big ships? Even though they are shielded, they are still easy targets. Plus the amount of energy needed to keep a ship like that running not to mention generate the energy shield or even move it would be incredible. Powering and arming smaller ships would be easier. Plus then the devastation is only limited to the range of those little spacecraft, not one gigantic laser. Plus the little ships themselves are pretty stupid. They're not shielded and since they do most of the fighting in the movie, that seems pretty reckless. Plus I find it odd that the ships have such terrible aim. You would think these aliens for the sake of superiority would enhance their pilots with computer systems that not only track targets, but lead them as well and also have guns that are pivot-mounted so that less work has to be done by the pilot to get a good shot. They don't even have any guided weapons! For a race that seems to be heavily based on military superiority, they don't seem to have much to fight with. Discuss.

Okay. So we are supposed to believe you based on an opinion? Come back with facts and try again. A big part of music is performing live. While most bands that are considered "Classic Rock" don't write songs any more, people still love to see them perform their music. Look at bands like Operation Ivy who only did one album but to this day are considered a gold standard of punk music. And still others are honored by numerous cover bands because some or all of the members have passed away or moved on to newer projects. Music is ultimately a performance art, and regardless of record sales and downloads and merchandise, a good band is determined by a good show. Don't forget that music is in some ways a science, and for every successful experiment there have been many, MANY failed ones. No one gets it right the first time every time. Not to mention that you are again stating opinions, not facts, which makes this whole thread that much more pointless. But think of what would have happened to music industry if that album had never been finished. Let's forget that Pink Floyd is an influential force of music and lets pretend that they never reached the popularity that they did. Even if they were some no-name band that just played local gigs, someone would have heard their music and thought they could take what Pink Floyd had done and go further with it. Music (like every art form) constantly imitates itself and mutates into new "sounds" and genres all the time. Even the smallest, crappiest band can have a massive impact on music if the right person gets inspired from them. There are easily thousands of bands that you have never heard of, or who you absolutely hate that have shaped whatever music you listen to. Like I said, no one gets it right the first time. But eventually some one does. Classic Rock, I feel, does sometimes get off a little easy because it is considered "classic", but that's just my opinion. I'd rather pump some Megadeth through my stereo than The Beatles, but that doesn't mean that Megadeth is any better or worse than The Beatles. It's all opinion and honestly, I'm not sure why I'm still discussing this. You're upset that a song you don't like is popular. GET USED TO IT. Just because it's called the majority does not mean that you will agree with them and their choices. Look at it this way, at least you know the proper name of the song (I absolutely HATE people who profess their love for the song "Teenage Wasteland". The Who have never written a song called that!)

I just think video game movies are a stupid idea. "hey guyz, lets take a perfectly valid form of narrative and remove the most interesting part! Then we'll rewrite the whole story for twelve year olds and spend millions making it look as good as it used to!"

A) IF IT WAS DONE CORRECTLY I think Super Metroid would make an excellent sci-fi horror flick a la Alien. I've always had a pretty epic idea of how the movie would go (I even began writing a script for a little bit). More likely it would be turned into some mindless sci-fi crapfest. I don't trust Hollywood with mah vidjahgames. Leave my childhood memories alone dammit! EDIT: Ali Larter as Smaus? Really? I actually find myself envisioning Kristanna Loken as Samus. That red suit she wears in Terminator 3 could easily be blue

Well I'm registered as a Super Supporter! Gotta talk to yodaisbetter and my roomies and see if any of them are interested. If not, we will be looking for people to stay with us.

Unfortunately, VNV Nation is playing in Cleveland the very same time so me and Alexis will be out there. Sorry man I really wanted to go too. Wait are you going on Sat or Sun?

A for sure. There is so much that I have learned from OCR I don't think I could name it all here without this turning into a tl;dr. Seriously, this site has been a lifeline for the last 4+ years

I just finished the single-player campaign. Kinda short, but fun. Wish it was longer. It seems like there's a lot more to do online, which is unfortunate for people who aren't online. I have yet to try bustin' with some friends on XBox Live. Unfortunately no. In fact, the game is based almost entirely on the first movie. The only things from the second movie are the painting of Vigo and the slime guns. But trust me there are some nasty ghosts to take on. I just wish the single player was longer, I was just starting to get into it when it ended.

As a stand-alone game without the Ghostbusters name attached to it its definitely above average. The gameplay isn't terribly polished, but its not clunky or annoying. The enemies in particular seem to have a tough time navigating obstacles sometimes. But considering how slow you move with the proton pack on, it kind of works out. The graphics are pretty nice and the new Infernal Engine for the physics works quite nicely. No twitching dead bodies or bouncing objects (unless they have been possessed ). And it handles lots of object simultaneously without any slowdown. The characters do look a little awkward, but I'll chalk that up to the fact that the 360 can't replicate human likeness that well. Probably the closest I've seen is Hugh Jackman's likneness in Wolverine and even that is a bit of a stretch. I don't know what else to say without spoiling it. If you're a Ghostbusters fan, this game shouldn't disappoint, and if you're not, it's still worth a look.

So I picked this up the day it was released and so far I enjoy it. The gameplay feels a little awkward at first but once you get into it, it works well enough. Wrangling and trapping ghosts is really fun, but you don't get to do it as much as I'd like too. There's also a bit of exploration with the PKE meter but its pretty linear and beside searching for cursed artifacts and scanning ghosts, its not very useful or fun. For as hard as they're pushing the fact that it's written by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, the dialogue feels somewhat forced and there are parts that are just plain awkward. Overall though it greatly straddles the same delicate line as the movies between utter cheese and true serious dialogue. Overall I'm enjoying it, and it feels like it may not live up to the hype. Also since I am a huge Ghostbusters fan, I tend to have a bias towards the whole game. Thoughts anyone?

U.N. Squadron Mega Man X F-Zero Super Smash Bros Front Mission Even though its not 5 years old, Mirror's Edge, because out of all the newer games I have finished, it's the only one I can play over and over again.

Just tossing in my two cents. I really like the one Gollgagh showed.

This pretty much sums up how I feel. The Natal is truly the bleeding edge but its also unproven and very little was actually shown in the tech demo. The Wii (even with the Motion Plus) is just grazing the surface what the PSMC seems to be capable of. Ultimately, the PSMC is the most practical and at this stage in the competition pipe dreams and incomplete controllers are not going to cut it.

Honestly, forget Natal, this looks awesome. XBox 360's Natal seems like more of a pipe dream and it's obvious that the Wii doesn't do quite what it intended, but the PlayStation Motion Controller looks amazing and the demo is much more impressive than anything Microsoft or Nintendo presented. Discuss.

The better question is, "Is this a good idea?" Everyone seems to agree that this is a great technology if it was made right. But I'm not so sure... http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/19691/1/THE-DEVIN039S-ADVOCATE-A-FAT-LAZY-GUY039S-RESPONSE-TO-XBOX039S-NATAL/Page1.html

Yeah. Apple uses "Keychain" which basically does the same thing. I don't trust it. It would be the first place someone would look if they hacked my computer. Most sites I visit use cookies anyway and the important ones (like banking and such) don't have cookies so I just remember those ones.

Atari 2600 - 36 NES - 10 SNES - 34 PS1 - 4 N64 - 5 PS2 - 18 Xbox - 7 Gamecube - 3 XBox 360- 15 Wii - 5 Game Boy/GBC - 10 GBA - 1 PSP - 2 GRAND TOTAL - 150 I used to have a lot more, but I sold them to get other games because I knew I really wasn't going to play them anymore.

I've actually done quite a bit of analyzing music to figure out how so much sound comes from a limited number of channels. I actually noticed most of the things Gario named in his first post. Chiptunes especially utilize some really impressive things because there is much more to writing a chiptune than just writing four channels and mixing them together. The true masters can imply more than one line into a single channel and convey interesting effects that cannot be done on their own (such as reverb, delay, filters, etc). I've actually been listening to a few songs from the Jurassic Park Game Boy music and it has some interesting methods in it. For example, the first level music: One of the pulse waves and the custom wave use the same method as the first rectangle wave Gario mentioned in the Silver Surfer tune. By using a very quick high pitched note right before the rest of the note at a lower octave, it creates a very percussive sound which allows the tune to have a much punchier livelier sound. It also gives the effect of two notes played at once and helps differentiate these two background parts from the smoother longer lead pulse wave. The lead pulse wave itself also makes a very distinct sound. It does a dive into the main melody but it sounds like its playing two or three notes at the same time. and creates a strange effect that sounds like an extremely fast delay effect. This is actually the pulse wave playing two different notes as fast as the Game Boy can possibly play them. One pedal note and one note that gets chromatically lower every time it is played. The result is a really neat effect that uses only one channel. Other than that, the Game Boy also has the ability to play noise at two different cycles, allowing two distinctly different sounds to come from the same channel. This allows the noise channel to serve as entire drumset, using the 8-step cycle for harsher sounds such as the bass drum, snare drum, and possibly toms, and the 16-step cycle for softer lighter sounds like hi-hat and cymbals. Combining the two different cycles with different frequencies opens an entire percussion section within one channel. I'm actually a big fan of Game Boy music because of the fact that it can play two different types of noise. It's really unique among chiptunes.

C. I played trumpet from fourth grade till the end of high school, but I never got private lessons.

That seems to be your answer for every movie. As far as the action and stuff goes I'm sure it was great, but its very frustrating when you've grown to love certain characters and aspects of a franchise and then they throw it all away for no good reason. I didn't think they could get any worse than Nick Stahl to play John Connor, but I was wrong. I really do not enjoy Christian Bale. I suffer through him in the Batman movies because I enjoy Christopher Nolan very much. But I think he was the wrong choice for John Connor. I'll have to see the movie for myself, but just from the trailers he doesn't seem like a very good John Connor. They should have gotten Edward Furlong to do it again. Shame that he was all fucked up when they shot T3. It would have been really awesome to see the same actor grow into the role. Would have been excellent for continuity too. Like I've said, I'll have to see it before I judge it, but considering the mediocre quality of the other movies I've seen so far this summer, I'm not expecting much.