MasterDex

I'm with Mr. Phallus on this. I tend to avoid using the word cartoon because it tends to carry negative connotations. Differentiation is the key here. I call Tom and Jerry and The Looney Toons cartoons. I call Family Guy, South Park, American Dad and Archer animated series' and I call animated series like Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note to be anime. I wouldn't jump down anyone's neck for calling any of them cartoons but I would probably point out that there's a difference between a cartoon like Tom and Jerry or Spngebob Squarepants and anime or animated series'. I also consider comics and graphic novels to be two different things. To me, a graphic novel is a one-off story like Arkham Asylum or The Killing Joke and a comic is like 2000AD or the regular Spiderman or Batman chapters.

I just realised I never mentioned 'The Man from Nowhere' here. It's an excellent S. Korean movie and won a load of awards last year. The lead actor, Won Bin, brings a superb performance and the pacing is really good. I recommend everybody to see this movie. It's the best movie I've seen in a very long time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o3X4GqfZZ0

End of the last arc as in the one that just finished? A new filler arc is starting this week. Oh and if I didn't mention it already, Gintama is back with a fifth season. If you haven't seen the series before, I highly, highly, highly recommend checking it out. The entire series (202 episodes) is available for streaming free on Crunchyroll.

Yeah, Halo did harken in a bit of a revolution in FPS games alright....that said, I can't say I like what it's arguably most famous for bringing to the table = health regen. I still prefer when health doesn't regenerate and I feel multiplayer games are worse with health regen. With it, players are encouraged to go hide while they wait for their health to regenerate as opposed to being forced into moving to find a medkit or medic. It only exacerbates the problem of camping. While Halo may have marked the beginning of the new era of FPS games, BF2 arguably marks the maturity of the era. It set so many standards that even now, developers are trying to catch up. Sure, much of what BF2 was had been done on some scale before but not quite like BF2 did it. Hell, even Dice haven't created a multiplayer game as good since (here's hoping BF3 changes that). Regardless, I don't think anyone could argue that BF2 gave birth to the much discussed multiplayer stats & unlocks mechanic that every multiplayer FPS these days seems to have....or maybe I'm forgetting a game that had it before BF2.

Oh man! Don't remind me! What a boring show. I was all like "Awesome! Persona anime!" then it arrived and it was rubbish...but it wasn't clear that it was rubbish and I kept watching but it didn't change. Such a shame.

Yeah, I'd give a lot of credit to BF2 for bringing the modern setting to the FPS market, at least with the biggest impact but I think Counter Strike is the earliest FPS set in the modern day that I remember (but my memory is shit so I'm more than likely wrong). Modern Warfare owes alot to those two games.

I don't want to derail the thread with this argument but surely you could be more balanced and fair in your criticism? You're judging JRPGs incredibly harsh here. Final Fantasy=/=Every JRPG of the last 20/30 years. Even if we were to look at just Final Fantasy, we could see a slew of changes. Take FFIII and the implementation of a job system, FFIV and it's large cast of party characters, FFVII and its host of mini-games, chocobo breeding and materia system, FFVIII and its card game, weapon creation and draw system. I could go on. Sure, they're not revolutionary changes or additions but they are changes and additions nonetheless. You can't expect the core game to change all that much because it is after all, the core game. FFXII, the first game to radically change the formula (excusing FFXI because it's an mmo), recieved a lot of flak for doing so from fans. FFXIII which brought the most radical changes in the series recieved even less praise from fans and that was with a more traditional battle system. That's just Final Fantasy though and while the 'ATTACK, MAGIC, ITEM' menu is shared among many JRPGs, JRPG battle systems, even twenty years ago, were hardly all alike and so simple. You've got Star Ocean, Chrono Trigger, Grandia, Breath of Fire, Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile, etc, etc. They all do something different. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there's been more change in the last twenty years to the JRPG formula than there has been to the WRPG formula - until recently. You've got Oblivion and Fallout 3, commonly seen as prime examples of how awesome WRPGs can be but in the end, Oblivion may as well be Morrowwind HD and Fallout 3, a mod for it. Of course, that's simplifying each game quite a bit but not so much as you've simplified the JRPG genre and the Japanese market in general. Anyway, as I stated earlier, I don't want to draw this argument out but I felt I should speak my piece before we get back on topic. From the sounds of it, you have a bias against Japanese games in general and you seem to be being stubborn in opening your eyes to some of the great (and original) games that came from Japan. Back on topic, I hate the trope of gaming tropes, I hate when developers lock off the hardest difficulty. If I finish the game, the likelihood is that I won't be going to finish it again (unless it's really, really good and even then, it'll be a while before I do) so denying me a challenge I'd enjoy just to add some precieved level of replayability is just going to piss me off. That said, I'm all for New Game+ modes.

FFXII has more than one piece of armour and an accessory. You've got your Weapon-hand, Off-hand, Helm, Armour and Accessory. It's not quite what can be found in DA:O and older WRPGs but it's certainly not largely inferior. Reading your comments, it's almost as if you won't be satisfied until you find something that you can clearly demonstrate that JRPGs are inferior to WRPGs. Personally, I see them as two different styles of RPG.

Deadman Wonderland anime starts in like a week. I read the manga a couple of years ago and it was great, never got around to finishing it though. It's definitely worth checking out the first eipsode of it when it arrives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5t5tFgitY

Don't share it, wouldn't share it. For me, it's like giving someone access yo your Facebook page or some forum account - There's too much opportunity for abuse. I also don't trust anyone but myself at my PC. When I used to be kind and share my wonderful PC, I'd be cleaning viruses away weekly. I can't remember the last time I had a virus now.

Anyone see the first eipsode of the new Gintama series? Watched it yesterday, great episode, very funny.

That's why I prefer full towers, much easier to work with plus you often get the benefit of better ventilation.

The 932 is a great case, definitely worth it's price. Just ask Excel!

I think you know the answer to that one already but just to clarify: yeah, definitely. Modular, high efficiency, relatively cheap price and a strong 7 year warranty? I think you'll be alright.

And try to get one with screw or good clamps. Stupid plastic fiddly feckers that most stock fans these days have are terrible.

I'll have to think long and hard to make up my Top 15. I've played waaaay too many games to be able to whittle it down to such a small number and ranking them is even harder. I have a feeling my list will look more modern than it really should and I'll probably leave out titles that I should have put in. Just off the top of my head, I can see a Total War game making it in....probably Rome....wait, no....most definitely Rome....uhhh, I have to include 2142 in there too, probably CoD4 as well....Third Strike is a certainty! Damn, this is going to be tough. Great idea though, I can't wait to see the final list.

Who else is to blame?! It's always Excel's fault!

Stardock have a good program that allows you to organise your desktop icons into groups and hide/show them with a click. it's called Fences. I should actually download it again myself. It is! His name is Yoshitaka Amano. He's got an anime coming out next year called Deva Zan. Love his art. I lied about the props though. I just have the one.

All you fuckers with your photogenic faces! Damn you all! Damn you all to hell! I'm nearly at the point where I'm going to check every photo taken of me to make sure they're up to a certain standard. I have a habit of looking sick/drugged or just plain bad in photos. They be stealing my soul! That said, my friends were kind enough to help me and took this photo when I wasn't expecting it: Completely offset by pictures like this:

Yeah, it doesn't look much worse than the first game but, I don't know, the textures just seem to be a lower resolution or something. they don't "pop" as much as in the original game or something. Here's the best image I could find from a quick scour around the interwebs that shows what I'm talking about. The game doesn't look bad by any stretch but it definitely doesn't look as good as the original....or maybe that's just because we still don't have DX10/11 (though I doubt there are new textures coming along with the addition of DX10/11 support).

My desktop is visually busy but tidy. The selection of game shortcuts are just a selection of non-steam games I have installed. I tend to keep the ones I'm still playing, plan to play soon or have still to finish on my desktop. The battlefield gadget you see is supposed to be showing my stats. I'm not really a stats whore but I've gotten into the habit of seeing it there. My background is some nice art from a certain artist (props if you can guess who it is) for now but I'm always changing it. A while back I was into making my own wallpapers (mostly anime related, many from request) and I tend to cycle through those quite a bit. Here's an example: I also have this great Bleach Wallpaper that I frequently throw on my desktop. It's resized but I have the original if anyone wants it.

I wish it was but sadly, the thread is super-serious. Some comments just made me facepalm. Like there was one along the lines of "Add back in auto-aim and I'll show these PC elitists how to shoot!". Sadly, there's a few people in the kb+m camp posting with a complete lack of grammar and intelligence and letting the whole side down. It was a great way to waste half an hour though, lol.

I grabbed the game this week. Just played the singleplayer so far. Where do I start. Overall, I don't think it's a terrible game but there's so much wrong with it that it's hard to pin down any one thing. Let's start with the AI. I thought the AI in the first Crysis was dire. It's even worse here. Even having started on the hardest difficulty, I find myself just strolling through levels, dying here and there from some enemy I didn't see getting me with his aimbot-wallhack (I hate when developers do this - it's just lazy). The Crysis Advanced Graphics tool helped me to find the right balance for the graphics but it certainly doesn't look as good as the original. I think it's the textures mainly...everything just has that low-res blur to it if you know what I mean. Oh yeah and for some reason, disabling motion blur makes the screen go partially black during explosions and critical health. Really? Really?! WTF Crytek?! I hate motion blur. Another thing that annoys me is the weapons. Why do I have to use the Scarab if I want the silencer? Why do I have to use the Scar if I want the ACOG scope? It's just pointlessly limiting. Oh and the "Hold Mouse 2 to lean" and shit. Yeah, thanks for telling me. Once. I don't need to see it every fucking time! Why can't I choose my own crosshair like the last game? Why can't I choose to turn off the suit voice? Why can't I quicksave? I find myself asking a lot of whys playing through the game. It's not without it's merits however. I like the ledgegrab and the fact that you don't need to jump to get over small obstacles (*looks at Bad Company 2*). Also, from what I played, the story seems to be better (or at the least, more present) than in the original game. On a related note, when I went onto MyCrysis to enter my LE code, I found this far too long thread with people complaining about the removal of auto-aim in multiplayer. Warning: Contains major lulz and major fools (from both sides): Why no auto-aim?

I've been a Stargate fan since the original movie and watched SG-1 and SG:A week by week as they aired on Sky 1. I liked SG:U too and think it should continue. It takes a different approach but it still has some good writing....that and Robert Carlyle stealing the show. "Are we done?" "WE'LL NEVER BE DONE!" I'd love if someone else picked up the show. I'm not ready for it to end yet.

Gah! 4gb for Windows 7! I better get ordering that new RAM I've been talking about ordering for so long!