miffy495

Man, much as the campaigners for Greenpeace bug the hell out of me, I kinda really want that button.

Agreed. Amazing game. I wasn't aware there was a special edition though. Region 2 only thing?

It's out, it was just that Ghost Squad was $20 cheaper. Besides, the back of the box had a picture of the main character in a panda costume. I couldn't resist. I'm looking forward to UC, but hear it's around 20 hours, so not so much for the sit down, play, go back to whatever you were doing sort of game that I'm looking to fill the spaces between Mario Galaxy runs and Mass Effect. It's one I'm saving for when I have some more free time to play it in. Also, my birthday is in three weeks so I may as well hold off on some of the more "holy hell, that looks awesome" games that family members I game with have heard me talking about until after the holidays.

Not really, I just love having something that feels like a light gun. It doesn't change the mechanics of the games at all, just the feel of them. Something about shooting things with a little plastic wand when I could be using a little plastic gun seemed wrong. Also, it allows both hands to rumble, as the Wiimote's shake is enough to get the whole thing going. Didn't realize that I missed that in Wii games until I got it back. It makes getting to the A button a bit awkward, but all the games designed for use with the Zapper take that into account. I certainly wouldn't try playing Metroid with it, at any rate.

I'm not sure if it's some problem with an update, or a patch, or what exactly, but what the hell happened to my scores for my downloaded songs? I started up the game for a bit of play tonight and when I went to select a downloaded song there were no scores there for any of them. This effectively eliminated one of my 5-gold star runs, which was especially irksome. Got it back on my first try (Messages was the song I went in there to play anyway, and as great as it is, it really isn't that hard) but I shudder to think how angry I'd be if it were for something like This Is A Call which I've gotten 99% on, but have had a lot of difficulty hitting that 100% sweet spot. If I'd gotten it after a lot of effort and lost my record of it, I'd be mighty pissed. As is, my downloaded song list now has a 5-gold star run for Messages and a 5 star run for the Halo theme, where it had previously been full of points that have now vanished. Anyone else had their scores erased at random by the game? (Also, my runs on Ruby, Messages, and Bulls On Parade bring me up to 13 gold star runs. The achievement is in sight! :woohoo: )

I for one am neither huge nor asian, and hot has been contested on numerous occasions. I'm glad we at least know where this new member stands.

Well, ok then. I'll get the 100-ish that you can't get without beating Bowser, then beat Bowser, then get the remaining 20. Either way, I am going to complete this game, unlike so many others I start and get pulled away from.

Haven't had any problems with the daredevils, actually. It's been the cosmic ones that have got me retrying again and again. Stupid shadow Mario...

Exactly why I've stalled at 61 for about a week now. I've just been too damn busy with school and work to play, and though I could just go fight Bowser any time now, I really want to sit down for a solid few hours and just grab those last 59 stars. I've been working to actually clear out each level before moving to the next, so I've still not even looked at the fifth room from the main hub, and barely touched the fourth one. There's just too much left to see, and I need a day of nothing in which to see it all.

Ditto. I'd just gotten to the abandoned spacecraft, but then the frenzy of awesome hit and I haven't been back to it since. Hopefully over the winter break from school.

Actually, from the looks of things, I think the groupie number is an average, or at least close to it. Our groupies in the Thumbs tour group are about 7 more than our 4 scores averaged. Maybe the group as it's own entity gets some extra stuff, but most of it is based on the average?

I think the best way I can sum it up is this: Having to watch Happy Feet was my worst day as a projectionist. This is including the day I was required (!!!) to see Saw 3 three consecutive times and nearly gouged out my brain to end the stupid. I also like stupid kid's movies when they're done well, so I could have liked Happy Feet. If it wasn't made of pure concentrated suck and channeled all that is wrong with children's media into one sickening package, that is.

Ok, so I've entered in my code now, but I'm not entirely convinced my account is properly registered. I've got something like 2600 groupies and "Rock God" status according to the site's upper left user info thing, but it won't say much else. My user profile page, for example, is still blank. Also, despite the fact that I'm registered with the Thumbs tour group, the groupie count is a little less than half of what the site tells me I have on my own, so I'm assuming mine haven't been added yet. Do I need to play the game again for it all to get synced up or what's the deal? ...also, the thumb group ranking is about 500 higher than you said it was. Is that my doing or is something else at work here? This site is confusing as hell. EDIT: upon checking about 3 hours later, I'm now fully confirmed on the site. Tour group groupie rating is the same though, so I'm not sure what the deal is with that. Does it average all our groupies? Total? How's it work? I do think we can crack the top 2000 groups though. Only about 100 off. Seeing that I'm #2166 on expert has given me a personal mission to get into the top 2000 of that as well. This site is evil, what with it's showing me how I compare and making me want to play more. Bastards.

The fact that the bonus disk may or may not be a straight-up DVD. If it is, it's probably region locked.

Yeah, that clip about sums it up. We had it at my theater for matinees for a while back in the spring to try and get some extra cash and I had to watch it a few times back then. Imagine that clip, plus you have to deal with Nicole Kidman's singing voice channeled through an animated penguin. Stay far away from this movie.

I tried linking my account, actually, but the site wouldn't confirm me because the servers were too busy or some such bollocks. Now that I assume they're not, I'm thinking I should try again. I'll do so sometime before the end of the weekend, I hope.

Best comparison I've heard yet. Well done sir. You've pretty much summed up exactly what needed to be said about the game. Great songs, fun game, just no soul.

My copy arrived in the mail today. Haven't had much chance to play it, as I work early tomorrow and swore up and down that I'd turn it off after an hour so I could get some sleep (on my way there now, but figured impressions first) and managed to only go over that limit by 15 minutes. Just got to the citadel, talked to a couple of people, then saved. So far: Holy uncanny valley! I think I would have preferred the graphics if they'd just not had humans at all. The aliens all look completely fantastic, Volus and Turians in particular (first time I watched Nihlus talk my jaw physically dropped), but the humans just look wrong. Not that there's anything wrong with the graphics at all, but I'm sure most of you know exactly what I mean. I know it'd probably be a harder sell to have a game where it's only aliens interacting with other aliens, but at the moment watching these claymation-ish humans talking to these fantastically detailed and believable aliens is just distracting. Combat isn't particularly tricky, but I'm in this for the RPG elements and came in expecting to be pausing and managing every step of the way. I can definitely see how n0wak was tempted to play it like Gears though, they even have the roadie run for god's sake. Lastly, literature! With a game! How I'd missed you! I think it's collector's edition exclusive (whole reason I went to the trouble of an online order for the game) but that codex book you get is great. Not nearly as beefy as books that you used to get with a high-profile RPG, but dammit it's a separate book that's nothing but backstory to introduce you more in-depth to the game world. I love this crap and wish more games would bother, even if I have to get the fancy metal-case version to get it. lobotomy42, I'd recommend it for you. Just do what I did. I decided that I wanted to play an RPG, not a shooter, so I set the combat to casual and am focusing on the roleplaying. As such, I like what I see so far. Keeping in mind I'm just over an hour in, of course. Still, the alien races are fascinating and the potential from the bit I've played so far seems staggering. I'm pumped for the rest of it.

Y'know, it's odd, but with all the fantastic shows that are on TV at the moment that could be vying for my attention, what I'm actually watching right now is about 15 years old. Last time I walked into HMV I saw that they had each season of the X Files on for $20 a piece. I picked up the first three and every time I have a free 45 minutes between work, school, and life I'm just watching another episode. I was only really old enough for the show when it was winding down, and the seasons I'm watching right now I've never seen before as I was 4 years old when they started airing. There's a bit of a "what the fuck?" condescending chuckle now and then (having someone explain in vitro fertilization to Scully, who is supposedly a medical doctor, gave me a double take) but in all honesty, I don't think that $60 could have been better spent. Going to see a special screening at the university tomorrow of Join Us, a documentary about people undergoing cult deprogramming. Really promising premise, and I'm looking forward to it. It's going through the festival circuit right now, so I'll pipe up sometime soon with how I liked it.

Hmm... I may be mistaken. I could have sworn it was heading to all three. Oh well. In other news, this thread has prompted me to really start seriously looking into completing my stable with a PS3 now that my scholarship money has come through and I have some extra to burn. The combined facts that a) it's used and therefor Sony wouldn't be getting my money, a used one on eBay now costs less than my 360 cost me, and c) it's older so would still have full backwards compatibility are very tempting. Anyone have a solid reason for me to not go for it?

Pretty much exactly what I decided back when I got my 360. Good call, I'd say.

That wouldn't be hard to pull off really. GHIII is harder in that there's a lot more notes and they don't always sync up with the music as well as they should. There's also something that they've added that I respect though, that is the fact that there are passages that GHII would have let you do entirely in HO/PO sequences when it's obvious that the real player is plucking certain notes in there. Now you can only hammer and pull on the notes that the actual guitarist would, and need to pluck in the middle of some of those long sequences. This makes the game harder, but you also don't have ridiculous things like nearly the first 25% of Laid To Rest being doable on essentially one strum in GHII. On another note, now at 10 perfect songs after a very nice run through Even Flow (1047 notes, for those who care) which also netted me an achievement for a 1000 note streak.

Episode 4 is also free on Steam though. I tried out gametap last year when Sam and Max first started being released on it, but honestly I don't think I've logged in since January. It seemed alright, but like LOPcagney said, it's just not very satisfying. also, the interface is bloody atrocious. On the off chance I feel a desperate need to play any of the games in their catalogue, I'd honestly rather go to eBay.

Actually Noyb, Haze is going to be on PC and 360 as well, and as I'm also a big fan of Timesplitters (and a 360 owner) hooray for that. You're right about Echochrome though. God do I want to try that game out. Basically, what everyone else has said. I love my 360. The Wii is the biggest draw for company, and games like Metroid and Mario Galaxy come around every now and then to make me play more traditionally games on it, but for the most part when I want to sit down and play a game by myself, 360 is it. The PS3 has a few titles that intrigue me, and I've always maintained that I would eventually get one used after a while for the exclusives, but I just don't see enough right now to warrant the price. The way I see it, you can buy it for potential now, or you can buy it for actual games later. I plan to get a 60GB one off of eBay after christmas, as it'll still be backwards compatible, I should have a bit of disposable income, and they're now about $400 Canadian, which is how much my 360 cost me back when I got it. If you're just jumping into the generation now though, 360 is definitely the way to do it. Larger, stronger library (including the unsung gems like Earth Defense Force 2017 and Crackdown, which are both personal games of the year so far) and a great online system (XBLA is a godsend, and the Xbox game downloads they'll be starting next month seem cool too) have made me really happy with the system. For media, you have to remember that you don't get the HD movie player for free with a 360, so if that's what you want, maybe that'll sway you. If you have a Vista PC though, media center will sync up with your 360 automatically if they're hooked together over a LAN. I stream downloaded videos to my TV off my PC quite a bit now using the 360 as my go-between. It's a really nice feature that's good to have. Works with music and photos too, but as my iPod also hooks up through the USB, I don't need to beam the music in through the LAN. I'm not sure if the PS3 has anything comparable to that, as I never looked into it and just discovered that feature when I got my new Vista system and it asked me if I wanted to set it up.

As I'm in Canada and wanted to get the collector's edition, there was exactly one place I could order it from. My copy should be on the way about now, so I'm eagerly anticipating getting my Bioware on over the next while. Especially with Rock Band delayed a month, this seems about the perfect antidote.