BullockDS

Or: "Inception 2: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bob-Omb" Has anybody else picked this up yet? I just got it over the weekend and after just short of an hour in, I gotta say: this beats the PISS out of Paper Mario: Sticker Star. So for anybody worrying that we'd get a repeat of a terrible Mario RPG, fear not. For starters, this game is bloody gorgeous. The hand-drawn character sprites are at their best yet (especially the Bros, who boast buttery smooth, cartoony 16-directional animation), which mesh shockingly well with the 3D environments; this is the first 3DS game in quite some time where I actually use the 3D to any considerable extent. The battle system, so far, is as enjoyable as ever, especially Dreamy battles and the 3D gimmicks within. This game also seems to be a bit more difficult than the last two M&L titles, and considering how fast I blazed through those, this is a welcome change. The story isn't a Chrono Trigger by any means, but it is very engaging; the writing for characters is especially superb. This is a game that's given me honest laugh-out-loud moments (or stifled giggling if I'm playing on the Metro after work). Can't say too much about the sound work, since I've rarely played with the volume high enough to discern everything. Sorry. I have two minor complaints as of now: the enemy variety in locations isn't too abundant, and the forced tutorials are annoying (YOU GOT YOUR FIRST ITEM AND BY GOD YOU ARE GOING TO LISTEN FOR TWO MINUTES TO LEARN HOW TO USE IT). Finally, not that I mind that it's in this game, but in the inevitable sequel I hope there isn't another plot device that forces a sizeable chunk of the game to take on side-scrolling action. I think having such a... "gimmick" (if you will) for two games in a row is enough IMO. If I want a Mario sidescroller Mario, I'll go pick out a sidescroller Mario game from my library. That all said, what does The GCN think of this game so far? (Also, does anyone else think that the M&L games are a closer successor to Super Mario RPG than Paper Mario?)

The DS version was actually my first exposure to Chrono Trigger, and it's still one of my go-tos for my 3DS; it combined the cutscenes of the PSX version with the not-slowness of the SNES version. I didn't mind the DS translation either (in fact, I find Frog's original dialog a bit over the top), and I found the touchscreen menus convenient. The Pokem-err, Monster Arena mode was pretty stupid, but it doesn't take away from the main game.

Simple: last name, followed by my first two initials.

I got this on my Wii a few weeks ago; it's pretty damn neat. I feel that it's actually a bit better than NSMBu, since Newer's got original bosses (something that hasn't happened since the first NSMB game), lotsa new music, and well-designed levels. Oh, and Classic Controller support is a big plus for me as well.

"Achilles' Revenge" by Warlorld (GOSH WE GET IT BULLOCK YOU'RE A METALHEAD)

I've always been interested in the beta Zelda 64 iterations, especially in the aesthetics; they do indeed evoke a sort of SM64 feel (for me, however, Z64's slightly more reminiscent of SM64's own beta).Also, that document's a very fascinating read! It's surprisingly in-depth about how to achieve that "alpha/beta" feel, and if I knew diddly dick about modeling, I'd actually love to take a crack at making an "Alpha"-style dungeon.

I fall into those same tiers of hate, more or less, but there's one more tier I'd like to mention: -Repros of "Holy Grails" (e.g. Nintendo World Championship): if they're made specifically to differentiate from the real deal, I'm fine there since things like event carts have little to no likelihood of seeing a rerelease otherwise (many of the NWC repro carts are in translucent, colored cartridges to differentiate from the real gray/gold ones), falling into a similar situation as the unreleased games you mentioned. However, if any crop up designed to look the same as the original, it's pretty obvious that there's scamming afoot and they'd need to be nipped in the bud, since such forgeries can be even more effective in skewing an item's value than a forgery of a "regular" game.

It's pretty sickening to sell somebody else's specifically non-profit work, but what pisses me off more is the market for reproductions of OFFICIAL retail games; that shit can ruin the economy of retro game collecting (this has been a bit of an issue with SNES Earthbound carts, since repros have popped up in auctions from people expecting the prices of real carts). Of course, I could go SO in-depth about all the things that make retro game collecting difficult, but that's for its own topic.

OH JESUS HE'S BACK HIDE YOUR FAMILIES This is a little something I've experimented with recently in the Paper Mario style: giving Mario better sprites (because frankly his original sprite, while decent, is fairly sloppy). So I decided to give him some sprites that both resemble his Official Art a little more closely and look more consistent with other characters' sprites. I'm DEFINITELY not gonna do all his sprites (there's a bunch of 'em), but I may do some of his rudimentary animations (run, jump, hammer, etc). BTW, the sprite of concern is the second from the left (second Mario); everything else is ripped by a fellow named "Retriever II" from The Spriters Resource and exist only for comparison.

I wouldn't necessarily condemn them for advertising ROM hacks, since they're not in themselves illegal (although if they're helping people find ROMs for these hacks in their articles or they're announcing things like anti-piracy bypassing hacks, that's a different story). Everything else, however, I agree with you. It's entirely bullshit to tut-tut emulation but endorse things like reproduction carts (which as far as I know, are like a million, bazillion times more illegal than emulation) and sharing confidential gaming documents. As you said, it's crap that they pick-and-choose what's wrong and what's not.

Ooooh, Gamecube too? Exciting.

Has Marshall given any estimate on how much one of these badass gizmos is gonna cost? Apologies if I've missed it, but from what I looked into, I haven't yet found how much he's projecting this to cost.At any rate, he's definitely got my interest.

With all due respect, that doesn't sound like something that'd realistically be found in the coding; it seems a bit too "creepypasta"ish (not just because BEN was mentioned), and I think people would catch on too easily with something like that. I think the crashes sound more convincing for a hoax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmBCrA6pSbM "Be Good to Yourself" by Journey

http://marathon.speeddemosarchive.com/ Here's Summer Games Done Quick 2013 if you're into speedrunning; the marathon's from today to Sunday (and I think some extra stuffs on Monday).

@Bobbotheclown: Good start, but it needs better definition (e.g. lots of lines need to be smoothed out). Also, if possible, maybe tweak the palette; there should be more contrast between the two purples, and maybe use a more subdued yellow/gold that doesn't quite stand out as much from those purples?With such a palette in mind, it'd also be best to use your new gold/yellow to add detail to certain areas, like the arm and the... "beard" of the mask. Also, the flame needs a fair bit of work; it's very flat looking and should probably utilize the other colors.Would you mind if I make some edits to show you what I mean? At any rate, keep at it; this piece has potential, and so do you!

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. Contains a remake of the 1993 PC Engine game Castlevania: Rondo of Blood with improved visuals and tweaked gameplay, the original PC Engine version of Rondo of Blood as well, and the always brilliant 1997 PS1 game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (which features updated voice acting* and has a new Maria mode that kicks the Saturn version's Maria mode down a flight of stairs). Megaman: Maverick Hunter X. A remake of the 1993 SNES classic Megaman X, this game pulls a remake not too dissimilar to the Castlevania: DXC mentioned above, boasting new 3D graphics, an updated soundtrack, and a few little stage-based changes here and there (with the most significant changes being the reshuffled armor pieces and the entirely new Sigma stages). Although this game doesn't have other games like DXC does, it makes up for this with the badass Vile Mode and the short movie Day of Sigma. Oh, and heads up: if you were used to the ability to shoot through walls in the original, you're gonna have to learn not to rely on that anymore. EDIT: gonna also agree with Crisis Core, the Dissidia games, and custom firmware (I mostly use mine to play PSOne games). *Unfortunately, this means no more "Miserable little pile of secrets". But you win some, you lose some.

@Conker: It's not so much that the Bible is re-written by councils, moreso that they try to decide what is and isn't still relevant to follow at that point in time (e.g. shedding of many traditional Jewish rituals like circumcision and forbidding the consumption of meat from cloven-hooved animals). Also, for the record, I'm not trying to say whether or not Christianity is true (right now I'm agnostic myself, so I'm having trouble figuring out my stance on that matter). @Antidote: saying things like "I got rid of imaginary friends along time ago, but if people want to pretend that's fine" comes off as condescending and makes it sound as if you think less of Christians for believing in a God. If this isn't really the case, I apologize. Also, I will concede that there's a fair bit of fowl stuff in the Bible; however, as I said, this sort of thing is what most Christian councilmen/educators/clergymen want to avoid more and more often (I don't think you'd want to hear the priest sing or discuss things like The Song of Songs* during Sunday mass anymore ). *(NSFW)

@Antidote: I'm sorry, but frankly you're coming off as pretty arrogant and insulting. About the Bible: there's a few reasons that the various denominations of Christianity have held multiple councils over time, one being to figure out what can and can't be applicable from tradition to the modern day (e.g. the eye-for-an-eye policy has been heavily phased out by most denominations). In fact, for the most part, the Old Testament isn't too relevant to most Christian doctrines anymore (the OT being where a majority of the admittedly objectionable content originates from), essentially being reduced to a curiosity to learn where Christian tradition stems from.

Having grown up in a Catholic household, I can say that my parents were never this batshit crazy. Not even close. This is disgusting.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm not quite feeling the Mario-style mushroom anymore either. So with that said, here's two solutions I've whipped up: The left is an edit of the Mario mushroom, but with a thinner stalk and lacking eyes. The right one is semi-based off of the pullable mushrooms from The Minish Cap. (As a note, the only reason I'm making these mushrooms green is because the palette of the Mushroom only has one red, but two greens). I'm personally leaning more towards the second one. What about everyone else?

Hey, here's a general art thread I'm gonna use for my stuffs; instead of making new topics, I'll just bump this if/when I have something new. First up, here's a LoZ: a Link to the Past graphic update: items! Sprites from the left are from the original game (ripped by "Deathbringer" from The Spriters Resource), and right are my revamps. Now, some notes: -Since LttP hacking is fairly limited and complex in comparison to games like Super Mario World, I'm not bothering to figure out how to change palettes (yet; I haven't found the editable palettes for these items in Hyrule Magic either) -Some of these are entirely custom, others edited from pre-existing sprites (check the spoiler below for my detailed list of where edited sprites came from) -I'm aware I haven't gotten quite everything yet (e.g. Fairies and Hearts); I'll get around to those -Some of my sprites are more colorful than the originals, since the originals tended not to take advantage of the full 7-color palettes available (e.g. the Medallions and Bombs) Comments and Criticism are entirely welcome! Also, I don't think I'll get around to actually inserting these myself into the game; however, anyone is free to use them, but please give credit if you do so.

(not my pic BTW) Just got one of these bad boys recently after a fair bit of scrimping and saving, and... I am in love. It's probably one of the best controllers I've ever used; the D-Pad would be an issue for me, but good thing I don't play any D-Pad-madatory games on N64. I actually love it so much that I use it on my Wii whenever possible for Virtual Console/homebrew emulation and SSB Brawl via an adapter. (For those not in the know, this is the Hori Mini-Pad for the N64) Anywhoos, on to my other favorite controllers: -The Gamecube controller, particularly Nintendo's own and my MadCatz Microcon (the latter being my main Melee controller) -The Nintendo Classic Controller: preferably the original no-handle version, believe it or not (my second choice for Brawl), but I do also like the Pro version a fair bit. -Sega Genesis 6-Button controller: a classic, comfy design and a nigh must-have for most Genesis fighting games (i.e. the good ones). Pretty much the only reason I'd take the Genesis Street Fighter II ports over the SNES ones. -SNES controller: bashing for fighting games aside, the SNES pad is still a delight to use to this day; it's fairly simple, to the point, and probably still the most prominent blueprint for modern controllers, even a little moreso than the N64's controller (analog input aside, natch) -NeoGeo Pocket (Color): I dunno if this really counts as a "controller" (seeing as how it's pretty much the only control option available on these portables), but holy JEEBUS is the control-stick wonderful; it makes the multitude of fighting games on it such a blast to play. Has one less button than Ninty's own Gameboy/GBC, but it's not like you'd miss it with the NGP/C's catalog. -Logitech F310 USB Controller: yes, one of many PS2-style PC controllers. However, I'd peg it as one of the best of its kind, as it's solidly built and controls well, alongside a decent price. My only gripe is that is has a "cap" style of D-Pad, but it's not loose or shakey, so no major damage done. -Logitech G5: Again, not a real "controller", but it IS a gaming mouse. Anyway, my dad's old TF2 mouse now serves me well for my PC gaming, and I SUPER dig the changeable weighting. -Megaman Anniversary Collection GCN Controller (jerry-rigged): My brother and I modded a spare GCN controller to work properly for the GCN port of Megaman Anniversary Collection (where B was made the jump button, and A the shoot button): I don't remember the exact fix, since it was a) done a while ago, b.) it was mostly done by my brother, and c) it's sealed with hot glue, but basically it fixes Capcom's mistake. This is mostly sentimental for me, granted, but I felt it worthy of mention. So, GCN, what're your favorite controllers? I already have third-party stuff here, so don't feel that you're restricted to OEM choices.

Jon got old on GG, but that's not really his fault: his stylings tend to work better when they've been refined with time (i.e. being scripted), so I'm really looking forward to more JonTron Show. As for GG itself, I used to enjoy them, but then they got stale (e.g. their talk became less and less relevant to the games they played and they kept trying too hard to be wacky and silly, to the point where they don't pay attention to in-game info that they evidently need), and frankly, Ego's increasingly incessant whining about how 80% of games post-2001 are terrible because they don't follow his antiquated school of game design got on my nerves.

I'm definitely looking forward to the Oculus Rift, particularly for the allegedly affordable consumer price point (moreso if the price of the devkit is any approximation of the consumer unit's cost). Also, since the Virtual Boy was brought up: apparently, deep within Nintendo R&D's reaches was (or maybe still is) a test color Virtual Boy unit (obviously unreleased). In the end, they gave up on it quickly, especially since the display gave testers double vision instead of a proper 3D illusion.