The Damned

This much is true. From what I picked up from the locales, as well as the limited intel on the city, this is where all the dirty business transactions take place. The market looks clean and bright, but behind it all is dark rooms at the end of filthy halls, where people give and take in things that would make you doubt the existence of a merciful god. Addicts. They come in all forms. What's this one hooked on? Gambling? Hardcore porn? Maybe even snuff films? This place makes me wish someone would drop the bomb on it. Steroids! This man is selling bio-weapon enhancers. Either he's got some real solid balls to do this under the nose of the Elite Four.. or he's one of theirs. Cover both the legit and the illegitimate sides, and control everything. My attempt to ask about where the Stardust came from results in him quickly buying it from me. Before I can even try to take it back from him, he shoves money in my hand and hides the bag behind him. I can't afford the trouble getting it back would cause. Does this make me a drug dealer? All I smell is the suffering of humanity. The entire place reeks of sin and corruption... I know the economy is tough, but having to join a cult just to get discounts is getting a bit ridiculous. Walking out of the market is like walking out of the mud: it gets easier with every step you take away from there. I'll beat this "fan club" is more likely some sort of red light district. No thanks. This sailor only sleeps with one lady: combat. He would shit bricks when he heard my name. It's an awesome name.

Is everyone on this damn island trained? Or am I just getting too old for fighting? I honestly meant to roll and jump down those ledges. It was a tactical move, and totally not a stumble. Flapcakes has found yet another item. A salute and a pat on the head isn't good enough for this soldier, but it's all I can offer him now. OK, this is like, Rare Candy number 10000 or something. Flapcakes has found so many Rare Candies this game, that I think there is some sort of random number generation glitch or something. Usually, you have to wait forever to get even a few, and I've gotten, like... six or so by now? Keep up the good work, Flapcakes! I've been to war on every single heap of dirt on the planet, and this old man and his bird disturb me... Once in the water, I spot random people swimming in the water. How is it that they can swim around while I have to wait until I can find the means to circumnavigate the barriers in place around all the waterways? Then I see why they are in the water. I'll arrange for a rescue boat to come get them. The old man is a speed demon behind the wheel. I wonder if his retirement was of his own choice, or if it was forced upon him for his reckless boating. I never should have told him about my current objective. If he was captured and tortured, he could give the enemy my location. Even me being on his boat puts him in danger. I must keep civilian casualties at a minimum. The last time I was on a beach, it was at night under stormy clouds, landing upwind from a guard house on a small inflatable raft launched from a sub. Welcome to Slateport... the island's center for trafficking and black market deals.

The ladders in this cave are put in randomly. It's like they were trying to prevent easy access to each level. These cracked, jagged rocks look out of place here. Caves like this are formed by slow, continuous erosion from water. These ones are flat on the bottom, but rough on the tops and sides. It's like they were placed here. But without time or the strength to check them out, I'll have to ignore them for now. A strange stone. I'll have Otacon take a look at it later. No he won't. Everstones are almost useless until later games. If you let a pokémon hold it, it won't evolve, no matter what you do to it: level it up, trade it, use an item on it... nothing will work as long as it has it. Later games add the ability to pass down Natures when breeding... but not in Ruby and Sapphire. That was only added in Emerald, which came out a few years later. Heh. Snake and ladders. Comedy gold. A light in a small cave draws me to it, and inside I find a young man in a suit. You weren't asked to think. The President's son has been found. The precious cargo has been delivered. Objective complete! A new attack for one of my bio-weapons! But who could use something like a metal wing?... Steel Wing is a Steel type attack that Flying types can learn. Introduced back in the old Gold and Silver games, it was one of the first Steel type moves you cam across It was pretty much the signature move of the Steel and Flying type, Skarmory. Steel Wing is a decent choice for Flying types, as it hits Rock and Ice, two of the three major weaknesses Flying has, for super effective damage. Sadly, it's not that powerful... Oh, duh.. Steel WING. This would be perfect for Flapcakes. At ease, Reaper, I was just kidding. While I was inspecting the new item, Steven managed to exit quietly.

Located directly across from Salty Water Ocean, down the street from Sand Beach, just off Highway Asphalt. HM05 is Flash, a rather useless, but required, move to use in most of the Pokémon games. In battle,it lowers the opponents accuarcy, so their attacks hit you less often. This doesn't affect moves that have absolute accuracy, like Aerial Ace, though. Out of battle, it's the only way to see in the dark caves that are scattered about the various lands that make up the Pokémon world. You can walk around them in total darkness, but it's much easier with Flash active. Troi will must definitely be wearing a coat after we get out of here. I can use this for securing prisoners before interrogation. Or climbing out of holes, I guess. But interrogation sounds fun too. I can't believe Otacon wouldnt let me take my night-vision googles with me. They're SO COOL! It turns out that Troi doesn't really have anything to flash, so I guess we're sa... Troi just looked at me with hate spewing forth from her eyes. I think she heard me. This ledge is unclimbable... I must be getting old. A horrible cave crab attacks me! But it turns out to not be a crab at all, but some sort of goblin or ghost or something. It looks like it could be imposing... plus it lives in these dark caves. It could be a natural at stealth. It looks like it likes to dress up in fancy jewels. Kids these days call it "bling" and use it to establish some sort of social status among their group. A few tours in Nam would have straightened them out. But now it's just a tourist destination... Thanks a lot, peace talks. I have high hopes for this one... should he make it through boot-camp.

Having spent several weeks underground, the author remembers that he promised to work on this more ofte... what do you mean, this is for explaining the story? This is part of the story. It's called breaking the fourth wall, you idiot! Read a fucking book once and a while. Authors have used it before. They have so! You know what? Fuck you. Snake beat up Brawly, got some badge, went to a pokécenter. Blah, blah, blah. You've waited long enough, you can't unwait it! Our mission resumes... NOW! Oh, come on! I just had my attack bird slapped by a deformed midget. At least give us some time to breathe. This island needs it's own postal service... While looking for Steven, I stumbled across a smelly homeless man. From the smell emanating from his clothing, I suspect he found his own answer. Not only has he gone, but he has gone several times this week. The warm climate only makes the smell worse. He sends some sort of jellyfish out to fight... on dry sand. Tactically, this was not a good start. I gotta felling... ... that this is gonna be a big one. That this is gonna be a big one. That this one is gonna be a big, big one. I gotta feeling... WOHOOOOO HOOOOOO! Fishing rods don't have buttons! Searching the nearby shore, I stumble upon... narcotics! This must be the local version of angledust, a potent narcotic, and illegal in most countries. But turning it over to the local authorities would put my mission in jeopardy; they must be crooked at hell to allow the island to be taken over for biological weapon development... if they even exist, that is. I'll dispose of it later, where no one can find it. Indeed, the path of drugs has led me to a dead end. It's just like that drug awareness commercial I made for the new recruits while in Militaires Sans Frontieres. Too many kids these days, getting into the wrong stuff. Now war, that's a healthy hobby. Another homeless man. He's sleeping between two rocks, making it easy to avoid him. With Briney demanding I deliver the letter, and no other place to go, I decide to try the cave. Surely Steven must be somewhere.

Does anyone actually play PSP games on their PSP? Most of the time I hear about PSP, it's about what older non-PSP games they have one theirs. If you counted emulated games, I think SNES games would be some of the top played games on it.

Man, now I have to get Green Cards for all my 3rd and 4th gen pokemon... And the worst part is, my Meditite will end up running the night shift at a 7-11.

Brushfire, what are your fucking FCs so I can add them to the list?

But you have to sign up for an account to do so. Mind you, you can't even get your Eeveelution until Dreamworld is up and running, which may be a long time from now, depending upon the circumstances.

So... Sony legal department business as usual, then.

That plus the fact this is coming out after the US launch makes me think it's for the US launch. But yeah, I don't doubt it's pretty high. Even with the lack of advertising and next-to-no demo units in stores, the hype about it was still pretty good.

Which was from one of the artists while she was attending a European event, and was a bad quote because of it was Japanese, translated to Spanish, and then to English. That comment was then promptly corrected by the director in a later interview, as they didn't want rumors of a third game to impact launch day sales (which it didn't, because Black and White sold a just over a million in the US alone, with more in Europe and Canada). Besides, we all know there's going to be a third version, it's Pokemon.

Nintendo reports that in the first day, they sold... fucktons. Sorry, they aren't announcing any numbers until next week, but Nintendo is claiming it's the fastest selling handheld game system launch ever. I'm sure Apple will come along any moment now and say theirs is the fastest selling handheld ever. Sure, the iPads and Touches are primarily media and internet tablets, with games that consist mostly of flash ports and a few remakes of older console titles (like FF3), and the 3DS is primarily a game system with some media functions... I kind of forgot where I was going with this.

Everyone loves the odd remixes that do something strange or funny... Next album will be all banjos and whiskey jugs. THIS IS SWEAR!* *May not actually happen

Game Freak finally took the writing up a notch or two. In fact, I remember bleck saying, long before the game was released, something along the lines of "there will never be any good story in pokemon"... which now seems to be not the case. Sadly, they could have done this in GSC, RSE or DPPt. Who knows what kind of plots we could have gotten by now if they had different writers? (and now for someone to bring up "it's a kids game, it doesn't need a story")

No, they won't. This isn't like the Wii, where there was a shortage from launch day until two or even three years later. They have more than enough 3DSs right now, Nintendo is making lots of them as we speak, and they will continue to do so, barring either a disaster that destroys their factories in China, or they decide to artificially create a shortage to drive up demand, which isn't the case here. I doubt very much that we'll see any kind of shortages for the rest of the year. Even if there are any, they would most likely be sporadic and short-lived, as Nintendo would get as many as they could into stores.

I recall certain people in this thread that swore we would be screwed if we didn't pre-order as soon as possible, we would never see one in a store until summer, maybe even christmas. Welllllll... Not quite. While demand has been strong, there are more than enough 3DSs on shelves. Even if that supply is snatched up right away, Nintendo still has their factories pumping out more and more each week.

No, what a surprise is that the US and Canadian prices are the same. I've never seen the same price for any system, or even any electronic device in general, before. A few times, the exchange rate made it cheaper to import from the US then buying something at a local store, but that's not the same thing. Seriously, I've never seen any electronics go for the same price here as they do in the states. It must be from the stable parity we've had the last year or so. Right now, the Canadian dollar is $0.98+ US. Usually when we get this kind of exchange rate, no one ever adjusts the prices, and we still have to pay more. Books are especially bad for this; on average, I'd say we pay five dollars more for books, ten or more for bigger ones or hardcovers. But the 3DS being $250, regardless of which side of the border you're on? Thanks Nintendo!

Nope. According to Nintendo's own explanation of how the system works, the 3DS is always rending both views on a 3DS game. They can't just turn off parts of the processor and get better power usage. The real battery drain is the 3D display. When it's on, it blocks out some of the backlight. This makes the image darker. To overcome this, the backlight has to increase it's output. Brighter screen = more battery power.

Actually, I think the GTS trade-evolve trick still works. Once it's back up and running, he might be able to just use that and it's done.

Or the next Pokémon game, or the Zelda, Mario, Pikmin (they really should do a portable Pikmin now) or any of the other games that we know are going to be on the 3DS later. I'm not getting one right now because I want to see what games will be announced at E3 this summer. Plus, they may have a slight revision that could address some of the issues that could pop up. Think of it like a 3DS V 1.01, where they fixed a bad hinge or they made a slightly better 3D screen. Who knows, I may end up getting the better one. Something else I've noticed over the last few years. When I didn't have lots of money, I happily saved up and bought two GameBoy Colors (the second one after a few years to replace the first one), then a GBA, then a GBA SP, then a DS, then a DS Lite as well as multiple games. Now I have the money to buy all the systems and games I want, and I don't want to get any of them. Weird. I must be getting old.

Somewhere, maybe? I would have to go look it up, but it might be there still. Any way, it's in the past, everyone move on. electric concerto, if there is a second album, you're welcome to apply for it. Your remix did get pretty far along in a short amount of time. By then, you should improve even more, and I'm sure a more rigorous schedule would prevent delays and having to drop anyone.

Oh, the 3DS is supposed to use one universal Friend Code, right? Anyone want to start posting them so we can start a list on the front page?