Good deal. The U has hardly lost any value at all, still commanding $300 for one new. More than a Xbone Slim! :shock: Even despite everything it has not been discounted. And if the lack of functional tablet replacements are any indication, it may only increase in value on the second hand market years down the road once the supply runs out and old schoolers attempt to gain access to classic Nintendo exclusives they can't get anywhere else.

At the 50th anniversary Star Trek convention this weekend in NYC. Got my photo with Levar Burton yesterday and when I told him he was why I became an engineer, he gave me a fist bump. My life is complete now.

^
I felt the same way about Dark Souls (and I did the same thing as what you're planning).

I'd recommend moving on to Dark Souls though. That way, when you end up replaying Demon's Souls down the road, it'll feel even more like a new experience since you'll be playing a new build and have forgotten some of it, making it fresh again.

I'm with Calshot. Demon's Souls is great, but in the interest of not getting burnt out or anything, it'd probably be good to head straight into Dark Souls. Can't remember which I played first anymore, but I know I played them both back-to-back for my first times through, and going directly from one to another was a great experience.

Happy birthday, Thief!

^^It definitely improves as it goes on. The original Fatal Frame is easily the weakest, and I can see how it might be really dated for anyone playing it now for the first time.
Personally, I think Fatal Frame III is the best of them. FFII is just kind of a retread of the first game but taking place in an entire town rather than a mansion, while FFIII actually mixes things up a bit. Instead of being stuck in this dank, oppressive atmosphere for the entire duration of the game, you're occasionally allowed to wander around a relaxing safe area in the form of the protagonist's apartment. But as the game goes on, ghostly elements start showing up in that as well, making the "safe" area feel less and less so. It really shot the atmosphere up to 11 for me personally, and I'm still a bit confused as to why so many still seem to prefer Fatal Frame II, even though III is obviously the more refined and varied. I'm thinking it's a nostalgia thing.
And yeah, the gameplay does get better, though it's been a while, so I can't really name anything specific. When I first played the games, I played them all one after the other, and I do remembering thinking the "combat," in particular, had definitely gotten better and better as it progressed. But if item-hunting and A-to-B-and-back-to-A gameplay is that annoying to you, I'm not sure if the exploration will get much better. That's basically Japanese-style horror gaming in a nutshell, even extending to the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. You might be taking pictures in this, but it's not much different from actually finding items.

Still don't know how to summon other players into my world, or any of that, so I'm just going at it alone.
You have to be human to do it. Use a Humanity from your inventory (I think they were Humanities in that one...), and your Hollow status will go away; you'll actually look like whatever you made in the character creation screen, rather than the zombie'd-out prune face you are usually. Then, just before a boss room, there might be a glowing symbol on the ground which shows a character when you stand near it. That's how you summon others.

This is sooo damn awesome. "NO! DON'T GO!"

Picked up Pokemon (Praise the) Sun yesterday. Having a lot of fun with it. Its been ages since I actually played one.

I'm playing it in German to help me study, and it is a slog, but the game seems cool despite my language choice.

Heh, nice. My main reason for starting to play (and watch) everything in English was the better quality. German translations could be better most of the time, and dubbing in games was utter trash and usually unbearable in comparison to the original. Improving my English was a great side effect of that. It's a fun way to get more used to another language. So how are you getting along with your studies? Could we have a conversation in German? : D

Yeah, I can imagine that being pretty tough. Hope it doesn't ruin the fun too much! :lol: If I may suggest some improvements to that bit of German you wrote: You'd rather say "Wir können eine Unterhaltung/ein Gespräch auf Deutsch führen" than "in Deutsch haben", which sounds too, well, English. Plus you'd rather say something like "noch nicht so gut" or simply "schlecht" instead of "schwach". Nobody would have trouble understanding your version of course, it's close enough and perfectly fine for a non-native speaker. Hope that didn't come off too douchy. If you ever need help with something the internet doesn't offer, feel free to ask! Translation is fun.

I didn't expect to be this upset about Carrie Fisher's death. It's not like I knew her. It's not like I'm mourning anyone that was present in my own, real life. And it's not like she was a saint or superhuman in her role-model-worthiness. I tell myself I'm mourning a character more than a person... but that's not quite entirely true.

What I'm mourning, are the bricks and mortar that built my childhood. People who epitomized youthfulness and vitality to me - in various fields, but especially the myriad creative arts - are checking out right and left. It is both a reminder of mortality (my own bearing down on me faster than any of us like to think about or concede,) and a sad further erosion of the symbols and landmarks of my "wonder years."

Yet another emphatic notice that some things and people are gone forever, and will never be coming back. It's easy to just say, "Well that's life." Or, "So what? People die every day. You don't cry about those poor unfortunates." Well, duh. (Though I do try to spare a thought for them whenever possible.) But there are billions of people on Earth, all of whom will live and die in their course, and it's not practical or possible to be aware of all of their births and passings.

Those we do become privy to though, naturally affect us more than those we're unaware of. And even if we don't know them, those who play important roles in our formative years... those into whom we invest empathetic and cathartic emotional weight whether it be a musician whose song we wore out a tape or record listening to repeatedly for years, or an actor who portrayed a beloved character that meant the world to us... when they go, we feel it.

We shouldn't, probably. It's not rational. But we feel it. And I feel this one particularly acutely for whatever reason.

If Yu Suzuki passed away tomorrow, I imagine many here would feel similarly. Or maybe not. Maybe some here are such realists or objectivists that nothing phases them. I don't know. But this one hit me hard.

Anyway... just rambling.

Just got the PS4 Uncharted Collection finally and playing through Uncharted 1.
I've actually played through U1 the most of any of them.
1st time with the Six axis controller. No rumble.
2nd time with the Dual Shock 3 cause that was a new thing to actually have rumble again and a game that supported it.
3rd time when they introduced trophies
4th time when I went for the platinum
5th time a few years ago just for nostalgia
6th time now with this remaster.

And boy does it look beautiful. Always did look great but now with all the enhancements its squeaky clean and has that brilliant Naughty Dog lighting.

Also I love how linear and basic the story is. No jumping around in time and dealing with a thousand emotions from side characters. It's like the "A New Hope" of the Uncharted series. Whats the plot? Treasure of El Dorado. What do you gotta do? Get it. Who's with you? Sully and Elaine.
Simple fun adventure.

I think this is one of the first games out there with such casual cursing and sexual innuendo's too. A new era in mature gaming where you can be both light hearted but still call someone an asshole at the same time.

Thief wrote: I feel bad for our user Switch. Everyone is gunna think he's named after the Nintendo console now.

What makes you think it wasn't named after him?

PS4 is just a better system

Bro. Of course it is. It has been out since 2013 or so?

Get a PS4 for now and a Switch later on.
Exaggerating. Ofcourse ofcourse.

On that point, PS4 didn't have a stellar launch line up either, Killzone, ACIV, Knack, BF4, Need for Speed Rivals. All kinda mediocre to good games. Killzone being the best of them and then it still had a great 12 months after that though.

And thats cause Sony actually worked out that they had enough compelling material to launch when they did. Microsoft too.

Nintendo needed to take a step back and focus on making the best launch as possible with enough compelling games at launch.
If it was up to me I would have the Switch release in the late summer-early fall when more games are ready and developers can get a head start.

Releasing now makes it look like a rush job just so they can still capture the fanboy sales from Zelda that would have been on Wii U and pushing them to get a Switch. It's a game that should have come out last year but they have so little amount of content to sell, so they pull this.
How anyone can still be exclusively a one console per gen Nintendo person that isnt a child is beyond me.

PC + Nintendo is a workable combo. Hell just about anything that'd come out on Xbone or whatever has a superior version on PC.

Just don't play video games. You don't owe it them fall back in love with them. Do something new.

Thief, good Reddit thread on how I feel.

https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/com ... ou_behind/

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ee54l3V6eLo/maxresdefault.jpg
Vagrant Story (PS1)
Most likely the best looking 3D game of the system due to the fantastic art direction but it could use a HD treatment for modern systems. A shout out as well to the possibly best localization of a Japanese game to the West, arguably surpassing the original.

http://xboxaddict.com/images/screenshots/10068.jpg
Breakdown (Xbox)
This game was the inspiration for Mirror's Edge. The first FPS to focus on hand-to-hand combat with chain attacks, cartwheel shooting a la The Matrix and backflips. Probably it's the first one as well to give you a competent AI companion. Shenmue fans should appreciate the level of immersion given to the game as your avatar goes through the animation of searching a body, picking up an health item and examining it before finally consuming it.

http://assets1.ignimgs.com/2006/07/17/god-hand-20060717044011755-1586290_640w.jpg
God Hand (PS2)
Here is likely where PlatinumGames cemented their great taste for action focused games, back then known as Clover Studios.

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff396/aronfc22/sg201306/sunday-gameNierps306_zps0cfb777c.jpg
Nier (PS3, Xbox360)
If Automata proves to be a successful game, this would be a great title to be reworked on as the mechanics could use a bit of ironing and the visuals were not up to standards even back in 2010 when it was released.

Well I must suck because I'm dying like crazy. Guardians kill you instantly with their beam and avoiding it is basically impossible without cover. Those things are terrifying. :sad: I can't seem to do much of any damage to them so the best strategy so far seems to be to panic when hearing the sound effect cue that they're near and run like hell dodging and weaving until you're away. This is one dangerous overworld. :shock:

I did wander into Hyrule Castle which is apparently the final area in the whole game after an early quest objective sent me there to confront ganon. I quickly got trounced and had to turn back. But damn, that music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aWHkYWslcw

Think Ocarina of Time's guards in the garden sneaking, except ten times more epic and dangerous scaling walls and avoiding detection by guardians. I guess you can apparently go straight to ganon if you're some kind of psycho gamer but I don't nearly have the ability to do that with only three hearts and few weapons so I had to turn back and pursue the main quest to get stronger.

^Watch the original version by yamaguchi momoe-sama dewd. She's so freaking cool.

Thief wrote: can't tell if you're being serious.

Not at all man, I figured my response would have been taken as a joke!

Wude: woohduuh ziming: zi like zinc, ming like ming dynasty. At least thats what I heard from a chinese YouTuber long ago.

Purchased a neo geo cd loose with no controller, a neo geo control pad and metal slug for the sega saturn.
Pics will follow soon, also bought a house and getting married soon.

Wude is almost correct you'll want a really small break between wu and de like wooh-duh. Ziming is really nice. :D

Edit: No cigar on finding the video with the correct pronunciation, I did remember another let's player who even explained how wude is pronounced and what it really means but I can't seem to find the bit where he says it.

Edit2: listning to your recording again, wude nr2 is correct nevermind my comment. :)

http://i.imgur.com/OXtXf8o.jpg
Earth's Dawn got mediocre reviews on PS4 but 8s and 9s on PC. Dunno why. It's an awesome game. It's like Odin Sphere set in Gear of War. Combat not quite as good nor as well animated as Vanillaware but still a damn fun game. Love the art as it shows the grim world the game takes place in.

http://i.imgur.com/jorunuz.jpg
A Shmup with 3000 stages and love the boxart.

http://i.imgur.com/5tiXBmQ.jpg
Oh man I love this game. Remake of Target Earth on Genesis. Of course other games in the Leynos series. I love the box art. It just feels like it was taken straight from a 16 bit era game. It has that 80s and early 90s anime style to it. Very detailed. Anime today I don't watch. Just all has this less detailed super glossy look to it. Meh. Really prefer that 80s and 90s detailed and grit look.

http://i.imgur.com/pMeV72C.jpg

Watched the new Guardians of the Galaxy for the 2nd time last night. I saw it by myself the first time, but took the wife to see it yesterday. I already can't wait for Volume 3.

Harcore Henry.
Awesome and amazing. With this and the John Wick movies having come out in the span of a scant few years, it makes it feel like we're having kind of a small renaissance in the action genre. Original, inventive, and most of all, absolutely fun as all hell. We need more like this. More movies where the stunt men are pretty much entirely in charge.
Oh, and Sharlto Copley is great in this. But that's nothing new; he's always pretty great in anything.

Ex Machina.
Not a bad flick. Covers a lot of the usual bases that other movies about AI tend to cover, but tries to do it a little more "artistically," I suppose. It's totally gripping while you're watching it , but I'd say it kind of fails to pay everything off in the end. There's so much build-up, and so much expectation grows that something really, really clever is going to happen in the story... but then it doesn't. It ends a bit predictably, with kind of a weak "twist" that totally failed to get much of a reaction out of me.
Like I said though, it's not bad. Oscar Isaac is always a great presence to have around, and the girl playing the robot does a great job. The guy playing the main character kind of sucks though. About as uninteresting and awkward as a lead actor can be.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Better than I thought it'd be, though its value is a bit lopsided.
On the one hand, it's got a really cool sci-fi story, totally reminiscent of the kinds of wacky things that might happen in old 70s deep-space comics. There are a few gags here and there that are really good (usually stuff with Drax and Mantis), and Kurt Russel is great, as always.
But on the other hand, the movie is usually trying waaaaaaay too hard to be funny, and it actually ruins the pacing at a few points. There are entire five-minute scenes dedicated to singular gags that might be fun enough on their own, but break the movie up way too much. Most of the humor falls pretty flat anyway. And there's way too much of Baby Groot (they're blatantly trying to cash in on peoples' retarded love for "cute" things, but it just makes me gag most of the time). And jesus, I've never seen another movie with more "heroes posing for the trailer" shots than this one. You know the type; some of the mains gathered together, looking around intensely as the camera spins around them and tons of CGI shit happens in the background, or just a simple slo-mo walking-toward-the-camera shot. There are so many of those shots in here, I sometimes just felt like I was watching a trailer. Because that kind of shit is made specifically for trailers. Which ultimately makes it feel a bit cheap, since "advertising" always feels like it's front-and-center, even when you're watching the movie itself.
Either way, it's still a generally fun flick. Definitely better than Civil War, especially in hindsight.

Thief wrote: Can someone link me (or pm me if necessary) the video in the "shenmue 3 not coming to e3" thread that was locked? It was pretty funny and I wanted to save it.

Here you go, dude:

I come back last month and now Spokane and Brotherman! So who's next to come back?!


My guess is QWERTY :P
maybe I'm in the minority but I genuinely liked qwerty even if a lot of people found his juvenile trolling to be tiresome I thought he was a pretty decent guy. I wonder where oppy is at too, been ages he hasn't been around.

Don't talk to me about axioms when I don't even know what the fuck they are. Science is about discovery and understanding and turning sand into something that we can glue our eyeballs to.

And Thief... I wasn't talkin about religion or atheists, the conversation had just moved onto the "belief in science is faith" angle. People scared about their careers need to grow a pair of bollocks or get the fuck out.

Demons Souls servers shutting down in Feb. Time to invade some fools while you still can. I know I will be.

https://atlus.com/fond-farewell-demons-souls-servers/

edit: I bet (hope) there's a Demon's Souls remaster incoming. Its not just Atlus. Bandai and Sony shutting down servers in all regions at the same time.

Lucky Hit actually did this three years ago to the very day (playlist here), so a new playthrough will be a great watch

Happy birthday, Ryo, and happy deathday, Iwao!

This is an interesting idea. Never even crossed my mind.

I did this "annualy" a couple of years ago, two or three times. It's a fun way to experience the game for sure.
Really shows you how little there is to do on some days and how much on others. Of course watching the intro and then putting the game aside for 4 days is already one hell of a start.

should we call it a "slow-run"?

I've been thinking for years that someone should do this. Glad to see it actually happen!

this time I'll only be playing an in-game day each day, no more, no less. If time skips forward for Ryo, then I am not allowed to play Shenmue until the realtime day and ingame day sync up again. Anyone wanting to join me is welcome--although I understand why it may not be super appealing of a playthrough.

Since today is the day that Iwao Hazuki died, I'll be starting today. (although there's not much to play today haha)

I'll also be keeping a personal journal entry of everything that happens in game.
That's exactly the way we played the first game 13 years ago as you see here:

http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19679&start=15

I see many old faces joining in the game there. Memories...