AndrewTS

Mine does. That's an awfully stupid thing. I've never even knew there WAS such a thing till this. Actually, it makes a lot of sense. There's a point where a family has too many animals to adequately care for. I think 15 is the limit in my area--at least it was for dogs. I don't think that's too restrictive. I don't know exactly what the limits are and if they vary by species. If you have plenty of hired help, then the limit shouldn't be a problem. Otherwise, though, animals can be neglected, which can be as bad as abuse.

Mine does. Oh, and this story screams "please give us our own reality show, MTV! Brooke needs the exposure!"

Oh, for the worldwide numbers, I found these. These are for the end of 2004, not the outdated end-of-2003 numbers that are more commonly found: (NPD of course) North America PlayStation 2 - 32.86 million Xbox - 13.2 million GameCube - 10.11 million Japan / Asia PlayStation 2 - 19.47 million Xbox - 1.7 million GameCube - 3.78 million Europe / PAL PlayStation 2 - 29.06 million Xbox - 5.0 million GameCube - 4.13 million Worldwide PlayStation 2 - 81.39 million Xbox - 19.9 million GameCube - 18.03 million

They don't sell because of that, and also in part because Sony wants gamers to be wowed by graphics. Aside from the SF3s and Guilty Gear, there have been very few attempts to really push the limit of 2D graphics in ages. It's a shame, though, because 2D ages better, while even something that was cutting edge a few years ago--Soul Blade for instance--is laughably ugly today. Of course, this sounds like a lot of theory with little practical evidence to base it upon. If you think there won't be plenty of ports, remakes, compilations, and budget games with lower costs, you're crazy. I'm surprised by the small impact of the used game market. Back in the 16-bit days, there weren't Gamestops/EBs/Gamecrazys everywhere like there are today. You can now go out and pick up a good PS2 game for 12 bucks, PS1 games for 5 bucks, and so forth. I'd often wondered if the used game market would hurt the primary market, but so far it really hasn't, since there are plenty of people who prefer new games, and plenty of dumbasses who trade in great games for about 3-4 bucks a pop for the credit (God bless their stupidity). I'm not getting what you mean by this. Explain. A lot of us are thinking just that. I think I'll pleased enough with the games I have from 16-bit to the present to pass on the next-gen platforms myself. "Casual gamers" can and will for Madden, however do you realize there are a lot of people who buy a PS2, the newest Madden, and little else? They may buy a handful of games a year, play them a good bit, and it's enough for them. However, I'm thinking a lot of those 20-30 year olds, who are going to have less disposable income these days (gas prices, inflation) who are probably getting jaded and frankly may not get too interested in playing another generation of games that are the same as what they've played this generation. With the 3D barrier broken, most of the new games out these days are just cosmetic enhancements of older stuff. There's very little in the way of innovation. There's about a couple of innovative titles on the DS and PSP--the rest are rehashes and sequels. The big picture is looking bleak to me.

But zombies can do the lousy jobs that no living person wants to take, and they'll accept rancid meat as payment. That's a boon to the economy! Hell, I'm fairly sure you could train any zombie to replace CronoT in a job. You just can't resist flame-baiting, can you, Andrew? It was a Shaun of the Dead reference. You said you work at Wal-Mart... "Why not?" "Because it's ridiculous!"

We should kidnap Crono, NoCal, INXS, etc and make them do stuff like this for our amusement. "It's the Hippie-lympics. It doesn't matter who wins, because they're all losers."

I smell a crash in the next 10 years.

Awesome. She probably wasn't paying attention. Judging by her knowledge of recent news, thats not too hard of a stretch. The Oscar question is the only recent one, actually. Rice only took office this year, but we knew she'd be taking office last year. Considering most of the people in one of my Poli Sci classes 2 years ago didn't know who the *Vice President* was, I'd say most of the people in America probably wouldn't be able to tell you who the Secretary of State and Defense were right now.

Just another quick reply to Ex--aside from HBK/Angle (good match) and Batista/HHH (the crowd heat will bump it up from average-at-best to possibly quite good), the WM cart is actually looking pretty lousy this year. Another *good* match would be welcomed.

What he said.

"Parental control features are useless on this thing. I doubt there's a great need for it, as many parents probably wouldn't know the first thing about how to go about setting it up (not to mention the kids who could probably figure out a way around it anyways)." Parental controls = electronic child-proof caps.

Wario is Saturday-morning-cartoon evil. If you've played the Wario games, while still platformers, he controls nothing like Mario. Shadow's not really "evil" per se, he's just got his own agendas. But yeah, looks lame. I guess this is as close as we're going to get to a new Sonic solo game, though. He controls *exactly* like Sonic--he just can't run as fast as Sonic so needs special shoes to keep up. Sounds like the concept is aimed at the people who take the comics way too seriously.

I never used my XB for playing DVDs, but I have no doubts about this because IT PLAYED AN DEMO DISC THAT WAS SNAPPED APART! No joking--the label itself was the only thing keeping the disc together (and yes, I know the data itself is kept just a little under the label), but it played just fine with just a little skipping. Damn. On the other hand, I probably had one of the better X-Boxes. I know for a fact that MS has gone through at least 3 different suppliers for their lasers--the different trays in the systems will give away which ones are different. I knew somebody whose X-Box wouldn't play a copy of Ninja Gaiden I picked up used that had a lot of minor scratches on it--nothing deep. Yet it played perfectly on mine. PS2 gets (or was getting) more Sega Sports, Midway, Activision, etc. than X-Box. Nowadays it's more even though, I suppose. And the Smackdown games have the Raw games beat with ease (don't know how the new X-Box wrestling game is yet, though). PS2 has Tekken/VF to X-Box's DoA. Soul Calibur is multiplatform. PS2 has X-Box beat for 3D fighters right now, unless you *really, really* like DoA more than Tekken/VF. X-Box is catching up though with the 2D stuff, and online play sort of gives them the edge. Recently they got GGX2 and SFAC, which is a big help, but not exclusives. Supposedly the X-Box version of the KoF 02/03 Double-pack is getting online play, too. So if you value online play heavily, than X-Box is either even or beats PS2 with 2D fighters. If not, then PS2 still has the edge. (But the X-Box loses points for SVC Chaos. Ha!) It was kind of nice that, save for English translation and online play, the "demo" version of Capcom vs. SNK 2 on the Exhibition disc was basically the whole damn game. Every character and offline mode of play on there.

Or helloooo SD Hardcore Division. Yeah, that's what they can do with those Cruiserweights...

Briefcase hanging over the ring? YES!!!

That's what I mean. It's cake to counter aeriels by hitting someone out of their climbing animation. It's harder with the auto-jump, but still very easily done. Once they've taken off (you can still nail them early in the take off animation), you can't counter but you can easily avoid with taunts that move you or simply by running out of the way. But that means even if you have 10-speed, speed isn't much of a boon and it doesn't make up for other deficiences. However, the A.I. in HCTP was pretty stupid and would run head-on into missile dropkicks over and over.

They had sold the game but I found a used SNES copy at a pawn shop in town for $5.99. Pretty good, but not the game I expected. It was hard to picture a "Prince of Persia with guns", but yup--that's what it is. I wish more games had that sidestep from the line of fire. He runs and jumps PoP style. You hold down the Y button and he runs. You can jump, but pretty much only straight up to grab onto ledges and to leap across gaps.

I suspect this is all subject to change or probably doesn't reveal much. It would be stupid to put out a lot of info on your system when the PS3 and Revolution are apparently still vaporware.

I'd be more moved if he had a running tally of the gasoline price increases.

Do you have a point in here somewhere? It would be touch competition for PM's questions, I must admit.

Come on, now... This + "The Plane Ride from Hell" > almost every single angle in WWE in the past 4 years.

No, but Sony sure loves somebody on the RottenTomatoes forums. The guy said he went through 2 X-Boxes and 2 GCs, but he still has his original PS2 he bought at launch. Un-freakin'-believable. I guess Jer, too. I must have angered the Sony gods by modding my console.

Even when my warranty is gone, the class-action suit filed means Sony has to fix systems with only DRE problems free of charge. If I don't mod my system, it crashing is fixed on Sony's dime. I had a Sega CD. I only recently got broadband. I get the idea you don't know what slow loading times are. I've got 2 right now. I have all my PS1 saves backed up on one of them, too. Yah, tons. The XB hard drive is nice, though. I have a separate DVD player now, so doesn't bother me. Hey, did you shell out the extra money for a DVD player kit for your XBox or don't you bother using it at all? There's Ninja Gaiden, the best versions of games like Splinter Cell, online play for quality 2D fighters like CvS2 and SFAC. Plus, face it--a gaming quality PC isn't in everyone's price ranges, and if it isn't an X-Box will provide you with plenty of damn-near-perfect PC ports on hardware that's less than a couple of Benjamins. Plus, the ability to convert the X-Box into a do-it-all retro console is nice--if you know the right people, but you need to know who to trust for modding, and it could ruin your ability to play X-Box Live. I owned an X-Box. I was not impressed. For me, the X-Box is a worthless behemoth of a console with a couple of games I want to play. VX is more than pleased with his. But *for me* it wasn't worth a damn. Bull. Fighters (despite the online play), platformers, RPGs, *variety* of sports games, tons of Japanese games--the PS2 library crushes X-Box's in those categories, which is plenty enough for me. There's plenty of games that aren't PS2-exclusive, but *aren't* on X-Box. I hate Sony too, but I love the games I can play on their ****ty hardware.

That actually does make a big difference. Not really.

What a stupid reply. *"Jason in the Hood" is made* IDRM: "Yeah, nobody was ever in the hood before that. I hear the projects still pay them royalties."