The Coop

Could be worse... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amrbnz3G5zA I love both games, but those "tunes" are tough to sit through

There could be soft shadows on the ground, which would be tougher to see in a still shot. Moving video would show them better. And really, if you watch some of the other gameplay trailers on YouTube, you can see shadows being cast by everything. So there's a good chance that the shadows just haven't bee programmed in yet, or they're tough to see in that still shot. Either way, I'm sure they'll be in place when the final build for D3 rolls out. Considering who's making the game (and they're attention to detail), I'd be shocked to find otherwise.

The glorious off-tempo tunes of Zero Tolerance... played in spectacular two instrument harmony. Fun game, but horrid music. And you best not be picking on Space Invaders, Gollgagh.

Before I post the one's you listed LT, I thought I'd give them all another shot... I tried brightening the background, and then adding some color shifts to them to try and help the characters stand out more. I thought that adding more background variation choices to the original set might result in more suitable avatars. Anyway, the original set is lined up with the two additional ones. Thoughts? LT: Thanks for trying some other options. I actually think the originals ended up looking the best, with the images contrasting best with the darkest background. I'm still sold just on the ones I previously listed, so let's roll with those.

Don't forget about Hellfire, the expansion for Diablo. It's not in the Battlechest, as it was made by Sierra. But, it can be found pretty easily, and it adds a new class, 8 new quests, and 23 new monsters.

I wonder how many of the people who are bringing up the light radius thing, complained about Doom 3 being too dark

... You know, I'm not generally one to insult people, but that's just stupid. Do they really think Blizzard is going to give two shits and actually redo the graphics and colors to make some overly sensitive fanboys happy? Blizzard is in an art style groove, much like what Capcom went through when Darkstalkers and Street Fighter Alpha came about. It's a new visual take that frankly, looks fine to me. Color is a good thing. And to me, it's not a "WoW" style, it's a simply a style... one that's being used for more than the WarCraft saga now. In a number of years, Blizzard will run with a new art style. And years after that, another one. That's how it works more often than not in the art world. Some people stand still artistically, other's choose to move forward and explore new visual styles. Blizzard is in the latter group. And besides... recoloring things to make a few people happy is what the mod community is for

Nope. The DC never got an entry in that series. Regarding games on the DC, good luck finding great games like Red Dog, Daytona USA (2001), Under Defeat and Alien Front Online for another system. Couple that with what's considered to be the best version of some games (like Test Drive Le Mans and Grandia II), and the DC still has plenty to offer in terms of exclusives and "best versions". It has a healthy library of racing games, 2D/3D fighters and shmups, some good RPGs, and plenty of action titles... all despite it's shorter-than-average run. If you like good games you won't find on any other system, get that DC.

http://www.blizzard.com/us/diablo2/demo.html There's a link to the single player demo of Diablo 2. If you're curious, give it a whirl DS. It'll only give you a little taste of the what the full D2 game has to offer, but it'll let you see how things are done.

Well... it's about fucking time. We all knew a third game was needed after the ending in Lord of Destruction, but it sure did take a while for it to even be announced. This makes me a happy little camper. Now to wait the additional three years it'll likely be before it gets released Both. You use your mouse cursor to move your character, and pick which enemy to hack on (and pretty much everything else). There are no turn-based fights, as it's all real-time, and there are copious amounts of enemies to defeat. Basically imagine Baldur's gate: Dark Alliance for gameplay (only many more enemies on-screen), but you're using a mouse instead of a controller to do everything. It's point and click, meets hack 'n slash, meets action-RPG.

I know these aren't likely to be accepted, but here are most of the various things from the Atari classic, Gauntlet... In order, there's... Warrior, Valkyrie, Elf, Wizard, Ghost, Grunt, Sorcerer, Demon, Lobber, Death Thief, Generator 1, Generator 2, Food 1, Food 2, Treasure, Potion, Amulet, Key, Exit LT: Let's go with Warrior, Wizard, Sorcerer, Death, Generator 1, and Food 2. The rest look good within the group, but not feeling them on their own.

And the burning questions on the minds of fanboys everywhere... Will Fran, Tifa and Lulu be in it, and will they have jiggle physics?

I have no doubt that there will be yet another PS3... another hard drive upgrade, taking things out, added/removed connectivity options, or the most likely reason, redesign. I would almost be willing to put money on it. We've already seen four PS3s, and a lot of systems usually go through some kind of a redesign at least once in its life span (Sony's done it each time thus far). After all, far more systems have gone through a redesign to make it cheaper, smaller, etc., than those that didn't. So we all know there's at the very least one more PS3 version likely coming. And with the four versions of the 360 that've been done, I'd have to say all this could be applied to it as well. I honestly can't remember a time when the systems came in so many versions, so fast. And we're not talking about trying to fix hardware issues like the many SKUs for the PS1 and PS2, the anti-piracy touches for the DC, or the "keep unsigned third party games off" Genesis v1 adjustments. These are just simply new hardware versions where they're adding and changing the specs that should have been finalized before even one system came off the assembly line. All that aside, I said "they haven't even decided on final specs yet" for two reasons, Pezman. One, it was a sarcastic remark on what's been done thus far (which I thought was pretty obvious), and two, it's a comment based on what history has shown us is very likely coming system-wise. But above all, it was simply an opinion, not an absolute Edit: Cleaned up a spot or two.

Just look at the different versions of the PS3 that have come out since its launch (see Penfold's link). In a year-and-a-half, they've had four different hard drive sizes, added functions, removed functions... it's like they're still trying to figure out what works, what doesn't, and what's needed. Hell, they've got two versions that they aren't even making any longer already. Of course, Microsoft is equally as guilty of this, considering how many versions of the 360 there have been to date, so it's not like Sony is alone in their imbecilic antics. Both companies keep changing parts of the system specs by removing or adding something that was/wasn't there in the previous iteration. Some are small, others, not so small. Perhaps someday they'll both settle on a final configuration, but I doubt that'll come anytime soon.

They haven't even decided on final specs yet as it is, so rest assured, there are many more editions coming.

What MP3 kbps rates have you tried? 128? Variable?

You can track down StarLancer very easily these days, as it's cheap as hell to buy. There's also Wing Commander and Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi for some old DOS fun, and Wing Commander: Prophecy for the older Windows OSs. I've not yet played all the way through Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, and I don't own Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom, I can't comment on them yet. Oh, and see if you can find Darklight Conflict, Sinistar Unleashed, BANG! Gunship Elite, and Incoming. They're not the best games out there, but they're not too bad.

For those who have HBO2, there's the possibility that on Wednesday night and Thursday night, they're going to show most of Carlin's specials. I say "possibility", because though I've read it on two websites, the schedule hasn't been changed on HBO's website. If it's true, it's supposed to run from 8PM to 2AM each night. So those of you who didn't get to see many of his specials, this may be a great chance to do so if you have that channel.

It's the new Dewey Decimal Age system. He's 2.1 decades old. It gets a bit cumbersome to tell someone a kid's .0019, or that you're 1.8175, but...

I've played Thunder Force IV so many times, it's scary. Why? The graphics, the music, the challenge, the design... it's all just so spot on from beginning to end. When you're done playing, you don't feel like anything was left out, or short changed. To me, it's a game that really does feel complete... there's nothing that could have been tweaked to make it better. Other games I've played the holy hell out of are ones like Ultimate Doom (I still think it's better than Doom II), Thunder Force III (not quite as good as TFIV, but a fine quality shmup), Vampire Savior (one of Capcom's finest 2D fighting efforts in my opinion), and Mario Bros. (the Atari XE version, which is surprisingly faithful to, and just as fun as, the arcade original). I could go on for a bit, but that'd be a bit too 'favorites'-like.

Well this is a sad day for the comedic world... a Mongolian Cluster Fuck™ of a day. His stuff was hit or miss with me at times in his last couple specials, but I laughed a lot at his other specials over the years. He was controversial, witty, sarcastic, dirty, insightful at times, and he put it all on show in regular 60 minute bits every couple of years. He's been a staple in the comedy world for decades... someone you just expected to always be there ready to comment in their own way about everything. And now, he's abruptly gone. Rest in peace George, and thanks for the many laughs you've given me.

This is true, and that's about the only creative aspect of the game that's decent (IMO of course). The rest of the game is just... bad.

I always felt the chicken and the chihuahua were more defining. Shame that the Saturn game got canned. I would have loved to have seen what would have come from that with the extra colors and memory. But I guess we'll never know what 'The Final Chapter' held for us, since Sega dropped the ax on it in favor of porting Virtua Fighter.

I remember it, unfortunately. Iffy graphics, horrid animation (even for its time), lame moves and characters, bad music and controls, and gore that wasn't all that gory (cartoony gore). In fact, it also got a port to the Genesis, where they actually made a bad arcade game, worse