Topics

1

Game Help / MKDS Snaking

« on: June 19, 2006, 03:25:57 PM »

I can't snake in Mario Kart DS.  I know the concept, because I can snake in F-Zero GX.  I know how to get the slide boost.  I just can't do it fast enough and with enough control to snake.  It's occurred to me that I might have more difficulty snaking because I have a DS Lite.  It might be easier to jam the D-pad back and forth with the regular DS's clicky D-pad.  Can anyone out there successfully snake with a DS Lite?  Can you give me some pointers?  Please help, I'm tired of getting pwned online.

2

Game Help / Metroid Prime Hunters bots?

« on: May 04, 2006, 08:13:16 PM »

I need to know, does Metroid Prime: Hunters for the DS have the option of ai-controlled bots in multiplayer mode? 

3

Game Help / technical: gamecube on computer monitor/speakers?

« on: April 24, 2006, 08:48:46 PM »

It's bugged me for a while that I can't play GameCube in 16x9 ratio with progressive scan.  I have a 1024x768 computer monitor.  It isn't a 16x9 ratio monitor, but it is my understanding (someone might correct me on this) that running a 1024x768 in letterbox mode with bars on the top and bottom of the screen still gives a higher resolution than GameCube processes in 16x9 mode.  So here's my question: is there any way to hook up a GameCube to a computer monitor (with a CRT connection)?  How?  What sort of adapters would I need?  If it is possible, will it actually make the games look any better, or will they look weird and distorted?  And how, if it all, does progressive scan mode come into all of this?

Also, I'd need to figure out how to hook up the sound.  I'm currently using 5.1 speakers on my computer.  I'm pretty sure GameCube supports 4 independent speakers, but with my current GameCube-TV setup I only get stereo sound.  How would I hook up GameCube to my computer speakers to give me surround sound?

4

Site Discussion / What's with the weird topic names?

« on: January 02, 2006, 07:28:29 PM »

Somebody has been messing with this site, it seems.  In the main forum navigation page, the most recent post indicator in the righthand column has recently shown topic names that don't match the actual topics of the most recent posts.  I recently saw "dancing bananas" or something like that in the most recent post column, but there is no real topic called "dancing bananas".  Now the recent most post column shows "nobody evere reads this line" as a topic name.  I read those lines!  I'm on to you, fungi forum prankster!

Edit: I suspect Luigi Simpson may be somehow involved, since he seems to be obsessed with dancing bananas.

5

General Chat / Physical Feats

« on: December 04, 2005, 08:01:22 AM »

I can raise one eyebrow at a time, on either side, though I am much better at doing in with my left eyebrow than with my right eyebrow.

6

General Chat / Go (board game)

« on: November 16, 2005, 10:52:18 PM »

I'm trying to teach myself the rules to the board game Go and I can't find any rules online that explain the scoring in sufficient detail.  I don't know of any Go forums, so I figured that this would be as good a place as any to ask...  Can someone please explain the rules to me?

I understand the mid-game rules.  I understand that the game ends as soon as either player resigns or both players pass consecutively.  What I do not understand is the final scoring.  I can't seem to find any formal description of how the game is scored.  Can someone please explain it to me?  Please don't use vague descriptions; give me a formal definition, so I could write a computer program to evaluate the final score from a given final board and knowledge of captured pieces.

7

Video Game Chat / Civilization IV

« on: November 16, 2005, 10:14:52 PM »

Has anyone ever played Civilization IV for PC, or any of the older Civilization games? I just got Civilization IV recently and it's quite fun.  It's a turn-based strategy game played on a square grid, sort of like Advance Wars, only it's about 100 times as complex as Advance Wars.  I've had some minor technical problems with the game but those will probably be fixed in the inevitable patch.

Anyone out there interested in a play-by-email game?

8

Video Game Chat / What GCN memory cards do you have?

« on: September 26, 2005, 09:49:48 PM »

All you GCN owners out there, how many and what types of memory cards do you own?  I own two 59 cards and one 251 card, all first party.

9

Video Game Chat / Beware EA sports games

« on: September 20, 2005, 08:36:40 PM »

I just bought a used copy of Madden 2005.  I was shocked because the box said the game required 167 blocks of memory.  I figured, well, if I move some stuff aroung I can fit it onto my 251 card.  WRONG!  The 167 blocks of memory only store a single franchise file.  Other game files require additional ridiculous amounts of memory, and to fit everything for the game onto one card I would need to go out and buy 1019 card, which would offset the money I saved by buying a used, outdated title.  Here's waht pushed me over the edge: after reading the manual, I discovered that many of the game's unlockables can only be accessed my reaching a high level in an "EA Sports Bio", a file that keeps track of your accomplishments and gameplay hours on various EA Sports games.  So to get all the unlockables, I would have to rent/buy several other EA Sports titles.  It's not worth it!  The game isn't even that fun!  I was annoyed at having to rent Pikmin to get the last trophy is Super Smash Brothers Melee, one of my favorite games.  There's no way I'm going to rent a bunch of other titles to get everything in a single game I don't even like that much.  I bought it used and I'm selling it back.  BEWARE!

10

General Chat / What countries have you been to?

« on: September 10, 2005, 01:32:16 AM »

This was inspired by the "what states have you been to" topic.  I've been to:

United States
Canada
England
Whales
France
Italy
Germany
Austria
China

11

Video Game Chat / Longest game

« on: August 27, 2005, 10:52:52 PM »

I'm trying to figure out, what is the longest game ever made?  I know that the exact "length" of a game is loosely defined, but I would consider the following:

-To be elligible, a game must have a definite beginning and end.  No massively multiplayer rpgs

-Only the length from the beginning to the end counts.  So, ignore all the stars after star 70 (?) in Super Mario 64, since only 70 (?) are needed to beat the game.  In games with multiple paths from beginning to end (eg Super Mario World), consider whatever you define as the "standard" path through the game.  Bonus material not part of the standard game (eg war room maps in Advance Wars) don't count.

-Arbitrarily length added to games by requiring you to do the same thing over and over again (such as the many difficulty levels in The Legend of Zelda, or hours of manditory leveling-up in RPGs) doesn't count.

-Don't consider time spent without progress trying to beat abnormally difficult games.  Consider the overall amount of content experienced from beginning to end.

You can challenge any of these criteria if you wish.  Under these criteria, off the top of my head, I would say The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was a very long game.  I'm sure there are others I can't think of right now that were much longer.

12

Mario Chat / PMTTYD Question

« on: January 07, 2005, 03:34:05 PM »

***SPOILER WARNING***

***Do not read if you have not yet played through Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door***







Okay, for all those who have played through the game, or ignored my warning: what did you name the yoshi?  I named mine Yosarian, after the protagonist in Joseph Heller's Catch 22.

13

Video Game Chat / Heros and Antiheros

« on: January 01, 2005, 03:26:24 AM »

This is a long post, sort of a rant, and it may contain spoilers.  I wrote it for my own sake, so unless you're really bored, feel free to stop reading.

Pop quiz: what do all of these games have in common?

Super Mario Land 2: The Six Gold Coins
Super Mario Sunshine
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hands

And to a lesser extent:

Advance Wars
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link
TLOZ: Ocarina of Time
Viewtiful Joe
many others

The answer, as implied by the subject of this topic, is that all of these games feature, as enemies, evil versions of the main heros.  Mario v. Wario, Mario v. Shadow Mario, Samus v. SA-X, Samus v. Dark Samus, etc. Is it just me, or is this theme getting a little old?  It bugs me when designers throw antiheros into the game and try to pass it off as something dramatic and exciting.  Seriously, it's been done before, guys.  For example, in Super Mario Sunshine, the designers tried to shock players by presenting an Antimario in the form of Shadow Mario.  When I saw this, I was a little confused.  The Mario series already HAS an Antimario...his name is Wario!  He's been in tens of games, often with starring roles!  So what is so supposed to be so shocking about Shadow Mario?  Shadow Mario has much less personality, and is frankly much less interesting, than Wario.  His existence as a character does nothing to advance the Mario series and did little to improve Super Mario Sunshine.  This is often the case; usually, the fights against antiheros, which are supposed to be exciting and climactic, are pretty boring compared to the fights against unique enemies.  When I see an antihero, I just get the sense that the designers were too lazy to design an original villian, and instead opted to rehash a worn-out theme.

This is not to say that I dislike any of the games I have listed.  In fact, I think that Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Fusion, and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes are all fantastic games.  I just think the games would have been better with more original villians.

Edited by - Hirocon on 1/1/2005 1:28:27 AM

14

Video Game Chat / I AM MAD AT SEGA

« on: June 09, 2004, 10:50:38 PM »

No, no, not because they are a competitor of Nintendo...I really couldn't care less about that...

I am mad because I have seen screenshots of Puyo Pop Fever for GCN, a game which I was very, very excited about, especially since Nintendo Puzzle Collection is stuck in Japan.  But after seeing the screenshots I know that I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO ENJOY THE GAME.

Know why?  It's because I am color-blind!  And when puzzle games are poorly designed to rely on instantaneous color distinction with a bunch of colors separated by half a shade of green, I can't play them!  GOOOOOLLY !! ! !  I could play the earlier levels with only 3 very different colors, but I took a look at some other screenshots with 5+ colors, two of which were VERY, VERY similar to each other...I only even noticed that they were two different colors because the eye patterns on the puyos were slightly different...

COME ON, SEGA!  WOULD IT HAVE BEEN SO MUCH TROUBLE TO PICK MORE DISTINCT COLORS??!?  I expect this sort of thing from games on Shockwave.com, but not from a major gaming company like Sega!  Take a lesson from Nintendo: in Tetris Attack, they used only very distinct colors, AND they threw in easily recognizable shapes on the blocks to make them even easier to instantly distinguish.

This is probably my single biggest video-game-relared pet-peeve, and it is not just a minor nuicance.  For me, it has ruined an otherwise potentially fantastic game!

15

Video Game Chat / A Tragic Tale

« on: June 06, 2004, 10:23:45 PM »

I no longer enjoy video games.  Here is my story.

About a year or so ago, I started having some financial trouble.  It was nothing serious, but it cut deeply into my video game playing.  In an effort to be more of an economic gamer, I started some major changes in my video game buying habits.  I started buying used games instead of new games.  I started trading in my vast collection of old games long since played-out to get store credit to buy more games.  I avoided "impulse buys" and bought only games known to be very long or have extensive replay value.

It worked.  It worked too well.  I soon found myself with too many games and not enough time to play them all.  I'm not sure how it happened, but right now I've got probably over 10 games that are just unfinished, half completed, or, in some cases, barely touched.  Now, summer is coming, and I'm going to have a load of free time to play all of these games.  I should be happy, right?

I'm not.  I'm already bored with all of the video games that I have.  I've gotten so many new games recently that they've all started feeling similar to each other...as soon as I picked up a game, I think to myself, who cares?  I've done this before.  Go here, flip this switch, collect this item, shoot this henchman, beat this boss, build this unit, bla, bla, bla.  I crave something truly NEW.  I don't care about the 10+ unfinished games I have.  I care about the 20+ games that I've seen hyped up on IGN that I DO NOT have.

Why?  Why do I have an insatiable desire to BUY games, but almost no desire to PLAY them?  It's incredibly wasteful, and as playing video games is virtually my only hobby (I am a loser with no friends and no life), now that I am losing interest in video games, I really have nothing to fall back on.

You know what they say: when you tire of video games, you tire of life.