Anya

It'd be better if your name wasn't even actually Andrew. I called MS today about sending in this second 360. I talked to the girl on the phone for a bit and she agreed this whole thing is stupid.

Great, Quake 4 crashed and I am now getting a dirty disc error. So my second 360 is broken. Absolutely ridiculous. Has there ever been a system launch this screwed up?

The thing I remember most about Run & Gun(2 in particular) was the obnoxious demo for the arcade version. Every 5 seconds the annoucer would scream "Run and gun 2! UGH!!!!". It was next to the Tekken machine so you'd hear it constantly. It's been like 5 years and I still hate it. It doesn't sound that bad but I cannot put into words how annoying it really was.

Actually from what I've read Julia is worse or about the same. Everyone on the internet is bitching, but it's hard to tell what's melodrama or not. I know she got a new d/b+1 low that is unsafe and a new f+212 string that is not a natural combo. Yay! Another weak low. Thank you spirits! I do know on the plus side 111/1134 has been reanimated and is apparently much harder to react to. But still, Julia's fun just based on how satisfying it is when you get a CH or low parry. I love Cassie. Ringing yourself out with 4K after the match is over is probably the single best thing in all of SC. I've still barely played SC III. I was playing SC II every day and really getting into it. The arcade getting rid of it killed that, pissing off every regular in the process. Guess we're going to have to meet up for console until they get SC III arcade. Either way it's forcing me to finally move onto SC III. I'll probably learn Sophie.

Well it got hype leading up to it's release but I don't think many remember it now so I think it'd count as a lost classic. Singletrac also did another car combat game....underwater in subs. It was Critical Depth and is even more forgotten. It sucks...

Rogue Trip. After Singletrac developed Twisted Metal 1 and 2 they left Sony and the rights to TM were given to 989 who put out TM games so bad it nearly killed the franchise. Singletrac released this as a true successor and it was the only car combat game that could come close to TM2. It's basically TM but with tourists you can pick up around the levels. You take them to spots on the map to earn money you can spend on powerups and health. It's like Crazy Taxi before there was a Crazy Taxi.

I am pretty sure all the US DRs are just imports. I really want to try Lili..... My arcade just lost Soul II and replaced it with a broken TTT. So stupid. Do you still play 5? I was burnt out on it for part of last year, only briefly getting back into it for the 5.1 tournament. I got really into 3rd Strike instead. The hype for DR and dropping my weak Mishimas for learning new characters got me interested again. New characters like...JULIA. So like months later how is SC III? Did the glitches kill the scene yet? If we get the arcade version I'll play it more.

Good. Now Namco needs to stop slacking and get Dark Resurrection over here.

I don't consider that plenty. Most of them are not even really beat em ups. I want an old school simplistic beat em up, not a 3D action game with kung fu. The only reason games like Shaolin Monks would be a beat em up is because there's not any old style beat em ups anymore. Hugo needs to be in Streetwise.

Urban Reign is good Rise to Honor is ok Shaolin Monks is ok Beat Down I haven't played The Warriors I haven't played State of Emergency 2 I haven't played. Didn't know it was a beat em up. DBZ Sagas sounds bad. That Crappy Subgame in Tekken 5 is.......crappy TMNT sucks and has the worst voice samples in the history of games Buffy is good Buffy Chaos Bleeds is ok Not a good track record. None of them even come close to the quality of the old school games. Even the "good" ones are really only good for a 3D beat em up. Anyway the point is the game could still be good even if it's "extreme", "mature" or whatever else. It's FINAL FIGHT. It's Cody and Haggar. It's Metro City. I never thought they'd actually do a new one. It has more potential to be good than most other new beat em ups. Of all people YOU should be giving it a chance even if it's extreme. Look at Warrior Within.....

Not on SNES. SF Alpha 2 Gold was the US version of SF Zero 2 Alpha and was part of SF Collection for Saturn and PSX. SNES has SF II World Warrior, SF II Turbo, Super SF II and SF Alpha 2. god Capcom's milking is just too funny when you sit back and look at it. "Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha"? That doesn't even make sense!

There's also Buffy and Buffy Chaos Bleeds. But how many of those are worthy?

"Another" xtreme beat em up? These days there's not many beat em ups, xtreme or not. If it's fun it's fun regardless of the story or art. I thought the ninja turtles were lame but the beat em ups were good.

SFA II Turbo isn't even a game. There is Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2. Two totally different games. Alpha 2 on SNES is really bad. It's a cart game but it has load time. I don't get it.

You don't even need Mame. You can take it a step further and get the actual arcade versions for a reasonable price these days. For about the price of a new PS2 game you can get a CPS2 motherboard and get most of the fighters Capcom released in the 90's. The point is the convenience of having them all on PS2.

Well my 360 came back. It's apparantly a new one. I got a letter of apology and a note saying it's a replacement unit instead of a repair. Ok cool. Start it up and it freezes with 3 red lights in the circle of lights thing. Scary. Start it up again and it seems to work. Playing DOA4 now. I'm going to be so paranoid of a crash.

Yay DOAX2! I'm there on launch day. I liked DOAX1 more than the DOA fighting games. You get to play dress up and trade gifts.

I liked the first two back in the day even though they were poorly designed and had bad controls. I have no hope for this series now though. Wasn't Angel of Darkness supposed to bring the series back too?

There was already a PS2 Darkstalkers collection last year. It just didn't come out in America. If they're not going to do anything new then I want a 4th Street Fighter III game.

PS2/Dreamcast games looked amazing compared to 32 Bit era games. If you told me Quake 4 and DOA 4 were Xbox games I would believe you. I don't expect everything to have great graphics but weak looking 360 graphics seem to be the norm not the exception. I wasn't even expecting much from DOA4 and was still somewhat surprised at how disappointing it looks. The backgrounds are ok I guess but the characters look ripped straight from DOA3. The first thing I thought when I was selecting my character was that it looks exactly like DOA Ultimate. I don't doubt it will eventually improve but it's an underwhelming start. Backwards compatibilty is nice when you have a lot of systems and not much room. Right now I have a SNES, Saturn, Genesis, N64, Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube all hooked up with a couple other systems ready to go. I had to rearrange some stuff just to get the 360 in there. I actually thought about retiring the Gamecube just to make more room and that system isn't even dead yet. It's also nice for traveling. I have a PS2 for the office at work and it's great to be able to play a PSX game.

Backwards compatibilty for 360 is a joke. It's not just key games not being supported. Some that are don't even work right. I know of a few that are unplayable or horrible on 360 and shouldn't even be on the list. It's like they did no testing at all.

What does PS2 have to do with anything? They're valid issues and points that need to be raised and discussed. Criticism for Xbox does not have anything to do with supporting another company. If that's all a marketing guy can do they need to quit wasting their time with him and talk to someone who can actually say something worthwhile. It's not just MS either. They all do this and the press lets them get away with it.

Yeah that's a big part of the reason I stopped paying attention to the gaming press. It's not news, it's just press releases. It's like they're all so afraid to ask the real questions. If they would all start acting like real journalists they wouldn't have to worry about pissing off the companies. MS deserves to be grilled about all this. How can it be months after launch and the systems are still nearly impossible to find? What is the explination for this? I don't care about damage control and BS like "we didn't expect this much demand". I want to know the real reason and when it's getting fixed. Just how many are defective? What are they going to do about it? 1Up was right about the weak graphics. The 360 is not what I would consider next gen. What does MS have to say about this?

I have Xbox TT. It has horrible graphics. The hair looks like a PSX release. Neither game has deep combat requiring any strategy but GOW's is smooth, looks cool and the magic attacks are fun. TT's is so stiff and sluggish. Like I hate how it takes a decade just to stab a grounded enemy. POP games have great design but bad execution. There is like no polish at all. GOW is an overall great experience. Have you go to the part where you see Aeries destroying the town? Nothing in TT is as cool as that.

More polished, much better combat. TT looks bad while GOW hs excellent graphics.