syntheticgerbil

Even the original Rayman had gone through an SNES iteration before finally making it's way to newer 32 bit systems: I wish there was more shots of this because it's incredibly bizarre.

Hah well, that's some good news with a lot of bad news. I was afraid Metal Gear Solid 4 might end up as a clusterfuck of idiocy and convoluted story ideas based on everything I've heard, but I guess after finishing 3 I had serious high hopes. Guess I'll find out in a year or so when I catch up.

Honestly I stopped reading tags after the ubiquity of "toblix complains" died down. But yeah, I have no idea who's doing it. I always figured tags were there for comedy or usefulness, not really to be insulting or mean towards other members, so it's a shame if someone is truthfully using them that way. So now I'm sitting here wondering if "pretentious movie buffs" in the movie recommendations thread was done in anger and then "pretentious thread tags" is a snarky reply? Maybe it was done by the same person? Maybe it was a joke all along. Oh well, I guess it is hard to tell because you don't know who is writing it and you sort of get what a poster's general tone is the more you see them around. Also I remember thinking moderators could see who was adding what thread tag early on, but I guess not?

Okay Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence Version done, finished the regular game a couple of weeks ago and went over my thoughts in the thread, but just now I've completed all the extra modes and have gotten all of the special items. I've also watched the movie version on the limited ediiton third disc, which worked much better than I thought it would. The only jarring parts were added voiceover, but lots of gameplay was recorded in a cinematic fashion that worked without ever showing the codec screens or GUI. This has been the most satisfying Metal Gear for me so far. I didn't even have to spend over hundred hours on it (like Substance) to see and do everything. Having looked at the trailer included for Metal Gear Solid 4, I'm kind of sad that the color scheme is going to be washed out beige over black areas next time around. I'm going to miss the extreme greens and earth colors all over Metal Gear Solid 3. Sometimes I could see texture repeats taking me out of the game, but overall I found the whole thing incredibly beautiful to look at. Much nicer on the eyes than the start orange all over MGS2. But next up are the Acid games and the Portable Ops before I play 4, as I'm kind of a bastard for chronological order. Also I had finished The Whispered World a week or two ago, but I haven't made a post about it. Somewhat disappointed but somewhat thrilled at what the game did achieve. I'll have to think about it some more.

Games led by Ancel sure do seem to take a while to surface. The news on this game has gotten much too silent for my liking over the past year.

I have so many Wii and Gamecube games still left to finish, that even if I had all the details at hand, I would not be excited. Really I just feel kind of sad when every console line gets the next iteration, especially now, when I feel like improvement in the hardware department is pretty moot. All the Wii lacks is the HD resolution and graphical power, but the games still work fine.

Yes, the hackers are assholes for playing with everyone's private information just as much as Sony for getting the information of all who viewed Geohotz site and videos. Everyone messed up. I'm sure the folks at Sony have already learned a lesson in privacy and protecting their users, so what's the use to keep trying to crack the guys? I just want to get back on PSN at this point. I could go with some Uncharted 2 online play.

That's a sad and frustrating read but this part has me smiling.

Oh my, I need to see that again. Am I correct in remembering there is an awkward sex scene involving Goldblum at some point? Either that or he is thought of as a male sex symbol? Both, possibly?

Shit, things are not looking good in the job search department. Almost 25 places down and I'm now desperately applying to Zynga. Even if I were to get that job I will hate myself. I guess maybe it will be time to switch careers in a month or so to gas station attendant.

I think a lot of you are forgetting that the Geohotz situation goes beyond Sony going after him and instead getting the information of anyone who was logged viewing his site or videos. How is that information relevant? It's not illegal to view information on how to hack the PS3 in the first place, so why did the judge award Sony such information? Not one of those IP addresses and the information that goes along with them can be proven that they went and certainly installed custom software/firmware on the PS3. If everyone is spitting out analogies, then also car manufacturers don't have the right to the information of everyone who has looked up how to modify their car. I think many are going to disagree on the right to do whatever you want with a piece of hardware once you own it. I stand on the side of the fence that breaking the EULA is all okay, you just forfeit your warranty and I feel that the law show be changed so that EULA don't extend beyond that. I think it's a step upon consumer freedom to tell someone how they can or cannot use something they have already completely purchased, whether it's a computer or using the Hello Kitty massager as a sex toy. That said I don't think it's any companies right to track down personal information of those that may or may not be using the system the way they intended. It's kind of like that old joke where the police come after you for removing the tag from the mattress if we are going to keep with the analogies.

PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL!

Ah, I guess that makes sense. That eases my mind a little bit to at least give everyone the benefit of the doubt. On the offer, am I correct in thinking that any content you get for free with a Plus account is not yours to keep? As far as the hopefulness of a free PSN game, I'm already foaming at the mouth! I want Stacking!!!

Ah see, I never even knew there was three games. I think the only one I played was Second Encounter some then. On that Youtube video though, I think there is a lot of color, it's just a saturated yellow. It still all seems overly saturated to me, like a Sonic the Hedgehog game. The color palette is very similar to Sandopolis in Sonic and Knuckles. The textures or shaders in Serious Sam 3 seem to have a lot of brown or grey overlaid on top, but it's also sort of the style everyone shoots for right now. To me it always seems kind of strange because real life doesn't look like that to me and I feel like if people are going to use a drab color scheme, there should at least be some kind of saturated swatch somewhere in there offset it. It's just somewhat of a jarring difference to the older Serious Sams but I realize those were coming from a time when people just kind of defaulted to extremely bright or basic textures and colors.

Holy shit, this is beautiful! I will have to remember to buy it at a later date (and then post here)!

I'm guessing only the newer games and DSi enchanced ones are the ones prone to regional lock-out, not the original DS cards. I think only some original DS games would look at the set language on the DS itself to know what language you would play in. (At least this is how Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland detects language, being a European card with six languages.) Possibly the original DS cards don't really communicate the intended region to the DS or vice versa?

I don't have much to say about Serious Sam only having ever played the demo of 2, but that is definitely not lush green vegetation or a bright blue sky. The existence of color doesn't necessarily mean the game is saturated or vivid if the color is so drab. To me, viewing as an outsider to the series, these screenshots seem to be showing the current uninspired art direction choice of desaturating everything and mixing browns without creating sepia tone. It's definitely far removed from Serious Sam 1 and 2 in terms of colors though just looking at screenshots comparisons. But honestly, I also find Serious Sam 1 and 2 to look incredibly gaudy as well.

Haha this is awesome to think about. In general, it seems most action, chases, and fights seems to come off boring in books. It's all better with visual flair in those cases.

Well it's a credit union, I don't know if that makes a ton of difference, but I'm pretty sure they only zero it out somewhere between $200-500. I could be wrong though if there is a newer law passed in the last requiring all banks and credit card companies to cover all fraudulent charges no matter how high. Possibly credit card companies have a limit as well though. I've had my credit card number used for fraudulent things three times over now and I hardly ever touch the thing outside of Amazon purchases (and it's an Amazon card) or in real life for gas, but I've tried prying the rep on the phone to see the limit but they seemed to just skirt the issue. This seems so incredibly incompetent that I want to say it isn't true, especially for the big high tech Sony, but all signs seem to say it is. I'm always annoyed if I have to reset a password or I register somewhere and a company just sends me an e-mail with it spelled out right there. Come on now, I thought this was Web 2.0 and all that shit.

I really had no clue what was going on with this until a few hours ago I bothered to look it up, but going over the Geohot thing that this seems to have stemmed from, Sony was kind of asking for it. They got access to a bunch of information they really shouldn't have just because people viewed Geohot's video or website and in return this group has taken a bunch of information from Sony. Fair's fair, court order or not. That said, I don't see what the point is to use the same heavy handed tactics Sony (and almost every mega multimedia corporation) uses on the general public who uses the internet. It's just as ass backwards, even more so with the credit card numbers being taken. As far as personal information, I'm not sure if that's something to be alarmed about like some. Since I'm one of those jerks that Googles people for fun, it's not like anyone's personal address is very hidden. I guess it's the worry that that information will be used in conjuction with the stolen credit card information? This. It seems rather incompetent of Sony to have unencrypted passwords available for any hacker. My understanding is the modern way of doing things is that companies that require passwords for their services do not actually allow their employees to see the passwords in any way possible. Anyway, I guess I'll ask for another debit card next week. Funny thing is two months ago somehow my debit card number was stolen and being charged all over Xbox live, yet I don't actually have a 360. I'd really rather not risk it and find out since my debit card has way less in the amount of covered fraudulent charges than my credit card.

Am I strange that I was absolutely not interested in this game until I heard Hector's voice? The fact that he's not a dumb American pig cop as was expected is odd to me. That said, I'm not so into this graphic style, but yeah.

Haha I hate that, especially when they end with it and then give the game some arbitrary score. Then I'm wondering what the hell perspective they are coming from? The type that likes the said genre or are they reviewing outside of the genre they like? Even then, are they racking off scores or basing their reviews partly on how the game reflects to those that don't play the genre they are referring to? It's just useless.

Happy Birthday Nachimir. THE HAPPIEST EVER! Also happy birthday as well Jon Cole. And happiest birthdays to Nolan who is turning the big thirty two today and Hockeyman, big fan of hockey, who is at a turning point in his life at nineteen!

I don't ever read the reviews before playing a game, but after I will try to go to Metacritic or Gamerankings to see if there are reviews that feel similar to how I did. Of course those sites are usually unhelpful because I like to read more thoughtful reviews and it's hard to have just a directory of those only. Half the reviews I click on for almost anything tend to written by bro gamer crowd or are just shallow fluff pieces for publications that have nothing to say. I do tend to read the Eurogamer reviews almost always. I don't know much about the site and I'm not a European. I also have no idea which mass media corporation runs the site (which is always a put off), so I could be making an error, but the Eurogamer reviews seem pretty down to earth and explanatory in general in ways I can relate. This isn't the case 100% of the time, but I find it a good indicator. Anyways, I'm going to follow your blog from this point on, Twmac. Not sure why I didn't earlier...

Yeah, that was my style of playing as well for the previous games, all the way down to the MSX ones. To me, playing that way is probably treating Metal Gear solid more like an adventure game player maybe? I feel like I can't relax and explore anything until everyone is sleeping and I can have a look around. The game play has also encouraged this in the past with hidden items that end up as greatly helpful as well as encouraging exploration with all the little things to try and hidden stuff in areas. MGS3 did have a few places in the large open jungle where you could clear out little pockets of the area as a whole and you'd have to move on before the guard in the area woke up, but figuring out that certain guards would never see eachother in some of the more expansive areas was just as much work in itself sometimes. Honestly, I've really never understood the comparisons Metal Gear keeps putting in it's own games to James Bond. They don't seem similar enough to me outside of the rag tag villians and Snake being a spy that wears a tuxedo upon completing the game. I honestly lose interest in any military themed anything, but for whatever reason Metal Gear has held my interest. I think the supernatural stuff as well as the comic book style villians is a part of it, even though I'm not at all into the comics that have tons of villians like that. It could possibly be because they aren't wearing tights and Metal Gear is much more grounded outside of the robots and powers. I do like robots though... Yeah I remember those posts where you were talking about how the game matched your own experiences as a cadet, which is one of the things that initially got me interested in this series years ago. I'm really not cut out to be a soldier of any type so maybe that's it? That said, this game made me feel more awesome when I did get through an area successfully without alert or used the camo wisely (although Big Boss constantly changing his clothes seems incredibly unrealistic and wacky). The controls did click for me, but I feel like it was just way too late to appreciate them, which is unfortunate. I think in my post before I was a bit too negative in reference to the CQC, because it was a good idea and made directly interacting with soliders much more intuitive and interesting. I just had found the way it was implemented with the pressure sensitivity to be the failure as it took a while to just get used to the controls so that you could follow through on your intentions within the game. Yeah, I really can't get over how amazing this boss fight is. I was completely surprised to find out that it would not be done in five minutes time like most. It was also strange there was no music added for tension during the fight even though it became very intense on it's own having to sneak through the cheerful ambient noise of forest. I also have to try that old age thing to unlock a cutscene on the the next playthrough. I'll probably see if I can do that thing where I kill him ahead of time as well on another time. Also, as a side note, does anyone know if there is any making of material on the environment when fighting The Boss? I have absolutely no fucking clue how they made the PS2 deal with those tons of flowers that moved dynamically along with the movements of the characters. There was also petals fluttering about at the same time and no slowdown whatsoever. I'm guessing maybe the flowers changed from 3D models to planes depending on where you were, but I have no clue. My only idea of this is because this is the only portion of the game where you are no longer allowed to use the Subsistence 3D camera, so maybe having it locked prevents the user from changing the view to create atrocious slowdown? If you play this area in Snake Vs. Monkey, it cannot handle all of those apes and the whole level lags pretty bad.