AndrewTS

Yeah, but almost all of the superstar-themed arenas sucked. Bret's was allegedly the Dungeon, but it looked more like a tiny arena, with paneling on the walls, weight-benches, and an actual ring. So not really. I think just those ten wrestlers were in the game, but there was also an "In Your House" arena, which was one of the best, even if it was still ugly as hell compared to WM: TAG's one arena. The other arenas mostly had a few badly-digitized people standing around. The IYH one had a full crowd actually cheering and reacting to moves. Wrestling games with no crowd reaction really feel lacking.

Isn't Bravo already the unofficial gay network?

Yeah, saw a review or two a while back. The verdict is--i's awful, and the sun will rise in the morning. But, it's going to probably be hilarious, so I'm going. the Loken sex scene won't hurt, either. Perlman probably doesn't feel he "stooped to" this. He's always mentioned about his roles that he likes acting, but it's a job. He's never going to be the lead in any big-budget hits other than the Hellboy series. However, as long as Hollywood needs a big, freakishly ugly guy who can act well, he's going to get plenty of work. I don't know/think Loken can act well, since she'd been a model primarily before T3, but Hollywood's apparent bias against tall women hurts her (she's 5'11"). Uma's one of the rare exceptions that gets plenty of varied roles. He only made a cameo appearance.

I love Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, and I still pull it out when friends are over. I bought my PSX primarily to play the "best" version, although it clearly is a massive downgrade visually, and is missing things from the arcade version. For example, the music, some of the bonus flags they'd award you, and some voice samples. The game was in production so long, by the time it came out, Bam Bam, and Doink were all gone, I believe (perhaps more). There was a rumor about Adam Bomb in the arcade version, but it's gotta be a hoax since nobody has ever even posted a screenshot. The sequel, In Your House, was developed in-house by Acclaim--so of course it sucked. Yoko was unquestionably the best character in WM: TAG--insanely overpowered. IYH I think Vader would also take the crown, but Hunter and Goldust were both pretty damn tough. While inferior in almost every way, IYH did have a few things over WM: TAG--4-player matches, Warrior's insane rambling (and it was the last WWF/E game with him in it), more "realistic" moves for most of wrestlers' movesets, the awful "super pins," a hilariously awful opening movie with a cheesy rock song, and "endings" that were little more than the wrestlers' intro videos, but for the time were cool.

Well, aren't you special? The slimlines are overrated, BTW. You've probably heard of the issues with it--you get a built-in network adapter, but no cooling fan. I have it on my entertainment center on the bottom shelf--about 4 inches off the floor. If you play a game for more than about a half hour, just about every time suddenly the machine starts making loud noises as it plays the game. No problems otherwise, but it gets really annoying. I miss the on/off switch, and having to hold the reset button in to put it out of standby and to put it back in standby every time you want to play the game/remove the disc is annoying, too. I wish EBs/Gamestops would sell refurbed (original model) PS2s with the flip tops already installed. It's not like there's many good games that you can play online with the PS2 anyway.

*cough* NASCAR *cough* Oh wait, NASCAR needs cars to work. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> NASCAR's public image is also hell of a lot better than WWE's. They've made huge efforts to change it in the past 5 years that paid off immensely. In the meantime, it could be argued WWE's made their image even worse.

That probably has him covered, but as far as fighters released here, that friend of mine recommended Gundam Battle Assault 2. "Battle Assault 2 by far in both cases. good controls and even selection from at least 3 different Gundam universes" There's a fighter on PS2 he also has (I think it's based on Seed), but the selection of characters is very limited, and it's a 3D game, giving it its share of new problems.

That's a non-licensed fighting game.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=c...id=297&Itemid=2 Of course, the big losers here are gamers. After all, that money likely would have been plunged right back into the company to assure the continued standard of quality people expect from the Sony name.

"Are any of the Gundam games any good? The last one looks real interesting to me as a fan of the series, because it looks like I could put Deathscythe vs. the RX-78(original Gundam) in 3-D space or something." If by "good" you mean a quality fighting game the likes of an SFII or something--don't count on it. However, a friend of mine has nearly all of the Gundam fighters that came out here in the States and plays them a lot. I could ask which he likes the most of the lot. Although for non-fighting games he says Zone of the Enders 2 smokes just about every licensed mech anime game he's played. "Does anyone make really good platform games anymore? Mario Sunshine was so disappointing to me, and while I might check out Jack 1 or the platforming, the new ones go in a very differant direction from what I see, with more gun stuff thrown in." Jak 1 is okay, but probably hard to play these days. Seems extremely generic and dated today. Jak 2 and 3 have fine storylines but they're like kid-friendly GTA games with too damn much collecting, racing, and stupid distracting BS involved in them. Jak II probably is the best one, since it has plenty of platforming and the "sandbox" style stuff isn't too irritating. Jak 3, on the other hand--I played about 3 hours of the game and hated nearly every damn moment of it. I think about 10 minutes of that time was actually spent in a real platforming section (IOW, not counting the sandbox city). Even the camera is flat out HORRIBLE in some areas, which wasn't really a noticeable problem in the first 2 games. It has weapons added to it, but they suck. However, the Ratchet and Clank games destroy them in every category but story. The Ratchet and Clank series is awesome. I'd recommend starting with the first one, then Going Commando, then renting Up Your Arsenal. Going in order allows you to unlock bonuses in the next game, and there's some attempt at "New Game +ing" going on, too. Up Your Arsenal rocks but it's much heavier on combat than the more platform-focused first two games. The Sly games are good but may be a bit too old school for some people's tastes. The Viewtiful Joe games are acquired tastes. Platforming/beat 'em mix that you should try first, then decide on.

I'd assumed it ran under the park, but you're right--it's even in the manual. Maybe X's enormous robot body was still in just the design phase?

It's kind of assumed you need to buy into the 50s sci-fi cliches, and that X's body was beyond saving, possibly in a coma after his defeat in SoR2, and that evil scientists working for him removed his brain from his body, hooked it up to electrodes, and viola, his brain lives on without a body. Apparently the system keeping the brain alive also allowed him to remote control his robot(s) from afar. However, considering that X apparently has scientists capable of making as many clones of his thugs as possible (at least I assume that with the Alien-inspired cave in SoR2 where baddies pop up out of nowhere), it seems kind of silly that he wouldn't have them clone him another body. Those old films often also use the conventions that, without a body, the brain is pure thought and cold logic. They're assumed to be thought unrestrained by emotions, represented by being physically separated from the heart. That's why you often see good people become eeeevil as giant brains in a tank, supposedly. Although there's still your already-evil folks, who just become less human and therefore supposedly more frightening as brains in tanks--like Mr. X. So--basically X becomes a brain in a box because the makers of the games were likely just sci-fi geeks at heart, even if it makes less sense than the previous games. translation of the original Bare Knuckle 3 story/cutscenes: http://www.classicgaming.com/soronline/sor...translation.htm And for more pointless trivia/dissection of the disembodied brains (and heads), this is interesting: http://www.jabootu.com/tshb.htm

I hope you do. One of most awesome, frustrating, yet satisfying final boss fights in gamedom awaits you.

One of the worst Sonic platformers by far, but that I actually enjoyed playing--Knuckles Chaotix. It was one of the only platformers for the 32X--it, Tempo, and an "upgraded" Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure are about the only ones that come to mind. It was really hard to track down a copy--my mother had to run me all over the greater Pittsburgh area until we found a Toys R Us that had one in stock. The game itself is gorgeous, pixelation aside, with lavishly-detailed levels, all of them HUGE, colors that put the SNES to shame. The music was great--less traditional Sonic and more catchy, tropical-sounding fare. The gameplay was innovative--each character had a handful of fairly unique special moves, and using the Combi-rings to slingshot around levels felt very intuitive. The 3D special stages looked and felt amazing. However...the execution and final product was extremely lacking. The game was riddled with design flaws. Enemy placement was extremely sparse. Use of the combi-rings seemed forced in many cases. For example, the spin-dash capabilities of Knuckles, Espio, etc. were far weaker than they were in the true Sonic games, so they made you use the abilities even when you normally wouldn't need to. You'd often be stuck with a character above a platform and one below, leaving them often vulnerable to attack. You'd often be sailing through the air, both characters swinging around in the air to-and-fro with little control. Very little new was done to take advantage of the play mechanics. There were fewer secrets and hidden areas than in either Sonic 3 or S&K. After playing those games, Chaotix on the overall seemed like a total joke. Worst of all, it seemed like most of the time your partner was more a hindrance than a help, and you'd be better off most of the time to just pick up and hold your partner in your arms, and run through the level until you reached the goal. So everything distinctive about the gameplay was frustrating, and ultimately, little of it was necessary to beat it. But yeah, I had fun with it for a while, despite all that. Why they decided to make Sonic Heroes afterwards I have no idea.

I own "Versus", and it's pretty fuckin' sweet. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Versus kicks all kinds of ass dubbed--hilarious. When I first watched it, I was like "WTF" because the camera work starts out looking TERRIBLE. Early on, every shot seems framed wrong, people will be talking outside of the frame, or partially out of the frame, some shaky camera action. It's hard to watch. Get past that stage and it becomes a blast. Obviously about 95% of the budget was used on the gore.

UTH: I think the point he was trying to make is that those games were all good, so he's unable to put the finger on why. Sonic Heroes and PDS suck. Big difference.

"What happens in six months?" Twilight Princess is released. "What glitches?" Rough idea: http://www.gamewinners.com/n64/ZeldaOcarinaTimeGlitches.htm There's tons.

Hey, bps, haven't seen you around in a long time. However, if I want to hear Morgan Freeman's voice, I can go see March of the Penguins or Batman Begins, both of which interest me about 100x more than WotWs.

Arcades haven't been extremely popular in a long time. I think it's because the 2D fighter boom and the 3D fighter boom have both come and gone, we have systems that offer experiences nearly identical to the home, and even when arcade machines offer high-quality games that offer a fairly unique experience--i.e. DDR, those willing to shell out the cash can often get a peripheral to mimic the experience. You still hear about the occasional fighting game tournaments in areas like NY, LA, and other major cities where players get the opportunity to play against lots of human players. Even so, except for Tekken 5, I think the major tourney fighters are "old" games like Tekken Tag, MvC2, Third Strike, etc. You've got nearly 6 months to get another copy and get crackin'. I may start another game on my newly-acquired gold cartridge. If nothing else, I can geek out by playing with the glitches and not worry about risking the game on my gray one. At least it's relatively short. Once you have the password you can skip it, thank goodness. Medusa heads are really screwing me over through my run through the NES Classic Castlevania, so yeah, know what ya mean. Bottomless pits are one aspect from 8-bit and 16-bit games I've never been welcome to see return. It was some people's first ever RPG, and came after a huge RPG drought. Hardly any worthy games but Suikoden filled the gap between 16 and 32 bit. It had much higher production values than any RPG that came before it. That and dab of nostalgia = gr8est game ever in some people's minds. Now, something I stole from somebody's site and kind of paraphrased: I think "replay value" in games are overrated, and the amount of hours to complete a game shouldn't really be boasted as a feature. A good 3D action game may have fantastic gameplay, be brimming with secrets, boast 15 hours or so of gameplay, etc, but are you going to really enjoy it if you're often limited to playing it in half-hour chunks? Very few adults have time to take 4 hour gaming sessions. A half hour of Super Metroid (unprepped, no speed run guides, etc) will still let you enjoy plenty of gameplay. It's enough time to get through the opening section of Metroid Prime, but after that, making progress is going to be relatively slow. Katamari Damacy likely is a big hit with so many old school gamers because you can pack in a ton of gameplay in a relatively short timespan. But it lends itself very well to playing over again because it's so damn fun. Like Metroid, once you have a feel for it, you can go back, do it better, quicker--without having go drudge through 10 hours of junk first. Another of many reasons I find most RPGs to be pure torture. When I was a kid getting off from school I had all the time I needed to conquer RPGs. Very few RPGs offer the ability to just enjoy playing without worrying about leveling up, save for a handful like Chrono Trigger and the Mario RPGs. Doesn't make them better RPGs, just geared more towards my tastes.

Microsoft is has been doing the exact same thing with the X-Box and likely will be doing it with the 360 as well. IIRC, they'll be losing approximately $75 on the 360 at the planned price point, so they'd be a little ahead of Sony.

One of the worst gun games ever, by far. There were about 2 or 3 different types of enemies, and if you blasted an enemy through the nards they'd no-sell it. Your weapon was a gun that launched CDs with lethal force. There's a joke there that's way too obvious to bother making. I owned the Playstation version for a while, actually.

"You know who gets a lot of shit nowadays and really doesn't deserve most of it? Ted Woolsey." I've always thought so, but there's no reasoning with a lot of "enlightened" RPG fans who seem to lack the understanding that the 16-bit era was a vastly different time, and that the censorship/localization of games are going to reflect that. Yeah, FF7's translation blew. They went out of there way to recreate the basic text display so they could fit in all the names, etc., so there's little excuse for it. I assume those are "console-tans" in the above picture? Speaking of Woolsey, I'm reminded of Spencer Nielson, the SoA music composer who did the music for Ecco and composed some of the music for the US version of Sonic CD. You'll hear plenty of people cry how he "raped" the US version. I actually liked a lot of the Sonic CD tracks, and considering that the (unchanged) "Past" tracks are extremely boring, and nowhere near as memorable as much of the other music in the series, I'm not too upset. Sonic Boom vs. Toot-toot Sonic Warrior--sorry, I prefer Sonic Boom, despite it being cheesy as hell, and Sonic Warrior being catchy. However, I'm more of a rock/metal fan than I am techno anyway, so it fits in well with my tastes. Renegade actually owns the European Sonic CD (which has the same music) though, so he'd probably be the best to compare/contrast.

Nobody is referring to Final Fight as that. However, it offered simplicity and style in spades in a well-polished title. I had owned Final Fight 3 for a while. It was fun, but it isn't quite = to the demand for it. You're got some better graphics, but at the cost of fewer enemies on the screen, and "super moves" that honestly don't enhance play that much. However, the bad reviews for it were somewhat unwarranted. Fight Fight 2 was basically a weak "um, sorry we screwed up the SNES Final Fight so badly. Twice. Gnaw on this."

I'm like, totally stoked that you can surf the internet with a PS3, just like a computer! It'd be something completely unique and new to the console business. Wait, console? No, the PS3 shall not be besmirched with that ugly "console" label. It's a comprehensive entertainment electronics system!

"the show has posted an overall ratings gain of about 3 percent compared to last year on one of the most competitive nights on television" Wow. 3%. Yet, IIRC, on average their PPV buyrates are declining, save for WMs, and their house show attendance is awful.