Lurker > Paratroopa1

The funniest results come out of Nigeria and Japan. Nigeria just loves every country for some reason, and Japan is always really unopinionated and nobody ever goes with a controversial opinion there.

Jeff Zero posted...
That's probably the best shop music in a game, what the hell.

No way! That distinction definitely belongs to:



Oh wait no, I thought you said worst shop music, my bad.

Well, if you wanted to know the worst shop music, there you go.

Jubeat Ripples - Macuilxochitl

I like this song, but I don't know if I should. It's wildly busy, putting most (but not all) Touhou music to shame in this category, but it's not busy in a completely awful way. It stays interesting throughout, progresses through a lot of different material, doesn't use any completely grating sounds, and at just under two minutes successfully does not overstay its welcome. I can't decide what's busier - the music, or the name. Judging by the name of the song, I can only assume this game is some kind of aztec rhythm game. I would play that, if it was a thing.

Meanwhile the Sonic song was boring and lame let's move on.

Donkey Kong Country Returns - Automatic Action

We have a problem here. See, Automatic Action has no focal point - no melodic material that draws the listener's attention to it. Shop Music has about five of these all competing simultaneously. It's an unfortunate lopsidedness, one that threatens to upset the very balance of nature itself.

Now, I understand that Automatic Action is a track intended more to create ambience than to be in your face, but I think there is sort of a misconception about how ambient music functions. It may not be big on melodies, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a focal point. I'm expecting some part of this song to draw me in and make me listen to it, but nothing wants to step up. I think ambient music is better thought of as slowly leading you through various focal points. Like a slow, pleasant boat tour of interesting musical concepts. This is in stark contrast to Touhou's roller coaster of madness, where you're going 100 MPH through loop-de-loops and someone is vomiting in the seat next to you.

The point is that while Automatic Action has a lot of neat sounds - the jazzy piano chords, the dark bassline, that loud clack that stands out in the foreground - all very nice, but there's no melody, no overarching idea that's weaving them all together, they're just sort of there, and then when it does get to the bridge part that could have a melody, it backs off. Almost a good reimagining of Fear Factory, but the original managed to keep things progressing with melodic content. Goodness, that was a lot to say about that song. You'd think I didn't hate music there for a second or something!

Anyway Shop Music has like a f***ton of different focal points, all in the foreground, all fighting each other in some kind of ugly melee of melodies. A... meleelody. This is now how I will refer to the giant clusterf*** going on here. I only have two ears and one brain, Machinae Supremacy! I can't sort all this out so fast. One thing at a time. Slow boat tour. On your left you'll see a wailing guitar solo. Notice how it flails about madly and without purpose. Now, on your right, you'll see the cheesy synth pad...

Karkat Vantas
Auto Responder
Jake English
Roxy Lalonde

Big Bob posted...
I kinda agree with everyone else that he's overpowered and flawless, which makes him boring as a character. However, I do find his enemy Lex Luthor to be incredible interesting. Superman's all-powerful, but his greatest foe is one he can't just punch in the face. A political enemy is much more interesting than another superpowered villain.

This is an interesting point, actually. Lex Luthor is interesting.

Superman to me is a relic of a bygone era. Maybe he was exciting in the 50's or whatever. Now, he seems bland and out of date and no longer reflects the times, unlike Batman who has remained contemporary.

I don't know what you're talking about - parents are even more capable of being idiots in this day and age than ever.

Aecioo posted...
RTS games done right are definitely in the running for best overall AI, but RTS games done wrong are in the same vein as rubberband AI for racing games - they couldn't code the AI well enough, so the game just cheats to make it close.

Yeah, this is why I said that RTS games have more complicated AI, not better. Really good AI in RTS games takes ages for the world's best programmers to design. When it comes out well, it's incredibly impressive. But getting it to work even vaguely is an undertaking.

Wow, this is stupid. I don't give a f*** what immature crap Romney did as a teenager in the 50's or 60's, and I don't even like him.

It really sort of depends on the game. RTS games usually have more complicated AI than TBS games, which usually have more complicated AI than, say, chess, which has pretty much perfect algorithms but has few enough variables to make it actually possible to solve.

Personally speaking, I'm really impressed by Advance Wars: Days of Ruins' AI. The series has long had pretty bad AI that's easily manipulated into doing utterly stupid things, but DoR's is a lot harder to manipulate. On occasions, the AI in that game is even downright devious. It plays the game in a pretty non-stupid way.

15/24

Only like three of the songs I missed where ones I was familiar with played forward to begin with, and they were sketchy. I got all of the songs that I was really familiar with by heart, which was about half of them.

I've said it before, but one of the most effective things about Homestuck's storytelling is that I give Hussie a lot of respect when it comes to misdirection. He's played enough of them straight and he's subverted enough of his own misdirections that he is difficult to predict, even though the outcomes of his foreshadowing usually make sense.

8

I like the characters a little more, I like that there's more optional stuff to do, and I really like the branching promotions, which gives the game a lot more replay value since you can take totally different paths with the same characters.

It's easier, sure, but FE7's hard mode isn't really my gig so much. I like FE8's challenge more. The pirate ship level in FE8 still kicks my ass on hard mode anyway.

aw dude no

I was not trying to make things go this direction

What's a meta joke?

pics or it didn't happen

What the hell kind of country goes to war over the southern half of the country seceding from it? Jeez, Sudan, lighten up. You should learn from a better country, like America.

John Egbert
Spades Slick
Jade Harley
Aradia Megido

are we ranking mega man titles sure I can do that

10 > 3 > 2 > 5 > 9 > R&F > 6 > 4 > 7 > 1 > 8

I've never understood this at all. Mega Man 10 is my favorite Mega Man game ever, and I've been a fan of the series since the 80's. It has inspired level design with real care put into it, brilliant music written by pretty much everyone who's ever written Mega Man music, and really well designed, challenging boss fights (but different modes if they're too hard). There is nothing about it I don't absolutely love. The only way I can make sense of the hate for it is that people are blinded by nostalgia for the old games and can't fall in love with a new one.

Dave Strider
Nepeta Leijon
Rose Lalonde
Jack Noir

Portal and Portal 2 are the two best games made in the last five years. Just go get them both right now for 17 bucks. I paid full price for Portal 2 and it was completely worth it.

Yeah I pretty much instantly fell in love with Sendak after his Colbert Report interview. Sad to see him gone so soon after that.

tcaz2 posted...
WV: Ascend
Rose: Enter
Dave: Accelerate
Jack: Ascend
WV: Rise Up
Descend
Make Her Pay
Jade: Enter
JOHN. RISE UP.
Wake
Seer: Ascend
Cascade
Begin Intermission 2
End of Act 6 Intermission 1
Roxy: Sleepwalk
Prince of Heart: Rise Up
Jane: Enter

Those are the ones I'd consider as such and thusly.

Even if we're limiting this to only the really spectacular flashes, I'd put ACT 5 ACT 2 and ACT 6 on here as well, they're such great setups to the acts, even if they're not filled with bombastic action.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Oingo Boingo
I Mother Earth
Iron Maiden
Red Hot Chili Peppers

That's my answer today. Maybe my answer will be different tomorrow. I don't really have a set list.

10/10

dude is such a boss

seriously that smirk he does

amazing

I find it incredibly amusing that someone would choose Rhyhorn to do this. I could not have imagined a more unassuming Pokémon to do this with. I guess his build makes a pretty good template though!

Wayward Vagabond/Warweary Villein
Geromy
Sweet Bro
Casey

Aw man, like all of my favorite stupid characters are going to get knocked out by overrated main characters. Lame.

Tom Waits posted...
I could make a cup of coffee and have San Andreas ready for me on Steam.

A cup of hot coffee?

10/10 easily, my second favorite pokemon

Nepeta is an anime catgirl troll that ships her real life friends. That's a f***ing hilarious concept. That's basically all that there is to Nepeta, but I find her gimmick at least a little funny.

Crumplehat is f***ing awesome.

Terezi Pyrope
Crumplehat
Diamonds Droog/Draconian Dignitary
Gamzee Makara

I'm wondering where the option for "I would sell games based on company policy and state law" is but of course that would be too logical.

If policy and law says it's okay, then yeah of course I'd sell M-rated games to minors, I'm not the morality police.

Charles Martinet isn't very old, it's not really time to start worrying about him yet. I would say, though, that he's in a very small class of people who I'd be genuinely upset if he died (aside from friends and family).

Eridan Ampora
Jake English
Equius Zahhak
Roxy Lalonde

Although yeah, if this is supposed to be open world, and it's Star Fox, then I'm not interested.

You know, I was thinking not that long ago "I'll bet that if they handed the Star Fox property to Retro Studios, they might actually be able to revive it." Maybe Nintendo had the same thought. We'll see.

I wouldn't say this about any other movie: Anyone who has not seen Die Hard should go rent it like right now and watch it. It completely changed my perception of how good an action movie could be.

Does anyone know how long it took the first book to sell out? I want to buy this but I need to scrounge up some money over the weekend to do it.

I do still occasionally get tripped up by the SNES-360 flip. I get more confused on the DS than I do on the SNES, though, for some reason, even though they have the same layout. I forget where Y is a lot.