Agozer

More Final Fantasy XIII. Christ, that one boss that switches its elemental weakness and has damaging magical and physical attacks sure didn't go down easy. Took me three or four tries and lots of Paradigm switching. ~169,000 HP and seemingly impossible to stagger, too. What a bitch that boss was was.

The leveling system sucks in FFII, though. Easily abused, sure, but that doesn't make me like it

Another spammer, don't worry.

Yeah, but is it sufficiently emulated?

There is no original. There's just a couple of different versions of the beta floating around that some donators most likely leaked years ago. Who knows, the real 1.7 might still be years away, as it seems that the entire project has gone into development hell. From what I've heard, the betas are more broken in spots that 1.6 ever was, and most of the new stuff seems to have concentrated in Jabo's Direct3D graphics plugin. Still, if you want to play Resident Evil 2, you'll probably have more fun with the PSX version.

You are talking about the 1.7 leaked beta which has been on the Internet for ages now. The official website hasn't made any announcements, because there's never been a public version of 1.7.

MAMEXT is based on regular MAME, where as MAME Plus XT is based on MAME Plus! MAME Plus!. XT adds PCB pictures and XviD support among a few other things, but what you should be asking is the difference between MAME and MAME Plus!. MAME Plus features IPS support, and a plethora of god knows what features over MAME, but in the end it doesn't really matter which one you use. Chances are that you'll never even need the features Plus offers. Give both versions a go and make up your own mind. The reason so many MAME builds exist is because different people have different opinions on what is considered a useful or a less useful feature. P.S. Just couldn't come up with a more imaginative screenname, huh? I hope that isn't your real email address, because bots and spammers are going to have a field day with that info.

http://www.arcadeaid.com/challengingstage/quiz.htm A little something to tax your gamer brains. I've got 29 covered so far.

I think it's nice that the battle system constantly keeps you on your toes, since certain enemy groups can rack in a ton of damage quickly. I've had to resort to Phoenix Downs in some battles simply because I wasn't fast enough in switching to a Paradigm that had a Medic class. Like those damn Automata early in the game which toss out a targeting beacon that explodes and does something like ~250HP damage. The Eidolon's Gestalt modes are quite fun too. Yay for Odin. The Stagger system is neat, but some enemies are annoyingly difficult to stagger, unless you get a Preemptive Strike opportunity. Shrouds help, sure, but you don't get those very often and money doesn't "grow" on enemies. Also looking for ward to racking enough CP so I can learn a launcher skill for aerial combos.

Neato. Well, I'm just on Chapter 4, so I guess it'll be a while before Chapter 9.

In all honesty I'm perplexed and at loss at what to do with XIII's weapon/accessory upgrading system in the long run. Let's say you found a good weapon or an accessory and you start upgrading it. At some point in the game your bound to find some other weapon that is supposedly better than the one you had before. So what to do? Do I just sell or dismantle the old item and start using the new one, or do I keep both of them and switch between those every now and then? It doesn't really help that not all battles net you spoils, so it's not like you'll get enough components for upgrades even if you start grinding. I wonder if there is an absolute upgrade maximum where you can no longer upgrade the item and said item has gone though all its transformations at the "Star" level.

God of war I and II are awesome to the max, despite both featuring a ridiculously difficult gameplay segment near the end. It's impossible for III to fail. Santa Monica has improved GoW III a lot since the demo. EuroGamer has some coverage detailing those changes.

We have Kingdom Hearts for that. Besides, rumors say that Final Fantasy XIII Agito will be more like Kingdom Hearts in term of the battle system, but who knows what the final game will be like. P.S. Nerd raeg! The X360 has considerably inferior in-game cutscene quality, the audio is shit, the whole thing runs in a sub-HD resolution! Raeg! [/sarcasm]

I was in China back in 2001. Loved the entire trip, although I guess I got a little sick there and also suffered a mild heatstroke. The Great Wall is truly great. Learn a bit of mandarin too, while I was there.

So, you like linear dungeons, never ending battles after battles then cutscenes then battles some more, irritating characters and limitation of controls over your party during battles?? Isnt that every FF since 6 minus linear dungeons? Dude, they are telling a story, you on the run. How can you go back when your on the run? It works mr smart ass. lol. Irritating characters? Lets make a list of NON IRRITATING FF CHARACTERS... itll be a small list... well after ffXIII that is. I like the limited control over the party. Although Id like a gambit system better, but once the battles open up... again... it works. Yeah, the only things that make Final Fantasy games (or most JRPGs) non-linear are the World Map and bonus dungeons if there are any. Even side quests usually open up way later. Outside of that, JRPGs are very linear in nature, by design no less. FFX-2 is a special case from the newer FF batch, with most if not all locations are accessible from the get-go. I'm actually in favor of linear dungeons, because I absolutely hate getting lost in one of those labyrithine dungeons some games throw at me. Linearity also helps you remember where to go and what you did before - remember those times when you'd play a JRPG, save and then take a longer-than-usual break? If you saved at the world map, good luck remembering where you're supposed to go next. There will always be irritating JRPG characters as well. Hope's bitching in XIII is irritating sure, but at least that girl keeps him in check. P.S. Sazh's chocobo is cute

So, you like linear dungeons, never ending battles after battles then cutscenes then battles some more, irritating characters and limitation of controls over your party during battles?? Just because the game is more linear than the ones preceding it, doesn't automatically make a less enjoyable experience. From the little that I've played the PS3 version, the game is excellent.

I was referring to Battle Trophies found in SO3 and SO4, which aren't tried to the PS3 Trophies.

From what I've heard, you don't actually level up at all in XIII. At least not in the traditional sense.

The main issue I have with copy-protected save data is that there's no way to make a backup copy. Your memory card/hard drive gives in? Tough shit, earn all those tough-as-nails battle trophies all over again, while lamenting the loss of the extra features you unlocked after all those hours and hard work.

My copy arrives tomorrow. :/ I want to see the Shiva twins motorcycle in action. P.S. If some of you turn this into a spoiler fest without the proper use of the spoiler tags (like some of you did with the Heavy Rain thread), I'll start mass-banning people.

It's ronery. It took me a while to actually understand the message of that highly stereotyped japanese kamikaze person.

Carl Sagan speaks truths.

I think that was the same reasoning they used in SO3. I still think of that as a dick move though.

I think you mean copy-protected. Yeah, some games do that and it's annoying and completely unnecessary. Such practice started on the PS2, with one of the more notorious examples being the Battle Trophy data for Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.

Because the GOW Collection is US only. There will be a God of War Ultimate Collection (or some such moniker) for the EU that contains all three games with the first two in HD as well.