AarowSwift

Can't, it has to prove itself first. Oh, I figure it will at least be as good as Fusion. Fusion is my least favorite in the series based on what I've played (haven't played Hunters). But it's still a good game. Anyway, expressing concerns about how the experiments tried in a new chapter in a beloved series isn't hating on it. I'm just not going to give it a free pass because Metroid is my favorite series.

Maybe women get up in arms about female portrayals because it's a big freaking deal and extremely important and the fact that you don't see it from your privileged position doesn't change that? Look, where Samus' portayal in this game is concerned, I'm talking in hypotheticals until I see it for myself. But assuming she has been negative female stereotyped, this example would be a single grain of sand. Insignificant in and of itself and wholly unworthy of comment. But it would be joined by the millions of grains from other games, books, movies, TV shows, print ads, commercials, and attitudes in homes and on the street to form one hell of a smothering mass of misogyny that half the population of the world has to live under. So if some of us uppity women get annoyed and speak out on the subject, you'll just have to forgive our extreme rudeness at harshing your male privileged vibe. It was pointed out that men suffer from stereotypes too. That's part of the exact same problem, but even so, these problems are not equal. Being the butt of a joke is a lot easier to shrug off when you're standing on the top level of society. When your competency, capability, reliability, independence, attitude, hire-ability, promote-ability, and so forth isn't scrutinized and questioned based on your sex and when everything associated with your sex isn't automatically placed on a lower tier of social importance. Look, I don't want to hijack this thread and turn a discussion about Metroid into one on feminism. But ask yourself this. If a female gamer points at something in a game and says "I think that's sexist and here's why", what do you gain by arguing that her experience is somehow wrong? How does it hurt or threaten you? The statement that "these days, nobody's that misogynistic" is sadly very wrong. Most of that hatred and inequality isn't overt. Rather, it seethes beneath the surface, a subtle attitude of society that reveals itself in a million tiny ways. This makes it seem normal, and any harmful attitude normalized becomes all the more dangerous to its victims. I've said my piece. If you feel like telling me I'm wrong (or shock the hell out of me and actually accept that I'm on to something here), do it in a private message. Where Other M in concerned, I'm a bit worried. The makers of this game have every right to design their game and portray their characters as they wish but that does not excuse them from criticism. I haven't been impressed with some of what I've seen so far and frankly, I find a bit of the reasoning pretty off (like the determination not to resort to the analog stick). Maybe the sense of it all will become clear when I finally play the game. I intend to go into it with as clean a slate as I can. This is the prelaunch and the general attitude is a pretty negative one. Here's hoping there's a sea change after this Tuesday.

The answer is, like a human being. We're a rather varied bunch you know and sex does not predetermine behavior. Unfortunately, there are a lot of negative stereotypes that focus on weakness, vulnerability, and being hysterical stamped on female characters. Considering her portrayal as being strong and decisive in every game up to now, having Samus suddenly break down into tears would be pretty egregious. I haven't played the game yet. I don't know if this is what happens or if there's a build up that would make something like that appropriate for any person regardless of sex. Reviews so far do not have me encouraged but I hope it's just knee jerk hyperbole. My point though is, the statement "act like a woman" treats individuals like some sort of mono behavioral hivemind programed by their sex to be a certain way. It's not true. There's a lot greater variety between individuals than there is between any particular identity group based on something as superfluous as sex, or skin color, or nationality, etc.

And how, pray tell, do you think women are supposed to act? Also, on the issues of controls. I see a lot of people bringing up "how clunky Super Metroid's controls were". Super Metroid had one controller and its limitations to deal with. Other M had other options to choose from sitting right there and deliberately ignored.

I only got to fight Jhen Mohran once (HR was in the low teens) and I got an Elder Blood so it's definitely not limited to high ranks.

It helps to not limit yourself to liking just a few genres. The Wii plus the DS caused me to deal with the first backlog I've ever had. A backlog it's taken me over a year to catch up on. My Wii game collection alone is larger than any of my others and I own systems back to the SNES, and this is after a recent brutal cull of games I didn't figure I'd replay. Is the Wii lacking strong showings in some classic genres? No doubt. I saw that as all the more reason to experiment with trying out new stuff and so far this has been very rewarding.

F-Zero X on Gamecube, playing the X cup with randomly generated tracks. Random generator creates a donut track, but a donut with a really tall hill with a severe drop off. Green light, all of my computer controlled opponents zip off the start line. I sit there and watch the car counter. 30 cars...30 cars...30 cars, then they hit the top of the hill. 30 cars...30 cars...29-28-17-12-3-1 car. It's easy to win if all the other drivers plumet to their doom.

I dunno. I think this could fall into the "so bad it's good" category.

It's sad all right. Cartoon Network looks like it's falling down the same path as Nickelodeon did long ago. Nick used to be loaded with great cartoons and other shows then steadily deteriorated. Notice how Cartoon Network is now showing some live action teenie bopper stuff. The network is definitely sliding. Frankly, I'm less than impressed by the newer wave of cartoons. I never liked Eds or Bill and Mandy or Flapjack or Chowder, shows that depend so heavily on random junk and gross visuals to carry the humor. Actually, I haven't seen consistently funny cartoons since the classic loonie toons.

I like the YouTube comments by people claiming to have actually found this song themselves. Anyone here familiar with a behavioral phenomenon called Mass Hysteria?

No prayers from this atheist but instead advice. If the doctors advocate surgery then DO IT and do it now. I have a friend and roommate who had severe ulcerated colitis and struggled with it for around two years. I watched him go from thriving and energetic to a near skeleton. I lived with him for around a year and know as well as anyone how much he suffered, the sheer pain and agony of the condition. My friend in question was, unfortunately, very much into alternative medicines, energy healing, thinking positively; as such he stubbornly refused to have the surgery. Horrible mistake that he payed for with unnecessary suffering. Sure, he'd have upswings in how he felt but he always crashed harder afterward and ended up in the hospital on multiple occasions where, because of his refusal for real medicine, they really couldn't do anything for him other than rehydrate him and send him back home. Finally it came to the point where the doctors pinned him down and told him that, you either get the surgery or you die. He finally got the surgery. Today he's healthy and thriving again. Sure, now he has a j-pouch and he has to watch what he eats, but he's alive and not in pain. Basically, he suffered unnecessarily for around 2 years because of bad advice from people with good intentions, wishful thinking, and sheer stubbornness. I also feel I'm to blame because every time I wanted to call out the bullshit advice my skeptical heart was overridden by my desire to be respectful of his beliefs. I about respected him into an early grave. To Mr. Aguirre, the best of health. You can recover from this, just don't waste time on dead ends, please. I've seen this sickness at its worst and seen the afflicted come out alive, well, and happy.

Depends on what's being communicated. However, with Nintendo's friend code system in place, Nintendo's insistence on protecting your ears even from the people you are "friends" with is puzzling to say the least. It's amazing how a company can be so willing to risk giant leaps of innovation on one hand while mincing along with baby steps on the other. They have their reasons, I just can't fathom what they are.

I am waiting for more footage and made it clear in my first post that I wasn't passing judgment on more than just the trailer shown so far. However, certain assumptions CAN BE MADE based on Peyje and the environments shown, unless the art style is grossly inconsistent.

It's not meaningless for me. I really enjoy playing Mario Kart Wii online. That's not to say I enjoy it more than playing MK with other people in the room, but the game lends itself to a more pleasurable online experience than does Brawl (and I'm speaking purely on the game itself, not the connection setup or lag issues). It may not be so for you, but it's certainly true for me.

That was almost coherent. You are aware that graphics don't make something pretty right? It's the art design that makes something pretty and the graphics are the tool that bring the art design to fruition? That graphics without art design can make something both technically impressive and butt ugly? Take Bugs Bunny. Great looking character. Would he look better slapped with a fur shader just because fur shaders are graphical? Or would Fuzzy Bugs look just plain wrong? How about a hairy Mickey Mouse? What's the point of making cartoons if "real" is inherently better? Is it? Truth, the Wii does not have the processing power to put out graphics on par with the Xbox360 and the PS3. But to say that means the Wii can't have good looking games (other than your strangely selective example) is purified BS. Was Okami ugly because it was on weaker system? What about Vagrant Story? Rayman 2? Super Mario World? A video game console is like an art medium. Some systems are like oil paints, some are like water colors. You can make fantastic looking art in any of these mediums, so long as you understand how to work within the medium. If you treat oil paints like water colors you'll have a lousy result. If you have a strong artistic vision, you can make it work in any medium so long as you work with that medium instead of against it. The only thing stopping developers from making drop dead gorgeous games on the Wii is they simply aren't trying, and there's no excuse for that. Ubi could have gone with the style of the first BG&E. It would have looked incredible and been perfectly doable on all three consoles. They didn't choose to go that route and that is unfortunate.

My logic is not scary. I'm making a straight up comment on all the message board discussion prior to Brawl's release. If you have a memory longer than a gold fish's you should recall this stuff. Speculation ran high for online in Brawl. Many people, myself included, predicted that online would not work well due to the inherent variability in the connection speeds of different computers. Others simply talked about how cool it would be to play anyone across the world and technical shortcomings be damned. I am not making excuses for Brawl's poor online (and it's clunky for more reasons than just connection speed). I'm simply saying I'm not surprised it has lag problems and you shouldn't be either. Whether or not the devs actually put the online in because of fan whining is really irrelevant and certainly unknown to me. I just made the statement out of pure cynicism. Ultimately though it doesn't matter. I've found that personally, i don't enjoy playing online even when the connection is pretty smooth nearly as much as I enjoy playing Smash Bros with other people in the same room.

How about a Fuck you Ubi for going with teh realism. I liked the stylized approach which can look amazing on any system. I'm a little afraid to see what Jade looks like now. Too realistic and she's going to fall into the Uncanny Valley when she animates I guarantee. It's not hard to make something look true to life in a still, but the moment it moves we always have the "moving mannequin" revulsion factor. Still that's just a guess based on the "so real its ugly" Uncle Peyje (sp?). Color me unimpressed with the choice of art direction, though not the art itself (so far). I'm very happy to see the game being made and not-so-happy it's failing to hit the system I actually own. Well, I had always figured I'd pick up a PS3 eventually for the handful of exclusives I knew it would have that I enjoy. Has that thing fallen into the sanity price range yet (aka, around $300)? In an aside, does anyone else feel like some Xbox360 and PS3 developers are engaged in a graphics pissing contest without really paying any attention to actual artistic merit?

Hmm, I seem to recall the Brawl developers saying they weren't adding online and a lot of fans whining and kicking their feet about it being absent, and a lot of speculation about how having online for Brawl just wouldn't work because of unavoidable lag. You don't care in games like Mario Kart because lag doesn't really affect your racing strategy, but the Smash Bros games are dependent on precision timing. Too bad the devs caved in to all of that gamer kicking and whining, eh?

I'm glad that it doesn't. Makes for great "loopability".

Yeah, that's how I play. I have no defensive game, I just get in there and thrash away. I figure sooner or later I'll hit something.

I'm really enjoying this mix. It's very easy listening with a nice mellow beat. I'm not sure what other people are talking about in regards to the bass being too high or muddy. I have just my pair of old computer speakers, nothing fancy, and the music sounds great over them. This is something I can listen to while I'm working because it doesn't demand my attention. Every remix doesn't need to be a cinematic tour de force or dance mix.

That was one elaborate April Fools. If it had been real I'd have refused to see it. The actor playing Link is too ugly to be an elf.

Soooo... Anyone here familiar with the concept of the Uncanny Valley? Here's a good write up. It's an idea directed at robotic design but fully applies to any character design. http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html And really, this is why cartoon characters should never be represented realistically, unless of course the purpose is to invoke revulsion. This is also why the more realistic a character in a video game is rendered, the less convincing they tend to be as anything other than creepy CG manikins.

Folks, regular online content from Nintendo is and will remain free. The pay to play thing only refers to games that have a huge architecture that must be supported by dedicated servers, like MMORPGs for example.

Not at all, if you play the way I did. Mad Bomber Link! In the original Smash, Link could lob his bombs across the entire screen. They took away his throwing arm in Melee. I was a Link player in '64 and was that annoying person who'd hang out far away from the tangle of other players and just rain ordinance down on their heads with pinpoint accuracy. I may not have won a high amount of matches, but I put the fear into my opponents!