syntheticgerbil

I'm going to go ahead and bump this awesome Toblix complains thread to give my thoughts upon beating the game. I haven't actually fully finished the game yet, but nothing new is going to happen, I just have to beat it 3 more times to unlock all Demo Theatre movies, which might be annoying, but I'll be skipping all cutscenes and running through with the invisibility camo and infinite bullets facepaint. As far as Metal Gears go, I am incredibly wowed at the story in this one. After the major disaster of most of MGS2, maybe my expectations are much lower, but this has got to be one of the best video game stories I've ever experienced. At least it must be up there with the top 10. As Thunderpeel said in another thread on this game, I think there were almost no instances of incredibly awkward voice acting this time or polygon characters running around silly except for maybe the kissing scenes. 3D people kissing always looks terrible so I guess it's expected from the medium for me. Ocelot's acting was distinct and hilarious, I almost hate that I found him the one of the most uninteresting characters the last two games. The torture scene was just shocking and amazingly well done and tense. The Fury fight was just absolutely creeping me out (maybe because it reminds me of reoccuring nightmares taking place in corridors and parking garages). I know there was one scene I found to be completely mediocre and bordering on Otacon crying over his sister, but it was brief and now I've completely forgot. I guess I will update when I remember. It's also nice that this is the first Metal Gear game where most of the storyline is not given through codec. Instead codec was here more for me to have fun and learn about plant life and animals, which is probably way more thrilling to me than it should be. Also the level of graphics here are insane, even though it's on PS2. Besides being impressed with what has been done with the system it's on, the character models are all solid and realistic but not in a creepy way. The major ball dropping is just the awful lip synching, but other than that, I feel like there was a very specific look displayed with the 3D models in this Metal Gear that were all slightly exaggerated in a way that dodged the uncanny valley and offered distinct looking characters. The only real jarring parts were everyone's fat polygon hands and the lower poly stuff for people's bodies. The backgrounds were all just gorgeous. I felt like I was camping playing this game almost all the time. But since I guess I'm not talking about a movie here, in reference to the gameplay and the gameplay issues in this thread, I completely understand. I really was not ready for this game even though I have played the other two 3D installments to a ridiculous amount of completion. What happened here is somehow the sections where defeating the guards became intensely difficult while things like bossfights or special tasks became incredibly easy. I had already learned all the tricks to be the puppetmaster of all the guards in corridors and where the best place to hide was, but it's like all of this was a useless skillset in the game series until much later on near the end. It's really just the open areas and the lack of spots that are definite to hide in. Also I noticed in this game that the guards have become double as aggressive, regularly calling in reinforcements for almost any insignificant reason. They also seemed much sharper and to have a more realistic eyesight, which is good if you want to show off the realism of your game engine, but bad if you want to just play a damn game. I had finished the whole thing just on normal mode. Maybe part of the problem is the way I play this series. I made things more difficult on myself trying to isolate and interrogate guards. Interrogation can also lead to you getting your maps filled with enemy markers though, which makes the game much easier. But part of the problem with wanting to interrogate everyone is while it's similar to gathering all dog tags in the last two games in terms of strategy, it also takes much longer. For dog tags, I'd often tranq someone while they were shaking their tag off and then run. Can't do that here. Also I tend to restart the game anytime I'm caught on certain scenes just because all Metal Gear games are just a clusterfuck spiral into death (unless you are well prepared or have a safe zone where alerts turn off) whenever you are spotted. I found myself restarting almost constantly because in this game the only places to hide were in grass or trees, both of which I'd be spotted everytime if the enemy were searching. No more lockers. One thing that made collecting dog tags in MGS2 much easier is that on screens with multiple enemies I could just put everyone to sleep and use the coolant spray to wake up whoever I needed, basically giving me full control of every room. In Snake Eater, I did not realize until looking this up 2/3rds through the game that I could have had a much easier time had I known I could wake guards up by kicking them in the head if needed. So with this knowledge, I get the feeling I could have done a lot better. The learning curve on MGS3 is high, I think, once you get to any rooms with guards. The first time arriving in the open area with the building was just an absolute nightmare for me. I'm also shit at aiming in first person with almost any game, so extreme precision is trial and error for me. Part of the problem with the learning curve is CQC. You have to figure out when to hold to button to get any enemy first, then trying to execute any moves in this state is an extreme bitch at first. Part of the problem is that so much of CQC lies on pressure sensitivity of the buttons. I hate crap like that. I tend to just press something and press it hard. The grenades are linked to how hard you press the button to throw in Metal Gear Solid games, and so I really don't use grenades unless I have to. The tiptoe and corner peek trick are also pressure sensitive, so I avoid those as well. Not slitting a guys through upon initiating CQC depends how hard you press the circle button. I think this was a grave mistake to make on something so essential to the game, since I just tended to kill people on accident. Then I started overcompensating and pressing lighter, which brought on a new issue of me letting guards go when I had no intention of doing so, getting me caught. I really hope this is improved in further games using CQC, because this was a complete control failure in my opinion. Eventually I got used to the sweet spot, but I can't imagine most people like putting up with some crap where how hard you press a button is measured (I didn't even know controllers knew that anyway until Metal Gear Solid games!). I think the concepts of taping or holding a button on a game controller should be about as in depth as necessary. So all of that said, the difficulty of the game becomes easier nearer to the end because of the combination of getting used to dealing with open areas with enemies as well as the areas becoming less open as the game goes on. Add to that that you can earn very useful camouflage later in the game from searching around or from tranq killing bosses. If that's not enough, getting the sleep gas cigarette shooter halfway through the game makes a simple way to deal with any desperate situation. At some points there, alerts were getting so frustrating that when 6 enemies stormed in the room, I ran in circles like a dork spraying cigarette gas in people's faces. Incredibly dumb but incredibly effective. Also I should mention the boss fight with The End. I loved that old man. He had no intention of killing me, but would tranquilize me. I get the feeling it was annoying how long this boss fight could last for some, but I found myself really enjoying the intense but plodding nature of finding a sniper in a big field and sneaking around his back over and over. All sniper fights in Metal Gear games before have been by the books crap where you just aim well in first person view, but this one here gives you many options as well as adding a great deal of strategy. Not punishing you with death of any sort is very good on this part, allowing you to finish at your own pace. I was a bit dumbfounded as I had the feeling searching for animals, eating them, and watching your stamina was going to be the most difficult part of this game, as back in 2005 when it was released, that's all I remember people bitching about. To my surprise, this had the least amount to do with the difficulty and just sort of added a bunch of fun hunting stuff to the game similar to Beyond Good and Evil's photographing all the creatures (just not killing and eating everything). I have the 3 disc Subsistence version of this that I paid way too much for at a time when I had more money, but I had already beat Metal Gear 1 and 2 on this earlier last year. The Snake Vs. Monkey mode was hilarious fun and I'm nearly done with that duel stuff. I think the rest is just watching extra cutscenes on the second disc as well as the third disc is just the game edited into a 3 hour movie. That should be interesting enough to see exactly how they do that without it coming off as idiotic. I do hope that part will be full widescreen, as I'm kind of sick of Metal Gear Solid games taking place in a tiny widescreen window in a 480i full screen window.

I thought the Sherlock Holmes movie was nice popcorn flick type faire. I wasn't really expecting it to be very intellectual or brilliant, but I did get more than I bargained for. Nice surprise, but I probably won't watch it again.

!!! Because as I'm sure you know, Disney originally created Oswald, so I'm not positive of the angle you are going here. It was a work for hire situation, sure, but I don't think it makes any sense to act like Oswald was Walter Lantz' in any way but legally. Besides even that, Oswald is an altered version of Felix the Cat. This is not to say that Disney was special in ripping off Felix, because everyone did early on. I don't think most are aware that throughout the late 1910s and 1920s, Felix the Cat's popularity was huge worldwide and many cartoons developing at the time were copying his antics, the visual play, the black and white stylizations and the look. Felix is responsible for starting many of the early cartoon tropes and sight gags, with Winsor McCay only coming before with much more elegant and difficult cartoons. The pioneering of the ongoing character short format basically belongs to Felix, so in a way, it's easier to say everyone out there ripped off Felix. Then you could even go on top of that and point out that much of the way Felix the Cat acted as well as the plots to his cartoons were all general rip offs of Chaplin shorts. Even if picking on individual character from any company, you'll see the cartoon animal was just sort of a hotbed in Hollywood with many looking the same or having the same design between studios. It was when strong individual characterization prevailed director's started experimenting more and taking risks that the major characters we still remembered become a hit. Also every single early version of the original cartoon greats tended to be bland or unmemorable. This is part of the reason why no one from the original Warners team can agree on who created Bugs Bunny. To me what looks like what may have happened is a bunch of animators were all drawing and animating a similar looking cartoon rabbit that solidified into one individual character second. I don't agree with the notion by El Meurte is referring to that Disney originally became big without an original idea, because it seems more of a half and half case, being their own spin on fairytale works. Had they not done Snow White or Fantasia, I personally don't think they would have gotten by on their cartoon shorts alone, usually being uninspired or having little going on besides characters dancing and singing, later producing less violent rip offs of Warners. What bothers me more about the early Disney decades is just that all credit tends to go to Walt, who was actually never very good at either art or animation and was basically a businessman who employed good people and put his name on it. Just look up Ub Iwerks and see how much Walt owes to that man. There was a parallel problem with Felix the Cat, but that one sort of doesn't matter now, with Felix the cat not being part of an empire of merchandising and licensing (though there's still some). On the other hand, everyone at Warner Brothers got their credits and in general people know the "Warner Brothers" did not create the characters themselves. I feel like the last half century more involves the Disney company doing the leeching rather than early on, where they were just sort of a boring studio that made really pretty and solid animation. I still don't understand the point of originally holding up the company with the better animators, since it seems strange to define the company by the artists it employed at one time. So the Nine Old Men stayed didn't leave, but it's not like they experimented out of narrowing and defining their own style. I find it more interesting to look at animators like Ken Harris, Preston Blair, Bill Tytla, or the aforementioned Ub Iwerks that left Disney (or had careers before) and compare their work at other places. To me I think to understand the golden age of cartoons in Hollywood is missing the point to hold a studio over another most of the time, since the animators themselves did not tend to have a loyalty to one studio their whole career, switching sides and companies often or starting their own studio. I guess that's why I took issue with you, Vimes, jumping on El Meurte's backhanded comment toward the company and you mentioning individual animators and artists as the sole defense, rather than just looking at the company as an entity or the man Walt Disney himself.

For all of the following reasons: And the animated branch you are speaking of has been split, reorganized, redone, changed ideals, and is just generally really difficult to pinpoint that what's been going on in the last 30-40 years is the same as what was going on in the first 30-40 years. I just don't think "Disney: The Animation Group" can even be thought of a single entity for a century, even aside from the Disney corporations media tendrils extending far, far past just animation now. Good point. I think it's important to note that even in the golden age of animation, many artists and animators left Disney because of Walt himself, a lot having to do with his involvement in the Red Scare.

Haha, the flack towards the company itself is more than well deserved for x number of reasons over decades upon decades. I always find it strange when people feel they have to defend such a large corporation As some of the Nine Old Men you named and Mary Blair, I don't think El Meurte was explicitly attacking any of them. I'm not so sure it's correct to call them all pioneers since a lot of techniques that the animators or artists used at Disney had already been existing or started by someone else, the only major difference is the people you named and the other major Disney animators, many of which left to do other things with their career, tended to do it all well. I sure do think Glen Keane is complete and utter shit though. That is all getting sidetracked, but it's basically to say, I think in general when anyone is badmouthing Disney, there is a disconnect from the studio that was doing well in the 30s, 40s, and 50s (and a little more) that hardly anyone is referring to, especially the individual artists. I would venture to guess El Meurte is referring possibly to Kimba/Lion King, Nadia/Atlantis, and Thief and the Cobbler/Aladdin besides the fact that a large body of the studio's work consists of watering down an existing story and adding animal friends/talking objects.

Same here as well, I just wish I had the money for this thing right now. I've still been stuck with the fat gray DS for all of these years. I keep wanting to upgrade, but then I hear an announcement of a better or improved DS coming soon after. Currently the one I have has a broken hinge, has had the top screen replaced twice, stickers all fallen off the back, and is just scratched and chipped in general. My Gameboy Advance is in similar shape, but it's pretty much how you gauge the use of a handheld.

I too have heard great things about both Patapons from multiple people I know in real life, but I myself haven't played them. I would guess a lot of the first party or console exclusive stuff for the PSP is well made in general.

Even though complains that the last 30 minutes or so of Sushine are it's one of the things that makes me like it more.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you thank you!

Haha I just meant for a movie renting place it's sort of a long way to drive, since it means I'll have to drive there twice to rent anything. But I can do pilgrimage!

I don't know, possibly Illustrator? The art may be flat color but it doesn't appear to be vector to me because the black lines on the characters faces have a lot of tapered edges which are obnoxious to do in Illustrator, but I ultimately can't tell without higher res screens. It's also possible it's just really clean scanned ink art that Dave Gibbons did, but since the lines appear so chunky looking, I was getting the feeling it was someone drawing over maybe his pencils in Photoshop? I don't really know, just a theory.

Idiocracy did get a ridiculously bad release. I think it may have been in theatres one weekend in some places if at all and then there was quick and quiet DVD release that was incredibly barebones aside from some extremely short deleted scenes. I don't know if disagreements on cuts or reshoots had anything to do with the treatment of the movie, but if what you say is true, it seems to fit with the general idea of a movie studio's release of a "difficult" movie to me.

Holy shit, I never would have thought of that. That's genius! :tup: Ah, the closest location is almost 20 minutes away from where I live though! That's so far for a rental place. There's no where to rent near me besides Blockbuster.

I think Idiocracy just turned way too ridiculous halfway through it and just fell apart near the end. Mike Judge's stuff seems to work better when grounded and less extravagant. I thought Extract was a lot of fun, even though I found it very depressing.

See?! Already this project is the greatest!

Oh god, that's awful, I can't even spell my own name right! Embarrassing... Thank you for the compliment!

Hmmm... strange. I guess I should have taken the time to look and see it's still Dave Gibbons, but for whatever reason the faces this time around seem more clunky or less detailed. I just rechecked and compared both new versions. It's possible he was not the one digitizing his images, since they kind of seem like the work of some amateur Photoshop this time around. The line quality is pretty clunky.

I might have a Wiifit with unused points if you'd like, but it's possible I had already given them to someone else a year or so ago. Thing is, I was taking points from games my old job bought for research type purposes in order to save points to buy the Game and Watch Collections (I ended up only buying one in the Nintendo Club and bought the other on Ebay), so I might have a duplicate or two of games. If not, my girlfriend's younger sister I think has some points I tried to steal and also ran into the same duplicates problem if you are desperate. The Game and Watches are both nice and authentic but are more collector item types than something to get a lot of replay value out of. I think the old Game and Watch Galleries for Game boy offer much more. There's far greater value in the Tingle's Balloon Fight, but that was only released in Japan's Club Nintendo.

I kept reading that the PSP 2000 was the better one in terms of image quality because of the scanline thing going on with it to reduce the ghosting. I think the Go is the best in terms of image quality, but I hate the idiocy of paying for games for download when in most cases it's cheaper to buy the disc (even new!) and all games aren't in the PSN store yet. I made the frustrating thread about Locoroco, but I'd say it's worth a shot. I hear 2 is not as frustrating based on searching forums. I don't really have much else for PSP of note besides various Metal Gear Solid games. But I think everyone will recommend much better PS2 games as I think some of what I have is multiplatform and you've named most worth getting. Maybe try those character trilogy things: Jak, Sly Cooper, and Ratchet and Clank? I've started Metal Gear Solid 3 also and it honestly looks more beautiful than most anything I've seen this generation. I'm immensely impressed. Not too far yet and I did hit a ridiculously frustarating spot, but I'm abstaining from playing it right now or else I'll be sucked in four 8 hours on end.

I'm guessing they got less of a professional to do the faces this time around? They look pretty mediocre!

Hey I've finally completed my personal portfolio site (for now). Check out my work at mrseanlane.com. Pass it on to any people you know working at game companies in Austin, TX. Everyone else, hopefully it's mildly entertaining!

When you guys are done can you translate some Japanese animated shorts for me? I'll still be around with them sitting on my hard drive.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll go the order you suggest since I'm always for silent or mime type comedy (I'm assuming this stuff is in the vein of Chaplin or any older time players?). If I don't join up to Netflix soon with my girlfriend and the Tati films are readily available on domestic DVD, then I'll download them I suppose. I've seen this movie way too much and I'm still not completely sick of it. That's good, I think.

I was also thinking it was supposed to be But leaving the theatre, the movie itself seemed so disconnected from any kind of backstory and just came off as its own thing so I was decided to look at it as someone who had not read gossipy blogs about the movie beforehand and feel like I wouldn't have made much of I'm not sure knowing exactly what the photo meant or the truthfulness of the script rights problem would make any impact on my enjoyment either way. I do think Chomet probably did sort of make the movie more targeted toward his own feelings towards his daughter(s).