It does indeed start out really slow, and I guess I'm in the minority with Ebonstone because I didn't care for it much at all.  Then again, I never got off the first planet.

And that would be a problem. your character advancement moves a lot quicker once you can *ACTUALLY* be a Jedi. :roll:

I used to do it a lot more than I do now.

The latest stuff I have Beta Tested is: World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls 3: Bloodmoon and Windows XP.

You'd be surprised at how many people "beta test" Windows XP.

...down, down down, the burnin' ring of fire.
I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher...

Didn't anyone suggest Riddick?!?!

It's my GOTY, easy. A nice combo of stealth, fighting and straight ahead action. All tied together with a cool story and freakin' amazing (for xbox) graphics.

It's a terrific... 3 day rental.

I found it to be too short and too easy to buy, but it *was* a blast while it lasted.

I dunno; developers are pretty experienced with PC games, and moving up to Xbox2 seems to be the right thing to do. I just think it should debut in spring 2006 rather than fight for christmas dollars. I dunno.

DOA3 <--SOLD, I'll pick it up

~~~~Haven't heard of any of these??
Bloodrayne
Crimson Skies
Voodoo Vince
~~~~Me go look now

I would love to pick up KOTOR and Ninja Gadien but there still a little pricey like $35...maybe I should bite the bullet and go into credit card debt a little more?  :-)

save your pennies... Halo2 is out in less than a month. KOTOR2 is fun, but after going through it as good and evil once, you won't likely visit it again.

I'd suggest getting Live if you at *all* like playing against others, but that's something you'll need to worry about in a month.

I'd also put forward that Burnout3 is an amazing (and long-lived) game and would be worthy of the full sticker price.

When it comes to FPS games, Rainbow Six 3 and Ghost Recon games are entirely too entertaining for their own good; however they're not going to be showing your system off graphically. The Splinter Cell games are very well done, but I found they suffered from the "more of the same syndrome". Hmm, maybe I just have ADD?? I'm bored, lets watch cartoons. *wait* ... back on track!


Strategy? hmmm... PC is your best bet, but there are a few gems out there (I think Gladius is a pretty fine game and an easy buy at less than 20bux). It's like final fantasy tactics.

Panzer Dragoon Orta is terrific if you like arcade-style games .(it's a rail shooter) With a boatload of style and very easy on the eyes, you'll find it hard to regret a used purchase for that gem. The same goes for Otagi; just beautiful.

Tony Hawk 3 or 4 is a worthy investment, or you could get Jet Set Radio Future for a song and a *very* short dance; the game is just as polished and I found it was much more vibrant. You can get Amped 2 and Project Gotham Racing 2 and Mechassault for next to nothing, and Kung Fu Chaos is wickedly fun with multiple people.

Ninja Gaiden is a must; you might luck out on the used bin as it's been at market for about 6months.

I'd recommend KOEI games, but hey, you've already played em on your PS2.

Voodoo Vince is a decent platformer, and Crimson Skies is a blast to play, both off-and-on line. I'm not a big fan of the first BloodRayne, but the second one seems to have addressed the controls issues I had with the first one. I'd suggest renting or borrowing Hunter or Hunter2; even at $15 the games aren't purchaseworthy for me.  It's a monotony thing for me, the games are really simple. I'd go for Bladders Gate: Dark Alliance II first, as there is a more approachable (and more broad) skill tree to develop your character.

Heh, I have no kids...it is definately not latex.

I bet it's dairy. I mean, after that whole "Honey, come outta the bathroom; I'm on the dresser in my batman suit and I've got the stick of butter." fiasco, I'm sure it's gotta be dairy. OR batarangs. Whichever.

AFAIK most mice/keyboards still ship with PS/2 adaptors.  Even my brand new Logitech Elite Duo has them.  

So I don't think that will be a problem at all.  The only issue with the PS/2 mouse adaptors are that all those extra buttons beyond left/right/middle/scroll are rendered useless.  Optical mice shouldn't be a problem at all.  There are still people that swear the polling rate of PS/2 mice is better and thus more accurate than USB mice.

actually, the extra buttons still work regardless of your connection. The maximum image read on the position of your mouse is 200 times per second (at least, that's what the mouse accelerators went up to; 80 was default) . A USB optical mouse reads at 1500+ times per second, and can be sent to the hardware. I doubt the PS2 port used is going to translate that to the Xbox. Who knows.

As far as the adapters are concerned, I'm well aware of them. I've got 4 intellimouse opticals (different versions of the explorer, both wired and wireless) so I have at least 4 of those ugly green adapters. I used to have to use one of them at work as the desktop standard was NT4WS which doesn't properly support USB.

See, the thing that made me buy it (got mine on preorder with Lik-Sang) is that I want to see how the configuration works. The Xbox buttons are limited, and I'm pretty sure the Xbox isn't going to play nice with a full keyboard. I'm thinking an Fkey is going to bring up an overlayed config window for us to choose which buttons do what. That also means it may allow addn'l buttons on the mouse, as long as the driver used on the adapter supports them.

Outrun who?

Well, I'll be the black sheep of this forum...
I'm happy they did come out with this, I'd like to try out the accuracy of the mouse. That being said, I'm not crazy about keyboards. WSAD is VERY limited as they are only 4 binary switches. (on/off) Weak.

I want a mouse / gameclaw or something to that effect.

I'm sure I'll end up just using controllers, and I don't buy into the "fair" idea; we're still playing the same game; it's not like I'll be able to shoot through walls or anything. I suppose MS could also try to find a signature to the device and disable it during Live online games, but that seems to be wildly unreasonable.

You did notice the mouse and kybd connections are PS2 ports, which means the polling is likely more restricted than the optical mice people use today.

Either way; for me it's a $40 experiment. I hope it pans out, I'm not 100% sure it will.

Hey Ron.

Use your contacts; I wanna know when we're seeing this show up on the horizon.. oh, and video conferencing too.



Well, whaddaya standing around here for?? Get to it!!

Next...

Am I going MAD, or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass

Man, I dunno who wrote that review; but they are a total jackass.

oh, wait...  :oops:

jk Ron.  Nicely done. Here's the acid test ... lets see you give away the game to a reader... any reader. I know, let's pick names outta the hat.

[shuffles names]

oooo, and it goes to.... PURGE!!
if you reply with "it's in the mail" I don't believe you liked the game.
If you reply with "Get your own damned copy, you letch" then that's par for the course, and you clearly are still playing it.

Vexx. And yeah, this is a cool game.

Here's a classic..

Pretty sure it's nothing to lose... that movie was funnier than I expected. I'm normally not a big Martin Lawrence fan, but with Tim at the helm it kept his embarassing snivelling to a minimum

LMK if I'm right.

"Just Visiting" ?

yeppers. You're up.

I prefer SlimBrowser ... since I don't like mouse-gestures, it's perfect.
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Does the Danger Room provide help in this area or am I done with the game after 1 level?

Absolutely. They tell you in one of the tutorial ones that you can keep going back into the training rooms for more XP.

You're one to talk about classics...
My guess is that PJ (Jack Burton) hadn't checked this thread yet.

Big trouble in little china is where that little nugget came from.

Here's a new one :

I am eating this very good meats and vegetables in a very fine sauce... I will shit easy tomorrow.

I'm guessing Suicide Kings.

Finally. NEXT!

"A number of times, the only thing that kept me out of a satin box was that I could size up the other guy maybe half a second quicker than he could me."

HINT: Next line: "What the **** are you talking about? You're taped to a chair!"

That is strange Purge, most people say exactly the opposite about the controls, including me. I think the game is setup mainly for consoles and not so much for PC.

At first I found it frustrating that I was getting hit from what seemed like all sides. But after playing for a few hours I now find that I know exactly where the enemy is and how to take them on.

I played it for 2 hours. I'm pretty much done with it. It has its moments (like the snowspeeders and the AT-ATs, but it doesn't pop. I dunno. I was totally out of synch with the game. I felt like that guy in saving private ryan who takes off his helmet to check for bullet-holes. Maybe I didn't give it enough time, but seeing the GameRankings I'm sure it's not just me.  [shrug] If I had a few friends with it I might go for a used copy for Live. As it stands, I'm not making a financial commitment to this game.

Woo!  A review for a game that may not come out for another 6 months if Vivendi has its way.

And I thought the 3 week advance for Fable reviews were bad. It seems like Valve is putting pressure (pun intended) on their publisher. Sure, they can't release the game; but they *can* give out review copies to sites to hype their product.

Go Valve! (but give vivendi their dues; they DID pay your rent for the past few years).

Er, now when you say Baldur's Gate 2, you mean Dark Alliance 2, and not BG2 for the PC, right?

BGDA2, yes. BG2 is different. Way different. My bad... the context was meant to include only the console titles.

Great writeup!

I just finished playing thru Baldur's Gate 2 for the 3rd time co-op last night - any idea how it compares to that series of games?  Is it pretty much the same type of game set in the X-Men universe?

This game has more flavour <canadian spelling, get used to it> than Baldurs Gate 2. I have BG2, still haven't gotten past the third level; I have too many other games to play. *cough*FableBurnout*cough*cough*

I found BG2 to be fun, but a more-of-the-same, whereas the different Xmen are extremely varied; and you get the full complement to level and play as you see fit. (from what I've seen sofar).

If you wanna drive up to Canada, I'll plug another controller in for ya . It's too bad it doesn't have a simple live functionality to be able to invite friends into a game; that would add tons of replayability for me.

I will be buying this game; likely in 2-3 months when I can get a used copy for cheaper. My wallet can't handle my gaming ambition.

I rented it; didn't have so much fun with the game. It's like the aiming was designed for mouse / kbd, so the controller isn't as effective. Oh, and get broadsided a lot.

Yeah. Too many other potential buys for me to hang onto this one.

I'd call it a shakedown, but I'm sure it's  trademarked.

The game is basically a d20 gameset (KOTOR, Baldurs Gate, DnD, etc) with up to 4 players.... when the story allows that many characters in a level. Sofar I've completed a few quests and have gotten the feel for the game. It's too bad I don't have any friends; otherwise I'd fill ya in on the multiplayer. :wink:

Quick hits:
- The AI is very artificial, but no worse than any other RPG game.
- The  story is compelling enough, but don't expect a grand sweeping saga.
- The controls are well placed (xbox), and I had no problems getting my muties to go where I wanted them to.

The RPG elements of the characters is good:
- a stats section to modify when levelling up
- a skills (in DnD these would be feats) section that looks to have some goals to work towards
- a 3 slot equipment enhancement section

You are able to swap out team members at save points, and the choice of development options you want your XMen to achieve. There  *is* an auto button if that kind of thing doesn't tickle your fancy.

Minor Misses:
- You need to break stuff to get items. Think gold and crates. Yeah. Park benches, trash cans, whatever.  The downside is can get tedious. The upside is you don't hafta bash the stuff if you don't want to. Or, you can throw enemies into it to save time.
- Clipping & Tripping : You tend to Walk over stuff while trying to bash items  (initially) as your characters step forwards during attacks.
- Camera ... it doesn't follow behind (well), so expect to manually move it around. That, and you can't seem to dip too low which is too bad.

I've read gripes about Cyclops being the only character who's not fleshed out enough.... I heartily disagree. The info they give on the characters is more than adequite. The problem with Cyclops, as I see it, is he's so goddamned effen boring. He's duty this, and right-thing that. You'd think he's training to be a jedi or something. Oh, and Jean wants Wolvie for a reason; he's GOT A PERSONALITY. The Cyclops character, not the portrayal, is ultimately flawed.

Oh, and the face icons suck. Wolverine looks more like Goon#2 from Final Fight than the Berserker Blade Barrage kinda killing machine that we've all come to know and fear.

If I had dropped $50 on this game, I'd not be kicking myself. I recommend it for anyone who enjoys an easy-to-play rpg game and/or anyone who loves the marvel universe. The content for the comic geeks is pretty wild. Sofar, I'd be scoring it in the B+ A- range.

Crystalis on the NES (and GBA if you want to get technical).

Now that was a game ahead of its time.

Here's another classic:


(love the names on this one)

Tim, go again, your screenshot for the FF1 Ogre is busted. (http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff1/screens/ogre.jpg)

anyone? Need a hint?

Went and saw this Sunday morning and damn was it funny. Utterly hilarious spoof on the way we blatantly go about our dead-end jobs and do the same thing over and over and over again with no clear reward other than to sit on the couch and play games. It's great on so many levels because it does turn very, very serious later on, but along the way there is just so much side-splitting humor it's a great ride. The long tracking shots of Shaun going to the local grocer are great, but watching the second one of these I was just dying laughing. This is a great time, people, and I'd suggest everyone try and catch this in theaters as soon as you can. Big thumbs up from me.

Yup. Won tix from a shop I frequent, preview screening 2 weeks ago. Peed laughing. It's tagline says it all : a romantic comedy. With Zombies.

I just wanted to make those items clear before we move forward.  Don't worry...there won't be any McGriddle madness on the site, you have my word.

I think McGriddles killed Dr. Atkins.

Uh, I found out how to open any new link in a new tab in Firefox:

It's called the middle mouse button.

The only thing that won't work on are Java based links and a few rare instances in general. Other than that, the middle mouse button is your friend.

K you missed the point.
I wanted ALL new windows, regardless of user triggered or NON to come up in the same instance. This does it for you. All of your listed exceptions are included. *That*, my friend, was the point.

Here we go:

"God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!"
"Slugs."
"Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?"

Ah... post-Monty Python ... Time bandits, if I'm not mistaken? Dammit, my next quote was going to come from A Fish Called Wanda... too close to this though... how about :

"A number of times, the only thing that kept me out of a satin box was that I could size up the other guy maybe half a second quicker than he could me."

I've known about, and have been using, Firefox for about 3 months (I've shied away from previous mozilla versions for compatibility issues, etc...). Firefox is nice and all, but it's tabbed browsing was fundementally flawed....

See, If I'm going to have multiple tabs, I wanted ALL my new windows to open up in tabs, not new window iterations. The automatic new window calls would still create multiple firefox instances and drove me up the wall.

So I went back to IE (where it's a given) and Slimbrowser (and IE shell), which did tabbing right.

I've consistantly checked for tab browsing extension and hadn't found any that addressed my concern ... until now.

Tabbrowser Preferences check it out... best ever.

[ I didn't add to the original firefox post ... it's too bloated to revive. This is just a recommendation for a specific extension ]

Oh I completely agree to this, but if it's actually a decent update to the hardware then I'm wondering whether I should rent the set and update my box. While I'm not surprised that Microsoft would slip something like this out there, it does annoy me that they don't let everyone know. You'd think with all the lawsuits filed against them over the years, they'd learn the value of warning labels. Go figure.

This isn't the first game to do this; since they technically own the software on your xbox (it is a license agreement) it is well within their rights to maintain it.

It's not the answer you're looking for, but what can you do? <shrug> It *IS* their IP. (intellectual property)

Not quite. Greedo shoots first in the new edition as well, and Han just sort of... twitches. It looks stupid beyond reason, but can't be helped, since this was George Lucas' vision.

On the positive side, at least "Han stepping on Jabba's tail" scene looks pretty normal.

Vision, like the mind, deteriorates with time. He's had almost 30 years to change something he DELIBERATELY put into the movie. The man is a rogue; he smuggles and deals business with lead-pipe cruelty. Couldn't he just leave it alone?

Lucas, stop picking at it... it'll just get infected.

Just the important bits....
115 Miiillion dollas!  Good LORD that's a whole lotta money....

For a release set of 3 movies (boxed), 3 individual movies, all from the series that has grossed over a billion dollars in US ticket sales alone (over 250Million in 1977!!) I'm not really surprised at this number; when you consider the market footprint of 250million people (US) and how many people the franchise has touched, it's almost disappointing.

IF this number includes game sales AND DVD in the same total, it's kind of lame. Think about it... ~50US per game, and a PS2 /XBOX /PC gaming footprint of 50Million .... 115Mill adds up to ~5% of owners buying that game. I mean, Fable (a hit game for one of the smaller markets) has made over 18Million US in the last week.  They sold 350,000+ units in a market that sits at less than 20 million... that's more than 10%.

I wasn't one of those people who bought it; I'd like the version where Han wasn't robbed of his roguish nature. (Lemme guess, in the new one the bartender shoots first, Greedo gets a shot off, and then poor Han is just defending himself).  :roll:

"North by Northwest".

thanks. Now post a new quote.

Anyone up for some CG/GG action on Burnout 3 on Live tonight? Turnout last Wednesday was pretty good for a while...had 6-8 people the entire time.

Who's in, and what time?

I'll host if we get enough people.

Mike

I'll try to get in. What time?

Moved to Multiplayer Gaming as suggested.

now, about pulling all the other peoples posts into one..