The Coop

Let's see... Altered Beast- Rise From Your Grave (Level 1) Master of Monsters- BGM 6 + Land select theme Castlevania II- Ending theme Thunder Force III- The Grubby Dark Blue Thunder Fox (Atari XE game)- Opening tune Ghouls 'N Ghosts- Level 1 theme Phantasy Star III- Shop theme Sword of Vermillion- Light Song I think there are others, but I can't remember at the moment.

Fangirlism is the latest craze for game companies to latch onto... like the whole "platformer mascot with attitude" and FPS thing before it. And like them, it'll lessen as games become more and more "me too" in that area, and developers decide to do something different. The mindset I talked about however, has yet to fade away since the 2600 came up against the NES. In fact, I'd be willing to wager it's gotten steadily worse with each new generation of hardware.

What's really screwing up gaming? I'll tell ya, and this isn't aimed at megadave. His timing just worked out as it did, that's all . But what's really hurting it, are the comparisons to other eras that were worse than they're made out to be. Some of the nostalgia driven go on about how games were more creative, inventive, musically better, and more immersive. A lot of those same people push aside the majority of games today without having played many of them... skipping over the Oddworld: Stranger's Wraths, Oblivions and Ninja Gaiden Blacks of today, while praising the Vectormans, Castlevanias and Lufias of the past. They conveniently forget all the horrid movie licenses in the pre-8bit --> 16bit eras, and the bad arcade ports and original IPs that came along with them. And somehow, they think needing more than 3-4 buttons to play a game is totally unnecessary, and only screws things up. Listening to them, it seems as if the pre-8bit --> 16bit eras where somehow better, when in reality, they weren't. Games were still expensive, bad titles still out numbered the good, and the ads and box backs still did everything they could to make even the worst game sound awesome as they suckered the kids and parents reading them. What's also rarely brought up, is that there was no Internet to find out what games were good or bad, and painfully few magazines to offer up plentiful reviews... which made it really easy to be stung by any one of the many bad games of the day. If you were lucky, you found out about good and bad games from a friend who already tried a given title. Otherwise, you found out the hard way, after you got home with your new $30-$60 game... a risky crap shoot that still exists today. And of course, there was the whole "seal of approval" debacle that meant nothing in terms of quality, but that's another story. But now... now we have a lot more at our disposal. We've got plenty of gaming magazines, websites, and store rental locations. We can even find out if a game is worth it, days before it hits the store shelves. The old days seem better, because we literally didn't know about half of the shitty games being released. It wasn't a flood of quality titles back then, despite how some try to paint the picture. Of course, things aren't really any better with the newer generation of biased gamers. If you listen to some of the oldschool-lacking folks today, you'd think the days of old were utter garbage. You get the feeling that unless it's in polygons, free roaming, and littered with special effects, it's not worth playing. For them, long running franchise's like Sonic, Mario and Gradius don't exist before the 3D versions. And while they focus on the Half-Life 2s and World of Warcrafts of today, they completely shove aside the Sonic 2s and Demon's Crests of years gone by. They go on about how much more immersive and creative games are thanks to their being in full 3D, and prattle about the high production values put on the cinemas, voice acting and music. They scoff at the idea that games don't need a z-axis to have huge worlds and plentiful secrets, and that you don't need realistic samples to create memorable melodies. They also can't seem to believe that one button really can be all you need for a game, as that's just too simplistic... a stance they also associate with the older games in question. The truth is, both sides make good and bad points about their respective games being discussed. The problem arises, in that they refuse to see the good and bad of their own era's games, as well as the games from another era. It's almost like a foreign concept for these people to believe that while a lot of today's games are quite different in appearance and gameplay compared to the games of yesteryear, they all still share many common links at their cores... with one very common link amongst it all. Past and present, there are good and bad games, with the bad always outnumbering the good. Neither era can be defined by just one or the other, and that gets lost along the way. So if people want to know what's hurting gaming today, in my opinion, it's the polygon lovers who can't get past the pixels, and the pixel pushers that refuse to see what modern games have to offer. Both groups dismiss mass quantities of games in one fell swoop with little knowledge of them, and that ain't good. It's that "My gaming stuff's better" mindset that does the damage (on multiple fronts), and keeps the games worth owning from getting the attention they deserve. Edit: Fleshed out a couple small parts.

I think she's running with a few too many psi.

So that's how it's done? Huh. Well, if OCR-tan's attributes were to be decided by OCR's memory or bandwidth usage, shed be a massive set of tits with tiny feet under them, and tiny hands that would be barely visible

Soooooooo... a site run by adults is represented by an underage, second-skin outfitted girl. ... Does this mean the FBI is watching us now?

Gave it a try, Arek... LT: Not feeling the sprite; certainly not your fault at all. In fact, it was an excellent crop.

LIQUID KIDS BOMB!!!! Any thoughts LT? Backgrounds? No backgrounds? Backgrounds for the smaller ones, no backgrounds for the big ones? I personally feel they all look fine without BGs, since they have a black outline around them. LT: No backgrounds, but I hate the sprites. Only one's I'm feeling are the rock-face guy on the bottom lieft, the globe that's holding (not pulling back) the slingshot and the 3rd/running mummy. And my next attempt at those final four from Puzzle Bobble 2... Thoughts? They use very dark violets, greens, and such. LT: The blue BG robot guy looks...aight, but I'm not feeling 'em. Not sure what else is left to try on these. :'-(

Because you touch yourself at night? No, that can't be it. Most of the site would have been banned along with you.

My advice was still reasonably sound for the most part

File a claim. Whether it's your fault or not, file a claim. Also, keep tabs on your physical health. If you start getting headaches or sore spots in the next day or two, go to a doctor and have it all checked out so there's a record of it early on. The adrenaline rush will eventually wear off (if it hasn't already), and what didn't hurt at first, may afterwards. Since it's already too late to do so, just rest tonight. But as soon as you get up tomorrow, gather up the needed papers, and start making your phone calls. While I'm not 100% sure about a police report, I believe it would be in your best interest to file one before you contact the insurance company. Just get your facts straight before doing this. Once that's done, then call the insurance company that covers the car you were driving so all that gets started. The faster you get these done, the better. God knows I'm no lawyer or legal expert, but I believe those are the proper actions from what I've read. Also, don't drive the car anywhere, and don't try to fix anything, until someone can come and inspect the damage for the claim.

That would never happen. It's simply too ludicrous. ... Or is it? **cues up The Twilight Zone theme**

Indeed it is.

What you guys don't know, is that Protricity and I were about to team up on track 11, but our ideas were just way to different. So he went with a different track that he'd been eyeballing before we started talking.

... and for a system that few would have probably expected... These images were up for only the briefest of time on Technosoft's site, but I managed to grab them before they vanished. The copyright suggests that it'll be hitting some time this year, and that it'll include a music CD. Maybe it'll use the same soundtrack that was released a few years ago on the Broken Thunder: Project Thunder Force IV CD.

We discussed doing Final Fantasy III, or Final Fantasy IIIά, which was an unreleased so-called International version. It had a few new bosses, a new town, some new jobs and classes, and was going to be part of a dual pack for the NES. It would have brought the second and third games to our shores together, but Square axed the idea. Something about giving up on the US market at the time. Anyway, since it wasn't released, we voted to skip the "ά" version and go with the regular one. I'll be handling track 11 for those interested.

The lack of Thunder Force VI, Phantasy Star V, and Einhänder II is what's screwing gaming.

It's a scene from The Vagina Monologues. A rather disturbing one too.

Sneaky sneaky.

One of two things... - Porn spambot that got in and PMed registered posters (I got a notification with the message in it, and the title certainly suggested porn) that was deleted by mods after it was caught. - A real user that basically did the same thing, and had the some thing happen to their message (with a ban to boot?).

Now where'd I put my 3D glasses...