MasterSenshi

OK... The last few posts agree with my two posts in spirit, and yet they're being conveyed as disagreement? Anyway... I never stated that things should be censored. Actually I stated I don't advocate censorship, what I'm against is people treating this as if it has no effect on individuals. One of the reasons I classed video games with movies is because there has been an effect shown in other media, especially television. Although there have been inconclusive findings on different video games studies, one of the reasons why I added in video games compared with older forms of media is because of the cumulative effect. My use of the term societal breakdown was apparently too cliched. To be more specific I'm referring to behaviors that aggravate the distance and anomie present in modern day society. I could go back 2 centuries to show a slow development of it, based on researchers superior to myself, but I'm more concerned with what's happening today. Regardless of what a study shows, it should be obvious that what you observe effects your thinking and biases. That is substantiated in research. I won't say that video games will have a greater or lesser effect, but it seems naive that so many of these studies conclude there must be no effect at all. I don't want to be trite, but a rejected null hypothesis doesn't prove that. Samus is an image, code, drawing, etc. My main point is that we're allowing people to treat individuals and relationships as cheap and petty, and this is manifested through media. It was pretty implicit because I stated more or less art follows life. However that doesn't mean every vendor has to follow trends that glorify destructive behavior. I don't want any media outlawed, but I don't want this applauded either, and I'm seeing plenty of applause on the internet for a contiuation of the trend of sexualized video games. And yes, FE is cool for those reasons as well as an awesome plot and battle system.

I have to look at an ever-decaying society each week. It would be impossible for me to get over it, when I study this stuff in school. It's really, really sad how numb people are, when, sexuality is equated with 'maturity' when it's just some adolescent yearning to play with an imaginary character. Why is it that we can't have any dignity in our culture anymore? Yeah, I've seen women before. I happen to think women are one of the greatest thing on this planet. This does not however transfer into an acceptance of any overweening female or male masculinity. We have games advocating mass murder, theft, arson, promiscuity, terrorism, games that endorse having sex with as many girls as possible, blowing up anyone in your way, etc. I've played some of these games, but I didn't fully realize the destructive impact it has when you watch over and over again somebody being slaughtered, and you enjoy it. I'm not Jack Thompson, or one of these psycho legislators. I've played video games almost my entire freaking life. I used to be totally in love with them. But video games is a media of art and entertainment. Society shapes it, and rather than being proactive, game makers layed down and gave in to the same crap the movie industry did. Whatever twisted crap sells, we will make. From a fiscal prospective, that may be fine. But ethically, socially and psychologically I can attest, as well as several other gamers I know, that shooting people in the head, blowing them, and doing other acts numbs you. I'm an adult now, and I'm not going to argue for stuff so I can stay up late and play the newest game. I don't need to anymore. But I'm also not going to go and advocate for the same social engineering that's made people flee from marriage and has our society in an identity crisis. And what does this have to do with Smash Bros.? Conditioning. If someone can show me another prominent woman in a game (regardless of it's violence) that doesn't look like a bimbo, or available, I'll concede that. I'm not even suggesting people don't have the right to do this; but what you have a right to do and what is good for society is usually a set of different things. Video game characters lack sexuality, and even speculating whether A.I. could model human sexuality is moot for quite a while, so that doesn't factor in either. What does factor in is, whether we just see people as hollow, one-dimensional vessels for our desires or not, and in a small way, I see this Zero Suit crap as adding fuel to the fire that's separating our country and planet apart.

I'm sorta getting tired of all the sexual innuendo surrounding this game... Samus was the original kick-ass female. It was cool because she WAS so unapproachable, and the suit was built for a pretty built person. It's lame how they dropped to the lowest common denominator with the zero suit. At least the tone of the game won't be sleazy, unlike some of the discussions I've seen on game sites have been.

Snake looks awesome. I thought he would be, faster maybe, but I'm certainly going to enjoy using him. I wonder when the message boxes come up? Maybe it's one of his moves, although that wouldn't seem very useful once characters get advanced. OK, now we just need another character update for Wednesday!

Well I think they may keep Ness in... Sakurai has a sick sense of humor, so hopefully he's in. The implication on yesterday's post could be surpass, as in be more skilled, or surpass, as in a more direct conflictual way. Either way, if they keep adding new characters and have Ness and Jigglypuff I'd be happy. Well, just Ness, but all the other regulars (except pichu, mewtwo and dr. mario) would be sweet. I think I'm switching my opinion each day about Brawl, to the degree of how much awesomeness it will have...

Beaten. Oh well my point stands. Hopefully they'll keep Ness though... that would be sweet, although Lucas looks to have PSI Magnet...

They replaced Ness! OK it may be 2 AM here, and they may NOT have replaced him... but they added Lucas first. OK then. Hopefully I'm first.... otherwise cool beans, they added an Earthbound/Mother character!

I might have some qualms about recent updates on the Dojo, but Smash looks totally awesome. I don't care if it has limited online or whatever; I enjoy smash playing with friends and fam... there's just something you can't emulate getting a person right next to you to play against, mock, scream, etc. The online sealed the deal for me... especially after hearing Shiggy say those horrible comments about difficulty not being important in video games. I mean geez... add difficulty levels. I may get too busy to play video games that often in the future, but for now I intend to enjoy brawl as much as possible. I love the series, and WHATEVER characters he adds, short of something completely horrible is welcome to me. Considering how many days left, I'm sure some features will be left off; actually it would suck if they spoil everything, but a few more good spoilers wouldn't hurt too much.

This week's updates were pretty lame. I mean... some of things were interesting, but come on. Tourney? Please... I think this is the first time I really was like "Oh come on...". I don't know reall anyone who uses the Tournament mode, granted is it cool if you have a party and no WiFi, but still, he could've just let us discover this on our own. I think it was assumed. However, if it has WiFi (which it doesn't appear to) that would be great. Hopefully we get 2 characters next week in the bargain.

Sakurai said that it isn't really super effective; look at the text box, the attack is being used on Fox. It might be interesting if suddenly they all acquired elements Pokemon style, but it's just an effect. That said, it does look like a really cool attack. Finally something other than fire.. or a big beam... three beams! ^^ I'm going to seriously investigate the Pokemon Trainer now.

Resetti seems annoying... I never reallly got into Animal Crossing, but it's an interesting turn for the AT nonetheless. At least we know that each new one will have a completely different effect than the last... items in SSBB seem a lot more fun than before.

Maybe I misread the first post... it seemed to imply you were the author. Geez if I'd taken all the flack you did, I certainly would've made it more clear it was just a dumb post and not a complete lack of experience. Edit: I always read 'what I've done' literally. Maybe it's the way I speak (I'm from the West Coast), but I'm not accustomed to people saying I've done... and it not being them. That said, I gotcha. I think I said my piece now.

I think posting in a forum with professional musicians was bad judgment, but at least you finished your loop. Just keep working on it; if you're doing it for yourself, screw whatever other people think. If you want this to be your job, go ask people how to improve it. Either way... keep at it and you'll improve. The loop was sorta boring, but if you keep working on it, who knows what it'll turn into?

Agreed, that will be awesome. In the first smash, I remember absorbing Ness, and then PK Fire juggling people mercilessly, followed by an UP smash. AHAHAHAHAHAHA that was awesome. Actually now I think of it, that chain was sort of like fox's pistol, except there was a small chance of escape. I'm just ranting.... more new characters, I'm getting hyped on using my mains again! Come on Sakurai, UPDATE US! lol

Cutter is occasionally useful, but against some characters (esp. Falco and Fox), it is almost impossible to use it without at least decent tactics. On the other hand, fox can cut you down in your tracks with his pistol, then use firefox or that lightning move and decimate you. Basically I want more balance. I love using Kirby... to me he's like the epitome of Smash. A pink, child-like character who nonetheless can deliver massive damage, and float around and crap. If Kirby ONLY had faster reaction time, most of my gripes would be nonexistent. I would like to see some new moves for him, but if I could actually pull of moves as quickly as I pressed, without a delay that seems monumental compared even to Bowser, it would be great. New moves or no new moves, they just need to make him a better player. Smash should be fun, not this competitive crap everyone is up to. Tournaments are fine, but video games are fun first, a challenge second. The fun aspect can be sucked away when you were clearly superior in a fight, but got your butt kicked because of the character, though.

I've heard people say Kirby was 'overpowered', but now he's 'balanced'. I can't believe some of these arguments... Kirby is too light, his attacks aren't very effective on certain characters, especially Link and the larger characters, and he has a tendency to fly VERY quickly. I was a little pissed off when they said 'Kirby had changed the least' on the blog. Hopefully what they did change will make him a more powerful character. He went from being one of my best characters (along with Ness) to one I could only used due to experience. If I had just started on Melee I would have never picked up Kirby, which is sad. The way Ness and Kirby were weakened from their previous iterations really was my biggest gripe with Melee. I lost a lot of power from my two faves. Hopefully I won't have to redo my repetoire again for brawl, except by adding some of the new characters.

Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, and Ogre Battle a little bit. But I think the Chrono Trigger Remixes and Bird Discussion hooked me. So that's a long time of downloading remixes.

I can't say all-time hardest, but I remember the Metroid Prime from the original in the series was incredibly hard. The stupid thing has like 6 patterns, and you're more or less trapped when you get to it's lair, so if you didn't get enough energy packs, you're more or less screwed. But really I was also out of practice... I know that some old NES games would rival it at least, but it's the hardest boss I've fought in recent memory.

Actually, although there may not be connectivity in the game itself, you would just have to download the Opera browser, and set-up a thread on a forum somewhere so everyone had their friend codes or whatever the crap is you use to add codes. Then you just have to go back and load the game, since you're already online. It's pretty awkward, I agree, but there's still enough functionality to allow a tournament, you just need to set the rules down off-game, if it is as limited as people fear. Actually, until the other online announcements come, we have no idea. There could be some sort of multi-man melee (but brawl-style) that would let you set up tournaments with friends online. Who knows? But at the least, it would just take a webpage somewhere or a forum thread to handle the dearth of functionality. Basically the way I see it, you set up a certain number of seeds, have people fill them, randomized or whatever, by skill (# of wins), and after you seed the players, just go through matches. Someone said you could score 4 points for 1st place, 3 for 2nd, and so on. So the first 3 move on, or, after a certain number of matches, people with < # points move to the next round, until you reach a final elimination round with 4, 3, or 2 players. The winner of that/those battles wins. It would take some good administration, and people working together, but if interest is high enough, it wouldn't be impossible. Perhaps it may even be popular. Anyway, it's just another possibility of many out there.

Terra is my favorite FF character all time. She turns into a freaking purple monster. I would love it if they could update them and put them into smash. Her final smash could be morphing into an esper and casting some huge spell, or just attacking eight times on whoever was nearby. Actually I don't think the job classes would work so well, unless they were trying to go for something generic, and since Square/Enix haven't confirmed anything, I doubt that would be their strategy. But still, having a magic user would be great... we have a lot of sword fighters, why not have someone who uses Ultima as their final smash or Meteo (FFIV)?

Why is everyone for series that already have a lot of representation? Frankly I'd love to see some old school RPG characters represented... like Crono or Terra from the old SquareSoft games. Not that it's likely to happen, but those would interest me more than Waluigi. Even if they're going to more new series, as long as they keep the characters original, that would be great. But now, we have at least Ike, Link, and Metaknight with swords, with who knows how many more to come. Some more characters with less general appeal would be great; I feel in love with the first Smash Bros. because all the characters except Mario and Luigi were so different. They should move back to that, with more series and more off-the-wall characters. That said, if they include more FE characters that would be cool... but maybe some magic users or something, even a wyvern knight or something. It would be nice to play as kirby and fight a guy riding a dragon or a pegasus.

I think I should've been more clear. I have found those programs, but I'm looking for something inexpensive because I'm currently in school and can't splurge too much. I can probably spend $100 max, and Logic, Ableton, and Cubase all seem expenisve. I haven't heard much about Digital Performer; thanks for the clue-in. Actually I thought about the Jam-Packs but didn't know how good they were. Thanks for the information, I had no idea I could import midi into GarageBand.

I think today's update was pretty so-so. Although it's interesting that Sakurai makes it seem that just about all items will have some dual use, extra purposes, or just decimate the players. It would be nice to get a character update tomorrow. Something like... NESS! I loved ness in the original SSB. I hated how they totally screwed him over in the second game. It would have been MAGNIFICENT if he had just a little more power, then all those Young LInk users and Roy/Marth players would've been put in their places. I'm mainly think about my brother... I really don't smash with others, but still, we need Ness back, and back with some power.

I currently have two computers. One is a 4 year old XP system, that, IF I fix, I could use, the other is a 10 month old Mac OS X running Tiger (v. 10.4.10). Anyway, I'm out of state for college, and so the XP isn't an option, assuming I can get it fixed. I haven't noticed many remixing programs for Mac, although GarageBand is good, it doesn't have some of the sampling capabilities of XP programs I've used. Does anyone have any advice? I'd love to start some working on some remixes.