FMW

I can understand having an environmental sensor in a handheld... kind of. Boktai did it at least. I can understand having an environmental sensor in an expensive home console that is meant to be kept in artifical living spaces... not at all.

Nintendo in their pursuit of the wider blue ocean audience have cooked up two kinda different ways of approaching this issue. One is the Super Guide, which has been discussed here already and is (I think) seen universally as a good thing. Yes, there were angry fans on the internet when it was announced but it has since appeared in some of Nintendo's best platformers ever. It clearly doesn't ruin anything. But Nintendo also tried something a little different with Metroid Other M. When you completed the game, you unlocked a movie mode. This mode retold the game story in the form of a movie. This was more than just running all the cutscenes in sequence, there was also a lot of recorded gameplay in there making sure everything remained cohesive and made sense. I think that's a fantastic solution, and a good way to appeal to the market more interested in the story than the mechanics of killing things. Deanb, there is definitely a market more interested in story than the killing mechanics. It's not an enthusiast gamer market, but it's a large market. A lot of FF XIII fans I know actually fall into this category.

It bothers me that so many people are being elitist about this game. It's something bold, something new. Uncharted territory. Are the graphics good? Yes! Is the audio good? Yes! Is the story good? Yes! Is it a new IP? Yes! Is it a new spin on story/gameplay? Yes! Is the value (dollars per hour of fun) great? No. But there are solutions to that. Rent it! Buy it on sale! Borrow it from a friend! The decision whether or not to buy a game right away at launch should be a different decision than whether to play the game at all.

Hang on, how are nature shows athiest? I mean, nature shows don't really concern themselves with religion at all do they? They just kinda show cool things that most people don't get to see in their humdrum lives and explain what's going on when it gets confusing. Nature shows are cool! They show all the cool stuff on the planet I don't know about. Don't hate on nature shows I'm pretty sure they aren't aiming to promote any religious agenda at all

All right! I've got this game and I've got things to say about it! Wow this game has a lot of content! This evening I cleared world 8 for the first time. It was good stuff. Level design definitely improved as the game continued. The way I see it this puts me at... about 25% of the way through. To see and do everything you've gotta clear worlds 1-8, then go back and find all the star coins, then clear worlds 9-16, then go back and find all the star coins hidden in those. On top of that you've gotta figure how to land on the top of every flagpole... I can't guarantee I won't burn out on this game before actually finishing all this content (I usually do in Super Mario games) but for now it's a great feeling to know that I'm having a ton of fun with the game and there's no end to the fun in sight. I'll be playing for as long I could want to be playing I reckon.

It's impossible to disprove the Christian omnipotent god. Our only way of determining if something exists or not is by collecting data through our senses. We see, hear, smell things that make of evidence for our world views. We see that things stick to the ground and feel ourselves stick to the ground, so we believe in Gravity. But if you're dealing with an omnipotent God then it's impossible to disprove it because everything we sense is under it's control. If there is an omnipotent God, then any and everything we interact with could have been modified perfectly to conceal that God exists. It is I think logically impossible to disprove an omnipotent God ever. BUT It's impossible to prove the existence of God too. Since we figured out the scientific method, mankind has figured out a HELL of a lot. Gravity, Electricity, Thunder, Outer Space... we've pulled back the curtain and see a method behind the madness of the universe. We have not yet figured out the machinations behind EVERYTHING in the universe. Indeed, there are countless things we don't know yet. However, there's absolutely no reason to believe that after discovering and figuring out so much that we're just going to... stop. We'll prove that Black Holes exist, we'll travel to other planets... really, we'll achieve anything we set our collective minds to. There's no reason to believe that anything is unexplainable, just that some things remain unexplained. Because of this there's no evidence of a God that is above the laws of physics. So there. No way to prove there is/is not a god. Agnosticism FTW!

No, the court procedures and laws in Phoenix Wright games have absolutely nothing to do with reality. In any nation. Second, as long as this thread is active... Ace Attorney 5 is a real thing that's happening. Hooray! What platform(s) is it for? Dunno! Will it be localized outside Japan? Dunno! BUT: This is a good first step.

I bought Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light. I actually don't have a ton of money right now, I have plenty of games, and I don't have a ton of free time. So why on earth did I buy the game? Well, because the DS is already a full year out of style and at this point any time I pass on a DS game it's a very real possibility that I'll never see it on a store shelf again.

Lol, I'm not sure you're allowed to be a JRPG if you AREN'T a little misogynist. Comes with the territory. Sorry, I haven't played it so I can't answer. Hopefully Brain will swing by. I do have something else to say though! It seems Nintendo is running a Facebook poll to decide what the image on the backside of the cover will be. There are four options. I have a strong preference, but I do not have a Facebook to vote. Some of the art is kinda nice, so check it out if interested

No, the very vocal political left gave their response to stop supporting Komen. Others have opted to donate to Komen and their fundraising went through the roof. I also find it sad that Komen ever gave money to Planned Parenthood in the first place. It is not some righteous organization by any means. Instead it's an organization radically outside Mainstream America in its views that was founded on the basis of eugenics. I think I can recast this exchange in a way that'll illuminate a few things. Some people disliked Komen's decision. The political left definitely disliked Komen's decision. The political right was pretty okay with it. The question is, where does mainstream America fall? First of all, how are you planning to define mainstream America? Battra, I live in a state with a strong democratic party and a long standing liberal tradition (lol, isn't that an oximoron). In my region, the mainstream opinion is definitely not your own. But Duke? You live in Oklahoma, you KNOW that in some areas the general will of the public is against abortion services. So what counts as mainstream? Are we just going to look at a breakdown of the nation's opinions and call whoever has the most people on their side mainstream? If so, then why don't we look at the hard data? I've got it right here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx So what does this tell us? It looks like "mainsteam America" remains mostly in the middle of the road. At this particular moment in time public opinion is swinging in an anti-choice direction, but the vast majority of Americans still report that they feel Abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. Basically, it looks like the extreme right is bigger than the extreme left but neither is in touch with the actual majority of the population. It is also worth noting perhaps that historically the radical left opinion has been far more "mainstream" than the radical right position. Our current state of affairs is an irregularity. There! Now I don't want anyone else talking like mainstream America is on/not on anyone's side. Not fair. Use data to justify your positions.

I've been giving a little bit more thought to these games, and it's pretty amazing how they set the player to sympathize with Phoenix. In the first game, he's this underdog still wet behind the ears. When things take a turn for the unfair (and in Ace Attorney they ALWAYS do) I felt just as outraged/hopeless/shocked as Phoenix. It works particularly well in the first game because your first time through you don't know the patterns of Ace Attorney yet. Eventually you learn that Phoenix is always gonna win and there will always be a last second turnabout and the prosecution will always play dirty. But in the beginning? Well, each revelation makes you identify with this poor Phoenix guy more and more. Then in the second game, Capcom needed to change things a bit. You don't have the underdog thing going for you anymore. They try to get around this with the silly amnesia thing in the first case, and by adding Franziska later, but really it isn't until the last case that Phoenix gets into his old groove. The last case puts Phoenix back in the hot seat in a couple of ways. The villain is actually super evil, the kidnapping dilemma is super intense, and they bring Edgeworth back (who is easily more intimidating than Franziska) to kick your ass a little. As everyone knows, Justice For All really is all about that last case. I don't think it's coincidence that case is also the case where Phoenix gets screwed with the most. Phoenix doesn't come across as an underdog in that case exactly. Indeed, he ends up in the case at all because Shelley considers him the best. No, in Justice for All you root for Phoenix just because they wrote a really good villain and scenario for one of the cases. Trials and Tribulations is, I think, actually the closest to power fantasy this franchise comes. The underdog angle is still present, but it's used in the flashback cases where you're playing as a different lawyer who's new to the trial trade. When you play as Phoenix, there's really no question whether he can handle things or not. Yes, Godot is a bad ass and a totally different flavor from past prosecutors, but the dynamic is very different. In Trials and Tribulations you are pretty much an indomitable warrior of justice. No. You ARE justice. When you take a witness to task in this game you don't trick them into talking, nor do you guilt them. Phoenix in this game SMASHES obstacles between him and the truth. Then at the very end they pull a really good fast one with the whole "justice is blind" angle and making you play the role of justice all the way through to it's unfortunate resolution. I was thinking about this because in Apollo Justice I really had trouble getting behind Phoenix and his crazy self-destructive quest for revenge. The contrast made me realize just how attached I was to him in the original trilogy.

Hear hear! I've been trying to restore the karmic balance, up and down-voting posts I otherwise would have left untouched just to try and cancel out what I believe to be unwarranted votes. *Edit* - Why can't everyone acknowledge that it boils down to what aspect of a person or life you value, which is an inherently philosophical question and therefore has neither a correct nor incorrect answer? Good idea! I just downvoted this post because it was at a positive 2 imbalance. I am moving us closer to balance in the force.

Actually, I think I DO need to post my entire list every time I finish the game. Then I feel proud and accomplished. Today I'm adding a weird retro game, Mother. It never released in the US, it was the NES prequel to Earthbound. I liked it. It did everything right but game design. And I had a walkthrough to guide me through My list is now: Bastion (twice! I love this game to death) Batman Arkham Asylum (100% riddler completion) Batman Arkham City (not 100% riddler completion, but I just finished it 5 hours ago. I'll get there.) Plants vs. Zombies (closing in on 100% completion) VVVVVV (as much clever level design in 3 hours as Skyrim has period) Zelda Phantom Hourglass (worst Zelda game ever) Mother (very fun with a walkthrough, pointless and impossible and frustrating without)

I want Waluigi back! I would settle for that, I don't even need new or crossover characters Poor Waluigi, if he doesn't have a place in Mario Universe cross over games (sports, kart, party, etc) then he doesn't have any home at all.

I have created a Mario Kart community for us! It is called X-Talk. The code for it is 19-4519-1006-5391 . I hereby declare Friday to be Mario Kart day.

Huh. The latest Nintendo investor call turned up a few Wii U tidbits. I don't understand the technology they're talking about being in the conroller to help you shop (it syncs with a smartphone? So if I dont' have a smartphone it's useless to me?) but they're talking about digital distribution of retail games. That's interesting. I figured they would take WAY longer to get around to that. If that's available at launch, they'll barely even be late! Could someone explain the shopping technology in the controller to me please?

I'm in! I'm well suited to... probably none of these characters. But that's okay! It's more important to have fun making it than it is to have a high quality product at the end I think.