Daeval

Single player RPGs reward you for spending more time by giving you more of the story. Little, if any story is to be found in MMORPGs. Stories can often be found on related websites, etc, but there it is not a reward for gameplay, and is often impersonal to the characters you play. Rewards for extended play time in MMORPGs are purely statistical, which is unlike (most good) single player RPGs. Very few single player RPGs these days require you to wander around and level up for extended periods of time. You might have to pound through a dungeon, but it is always to reach the next story-point at the end. MMORPGs, on the other hand, are solidly based on a wandering type of gameplay, aimless but for the next level or powerful item. Now that single-player RPGs are out of the way, we come to another important point. Most multiplayer games are balanced such that the difference between two players is (ideally) entirely based on skill. Players of FPS or RTS games, for example, acquire familiarity and knowledge of their games over time. This helps them out, to be sure, but they do not gain hard-coded statistical advantages for having played 20 out of 24 hours in a day. The same cannot be said of MMORPGs. Main Entry: rep·e·ti·tiousFunction: adjective : characterized or marked by repetition; especially : tediously repeating. See also: Auto-attack, Camping, Crafting, Collection Quests. I've never met an MMORPG whose travel times weren't either really long, making them tedious, or teleport-fast, completely destroying the point of the scale. Except maybe PlanetSide, since just about anyone could drive a vehicle. "Ships," to use the EQ term, are boring as hell. You wait for them to show up, then you sit and wait some more. Whee. Player-mounts or vehicles aren't a bad option, but they normally require you to have already spent 3 months walking everywhere or sitting on ships. If WOW has a better solution, I'm unaware. And SWG is actually one of the better ones I've played. If it weren't for the completely crappy economy I might actually have stayed on that one. I've been paid out of that monthly fee, so I know how trivial it is. Let's put it this way: When I worked at Sony, it took 7 people worth of monthly fees to employ me for a day - which doesn't even include the hefty benefits - and I was just one of a huge pool of tech support, testers, and GMs. And that says nothing of the bandwidth, servers, electricity, internal maintenance staff, developers, etc, etc, etc. Running those games is expensive as hell, and the monthly fee is more than justified.

That announcers voice was just silly.. And they didn't show clips of any of the characters I really wanted to see. :\ Oh well, it looks like a decent title.

You're not alone. I feel the same way about MMOGs. That's why I hate them so much. You spend sooo much time doing the same stuff over and over again and you pay them a monthly fee to do it! If I ever want to do that, I'll just daydream thank you very much. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The only MMOG I've played that I didn't think fell into this category was PlanetSide. Granted, it's an FPS, not an RPG, and I played mostly in Beta. Earning experience still meant playing the game for a while, but that wasn't bad because the game was fun and varied, even at the first rank. It's also the only MMOG I ever had any fun grouping in. All the players on your team (out of 3) start in one small spot, so it's pretty easy to get a decent group together. Someone who can fly a dropship will sit it in the courtyard and everyone will load up as they join. When the dropship's full, the pilot will take it out into the warzone and the squad leader will pick a decent place to land and either defend or attack an outpost. PlanetSide was by far the most original and interesting MMOG I've ever played, and I've played quite a few. Star Wars wasn't TOO bad, but the economy was so flocked it wasn't funny, and combat still broke down to autocombat with bonus buttons.

I am the only one that sees the dreadful timesink of MMORPGs as some kind of design flaw? Aside from the extremely boring combat and repetetive.. well.. everything else.. nearly every problem they have is related to the more play time = success mentality. Especially the way their economies go to crap in about a month because some people have no lives, or the hideously long travel times.

I'm in the market for a (or some) PS2 to USB converter(s) to replace my aging PC pads. Without spending a fortune, here's what I'm looking for: - It has to work well, no lag time or other half-assedness, under Windows XP. - It must turn a PS1 or PS2 controller into a functioning Direct X compatible pad, including ALL the buttons, even R3 and L3, and the analog sticks. Vibration as force feedback would be nice, but isn't crucial. - It must be able to handle 4 pads simultaneously, either on one or multiple adapters. An adapter with 4 ports would be awesome, but I'll settle for 4 individual adapters if everything else works. That's not too unreasonable, is it? I've looked at a couple at liksang, but some of them look kinda shotty. Does anyone know where I could score such a thing for less than about $40 bucks?

It wasn't all that terrible really. In fact, I was expecting a very archaic simplicity and was pleasantly surprised by its relative complexity. The only thing that killed it for me was the repetetive nature of combat in the dungeons. It just took too long to kill piddly crap enemies, and you ran into them a little too often. Granted, I wasn't using my bard's abilities as well as I should have been.

I tried desperately to like SFIII, and just couldn't bring myself to it. The gameplay was solid, but I've seen better character designs in ten dollar budget titles. The graphics were nice, the art wasn't technically bad, except that I didn't like the way muscle wasn't actually attached to bone in any way, but the character designs.. ugh.. In all fairness, Makoto, Sean, and Ibuki weren't too bad.. I'll even let Alex slide. They were all rather generic, I'll let that slide too. But Q? Oro? A naked guy in a diaper? WTF? Count me out. I'll stick to CVS2, the gameplay is just as good and the characters are much nicer to look at.

Furi Kuri was pretty cool. Rather tongue in cheek about itself and its medium, but somehow powerful at the same time. The Pillows range from awesome, which includes basically all of the FLCL tunes, to downright strange. Their faster rock/punk stuff is really cool, as are most of their instrumentals, but a lot of their slower songs and ballads are kind of lame.

The Bard's Tale - NES version It was actually kind of fun for a while... after I decided to make a bunch of guys, take their money, and kill them off to fund my real party's starting equipment so they wouldn't die in the first encounter. The spell progression for casters was cool, and I was surprised to find a summoner among my ranks under the humble guise of "sorcerer." For the life of me, I can't figure out what good the Hunter and the Rogue are beyond being crappy fighters. All in all, I think this game is a little too oldschool, even for me. What should have been an interesting dungeon crawl turned into an obnoxious search for the right secret door in a rather short time. Maybe I'll go back and beat it when my tolerance builds up again, or maybe I'll try the PC version.

Yeah well, it's pretty much how K` said: the only real reason to buy it is to support SNK Playmore. And yes, K` resents a lot of things, thus the board troll title. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> For people who own these games already, you've made your contribution, judge it by the extras. For people who don't, and who would like to, this is probably your best bet. You get more (and no less) than the DC version, and it's cheaper than the AES. For people who have stolen it, and are content to continue playing a stolen copy to the detrement of player and developer alike...

It just sounds like you're discounting a lot of things to justify the alternative, which is "free." Forgive me if you honestly think all the little touches are completely worthless, but I can't help thinking your opinion would be different if the titles weren't so easy to pirate in their non-upgraded form.

Aside from possibly a color edit, or online play, what more could you want from these titles? The higher resolution graphics will come with the AtomisWave-to-console ports. If I had to pick reasons to get it, in no particular order: - The graphic updates : They look a LOT better than emulated or even the actual arcade graphics, especially the projectiles in 2K2. Maybe the japanese versions were worse, or maybe you're a picky purist, I don't know. They look as nice as any other 2D fighter on the PS2. Save possibly Guilty Gear. - Team Mode in 2K3 - The extra characters in 2K2 : King and Shingo are missing in the arcade, how lame is that? And on top of the Dreamcast release, Geese is in now too. - Gallery mode in 2K2 : 2k3's is mostly just promo art and endings, but 2K2's has some neat stuff thrown in. - Convenience : I know a lot more people with PS2s than I do with the right working emulators installed or with these titles at a nearby arcade. That makes it easier to bring this game to a friend's. And in most cases, even where there are emulators involved, the PS2 they also have is in a much more comfortable position for gathering around. Finally, the really nice movelists and the practice modes make it easier to learn stuff on the fly without having to alt-tab and check gamefaqs or print some huge document for reference. - So you can play 2D fighters in the future : Especially since 2D fighters are a dying breed, it's important to support developers when they do well. Even if the extras aren't a huge deal to you, the game itself is fun as hell, and you're not saying "Thanks" with an emulator, let alone putting towards any paychecks. It's only $40, and that's if you don't buy it online somewhere. With these games, SNK-Playmore has a chance to make something of the unstable SNK dynasty in the US. Making your mark in arcades doesn't do anything for you anymore, not in the US. You've got to hit the home market to make it big. KOF 2K/2K1 wasn't going to do that - they were too awkward as ports, and were strictly fan service. SVC:Chaos wasn't going to do it, as much as it should have with the famous Capcom characters - it was too ugly and had more than its fair share of gameplay problems. KOF 2K2/2K3 has a good chance to hit that sweet spot. It looks as good as anyone can expect from the PS2, the gameplay is rock solid on both titles, a lot of love was put into the port, and there is a hell of a lot of bang for your buck, as well as variety, in the two pack. It's a damn shame if the relatively small group of fans SNK already has won't support them because they don't want to shell out a measly $20 per excellent title, where they'll pay $50 to gamble on others.

Nice setup! Your room looks HUGE and extremely messy.

A brief update after a little more play: Kusanagi IS in 2002. Turns out my gripe about Practice Mode in 2K3 was unwarranted. You can set it so that all 3 of your characters act as leaders, and so you can effectively test out three different characters at once! Just put the power bar setting on "LeaderMax."

There was a recent thread about 2 player games on consoles. Now I'm wondering about 4 Player games, either on consoles or in arcades. Not just any 4 Player games, but the ones that are actually FUN to play. Stuff like the TMNT Arcade Game or X-Men Arcade. Not just beat 'em ups either, but turn based strategy or pretty much anything else. This one's going to be harder than 2-player games, but let's hear it!

Game: King of Fighters 2002 & 2003 System: Playstation 2 (Xbox in 03/05, may be different!) Emulators: Not Exactly... Images from http://www.snkplaymoreusa.com/ Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting Review by: Daeval If you're reading this, you probably already know that this title is actually the two most recent games in the legendary King of Fighters series to make their way from the arcade to the home consoles. Following on last year's two-pack release of KOF 2000 and 2001, this year's iteration brings us one of the largest rosters ever to grace the NeoGeo, combined with the most radical update ever to happen to its most popular series! In short, these are some very nice ports! I'm going to be reviewing them seperately, and then I'll give scores for the two-pack. Also, since most readers have probably already played these in their arcade formats, I'm going to focus more on the port-specific features than the core gameplay. King of Fighters 2002 =============== The 2002 edition is a Dream Match - taking characters from all walks of the series, regardless of story, and throwing them all together for some mindless fun. It has one of the largest rosters in the history of the series, with a total of 44 characters (plus 4 alternates). The questionable "strikers" of 2000 and 2001 are gone, and it's back to the solid 3 on 3 team matches that made the series famous. Your options in combat have been streamlined back to a more classic feel, so no more Armor Mode, etc. All in all, the gameplay is as solid as it has ever been, invoking the heyday of '98 more than the recent releases. But how well did it port? At first glance, 2002 looks like a straight AES dump - same style main menu, etc - similar to the PS2 port of KOF 2000. It has the usual Team and Single, Arcade and Vs. modes, plus the options menu with the choices you'd expect on a home console. However, where the KOF 2000 port had only the terrible "Party" mode to add to its AES features, 2002 comes with a little more. In a throwback to SNK's older console ports, there is a large, 75 image Gallery with pictures that you have to unlock through regular play. If the old games are any indication, we can expect concept artwork, posters, endings and other odds and ends to show up here. There is also something called "Challenge" mode, which is really three different gameplay modes under a single heading - Team Attack, Single Attack, and Time Attack. The first two are your basic Survival modes, and are more or less what you would expect, which isn't a bad thing after the disaster that was "Party" mode. Also, in Team Attack mode, you get one dead character back, in the order you lost them, for every team of three you beat. I thought that was a nice touch. Time Attack mode is actually a series of 40 challenges that require you to beat a certain number of opponents in under a certain time limit. There may be more to it, such as special rules on certain challenges, but I've only unlocked a few so far. Graphically, the game has seen some subtle, but excellent upgrades. Projectiles and other fire and energy effects are rendered with transparency, but are faithful to the originals and look really nice. The backgrounds have also gotten a facelift. Essentially, the 2D backgrounds have been rendered in 3D, and they use many of the same sprites for animation. The effect is basically that of an upgrade in resolution and parallax effects, rather than a change in content.. Best of all, if any of these changes bother you (purists, give them a chance!), you have the option of switching to Arcade graphics mode for the original backgrounds and effect sprites at the cost of some smoothness. The sound sampling does seem a little muffled on the PS2, which is a shame because I like the voice acting and effects in 2002. It's not terrible, but it did catch me off guard at first. New characters for the PS2 port include Geese, Goenitz, Shingo, King and Riot Iori. Kusanagi may be missing, or maybe I'm just not sure where to find him. There is a single-character practice mode with a wide variety of options like those in Capcom Vs. SNK 2. There is also a complete move list for each character on the pause menu, which is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than those in the older ports. King of Fighters 2003 =============== If 2002 was a throwback to the King of Fighters' heyday, 2003 is definately a step into its future. King of Fighters 2003 is the first game in a new storyline for the series, and it has brought some interesting developments to the table. The most obvious change is the new Leader system, which is a lot like the standard 3 on 3 gameplay except that you can switch characters mid-round. One character is chosen as the "Leader," and only he or she can use their strongest super attack, called the Leader Super Special Move. You can switch by calling in a teammate with R1 or R2 (also T+C or T+X), or by performing a Switch Attack, which will hit the opponent and then switch to another character to continue with a combo. There are also some new characters, such as Malin and the New Hero Team, as well Gato and Tizoc imported from Garou: Mark of the Wolves. This is not as huge a deal, but you can also now roll while ducking. This was included in Capcom Vs. SNK 2, but I believe this is the first time you can do it in a King of Fighters game. (I might be wrong about this) As soon as the main menu loads, it's clear that some time was spent on this port. It's not as fancy, nor as gaudy, as the 2001 port, but it's different. Arcade mode, Single mode, and Arcade and Single Vs. modes are all here. This one also has a large gallery mode, a lot of which is endings and character art. Team and Single Survival modes are here, although the opponents are complete pushovers in these modes, which makes them less interesting than 2002's. In Team Survival mode, you still get characters back for beating an entire team, but they start with almost no health. Some health regenerates while they sit out, however. Team Survival should really be called Arcade Survival, but we'll get to that in a second. This brings us to Team Mode, one of my favorite additions to the PS2 port. This mode does away with the Leader system in favor of the original 3 on 3 team matches the series is known for. The Leader system is fun, but I like having the option of playing the new game in the old style. This mode is available in single player or Vs. While I loved the graphical improvements to 2K2, 2K3's didn't quite do it for me. The flame and energy effects are just as good (in fact, they may be identical in places), but the 3D backgrounds are more obviously 3D this time around. They are just as clean, and all in all look as good as anything else on the PS2, but to me they stood out just a little too much. In all honesty, that's a nitpick though, and you always have the option to switch to Arcade mode to see the original graphics. Speaking of which, Arcade mode seems to look a bit better than 2K2's, being less pixelated and choppy. The backgrounds also lack character camoes this time around, which makes them seem kind of generic and boring. 2K3 has another new graphics option, called Focus. Setting this to "Soft" puts a slight blur filter over the sprites. Some players might prefer this, but my TV isn't the greatest so it's "soft" enough already, thanks. The sounds in King of Fighters 2003 are easily my biggest gripe. Unlike 2002, they come through crisp and clear, but some of the sounds themselves are horrible. The music is some of the worst in the series, and many of the sound effects sound out of place, overused, or just plain goofy. The voice acting is another low point, although it isn't on the same level as that of Maximum Impact. Billy, for example, sounds like a little girl when he is hit, and Blue Mary sounds like she has a speech impediment on top of her usual Engrish. Not all of them are bad though, and they're still better than, say, your average budget title. They're bad in comparison to other King of Fighters games, let's put it that way. Adelheid, Mukai, Kusanagi, Chizuru, and Maki (Not the CVS2 Maki!) are all playable on the PS2, although some need to be unlocked. Practice Mode is 3 on 3, which I didn't like because it meant you could only practice one character's Leader Move at a time. In order to try someone else's, you have to exit Practice mode and load it all up again. That's a relatively small gripe though, and otherwise the practice mode is full featured and almost identical to 2002's. Overall ===== Overall, fans of the series will probably enjoy King of Fighters 2002 & 2003, but we already knew that. More importantly, these games are proof that 2D fighters can still be quality console products, and a hell of a lot of fun, in an age when dime-a-dozen 3D games and their developers would drive them into extinction. At $39.99 for two games, this is an excellent chance to introduce new fans to the King of Fighters series, to quench a neglected thirst for 2D fighters, or to breathe new life into a dying genre. Controls: 10 Gameplay: 9 Graphics: 8 Sound: 7 Overall Score: 8.5 Grade: B (Make that an A if you're a 2D Fighter Fan!) Overall I give this game a

or nick fury or punisher, you can bet that definatly put punisher in that game but expect the same result as playing mvc2 for the first time. this game is going make you sad. By turning the marvel characters into trash and remember how good mvc2 was. It still bring a tear to my eye when i go play mvc2 <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I prefer the older games, like X-Men vs. Street Fighter, when it was more about gameplay and less about how much crap they could put on the screen at once.

How could I forget CONTRA!? Oy.. That game was easily my favorite as a kid... All the sequels blew in comparison though... And... NES: Double Dragon II (I liked it better than the first) Gensesis: General Chaos

Ignoring the obvious fighters, here's a few that come to mind: Genesis --------- GUNSTAR HEROES SNES ----- Uniracers Rock N' Roll Racing Secret of Mana

Mine are rather subdued.. here goes: Random monk/mage chick (There are no good face parts for girls) Space Lizard!

I knew this was going to happen when EA got the Marvel liscence, but how in the hell?! We all joked that we would end up with Marvel Vs. Madden. Now I almost wish that had happened. EA creating new heroes for a Vs. title? That practically defeats the purpose of the "Vs." name. Why not just call it "Marvel: EA's Ride to New Intellectual Property." Assuming EA's Marvel liscence EVER runs out (considering EA's budget), EA will be left with whatever trite crap they come up with, made popular by tacking the Marvel characters on for their first appearance. *cough*trite*cough*

I don't understand trying to play fighting games on the GBA. They're always awkward.

I bet everyone else does not know how much I love that game to death. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Harvest Moon is awesome. I own the PS2, GBA, and GC versions. I have barely played the GC one though because I bought it while I worked a game store, along with 128341239581234918 other titles. I'm trying to go through and beat all my games now (hence the recent beating of Fallout).

In no particular order: Fire Emblem Advance Wars 2 Wade Hixton's Counter Punch Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Only one I've played) Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (Flock you, it's fun!)

I beat Fallout 1 for the first time about 2 minutes ago. I used a delicate combination of stealth, larceny, and a large hammer. I managed to keep Ian and Katja alive until the storming of the final dungeon (I won't say what it is in case there's someone else here who hasn't played it). Dogmeat died to a forcefield in you-know-where, and I never picked up Cassidy. Now on to the second half of the Two-For-$5 pack, Fallout 2. Well, maybe I'll wait for a bit. I've still got a few other games I want to beat.