AndrewTS

I'm shocked nobody brought up SVC Chaos, which is horrible for too many reasons to count. The typical excuses made was that it was released "too late" and that it had been "long surpassed" when it was released. It's a damn 2D fighter, folks (and by folks I mean SNK fanatics who must justify the insane prices of the carts they purchase). 2D fighters haven't taken a quantum-leap forward in gameplay in a hellalong time. SVCC would have been horrible 10 years before it was released. Street Fighter 2 has things like "acceptable hit detection", "animation that doesn't make me sick," and "music that doesn't make you clinically depressed." The pre-match quotes almost save the game, especially since they led to the quote-generator and its hilarious results. Match of the Millenium on a damn Game Boy Color-level portable kills it in playability.

In Rise, P1 is stuck with the blue wuss. P2 can pick anyone. And actually, based on some reviews I googled, I think Fight for Life has better overall reviews than Shaq Fu. However, this is mainly based on FFL's obscurity and Shaq Fu's notoriety. SF is terrible, though. It's nearly impossible to even jump kick anyone. There are terrible Game Boy fighters that even allow you to do that. Even freakin' Slaughter Sport lets you do that. However, I think Street Fighter the movie gets a way worse rap than it deserved. First off, it's not the horrid arcade game, which threw in a bunch of MK-based moves for no reason. It's basically a really slow, mushy-controlling SSFT with a weaker roster, completely different hitboxes (because of the fact that the human actors don't have the proportions of the cartoony world warriors), and lame elevator music. Playing 2 player is a riot, as you laugh at all the terrible voices and the goofy-looking digitized versions of the SF moves. Plus the whole *concept* of the game is so surreal it must be experienced. Super Mario Bros. The Movie--the game would have been fantastic. I would have loved to drop Dennis Hopper into boiling lava after stomping on dozens of reptites--er koopas, and flew around levels on rocket boots.

I've yet to see the conclusion to Champloo. AS started dicking with the schedule again right when they were getting near the end, and when I missed the premiere of the last ep, the expected Saturday replay was an ep at an early part of the series. Argh! While it's easy to gripe about InuYasha, AS usually has some decent anime series (GitS:SAC, Paranoia Agent, Bebop, SC and FMA makes up for just about any complaints I could have towards them overall). However, it would be nice now and then to play some older stuff that isn't so readily available now and then. Do we need another repeat of the entire FLCL series?

As someone who admittedly has only played against scrubs and the computer and is an intermediate player at best, IMO MK3 is teh suxx0r5 in any form and I'll take MKII every day of the week over any incarnation of 3. SNK have rarely had 2D fighters as good as Capcom, but I think the new game (2006 aka Max Impact 2) should abandon the real sidestep for a strafe and make the game just like Street Fighter EX, because they can't do 3D gameplay at all very well. KOF'95 played like crap compared to the later games, but the graphics and music blew me away at the time. Rugal was a pretty badass boss, the whole team up concept was still fresh, plus Athena's goofy pop song made for a cute ending.

Definitely. While the game's creative direction is both an apology for Warrior Within and a an attempt to recapture the magic of Sands of Time, it has the best combat system out of the three, and some of the most varied and well designed platforming sections. If you like it, I'd definitely pick up the dirt-cheap Sands of Time (be aware that the combat will be much rougher). Warrior Within is a harder game than either one of them, because while your objectives follow a linear pattern, the game environment is non-linear. If you don't know exactly where you need to go, you could end up having to re-do an area to make it back to the central hall hub. Plus there's a nasty glitch that could erase your game if you go back through the same time warp you just came out of. I had unwittingly done this on PS2 before I knew about it, and didn't run into the glitch, but don't tempt fate and try it. WW has a lot to like, but a lot to hate as well. Although 2 Thrones is best to play after the other games, because there's spoilers a-plenty and references to the old games throughout the game.

*Currently* Europe exclusive. I'm not buying a white one. I'm hoping for green but not even Japan has that.

That thing in the menu that says "Combo Breakers" or "Easy Combo Breakers" would have something to do with it. Try turning that off. How so? Clayfighter was my first fighting game, but as soon as I played Street Fighter that was it for that game. Plus the sequel sucked. Although the sequel did have a ridiculous number of palette-swap "hidden characters." Rise of the Robots is 10 times worse than Clayfighter. I have it on Saturn. XM vs. SF kills it. Plus Sakura has lots of weird tweaks (the upward fireballs, the change in her move commands, etc). The Dan joke was totally pushed to the limit in the game, what with that ridiculous ending.

EDIT: The new roster update is apparently fake. Ignore this.

You can install the game to the HDD if you happen to have one, to reduce load times. As it is, though, there's almost no loading.

Did the part of the first level where you had to push a fragile crate across a ship deck with crappy cover, under heavy archer fire, just so you can use it to get up to the next area and kill all of the archers take place within the first five minutes? I think it was much further, but I liked the first 5 minutes and still think that sucked ass. Also, I wonder how the hell archers managed to shoot me through 5 feet of a stone block. Yet, I'm pushing it through an area and still do. Not even arches on the extreme left/right that could plausably hit me. No no, but right through the stone block. Renegade and I both liked the first level, but after that it's a drudge through the rest of the game.

Never saw Patlabor 1, but I found Patlabor 2 irredeemably boring. Good art/animation, though.

"You have fists of God!" I was surprised the price was $29.99 (instead of the usual budget price of $20), but Alpha 3 looks and feels better than I remembered it ever being. Unlocked the Arranged Alpha 3 (which is basically Upper). There is no Reverse Dramatic Battle, but each of the Alpha games includes Training, Survival, and Dramatic Battle. Dramatic Battle is you and either a 2nd player or a computer partner versus a few computer opponents. You can pick your computer partner except for Alpha 3, which pairs you up automatically. Alpha 1 is basically the same. The arranged music from the PS1 game is missing, there's no ability to select the Ryu/Ken vs. Bison original dramatic battle from the main menu, but the secret characters are available without a code in all modes but arcade. The Alpha 3s are missing a some of the PS1 modes, like World Tour, but all the PS1 characters are selected in the Arranged Alpha 3, even Guile. Pocket Fighter is missing Running Battle (which is just Survival, which seems odd that its missing), Free Battle, and Edit Fighter from the PS1 version.

I always see it referred to as "2nd Gig." Is that something explained in the series (perhaps an ep I missed), or is it just the 2nd season?

I liked the Ghost in the Shell movies, but actually enjoy the SAC show a lot more. Stuff actually happens without the need to make the dialogue so thick, to make the animation impress the hell out of you by having long sequences of visual metaphors, and no need to watch lots of scenery with no characters in them while the soundtrack tries to put you to sleep with chanting and drums. Whatever happened to the guy responsible for Riding Bean/Gunsmith Cats? His stuff kicked ass.

Mega Move = unrealistic "super" move that you can do any time. Not the regular finishers. Diesel's Mega Move--you have to stun your opponent, stand behind him/her, hold L/R, and down down right b. Doesn't ever seem to work. Everyone else's I can do without a problem. Primal Rage is a really interesting case, though. It came out at the height of MK madness, got a lot of alleged critical praise, then nobody cared about it. The control mechanics (holding multiple buttons down then doing many a joystick gymnastics routine to do a move) didn't sit well with many people. The PS1 version looked beautiful, with a fabulous cgi intro. I rented it, drooled over the graphics, but when I played it I thought "wow, this isn't very fun."

Was every single guide book/cheat site wrong? Because Diesel's mega move is nearly-impossible to do. I did it once, and never again. (on SNES) HBK's megamove makes Rumbles on RAW ridiculously easy. I'm surprised Anya had so little to say about the topic.

Minute or so a week...I'm not sure how that stacks up to my hour or so every few months, but your apathy for the game is rather impressive. How far are you? I've just completed the Trial of Atlas in Pandora's Temple. The dead guy there who stacks bodies on the pyre is so far my favorite character in the entire game. "I'm dead and my job sucks, but hey, just want to give you some friendly advice." God of War is a display of mind-numbing tedium wrapped up in absolutely bitchin' presentation. Shame I can't have fun with it. On the other hand, Prince of Persia games I can play hours on end, have fun, and want more, damning the lack of hours in the day and damning the length of the games when finished (okay, I do have my gripes with Warrior, but even that one shines a lot). There are enemies that I have to fight tooth and nail against and get satisfaction from killing, instead of a bunch of monsters you mow down half-a-dozen at a time. However, that's pretty much me, it seems. Of course, in that equation I must of course count my bias for platformers, GoW's pitifully half-ass platforming and sometimes-horrible camera angles. In PoP, the combat is flawed, and is an excuse to keep you fighting before getting to the next brilliant platforming sequence. In GoW, the combat is where it shines, but you get it out the ass. There is platforming and puzzle solving, but the platforming is pedestrian and the puzzle solving is frequently tedious because of circumstances where you can't avoid attacks (rows archers before you get zeus' lightning, for instance). PoP I can look around, explore, wondering, "what the hell am I supposed to do there?" So you scout. Climb a wall. Jump a ledge. There's risk, but easily-countered risk with your powers. Then you figure it out. "Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!" Kind of like Zelda but with jumping. Anyway, then you do it, and you move on. So after you finish the game, go through it again...you can kick ass up and down the place, and have a hell of a lot of fun doing it. Very replay-friendly, in my belief. Although PoP's presentation took a hell of a nosedive after Sand of Time. WW is frequently ugly, the sound-mixing is terrible, menus and such just aren't as pretty as they could/should be. The real-time cinemas are often very poor, mainly with the different volumes of characters/music and the character models themselves. Hopefully Assassin's Creed will fix all of that.

Justice League Task Force is worth the dollar to see how absolutely horrible Acclaim could make a knockoff, at a time when Capcom was creating some remarkable Marvel fighters.

They did, 8 years ago.

(Thread bumped, because my Comments That Didn't Warrant a Thread fit in well here) In fact, the engine itself is the only thing I like about God of War. I hate that game. It's one of the most thoroughly unpleasant games I've ever played, and only its overall quality saves it by being burdened by all the usual "Mature" pitfalls. You've got the ridiculous amounts of gore, blood and guts. You've got strong misogynistic undertones. You've got a "hero" I'd sooner kill than help. You've got the silly plot that's a pretty slim excuse to just kill more and more. I hate the game so much that I've yet to finish it. It's not that it is hard, it's just that after about an hour or two, I get so disgusted with the game I have to abstain from it for about 2 months+. Plus the annoying crate puzzles you have to solve while being attacked by enemies are just ridiculously lazy game design. Actually, rarely anything in this game is little more than "annoyance." Nothing is really "hard." I'm playing on normal difficulty, and I could scarcely imagine how pitiful the challenge would be on Easy. They really wussed out on God of War 2. The only way I would like to play it is if I can hunt down and kill Kratos like you did Aries in the first game. There is hardly a more unlikeable protagonist in gaming. In fact, as soon as I finish GoW1 (at this pace, I'm guessing that'll be 2 days before Twilight Princess), I'm never playing it again.

I meant that's what Thrill Kill seemed like (they developed that). I think SM is better than what you give it credit for, but it does reek of a lot of the usual Midway laziness (particularly in the touted story mode). However, the fact that the engine for SM is either the God of War engine or a well-done clone of it really helps. In fact, the engine itself is the only thing I like about God of War. I think it's possibly the most overrated game of this console generation, and I'm more excited about what can be done with the engine itself than any sequel. (EDIT: More thoughts in the God of War 2 thread).

I feel the other way around. Elliot came off as an all-out dick to me, not just a slightly-overprotective father. Toss up whether it was just the writing to blame, but he seemed to really overplay it. Nolte I loved because he was supposed to be a loon and played it as such and then some, and him replicating his DUI mugshot was a cool bit of self-deprecating humor. Bana and Connelly's dullness really made it noticable too, although maybe Elliot/Nolte were unconsciously doing it to keep the film from being an utter snooze. I'm grant that the "HULKSMASH" strawman-builders may be blaming casual moviegoers and not other posters here. However, they don't make that clear, and frankly everyone from movie critics, to comic fans, to casual moviegoers have ripped The Hulk a new asshole for many varied and valid reasons. However, IF The Hulk were a just bad movie with lots of smashing, it probably would have gone down a lot smoother. Instead, it's a thick chowder of failed elements that makes you gag. More formulatic comic-book based films are going to come along, do the same cliche things (Fantastic 4, I'm looking at you), and likely be way more successful and get better WOM than the Hulk did. I think this is what these posters are looking at, but don't lump me in with those moviegoers. Think about it: you see a movie you like, but it's well known that a lot of people saw it and told everyone they knew "that movie sucked, don't bother seeing it." So I can sort of see the bitterness there. Rendclaw, likewise, has a good point about the expectations built up about the movie, too, although I personally didn't have those expectations. I read reviews on The Hulk. I knew what to *expect*, but I was underwhelmed at how pitifully it was executed.

Ahem. 3 in one page.

I love how the folks who defend The Hulk literally have no valid points, just fluffy generalizations ("PLOT! CHARACTER! DRA-MUH!") so they completely ignore the criticisms and build the same straw-man over and over ("UWANTED2hrHULKSMASH!"). Hell, 2 people did it in the span of a 1 page thread. I don't *hate* the movie (I saw the damn thing twice), but I laughed. A lot.

Political overtones aren't the same as satire, though. LotD played it straight.