AndrewTS

Oh. I mean gameplay wise. I can't see how they can adapt either one properly. Batman Vengeance was so, so close to being *good* it's pitiful. The fact that they got all of the Batman TAS voice cast on hand, put together some really cool cutscenes, and tied it all together in a well-produced package nearly makes the game worth it by itself. However, the gameplay misses the mark by quite a bit. The biggest offense is that the batarang is completely worthless and that necessitates you running headlong into gunfire. It's supposed to be used by throwing it *at a gun-holder's hand* to disarm them. That's it. You can't throw it at their head, back or waist and do anything. Plus, there's no auto-lock for their hands. You have to go into FPS mode, manually aim, and throw. If you're too far, you'll probably miss (but they could still hit you). If you're close enough to actually hit their hands, just jump kick them or beat the hell out of them. The batgrapple controls were nifty and the actual melee combat was okay. It's worth picking up now for a few bucks, but the cutscenes are by far the best part. The controls feel a little loose and sloppy, but the cape glide helps alleviate that a bit. Sin Tzu is a beat 'em up, and a mediocre one at that. It has the good cutscenes and voice acting like in Vengeance (it's also from Ubisoft and may have been the same team), and you can buy more moves and upgrade abilities, but there's nothing exceptional about it at all. Plus, God Hand has made nearly every 3D beat 'em up obsolete. I'd much rather play Final Fight Streetwise over Sin Tzu anyday--it's not nearly as tedious. I played enough of Justice League Heroes to feel satisfied with it. I liked what I played, but I just didn't feel the need to play 3-4 more levels of it. It's solid, but not exceptional. Batman Vengeance and Rise of Sin Tzu are completely different on GBA. Vengeance is a crappy wannabe of Adventures of Batman and Robin on SNES (it even tried to rip off Trouble in Transit with a Spy-Hunter style level), and Sin Tzu is a pretty darn good platformer/action game. The same way Capcom did for X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

Justice League Heroes was playable. It was just kind of a crappy version of X-Men Legends. Magic. http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/mor...amp;mode=recent

Advent Children, like everything else that is a part of Compilation of Final Fantasy VII except Crisis Core, sucks and isn't worth anything but ridicule. However, ya--it was nice of them to piss away Cloud's late-game development just to make him an emotion wreck and give us some alleged dra-mah. Suit yourself, but he's just a typical black mage design...

Didn't really dig the ep much, but as soon as I saw the giant modem and stupid people talking about the orange light, I knew the exact ending. Power cycle it, dude.

Mandy Moore is still my favorite English Aerith, but Andrea's okay too. I don't understand why Suvari was so bad, though. She obviously is good enough to do it, and she didn't even use her usual acting voice. Either it was poor voice direction (which I doubt, based on the rest of KH2), or she was literally phoning it in while on large doses of cough syrup. Materia fusion seems kind of overwhelming. I figured out some pretty easily, like Cura, but others you might need to level up or master to get. Anyone have any highly recommended fusions? I like how you can preview what you get before fusing, but I've have to use them in battle to really evaluate them. Nobody asked you. Yes, people still use PSPs. Yes, the best games usually get PS2 ports, but there are still a lot of cool exclusives and its emulation capabilities are great. It's got plenty of RPGs that either are really rare or weren't localized. It has a FF Tactics with improved localization. It has Valkyrie Profile. It has the never-before-released-in-US Popolocrois. It has Jeanne D'Arc. For now, it has Crisis Core and God of War Chains of Olympus. Plus, I got mine for under 100 bucks. Less ethical folks could buy the system and not pay for a single new game, though... Nice contribution. Zack isn't emo. He's the single best lead character in a Final Fantasy game since Vivi.

Yes, I want the soundtrack for this one. http://youtube.com/watch?v=ieQ8vYmf9-g The missions are great. Even though they're generally all the same as far as design/objectives, they're great for playing in 5-10 minute bursts, making it very well suited to a portable game. It's like grinding, but not really, because you're actually accomplishing these little objectives instead of running in circles.

My Belkin works fine for DS and Wii, but my PSP is *impossible* to get online. Just flat out impossible. I get an IP time out every time.

Now and always. The dongle was just an alternative for those without wireless internet. I *think* WEP is required, though.

He's as funny as Chevy Chase. ...is now. However, he is the most funny recent SNL alumnus. That doesn't mean dick, though.

Knew about it since his very first video on The Escapist, actually...

We are getting that, actually.

Lost Odyssey's got its share of cutscenes, but you can pause and skip them, so I'm cool with it. Plus, if Xenosaga had Jansen I could tolerate it more. The game's okay but if you've played through disc 1 you've played through the whole game more or less. Anya's basically got the game beat and very little actually *happens* and the game's battle/skill system is about as dull and ancient as they come. It feels more like Final Fantasy...oh, IV...than its modern peers. Those aren't the problems, actually. It's more the repetitious game design that's the problem; the missions that never change much and aren't any fun anyway. I can't imagine what you found problematic about the controls except combat (the rest is easy). Combat isn't the games' focus (and that part is supposed to be hard anyway), and aggressive approaches to combat simply don't work well--it's supposed to be that way. If you think it's a "bad" game than you must live in quite the happy little fantasy land of little else but super A+ games. It is a game that is nothing like how it was originally planned, and somewhat collapsed under its own ambition. Remember that part in the tutorial about working your way through lines of people and crowds? Did you *ever* do that in game? Thought not. Assassin's Creed circa 2005 game concepts isn't the same beast as Assassin's Creed the 2007 retail release. They knew it was going to be a series from the beginning. Like it or not, it's probably what was planned. Hop back into the Animus and check the little attachment at the end of the last chapter. It's the ending. Yes, in text form! The story is fine, but the switch in tone is annoying.

The games mostly used glorified 3D effects, so it's possible. I'd d/l Wario Land since I haven't found an overall-good emulator for VB Great new announcement for WiiWare: Toki Tori! http://kotaku.com/378268/two-tribes-revive...ori-for-wiiware

Garrison will probably be happy for a bit, then he'll want a pair of testicles...

Maybe only on one or two jokes, but mainly because of his accent or Brit/Aussie terms I don't understand. I'm about to watch the No More Heroes one. Perfect candidate for one of his reviews; a game I throughly enjoyed while being perfectly conscious of its many flaws. EDIT: so did he, apparently.

Yes and no; they revised it to block out international companies exploiting it, but Boll's exploitation of it is still hunky dorey.

I'd think if you played absolutely nothing else during that time, the game should load quickly. When I played Ninja Gaiden Black on my 360, if I only played that, the initial load times on the game would be very brief. If I switched games, it would be back to being a long time. Anyone know if that is still an issue with the GotY edition?

Alien Crush 2: I assume that's WiiWare, right? It'd be hard to top Devil's Crush. Metroid Prime Pinball didn't grab me, for instance. God of War II actually fits that description, in a lot of ways. The amount of combat was scaled down and the puzzle-solving boosted a bit. There's more use of grappling/swinging play mechanics than in GoW1. Heck, you even have wings you wrest from an insane Icarus that are used for a few flying sequences, and when they aren't, they're used for gliding to complete difficult (or otherwise impossible) jumps. Plus the first boss battle is against the Colossus of Rhodes, although most of your climbing is the inside of it. Also, I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate God of War 1, but GoW2 is terrific.

Kotaku.com is reporting that Fantasy Zone and Wonderboy will be the first Master System titles to come to the US Virtual Console, and will cost 400 Wii Points. This adds yet another new system to the U.S. Virtual Console for Nintendo to publish the most well-known, successful titles from, then complacently forget about. Except for crappy titles that no one wants to buy anyway (see: China Warrior).

Kingdom Hearts 3? Has it been confirmed yet? I remember reading over a year ago that it would eventually be coming out, and on the Wii. Unsubstantiated rumor; Nomura announced "multiple Kingdom Hearts projects" which included DS, PSP, and and mobile spinoffs/prequels, and no Wii or PS3 title has been hinted at even. KH2 wrapped up the series' loose ends pretty tightly. Plus, the Kingdom Hearts team and Nomura's big project this year is going to be Final Fantasy XIII vs. on PS3. I wouldn't rule out KH3 coming at some point (especially with the rechristened "Crystal Tools" being planned use on Wii: http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/finalfantasy.html). However, it appears very unlikely until at least '09, unless it's being ninja developed. Square's Wii input will surely be increasing, but PS3 not being dominate left them with some egg on their faces and a lot of time and money invested in games designed for the PS3 exclusively. The Wii 3rd party bomba boogeyman/myth/self-fulfilling prophecy may cause them to drag their asses a bit, though. However, they'll go for a sure thing, no doubt. Right now, the DS is the sure thing and that'll get lots o' love first. However, Square games are about the only 3rd party PSP titles that Japan buys up in massive amounts.

Never really left, more like lurky. However, things have slowed down in the games biz these days, and I've been hitting my backlog hard. There's still plenty of games I wanna finish still, but the biggest game of 2008 (so far, and possibly period, even with stuff like Gears 2 coming) was something I am not passing up. It seems you MUST be in Shadow Moses stage...then.. There might be a trick to doing it consistently, but it seems like mashing d-pad down rapidly in sequence does the trick for me (I'm using GC controller, so that's down-taunt). However, often I just hide in a box, so there's another trick I'm sure. Mashing it at the start of the match, or mashing it while I'm using shield then letting go seems my best bet. Luigi gets no respect; no respect at all! Was up to a certain point, then stopped paying attention at anything but the character reveals. That or maybe senility set in before the game was freakin' released. Until the Prime games, I'd heard of people referring to Samus as "Metroid", and Kid Icarus is a way more obscure game. So my guess is "until it gets a proper new-gen sequel."

I think Marvin needs to be GANNONBANNED! 2 n's, not 3. On Link: boomerang seems to be a bit slower to me, but range may be different on it so that could be why. However, I really do like Pit's arrows, which you don't have to shoot straight forward. For a "sword based character" Link is vastly different from the F.E. boys, anyway. Similar ranges on basic attacks, though. Link's attacks, on the whole, dish out way more damage. Plus, the damage is the same no matter what distance he hits you. Marth's sword attacks do less damage if you're closer to him. Marth has some good combos that make up for it, though. I haven't spent much time w/ Ike.

Why? What do stickers do? (*reads the f'n manual*) ...oh. Me too.

Got the game and completed Subspace Emissary, about half of it in co-op. Lovin' it. However, having the camera always focus on Player 1 can really screw things up.