OverlordMondo

I've heard this one. Not long ago though, it's far from old. :\

That's not true. Once I get a few minions willing to do as I say, I can start making America better. And hopefully, one day, the world.

It's not mindless level grinding. Every level is an accomplishment that grants you greater power and abilities, allowing you to face bigger and stronger monsters. When you can defeat God at level 1, what's the point to leveling? Granted, you pretty much hate the basis of RPGs, so you wouldn't understand. Grinding isn't just tedium, it's training. You're training yourself to be a better character. If you don't like it, you don't do the side quests, as getting through the story levels you enough for the final boss. In fact, getting through the first 4 minutes of the game levels you enough for the final boss. Hot & Cold wasn't "rather lame", it was the worst thing to ever grace the video game industry. I'd rather play Stake then play Hot & Cold. And you're one who says he likes to avoid tedium. Yet you enjoy the Final Fantasy with the MOST tedious mini game in it, EVER. And the other ones weren't nearly as bad. Chocobo racing/breeding was great fun. The weird chocobo whistle thing was similar, the only difference was that it wasn't random and didn't make what you were searching for have a 1% chance of being found. See though? The challenge isn't beating him at level 1, it's getting to him without leveling at all. You beat him based solely on equipment. It's like going to the store and buying some steroids rather than actually training. They still sucked though. Final Fantasy 8 was the last good one. 9-11 all suck. Tactics Advance sucked. I don't think there were any others besides those, but those suck bad enough for 3 or 4 more good ones. As if FF6 was much different. Every character learned every spell. There were characters with special abilites, but they weren't really all that different, it was pretty much based on who you thought looked the best. FF7 is similar in the respect, but instead of getting every spell, you can only get a certain amount of them. And besting the WEAPONs is something that actually requires skill and though, unlike beating Ozma, which requires wearing equipment that absorbs all of the enemies attacks. DISCLAIMER: I like FF6. And 5, not so much 4, 3 and 1. 2 was meh. Frog battle? What? You lost me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> FF7 was an extreme dumbing-down of the Final Fantasy series. Equipment selection was reduced to a linear progression of single weapons and a single armor pieces. All of the magic and other special abilities were reduced to a single, incredibly simple, universal, and easily abuseable special ability system. Characters were reduced to a magic stat, some hit points, and some cute limit animations by the Materia system. It didn't matter who you used - the guy with the highest magic and the most materia slots was always the best choice if you knew what you were doing. The story was stupid too, full of throwaway characters and literary cop-outs, but that's subjective so I'll let it slide. In short, FF7 hit a homerun with an easy to learn (and easy to master) system, lots of time-wasting mini-games, and a "cool" attitude, but it sucked as an RPG compared to the SNES titles. FF9, on the other hand, was a welcome return to the series' roots. Characters had individual abilities, so who you used actually made a difference to gameplay beyond the occasional limit break. The item combination system made equipment more interesting than "more AC, more slots." The story was more traditional, but wasn't bogged down with "My main character is a spirited youth, no he's a clone, no he's an incarnation of gaia, no he's the son of a man and a hedgehog" for half the freaking game. But that last point comes down to subjectivity again. The art direction wasn't "cool" like FF7's, but the game was far more intricate and entertaining. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, almost. You just have to remove the fact that you did max damage at level 50 without any effort at all. You know Ozma? The "secret" boss of the game? He can be beat as early as level 1. It contained Chocobo "Hot and Cold", the worst minigame ever, and yet, the only way to complete most of the sidequests. Final Fantasy9 didn't mark a return to the series' roots, it marked its downfall. Final Fantasy 7 did remove a lot of equipment slots, leaving only weapon (specific to character), armor (a wristband), and accessory (always a ribbon). But it added the materia system, which I liked. I wish it had been more complicated. Adding things like charcter specific materia, or limiting in some way the materia that could be used, but I still loved the system. My favorite part about it was the support category of materia, that was linked with another materia to give special bonuses. It's like they took away 3 equipment slots, and added 16. Final Fantasy 8 had no equipment slots, but it had junctions, which were kinda cool, but I think I prefer the materia system. Also, Final Fantasy 7 had a great story. If you want useless characters look back at Final Fantasy 9. That red dude? Quina? No purpose at all. Even the main character, what was his story other than he'd been a womanizing thief all his life? Even Vincent from FF7 had more story than that, and he was a completely optional character. Final Fantasy Tactics had one of my favorite systems. Complete with a plethora of skills and every equipment slot you need. All that with the addition of being able to use monsters in battle.

Ouch. I actually support the kid on ths one. He gets arrested for "stealing a car" (no word on whether he did or not), then he pulls some skills on the cops. It's just the natural thing to do. Then he got caught again though? How did that happen? He overpowered three cops and then got caught. Something doesn't fit right with this.

I'm with the Shade on this one. Extreme ultra violence isn't going to make your kids go shoot stuff. Certain games (mainly ones involving "gangstas"[not gangsters, as those are respectable people]) just shouldn't be played. Ever. They shouldn't have even been made. The last thing we need to do is reinforce the poor black urban stereotype.

You people blow. They're pretty much taking a show with some retarded humor (by my standards) and making the characters go kick some ass. Wearing black no less. This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. And by retarded humor, I mean the humor actually focuses on people (or animalistic humanoids in this case) acting retarded. There's the antagonist, and the protaganist. The antagonists in the Looney Tunes always fail horribly, without any chance of recovery, and it sickens me. The humor involves cartoon violence (the show invented cartoon violence) which just isn't funny. I repeat, the show sickens me. This though, this is actually better than some of the crap WB throws out.

Pretty much just answer the question.

That's almost good, but we've discussed that Resident Evil 4 can't look as good as it does on the PS2. Still, a graphics buff would be nice.

Immortality is something that is probobly attainable, but shouldn't be attained. Except for me.

Am I the only one who finds this less pathetic and more completely useless? I mean, here I am, sitting at my desk, with the phone right the hell next ot me. In fact, ordering a pizza via website seems like more work than just picking up the phone and calling Pizza Hut. (or Dominoes, since they have better pizza)

I find such things to be a pretty much useless endeavor. But whatever floats your boat.

That's pretty much the most promising thing I've seen all day. Though I really need to resubscribe to my gaming mags and get any issues I missed, I'm sure those contain promising things.

I wish I could do that. I don't know exactly what my WPM is though. Last time I checked it hovered around 60, though I remember once I was typing really hard and got it up to 120!

I got a friend that'll sell you some OPM reeeeealy cheap. Somehow I think spam is a bad thing and doesn't deserve a congratulations. :\ And yes, touching is good.

Yeah, my class goes into culture a bit. I took it because the alternative languages were Spanish and German, which suck.

My first reaction is, "If you want a story, read a book." But the story is pretty much the entire point of a console 1-player RPG. The story being second to gameplay and development on a PC RPG. The focii of an MMO are two things. One, playing with other people. And two, character development. It's always more fun when the mage and priest in your party aren't controlled by the same person as the warrior. Also, development doesn't even exist in most console games. It's a "Here's a premade character that gains static skills." kinda thing. But the main problem with single player games is just that, only one person can play. Games like Final Fantasy or Bloodlines are pretty good when you're alone. But what if you wanted to play with friends? Or even complete strangers for that matter. Most PC RPGs cover that, but on a console you're screwed. MMOs aren't based on Competition any more than DnD was. While PvP is available for most of them, it's not the focus. Other people are there so you can form adventuring groups with them to go out and explore a vast world. The "grind" is all but nonexistant in the more recent MMOs, allowing you to put more focus on exploration and having fun. That said, there's a fair amount of skill involved in PvP as well. Two level 20 characters don't come out of a fight tied, one of them wins. Skill makes some win more than others. The only problem is when a level 20 and level 30 charcter fight, the level 30 will more than likely be the victor. But then when I'm playing WCIII and get randomly matched up with someone, the one who's been playing for 2 years straight will beat me, who's played for less than one. There isn't much difference. If you want to be truly good at an online game, you have to devote yourself to it. If the level 20 has been playing for two years, and the level 30 was just powerleveled in a week, guess who wins the fight then? Clever. :\ I can say that in World of Warcraft at least, you can't just flip on auto-attack and hope to win. You have to be there using your skills the whole time. A second where you aren't casting a spell or using a skill is a second wasted. This plays a bit into the skill part I mentioned up there. Camping is equally non-existant. I can't even see a reason someone would want to do it in WoW. Crafting isn't the main part of the game. Chocobo racing is just as repetitious as crafting. Quests are the things that allow you to avoid the grind. And they aren't all based on collection. The only part that isn't repetitious about a console RPG is the story. In fact, it's even more repititious in most cases. You travel what's basically a straight path with a few offshots that you can run to every once in a while (though you always end up on the main path), fighting random monsters in often times turn based battles until you reach a more powerful enemy, after which you're told some story. It's like the instance portion of an MMO, only with less choice, and without and other parts of the MMO. WoW isn't an incedibly long game. You can probobly reach max level in a month, easy, as long as you work at it. There are many ways to increase your speed, and they start as early as level 20. A week of game time, max. By level 40 you get your actual mount, and travel becomes relatively fast. City of Heroes had teleport fast travel speeds, but only because you're actually teleporting. Every MMO before about a year ago contained pretty much every problem you've listed, but the recent ones don't. SWG contains all the things I hated about the old MMOs. Things like my Blaster Rifle wielding Wookie getting killed by flocking butterflies. And the definite lack of in battle skills. And it had an incredibly long travel time. I saw someone clock in at 18 minutes for a trip from one outpost to another (He got in 8 battles, and died twice, because it wasn't just autwalk, it was auto-flocking-everything. "This game is so advanced, you don't even need to play it, to play it.").

Say what? Clarification?

What's so stupid about getting your name written in another language? Obviously, you aren't much of a cultural person. At multi-cultural festivals they have booths where people write your name in their native language and people flock to them because it's interesting. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> well cuz most of the time the words that makes up the word that make any sense and just doesn't sound right in chinese, it's kinda like saying ur name with a chinese accent so it's kinda stupid. that's y i have a chinese name and a english name <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I second that. I don't have a Chinese name, but I have a Japanese name. I'm not really Japanese, but I have a Japanese name anyway because the teacher made us choose one. English words just sound stupid in Japanese.

Me use pick up lines? Ha! I think it's the women that struggle to get me in bed, not vice versa. And if you remember, Fatal picks up chicks with the following line. "This is how we greet each other in America."

We have a PM system? I can say I've probobly recieved under 20 in all of my time being here. And none of them were particularly interesting.

MMO haters! Seriously, what game isn't like that? Nearly every RPG rewards you for spending more time on the game. Other games, in general, reward you for doing it as fast as possible, but to do it as fast as possible, you have to drop a fair amount of time into it. Also, define repetitive. You can break almost every game down into a simple step by step process and make it sound repetitive. The economies can be problematic. The travel times are only really long in a crappy MMO. Like Star Wars Galaxies. In fact, SWG can't be used for any further arguments you have against MMOs. The monthly fee is trivial, at best. Working at minimum wage, you'll get enough money to pay for it in one or two hours. Working a job that doesn't suck, you'll get the money in an hour or less. If you don't work because you're a poor little preteen, then you're screwed. But I know at lest one of the plaintiffs (and I'm pretty sure both of them) are in their 20s or very late teens.

Go where? Outside? Aren't there bears outside?

Enter the Matrix was crap. I only played it for the story. And the added story wasn't all that good either. The Matrix Online has the potential to be a really good game. But it probobly won't be. :\

I have the perfect way to break your addiction. Start playing World of Warcraft. You'll never play FFXI again.