Native Jovian

Why would you ever want to take video games seriously.

Choosing awesome over logic is always the correct choice.

Wait, they're still coming out with new games for PS2?

The hell is wrong with you?

Good to see that you've made up your mind before the movie's even come out. Now you won't have to waste your time going to see it before ripping it apart!

This. I haven't really gotten into a Final Fantasy game since IX. Granted, I've played X, X-2, and XII, but none of them were really "hey that's awesome" like the PSX-era ones were. But maybe that's just nostalgia talking. Re: FFXIII... I'll probably pick it up when it comes out, to be honest. I haven't really heard much about it, especially compared to XIII Versus (and I still haven't quite managed to wrap my head around what the relationship between the two is), but I'm expecting it to be at least worth a play-through based purely on the strength of the franchise.

...those tricky sons of bitches!

New Temporal Prime Directive: don't time travel.

Bruce Campbell should be Wander. And his sword is replaced by a chainsaw. That attaches to his hand. "Alright you colossal screwheads... THIS... is my BOOMSTICK."

There used to be something on the site about this sort of thing, but I can't find it. Either it's been taken down or I'm going senile... Short version: if you're using music from OCRemix, makes sure you give credit. Make sure you include the remix title, the remixer's name, and "www.ocremix.org". What you want to do is make sure that you're not implicitly taking credit for the song (ie make sure people know you got it from somewhere else, rather than making it yourself), and make sure they can get back to OCRemix if they like what they hear. If you're looking for official "I have permission from the artist to use this song for this purpose", though, you need to get in touch with the individual remixers.

If pushing buttons is such an emotional experience for you, I guess you could always bring a PS2 controller into the theater with you and pretend that you're controlling the screen while you're watching the movie?

Are we talking about the same Mirror's Edge? Mirror's Edge was so linear that it caused me physical pain. That was actually one of the few things that Assassin's Creed did right; the locations were convincingly open and wonderfully three-dimensional. You could leap from rooftop to rooftop in a nicely nonlinear fashion, as opposed to Mirror's Edge, which had more of a "find your way through the maze" feel than a "freerun your way across the city" feel. Granted, Mirror's Edge's movement was a lot smoother (if you did it right) -- but that's because it was literally the only thing to do in the game.

Can someone tell me what the attraction of FMA was? Seriously, I didn't see it. They set up all these rules of alchemy only to ignore them continually, the only characters that weren't obnoxious they killed off (here's looking at you, Hughes!), the villains were protected by plotshield of epic proportions, and they reused the exact same plot twist no less than three times. (The philosopher's stone? Made of people. Homunculi? Made of people!! All of alchemy?! Made of peeeeeople! From another dimension! And oh, wait, those talking chimera? Made of people. Twice. So that's four times.) The best episode in the series was the one that focused on Mustang's minions and the haunted warehouse thing. When the most entertaining thing that happens in the series is when they completely ignore the main characters for a while, you've done something dreadfully wrong.

Because everything's better if it's Japanian!

ridiculously long thread + epic necrobump = goddamn, son. (Incidentally, I recently played and beat Silent Hill 2 for the first time. My ultimate verdict was "meh". It was fun beating monsters to death with a 2x4, though.)

I see how it is. Change your story after you betray my trust. Crafty Swedes... I'm keeping my eye on you from here on out!

But Anso told me to. But is the game any fun? A large part of the reason I hated Xenosaga was I couldn't stand the battle system. How is .hack's?

OKAY! The next generation has been out for some time -- and we all know what that means by now. Time to hit the used game stores to pick up the gems we missed the first time around! It's always a lot harder to find games once they're more than a single generation out of date, so better to get while the getting's good. So what are your favorite PS2 games? Cult classics that deserve to be fished out of the bargain bin? Got any questions about stuff you didn't buy before but are thinking about now? Here's a question for you all. I recently stumbled across episodes .hack//legend of the twilight on YouTube and it made me remember how much the .hack anime amused me back in high school. But I never actually played any of the games. Are they worth picking up? Or is it a Xenosaga style "one game for the price of three" travesty of justice?

That's "Sly Cooper" in English. I've played the first one and it's pretty entertaining -- but beware of the fact that they have zero replay value. I replay games all the time and Sly Cooper has never done it for me for some reason. I've not touched it for years and then tossed it back in my PS2 for old times' sake and couldn't beat more than a level or so before my brain starts screaming "YOU'VE DONE THIS ALL BEFORE IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME WHY ARE YOU DOING IT AGAIN?". Pick it up in the <$10 bargain bin at Gamestop or something, but don't pay more than that. Also, Psychonauts is awesome as fuck and there's a PS2 version. Pick it up if you didn't get it for Xbox.

No. Imagine buying a third of a game padded out to a full-game's length by adding in ridiculously, pointlessly long cutscenes (I'm talking like an hour or so) and ridiculously, pointlessly long dungeons (that are also ridiculously boring because they're completely linear and there's no sort of dialogue or story AT ALL except during the between-dungeon stupidly-long cutscenes). Now imagine that the game you just bought 1/3 of isn't particularly good to begin with. That's Xenosaga Episode I. I have to be honest and say that I haven't played Episode II or III, but from what I hear, Episode II is worse in just about every regard, and while Episode III is supposedly better it's really not worth the trip. The analogy I've heard is that it's like eating a charred, burnt steak, and then a rotten, maggot-filled steak, for the privilege of eating an edible but ultimately mediocre steak. And paying full price for all three.

Seconding the Ace Combat series. The Thing. Based on an old '80s horror movie. It's pretty much a survival horror game (though there is lots of shooting too), but the real brilliance is the way you interact with NPCs. Each NPC has a value for how much they trust you and how freaked out they are at the situation in addition to the their standard health bar, and if they get too afraid or they stop trusting you they may refuse to follow you anymore or they may outright attack you. Of course, they may also attack you if they turn out to be Things, too... It's pretty badass. The Bouncer. Don't spend more than $5 on it, but if you can find it cheap at Gamestop or something it's worth playing. It's a weird combination of RPG and fighting game. Really short, but pretty fun.

I concur; Yahtzee can go fuck itself. Honestly, I don't really see what the big deal about Link's mode of transportation is. Whether he's walking there or riding a horse or sailing a boat or driving a train, you have to spend time moving from one place to another, which can sometimes be dull but is required in order to, y'know, keep every single location in the game from being right next to each other. I actually sort of like the idea that seems to be behind the train; it basically drives itself while you do something else (like shooting at shit); it's certainly more entertaining than just having to ignore things and run away from them or stop going-toward-where-you-want-to-be in order to fight them like you do in other Zelda games.

This "word" causes me real, physical pain. I think I'm going to have to go lay down or something until the hurting in my brainmeats goes away.

The whole point is that I don't think you should include the same cast in a sequel/prequel to an FF-type game... at least, not as the main characters. Having an FFVIII prequel staring Laguna & Co. would be pretty sweet because in all honesty they didn't have much of an effect on FFVIII itself. Ditto for Zack being the star of an FFVII prequel. What makes FFVIII so open to a sequel is the setting itself (ie the eternal guard against the sorceresses), not the characters.

I'm down with you on this too. I loved the way that Wind Waker looked and felt. Contrary to what Flagship Amadeus is saying, I'd love to see a Majora's Mask sort of game with Wind Waker sort of graphics. That said, I don't have a DS, so I can't play this new Train-Zelda thing. D'oh.