Jer

Lol. Especially at the Mr. Anderson one, it's so tempting, haha. Poor Hugo Weaving has totally cursed himself, no one is ever going to be able to think of him as anything but Agent Smith.

Spoiler (Highlight to Read): Liked it, didn't like the ending. Everything after the first long fadeout (everything after the eagles rescued Frodo and Sam from Mt Doom) was at best boring, at worst laughably bad. Like, the scene with everyone at Frodo's bed had half the theater laughing, I doubt that was the intention. It was just so ridiculously exaggerated and cheesy. Twenty minutes of nothing happening and teased fade-outs is a pretty anticlimactic way to end an action packed movie, and I was very ready for it to be over by the end. The main movie, though, was really excellent. The battles were great, and I was really drawn into the Gollum/Sam/Frodo stuff. Very well done all around, very few complaints there. The Mt Doom sequence was also really good. So yeah, great except the ending. ***1/2

I disagree that FF7 is easier to break than FF6. Ultima's not even the strongest thing in FF6. Atma Weapon + Illumina + Genji Glove + Offering will have Terra or Celes doing 70000 damage per hit at high level. One attack will kill *anything in the game*, Kefka, Brachiosaurs, whatever. Otoh, at least in FF7 there are the weapons, which actually take some strategy to beat, unlike anything in FF6. KotR against Emerald or Ruby is much weaker than a fully equipped Terra or Celes against anything in FF6. FF6 is great and all, but it's easy as hell, and there's no incentives to get strong, because there's nothing harder in the game than a brachiosaur, which still falls easily to one hit from Terra or Celes. FF7's mandatory stuff is no harder than FF6's (but it's not easier either, Seraph Sephiroth is harder than Kefka unless you have KotR, which takes hours and a FAQ to get). FF7's optional stuff, though, is way beyond anything in FF6 and gives you incentive to play after you beat it.

Eric is teh graphics whore. Although he's right, early polygons <<<<<<<< sprites. I prefer NES graphics over 1994-1996 polygons. FF7 isn't quite that bad, but it still looks a lot worse than the later SNES stuff. The low poly count, big hand characters are a little jarring. The environments are pretty, though. In terms of quality, it's my second favorite game in the series behind FF6. To me, it's truly great. Looking back, there were some tedius parts and some plot inconsistancies, but playing it was one hell of an experience, and I can go back and play it now and still enjoy (most of) it. I'd definately recommend it. It's hard to say if it'd have the same impact now (probably not), but it's still a good game with a very good plot. Great music too.

The problem is that you don't know what "too far ahead" is until you're trapped in a dungeon and can't beat the boss, and then you're like "damn, I guess I got too far ahead". The game doesn't give you an indication of whether you're levelled enough until you're just stopped cold. Levelling is... meh. It's not that bad in FFT, but it's still kind of boring. And it's very time consuming.

Oh god, I know so many people like that. I hope bad things happen to all of them. The ones I know don't even lust after real girls, they lust after anime/videogame jailbait. It's so pathetic. "Talim is so hot~!". Ugh.

Meh, I like anime and a fair amount of Japanese entertainment. I've gotten into Asian music for some reason, I just like the way it sounds. I find Japanese culture interesting. I find the hardcore cosplay convention style people a little creepy, though. The only reason I'd go to a con is to take their money in SC2, since they always suck at whatever videogames they play. Cons kind of annoy me, because they give people a bad impression of fans of Japanese culture. I certainly don't wish I was Japanese/lived in Japan. The idea of living in Tokyo sounds pretty hellish. I'd like to visit sometime, though.

FFT is kind of obnoxiously hard. I have lots of memories of having to play a battle over and over, particularly like the third battle in a dungeon that doesn't let you go back, so you either have to beat it or start the game over, bad design. In situations like that, strategy was pretty much nonexistant, you just had to hope to get lucky and have the enemy not do their strongest thing. The difficulty was also really inconsistant, you could be going along just fine, and then bam, you'd run into some impossible battle that forces you to level five levels or play it twenty times. Then after that it'd go back to being easy again. It could have done with more playtesting or something. Cool game though, if you could get through it. Good plot. Probably too frustrating for me to ever play through again though.

No way, you need a good ending to have a satisfying RPG. FF9 combined the worst final boss ever with the most ridiculously syrupy, vomit enducing ending ever. It left such a bad final impression that it just killed the overall experience.

Where are these Mortal Kombat votes coming from? No one that's posted has mentioned it, yet it has five votes. I'd like to see someone justify it, since it's like not that good a series. I mean it had cool atmosphere and stuff, but compared to the other games up there (except KI), it's really shallow and simple and kinda boring.

Definately Necron from FF9. I didn't even know what the fuck he was. Kuja was built as the villian for the entire game, and the final boss is this stupid thing that isn't even explained? Awful.

I thought it was quite an excellent epic. There were definately some majorly contrived situations that were a little groanworthy, but it wasn't nearly as corny as I thought it might be. The action was truly excellent, the cinematography was beautiful, the acting was good and the main characters were pretty well developed. Quite good. ***1/2

For me it's a tie between Point Blank and Time Crisis 3. Point Blank is just damn fun, and definately the best multiplayer and most addictive gun game ever. Time Crisis 3 is totally badass, with multiple weapons, awesome MGS wannabe villians, the best gun game graphics ever and just sweet level design.

Heh I'd be curious to see the real Takeshi's Castle. I hear it's hilarious because no one ever wins. They cut the final part out of MXC, bah. Oh well, still an awesome show. The VGAs sounded pretty awful, glad I didn't watch.

Soul Calibur 2 (PS2) DDR Extreme (JP PS2) Guilty Gear X2 (PS2)

I really haven't played many games this year, so thinking of five worthy games was a little hard. Anyways... 1. Soul Calibur 2 (PS2) - This definately has to be my game of the year because I've probably played it more than all this years' other games combined. It's probably not as technically good as VF4e, it's too much of a turtle game at top level and the port was kind of weak, but I still love it. It's just fun, and I've met a bunch of awesome people from playing tourneys. The east coast SC2 players are just too cool. 2. DDR Extreme (JP PS2) - The definative DDR game. If this is the last home DDR title, it's a great way to go. Definately pick this up if you have an import/modded PS2. 3. Guilty Gear X2 (PS2) - Excellent 2D fighter that manages to both be innovative and truly high quality, at least on level with Capcom's stuff. I suck at it, but it's damn fun to play, and awesome to watch at high level. 4. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution (PS2) - A spectacularly good fighting game that unfortunately I don't have time for. It may well be the best 3D fighter ever made. It's just too bad there's not much of a scene for it in the US. 5. Final Fantasy Origins (PS1) - An awesome remake of one of my favorite old school games, FF1. FF1 was great before, and now you can play it without having to buy potions one at a time~! Totally quality remake. Too bad FF2 is total garbage, with the worst battle system ever.

I find sales figures interesting, but they don't make much difference to me practically. I have a PS2, it does everything I want, I haven't put any real thought into getting another system. PS2's library is too complete, and while there's a couple games on GC and X-Box that I'd like to play, it's not enough to justify the purchase. It's possible I'll buy a GC next year for MGS:TS, but I dunno. I doubt this sales lead is going to last long in the US. Every system gets a sales jump from a price cut, so when X-Box comes down more, its sales will go up too. Worldwide though, GC will probably always be second because it's so far ahead in Japan and it's close everywhere else. MKDA... Sigh. It's annoying that most people don't care about substance in their fighting games, but meh, it's always been like that. I'm curious, what's the best selling fighter of the post-SNES era? I'm guessing Tekken 3... Does anyone know?

I prefer SC2 over T4, but I vote Tekken as the best fighting series. TTT is probably my pick for best fighting game of all time.

GameCombos is supposed to be good for GGXX. http://www.gamecombos.com/ggxx/. Check the forums too...

The ending FMV for FF6 in FFA gave me chills, and still does pretty much every time I watch it. The Suikoden 2 ending where Jowy dies got me close to tears. I know it's not the "true" ending, but it's easily the best and most emotional imo. I think the only time I've actually had tears in my eyes was in MGS when Sniper Wolf died. The dialogue in that scene really got to me. Beautiful scene.

Butterfly and Boom Boom Dollar aren't in DDREx. You'd probably have to go back to one of the old 30 FPS PS1 mixes to find them. I'm guessing third mix, but I'm not totally sure. DDREx, though, is absolutely worth importing. It's easily the best home mix ever, with 111 songs and imo a much higher average song quality than virtually any other mix. The new stuff is incredible, it's got a great collection of old stuff, it is, for me, the perfect mix. It's pretty much the only one I ever play now, except to occasionally play Max2 USA just for So Deep.

Napster makes you pay an extra dollar a song if you want to burn it to a CD though, doesn't it? It sounded like it was $1 to let it sit on your comp and another $1 to do anything with it, in which case it's a total ripoff. iTunes seems like a much better service...

Yeah, a Xenogears anime would be excellent. I really liked the characters and what I saw of the plot, it would be great just to watch it without having bad gameplay get in the way.

I despised Xenogears. I actually loved the story, but the gameplay was such garbage that I gave up halfway through. The dungeons were in a class of their own as far as bad design. My two favorites were the one where you had to do platform jumping with bad camera angles where you had to start all the way over (~2 hours worth) if you fell, and the one with about 40 identical looking rooms, each of which made you fight about 7 unavoidable battles each time you went in one. Classic! I actually wished the plot had sucked so I could have just guiltlessly sold it back to Funcoland. Now I feel like giving up is making me miss something, but it was just too bad to finish.

Eh such is life. It's like that on every message board, and until you're actually paying for them it's not worth getting worked up over. I was annoyed that Sakura got banned and glad she's back, but neither had any impact on my life.