The Damned

Oh yes, let's bombard him with level 100 jokes. Here's my gift to you: no level 100 jokes! OK, so this guy I know, Level 99, or just "Lev9" for short, is actually a member of the lemur family. You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but it's true. He has at least three prehensile limbs (possibly more) and can climb most trees with little difficulty. He subsists almost entirely upon leaves and small berries. On the rare occasion, he will come across fruit like apples or strawberries. Secreting them away, he will hide them in the hollows of trees or underneath roots. Predators of Level 99 include Judges, although this is rare. Most Judges will only attack if he draws their attention, and if his defense (in the form of music) isn't strong enough to distract them from their daily routines. Other predators include Project Directors and Forum Trolls. Luckily, Level 99 seems to have evaded most of these hunters with little damage. Unfortunately, Level 99 is nearly extinct, seeing how he is the only one of his kind. Preservation efforts have been taken to prevent him from dying, but every time he leaves a remix unfinished, it attracts the attention of poachers. Please, save Level 99 from a lonely life and a horrible death, and help him reproduce enough to stave off extinction. We have a series of breeding programs in place, we just need willing, compatible females. Your donation of sexy women could help this single specimen turn into a flourishing species.

Here's the original short that District 9 is based upon. As for the movie, I think it was a very interesting premise, and they pulled it off rather well. The teaser trailer made me all giddy and excited, but the second trailer, where they started showing powersuits and robots... that made me concerned. I feared that it was going to end up being another over-the-top action movie, and in the vein of Transformers. Thank god that didn't happen. In the end, it was a pleasant surprise overall.

That's sort of my plan. I'm going to skip HG/SS and then wait for the third edition of the 5th gen games. I've never had any of the third versions, and with more unlockable/downloadable content (like in Platinum), I'd like to try it. Besides, it seems that the games are coming out faster now. Was it really only two years before Platinum came out? Diamond and Pearl came out here April 22nd, 2007, and then Platinum came out March 22nd, 2009. That's less than two years. And now that HG/SS are slated for a Spring 2010 release for North America, that means within three years, we will have five games. Five games. I remember when it was a long wait between 1st and 2nd gen games... and the wait for 3rd gen was almost forever.

Yeah, last I head, "E for Everybody " meant everybody.

bLiNd'd by the light, lite up his b-day cake, now he's really, really blind, bLiNd'd by the light, lite up his b-day cake, now he's really, really blind, bLiNd'd by the light, lite up his b-day cake, now he's really, really blind, Madman remixer mixin' Doing musical things with musicalness, With softwares left and right, Remixing video game tunes on crazy afternoons, maybe he wears a hat, You know what I heard, he's a big nerd Maybe he's even a cat bLiNd'd by the light, lite up his b-day cake, now he's really, really blind, bLiNd'd by the light, lite up his b-day cake, now he's really, really blind, bLiNd'd by the light, lite up his b-day cake, now he's really, really blind Yeah, that's enough of that. Just sing it in your head to the original tune. That's my gift to you: a song with mixed up lyrics stick in your head for hours. Happy birthday.

OK, been a while since a real update. First, as of now, we have 11 remixes completed, with the remaining five or so still in limbo. In fact, these ones need commenting, critqing, and voting. http://poke.prxbx.com/forums/index.php?topic=321.0 <-- Rozovian's "Spume" http://poke.prxbx.com/forums/index.php?topic=257.0 <-- Level99's remix of oldness and not-completedness http://poke.prxbx.com/forums/index.php?topic=324.0 <-- Kira of Trance's "Pokémon in India" http://poke.prxbx.com/forums/index.php?topic=202.0 <--DA's "Brand New Day" http://poke.prxbx.com/forums/index.php?topic=214.0 <--Pocketman's Ecruteak City remix, which I am sure he is working on right now at this very instant... right? Also, I have updated the tracklist, so here it is. Viridian Vibe - Prophet of Mephesto Battle For The Badge - fishy Casino Lounge - gslicer and Another Soundscape Game On - Fishy TEEM.ROKIT - tweek Clash of the Titans - pu_freak Cycling with the Wind - pu_freak My Greatest Rival - Jaroban Out of Antidote - Cerrax Olivine Theme (no title) - Chrono26 Slowpoke Shuffle - Willrock All remixes voted in should have completed, finalized versions of the files, and be ready for distribution in the next few months. I'm mostly waiting for the remaining ones above and one or two very early WIPs, and then that's it. That should get the total number of remixes to about 16 or so. Not a giant collab like the CT or FF albums, but a damn fine effort nonetheless.

Webcam? What are you, in 2003?

Why have I never heard of this guy before?

Exactly. As far as you know. Anyone here a programmer at Valve? Or programmed any AI for any modern FPSs? If so, please fill us in on the details of how easy or difficult it is to just slap things together or stuff new code into old games. Until then, maybe speculating on something you don't truly understand isn't the best way to support your opinion. I'm not trying to deride you or anything, but saying that you think something is easy when you can't even begin to be sure isn't the best way to go.

They sell those? Or was it home-made?

I just got a new computer and am in the middle of setting it up. But I've hit a snag. First, before anyone says "google it", I have. The instructions to alter and partition your hard drive in Vista isn't the problem, it's getting it to go to the size I want. Windows and it's various components are currently sitting around 16.8 gigs. I see no reason to have windows and my other non-windows stuff on one large drive, so I want to set C: to about 50 gigs or so. That way, I can keep windows intact and seperate from everything else should I need to do anything with it. The thing is, Vista refuses to let me get C: any smaller than 345 gigs. I can't make a partition any larger than 120 gigs. No matter what I do, and what I look up, it refuses to allow any other sizes. Anyone got an idea on how to make windows stop being so stupid when it comes to partition sizes?

No. He knows that he doesn't have the legal firepower to take on Nintendo. That's like shooting a .38 Special at an aircraft carrier. Edge is a small fish picking fights with even smaller fish. Can't be the big man on campus? Move to a smaller campus with smaller students.

Great, now that you used that word within quotation marks, he's going to sue you.

The original L4D is getting a new official campaign next month. http://www.destructoid.com/left-4-dead-crash-course-announced-as-new-campaign-142454.phtml This obviously means that Vale doesn't care about L4D2, because otherwise they wouldn't take resources away from its development just to continue supporting the last game. I guarantee you, someone will bitch about it. And I bet a lot of them will be the boycotters.

http://www.destructoid.com/left-4-dead-crash-course-announced-as-new-campaign-142454.phtml On noes, Valve is no longer supporting the first Left 4 Dead. They will never make anything new for it. Could be interesting... I hope they offer up some other in-between campaigns for the other maps as well. (Also, the old L4D thread is like... months old, and on page ten. I didn't see the point in necro-posting)

I think he was referring to Epic Mickey, not Dead Space. Just a possibility. I haven't really followed either game. I first thought this was another "I, Mario" like project: fan-made, just for fun, kind of an experiment in design...

That sounds like some old fashioned drink from the 1900s. Ere' oh, chaps! A round o' moddycoddles on th' house!

Not necessarily. You can do a playthrough using theme teams, like one I did where I used only the Fossil pokémon (Aerodactyl, Kabuto, etc...). Even with type combinations, it was still a Rock-type team. I had problems in the Grass and Water Gyms, obviously, but also with the Elite Four because of this. It was still a balanced team, covering Physical and Special attacking, and a nice mix of support moves and HMs, but it wasn't easy. You'd be surprised. There are a lot of kids out there, and you may not even know they are children. Also, why hasn't the topic title been changed yet? We know the proper titles of the games now, so... ?

OK, you've moved from "lets change the game to be better" to "let's make it more like a completely different game". Having access to only four moves per pokémon is the entire point behind the game. You're supposed to find a team that is balanced and varied enough so you can progress through the game without too much difficulty, yet not enough so that you can just stomp your way through. FF games get away with having dozens of moves per character because they often gain access to a lot of different spells, not to mention the plots are usually a lot longer. They also have a wider variety of enemies and bosses, so having ten variations on healing spells comes in handy when your into your 50th turn with a boss. You can conserve your more powerful spells for when you need them. Pokémon doesn't work that way. You have easy access to healing places at any given time, so conserving "MP" isn't that big an issue. You can save at any point in the overworld map or dungeons, so it's not like getting back to the next boss is a massive order like some of the FF games. I like having to figure out what to do with the 24 slots across 6 team members. It forces you to think about how you're going to handle everything that you come across in the future, even if you don't know what it is. Not really. You see, SquarEnix (is that the new combo now? Where you combine the "e" and "E"?) has a budget of millions of dollars for each game in their series, and they have over 3000 people working on all the different parts of their games. Game Freak has 37 people in their staff. Ever. And their average budget for a game is more like hundreds of thousands. If SE did make a pokémon game, they would easily have the staff and the time to do it. It's just that they never will, seeing how they like to make the big-budget titles, and Game Freak is more inclined to smaller, modest games. If that's true, then why are the majority of people that play teens and adults? Go to just about any site where pokémon fans gather, and there will be or has been some sort of survey or poll about age. The majority of them will state they have an age of 12 and higher. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any formal survey. I think it would be interesting to see what kind of demographic spread we would see.

Wait... do we have any idea what the longest developing project is? I recall something about the Doom one being over three years or something. Man, I hope it's not mine. Second longest, that's fine. But longest?

It's really more to do with Game Freak's abilties, I would think. Years ago, back before they got into the whole Pokémon thing, they made a rather well-received platformer called Pulse Man. Their skill at the platformer is evidenced by Drill Dozer for the GBA as well, which was a fun, unique game that was sadly overshadowed by pretty much everything else that month. Both had solid mechanics and enjoyable characters, and were nicely animated. But this never seemed to carry over to the Pokémon series. I want you to think about any Pokémon game they have made on any system. Go ahead, I'll give you a minute or two. OK, think about the graphics and the plot. Now compare those of the Pokémon games to any concurrent RPG on the same system. GameBoy to DS, N64 to Wii. You'll notice that the Pokémon games aren't exactly pushing any limits. They consistently produce games that do not match that of similar titles during the same time period. Hell, they don't even match up to the last period sometimes. It seems that Game Freak is either unable or unwilling to bring their games up to a reasonable level of production, and I think this hurts it the most. It may be easy to make games that aren't as complex or detailed, but after a decade, it would be nice to see some improvements in some of these areas.

Really? The only time I ever saw an HP meter go down is on the other team. Maybe you just suck. I would like to say yes to this, but there are a lot of younger kids that play, so it may just be for them. That's the thing I've always found odd about the series. Numbers only how up on your screen, regarding your team's HP. Nothing else. Stat buff and drops are only mentioned in general "levels", not something like "+1" or "x2". I can see why, as it slightly blurs that line where it's all about numbers, and where you're fighting an enemy you have no info about... it's like they want you to have to guess what the outcome will be. Fuck yes. RPGs have had free-roaming maps since the late NES/early SNES days. Time to catch up with the rest of the genre a bit. There are supposed to be about 90 Type combinations that have not been done yet, so you may get lucky and see something new. But most of the creature designs are based upon actual animals and objects, so their typing(s) are based upon their appearance or story. Some of it is also for balance issues.

Now that HG/SS are going to have pokémon following you, there is a very good chance that that feature will be included in the next generation of games. As for why, consider the following: 1. In Yellow, your Pikachu developed a sense of "happiness" along the way. You could turn to face it and from the expression displayed in a small window, you could determine how well it liked you. This concept was carried over to the 2nd gen games and has been in it since. 2. Crystal had the first appearance of the Battle Tower, which has been in every version since. 3. Emerald had the ability to breed Natures down to eggs through the us of an itm, which has been usable in every game since. There are more example, but I think that's enough for now. So, there's a fair bit of precedence as to what the prior generation had that will be carried onto the next. The point is, you have a pokémon walk around with you. I can imagine a system where there are pre-scripted events that would require your team to use non-HM moves. The example of burning away something (it's cool to burn things, alright?) comes into play again. Your fire-type, or any pokémon that knows a fire attack, pops out and can use it to remove the obstacle. When you think about it, we already have a basic form of this mechanic: HMs. We even have the little animations that appear when you use them. Cut, Defog, Strength and Rock Smash bring up a flashy pic of your pokémon and then the object is gone or manipulatable. Surf and fly have a generic placeholder "pokémon" shadow appear for you to ride on. So the premise is there, but just no very elaborate. I see a short in-game cutscene where said pokémon either steps off to your side, or you release it from your party (pokéball opening and all), and then it begins the task of burning away the wall or tree or whatever. You have to wait for it to finish, and the speed and effectiveness of it doing this task could be slightly to significantly affected by the pokémon's stats, like type (for some STAB), level, and the base power of the move. So, a level 50 Charizard using Fire Blast would take it down in a few seconds, whereas a level 10 Castform using Ember would take longer. How much this difference based upon level and stats is a matter of testing. Too long and it's a punishment for players with low levels; too little and the point of doing so is meaningless. This may lead to some exciting moments when you are rushing to enter/escape a place, or rescue someone, or whatever. Sadly, this seems far too complex and different from the norm of the series, so I doubt we'll see anything more than another slightly updated version in... what, about two or so years? Maybe three? Whenever Nintendo puts out their next handheld system.

Agreed. It's the only thing that really holds the series back. The battle system is well-rounded and polished, and the music and art are nice and light. But yes, the story has always been lacking. The greatest change from the norm were Ruby and Sapphire. You didn't follow the exact same steps as before, and they introduced more villains. It still didn't hold up too well compared to other RPGs, though. You may want to check the Ranger series, then. There were parts that had you use wild pokémon to alter the environment. If you had a log in the way, a Fire-type could be used to burn it away. The same for Water-types putting out a fire, or a Flying-type using its wings to remove debris, etc... It has limited, but it did work. HMs are essentially the same things, but I do like the idea of using your team's moves outside of battle in more intuitive ways. Say, you have to stop a large tank-like fortress. Normally, you would stop it by defeating the various electric type pokémon being used as a power source (like the Lake of Rage and the Team Rocket radio broadcast in GSC). This time, use your team to damage critical parts or sever the wiring or something. Give us a few options on how to stop it, instead of just "push this button here".

I think I will still skip the remakes, and just stop playing for a while. My thinking is, they put out a new game every three or so years, roughly (there's a joke in there somewhere about "new" games, but I'll forgo it this time). If you have something you really enjoy a lot, over and over, with no real break in between, then it's going to start feeling less and less interesting. So, if I hold off on it for now, I can reduce that feeling of decreasing interest, and also get the better version (which will most likely have more online support and/or features). I guess I'm just trying to preserve my taste for the series. It's starting to turn a bit sour as of late.