AndrewTS

AO is 18. That clerk was just jerking you around. However, the store can sell it to you no matter what age you are. The ESRB ratings are, just like film ratings, voluntary and industry-enforced. Wal-Mart doesn't carry A-O games or sell M games to minors because it's store policy. Gamestop only recently started to crack down on employees who didn't check IDs, but it was still store policy not to sell M games to anyone under 17. The A-O rating is pretty much pointless because of the stance of major retailers. The big stores will not sell games that don't have an ESRB rating, because they choose not to. If you don't submit for an ESRB rating, major retailers won't carry it. If you submit and get an A-O...well, they still won't carry it. An A-O game may as well be an unrated porn game. So an A-O rating does nobody any good. Chances are if you're getting that rating, it's on a hentai game that a publisher will likely slap their own content label on and sell through porn shops or secluded sections of anime/manga stores. So those don't need ESRB ratings anyway, because again, they're voluntary. If it's not one of those games...well, those are about the only places that are willing to carry it, anyway.

They'll edit it and resubmit. Get an M. I expect testicle-chopping to stay and bare breasts/sexual content to be removed. Nintendo may have that policy, but it doesn't matter. There's no way the AO rating will hold because Take-Two knows an A-O game is DOA on retail. Money will rule the day. Not that Manhunt is, was, or ever will be little more than ultraviolent trash.

My slim has held up very well, and I got it just after it was introduced. Although, I'm still wary of playing it for any long periods because of the lack of a build in fan, and it's annoying how it gets rather noisy when playing most PS1 games over a half hour. Anyone else notice that? However, Sony seems to have gotten their act together with their HW reliability. Aside from PSP dead pixels the system seems to be doing fine, and PS3 doesn't appear to be having any major reliability issues--well, save for spotty sixaxis connections.

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/06/a...0_failures.html

Shadowrun doesn't even have 1P, does it? I tried the Vampire's Rain demo. Seems kind of eh. If it's any indication of the final game, it's all about stealth and sneaking around while trying to avoid vampires that are like spring-loaded tiger people on crack. Surely the full game gives you *some chance* against them? I thought I could shot at one in the head from a safe distance only to have it no-sell, spring up like 30 feet and kill me in 2 seconds. It seems like a 2nd rate splinter cell with vamps.

I personally found it to be an utter POS. Or maybe it was just WinXP. Hard to tell. A wireless router costs about the same or less, get one.

Reactions to the playable demos weren't very positive last year, so it could have been a QA measure too.

Brlliant! Didn't notice that at first... But he appears uninjured so where are they going with this? I have The Fart Button in one of the ads.

It appears some refurbs have an extra heatsink being added. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p...mp;postcount=85 Time will tell if this will actually fix the problem for good.

Well, the end scene is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exmbIzAyLCc "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc." WWE is still lame as ever, I see.

I'd only recently heard of this title...looks great: Penny Arcade was the first I'd heard of it... Gameplay looks pretty good... http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/odinsphere/index.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xynxGDuId74...ted&search= Impressions look positive... http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3157062\ http://ps2.ign.com/articles/783/783630p1.html Plus, it kind of helps that I've been playing Super Paper Mario, which is terrific, and seems to bear a lot of gameplay similarities to this game. Also, I sense a Valkyrie Profile influence in the gameplay and theme as well. Anyone here able to comment on it's long lost ancestor, Princess Crown?

People said that in 1995. BEFORE Symphony, Guilty Gear, Metal Slug X, Street Fighter Alpha, etc. PS1 does have lower internal RAM than Saturn, so the system has a lower capacity for prerendered animation. That means that it may not be able to hold every frame of animation/every element in memory for immediate use. So, what developers can do are: 1. Change the animation frames/graphic elements. This is most common with arcade translations, and it was common for years when developers made ports to the 16 bitters. Heck, the home version of Killer Instinct 2 did the same thing, using 3D BGs instead of the arcade's BGs, which were basically FMV. 2. Let the game load the necessary elements. You'll notice this with Shang Tsung's morphs in the PS1 games; keeping every character's animations in memory at once isn't going to happen, but same character works fine. RPGs can get away with it because of their inherently slow pace, but not fighters. 3. Adapt the game play itself to the hardware. Capcom turned X-Men vs. Street Fighter into a one-on-one fighter, with the "crossover mode" only available to use if the character choices were limited. 4. Use an add-on of some sort. Saturn had an additional RAM cart that plugged into the system to expand its RAM. Well, two technically (1MB, used mainly by SNK, and 4MB, mainly used by Capcom), but you could also get one that switched back and forth between them. PS1 didn't have this option. This allowed Vampire Savior and X-Men vs. Street Fighter to be practically perfect ports. Most pre-FFVII RPGs were like that (anime intro, 2D sprites, high quality music), but afterwards 3D became the norm quickly.

Something Square needs to be credited for, for better or for worse, is that they tried to push the graphic envelope. The SNES had gorgeous Square RPGs like Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana), Seiken Densetsu 3, Final Fantasy VI, Evermore (even if you dislike the game...), Mario RPG. Other companies' RPGs? Well, there was Breath of Fire and that's about it. I guess you can only make squat RPG characters and overhead backgrounds look just so good, but Square seemed to aim for exceptional. Early RPGs on PS1 were largely 2D or ineffective 3D experiments. FFVII opened the floodgates. I guess justification for larger budgets helped a lot, too.

Chrono Trigger came out (in America) the same *month* we got the Playstation, BTW. Seiken Densetsu 3 came out in Japan around that time, too. It was about half a year longer and we'd get Super Mario RPG. A whole year after we got CT we'd get Beyond the Beyond, which I'd *swear* should be getting praised any moment now, because of nostalgia!!~~ A few months later came Suikoden (December 96), arguably the first PS1 RPG that mattered in any way, shape or form. It was a full two years after CT came out that PS1 got Final Fantasy VII, and RPGs were getting on their way of being "next gen"...graphically, at least. Aside from that, the genre's evolution has been rather uneventful. The next entry in that fanboyism-enraptured nostalgia trip thing I posted: http://www.gamespite.net/verbalspew/archives/entry_332.php

Agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. Nothing compares to climbing that huge-as-hell tower in the final level. I'm currently on Warrior Within which isn't *quite* as good as the first, but has some improvements. Andrew, what sayeth thee about the third PoP, the Two Thrones? In a nutshell, Sands of Time presentation, characters and theme + WW combat and level design + Dark Prince = Two Thrones. First off, the game is linear again, and the art design is much more like Sands. Original Prince's voice actor is back, too. The character models are a bit disappointing, and are the biggest letdown visually. Prince's internal dialog, the Dagger of Time, and Farah return. The level design is as solid as it was in Warrior Within but the control seems tighter--I didn't have that "accidentally dive kicking off a wall and falling in a pit" problem from Warrior. There are stealth kills, allowing you to sneak up on and kill enemies undetected. Fun and useful. However, they're basically required when you need to get to a Sand Gate, because if you're discovered more enemies will be spawned until they *do* kill you. The ability to use your dagger to stab plates on walls allows for more intricate and complicated puzzles, but nothing totally mindbending. Dark Prince is totally "love it or hate it." I found his parts of the game both easy and fun, because you can shred through enemies with minimal effort, and the ability to chain-swing through those areas is a total blast. The fact that he loses energy as his sand drains sucks (and is the biggest complaint), but nobody who has played the last 2 games thoroughly should be too worried unless they're *really slow* at figuring out very easy platform jumping puzzles. Overall, I loved the game, felt it was a welcome return to form after Warrior Within went astray (generic rage, "mature" themes, blah blah), and the game's final levels and the ending are extremely satisfying. The only part of the game I really disliked was the chariot sequences. Thankfully, there's only like 2 or 3, and persistence will get you past them. The original Tomb Raider is, quite frankly, a real bitch of a game. Imagine Sands of Time. Imagine it with Resident Evil style "tank" controls. Imagine it without rewind. Imagine it with only very limited save spots. And those save spots can be used only *once* and they're gone forever. Yeah, that's basically the original TR game. I beat the game! However, I'll admit I used a book, though. Because of the game's conservative use of save points, you end up having to bypass the ability to save all the time, and you never know when there's going to be a nasty trap up ahead to catch you by surprise. It really makes Legend/Anniversary's checkpoint system seem ridiculously forgiving, but anyone who really wants to challenge themselves can reload an old save if they die. Oh, for a look at the massive visual differences, you can see Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV4F_07q8hc&NR=1 Yeah, combat still could use improvements, but there's little of it anyway. The T-Rex area is where you WILL LEARN HOW TO USE THE ADRENALINE DODGE AND HEADSHOT OR YOU WILL DIIIIIIE!!!, though, and once that's mastered you should be fine unless you get cornered. The normal enemies seem to be as stupid as they were in the original game. I'm not sure if that was intended, but the ability to casually to go First Person as you point your gun at a wolf stuck running at the wall, and pumping the fleabag full of lead sure feels better than the old game's auto-aim. After Peru you get a boomstick, though (although ammo is limited). Lara isn't Dante and isn't supposed to be; the meat of the game is the platforming and exploration, and that's better than ever.

It cites the "ultra-violent" game as featuring players killing "soldiers" in a church that is apparently modeled on the Manchester cathedral. Ok, I admit in Gears I can confuse "soldiers" all the time with the Locust Horde because of the darkness, but the bug baddies in Resistance, according to all players I've discussed the matter with, aren't even humanoid!!! When Sony had the chance to rebut it, they said "uh, it's not real," instead of pointing out the flagrant inaccuracies. Any time mainstream press covers video games, expect the most ridiculously lax, inaccurate reporting imaginable.

Same. I haven't watched WWE in a long time, but I'd have to flip on WWE just to see Sid. If nothing else he's hilarious to watch.

Not at all. WWM has, IMO, always had a lousy, pompous attitude that dripped heavy from every sentence he typed. It's no fun arguing with him at all. He took an obvious jest as some sort of invitation to debate. I have no interest in reading anything from him anymore, and I'm letting him know that. I ignored him not when he posted that response even; I Ignored him when he made his lame comment where he's trying to stereotype me. He makes lots of assumptions he really shouldn't. He said he doesn't have any respect for my opinion. So, what's illogical about me not caring to see his opinion anymore? Loading up his signature with philosophers' quotes is just ironically hilarious, though. It's Pretentiousness 101. I'm done with him; end of discussion. It's actually quite verbose compared to many an NES ending, you have to admit.

My postmaster's son's 360 failed after 5 months. He got a refurb sent to him...after 3 weeks it failed. The failure rate is only 3%!....every week! Most competent companies that have problems like this find out what the problem is, send it up to engineering, have any design-related product flaws fixed, and then incorporate it in newer units. The x-clamp "theory" is being spread quite a bit, it seems. Plenty of folks claim success with replacing them with alternatives. Yet MS doesn't comment on it and refuses to change design. If yours fails OOW, file a complaint with the BBB. Do *not* *pay* *Microsoft* *one* *damn* *penny* to repair their lousy system. Every 360 has the same x-clamp design flaw. Every 360 is going to fail sooner than it should because of it. It's not *if* but *when*.

He did resort to the Genie for Ghostbusters, though. The ending, BTW (NSFIE): http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/nes/a/silver.htm

No, you're an ilk. Ah, much better.

Grow a sense, WWM. I didn't bother reading past your first sentence, anyway. Hoped you enjoyed typing that.

Look back at Chrono Trigger: http://www.gamespite.net/verbalspew/archives/entry_329.php

Uh-huh. A friend and I were making up lyrics too it. "I..fragged..that..kid...in Unreal Tournament!.."

Since there's that Silver Surfer movie coming out soon (you know, the one guest-starring the Fantastic Four), Angry Video Game Nerd has ranted on the NES game: http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=20300&type=mov It also contains some constructive suggestions of how the game could have been better. I have two comments on it: --one, the pot doesn't appear to have killed him, but rather the dripping slime *just* as it came out. --two, there's actually a special attack to kill multiple enemies (like in nearly all shooters), activated with Select, that I don't think he knew about. Would have probably helped a little.