The Coop   Members

Really? Huh. Guess I've been out of the online musical loop too long. I shall now go and slam my face into a thumb tack-filled bucket as penance for my ignorance. brb...

Music is a tough thing to classify when it comes to downloading to me. Yes, it's a no-no, and there's little can be said to legitimately back reasons for downloading it for free. But if there's one in my mind, it's simply this... You can't rent music. Unlike games and movies, which you can rent for a small fee for a few days and see if you like it, there's no way to rent music. How many times have we all been stung by hearing one or two songs on the radio, only to find out that those where the only songs you actually liked on the whole album? Just as an example, Def Leppard was a band I enjoyed listening up to their album Retroactive. Once Slang hit, to me, they took a turn for the worse, and they've been sliding downhill continually ever since. I was less than happy with Slang, and even more so with Euphoria. I haven't bought an album of theirs since, and wish I had the money from Slang and Euphoria back. If I had been able to listen to those albums in their entirety beforehand, it would have saved me a good deal of monetary regret. So what are you left with? Well, if you spend twenty dollars on a movie and hate it, then you're a fool for not renting it first (assuming it's actually rentable mind you). That goes doubly for games when they're fifty and sixty dollars a pop. But what of music? Being told I'm SOL after buying an album for twenty bucks that I feel is horrid overall doesn't sit well with me, and it's this fact that makes me very wary of buying an album on impulse. It also makes me sympathize a bit with those who truly do grab an MP3 set so they can hear an album before dropping cash on it (as opposed to just being cheap and wanting it for free). I really wish more artists would do what Alice Cooper did with his latest album, Along Came A Spider. A few weeks before it was released, the entire album was put on his MySpace page at 96kb/s. Sure, it was pretty iffy quality, but you got to hear the entire thing, and decide if you wanted to buy it when it finally came out. But no, the music industry throws up a middle finger to that idea ninety-five percent of the time. As a result, it makes music buying less of a pleasure, and more of a, as Ozzy might say, shot in the dark.

Give rehashes of old games a rest. Let MegaMan take the day off. Leave Street Fighter alone for a while. Give us Darkstalkers 4 dammit.

I'm glad things are working out for you, despite your busy schedule, zircon (that's not sarcasm by the way). But know that there are institutes that do put such a burden on their students, and places that don't offer much in the way of public transportation after 7 or 8 PM (hell, we don't have public transportation that runs out here at all). And in those situations, I don't see extending the trial of something like After Effects as that big an issue as long as it's gotten rid of once the classroom need for it is over. Kanthos- That's the problem. Nearly every professor I had only made a very generalized list of supplies, and didn't provide a price range. They just said "Here's what you need for next time, go get it". It's not that they were bad instructors (though some later turned out to be very questionable in their abilities), it was simply them expecting the students to have a healthy amount of money right off the bat... which wasn't the case if students were relying on the refund from their tuition loans/grants to get their supplies (this would take anywhere from a couple weeks, to a couple months, to receive).

No, it's not. If Drexel students can afford to spend the money and time to get back and forth constantly, and don't have to worry about a job that keeps them busy on their days off or when they're not in class, that's great. I'm glad life is working out for them time-wise. But there are a lot of other people who have to work and go to class, and they can't get to a computer lab at 10PM (or later) to work on their assignments (be it because there's no more bus service that late, can't afford the taxi fare, the computer labs are closed, etc). And I won't even go into the idea of when the computer labs are actually open, and not housing a class for three hours at a time. You're counter argument reminds me of past art instructors who used to tell their students "Money's not an issue" when they told them to buy a hundred dollars worth of supplies for the next class that was two days away, and half the class says they can't afford it. Sure, it's not an issue for those with money, but for those who don't, it's a big, big issue. As such, because one part of a student body has the means to do something, doesn't mean all of every student body does. Does any of this make downloading $1000 programs just peachy keen? Of course not. People grabbing a copy of Sonar or Lightwave so they can play around with it and use it for their job isn't something I look fondly upon either. But, there are times when you need to use a program for two months for a class, so you extend the trial period because you can't get to a computer lab at the drop of a hat, or fork out $300 willy-nilly for a student version of the needed program that you'll likely never touch again after that two month period's over.

Not everyone lives on, or near, campus. As such, driving out day after day can eat up a lot of gas, money, and time. So, you wind up with people downloading a trial version, and then using a program like runasdate to make the trial version last longer than 30 days (assuming they just don't download a cracked version outright).

It's off of Dracula Battle 2: Perfect Selection, called "Theme of Simon". The album is a remix collection done by Konami.

I contacted Activision and Activision Value half a dozen times each, being sent back and forth, before I was finally told that they didn't support that disc any longer... which is their nice way of saying, "You're SOL. Bye." And, since id wasn't the one making the CD, it wasn't their problem. So, I took action myself to rectify the situation. Fun game by the way.

I downloaded Spear of Destiny, the follow up to Wolfenstein 3D. Do I feel bad since id is selling the game on Steam? Not in the least. See, I bought a CD from EB that said it had Wolf 3D and SoD on it. I got home, installed everything, and guess what? SoD was nowhere to be found. There is an executable that gives you a choice of which game to run, but none of the actual game files for SoD were on the disc. So, I tracked down a copy of SoD, and downloaded it. I paid for it, and didn't get it. As far as I'm concerned, my actions were 100% justified, as I was only taking what I legitimately paid for, yet was denied.

Considering SoA alone will run you about $40, the price thus far is quite reasonable.

It won't die off. Right now there are so many projects going, that it wouldn't surprise me if quite a few of them had long lulls like this one has had thus far. Also, with Summer coming up, people might get more free time, so there's hope yet. I'd join, as I'm a fan of the series. But not being able to match the quality being sought makes that idea a no-go.

AirForce Delta (Flying) Alien Front Online (3D Action) Bangai-O (Shmup) Border Down (Shmup) * Capcom vs SNK (Fighting) Daytona USA (Racing) Dead or Alive 2 (Fighting) Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm (3D Hack 'N Slash) Ecco the Dolphin (3D Action Puzzler) Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves (Fighting) Giga Wing (Shmup) Giga Wing 2 (Shmup) Grandia II (RPG) Gunbird 2 (Shmup) Ikaruga (Shmup) * Last Blade 2 (Fighting) Last Hope (Shmup) ** Mars Matrix (Shmup) Marvel vs Capcom (Fighting) Marvel vs Capcom 2 (Fighting) MDK 2 (3D Action) Metropolis Street Racer (Racing) Red Dog (3D Action) Resident Evil 2 (Survival Horror) Resident Evil 3 (Survival Horror) Resident Evil: Code Veronica (Survival Horror) Skies of Arcadia (RPG) Soul Calibur (Fighting) Street Fighter III: Double Impact (Fighting Compilation) Street Fighter III: Third Strike (Fighting) Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Fighting) Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (3D Hack 'N Slash) Test Drive Le Mans (Racing) Test Drive: V-Rally (Racing) Under Defeat (Shmup) * Wild Metal (3D Action) Zero Gunner II (Shmup) * *= Japanese import **=Homebrew

If you get burned out on a place or hobby, it's not that odd to leave it, and all those associated with it, behind. Sometimes to get away from something and move on, you really do have to sever any and all ties.

Dimps, the good people behind the Advance games, and the apparently well received Rush. That team is far more in tune with what people are wanting than Sega is.

Spiderman: Web of Shadows

Ostriches and buzzards. And it's the arcade version (as Solo guessed).

As has been learned, Midway filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, giving them a chance to try and straighten themselves up, rather than go down the gaming tubes. But, that's not all that's been going on... http://kotaku.com/5162447/midway-offloading-mortal-kombat-and-screwing-former-employees Is it simply a matter of protocol, or is it a means to sneak away from promised funds? Time will tell. But that's not all... http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/958/958267p1.html As the first article hinted at, and the IGN articles addresses, Midway may try to sell off their most well known franchise, Mortal Kombat, very soon. They're still trying to get money, but at the moment, it seems more like money to give bonuses to various employees, and less like money to stay afloat. Could Midway be following the questionable lead of various banks who got bail out money, or are people reading too much into their choice of words in this distrustful time?

They forgot a really important part, and have to start over... like someone telling a joke poorly.

E: Genesis Sure, I've played them a lot over the years, and God knows the Saturn, Master System, and others have given me a lot of enjoyment over the years, and my Atari XE is a damn close second. But I think it's the Genesis that's given me the most gaming enjoyment over the years in terms of games per genre, and sheer numbers.

Fear 2