Penfold

Yeah, actually it was. And really, not so much tough on the arms as it was on the hands IMO. Still, very fun. I also agree: DKC games were never difficult.

It's been easily over 12 years since the last time I played Bionic Commando on the NES, but Rearmed feels like a faithful update. I was never particularly good at the original, and this game is still as tough as I remember. Great look and feel. The music is also pretty awesome. The only things I have to gripe about offhand are related to the controls. Sometimes when shooting the grapple without pressing a direction it will shoot straight and other times it will shoot at a 45 degree angle. It's also extremely picky with the analog stick to shoot at that diagonal, whereas with the d-pad not so much...makes it far less worthwhile playing with the analog stick IMO. Now all my home console playing time is going to be divided between this and Pixeljunk Monsters. Hooray for these great digitally-distributed games!

Man, I love that game...finally beat Special 2 last night, now it's on to the hard levels. Anyway, does anybody know if there is any difference between the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Bionic Commando Rearmed? Trying to decided which system I'm gonna get it for...

That's really amazing stuff, man! Btw, did you get a video of your rings routine yet? Incidentally, as of Saturday I now have a place in my gym to work on muscle-ups. First couple days have been miserable failures so far, though I've been practicing jumping MUs with slowly increasing ring height.Today I think I figured out what I'm doing wrong on muscle-ups! I was thinking too much of it as "pullup plus dip," So when I got to the end of the pullup I didn't have anywhere to go. Today (3rd workout day since finding the spot for the rings) I practiced trying to transition earlier and had success while minimally touching the ground. Haven't tried from fully off the ground since, but I have hope that I can get the technique down by the end of the month (I definitely have the strength, but it's just directing the strength in the right direction that's killing me). That first one that truly started to "feel right" had me smiling ear to ear.

I'll be trying to go (really wanna see you guys play!), but it's hard to say what my schedule is gonna allow.

It's unfortunately extremely common for small companies to sue the big companies for alleged patent infringements, though they're usually settled out of court due to the huge legal expense, long litigation time, etc. The downside of being the big guy - you become the target in more ways than one.

Here's hoping...

Thank you! Now I don't have to say it.

I find that very hard to believe.

^ Good stuff, keep at it! If you'd like any advice, post away.

I gotta say, anything involving a cross is pure awesome. Honestly, the more I hear and see about especially ring stuff the more I wanna get into it. Since I do lunchtime WODs, by the time I get to the gym, warm up, and do the WOD I have barely enough time to do anything (just some practice with frogstands and handstand holds against a wall for the time being). I can't be doing any strength-related stuff prior to Aikido in the evening (tight muscles don't mix well with pins, joint manipulations, and pressure point stuff...not to mention hindering flow), so I may have to move to early morning WODs (3 days out of 4) and lunch-time screwing around with emphasis on gymnastic stuff (2-3 times a week). I have info currently on some good ways to train for handstand, planche, and front lever, which I guess is as good a starting point as any, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could direct me to some resources for a beginner. Additionally, I really need to get better form on pistols, snatch, clean and jerk/push jerk, and finally start doing double unders. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna need to reorg my schedule if I wanna accomplish these things.

Hahahahaha. This'll be as good compared to the source as the American remake of My Sassy Girl.

If it's from the Nickelodeon website, you're in the clear to post a link. If it's from a 3rd party (torrent, etc), not so much. They're not waiving their rights to the IP at any rate, even if they have full episodes viewable from their site.

I'm actually kinda curious how the demo compares to the full game, now that I'm at the tail end of it. I'll probably have time tomorrow after work to check that out...I can post my impressions between the two afterwards, if that helps anybody. Hoping to also beat the game tomorrow too .

DMC? Devil May Cry? Huh? To put it simply, if you like JRPGs you'll like Blue Dragon, and if you don't there's nothing that the game does that will make you like it. I was enticed because the character designs were done by Akira Toriyama, music by Nobuo Uematsu, produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and had certain features (like showing enemies on-screen rather than random encounters) that reminded me of Chrono Trigger. While it takes a little while for the story and whatnot to really get going, aside from the boss battle theme the music is good throughout, and it's a damn pretty game .

Preordered in on amazon, and in order to save $4 I went with the free shipping, so I should have it by this time next week. Good stuff.

Meh, I've heard people bash on 300 lately, saying it's all flash and no substance/gimmicky. To each their own, but I thought it was still fun to watch, and despite the very 2-dimensional characters they were able to add some nice subtle character depth. What I liked most was that they actually made action sequences dynamic, without a hint of shakey cam in sight(and yes, those are mutually exclusive). Zach Snyder is no Hitchcock, but if he can make entertaining movies that's more than I can say for a lot of mainstream Hollywood directors nowadays (I'm looking at you, Michael Bay).

Very good list. Edited for stuff I'm personally excited to get into (as suprising as it is, still haven't played Gears). Side note: finally just about done with Blue Dragon. Just finishing sidequests, then it's on to beat the game. Definitely enjoyed this one, but I can't wait to get into more Lost Odyssey, and then ToV ships in the not too distant future!

Read half the graphic novel about 2 years ago, borrowing it from a coworker, but never finished cuz I got caught up with doing other things. Last week after seeing the trailer (and some of the film makers' video blog entries about Watchmen), I decided to finally buy my own copy and finish it. Very excited about this movie; it has a lot of potential, and the director is intent on sticking very closely to the source material (just like for 300). Offtopic, but I'm also rather interested to see how Frank Miller does in his solo-directing debut with The Spirit.

That would be awesome to see, though in all honesty Fl. is a long way for me to go. If you can get some footage of it, though, I'd definitely like to check it out. So did the STP on the 12th, and can honestly say it didn't go at all like I expected. Got food and rest at the midway point and was back on the road approx. 6.5 hours in, and up until 75% of the way in (about mile 150) I was set for arrival at the finish after an estimated 13 hours. After a series of three flats (and only having the equip to handle 1.5 of them, thus relying on the goodness of others to get back onto the road), I lost about 1.5 hours, which sucked. That wasn't the worst news, though. After mile 25 (about 1/8 in), my right knee started to bother me, with infrequent but very sharp pain. It didn't seem like I had been doing anything weird in my technique to cause that, so I just kept on keeping on. It gradually got worse, to the point where by about mile 155 it became almost constant, and as sharp as ever. I had to gear up and increase my cadence just to avoid putting more pressure on that side, slowing me down several MPH - adding frustration, I would no longer be able to push to maintain speed with a baseline, so I couldn't even think of drafting. Stopping, unclipping, and starting up again was worse from then on than getting a digit cut off, but I've come to far to quit. At the final rest stop prior to the finish (about 20 miles out), I nearly fell as I dismounted, and walking felt almost as bad as biking. Making it into Portland, whoever was in charge of spray painting the direction markers on the pavement made an error, telling riders to take a right when going straight would have landed us at the finish directly. This added 15-20 minutes more on bike, but worse yet 4 more times I had to stop and unclip. In the end, it took me approx 16.5 hours, arriving at the finish at 9:04 that night, and the last near quarter was one of the most painful experiences of my life (which is saying something). Despite these factors beyond my control, I have trouble accepting my poor time in the end. At least I can say pain is no longer a factor when completing my goals. Going to the doc on the Monday following, I was told the ileo-tibular band tightened up and the cause of the pain was it rubbing against the joint upon extension. So relieved it wasn't the joint itself, or anything else with a long heal time. Put me on an anti-inflammatory for 10 days (so I still have a few days left), but that didn't stop me from playing and overdoing it with hooverball that Monday evening, or Aikido that next evening. Pain pretty much stopped Thursday, and there was no discomfort in doing push press (in regard to the knee extension anyway ) on Friday. Back doing Crossfit for real today, though still not back up to 100% yet. Made up the WOD from yesterday (nicknamed "the filthy fifty"... 50 of: 24" box jumps, jumping pullups, 1 pood kettlebell swings, walking lunges, knees to elbows, 45-lb push press, back extensions, wall balls at a 10 ft target, burpees, and double unders), and got it done in a little over 40 minutes, which isn't bad but not where I should be. Side note: wtf, jumping pullups take longer and overall are harder than regular pullups! It's doing that jump to the bar after the box jumps I guess... EDIT: Now that STP is over, I'm determined to start doing proper handstands, handstand pushups with good form, and take steps in the planche progressions. Did frogstands (about 20 sec x 3) and handstand holds against the wall (about 30 sec x 3, while gently pushing off with my feet and bringing it back) after the WOD today, and will continue with that for now.

^ Pretty much the problem with anything Jump. DBZ, Naruto, and to a somewhat lesser extent One Piece (the one Jump anime series I'll still watch).

I honestly still don't see any similarity between Avatar and Naruto.

Haha, that was great. I loved this show, and thought that was an amazing way to end it. A little sad it's over, but honestly glad the great story came to such an epic close. That was pretty much all I could have hoped for in the finale. Incidentally...spoiler I thought it was very interesting to finally hear that the comet was used to destroy the air nomads 100 years prior. Makes sense, given all the advantages the air nomads would have otherwise had against an attack. Also gives extra meaning to the scene where they found Giatso's body surrounded by Fire Nation soldiers back in first season. /spoiler Also, very interested to hear about the shorter animated movies. While I think it would be cool to stay within the same story and go deeper into certain parts (perhaps Iroh's journey into the spirit world), I also think it would be cool to make them center around previous Avatar incarnations. I also think it would be great if they were to put together a new series that would be based within the same world but, again, based around a past or future incarnation. Expecting these new animated movie projects to be within this same story, but I can hope for future projects. A bit iffy about the live-action film adaptation despite the creators' heavy involvement, simply because things are always lost in translation to a different medium.

Downloaded the Tales of Vesperia demo the other day. Very much like ToS, which isn't a bad thing IMO (it being my favorite RPG of last gen). The boss was ridiculous though, and in the three attempts I still didn't beat him. Incidentally, it's funny that of all the home consoles, the 360 has the vast majority of JRPGs. Also tried the Too Human demo, and it's definitely not my cup of tea. I didn't really care for the designs, the controls were not bad until the miniboss-like character with a hammer for a hand (it told you to press a to get on top of the enemy but after that no button seemed to do anything aside from balancing with the left analog stick), and I didn't find their manner of storytelling to be particularly engaging.

Mario Galaxy and LostWinds and Toki Tori and Okami and (This is a fun game, can we do this in the other console-specific threads next? )