fuchikoma

Thomas the Tank Engine... though that profession takes a rather rare skill set... (Not saying it's American, but it aired in the US)

Ohh... got it. You'd posted since then, so I thought it wasn't that one. TBH I never knew the first kanji. I just cheated when the start said 「はるなへ行こう！」 and I went "oh hey, it's Haruna!" I figured with the clips you post, you could tell Hangul from kanji, but then I looked at the title and it was so messy, I sure couldn't make much of it either, heh. It may as well have been Hanja. Hey... I'm failing to post music in the music thread!

Which? The title is Hangul - and I can't really make it out either. "sa(illegible) annyeong" It doesn't even look like it's written with real jamo... I can't even guess what it's supposed to say. "사N(backwards ㄱ)ㅇ'W 안녕" Also, that Rubberbandits video was hilarious... I'm checking them out now.

Most would tell you to start at 8 (Imperishable Night). I definitely think of it as a classic that got a lot right. For one thing, bosses in the Windows games attack with "spell cards" which are like timed attack formations that you can either "capture" (shoot the enemy down to an hp quota, don't bomb, don't die, and you get bonus points) or just let them time out after a minute or so. TH08 lets you practice individual spell cards. TH13 (Ten Desires) also brought this back, and some also recommend it as a starter because it's easier than many - but it does also add newer challenges like curving lasers and an odd special attack mode you have to collect orbs to fuel. Many say 11 (Subterranean Animism) is really hard, but on easy, it was the first one I beat without continuing so YMMV. I like 10 and 11 because they remove bombs as items and make them take 1.0 firepower away (typically you max at 4.0 - it varies by character) so it's easy to regain when you use them. There are ways to bomb right though 10 (Mountain of Faith) whenever it gets challenging and win. Also, in these two, when you lose your last life, you can ALWAYS continue at the start of the current level with a preset firepower level. I found that really useful for learning. In most games, you have a few continues that drop you back in where you died, but when they're used up, it's game over. 6 (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) and 12 (Unidentified Fantastic Object) are brutal. If you start with 6, you'll get a lot of memes and know who recurring characters are, but unlike later games, you can NOT see your hitbox when in slowed movement "focus" mode, and it adapts its difficulty to get harder if you play better. It also, like many games in the series, has a level 4 boss that changes their approach depending who you play as. Fairy Wars is a fun little game, but not QUITE a normal Touhou title - the core mechanic is quite different. Same with Shoot The Bullet and its sequel, Double Spoiler - these games are for maniacs. If the others are too easy for you, these are a good choice. Basically they take the Super Meat Boy route - very short challenges that are savagely hard, but you can retry each independently until your sanity breaks. You have normal movement, focused movement, and an extra slow movement, and the goal is to get really close to each boss and take "photos" of them at close range while they dump denser than usual clouds of bullets out. Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku are 2D fighters, and Phantasmagoria of Flower View is a 2D side by side vs game - like Puzzle Fighter, but with bullet hell. TL;DR, you're probably safe starting with 8 or 13. The bulk of fanmade stuff seems to draw on 6, 7, and 8 if that aspect is important to you, though of course newer ones are slowly cementing into canon/fanon.

Some swear by keyboards for max accuracy. I use a Logitech Rumblepad II or a Logitech F310. I really cannot blame the controller for any deaths I face (aside from the odd time with my Saiteks where I'd coast an inch too far left in Touhou 6...) Gundemonium is sure fast... I have Gundemonium Recollection on PSN and it was fun, but I hit a wall fast.

I agree with most of them too. My objections are: I like games that know they're games. Skyrim should be immersive. Geometry Wars should be gamey. Minecraft should be... whatever the heck it is... I'm not sure if it "knows" it's a game or not. Having 2 guns is nice sometimes. Counter-Strike, Halo. Other times not. It does suck sometimes being in a high stress situation, going *flip flip flip flip* "no! Where's my damn shotgun?!" *flip flip flip* like you have a cardfile of weapons or something. In a game like the GTA series though, it's nice having a wide "palette" of destruction to choose from. Saving everywhere CAN spoil a game, if only for a certain type of gamer. Save points are ok - but a single quicksave for quitting doesn't hurt anyone. Can't disagree more with moving during cutscenes. It's a tease, and I find few things in gaming more frustrating - even invincible bosses and unblockable attacks are better than this. If you MUST stop gameplay to inject plot, then tell it like it is: I'm not playing, I'm listening. Unless you want to take it all the way the other way... let me walk away while being briefed, or shoot my comrades to death while they explain things to me. Shogo was awesome like that. I shot the (admiral?) and then saw how long I could last against the building's armored guards... then loaded and did it seriously. I should not have to reach more than a decade back to find an example like that... that's just sad. Even the (first?) new Wolfenstein wasn't quite there: An accomplice welcomes me to his home. I throw a grenade at him - he's OUTTA there! Lightning reflexes make him unkillable... but he doesn't even remark on your barrage. Splashing stuff on screen is good. That's not my face - it's a camera into the game world - or a window into it. Yeah, I'm not an android, but it would suck if my character got dirt in his eye and started staggering around blindly and taking damage. Maybe save that for ARMA or OFP... Every installed program goes on the Start menu. Sometimes I use a desktop icon too, but it doesn't stay there - it goes in the "games" folder. It makes sense that most people wouldn't want clutter on the desktop. Still, it's weird that by default the Start menu "games" folder is only for crappy Windows-bundled games. I kick them out and use it for real games.

Here, we use a "post office" and people understand things like "postal rates" and "postal service," but I've never heard someone call it the post, or post a letter or package. As I understand it, "post" as a verb is when you put up something publicly for a general audience - like a message board post... or a poster.

Actually, last time they played a show in my city, they had known gang members standing on stage with them, and according to the news paper, gang members in the crowd trying to recruit people. That's a massive disappointment... I haven't kept up much since about 2003. At least I've never heard them rap about their gangs, shooting cops, the usual tropes. The closest I've heard was the odd drug song here or there. Were you at the Prince George show? It seems they've disavowed the gang members, though I didn't know about the personal connection to HAs. Those guys are generally scum...

Hey... That's the town that Initial D took place in - Haruna, though they renamed it to Akina.

But I challenge anyone to change their theme without looking it up. I just went into all the settings menus through various means and it wasn't in any of them. There IS still a way, but I had to turn off the 360 and look it up online to find it.

Looks like I tried just a little too early since it's released today. It's up there now as the third most recent indie game and comes up in search too! I don't know if the Canadian site lags at all either, but it's hard to miss now.

It sounded good and Shoot 1UP was fun, so I went to get this before it disappears... Either they've removed it, or it really is that bad. I found the indies section in a few seconds, then sorted by name and scrolled... and scrolled... and scrolled... and scrolled... and after about a minute, I'd made it from "A" to "B". So I gave up and searched for "Game Type" but all I got was unrelated results.

Hey, I just remembered, Cave Story+ came out late this year...

Representin' for Team Shanghai Alice! This guy's music taught me to love bullet hell games and the newest Touhou game came out this summer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuRJCz6YTms There are also countless fan arranges out there to suit various tastes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoAKfcKo9bA&

Despite the brutal failure rate, I finally got a 360 a while ago so I could play multiplayer with my friends (almost no one had a PS3...) I've been surprised how many really great, solidly fun titles I've ended up with on it. For one thing I'm sort of an XBLA junkie. That said... I'm not interested enough in anything on that list to even find a screenshot. Then, I'm usually not into blockbusters... but that still looks really weak. And are people really hotly anticipating Kinect games? I bet there are a few hardcore who can't wait, but for the overall 360 player base? That reads like they had a quota of 2 controller games and 2 Kinect games.

West-coast Canadian non-gangsta rap. There seems to be a decent sized scene of talented rappers in that area.

It must have backfired then because for me it was the coolest part of the movie... Actually now it makes me think, though this is veering off topic rapidly... I miss when Disney would play with animation for its own sake. That made some really memorable scenes, but I can't think of any in the movies I watched in the 90s. The newer stuff just stopped being interesting, and that may have been part of the reason.

Interesting. I'd never have guessed it either. Evidently very different from a pink elephant party...

Haha... what?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swW_B_RxGQw

Video's been captured of light passing through a bottle of liquid... This is nuts... I love science. Some of the ideas they mention in the article reminded me of some research I saw a few years ago for from reflected light.

Haha... the speculation is dragging it back and forth on this issue... That's why I keep such an ambiguous view on it. Casting speculation aside and going only on evidence, at best I can say "piracy doesn't necessarily do harm unless it's an alternative to buying." Beyond that, it's personal opinion. I'd accept that piracy often leads to secondary benefits like promoting the game or buying the sequel. I'd also accept that the ability to pirate probably makes a lot of people lazier and more willing to think up excuses to pirate games they might have bought. I'd say that customers who CAN pirate with minimal risk probably SHOULD, either to get a DRM-free copy or to try out the game in what's not a staged, cropped highlight reel demo. A $60 lottery, where if you win, you get $60 worth and if you lose, you get literally unplayable crap is stacked completely against the customer. At the same time, I'd also say these companies have the RIGHT, and even the OBLIGATION to their shareholders to stop the pirates with what means they can, so long as it doesn't alienate paying customers. In short, it's a complicated issue and it's not easy to just draw a line and say one party is right and the other is wrong, especially looking back at the evolution that brought us to this point.

I was going to joke that the dashboard needs vignetting... but I guess with the way it's lit, it sort of has the same thing!