Akilae

I've got a few friends that run Toshibas... it's quite a sight seeing five laptops jacked into the LAN playing UT 2003... dunno which make, but I can say that back then, UT 2003 ran better on his laptop than on my piddly PIII desktop. Not anymore though, hehe =) Just out of curiosity, a lil bit OT, but somebody mentioned moving desktops. I happen to be needing to relocate, and I'm wondering how do bring my desktop along. I'm a cheapskate, so I thought about cramming it into my luggage on the plane. I've heard enough horror stories about luggage handlers, but I'll remove the HD and take it as carryon with me. Is FedEx or UPS trustworthy enough to use for ship my computer?

Real Alternative Hope this isn't illegal to post here. But it plays all Real formats, and doesn't hijack your computer. Media Player Classic, which it comes with, plays everything else under the sun, including DVDs of all regions. For Quicktime, google for Quicktime Alternative. Have fun!

Rice Car!!! (Runs away giggling like a school girl...) seriously though, any time ANYTHING is pasted onto a car that wasn't on it out of the factory will get pointed at and laughed at as a "Rice Car".... especially hideous in South Cali.... the first symbol is okay, just don't go around explaining it. The "car" ideogram really shouldn't be there unless you have a good reason to.

Well, supposedly the Dev Team wants to add Blackhawks for players to rappel down from... also Humvees somewhere down the line... but that's all still up in the air.

well, definately Masamune Shirow.... some of the anime gurus will be able to tell you which show... but I'm guessing Appleseed or Dominion Tank Police? Can't be GiTS, unless Shirow did away with the original powered armor...

I was all hyped up about BF1942 after all the raves my roommates were giving it... then I tried it. My first map was Midway, and I chose to spawn on one of the destroyers. Apparently, the other side had a very skilled bomber and was sinking our ships left and right. Seeing .50s on the sides of the ship, I think it's a good idea to go up and provide some AA cover for the ship.... so I climb up the ladder, and promptly get thrown off when I reach the top. Wash, rinse, repeat.... I never get to the .50s. Apparently, the way the game engine is built, there's not way I could get to the .50s when the ship was in motion, I would just get thrown off whenever I reached the top of the ladder. I never touched BF1942 after that... although I had tons of fun in the Corsair.

I think AA is really the Next-Best-Thing after Counter-Strike... and Counter-Strike is getting VERY old... however, a few things to note: 1) Being that the aim is more realism, it plays very differently from other games, it's a whole lot slower paced. That's not saying that rushes don't exist (Anybody who's been naded at spawn point on pipeline will agree...), but the rounds drag towards the end as all the rushers are killed off. I'd say that's when the game REALLY kicks in, with assault trying to reach the objective and defense keeping them from it. Some people complain about camping, but IMHO, with proper team play and communication, no single map in AA can be camped. 2) Breathing. This plays a HUGE part in the game, as KingNor noted. But ONLY if you do distance shooting, and if you're doing distance shooting, more likely than not you're gonna be prone andy maybe with bipods down, which cuts down on the breathing. Depending on the map, a majority of the game plays out short to mid distance (aside from bridge.. but bridge is sick...). One observation: a lot of people just don't get the breathing part... your gun heaves up, and down... up, and down.. get the rhythm right, and distance shooting is easy. 3) Weapons. the Honor system affects weapon selection, but only if you're a hardcore SAW gunner, sniper, or nader. The default M-16 is a very versatile weapon, easy to snipe with, and useful in CQB. There are times when a certain weapon would be nice to have, like when newbies get the nade launcher and don't know how to use it... but you can usually get said weapons off dead bodies within the first two minutes of the game. 4) If there's any part of the game that REALLY shines, it's communication. With radio signals, hand signals, team chat, whisper, shout, etc.. It's very easy to establish teamwork. 5) I think the Dev Team is also pretty responsive to the wants and needs of the community. Witness bridge... notorious for being a nader's heaven, the Dev team thought it wise to give the assault team two nade launchers to make the job easier... except they also screwed up and gave the defense team two launchers, which turned bridge into a massacre. Huge uproar in the community, and by next release, the map was toned down to only one launcher for defense, but assault still retained its two launchers. 6) It's FREE!!! How much more can you ask of a game?

Yeah, I think that's the set I have... folds onto itself, right? The latter part of the last disk is full of special "features" like transformation sequences, OP, ED, etc.. and the three specials. I heard there's a Japanese anime of Starship Troopers, full of powered armor and such. Guyver is also a must for armor, although I only saw the manga. If you're not particular about what you watch, I rather liked Detonator Orgun, a virtual copy of Tekkaman Blade in terms of suit design, but I thought it was a rather short and fast-paced anime. There's a U.S. release of Detonator Orgun, 1 DVD.

FINALLY got my grubby lil paws on a set... after blitzing through a portion (caught the three specials first....), a couple of things... 1) I couldn't help but chuckle at how the animation improved as the show went along... by the last episode, Blade really looked like a 90s anime instead of the 80s-style at the beginning of the series. Megazone 23 also went through this change I think... Also got reminded how spoiled anime fans are these days by 21st-century animation... 80s-90s style limited animation and stock footage gets really tiring after the first two viewings... 2) I had finished Nadesico just before this.... and I couldn't help having flashbacks to Gekiganger... 3) The three specials, how long are they supposed to be? I think I got the first two, but only got a preview of "Missing Ling(Link?)".... haven't been able to find a lot by googling either.... 4) I still don't get what happened between Tekkaman and Tekkaman II... *SPOILERS......* like anybody's gonna pick up this anime again..... D-Boy forgot everything at the end of the original. And from the Missing Ling/Link "preview", it seems that he suffers from diminished faculties, ie, he's mentally challenged. But in Tekkaman II, we see D-Boy walking about and conversing with everybody quite normally..... now what really happened in those ten years again?

GTO isn't bad... although I think instead of calling it a "live-action version", try to think of it as just another Japanese soap opera/drama, and it'll come across better. Live-action makes me think of people in rubber/plastic suits/armour.... The casting was VERY well done. The manga was funnier... but then again, some scenes you just can't transfer to screen :-p A lot of manga/anime have actually been converted into Japanese soap opera/drama series with quite impressive results. Can't think of any off the top of my head, since I don't have my collection with me... how was the live-action version of Guyver? I liked the manga, but never got the guts to pick up the anime or the live-action films...

heh, USP? hells, I had the most fun using the Scout.. now THAT was fun and challenging. Nothing more humiliating for a CS player than being headshot by a Scout... well... maybe being TMP'd...

I played till 1.4, although the rest of my clan quit after 1.3... I remember clan battles, heck, I still have email contacts of a lot of the old CS clans... I think two things... well, three really, but two are related... killed CS: 1) Cheating, and the subsequent "fixes". I'm sure all old school CS players remember what happened with the new lag correction they implemented. Being shot around the corner by some newbie on a 56k was no fun. 2) Nerfing of weapons. Anybody remember when the AWP was really one-shot-one-kill? Then the newbies started complaining, and they toned it down... then they started toning everything down, to the point where emptying entire clips did nothing. For anybody still interested in teamwork and realism, America's Army is the way to go. Although it's slowly being invaded by newbies too, the way the game is structured makes it very frustrating for bunny hoppers and bullet spammers... not to mention the initial accuracy exam to pass. Get some experienced players together, and you get impressive and realistic results when everybody uses handsigns to communicate. The game really made my day on one mission, four soldiers storming an occupied room. Squad leader sneaks up to building, "all halt" signal, peak around corner, then "two" "left" "one" "right", flash, nade, then "all go" signal. SMOOTH.... gotta be there to really get the feeling. EDIT: Oh, yeah... AA is TOTALLY free, unlike CS which is just a mod

Alright... call me ignorant... but why would manga be published "flipped"?

damn... and I thought the game had automatically entered bullet time mode for me when the going got tough... <_< j/k I've played Dead Man Walking with up to 7-8 guys on the screen with no ill effects though... so I guess YMMV? I wonder if that RDRAM I installed last year makes a terriblly large difference...

Well, for reference, I'm running MP2 on a Ti4800 (Ti4x00 on AGP 8x.. but trust me, performance is actually LOWER than a vanilla Ti4x00), P4 1.6 OC'd to 2.2, running the game on max resolution, all graphical details, and the game runs like butter. I don't have AA or AF turned on though, too much of a performance hit for not enough graphical improvement. Get a cheap copy of MP1, download Kung Fu 3.0, and enjoy a totally new level of game play =)

well, the latest Kung Fu 3.0 gives you all sortes of kicks, punches, combos, etc... plus stick fighting On top of that, limited wall running, backflip kicks on baddies, and the chance for baddies to use kung fu moves on you... overall, a MUST for anybody that loved Max Payne.

I was under the impression that a lot get named.... errr.... the only one I can think of now is Wyland-Yutani Here's a few that might not be cliches, but what I find annoying: Terrans (humans, homo sapiens...) always get the bad hardware. Our ships are never better than our opponent's. Terrans always get the short end of the stick, trying to fend off some superior force (Battlefield Earth, War of the Worlds, Battlestar Galactica, etc..) Single alien organism wreaks havoc on humans (Alien, Predator, Event Horizon, etc..) An Antarctic base always figures into the movie (X-Files, Alien Hunter, etc..) My favorite cliche that a lot of movies have, although maybe on purpose: "I got a bad feeling about this..."

Guess it's imported HK DVDs then... anybody know any decent sites that carry imports? animeart.com seems to have a pretty good selection, but doesn't come across as a very trustworthy site according to some opinions I've seen...

Does anybody know if the 90s remake of Tekkaman Blade ever had a DVD release, official or otherwise? So far I've only been able to find the original 80s series, which I'm not too hot about... and Tekkaman Blade II, which is nice, but I want to relive D-boy's story....

I heard that Wave kits aren't too shabby, "Bandai quality" is something that's been thrown around on an earlier thread about FSS. in terms of the impact of the model, might as well be the LED Mirage with Boomerang and flamer unit... very impressive when assembled. Or up it a notch and try to get your hands on a Twin Tower set

Those monsters he's making sushi out of are from the latest manga volume... hm... I wonder if the game is gonna cover the story from beginning to the latest publications....

Well, looks like we all got a long ways to go until HL2.... four more months to be exact Anybody play America's Army? For anybody who's ever compained about power weapons, I find that M-16s across the board to level the playing field quite a bit. Plus it's free =) Ah... as soon as I get a job and can afford broadband, I gotta download myself the latest copy.

anybody seen it yet? for some reason I can't get excited over this, although I loved the original OVA. Ryoko just seemed so.... off in the ads I've seen...

Latest MS business model: hijack promising PC titles to the Xbox, delay the PC release SEVERELY, release said promising titles exclusive to Xbox to promote Xbox sales. Negative externality: PC releases then appear dated and unoriginal. Just you watch, Half-Life 2 and Deus-Ex 2 are going to be such let-downs...

*twiddles thumbs and waits for a functional PS2 emulator....* *and beats self on head for not taking Japanese during college....*