AndrewTS

Not at all, it's my speculation. Whether you want to accept it as truth or not is up to you. My speculation is as good as Kojima's word, at least. Also, neither Kojima's useless word, that article, or the game itself really seems to indicate your "one game character" statement. Nothing there said he definately wouldn't be meant to take over for Snake. What reason is there for him to be a "rookie" anyway? Oh yeah, I vaguely remember it being buried somewhere in one of those stupid codec plot twists, something about him being a puppet, blah blah, just some after-the-fact justification. However, explain to me why Kojima, apparently so intent on "shaking up" the game by doing new things, changes the character because otherwise he wouldn't be able to rely on the same exposition tool he used in the previous game? He even reused many of the MGS1 plot elements, too.

It's not just that they're long scenes. It's that unlike Xenogears, the long scenes don't go anywhere. At all. They just drag on forever. The first 5 hours could've been put into 40 minutes and you wouldn't lose anything. Just a bunch of annoying techno babble that makes you want to stab your eyes out. If it was a movie, I would've walked out after the first hour. Tyler Straw Man: You have a short attention span! It isn't the game makers' fault! It's your's! It's your stupid mind! Stupid, stupid!!

Bull. Why the secrecy then? Why not allow actual playable missions for Snake within MGS2--oh yeah, they added that in for the X-Box port, but still was a half-ass concession for a major mistake. Yeah, because you couldn't create a tutorial mode, nope. The real reason: Kojima would be unable to use his usual storytelling method to spout his convulated world view and continue to utilize his pompous gaming vision. Rebellious? Compared to what? Certainly not compared to most of the contemporary RPG game character designs. You see, because he could extend on his flagrant abuse of cloning in the storyline to have players wondering just what the hell was going on when he began the first series of pointless plot twists. Bah, who needs good writing when you can just confuse? Congratulations, you succeeded, Kojima. So, basically, Kojima admits he's a pompous ass, a liar, and thought people might think the character sucked, but did it anyway because of his own stubbornness.

"You're missing the point. Why would you put in a character to be more marketable...then not market him?" A couple of reasons: first off, it would be a big surprise, a publicity stunt of sorts. Raiden wouldn't as-of-yet be marketable be image alone, because the aim was to have Snake rub off on him and establish him as a capable character on his own while still having a mentor figure there to guide him. Thereby, overcoming resistance to those who might be turned off by the image. In theory of course, and in practice Kojima failed to do that. "And it's not to sell a future MGS3 since he was planned to be a one game character. " You know this how exactly? Did that liar Kojima tell you? Suuure, MGS2 leaves no room open for a sequel. Nope, nope. However, if there would be it would have been MGR, not MGS3. It it was supposed to a "one-game character," why would they stick you with the character after pulling that surprise early in the game? Why did they take the game away from Snake in the first place? Why did they leave the game open to a sequel with several loose ends at the end of the game? Yeah, Raiden probably would switch to another organization, but he would have still have had several options available to continue the series.

Incorrect. Snake is marketable in the States, in Japan not so much, so they assumed Raiden would be more so in Japan and that he'd also be in America, considering the Final Fantasy series' popularity here. Kojima foresaw how players might resist Raiden, so instead of letting the cat out the bag early, he "stuck" players with him, hoping he'd grow on players. Perhaps I hadn't made that clear, but it should have been obvious considering Kojima's heritage and the typically provincialist nature of Japanese developers.

Gee, you've totally convinced me with your condescending tone, poor comparisons and failure to recognize any game flaw. Guess what, I watch movies and read books too! That's why I feel a video game is a poor medium for Xenosaga. Then again, the writing isn't very good and the story is so littered with cliches that it wouldn't be a book or movie I'd have any interest in. Add in stupid, constant fanservice and some downright creepy stuff (not in the good way) and you have a game that's admittedly good core gameplay is overshadowed completely by the crap it is mired in. MGS2's story sucked. I'll give you plenty of reasons why if you're going to persist with this foolishness. Face it, by the time we were getting near the end of the game, the developers were just pulling plot twists out of their ass with no regard to logic or continuity. You still persist with this wise-ass, condescending tone, so I have no qualms about doing the same. The hate had nothing to do with "OMG not playing as snake!~", Mr. Straw Man. I had no real emotional attachment to Snake so strong that I had to play as him in the sequel, but the replacement so such a shoddy replacement it made me long for those nearly-endless Codec conversions from MGS1. Take a look at that fruitcake--it screams "you know, we don't really think Snake is so marketable anymore, let's try this guy, he looks like one of those Final Fantasy characters." It was a transparent, shameless pandering attempt. Combine that with the fact that Kojima lied to the media, lied to gamers, and baited and switched the protagonist and the main story with an annoying side story. I'm glad it blew up in Kojima's face, and wish it would have been uncovered before so many poor dopes shelled out for it. I actually have no problem with them replacing Snake with some one else if the character works. Raiden didn't. Yes, I understand it would have been a neat idea to start with a rookie who wasn't as skilled or experienced as Snake, and such a rookie would still whine. However, "Jack's" past is rather contradictory to the whiny bitch we had to play in that game. Of course, if you buy into the whole genetic aspect, Raiden never had a chance in hell of living up to Snake, who was bred to be a soldier.

Sure it wasn't a role along the lines of a thug in an action movie? Eh, I'm only watching for the main event, but I noticed Torrie was sharp as usual, responding to Rene's questions like "huh...what...I don't understand..."

Well, Time of The Apes, Mighty Jack, Fugitive Alien, Fugitive Alien 2, and Gamera are the Sandy Frank ones, but that's about it. As for the rights issues, one of the reasons they went with Rhino is because of Rhino's tape library: many of the movies on MST3K is Rhino's property now, thus the videos can be released for those. Oddly, there are still a number of them that Rhino has the rights to that haven't gotten the home video treatment. Some of them may want too much money, but I doubt it. Quite a lot of the studios gave them the rights for the original runs with only the intention of getting a few bucks out of otherwise worthless turkeys, or they usually sell the rights to small local stations who need to fill up airtime. The rights granted are usually non-exclusive of course, but unless some one is making decisions that has a personal stake, they'd likely be rather reasonable about it. I own a majority of the episodes shown on the show, sans KTMA or season 1. Mostly through fan-made VHS tapes, half or so I acquired through a friend. We purchase from the same tape trader, make copies, and give the other one a copy so we effectively cut both our costs. More episodes are comin', it just takes time. Naturally, it's best if when they come up with the DVDs that there are extra features--the uncut version of the movie and other extras, for example. *hates Joss Whedon anyway for Alien: Ressurrection.*

The Sheen family, Nicholas Cage, etc--probably the majority of celebrities go by a stage name, it just isn't as well known sometimes. I wouldn't go by my real last name, and I don't blame Mr. Hickenbottom for not wanting anyone to know his real last name either. At the same time, a large number of the wrestling characters are little more than extensions of their real personalities. For example, Steve Austin isn't too different from his real self Steve Williams. They drink lots of beer, have problems with authority, and like to beat women. *Vince McMahon isn't terribly different from Mr. McMahon. Some of the wrestlers call EACH OTHER by their "stage name," so why shouldn't we, if it applies? The exceptions would probably be, say, guys who have been on the indy circuits or in another company far longer than their current company. I doubt Nick Dinsmore would take offense to being called Nick Dinsmore by a fan instead of "Eugene." Foley has been basically playing himself since he did away with the kayfabe original Mankind (except for as Cactus, Dude) however. In addtion, he'd been called Mick Foley so much that it makes sense to call him Mick. Spanky actually went in reverse, starting out in independents as Spanky, going by his real name in WWE, eventually reverting back to Spanky--so either would work. I don't think Terry Taylor would like being called Red Rooster, etc. Exercise a little bit of common sense. Bob Holly should consider himself lucky if a fan remembers any of his names, on the other hand. It really often depends on the case. However, calling HHH "Paul," Taker "Mark," and Kane "Glen" seems very pretentious to me. Stuff like heel, face, worker, etc--Flair's wrong about that. He's rather old-school and hasn't fessed up to the fact that the business has changed. Vince killed kayfabe, and once you've seen the man behind the curtain, you just can't put the curtain right back up and pretend it was never pulled away. I doubt a guy in his fifties is really going to be very in-tune with the business as it currently is. --- *Shameless cheap shot, but I'm just making a joke, K?

HHH and Metallica--gee, how ironic. Metallica is a pathetic, broken-down, balding, miserable shell of its former glory as well.

X-Entertainment has a couple episode reviews of Get A Life, BTW.

What's that about? As far as I know the last Mw/C episode was basically just a regular episode with a message at the end of the credits saying it was the last show. I remember Foley bitching about how much work voice acting was when he did Low Brow, of course, he's far from a professional at it. I think they get a pretty damn handsome salary, though. I laugh at how people are portraying this as the big bad studio screwing the makers of this show--oh wait, they aren't. Although I must say I like Ripper's sig. Like when the show started?

I may have been wrong about the major cities thing, but anyway... http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/nielsen_families.html

Cait Sith isn't even a real character. It is merely a toy that Reeves operates. And besides, Xenogears has its fair share of annoying sidekick characters with Chu-Chu anyways. At least Cait Sith isn't crucified. At overrated as I think FFVII is, at least it didn't have the annoying tendency to take itself so damn seriously like XG. When it steamrolls over XG I'll not mind it one bit.

First--you have to be in a major city, then I think they pick you out of a hat or something.

Your results may vary. I didn't like any of the Xeno games, but I think Gears is better. However, if you decide to buy Gears, first remove the 2nd disc. Then smash it with a hammer. It makes the overall game much better.

"You could still do the 'hot tags' and all that, but the non-tag team should always lose. When they make the 'hot tag' why can't the experienced team roll out of the ring to regroup?" No idea. They instead just run right into the clotheslines and one usually gets dumped forcefully from the ring. You covered just about all of the beefs I have with the tag team divisions right now. Often times you'll hear the "out of their element" talk when a main eventer is tag teaming against a real tag team, but it never means anything. Hell, sometimes a main eventer beats a tag team by himself. The only tag team maneuver that is really built up to mean anything is the 3D, and that's a shame.

It's still going on, so I don't get what you're asking. On the results page you can click a link to view all of the brackets so far, though.

Remember when tag teams were considered greater than the sum of their parts, and you couldn't just stick any two singles wrestlers together and make a tag team? They needed to be actual tag teams and have tag team chemistry going, because a fairly experienced tag team (like it or not, at least Scotty/Rikishi qualify as that) should always beat a team of singles wrestlers who never have teamed up together in their life.

Mario 64 played vastly different than the previous games, and it was more than the perspective change. You had a huge number of jumps and attacks at your disposal not offered in the previous games. Depending on your viewpoint, that may be good or bad, however there was a lot new that Mario 64 brought to the table. I wouldn't go as far as to call OoT revolutionary, because while it was a big change for the serious and an extremely well-crafted 3D game, it wasn't really anything that hadn't been seen before. It was still great, though, and was an excellent chapter to the series. You've missed the entire point of why people didn't like Raiden. Not at all, I give it credit for that, but at the same time, when you make a story such an integral part of the game, and it fails on several levels, then it hurts the game experience. It's a lot different than a fighter, a platformer, or a shooter where, if the story sucks, who cares? It's rarely or never an issue. I don't see anyone arguing that we shouldn't have good openings/endings. Even cinematics in between are fine if they aren't excessive, distracting, pompous and pointless. However, then you have a game with Xenosaga...there's some gameplay in there, nestled somewhere in there among a huge box of foam peanut cinematics.

D-Von vs. Eddy and Big Show vs. Eddy make two weeks in a row the SD main event is about 100x better than what we're going to get at Judgment Day, and for a TV match I have no problem with it. In fact, I'll watch the main event, but screw the rest. Gee, I never noticed that. Next week: Rico/Haas successfully defend, breathe a sigh of relief, and bukkake Miss Jackie.

I hope it doesn't... they could end up blaming it all on Eddie. I think the unchartered success of WrestleMania XX pretty much exempts Benoit or Guerrero from ever being blamed about anything again, unless WWE *blatantly* ignores the WM stats. Jericho's title run was considered a disaster despite there not being much difference between him and other recent champs and him outdrawing HHH's pathetic title run following it. So WWE thinks what it wants to think. BTW, I seem to recall WWE running this same tag team angle with Rico before, with Rikishi, back when he was with Billy and Chuck.

Torrie being pushed as a regular character, Rico tossing salad and becoming WACKY TAG CHAMPS WHO HATE EACH OTHER with Haas, Bradshaw beating up more Mexicans--yeah, that's just how you fix a run of shitty shows, fucktards.

"Am I the only one who thinks Edge hasn't been getting the expected reaction since he came back to Raw? Nobody seems to give a shit about him, including me." I feel the same way. Maybe he doesn't need to be face, but he needs a character that works. I'm not buying this boring-ass INTENSE!~ character he's using now. It doesn't fit him or his look, but at the same time his comedy character was strictly midcard and hurt all his opponents. The heel and face scenes on Raw are both rather bloated--I really don't get why he needed to be put on Raw in the first place.

http://www.ansemreport.com/ Okay, not a whole lot there, but still...