syntheticgerbil

Haha, I think to make an angry review is more about the reviewer thinking they are purveyor's of great comedy rather than any of them having much of an audience. I stumbled across this the other day looking for a gameplay video of some of the special missions from Metal Gear Solid for Game Boy Color (there weren't any): I guess it's insanely funny to be sarcastic about a perfectly okay title screen or to purposefully not learn the controls? I have no clue. It's about the usual formula.

Anyone here Master System or Sega nuts? I know people from the United Kingdom and South America love old Sega. I'm trying to figure out what I can do to make my Game Gear say it's Japanese, but I have no idea how. It seems you can't away with breaking or soldering chips, but I'm not so sure. These links *seem* to be something to go on, but I have no clue: http://www.smspower.org/Development/RegionDetection http://www.smspower.org/Development/RegionChanging It would seem like making the Game Gear change regions is changing one value through software or something, but I am not positive. While supposedly the Game Gear and Master System are supposed to be very similar, the region changing link is for the Master System only, so I don't know if a similar type of modification will have the same result. If I somehow have to change the software maybe I can do it with a Game Genie? That's what I use for my Genesis to play other regions. I can't find any kind of general region changing codes for Game Gear. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction or knows someone who messes with this crap?

Possibly, my memory must have failed me. I'll have to go back and fast forward through the DVD soon. I want to say I thought the parts with extended dialogue leading off the same scenes were all leading off different shots, but I'm probably just thinking of the extended scenes fully as alternate takes.

The low amount of hours sucks, but I guess at the same time I'm used to it, as I still have a GBA SP I bought in 2003 that has a crap battery I don't feel like figuring out how to replace with a better one. I get about 3 hours max on that. What sucks is, I am planning on buying a 3DS on release if possible. But if the battery sucks and everyone is already complaining, most likely it means Nintendo is going to rerelease the hardware a year later with lots of little improvements.

Haha, right, I forgot completely about the quicksave making it easier as well. Oops!

What I find the most strange about that cut is a majority of the scenes that stayed the same tend to be alternate takes with different dialogue or shot with different camera angles. It did not make a ton of sense why different versions of the same or similar shots were used. I saw it a years ago though and haven't rewatched it. I don't remember if there was something in the extras for the DVD that explained why the US company used different shots.

Toblix, which one are you playing? Are you still on the original game? That one is definitely the hardest one. While you are still limited in Abe's Exoddus, you are allowed more options in terms of possession and ways to solve puzzles. There was more room for variety in that one from what I remember as well as the slaves being easier to free despite being three times as many (assuming you try to save them all).

It's almost impossible to single out weird games, like you say, Tanukitsune. I get the feeling that this guy is going off his audience which is probably preteens and teenagers, so they wouldn't know what he's reviewing in the first place or really have any idea of the context beyond what he gives them, just going by the comments of people who don't seem to have any idea what games he's naming. Almost every game from every country on the globe from the 80s up to the mid 90s had a majority of strange ideas and random concepts put together to form a whole were commonplace. Then somewhere along the way everyone wanted to use cliche film tropes and genre specifics to line their games. I mean if he's going to pick standards from two decades ago like Puyo Pop, Altered Beast, or Moonwalker, he may as well include everything from Nintendo at that time as well. Err... I should probably stop talking because I'm not going to watch his videos to care even further. I hate the retro video craze with angry young men reviewers

I never got into Quake and had no LAN setup, but despite having the PC version of 3D there were a lot of late nights spent on a friends Nintendo 64 playing that released version split screen. I am not fully sure exactly why it was so nonstop hilarious at this point but I do remember a friend who was constantly giving away his location by handing the money to the strippers and making the "Yeah baby!" sound effect play over and over.

Marek, Spaff, and possibly Yufster should most definitely.

I like how the sound effect of the guy running into tables and stuff is what I think of a goldfish smacking into the side of its glass bowl sounding like.

Oh man... Parnassus is probably wrong for now because I need to watch it at home closely with subtitles. I saw it in the theatre and got increasingly confused in the last 20 minutes. There was a lot of mumbling and rushed plot expose. 1) Fisher King 2) 12 Monkeys 3) Brazil 4) Adventures of Baron Munchausen (It's moved way up!) 5) Time Bandits 6) Holy Grail 7) Brothers Grimm 8) Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus 9) Fear and Loathing 10) Tideland 11) Jabberwocky Jabberwocky is so difficult to get through and not fall asleep while Tideland would probably be higher if I understood what the hell was up with the last 15 minutes of the movie and why the ending was stupidly abrupt. It definitely needs some sort of rerelease, I think it got kind of buried for a film that did pretty well for Gilliam and the studio without fights, while Munchausen and Brazil all get the deluxe treatment. That said, I do have Fisher King on laserdisc, one of the nerdiest things I think I own. But the laserdisc player was about 10 bucks and is big and metal, simultaneously serving the purpose of a TV stand.

I have Last Express but sadly I have not played it yet. I guess I will use it as vacation planning reference in the future.

Finally listened to it. I was hoping for more hardcore Doublefine information, but it was still a nice podcast where it never got uninteresting. It was kind of like that interview with whatever site Tasha and Tim did a couple of months ago. All super laid back though. I don't know if that's a problem but it makes me too relaxed when I usually listen to these things to help keep me from getting distracted at whatever task I'm supposed to be doing.

Yeah that one had voices on the CD version. Malcolm's voice is completely different from the third game though. I think the CD versions are relatively easy to find in comparison to the hard disk versions now.

Happy belated birthday from me to Tanukitsune:yep:

Wow, what a surprising thread to find springing up here, Toblix. I'm very sure there's no differences between the CD and disk versions of the first two games besides just added voices (while 3 just had a CD version only). The first game definitely has the worst gameplay of the series. Being relatively short, it's not the biggest deal to me. Mostly a lot of people don't want to map out the fire berry maze, which is sort of essential as annoying as it may be. The rest are pretty dumb trial and error puzzles like the birthstones (which I still don't think make much sense to me and if I'm not mistaken, change their correct answers each playthrough), the dead end near the end from not picking up a certain flower, and all the instant death traps you have to figure out to continue the game. However, I always liked the amulet gimmick with the powers as well as the gimmicks that come with each individual character for the next two games. I feel those helped keep the series fresh and separate their mechanics somewhat from other adventures outside of the strange pick up and drop interface. To me, Kyrandia 2 moves and is designed almost like a straight LucasArts game, with not many dead ends and open spaces to explore. And while Kyrandia 3 also sidesteps the mistakes the first one makes, the design on that one has always seemed like a mess to me because of of the different available paths early on in the game and the collect x amount of this item type of stuff that uselessly padded out an already long game. I think we discussed this before. in some other thread though. I don't think there are any save and restore type puzzles in Kyrandia 3 and most everything can be fixed even if you screw it up. There's one dead end when you are trapped in a prison on one of the paths in the final act where you can eat the sesame seeds you can break out with, thus making it impossible to escape. Maybe there's some way to get more on the screen but I couldn't figure it out. And yeah, the game covers are pretty awesome, except the 3D version of the third game. Definitely all eye catching.

Is this from Losing the Light? I mean to read that someday but not any time soon. I've only read Dark Fools and Holy Knights, which briefly touched upon the Munchausen stuff, also helping confused me, and the book on Brothers Grimm, which is maybe somewhat similar but hassled for all different reasons. I plainly disagree with the number one, and I think kids would have probably have been fascinated by the visuals if anything else. The bankable stars mentioned in number two seem like sort of a point, especially since Robin Williams' name wasn't allowed on the poster. As far as point 3, I thought Time Bandits was always considered a major success, at least in the United States in terms of reviews and profit. Gilliam claimed Munchausen received good reviews overall, so maybe the mass audience would have liked it but oh well. It's all wishful thinking from some fan speaking as someone who wasn't there and can only sort of see the aftermath, just basically wondering why more profit wasn't attempted to be made, since it seemed almost like a sure bet to me, especially considering a lot of Gilliam films since. Very strange Labyrinth was also considered a failure. I had always figured it had done very well upon release as opposed to The Dark Crystal despite having a pretty nonsensical plot. Although I thought the whole thing was done on Lucasfilm money, not Disney money. Is it because Disney owns most things Henson at this point? I know even then, Mirrormask was still done on an insanely tiny budget compared to all the money made since on home video releases and TV runs for the Henson fantasy movies. I also received Mirrormask on Blu-ray for Christmas too from my girlfriend coincidentally, and while almost all of the 3D is obviously amateurish, I still can't believe the great lengths gone through texturing, lighting, and layering to hide this fact, completely separating visuals on par with a normal video game studio of that time to movie quality.

Just as someone who would like to take another trip to anywhere in Europe some day, is inter-railing then considered a cheaper form of traveling cross country there? How much leeway is there at stops as far as time to fool around or see what's going on locally from you? Am I far off in imagining it this way?

Haha, I imagine you must look pretty shriveled up all day because of the high salt content.

Maybe so. He only likes clean TV from the 50s and 60s and almost nothing else. Ah, I guess it makes more sense that way without milling over a ton of details. Schuly was just strange in the documentary on the disc, talking in a strange manner. Also all of his clips were back and forths of him saying the exact opposite of what the problem others were saying it was as far as funding. Then I was confused that there was something about the bond company being insured by another bond company, which seemed to have caused a problem as well, but I have no clue what. The thing I didn't understand was at the end, Gilliam did say the reviews were good, but only 116 prints of the movie ended up being made. While I really don't know what the usual numbers are, he claimed art house films would at least get 400 prints. I don't understand why Columbia purposefully wouldn't try to get any money back by making it more available and promoting whatever they could afford. Something must have gone after all these years right for such a high quality DVD rerelease jam packed with extras.

Yes, Miffy, everyone from the days of yore should come back now. With the podcast over, the new and unsavory members have stopped posting, while everyone who is new and super savory (like Snooglebum here for instance) has stuck around post podcast! Also the new posts are no longer at an alarming rate and have become steady, which is nice. It's a win-win!

Rewatched Baron Munchausen on blu-ray (Christmas gift from my sweetheart) and was completely weirded out that I had disliked the movie before. I had put off buying the bare bones DVD for years and years, because as a Gilliam fan, it was my least favorite movie by him. Now I have no idea what I was thinking. I had first seen the beginning until the moon part at some young age when it was shown on TV before my dad turned it off on me for all of the oral sex jokes I didn't understand. It was fascinating visually and I had no idea what was going on, but that didn't matter. I again watched it as a rental around 16 or so before realizing it was the same movie, and becoming quite bored and disinterested. I mean the former DVD version was viewed on a tiny CRT TV in my room and had no subtitles (I compulsively turn them on for most things since I apparently have a very difficult time understanding normal people, let alone the British). Maybe it was the increased resolution or the larger screen that lended itself to making the visuals seem way less packed, but it was fun from beginning to end. My girlfriend was wondering why the hell I had hated the movie before as the credits were rolling and I really don't seem to have a good answer. The movie didn't seem slow or plodding at all and the actors all did a great job. It looked amazing and the ending was quite satisfying despite being a strange paradox that makes my brain hurt. Maybe I was just in a terrible mood the last time I had seen it? I still don't quite understand what was going on with the movies production or exactly who's fault the overbudget stuff was after viewing the extras, except possibly everyone's? There was a lot of no holds barred mudslinging back and forth between those interviewed, which was kind of funny. As they say at the end of the documentary, the troublesome production really doesn't come out in the final film, which is nice, unlike Brothers Grimm for instance.

In America we only have Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's. I am so jealous.

God damn, I've already got so much other stuff I know is coming out that I have to play, plus unfinished games I still have, and then this list adds in a few new games I've never heard of and think I should probably play. I'm not interested in about 50-60% of the list, but that's pretty good I think. I like how varied it is. Also, what the hell is up with them listing Beyond Good and Evil 2 for a 2011 release?! I'm *pretty* sure that's incorrect and at best Ubisoft last year could only give us a vague notion that the game was still slowly in development. Why not just put Rayman Origins up instead?