mikeszekely

But Fight Club was still an awesome movie.

You'd know better than I, but I don't necessarily think that is the case. I mean, look at the Lucas quote you posted earlier. That doesn't have to mean that he's physically a cripple. It doesn't mean he's physically weaker, or that "Vader is a cripple" has become a canon explaination for why the lightsaber duels in OT aren't as flashy as in the PT. All it says to me is that machine Vader is not as powerful as Anakin Vader. I've taken that to mean more in the Force... Lucas has spent a great deal of time telling us how ridiculously powerful Anakin was, and how powerful he could have become. In losing some of his humanity, Vader lost some of his strength in the Force. Later, of course the Emperor wanted Luke to replace Vader as his apprentice... Luke had become stronger in the Force than Vader was. But that doesn't mean that Luke was stonger in the Force than Vader could have been.

Ace Combat 5 fit neatly on a single layer DVD. And Xenosaga II was on two single layer DVDs. It could just as easily fit on one single layer DVD, as the first one did. Or, they could have trimmed down the ridiculous number of long cut scenes. Games are still a way from filling up the DVD medium. Most PSone games fit on a single CD, and most of the multiple disc games fit on two (seemed like it was mostly Square RPGs that needed more, although I'm sure some of you can think of a few more). To this day, PS2 games like Lego Star Wars are still released on CD. Perhaps, near the end of the next generation, we might start to see games one two dual layer DVDs, or combination or dual and single... and maybe then I'll concede the need to move to a new format. I mean, the only reason why a new format is being called for at all is for the movie industry... regular DVDs aren't high definition. Movie studios LOVE dual layer DVDs. You'll be hard pressed to find a movie released on a single layer disc after 2002. When movie studios go for two discs, it's usually one dual layer for the movie, and another for the extras (I think they're dual layer two, but I haven't taken the time to look at many of those). On the few movies that I can think of that do span multiple discs, like the extended Lord of the Rings and Schindler's List, both discs for the movie are dual layer. In any case, Microsoft is pretty firm on the fact that Xbox 360 games will be DVD and DVD only... not Blu-Ray, not HD-DVD. Slightly less firm is the price, although J. Allard said it would be "around $300." I'll be willing to bet that it'll be $299.99, since that's the sweet spot. Slightly less firm than that is backwards compatibility. AFAIK, there was never an official "no." There were industry people that talked about how different the hardware was, and how unlikely it would be. But Microsoft's official statement has been "it will be backwards compatible with the best-selling Xbox games." Their unofficial statement is that they were trying to get all Xbox games to work on the 360, but as JB0 already mentioned, they want to avoid any backlash if a more obscure game, say, Otogi, didn't play. I think that has more to do with Retro Studios, an American company, than Nintendo, or more specifically, Satoru Iwata. I don't think it is. Making games for non-gamers seems to me like making TVs for the Amish. If Nintendo were really concerned about expaning their market, they'd go after the casual gamer, the mainstream that Sony and Microsoft have been after. I do have to concede that Nintendogs is selling like prunes on senior citizen discount day, though. And for the record, Nintendo has done a remarkable job of creating software that appeals to a remarkable large audience... but I've never really thought of them as making games for the hardcore. If there's one name that really springs to mind for that, it'd be Sega. I definately don't have a problem with parents getting involved with what their children are doing, or even trying to play their children's games. And while I admit that I do like games like WarioWare, I like them like I enjoy an appetizer before I get to the main course. And while you're right to say that games like that aren't all they do, they're all they have been doing for the DS, which I see as the first victim of Iwata's "simplification" kick. So, yeah, I think that this simplification thing is like dumbing down games to make them more appealing to non-gamers, and I see that coming at the expense of a truly engaging game. I don't know that it'll be the same for the Revolution. Supposedly, Metroid Prime 3, an newer Zelda, a new Mario, and a new Smash Bros are in the works for it, and I expect that they'll play similiarly to their Gamecube and N64 siblings. Regardless of what gimmicks are attached to the Revolution, development teams seem to be forging ahead as if it's a tradition console. And to tell you the truth, this is one of those cases where I'd love to be wrong. I mean, I grew up on Nintendo, and so far I've owned every Nintendo game system save the Virtual Boy. I'd love to see them come out with a new console that gets me excited the way the SNES did. But I have to admit, I haven't cared for the their last two consoles, and I've been extremely dissapointed with the DS. I've learned to seperate Nintendo the kick-ass software developer from Nintendo the poor hardware company that chased off their third party support. And I've definately come to feel that Satoru Iwata is the reason that Nintendo is in third.

Free downloadable games is a nice touch, but it's hardly a system seller. If all I really cared about was old games, I'd probably still have those old consoles hooked up. Besides, emulation has been around since I was in high school, and by now, it seems like almost anything that can play games can emulate. If the Revolution is really going to succede, it's got to have it's own kick-ass games. Supposedly, just about every Nintendo franchise under the sun has a title in the works for the Revolution, which sounds promising, but I'm going to reserve judgement until I see some concrete details (not to mention if they won back any of their third party support). I know it is a good idea but it has a pretty big BUT there. If Nintendo makes it a main selling point, like they certainly seem to be doing (along with the ever so illusive evolution of gaming), its going to bite them back in the ass. People will buy the PS3 and the Xbox360 for current generation games while the Rev will only be bought because people want some nostalgia, while the the current gen games will be left for the moths. Hell, who wouldn't want to pay $150 and get more then 2k free titles no matter how old they are? Keep in mind that only the Nintendo 1st party titles are guaranteed to be free.

Funny, that's how I feel about Nintendo. Nintendo is starting to develop an undeserved reputation for being the choice for the "hardcore" gamer, simply because they refuse to go after the mainstream the way Sony and Microsoft have, and because unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo is only in videogames. From what I've been reading, Nintendo is definately NOT paying attention and trying to give gamers what they want. In fact, a lot of Iwata's comments have me thinking that Nintendo is actually after casual gamers and non-gamers. I'm hearing a lot of stuff about how they want parents to see what their kids are playing, and be able to pick it up and play it themselves. It's true that Nintendo has been able to put out a lot of software that almost anyone can enjoy... but if all a console has are games like WarioWare and Nintendogs, that's not enough for me.

I think War of the Worlds looks very promising. From the trailers I've seen, it looks like it's keeping closer to the books than the 1954 film (I'm assuming that the scene with the Martians knocking over the bridge is suppsosed to emulate the scene where the Martians are attacking the ferries in the book). Not to mention that, for a little kid, Dakota Fanning is one hell of an actor. But I kinda liked Minority Report. Dark Water isn't a remake of Ring. Dark Water was a remake of Honogurai Mizu no Soko Kara, aka Dark Water. The Japanese film was based on the short story Floating Water, which was part of a collection of short stories by Koji Suzuki. They're very similar, though, since Koji Suzuki also wrote the novel Ring, and the film was directed by Hideo Nakata who directed Ring, Ring 2, and the American Ring Two. Although I see a disturbing trend in the remake of Japanese films, I did like the first Ring remake, and I did like the Grudge (although neither as much as the originals). Also, I thought the Japanese version of Dark Water was pretty good, and the remake looks pretty close to the Japanese version. I'll check it out. BTW, if you're tired of American movies about Japanese horror stories, you might as well start complaining now... the rights to Adrift, another story from the Dark Water collection, has supposedly been picked up. In addition to those, I'm going to see Fantastic Four and Batman Begins for sure. I might be tempted to see this Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Haven't given much thought to any of the others.

I don't criticize them for not "prematurely" jumping into anything. I'd criticize them for always being late into the game. They can't honestly argue that, had they developed some sort of online structure for the Gamecube, that it would have taken anything away from what they plan to do with the Revolution. Free downloadable games is a nice touch, but it's hardly a system seller. If all I really cared about was old games, I'd probably still have those old consoles hooked up. Besides, emulation has been around since I was in high school, and by now, it seems like almost anything that can play games can emulate. If the Revolution is really going to succede, it's got to have it's own kick-ass games. Supposedly, just about every Nintendo franchise under the sun has a title in the works for the Revolution, which sounds promising, but I'm going to reserve judgement until I see some concrete details (not to mention if they won back any of their third party support).

I do have serious issues with Iwata. It's like if he keeps saying that Nintendo is about fun and innovation, maybe people will start to believe it. And now they're on this "simplifcation" kick... It's almost like Iwata wants to screw the serious gamers in favor of delivering dog-petting sims for non-gamers. He doesn't sound dumb to me, just really arrogant. His comments on the PS3 can be basically boiled down to, "We can do what we want, and charge what we want for it, and you will all buy it, because it's PlayStation." I think one of the reasons why I'm leaning a little more toward Microsoft for the next gen than the other two is because Microsoft is the only one that really seems to be paying attention and trying to give gamers what they want instead of trying to dictate that their product must be what gamers want.

If I had to guess, people really are going to buy the PS3, regardless of price and performance, because it has the PlayStation brand. I also think they have enough of an installed user base to remain the market leader through the next-gen. That said, though, they are going to lose ground with that kind of attitude, and more discerning gamers are going to see that the Xbox 360 will offer largely the same experience, and Microsoft is going to gain a lot of ground. They might not pass up Sony in the next round, but if the Xbox team continues to stay in touch with what the consumer actually wants (which, I believe is one of the reasons they've managed to do as well as they have), their third console could very well overtake the PS4. As for Nintendo... their attitude seems to be totally different. A lot of people are giving them respect for focusing on games and keeping them fun and simple, but their reluctance to go after the mainstream market is going to keep them in third for some time to come. Of course, these are just my predictions... feel free to post your thoughts!

Well, remember first that Armada is like an alternate universe and not really a sequel to the G1 stuff... kinda like the relationship between SEED and original Gundam. Armada starts with a war on Cybertron between the Autobots and Decepticons, but they're not the only factions on Cybertron. It turns out that another faction, the Minicons, can be used to increase the powers of the others. The Minicons flee Cybertron to get away from the war, and end up on Earth, where they send a distress call. The Decepticons wind up following the distress call, and the Autobots follow after the Decepticons. Okay, now for the BIG SPOILERS!!! It turns out that the Minicons are actually little parts of Unicron, and their initial distress call winds up waking Unicron or something (I didn't see Armada, I just read some summaries). The Autobots, Minicons, and Decepticons wind up going back to Cybertron, but so does Unicron. Only by teaming together do the Autobots and Decepticons manage to defeat Unicron. Now it's hard to say for sure, since I'm only about 20 episodes into Energon, but Energon takes place 10 years later. The Autobots, Decepticons, and the people of Earth are working together to mine energon from various points on Earth, the moon, and Mars for the betterment of everyone. Alpha Quintesson creates Terrorcons to steal the energon to use to ressurect Unicron. In the process, he accidentally ressurrects Megatron, who has sort of bonded with Unicron's spark. Megatron takes Unicron's body, while Alpha Q takes Unicron's head, and while Megatron re-enlists the Decepticons, Alpha Q and Scorpinok are allied with a group of Autobots led by Rodimus, and we're left with three competing factions... the Decepticons, led by Megatron, who want to ressurrect Unicron for power, Alpha Q's group, who seem to want to ressurect Unicron to use him to restore Alpha Q's homeword (which was eaten by Unicron), and the Autobots led by Optimus, who are against any ressurrection of Unicron at all.

In other words, Sony feels they're justified if they charge more than everyone else.

Somehow I knew, before clicking on the link, that a Democrat had to be behind it. Sure enough, we've got Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. It seems like everytime you read about some legislation that has the government raising your kids so that you don't have to, it comes from the left. That said, though, I don't think it's a totally bad idea. Personal responsibility doesn't seem to count for much anymore, and everytime a kid commits a violent crime, suddenly videogames are to blame, or the retailers who sold the videogames. If minors aren't allowed to buy videogames, then you either can't blame them, or you have to start examining how they got them. If a parent buys her 11-year old the new Grand Theft Auto (and yeah, I saw a lot of that during the holidays), and that kid goes on to shoot up his homeroom, suddenly the parent is in the hot seat for buying the game rather than the retailer, who isn't selling that kind of game to minors.

This is true, and most of us don't deny it. The issues we do have, though, is that upon discovering the original, we find that we've been given a vastly inferior product, and that HG has been milking that product for 20 years while trying to limit access to the original, the sequels to the original, and the superior toys and models in favor of their licsensed crap. We also have issues when we read stuff like this interview tih Greg Snegoff and hear him talk about Robotech as if it were some kind of well-written, mature, intelligent, and original program only loosely based on a nonsensical Japanese kids' show or three. And then to have the gall to suggest that the original creators thanked them and said that their work was so much better? If their work was so much better that the creators conceded it was so, why hasn't Big West and Studio Nue given up the legal fight? Why are they still working on Macross sequels?

Ok...does this mean even the ARC troopers such as Cody, who were supposed to have more individual judgement, don't have inner conflicts turning on their comrades if an order was given by Sidious? I'm sure they had some negative thoughts or feelings about it, but they were also genetically designed and trained from birth to follow orders and get the job done. They may have thought something like, "Ah, Obi-wan was a nice chap, it's too bad we have to kill him." Or, "I'll miss him after I shoot him repeatedly to death." But I don't think outright disobedience, as in "I'm not shooting Obi! I like Obi!" wouldn't have been much of a possibility.

I'm sure the truth does hurt, and that's why you've been running from it on oh so many topics lately. But I surely don't see much truth in Greg's comments. I mean, he's claiming that he made Robotech more intelligent and mature than the originals, but freely admits that the more adult themes were edited out. He claims that the original creators thanked them and said that Robotech was better than their work... but I suspect he's only refering to Tatsunoko and not Studio Nue, who actually created Macross. Macek and HG bought the rights from Tatsunoko, who were given partial rights to Macross as payment for their production work. Last I checked, though, there were still some legal issues about what rights Tatsunoko actually had and how much of that they could have sold to HG. It may have been a fairly illegitimate deal. A dubious opinion, to be sure. You tell it how it is when you speak of facts. You are entitled to your opinion, not only is it not a fact that Robotech is better than the originals, it is an opinion that most people posting on these boards do not share.

Technically, except that rock was far more popular during the time of the hair bands than rap, but after rap started to go gansta, suddenly everyone was into rap. I remember it well, because I was really into hair bands when I was in school, but by the time I got to high school, I was suddenly unpopular because I was listening to bands like Def Leppard and Queensryche while everyone else was listening to Cyprus Hill and Tupac. I think, during the time, rap seemed more popular than grunge, because grunge suffered the same problems that the music industry is still suffering from today... one or two acts come along, make it big, and then a bunch of industry clones oversaturated the market.

Sounds a little lame to me, too... but also kind of similar to the first issues of the Marvel run from back in the 80's, when Buster first drives Bumblebee back to the garage. If we can get off the toys for awhile, is anyone watching any of the newer TF shows? I loved G1 (comics and show), but I hated Beast Wars/Beast Metals and Robots in Disguise (Car Robots). As a result, I'd pretty much given up on new TF shows, and I wound up not catching any of Armada save the PS2 game. I started watching Super Link (aka Energon), though, and I'm actually getting pretty into it.

Def Leppard kicked ass. While those "washed-up" rock bands went on to continue their careers in Japan and Europe, we traded hair bands for rap in the US... talk about getting the bum end of the stick...

This guy can't believe the sh*t he's spouting, can he?

For reals, yo? Doubt it, look at the date on the article... 4-1. Oh. Thanks Mike! For some reason, I'm disappointed... Here you can read an article explaining it.

How is this release different from the previous release?

I don't think so. I think Obi-wan kind of just snuck to Greivous' ship after falling into the sinkhole, then escaped.

According to some product training I did for work, the Xbox 360 is going to retail with a headset for use with Xbox Live, as well as component video cables. That's nice to hear, and I hope the others follow that example... I always wind up having to buy upgrade cables for my consoles.

The Hi Mega Cannon is way too hard to connect, its like the Super Gundam beam rifle, I rarely use it. And besides, its weapons take too long to reload. The MS I like the most is the Gundam Mk2. Sure its sort of weak, but being able to reload on your own is a blessing and makes you able to constantly fire, unlike the other MSs that need to wait for their cannons to recharge. Second that. I don't know what they did to re-balance the game, but I love the MkII. It's kind of a shame, though, in AEUG vs. Titans... it's not the strongest MS, but they lump it with others in that you don't get enough, and they take longer to repair.

Oh, I have a PSP, plus some of the games you mentioned (I have a DS, too, but I don't have any DS games and don't really play with it... I'm kind of just wasting time until Castlevania)... I'm just nowhere near MW Con... or any other con, for that matter.