Nappi

Hopefully someone will someday actually read the article...

Jack Black? He is more of a musician and an actor than an American Idol fellow. He is not-that-well-but-still-pretty known outside USA too.

Also does it spell "Monkey" on that girls t-shirt. :inspector_smiley:

Just to make sure, I don't think anyone should feel forced to like any band (or a game) or even have to explain why he/she doesn't. Previously mentioned was just something I had noticed. I think the trailer for Talvikuningas was absolutely horrible, btw. It felt really naive compared to the actual album.

Iksenpets posted that on Double Fine Action Forums. Seems to be the real deal, since other people have confirmed it too. For example: "The front cover of the mag is for Brutal Legend - brought to you by the same guy who did Psychonauts and Grim Fandango, featuring Jack Black" @ Mass Effect forums.

Now, what is this?

Apart from the fact that CMX sells extremely well and Psychonauts sells extremely poorly, I think they are actually pretty similar in a way. I mean, if you want anyone to take your further game-related comments or ideas seriously (here on this forum, for example), you'd better not start by saying that you think Psychonauts is crap. Unless you have a really good explanation for that, at least. I have noticed that, in certain circles at least, the same goes for CMX. If someone says that (s)he thinks the band is absolute crap, (s)he doesn't know what (s)he is talking about or bases his/her view solely on what (s)he has heard on the radio. Or something like that.. In both cases, it is, in a way, assumed that you like or at least respect the game/band, and any differing view should be justified carefully. Granted, CMX could probably release a very mediocre album (which Talvikuningas, in my opinion, honestly isn't) and people would still praise it, but they have earned their respect too. Maybe someday Doublefine will become as big and respected as well, and they can release anything they like and people will still buy it. I agree with brkl. It's much less artsy than most CMX albums I have heard.

I was waiting for tremendously boring gameplay demo, and got this. The gameplay and level design weren't really that interesting, but the computer guiding you was fucking awesome! Same goes for the emotional turrets. And the cube. The ending was absolutely brilliant as well. And translated in Finnish. I wonder if it was always their intention to make the game be like this or did the idea come afterwards.

I think it, at least partially, has to do with Sonic being too cool (and fast). To me he seems like a guy who, after each level is all: "Did you see that? Wasn't that awesome? Thumbs up for me!" It's hard to consider him as an underdog, even though he sales-wise is just that. Mario, on the other hand, is just an ordinary, slightly overweight Italian plumber (or down-right retard in Super Paper Mario's case) who doesn't really have any super powers apart from being able to eat (most) poisonous mushrooms and herbs. After completing a level you can probably hear him say: "I can't believe that worked. I just.. I just jumped over them like in every other level so far." Although first Mario games didn't tell you too much about the mustached friend you were supposed to control, being able to relate to or, at least, feel pity for him made it much easier to fill in the caps and imagine what kind of character he might be. Sonic, to me, is just too cool (and slightly douche bag-ish) for me to care. I don't even want to get to know with him. At least, this is how I feel about it.

Getting shotgunned multiple times by your team-mates whenever you get too close to them sure is a novel way to earn their trust.

Ah.. didn't know it was increased. One of the reasons why I didn't use Pyro before was that his flamethrower felt so weak. I guess I got to give him another try.

I have never considered Sonic to be a very interesting character. Hearing him speak only made it worse. This character, on the other hand...

I love the muffled yells the Pyro makes, for example when calling a medic. Not one of my favourite characters otherwise though. Those "Meet the ..." videos are of superb quality! My favourite so far is probably the Engineer clip. Is it safe to assume that they are going to make one for each class?

I guess this is still better than being number one pokemon porn, sex, xxx or hentai site. Just don't mention pikatchu bondage.

Most likely the latter.

I watched it some time ago. I had forgotten about that part, though. I wonder why.. I thought you tried to look like this.

Happy Birthday! Wrestlevania, that's the worst Doom-related Halloween costume I have ever seen.

Didn't realize you were Finnish before..

That is the best. Also, pokemon friend codes.

I liked UNKLE's War Stories. Plus, the video for Rabbit in Your Headlights (which has nothing to do with this particular album, I know) is probably the second best music video that I have seen. Other highlights this year have been Queens of the Stone Age's Era Vulgaris. Although, it isn't quite as good as The Songs for the Deaf (which was absolutely brilliant, in my opinion) there are still many great songs on this album. The song Restless from War Stories is actually performed by QotSA's lead singer Josh(ua) Homme, btw. And he seems to be working on new Desert Sessions material as well. Yay! The White Stripes' Icky Thump is also an excellent album. I like it when I (think I can) hear that the artists genuinely enjoy what they are doing. Even if that meant that there are bagpipes on the album. Grinderman by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey, and Jim Sclavunos is very interesting album (and a band). Their sound is very raw and unpolished and the lyrics are less poetic compared to "recent" Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds albums. I'm still waiting for new Bad Seeds material, but truly enjoy this album as well. Lately I have been listening to Finnish progressive rock band called CMX (which comes from Cloaca Maxima). Formed in 1985, CMX originally played punk, but as the years passed the became more and more mainstream. That doesn't mean their style changed that dramatically, they just became ridiculously popular (they even won 'The Best Band in the World' vote in a Finnish music magazine) and therefore mainstream whether they liked it or not. I don't know if that actually has anything to do with this, but a while ago they released a limited (8000 copies) progressive one-song sci-fi theme album called Talvikuningas, or Winter King, with the price of little under 40 euros. Not sure if many other Finnish bands would have gotten away with it. Nevertheless, the album sold out immediately and got praise from critics. CMX's lyrics have been described as both "brilliant" and "shit", but not that often "ok". That is to say, they are an integral part of CMX. The science fiction imaginary on the new album is probably a little too much for some, but I find it kind of refreshing (and I don't like science fiction at all btw). Here's a little translated example: My grave is guarded by a slight breeze of wind, My grave is guarded by a drop of morning dew, My grave is guarded by 100,000 killer satellites, My grave is guarded by a teraton of anti-matter. And yes, It sounds just as strange in Finnish, though a bit better music-wise.

Strong feeling of deja vu. Did you mention this somewhere before? EDIT: Ok, it was you.

Ahh.. completely forgot about that. Thank god it doesn't ask about installing it every time you run the program.

One thing you could try is to clean window size and position cache. CCleaner (and presumably other similar programs) have that option. There's probably an option for that somewhere in Windows itself too, but I highly recommend downloading CCleaner nevertheless for all the other features it has. I have no idea if it works, but I think its worth trying. Remember to close those applications before running the cleaner. I think.

If I had to generalize a lot and say what I think Japanese games are like, I would describe them being pretty straightforward but often frustrating as hell. Does anyone know how popular (real-time) strategy games are in Japan?

Yes.. the "first person" part happens to be there. There is no way to undo that. Thats why I don't understand why Gears of War should be forced under that incorrect label when one can just as well create another label that better represents the elements one finds important when categorizing games. Or just call it a shooter.. I wouldn't call Wii games mouse controlled action games, no matter how similar they would be with said games, just because wiimote isn't a mouse.