loonyboi

Good point about GITS. Although that influence was likely put in by the Wachowski brothers separately from this woman's screenplay (it's an undeniable influence that occaisionaly borders on outright stealing). There's that story of them screening the movie for someone (Joel Silver, I think?) and saying "we want to make a live action version of this."

That's crazy. Not because I think it's shocking that The Matrix was someone else's idea, but because it means someone else pulled together concepts from Ghost in the Shell, Philip K. Dick and other well-known sci-fi and anime sources to make a script that was then copied by someone else. Oh, and The Terminator? Harlan Ellison sued to get a writing credit because that was lifted from one of his short stories.

Because they can't make sequels to any film owned by Disney. ...which is every Pixar movie to date.

Yes, the first one is really, really hard. Although part of that difficulty is in there because you can't save your game, which really sucks. It's the weakest in the series because of it. With Zwei, they added saving and poof, they struck gold.

It's a bargaining chip. If they sign a deal with another studio, it'll be exclusive. I think it sucks that Pixar has left (most likely) disney for good, but I totally understand why they want a better deal. Pixar's movies make far, far, far, FAR more money than any of Disney's internal animated features, so why shouldn't they get more out of their relationship?

Yeah, but only weirdos and deadbeats. I kid, I kid.

Is going to san francisco like a big deal now? 'cuz I go there every few weeks. (most of the major video game mags and websites are out there)

Seriously? I take nothing seriously. Even the serious stuff I'm supposed to seriously take seriously. Seriously. Gawd I hope nawt. I live in Brooklyn, not Queens. But dear lord, my mother used to love that show, and every time she did, she'd lapse into that accent for about three hours.

And some people don't celebrate Christmas! Jeez.

GCN always drove me nuts. I refused to use it on the grounds that it was asinine. Nintendo also uses AGB for Game Boy Advance in some (but not all) official releases. That too is asinine. Of course, if we're going to talk about silly names, we might as well acknowledge that Game Boy Advance makes no sense whatsoever. In English it should be Advanced Game Boy. Although in the end, we should all be thankful it wasn't called Super Hyper Neo Generation Game Boy Advance.

I believe that's the same sound made by Chocobos in Final Fantasy. Or maybe that's just "Wark!" I can't remember. I should really know these things.

Being Jewish, I will be spending Christmas doing absolutely nothing. Actually, my sister and I like to go to the movies on Christmas (we've done it since we were kids), since *nobody* goes to the movies on Christmas Day. It's great...theaters in Manhattan, which are always packed, get completely empty (unless they're on the lower east side, of course). Christmas *Eve* on the other hand, I'll be spending with my wife's stepmother's family. Her father married into one of those huge italian catholic families, and now we spend our Christmas eve every year with that whole side of the family. They're nice people (most of them, anyway), but it's all a bit too christian for my taste. (Again, me am jew) Yufster, it sounds like you haven't reached your cynical breaking point yet. It took me a few years to do it, but hoo boy, once I did, life got a lot more fun. When I was in high school I worked at Mc Donald's, and later Burger King (I was hired away). At first I hated it like you wouldn't believe. Then one day, I woke up, and realized that everything about the job, from the obese kids to the dorky outfits, was absolutely hysterical. I had a blast from that day on. Also, I think I was stoned at the time.

I've seen it a few times (I think I previewed it three or four times over the years) and every time, I walked out of there thinking it was pretty cool. ...but then I had to restrain myself because the developer has a questionable history. "Simon the Sorcerer 3D" does not prepare one to take on the Cthulhu mythos (especially since that game was apparently a big buggy load of crap).

I'm a big Romero defender. His personality quirks aside, John is a great game designer, as anyone that spent late nights playing Doom, Doom 2 or Q1 DM4 will tell you (especially that last one). He's a terrible writer, I won't defend that. The "story" behind both Dooms and Quake is so outlandishly bad it's laughable. Romero's a really, really nice guy. He's got an ego, but face-to-face, he's surprisingly down to earth. Even when the whole ION Storm furor was at its height, he was still down to earth in person. He's also one of the world's formost authorities on Apple ][ gaming. Tell him you were an Apple gamer back in the early 80's and he'll tell you exactly who designed what game and when. It's really pretty cool (if you're into that sort of thing). Oh, and for the record, I actually sat in that couch. The old ION office was crazy. It was at the top of the tallest building in Dallas and had all glass walls on the outside. Which sounds great in theory, right? Really pretty? There was just one teeny problem they didn't think of. Dallas is one of those cities that has that whole sun thing. You know, where it gets hot? Especially in August? Well, in the summer time, that beautiful glass office turned into a greenhouse. People would fight, not for the cubicles closest to the windows, but for the ones closest to the air conditioner. It's a classic case of designing an office that looks good, but isn't even remotely practical.

Wow, you guys must be the biggest bunch of klutzes ever assembled. Seriously, I've never had a problem with getting DVDs out of their case, regardless of what kind of case it is. The exception being that hideous PolyGram case that was used in the early days of DVD. I had a few discs that used that, and it wasn't that it was hard to get the discs out, it's just that they could easily be scratched. (It was this nasty-ass plastic thing with a slider tray...really, really stupidly designed).

The packaging issue's a weird one in this country. Remember when PC boxes were huge? All the publishers got together and had a long, drawn-out discussion about how to rectify this problem. The big issues were: - They wanted to be able to put several boxes on a shelf face forward. - They needed to be able to easily hold multiple CDs and large manuals. And lastly... - Publishers liked the gatefold opening on PC boxes. So they all decided that DVD cases wouldn't work, and instead they created that funky cardboard dealie because it could do all three things. Sadly, nobody bothers actually *putting* decent sized manuals in there anymore. The last game I saw to do that was Neverwinter Nights, and that had a nice spiral manual (like Fallout did way back when) and maps and other cool stuff (not surprisingly, the Mac version had only the manual, and it was in black & white).

That's the question, isn't it? They'd have to find a way around the CHD problem for games like the Crusin' series and Area51 in order for it to work. Plus, attempts at emulating the Crusin' games have been pretty problematic so far (they run like crap on even a high-end PC). Since the MAT series uses Digital Eclipse's own emulator (as opposed to a MAME derivitive), and they don't have to worry about pesky legal issues, I imagine it's possible. ...but it won't be easy. Those CHD files are pretty huge.

My copy was registered on Steam with no problems, but my sister's having the same authentication problems you seem to be having. She's getting quite frustrated. If you have an existing Steam account, my advice is to register the CD-Key with Steam rather than install it off the cds/dvd. This seems to be faster. If you need a new account, then chances are you're SOL until they fix their overload problems.

They've already tapped the Atari Games library...Pit Fighter and Hard Drivin' were both Atari Games. And Primal Rage was Warner Bros. if I recall correctly. Actually, one game I forgot about is S.T.U.N. Runner, which was *supposed* to be in MAT2, but was taken out along with the first Mortal Kombat. I love that game. Hopefully that'll make the next collection. Incidentally, that's also an Atari game.

I'm a little disappointed in MAT2. MK2 is great as ever, but it's the first generation MK3, not Ultimate or any of the other variations. What they should have done is offered several, and let you switch between them via the options screen. NARC is still delightfully violent, Maximum Carnage is still a weak-but-not-quite-horrible sequel to SMASH TV, and so those are good. But games like Pit Fighter and Primal Rage are hideous. Primal Rage wasn't too bad in its day, but it hasn't aged well. Pit Fighter was always unbelievably awful. There was never a time when that was considered good in any way, shape or form. Midway's working on MAT3, but what's left? I guess they could do the other variations of Mortal Kombat 3 and MK4, plus the Cruisin' games and Area 51 and I guess there are a few other Gauntlets. But the problem with games like Area 51 is that damn hard drive issue. If you've ever played them on MAME, you have to get this obscenely large CHD file in order to get it to work at all. I can't see them emulating that while running off a DVD...they'd have to rework it extensively.

I can't talk about it in any way, shape or form obviously, but there is a game coming out that's based on this movie. The game has been announced, we just haven't released anything from it yet. It should be pretty wild.

I think ***** is a no-no on this board. Clearly, it's run by conservative jews. B***n, P**k and other such things are out, and the meat and dairy forums have to be kept separate at all times.

Oh, and as for screenshots: your editor will tell you whether or not you need to take them yourself. In my freelance days, sometimes I had to take them, and sometimes they were provided by the publisher. We like to provide screens so they don't wind up looking like ass. Once a game's out we can't stop someone from taking all the shots they like, but ours tend to be better.

I'm no longer a game reviewer (at least, I don't get paid for it, anyway), but here's some general tips for reviewing games: - Finish the f#(^)king game before reviewing it!!! You cannot review a game until you've seen the closing credits. Period. Unless it's a game like The Sims that *has* no ending, you have to finish it before you have the authority to write a single word about the quality of a game. Tons of games are great at the beginning and then get really, really, really bad towards the end (I cite the case of Metal Gear Solid 2 vs. Gamers Everywhere), so you *have* to finish the game before reviewing it. - Get some balls You are a game reviewer. You're not out to make friends with PR people, no matter how cool we are. We respect people who are honest. - Tell the truth Related to the last one. Be bold in your statements, but don't LIE. Yeah a game might suck, but is it REALLY the worst game you've ever played? A good example is a certain unnamed gaming publication that recently gave a 0 out of 10 to a game published by my unnamed employer. It wasn't one of my games, but still, that hurts. The game in question was far from a good game, but was it as bad as Drake? Hell no. - Keep in mind that your scores are relative This is a toughie, because it requires you to remember every review you've ever written. Set out for yourself *clear* standards of what game deserves what score, and then stick to it. If you say that every New Hot Game is a 10 out of 10, it loses its impact. That's all I got for now. I'm sure something else will come to me.

Pickup line: "Hey baby, wanna come back to my place and check out my Jaguar?" Five minutes later: "You're gonna just LOVE Tempest 2000. And Aliens vs. Predator? OMG IT ROCKS." -- The single best sentence I've ever heard, overheard at a pub I used to frequent. A middle aged woman was yelling into a phone, and said... "Every dick I suck puts your daughter through college." Think about that sentence, from an English language perspective. I'm a writer, and I *wish* I could come up with a phrase that conveyed that much information so succinctly. Truly a triumph of the language. -- Oh, and if there's a copy left, I'll give it to my wife. Maybe she'll stop playing The Sims 2 long enough to decide Singles isn't anywhere near as much fun.