Anyone wish to one-up this guy? You have a tough job ahead of you. His specialist ability is to suck out your colors to make you weak, like he's Murky Dismal or something.
Yeah, I picked it up. As the latest Interplay-style (Bioware/Obsidian) RPG it was one of the top games on my list to get for my new PC, and I have it now. :)
Initial impressions, positive and negative:
+:
-Fantastic graphics (it looks really nice, and there's great art direction too...)
-Great writing, I can already tell. I'd expect this, coming from Obsidian. They've got some of the best writers in the industry...
-Plot with real choices (good/neutral/evil, mostly)
-party-based with full control over all party members (unlike NWN1)
-Pausable real-time with full control while paused (so unlike KotOR you can give movement orders and stuff while paused, as you could in any decent D&D RPG)
-Despite some simplified elements like the automation, it IS a D&D PC RPG, so there is no stupid attack queue (which requires you to either leave it to the automation or spend all of your time queueing up power attacks and stuff, so annoying)
-:
-High technical requirements... this requires a pretty powerful computer to look good.
-Annoying camera -- you have to keep moving it around and it never just feels "right" like the 2d isometric BG camera did
-No auto-pause options that I can find -- a major omission! It's part of the current theme in games... dumb them down, make them easy for average person to play without thinking, don't put in all of the features that the hardcore users want, and it's really too bad... so no auto-pausing that I can find.
-By default a wide variety of automation features are on so your party will pretty much fight all on their own... you need to disable a whole list of stuff in each character before you actually get control of them (it's not just hitting a "party AI off" button like Baldur's Gate, and the automation options are more extensive -- it can even automate spell use now). It's like they spent their time on that instead of the autopause options, unless I missed something... (the same goes for character creation, where you can use premade characters or templates to mostly avoid character creation, which is one of the most important and interesting parts of any PC RPG -- and they have a great, extensive system here!) anyway, it's not something I want to ever use.
-You can't go into all of the houses in the first town! What the heck? This is a BG-style PC RPG, right? Why can't I go into all of the houses? At least say "the door is locked and you don't have enough lockpicking skill yet" or something. But no, they didn't even do that. That's so stupid... :bummed:
-No Quicksave! What the heck? That's an extremely important function... and I don't see an autosave either... ah, I hope I'm just missing something.
-And last, but most importantly, I REALLY HATE POINT-BUY! I don't know why anyone ever thought that it was a good idea, but I hate it so, so much... point buy stinks. Awful system. I want to use good old dice rolls to set my character stats! Point buy gives you far less points... I mean, base of 8 plus 32, and getting more points takes more? It stinks. That's eight points short of where Aerie fell in BGII, and she was one of the worse characters in the team stats-wise... I know there are some items that can help there, but still. Point buy is horrible and being forced to use it is really annoying.
It's really quite good. The problems are more in the "annoyances" category than the "actual major problem" category...
Fresh off of that big hit L.A. Rush, what's the next great Midway racing game franchise to go "illegal street racing"? Cruis'n of course! Wii exclusive. And yes, the title is just "Cruis'n".
... well okay, this was announced like a week or two ago, but close enough... I can't stand street racing games. They've ruined the Need for Speed series (from EA) and Rush (from Midway) to name a few, and now Cruis'n too? Bah... :bummed:
Quote:Cruis’n (Wii, November) -- An all new version of the classic Midway arcade racer, Cruis’n is coming exclusively to the Wii. Choose your ride from an impressive lineup of licensed cars and experience a rush of adrenaline as you race opponents through twelve different street circuits using the Wii Remote™ to steer and perform outrageous stunts. Win races and earn upgrades including: turbos, body kits, neon and nitrous, allowing you to create the ultimate ride.
Sure the Cruis'n games were simple, but still... they didn't deserve this...
Oh yeah, they're also working on Ultimate MK3 for the DS.
Okay halp teh ebays scare mah! I dunno what to price stuff as and this is just the Gamecube portion of my full treasure horde so if we can price this stuff then I can post my NES, SNES, N64, handhelds, Sega systems and etc one section at a time and we can price those. I want to sell it fast but also make sure i'm not getting screwed.
...or dont help me, your choice :D
\\\\---<|<|<| The Master List |>|>|>---////
------------------------------------------
Game Cube Collection
- Black Game Cube with Black Gameboy Player & Boot Disc in original case and original Game Cube box and instructions.
- 3 Pairs of DK Bongos
- 2 Normal Memory Cards plus 1 Third Party (Madcatz) 3X Memory Card (Plus Animal Crossing Memory Included! Total of 4)
- Included A/V Hookups and Power Adapter
- Component Video Cable (Rare!)
- 5 controllers (2 purple, 1 orange, 1 black) plus gray Wavebird
* Wavebird in excellent condition, other controllers have wear and tear from ferrets but are clean and work fine)
- 2 controller Extension Cables
- Action Replay Cheat Device (Disc & Hardware)
- 31 Games: All Games in excellent condition and have original box and pamphlets/instructions unless noted
*Mario Kart: Double Dash
*Sonic Riders
*Resident Evil Remake
*Time Splitters 2
*Product Number 3 (P.N.03)
*Metroid Prime (K-Mart exclusive version came with Wavebird controller)
*Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
*Chibi-Robo
*Animal Crossing w/memory card
*Worms 3D
*Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
*F Zero: GX
*Beyond Good and Evil (VERY RARE)
*Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
*Donkey Konga
*Wave Race: Blue Storm
*Pikmin 2
*Luigi’s Mansion
*1080: Avalanche (no instructions)
*Star Wars Rouge Leader (Rogue Squadron II)
*Star Wars: Rebel Strike (Rogue Squadron III)
*Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
*Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
*Wario Ware inc. Mega Party Game$
*Super Monkey Ball 2
*Viewtiful Joe
*Super Mario Sunshine
*Starfox Assault
*Starfox Adventures
*Batallion Wars
*Super Smash Brothers: Melee (scratch on disc but has no problems)
(Ryan: I need your address to send you xeno and hdd so I can have RE4 back!)
--------------------------------------------
Nintendo 64 Collection
- Nintendo 64 (black) With Expansion Pak Upgrade and Original N64 box and instructions
-A/V Cables
-Power Adapter
-Works great
- 3 Game Sharks containing thousands of codes - Vr. 2.0, 3.0 and 3.3 (works with all N64 games)
- 2 Controller Rumble Paks (gray)
- 4 Controllers (red, gray, gold, see-thru purple *almost new*) work great, some wear and tear
- Controller Memory Pak
41 Games:
*Super Smash Bros.
*Killer Instinct Gold
*Banjo~Kazooie
*Shadowman (with original included map!)
*Gex64
*Rush 2: extreme racing usa
*Winback
*Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest
*Pokemon Stadium
*Pokemon Snap!
*Tetrisphere
*Battle Tanx: Global Assault
*Battle Tanx
*Jet Force Gemini
*1080 Snowboarding
*Starfox 64
*Turok the Dinosaur Hunter
*Pilotwings 64
*F-Zero X
*Goldeneye
*Perfect Dark
*Ready to Rumble Boxing
*Bomberman 64
*Hybrid Heaven
*Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
*Star Wars: Ep. 1: Pod Racer
*Blast Corps
*Donkey Kong 64
*Ogre Battle 64 (RARE!)
*Paper Mario
*Doom 64
*Body Harvest
*Diddy Kong Racing
*Beetle Adventure Racing
*Mission: Impossible
*Super Mario 64
*Banjo~Tooie
*Excitebike 64
*Waverace 64
*Mario Kart 64
*Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Games with boxes and instructions:
1080 Snowboarding w/flashcard too
Jet Force Gemini
Ogre Battle 64
Perfect Dark
Hybrid Heaven
DK 64
Goldeneye
Battle Tanx Global assault
F-Zero X w/flashcard too
Banjo~Tooie
Shadowman (with original map too)
Mario 64
Blast Corps – box, no instructions
Expansion Pak box
Memory pak box
Instructions no box:
Starfox 64
Excite bike 64
Starwars Rogue Squadron
Diddy Kong racing
Starwars Ep 1 racer
Beetle adventure racing
Ready 2 rumble boxing
Some posters, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid (Earthworm Jim on back), Sonic Advance, Mortal Kombat II and Mario
-----------------------------------------
Super Nintendo Collection
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (original style)
- Super Gameboy (play original Gameboy and Gameboy color games on your TV)
- 2 Controllers
- A/V cables
- Power Adapter
- Super Scope with Sensor bar (Missing eyepiece) works.
16 Super Nintendo games:
*Super Mario All-Stars
*Donkey Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
*Super Ghouls and Ghosts
*Ms. Pacman
*Super Mario World
*Frogger
*The Lost Vikings
*Yoshi's Island
*Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
*Super Mario Kart
*Mr. Do!
*Secret of Mana
*Street Fighter II
*Mario Paint (no mouse)
*Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy
*Donkey Kong Country (with box)
SNES instruction manuals:
Donkey Kong Country (with box too)
Super Mario Kart
Donkey Kong Country 3
The Super Nintendo manual
Super Mario All Stars
Super Mario World
Ms. Pacman
Donkey Kong Country 2
Yoshi’s Island
The Super Nintendo Super Scope manual
--------------------------------------
Virtual Boy
Virtual Boy in excellent condition with original box
- Controller
- Battery Pack
- Original Visor in excellent condition
- No stand
- Includes Wario Land
----------------------------------------
Gameboy Color collection
- Purple Gameboy Color with original box, no scratches on Gameboy
- White Nyko Wormlight
- Link cables for multiplayer
7 Gameboy Color Games:
*Bionic Commando (with instructions)
*Rugrats: Totally Angelica
*Spiderman
*Kirby's Dream Land
*Tetris
*Bubble Bobble
*Donkey Kong
------------------------------------------
Gameboy Advance & Gameboy Advance SP collection
- Gameboy Advance, no scratches, excellent condition, purple
- Gameboy Advance SP, silver, some scratches on top, screen is perfect.
- Power Charger
- Link cables for multiplayer
- 2 Gameboy to Game Cube Link Cables
- Purple Nyko Worm Light
11 Gameboy Advance games:
*Mario Kart Super Circuit
*Sonic Advance
*Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced
*Metroid IV: Fusion
*Metroid: Zero Mission
*Earthworm Jim
*X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse
*Super Monkeyball Jr.
*Lilo & Stitch
*Sega Smash Pack: Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe and Sonic Spinball
*Ecks Vs. Sever
GBA instruction manuals:
Metroid Zero Mission
Metroid 4: Fusion
Final Fantasy Tactics
Sonic Advance
------------------------------------------
Nintendo DS collection
- Nintendo DS Phat style, some scratches on top, both screens are perfect
- Power Charger
- Styli in multiple colors
- Original Wrist Strap
- Official Carrying case
8 Nintendo DS games: All games have original case and instructions/pamphlets
*Brain Age w/Sudoku
*Animal Crossing: Wild World
*Diddy Kong Racing DS
*Advance Wars: Dual Strike
*WarioWare: Touched!
*Mario Kart DS
*New Super Mario Bros.
*Nintendogs (Lab)
--------------------------------------
The Legend of Zelda Collection
Gameboy and Gameboy Color:
- Zelda: Link’s Awakening (original) - with Box
- Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX - with Box and instructions
- Zelda: Oracle of Seasons - with instructions (no box)
- Zelda: Oracle of Ages - with instructions (no box)
Gameboy Advance:
- Zelda: Link to the Past & Four Swords (2 carts) with Instructions (No Box)
Nintendo 64:
- Zelda: Majora’s Mask (Limited Edition hologram) with box and instructions
- Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Limited Edition gold) with box and instructions (Version 1.0!!!!!)
Super Nintendo:
- Zelda: A Link to the Past with box (special included map, no instructions)
Gamecube:
- Zelda: Four Swords with case and instructions
- Zelda: Promo disk: Ocarina of Time and Master Quest with case and instructions
- Zelda: The Wind Waker with case and instructions
Misc.:
- Prima Electronic’s Boutique Exclusive Gold Ocarina of Time Player’s Guide
- Prima Zelda: Majora’s Mask player’s guide
- Nintendo Power mini poster double sided
- Prima mini poster (one side is gold)
- Temporary Tattoos, special inserts, paraphernalia and etc in a Gold Zelda Bag
--------------------------------------
*****RE4, okay to sell river city? get conker back (have box/instructions), get zelda disk back to scott, has nintendogs chiwuwu?*********
Next update: PS2, DC, NES (????) if still there, add to above - sell ps2 dc separately? add to above?
----------------------------
Toy Collections
Power Rangers - First season - Bandai
Power Rangers -- all MIB
- Deluxe Megazord
- Dragonzord
- Megazord
- Triceratops Battle Bike
- Power Gun/Sword
- Red Dragon Thunderzord
- Dragon Dagger
- Red, Blue, Black, Yellow (extremely rare) and Pink (extremely rare) Rangers
- Space Alien - Bones (box damaged)
--------------------------------------------
Aliens and Predator - Originals - Kenner
**Aliens vs. predator dark horse comics 1 and 2**
MIB Vehicles:
- Space Marine Power Loader
- Space Marine Stinger XT-37
- Predator Blade Fighter
- (Missing ooze and hatchling) Aliens Queen Hive Playset
Micro-Machines (Galoob) Large set (Heads):
- Darth Vader (rare)
- Gamorreen Guard
- Greedo
- Princess Leia
- Admiral Ackbar
- Jawa
- Nien Nunb
Micro-Machines (Galoob) series 11:
- Escape Pod
- Mon Calamari Rebel Cruiser
- Bespin Cloud City
Micro-Machines (Galoob): Star Wars 'Epic Collections' (toys based off the novels) "Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura":
- Bluescale
- Shriwirr
- Flurry
- Dev Sibwarra
- Gaeriel Captison
- TIE Fighter
-------------------------------------------
Swamp Thing - originals - Kenner
Evil Un-Men MIB:
- Dr. Deemo w/Serpent Biomask
- Anton Arcane w/Spider Biomask
Heroes MIB:
- Bayou Jack w/swamp water blaster
- Tomahawk w/swift shot crossbow
DJ and I were bullshitting about hidden meanings and how they were used in cartoons like Dexter's Lab and I wanted his opinion on a story dynamic i'm working on and he says Uncle Jesse wants me to post it and get everyone's opinions, so ta-da!
Begin copy past'd
Me: Do you like stories with hidden meanings? Like Kubrick or ... cellphone packages?
---
DJ: Hidden meanings... like when they have "making of" documentaries? Or, like magic? :D
Anyway, I don't know much about the peoples like one of them Kubricks, but I do enjoy hidden meanings every now and then. I also enjoy stories that lack allegory completely. Sometimes I get the inspiration for this or that, and sometimes that monster or this thing might be inspired by something but I don't mind not really knowing it. Then there's stuff like Dexter's lab. That just gets funnier with time.
---
Me: Dex was just awesome, I was so pissed when it got canceled. It was the first modern cartoon I saw where I thought "Wow this is good". The hidden stuff about family, upbringing even sexuality and incest was written so well that people fell in to it and, the older the viewer, the more they understood. Just plain genius. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is also good, you should give it a shot if you haven't already. There's alot of play around the separation of childhood and adulthood with the teenage girl being the link who suffers the slings and arrows of responsibility (teaching the younger characters who adapt and actively watch her struggles) while the main character (Max) teaches her how to still enjoy childhood. The whole spin on the series seems to be targeted at teens with a statement of 'dont try to grow up too fast'. It's pretty well done, almost every episode deals with a younger character in a delima with an older character offering guidance - the younger character then gets different opinions from other 'older' characters from a visceral old rabbit to manly-men and so on until the younger character who has the issue can gain the understanding to overcome it.
I have found two distinct levels of serious story telling of which all categories can be placed within. There are directors and writers who crutch on the ideal of retelling an event. Let's take the story of Moses from the old testament except Moses is an ant, Egypt is a backyard, God is the neighbors cat, etc. Now you can tell this engrossing multifaceted arc and it 'feels' new to the viewer but has the same morals as what the bible story teaches (but how many people besides me do you know that actually read bibles and not just for certain passages?) so the audience is none the wiser.
I call that method 'passive' subtextual story telling. The hidden meaning is just a backdrop to add a level of meat to the story. This is what most writers/directors use. It's most simple form is where the writer takes an event like a car crash or personal experience and retells it to convey the same emotion and learned lesson. A writer who faced depression, attempted suicide and all that fun stuff will find a way to share it in a easily grasped generality. Batman would fit here with the obvious overtones of depression, isolation, etc. If you ever saw (or read) Stuart Little you would find it's actually a complicated story about a child dealing with adoption - the writer (and later the director of the movie) were both adopted and wanted to share that emotional construct.
The flipside is 'active' subtextual story telling - both are passive in nature but while passive story telling just offers a substructure to build on the active story takes it a huge step in a different direction. This is where the writer is going to take an event in history (birth of America) or a thought process that's generally well known (religion) and study it to a degree that actually allows them to philosophize and educate others but in a hidden way so as to not come across as a soap box preacher and allow the viewer to gain their own insight and opinion from it. This Kubrickian process is the same as what was done with things such as the multiple versions of the bible and even the structures of governments within world powers (balancing the masses).
But it's most common form is ads and commercials where groups of designers come up with a campaign based off the wants and needs of basic human elements and covertly establish a level of social acceptance in order to sell a product (even lying to do so) - but they, like Kubrick, will first sell you its idea and concept - causing the viewer to gain his or her own opinion on whether they want it or not which isn't entirely your own since what you know about it was dictated by its source which raises our inability to trust our own judgment and rely on the social acceptance aspect and when its done really well you can have an entire nation or even the world buying a drink that actually tastes bad or a 600 dollar MP3 player.
The story teller doesn't want to lie to you so instead of trying to get you interested in some meaningless product there's a deep significance and morality such as human life, social climate and understanding, dynamics of faith Vs. reality and whats applied to life or gaining a fully encompassing understanding of the ideals of a historical event that would normally take volumes upon chapters and hours of education in a relatively short period of time and in a way that you weren't conscious to because just like the ad designers who used tried and true psychology with images and sound to attack your subconscious the master story teller applied the same rules - suddenly seeing a movie that has nothing to do with God or the ideal of God has actually given you a significant understanding of the ideal of God.
It's a clipart site but the way its navigated is genius. Its based on what colors you're looking for so just click an area of the picture with the colors you want to see.
This is just an idea, but imagine a program on the pooter where you feed it a 'main image' and it takes all the images stored on your pooter to make it a mosaic as a method to navigate them just like this site. It wouldn't be very practical for finding particular pictures but it would be an amazing way to display them where one picture hides thousands as you click deeper.
They've done a hundred times more illegal and immoral stuff than any "high crimes and misdemeanors" charge could ever account for, so why is it that almost all of the Democrats in Congress refuse to even consider it? Sure it wouldn't pass, but it doesn't need to PASS (though it would be amazingly great if it could, that'd never happen), it just needs to get out there and make a statement...
It just never stops. Every time you think you've heard the new most outrageous thing that the administration has done, they go and do another one... it gets pretty depressing if you think about it for long... and as someone highly interested in politics, I can't help but to do that. :(
Eegad, the original Producers is hilarious. I highly recommend renting it. Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel have great chemistry, and are both really funny in it.
For those who don't know, the Producers is a story about a Broadway producer and his accountant who figure out a loop-hole in which if they raise enough money and produce a show that they know will flop, they can keep the millions for themselves. So they choose a play called "Springtime for Hitler", written by a crazy nazi in Manhattan, and assign a transsexual hack for a director and a bum burned out on LSD for the starring role. Hilarity ensues.
This is even consistently funnier than History of the World (Part 1), although the latter still has the winning scene of the Spanish Inquisition musical number (don't you love Mel Brooks?).
I've also seen the remake, which was released a couple years ago. The original is better all around, but the remake has Will Ferrell in one of his few good roles as the crazy nazi author, and unexpectedly delivers better than Kenneth Mars of the original. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are also shoe-ins for the leading roles.
Anyway. Go rent "The Producers". In the mean time, I'm gonna be watching Blazing Saddles, another Brooks movie that's supposed to be great. Is it me, or is his old stuff much better? Spaceballs was good, but it was also a bit of a turning point, and while Robin Hood: Men In Tights was pretty funny, it was also a little too corny.
Alright, alright, that's the last tangent. Thread, off.
