"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator@gmail.com> wrote in message news:evxliildxhaodnbmqkjw@forum.dlang.org...
> On Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 06:14:03 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> That's kind of another thing: If I need to be doing work, it's going to
>> be
>> damn hard if I have a bunch of games two clicks away.
>
> This is why Windows can kill me... I get addicted to
> those stupid built in games.
>

Heh :)

They need to bring back Hover and update it (to be more than, what was it, like 32x32 resolution? ;) )


>> Really? Cool!
>
> http://worms2d.info/Worms_Armageddon
>
> There's a familiar name in there :)
>

Heh, I'll be damnned :) Our Vladimir's been doing a lot of really good stuff, hasn't he? Between that, and DustMite, and some D pull requests. Kudos!

>
>> It was a short, minor  thing like that, but it
>> was frequent enough that it just felt like I was
>> being really slowed down.
>
> heh, that's the way I feel about most animations, in
> games or not. "get on with it" is what I say.
>

Same here, word for word. It annoyed me in the Metroid Prime series, too. Every time you get one of the many, many, many missle upgrades and other such upgrades, it *has* to give you a little fanfare and fade in a message box during which time you can't do anything but wait. Every...single...time.

Maybe we're just impatient gamers ;)

> But, in many of these games, I really like the
> background music, which makes it more awesomer.
>

The phrase "more awesomer" itself is inherently more awesomer than anything. :)

> In a game with bad music, everything gets more annoying. With good bgm, it can take its time, to an extent.
>

That's why I always hated stuff like EA Trax. "Let's cram our games full of whatever crap the RIAA is currently trying to shovel out. Great idea!"

>> Although, I was always more of a Lunar fan
>
> omg, not every day I see a Lunar fan! Silver
> Star Story: Complete is the reason I wanted
> a playstation.
>
> That's a beautiful game.
>

Certainly is. But *I* grew up on the original SegaCD version :)

Both versions are great though. And it is worth playing both, because they are different enough.

I can't believe I've still never gotten around to finishing either version of Lunar 2: Eternal Blue. I need to do that sometime. (All the Lunars after that sucked though, which is very unfortunate. Every play "Lunar: Dragon Song"? Trust me: Don't.)

> I don't think Working Designs has ever published
> anything less than great too.

Yup. Working Designs was great. And if you like them, Atlus seems to be the modern equivalent. Actually, that's exactly show I'd decribe Atlus: "The modern Working Designs, but with more games being released."

> My first game
> of theirs was Popful Mail on the sega cd, and
> that was awesome back in the day too.
>

I never actually played that until a couple years ago. *Definitely* a very good game. I keep meaning to go back and actually finish it.

It's kind of sad, there was a lot of *really* good stuff on the SegaCD, but nobody ever knew because they kept pushing the "games" from Digital Pictures too hard, so that's all anyone ever knew existed. (Although I'll admit, I did enjoy Sewer Shark, especially it's over-the-top B-movie cheesiness. And Night Trap is actually kinda clever.)

Some of the real standouts on SegaCD off the top of my head:

- Sonic CD (One of the two best Sonic games ever made, the other being Sonic
2)
- Final Fight CD (The best version of Final Fight)
- Lunar 1 & 2
- Popful Mail
- Willy Beamish
- Silpheed (Very different from the PS2 version, but both are fantastic)
- D (Heh, that's right. If the name is "D" it has to be good :) )
- Wolfchild
- Puggsy (although this was on Genesis, too)

The funny thing about D in particular (the game) is that it breaks practically every rule of good game design, and yet, that's exactly what makes it so fantastic. And not even in a "so bad it's good" sort of way, just genuinely good.

(Ermm...wait no...D was on Saturn not SegaCD. Nevermind ;) )

>
> Something awesome though: my brother emailed them
> to send his condolences when they went out of business,
> and actually got a personal reply from Victor Ireland,
> the president. I doubt any other game company out there
> has such a connection with their fans.
>

Heh, cool :)

> But, what sucks: one of my Lunar SSSC discs is broken!

Ouch!  One of my Driver 2 discs got broken in college, but I'm somewhat less bothered by that.

> But, great game. Those are cutscenes I couldn't get
> enough of.
>

Same here. I had a ritual (and still do to this day whenever I play it) of watching the entire intro song before every play session (Actually, I'm talking the SegaCD version here). I used to love that song, even had...no...*have*...it memorized:

---------------------------
When all the land is peaceful,
And there is no real threat to us at last,
Then comes the time for love,
Two hearts colliding into one great hymn.

But there are winds forboding,
And there is a dark storm that soon will pass.
Kiss me my love and go,
The time for valor has returned again.

All through the night...
Keep marching on...

Fighting...Through the darkness...
All is evil...Still we must press on...
Fighting...Toward the the power...
That enslaves us...Yet we are not done...
Racing...To the climax...
Of the battle...To return to love...
Valiant...
[Uhh, ok I forgot what goes here,
and I think I may have screwed up
this section anyway]
Evil forces...Take heed
---------------------------

Yea, it's pretty cheesy, but I was probably only about 12 at the time ;)

>
> While I'm talking about great games, another good
> one is Phantasy Star IV on the Genesis. II and III
> were ok too, but they moved too slowly. Literally,
> the character walking speed was abysmal. But, IV
> bumped up the speed big time, and it was amazing.
>

Yea. While I never really played Phantasy Star at the time, I did play through at least half of...one of them...about a couple years ago. Definitely a good game. It might have been the first...Regardless it wasn't Genesis, it was Master System, so whatever that could have been. I remember shuttling between three different planets, if that narrows it down.

I think that may have been another game where the "increase speed" button helped ;)

> I hate the way "phantasy star" now refers to some
> shitty MMORPG though. Fuck that noise, the Genesis
> is where it's at.
>

Yea. I always liked the Dreamcast, but I never really got into Phantasy Star Online. Or any MMO for that matter (Unless you count Sierra's "The INN" - way back before online gaming meant the internet!)

>> Actually, that reminds me, have you seen that
>> YouTube video of Sonic 2006's hub-world "gameplay"?
>
> Nay, but a friend bought some sonic game for the PS3 recently. I played it Wednesday, actually.
>
> The loading was annoying, but only at the start of
> a stage, so not disruptive to most the play.
>
> What got me though was the bizarre 3d stuff and
> seemingly sluggish controls. It was the same levels
> from Sonic 2, but it felt slow and unresponsive in
> comparison to the original.
>
> idk though, I haven't played the original for a long,
> long time.
>

I wonder which one that was. Maybe Sonic Generations? My brother and I have always been big Sonic fans even through the long period of admittedly crappy Sonic games. Sonic 2006 is the only one we haven't really played much of, and don't really plan to. But the PS3 ones he does have are:

- Sonic Unleashed: Daytime leves are fantastic, the puzzle sections on the Wii/PS2 version are great, but everything else is crap - and the PS3 version has framerate issues that are completely unforgivble considering the PS3 is *more* powerful than the Wii or PS2 hardware.

- Sonic Colors (Actually, this one's Wii). He likes this one, I hate everything about it. It pretends to be "Sonic Unleashed Daytime" gameplay, but everything about it's botched, IMO. And the music is "Mario Galaxy"-style orchestrated crap.

- Sonic 4: I love this one, despite how short it is. The physics are a little different from the Genesis games, and most people hate that, but I actually like it. It's a totally 2D game. Only the "sprites" are 3D. The upcoming second episode is looking fantastic. But I'm pissed that episode 2 won't come to Wii like episode 1 did.

- Sonic CD: Same game as the SegaCD one, but you can switch between the Japanese and US soundtracks, and play as Tails.

- Sonic Generations: The *allegedly* "Classic Sonic" levels are OK: not bad, but not fantastic. The "New Sonic" levels are fantastic though: They're "Sonic Unleased Daytime" gameplay, and some of them are 3D versions of classic older levels, like Chemical Plant from second level of Sonic 2.

>> So I don't think I've ever managed to get more than a couple hours into those.
>
> People call me a heretic for this, but I say FFs 1, 7, and 8 are the best of that bunch (and FF Tactics on the Playstation mixed in there too).
>

Really? I thought 7 was universally considered the best one. Although 8, and the NES ones, are fairly unpopular.

> The SNES ones were ok, but I didn't love them. Yes, FF6
> has the opera scene. Yes, it is amazing.
>

I'm not sure I've even heard of that scene. Maybe I'll have to give it another chance and try to get to that.

>> In the PSX era, I was more into PC gaming and didn't have a PSX, so I got the PC FF7.
>
> I've heard nothing but bad things about the PC versions. Never played it myself, but I'm told it was slow, buggy, and annoying...
>

Back then, any time you had a PC port of a console game, you *knew* it would be a bit rough around the edges. So it was just kinda expected. And it *was* a little rough around the edges, but I didn't have any major problems trying to play it. Seemed to work fine, though I don't doubt other people had problems.

Thanks to my 3DFX Voodoo card, It *was* definitely better-looking than the PSX version: 640x480 instead of what I'm pretty sure must have been roughly comprable to 320x240. And of course, you have to keep in mind that was loooong before anyone had even heard of "HDTV". (Probably part of why I'm so unimpressd with HDTV now - I've already been using HD resolutions on my PC for ages and already got used to switching back to SD whenever I'd use a TV.)

>
>> I realized I was only playing it to see what happens
>> and was genuinely dreading/rushing-through the battles
>
> I put 8 among the top for a few reasons: 1) I liked
> the story and the main character. People call me a heretic
> for this too, but "then go talk to a wall", I cheered
> that line! That was sexual harassment, and Squall didn't
> have to take it.
>
> Just generally though, 8 has a fine story.
>

Yea, I did kinda like that about it.

> 2) Enc-None. You can turn off most the fights and just
> fly through the game if you want too.
>

Huh, really? I never new that. If I had, I probably would have finished it. How do you do that?

>
> I barely played the PS2 at all; almost everything I've
> seen of it was my brother playing it. It was just
> after my time.
>

I was always more a GameCube/XBox1 guy, but there's some good stuff on PS2:

- Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra (The main reasons I got a PS2 in the first place, and still two of my all-time favorite games.)

- Silpheed (totally different from SegaCD version, but still great)

- MegaMan Collection / MegaMan X Collection / MegaMan X8 (Best on PS2 b/c it's the only system with a non-crap DPad and, the GC version has those stupidly-reversed shoot/jump controls)

- God Hand (f*ing CRAZY)

- Stretch Panic (Also f*ing CRAZY, kinda unfinished though)

- Some others: Rez, Devil May Cry 1, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus (crap framerate though), Katamari Damacy


> I think the problem was as the tech advanced, they
> were no longer limited in their use. The designers
> before used them sparingly because that was the
> most they could.
>

That's how I feel about *many* things in modern games. Or even modern software or devices. Just because the "can" they think that they should.

> Blah. I'm not a big castlevania fan (I watched my brother
> play a lot of SOTN - yea, I watched my brother play a lot
> of stuff, happens when you share rooms for 16 years! and
> it was ok but seemed to drag on and on for me.

Oh, man, I'm a total Castlevania fanatic, especially the "Metroidvania" ones. But those ones (SOTN being the first - and the only non-portable one unfortunately) *would* probably be boring to just watch. Open-world games are great, but they don't always make for great spectator games.

> Changing
> cape colors only goes so far in making up for repetition.)

Heh, well, that's more of an "extra little touch" easter egg kinda thing anyway.

>
> Game critics are bought and paid for by the publishers,
> all of them, and the sheeple buy their crap hook, line,
> and sinker.
>

Yea. That's actually become publically-known now, even though a lot of people will still never beleive it.

On Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 23:01:32 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Certainly is. But *I* grew up on the original SegaCD version :)

I never got to play that version... but the song you mention
below, oh I know it. Track 9 on the playstation version
soundtrack cd.

> I can't believe I've still never gotten around to finishing either version of Lunar 2: Eternal Blue. I need to do that sometime.

That's actually on my list too... my brother finished lunar 2,
but I never did. But again though, sharing the room means
I know it all.


> (Although I'll admit, I did enjoy Sewer Shark

hahhahaha "relax, pretend it's a game... maybe it'll
even be fun. SHOOT THE TUBES, DOGMEAT!"


It's kinda funny when you think about all the craziness
that shapes quirks. At least in me. Every so often,
I think of one of these stupid games and I laugh
to myself, or slip it in to a conversation at random.

But, it is just a random collection of, often, really
bad things from fifteen years ago.

> - Sonic CD (One of the two best Sonic games ever made, the other being Sonic

Have this one. That was a fine game; the good SCD
games are the ones where they actually made a *game*
that happened to use the sega cd, not a Sega CD thing
that needs to pass for a game.

Another good one btw is Sol Feace - a pretty simple
sidescrolling space shooter, but just again, a
game that happened to be on the system.

Oh, Mortal Kombat was scd too, and it had full blood
and everything. My copy of this disappeared sometime
in the 90's though, and we never did find it.

> I used to love that song, even
> had...no...*have*...it memorized:

I think I have the words to... 9 video game songs
memorized.

I actually listen to vg music more often than anything
else.

> Definitely a good game. It might have been the first...

Yes, indeed, the first was on the sega master system.
It was a little slow moving... lots of level grinding
needed. It did that weird faux 3d dungeon thing
that was popular for a bit in the 8 bit era!

They set a nice foundation for the story there.
Uniquely, in my experience, they actually have an
ongoing story in those four games.

> I wonder which one that was. Maybe Sonic Generations?

Maybe... I was just helping his daughter through a
couple levels. She's kinda terrible at games!

But I think that does fit, since it had a time travel
plot going with younger copies of sonic and tails and
I did the chemical plant level for her.


> - Sonic 4: I love this one, despite how short it is.

Huh, I didn't even know there was a sonic 4. On the
genesis, I had 1, 2, 3, sonic+knuckles, sonic cd,
and one called sonic 3d.

Oh and sonic spinball, a pinballish game.

I guess I had a lot of them! Sonic 3 & Knuckles
was one monster of a game. Huge.

> Really? I thought 7 was universally considered the best one.

The internet nerds seem to be of two groups: the ones who
say 7 is the greatest game ever made, and the ones who
say 7 is an overrated piece of trash that has nothing
on 6.

A lot of people hate #1 and 8 though, which I don't get.
Those are fine games.

> I'm not sure I've even heard of that scene. Maybe I'll have to give it another chance and try to get to that.

omg just youtube it too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgZXiHfNt0M

there's more to it than that, but that's the main piece.

I guess that's arguably a SNES cutscene... but this one rocks.
They also did live versions of the song! Totally amazing.

> Huh, really? I never new that. If I had, I probably would have finished it.
> How do you do that?

After the training thingy, the headmaster gives you
a lamp. Use it as an item, and a demon pops out.

If you beat him, you can use it as a GF and learn
an ability Enc-Half. After that comes Enc-None.

Equip the skill and boom, no random fights.


Since you can do this fairly early in the game, you
can go through 80% of it with no random fights at all!

And since the stats mostly come from junctions, you
can get away with near zero experience too - so
missing the fights+experience isn't a dealbreaker.


> I was always more a GameCube/XBox1 guy, but there's some good stuff on PS2:

I haven't played any of those... I did somewhat recently
finally buy a used PS2 for myself, but barely played
it so far. Got Gran Turismo 3 and Madden 2008 for it
(for a dollar a piece, not bad!)

I played Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 too, and that was
a fine game. A solid series they have there.

> Open-world games
> are great, but they don't always make for great spectator games.

aye.

> Heh, well, that's more of an "extra little touch" easter egg kinda thing anyway.

It looked really good though. My definition of
"good graphics" is often "bright, lively colors".

That's one reason I like FF1 - you have a good amount
of bright green and blue. It makes me happy. FF Tactics
too had a lot of cool bright thingies.

Too many new things are going with dull, boring colors.
Gah. Newsflash people, the real world is pretty bright!
You can be realistic and colorful, though the old
drawn animation style looks nice for itself.

On Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 20:54:49 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Over-the-air broadcast literally looked *better* than that *before* the digital switch! I'm not exagerating.

I don't doubt it, though I was on cable for a long
time.

> Oh yea, and the set-top boxes themselves don't
> even work right anymore!

That was *terrible* when digital was new, but wasn't
bad at all when I left (in December). The cable
was pretty good... just /ridiculously/ overpriced.

> But PBS is mature enough not to pull any of that crap.

yes, pbs is a fine station.

> That's *cheap* for cable. (Still not worth it though, I agree.)

Actually, I think I flipped that... I'm paying $55 now
for the internet. (that reminds me, it is time to pay that
again)

At first, the cable+internet was $90 / month. But, after
the first year, they jacked it up to $120.

And then, the next year, they jacked it up to $130. So
I was probably paying $75 for the cable. Even worse.
Totally not worth it.

I'm not terribly happy with that internet price either,
but I use the crap out of it and my job relies on it,
so meh.



But, speaking of raising prices, this reminds me of a
convo I had with my landlady a couple weeks ago.

She noted that I've been here for two and a half years
and only jacked the rent once.

"I've been getting behind on that... I have to raise it
at least 3% a year. The cost of living is going up..."


Yes, the cost of living is going up because YOU are
insisting on raising the rent on some fixed schedule!

And then I asked for all this in writing, and I get a
letter in the mail. She changed her mind: 5% increase,
effective immediately and going up each year automatically.

Hell no, I'm not going to sign that. I find it a little
ridiculous that she thinks I would - that's higher than
the going mortgage rate! And, unlike this lease, a
mortgage can eventually be paid off.

But, ugh. I hate moving and I hate being in debt, but
she made the decision for me - I'm just going to buy
a house and be done with it. I hate annual price hikes,
no matter who's doing it.

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator@gmail.com> wrote in message news:ywifkafuypvfduunmatf@forum.dlang.org...
> On Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 20:54:49 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Oh yea, and the set-top boxes themselves don't
>> even work right anymore!
>
> That was *terrible* when digital was new, but wasn't
> bad at all when I left (in December). The cable
> was pretty good... just /ridiculously/ overpriced.
>

That would make more sense, but for some reason it was backwards for us. Our area was initially Adelphia, and everything actually worked 100% fine for a long time. Then their CEO, or some other board member or whatever went to jail apperently, and Time Warner scooped us up, and everything just went straight downhill from there.

I still find it wonderfully amusing that the known-corrupt Adelphia actually gave us better service than Time Warner.

>> That's *cheap* for cable. (Still not worth it though, I agree.)
>
> Actually, I think I flipped that... I'm paying $55 now
> for the internet. (that reminds me, it is time to pay that
> again)
>
> At first, the cable+internet was $90 / month. But, after the first year, they jacked it up to $120.
>
> And then, the next year, they jacked it up to $130. So
> I was probably paying $75 for the cable. Even worse.
> Totally not worth it.
>

I don't remember our exact numbers, but that sound right about on par with us.

Interstingly though, Time Warner was always more expensive than Adelphia. We first got cable w/ digital w/ internet through Adelphia when I was in 12th grade IIRC (Cleveland area - Northeast Ohio). Then two or three years later, when I got out of the college dorms and into a college apartment (Toledo area - Northwest Ohio), *that* area was served by Time Warner and IIRC they were charging something like $20-$40 more than the folks were paying back home in Cleveland for the same service.

Then later on when Adelphia collapsed and Time Warner took over, the prices back here in Cleveland started getting jacked up more and more each year (and like I said, the service got worse and worse).

> I'm not terribly happy with that internet price either,
> but I use the crap out of it and my job relies on it,
> so meh.
>

That does seem about $15 higher than it should be. I'd have to check what we're paying though, might actually be the same these days. I could never go back to dial-up though. Seriously. Like you, I just wouldn't be able to do my work.

>
> But, speaking of raising prices, this reminds me of a
> convo I had with my landlady a couple weeks ago.
>
> She noted that I've been here for two and a half years
> and only jacked the rent once.
>
> "I've been getting behind on that... I have to raise it
> at least 3% a year. The cost of living is going up..."
>

Wow, what a moronic load of crap! That's why I think people with a < 100 IQ should be institutionalized or at least kept from making decisions that affect other people.

>
> Yes, the cost of living is going up because YOU are insisting on raising the rent on some fixed schedule!
>

Exactly!

It pisses me off when people blame things on "inflation". Yes, there *is* certainly inflation involved, but inflation means the money *itself* has reduced worth: Ie, more $ going out *and* more $ coming in.

See, going from earning $100 and then paying $0.10 for product X, to earning $1,000 and paying $1 for product X - *THAT'S* inflation. You know, "$100 / $0.10" with 10x inflation == "$1,000 / $1".  But that's NOT what we have: What we have is more like "$100 / $0.10 -> $115 / $1". That's not inflation, that's just corporate greed and bullshit excuses.


> But, ugh. I hate moving and I hate being in debt, but

Yea, same here.

> she made the decision for me - I'm just going to buy
> a house and be done with it. I hate annual price hikes,
> no matter who's doing it.

Good for you! (Stick it to the...*ahem*..."man" ;) ). The one thing to be careful with though is maintenance. If it's an older house, sometimes the upkeep can end up costing more than what you'd expect to save (My mom ran into that once).

Finances are a pain the the ass, eh?

On Saturday, March 31, 2012 05:37:49 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Walter Bright" <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote in message
> > Dudes, get an HD TV. It really is transformative. And yes, it kills me that my expensive old large screen standard def TV is just a POS in comparison, even though it is in perfect working order.
> > 
> > I can't even stand to watch standard def anymore.
> 
> YMMV, but it *honestly* just
> doesn't do much for me. Certainly not enough to blow hundreds of dollars on
> it.
[snip]

Personally, I can stand SD less and less, and poorer video quality annoys me more and more. But I deal with video-related software for a living, and I've transcoded enough video (especially HD video) in my free time that I _really_ notice the flaws. There are DVDs that I watched 5 years ago and thought were fine that I see now and have a very hard time standing them, because they look so bad. There are even encoding issues that I see in blu-rays quite often that drive me nuts (especially banding), but that's the best that you can get at this point.

My parents, on the other hand, don't have any HD anything, don't see the point, and don't seem to care much about video quality at all. So, it really depends on what you're used to and what you expect. I've just dealt with video encoding and the like in enough detail long enough to get really picky about it (my Mother thinks that I'm a snob about video and audio quality). I don't have a TV right now (I just watch everything on my computer - 24" 1920 x 1200 display), but if I did, I sure wouldn't put up with an SD TV. I'd be looking to get a high quality, HD TV.

But there's no question that YMMV.

- Jonathan M Davis

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator@gmail.com> wrote in message news:vxrvmmiapcbsemheabee@forum.dlang.org...
> On Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 23:01:32 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> (Although I'll admit, I did enjoy Sewer Shark
>
> hahhahaha "relax, pretend it's a game... maybe it'll
> even be fun. SHOOT THE TUBES, DOGMEAT!"
>

Games don't have fantastic lines like that anymore ;(

Heh, and even the delivery of it is just priceless.

>
> It's kinda funny when you think about all the craziness
> that shapes quirks. At least in me. Every so often,
> I think of one of these stupid games and I laugh
> to myself, or slip it in to a conversation at random.
>
> But, it is just a random collection of, often, really
> bad things from fifteen years ago.
>

Heh, yea. I don't care if the whole Inter^H^H^H^H^Hcybertubes are tired of it: I *still* find "All your base"/"Set us up the bomb" to be hilarious.

>> - Sonic CD (One of the two best Sonic games ever made, the other being Sonic
>
> Have this one. That was a fine game; the good SCD
> games are the ones where they actually made a *game*
> that happened to use the sega cd, not a Sega CD thing
> that needs to pass for a game.
>

Exactly. Always felt that way.

> Another good one btw is Sol Feace - a pretty simple
> sidescrolling space shooter, but just again, a
> game that happened to be on the system.
>

Yea! I have that one too :)

> Oh, Mortal Kombat was scd too, and it had full blood
> and everything. My copy of this disappeared sometime
> in the 90's though, and we never did find it.
>

Oh, you were one of *those* people... ;) I was always more in the SF2 camp. MK's ultra-violence was great, and I liked "toasty!" and such, but I never much liked the controls.

But I'm absolutely rubbish at *all* 1-on-1 fighting games, though. Anybody has *always* been able to kick my ass unless I did cheap shit like choose Chun Li when my friend uses Ken, and constantly shout things like "You were out with that slut Barbie again, weren't you, Ken!!" Only way I could ever win :) Never worked against the CPU though...

>> I used to love that song, even
>> had...no...*have*...it memorized:
>
> I think I have the words to... 9 video game songs memorized.
>

That's actually a lot as most don't have lyrics ;)

> I actually listen to vg music more often than anything else.
>

There's definitely some good stuff. The 8/16-bit era capcom is ledgendary for great music. Like MegaMan 2/3, and Street Fighter 2. Guile's theme has always been is one of my all-time favorite songs. And probably the original reason I got into smooth jazz (although I guess it's not exactly smooth jazz, per se, but some sort of jazzy).

Actually, there's some really good stuff on OCRemix (a lot of crap, too, though). Some of the stuff by DJ Pretzel is absolutely fantastic.

And of course (here I am back with Castlevania again), Symphony of the Night has just the absolute most legendary soundtrack ever. Even the totally-different-style end theme works surpisingly well.

Doom 1+2's music, of course, is classic too. And a little-known EGA PC platformer called Space Chase (great game too BTW).

And Sonic CD (unlike many people, I actually like the US soundtrack better). I used to sit in study hall memorizing and reciting in my head "Sonic Boom".

I could probably go on and on.

But I tend to listen to non-game stuff more: I'm a total whore for Anime opening/closing themes. So Yoko Ishida is great. And then there's normal Industrial/Metal etc like TKK/KMFDM/Iron Maiden/Manson (esp. the stuff with Tim Skold - a fantastic musician). And Paul Hardcastle (ie smooth jazz), partly 'cause some of his stuff reminds me of Streets of Rage.

I've got strange music tastes ;)

>> Definitely a good game. It might have been the first...
>
> Yes, indeed, the first was on the sega master system.
> It was a little slow moving... lots of level grinding
> needed. It did that weird faux 3d dungeon thing
> that was popular for a bit in the 8 bit era!
>

Yea. But the whole thing is incredibly impressive for an SMS game.

> They set a nice foundation for the story there.
> Uniquely, in my experience, they actually have an
> ongoing story in those four games.
>

Really? I've played only the first few minutes of all of them and they all seemed very different from each other. But obviously a few minutes doesn't even scratch the surface.

>> I wonder which one that was. Maybe Sonic Generations?
>
> Maybe... I was just helping his daughter through a
> couple levels. She's kinda terrible at games!
>

Like my sister. She likes Sonic and 2D Mario, but still tends to need help from her two brothers who have spent their lives playing the crap out of such games ;)

> But I think that does fit, since it had a time travel
> plot going with younger copies of sonic and tails and
> I did the chemical plant level for her.
>

Yea, that would definitely be it. The only other Sonic with time travel (AFAIK) is Sonic CD.

Actualy, IIRC, my brother told me that Silver from Sonic 2006 is from the future, but what you described does sound like Sonic Generations. I actually like Generations quite a bit, definitely one of the better 3D sonics, even if imperfect. And the cutscenes are skippable, so I've never had to watch them :P

>
>> - Sonic 4: I love this one, despite how short it is.
>
> Huh, I didn't even know there was a sonic 4. On the
> genesis, I had 1, 2, 3, sonic+knuckles, sonic cd,
> and one called sonic 3d.
>

It's a brand-new one. Just came out about a couple years ago, a downloadable title for Wii/PS3/360/iOS. "Sonic 4: Episode 1". Episode 2 should be out this year, but they're dropping Wii support (Dammit! It looks fantastic!)

> Oh and sonic spinball, a pinballish game.
>

Yea, that was surprisingly good. And really kinda clever.

> I guess I had a lot of them! Sonic 3 & Knuckles
> was one monster of a game. Huge.
>

Oh yea. It certainly was.

>> Really? I thought 7 was universally considered the best one.
>
> The internet nerds seem to be of two groups: the ones who
> say 7 is the greatest game ever made, and the ones who
> say 7 is an overrated piece of trash that has nothing
> on 6.
>
> A lot of people hate #1 and 8 though, which I don't get. Those are fine games.
>

Most people seem to hate the draw system in FF8. I can definitely see why, but for some reason it didn't bother me as much (don't know why).

>> I'm not sure I've even heard of that scene. Maybe I'll have to give it another chance and try to get to that.
>
> omg just youtube it too
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgZXiHfNt0M
>
> there's more to it than that, but that's the main piece.
>

Thanks.

Yea, 8/16-bit cutscenes were so much more artistic. The ones now are, at best, nothing more than normal, ordinary cinematography. And "impressive" ones just mean "flashy ways to move the camera around". *Yawn*

> I guess that's arguably a SNES cutscene... but this one rocks. They also did live versions of the song! Totally amazing.
>

8/16-bit cutscenes weren't bad. Actually I never minded them back then. It wasn't until much later that I got fed up with cutscenes.  Even as late as Quake 2 - I *loved* the Quake 2 opening cutscene. 'Course it *was* skippable, which helped to not piss me off.

>> Huh, really? I never new that. If I had, I probably would have finished
>> it.
>> How do you do that?
>
> After the training thingy, the headmaster gives you
> a lamp. Use it as an item, and a demon pops out.
>
> If you beat him, you can use it as a GF and learn
> an ability Enc-Half. After that comes Enc-None.
>
> Equip the skill and boom, no random fights.
>

Neat, maybe I'll dig it out again sometime just to give that a try. (If I still have it...I might have sold it.)

>
> Since you can do this fairly early in the game, you
> can go through 80% of it with no random fights at all!
>

Smart move on Square's part.

> And since the stats mostly come from junctions, you
> can get away with near zero experience too - so
> missing the fights+experience isn't a dealbreaker.
>

Ahh, I was wondering about that.

>
>> I was always more a GameCube/XBox1 guy, but there's some good stuff on PS2:
>
> I haven't played any of those...

Really? Oh my god, you're really missing out. Let's see:

GameCube:

- Luigi's Mansion: Most people hated it just because it wasn't "Mario 64 2", but it's one of my all time favorite games.

- Pikmin 1+2: The only RTS I actually like, and I love it. Although the Wii versions are better.

- Resident Evil 4: Actually, this is another fantastic one where the Wii version was even better. *Very* different from all the earlier Resident Evil's though.

- Killer 7: Crazy awesomeness. Awesome craziness.

- Metroid Prime 1: Two was also pretty good, but three sucked (and so did "hunters"). This one I honestly like the GC version better. Normally I like IR pointing for FPSes, but I think they really botched it up for the Metroid Prime Games.

- Wind Waker: Best of the 3D Zeldas.

- Donkey Kong Jungle Beat: Briliant twist on platformers, provided that you use the bongo controllers, not the GC controller and not the horrid gesture controls from the Wii version. (I *hate* gesture recognition. Never responsive, never even works reliably.)

- Eternal Darkness: Who the hell says Nintendo systems are for kid's games? Kinda like Resident Evil meets H.P. Lovecraft.

- More: Alian Hominid, Ikaruga, MegaMan: Network Transmission.

XBox1:

- Tony Hawk 2X: By far the best in the series. Note: "2X" not "2". It has all the THPS1+2 levels, plus extra levels, plus the best graphics of any THPS2, plus a menu system that isn't ugly like the regular THPS2.

- Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay: Yea, a movie tie-in that actually doesn't suck, and is actually incredibly good. There's an annoying cutscene sequence early on, but it's worth putting up with to get to the rest of the game.

- Splinter Cell 1-4: Like I said before, one of my all-time favorite game series. Stealth gaming that puts MGS absolutely to shame. The best one is 3 ("Chaos Theory"), and then the first one. I've actually just been replaying the first and third lately (for probably the tenth time), and I'm *still* getting better at it and finding things I missed. The XBox1 versions of these are by far the best. GC/PS2 versions aren't quite as good looking, and the GC doesn't have enough buttons to really make it work. And the Wii one was just totally botched up in every way. I think they've ported them to PS3 though, those versions might be good.

- Dead or Alive 3 and Ultimate, if you're into fighting games. I'm not as much as I used to be. But these are good ones.

- Beyond Good & Evil - Too much story and cutscenes, and too short, but still surprisingly good.

- Blowout: It's like an updated Abuse. Underrated, IMO.

- Battle Engine Aquila, Oddworld: Munch's Odysee, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Outrun 2, Forza Motorsport, SegaGT Online, Rallisport Challenge.

- Pretty much any cross platform game was always best on XBox1. Only exception is MegaMan b/c MS DPads are always shit.

Meh, and yea, I guess there's something-or-other called "Halo" or some such name which apperently was all the rage... ;)


> I did somewhat recently
> finally buy a used PS2 for myself, but barely played
> it so far. Got Gran Turismo 3 and Madden 2008 for it
> (for a dollar a piece, not bad!)
>

Good deal! I actually returned GT3 when I got it though because playing racing games without proper sholder triggers (for gas/break) sucks.

> I played Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 too, and that was
> a fine game. A solid series they have there.
>

Haven't played that one, but I like PS3's "Split Second" quite a lot. Although I could do without the pretend-it's-an-extreeeeme-TV-show announcer and the over-designed menus.

>> Heh, well, that's more of an "extra little touch" easter egg kinda thing anyway.
>
> It looked really good though. My definition of
> "good graphics" is often "bright, lively colors".
>

Yea, Castlevania: SOTN is a brilliant game visualy. First of all, it played to the PS1's strengths by making it good-looking *2D* instead of shitty-looking 3D like all the other games of the era. And then they added just extra little 3D "touches" without overdoing it. And just the whole visual direction overall was very well done. Even the later Metroidvanias didn't pull it off quite as well as SOTN did.

> That's one reason I like FF1 - you have a good amount
> of bright green and blue. It makes me happy. FF Tactics
> too had a lot of cool bright thingies.
>

Heh, yea. That's probably part of why I have such a soft spot for EGA graphics and, yes, that exact "bright color tiles" aethetic used in NES FF's overworld.

> Too many new things are going with dull, boring colors.
> Gah. Newsflash people, the real world is pretty bright!
> You can be realistic and colorful, though the old
> drawn animation style looks nice for itself.
>

Dark is "hip and edgy".

But haven't you heard? Real is brown: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

On Sunday, 1 April 2012 at 03:10:49 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> But I tend to listen to non-game stuff more: I'm a total whore for Anime opening/closing themes.

Oh yes. Coincidentally, as I read this, I was playing
the opening from Zeta Gundam!

Another one I find incredibly addictive is one of
the openings from Tenchi Muyo - "Pioneer" I think
is the title.

This is one reason I like living alone though: I can
use the speakers for this stuff without embarrassment.

"are you listening to some weird Japanese song???
At 1.3x speed???"

/deal with it/


> Really? I've played only the first few minutes of all of them and they all seemed very different from each other.

Oh yes. They are all different, but take place in the same
setting and the events of one contribute to the next.

You get a nice sense of continuity, especially in PS4
looking back.

> Really? Oh my god, you're really missing out. Let's see:

Well, I was imprecise - I had played the XBox, but not
the specific games you listed.

I actually won an xbox in... 2003 or 2004 in a school
event contest. I think it was actually rigged, but
that's another story.

I barely played it though; by then, my gaming days
were pretty much already over.

My father and brother both got into it though, and
bought a number of games that I played a little bit
with them.

This included some baseball game (baseball btw is a
weird thing. I can't stand watching it. Baseball
on the tv is one of the most boring things I have
ever seen. But, I enjoy playing it, both in the
video game world and in the real world.), a
fighting game, Dead or Alive (2 and 3 I think),
some kind of Tony Hawk, and Halo. And Halo 2,
but that was godawful.

My brother also played a single player Star Wars
RPG on it.


Baseball is baseball, not much to say there. A pretty
solid game.

The Dead or Alive games are ridiculous though. One
word: BOOBS. But, they were pretty good for fighting
games anyway.

Tony Hawk is a nice game. I played Tony Hawk 2 on the
playstation (something I'd like to find. I think I
still have it, but idk) and I liked that one. The
xbox wasn't the same though - I could never get used
to the new controller.

And then, Halo. The single player is PURE ASS. It
just goes on forever and is horribly repetitive. I
can't play that.

Perfect Dark's single player is awesome. The levels
are varied, you have things to do, the story is
good enough, and most importantly, it moves quickly
enough that it isn't a bother.

The typical PD level can be beaten in three minutes.

Halo just went on and on.

But, multiplayer wasn't bad. It wasn't really *great*
either, but plenty playable. I like it.

My favorite part of that game though was the title
screen. That was just a cool picture and that halo
theme song rocked.


Now, Halo 2, ugh. So, the single player still
sucks... and they proceeded to break the multiplayer too.

Take a poor weapon selection from halo 1. Make it worse.

Take a mediocre level selection. Make it worse.

Take a workable life and powerup system. Ditch it.


Gah! Thankfully, my brother agreed, so we always
put in halo 1. I don't think I've ever seen halo 3,
and I don't care to.


> Good deal! I actually returned GT3 when I got it though because playing racing games without proper sholder triggers (for gas/break) sucks.

I've never even tried a game like that! Holding a button
with a thumb is the way it has always been. And the
way it always shall be.

> Although I could do without the pretend-it's-an-extreeeeme-TV-show announcer
> and the over-designed menus.

haha that sounds awesome. I'm reminded of one game
my brother had in... oh god, the old house, 1998 or
something.

It was a wrestling game for the playstation with
announcers.

Me, being a button masher, had little to no style,
and this game actually called me out!

"This guy is an idiot! He keeps doing the same move
over and over!"

that was great. Until they started repeating the
same commentary over and over.

> But haven't you heard? Real is brown:
> http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

yup.

On 3/30/2012 3:27 PM, Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
> I asked because Delphi and D are the only ones I know that make friend classes
> implicit :-)

I didn't know that about Delphi.

"Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote in message news:mailman.1266.1333244549.4860.digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com...
> On Saturday, March 31, 2012 05:37:49 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Walter Bright" <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote in message
>> > Dudes, get an HD TV. It really is transformative. And yes, it kills me that my expensive old large screen standard def TV is just a POS in comparison, even though it is in perfect working order.
>> >
>> > I can't even stand to watch standard def anymore.
>>
>> YMMV, but it *honestly* just
>> doesn't do much for me. Certainly not enough to blow hundreds of dollars
>> on
>> it.
> [snip]
>
> Personally, I can stand SD less and less, and poorer video quality annoys
> me
> more and more. But I deal with video-related software for a living, and
> I've
> transcoded enough video (especially HD video) in my free time that I
> _really_
> notice the flaws. There are DVDs that I watched 5 years ago and thought
> were
> fine that I see now and have a very hard time standing them, because they
> look
> so bad. There are even encoding issues that I see in blu-rays quite often
> that
> drive me nuts (especially banding), but that's the best that you can get
> at
> this point.
>
> My parents, on the other hand, don't have any HD anything, don't see the
> point, and don't seem to care much about video quality at all. So, it
> really
> depends on what you're used to and what you expect. I've just dealt with
> video
> encoding and the like in enough detail long enough to get really picky
> about
> it (my Mother thinks that I'm a snob about video and audio quality). I
> don't
> have a TV right now (I just watch everything on my computer - 24" 1920 x
> 1200
> display), but if I did, I sure wouldn't put up with an SD TV. I'd be
> looking
> to get a high quality, HD TV.
>
> But there's no question that YMMV.
>

I can actually relate somewhat: Compression artifacts, messed up aspect ratios and double-letterboxing (ie, on both top/bottom *and* sides) all drive me absolutely nuts. And it bugs me even more that most people don't even seem to notice.

Seriously, how f*ing hard is it to get aspect ratios right? You flag the damn video with its aspect ratio[1], pass it through *everything*, and if the *display device* is physically different, it letterboxes as appropriate[2], and *optionally* crops instead if you really want it to. For non-digital TVs, you tell the tuner-box/cable-box/DVD-player/Game-console/etc., what aspect ratio the TV is and it does the scaling/letterboxing instead. Done! Follow that and *nothing* should ever be stretched, squished or double-letterboxed for *anyone*. But no, everything's gotta be done as ad-hoc, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants bullshit. It's HTML4 all over again.

Pulldown/interlacing artifacts and lack-of-vsync tearing annoy me too.

Light text on a light background (esp. when it's really tiny text, as they like to do now for some reason - do filmmakers and gamedevs somehow think high resolution automagically makes the screen's physical size larger? Because it doesn't.)

Pan & scan conversions of 16:9 -> 4:3. (Not that anyobne does that anymore...do they?)

Shaky-cam and rapid-fire edits irritate the *hell* out of me too, but I guess those aren't so much technical issues as production ones.

And then there's watching shows on my grandma's ~17", ~30-year-old twin-lead-input TV. Not *that's* a bad picture!

[1] And when the content changes ratio, change the damn flag, don't bake in the letterboxing.

[2] "Letterbox": Ie, *uniformly* scale the video so that one dimention is an exact match and the other dimention is smaller than the screen and centered. Cropping is the same, just choose the other dimension as the exact match.

From: "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator@gmail.com>
> On Sunday, 1 April 2012 at 03:10:49 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> But I tend to listen to non-game stuff more: I'm a total whore for Anime opening/closing themes.
>
> Oh yes. Coincidentally, as I read this, I was playing
> the opening from Zeta Gundam!
>
> Another one I find incredibly addictive is one of
> the openings from Tenchi Muyo - "Pioneer" I think
> is the title.
>

Haven't heard that Gundam one (I'm not usually real big on mech animes. I have no idea why.) I have a couple Tenchi ones, but the metadata labels on them aren't very helpful, so I don't know if I have that particular one. One of them's an instrumental.

These are my favorites so far (and keep in mind, too, that one of the things that often makes me love an opening/closing song is when a great animation goes with it - Just one of those weird psychological "association" things.) And yea, this *is* a long list. I have a lot of favorites :)

[artist] title (show)

[Anzen Chitai] Suki Sa (One of the Maison Ikkoku openings)
[The Indigo] I Do! (ED1: Ai Yori Aoshi Enishi)
[Yoko Ishida] At Your Own Speed (I don't actually know what it's from)
[Oranges & Lemons] Raspberry Heaven (ED1: Azumanga Daioh)
[Oranges & Lemons / Kuricorder Pops Orchestra] Soramimi Cake (OP1: Azumanga
Daioh)
[Hitomi Takahashi] Aozora no Namida (OP1: Blood+)
[Chitose Hajime] Kataritsugu Koto (ED1: Blood+)
[???] Let Me Be With You (OP: Chobits)
[Yoko Kanno] Tank! (OP: Cowboy Bebop)
[???] Real Folk Blues (ED: Cowboy Bebop)
[Excel Girls] Ai (Chuuseishin) (OP: Excel Saga)
[Origa & Yoko Kanno] Inner Universe (OP: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone
Complex)
[Kaoru Wada] Kagome's Theme (Background Music: Inuyasha)
[Ayumi Hamasaki] Dearest (ED3: Inuyasha)
[Dream] My Will (ED1: Inuyasha)
[Every Little Thing] Yura Yura (Movie 2: Inuyasha)
[Hitomi Shimatani] Angelus (OP6: Inuyasha)
[Namie Amuro] Come (ED7: Inuyasha)
[Nanase Aikawa] Owarinai Yume (OP3: Inuyasha)
[Eufonius] Koi Suru Kokoro (OP: Kashimashi)
[Yuumao] Michishirube (ED: Kashimashi)
[Isoe Toshimichi & Hosoi Soushi & Fujima Hitoshi] Hiai mo Otome ni wa
(Background Song: Kashimashi - I've actually been trying to learn this one
on the piano)
[???] Panic (ED1: Kodocha)
[???] Ultra Relax (OP2: Kodocha)
[the show's cast] Cherry Blossoms Blooming (OP: Love Hina)
[Shiro Sagisu /Miho Morikawa] Blue Water (OP: Nadia: The Secret of Blue
Water)
[Shiro Sagisu / Miho Morikawa] Yes! I Will... (ED: Nadia: The Secret of Blue
Water)
[Rythem] Harmonia (ED2?: Naruto)
[Eufonius] Idea (OP: Noein)
[Solua] Yoake no Ashioto (ED: Noein)
[the show's cast] Shojo Q (OP3: Pani Poni Dash)
[the show's cast] Roulette * Roulette (OP2: Pani Poni Dash)
[Suga Shikao] 19sai (OP: xxxHolic)
[Minmi] Shiki no Uta (ED1: Samurai Champloo)
[Nujabes] Battlecry (OP: Samurai Champloo)
[Yui Horie & Unscandal] Scramble (OP1: School Rumble)
[Yuko Ogura] Onnanoko Otokonoko (ED1: School Rumble)
[the show's cast] Ichigo Complete (OP: Strawberry Marshmallow)

Some of those artists have some other really good stuff, too. Like Anzen Chitai's "Jirettai". Namie Amuro's "Style" and "As Good As". Or the "Abingdon Road" album from Abingdon Boys School (along with much of T.M. Revolution's stuff - one of the members of Abingdon Boys School). Or almost anything from The Indigo (NOT to be confused with Indigo Girls).

Actually, that is insanely long, these would be the tops of the tops:

[Anzen Chitai] Suki Sa (One of the Maison Ikkoku openings)
[The Indigo] I Do! (ED1: Ai Yori Aoshi Enishi)
[Hitomi Takahashi] Aozora no Namida (OP1: Blood+)
[Yoko Kanno] Tank! (OP: Cowboy Bebop)
[Origa & Yoko Kanno] Inner Universe (OP: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone
Complex)
[Kaoru Wada] Kagome's Theme (Background Music: Inuyasha)
[Dream] My Will (ED1: Inuyasha)
[Namie Amuro] Come (ED7: Inuyasha)
[Nanase Aikawa] Owarinai Yume (OP3: Inuyasha)
[Eufonius] Koi Suru Kokoro (OP: Kashimashi)
[Yuumao] Michishirube (ED: Kashimashi)
[Isoe Toshimichi & Hosoi Soushi & Fujima Hitoshi] Hiai mo Otome ni wa
(Background Song: Kashimashi - I've actually been trying to learn this one
on the piano)
[???] Panic (ED1: Kodocha)
[???] Ultra Relax (OP2: Kodocha)
[Rythem] Harmonia (ED2?: Naruto)
[Eufonius] Idea (OP: Noein)
[the show's cast] Shojo Q (OP3: Pani Poni Dash)
[the show's cast] Roulette * Roulette (OP2: Pani Poni Dash)
[Suga Shikao] 19sai (OP: xxxHolic)
[Minmi] Shiki no Uta (ED1: Samurai Champloo)
[the show's cast] Ichigo Complete (OP: Strawberry Marshmallow)

Shit. Still long. Oh well :)

> This is one reason I like living alone though: I can
> use the speakers for this stuff without embarrassment.
>
> "are you listening to some weird Japanese song???
> At 1.3x speed???"
>
> /deal with it/
>

LOL :)

>
> This included some baseball game (baseball btw is a
> weird thing. I can't stand watching it. Baseball
> on the tv is one of the most boring things I have
> ever seen. But, I enjoy playing it, both in the
> video game world and in the real world.),

That's how I feel about Golf, Bowling and Volleyball (although TV Golf's not bad for background atmosphere and scenery). Then skateboarding's good to both do *and* watch (though I'm awful - I never even learned to ollie). Skiing/Snowboarding are good to watch, but torture to do. Everything else is just boring period. Except NBA Jam. That's awesome :) "BOOM-shaka-laka"! Hee hee hee.

> a fighting game, Dead or Alive (2 and 3 I think),

Those are the best ones. I had 2 on Dreamcast and on XBox (ie "DOA: Ultimate").

> some kind of Tony Hawk,

Those very wildly. Some are fantastic, some are crap, some are in the middle. 2X and American Wasteland are my favs, then the original. Project 8 and everything after were crap. Everything else was ok-to-mediocre.

> and Halo. And Halo 2, but that was godawful.
>

Really? I never actually played 2 (or 3). I definitely enjoyed the first (except for how some levels contained the *same* fucking sections copy-pasted over and over and over). But I didn't like it enough to care about the sequels. I never would have guessed 2 would have actually been worse.

>
> The Dead or Alive games are ridiculous though. One
> word: BOOBS. But, they were pretty good for fighting
> games anyway.
>

lol, yea. One of them was *really* ridiculous for that though: I don't remember which one (I think 4 - they made a 4, right?), but at one point they made *separate* physics for the left and right ones and they were just bizarrely flopping all over the place. It was kinda freakish. That can't even *happen* when they're wearing shirts.

> Tony Hawk is a nice game. I played Tony Hawk 2 on the
> playstation (something I'd like to find. I think I
> still have it, but idk) and I liked that one. The
> xbox wasn't the same though - I could never get used
> to the new controller.

I love my Chinese PS2 -> XBox/GC/USB controller converter :)

But yea, MS dpads have always been garbage.

I always liked the size of the original XBox1 controller though. The S controller, and every other MS or non-MS first party controller in existence is too small for my hands. The 360's is waaay to small - that's actually one of the reasons I'm more interested in PS3 than 360. The PS3's is too small, but not *that* insanely small.

>
> And then, Halo. The single player is PURE ASS. It
> just goes on forever and is horribly repetitive. I
> can't play that.
>

Heh, I was never a fan of the multiplayer. Actually, I got tried of multiplayer FPSes way back with the original UT and Q3A. It's all the same game and...well...personally I find it 10x as repetitive as even Halo 1's single-player. :/

I *did* however enjoy the 16-player Halo & pizza LAN party we did at college once :). I still found the gameplay to get too repetitive too quick (and I'm honestly *terrible* at multiplayer FPS), but the whole thing was fun overall, and connecting together four XBoxes, with four TVs, four players on each (right in the middle of the CS department, too), was a bit of a geek-out high ;)

>
> My favorite part of that game though was the title
> screen.

Heh, that sounds like an insult. :)

It *was* good though. Metroid Prime 3 tried to ape it, but it just ended up sounding like a cat being run over by a half-broken motorcycle.


>> Although I could do without the pretend-it's-an-extreeeeme-TV-show
>> announcer
>> and the over-designed menus.
>
> haha that sounds awesome. I'm reminded of one game
> my brother had in... oh god, the old house, 1998 or
> something.
>

It gets better though: You can blow up the buildings near the track in order for them to fall on and wreck the other player's cars :)


> It was a wrestling game for the playstation with announcers.
>
> Me, being a button masher, had little to no style,
> and this game actually called me out!
>
> "This guy is an idiot! He keeps doing the same move
> over and over!"
>
> that was great. Until they started repeating the
> same commentary over and over.
>

lol. Gotta love irony.