Native Jovian

No one has mentioned McVaffe's Crystalline Caverns from Yoshi's Island yet. This is unacceptable. The situation has now been rectified. Carry on.

Gun + sword combined for twice the Freudian overtones in one weapon.

More ridiculous weapons in FFVII include: megaphones, headdresses, and tiny spheres of compressed Planet life-energy used to unlock the power of magic.

I don't think I've ever beaten the No Mercy finale except by cheating. Rampcamping, closetcamping, saferoomcamping... I freaking hate the No Mercy finale. THEY COME FROM ALL DIRECTIONS! THEY CLIMB UP THE WALLS! THERE IS NO ESCAPE! Amusingly, when I finally did manage to beat No Mercy on Expert (via aforementioned saferoomcamping), only one of us escaped anyway. One of our four died answering the radio and then being abandoned. One of us stopped to fight during the run to the chopper and got overwhelmed instantly. I took a punch from a tank and was instantly incapped. Only our fourth guy made it into the chopper. (I got Zombicial Maniac anyway, though, because although incap'd, I was technically stil ALIVE when the campaign ended. Hooray technicalities!)

It's been there all along; it's only that the hardware is good enough now to show it in all its androgynous glory. (You've seen concept art for early FF games, haven't you? It's freaking hideous.) Also! In a game that involves witches, magical creatures that let you pretend to be witches, the ability to possess people in the past, giant flightless yellow birds used as beasts of burden, monsters that jump off the moon to invade the planet every so often, and TIME KOMPRESSION (among other things), I find it hilarious that the gunblade thing is such a sticking point.

I vastly, vastly prefer pipe bombs to molotovs. Does that make me a bad person?

You just described "the widest possible audience" in Japan. Blame the Japanese, not me; I'm just the messenger. (Seriously though, Japanese companies basically don't give a rat's ass about anything but Japan. Their attitude is basically "North America will take what we give them and like it"... sadly, many people DO.)

The hell it's not. The man asked what the deal with the sword was; we answered him. The part he's asking about exists for no other reason than because Japan thinks it's cool. That's what the thread was for, to answer that question, not for you to vent your nerdrage. Incidentally, that's an absolutely retarded thing to get angry over. What, do you think that the video game industry is interfering with your God-given right to quality RPGs by refusing to release a game that lives up to your personal standards of excellence? If you don't like recent RPGs, don't buy them. It's that simple. There's nothing for you to get angry over. Anyway, Crisis Core was released like, what, a year ago? Woe is me, I've gone a whole year without playing the newest "BEST GAME EVAR!!!1". If you go into a game with the attitude "IT MUST CONTAIN X, Y, AND Z" then obviously you're going to be disappointed. Games aren't custom-tailored to your tastes; they're designed to appeal to the widest possible audience. Try going into a game with an open mind and enjoying what's there, rather than hating it because it's not what you want it to be. Have you played Fallout 3? There's an RPG on the 360 (and PS3 and PC) that's generally considered a good game. And hey, the main character's only a pussy if you are! Surely you're up to the challenge. I've heard good things about the storyline, too, though I couldn't tell you any details as I generally try to avoid spoiling that sort of thing for myself. Other good 360 RPGs? Try Eternal Sonata. That was fun -- good characters (none of whom are "pussies and pansies"), unique story, interesting battle system. There, two recommendations. Go forth and enjoy. Or keep bitching; whichever you prefer. But don't expect us to justify your righteous fury because you happen to dislike the new RPGs coming out recently.

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It took me forever to beat anything on Expert too. But if you can get to the finales... well, it's different for every campaign. The only general tips I can offer are ones that are good for the whole campaign, not just the finales. On expert, it's absolutely vital to take out infected when they're as far away as possible, so stay away from the shotgun. During the finales you'll be facing mostly hordes, so the assault rifle is a better choice than the hunting rifle. Go for headshots to conserve ammo, but don't be afraid to spray a whole clip at roughly head-height when a horde is rushing you. No Mercy: forget it and just jump off the roof. Seriously, barring absolutely lame tactics like rampcamping or using the bait-and-switch glitch to spend most of the time hiding waaaay back in the safe room, it's damn near impossible. Frigging No Mercy... Death Toll: There's no real great place to hang out, so I usually end up on the balcony by the minigun just for lack of a better option. Using the minigun itself is mostly a waste of time, but with all four people there you should be able to cover all approaches. After the second tank, grab an ammo refill and then book it over to the dock; the dock makes a great funneling point, but with the only ammo being inside the house, you can't spend the whole finale there. Dead Air: Definitely the easiest finale. Behind spot with the radio and the ammo is a wide open area, near the respawn closet. Have one of your guys take the hunting rifle and the other three use assault rifles. The sniper takes out specials when they appear (smokers are the biggest worry; they like to perch on top of planes and pull people out of the group), while the assault rifles take care of hordes. It's wide-open flat terrain. Easy. Blood Harvest: You want to stay at the top of the stairs in the farmhouse. This finale is basically the only time shotguns are acceptable. One guy covers the stairs, and one gets each of the three bedrooms. Since this requires each person to have their back to all the others, communication is absolutely vital here. Ammo can be a problem too, given that it's all the way downstairs in the kitchen; if anyone's running low (usually the stairway guy runs out first) then wait for a lull and ALL FOUR OF YOU go get ammo together. One or even two will get overwhelmed instantly if they get caught by a horde, and if three go than the lone guy waiting upstairs is vulnerable. When you hear a tank coming, run outside and deal with him there, rather than waiting for him to come to you; on Expert, fighting a tank in close quarters is suicide.

It would be fine if they only did it for movement, but it's the same for aiming. Precision aiming is difficult, even when using ironsights, because of this. Even that would be acceptable if not for the fact that, as you mentioned, enemies love to take cover, making precision shots necessary to take them out. And even that would be okay if it was you and a squad of intelligent, useful NPCs fighting against a squad of enemies, but from what I've seen it's basically you vs the whole enemy army (as per usual for FPSes, but still). With five or six enemies popping in and out of cover and shooting at you, it's like playing whack-a-mole with an assault rifle.

This right here killed it for me. Just personal preference, but I prefer my FPSes to be rather more fast paced than what I saw in the demo, and the innaccurate weapons + slow controler response was frustrating to me. It was difficult hitting an enemy with an assault rifle from more than a few yards away, even when you were both standing stock still and using ironsights. If one (or, God forbid, both) of you move, just forget it.

Da Black Market I Got the Spacebeam The Incredible Singing Robot Rabbit Join Cover and Music of my Groin Robovoice, the Mega Man and Final Fantasy versions. That's all I can think of off the top of my head for songs with lyrics that would work. Non-lyrical mixes that could do well (though some of them might be a bit obscure -- dunno if you're going for easily-recognizable stuff or not) are Final Fantasy Mystic Quest's Mystic Mountain (2LATEMix), FFVI's LetUsDanceInTheDarkPhantomPhorest, Brave Fencer Musashi's Diet Thirstquencher, Street Fighter II's Fei Longer (why do I have so much Star Salzman stuff listed?!), and Streets of Rage's Trippin' on the Bridge.

I bet the IRS does. You should ask them.

I guess there are more consoles called "Commodore" too?

I went to Best Buy yesterday to pick this up but they didn't have it. So I bought the first three volumes of Yu Yu Hakusho instead. Hooray 84 episodes for $75!

The first time I read that post, this is what I saw: I think I prefer that to the real post, actually.

JCvgluvr: You're also free to not buy the game. If lack of S3&K really pisses you off that much, simply do not purchase the collection. Alternatively, if you find that the 49 other games for $30 is a good enough value, go ahead and buy it, but refuse to buy S3&K for $300 or whatever when it eventually does get released (which you seem to take for granted that it will). Alternatively, if you love S3&K that much, buy it for $300 when it does come out. But don't bitch and moan about how it's all a conspiracy and the game isn't worth that much and etc etc. Fact: The Sega Ultimate Collection does not include S3&K. Fact: It was never stated that S3&K was included in the Sega Ultimate Collection, and you are forewarned that it is not. Thus: With this knowledge, either buy the Sega Ultimate Collection or don't. But don't rant about how you're entitled to have HD widescreen achievement-filled S3&K on your PS3/360. Because you're not.

It's cancer. Surprise!

Worst... or best?

The nice policeman with the rocket launcher will solve all your problems!

Well, it has lasers. So, yes.

Fuck you, Pixy. With your cheating plane and your stupid name and your "world without borders" BS. My only regret is that you survived being blown up.