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Amentep

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Everything posted by Amentep

  1. RIP Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer and the guy who is probably most responsible for the resurgence of Bettie Page's popularity. He passed away after a long fight with leukemia. http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/20...vens-1955-2008/ http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2008_03_11.html#014911
  2. I've heard BND is as good as OND was considered to be bad. I think that the basic premise, of everyman loser Peter Parker making a deal with the devil to bring back his elderly (and dead before) aunt doesn't *work* for me, but it seems the resultant comics have done well for Spidey fans (excepting the die-hard marriage fans).
  3. I have played none of those games, but I think I agree. Hit Points are not representative of your character's actual health, they are representative of your character's action-hero mojo. Especially in a modern setting where 1 bullet would realistically mean incapacatation or death, the health bar makes little sense. If John McClane can fall six stories and get punched in the teeth a dozen times with nothing to show for it but a dust-covered sheen of sweat and an attractive scratch on his left cheekbone, why shouldn't our RPG characters? I'm reminded of a set up used by some RPG or another I read some time or another in some dim and hazy past that suggested that the "HP" (they didn't call it that) was really the PC's ability to *avoid* injury. IIRC they had a double mechanic, if someone attacked you and scored a "hit", you lost some of your "avoid damage points". When the ADP were used up then a hit actually DID damage your HP, leaving you severely injured (and in the P&P world, looking at recouperation time). So if someone shot at you, rolled a hit, and you had enough ADP to cover the "damage" you'd take, your were able to avoid being shot. If not you got shot in a body part, possibly fatally. If you jumped from a second story floor and had ADP to cover it, you did an action-movie land and roll. If not you broke something. And so on or some such.
  4. Not bad, as far as I know. I live in a gated community, and the unsavory folk probably can't afford to live here... Sounds like a lot of savory folk couldn't afford to live there either! I know I couldn't. Congrats on the move and good luck with the job
  5. Its not even wanting Aunt May more than his wife thats the worst part, its sacrificing his life with his wife in order to save the life of a 95 year old woman who should have been dead years ago anyway. That's kinda my point - Peter wants his Aunt who was already elderly, already with health problems (and, IIRC, had died once already only to have it retconned into being an Aunt May imposter) to continue living rather than accepting that its inevitable that May pass on at some point. I dunno, its just kinda creepy that Peter would force his Aunt back into life without ever thinking about what she might want, or worrying about what it actually means in reality. Basically it just doesn't work to me. I guess Peter just really, really loved those wheat cakes that May kept serving...
  6. I don't see it mentioned anywhere on Obsidian's boards, so I thought I would bring it up... Steve Gerber, the man who created Howard the Duck and wrote a lot of the more intriguing comics to come from the major publishers since the 1970s passed away February 11, 2008. http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=146401 Mark Evanier has kept open Steve's old blog with various updates and threads for people to discuss their thoughts and such: http://www.stevegerber.com/sgblog/ I had been reading Steve's update on DC venerable Doctor Fate character (which was really well done) and even though I'd known how sick he was had always been hoping against hope he'd get the transplant he needed.
  7. Huh, so thats a cranefly. Ive always know those as mosquito-hawks. The text was pretty funny. Mosquito Hawk seems to be a colloquial term that - depending on the region - can mean a Crane Fly, a Dragonfly or a Damselfly. Funny pictures though. Crane Flies used to creep me out when I was a kid and thought they were giant mosquitoes!
  8. Curse of the Headless Horseman (1974) The plot description is that a group of kids trying to help a friend who has inherited a ranch run afoul of the curse of a murderous headless horseman. The reality is that a guy studying to be a doctor is willed a "ranch" which he has to make profitable in 6 months or lose it to the "ranch's" caretaker. The ranch is, actually, a small ghost town serving as a tourist attraction (complete with shoot-out show!). The guy's friends, a bunch of hippies, travel along and decide to live and work in the town communally to make it profitable in 6 months. Their plan seems to involve sitting around and folk singing most of the day, randomly wandering around, putting on a sub-vaudeville review for themselves, getting a local singer to sing to them and generally not actually doing anything towards making the "ranch" profitable. Meanwhile, the "Headless Horseman" comes and...doesn't really do much. The first night he sprays some blood from a knife on one of the kids. Later that kid is mysteriously shot by a real bullet! Only its in the arm and he's okay. Later the Horseman shows up with the worlds fakest looking severed head (which actually changes between shots) and splatters blood on a girl who runs out into traffic and is hit. He sprays blood on another girl, then is caught and revealed to be one of the kids. Seems he found what he thinks was gold and wanted to scare everyone off. Only now all of the guys seem to have guns with real bullets and all want the gold and all shoot themselves. We are left to believe that the Headless Horseman is actually GREED. All of this and quite possibly the worst, most intrusive narration in a film ever (which also completely fails to illuminate the film at all), plus shots that randomly shift from day and night, horrible and long sections of film comprised of bad folk singing, characters who seem to randomly appear and disappear from the town with no explanations (and often appear in the same local twice; for example after getting blood on his shirt the kid gives a girl named "Yo-yo" his shirt to clean (because even in communal living, the girls do all the house work). Yo-yo is sitting in front of one of the buildings on the "ranch" and yet after he gives her his shirt, the kid walks not 10 feet and Yo-Yo is clearly in the background again, now standing by a covered wagon!) An awful, nearly unwatchable film.
  9. He sure is Tony Jay Kresselack was a great part. "Promised? Promised?! I made you no promise..." I was saddened to hear when Mr. Jay passed away.
  10. FRANKENSTEIN CONQUORS THE WORLD aka FRANKENSTEIN VS BARAGON. In the last days of WWII, German scientists studying the Frankenstein Monster's immortal heart are forced to send the heart to Japan for study. Japan's scientist study the heart in Hiroshima until the atomic bomb is dropped. 16 years later a weird boy is found by scientists studying radiation victims. Turns out the heart has rebuilt a body for itself, but keeps growing until the new monster is gigantic - just in time for giant monster Baragon to attack Japan! Really wild giant monster movie from Toho, loosely based on an idea that Willis O'Brien (King Kong) had tried to develop for the screen. Has some good stunt work and split screen work in the final battle.
  11. THE MANSTER, early 60s sci-fi horror Japanese-American co-production about a foreign correspondant who falls afoul of an obsessed scientist who experiments on him turning him into a mutating killer! Pretty well done considering the time and budget; a variation of the Jeckle/Hyde story. Fun, interesting and alternatingly weird and goofy.
  12. You forgot that it's also an awesome classic with two masterful performances and kickass directing. Are we talking about the 1972 original (with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier) or the 2007 remake (with Michael Caine and Jude Law)? Because they're supposed to be vastly different films...
  13. Playing Sacred at the moment. I'm now at the part I stopped at last time...
  14. It seems so likely that Michael is the spy that I keep trying to think if there is anyone else it could be so that it'll be a surprise when it happens. I thought it was an okay episode overall; got a lot of information but it pales in comparison with last week.
  15. I dunno, I like Watchmen, League & From Hell (and Top 10 and Promethea and a bunch of other stuff from Moore). Not sure that I can say I like one better than the other; I will say Watchmen (like V for Vendetta) is very much a reaction to a time and place that don't necessarily exist anymore. I read about some of the stuff Mystique was supposed to have done recently and it raised an eyebrow. I'm kind of curious, given that there is skrull-paranoia around (given the upcoming Secret Invasion story) if her actions are going to be tied to that (either in having been replaced by a skrull at some point prior to her weird actions or by having her figure out who some skrulls were and reacting to that). Its just hard to say at this point (although it seems Cyclops' recent actions are rather suspicious too...a "licensed to kill" X-group? )
  16. Greetings new poster developer type people, Annie and Brian!
  17. Well it couldn't be any worse than the last Toejam & Earl platformer they made... >.> With the Shining and Phantasy Star lines already being used, does Sega have any other notable RPG titles? Or maybe its Eternal Champions RPG...
  18. If the universe falls on my house, my insurance isn't going to cover it, I can tell you that much. The rest...not so sure.
  19. Well Jean Grey is popular... ...BUT she's died several times already. It always seems like characters who've died die a lot more if they come back. And in fact there's some belief that she's already come back... For anyone who hasn't seen them: http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/
  20. What does that even mean? Even without some external/man caused catastrophe (giant asteroid, magnetic poles reversing, atomic war, minature black hole being created in a particle accelerator, etc) the solar system will only last so long; if we stay on earth (and assuming we're still there for the event) we'd be vaporized when the sun turns into a red giant (and frankly if we were just in the solar system we might still have some issues).
  21. I think...for whatever reason it seems like very few actors (or perhaps its the writers problem?) seem to be able to pull off emotionless anymore (this used to kill me all the time on Star Trek shows with the Vulcans going around and emoting all over the place). As far as T:tSCC is concerned, I got to say while I liked some of the concepts in the show, and I liked some of the cast, I just couldn't get into it. A lot of it just seemed...silly to me. A bunch of running around and gun pointing and posturing and not a lot of plot or character development. Mind you I didn't watch every episode, but nothing in the episodes I saw really wowed me.
  22. Did not know that. Just remembered there was a comic thread, searched for the name, found a thread and responded to it with some new stuff. Guess I've spent too much time on boards where they don't want you to start a new thread if an old one exists... *** Anyhow I'm not really worried they'll kill Mystique; I guess its possible but she's such a hugely popular character it seems to be the kind of thing that would really agitate fans and such (mind you maybe that's why they do it; agitating fans seems to be the only reason most companies kill characters anymore).
  23. There's not a lot of information about Goners that I recall other than it being a supernatural thriller he was working on. Universal has the option on it and AFAIK has yet to see a draft they liked enough to green-light it (Joss has been - movie wise - in draft hell with this and the now dead attempt to do Wonder Woman). Tim's not had a lot of success with non-Joss shows, it seems, having had several cancelled (Wonder Falls, The Inside, Drive) without filling out their run.
  24. Joss and Eliza Dushku are doing a new series called Dollhouse next season on FOX. Tim Minear and a few other people who worked on other Whedon shows have come on board, but I'm blanking on names atm. Shows plot revolves around Echo (Dushku) an agent (known as a Doll) for a group that wipes the minds of its agents and programs them with new memories/skills particular to each mission. Echo, however, begins remembering things despite the mind wipes... ObTopic: I actually like Atlantis better than SG-1 to be honest (but watch them in syndication so am a year or half-year behind at least). Not wild about some of the upcoming spoilers I've heard for Atlantis either. Any word about the 3 Stargate series? Last I'd heard planning for it was scuttled by the strike...
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