I can't get this out of my head. I CAN'T GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD.
edit: link removed. does this site have a nws rule? the link didn't have any bad stuff, but some of the content on the rest of the site contains some. im probably being too cautious.
Shenmue is perhaps one of the most ambitious projects in videogame history. The brainchild of Sega genius Yu Suzuki, Shenmue is the story of Ryo Hazuki, a teenager in the town of Yokosuka in Japan. The Hazukis are a long line of martial arts experts, and Ryo's father in particular has been particularly adventurous. One snowy day in December of 1986, a group of men led by the Chinese terrorist Lan Di attacked and murdered Iwao Hazuki. Ryo tried to intercede, but neither was he a match for Lan Di's incredible power. As Ryo watched his father die in his arms, he swore revenge upon Lan Di and his associates.
It is your duty as Ryo to begin the hunt in Yokosuka. Though Ryo is thirsty for blood, he quickly realizes he is up against something larger than he thought, and he knows next to nothing about his nemesis. This game is the first of what is expected to be a series of several games, and in this first game, you are attempting to learn about Lan Di's activities in and around town.
Gameplay: 10/10
At the very heart of it, Shenmue is little more than a standard detective story, with a few fights and fetch-quests thrown in for variety. To leave it at that would do a great disservice to this game, however, because Shenmue's greatness lies not in the overall story concept, but in the technological manner in which the story progresses.
A majority of the game is spent in what is called the FREE system, which essentially places you in a third-person perspective in which you guide Ryo around the environments of Yokosuka. There are dozens of people to talk to and dozens of places to see. Almost every object in the game can be examined or manipulated, and a good half of Shenmue is collecting items.
Several times in the game you are forced into action sequences, which have two different and distinct flavors. The first, and more common, is the QTE, or Quick Time Event. To successfully complete a QTE, you must have exceptional reflexes, for the whole idea is to press a button, or a series of buttons, within a very short period of time as you are prompted on screen. QTEs can vary in their application, though they are most often implemented while Ryo is fighting enemies or during various chase/escape scenes. You are given one or two chances to fail and continue, more than this will result in you being forced to begin the event again.
The other type of action sequence is the Free Battle, in which you control Ryo freely in combat with one or several enemies. You have the ability to move and to use literally dozens of martial arts moves against your foes, with various kicks, punches, grabs and throws, blocks and counters. The combat system is rather deep, and your skill improves with practice. Ryo has the ability to practice his moves in various areas of the game. Your special moves become more effective with use and practice, so the practice mode helps you by not only allowing you familiarity with the control scheme, but by learning the button combinations that trigger Ryo's many special moves, and making those moves stronger and more effective with use. Ryo begins the game already knowing several moves, and throught the game, you will come across many scrolls that will teach you newer and more devastating attacks. Mastering these attacks and defenses is crucial to surviving later combats, and the combo system is so varied and deep that it allows you to basically create your own style of combat, utilizing whichever moves you personally find to be the most effective.
When you are not fighting or running, there's still tons and tons to do. There is a lot of territory available to explore. You have an entire town and several neighborhoods to see, each filled with buildings and people and objects. You can talk to anyone you want, and in fact will spend quite a lot of time doing so to learn about Lan Di, by learning developments from some characters, and using these clues to help you continue. You will probably also spend a lot of time searching the various environments, both because the story requires it, and because there's just simply so much to see. The scale on which this game was developed blows everything else away, and nothing even since has come as close to creating a convincing facade of a living, breathing community. Almost every building in the game can be entered, and almost every one of them has something interesting to see or do. In the commercial district of Dobuita, for instance, there are a myriad of shops and games Ryo can see, and you will certainly find yourself distracted from the quest for Lan Di possibly for several entire gameplay-days immersed in this virtual playground. There is an arcade in which you can play several classic Sega games, a house of slots where you play slot machines to earn tokens that can be exchanged for prizes, a fortune teller who directs you when you lose your way, several different convenience stores that sell all sorts of trinkets and items, a dojo to train your moves with a partner, and many more.
Several of these attractions require money, of course. You start with a goodly amount of money, more than you will likely ever need, and at the beginning of each day, you are given a little more as an allowance. Eventually, you find yourself in the position of needing a great deal of money in one particular story event, and this necessitates the second major part of the game, in which Ryo finds employment as a forklift driver in Yokosuka Harbor.
Graphics: 10/10
Shenmue is a thing of sheer beauty, even despite graphical imperfections. The sheer scale of everything, the meticulous attention to detail, all of it leads to the graphics of Shenmue being far more than the sum of its parts. Speaking to characters usually places you in a close-up view of their face, where you can see great detail in play. Character faces are full of detail, and have very realistic movement. The environmental graphics will simply stun you stupid, even if you've played it before and are coming back to it after years of inactivity, you will be amazed at what AM2 was able to pull off. The detail is amazing, even more when you consider just how many hundreds of aspects of the environment are important for you to find and examine. More than anything else, it is the graphics that force your attention, and immerse you completely in this fantasy world. You may often find yourself wanting to do nothing but walk around and look at things, just for the hell of it. Hell, you might just want to see the sun go down or the weathe change from rain to snow. It's that good.
Sound: 6/10
If Shenmue has a shortfall, it is in the sound department. The music of Shenmue is actually rather great, and there are dozens of tracks, many of which are playable either on various jukeboxes around town, or on cassettes that you find or buy, and play either in your portable cassette player, or in your friend Tom's boombox. Walking around town is usually accompanied by serene, low-key tunes. Most places indoors have distinct themes, and of course cut-scenes and fight scenes also have their own as well. These are all very well-done and fun to listen to.
The problem with the sound category is in the voice-acting. Quite simply, it's atrocious. Lines are delivered with all the subtlely of a tank firing shells at a nitroglycerin plant. Scenes that should be full of emotion come across sounding funny or stupid. Some characters have a tendency to scream and yell their lines, whether they are warning you of an imminent threat to your life, or if they're simply commenting on the weather. The game probably would have fared better here if there had been no English dubbing, or if you had the option of leaving the Japanese voices with English subtitles. Unfortunately, you do not, and this sorely detracts from the immersion of the story when all of these Japanese people sound like bit-actors in American horror movies.
Control: 7/10
The reason I score this so high is that when control counts most, notably QTEs and fight scenes, the control is crisp and responsive. Mistakes that occur will almost always be your own fault, though understandable and forgivable since this game is very demanding on your reflexes. The reason I score this so low is because the control scheme for simply walking around is slow and clunky. Ryo steers like a Mack truck, sadly. There is no way to quickly turn, and it is easy to get stuck by objects or people. It requires a bit of precision, and after about a half-hour of play you'll find yourself used to its quirks, but nevertheless, it could have been far more fluid than it is.
Final Score: 9/10
With an interesting story, sheer fascinating environments, so much to do and so much to see, there is absolutely no reason that any of us who still own Dreamcasts should not have this game in our collections. In fact, I would suggest purchasing a Dreamcast for this game alone. It is so easy to get lost in this world, so easy to waste hours and hours of your own life here, that you owe it to yourself to track down a copy. If you can overlook its flaws, you will find one of the most unique and fun videogames ever created.
You know the story. All guessing, nothing concrete; Everything is TBA and when you think you might have it solved, you just end up with more questions.
This is for the rumor mill, where we dream up what we believe will be Nintendo's next system. I've taken most of this stuff from IGN.
We heard "2 to 3 times more powerful than Gamecube." From USA today interviewing Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs, Perrin Kaplan. But this was false, Perrin never said anything of the sort and the news was bogus.
We heard the Revolution will have 512 MB of flash memory built in. This is also false. The Revolution's memory cards will be 512 MB SD cards. We pay 20 bucks for a memory card now... who knows what the price will be, but I can only guess that it will be at a price point that makes sense to consumers. After all, we will not only be saving our games on these, but also downloading our favorite games from all of Nintendo's past consoles. These super memory cards will be Revolution's hard drive.
We heard it plays movies, but we'll need to buy a seperate adapter. This 'adapter' is basically a dongle that will come with a remote. The cost will be around 15 to 20 bucks.
It's available in multiple colors, it downloads every game ever made by Nintendo for every console, Nintendo has all the major titles in the works including a new Super Smash Bros. Online, it will use wireless controllers as well connect to the internet and other Revolutionaries over a wireless wi-fi Nintendo-run network, it's about the size of 3 DVD cases stacked up on eachother, it supports HD (at least 720i, probably more) and HD-DVD, it has a side panel for Gamecube controllers and memory cards, and it has a trippy blue light in the DVD slot that makes it look evil.
Now... what the hell does it do?
Revolution Rumor 1
From Nintendo Power Forums
The poster claims his information came from an insider privy to Nintendo's plans. As is usually the case, the source goes unnamed and unverified. But he does spout some pretty interesting stuff. For starters, he claims the Revolution does in fact employ gyroscopic sensors in its controllers, even though they will be wireless. He also claims the Revolution will sport dual processors and feature built-in broadband, with some kind of online strategy in the works. Nintendo will supposedly go online with the Nintendo DS first with the Revolution following suite. A hard drive will also be included. As far as controller parts are concerned, the Revolution will feature four like the GameCube.
The poster also claims the Revolution will forego using Sony's Blu-Ray storage format in favor of HD-DVD. The system would launch with a currently unnamed Mario title. The source wouldn't say why the system would be revolutionary, stating the leaked information would land him in hot water. He also claimed it would give Sony and Microsoft an advantage at this point in the development cycle. The source did claim the technology itself was nothing revolutionary, only that the system would use it in ways never before seen. The source then added, "Touching is good, but feeling is better." What that means is open to debate, but it leads us into…
Revolution Rumor 2
Taken from a Nintendo document
Gotta love this one. This rumor includes a shopping list of system features and a hand-drawn picture! Supposedly, the artist drew the picture from memory after seeing a document headed toward a Nintendo shareholder's meeting. The (very) rough sketch depicts a number of things, including a controller, shell case disk and a game system from two different angles. Emblazoned across the middle of the page is "Nintendo 21," which seems to indicate a name change from Revolution. Below that lies the "Nintendo 21" logo, which closely resembles the GameCube logo. It also serves to note that both angles of the system drawn on the page also resemble the GameCube, down to the placement of the four controller ports, as well as the "power," "reset" and "open" buttons.
But wait, there's more. The sketch is also connected with information detailing key system information. First, the "Nintendo 21" would hit retail late 2005. It will use a two-sided, 8mm disk with a 5.4 GB capacity and feature a shell case. The Nintendo 21 will also act as a wireless hub and serve a "home game function," letting it communicate with other Nintendo 21 consoles in the vicinity by using the IEEEE protocol. Kyosera, known primarily for designing cell phones and printers, is jointly developing the "home game" function. And here's some more info: the "Nintendo 21" will feature pressure sensitive controllers, with the buttons and handles sensitive to "rubbing" and other such stimuli.
(Could this have been a pre-build of Revolution? We heard about this before, but now that we're all guessing the rev's controller... )
Revolution Rumor 3
From Japanese Publication Shukan Diamond
In late December of last year, Shuken Diamond published a rather interesting bit of information concerning the GameCube's successor. The article, found in the 2005 Preview Edition of the magazine, claimed the Nintendo Revolution Controller would not feature a traditional D-Pad or "A" and "B" buttons. While the information goes unverified by Nintendo, the information strengthens the company's claim that Revolution will alter the way people interact with games. It also ties in nicely with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's recent statement, in that Revolution presents a "paradigm shift" in gaming. All of this begs the question: what exactly stands in for the missing D-Pad and pair of buttons?
Your guess is as good as ours is. Moments after the news hit the Web, gamers stuffed message boards full of theories and wild speculation. Most of which centered on gyroscopic technology. To be fair, Nintendo does in fact hold patents for such technology, so it's possible that Revolution will mark Nintendo's first foray into tilt-sensitive controllers. Then there's the pressure sensitive controller, which respond to a player's "rubbing" of the handles. Others speculate on the possibility that Nintendo will use an evolved form of trackball. Still others think Nintendo will take the DS approach and include a touchpad. We've even heard rumors of a fancy new rumble device. Supposedly, it would allow a new level of immersion by accurately interpreting digital output into physical sensations.
Revolution Rumor 4
From U.S. Patent filed on July 21, 2004
This rumor centers on new technologies that would change the way a gamer actually watches a game. To start, here's a brief intro: a fixation point is whatever a gamer stares at most of the time when playing a game. Thing is, most games feature several of these fixation points, so developers have needed to devise methods of including every object on screen at all times. When this wasn't possible, the display needed to shift and prioritize objects according to the action. Developers accomplished this by zooming the image up or down, to help gamers re-focus their attention. Just look at any number of sports games. The camera invariably follows the soccer ball, baseball or football. The document argues that the constant change in perspective makes playing games tougher than it should.
The patent describes a technology that would prevent a fixation point from moving and prevent the display area from changing in size. Regardless of where a player sits, he (or she) would command a deep view of the happenings on screen. This would also carry over into multiplayer gaming, where multiple players would normally require multiple fixation points. The new set of technologies would eliminate the strain associated with split-screen gaming. In summary, this would all make for excellent game sessions thanks to unparalleled view of the display. Changing the way a gamer watches the action unfold on-screen would be somewhat revolutionary, but again, it's too early to tell exactly how Nintendo plans on using the tech described in the patent. Unless, of course, they already have to some degree...
But that didn't stop anyone from speculating. Once again, rumors seeped into websites and forums. The conjecture pointed at everything from holographic imaging to new methods of image processing where a developer could create hyper realistic vistas at a fraction of the current processing cost. The latter of which alleviates concerns over the rumors that the Revolution will lack the raw processing power of both the PS3 and Xbox 2. If Nintendo has found a way to render realistic imaging at a relatively low processing cost, then it really doesn't matter that the Revolution will lack some of the punch of competing consoles. What matters is that it will stand on equal footing from a graphics stand point. Furthermore, the technologies developed to nix the forever-changing "fixation points" problem will only reinforce the new rendering methods...or so go the rumors.
What we know:
1.) It will not use touch screens on the controller
2.) Some kind of gyroscopic feedback
3.) Completely wireless
4.) Has 4 Gamecube controller ports, but it's said that the Revolution controller will be able to play every Nintendo game ever made. Current theory is that it has some kind transformation to make the controller how you want it laid out
Quote:Zarqawi's Fate Sparks Rumors Wednesday, May 25, 2005 CAIRO, Egypt — The Internet and Baghdad streets are teeming with statements about terror mastermind [b]Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ([url=javascript:siteSearch('Abu Musab al-Zarqawi');]search[/url]). One says he's being treated outside Iraq for gunshot wounds to the lung. Another calls on Muslims to pray for him, indicating his condition may be dire.
[/b]Only one thing is sure: None is confirmed.
The latest furor over al-Zarqawi began Tuesday when an Internet ([url=javascript:siteSearch('Internet');]search[/url]) statement called on Muslims to pray for his life, followed by competing statements on his health and whereabouts.
The mystery deepened Wednesday after reports that two Arab doctors in another country were treating al-Zarqawi, chief of Al Qaeda in Iraq ([url=javascript:siteSearch('Al Qaeda in Iraq');]search[/url]) and wanted for some of the deadliest attacks in the country.
None of the Internet postings and rumors have been confirmed, but the amount of speculation about the Jordanian-born militant is unusual both in size and scope.
"It makes me wonder if al-Zarqawi's injury is severe enough that they are afraid to lie about it, and are instead just trying to minimalize the impact," said Washington-based counterterrorism expert Evan Kohlmann. "In other words, they 'steal the thunder' from the Western media ... a crude form of defusing a potential public relations disaster."
It also could be a ploy to make al-Zarqawi more popular among Islamic zealots who follow him and his mentor, Usama bin Laden.
A return to the battlefield after being injured by U.S. forces could make al-Zarqawi look like "superman," Gen. Wafiq al-Samarie, the Iraqi presidential adviser for security affairs, speculated on Al-Jazeera TV.
The attention focused on his reputed injury indicates how crucial al-Zarqawi has become to Iraq's insurgency. He initially was regarded as a bin Laden rival until the Al Qaeda leader anointed him his representative in Iraq last year.
Al-Zarqawi, who carries a $25 million bounty like bin Laden, is believed to have personally executed foreign hostages and has shown no compunction in killing Muslims who don't adhere to his hard-line interpretation of Islam. He also encourages bloody attacks against anyone deemed a U.S. collaborator.
Speculation over his condition heightened when an Internet statement said two Arab doctors in another country were treating him. After being posted on another Web site, it was denounced as being unauthorized and false.
The statement from someone identified only as al-Khalidi said the information came from "brothers close to the holy warriors in Iraq."
The spokesman for Iraq's largest Shiite political group said it had unconfirmed information that al-Zarqawi was dead.
"He was killed in western Iraq," said Haitham al-Husseini, an aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "But we need more time to be able to confirm."
Hani el-Sibaie, who runs a London-based Islamic affairs research center, said calls to pray for al-Zarqawi meant he was seriously ill. "It is obvious that he is dying and his days are numbered," he said from London.
Recent U.S. and Iraqi raids on hospitals in Baghdad and Ramadi, west of the capital, have fueled the rumors.
Boy, I hope that murdering bastard fuck is dying or dead. And I really, really hope it's hurting.
![[Image: service_ap_36.gif]](http://www.foxnews.com/images/service_ap_36.gif)