Amentep

I don't understand why "I want to play some awesome games but there's no legal mean to purchase" automatically resolves to "I should illegally acquire the game". Not trying to make a value judgement here, but I don't see how one justifies the other.

Did they exclaim "Hello Sailor!"?

You can keep your expired passports, no ? Yes; as I recall you can use them to get a renewed passport as well.

It seems the vast majority of stuff floating around (to put it nicely) on the internet is "easy" entertainment. Maybe people who read Tolstoy are more likely to buy the book than people who watch Indepence Day are likely to buy the dvd? Tolstoy's in the public domain (at least the earliest translations for non-original language versions) so you can legally make the text available any way you like. I can download War and Peace for free on a Kindle (if I had such a device).

Did you have anything against 5th Element? Sorry I thought you were arguing against Lockout, and no I have nothing against the 5th Element. It was the first movie in which Milla Jojovich married a director so she could get a role. How many directors has she married? Two, Luc Bessan (1997-1999) and Paul W. S. Anderson (2009 - present). Her other marriage (annulled, IIRC) was to an actor. I watched THE RAVEN over the weekend. Not a bad idea for a movie (Edgar Allen Poe is recruited by the police to help capture a killer who uses scenes from Poe's work to stage gruesome murders) but it doesn't seem to understand the period its set in, Poe or his work or even manage a compelling mystery. It also seems oddly preoccupied with the gore of various deaths than makeing things suspensful or really chilling. John Cusack does his best playing Byron playing Poe, Alice Eve is serviceable as the female lead; Brendan Gleeson's talents are mostly wasted as his role is mostly scowling. Luke Evans manages to do well with the inspector who recruits Poe to help. Set design and costumes were pretty good though, as was cinematography.

The Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator! http://kaction.com/badfanfiction/

Er...True Grit cost $38 Million to make so even though its world wide gross is less ($250 million vs $560 million) the difference in profitability is less than you think compared to Cars 2's $200 million cost. (Based on the common estimate, a movie would have had to make 1.5 - 2 times its budget to turn a profit, so...). However its also fair to note that movie companies have stated they'd rather spend more money for more profit than spend less money for smaller profits. The question for games comes - even though Angry Birds sells more games what are the costs involved. Lets say - for simplicity sake - that Angry Birds retails at $5 (which their website indicated the PC version does), it has to sell 12 games for every one of ME2 (at $60 a unit) to compare the money actually being made. So in this situation, if Mass Effect 2 sells 1 million games and Angry Birds sells 8 million games, Mass Effect 2 actually made more money (~$60 million vs $40 million). Then of course there's development cost, advertising cost and such...the situation becomes fairly muddled. Also fair to note is that most movie companies will try to make 1-2 "prestige" pictures each year with the goal of being to snag awards (with the idea that winning awards leads to larger secondary market interest as well as a trickle down effect for the company). There doesn't really seem to be an "award effect" in video games like there is in movies.

You know, I played FFV but can't remember much about it other than I think it used a Job System. Mind you, I've never understood the love for FFIV either...

Oh yeah, I do remember reading about that now!

Hadn't heard about Demon's Souls inspired elements; had heard it described as a cross between Golden Axe and a modern RPG with a branching story. That and the movies I'd seen of the game really piqued my interest. So that we're getting it at all seems like a major achievement at this point since it seems to have had some trouble! The press release said "The transfer of licensing rights from UTV Ignition Entertainment to Index Digital Media, Inc. only affects the title's publishing and distribution; Dragon's Crown is still being developed by Vanillaware." but also lists Atlus now as a producer on the title, so I'm not sure how much input they're going to have in the game really.

Yeah I was worried when it seemed to drop off the radar it was going to be cancelled. Atlus being involved is good, IMO. That said, my only worry about changing the art (if that is indeed what they do, as opposed to just toning it down in previews or cover art like they've done in some titles) is only really if it has a detrimental effect on the animations; the movies I'd seen looked really good for the sprite animations and I'd hate to think that might get sacrificed because the character designs were too over-the-top for the US market.

Atlus has taken over publishing duties for Vanillaware's DRAGON'S CROWN n the US... ...which means the game isn't coming out until next year. It was originally slated for an early 2012 release but had slipped past that to a generic 2012 release last I heard. So glad its not being cancelled. http://blog.us.plays...or-ps-vita-ps3/ EDIT: Looking at Atlus' version of the Dragon's Crown site, it looks like they haven't moved over the movies or the full character art for the Valkyrie or Sorceress (both over-the-top in being "sexy") and all the character pictures are cropped. Wonder if it means that they'll be altering these characters for the NA market? Japan Site - http://dragons-crown.com/jp/ Atlus Site - http://www.atlus.com/dragonscrown/

Are you closer to the sexy librarian look or the sexy accountant look? Neither. I need them to see as well. The world's a blobby impressionist painting without them. Maybe its because I'm a supervisor now, and everyone who noticed is either a potential employee or family...

I got new glasses. Everyone tells me I look younger. I'm not sure if they mean it, or if they're humoring me...

I still would like to visit Kutn

Is the air being properly filtered in the new place? Mold? Allergens?

Camera's still suck but the enemies are expensive now, maybe? I'm still playing through Tales of Graces f but remembered I'd been doing Tales of the World on my PSP and picked it back up.

I think - and this is just me - when dealing with entertainment there never is any guarantee of quality, only that you're hoping that whatever you support (at any point in the development cycle - or even after in traditional consumer relationships) turns out to your taste. For all we know we'll be dead or blind or our computers gone, or homeless; but to me the question is do I want to support a concept I like, creators I like. If I dislike the end product - well there goes the chance that I'd give future blind support for a project. But I won't regret having made a decision to support the initial project even if I'm not crazy about the results.

One of the things that I've been wondering if JRPGs will eventually develop more into (outside of a the few titles they've had that have allowed you to make protagonists) is to allow you to pick from a set of protagonists. the PSP Persona 3 allows you to pick between gender for the protagonist; Summon Knight game on the DS or the Swordcraft stories on the GBA allowed you to pick between two different protagonists (who played through the same story). I'm playing through Tales of Graces f and I couldn't help but think that a game like this could be created where all of the characters could be the protagonist (but can't help but imagine it'd add a few layers of complexity to do). Funnily enough, one of the early WRPGs I played was SSI's Phantasie (travel on a top down overhead map; combat takes place on a separate screen with monsters arrayed against the heroes in rows) when I first started playing JRPGs I didn't notice much difference in style (except in Phantasie you rolled your own characters). Its interesting to see how both WRPGs and JRPGs take their cues from those older games as a foundation but have certainly grown in different ways.

I'm sorry, I guess I was confused when you said "it just hasn't been adapted into any video games" as not being a specific reference to the setting being turned into a turn-based RPG. The game that was made was a survival horror game, not an RPG, but was based on the Call of Cthulhu RPG (including adapting the sanity system of the P&P game).

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth by Headfirst was based on the RPG CALL OF CTHULHU. Headfirst were going to do two other games (BEYOND THE MOUNTAIN OF MADNESS and DESTINY'S END) but the company went belly-up (also taking the Deadlands game with them). I'd love to see an RPG set in the DEADLANDS universe (Headfirst was making an action game as far as I could tell).

Well they have the territories (America Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands). Then they have the short lived Nation-states / republics / nations within the US that didn't eventually get statehood (Franklin, Muskogee, West Florida, Indian Stream) And then they have State Capitals. And then they have former State Capitals. ... Or they could do something completely different.

This, if they fixed the dreadful combat from the last one. Whatwhatwhat, Wiz8's combat is coolness personified! Wizfast is mandatory though, else you could read write War and Peace in between rounds thanks to the slow animations. I'm not a big fan of the way they implemented combat; part of it is the speed (sloooooow) and part of it is the fact that the enemies have tactical advantages that the user does not (something that I always find cheap). In particular that the player is hamstrung by the fact that they can't get out of a grouping but the opponents can. So my party meets their party and in the first round I set to fire ranged weapons and an area effect magic. Their party's melee people rush me while their magic users also cast an area affect spell. My area effect spell hits maybe one of their party (because they can spread out) while there's hits my entire group because they can't spread out. Now 8 was the first one I played since the early series (either Wiz 1, 2 or 3, not sure which, but I suspect 3) and my memory was that the enemies you faced in those games were set up like yours - in a block and in rows. To me that's fair. Wiz8 came off as unfair, essentially, since the enemies could plonk repeated area effect spells on me and kill half of my group with ease while I was trying to take down one of their party; and their party would never, ever be in a group. There was also the issue that magic casters could cast spells on my party when I couldn't see them to target them which also seemed weird. Loved a lot of stuff about the game, but combat wasn't one of them. Regardless, I'd love to see the series get a revival (and not just in Japan).

I'm not disputing that it'd be nice to have more RPGs come across the ocean! I imagine there's a feeling that the really old school games wouldn't be worth the cost of translating. Its not that shocking, I'm afraid, that Vic Ireland's first foray into Kickstarter is an old-school "Wizardry" style game - Class of Heroes 2 - and that the game doesn't look like it'll meet its funding for a physical copy translation. But even as a fan of the old Working Designs (RIP), I was dismayed with the lack of fidelity to their source material (sometimes out of necessity, but the modern gags and references ALWAYS threw me out of the game).

Thinking about it a bit, I'd love for an RPG game set in Imagawa's GIANT ROBO: THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL universe. Not entirely sure how it'd work, but I thought that was a great distillation of a sort of "everything and the kitchen sink" universe since it homages so much of Yokayama's career, not just Giant Robo and had a lot of fun ideas to play around with.