fuchikoma

I love SYNC.ART'S vocal tracks... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3PGDS83DII This one's kind of obscure, even for Touhou music - it's the hero of Touhou Project, Reimu Hakurei's theme, not from a Touhou game, but from Seihou - Shuusou Gyoku. I just found that out looking for it on Youtube... (I don't know what other games she's been in outside of Touhou and its spinoffs. I know there's Graffiti Kingdom, and the upcoming Nendoroid game...)

I'd finished high school and recently ended a job that I'd taken afterward, so I was at home, unemployed before starting college. I was just sitting at home killing some time and I decided to see what was on TV, and I saw the first tower smoking... I didn't believe it was real. I figured it was some kind of action movie or something, so I changed channels and realized it was on all the news channels... then I was pretty much transfixed as I picked up details the anchors were recapping. I was concerned for the people in the building, but not jumping to any conclusions yet. Eventually I saw the second plane hit and I just felt a chill - at that point it HAD to be an attack. I just hoped that it wouldn't lead to a thermonuclear war, and so far, so good... Of course I had no idea how much damage it would do to our way of life overall (and I'm in Western Canada...) I'll try not to get too political like the OP asked, but really, it seems the world was softer before 9/11. You could do things without worrying about being mistaken for a terrorist (as a teenager, I was actually pretty fond of making small bombs and fireworks... never mind what they do to people who take photos of landmarks now.) Even what I remember of the cold war, life pretty much went on normally without special considerations - though I'm sure some people looked at people from socialist states like they'd look at those from Islamic states now. TL;DR - I definitely felt the world change after the event. After staring at the screen for a while, I phoned a friend to tell him about it, and right away, he said "this had to be Osama Bin Laden." Of course, I'm the only witness to that, but he's always been into history and politics and had told me before about the CIA's dealings with OBL. I didn't even remember who he was talking about, but sure enough, in time he was the one singled out. While it was a horrific spectacle that changed lives all over the Western and Arabic worlds, it's important to remember the real odds though - could it happen again? It certainly could, even with all the new precautions. A determined attacker will always find a way. Are any of us likely to die in a terrorist attack? No - it's virtually impossible since it's so rare. I'm only afraid to fly internationally now because of what happened to Mr. Arar, not for any terrorist risk.

Cheers is good. I use it in writing, but don't actually say it since no one else around here does. "Swot" had me confused for a while - it's an English term that means to study, or as a noun, sort of a bookworm, nerd type who's always studying. I also like "chuffed" - happy/thrilled/pleased. I'm in Western Canada, so I actually grew up with various ones that for a long time I didn't realize were regional. We have terms like "parkade" - which is like a multi-level parking garage. Also, I grew up using "kangaroo jacket" for a pullover hoodie with a two-opening front pocket. I'm not sure where that one's from though - maybe Saskatchewan? It seems pretty obscure. "Aboot" is funny... I've never heard it outside of South Park and people trying to make Canada jokes. Around here it's more like "ub-out."

'tis I... more or less. Nothing special here!

Bushido Blade, spun off from the first game. I have the original on the shelf next to my 360 games. There are lots of others that sprang to mind - Rez, Tenchu, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, but for better or worse, they all have sequels! Next in line, I'm dying for another game like Tourist Trophy. It's the only fun bike sim I've played, though I've tried other bike games and purported bike sims (MotoGP *cough*) Really, they could just take the old physics model, throw in modern bikes and make it HD and I'd be happy for years. For the time being I'll just have to make due with the bike I bought after playing the first game!

Beatmania/IIDX/DJ Max. I love these games and if I see an arcade I will compulsively play it (which is... about as likely as being gunned down by paintballs in a grocery store these days, but I used to see one or two every year or so.) I've gone crazy for Touhou Project games and still enjoy them, but I don't honestly play that often anymore because those games are demoralizing like building a card castle in a wind tunnel, so I don't know if I'd say I'm a proper Touhou fanatic. I do have hundreds of albums of fanmade musical arrangements (which sounds jaw dropping, but it's actually a small sample of a big part of the culture.) It is literally some of my favourite music of all time.

I have it and think it works really well. I'm not big on motion gaming, but Sports Champions really shows off how the controller can pick up on tiny nuances accurately. I have had zero luck with light gun games because I can't get far enough back from the TV to calibrate it properly. I have Time Crisis Razing Storm and it's literally off-center by the time I take a test shot at the target on the screen. Then I start playing and in under a minute, I'm aiming 90 degrees to the left to shoot the center of the screen. (Move tracks absolute position, but relative rotation, where the Wii can track absolute rotation while aiming at the sensor bar, so it's a better candidate for lightgun games.) But overall I'd say the technology is solid when used correctly. I just wouldn't recommend it because personally, I still haven't seen other games I'd want for it yet.

I don't use MC a lot, but I do like it and find it useful - for what it actually does, which is aggregate scores. Seeing that post about analyzing the scores on there and seeing how the most common scores are around 70 actually told me that there isn't much of an issue with score inflation. Look at it this way: the games are being graded like homework assignments. 50 is not great, but it's passable. Less than 50 isn't even acceptable, but may not be totally devoid of worth. For one thing, there's the cognitive issue of trying to tell if a game will be great for absolutely anyone who plays it, or will find its niche - and then try to gauge how big a niche that is, or to make the decision that no matter who you are, you will probably think the game sucks. That's no small feat in terms of theory of mind. There's also the issue that not every game that is made is reviewed, so it's not a review of all the attempts to make games. A lot, or even most of the games that would score below 50... probably get canceled before they hit the shelves. It would be really weird if the average game scored 50. Then it would be less about how good the game is, and more how it compares to the average - like an IQ score. But anyway, I think while it's tempting to use MC as a major metric for internal review like EA, that could be pushing it a bit far. It's hard to say they shouldn't, because the system itself is pretty objective, but people have also been caught reviewing their own games highly, and not every game will be reviewed by as many people, so for each game the value of one vote is a bit different. Also, if you tie bonuses and the like to the review aggregates, then it strongly encourages gaming the system. Almost any time you tell someone their reward or punishment is linked to a number, they'll find the most expedient way to alter the number - not always just doing what the number is supposed to measure. At the same time, the site has been useful to me to grab public opinions of things. I've argued with a friend of mine who likes to project his opinions onto "the whole world," so when he tried to tell me that no one had anything good to say about Mass Effect 2... I looked it up. 94 - bam! His only counter was to suggest every review that contributed to the MC score was bought off (because they'd really spend millions/billions in bribes, right?) For actual reviews though, I don't care what's popular, so I prefer to read a review by someone I've come to know the tastes of. I still like to have a number to it though because if it's about what I'd expect, I can expect a review in line with my values, and if it's way off, it's interesting to see why they felt that way, but I'm not going to read a Tim Rogers post just to find out the reviewer was looking for something completely different than I would be.

They've also gone from page views to unique impressions, so I guess there's even more incentive than there used to be to say something so backwards it gets posted to Reddit, Digg, etc to be ridiculed. They want people who don't even visit the site to come and look. Denton even said "It just means you have to be even more original, even more provocative or even more of a hustler than usual."

DJ Max Portable series (or Beatmania IIDX) Forza 3 Rez Shadow of the Colossus Dead or Alive 2 Tourist Trophy GTA IV Touhou games 7, 8, 10, 11. Some I COULD play any time, but got out of: Starfox Wipeout XL Bust A Move (Bust A Groove in US) Jet Set Radio Crazy Taxi Battletoads Ninja Crusaders

That's the real reason I left - I no longer want even my nickname associated with that level of writing. At least this time I felt he touched on some good points though - the enthusiast market is a niche of a niche and can't expect to hold a lot of market clout. Also, I've worked on PCs for decades and I agree that when it all works as it should, it's electric Lego - I've even used that term. (When it doesn't go according to plan? It helps to have someone who's a walking encyclopedia of the quirks you find on PCs.) The rest of it... pfft. It's as Dean says: Trolling gets reposts and hits. I'd accuse him of not even trying, but this actually seems to be a good level to work at to get a lot of outrage - especially the way he never misses an opportunity to weave in snide insults at anyone not in lockstep with him. I hate to say it, but it's at least interesting to see what the responses to these are. It's just a shame he had to do it by turning my favourite gaming site into a joke. That was a great post, and you're right.

It may factor into your discussion, but I did not list names or companies. I was talking about the practice of charging used-game buyers for online services like multiplayer. I've already said it sucks when DLC becomes unavailable for future players or reinstalled copies, and if they're gating more integral content behind that initiative, then that's unfortunate, but I consider it a separate practice since it's by no means necessary to tie the two together. Personally though, I'm more upset that you can't get that content on a disc(?) than the fact you can't get it without a pass - and the fact that some of it is only available in cross promotions. I can see the rationale for not giving free DLC to used copies, but... mainly I don't like the fact that it's DLC, and not on a permanent disc, so it's temporary content. Also, whatever the cost of hosting may be, I'm sure the paid DLC would cover it, whoever you allow to purchase, so it would be dumb to gate that - but I see they haven't, and paid DLC can be accessed without CN.

Nope. EA is the only company that runs their own servers(on console). And even then the online-pass tracking servers will not be the ones running the multiplayer. And not all of these pass things are tied to multiplayer games, for example Cerberus Network on Mass Effect 2. btw anyone know the bit where we discussed used sales not costing any extra for multiplayer? So are you saying that authentication servers may go down before game hosting servers? My point was that they'd run in parallel, so the multiplayer experience shouldn't be any shorter for using a ticket system vs hosting any and everyone with the game. Don't know what Cerberus Network is... but I was talking about systems that ARE tied to multiplayer games, so an exception like that isn't so much an exception as it is an unrelated case... I'd absolutely agree with RockyRan about already paying for XBL - in cases where MS hosts the games. In cases where they don't... it's not really the publisher's fault they want to get paid, but MS' for not even permitting multiplayer without giving them a cut. They're almost literally just charging for the ability to make IP connections in that case.

Always remember that while they do not act like it, and surely have loads of students to choose from now, you pay their salary, and you are their customer. If the service sucks, they owe it to you to fix it. I was pretty lucky with my college, though it sucked because the coursework was so heavy I had to buy a laptop just so I could see what the outdoors was like after a year of homework. I never saw the inside of the lounge until I got a job at the college after graduating... and then I got to see just how clueless and haphazard everything really was behind the scenes! They did pull the textbook crap though - I have two editions of one book because they moved the page numbers over a bit from one term to the next... and of course while we "needed" them, we hardly cracked the cover of most of our books. I was in an IT program - we looked stuff up on computers! None of my professors wrote the books though, so it didn't stink quite THAT bad...

I am actually quite alright with online play being included in the (regular) new price, and being a paid ticket on used copies. I look at things like DRM from the perspective of long-term collection. This does not take anything out of the game in the long run because the servers that would track your license to play and the ones you'd play on are related, if not one in the same. When they shut down the servers for multiplayer, your pass to play it expires regardless, and no single player content is tied to this plan. Looking at the price of it: Do you know what the publisher and developers get for a used sale at Gamestop? $0.00. Even if the original buyer could have played forever, even if there will only be that one copy using their servers, even if it only costs them a thousandth of a cent over the lifetime of the company to support this used player, they have no obligation to support someone who has in no way supported them. Likelihood of buying sequels is not part of their model - there is a budget for advertising, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't include sales lost to used game shops. Most other notable DRM and even DLC would usually bother me. When game content is withheld at the time of sale, that is content you'll never get to see if you're revisiting the game after the company is gone and you can't buy the DLC anymore. (As before, as a company they're not obligated to fix that, but it sucks in terms of preserving the original work.) Also, requiring online authentication to play a single player game is inexcusable and Orwellian. A network service interruption, or even lack of networking should not stop a game that doesn't even use a network to play. It also ensures that if not changed, the game dies with the company, even if your money doesn't come back to you when they fold. (That said... I really want to make an exception for Diablo 3 because I have seen firsthand how badly cheating broke older games. I can completely understand why no character that may end up online should be let out of their sight. Even so, they should simply make an option to make an offline character that doesn't authenticate, and can never go online - but they'd have to work on finding a way to keep those character types from being swapped with online characters. Maybe an on-server running history of an onliner's levelling and item aquisitions to ensure nothing happened out of their sight?) As for bigger budget games... I generally keep them off my PC because it's too risky. I don't want helper apps managing my game and monitoring my system processes to ensure I'm not cheating or pirating, or own the tools to do so. I don't want fake drivers installed between Windows' normal function and my DVD drive(!), and I definitely don't want to install a game and remove it, then way later, discover that the DRM from it is still installed on my system running as a service! But paying $10 to activate multiplayer on a used copy that otherwise didn't help the makers of the game with my purchase? That makes sense to me. If I want them to serve me, I should contribute some money to them before they spend any resources on me. If they started charging for it AFTER selling a game at a traditional full price, then I'd be more upset.

Wow... I clicked on the first few and can't even figure out why they were banned. They must be on a hair trigger over there. Maybe it's a loose interpretation of the rule against being "boring?"

Haha... I see that last speech I gave got him to ban me. Ah well - the destarring was out of line, but I was fishing for a ban there. Hey Dex, how old is your star? I noticed that I'm still starred on all the other Gawker sites - I got mine on Kotaku early on, before it was sectioned into individual sites.

In a basilica - of course.

I have this soundtrack and love it... It's kind of funny since I haven't played the game! (Does anyone have an idea who did it? It reminds me so much of some of Namco's work, like the Tekken 3 PSX soundtrack...)

Welcome to all the new members, and DocSeuss, I remember seeing you around, but no issues spring to mind. In any case, if you have an uncommon opinion, it'll be interesting to hear it! It's far more interesting to think about something seriously than to find out everyone else is just like you.

*drags thread kicking and screaming back from the dead* A couple hours??? Does that mean that your God King is even level 99,999 or something? Or just the gear you were wearing?

I keep telling that to everyone I know in real life. No one takes me seriously. Then they start spewing drama about certain articles, like the one about Finkel. THIS IS HOW THEY MAKE MONEY. Is it really any wonder that they keep doing this? Ever since the hack and the redesign they've had to all but bait every demographic out there to rake in the pageviews. Apparently it's less about total pageviews now, and more about unique visitors trending up. To that end, Nick Denton said (my emphasis): So basically, this is why we're seeing so many editorial pieces vs straight news, and why we're getting articles that are so outrageous all the other gossip and news trending websites repost them. They want to be a train wreck because people who don't even read the sites will come to... gawk at the spectacle. Here's Gawker's announcement about it.

On that note, I'd probably buy a book called "Retro-Gaming in the NES Era."

I don't have a final answer, but I think the definition has to change over time to reflect the gaming landscape... *wishy-washy* Err... I mean, I'm not sure if I considered it in the PSX/PS1 era, but I think I'd have said NES since it's so very different. That's 2 generations. Then in PS2 era, I figured it was the old 2D games I grew up with (and Mode7/SuperFX!) We're onto the third generation of mainly-3D consoles now though, and even 2-ish for handhelds so I can't say it's old 2D games forever. So I think it's really 2 generations ago so far. I'm not sure why though. It could be that it's the old generation before the old generation. It could be because by modern standards, 3D without texture filtering looks brutally primitive and crude. Maybe it's because most 18 year olds probably don't remember a time before the PSX era was dominant (even though I'm sure many have played older games somehow.) So if we saw shorter generational gaps, or went without any striking aesthetic differences for a generation or two, I'm not sure what I'd call "retro," but for now, 2 generations ago seems to stick pretty well though history. When I think about it, even in the SNES era, you could call Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari games retro... Or in the NES era, I guess you'd have Ralph Baer's Odyssey and Simon - but that's really pushing the edges of what you'd call a video game.