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If you guys'll have me again, I'd like to try something. I honestly don't know if I'll be able to get a WIP done for the 14th, as I'm busy as all fuck right now. But if I can, I'll be trying to make something Christmas-ish out of the ending theme from Arcus Odyssey.

http://kotaku.com/5102225/midway-are-50-days-away-from-bankruptcy http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/midway-nearing-bankruptcy-needs-150-million-in-50-days/?biz=1 So it seems that long time game maker, Midway, is not in the best of shape right now. According to various articles, Midway is in need of $150 million in the next 49 days, or they may have to declare bankruptcy (or potentially worse over time). They also look to possibly default on $240 million in debt. Needless to say, I'm surprised they're not in the "Bailout" line in Washington DC. Now yes, we all know Midway has a rather roller coaster-like history in terms of game quality. Back in the day, they were one of the premier game makers, releasing classics like Gauntlet, Rampage, and Spy Hunter (not to mention their share of pinball tables under Bally). Later, they had hits like the Mortal Kombat and "Rush" franchises. But over the last ten-plus years, their output hasn't garnered the number of classics that it used to, and it seems the increase in mediocre reviews and/or sales have caught up with them. They're not likely to vanish, but like a lot of things in today's market, the possibility is there. I grew up playing their classic arcade games, and certainly have fond memories of various console ports/originals. But after watching what happened to other companies in the past like Atari and Sega after rough stretches financially, I do wonder what lies ahead for Midway. Thoughts or comments?

Tell me about it. 44/69, and several more that weren't taken for some odd reason. The 32X was an add-on, that couldn't run without the Genesis. So was the Sega CD, which is also absent. So I'm guessing add-ons don't count. Edit: I went back and looked. I would have gotten 54 if it weren't for some issues (not spelling it right, etc).

Well, looking at those pictures, I'm guessing this movie will feature a younger Chun-Li... ... and that the movie's ending will be a montage of Chun-Li going to the gym and doing serious amounts of squats, and the plastic surgeon for breast implants.

Mirror's Edge

It's no different than older gamers writing newer games off because the controls are too "complicated", really. Sometimes you just can't get past someone's biases or self-imposed ignorance, no matter how much you try to. Don't give yourself an aneurysm over it

Terra is a girl who was a Teen Titan for a short while, but only so she could betray them and allow Deathstroke to kidnap them. Nightwing and Jericho came in to try and rescue the Titans from the H.I.V.E. complex where they were being held, but Nightwing and Jericho were captured as well. However, using his ability, Jericho possessed the body of Deathstroke (oddly enough, his father), and freed the Titans. This made Terra think that Deathstroke had turned against her, and so in a fit of wild rage, she collapsed the entire H.I.V.E. building on top of herself in an attempt to kill Deathstroke. Tina, is the voluptuous blonde wrestling chick in the Dead or Alive series (the one with tits big enough that each nearly matches her head in size). Does that help?

Yes it can, by one instance... rick rolling the upcoming presidential inauguration, with Rick Astley.

... That was a thing of beauty.

Guitar Hero World Tour I enjoyed this one quite a bit. And be sure to stick around after it's over.

Yeah, R-Type III is on the SNES, and the GBA through a really botched port. If you have a Wii, you can also get it on the VC (just looked it up). However, my understanding is that there is a PAL version of it for the SNES. It's supposed to have been released in 1994. As for Raystorm, it's a great shmup. It's a sequel to Rayforce/Galactic Attack/Gunlock, and it plays a lot like its predecessor. The graphics are quite nice (for the time), the music is very good, and the challenge is tough, but fair. Get it.

Actually, I've never played it. I didn't have an NES growing up (didn't get one until around 2000), as I was an Atari/Master System/Genesis player.

MAME runs it just fine these days. A couple years ago, there was a weird timing issue with the music, making it go off-tempo a lot (though the rest of the game played fine). But that's been fixed, and the newer MAMEs don't appear to have any problems with R-Type Leo anymore. As for playing it, all you need are the two ROMs. Drop them in the "roms" folder in MAME, start the program, and it'll potentially find the ROMs on its own. If it doesn't, then just go under "View" along the top, and choose "Refresh" (or just hit "F5" on your keyboard). Once it's done searching, select "Available Arcades" from the list on the left, and R-Type Leo should be listed in the window. Double click the game name, and you're off. Oh, and if you're on Windows, get MAME32. It has a very handy GUI that makes setting things up a lot easier (on the rare occasion you have to set anything up).

Good version? There's only the SNES version of R-Type III: The Third Lightning to get (do NOT get the GBA version... it's horribly broken). Or are you're talking about finding an SNES cart that isn't beat to hell, or that's complete? And don't hold your breath for R-Type Leo. It's never been released for a home system, nor was it released in the US or UK. So the only way to play it is via emulation, or buying the Japanese arcade PCB.

Isometric platformers are fun. I had quite a good time with the likes of Sonic 3D Blast, Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole and Dark Savior.

WWII side scrollers weren't too common. The ones that come immediately to mind are P-47: The Phantom Fighter, Fire Mustang, and P-47 Aces. There's also Progear, which has a 1940s steampunk vibe to the settings. You might want to check out Carrier Airwing and Armed Police Unit Gallop too. And Air Buster and Metal Black popped into my head when you mentioned fighting through buildings.

It makes sense to me on the surface. I guess the only reason vB devs may have avoided it is that it's a free-form link, which people might tend to populate with links to spam, malware, etc.... the Yahoo, last.fm, etc. icons are locked down to those specific URLs, so they're pretty safe. Now, granted, you can click on the URL from the user's profile field, which means the risk is still there, but it's multiplied when it's on every single post. I dunno, I definitely see the value, I'm just concerned on this specific point... Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this, but between posters and mods, most spambot accounts that would use such a link for spam, malware and whatnot, are spotted and gone in a matter of minutes. Also, if a real poster were to abuse the homepage button, couldn't they just have that privilege revoked permanently? I mean, if someone puts the wrong info if their "real name" field, or turns off PMs, they get warned and/or temp-banned, right? So why not do the same for a "home page" link? We can link to our sites in our sigs like I do, so the possibility for abuse is there already to a lesser extent. Adding a homepage button would free up sig character space that's wasted by having to do this, and it would look more professional/cleaner than having people with something like "Click here to go to my site" under a bunch of posts.

Yes. Yes you should.

No one said Sega had to be the one to make the retro Sonic title. Capcom didn't make MegaMan 9, Inti Creates did (the folks who made the MegaMan Zero games). So there's no reason Sega couldn't follow a similar lead, and let Dimps, the people behind the Sonic Advance series, make the game.

"Pledge to be veg"? ... I refuse to substitute any vegetable for Turkey on Thanksgiving, nor will I give up all the turkey sandwiches, bowls of turkey soup, or gallons of turkey gravy, that follows said holiday.

I don't recall seeing it as I skimmed through, so I'll throw one of my personal favorites here... RPGs that give you virtually nothing to start with, yet expect you the save the whole damned world... King- "The kingdom is in danger. Darkness has descended upon our lands, the people are in need of a savior, and we call upon you to defend us all from the great evil that approaches. Now here's a stick and five bucks. GO FORTH AND CONQUER!" You're a king! Gimme some money you cheap bastard, so I can buy something other than the absolute weakest armor and weaponry. At least let me get the second weakest.

Ah, shmups. A genre I've held near and dear to my heart for a long, long time. I've never considered Run 'N Guns part of the shmup area. We've got Vertical (Ikaruga, Raiden II, Kyukyoku Tiger II Plus, etc.), Horizontal (Thunder Force IV, Border Down, R-Type Leo, etc.), Isometric (Viewpoint, Zaxxon, Raystorm, etc.), 3D (Galaxy Force II, Star Fox, etc.), Arena (Robotron 2084, Geometry Wars, etc.), free roaming (Granada, Time Pilot, etc.), single-screen (Space Invaders, Galaga, etc.), tube (Tempest, Gyruss, etc.), and the bullet curtain/manic sub-genres (along with the "Euroshmup" sub-category too). When set next to them, games like Contra and Metal Slug simply don't feel or play the same. In those kinds of games, you're running on platforms, falling to your death, grabbing on to things, all that kind of stuff. And really, FPSs definitely aren't shmups IMHO. I have no clue how they ever got lumped in with the likes of Gley Lancer and G-Darius. Sure, there are the occasional oddball titles like Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 for the 32X, where you can jump onto enemies and take their firepower for yourself, but they're the exception that proves the rule. But since there's no real definition of what is a shmup, what we end up with is a "what is a shmup?" debate that can get pretty anal and volatile at times. Oh, and yes, Raiden III is good. There's a PS2 and a PC version, and they both have the same music, options, and so forth. I have the PC version, which looks a bit nicer. Now if someone would just port Raiden IV to PC, I'd be stylin'.

According to the review, not interrupt the good sections that are reminiscent of Sonics gone by (daytime) with iffy plodding ones that aren't as fun (nighttime).

The first couple reviews are out... IGN= 7.0 (PS2) IGN= 7.2 (Wii) - Notes - - Not the best frame rate (30 fps with drops below that) - The night scenes are iffy at best + The day scenes are supposedly a lot of fun + Looks good. +/- Sounds like they ditched the 80's guitar music too.