AndrewTS

I thought his name was spelled "Stryker?"

Dean Striker?

"...and then he broke my nose."

...nope, still ridiculous.

...nope, still ridiculous.

Oh well, so much for Visc in the Elim Chamber.

Visc--UnMasterLockable!

Visc looks like he has the most comfortable ring gear of all time.

"Maria was on the TBS reality show Outback Jack." ...that sounds familiar.

So he turns heel because he's a moron who screws up an easy pin?

At least they didn't call this one Dragon Warrior V

I'll probably do 10x better in the US than VII because it actually is getting...you know...advertised. DWVII's graphics looked like ****, too. That didn't help.

1up has a feature up contrasting the US "meh" opinion with Japan's rabid devotion. It's funny how they talk about the FFXII demo maybe making it a bit more high-profile, and in the same breath talk about Brave Fencer Musashi and Tobal having demos...when virtually nobody bought those games for the games themselves. I love Brave Fencer Musashi, but I'm not about to kid myself about where most of its sales came from. The first US ads for DQVIII were terrible. You had those cgi vines shooting out of pipes making you think it's some sort of drain cleaner commercial. Then the main pitch of the commercial is "Japan loves it, so should you!" The more recent ads are a bit better, though. I want to give it a shot, though, because the tone of the game and the gameplay itself is quite appealing.

You haven't played many bad fighters, I guess. It's like SSF2 compared to Shaq Fu.

Done. A few of these I don't remember ever even seeing, like Mad Love, Beware the Creeper (both of which have been in CB's sigs), Judgment, and Chemistry. Legends of the Dark Knight was...well...bleh on repeat viewing. Okay, well the older versions of Batman and the vignettes themselves were quite good, but the rest of the episode, and the ending sequence lay there and die. Even the commentary track was pretty dull. The Sprang-like section was hilarious, and the Miller version was so weird seeing animated...like the Maxx. Then DCAU Batman has a relatively dull fight with 4th-string villain Firefly. Meh. Plenty of great eps, even if I haven't quite enjoyed many of them as much as 1-3. Mad Love, Over the Edge, Sins of the Father--all great eps. Growing Pains is a bit overrated and loses the effect once you're in the know, but it's good too. The Demon Within is waaaaay out there, and hard for me to take seriously compared to the rest of the series. I may have watched maybe 2 episodes of Batman Beyond, depending on if you count Return of the Joker or not. I had classes whenever it was on, and didn't seem like it would appeal to me.

Have fun. http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=...rticleid=258951 Yay! A few whacky enthusiasts bought the 360 in Japan! Yeah. Go to hell, Peter.

The new Game Informer is actually a pretty decent issue, featuring a very cool year in review section, some previews that are kind of interesting, and for giggles a Starcraft: Ghost preview. And from the YiR section, Game Informer's ten worst of 2005: 10. Death by Degrees 9. Dead to Rights 2 (Anya cheers--had rented/bought this and agrees it as terrible as people say). 8. Lunar Dragon Song 7. Narc (another critical whipping boy--but it *did* really suck.) 6. Shadow the Hedgehog 5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (guess sometimes you can judge a game by the cover) 4. Iron Phoenix (a bad fighter--seems like Anya's territory to comment on). 3. Red Ninja End of Honor (could have used a few more...well...7 months or so in development to fix everything wrong with it). 2. Predator: Concrete Jungle (should have been a competent Metroid Prime clone, too bad). 1. Chicago Enforcer (never heard of it)

Game Informer seems to be making me try to like them. (While I'm on the Bloodrayne tangent, the BR movie has a release date...Jan 6!) Two Thrones is their current Game of the Month, they did a retro-review on Super Turrican, and they actually have some interesting previews. However, the Two Thrones review itself is terrible. It's like a preview of the game with a concluding opinion tacked on. It contains absolutely no useful insight into the game at all that you couldn't gleam from the previews/gameplay footage. Scores: 9.25 for the main, 2nd opinion was 9.0. A Gamestop clerk hooked me up with the PoP neo-trilogy sampler soundtrack--very cool. As long as the series is in competent hands, I hope it lives on. Battles of Prince of Persia looks dreadfully uninteresting, though. I wish I had a gaming-quality cell phone to play the mobile TT.

Well, it's an old joke, so I chose to flesh it out a bit with the insomniatic rant. MM GB : heard it was bad MM2 GB : extremely fun but VERY easily. Perhaps the easiest MM game ever. MM3 GB : decent MM4 GB : Overrated because of the rarity. MM5 GB : Haven't played it. I saw a used one today for 20 bucks, but passed on it. MMXC has ads in and on the backs of magazines, which is at least very promising. There's been no alleged emulation problems arising with it, which supposedly was the problem with the GB MMs (lost the source code, IIRC).

I made it up at 1 o'clock in the morning suffering a little insomnia.

Both will be out in 20XX. Seriously, though, it was announced way back in Feb of this year, and I expected surely it would be out by now. I understand that there's work to do on the bonus material...but come on, now. GBA MMAC is a sick joke at this point that Capcom won't kill, cuz it's Mega Man. It's a more sane option at this point to pick up the occasional used GB versions of MM1-4 you can often find at EBs and Gamestops than to wait for Capcom to make enhanced versions of games that were meh translations in the first place. Events likely to happen before GBA (or DS) MMAC is released: Zelda Twilight Princess released Bryan Singer's Superman 2006 The Official Movie of the Game Turbo...is released...to stellar reviews. PS3 comes out. Koji Igarashi and his team produces an excellent 3D Castlevania game that has a great camera, has spot-on and fun platforming sequences, and includes a premium bonus disc with Rondo of Blood in its US debut. Legend of Zelda Wind Waker Remake with non-cel-shaded graphics debuts on Revolution. Hideo Kojima makes a game with simple, addictive, fun gameplay and avoids overblown cinema screens and convoluted backstory. The PS3/Linux team up heralds a shift in the balance of OS power and Microsoft takes a huge hit. Mario appears in a new, original 3D platform game universally hailed as the greatest new platformer in the last 3 generations. Halo 4 The Movie The Game X-Box 360--number one in Japan!!! Team Ninja's Keiji Itaragi hails Tekken 6 as the greatest fighting game of all time, and gets Accutane treatments. Furries become socially acceptable. The Mario Party series comes to an end. The Final Fantasy series comes to an end. The Madden series comes to an end after an embarrasing sex scandal. The series continues as the renamed "The only NFL Game 20XX : what are YOU going to do it about it? Yeah, you're gonna buy it. Bend over...yeah, shake that cheek with that wallet...we gotcha right where we want you." The included hologram sticker with a voice chip that shouts the product name when the case is picked up is deemed a bit too far even for EA, and sales tank. 10 million copies of the game end up in a landfill, and over the next few years EA limps its way to bankrupcy and dissolution. DS US sales overtake the PSP.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/princeo...ia3/review.html Another review--and check out the Watch link next to Gameplay Movie 1 to get a sneak peek at fighting that first boss. On a related note, it seems the Aeon Flux game may actually be a good platformer in a similar vein, with several very positive reviews just about everywhere I've seen it reviewed. Suprisingly, our occasional guest Bloodrayne geekette Yuna Firerose hasn't popped in to give us feedback on it (Terminal Reality, the devs of Bloodrayne, also did AF), because it appears AF was developed like an outgrowth of the Bloodrayne series.

Juggernaut does look awful. Sure, UMX Bullethead S&M Freak Juggy wouldn't look so good on the big screen either...but he looks like some 80's pro wrestler doof in his ring entrance gear. "Tonight's opening match! Bane vs. Juggernaut!" If you're going to be a superhero/villain and need a protective helmet, you shouldn't leave your face exposed. Totally looks short-bus.

*old guy petting tigerskin* "The Japanese Calvin and Hobbes." *at night a guy drives onto a net...which is hauled up in the air by a helicopter, yeah...* "They're going to return that Japanese car to the wild!" *sits down, Crow in Mr Rogers voice* "Hi boys and girls, I'm going to take my shoes off and put my little sneakers on!" *pulls heel off shoe* "Cherry cordials? What a thoughtful old man!" "He's building a meal--he's got the four button groups there" "Oh great, the instructions are in Japanese." "This is only a test..had this been an actual movie..." *on a boat, some guy lying down reading a book* "Captain of the valdez, here." *sailor comes in holding head* "Doctor, I have this awful headache!" Tom: Okay...climb in. "Meanwhile, back on the Greasy Bastard." "Unzip me, will ya?" *big metal cone drops down on hostage guy* "Those lights are capable of blinding you." "I'm not afraid! I'll keep my eyes closed, but I won't answer any questions!" Crow: Wow is he smart! "You're being very foolish. Soon you'll open your eyes and you'll be blinded for life." "You can't hold out much longer...where is Mighty Jack's base?" Tom: Next to the drums and the guitar! "The kidnappers must be *clever* and ruthless!" "We can't just sit here like this!" Crow: We're getting hemorroids!

I need to rewatch Mighty Jack. I've endured about all of the insane, probably-butched-to-hell-in-translation, incomprehensible Japanese episodes I have multiple times, but I haven't mustered the courage to come back to that one. I have it somewhere but I'm afraid of finding it. ...hell, I'll watch it tonight. I've seen this episode of the Tick again recently. Jungle Goddess is boring as hell compared to how it could have been. Lousy 50's. Not even Superman could save it. The Sven and Ollie joke referenced in ELM's avatar killed me when I saw it. *pops in Mighty Jack* I'm going in...