Native Jovian

Hahahahaha, YES! I'm far too lazy to put up anything like a website, but even I remember the .txt trick!

Holy crap. I agree with atmuh.* Is the world ending? The only problem with nocrits is that the melee weapons are basically expected to get a crit every few swings. If you do nocrits, you'd also have to bump up the melee damage to compensate. (Nocrits would also make kritzkrieg a hell of a bigger deal, too, which I'm honestly okay with.) But yeah, I'm no sort of "pro" or "hardcore" player but I'd totally play on a nocrits/teamtalk server. Not exclusively, but it'd be a nice change. *except I'll totally admit to getting pissed when I get killed by a random crit or a facestab or a pocket medic/soldier/pyro/heavy/whatever duo spawncamping or basically anything else that I feel like there's nothing I could have done to avoid getting annihilated

I'm glad that comment confused someone else, because it confused me. I'm not saying that Cloud was emo in FFVII, or started out as not-emo and gradually became emo over the course of FFVII. I'm saying that because people think he was emo in FFVII (which he wasn't), they portray him as emo in non-FFVII things that he appears in. He's not emo in FFVII, but he's sure as hell emo in Kingdom Hearts 2.

My problem is that Cloud has become emo over time. Seriously, go watch Advent Children and tell me that Cloud's not being emo. Or play Kingdom Hearts -- especially Kingdom Hearts 2. Holy crap. Seriously, just wow. (For those that haven't played, Kingdom Hearts Cloud looks like he mugged Vincent and stole his clothes, and KH2 Cloud constantly whines about "the darkness within him". Urgh.) Cloud was pretty emo for a (fairly short) while in FFVII but he got over it. It's somehow entered the public mind that this is all Cloud ever is, was, or will be... so that's how he's portrayed in things-that-aren't-FFVII-that-still-have-Cloud-for-some-reason.

I think FF7 is well past the statue of limitations on spoilers, don't you?

wait what EVE online is free?

Every once in a while. Just sayin'.

Well, at least it's equal-opportunity silly, then.

Does that chick have armored titplates? That strikes me as even sillier than usual for this kind of thing.

I call, and raise you http://virb.com/m_h

I stopped bothering to try doing scramble votes, because they a) never pass (someone mentioned a few pages ago that it takes like 70%+ for a successful scramble vote?), and annoy people when they keep coming up just to inevitably fail.

Some really weird porn.

Possibly because they don't care what you think. Also: lol drama in this thread.

BioWare has this and how. They generally try to hide it by giving it names other than "good" and "evil" (or "heroic" and "villainous"), but that's pretty much what it is. KotOR has Light Side and Dark Side, obviously, but Jade Empire has "Way of the Open Palm" and "Way of the Closed Fist", and Mass Effect has "Paragon" and "Renegade". Either way, it boils down to being nice or being a dick. Except that "nice" means giving all your cash away to feed a bunch of orphans and "dick" means burning the orphanage down so you can pull the fillings out of their teeth to sell for a few extra bucks. I rather prefer a somewhat realistic "middle ground" than the almost cartoony 100% super awesome niceness vs. 100% evil bastard dickness. Although I have to admit that Mass Effect has some hilarious Renegade options. <Turian Councilman> You better not hang up on us again, Shepard! <Shepard> Whoooops, my finger slipped! *hangs up on them*

I never said that you said that it was. I just said that it wasn't.

Gundam isn't based on a manga, though give that it originally came out in the 70s, and that its creator has a long history of doing mecha anime, it's not all that surprising that he had an idea for it years before he actually got around to making it. As an aside, am I the only one who tends to like anime that's not based on a preexisting manga better than stuff that is? It seems like most anime is based on a manga, but the stuff I really like (Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, and Paranoia Agent, for example) are all anime-first (though the popular stuff tends to get a manga adaptation eventually). There are exceptions, obviously (Trigun, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Outlaw Star are all anime-based-on-manga that I enjoy), but it's consistent enough that I wonder if it's just me or not.

I'm uncertain what exactly it is you're looking for, here. Are you asking for better writing or more freedom? You say you want more heroic options. You give an example of a situation that gives you an option between being a gleefully evil bastard and a reluctantly evil bastard. Are you saying that the options should have been between being a gleefully evil bastard and being a brave and honorable hero? Or are you saying that there should be a brave and honorable hero option and a reluctant hero option and a neutral its-not-my-problem option in addition to the gleeful and reluctant evil bastard options?

Yah Zeon designs sure are super-cool! Nah, Char was a douchebag loser right from the beginning. The only difference in CCA is that he's also genocidal.

Props for Earth Federation flags. However, I require your address so that I may sneak into your place and burn that Zeon shit. You goddamn Zeek.

Fair enough, I guess. I didn't really mean to suggest you did; I was more raving against the usual Eva "zomg it's so deep if u don't like it u must not understand it right" fan. Thankfully, those seem to be less prevalent on the internets in recent years. Here's hoping that the new movies and shit coming out don't bring them back out of the woodwork.

No, actually, I'm just Eva-bashing whenever I can because I hate it so very much that it infuriates me that other people like it and my only catharsis is bitter internet diatribes. It's nonsensical as hell, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. Which is pretty much what the creators intended. Seriously, all the random Christian symbolism? Angels firing cross-shaped laser explosions? (Hell, the fact that they're called Angels? And that they're all name for Biblical or pseudo-Biblical references? The supercomputers being named for the three wise men?) All the trippy-as-fuck Tree of Life stuff that happens during the Instrumentality during the movie? It doesn't mean a goddamn thing. It's not supposed to. It's just supposed to look cool and seem deep and meaningful, which it accomplishes in spades, but it doesn't actually mean anything. Even the creators admit it: "Assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki said that they originally used Christian symbolism only to give the project a unique edge against other giant robot shows, and that it had no particular meaning, and that it was meant to be susceptible to multiple interpretations. Hiroki Sato, head of Gainax's PR department, has made similar statements." But really, I could deal with the fact that it was all bullshit if it was enjoyable bullshit. But it's not. There are about three characters in the entire series that don't deserve a baseball bat to the temple, and they all come to bad ends. (Well, everyone in the series does, but the few actual likable characters especially). The only redeeming things that Evangelion has going for it is absolutely beautiful animation (especially during the giant robot vs alien bits), but even that came back and bit them in the ass. The reason why the last two episodes are fucked up voice over and still shot BS is because they spent their whole animation budget before the series was over. That's the price you pay for trying to animate a full-length series like it's a movie or an OVA. See, now I got anti-Eva rant all over the thread. I just can't help myself. See what you made me do? For a mindfuck anime that's less suck than Evangelion, and less random than FLCL, check out Paranoia Agent. It's pretty goddamn awesome.

It only is a few episodes. The series is six episodes total. The reason why people like it (or, well, at least the reason I like it) is because it's a fun combination of humor, action, and random mindfuck. Except that the mindfuck actually makes sense (in the sense that it's self-consistent and means something, at least). No, that's Evangelion fans. Though the two shows were by the same studio. Eva is random insanity that seems like it should make sense but doesn't; FLCL is random insanity that seems like it shouldn't make sense but does.

EXCELLENT. You may live. This time. This is a scientifically verified fact. Sadly, many Gundam fans see Zeta as the pinnacle of the franchise. Obviously, many Gundam fans are idiots. It depends on why you liked Seed. The full-length UC series (Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam are the only ones that have been dubbed or released outside of Japan, though you can find ZZ and Victory online if you look hard enough) suffer from dated animation and are largely painful to watch if you aren't already a Gundam fan. The OVAs, however, are generally pretty good -- 08th MS Team is the closest to a real war drama that Gundam's ever gotten (that is, it involves grunt soldiers fighting in a backwards theater of conflict, rather than Newtype ace pilots single-handedly winning the war in super powerful Gundams); 0080 focuses on the effects of the war on a civilian kid in a neutral space colony and is more plot-heavy than other Gundam shows; 0083 is complete and utter bilge except for the mecha porn (it's actually quite improved by watching it on mute with no subtitles). The movie, Char's Counterattack, won't make any sense to you unless you've already seen Mobile Suit Gundam and Zeta Gundam. The other movie, F91, is crap because it's basically the first 15-or-so episodes of a full length series crammed into the space allowed by a two hour movie. G Gundam is shamelessly super robot -- the plot can be summarized as "deciding which country rules the world via a martial arts tournament in giant robots". If you think that's really awesome or completely retarded, that's probably how you'll feel about the series as a whole. Gundam X is pretty good, but you'll have to pick up a bootleg since it hasn't been brought over to the US yet. It's set 15 years after a war between Earth and the Space Colonies ended in a metric fuckton of colony drops that decimated both populations. It's got a nice post-apocalyptic feel, especially in the early episodes, though later on they move away from that. Whether you want to watch Seed's sequel, Gundam Seed Destiny, depends largely on how you felt about Kira and Co at the end of Seed. If you liked Seed because of Kira, you'll like Destiny. If you liked Seed in spite of Kira, you'll hate Destiny. Gundam 00 has lots of good mecha porn and the first season does some really interesting things to turn the standard Gundam premise on its head. Sadly, the second season suffers from snap-back against this effect and embraces every Gundam cliche ever with open arms. But it still has cool giant robots.

If you mean the ending in general, I completely agree. If you mean RX-78 vs. Exia mk III specifically, then get the hell out. Gundam 00 was, like most Gundam series, largely defined by its wasted potential. Unfortunately for me, I seem to be more attracted by the existence of potential in the first place rather than it actually being put to use eventually. Which means that I can't stop watching Gundam shows regardless of how terribly they're handled by their staff.

Beaten to it. FLCL had an awesome soundtrack (though it's certainly j-rock, which doesn't seem to be what you're interested in). Ditto Trigun.