Penfold

Jelly Car is pretty interesting, though it definitely has that flash game feel, which would probably keep me from actually paying for the game. Hoping to actually put time into Lost Odyssey this weekend, since all I've been able to do with it was pop it in and watch the opening cinematic so far.

Yeah, I agree. Honestly, I don't know if I ever played the game alone, so I always had fun playing. The AI were just there as filler, since the races were always against the human players. Anyway, this game should be good...looking forward to it.

I think you missed his point. Source #1: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6810011-1.html (Incidentally Vega was referring to a point they made in #10) Source #2: http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/ Source #3: http://www.hometheatermag.com/advicefromtheexperts/105tvshoptips/index.html There are others readily available as well, like this question so frequently being referenced in HDTV Q&A on IGN. The end result is that it's not necessarily so important that the source is 1080p, depending on your screen size and how close you're sitting. Its different, as Vega pointed out, when it comes to computer resolutions, but when it comes to hooking up your 360, PS3, Blu-Ray player, or whatever other HD source that's the rule of thumb.

The articles I've read on the subject have stated there are factors such as viewing distance to be considered, but the rule of thumb is there's not a discernable difference between 720p and 1080p on displays smaller than 50". I could dig up the articles later, so if someone really wants the sources I can post them, though they should be easy enough for someone to find. Anyway, because I felt very confident in the research I've done on the subject, I'll actually be getting a 42" 720p Panasonic plasma on Friday. I was holding back before because I wanted to make a well informed descision and not unnecessarily spend more money on an aspect of the display that won't matter...that and I wanted to get the tv at Costco due to their great return policy and free extended warranty. Wanted to get a 42" Pioneer Kuro, but it didn't seem like it'd be making its way to those stores any time soon and I'm only so patient. There was also an article specifically on the Panasonic plasma series my soon-to-be-tv is from, where they compared the 50" 720p and the 50" 1080p models. They found there were more drawbacks than benefits to getting the 1080p model, and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I'm interested to see what my 360 games will look like on the plasma after having played them on my current tv. To echo Malaki's sentiments, I'm pretty glad I didn't get the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 like I originally planned if the format's just gonna die. I am gonna wait until it's fully dead before considering getting a PS3/Bluray player, personally, though I know there's a lot of content I'd like to get if/when that does happen.

A friend of mine has...she's a JRPG fan, and she enjoys it. Haven't gotten to pick it up yet, so I can't give any better criticism at this point.

Just found out about Xbox Originals...hello Ninja Gaiden Black and Psychonauts.

Cool, thanks Atma and Nazxul. Just bought it online.

Quick question. My current comp wouldn't handle The Orange Box well enough that I'd care to play on it and I'm not gonna be upgrading for a while yet, but I know they have it for 360. Has anyone here played it on the 360? Is it even worthwhile to get the 360 version in your opinion given the controls, or do you think it'd just be better to wait to play that sort of game on a computer? Thanks in advance.

lol, oops, sorry. My post may have only made sense to me . Basically, what I'm saying in the post is that I bought a Nyko Wireless Sensor Bar (supposed to be the best currently available sensor bar), and wired it back up to the Wii so I could have a stronger sensor bar and not have to manually turn it on/off or change batteries. I just wrote up what I did to perform this modification in case anybody else had interest in doing a similar thing.

So a while back I bought a Nyko wireless sensor bar, since by all accounts it was stronger/worked better than the OEM sensor bar. Well, it was, but after a month or so of owning it I got pretty annoyed with having to get up to turn it on and off, eventually needing to change the batteries, and that ridiculously bright blue LED on the front of it, and decided to make a change. I bought a tri-wing screwdriver to open up the OEM sensor bar, a soldering iron, and some wire and got to work on modifying the wireless sensor bar this last Saturday. After doing a search for what I was looking to do, I found a lot of people who made their own wireless sensor bars or modified OEM sensor bars but no one who took a 3rd party wireless sensor bar and power it with the Wii. After taking apart the OEM sensor bar, I disconnected the wire that went to the Wii...should have just desoldered it but I wasn't thinking and cut/stripped the wires instead. Found out after testing connecting positive/negative wires to the battery connection points that the wires are enamel-coated, so I had to tin them (decided to solder at that point too). After testing it out with no results, I tried connecting two AA batteries in circuit to the connection points with the Wii on, and that gave it enough of a "jump start" to keep working until the Wii was reset/turned off (when resetting or switching channels on the Wii power is temporarily cut to the sensor bar as I found out). The conclusion I came to was the extra circuitry used for the on/off switch, timer, and related speaker collectively caused the wireless sensor bar to draw more amps than the wire from the Wii could supply. Decided to rip out that damn blue LED at this point too...just because . After discussing this with a friend, the best means to bypass this extra circuitry was clear - simply connect a small wire between where that stuff connected to the rest of the circuitry. Tried it out, and SUCCESS! Since I ripped out that blue LED that let me know when it was on, I had to get out a digital camera to see if the IR LEDs were on, which in a way added to the fun. Keep in mind to only strip that added wire just enough to make the solder connection...I stripped too much, and the first time I put everything back together the bare wire contacted somewhere to complete the circuit I was trying to bypass, so I had to wrap with electrical tape and put it together a second time. Maybe the best part about this is that I didn't do any modifications that would keep it from working wirelessly either. So, if you're just a little too far away from the tv to use the OEM sensor bar effectively and you don't want to have to deal with the inconveniences of a wireless sensor bar I'd recommend doing this. The tools/materials you'd need are a tri-wing screwdriver (or just clip the wire on the outside of the OEM sensor bar), a soldering iron, a little solder, some wire, and a wire stripper (the wireless and OEM sensor bars too, but that goes without saying). I can also put up pictures for reference if anybody needs them.

So they close down the Smash Bros Brawl thread, and the Wii thread becomes the new Smash Bros Brawl thread...

For me, I didn't really "rediscover" gaming until college. Growing up, I had an NES, later a Genesis, and got a PSX towards the end of its lifecycle. I was exposed to the Mega Man, Sonic, and Super Mario games primarily, but I totally missed out on the Final Fantasies, Metal Gears, and other really great franchises/games. I didn't own an SNES or N64, but my best friend had those so I still kept up to date with the Mega Man X series growing up, and played a few other games (Mario World, Goldeneye, and Perfect Dark...not too many others). By the time I got my PSX, it was becoming rarer and rarer that I'd even play games. It wasn't until my first year at the UW that I first got introduced to Chrono Trigger, the Playstation FF games, Kingdom Hearts (new that year), Metal Gear Solid, and others. Playing Chrono Trigger was really what got me back interested in games, got my Gamecube in later '03, and really started playing again. I'm definitely having a lot of fun with my DS and Wii when I get a chance, but I just don't have time to devote to gaming, which is fine. Working full time, having an active social life, and being serious about my various physical trainings really keep me busy. With what leftover time I do have, lately I've been spending it more with film. In the last several weeks, just about the only times I've been playing any games is when I have a friend over and she wants to play some Mario Galaxy or Mario 3. It doesn't have so much to do with me "growing out of games at my age" as it does that life, what I do, and what my interests are all fluid, so even if I don't really play games these days it's still an interest that inevitably I'll be getting back into. Anyway, I think it's silly for people to say things like "am I too old for video games?" or "there are no good games these days." I'm 23, and I don't see myself getting "too old" for this medium because someone can always do something interesting with it - it'd be like saying I'm "too old" for animated film. Next, the second statement implies that they didn't make bad games back in the day. Whether that's NES, SNES, or what have you, I can tell you there were definitely some really bad games back then too. Everyone's tastes are different, but I just can't understand people saying they don't make good games nowadays with stellar offerings such as Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, or Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the market today. If anything, it's just more obvious when a game is bad to us now than in the past. I also don't quite understand when people seem to lament their loss of interest in a hobby. "I used to looooooooove games, but now they can't hold my attention. Woe is me." It's like being sad over a failed relationship ending .

Metroid: Zero Mission In my opinion, at least, it improved on Super Metroid in those aspects. EDIT: very cool sig, Dafydd.

Sam here

Got a lot of coworkers who live on the eastside, and friends who work over there and live between Northgate and Eastlake. A few pretty good restaurants in Bellevue too, which is why I tend to go that way most often.

Oh yeah, Excitebike was a lot of good fun back in the day...making courses etc. I'm curious how that stood the test of time. Gamelore, I think your list discounts the value offered by Punch-Out!!, and I find the omission of Super Mario Bros 3 strange. I also think Mega Man should be represented in any "NES Experience" list.

HELL YEAH CAPT. OLIMAR!!!!! That makes me so happy not only that he's in the game, but that he's playable. Now they just need to announce a Pikmin Thwii...

I've got to second Punch-Out!!, the Castevania games, Metroid, Mega Man games, and Ninja Gaiden games. Never played Punch-Out!! till it came out for the VC, and it's been awesome.

Woo, Washington! Bremerton huh? A buddy of mine goes up there to do autocross quite a lot. Born in Seattle, WA, and I live in Seattle(working at the UW now), though grew up for the most part in Olympia, WA. Was talking with a friend the other night about how Seattle is probably the most underrated major city nationwide .

Nice, Star Tropics on VC...been looking forward to finally getting to try this out. Will be getting that tonight, and I think I'll finally break down and get Sin and Punishment despite not wanting to buy any more N64 games till they add more useable storage for the Wii.

So I can't say as I've heard of Chidokwan before...could you tell me more about it? Anyway, I've seen quite a number of Taekwondo schools around here that sound a lot like the one you're talking about. I guess there are a lot of schools just looking to cash in on the relative popularity of TKD rather than be a place to help develop the martial mind, body, and spirit. It's too bad IMO, but that's how it goes sometimes. Met with a friend the other day, who had trained in jujutsu and jojutsu, and in conversation with him I mentioned how I didn't personally care for the term "mixed martial arts" because I generally don't perceive those guys as "martial artists." He responded with an antecdote about how his master (same guy for both jujutsu and jojutsu) dislikes the term "martial arts," and rather favors "combative arts." I thought that was pretty interesting. Also met a Hung Gar practitioner at the gym earlier in the week, who actually trains with a couple buddies of mine. He was practicing several of the forms including staff/spear, and my main comment is that's a definitely a pretty style, especially by striking art standards IMO.

I've actually heard this before (more specifically in regard to MCMAP and also the percentage of unarmed conflicts which end up on the ground, though I thought it was a bit higher), though this seems a little off the topic from what I was saying in the post you quoted.

Completely wrong. Agreed with Fenrir. Ambient: again no offense man, but it looks really foolish when you talk about things you clearly don't know about. You might want to learn more about a topic before you make statements off of baseless assumptions.

Umm...no. No offense, because I think I can understand your frame of reference (and by traditional martial arts I think you actually mean sport martial arts btw), but you're way off base and your assumptions are unfounded. A good buddy of mine who trains in Aikido and self-defense/pressure points with me is a great counterexample. He did Taekwondo for 4-5 years: an extremely efficient self-defense, non-Olympic style form (sorry, don't know the style name offhand) because he used to live in D.C. and needed something to use to defend himself. What he knows required a great deal of conditioning, had him participate in full-contact sparring, is less rigid than the Olympic styles of TKD you normally see, and, well, in the end he can kick my ass (that's saying something). In regard to a "real fight" and practical self defense especially where MMA is concerned, I'll refer to my previous post. In regard to people who do traditional martial arts being afraid to take a beating, I call bullshit - plain and simple. For the athletics involved, it just proves to me further you know very little about the Martial Arts world.

LOL, a Martial Arts thread I didn't create! j/k Anyway, been doing Aikido for a couple years. Mixing in with this, I've been training extensively with practical self defense and pressure point combat...makes atemi more effective if you have the knowledge of what areas to strike in muscle memory. Anyway, simply put, I love Aikido and while I'll continue to learn techniques from other styles through my life, this is "the one" for me. Because of its fluid nature in following the energy of the opponent, it lends itself well to practical application (though due to its steep learning curve, it may not seem so). I have a friend who studied jujutsu and jojutsu for a time and joked about it being too soft because it's a do art, but in my experiences that isn't necessarily the case. Aikido can be hard (just as in Aikijutsu), but I think it's most rewarding in soft technique. Regardless of whether one's preference is for hard or soft technique with Aikido, effective use of it in self defense situations will end in the same result for someone not expecting it (and that doesn't matter what you've trained in...anyone who has trained in aikido and had a technique [such as a kote gaeshi] come at them faster than they could perform ukemi knows firsthand what I mean). I also really enjoy the fact that while strikes are ever-present in proper technique (O-Sensei once said Aikido is 90% atemi after all, and if this seems like an oxymoron to you then you don't know enough about Aikido ), that isn't the emphasis especially in the dojo - no need for special conditioning (hand conditioning especially) that is more often than not pointless in real-life self defense applications. Anyway, people brought up self defense and MMA. First off, I think MMA is great as entertainment but (and no offense to anyone who likes this or does this) it isn't actually related to Martial Arts nor practical self defense. A Martial Art needs to have philosophies and other non-martial aspects to it, otherwise it's just a fighting style. Also, learning to take hits and doing ground work isn't condusive to keeping yourself safe in the common self defense situation, which is most usually against multiple (possibly armed) assailants. Fact of the matter is a boxer can give and receive hits like no other because that's what they're trained to do, but a boxer's reactions aren't gonna keep him any more alive against a few street thugs with knives - the same concept is applicable to MMA fighters and most sports Martial Artists. I-N-J-I-N made the comment "I'd choose a fighter who is built to stand for a longer fight than someone who is in it to finish quickly": maybe that's true if you're betting who'll win an MMA match, but if you're talking self defense I don't have any idea how you came to that conclusion since everything I've learned is contrary to this. If you're outnumbered you don't have time to play with one guy till you've landed that perfect KO punch, since as you're dealing with him his buddies have already ventilated your kidney - in real life opponents don't line up and take turns. Joint manipulations/breaks, quick strikes to vital/pressure points, and many times throws based on using the opponent's own attacking energy to destabilize himself can be used in real situations to bring down an attacker fast without investing much time in them, and a major component of this is getting off the line of opponent's attack. You also need to have the proper reaction - your techniques or strikes down to muscle memory and applied properly according to what the situation dictates, since everyone knows you don't have time to rationalize everything in real life and there's no one technique that will work in all or even most situations.