Avatar of Justice

Good. These assholes were just brazen about what they did. With iTunes and Amazon being DRM-free there is 100% no excuse to pirate music. If you don't like paying a lot for movies, get a Netflix account. If you want downloadable games, use Steam. There are plenty of convenient, legal alternatives to this stuff now. If you can't afford it, fuck you. I can't afford a yacht, but I don't steal them either.

I for one am eagerly looking forward to Assassin's Creed 2. They set it pretty much where and when I wanted. The gameplay in the original was really repetitive....but really fun. I also cite it as an example of a well-written video game. The story is good, there is character development, but no ridiculously long MGS-esque cutscenes.

I just built a new PC with 4GB of RAM. Installed XP, and 32-bit XP can't see all my RAM. It sees 3.25 GB due to my video card's RAM. Now, my primary desktop is going to be a Linux partition, so the only thing my Windows partition is going to do is play games like Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and Last Remnant. Should I go ahead and put 64-bit Vista on it? I have a friend who can get me a free student copy so cost doesn't matter. It seems like the extra 876 MB of RAM would more than make up for any Vista performance issues. I've heard that XP 64-bit (which I have a student copy of) has issues with a lot of games but that Vista 64-bit does not.

I saw Watchmen and don't intend to ever watch it again. There just doesn't seem to be any point when it follows the graphic novel as closely as it did, unless you like less detail. I wish they'd made it its own thing rather than just providing an inferior version of the graphic novel. I think the only thing I really liked about this movie that wasn't already in the graphic novel was the opening montage.

I just got my 2008 refund direct deposited. Yay. But it was exactly $600 more than what I filed as the refund due to me. Mega yay! Now, before I get really excited, does anybody know if there is some legal reason (another stimulus) for this before I bother calling the IRS about it? I assume accepting money when the IRS fucks up isn't legal and could come back to haunt me later. I never got one of those stimulus checks last year because I didn't work in 2007 (full time student) although I did work full-time in 2006. Anybody know what the deal is?

Someone sell me on this game. I just finally got ok at Street Fighter 2 after HD Remix came out and years of Guilty Gear snobbery. Why should I bother with 4 when 2 is a blast, prefer the HD Remix sprite style over the SF4 3D models, and SF2 HD Remix has a sweet ass OCR OST to go with it? I'm not being a troll, I feel legitimately tempted to get SF4 but SF2 HD Remix seems good enough from everything I've read. I never really played SF2 so SF2 HD Remix is basically just a brand new fighting game for me.

Well I seem to be the only person that owns this currently. My roomie and I have been plowing our way through the Streets of Rage series. The games look fine on my HDTV. FEAR NOT. The filter can be turned on or off. I play it with off and everything still looks great. Totally worth it.

I don't think 2-D RPG's really need to be separated out from RPG's in general. The things that make RPG's will always make RPG's good. An interesting setting, good characters and story, and a fun system with a satisfying feeling of progression. I personally find "old" RPG's pretty laughable as far as characters and story go. FF6 is about the oldest RPG I can think of with decent characters with something approaching real-world emotional issues. I mean, FF4 and Chrono Trigger had great stories when I was 10-11. But after reading a lot of books the story is mostly a yawn-fest in those old games. I go back and play those games for nostalgia, quality battle systems, and music really. Of course, I'm a big book snob, so I think the only games with stories approaching "quality" is The World Ends with You and Final Fantasy Tactics. My current favorite RPG (and video game) is The World Ends with You, a 2-D RPG from last year by Square. It has a good story (with a real-world moral), amazing battle system, and while a little low on stats, really customizable so the game can be as hard or easy as you want. But none of those qualities are the exclusive territory of 2-D RPG's. Unlike some game genres, RPG's are fairly graphics agnostic.

I beat The World Ends with You for the DS last month and it was a revelation of sorts for me. It made me step back and look at my life and has made me try to act differently with regards to others and break out of some patterns I've gotten into over the years. It's story deals a lot with social isolation which particularly spoke to me as I was just leaving an area I had moved to where none of my friends were close by. That's all over (I've moved yay), but the message of the game still compels me to behave a little differently in my daily life. I'm curious, has a video game ever changed the way you thought about the world, others, and/or your place in the world? My English teacher in high school always talked about particular books that might change your life. Has a game ever changed yours?

I really liked Ashe. She is one of the few princess characters I can think of that isn't either the super whiny spoiled cliche or the super pure cliche. She wanted her kingdom back because it was her damn kingdom. If they'd focused more on her internal debate over whether she should control the magic power in the story for revenge/reclaiming her kingdom, FFXII's plot could've been a delightful romp of moral ambiguity. FFXII overall could've used more scenes of the Imperial Senate debating and shit. I love me some politicking and scheming.

Um....looks totally fucking awesome. Damn you Square-Enix for pushing this off until 2010.

I found a video of there Chrono Trigger medley that Rare Candy played that was totally badass and awesome. Was this song on Rare Candy's EP? Also, I don't see a way to buy their EP on their Myspace. Could someone help me out? I really love this medley!

Next year I've got to spend more time in JamSpace. I came in, heard some guy rapping about weaboos and left. I spent most of my time in the game room (being a gamer and not a musician) but it sounds like I missed a lot of good stuff. However, I was so excited to be able to play people besides my friends in fighting games I kind of forgot about it. Also, I was surprised at how many attractive ladies were at MAGFest. My hat is off to you gamer ladies, who are both nerds and good-looking. Especially that girl who cosplayed as Yuffie.

Damnit, I KNEW I should've bought that CD!

Hey, does anybody know who the band was that played that super badass version of the Ocean Palace theme on Thursday night? I was thinking it was either Rare Candy or Entertainment System but I'm not sure.

Whisper of the Heart is a very cute and sweet Miyazaki film that I absolutely love. I plan on showing it to my non-existent children in order to encourage them follow their dreams.

Gave: Printer to Dad Wedding Crashers to Mom Cash to Mom Uncharted: Drake's Fortune to friend One free sushi dinner to friend Elfen Lied DVD set to friend Got: BUST OF JULIUS CAESAR (rock on) Fallon Blood by Robert Jordan Some shirts Pocket knife $10 Ear and nose hair trimmer Prince of Persia Drawing done by a friend Set of kitchen knives

I was going to suggest Iria, but you already beat me to it. Iria was my starter anime (Saturday Anime on Sci-fi back in 1997), and thankfully it has stood the test of time and I still find it good.

My rule of thumb is that the success of any organization can be determined by how well it succeeds and retains its original mission after its original founders have died or retired. Does OCR have a designated successor?

I agree with someone on Kotaku who said that all this shit Souljaboy is pulling is probably just viral marketing for something, like his game. Or maybe just him.

I'll look into it. Sounds like it could be a decent fit for me and allow me to not totally throw my Comp Sci degree away.

No actually. I'll look into it and how difficult it would be for a Comp Sci major to get involved in it at the graduate level. Anybody know how hard it is to completely switch gears like that as far as getting admitted goes?

I was actually going to go on for a Master's in Comp Sci, but I was tired of school and it didn't have anything to do with my end goal of writing so I decided to work and write. But now find I'd like to try something instead of being in Comp Sci for a long time and hoping the writing thing works out.

I graduated in May of this year with my BS in Computer Science. Yay for me. Sadly, I have discovered that Comp Sci may not be my true passion despite enjoying it in high school and throughout college. Programming in the real world requires different skill sets than the pure problem solving techniques I typically got to use in classwork. I'm not particularly enjoying professional programming because of this. Another thing that clued me in was when I co-op'd for a company all of 2006 and I noticed how I didn't say much when our lunch conversations concerned career building shop talk, but as soon as the topic would go back to movies, books, or games I suddenly got super talkative. Because I don't care much about the "career building" side of being a programmer I feel like I'm not going anywhere. After working at a different very crappy job in a very boring area with very boring people, I am prepared to try something new. Because of this, I am seriously considering going to grad school for something. I minored in history, so history would be an obvious choice for me. I like history since I have always found history classes to basically be cool political story time, but I'm not sure it would be my true passion if I became a professor. I've had story ideas for books ever since I was a kid, and I being a writer seems like it would be the best way to express my passion for fiction. However, I have to do SOMETHING productive in the mean time. Either I stick with programming jobs, write in my spare time and hope to get published in ten years or go back to school which due to all the time commitments involved will probably put a stop to any serious writing until I graduated again. Can anybody think of any majors that are a decent fit for someone who loves to talk about and dissect fiction of all kinds? Hopefully a job where I could do it for a living (presumably as a professor)? English comes to mind, but that just doesn't "feel" correct. I know a lot of the people on OC are artists of all sorts and might have some advice on some majors to look at. Thanks!

You can remove everything I'm selling except the DVD's.