Native Jovian

OH! Well, yeah, that explains it then.

As much of a Gundam fan as I am, I couldn't get into the Dynasty Warriors Gundam thing. I mean, I wouldn't have thought that they could make rampaging through hordes of enemy mechs in a Gundam dull, but by God, they managed it somehow.

Crackdown is hilariously awesome and it gets no love. It's basically GTA, except that you're a cop instead of a criminal, and you're some sort of crazy cyborg badass so you can leap tall buildings in a single bound and throw cars at people and stuff. It's got co-op on Xbox Live, too!

So, if they're so different, why are they both called FFXIII? Do they share the same setting, or do they have some characters in common? Are the plots related at all, or is one a direct sequel of the other, FFX/X-2 style? If they're both called FFXIII and have virtually nothing in common (which is the message I'm getting so far), that's supremely retarded.

The best line in the Halo series is undoubtedly in Halo 3. <Cortana> Did you have a plan for getting us out of here? <Master Chief> Thought I'd shoot my way out. Mix things up a little. To keep this post from being entirely off topic, I must register my surprise that no one's quoted from the delightfully terrible Final Fantasy Tactics translation. The two classic ones are, of course, Ramza telling a group of theives to "Surrender now or die in obscurity!", and Delita, in the midst of kidnapping a princess, telling his pursuers "Don't blame me. Blame yourself, or God." I always did wonder why it wasn't his fault that he was kidnapping people... FFT characters occasionaly said "incantations" when they cast spells, and they were universally pretty nonsensical. I liked the one for the Mog summon. "Kupo! Round and round you go! MOOGLE!"

dude what. links plz

Hell no. Those things are retarded and anyone who ever thought they would be a good idea for anything can burn in game designer hell for all eternity.

Better served its own interests? Yes. Better served the Resident Evil series? Probably not. It's well known that branding sells merchandise. Hell, look at the Final Fantasy series -- it changes virtually everything about the game in every incarnation. Not only the characters and the plot, but the setting, the battle and character systems, everything about it changes from game to game (except for a few irrelevancies like iconic monsters and summons and such). And yet they continue to sell well -- why? Largely because they're good games, of course, but also because of the strength of the brand. People associate "Final Fantasy" with "good RPG", so they're more likely to buy a new Final Fantasy game if they enojyed previous ones, despite the fact that they already know virtually everything about the game will be different. How does this related to Resident Evil? By throwing the name Resident Evil onto the game, and attaching some things like particular characters (despite the fact that their characterization has been wildly altered), they attract fans of the series and/or those particular characters. People learn that "Resident Evil" means "good survival horror game", and they buy Resident Evil 4 despite the fact that it's neither particularly good nor particularly suvival horror. (I know that both of those are debatable claims -- and if you liked RE4 and thought it was pure survival horror, then that's wonderful, but I'm taking the opposite opinion as a working assumption, not trying to prove it as fact at the moment.) This works brilliant for RE4 itself, because it benefits from the positive reputation of the series from which it comes, as well as attracting new people who prefer its particular play style over that of the previous games. Put another way: Resident Evil fans say "Hey, RE4, awesome, I love RE, I'll get it" while people who DON'T like Resident Evil say "Hey, RE4 is supposed to have less survival horror bullshit and more zombie-killing awesome, I'll give it a shot". They get sales from their current fanbase AND attract potential new fans, which is great if you're looking at the sales of RE4 alone. Where they do themselves a disservice is in games after RE4 in the Resident Evil series. RE fans have since discovered that RE4 isn't the same as the other RE games, and have been put off by it. Now Resident Evil doesn't mean "good survival horror game", it means "good survival horror game... or crappy faux-action zombie shooter". This means that the people who liked the original formula are less likely to buy RE5, having been put off by RE4 despite the fact that they enjoyed RE1-3. Of course, they gained some new fans with RE4's differing playstyle, but you don't build a successful franchise by alienating your core fanbase with each new game in the series.

I tend to agree with most of what's been said here and I played up until that room in that castle that had those bastards with tower shields. I swear to god I must have tried getting through that room about 80 times before I just said "screw it" and stopped playing the game entirely. Didn't have enough shotgun ammo to blast the shields away, shooting them in the face with a pistol was too slow, and trying to melee with my little knife against their flails or maces or whatever they had (it's been a while -- I forget) was suicide. I could run the gauntlet and get through to the other side of the room alive, but the dumb chick that was following you would never make it without me babysitting her every step of the way -- which took too long to escape. (I was later told that the easiest answer to that room is "grenades", which I'd abandoned long ago as being impossible to aim and thus more dangerous to myself than any enemies. Nor had I seen grenades anywhere remotely near that room. Go go brilliant level design.) So yeah, maybe I just suck at the game, but suffice to say that I gave it a fair shake and decided that it could go to hell. Unless they either stop forcing you into combat (which would be more "survival horror-ish") or drastically improve the controls (which would be more "actiony"), I'm not going to bother with RE5.

Excellent use of NWG smiley. A+, would read again.

Arabian ninjas! There's something about that phrase that just makes me giggle.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. You do have to start from the beginning; you can die during the campaign, but you have to be alive when the survivors are evacuated. You PERSONALLY don't have to be evacuated, but you MUST be alive when the evac vehicle leaves. I got Zombicial Maniac by being incap'd-but-alive on the roof of Mercy Hospital while the chopper took a lone survivor to safety (the other two players being dead already). But then, I play the 360 version so maybe it works differently.

Jet? I could see it!

My love of Kirby is at war with my hatred of SA.

' Kay

For the record, recording phone calls without the knowledge/permission of all involved parties is illegal as hell.

Superior, for it involves giant robots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJJ0A6wwPr8

Just to confuse people like you.

Yes, I realize that was what you meant. I was just taking the opportunity to mock people who get all butthurt about this sort of thing. If it sucks, oh well. It's not the end of the world. People get all upset about this sort of thing, as if a crappy live-action version will somehow diminish the awesome of the original.

Because a bad movie retroactively makes the anime series suck. Cowboy Bebop as we know it is in grave danger!

How the bloody hell did you come to that conclusion?

Thank you for dashing said hopes so quickly, Bleck. What would we do without you?

Awwww, I never saw that happen, but I bet it would be awesome. Someone just showed me this last night. Playing through Death Toll on expert and some genius yelled at everyone to use the "minigun glitch" instead of dropping the forklift ramp (and thus drawing the horde). Proceeded to melee the minigun for a while and then jump on top of it.... which caused him to fly straight into the air, killing him instantly when he landed. Some exploit, that. Good, maybe people will quit whining about melee spam now. (Not likely, but at least now there's hope!) So, wait a second... What could break it before? I've only ever done it by killing the smoker or meleeing the survivor, but this says that you have to wait until the survivor is stuck in order for that to work now. So can you free a survivor before they get stuck without killing the smoker? Can you shoot out the tongue itself or something? I've never tried that, but if smoker-grabs are now basically unbreakable until the survivor gets stuck, that's pretty brutal.

Hell yes. Harvest Moon 64 is awesome. I remember reading about it in Nintendo Power. The first time I just skimmed the article and moved on, but for some reason I kept coming back to it. There was something about it that just drew me in, though I couldn't have told you what it was (to this day I can't really explain why I like the Harvest Moon series....). It took me a while, but I got my hands on it eventually, and enjoyed it immensely. Despite it's obvious flaws, HM64 is still my favorite Harvest Moon game. I've played everything from Friends of Mineral Town for the GBA to Save the Homeland for the PS2, and the only one that even comes close to the entertainment value I got out of HM64 is Magical Melody for the Gamecube. How the hell can a series of games about doing farm chores be so damn entertaining?

Does loling at this make me a bad person?