I would say he's philosophical and a bit introverted. Despite a general quietness, he has no problems stating (and sticking to) his opinion when it's something he's interested in. Probably likes to read, and I would suppose he has a quirky, off-the-wall, but fun sense of humor.

That's just a guess on the "aura" I sense - I've never really spoken directly with a1s myself, but I'm told I have a gift

(that will be a totally funny statement if I'm completely wrong)

People must know me better than I think... there's no way I could resist that



Okies, a1s, you got me, I'll do one for you. I really have no clue what you look like, and I have a tendency to draw male faces a bit feminine (bad habit), but we'll see.

that flashface thing is totally cheating!!!

I recant my offer to draw portraits of people I've never seen before!! [/whine]

Seriously, I'd like to see what michael_gry can do, he's way better than I am with the studio art skillz from what I've seen in any case ;P

Well, I think Star Ocean just kicked FF's butt, though it could present the story a bit better in places. Don't expect a lot of gorgeous cinematic scenes in SO3, anyway - though some people prefer those be tossed anyway. There's a few, but the majority of the game's story cutscenes are done using the same style graphics as standard play.

If you hate the eternal random battles of FF, you'll probably like SO3 a lot better - the monsters are on the area maps, so you can totally avoid them when you get sick of fighting, and rather than being a menu-based turn system, it's an real-time action system, so when you get bored of fighting in a certain style, you can always mix it up, take manual control of different characters that have different fighting styles while letting the others go on auto, etc.

Oh, and there's relief for people who hate FF's minigames.... there are a few in SO3, but omgXx0rz, they're actually fun  

Hmm... this topic almost seems to be created for me.

That could be a completely egotistical thought, of course, but surely it's somewhat well-known that I can't resist an invitation to draw someone I've never seen?

On a whim, I picked up a used copy of Star Ocean: Til the End of Time (SO3), with the expectation it would be an utter crapstorm of sticky-sweet, completely predictable Japanese RPG stylings (or so the awesomely bad, stereotypical cover led me to believe).

But you know, being me, I like to subject myself to torture for the sake of all things Japanese + RPG. I had just melted my brain with the railroad-nail-through-the temple known as Grandia III a few months ago, so I figured this couldn't be much worse.

I was so wrong.

In a good way.

SO3 is one of the best (if not the best) Japanese style RPGs I've played in years. I never had the opportunity to play the previous two games in the franchaise, but SO3 has renewed my faith in the genre. Not since Skies of Arcadia have I played a game that was so engaging on many levels. And really, SO3 beats Skies of Arcadia hands down (except for SoA's airships, which let's face it, are the coolest things ever).

The graphics are good - with the area graphics being triple A+ gorgeous, and the anime-inspired character graphics varying from pretty spiffy to fairly annoying at times.

The characters are interesting and well-developed, though I do realize a lot of people are instantly put off by anime style representation. Tough.

The puzzles are good, and challenging, without plunging gamers into complete tedium - nice balance.

The story is about the best for an RPG I've played in years, with the only competitors being the first installment of the Xenosaga series (the second and third were good, too, but they sort of went downhill quickly) and the .hack//GU series thus far. It could just be that I'm intrigued by the mixing of traditional fantasy elements with a more sci-fi environment that all three series have going for them to varying degrees, but then again, FF does that to some extent, though their execution is getting very, very tired. Rip Van Winkle tired.

The real kicker is just the sheer volume of hidden crap this game has. For avid story-seekers such as myself, it was a total blow to my ego to find out just how much crap I had missed. I pride myself, as many RPG fans do, on being able to find near everything my first time through a game, sans guide. My tally on stuff I've missed (and this is story bits, not goodies) thus far is at least 50% - giving the game true replay value to people who enjoy the actual story element to RPGs.

And of course, I have to mention the Invention module - dedicated players can register with a Craftsman Guild and go on to invent new weapons, potions, accessories, etc etc etc. The benefit to doing so is fame, fortune, and the ability to have freaking awesome gear fairly early on in the game. I managed to make Mythril armor really early on that lasted me through the entire first disk.

All in all, it's a complex, intriguing game that I can't really encapsulate short of a novel (okay, maybe I could do so in a novella, but still). I'm seriously considering hunting down the first couple games in the series just to see what I missed (and flog myself for managing to miss it).

Caaaan you feeeeeeel the looooove toniiiiight??

Don't worry, Potatoe, you wouldn't want to go anyway - the Finnish Idol finalist is probably even more frightening than Elton John

The story is cool, the execution is lame (shame on David Boringanus).

Which is probably why they decided to give the vampire played by a GOOD actor a soul, too

He is really good as Angelus, though, he should stay evil

BeefontheBone, on May 29 2007, 02:59 PM, said:

Agreed. Freddy was the one saving grace, though. Otherwise, it's a pretty boring show. Well, Conner was cool, except for when he's being so whiny.

...wait... he's always whiny...

...anyway, David Boreaneaz (??) is pretty good in Bones, though I get annoyed when he goes into "I forgot how to play any role but Angel" mode.


Gaaahh, I hate Angel, such a boring character

*contemplates changing Sean's title to "Teh Sexagic"*

*realizes Raffles would probably kill her and decides not to do so*

*...for now*

wb, Sean

wow, I didn't realize people didn't know Juni Ori, I thought he was infamous

Wow, you and Tom have very similar speaking mannerisms - it was like watching him talk, only not him. weeeeeird.

Okay, on topic, it's pretty neat that your clip was chosen

You went to all the states around mine.

How could you tour the southeast, and not go into Florida? You even went to Kentucky... that's just weird

Happy Birthday-ness, you Finni-finn-finn....

Heyas everyone,

I would like to extend my apologies for the site being down the past few days.

Kosta is doing his best to take care of the situation, and our ETA on the new server is by tomorrow afternoon. We are looking forward to faster browsing and download speeds for your perusal pleasure, yay.

I feel uncomfortable enough being a barely-known administrator of a freeware gaming site... if I was ever actually famous, I'd have to go into hiding.

But, if that happened, I promise I'd remember you whilst holing up in my hermitage. I'd invite you to visit, but that would somewhat contradict the point of being an eccentric recluse

*sigh*

I obviously need to spend more time reading and brushing up on my vocabulary, it took me a few minutes to think of synonyms for hermit

Take it from me, kiddies... real life rots the brain

The "Nerd Trio" is my favorite listed - they made me laugh a lot. By the by, their official designation is "the Troika".

However, imho, the truly best Big Bad (in the same season) was:

spoiler said:

Season 5 is my favorite because the ending made me cry a lot - mainly because of Spike's reaction.

My favorite Willow pairing is Oz, because come on, Oz is cool as heck. And a werewolf. I liked Tara, and the "alternate lifestyle" thing was interesting, and they were sweet together, but I just wasn't a fan.

My favorite Buffy pairing is Spike, because the interaction between Buffy and Spike was about a billion times more interesting than that between Angel or Riley and Buffy. Angel and Buffy are at the bottom of my list, because there's only so much depressive moping I can really take from a supposedly strong heroine, and Buffy and Angel were really only interesting when he went all evil.

I love Faith as a slayer, but I still love Buffy more. She's been through just as much crap as Faith, with only a fraction of the whining. Faith looks better in leather pants, though.

And I would disagree with Juni about Buffy not having humanity - she makes sucking it up and putting on a tough face an art. Throughout the entire series, you see cracks in the mask she puts up, a lot of the episodes are dedicated to exposing her soft, squishy interior. She tries to do everything herself because she doesn't want to hurt the people she loves, or see them get hurt because of her. She also hates what she is, and that she had no choice in the matter. She just wants a normal life, and if that isn't human, I dunno what is.

Hey guys, just an update... I got As in both art classes last term (Drawing II and Digital Photography).

One of my favorite projects from Digital Photography:
(the project was to piece together a black and white composite image inspired by the photographer Uelsmann's work)

I eat cancer for breakfast. It's chewy.

Oh, it's not enough for me to say they won, you guys actually want to see the craptacularness for yourselves? (j/k)

Well, for those who have been to my photo gallery, you've already seen versions of what I entered.

I decided to go simple rather than an all-out display of photoshop craziness, so I used the Crazy Sheep and Cabbage Head images and fixed minor agitating reality issues (the dead leaf bits on the cabbage, the weird twiggies on the sheep's face), and tweaked the colors a bit to give them more oomph. Then, they were blown up to ridiculous proportion at the insistence of my professor and printed for display.

I don't have the tweaked images available atm to make them viewable here (just checking the forum in between work and class), but I can post them later. I'd rather go down to the gallery and take pictures of them with the big, shiny ribbons on to post, though, as you can get the idea from my gallery (they're not really hugely different)

The Crazy Sheep (retitled "Dolly") won "Judges Choice Award" in category (red ribbon, equivalent to second place), and the Cabbage Head (retitled "Fresh") won "Award of Merit" in category (yellow ribbon, equivalent to third place).

I wonder (since I'm now apparently an award-winning photographer )  if I can demand more money from my dad's company for the photography I've been contracted to do for their website design?

Anyhoo, thanks everybody for the support, you're all very kind

Some of you maybe knew I was preparing for a gallery show / art competition.

Well, it opened today, and all of the photography pieces I entered won ribbons.

Whee.

Well, it made me feel pretty good, anyway.

awww, I missed it too

Well, Happy Birthday, Daka-laka, and I'm happy you seemed to have a good time (as a hell of a hangover might suggest)

Please don't misinform the community - you received one warn mostly due to your history of behavior, not due to just the one isolated incident. Good faith goes a long way around here, as we try to determine firstly whether someone intends harm or not, and at that point, you hadn't displayed any.

Besides, it was over before you chose to give commentary.

However, I apologize if my expression of agitation with the comments directed towards me has made the community uncomfortable, and if I am deserving of a warn, I will leave it to the crew to decide.

RAMA is a good game, but I'm not sure it could be considered the best. I don't think I've played enough novel-based games to give an informed opinion.

@greywolf: It doesn't matter if your book is well known, only if the allusions you are making are well known

Juni Ori, on Mar 19 2007, 05:25 AM, said:

That explanation might make more sense if early platformer and side-scroller development hadn't been so heavily influenced (read: dominated) by the Japanese, who traditionally read and write from top to bottom, then from right to left.

I'm not saying it's not psychology, but I doubt it has to do with reading.

@Doubler: I always found adventure (and RPG) puzzles much more fascinating than standard logic puzzles. There's a lot more connect-the-dots to it, because it's not so mathematical, purely logical, visual, or language-oriented as a typical puzzle game, it's based on what actual people perceive as "normal" or "logical" in the fabricated environment. It's much tougher to guess what people you've never met are thinking than it is to work out a math or language puzzle, thus I appreciate it more. I especially love it when said puzzles require some type of literary or historical knowledge, such as mythology, world religions, etc. The craziness of the human element increases exponentially when it involves interpretation of such things.

Happy Birthday, Romano!

And in hopes that your day is truly good, enjoy this wondersome wheel of pecorino romano cheese, mmm.



(you could pretend there are candles on it, too)