PriZm

Fast 16th/32th notes on the hi-hat Subtle odd time signatures Strong female vocals Intensity buildups

Yeah well without going as in depth as you did, I just thought indoctrination as a whole was a weak plot device because neither the causes nor the effects are defined with precision. This means that the way the story is presented, anyone at any point could be indoctrinated.

Well a concept as vague as indoctrination can be applied to anything. The effects vary from person to person (headaches, hallucinations, persistent humming sound, etc.) and the brainwashing is 'subtle', meaning everything you do while indoctrinated could help the reapers directly or indirectly, or it could not. I can't understand how people are clinging to this theory and saying it would be a great ending. Indoctrination is one of the weaker concepts in Mass Effect . It feels similar to the 'it was all only a dream' cliche to me. At any point, in any story, you could come up with a twist saying that the hero was acting as per the antagonist's plan all along and distort (not exactly retcon) the previous actions so that they turn out to be helping the antagonist. I much prefer the current ending(s).

Lol at 'Nintendo loyalist'. They are a company. They do not care about you. If they could legally make money by pissing in your cereal every morning they would.

I love how the sound files for Setsuka's critical edge are called CLITICAL, like: E_22_CLITICAL_2.adx.wav CLITICAL is now obviously part of my every day vocabulary. I've always wanted to know which Japanese words Setsuka uses in her side throw where she ends up back turned sheathing her sword. It ends with 'soshite chire' but the first word (sounds like 'kubi dake' which makes no sense) I can't understand.

oh look JackKieser is about to destroy another thread

Bah whatever. I actually liked the ending. But however good this DLC is, you can bet your ass there will be endless salt on the net when it comes out. The Mass Effect trilogy is emotionally charged, and the fact that it ends will make people react irrationally anyways.

And there will be free DLC this summer to address this issue. Boy I can't wait for another stream of tears.

Xenosaga soundtracks (basically anything by Yuki Kajiura) Silent Hill soundtracks, especially the vocal tracks

Fishy and Bleck, I am not even trying to argue for or against DLC in general, I am speaking specifically of on-disc DLC. If a company has decided that some content will be DLC, then it will be DLC. I am just saying that when that decision has already been made, the fact that they put it on the disc is more conveninent for both the consumer and the producer. The assumption here being that this particular would have been DLC anyways. I know I got side-tracked in previous posts, but, like Gario said, the only thing I am curious about (in this thread anyways) is why people get all riled up only when DLC is on-disc, as opposed to being opposed to all DLC.

Thank you. That was my original question but you worded it much better. I was trying to make the point that if a company has planned to release DLC, the fact that it is on the disc is in fact more convenient to the customer.

I understand how you could say that voluntarily withdrawing content from a product in order to make consumers pay more eventually for it is a douche move, but what I don't get is why people get upset about the fact that it was on the disc. If a company decides that x content will not be in y game, they will make it unavailable anyway so why bother with the technicalities (on-disc vs not on-disc)? Would it be better if they stripped the content completely from the disc before releasing it ? That would be only more costly for bandwidth and for the company. Believe it or not, stripping code away from a product is extremely time-consuming. Maybe they wanted to develop 24 characters but only had time to fully balance 18, so they leave the art assets and all that shit in the released package and then work on balancing the characters and when everything is ready they release the unlock code along with the updated frame data. I have never seen a game that was obviously unfinished and then made complete with DLC. There are map packs for shooters, if it's overpriced or you don't really care, then don't buy it ? Is it really frequent that an online community for a game will completely migrate to the new maps and will make you unable to play on the ones that were included in the original license ? And people complaining about Capcom charging for palette swaps... really ? If it is so important for you to have more colors for your fighters then buy them, if not then why bother complaining ? Are people complaining about deleted scenes in movies that are released exclusively on the DVD or Blu-Ray release ? Because to me it seems comparable. I'm getting off-topic talking about DLC in general when my original question was about On-Disc DLC (or On-Disc Locked Content, however you want to call it). I'm really curious to understand what gets people riled up because as it is I really don't understand. EDIT: Actually, the fast-food analogy does not work so well, because we are comparing digital content (intellectual property) vs physical stuff. In order to clarify, let me ask you about this hypothetical scenario. The new iPhone has a 900 Terabytes capacity and contains all the music available on iTunes. It is sold the same price as the one before it. Therefore, when you are buying songs on iTunes, instead of buying the digital content itself, you simply unlock it from your massive hard drive and make it available to play. Would that bother you as well ?

I don't understand what the big deal is about on-disc DLC. Why are people so angry about this ? To me, on-disc DLC is just a more convenient way for companies to prepare for DLC launch. For example, if a character is to be available for future DLC in a fighting game, everyone has to have the model since the only info that is being transmitted between players is input data. So, if a company wants to release the character, they either have to: 1) have it already on disc 2) make a patch that everyone has to download to play online (does not unlock the character but provides the data for its model) 3) disallow this character against people who do not have the DLC 1 is clearly the most convenient for everybody. Would people prefer if companies intentionally stripped this content from the disc and offer it as a patch that would need to be unlocked anyways ? Why is that a disgusting business practice ?

So it has become harder and harder to find people to play with, whether it be on ranked or player match. I've also read that sales were very low for that game.... what gives ?

That's not necessarily sexist. It is a possibility.

I love how "let's discuss this" becomes "let's white-knight and accuse others of being sexist and then gang up on them"

I think part of the problem is that what men consider sexually attractive is much more universal than what women look for in a man physically. In that light, it is virtually impossible to objectify the male body because females have more complex criteria to determine what is attractive and what is not. That's why people have come up with the argument that even ripped males are designed to appeal to male heterosexual gamers. There is also the fact that males and females have different sexual/psychological responses to what they consider attractive. Men will be more impressed with a simple still picture of a naked female body. It would be interesting to see whether, in art, females are more attracted to a character because of his accomplishments or his looks. I don't think people who consume or even design these products are necessarily sexist in that they think of women as lesser humans. They are only trying to come up with ways that will help sell a larger number of games, which becomes 'sexist' because of the universality and simplistic nature of what men usually find sexually attractive in a woman.

Still pretty risky, if you get hit by Alpha Patroklos' second move in this just string, you can easily eat 100 damage. That being said, there is a way to Just Guard safely. Double-tap the guard button and hold it the second time. If you had the timing OK on the first tap, you will just guard and otherwise, you'll just guard. If you do more than 2 taps or if you don't hold the guard the second time, it will not work. This isn't as effective as Just Guarding with perfect timing/confidence because you'll have to hit confirm before punishing, but it's still better than nothing.

yeah and if there's anyone playing this on ps3, hit me up. PSN = ZeroPrism

I didn't mean it as a personal attack against you. It's just that more and more often I see people on the net talking about boycotting games from certain company to make a point and this seems to be a recent trend.

Boycotting games to make a statement (?) is pretty in vogue now.

Oh yeah I had noticed a song towards the end of the story mode (which was unfortunately pretty lol) with soaring soprano sweetness and I figured it must have been Jill. I am very impressed with the level of quality of this OST, it seems to be energetic enough to pump you up while at the same time remaining beautifully melodic with rich textures. If I hadn't stopped playing the guitar, I would definitely have liked to remix this Yeah the netcode is outstanding. It's a shame that ya'll are playing on XBOX though, I would have liked to play OCR peeps. For custom characters I'm waiting until I unlock all the CAS shit. It's pretty long in this game.

Mitsu is a son of a bitch. He might have lost relic but now he has many mixup combos that can do well over 80 damage

Game is so so so sweet. Thanks a lot to zircon and Jill for what is definitely the best OST of any soulcalibur game to date. I think you have done Elysium's theme, which other themes have you guys specifically worked on ? If some of you are up for online, let me know and we'll set some shit up. PSN: ZeroPrism

Well I wouldn't define it as something includes anyone who has ever touched a game. People who adhere or even simply participate in the culture are people for which gaming is an important hobby. And maybe that is the problem. If we considered all electronic Mahjong or Solitaire or Space Invaders fans as gamers, maybe the demographic would be a lot more varied and stereotypes would be harder to maintain. Take the cola wars for example. Most people have a preference for Coke or Pepsi, but very few people will call coke-fans idiots for preferring the other brand. It's like people are more focused on the positive (I love coke) instead of the negative (I hate pepsi). Whereas with the console wars, people are much busier trying to downplay the competition than thinking of the positive stuff about their console of choice. And I completely agree that there should not be a game culture, especially that is defined mostly by negative stereotypes. I'm just bothered by what kind of image is conjured up when the answer to the question 'what do you like to do in your spare time' is 'playing video games'. Video game fans used to be viewed as extreme nerds with huge glasses but now, we are more viewed as rabid entitled assholes, which to me is even worse. I really don't wanna get into whether Call of Duty is casual or hardcore because to me that dichotomy is not properly defined and doesn't make sense. As for eternal question of whether games are art, I think game culture has a negative impact on that perception. To me it really does not matter what you want to call it but the fact remains that if both a song and a game can make me feel an emotion as strongly, then to me they have the same entertainment value. I think that in order to mature into what could be universally considered art, video games need their consumers to mature first.