Comments that don't warrant a thread

[Black Lushus 0]

I dunno, Drew, I was underwhelmed by it, myself. It wasn't a bad movie, just would have been nice to see the other characters for more than just the final battle.

[AndrewTS 0]

It wasn't a bad movie

 

Bad, no. Horrendous, yes.

[KingPK 0]

Went to EB and traded in three old sports games for MVP '05 and The Warriors (which I'd been looking for for a while). I've fallen in love with both games after one day. The difference in quality between MLB 2K6 and MVP '05 is like night and day, which is not a compliment to the guys at 2KSports.

[AlexPuma 0]

I agree that Advent Children was a horrible horrible movie. I've played and enjoyed FFVII for multiple reasons, but I've always disliked Cloud and Sephiroth, thinking that they were the weakest part of the game, so it's obvious that they're going to the focus of the movie.

 

Let's find the positives of AC:

 

The Music

The graphics where pretty (although a step down from anything Pixar did in the past five years. Finding Nemo has more impressive CGI for crying out loud!)

The Turks were funny...

...That's it, really.

 

Seriously, when the music is the best part of a movie, you know it's bad.

[AndrewTS 0]

I agree that Rude and Reno pretty much stole the show.

 

Steven Blum may as well not have been in it, considering Vincent's little bit of time in the movie was an epic brood-off with Cloud.

 

And Kadaj's transformation...ok, the appearance, the voice, and even the hair, sure. The change in the clothes and the sword GETTING LONGER and becoming the Masamune? Ugh.

[Black Lushus 0]

Drew, I never did get a chance to hunt that down online last night...I'll try again tonight. It's gotta be SOMEWHERE!

[AndrewTS 0]

Okie-doke.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Real Life Mario Kart

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Well, finally picked up a DS yesterday. So far I love it. Got some games for it (both Phoenix Wrights, Trauma Center, FFIII, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin) and been messing around with it. Playing through the first Phoenix Wright (first two cases are fairly easy, but the Steel Samurai case ramps it up quite a bit IMO) and the first chapter of Trauma Center (lots of fun, but man you can NOT mess up with the stylus). The opening cnimatic for FF made me realize how far the video game market has come when you consider what handheld games were like 20-25 years ago compared to now.

 

Any other ideas for games? I was thinking Advance Wars (I like the more offbeat games), maybe even the next Pokemon iteration (yeah they're pretty brainless but they are time eaters).

[AndrewTS 0]

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is much better than Portrait of Ruin. And it just got a budget re-release in the US for 20 bucks. Get it.

 

Mega Man ZX is really good too. It's actually laid out rather similar to Portrait of Ruin. Masochists who beat *all* of the Zero games seem to hate it for some reason, though.

 

Oh, and are you a fan of rhythm games? Well, that's not important. Get Elite Beat Agents, regardless.

 

Don't get Pokemon just as a "time waster." Give your other DS slot some love and put Final Fantasy VI Advance in it.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

ALMOST got EBA today, but went with Trauma Center instead. I'll probably pick it up before too long, even though I'm terrible at rhythm games. Portrait of Ruin was part of the package I got with the DS, so I didn't have any option. I'm a longtime Castlevania fan though so I'll probably enjoy it regardless. Might have to get Dawn of Sorrow when I get around to a GameStop.

 

Thanks for the input.

[treble 0]

If you like Tetris, get that. Playing it on the Wi-Fi connection is pretty fun. Same goes for Mario Kart.

[-DeN- 0]

The

will be coming to the U.S. soon. Can't get more offbeat than that.

 

Anyways, even if you are mainly into the quirky titles, you really can't go wrong with New Super Mario Bros and the aforementioned Mario Kart DS.

 

In other non-thread-warranting news: I 100%'d Twilight Princess (old news, but what a wonderful game) a few weeks ago, kicking off a Zelda bender--and in the process re-discovered Wind Waker. Beat it when it first came out and was sort of meh about it, but playing through again I'm really feeling it. Yeah, it's far too easy and sailing gets tiresome if you're trying to collect everything, but there's lots of cool little mechanics in there, and the graphics are beautiful. Everyone went batshit when the first screens/vids popped up, but you really can't tell just how pimped out that stuff is until you're sitting there playing it. Too bad that particular take on the series is relegated to the top-down DS game(s), cus it was really fucking cool.

[BUTT 0]

The

will be coming to the U.S. soon. Can't get more offbeat than that.

Holy shit it's Hard Gay.

[RepoMan 0]

While doing a research project, I discovered that Hezbollah released a video game back in 2003. Special Force

[Guest Smues]

So like an idiot I was lulled in by MLB2K7 DS' $20 price tag today. I hadn't read anything on it, but I figured it'd be medicore was fun. And like most hand held sports games probably lack half the modes of the console versions, but all I needed was a season mode and I'd be set.

 

I just got home and loaded it up. There's NO FUCKING SEASON MODE. Fuck off 2K sports. How damn hard can it be to make a season mode?

 

Edit: Oh my GOD this game is AWFUL. The graphics are pitiful, the animations are pitiful and slow and clunky. The controls are stupid. The sound is painful. Christ I wish I had just waited for this to show up via Gamefly someday but nooooooooo I had to think $20 was a good deal. World Series Baseball for the gamegear was better than this. Not graphically, but it really wasn't that much worse. And the music was better. And the controls were better. And it had a fucking season mode.

[AndrewTS 0]

I rented TMNT for PS2, mainly because Ubi Montreal worked on it.

 

It's...interesting. It's definitely rushed and unpolished, I'd say. It's strictly an A-to-B platformer with occasional fight scenes and collecting coins here and there. The fight engine is sadly primitive. The platforming can be pretty fun--Prince of Persia like wallrunning and pole-swinging for instance, but the level designs are pretty weak.

 

The perspective is problematic, too. The view is zoomed WAAAAY out for most of the non-fighting scenes, which is fine near the beginning of the game, but frustrating when you're jumping from rooftop to rooftop at night in NY, trying to measure your jumps and determine what areas you can jump to and what you can't.

 

The game is really short, too. I'd say it's a good rental, but not a keeper.

 

On the other hand, the game on GBA is a well-done beat 'em up:

http://www.gamespot.com/gba/action/tmntthemovie/review.html

 

I might have to pick it up sometime soon and give it a shot.

[Matt Young 0]

I plan to rent the 360 version for a decent 4-5 hour experience and an easy 1,000 achievement points.

[BUTT 0]

Anyone ever notice that the chord progression in the Zelda theme is very similar to that of the classic song "Por una cabeza" AKA the tango song from True Lies, Scent of a Woman and many other movies? Especially if you listen to the Majora's Mask version, because they are in the same key.

 

COMPARE:

 

 

Oh man, I hope this doesn't mean Koji Kondo is some sort of ripoff artist. Still, TSM's big gamers (AndrewTS, I'm lookin' at you!), I want you to alert Joystiq, Kotaku, and all the other top gaming blogs about this and hope this story gains traction.

[World's Worst Man 0]

I'd say that's really stretching. They only very vaguely sound similar in certain areas. There's a song called "Neutral" by the metal band Penumbra which sounds closer to the Zelda theme than the tango song. That song was made much later than the Zelda theme obviously, but just bringing it up because it's fantastic.

 

I'd be more bewildered about how Daisuke Ishiwatari (Guilty Gear) could get away with using near direct rip-offs of metal songs for the Guilty Gear soundtracks.

[Invictus 0]

I'll do you one better, this one is pretty close, but it's a very natural sequence of chords. In 1979 an obscure funk fusion band named Friendship released a track called "The Real Thing" whose intro sounds very similar to that of the underworld theme in Super Mario Bros. The comparison audio track is at the bottom of the blog post.

 

http://maubrowncow.com/index.php/2006/09/2...6-years-ealier/

 

Could have been lifted, could be a coincidence, hard to say.

 

Here's a link to the actual MP3 comparison file itself.

http://maubrowncow.com/blog/wp-content/upl..._came_first.mp3

[Anya 0]

Doom has a soundtrack of ripoffs.

[Guest Smues]

While I was watching TV in my hotel room in Bethell I saw an ad for Spiderman 3 the video game. I thought to myself "Why are they airing this now when it doesn't come out until May?" and then it said "available now." I'm thinking the commercial was just wrong, because I went around town once I got back to Anchorage and nobody had it, or had heard anything but that it was coming out in May. Damn commercial.

[Open the Muggy Gate 0]

If you turn it FX, RIGHT NOW, They got the GTA IV countdown going right now. 15 hours, 49 minutes, 10 seconds...

[Matt Young 0]

Yeah, I saw that, too.

[Fökai 0]

The website says 10:14:30 until the trailer is up. Can't wait to see it.

[AndrewTS 0]

The website says 10:14:30 until the trailer is up. Can't wait to see it.

 

 

GTAIV: Asses of Fire

[AndrewTS 0]

Old news post...but...this is part of the planned Square Enix 2007 line up (at least in Japan):

http://kotaku.com/gaming/square+enix/squar...e-up-247184.php

 

* Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP)

* Dragon Quest Monster Battle Road (Arcade)

* Dragon Quest Monster Joker (DS)

* Dragon Quest Swords (Wii)

* Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings (DS)

* Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War (PSP)

* Itadaki Street DS (DS)

* It's A Wonderful World (DS)

* Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS)

* Final Fantasy I (PSP)

* Final Fantasy II (PSP)

* Final Fantasy XI Online (PS2, Xbox 360, PC)

* Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)

* Final Fantasy Versus XIII (PS3)

* Final Fantasy Agito XIII (Mobile)

* Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete (Blu-ray)

 

Not listed but maybe planned for 2007 is Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (Advance 2, or whatever they hell they get around to calling it).

 

http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/photo-...key=30663#photo

[-DeN- 0]

GTA IV looks completely bananas.

[World's Worst Man 0]

Not much of a trailer, but the game sure looks nice. I thought they would do a New York style city too, and there it is. I just hope they don't sacrifice the size of the city in order to jack up the graphics.