Vilge Duin

Well that's... peculiar. So many other choices were in line, and he wasn't ever mentioned as far as I know. Well... I guess we shall see.

Ah, my fears have been assuaged. The animation is quite good and they the turtles appear perfect. Looks identical to what I would expect the comics to look like in CGI.

I quit watching TV, and buying movies. Buying shows on DVD is the way to go. Watch'em when you want and how long you want with no commercials. Currently watching through Smallville which is a fantastic show. Albeit its going on season six I do believe.

Keith, go and replace the gun as you have done. Right outside their rooms where the guard in a black suit is sitting there is a door in the middle of the wall he's against. In there you should see a really large set of stairs/scaffolding leading up. Go up it, and once on top of the rafters, go through the door you should see. You'll be in a room that has you on a platform. There's a winch thing in the middle of it you place your mine on. Then just wait until the one guy runs down the aisle of the theatre and trips. Press the detonator and the chandelier should fall on him. Hope that made sense for ya... EDIT: BAH! beaten to it...

Mark Millar writes Civil War which I like and I've always loved Gaiman. Will have to look into the other 2.

If you have no clue what to get into Marvel is excellent at trading their comics. Almost everything they put out is released as a trade eventually. Most bookstores and especially comic shops have them. If you actually want to get into Marvel's history dating back to the first issues of certain comics, they've been issuing DVDs lately. X-Men, Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-man... I'm sure there's more. 500+ issues for $40. Best value you can find. Spider-man though... Depends on what you are willing to do. If you want a completely fresh experience without dealing with a lot of backstory, go with Ultimate Spider-man. It's a reimagining of Spider-man from the "beginning" but for modern times and quite a few changes. Easy to get into since Marvel has every issue traded along with hard covers (that comprise of usually two trades, and maybe another couple issues). But if you want to get into mainstream 616 (the main Marvel universe) Spider-man than the DVD would be perfect. Although problems crop up starting in the 80s with too man cross overs and different comics (Amazing, Spectacular, Web Of, etc.). Otherwise I absolutely say you should start with "Coming Home". Most people consider it a new fresh start for the main series and a lot of it leads into the current events. That and it's not too old. Although with Ultimate, Bendis has a shitty as fuck habit of stretching storylines that would fit in an issue or two, so they wind up being 6 in length. To conveniently fit in trades as a "story arc". Also the middle parts of the series (Starting off once they hit the Venom shit) were garbage. And what they're done with Deadpool.... is just... too horrible. Superman is hard to get into anything specific. He's more defined by particular arcs than anything else. Much like the rest of DC really. Red Son was a good story, albeit is an Elseworlds (DC's equivalent to a What If?) and wouldn't be suggestable if you want to get into "real" Superman. Ugh, my mind is drawing a blank for some reason. But the absolute best place to start would be at the beginning (at least of current continuity) and read John Byrne's The Man of Steel miniseries. It's his origin and first stuff, so where better to begin? Batman's pretty easy. Hush is good, but you may want to hold off on that. You seriously get more out of it if you understand the characters better. And considering just about everyone and their momma shows up, it may be confusing if you don't have an understanding of Batman and DC in general. Most people suggest it (in this very thread even) but Dark Knight Returns is shit. May be my utter distaste for Frank Miller but meh. Long Halloween and Dark Victory should be good places to begin as they slowly introduce characters and such and most Batman fans consider them to be definitive Batman stories. DC in general though may be hard for a non comic fan to get into. If you try to follow current stories you WILL be lost. Mainly considering every ten years DC seemingly has done a "Crisis" which can be mind boggling for someone without prior knowledge. Alternate Earths, different versions of heroes, galactic destruction, outright confusion... Can be a bit much. But general DC can also be easier to get into than Marvel since it has less back story at present than Marvel. While Spider-man, X-men, etc. date back to the '60s, DC continuity was rebooted in the mid 80s after the Crisis of Infinite Earths. Effectively starting off fresh with a clean slate. If you're interested in anything that isn't superhero bullshit (I've become extremely disillusioned with men in tights), you can look no further to DC's Vertigo line. Neil Gaiman's Sandman is usually touted as a triumph (I found it dull personally), and you can't you wrong with Garth Ennis' Preacher, Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan, Brian K Vaugn's Y: The Last Man and Bill Willingham's Fables are all extremely fantastic series. Sandman, Preacher and Transmet are all traded (about 10 volumes each) and complete series. Just start from the beginning and away you go. Fables and Y are still ongoing (albeit Y only has a little over 10 issues left). I can't express enough how well written and enjoyable they are. Plus there's tonnes of other stuff like 100 Bullets and Losers. Vertigo is the way to go in my opinion. Also you must read Bone. It is a must. Although you'll be hardpressed to find the older black & white trades since they've been discontinued so Scholastics can reissue colour ones now (very slowly at that). I got the one volume edition. $50 and ten years of comic goodness comprising of about 10 complete trades. EDIT: Forgot to mention... Stay away from anything "All Star" in DC. Its their horrid attempt at creating their equivalent to Marvel's Ultimate line. Albeit a whole lot shittier. And also, you can pick up Marvel Essential collections. Just re-issues of old comics in black & white on cheap newsprint. But you can get 20-30 issues for anything from $10-20. Good way to read up on past stuff if that's what you want. Newsrama is also perhaps the best place to check out if you want comic news and stuff. IGN's new comic section isn't too shabby either. They have plenty of "Best ofs" and "Top tens" for different things, good for someone getting into comics. Oh, Walking Dead from Robert Kirkman is great if you like anything zombies. Dan Slott's She-Hulk is great for... just about everyone. I shall silence myself now...

Contracts, the third game which is the one before this, is comprised of pretty much only flashbacks. Blood Money is a continuation of the Hitman storyline (well what there is of one). However the final mission, and general setup for the entire game (Contracts that is), takes place after the opera level in Blood Money. Nice little tie in if you've played the series.

Never said it wasn't cool, seeing it in that video brought back awesome memories, but I just feel there are so many other awesome weapons in different games.

Pretty good list, albeit too many FPS game weapons. Just a few like the cerebral bore and such don't really belong. I'd have tossed on the Morph'O Ray/Sheepinator/Quack'O Matic from the Ratchet series. Hilarity and novelity all at once.

6 was on the SNES as you thought. 1-3 were NES, 4-6 were SNES, 7-9 were PS, and X, X-2 (for lack of an original title) and 12 are on PS2. Seems each system gets 3 before the series moves on.

I recently started a few months trying to get my girlfriend to play through the series to hopefully be done by the time XII comes out. We got up through to VI and are currently on VII, so I have some recent feelings on the game. The first game in retrospect was horrible. Maybe I've grown used to a new set of standards for myself, but the game is pretty shitty. We HAD to resort to a guide because half the shit is just seemingly random. The more recent Dawn of Souls retranslation helped a little, but the original cart was all but horrible ("I, Garland, will knock you all down!" is still a great line though). The second game is a fair bit better by adding on a decent storyline for the time and boosting up the graphics. But the game was frustrating because of the battle system. Being forced to attack certain party members was a pain in the ass. The third is pretty good and will always be decent in my eyes if only for the creation of the job system. The story's nothing really to write home about but its servicable. The fourth will always hold a special place for me because its the one I actually got because I knew how to read by then (my partial dislike of the first is because I couldn't read very well, if at all, when I first played it... just walked around with no clue getting killed by goblins.) Cecil and Kain are two of my favourite characters, if only for Kain's constant betrayal and Cecil's redemption. The love story between him and Rosa is also well established and not forced. You can believe they are lovers and don't need to have it rammed home. Actually all the characters were endearing and such. Palom and Porom sacrifice was a shock at the time... Ah, good memories. It isn't as "indepth" or has the best written dialogue but it still stands on its own as a good game. If they were to remake any of the older games this should be the first (VII does not fucking need to be remade). The fifth game... meh, I don't know what to think. The story is banal shit that you could find from any horrible fantasy/sci-fi book. And the fact that the final boss is a fucking tree... Ugh. None of the characters were likable to me. Well everyone except Gilgemesh. He kicked ass. I however did like the job system the first time around. It was well worked out and fit quite well to the style of play, but everything else just seemed like "this is just to tide you folks over until the next one". The sixth game... Was a masterpiece for its time (I'd still say Chrono Trigger eclisped it in almost all ways). But time hasn't been kind to it in my eyes. I had to whip out the game genie and cheat my way through just so she could see the storyline, because I found the battles to be so boring. But the story is class and ones of the best in the series. For such an ensamble cast everyone has quite a bit of added depth. Especially if you track them all down during the World of Ruin and delve deeper into their character stories. There really isn't much to say about it. The game also introduced quite a few story elements and gameplay stuff for... The seventh game. Which, and I know I may get some flack, I swear was just an updated version of VI's story. From Kefka and Sephiroth's similarities (and yes they do have differences) to the juxtuposation of Locke/Rachel/Celes and Cloud/Aeris/Tifa. The limit breaks system was refined and taken from the previous game, just as well as the style of the world and such. Yes, I readily admit that a lot is quite different and changed, but a fair bit of the game just seems like they loved VI and decided to flesh it all out to what they truly wanted (thus the move to the Playstation for the CD rom medium). Just look at the final boss battles and such. Even the similarities in the relationships of Terra/Kefka and Cloud/Sephiroth. The main differences in my eyes are VI is more fantasy based while VII is more sci-fi based, but both are still steampunk. I almost view them seemingly as the same game sometimes (and I would actually buy it if Square tried to say VII was a direct sequal to VI set a few hundred years later when the world was healed). But as for VII... itself. I don't know. I loved it when I first played it, but over time I've just grown a bit negative towards it. I think I'm a bit sick of seeing people constantly felating it as the best thing ever or the best Final Fantasy ever. It's not really the game itself, but everyone going on about how great it is has made me extra critical of it. Eh, it's a good game, but I think a lot of people are blinded by its supposed greatness. The eighth was... Different. I think they were in over their heads, and tried to create a bigger game than VII because "bigger is better" afterall... It just came up flat in some areas and a lot of the story was dropped and picked up again. However I entirely disagree with Skumfrog on the GF thing. It was my favourite aspect actually. At first, yeah it seems like a cop out, but you realize a lot of the stuff the second time around. Very much like VII. VIII has its own depth that you have to delve through to understand it all, problem is, while VII is pretty straight forward, VIII can get rather... convoluted a bit. I still like the GF causing memory loss thing. Which was actually slightly refered to throughout the game. (especially when Irvine is supposed to kill Edea, but he can't, because he remembers since his school didn't use teh GFs). I think a lot of people give VIII a bad rap because they were expecting more of VII (and for some people VI). I didn't like it much at first, but after reflection and reading some things as well as playing again I picked up and appreciated a lot of things I didn't before. IX was fucking great though, and so many people despise it. Ask a lot of those people though, what was their first Final Fantasy game and the answer will seemingly always be "VII". A lot of what makes IX great is that its a throwback to the ENTIRE series. Which is another problem I have with the so called "playstation generation". They mostly think the series started at VII and that's it. But IX was a perfect sendoff to the 'old' games before the new era was ushered in on the PS2. I thought it was a wonderful tale that was a pastiche of all the previous games. And I find that its greatness is only appreciated with the more of the older games you played. And for people who dislike the "final boss"... Necron, much like everything else was just another of those throwbacks. The third game was fucking horrible for that. The Cloud of Darkness came out of nowhere, and was right fucking hard too. Even with IV to a degree (to to a far lesser degree V), had a final boss that seemingly came from nowhere. Also Necron was actually mentioned and refered to a handful of times throughout the game. Yeah, only if you deliberately look and get the references, but he was still mentioned. The game was a nice whimsical fantasy tale of good versus evil, with some nice character development. But it's generally looked down upon by people expecting VII and/or VIII all over again, when they don't get the general purpose of the game. And the tenth one, was just fantastic. I don't mind the voice acting nor do I have much of a problem with Tidus (who has some very good character growth over the course of the whole game). The sphere grid system was top notch and a fresh change as was the battle system itself. What they took out I had no problem with. Sure the game is linear, but so are most of the other ones (as are Japanese RPGs in the first place) and it gave the story more focus in my eyes. The lack of overworld map actually pleased me because I can't stand them most of the time. Overall really, X was just a good enjoyable entry in the series. And of course there's the "other" Final Fantasy's. Or better yet, whatever Square tossed the name on. Mystic Quest was shit, as were the Chocobo Dungeons and especially Chocobo Racing. Tactics though was perfection for a strategy RPG. A perfectly deep and involving story, with a mature and serious tone, that was accompanied by a fantastic battle system and some great characters, with good replay value. It has perhaps the best tale told in a Final Fantasy game. And stuff like Ergheiz and such was shit too. Tactics Advance was a horrible piece of shit that I wished I didn't buy, such a disgrace to the original game. And I have yet to play through X-2 as it is sitting on my shelf still... I should get around too it eventually. But all in all, the Final Fantasy series is growing long in the tooth and tiresome for me. A lot of the games share plot ideas that are too similar to others (IV, V, VI can seemingly be looked at as earlier versions of VII, VIII, IX). And I've grown disenfranchised with Square anyways. Too much milking of a good series. But the problem I mostly have is that the gameplay on all of them seemingly grows stale and dated rather quickly. There's only so much you can really do with the same style of play. But perhaps XII with its queer looking hero will be a fresh change. Who knows. As for what you should play... See if you can blaze through them all. Or just go with which one you haven't played in awhile.

I actually bought that game Isn't that like, really old though? Or did you mean the original Hitman?

You had me second guessing my original thoughts until that statement.

I've known about this for about two years. If I'm not mistaken it's supposed to be out by the end of the year (2007). And on that note... Good, the 80s cartoon (despite being awesome for me as a kid) was absolutely dog shit. The original comics (which I have read) are superior in content. And not the way Venom is implying. Yes they were "darker" and more violent, but the current cartoon (which from what I've seen is quite good) is based on the original comics stories. Which in turn is what the movie is actually going to be based off of, the current cartoon. However, the entirely CGI concept seems meh to me until I see scenes or shots from it. Pixar has proven it works for goofy stuff, but I can't see it working for something serious in the least (then again there was Final Fantasy).

I dreaded the thought of her making music, and personally can't stand her much, but the song is actually pretty catchy. It's fine for what it is. I doubt she or anyone involved were going for an "instant classic" or anything. The song is a nice reggae influenced piece of fluff.

http://www.flash-oyun.com/oyna.php?id=59 So damn close... And of course, the sequel (so to speak)... http://www.wagenschenke.ch/hangover.htm 04:23:41 am is my best time. :thumbsdown: Bah playing shitty online games in the wee hours of the morning, nothing beats it...

For Requiem don't immediately get up. Stay down and wait until the priest stands on 47's left hand side. When here's there facing all the agents, quickly get up and take him hostage. Go for as many headshots (or just shoot willy nilly) as best you can. Conversely, get up and run your ass as far left as you can. By going up the stairs, there's a small wall to duck behind and just wait for them to come at you.

Most of J's suggestions pretty much cover it, albeit I haven't playe Resident Evil. The rest are well worth the purchase and great in their own right. I'd also recommend Meteos and possibly Warioware. Metreos is the perfect manic puzzler to have on the go. Wariorware is also pretty good, but I did unlock and get almost everything in about 3 hours of straight play. The fun of that game is to beat your scores and such and just mess around.

Ah, what an awesome overall game. Finished it yesterday and was just pissing around with it today. Still think the save file is way too bloated. *Assume spoilers for all missions ahead. "Death of a Showman" was a very good training level... But fuck is it boring just trying to go through. So linear. There was no chance for deviation in almost anything. "A Vintage Year" was a good overall mission. Plenty of ways to go about it. I decided to go all the way around the compound to the back where there is a long trail leading to the plane. A couple quick kills later and I had an elite guard uniform and free reign to walk around. "Curtains Down" was an interesting mission but bah, it was aggravating to wait for characters to go through their routines. Although cool, it is perhaps one of the duller missions. However I shall try a few different methods. I actually run straight to the bathroom and off the cop as quick as humanly possible and steal his uniform and then dump his body. Voila. You can do as you wish. Get the WW1 gun and head to the second actors room wait and replace it. Then go up to the scaffolding and plant the bomb. Drop down into the little recess and simply wait to blow it. Go pick up your suit and leave. "Flatline" pissed me right off. I found the easiest way in and around was to take strangle the patient by the dumpsters near the beginning, dump his body, then strangle a guard who stops by. Steal his uniform and dump his body. Go around the back side, enter the security office window, strangle the dude in the chair and dump his body. Then go to the medical area where the annoyance begins.... Getting in the fucking orderly room and not being seen by one on the walkway is nigh impossible sometimes. Killing the others was a rather simple endevour. I actually wound up killing all three without having a clue about where to find the agent. Blowing up the one guy was obvious, and poisoning the other guys drink was fairly simple. Hoping the third one finishes his set with noone around was a pain since it takes so long for him to come back. "A New Life" was a great level. For once I actually felt like a legit Hitman. Of the nasty variety of course. You can actually go about feeling like you're offing a loving couple under protection. I love how this mission had so much variety to accomplish the goals. Dress up like a clown, poison donuts, burn up the wife, sedate her with an air gun... Oh, the variety. One of my favourite missions. So many possibilities. Figuring it out is a bit difficult at first since it is one of the few that has a tonne of options available to you. "The Murder of Crows", I LOVED the fact that the one guy changes spots. Not much variety but the simple fact that his location changes each time mixes things up. Problem with this mission is I developed a science and started doing speed runs on it. Take the sniper rifle, and immediately run out of the hotel and go to where the piano and the chick is. Pop her with a few silenced rounds (the people nearby never seem to notice) and steal the walkie talkie. Climb up the pipe and leave the rifle case in the makeshift snipers nest. Then run back out and the red rooster guy should be walking through the crowd your way. Track him and off him when he takes a break. Dump his body and take the diamonds. Run back to the snipers nest and unload the rifle, then wait for your shot from across the way. The albino fellow always looks out the window every so often. Pack it back up, and then go find the third guy, which is always a simple manner of going in the back door of whatever club he's at. Pop a few in him, then go get your diamonds and head out. "You Better Watch Out...", really gave me a James Bond vibe. Something about it made me want to play Everything or Nothing again. Only played through it once after screwing up the first time. I always wind up getting into a firefight my first time in a level. Giving loverboy the drug and following him was simple. He actually didn't do nothing with the chick and simply walked past her to the small balcony, so I shot him in the head down the stairs. A guard came while I was looking at the map, so I shot him in the head and stole his uniform. Went up to the studio, followed the old dude, shoved him off his balcony and sedated his yappy dog. And got the tape on the way out (which was very easy despite reading in places that it's hard). "Death on the Mississippi" was boring as fuck. It too gave me a James Bond vibe. I kind of just wandered around and randomly murdered a few fellows in the bathrooms on one of the floors. Then realized I can get pretty much everywhere with the sailor suit... A huge ass fire fight on top later and I finally realized I needed a different suit to go up there. Killing the captain felt weird though. I waited in his room and he walked back in with a gun aiming at his head and he looked completely shocked before I shot him. Aside from "Death of a Showman" it was my least favourite level. "...Til Death do us Part" was fun but ridiculously easy, and quick to pull off, if you know what to do. Wait for the drunk to fall asleep, take his invitation (you don't even need his clothes), walk in. Wait until the groom is done tasting the cake, poison it. Go through the bathroom and out on the patio and strangle/shoot/poison the father and dump him in the box. Go to boat, and wait for the confirmation of the other kill. Was amusing though. "A House of Cards" - I HATED this mission (but in a good way). I spent three hours straight trying to perfect it and restarting constantly since I hate using saves. Simple way to do it was just stay on the western elevator until the scientist shows up, strangle him up onto the elevator. Leave the diamonds there (no one should take them). Go onto the eastern elevator. Kill the white guy in the same way. Take his key card. Go pick up his suitcase in his room, go meet the sheik (trying to avoids cameras), deliver it and after the small cutscene, quickly strangle or poison him. And be off, while picking up the diamonds. "A Dance with the Devil" annoying and evil level but I liked the stylistic quality of it. Although I don't like how the one assassin knew what 47 looked like... actually I didn't like how anyone knew what he looked like. Only Diana and Agent Smith should know what he looks like... but I digress... Having a couple fancy duels was unique. Offing the last chick by rigging the fireworks was the best accident by far. "Ammendment XXV" was just fucking awesome. Not many ways to go about it but damn was it fun. I was disappointed in no Mexican standoff as you can see in a video clip if you leave it running at the start menu. Watching the first dog sniff the vice president after I sniped him before it ran off was priceless. And "Requiem" was the best string of game overs ever. I've never had so much fun dying over and over. Just a straight up firefight with pure skill as your only salvation. A complete constrast to the rest of the game and a perfect sendoff for the next game... seeing as 47 is "dead" afterall. Took me awhile to decide just to lay there until I could grab the priest as a shield. *Spoilers for missions over.* Awesome game through and through. I was amazed at the amount of things they pulled off, namely the entire Mardi Gras level. I didn't think that was possible. Mainly because of many developers saying having large amounts of characters on screen was impossible. Sure they're just doing pre-designed animations but the sheer enormity of them all is amazing. Really atmospheric. I enjoyed it so much, that I went out and bought Hitman 2 yesterday for $15 since I haven't played it in years and I plan to pick up Contracts which I've never played. The thing that this has over Silent Assassin is the weapon customization, sheer amount of "extra" characters that enrich a level instead of one or two civilians and a bunch of guards, and the extra fluff (like the newspaper, notoriety stuff, etc.). Also not having a strict method in almost all the missions was great (unlike SA which required you to pull off the hits usually in a predesigned manner... within a certain amount of time). Although I miss the overall banter between 47 and Diana (like getting info during a mission and such along with the extra "hit info"). And Silent Assassin as well as the first game also had a more structured feel. Not all missions were hits for seemingly no good reason other than to kill someone, but moreso set ups to hits (although, that also created a very linear feel and the absense of those kind of missions is probably for the best). But some of them could have lead somewhere, such as taking out a petty drug dealer to work up to doing a hit on a drug lord in a later mission. Hopefully the next game will have a far stronger narrative and an overall story period. Can't wait to see how the next generation stuff will handle the series. Does anyone else know of any other 3rd person shooters that are good? I've mainly played and immensely enjoyed Everything or Nothing, Freedom Fighters, The Punisher, Ratchen & Clank (if that counts at all) and obviously the Hitman series. It's becoming my favourite genre. Better than other shooters at least.

Anyone know a way to deal with the game sucking up space on the PS2 memory card? We bought it the other day and my girlfriend's a few missions in, and I tried to create my own profile and it said I had no space. I checked and the damn save takes up a quarter of the memory card. It's fun, but I have absolutely no fucking way of playing it and having my own game going without fucking around with her's.

And William Shatner's visage will continue to haunt yet another generation. Excellent. Pretty much I take it Zombie is restarting the series in his own way (along the lines of what was done with Batman Begins). If so, than perfect. Insteading of remaking or creating a sequel, just take the basic concepts and elements and make it your own.

I stopped paying attention to Gamepro over a decade ago, their reviews and content in general (like this list) is usually utter shit. But I have to comment on something...

Solid Snake was the main character of Metal Gear for the NES (even though a port... that's equivalent to saying GTA has never been on the Xbox because it appeared on the PS2 first), along with Snake's Revenge (although that title's connections are dubious at best now). And if you don't think it is Snake, just look up any FAQ/Walkthrough/TimeLine/Etc. to see for yourself. Hell, just whip out Metal Gear Solid and the Previous Mission stuff outright says it. There was also Twin Snakes for the Gamecube, and if you're going to be super anal retentive about a port and/or remake... Then just go track down Metal Gear: Ghost Babel for the Gameboy Colour and be done with it. Snake has appeared on a Nintendo console before. Anyways, watching the trailer last night cinched it for me about whether to get a Wii or not. Amazing graphics and all are great but I'm getting tired of too many same-same games being made. The Wii looks to be able to provide that new avenue of gaming the other systems don't have. Zelda, Smash Brothers, Mario, Red Steel, and the variety of other things they've shown has just made me decide to start saving up.