El Psycho Diablo

You have to like this board. Don't bother bashing people for what they believe, bash 'em for what they look like. ¬_¬ The average maturity seems to be about the same level as the WWE folder..

Actually, there's a program that does those image-collages. You've gotta have the source image (Bush) and the images you wanted it made out of...but there's no real work involved in it. It's like, a three minute process..

So you admit that a good game (HCTP) is improved? But you wouldn't call this improved game "good"? Got it. Did you not think HCTP was good actually or something? Except the areas HCTP was good in aren't necessarily the areas SvR are good in. SvR looks great. I'll give them that. The wrestler models themselves look great, except the long hair still looks funny. The crowd is unchanged, and still looks pathetic. If I'm not mistaken, the arenas haven't changed, either. The gameplay still has the same flaws. Reversals are the same, and especially unrealistic in a lot of cases. (CAW goes for a German, A-Train/Big Show backflips out of it. CAW goes for a leg move on the ground..and when the CPU reverses, it's the reveral for a Figure Four, despite the move being completely different.) The collision detection problems are still there. Punches and kicks can take a guy out of midair. Taller wrestlers still visibly miss touching smaller ones on a lot of moves. As far as CAW goes, it's a horrible dissapointment compared to last year's. Sure, the CAW models look better..but still not as good as the "real" wrestlers. A whole horde of options have been sacrificed for a better look, and gimmicky gameplay. SvR is probably the best game in the series..if you're content with using the default roster..and gimmicky little minigames. If you aren't willing to stick with that initial number of guys, I'd stay with HCTP.

It isn't hard to justify anything here, it's a good game, period. If gameplay matters to anyone here, get this game...it's better, it's improved. In this case, again in my opinion, they do. They aren't really mini-games, it's just more to the overall match layout and feel to it. They help make the game feel more realistic to me. By the way, Coffey, thanks for the words. I'm glad someone understands all of that. I can't say it's good. It's improved, yes..but not "good". If you like the SD style of gameplay, you're bound to like this one. But don't expect a lot of the flaws to be fixed, and don't expect any real sense of balance. Strength is still the most dominant stat, and smaller wrestlers still have penalties compared to larger ones. As for the texture question: HCTP had it set up where you could texture the bland pair of pants into say, Eddy's old ones. It had plenty of actual wrestler's pants mixed in with the other textures. Raw vs SD has 41 total. Blue, American Flag, British Flag, flowers, tie-dye, yellow-green splotch, swirls/starbursts, six colors of cammo, leopard print, tiger print, vertical stripe, horizontal stripe, wavy vertical lines, blue/white alternating vertical stripes, blue checkerboard, two types of plaid, hearts, rainbow, dragon, six types of flowers, an abstract design, four types of plaid, zebra stripes, two reptile-scale designs, and two more flowers. Even if some of the HCTP patterns were horrid, at least there was some variety..and real wrestler-pant designs among them. The patterns above are..as far as I can tell..all SD vs Raw has. For everything - shirts, pants, boots, pads. No variation except for those patterns.

I don't look for negativity, but when there are glaring flaws in things, it makes it hard to have fun. For example: There were pages and pages of textures for pants / tights / shorts in the last game. This one? 41. That's it. It's also hard to justify a game being good when it takes features AWAY in the sequel. I'd rather have a better CAW (As I remember, HCTP had less parts than the previous game did..this has less.) than the useless minigames. Minigames don't make gameplay better..

It is nice to know that those of us that may actually..y'know..need a tax break aren't going to get it.

I don't think Kerry taking it to court, or whatever, would damage the Democrats too much. Why? Bush has four years. In that time, he can royally screw up, or actually DO something useful. Any damage done would heal long before the next election.

I thought whining was an established part of the political process, though? Y'know, mixed in there with all those lies about what good they'll do for the country if elected, dodging issues, and accepting large sums of money from corporations?

I don't know..there are a few countries who have been looking at us kinda funny lately.. ¬_¬

I do have quite a few gripes, but this game is loads better than 3 or VC. The soundtrack just sucks this time out. The talk radio isn't nearly as interesting as VC's, and repeats too much. The usual graphical glitches, and popup / clipping are still there. The lockon sucks. You can be shot at, but lock on to someone running away. It needs improved significantly. Ditto with the helicopter controls..they just suck. (Especially in one later mission in Venturas..) The AI shoots too well. You have to build your stats, but they're all expert marksmen..unless it happens to be AI on your side, which tend to be fairly incompitent. Also, they're too damned touchy. Bump a car, and they come out trying to kill you, or chase and try ramming you. I think there's too high of a frequency of police..there should be some patrolling, but not four or five going by every couple of minutes. The minimap is pathetic, and the mission goal-markers in the map need to be more easily picked out. *Personal gripe ahead:* I get tired of hearing reviews saying how this is "open ended". It isn't. If you have to do missions to unlock everything (buying clothes, going to the gym, modding your car, etc)..it's not open ended. Same with finding a lame ass reason to keep you in the initial area in every game. I prefer the Fallout / Fallout 2 style of play. Everything's available from the start, it may not be a good idea to go to the end area right away. Same with GTA. Make it so you can go to the other cities, but like it is now..those missions will tend to be more difficult. *shrugs* I'd also like to see more ways to resolve missions, other than the usual "shoot a few guys, the target runs/drives/flies away and you have to chase and shoot him down" bit that's so damned often in here. *End personal gripe.* Now that Rockstar's exclusivity agreement with Sony is up, I'd like to see what they could do with a real Xbox optomized GTA game. The PS2's a nice console and all, but it just can't bring something like GTA to the full potential it has.

Looks like Bush will win. Ah, hell. The speech should be fun. Lots of "uh", "um", and "er"..

Nah, Nintendo is more interested in putting straight ports out for full price on the GBA..

A few thoughts after playing a bit: This game is HCTP Lite. What did they actually DO in this game? Aside from a bunch of stupid meters (A little flickering "stop the yellow ball to reverse or escape" on some submission moves, and some questionable elements (Chop battle? Stare down? Shoving match?) there really aren't many gameplay changes at all. The counters are still the EXACT FUCKING SAME, which means guys like A-Train can flip out of a suplex attempt, and the only leg move reversal is still the "reverse the figure four" animation. Though, remember that smaller wrestlers can't pick up bigger ones. (I seem to think their definition of realism needs work..badly.) And yes, it's still got the same clipping flaws. You can punch or kick a guy out of midair. The CAW got even worse. The model did change (though, the default face looks stupid as hell..) so it dosen't look pathetic next to the "real" wrestlers like the HCTP CAWs did. However, there are -less- CAW parts in this one..as well as a lamer interface..it's a vertical scrollbar instead of pages. So guess what? You have to scroll through everything individually to find the part you want. The hair and eye selection is limited even more, which is sad. Another gripe: Seperate the fucking women's wear from men's already, damnit. If the game can tell if the CAW is male or female based on the model, then at least take the women's wear out of the men's selection pages. It's annoying having to scroll through pages of useless stuff. Your CAW stats also start as a wonderful two in everything (out of ten), which makes things in season somewhat difficult. ¬_¬ The crowd is still the exact same one as HCTP, too. The soundtrack gets annoying really fast, though I'm not sure what's worse..this "music", or HCTP's random screaming shit. Thanks to THQ, though, because you can finally turn BGM off without turning entrance music off. I can't tell what they actually improved in the game, honestly. The graphics are only improved in some cases. The models look good, but the hair (particularly long hair) looks pathetic, still. Keep HCTP. It's more enjoyable than this piece of junk. Honestly, this is one of the times I'm glad I download some games before I buy.. (San Andreas, while flawed as hell, felt improved enough to warrant a buy. SD vs Raw dosen't.)

Actually, isn't the series still running on the same engine it did on the PSX? I don't think they switched it for PS2, just upped the graphics..

Cheats: I remember my brother saying that some of the cheats from the last game work. Try gamefaqs?

Pretty much. He can jump, climb, and swim now. There's also different types of combat, from the various gyms. There are all sorts of stats, and some of them are fairly annoying to raise (Lung Capacity, for one..) The ability to choose outfits at will is nice, though.

It does have a few AI glitches. About three times on one mission, CJ gets out of the car..and just won't move. It's fun, but I wouldn't say "greatest game ever". It's just feels like they actually tried this time, instead of ripping off chunks of movies..like VC.

After playing it for a couple of days.. The soundtrack is good, but gets really annoying fast. Also, the talk radio station sucks compared to VC's, but you do hear news that updates after major events in the game happen.

Seen the upcoming Zeta Gundam Box yet?

While the most hated characters thing is still being thrown around..I'll add mine. I fucking hate Bo Rai Cho. *twitch* Out of all the characters to leave in MKD, they had to choose this one.

Aw, man. >_< While I do agree about Wing..something about the wooden characters, invincible Gundams, and meaningless babble they call a plot..it's the weakest of the Gundam series. Mobile Fighter G Gundam is a great show, but not everyone's going to get it. It's really a homage to the Super Robot shows of the 70's and 80's. If you're more of a Real Robot (i.e., the rest of Gundam) fan, I'd probably avoid it. Another thing, the dub track is just terrible, so I pity anyone that had to suffer through it. It's got the same basics the rest of Gundam does: the misuse of earth, and that someone has to fight to protect what they love. Besides, the God Gundam is one of my favorite designs. If you're into downloading, Gundam X is a "what if" on the original Gundam, and the main character isn't a whiny, angsty little brat, which gets major points from me. ¬_¬ As for Eva, the show itself is allright, but the ending's just TERRIBLE. I've always heard that it screws with your head, but that isn't the case. Gainax just can't end a series. That, and I think they blew their animation budget on the previous episodes.. I just hate "reset the universe' type endings, because it's a cheap way out. The director of Eva just threw in a lot of religious looking stuff, and a screwball ending, and still has people thinking the show's a lot deeper than it is. It's the ultimate case of hype continuing to sell a show.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant (PS2) Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer (Xbox) Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden (PSX)

1) It's in French. What good is that to most people here? 2) It's in PAL format, which won't run on NTSC TV's. 3) The BT site it was on took down the torrent in about ten minutes. I just don't want the little fuckers spoiling the game for those of us that will buy it.

Translation: It's a multi-platform game developed on for the PS2, and not really upgraded graphically for the Xbox. Not sure if I'll get it, or not. I may just wait until it gets cheap.

Didn't an Xbox also reflect a bullet? I'd like to see a PS2 do that.