Messages

1151

General Chat / Re: Good Morning, 2008!

« on: January 27, 2008, 01:03:14 AM »

Strago's graduating from college soon? Damn, I remember when he was in high school and jazzed up to go. Obligatory feeling old joke goes here.

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My uncle's mother died. This doesn't mean anything to me at all, as we'd never met and we're not required to go to the funeral. But this spurred a thought; I feel lucky since I've only been to two funerals in my life. Does this number seem low to anyone else?

1152

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 27, 2008, 12:58:07 AM »

Disgaea 2:

Replay time! I'm still in chapter 1 doing item world. My levels are around 12 and I'm going to break the game completely. Fun.

1153

Discussion / Re: Heath Ledger

« on: January 26, 2008, 06:27:26 PM »

He was a good actor who had a lot of potential for a long career, didn't happen, wish the media would go away and leave some dignity in it.  Not that it will happen.  I expect there to be some kind of Death Fridge again or something.

My thoughts are the same. It's a damned shame he died before thirty, but let him rest with some privacy and respect.

1154

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 21, 2008, 05:55:46 AM »

RKS:

I attempted and finished a no energy tank run of the Fortress stages with Fate. It wasn't as hard as I thought. The first two bosses are pushovers with the right strategy and barely bear mentioning. Death is trickier, there's no really safe way to dispatch of his scythe. I found Grolla's charged up laser useful enough to do the job. Death 2 was a joke this time, I got him in an infinite (ko) loop of jumping down, being whacked by Lilli and repeating. He didn't even get an attack off, it was awesome. Dracula is someone I already no tanked before and the battle went really well anyway.

The spider's not too hard. I died once but that was due to more general fuckupery on my part than anything else. Yellow Devil was a bit more challenging, but I pulled it off in part due to a nice bit of design. Unlike most Megaman games, you don't take damage being behind Yellow Devil as he goes from one side of the screen to the other. So once the back clears out you can hide out there if you take a hit. The boss rush wasn't noteworthy; the only hard one is Freudia and I had the timestopper charged up. Now Irismachine? The first form's easy, Lust Atom and jumping do it in with minimal damage. The second form's more of a stretch, but as long as you're quick with bombing it's not hard.  I got it without much difficulty, yay.

As for Iris herself? Fuuuuuck. She's the boss I've fought the least since it's easy to just blow what tanks you have left to finish the game. Her first form's not too hard, but it's really easy to take stupid hits. If you mis anticipate what attack is coming, you'll usually take a hit trying to dodge the wrong way. I ended up blowing all my Lust Atom with charged shots to make this form go quicker. Iris 2 is a cast iron bitch. Between the feathers, the background, the attacks and the teleporting the level of visual clutter is immense. This really ruins my concentration and I got a few deaths from that. Ultimately, it's all about focusing on dodging and letting Lilli do the hard work. It's not that long an effort since she does two bars of damage per hit.

Fate's gameplay is well balanced. This play session reminded me of that; the game's construction makes everything a lot of fun. It's also why I dislike Rider mode(Amid other things), it's not so well balanced for her. Speaking of Rider mode, I gave the wall another few shots. Nothing doing there, but I didn't try too hard. It's not an impossible hump to get over, but I'm not attached enough to Grolla's gameplay to bother.

1155

General Chat / Re: 2007 NFL Topic: In Honor of Sean "Pro Bowl" Taylor

« on: January 21, 2008, 03:29:30 AM »

Worst. Super Bowl. Ever.

Agreed.

Fuck this entire season - it's a mockery of football. It's only designed to reward the cappuccino sipping, cheating apologist yuppie bandwagon fans that compose the Patriots fandom. Every interesting story dies out in favor of giving the Patriots a miraclous season and an easy opponent that doesn't have what it takes to threaten them in the Super Bowl. This season is undeniable proof that Satan stalks the Earth, for no other dark force could torment every good and true football fan. I hope you don't miss your soul too much, Brady.

Fuck.

1156

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 20, 2008, 01:52:42 AM »

RKS:

Recleared it with Fate. The game's a lot easier the second time now that you know everything's pattern, it really does feel like one of those NES games you could replay and get awesome at. As for Rider, I cleared all the normal stages but said fuck it against the Wall. I may go back and screw with it later, but the fight irritates me.

1157

RPGDL Discussion / Re: Rate this game in the DL: FFX and PS4

« on: January 20, 2008, 01:51:02 AM »

Final Fantasy X

Favorite dueller: Uh. Shitted if I know. Half it's cast is bland and the other half is obnoxious. Auron?
Least favorite dueller: Yuna. Cheater.

Strongest dueller: I'll choose Lulu today.
Weakest dueller: Rikku. At least Kimarhi has evade and counter.

Favorite moment in the DL with this game: None really. This isn't a big DL game for me.
Least favorite moment in the DL with this game: Anytime Yuna gets in and pisses all over the concept of the league.

A character you'd like to see added to the game: None. It was ranked right.
A character you wouldn't have ranked from this game: See above.

Any other notes/thoughts about the game?

I don't mind most of the cast(Evade and Counter is whorish but it's not that huge a deal to me), but I don't really care for any of it.

1158

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 18, 2008, 06:19:51 AM »

You can hit weapon change L for dash instead of double tapping forward, you know. Doesn't change the fact that Grolla mode is a pain in the ass though.

Oh good, that will help. Thanks.

1159

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 18, 2008, 06:10:08 AM »

RKS:

Finished! The last string of bosses was pure awesome. I loved both the ship and the saucer, with Lilli being awesomely useful for the second.  The style was top notch and the battles were lovely in an over the top sort of way. Really, I can't recommend this enough to any sort of Megaman fan, it's both pretty and smooth to play. It's also harder than most current games, I'd peg it around the difficulty of a good NES title. It's hard at times, but practice quickly makes perfect.

What was up with the dragon at the end, anyway?

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RKS Rider Mode:

Oh for fuck's sake. Instead of a smooth button press combo(Down and jump) for slide, it's a double tap forward for dash? So the precise speedy movement of before is a less stable, easier to miss triggering or trigger by accident dash? Argh. Oh, and the defense...you're kidding me, right? Right? I played the prologue and Grolla's stage(Cute boss fight, even if I couldn't beat it in one shot) and I want to dunk the creator in acid. I don't mind the game being challenging, but Rider is distinctly unpleasant to play as. The damage and walljump don't seem to make up for the flaws so far.

1160

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 17, 2008, 03:46:56 PM »

RKS: Up to Iris 2.

Dracula 1: Fun little stage like a toned down version of MM2's Wily 1.  It's a good warm up for the harder stages after it and the boss is creative.  Once you figure out what the extra block is for he's a breeze. Bravo on taking the concept of the dragon fight and making it more oddball awesome.

Dracula 2: Bloody. Uh, past that, the boss is concentrated awesome. It's a ripoff of the boss from MM2's Wily 2, but it's gorgeous and different enough to entertain.

Dracula 3: The stage is decent, if a bit pitfall heavy. Nothing great, nothing bad; it's all about the boss anyway. Death is absolutely nutso. His first form has enough speed to keep you dodging like mad, the second form keeps you off balance the entire time. Nice Castlevaina homage and the gameover screen gives me shivers. Fuck Shadowgate, that stupid gameover screen gave me nightmares as a eight year old.

Dracula 4: This stage is awesome fun. While the bottom route is only okay, the top route is very well designed. It's all a warmup for Dracula anyway, whom isn't as hard as I thought he would be. The first form is very manageable with his weakness, the demon form is hard but not overwhelming if you did good on Dracula 1.

Iris 1: The water segment is on the hard side, but everything after until the boss is fun. Nice Megaman 3 lift, that moving platform part was a fun homage. The Spider boss is just like in Megaman X...except you have spears firing from either side of the falling elevator. This is enough to rather ruin your concentration on the boss, which makes dodging much trickier. It doesn't cross the line for being hard.

Iris 2: Two notes here. 1. I shouldn't do this stage at 1 AM while I'm half asleep. It's not helping. 2. Fuck this stage. It's a take off on Gravity Man's stage in MM5, flipping you from floor to ceiling with reversed gravity.  They're a lot more liberal with spikes and pitfalls, not to mention hard jumps. It's a very easy stage to die in, just like that damned ice girl's. Objectively I think the long spike fall upside down is brilliant, the execution was really painful on top of an irritating stage to begin with. Yeah, this game tends to overdo it in blocks; guess who the boss is? C'mon, think, think! Who's the worst recurring Megaman boss? Yep, it's Yellow Devil! I took one look at him and turned off the game. I don't wanna deal with that until I'm awake, dammit.

RKS is still incredible. Fuckin a' they overdo it at times, though.

1161

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 15, 2008, 03:03:33 PM »

RKS:

A Megaman 2 clone with lovely graphics, an LP and buzz around it? I'll bite. I got up to the second Iris stage before calling it a night. The gameplay's really good, classic Megaman with a lot of stuff to go at. By and large the best parts of Megaman 2/3/4 have been lifted out and it's all good. The stage design is solid, with many homages to old stages with reasonable difficulty. I'll post more when I play it when I'm not in a half asleep zombie daze.

However! There is one exception to the above. Fuck Freudia's stage. The ice stage+Quickman lasers thing is a fun concept on the surface, but turning the laser rooms into mini mazes with one right path and a few ways to screw up? Ew.  99% of the danger from this stage comes from lasers or pits, both of which are instant death. I don't mind some of this, but it's taken way too far, to the point where you're going to burn a lot of lives and continues getting the wretched thing down. Oh, and the boss is the hardest of the lot and you're likely to have used her weakness weapon in the stage beforehand.

1162

General Chat / Re: NBA 2007-2008

« on: January 14, 2008, 01:59:54 AM »

What's the point of replaying the last minute of that Heat/Hawks game in MARCH?  I mean, I can understand that the way it ended wasn't fair to the Heat, but the teams could be totally different by the time they get around to doing the replay.  The replay isn't going to be any more indicative of what the endgame should have looked like than the one that actually happened.

What happened there? I heard something about a mistake, but I've been paying attention to football instead.

1163

General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing: 2008

« on: January 14, 2008, 01:59:18 AM »

Disgaea PSP:

I had a few gift cards to Best Buy, so why not? I wanted to see Etna mode and I'm in the mood for Disgaea's gameplay. Anyway, I used a code to start in Etna mode and made it to Chapter 2. It's pretty amusing so far as the plot is already going off the rails. Laharl dies from a single extra shot Etna fires, which leads to a spoof Prinny Laharl and Etna moving to take over the Netherworld. This should be good, since Midboss already caught wind of what happened. Also, the story battles are switched up for Etna mode. I think anyway, it's been awhile since I played the first chapter of Disgaea 1, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a Ronin in 1-3 and the Geopanels for Midboss were different.

1164

General Chat / Re: 2007 NFL Topic: In Honor of Sean "Pro Bowl" Taylor

« on: January 14, 2008, 01:54:21 AM »

Hell yes. While the Patriots won again and continued to piss on the NFL, the Cowboys went down hard. The Super Bowl will have someone to root for now, and we have an NFC championship game at Lambeau Field. This kicks more ass than I can describe.

1165

General Chat / Re: Good Morning, 2008!

« on: January 13, 2008, 01:14:35 AM »

Condolences, Gate. Try not to beat yourself up over it in hindsight, since it's 20/20 and all.

1166

RPGDL Discussion / Re: Rate this game in the DL: BoF1 and SO2.

« on: January 10, 2008, 09:26:41 PM »

Breath of Fire 1:

Favorite dueller: Uh. Bleu. This isn't a great game for interest.
Least favorite dueller: Myria.

Strongest dueller: Myria. It fields 3/4 Godlikes, so it says something that she wins without a second thought anyway.
Weakest dueller: Mogu.

Favorite moment in the DL with this game: None. I don't have anything against it, but BoF1 tends not to ping me.
Least favorite moment in the DL with this game: Myria championships.

A character you'd like to see added to the game: Mote.
A character you wouldn't have ranked from this game: Sara. She's not bad, just borderline and very interp-y.

Any other notes/thoughts about the game?

Makes me go eh.

Star Ocean 2:

Favorite dueller: Dias or Indalecio.
Least favorite dueller: Ashton.

Strongest dueller: Indalecio. While respect varies, he's a good Godlike.
Weakest dueller: Uh, Celine? Any of the crappy Light mages work.

Favorite moment in the DL with this game: Claude versus Angelo. That was an awesome fight.
Least favorite moment in the DL with this game: Indalecio losing to Ryu 4. Arghfuckle.

A character you'd like to see added to the game: Uh, Shin? The game's very well ranked.
A character you wouldn't have ranked from this game: Pick any of the three scrub wisemen.

Any other notes/thoughts about the game?

It's a DL staple and a quirky bit of fun. Even the scrubby wise men can amuse, which makes it all the riper.

1167

Tournaments / Re: Full ranking tournament: Round 2, Week 5

« on: January 10, 2008, 05:09:07 AM »

Godlike:

17 Orlandu (FFT) vs 6 Sephiroth (FF7) - Seph.
11 Piastol (SoA) vs 64 Malik (WA3) - Piastol.

Heavy:

167 Dycedarg (FFT) vs 48 Vigoro (SoA) - Vigoro.
10 Lede (FFT) vs 29 Leopold (DQ8) - Lede.
93 Hect (G3) vs 114 Lang (LoL2) - Lang.

Middle:

247 Yangus (DQ8) vs 161 Huxley (VH1) - Yangus.

Light:

20 Tempest (Lunar:SSSC) vs 196 Reed (S3) - Tempest.
179 Kinnison (S2) vs 91 Jewel (S4) - Jewel.

1168

General Chat / Re: Good Morning, 2008!

« on: January 07, 2008, 07:13:46 AM »

After two weeks I'm finally over the flu+pneumonia combo. While not fully well, as a case of bronchitis followed due to all the coughing, I'm about ready to go back to work. What a miserable bug, I was incoherent for large swaths of the holiday season.

1169

Discussion / Re: Charles Lindbergh

« on: January 02, 2008, 06:32:25 PM »

The fundamental problem is that both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were horrific dictatorships. If you support one over the other, you're still supporting a tyrant. This said, I try not to hold that against people too much, as it's a distinct product of the era.

Lindbergh wasn't a monster, nor was he a saint. He was a normal man trying to do what he thought was right in an era that made this all too easy to be wrong. If you want to go after him more, go after him for isolationism. It's one thing to support one dictatorship over another; hell, we propped up Stalin in WW2 with massive infusions of Lend/Lease. It's another to turn your nose up at all of it and let the tyrants run free. Yet despite that, he gave himself to the war effort once the USA got dragged into it and served loyally.

Wikipedia provides a decent primer on the man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh

1170

General Chat / Re: 2007 NFL Topic: In Honor of Sean "Pro Bowl" Taylor

« on: December 27, 2007, 04:54:26 PM »

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3169075

The Saturday night Patriots v Giants will be seen on the NFL network, CBS and NBC.

1171

Tournaments / Re: Full ranking tournament: Round 2, Week 3!

« on: December 27, 2007, 04:35:41 AM »

Heavy:

126 Garland (FF9) vs 72 Mithos (ToS) - Mithos.
36 Surt (VP1) vs Sync (TotA) - Surt.

Middle:

87 Rasputin (SH2) vs 112 Kukuru (AtLC) - Kukuru.

1172

General Chat / Re: Good Morning, 2008!

« on: December 26, 2007, 05:45:43 PM »

Life's RNG just raped me. I have the flu plus pneumonia, so I'm gonna be on the shelf for a few weeks.

1173

General Chat / Re: Merry Christmas!

« on: December 25, 2007, 02:34:59 PM »

Let's do this while I'm coherent.

- One giant(5 oz) Nestle Crunch bar.

- $25

- $20 Barnes and Nobles card.

- $20 card to the local mall.

- A deck of cards.

- $5 McDonald's card.

- A Candycane.

- A dark gray longsleeved shirt.

- Deoderant/Toothpaste/Toothbrush/Razors. This is a yearly gift, not glamorous but it's practical.

- Dark green cargo pants.

- A nice electric razor, one of those three headed deals.

- A wireless keyboard/mouse combo.

- $20 Best Buy card.

- A box of chocolate wafer rolls.

- Lottery tickets. I won $20. Noticing a karmic theme?

- Die Hard 4 unrated DVD.

- Red shirt.

- Redskins cap.

- Redskins shirts.

- A few pair of brown pants. These can double as emergency work pants.

- Headphones.

- Sweatpants.

1174

General Chat / Re: Good Morning, 2008!

« on: December 24, 2007, 07:53:19 PM »

Go to the doctor.

Are you kidding? It's bad enough missing Christmas now, but it's worse spending it at the fucking doctor. That's so depressing I don't want to think about it.

1175

General Chat / Re: Good Morning, 2008!

« on: December 24, 2007, 04:46:01 PM »

Got the flu on Christmas Eve.

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK.