Random Thoughts & Topics

[Sabre]

Im sure the battery life still sucked hard with the kid not playing a game.

 

[Obi Chris Kenobi]

Wargames.

 

[AndrewTS]

And it sucks major ass and I wish I hadn't played it, but if it's banned it must be good! And it has Dana Plato!

It wasn't banned--at least not in the USA. Rather, Sega were blubbering vaginas over the "controversy", allowed lies about the game to perpetuate its public image, and willingly withdrew the Sega CD version from the market.

The hearings were covered heavily by the media and were co-chaired by Senators Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) and Herbert Kohl (Wisconsin), during which Night Trap was cited as "shameful", "ultra-violent", "sick", and "disgusting", encouraging an "effort to trap and kill women". Contrary to such claims, players are not trapping or killing women, but are saving them from harm.
...
In 1994, after the controversy died down, the game was ported to 3DO and Sega 32X, and for PC and Mac in 1995.

So in short, the controversy was build upon total lies and bullshit, and the media fucked up big time. Ultimately, it didn't really matter much in the long run, because the end result of the controversy (a ratings system voluntarily adopted by Sega and later the ESRB) actually allowed game developers to worry less about content since M-rated games don't have to tone stuff down usually. Although I personally feel that the ESRB is an aggressively awful institution filled to with corruption, favoritism, and their habit of nickel-and-diming publishers to re-rate classic games that in no way would ever earn anything higher than an E-10 is a direct impediment to a lot of older games being re-released. Thankfully the Microsoft Game Room is ignoring them so far, but it's too little, too late; Nintendo has long since allowed these oppressive policies to choke off the flow of new Virtual Console releases.

CNN manages to be constantly horrible in newer and better ways, as if it sees Fox's blatant propaganda as a dare, and does their very best to top it. Sure, it's true that there is more to be concerned about in Rapelay than, say, Mass Effect, but no one can walk into a retail store and buy Rapelay for a game console (I doubt any stores carried the game here except for porn stores), and they're not going to torrent it if have no idea WTF it is.

Yes, CNN, Japan is fucked up. We knew this years ago, now STFU before you cause our government to actually start clamping down on people's personal freedoms for real, and not the imagined scenarios Fox News invents.

 

[Smues]

Well by banned I meant that ToysRus and Kay Bee Toys stopped selling it. Probably some other stores too.

And now a new generation of kids will waste time effort and money to obtain Rapelay, which I'm sure is just as awful as Night Trap.

Minus Dana Plato.

 

[Black Lushus]

You gotta love Japan. They sell games where you go around raping women but they block out pubic hair, vaginal/anal insertion and cum shots from their porn.

 

[vivisectvi]

I was going to ask this in Tirts, but I guess it makes more sense here, too.

I saw some newsbyte crawl across a webticker this week saying something about an international bill or something like that, that people are trying to get pushed through that would limit sites like Xtube or TNAFlix to only allow visitors to view 30 minutes of adult content per 24 hours or risk being shut down. Is there any truth to this? I can't seem to find any mention of it in google searches.

Interestingly enough I did find this one that would let the President take "emergency control" of the internet.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20000684-38.html

 

[Sabre]

Its on the main page of EMPflix.

 

[AndrewTS]

Virtua Fighter 5: Final Shodown Gameplay!

Not only is it an innovative new direction for the series, but truly it's something wholly original now. I foresee this is going to revolutionize the fighting game genre as we know it.

 

[devo]

That video really is dead-on. It's as impressive as it is funny.

 

[vivisectvi]

Virtua Fighter is a terrible franchise. They shouldn't be trying to take the piss out of anyone, really.

 

[Molotov The Bear]

I was going to ask this in Tirts, but I guess it makes more sense here, too.

I saw some newsbyte crawl across a webticker this week saying something about an international bill or something like that, that people are trying to get pushed through that would limit sites like Xtube or TNAFlix to only allow visitors to view 30 minutes of adult content per 24 hours or risk being shut down. Is there any truth to this? I can't seem to find any mention of it in google searches.

Interestingly enough I did find this one that would let the President take "emergency control" of the internet.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20000684-38.html

Haha, wow. This sounds like the plot of a Futurama episode.

 

[AndrewTS]

Virtua Fighter is a terrible franchise. They shouldn't be trying to take the piss out of anyone, really.

It's kind of harmless these days. Back in the day the internet was filled with obnoxious Virtua Fighter poseur fanboys who would take a good game about VF but honestly didn't know how to play at all. They'd continually tear down other 3D fighting games and talk about how VF was better because it was "so deep" and Japan liked VF the most so STFU n00b it's the bestest! James Mielke's Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken article is a good enough, filled with laughable "reasons" he feels that VF is superior, like how years ago VF was dominating earlier Tekken games in arcades (when he actually posted the article, Tekken 5 was number one and one of the Melty Blood games was kicking VF's ass, though).

Nowadays it's pretty much died down. Fighting games in general aren't as big as they once were (especially not in NA, where arcades are mostly dead save a few coastal regions), but VF is not going to revitalize it in any case. All of the VF5 machines that actually exist in North America are privately owned, save for one.

 

[vivisectvi]

Do you have a link to that comparison article?

 

[AndrewTS]

Do you have a link to that comparison article?

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3157730

There ya go.

The part on gameplay is almost hilariously shallow, but Milky's shamelessly biased towards VF/against Tekken anyway, and as a game reviewer he's notoriously horrible (he recently posted a blog post bashing Hokuto Musou based apparently on him watching gameplay footage, and people who have actually played the game have refuted his points already), anyway. Notice that nearly any time he mentions Tekken his tone is always dripping with contempt.

I think the main basis for his fighting game "cred" is that he would beat Shane Bettenhousen all the time, who himself gets his ass kicked in fighting games by booth babes now. Seriously.

 

[Mattdotcom]

WHO IS REPORTING?

BEAR IS REPORTING, HOW CAN THAT BE?

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

IMO, Milky taking over as EIC of EGM is when the magazine's quality hit rock bottom. It just never seemed the same again, and then the buyout happened. I thought I read several months ago that Ed Semrad (their old EIC) had bought the rights to the magzine back from UGO and it was going to return to print soon? Did anything ever come of that?

Speaking of magazines dipping in quality though, good lord, Toyfare is almost unreadable now. As soon as Zack Oat left and Justin Achlin became the new EIC, the magazine which was once a must buy for me every month has been unreadable.

 

[oldskool]

IMO, Milky taking over as EIC of EGM is when the magazine's quality hit rock bottom. It just never seemed the same again, and then the buyout happened. I thought I read several months ago that Ed Semrad (their old EIC) had bought the rights to the magzine back from UGO and it was going to return to print soon? Did anything ever come of that?

Speaking of magazines dipping in quality though, good lord, Toyfare is almost unreadable now. As soon as Zack Oat left and Justin Achlin became the new EIC, the magazine which was once a must buy for me every month has been unreadable.

New EGM just went live...or it's just about to, or it was april fools & i'm on my phone so i can't be bothered to check.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

You know, those Windows 7 ads where they have Joe and Jane Everyperson remember how they "invented" Windows 7 with a flashback re-enactment to a model having the thought don't really work when the person speaking is already a hot French chick.

 

[oldskool]

Turns out I can get Windows 7 for like $30.

Question is, is moving from 2GB of RAM on XP x86 to 4 or 6 really worth a new hard drive & a new x64 operating system?

 

[Sabre]

Depends really, XP is still IMO the best O/S since Win 98 second edition. Windows 7 looks and acts like Vista mark 2, but retains the speed and load times of XP.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

To anyone who may care. I've listed my PSone game collection on Ebay. There's some stuff there that is considered "Rare" (really, is Final Fantasy 7 RARE?), and some other collectible games (Valkyrie Profile, Lunar 2 Collector's Edition, etc.), and a random copy of Megaman 8 I had laying around. Here is the link if anyone is interested:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290422650396&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

 

[devo]

Thought it seems strange 'cause of how popular it is, yeah, quality copies of FF7 (instruction manual, relatively clean discs, uncracked case) are still pretty darn rare and expensive.

 

[luke-o]

It's not that rare. Squaresoft rereleased a boat load of the platinum edition of the game out to shops to be sold as second hand. They we're sealed copies. Since then, the price and worth of the game has dropped.

The picture disc version on the other hand is still worth a little bit of money. But not a lot.

 

[sbofn]

I'm not down with multiplayer-only demos. If you manage to get enough people in one room to actually play it, you get dropped into a random scenario, fiddling with the control scheme until someone who had the game longer kills you from a half-mile away. I feel discompelled to pay money for that experience.

 

[Sabre]

Welcome to XBL/PSN FPS.

 

[Youth N Asia]

Nothing rare about FF7. One of the biggest selling games ever. If anything it's common. However it's a game people don't part with. And the existing copies are only getting used more and scratched more. So there's a premium on nice copies.

 

[Molotov The Bear]

The only place around me (this includes Tucson, Phoenix, and parts of California I've been to) that ever has a copy of FFVII (or any of the PS1 FF's really) is the Play N Trade right by my house, and it's always kept in a glass case and never on sale for less than 40 bucks. I wouldnt say its 'rare' but it's not being sold 'all over the place.'

 

[Sabre]

FFVII is very odd with the community. Its a 13yr old game, and still classed by many as and i quote "Teh Best Evar!~!". Ebay prices depending on when you look are either very cheap, or stupidly over priced. Hell when i bought the game for the first time in 2002, i paid £19.99 for the platinum version in a legit game store. Considering the PS2 was well into its life, thats some awsome depreciation right there.

 

[Black Lushus]

I've seen FF6 going for 100...40 is nothing.

 

[bps21]

Broward and I are both watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on our netflix right now. That means that as of this moment there are more people watching Buffy on my friends list than playing Call Of Duty. That's awesome.