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Messages - matt oz

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1
TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
« on: March 07, 2009, 05:31:57 PM »
I'm playing through this now. I think I'm at chapter 13 or 14. Overall, I love it because I love Fire Emblem. I don't think I've ever used "R+L+Select+Start" in a DS game before, but I've been using it so much for this game. The characters are drawn nicely, but I wish the battle animations were better.

I'm really disappointed to hear that the battle types don't change, but I figured since every battle so far has been "Seize," it wasn't going to change anytime soon. And I completely agree about not feeling any attachment to my characters. I remember when Rolf died once when I was playing the GC version. It was really sad because his brothers felt so responsible for his death. But with the characters in this game, it really makes no difference because there's none of that pre-battle dialog.

One more thing: I hate how my thief doesn't get experience when he opens doors and chests. He's been in every battle and he's only at level 5 because he's completely overpowered by every enemy. Thieves should get experience by thieving!

2
General Gaming / Re: Sony getting hit Hard lately
« on: January 19, 2009, 02:17:40 PM »
I e-mailed Sony, so I hope they can do something about it.

You can buy more of their ****.  Preferably the more expensive stuff.

That's actually what they told me.  They said, "we would recommend trying another set of licensed component cables."  Why on earth would I spend more money on something that won't work?  I e-mailed them mainly to notify them that their packaging is misleading regarding older models of the PS2, and I also asked if they could refund my money (I don't expect them to, but I figured it was worth a try).  Now they've gone and tried to swindle me into buying more of their crap.  Unbelievable.

3
General Gaming / Re: Spore
« on: January 18, 2009, 11:14:20 AM »
Spore has teh worst patching procedure (At least on Mac) that I have ever seen. This is filthy.

I agree.  First time I had to patch it, it froze when it was nearly done.  I waited a while, then just force quit the program.  The next time I launched it, it seemed fine, but who knows if it messed anything up.

4
General Chat / Re: Matt new jersey?
« on: January 17, 2009, 09:48:57 PM »
Right now though I'm playing Garbage through the stereo so I'm fighting the urge.

I love Garbage!

Pause and lol for innuendo.

I wasn't sure if it's okay to add "Are they Asian?" after that sentence.  So I'll just put it here instead.  It's not racist this way!

5
General Gaming / Re: Sony getting hit Hard lately
« on: January 17, 2009, 12:37:26 PM »
I really REALLY hate Sony and their fifty million SKUs and models for each system.

I recently bought Sony brand component cables for my PS2, since it now looks like crap on my LCD HDTV.  The box says "For Playstation 3 and Playstation 2."  Call me crazy, but I took this to mean that the cables worked on all PS2s.

Turns out, my PS2 is one of the very few older models that doesn't support progressive scan.  Are you kidding me?  What is with Sony and making so many goddamn iterations of their consoles that they have wildly different features?

Something like this would maybe make me consider purchasing a PS3, if they still even had backwards compatibility.  At least then I could get the 3 PS3 games that interest me and play my PS2 games upscaled.  But that's not even possible anymore.  WTF?

I purchased the cables online, so I'd have to pay shipping to return them, and I really hate doing that.  I e-mailed Sony, so I hope they can do something about it.

6
General Chat / Re: Matt new jersey?
« on: January 14, 2009, 01:18:42 PM »
Maybe they ate it?

7
General Chat / Re: Matt new jersey?
« on: January 12, 2009, 11:18:52 PM »
My name's Matt and I'm from New Jersey.  I thought this topic was about me before I clicked on it.  I was so disappointed...

Your cat probably ran away because you left it alone for a week.

8
General Chat / Re: Dexter
« on: January 12, 2009, 11:16:45 PM »
I can't believe I haven't seen this thread yet.  Dexter's one of my favorite shows.  I started watching before season 2 when someone recommended it to me.  I've been hooked ever since.  It's definitely the best written show that I know of.  The writers are so good at crafting a story, and they don't rely on cheap cliffhangers.  And the characters...  I love nearly all the characters.  (more of that at the end.)

Finished the second season. Way too much Deus Ex Machina.. and some of the psychology is off. Great show though.

I think I actually used that term on a message board sometime last season.  There was quite a bit of deus ex machina, but it never ruined the show for me.  At the time, the character of Lila mildly annoyed me, but it wasn't too bad.  Now, I can't even go back to any episode with her in it.  I cannot stand anything about the character.  Her accent, her pallor, her "vampire tits."  (Still makes me laugh.)  I don't know why that is...

I thought the third season got off to a horrible start.  The first four or five episodes were slow-moving and BORING.  I came very close to not watching anymore.  But, wow, what they did with Miguel was awesome.  And I totally love LaGuerta as a character now.  I hated her first season.  Hated her in the first book (though it was a somewhat different character).  I sort of came around to her last season when she was sleeping with Pascal's fiancé.  But this season, they did a great job humanizing her.  Instead of the power hungry, unqualified woman, there's now a smart, confident lieutenant with feelings.

I love the gradual growth of characters like Deb and Angel.  Deb's really matured since the first season, to the point where she's gotten two promotions now.  She used to rely on Dexter so much for work-related stuff, but now she's doing it on her own.  And Angel used to be somewhat pathetic, but he's grown a bit, and now he's got his own little b-plot with the Italian chick.  You can tell the writing's great when you actually feel happy for a character.

I hate Rita though.  Liked her in the beginning, but she's been dead weight since she made Dexter go to NA.  She's nothing more than a plot device now to put Dexter in various situations.  I like Julie Benz, but as far as I'm concerned, she could leave the show and it wouldn't make any difference to me.

9
Nintendo Gaming / Re: No More Heroes for Wii!!!!
« on: January 12, 2009, 06:49:13 PM »
My hope for NMH2: make a game like Shadow of the Colossus - just a bunch of boss battles with no filler.  No stupid jobs in between.  Some of them were fun the first time, but I just want to get to the assassins, especially on my second playthrough.  It's okay to have the levels before the bosses, because some of them were really inventive, but don't rely on players killing hundreds of generic enemies behind the Thunder Ryu building just to make some money to get there.

Maybe the attempt at "satire" went a little too far in this respect, huh?

I don't think it was satire, I just think it was a poor design choice.  The whole get-a-job-to-unlock-assassination-missions thing was just a way to extend playtime.  You potentially have to kill thousands of enemies in this game just to get the money for the bosses, unless you don't want to buy any weapon upgrades or clothes or anything else.  Same thing with the open world.  It was a poor design choice that couldn't be implemented properly for whatever reason.

I think the whole satire point only needs to be proven by one thing.  By covering up a major twist with double speed voice playback (ie- Jeane's revelation about being Travis's sister), Suda knew that some sad gamer was going to record that footage, slow it down in a video program, then post it on YouTube for everyone to see. He knew that someone would care enough (or be desperate enough) to do that.  I know that when I went looking for it on YouTube, there were at least 5 different versions of that speech.  Success.

10
Nintendo Gaming / Re: No More Heroes for Wii!!!!
« on: January 12, 2009, 04:39:50 PM »
So I finally got around to finishing my second playthrough.  I've just got the first rank battle and of course the final SURPRISE battle left.  This is one of those games that was really easy to get back into.  I think it also helped that my first boss was Letz Shake, which helped me get into the groove a little bit, ha.  But yeah, I totally love this game.  It's got some flaws, but I can see past all of them because it's just so much fun.

As for all this talk of puerility, did you know anything about this game before playing it, IceCold?  Before I played, I knew all about the toilet saving and the masturbatory recharging animation.  And the game truly is a satire.  You don't really get any of the game's story until the very, very end, and at that point you can see that the whole thing is just making fun of gamers.  (And for the record, I flove this game, and I hated "Wanted."  Hands down, worst movie I've ever seen in a theater.  I was so tempted to leave after 30 min and get my money back.)

My hope for NMH2: make a game like Shadow of the Colossus - just a bunch of boss battles with no filler.  No stupid jobs in between.  Some of them were fun the first time, but I just want to get to the assassins, especially on my second playthrough.  It's okay to have the levels before the bosses, because some of them were really inventive, but don't rely on players killing hundreds of generic enemies behind the Thunder Ryu building just to make some money to get there.

11
TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Hotel Dusk: Room 215
« on: January 06, 2009, 06:45:46 PM »
I don't remember any particularly hard bowling mini-game/puzzle... and I *loved* Hotel Dusk... ?

It's where you bowl with Louie in the hallway outside his room.  I couldn't get any control over the ball whatsoever.  I would let go of the ball in the middle of the screen, and it would veer hard left and end up being a gutter ball.  Every single time except two, and I have no idea how that happened.  It was really frustrating and I hadn't saved before starting it, so I just sent the game back to Gamefly.  Hopefully they'll send me something that's not in the bottom half of my queue this time.

12
Nintendo Gaming / Re: Guitar Hero World Tour
« on: January 05, 2009, 05:01:15 PM »
Since the game's been out for a couple months now, I'm going to repeat this question:  How's the user-generated content?  Are there worthwhile tracks on there or just a bunch of garbage that's not worth your time?  Original compositions or hidden-covers?

I found two Muse songs that were cleverly titled as one word to (seemingly) avoid copyright infringement or whatever.  "Time Is Running Out" is okay, but the "Starlight" cover is awesome.  It gets the drums down perfect, which is the best part of the song.  Other than that, I downloaded some Zelda songs.  There's a good Gerudo Valley song, but it's really hard on guitar.

Overall, I love this game.  More than Rock Band.  The major difference is the graphics.  Everything in Rock Band is so dark.  The menus, the song list, the performances.  Guitar Hero is bright and so much more appealing to look at.  The Red Octane guitar is also far superior to whoever makes RB's.  My only gripe is the singing.  The mic sensitivity is WAY too high, to the point where just moving my arm makes the pitch vary wildly.  As such, I'm having a lot of trouble with the vocals.  With RB, I can 5* about half the songs on medium (and I'm not a good singer at all), but in this game, I can barely 3* songs on easy.  (But this is all on the 360 version, YMMV, who knows.)

13
TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Hotel Dusk: Room 215
« on: January 05, 2009, 04:45:28 PM »
*dusting off a 2-year old topic*

I got this game through Gamefly recently and I was enjoying it up to a point.  The story, though glacially paced, was intriguing, and I found many of the characters to be believable.  But the damn bowling minigame ruined it for me.  No matter what I do, the ball goes all the way to one side of the screen.  After countless throws, I've only knocked down pins on two occasions, and I have no idea how I did it.  So, because of this needlessly tedious and poorly controlled minigame, I'm sending the game back without finishing it.

I seriously hate stuff like this in games.  I never beat Starfox Adventures on the Gamecube because I couldn't press A fast enough.  Just stupid, pointless stuff that ruins games.  I hate it!

14
General Gaming / Re: Fable II
« on: December 12, 2008, 05:13:49 PM »
This game is laughably bad. <snip>

I've spent a few hours with the game so far, and I really don't know what to think about it.  I agree about the NPCs – I don't like them.  I also find the combat to be completely repetitive and unimaginative.  (I haven't come close to dying yet, so I didn't know there was no penalty.)  And so far, the story seems really pointless.  I'm just buying clothes and hair dye for my character to make her look like different people instead of doing the quests.

On the other hand, I love the graphics.  I think the dog is a great addition.  But the dog isn't enough to make me want to play the game.  I spent last night watching stuff on the DVR and reading a magazine instead of playing this game (which is a Gamefly rental, by the way, so the faster I finish it, the faster I get a new [hopefully better] game).

Maybe I'm just a little worn out on open world RPGs or something, because I spent 65 hours with Fallout 3, and it's only been a week or so since I last played it.  But overall, the game's not drawing me in as much as I hoped it would.  I think I'll return it soon and maybe check it out again in a few months.

15
General Gaming / Re: New Xbox Experience (NXE)
« on: November 30, 2008, 11:12:34 AM »
Has anybody tried installing a game to disk?

I installed Fallout 3.  I haven't noticed a difference in load times at all, but the game runs so much more quietly without the disc drive running.  I think saving the wear and tear on my drive is worth the trouble to install.  I only have a 20 GB drive, so I'll have to delete Fallout before I install another game.  But still, I think it's worth it.

16
General Gaming / Re: New Xbox Experience (NXE)
« on: November 28, 2008, 12:24:08 PM »
I absolutely love the Netflix streaming, I don't really like the rest any better or worse than the old way.

Same here.  I signed up for a 2 week free trial, and I'm really tempted to continue my membership.  I think the new interface is a little clunky, but it's a lot better looking than the old one.  I like the friend setup a lot better, but I agree with Caliban about the startup.  It should automatically go to My Xbox.  It makes no sense to have it start anywhere else.

17
General Gaming / Re: Official Fallout 3 Thread
« on: November 23, 2008, 01:42:14 PM »
I think I encountered an achievement bug last night.  I finished Scientific Pursuits and Tranquility Lane in one sitting, but only got the achievement for Tranquility Lane.  The Scientific Pursuits quest is grayed out in my Pip Boy, and there are no more steps to it.  So I assume that I finished that quest by starting Tranquility Lane, but never got the achievement.

I went to an earlier save today to finish the quest again, but I still didn't get the achievement.  This time, I know I saw "Scientific Pursuits Quest Completed" come up on the screen when Tranquility Lane started.  Very annoying.

18
General Gaming / Re: Official Fallout 3 Thread
« on: November 22, 2008, 02:49:19 PM »
I heard someone complain about NPCs falling off ledges and respawning in an unreachable position in the PC version, is that an issue in the console versions as well?

I'm playing on the 360, and I've had NPCs be in unreachable positions.  They didn't respawn there or anything, they were just stuck there when I found them.

What's stranger is that I've entered areas where enemies or NPCs fall from the sky, land on the ground, then die.  One time, I walked out of the Jefferson Memorial (long before a certain story quest occurs), and some random Wastelander fell from the sky.  She had some good loot on her (including a key whose accompanying lock I have yet to find), but I have no idea where she came from.  Then there are other times where the corpse of an enemy I've already killed will fly up into the air when I enter an area.  Very strange.

19
General Gaming / Re: Official Fallout 3 Thread
« on: November 21, 2008, 12:40:38 PM »
I'm at Level 13, about 25 hours in.  Two things:

1. I can't get the damn music out of my head!  All morning I've been singing (in my head), "I'm as corny as Kansas in August..."  Make it stop.

2. I think I encountered an achievement bug last night.  I finished Scientific Pursuits and Tranquility Lane in one sitting, but only got the achievement for Tranquility Lane.  The Scientific Pursuits quest is grayed out in my Pip Boy, and there are no more steps to it.  So I assume that I finished that quest by starting Tranquility Lane, but never got the achievement.

By the way, how creepy was Tranquility Lane?  As soon as I saw I was in a sterilized, Rockwell-esque world, I got goosebumps.  After spending so much time in the Wasteland, it was really jarring to be in a "normal" world all of a sudden.  Very creepy.  I only did one of Betty's tasks, because I'm playing with good Karma and I quickly realized that she'd be asking me to do more and more sinister things.  So far, I'd have to say this is the best quest in the game, if only for the mind-forking.

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General Gaming / Re: Braid (XBLA) - The next Portal?
« on: November 12, 2008, 10:20:36 AM »
What I liked most about this game is the interesting design decision where the last few puzzle pieces actually can't be collected because the puzzles have no possible solution. It really turned my expectations on their head, and I admire that innovation. It took me hours to realize that I was actually at the intended end of the game.

That made me laugh out loud.  If you really have spent hours on them, maybe you should consult a walkthrough.  There are some that are really ingeniously designed and need a "think outside the box" mentality.

These stars, what are they for, or do?

What are they for?  Well, they complete the constellation of Andromeda outside the house.  (And yes, there is a relation between the myth of Andromeda and the storyline of Braid.)  They also provide an added layer of challenge to the game.  And something interesting happens when you get the final star.  It relates to one of the storyline threads that was introduced in the Prologue.

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General Gaming / Re: Braid (XBLA) - The next Portal?
« on: November 11, 2008, 10:26:27 AM »
Then there's the whole thing with the stars.  I don't know how people discovered this.  I have a list of the levels they appear on, and I've made it to one, but wasn't able to actually get it.  The unfortunate thing is that if you've already completed the puzzle for World 3, you have to start your game over to get one of the stars.  So I'm contemplating if I should start over before trying to get any stars.

Care to share that list? All I can find on google are links to the videos, and I'd hate to spoil them any more than I have to. A little nudge toward where they are would be useful, since I went through the whole game without a clue they existed.

The eight locations are:
Overworld, 2-2, 4-5, 4-7, 5-4, 6-5, 6-6, 1-1

Most likely, that won't be enough to get some of them.  There are some jumps where you have to be so exact that it's extremely difficult without a walkthrough.  I don't even know how people discovered them on their own.  I still haven't gotten the one in 1-1.  I know what I need to do, I'm just not totally sure how to go about it.  I give it a try every once in a while.

22
General Gaming / Re: Official Fallout 3 Thread
« on: November 10, 2008, 12:16:54 AM »
I'm enjoying this game so far.  It reminds me A LOT of Mass Effect, to the point where I keep pressing Y to heal myself.  The dialog trees are especially... reminiscent?  I don't want to say "blatant ripoff," but, yeah, you pretty much get three answer choices for questions, one good, one neutral, one evil.  Then you sometimes get answer choices that have to do with your skills, which is similar to the charisma/intimidation in Mass Effect.

So it's exactly like Fallout 1 and 2, and every Bioware game ever.

Or exactly like Bethesda who basically started this genre long before Bioware got into the mix.

Yeah yeah, I never played PC games, and Mass Effect was actually my first western RPG ever.  I was always a console gamer, and a Nintendo-only one at that until 2001.  I love Mass Effect though.  There's so much wrong with that game, but it does so much right that I have an unnatural attraction toward it.  I almost feel like I'm cheating on it with Fallout 3.

23
General Gaming / Re: Mirror's Edge
« on: November 09, 2008, 06:41:00 PM »
On the 1UP Show, they said the game is about 6 hours long. While it's not surprising, I hope the 6 hours is solid and the incentive to replay the levels is strong.

I would think so.  I wasn't very excited about this game, but I've played through the demo level a couple of times because it was really fun.  I imagine more complex levels will have even more replay value, like finding the optimum route or some shortcuts to get a better time.  I just hope they fix the jaggies.

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General Gaming / Re: Official Fallout 3 Thread
« on: November 09, 2008, 06:38:43 PM »
The recruit people you have to meet a certain condition, there's a ghoul that you can buy his contract or do something else, there's one that you find somewhere in the wasteland, 2 of them only join your if your evil and 2 of them join you if your good.  Some of them are free, some of them you have to pay for, and a few after a specific mission.

I kind of figured that, because when I tried to recruit Jericho, a message came up saying I was too good.  I'm still in the early stages of the game, I assume, as I've only done 2 story quests since leaving the vault.  Does having someone with you make combat a lot easier?  Because I've put most of my skills in science, medicine, repair, and lockpicking.  Basically, I have a lot of weapons in good/great condition, but I suck at using them.

25
General Gaming / Re: Official Fallout 3 Thread
« on: November 09, 2008, 02:22:39 PM »
I'm enjoying this game so far.  It reminds me A LOT of Mass Effect, to the point where I keep pressing Y to heal myself.  The dialog trees are especially... reminiscent?  I don't want to say "blatant ripoff," but, yeah, you pretty much get three answer choices for questions, one good, one neutral, one evil.  Then you sometimes get answer choices that have to do with your skills, which is similar to the charisma/intimidation in Mass Effect.  Then, of course, there's the whole RPG-shooter hybrid thing going on.

Aside from all that, the atmosphere in this game is much creepier.  I haven't been able to recruit anyone yet (I'm not even sure how that works), so I'm by myself all the time.  The first time I stepped on a frag mine and it blew me up, I think I jumped a few inches off my chair.  I was underground in the train tunnels, then all of a sudden there's some beeping, then a BOOM, then there's blood on the screen.  I was not expecting that.

Right now, I'm taking a break from Fallout 3 to play Mercenaries 2, which I just got from Gamefly.  It's a lot more fast paced, which is nice, and I haven't experienced nearly as many bugs or glitches (ie - Fallout has frozen on me once, and I've seen about a dozen graphical glitches).  And it's not as serious, which is also nice.  Fallout is kind of heavy to spend a few hours with it every day.  For me, at least.

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