Vilge Duin

In which almost the entirity of it is with "Sephiroth" under her control. You chase after a clone of him. The real deal is stuck in the crater. You see him at the very end, and in flashbacks. He plays no active role in the game really. Most people don't pick up on that though.

Some people prefer not to do it cheaply.

Final Fantasy came out here in North America a year after it did in Japan. In the mean time they already had a sequal... and then another. Those would be the official Final Fantasy 2 and 3. Then they created 4 for the SNES. They decided to port that over to North America, but Nintendo figured we'd be too stupid to understand it is the fourth and not the second. So they just named it Final Fantasy 2 here. 5 came out there and they immediately began work on 6 which would eventually be 3 here. Since of course we only had two before it not five. When Square left Nintendo to produce games for the Playstation they just stuck with the proper numbering. Which they have with all of the recently released conversions.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60917 That may be of some relief to some people... I'll quote what I'm specifically talking about...

No Elimination matches, which is a bitch. You can have an elimination style if you use Last Man Standing (people knocked out stay out of the match as it continues). And you can't edit any of the match types. So no pinning in cages, or TLC. Ladder matches are for the title only and so on. HIAC is in ring pin/submission only, etc. I've actually grown tired of it already. I played the death out of DoR 1 with my girlfriend when we got it in June and got this as more an upgrade than anything. That was my rationale to her to dish out the money for it. ("Well it does have an upgraded roster, blood, etc.") I'm actually looking at Smackdown Vs Raw with interest now. All the problems I have seen the more I play with DoR are bugging me. We mainly played it together until I tried some other modes... and bah. Fatal Fourways with the computer are 3-on-1 handicap matches. And I am the first to stand behind gameplay over features, but with a year to improve this nothing has been done. Yeah everything looks nice, but I just realized I'm playing the exact same thing with more annoyances added in. 20 second load times in CAW to change from trunks to tights, not having a renegade ref to kick my ass if I get out of line disappoints me too and every match with the CPU is a handicap match.

1. Christian's music is in, as well as almost every other wrestler. Stacy Keibler is a notable exception of course. 2. Well, Cena has a 91. Hogan has the highest stats of 95. You tell me. No stat is below 70 (for the men at least). And only guys like Heidenreich and Snitsky are there anyways. Almost everyone else is 80+. Takes some of the realism out for me. 3. It's animated decently. He swings'em a little, and near the end drops them to their knees. On a side note, I do feel for those having trouble with the CPU AI. I started a 30 man rumble and went out shopping with my girlfriend, and came back near the end. It was still on, so when my Angle came out.... I was gang raped by Orton, London and Hurricane. I could only imagine the frustration of being stuck in a cage with better wrestlers (stat wise) and actually wanting to win.

The two people we had that sequence with were Angle and Benjamin. Something I could see happening. Most wrestlers have their own reversal sets in the game instead of a generic universal one. How often do you see The Rock or Chris Benoit low blow someone six or seven times a match? Besides, the likelihood that we could accomplish that sequence again is minimal. A fluke chance. But still actually a chance. Smackdown it usually ends with one counter. Other guys have simple reversals, like Big Show just tossing guys away and Mysterio doing Ranas and such. You'll never see Undertaker do a backflip over a guy to avoid a German suplex like in Smackdown. The Smackdown system is designed around getting your Smackdown and getting the pin. You can never perform a move out of no where. All grapples are performed off a set of other grapples. Most of the time a submission or 3 count only occurs when a guy is completely totaled, be it a backslide or a Pedigree. At least in DoR a match can kind of end out of nowhere. A rollup with the feet on the tights, inside cradle out of nowhere, etc. Both games have their merits. I sometimes sit and wish DoR had Smackdown features (elimination matches, moves... oh how I really want more shining wizards... and generic entrance music, etc.). While I wish in Smackdown you could interupt moves and have more spontaneous realistic matches. And Cole, try going through the tutorial off the main menu. The first is just basic stuff, but the second has more advanced functions (like what Apple Shampoo pointed out).

I thought it was one of the best games out there when it was first released. Mainly due to nostalgia as damshow said. Seeing all the Disney characters was great, even if some of them didnt have the voices quite right (not like they'd get Robin Williams for the Genie anyways). I got a little giddy when I heard the Pooh theme for the first time in 100 Acre Forest even though I don't like the character much. Just sucked me into the game. Add on the Final Fantasy characters for some seriousness and grade A voice acting by almost all involved and it was a great experience. It also had a very emotional end, yet one that left room for a sequal. I couldn't ask for more... Til I played through again last summer. I bought it again so my girlfriend could see what it was like since I thought it was great, and then the gameplay hit me. The story and all the extras wore off, I already knew what I was getting. So I was stuck with a subpar combat system with a horrible camera and some really awkwardly bad level design. Right now I'm fairly indifferent to it. It has a wonderful and thoughtful world to escape into until completion but beyond that the game is mediocre with a limited lifespan on repeat playthroughs.

I just picked up Day of Reckoning the other day and I'm friggin sick of button mashing... Lifting guys, in submissions, in a double grapple, climbing shit.... Getting off the damn mat. I agree with Zero though, button mashing should be implemented for submissions. The player pulling off the submission shouldn't have to tap as much though. This Smackdown is shaping up to be the best. They seem to be including some things that they removed and adding in more features to make it closer to a simulation than an arcady punchfest. Should have been this way last year but what the hey. I'd rather they take out the wrestler voiceovers though. They're unneeded. What I think would work is possible go the way Acclaim did with Attitude. Give all the wrestlers a handful of quotes and be done. Maybe have them say them when you select them (for example have Triple H say "I am the game and I am that damn good" if you select him for a match), before a match (possibly during the staredowns or something) or as part of taunts (Cena's "you can't see me"). In a tonne of voiceovers place, put in an improved HCTP season mode, not story, season. I don't want a one year linear story, give me a morphing and varying season that goes on indefinately. And going with this method would get those oh so special wrestler sounds bytes in there.... It would make the people who didnt want them and those that did have a compromise.

Robocop 1 and 2 (although, the first one can be rather graphic, but generally has a reason) Crow Mission Impossible 2 Terminator 3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Just trying to name some things off that haven't been. I really need to see Equilibrium....

Shadows of the Empire was one of Lucas Entertainment's first mass media projects. It's essentially the story of what happens between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to fill in the gaps. It started as a series of Dark Horse comic books and graphic novels, an excellent novel by Steve Perry (which I consider one of the best I've read involving Star Wars) and an N64 game (which obviously from this thread is the only thing most people know about). They also had other tie-ins and plenty of action figures as well. The Clone Wars was their last mass media project. Every few years they do something across all forms of entertainment to tie people in and suck away their money. Shadows of the Empire was just one of them.

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*Spoilers* Most if not all of those in that particular scene with Rachel and the boy were either criminals or those who had escaped/been released from Arkham Asylum. And what they saw before them was a woman. Two and two go together with psychotics. Also the drug wouldn't have had enough time to fully take effect. Every time someone (Batman, Rachel, Crane himself, etc.) were subjected to it the effects weren't an immediate and complete loss of control and desire to destroy everything around them. It would take more than a few minutes or maybe even an hour (from drug release until the end of the movie couldn't have even been that long). Those who weren't in that scene with Rachel and the boy seemed pretty fucking freaked out, especially when the Batman was gliding overhead.

Both Fallout and Fallout 2 are beyond awesome. Most game stores nowadays have them as a double pack and usually cheap. They're rpgs in a post-apocalyptic setting. Pretty damn good. The Baldur's Gate games are also generally considered to be good. The GTA games are always better on a PC in my opinion, and San Andreas just came out yesterday, with Vice City and 3 out. 1 and 2 can be gotten off of Rockstar's website for free too. I never really played much of Halo on the Xbox but I thought it was a pretty good game. The Max Payne series are pretty good. If you're willing to go Third Person I thought the PS2 version of Punisher was awesome. The PC version has alternate skins for Frank and you can get patches to take off the filters. Call of Duty and Alien vs. Predator 2 are also a couple games I have that I thought were really good too.

Me and my girlfriend got a Cube a couple months back (along with a Gameboy Advance SP) simply for some multiplayer goodness. So just my random thoughts on some games... I've become absolutely addicted to Time Splitters: Future Perfect. The game has everything I'd want from a FPS. I've found nothing more fun than getting a game full of undead monkeys where the only weapons are bricks. It can be tedious in places, but I personally think the varied weapons and outrageous characters (anything ranging from a duck, a dead cow, the gingerbread man, robots, badass marines, etc.) make it a riot to play. It has it's problems but a damn good game. Smash Bros Melee had me playing for 20+ hours over the first week we got it in every spare moment of my free time. I'm still playing it. There's so much customization in the game and in what you can come up with. For example me and my girlfriend just had a timed match against Bowser and we were Mario and Luigi, just to see who'd get more knock outs on him. Alas we both got whooped but still fun. A game not mentioned, but still awesome in its own right is Pikmin 2. The multiplayer side consists of challenges and battle mode. The challenges are essentially like the single player game, but more specific, and battle mode is as its name implies. You both get a bunch of pikmin and have at it. It's not the most serious game but hey, I think it's charming and a decent relaxing play. She also picked up Super Monkey Ball 2, and I have to say it's not my thing but I've had fun with it. The main game is just like the old puzzler Marble Madness, but it has a shitload of multiplayer modes. Some good, some not. Pool, Tennis (almost as good as Mario Tennis), racing, monkey boxing, a shooting game, baseball, bowling, etc. It's fun for what it is. I personally found Mario Kart Double Dash dull and uninspiring. It seemed dumbed down. It was slower, the jump ability was taken out and the courses were even more ridiculously short than they were before. It's a continuation in the vein of Mario Kart 64. It's just boring. I went through every track in the span of an hour and I had almost every single thing unlocked (and nothing interesting I must add) in a few more. We got it with our Cube and promptly sold it for cash towards Melee. X-Men Legends for the PS2 was pretty damn good, although deciding who's gonna be who is a bit taxing. I've been thinking about picking it up for the Cube again. We didn't get too far unfortunately. And I'd warn against picking up Mario Party even though you already have ordered it. Unless four people are playing at once, it can turn into the most unmitigated and blatently boring few hours of your life for a "short" game. It can be fun... I just think it isn't. Doesn't have that instant gratification other games have, the minigames are too short in a lot of cases (although in its defence some are great), and the downtime between the minigames drags on. Especially if even one computer player is involved.

When A New Hope was created there was no direct intention on making Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Simply because it was a first shot idea that they weren't certain about yet. However Lucas states he always intended on telling his entire story arc (being the original three). So technically, yes. But "Star Wars" has a definite beginning, middle and end just in case it was to not only be the first but the last. When they shot Empire Strikes Back the whole intention was to lead into Return of the Jedi (hense the cliff hanger ending). I'm holding out another day until I decide. Revenge of the Sith may end up being my favourite. Just the fact that it is being said to be very dark and ominous has its plus points with me. Empire is the best overall crafted film, but my sentimental side is in favour of Return of the Jedi. Then again without A New Hope, there would be no other Star Wars films anyways. They all have their strong suits, except the first two prequals since I'm not very fond of them. But they too have their place.

See that's the thing... The originals are almost unanimously declared as the better films, so I'm thinking she should see the "first" three first and then the original trilogy. And Heel Turn, I'd go with that idea but she wants to see the new trilogy. Just to say she's seen it really. I'd prefer she just watch the original three since it's a more cohensive, comprehensive and overall more satisfying experience... But meh, women are fickle.

With Star Wars: Episode Three coming out soon, I have a dilemma... For the longest time my girlfriend didn't like the concept of even thinking about Star Wars let alone seeing one of the films. I have no clue why. She however saw the trailer to Episode Three and has seen people playing Knights of the Old Republic and become interested in it. This is where my own little personal dilemma comes in. I'm not sure which order she should see the movies in. I'm just not sure. There is really only two choices. See them in the order Lucas intended them (4-6 then 1-3), or see them chronologically (1-6). I doubt many people (if any really) have had a chance to see the movies in chonological order, since they'd have to wait until Episode three comes out before seeing the original trilogy. That's kind of the problem. It doesn't come out for a couple months and she wants to see them now. She also knows the big twists of the original trilogy (Vader being Luke's father, Luke and Leia being brother/sister, etc.) thanks to popular media so those are a non issue. I'm starting to think she should see them in original order, but I'm curious what someone would think after seeing them chronologically. So what should I do?