syntheticgerbil

Haha I feel overwhelmed sometimes too compared to the older days of this forum. I think this is one of the two forums I read that I feel obligated to click and read every post.

Ah, I think I understand now. I'm pretty sure from reading other forums that got me wanting to get the VGA box, you can only use one side at a time, either the PC VGA output with the 3.5 mm audio cable or the S-Video side with the regular RCA audio output. I don't think you can use both sides at the same time. Does your VGA box have a switch allowing you to choose S-Video or VGA at the same time? The only thing I could think of if you can simultaneously use the RCA audio output and VGA at the same time is possibly getting some sort of converter to RCA from the 3.5 mm output? I'm really bad at understanding home audio systems since I've never had one, so I would guess this also isn't a good solution since it would seem like the signal would be deteriorated going through the headphone jack first and then a higher quality separated cable. Also I would love to experience Rayman 2 widescreen. I should really give that a try. I used to have it for my Dreamcast a long time ago but traded it in towards the superior Playstation 2 release with all of the extra crap jammed in it. The PS2 version doesn't support widescreen and tends to lag a lot and seems to have lower resolution textures. The Dreamcast version always played and looked very smooth.

I'm still not incredibly far in since I got sidetracked playing other games, but I'm on the second world now and it's definitely gotten somewhat harder. It could still stand to be harder, but I'm guessing this game increases in difficulty on a pretty straight edge upward slope. We'll see, I suppose... I finished my first boss fight as well, which I thought was pretty awesome, even though I was hoping it would go on a bit longer. Nice to see these since I'm guessing the original NES version had one boss fight at the end. Who knows? Funny you say that the original game were more of a puzzle because of the limited jellybeans, Xeneth. While I'm sure they added some strategy, you'd usually end up getting a game over before ever worrying about rationing your jellybeans in the original. The biggest problem with the original seemed to be just having so much shit just based on twitch mechanics and moving pixel perfect. This part where you have to ride around inside a bubble and gather treasure under the threat of instant death everywhere comes to mind. Just because the lack of that unfair frustration, I feel like the new Blob is just more focused on you figuring out how to get through the level than just doing everything right in order without ever messing up. Of course the original would have probably been way less frustrating if it had infinite lives or some kind of save system as well. But you're right, it's definitely not as puzzling as Braid and way more based on just getting from point A to point B. Even if it's the easiest of the current platformer/puzzler trio, I wouldn't mind seeing more games of this type.

It's possible I may be the only one to help here, having both a Dreamcast and a VGA box, so I'll give it my best shot. I don't know what I can do to help with your CD drive. It just sounds like a laser problem like you said or something to do with the motor mechanics of the drive. Maybe these are possible to replace for cheap? But mostly I've noticed people just buy a whole new Dreamcast when their drive dies. Most of the VGA boxes I think have an S-Video output in addition to VGA output, but I wouldn't recommend using this since there's S-Video Dreamcast cables that exist for cheaper and the VGA output looks nicer. I'm assuming you have an HDTV? My TV has a VGA input so I had to use a separate VGA cable going from the box to the TV. Also I used one of those normal audio cables (don't know what they are called) a PC uses from the box to the TV as well, since there was audio input next to the VGA input. Worked fine, I didn't have to do much from there. The TV automatically knew it was a 640x480 signal. I have the option to stretch the screen to fill, but I only have one widescreen game and that's Toy Commander, so I only use it there. I've heard HDTVs that only support like 800x600 resolution and higher won't work with the VGA box as well. I'm also using a 3rd Party orange VGA box since the first party ones are super expensive and hard to find. Anyways, I think it's funny that out of that generation the Dreamcast was the only system that consistently put out a 480p signal for nearly every game. There are only a handful of games that don't work with the VGA box. Not even the Xbox had this high of a percentage of games that would display with progressive scan.

I am truly sorry for your lots.

Haha, I work a street away from the Menil but I haven't been there in a while. I'd be up for an excursion if I still live in Houston by then.

Fuck I can't believe I'm watching this. The future is now. This thing crawls around like an infant with no head. The jellyfish were amazing though. I need to visit some kind of themepark where all of this stuff is in one place.

So was your toenail pushed up and broken off then? I've never lost a full nail but it always looks horrifyingly painful when someone has sort of a bloody orifice where a nail used to be. I feel disgusting even when I cut my finger nails after I haven't for a week or two.

These two are my personal favorites. I had gotten into a friendly argument with someone I went to school with who sent me some nice animation someone made, well designed and moving well with nice colors, but it basically boiled down to characters turning on a radio and dancing, which is the most asinine thing I could think to animate. Not that I have a problem with dancing but it sure helps if there's some kind of story or construct behind it instead of HAY I JUST ANIMATED A DANCE CUZ I LIKE THEM DANCES. To me it seems like it was made by someone who never really got out in the world or maybe never experienced pain if that's all he has to say. My friend, of course was angry at me for being cynical as usual, took of objection for me going against artists for doing things for themselves just for fun. It didn't really come off as a test so this piece was looking for an audience. And I think having an audience is a big part of what you are trying to say or do. It's essential to creating something worthwhile. In a way a lot of my sketches just simply don't exist if no one has seen them. Just as unseen as the other ideas floating around in my head. They could be good or bad, but it wouldn't matter. What you choose to create would be saying something about what foot you want to put forward and what you feel you need to say. So all of the levels of scrutiny something publicly goes under adds or detracts it's value, but I would agree it's not really art if not one person has set eyes on it.

m_VJZAqViT4 Should have been IGN's game of the Year 2005.

I'm not sure if it really is, but I doubt anyone cares it's available to download at this point. Activision or EA might care though, since I think one or the other still holds the publishing rights. God that site is ugly though.

Now no one will ever know what you were talking about.

I'm going to repeat Little Big Adventure because I just realized what this thread is for and those games should be played. Best part is the second one is like 10 times better than the first, and the first is already grand. I'm guessing people already mentioned the obvious best adventure games around. I'd throw a few Coktel Vision (Goblins series, The Prophecy, and Woodruff) games and the Tex Murphy games into the mix for weirdly designed but still great adventures. Also tracking down copies of Another World, Heart of Darkness, the two Oddworlds, Prince of Persia 1 and 2 (maybe 3D if you're curious) would be ideal if you are into frustrating yet fun storylined action games. They are all somewhat similar. I think every single one exists on other platforms though so they aren't really exclusively PC, but I think with the exception of Prince of Persia 1, their best versions are the PC versions. Sorry I only have 90s games recommendations. I stopped using my PC for games before I graduated high school unless the game is exclusively on PC. Now I just mostly use it for working on stuff.

So I made the mistake of watching 500 Days of Summer (since I'm sort of a sucker for love stories and all, no joke) and about the fifth band reference in I realized I was not hip enough for this movie. Not only did it throw out way too many 70s and 80s TV references as default for filler conversation, it tended to get way too quirky for its own good for the fantasy sequences. Quirk is fine if the fantasy is balancing out the real life sequences, but the substance of the relationship pretty much didn't exist for much of the movie time. Luckily no one drove around in a moped, but this seemed like it was much more a movie for someone who is twenty something, getting their masters, and likes to make papercraft orchids as a hobby. I guess that's fine, but that's not at all my type of people. Either way, I would guess the Donkey Kong sounds on the arcade table the dudes play at that is never shown is lost on most of the intended audience. This is not to say I hate all movies where the writer name drops all of his favorite bands and references to silly TV shows. The only slacker type movie similar in this style that I have ever truly enjoyed was High Fidelity, but that movie did so many things right and the references and name dropping were consistent with each characters likes and it wasn't portrayed as a sexy or hip thing but coming from men's obsessions and need to categorize everything. It was also all very relevant (and sad in a way) to the record store environment the people were in. It also helped that the John Cusack character wasn't so much of a neutered male as the main character in 500 Days of Summer, but more of a selfish guy that just kind of screws things up. I don't really want to be told in love story over and over to feel bad for the love lost main character. Anyways, High Fidelity is great, but my favorite love story movie is The Fisher King. I don't think anything tops that movie. I can relate to every character in there except the psych patient with the bleeding head. They all seemed that real. Maybe some would be distracted with how gruesome or bizarre it can get, but I'd say it's worth a watch. So that's my recommendation to add to this thread.

It would appear not. (I just found out a few weeks ago that these games have a mini-game inside where you bump the girls butts into eachother until one falls off the platform.)

http://kotaku.com/5520261/ubisoft-does-away-with-tree+killing-instruction-manuals So Ubisoft is going to print game manuals to go in the box. This has been inevitably coming for a long time here, but what really bugs me is that they have to spin this as if they are some kind of environmental savior and sort of make those of us who like manuals or books or whatever printed material feel bad. I feel kind of insulted that no company that decides to "go green" by not printing something they used to print can't just say the reason they are doing so: to save money. Maybe I'm just bothered because I'm a hard copy nut and I love all the junk that used to come in old PC games. I also won't give in to my credit card company's continuous pressure to have me only receive e-statements, so that's the jerk I am. I know most other thumb forum members aren't like that. I think what should really happen here is that Ubisoft should knock a buck or two off of their new games since we are all saving the environment here and are getting less for our money than we used to.

Give me your soul.

I wonder also if Ubisoft does not include manuals with the epilepsy warnings and the generic "how to start the game" type stuff, will they face possibly legal trouble? The reason Nintendo prints out that obnoxious warning booklet in everything they release and makes screens you have to press a button to skip was because of legal trouble from parents with epileptic kids looking to grab some money.

Haha, I'm completely for that if they want to go as far as a Nobynoby Boy style manual instead, that was a lot of fun. I don't necessarily think the usual game hints I'm seeing now in current games where it tells you to press a certain button early on (even sometimes being unskippable) is the way to go. But maybe it's because I always tend to read the manual before starting a game. Even the epilepsy info and where it tells you how to insert the cartridge into the system (kidding!). Brutal Legend's in game notebook was a pretty good reference most of the time, but a lot of times early on I actually had no clue what I was doing or how to do certain simple tasks. The manual actually didn't really enlighten me on any of these sorts of things (like getting serpents, running, or unlocking Legends (which I would think should be important and obvious foremost!)) and instead spent pages profiling and describing all of the possible troops to the multiplayer armies.

Alright, sorry I misunderstood the tone of the post. But if you do get time, I certainly wouldn't mind reading the TLDR version (which is what I was banking this whole thread would turn into, if the mods are okay with that). Any well thought out opinion on the art world is interesting to me. Also, what I've always found strange about all of Ebert's opinions, even though the last time I brought this up I was accused of making Ad hominem attacks, is that Ebert regularly takes a stance on what is art or not, even though the movies he has written were just ridiculous and naked B-Movie type affairs. I listened to portions of Ebert's commentary on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls DVD that I had borrowed from a friend and he seemed to take pleasure in stating that he was typing away the script as the movie production was started without much thought on where the story was going or why. I'm guessing he probably wouldn't even call the movies he wrote art either, but I would bet there's someone out there who thinks Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a work of subversive genius (Not to say it isn't, I found it entertaining at the very least) and would call it art.

I asked a friend about this game and he said his wife threw a brick at him. Maybe he was joking, but I must try this now when I get home.

I think the IGN.com thread will now be riding Idlethumb's coattails up until the point the site is over for real.

Now why'd you have to go and do that? I was kind of interested in both you and Rodi arguing about this stuff, since it's a much better read than about Ebert personally being a butthead, but now you've attempted to elevate yourself as the superior brain in art history and the meaning of it. You know you aren't the only one who draws and paints around here and that your tastes and appreciation for certain works of art and why they are successful are bound to be different from another's? If you want to insist that people who do high brow art and are involved in gallery showings aren't a club, then why do you need to act like you belong in that club? Anyways, Patter is more to the point than I can ever be. I'm sure Rodi didn't realistically think the word "art" would ever disappear from the lexicon. He's just saying it would be nice.

I'm so confused, are these supposed to be prototypes for the new politician robots that will take over?

You really sell the move in your post Erkki, so I would guess that's the better way to go. It's also more challenging so when you complete your tasks and the project they are developing, you will feel great for it and be more knowledgeable to boot. But yeah, it would suck to move if you love where you live. And Christ! I'm glad no one was hurt! From the stories I've heard some of those robberies can get ugly really fast!