MkVaff

I gotta say in all it was quite the show, but as they extinguished the flame I really got a sense for how much I was going to actually miss the games. I've never really been into the olympics much and for some reason this year I was absolutely glued to the screen watching even the most trivial events. I don't know if it was that was in such an interesting place, or the stories of the athletes, or whatever the case, but waking up today, turning on channel 4 and NOT seeing people competing was kind of a big downer. Really sucks that the next one is a whole 4 years away but hey, maybe the winter olympics might prove to be interesting as well...

i know you're going to get a lot of flaming replies to this post, but I wated to say I agree. WW's style is absolutely seamless and looks like a living cartoon, whereas TP had that detailed textured look which to me ended up looking pretty much like every other game out there. I think WW and Okami really took game art to new levels, though WW in particular received TONS of negative feedback for it. Oh well, can't please everyone, can ya....

Well they only have like ummm 1.3 billion people to choose from don't they? There's gotta be SOME good athletes somewhere in there...

As much as it's easy to hate on repetition and being somewhat "bombarded" by the media, it definitely is a significant achievement, and one that will not likely be matched or surpassed by anyone anytime in the near future. Besides that, if you live in the states you have to remember he's one of the few star olympic icons the USA seems to have this year, while the USA as well as most countries are losing most golds to the admittedly amazing Chinese team. It's a mixture of both, and as with most things it ends up being some weird version of patriotism mixed with respect for olympic sport. I know if Phelps did win 8 golds and they DIDN'T make a big deal about it... it'd be like "what the hell?"

I didn't say there was. If you want to learn different aspects of music it's a fantastic idea and resource. If your goal is simply to get into the industry, however, there are many other ways to go about it that have nothing to do with school.

I hate to rub it in, but I never took a music class in my life, nor set foot in any audio / recording class, and I'm currently working freelance for a small company. Why? Well, for me, while everyone else was going to music school, I went to art school. I had no intention of becoming a musician at the time, but I made a lot of contacts in graphics, and those contacts ended up getting jobs in game companies. One of which (I was lucky enough) needed a sound guy. I hate to say how much luck plays a role in the business scheme of things. It's not even so much a matter of having a degree as much as it is a matter of being friends with the producer or knowing the project manager or something. Music is an insanely oversaturated field, while the demand these days is compartively small. Also think of the numbers... In any game project - even large scale ones - there might be 30-50 or more artists, 20-30 programmers and often no more than 2 or 3 audio / music specialists. I'm not saying at all to give up, I'm just agreeing with Zircon in that the reality sucks...

Lol nah I know, I just sometimes feel like I'm missing something here. It's like I wish I was as pumped about CT as everyone else is. There's so many fans of the damn thing I'm wondering what the hell I missed in it. I also think that RPGS require a level of patience and time dedication that I can't possibly invest these days. In the time it takes you to finish one RPG, you could watch some 25-30 full length movies! I find it hard enough to watch 1 or 2 movies these days, so unfortunately playing one game for 50-60 hours just doesn't make sense anymore. I wish they had short versions of RPGs. Just accelerate the gameplay and show me the story elements quickly. Shit - if you could fast forward long battles and grinding, most RPGs could be half as long.

I hate to say it because I feel like I'm going against the grain, but I picked it up as soon as it came out years ago (on SNES dammit - screw this PS1 bullshit!!) and played through the whole thing. And I triiiied to like it, but for some reason, never really got into it. I think I played through the entire thing asking myself when it was going to get good, and I don't know why. It certainly wasn't terrible - but the story, the characters, they didn't really grab me at all. It looked / sounded great and it was fun to play, but I can't say I've ever really understood what all the hype was about. Maybe I'm just not an RPG guy. Didn't care too much for FF7 or 8, despite all the excitement around those. Probably the only RPGs I only really liked were FF6, Xenogears, Super Mario RPG, and on the tactics side Vandal Hearts. All the others I've tried required me to keep trying to convince myself I wasn't getting bored playing them...

not yoshi's ISLAND, yoshi's STORY

yoshi's story

oh damn you don't have to schedule a meet around my dumbass... It's just the last few have been right before new years (if I remember correctly), that's why it's always hell for me. But it seems more NYers are available around that time. Besides, it's already July, some of these things are planned months in advance. Planning one for this month might be a bit difficult with the short notice and vacations and all. Whatever the case, next time the NY one happens I'll try my best to be there. And Dan better not fall out of a damn tree this time!

usually stuck at work 99% of the time between mid nov and mid jan. Very sad =(

Just so my quote wasn't taken out of context, I was commenting on the drama, and not against anyone in particular. I think that the problem is that OCR and OurStage are so different in premise, and that the fact that people put their stuff up for free on OCR when OurStage has some decent cash prizes available makes it definitely a target for cynicism. I think that if this was a contest with no cash prizes attached to it (and was more for the popularity of OCR members for OCR's sake per se) it would be much better received and universally supported. The second you start introducing popularity and $$ into a site community which is based on free sharing of everything, there's bound to be some issues. I think Ourstage is a great idea and that the talented people from here definitely should enter. It's just that the premises between that site and this are so different that it's causing a lot of drama. And drama = poopie.

This ourstage crap is making this site more friggin political than when they introduced the original judges' panel years ago...

I remember that story DJP is talking about. It was Dan's fall that diverted the group to the hospital instead of my house out here. U guys should do a summer NYC meetup so I can actually make it sometime...

While having a nice, large collection of any type of media is arguably something most people would like, when considering other technologies in terms of cost effectiveness and convenience, streaming / downloading would be the way to go. Despite the argument that nearly anything you collect could eventually be an obsolete format, I think the other arguments for this technology are more compelling. Granted, there are CDs, DVDs, and games which you're such a fan of that just want to have an actual physical copy of. I haven't stopped collecting anything, though admittedly these days I'm much more selective about what I actually do spend money on. But there's a lot of stuff I would like to play / watch / listen to and perhaps not particularly own. On Rhapsody, I pay a monthly fee of $12, and I can stream millions of songs, full albums, singles, etc for as long as I like. I can't count the number of CD's I've actually purchased after being able to hear them for weeks on this service, it's great. The same could apply to streaming video and downloadable games. I don't think these services are meant to completely replace physical copies, but instead act as a much more convenient rental / preview system. I've had netflix for about 6 years and have watched a ton of movies from it. The only thing better than getting the discs mailed to my house would be to stream them. As well, I would absolutely pay upwards of $80/month with the option to download and play, at any time I wanted, any PS3 or 360 game that's available, and just delete it from my hard drive when I'm done. These are the kinds of technologies that excite me much more than a new media format because they have the power to expose you to vast amounts of material in a conveniet way. That's why I'm 'meh' on Blu-Ray by itself. It's great for giving me gorgeous versions of stuff I know I like, but outside that it does little else. When the movie and technology industries stops being a bunch of cunts and decided to make a decent streaming / downloading service for a viable price, you can bet I'll be one of the first to pick it up. And I will watch movies, and movies and movies. And all will be well in McVaffeland.

At the end of the day, whatever his opinion on games, Cliffy B stands more to gain by statements like these than internet fanboy discussions. I wouldn't imagine he really gives two shits about the shortcomings of MGS4, other than by disparaging the game he'll end up hyping up his upcoming GOW2 even more. A lot of times, these developers know better, and know what the other companies are up to and their strangths and weaknesses - Like when Perrin Kaplan was first shown a PSP after the DS was announced and shown and all she could say about the PSP system - which was stylistically and graphically gorgeous compared to the 1stGen NDS - was "How long do the batteries last on that thing...2 hours? It's a game they all play, but now big time game designers are either saying more or simply being heard more (through the internet, etc). Whatever the case though, MGS4's lengthy cinematics are now pretty much universally known to fans whether or not they've played the game or not. Most likely if you're a fan of the series, you'll have no problem with them. It's kind of like the ridiculous cinemas in SSBB - on the unnecessary side, but the fans love that shit...

Well, out here we have FiOS, which, while it may not be fast enough to stream HD, is plenty fast to hypothetically get an entire HD movie downloaded in less than a half hour. I don't think it's that far off really, but 2012 might be a bit early for that, but fast internet service is slowly becoming as prevalent as internet service itself. A lot of people DO like collecting DVDs. I never quite understood exactly WHY, but it's definitely true. What's the point of a huge collection of movies when whatever format you buy them in will eventually be outdated? All those collectors with shelves full of VHS tapes now probably have new shelves full of DVDs, which will be replaced with Blu Ray, then the next format,...etc. For the most part, a large waste of money I'd say. then again, what the typical consumer does and what actually makes sense are usually not exactly the same thing. Look at the current economy... It's taken upwards of $4/gal gas prices for people with hardly any use for them to finally say "Wow... maybe buying that Hummer to drive from my suburb home my office job 15 miles away wasn't the smartest idea." Then again, the electronics industry in general is based on selling people on things that they really don't need. Sony will succeed after all!

I hope by 2012 there is an infrastructure in place to do away with physical copies of movies altogether and simply stream or download HD content straight to a set top box and watch it whenever... i.e. a tivo on demand. I know the technology is in its infancy, but I learned my lesson after buying nearly 1500CDs, and then about 4 years ago I discovered Rhapsody. Now, I just pay the (very reasonable) monthly fee, and I listen to tons of stuff - new and old - whenever I want from any PC with an internet connection. I would much rather pay a monthly fee for a similar video service than invest heavily in another media format which, eventually, will also go the way of the DVD and VHS. Besides, most people I know watch movies only once or twice...the idea of spending $20-$30 to keep a movie forever doesn't make sense so long as either VOD or Netflix exist. I'm saving my Blu Ray purchases to the few movies that come out each year that I absolutely love, and besides that the format serves me better for extremely pretty rentals.

I saw it recently after catching a preview of it on the Escapist and it was OK, but (to me) didn't really go anywhere in all the time they spent on it. It's hard enough to watch the episodes by themselves, I can't imagine watching the whole thing put together... About 50-60% of the time you're watching the camera tilt in awkward angles while watching random flashbacks and hearing weird sounds / voices. Maybe that's good for a small part or two, but when it's nearly half the show, it gets ridiculously repetitive. I feel bad bashing it because it's apparent so much time and effort went into it, but unfortunately I just didn't get into it, as much as I wanted to. But I did like that scene in episode 2 or 3 where the anime chick whipped the already abused girl in the face. That was pretty damn funny...

I think that the whole "no credits" issue is one of those things that's more of a "cause" than an actual problem with the game. I mean, if they took out an extra scene or feature along with the credits, then I can somewhat see the point. But credits? C'mon. Yes, it's crappy that the original people who developed the game don't get the recognition and it's completely for a B.S. reason but realistically... was anyone going to sit there and read 3 minutes worth of Japanese names after completing a game, even in the unlikely scenario that you might even know some of those people? Does anyone really care who the lead battle programmer or the 5th texture artist is? Yeah, I know, it's the principle. But jeez, making a big deal about it as if it were a missing feature is kinda ridiulous. I'd quicker blast the game's blur problems or questionable control than bitch about missing credits...

You know, if some unforseen natural disaster befalls you sometime very soon, you might die a tragic death, not knowing the awesomeness which lies within the packaging. Do yourself a favor... Open the packaging. Play the games. Live your (gamer) life. Do it for the children... Everything else can wait.

Well, it's the kind of game that's kinda easy to tear apart in not doing anything completely new / different aside from the arguably gimmicky / brilliant paint strokes. I can't say I was blown away from anything the game did NEW, but I was impressed by how much was done well... To me it seems old school and fondly familiar in that respect, and that's why I love it so much. It borrowed heavily from Zelda, yes, and took some of the best aspects of Zelda and created an entirely new world around it. Is it as well defined or as ambitious as some of the Zelda games? In some respects, no. But on the other hand, it IS a sprawling, charming, gorgeous world which is for the most part fun to explore and be immersed in. I'm glad that someone else mentioned the blurry thing - I thought mine was the only copy that had that. I couldn't notice any blurring on the PS2 version at all and I don't know why the wii port has it. It sucks, but you can get the point...

After picking up and playing some of the Wii version for a bit I might have to agree. The widescreen is nice, but I think the play was a bit tighter in the PS2 version (especially the painting) In any case though, it's a game that should be experienced - regardless of the console you choose...

I def agree with that, and to me the alterations are more of a change than an improvement in most instances. I still haven't seen any fighting games which, taken in whole, can out-do the experience of 3rd strike. I really didn't even like many of the SF3 characters, but the gameplay and animation are phenomenal...