The GFF Gamers Month
 

Hey Guys, over the last few weeks I've been chatting with Skills over a possible idea to do for the video game forum on GFF.

The idea is based upon Sprouticus's Metal Month, but instead of doing it for Metal Music, I thought it would be a great idea to do it for games in general.

Here is the tentative idea (this is subject to change at any time):

1.) People sign up

2.) Each person claims a day in May (Possibly two days if we don't get enough people to sign up)

3.) On your day you select one game, and then you can have your say about that one game. Why did you pick this game, give a little history on it, why do you like this game so much, and why is it one of your favorites.

I don't know if it would be best if everybody had their own separate thread for their day or if it should be put it all into an overall discussion forum. Regardless, I would like to think it could create a lot of discussion towards classic or even present day games. In terms that people could share different strategies or ways that they loved or hated the game in their own little way.

Another thing, I'm debating is that I'm thinking of making it console specific. This is not a guarantee. I just think an idea like this if it ends up being successful, we could have a GFF Gamers Month every couple of months for each console to each have our say of what one of our favorite games for that system is. I would like to say that I would like to do the first GFF Gamers Month on SNES games, since I'm a bit of an old school gamer. This is not final, if the general consensus feels it should be open to all games, then I'm perfectly fine with that.

4.) The last rule is lets just say if two people end up picking the same game, I guess the person you has their spot earlier in the month would have priority to make their opinion on that game. To the other person, you would just have to pick another. You'd be more than welcome to add whatever discussion to that said game as much as anybody else.

There are so many games I doubt we'll run into that problem, and your more than welcome to pick something that is overly popular or overly obscure. I just think it would be a great idea to share opinions on games whether they are new or old. Who knows it could be fun. It could be a great way for some of the newer members to get involved with the community.

Guys, I'll be completely honest. This is my first time running an event like this since the only other things I have ran is your scatter av/sig week. I would appreciate any comments, feedback, criticisms, insults, or what have you. I would like to make this a good event for the community so any help would be appreciated.

For the time being, lets make this a sign-up thread before we start picking dates. If the idea takes off then we'll add dates that would be more convenient for each member that would like to participate.

Thank you for your time.

Sign Up List:

All slots taken

Dates:

May 1st/2009 - Angel Of Light (game confirmed) - finished
May 2nd/2009 - Encephalon (game confirmed) - finished
May 3rd/2009 - Chaotic (game confirmed) - finished
May 4th/2009 - Worm (game confirmed) - finished
May 5th/2009 - Acerbandit (game confirmed) - finished
May 6th/2009 - Qwarky (game confirmed) - finished
May 7th/2009 - Rychord (game confirmed) - finished
May 8th/2009 - Syndrome (game confirmed) - finished
May 9th/2009 - Araes (game confirmed) - finished
May 10th/2009 - OmagnusPrime (game confirmed) - finished
May 11th/2009 - Sousuke (game confirmed) - finished
May 12th/2009 - Tails (game confirmed) - finished
May 13th/2009 - The Dopefish (game confirmed) - finished
May 14th/2009 - Shin (game confirmed) - finished
May 15th/2009 - Meia (game confirmed) - finished
May 16th/2009 - Dark Nation (game confirmed) - finished
May 17th/2009 - SuperSonic (game confirmed) - finished
May 18th/2009 - Tritoch (game confirmed) - finished
May 19th/2009 - Infernal Monkey (game confirmed) - finished
May 20th/2009 - Colonel Skills (game confirmed) - finished
May 21st/2009 - Moo (game confirmed) - finished
May 22nd/2009 - GB (game confirmed) - finished
May 23rd/2009 - Krelen (game confirmed) - finished
May 24th/2009 - Rockgamer (game confirmed) - finished
May 25th/2009 - Denicalis (game confirmed) - finished
May 26th/2009 - Omnislash124 (game confirmed) - finished
May 27th/2009 - Muzza (game confirmed) - finished
May 28th/2009 - Pangalin (game confirmed)
May 29th/2009 - Hawkeye (game confirmed) - finished
May 30th/2009 - Terra (game confirmed) - finished

(game confirmed): The member has their game selected and a pm has been received.
finished: Review has been written for that members said game.

Hey, what the hell, I'll sign up.

Not sure about console-specific stuff though, since not everyone owned every major console in the past 25 years. For example, I didn't own a Genesis (well, I did, but all I ever had on it was Sonic & Knuckles) and as such don't have much experience with its games.

I don't give a flying fuck what day you put me on. Just make sure I'm playing Rock Band.

This sounds pretty interesting.

Sign me up!

So is this basically just someone doing a game review for each day in May or am I missing something?

Kind of, Hawkeye. In one way the person is doing a game review but it opens up discussions toward a game a certain member feels pretty passionate about, it gives them an opportunity to talk about and discuss a game they've always wanted to talk about and share their knowledge with other people who have played the game before.

I'm in.

Sure why not.

Oh, just put me down for Chaotic instead of Luxray. I'm sure Pokemon Week will be over by that time.

I was hoping that you'd have time to put this idea forward soon! Fantastic. <3

In, obviously.

If I gotta pick a date...well, just slot me in whenever.

Also I wouldn't personally want it console specific at first, but that's just me. Maybe on the second run though?

Alright, that makes sense. Count me in.

Interesting. I'll just see what you guys have to say and decide if I should join next time.

Yeah, sign me up. I'm sure I can find the time to do this, sounds fun. :)

If I can, I'd rather go later in the month. Beginning his my birthday, and I'll be a wreck.

This sounds like a pretty nifty idea, so count me in.

I think Skills is right and it should be left more general rather than by specific system for the first go around. As for organization, a subforum like Shin's advent calendar seems like it would work best.

Metal Month's single daily post thread and secondary discussion thread was the template I was thinking this would follow. Perhaps I'm underestimating how many replies this would generate. But, y'know, he did mention that in the OP.

I think it would provide more scope of discussion and greater clarity and fluidity if each day/game got its own thread, in which the person would have to create the thread themselves, sticking to a predetermined thread template.

Although, this might get a bit messy, what with 30 or so threads. So I'm easy either way; the single discussion thread used in Metal Month seemed to work well. However if debate or serious discussion over a game was brought up, then such discussion would perhaps get lost and cloudy as countless "next day's game" posts are brought into the mix.

I am a gamer, sign me up (the cake is a lie) (XDDDDD I AM A HARDCORE GAMER)

I will write about hardcore gamer games so hardcore all you kiddy gay grandma babies will casually waggle dance right off the planet.

I'm in. I'd rather go towards the latter half of the month, but I'm not too fussed.

So at what point do we decide upon the game/series we'll cover? Surely it's not going to be a case of waiting until the day and then finding out someone else picked your choice earlier in the month?

sign me up i will talk about ICO

This sounds vaguely like one of the threads we used to have before it got pushed into oblivion.

Sure, I can try to do something. Sign me up.

Sounds fun. I'll join up too.

Two years of Metal Month showed that the two thread setup worked fairly well. Unfortunately, as was the case both years, interest seemed to wain towards the end of the month. This event may not have the same problem since there are more gamers than metalheads here, but its something to keep in mind.

Put me down for early May, but I may have to bow out depending on how busy I get with moving and shit.

I'm in...sign me up. :D Good to see guys like you bringing stuff like this in to spark more interest in the forums.

Sounds great, sign me up too. I remember doing this for the Metal Month, it was a lot of fun :)

Sign me up too, I'd love to do one of these.

I forgot to specify, but put me down for the latter part of May. I think my last final exam is on the 15th, so at least a few days after that.

I won't participate in this first go round, but if you guys do a console specific one, I'll definitely be up for PS3 month day.

What are you going to do for PS3 day? Make a post about the XMB?

ok seriously who edited my post thats not funny abusing your modpowers i do not want to talk about something called ico (is that some xbox game??) i want to talk about battletoads


Seriously I kinda hope people don't know what others will write about beforehand, just to see how many Persona 3 and Mugen entries we'd get.

That's a good idea. I was thinking about Home though.

Revolutionary interactive, real-time entertainment networking hub that lets users enter a fully interactive, real-time online world, create an interactive, real-time avatar of themselves that everyone else can see real-time, and communicate with other users in many interactive ways in real-time, right.

Sign me up. :D

I'm not sure what game I'll do yet, but slot me in for somewhere mid-to-late May, and I'll come up with something.

...Actually, I want dibs on FFVI [or FFIII if you please]. I may change that later on, but for now let's say I'm doing that.

Yep, all of that, and more! Including interactively showing off all of the innovative trophies that you've achieved while playing all of your no games.

Sure, maybe I can find something to talk about. Maybe!

Count me in on this.

I'll either talk about Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen or Heroes of Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East, I'll decide when the time comes.

Also, put me somewhere towards the beginning of May or towards the end of it. During the second or third week of the month, I'll be going on a cruise with my family, so I won't be able to get online at all during that time.

Alternatively.

If anyone is uncertain of when they'll be around and won't know exactly when/if they'll be able to make a date given to or assigned to them, if you want to write the thing beforehand and PM it to me, I'll post it on your behalf on the given day.

Additional Spam:
Another thought.

What if we all PM our choice of games to Angel or whatever, and then he can determine if there are any duplicates, and tell that person discreetly if so. That way it's still somewhat of a surprise for those of us reading the thread, but no one ends up with dupes.

This is a good thought.

I'm interested in this, and have a few thoughts I'll PM if we go with that idea. Right now I'm scheduled for travel starting the 12th to the 19th, which could possibly slip. However, if we've got dates well beforehand, I could probably just write something for posting prior, and squeeze in the 5 minutes to put it up. Also, I prefer a more freeform approach to this, as with others, I haven't owned all the consoles, so I'd be picking and choosing.

As long as I can do one after, say, the 14th, I'd love to do this.

(Rather not have this to worry about on top of exams, hence the request to do it in the latter half of the month)

Sorry about the wait guys, I just had a 15 hour work day. I just got back about 15 minutes ago.

Thanks for helping me with this Skills, I greatly appreciate it. I guess the consensus is that it won't be console specific, so I'm perfectly fine with that.

I do agree with your idea Skills, about sending a pm to me concerning what game they would like to talk about for this event. I think it would be best if it was a first come - first serve basis but I'm always open to other suggestions. I highly doubt with all the games that exist we'll run into two people that want to talk about the same game.

In terms of the PM, I would appreciate it if everybody could send their primary choice and a secondary choice just on the off chance that your game is already taken. If two people have chosen the same game, then the person who sent a pm for the game first will have priority toward that said game and as skills said I will let that said person know in a private pm.

I'm going to be working on dates for everybody at the moment, so if anything problems come up just let me know. Am I missing anything Skills?

I got no more suggestions or ideas or nothing off the top of my head, no. But I'm glad I could be of some use, though. =o

Now comes the hard part of thinking up something that could be discussion worthy, needs more exposure to the average reader, something someone else won't likely pick or expect, and is generally tip top pimpin'.

I think it can be fairly easy. Especially if its a game we've all played before. It can be anything from gaming strategies we've used for playing the game for the first time. Any funny stories that come with playing the game. If people put enough effort you can create a lot of discussion from it.

Do you think we should keep all the discussion to one forum skills, because it looks like with only 6 spaces left, we'll have a full house for this event.

I already got one confirmation from a member of what game they're choosing, and I think I got a few good stories to add with that game.

I have dates picked out for everybody, but if for any apparent reason the date doesn't go well with your schedule let me know and I'll try my best to change it. I took everybody's request with extreme consideration, so I hope the dates work well in your favor. I'm also going to put confirmed next to your name, showing that the person already has their game selected.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

Personally, I like the two thread approach, at least to test the waters. If it turns into something far larger, we can always scale up. However, this is your idea, so whatever you want I'll do my best to help facilitate.

Anyway, I am personally having trouble coming up with a title that would not better suit a possible console specific iteration down the line. Perhaps I am giving this too much thought, though.

I didn't notice the console specific idea on first glance. I don't like the idea, since a lot of my favorite experiences have been on PC games (Rise of the Triad, UT99, to name a couple) and I'd hate to be limited (if I was going to be, which I won't be this time around anyway).

I'd like to get in on this.

Actually, thinking about it Angel, can you move me up to earlier in the month, say the slot of the 10th? No worries if not, but cheers otherwise.

As for the game choices, are we supposed to be picking titles that are less likely to get a mention? Or just our favourites?

If there's still a slot that needs filling, I'll fill it.

Any hole's a goal and all that.

Console specific would be rad.

- Atari Lynx
- Atari Lynx 2

Then we celebrate the first successful GFF Gamers Month and have little cupcakes in large quantities.

That is not a problem Omagnus, I have you put on May the 10th.I hope that is satisfactory.

In terms of the game choices, its completely open ended. You can pick titles that you absolutely love or you can pick a title that is least likely to get a mention.

For Example, the game I have picked out is an all time favorite of mine, but its a game that I have not seen mention on this forum over the time I've been on here. I think its a great game and that is one of the reasons why I'm choosing it to see what other people feel about the game and see if it can open up any discussion. So my game is a little obscure but I think its a great game nonetheless.

Anybody is totally welcome to pick out a game that best suits their knowledge and dedication toward it.

When you say confirmed on the front page, is that relating to date soley, or to game choice? (If so, which of my two is confirmed?)

As for the actual discussion itself on each day, is the format freeform (i.e. we make it up), or is there a general outline you want people to follow?

o.o' Just um... one game for one day for one month in a year in GFF? ;__; Ah well. Sign me up for the sixth.

Minimum 4,500 words, opening executive summary and full foot-noted references. No images used without the express permission of the copyright owners and full artists credits to be given at the end of the article.

Sorry Omagnus, confirmed means just the game has been chosen by the said member. I want to play it carefully because obviously people's schedules may change so I want to trying to be accommodating as much as possible when it comes to the dates.

I think it would be best if the format was freeform, because each person is going to look at each game differently. So they can say whatever they want about it. I don't want to restrict what people can say about their game. In terms of a general outline. This is what I'm thinking

1.) Game
2.) Picture of the Game (Box/Case Art)
3.) Publisher & Release Date
4.) Brief History
5.) Brief Review
6.) Some of your personal experiences with the game, such as favorite boss fights, wtf moments, or any other funny stories that have come with this game.
7.) Conclusion

This is just a general formula and doesn't have to be followed right to a tee. I'm not restricting. Always remember its your game and your welcome to say whatever you want about it.


Sorry about the 6th being taken Meia, would you like to select another date if you don't mind me asking. You can see what dates are available on the front page.

Additional Spam:

I'm heading off to work guys, so I'll be off the forum for the next 12 hours but if you have any questions or ways we can improve on this event, just leave them on the forum or send a pm, I'll try to respond best I can.

First & foremost I want to apologize about double-posting in this thread. With the Gamers Month coming up in about 2 days. I just wanted to let everyone know that your first game selection is good for everybody.

We still have three people that haven't sent me their selection for their game yet. They are aware that they still need to send me a selection, but I do understand that they're busy and they'll send their pick in due time.

We still got three slots open, so if we don't get any new participants; if any member wants to have a second day in which they can talk about their second game, just let me know and pick out one of the dates that are still available.

Meia, has expressed interest that she wanted to be a part of this, but the date that she wanted was unavailable so I haven't received any word from her if she still wanted to be in this. I'll send her a pm shortly.

So on May 1st, I'll have a new thread created and the only thing you can post in that thread will be your game, on whatever day you fall under. Just make sure that when you finish writing that you want to say about your particular game you let them know that any discussion concerning your game will take place in this existing thread.

As well, just to play it safe I'll send a pm to each member on the day your game is suppose to be talked about. I don't think it will come to that, but with me gone for 12 hours each day. I just want to make sure that nobody forgets.

So if I am missing anything or if there is anything at all that is unclear, please let know. Lets make this fun event for all the GFF community. Take care everybody. All the best.

Additional Info:

Sprout had to back out due to other responsibilities, which I totally understand. Meia decided to sign up for it afterall, So we're back down to 3 slots available.

I know this is VERY LAST MINUTE but have we thought about making a subforum for this? Or are we going to run all the threads in the root Video Gaming forum? I would think it would be far too cluttered and I'm wondering if we can't use the Front Page Articles forum so that the front page on Gamingforce.org actually shows our respective day.

If you had noticed in the OP, you'd realize it was a two thread setup, like Metal Month.

To be honest, Enceph I thought it was the general consensus was that we would have two threads for this event. One thread to in which everybody's would be posting their description of their game and the other thread in which any discussion concerning a person's game would go there.

I think it is a great idea, I'll be posting my game in the next couple of hours, but I need to get some sleep first. I kind of wish I knew about this earlier but hey its not a big deal. If a moderator sees this post and puts your suggestion to work, Enceph I won't have any problems with it, but I think in the meantime we'll be doing it how sprout's did his metal month in community commons.

Oh fuck it, I'll get my game posted now while I'm still awake. My game is up.

Is there still time to sign up for this? I see a couple of available days in the OP but it hasn't been updated in a while. I'll take the 28th if it's still available, that should give me plenty of time to decide on something.

I just came across this too. I'd like to participate.

If not, well... no big deal I suppose. I'll take whatever spots are left if I can still sign up. :)

Yeah, you better hope a mod spots that, Paco.

Yeah that's fine Pang. I was hoping to get those spots filled anyway. I'll put you down for the 28th. Just try to get your game choice to me as soon as possible, just to make sure the game you picked isn't taken by anybody else. Take it easy.

Your more than welcome to DN. You'll have the last day available which will be on May 16th, and as I just said to Shin. Just try to send me your game choice as soon as possible because I want to make sure nobody has your game selected.

Lack of Sleep, Shin. Lack of Sleep. Ahh, fuck it I need my blond moment for this moment for this week anyway.

All right guys all slots are taken, Worm wanted to post a second game if nobody was going to take any more of the slots. So technically there is one slot available, worm doesn't mind if the game is bumped, if it compensates for somebody new to sign up.

That's right. I completely spaced on that one. Sorry guys. Carry on as planned. I'm writing mine tonight because I'll be driving to Santa Cruz tomorrow and I'll post it before I leave (approx. 2:00pm PST), if that's OK with everyone.

That's fine Enceph, you take your time with it. At least I won't have to send you a pm, but I look forward to reading what you have to say about your game.

Alright, I posted my game and stuck the thread so that it's easy for us all to find it. Really loving that game choice, by the way, Angel of Light.

Thanks Enceph, I guess I'm a bit of an old school gamer at heart, but you did a great review with your choice as well. I feel a bit ashamed that I've actually never ever played rock band even though I have a lot of friends that own it. I think I should definitely give it a try. I don't care what I have to do as long as I don't have to sing. I may not be a fan of a lot of the music on the game, but I got a fucked up music taste to begin with.

More Info: I got DN's game selection, still waiting for a few more people. I don't want to be a nuisance, just whenever the leftover people have a spare moment.

Mine's posted up. Mine was mostly just personal experience with the game and stuff.

Acer. Jesus christ. Type moar~ Talk about setting the bar higher and higher.

I don't see a single thing bouncing, Acer. :mad: ...I prop for LPs, though.

I loved the original NES Zelda for its utter lack of direction ("Here's a 128-screen overworld. Find shit."), but LttP upped the ante in both number and variety of hidden trinkets. It's great how you're rewarded for exploration with items that make your life easier but are completely unnecessary for beating the game. I kinda miss how knowledge of secrets and tricks would spread by word-of-mouth back then instead of via FAQs on the Internet.

Oh my god. I love all you people so much. We could have 20 remaining entries of FF7 and how awesome cloud's hair is and I don't think it could possibly be tarnished.

Fucking fantastic so far.

Must find a way to make mine some semblance of unique.

Although props are most definitely deserved to Acer for his Link to the Past post, I think the real standout so far is Worm's review of Battletoads. I hope you guys all live up to this.

Yeah, I was going to model mine after Worm's but as I tried I remembered our days in English together and how I'm not really all that good at being verbose and intelligent like him so I'd be better off doing my own thing - run-ons be damned. I'll just type how I think.

I think everyone wanted to be different because they knew they would be chastised if they chose Final Fantasy.

If they do choose one, it better be a damn good post. o__o

Damn, these have all been great so far. I largely missed this due to being so busy with school for the last few weeks, so I didn't get to sign up, but I'd love to do something so I guess sign me up for next year. :p

Seriously though, great job so far everyone, keep up the good work.

You know, Battletoads was not my first pick; it was just something fun I wrote about to fill the spot, since no one had signed up for it. My "real" pick is a fairly obscure game that I wanted to bring to people's attention, but I'm sure it won't be as interesting/fun for most people to read.

Since I'm the only one with two days reserved, I don't mind giving up my second day (the 24th) if someone still wants to jump in. I can just post my other entry in my ChocoJournal or something.

Well if you really don't mind, I certainly would like to take the spot. I don't have anything specific that I want to write about in mind yet, but I'm sure I can think of something fairly soon. So I guess if it's okay with you (I honestly feel a bit bad that you wouldn't get to write about your first pick, regardless of how obscure it is) and Angel of Light, I'll take the 24th.

Reading Acer's post brought back so many good memories of the first time I played lttp. Admittedly I was a little older than Acer would have been (14 I think) but having been a PC and Acorn gamer up to that point, I'd never played anything like it when I bought my mate's SNES off him. Unlike Acer I finished it in one, long 24+ hour session by the end of which my eyes were pretty much bleeding.

Strangely, I've never really like any of the other Zelda games. I've got OoT and Majora's mask on a GC disk (Came free when I bought the GC I think) but only got about halfway into OoT before I got bored and never played MM. Minnish Cap was alright but I never finished that either and Wind Waker was gay as fuck so I gave up on the series..

Anyhow, great reviews so far, I might have to start writing mine soon to keep up to this standard.

This is the very same reason I ditched my initial pick and went with what I ended up going with, simply out of trying to be interesting for the reader.

If this is done again, I'll try something more along those lines.

I'd be willing to host an obscure games recommendation/look-back piece on Prime Gamer if anyone fancies (Skills, you know you'd be more than welcome to write about any game like that).

Anyone is also more than welcome to post any reviews in our own review section...

Edit: In fact, I think after this event is done everyone who posted a review should start a new thread with it in the review forum. Or one of us could split all the posts out into new threads, except that'd take like 10 minutes work on my part and fuck that noise, you know what I'm saying?

Oh yeah, there is that too. :p

Good point about moving these to the Front Page bit. At worst you could move the whole thread I guess, but getting people to repost in new threads should be easy enough. Though we could have done that to start with if that's the end game, no?

If I split out all the posts into seperate threads when we're done it'll keep all the posts in one easy to find place for now and then they'll have the correct thread starters once they're in the review section. They'll also all have stupid thread names I come up with so pretty much everyone's a winner.

I'd like if you'd leave the original month thread intact if you could. Make a copy of each post as a new thread for the front page forum.

Fuck man, that'd mean at least an extra three minutes work. :(

Yeah, but the idea was to have a thread with one post for each day of the month of May. Split that apart and it might look a bit weird. Without that context for example my Cinco de Mayo joke loses whatever tiny, little impact it had. Well, I suppose it kinda does. Anyway, I just kind of like how the thread is. If need be I can help you copy those posts for new threads.

I wasn't planning on chopping it up until after we've gone through the whole month, by which time I'd have thought most people will have read the whole thread.

Anyway, it matters little to me either way, it really is just an extra button click to copy rather than move posts out of a thread. If it takes me more than 10 minutes once the month's up, I'll let you know and you can help. :)

I had planned on putting about 5 or 10 minutes into a brief review of my game. I can see now that I should get started right away if I want my post to be anything like everyone else's.

If it makes you feel better at this rate mine, which is all too soon, is going to be a large cup of terrible. I've got real writer's block at the moment and every time I sit down to even contemplate writing something my mind goes completely blank. I'm hoping a touch of inspiration hits soon. If not, well you'll find the benchmark lowered in your favour.

Also Q, not sure you used enough pictures mate. :p

Seriously though. Epic fucking posts. By the time May 30th rolls around we're gonna need a synopsis for each post.

If someone tl;dr's these, I'm not going to be held responsible for what I end up doing to their account.

I adore Shadow of the Colossus, but I just couldn't get into Ico. Maybe it's because I played them in that order, but Ico kinda bored me, to be honest. I never felt like I was making progress, and the shadow battles were annoying interruptions. I think I'm just too cold-hearted to get caught up in the atmosphere, though; SotC was darker and more up my alley. But, the game's certainly pretty enough. The bloom and soft lighting added warmth and didn't give everything highlights and a plastic sheen like nowadays.

I wanted to just run around that castle and climb and jump and explore instead of solving simple puzzles

I was hoping Q would do Ico. Beautiful post, buddy. Just gorgeous!

If it wasn't for Q I wouldn't have ever gotten around to playing it. ~ ~

Fuck you.

You have no idea how many sweet shots I had to leave out. All screens were courtesy of the wonderful folks at TIG magazine , btw.

Thanks~~
Truthfully, I was going to do Vagrant Story. Then literally at the last minute I realized no one else would do ICO because everyone was expecting me to. SO.

You do realise I was just mucking about, I really like the post. Man. I won't bother making any jokes (which I tried to obviously point out with a stupid smilie) again. ;_;

You weren't fucking around. I mean, you can deny it but, really, I want to see blood spilled over ICO.

RIGHT HERE.

RIGHT NOW.

BITCHES.

lawl I guess I should have put a smilie in there as well. You know I <3

It'd be cool if someone counted all the times GFFers have done this.

<joke>
<retort>
>hey man i was kidding, don't be so serious
>i was kidding too :(


RRRRREWIND


Also what, I thought you'd changed to HG yourself and I thought it was awesome. If there's anyone doing av/sig changes it's probably SkillcerBandit miles

It was me. Capo came up with them though. :boxing:

Hey Shin, if you liked Link to the Past you should give Link's Awakening or Oracle of Ages/Seasons for the GB a shot. They're much more similar to LttP than any of the other Zelda games out there.

So I just posted my take on F-Zero GX since I Had May 8th. I'm sorry if I came in a little early, time zones you know.

So, I can't be the only fan around? Got any good memories to share?

To this day I use the track NIGHT OF BIG BLUE to magically turn my Oldsmobile in a god damn spaceship capable of hurtling me through time to get to my destination before I even leave from my apartment.

I'm glad someone did a review of this, I'm enjoying the game a lot.

I remember unlocking the diamond cup a few days ago and discovering the track with no guardrails and diverging options (trident?). By the time I survived a race, I had gone through about 7 races and still had 2 extra machines. Only about 15 ships survived my last run.

Also, I shouldn't have used the White Cat right off the bat. I can't seem to get used to any other vehicle that doesn't turn on a dime and never lose control.

F-Zero... I love the game to death, but I can't seem to advance anywhere in it. :gonk:

Bought it a couple months ago for 8 bux at Gamestop. The game is so damn difficult. :(

Remember that hard version of Mute City where there's a 90 degree turn without handrails? Mother of god :gonk:

It's all about learning the tracks I gues.

i usually just hang around in the middle of the pack for the first lap or so on a new track and just follow the computers so i don't die quite as often. But yes, once you get into the higher difficulties you pretty much just need to know what's coming to have any chance.

F-Zero GX is easy. Just follow this simple visual guide.

YouTube Video

Oh lawdy. :tpg:

Glad that you messaged me Angel, as I had mentally flaked that this was coming up, and probably would have missed my day otherwise. Hopefully the review is up to snuff, as I had to bang it out between travel prep.

First of all, I just want to say that I am absolutely impressed with everyone's entries. With the event reaching its half way point everyone is doing a great job with their entries and its even got me interested in some titles that I have never had a chance to play.

With how Omagnus Prime and Qwarky have described their games, I'm actually interested in giving them a shot. Especially ICO because I've always haeard of this game but I never ever knew what it was. With how Qwarky have described the visuals for this game I think I'm in for a real treat. With Shenmue/Shenmue II, I have always known from various gaming TV shows that they were great games because of the level of interaction. I know the story is a little spoiled since I read Omagnus's Entry, but I still want to experience the gameplay. These games are on my hit list so hopefully I can play them soon. It seems like Omagnus these games like to give you a little hate because they seem to tease you a lot.

I would also like to take this opportunity to provide some of my personal gaming experiences with some of the games that have been mentioned thus far.

Chaotic's Game: I actually never got into DDR until really late. I had already finished my university degree, and was actually thinking of going after a second one when I experienced DDR for the first time. I was actually 24 years old. It is actually kind of funny how I got into DDR for the first time. It was actually after we had a Halloween fest at the anime society. That night we had gotten a ride to one of my friends house. As I was getting out of the car, and holding the door for one of the girls to come out. She actually slammed the door while my fingers were on top of the door jamming on of my fingers. I was actually bleeding pretty bad when I walked into his house, so I went to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up. I was actually in a lot of pain so thankfully my friend had some painkillers. So I took quite a few that night.

In his basement he had a lot of people downstairs and they were all playing DDR. He had all the mixes and even two cobalt flux dance pads. I knew about the game at the arcade, but as much as I wanted to play it I was too embarrassed to play it in front of everybody. As the night went on the painkillers started to kick in, and I just didn't give a shit anymore. I decided to try it, and I failed miserably but I had a lot of fun so I kept trying it, and throughout the entire night I managed to go from beginner to light mode.

After that, I played it every weekend at his house, when he use to have a lot of people over. I still didn't want to play at the arcade, in front of a lot of strangers because I thought I would get a little embarrassed. As soon as I started to get into the harder standard songs and easier heavy songs. I decided to bridge that gap from playing at home to playing at the arcade. The biggest thing I take from this game, is that it got me into being active again, since I lost a lot of drive to play sports when I finished university. In two years when I use to play this game at the arcade 3 to 4 times a week for about two years I had lost 35 pounds. Unfortunately I had put that weight back on again, but anytime I come home from working out in Alberta I try to get in a scatter game or two. I pretty good at the game, but I've still yet to pass my first ten footer.

The other big thing that I take from this game, is that this game introduced to me Trance Music. I have always been a big fan of dance music ever since high school. As sad as it sound but this game actually helped me identify different types of dance music. My favorite artist has always been dj TAKA, and I just love it how he incorporates piano into his music, such as tracks like Frozen Ray, Pandora, Votum Stellarum, .59, Rainbow Flyer and I roughly like about 90% of his music. I even prefer his style of trance over a lot of big artists in trance music such as Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, and many others.

In my house I only own US Versions of all the PS2 Mixes, but I don't have any interest in picking up any of the JP releases. I hope to eventually get time and try some of the UltraMix versions for the XBox, and the Universe Mixes for the 360. My favorite US versions are DDR-Max and DDR-Extreme, DDRMax because it just has so many of my favourite songs; they have two healing visions, two versions of look to the sky, gambol, stomp to my beat, dark black forest, and many others. DDR-Extreme put a lot of the older songs on a PS2 engine such as Wonderland, Kick the Can, Do Me (H.I.G.E.O Mix), plus it has a lot of stuff by dj Taka. My favourite JP Release, is actually DDR Party Collection; despite having a small song list, it has a lot of awesome songs such as Freedom, Stars, Orion .78 (AM-Euro Mix), Dub I Dub, and El Ritmo Tropical.

Worm's Game: To be honest Worm, I don't have much to say about this game Worm. I first noticed this game from when I had the Nintendo Power magazine subscription. I played this game as a kid and probably got to the same point that everybody else did which was the speeder bike level and just found it too hard and gave up. I never touched the game since. With how you described your review Worm it seems like this game may not be as hard as many people have claimed it to be. I haven't played it in such a long time, I think it's worth for me to give it another try.

Acer's Game: The Legend of Zelda: A link to the past was one of the first snes games I had ever owned. I had rented a lot of other snes games. I never had much of an opportunity to own very many of them. I actually had to fight a very personal battle to actually own this game. To the people that actually know me well. I have a fear of open water, but this fear is mostly based upon the fear of drowning (aquaphobia).

One summer my parents decided to sign me up for swimming lessons, much to my disapproval because they didn't want me to sit around the house playing video games all summer. My siblings and myself joined up for swimming lessons at the same time. While it only took my two younger siblings two lessons to get through the beginner level, it actually took me the entire summer to actually get through beginner but what kept my motivation up is that even though my mom knew I didn't like swimming she told me that if I could pass the beginner level, she would actually buy me a snes game. That was all I needed to hear, knowing that I really wanted to pass the beginner course for swimming. I knew it was definitely a luxury because in the early to mid 1990's snes games in my hometown were $80-$100 to buy. I actually managed to pass the beginner course, and my mom asked me to pick out the game I wanted. I told here I wanted to get the Legend of Zelda. That is the game she bought for me.

The problem with most of the snes games, I owned is that I beat them too quickly. This game however actually took me a long time to finish. I think it might of been 3-4 months for me to actually finish it for the first time. I had a hard time with the ice dungeon, but it was actually worth the money to buy it. Even though now I could probably finish it in two days. It is one of my favorite games I played as a teen. After that summer, I never signed up for swimming again, but my wife is trying her best to help me overcome my fear of the water. I guess more than anything else, I helped get over my fear for a chance to own a great video game.

By the way Acer, the first time I beat the game, I actually managed to get into that secret location too with all the blue gems, the first time I tried to drop down the pyramid to defeat Ganon. I never been able to get to that area ever since.

Fantastic review of Shenmue, Omagnus. I never got around to buying the second installment though. I still have the original but I only finished the game once because my first disc reads some kind of error and won't load anymore. :(

Angel, if there's two Japanese releases you should be interested in, it should be EXTREME and SuperNOVA2.

Honestly, they're the two best home versions available.

Well I never had a chance to play SuperNOVA 2 JP, but Extreme is all right, but the general consensus around my ddr community is that the reason why everyone likes Extreme is because of all the 10's and flashing 10's and of course Max period. You know, each to their own; we all have our own tastes and I can't hold anybody against their taste. I haven't even passed a 10 footer yet.

I do like some a lot of the songs on JP Extreme such as Last Message, Heaven is a 57', Twin Bee, Frozen Ray, Tears, and Xenon.

Wat. :gonk:

I could careless about all the 10 footers in the game. Aside from all the 10s, the game has an excellent selection of songs.

I know it seems like I've spoiled the story a little, but trust me that with Shenmue, they're the sort of games where the end point is sort of obvious, it's the journey taken that matters, and most of that comes through your interaction with the world. Plus, my summary of the stories are the ultra highlighted, cut-down cliff-notes version, there's a lot more that goes on that I've not touched on.

Plus there's nothing like looking for some sailors.

Fantastic story, AOL. And that's awesome that you found that room as well. Basically you have a really really really really small chance of finding it due to a glitch with falling into holes and entering houses/caves. The game scans for the glitch and if it occurs it defaults to transporting you to the Chris Houlihan room instead of completely fucking up. It's kind of a neat failsafe that rewards players. A "sorry you didn't get to where you wanted, here's a room full of rupees and a congratulations" of sorts.

Thanks Angel for the PM, this had totally slipped my mind... As such, I ended up throwing this together over the past couple of hours. It's a little haphazard, in that I couldn't really seem to arrange a cohesive train of thought, but it's better than nothing. I hope.

Doesn't the fact that you (and many others) go back and play it on a regular basis prove that it's "stood the test of time"?

Just wonderin'

What current generation RPGs are as fun as FF3? Other than perhaps the remakes out for the DS due to increased portability.

Well, there's so many differing opinions, so to speak. For example, I enjoyed FFXII, even though it started out kind of slow. And the Tales series. I'm sure there are others too who would say they enjoyed a certain game, and more who would say they didn't.

What I meant is that graphically it doesn't really stand up. I guess that's a given though. And a DS-remake of FFIII/VI would be awesome.

I dunno; I feel late-generation sprites hold up a lot better than the super-polygon characters of PSX days. I mean, Secret of Mana is still one hell of a beautiful game.

I hate JRPGs and still can't deny FFVI's charm. Admittedly, I like the music and setting more than the actual game, but it made a lasting impression on me, which is more than I can say for VII or anything afterwards. And personally, I thought the World of Ruin's design was a high point. If there's one thing the genre needs, it's less railroading.

Oh, and I prop for this guy:
http://i39.tinypic.com/357lrfl.gif

Less railroading but more Phantom Railroading, right?



(Except when Cyan's family is involved. :()

I played FF6 years too late and it was still magnificent. I also feel the beautiful 2D graphics have aged far better than the 3D of FF8 or 9.

(I'm one of the very few who likes the gouraud shading of 7)

Every time I've tried to play FFVI (Or 3, whatever), I've got bored and given up pretty early on. I think I've just had enough of traditional JRPGs and prefer things with a bit of depth to the combat system. That's just me though and I'm sure if I'd played FFVI when it first came out I'd have loved it.

I do keep trying it though every now and then and one day I might get into it. I'm planning on playing through IV, V and VI on my PSP once I go back to getting the train to work so that might be the time I enjoy it.

Writing things at two AM is fun. Bad sentence structure, go!

Do I give a fuck? NOPE. :mad:

lol that's pretty much how i did it =')

Oh one of you motherfuckers better be writing about Terranigma.

I'm not going to be at work much tomorrow so I posted mine a bit early, sorry.

I played a game very similar to NHL 94 when I was little. Except that I just checked and it's only called NHL hockey - presumably the first NHL game. It still brought back a lot of memories.

I don't think anyone will really mind, Shin. I only really played Ultima 8 and 9. And by play I mean just fuck around in 8 because 9 was awful. I really like the perspective in 8 and looking at screenshots of 7 kind of make me queasy. Killing children and hiding in stores to rob them after hours were great joys of mine. Also the storage system was hilarious.

I have two distinct memories associated with Ultima VII: performing some kind of boot disk voodoo to get it working on my 486 (something to do with extended memory, I think?), and stealing a sextant from a poor old blind woman who trusted me to leave money on the counter.

Sadly, my computer was just too unstable to finish the game on my own, and I saw most of the game by watching over my friend's shoulder. A world full of persistent items that stay where you drop them seems like small potatoes these days, but it blew my mind back then.
pouches inside of sacks inside of boxes inside of chests inside of backpacks inside of barrels

Inside of dead bodies if you really wanted...

Ultima VII came out at that hilarious time for PC gaming where you needed a seperate boot disk for each game and had to be a master of stripping every single non-essential item out of your config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get anything to run. Half the games needed EMA memory, half XMA and squeezing every last drop out of the 4mb you had installed was a real skill. I also remember not being able to play Commander Keane anymore when I upgraded to a 486DX2 as it ran too fast to be playable. :(

God, I just hope my photobucket bandwidth HOLDS. I didn't want to throw in BIG images but rather small sprites to act as urls to those slight bigger images to save that thread.

Anyway... I wish to thank Paco for the encouragement (you gave me the idea by the way) and Shin for proofreading it for me and uploading the mp3. Colonel Skills also for his words of encouragement too. SailorDaravon did absolutely nothing for me. Maybe he listened to my griping really. But NOTHING useful ever came from that dude. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy. Pardon my writing... its not exactly my strongest suit.

EDIT: Um about that images and loading times, I have an idea? How about if um... after ONE week has passed, those images can be taken down or something? Maybe a day or two? Just an idea.

I could always go through and spoiler the images on the older posts if people are struggling to load the page. It loads ok on my phone though (Phones are the new 56k don't you know) so I wouldn't really call it a problem yet.

Meia, your photobucket account should be fine. I host all my sigs on their and I've never once exceeded the bandwidth.

Whatever, my article is pretty light. 143 kb total for the images and the two youtube videos don't do much damage until you actually play them. http://www.thegond.com/em/emot-colbert.gif

Biggest offender is :ico: but it's completely necessary. So buck up!

Now if only I could finish Metroid Prime 2. Stupid Boost Ball boss. Then I could play MP3.

That's because you suck! I would have gone with Prime 1 personally because it was slightly less gimmicky, but the Trilogy as a whole is pretty good so THUMBS UP, DN.

I got one of my dorm buddies to play through MP1 and 2 on hard mode for me. :shade:

You're the only person who I've ever talked to that HASN'T had major issues with that boss. It's really the only moment of PURE FAGGOTRY that I've run into so far in either of the first two games. The evil crazy Pirate boss sucked, but it was doable.

One thing I was going back and forth about mentioning or leaving out is that there's apparently going to be a "New Control Play" editions of MP1 & 2. I decided to leave it out the review because it was only tagently related to MP3, but hey, maybe it'll make that one boss easier now.

I wonder how much that will put a damper on the sequence breaking possibilities of those two games, as many of the best tricks like Dash Jumping rely on the targeting mechanisms of the first two games. Course, a lot of stuff could still be done with alternate techniques like laddered bombs, but I would probably still expect some new figures for min times and percentages on the upcoming versions.

I had thought that the Wiimakes of the original MP games were going to be Japan only. Here's to hoping, though. I'd like to try playing through them with motion controls and such.

I remember when Corruption came out for the Wii and I went out and got it. Then I got here and found out that sprout hadn't really liked the game and I, for the life of me, have never been able to figure out what it was that he didn't like about it because it's a fucking fantastic game.

Great post on SMT, Tritoch! I never got around to finishing that game because I borrowed it and never played it since. Now I really want to finish it.

SuperSonic also picked a great game to review. I would have taken Chrono Trigger myself because it's still my favorite RPG but I figured I'd stick with newer console games to give others the chance to review older games.

Great job, guys! Keep 'em coming!

I've always wanted to play DDS, but I could never find it around here and didn't feel like resorting to eBay. I'm sorely tempted now, though. I enjoyed all the other SMT games I've played so far, and your review makes this one look just as nice.

Quick question though: You said that the optional bosses give you items--like rings that carry over to DDS2--does that mean that there's a save-transfer feature kind of thing from DDS1 to 2? And does it net you anything else?

Can net you a few things. Effects certain characters, your levels etc.

Infernal's review makes me want to play Chuck Rock for some reason.

Which reminds me that once again I forgot to nominate the Chuck Rock intro music for the BSC this year.

Fucksocks.

It's such a shame to see that the mighty genre of elephant games has degenerated to things like this.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57...991/3019_b.jpg

The world of elephant gaming will never return to the high success of 90's 16-bitness. :(

I remember getting my first computer (A Dell 320SX) and thinking that using Memmaker would increase the RAM in the computer, having no concept of what memory management was at the time. :(

Yeah, I kind of understand that. Makes me want to play Spanky's Quest. Dropping sporting equipment on fruit by bouncing bubbles never felt so right.

Sadly, Ebay could be the best bet for DDS1. I see DDS2 a lot in Gamestops, but they still charge something like $35 for it last time I looked. They're both definitely worth the trouble of tracking down, though.

As for carryovers, there might have been something with levels like Miles said. You don't keep any of your Mantra skills since the grid is set up very differently in DDS2, as a group of connecting hexagons. The major thing people worry about is being able to use a certain character in the final dungeon. If you answer several dialogue choices in both DDS1 and DDS2 correctly then he replaces Roland, the new guy who joins you in DDS2.

Skills. Fuck yes. Only thing you forgot is the fact that with the release of the game we had NEW ARRANGES of CLASSICS.

Moar Magical Sound Shower is always a good thing.

To be the most nitpicking of nitpickers, my article is about Special Tours as it appears in the arcade, which recycled 2's new music, and the next batch of arranges didn't hit until Coast 2 Coast, which is an enhanced port of this.

But you're right, fuck year Magical Sound Shower.

I just checked and Amazon seems to have both DDS1 and 2 in stock, although granted that's the PAL versions on amazon.co.uk. I'd be tempted to buy them as I loved Nocturne but I've got a ridiculous backlog of games as it is so God only knows when I'd play them.

Huh, you're right. NA Amazon has DDS1 in stock for $35 new, which is pretty great. Maybe Atlus did a reprint at some point like with Nocturne, because I couldn't find it anywhere when I went looking for a friend two years ago. They have DDS2 new sold through "Hitgaming Video Games", but it costs a whopping $131. For once, EB may be the best answer there.

Got a chipped PS2? I can get the second game for £15!

Edit: Although they're currently out of stock, a Google shopping search found a couple under £20. I'm not sure how to run a Google US shopping search from here without deleting all my cookies but it's always worth a look.

Skills, I'm in love with your formatting job. I really appreciate the work you put into it as it looks fabulous!

Well I just thought I wanted to give my input on some of the games that have been mentioned over the last few days. I've been really busy with work, but I managed to get home a little early, so I apologize in advance if this post is a little long.

Sousuke's Game: I think Final Fantasy III was the game that really helped my dedication toward playing the rpg genre and to this day it remains my favorite Final Fantasy to this date. In my eyes it is the second best story I've seen from a Final Fantasy game. If your wondering what my favorite story from a Final Fantasy game it is Final Fantasy Tactics.

I was only slowly getting into the rpg genre and when I owned a snes I had only played a few rpg's as well as a few action rpg games. To be honest I never really found any of them challenging, the only turn based rpg's I ever played before I played Final Fantasy III was Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and Super Mario RPG.

How I acquired Final Fantasy III, is that I had loaned my copy of Breath of Fire to a close friend of mine. He told me I could hold onto this game until I actually beat it. From the opening sequence of the three mech's walking toward the mountain town I was immediately hooked.

This was a game I absolutely loved; especially how some of the characters interacted and as a teenager I really liked Kefka's evil laugh. I use to come home from high school and play this game for a few hours every day. I had never played anything like this, and when I look back at this game I actually got killed quite a lot. You'd think when you get killed all the time, you would just give up on it, but for me I just wanted to play it that much more especially to see what happened next.

I loved how early in the game, when your team got separated at the river it branched into three separate story-lines. I never seen that in any game before. I was just enthralled with the story and how each character had their own detailed story. As fun as the game was it had its very depressing moments. Especially Cyan's story. That character may not have been my favorite character to use, but I had sympathy for his character especially watching his family get killed by Kefka. The ghost train sequence was a little sad.

In the World of Balance it always amazed me how much there was to do. It really felt like the game kept going and going. It didn't seem like it was going to end. I honestly thought that when I got to the floating island. I thought that was the final dungeon. Since I thought it was the final dungeon as I was escaping the floating island I didn't even know you could rescue shadow at the very end. Much to my amazement, and I was really surprised that there was a total new world to discover in terms of the world of ruin. I had never played a game that had so much exploration. Even though I probably could of beaten the game at any time. I wanted to explore it, I wanted to find all my lost team-mates and there haven't been many rpg's to this day that have surprised me as much as this one. I still consider final fantasy VI to have one of the best endings I have ever seen.

The funny thing is: when I had played this game as a teenager I did find it tough. I use to get killed all the time especially in the world of ruin. My friends told me to use the vanish-x-zone or the vanish-doom trick to make it easier. I had really whored out that trick for a lot of the game, so I felt it didn't really do me much justice by progressing through the game that way.

When I actually beat the game, a few years later, someone was telling me all the things that I missed. I really thought when I played the game as a teen, I had done everything, but in all honesty I had only scratched the surface. I actually played the game a few years ago with a mission to do as much as I can and to beat it fair and square, because I wanted to see what I missed out on. I never knew you could save Cid, I never ever knew where the last dragon was, I didn't get all the espers, I didn't know final fantasy three characters had limit breaks, and I didn't know you could save shadow.

There is so much more I can say about what makes this game great, such as the opera scene, locke's storyline, kefka's imprisonment, and many other great moments. I know Sousuke, this may not be your favorite final fantasy but this game helped develop my dedication to rpg's right to this very day. I use final fantasy III to set the bar of what makes a great rpg.

The Dopefish's Game: One thing you taught me Dopefish with your review is there was a lot of things that I didn't know about NHL 94. I had rented a copy of it for my snes and it was one of the few games I use to play with my much older brother in law. I actually liked this game so much, my parents had bought me a copy of NHL 95 for Christmas. I guess I was really excited about NHL 95 because you could trade players and stuff a long those lines, but NHL 94 I actually really enjoyed because NHL 93 I didn't really like that much. I had probably never touched another hockey game after NHL 95.

Some of the memories I had of NHL 94, is when I played against any of my friends and the computer I found it really easy to score and I didn't even do one-timers. I always use to deek out the goalie all the time. I'm sure if I played against any serious competition I probably would of gotten owned. You picked out a great game, and this was definetely one sports game I spent a lot of time playing. I forget when you scored a hat trick, did the crowd throw out hats in NHL 94 or was it NHL 95. The team I use to play all the time when I played that game was the LA Kings. I was a big fan of them at the time. All the same Dopefish, a really excellent review.

Meia's Game: In terms of Valkyrie Profile, there is not much I can say about this game for the sheer fact that I haven't played it. I own it, I own the PSP and PSX versions. It was probably one of the most expensive games I ever bought off ebay. My wife and I bought it for $140 about 4 years ago. I only ever seen this game played once or twice by my wife. She had only played just past the opening dungeon.

The moment I seen the first battle, and Lenneth said "To My Side My Noble Einherjar". I was just hooked and seeing her special move for the first the nibelung valesti just really captivated my interest toward the game. When I had first owned the game, there were other games I wanted to play first and when I finally got around to wanting to play it, I had to move out to Alberta to work and there was no way I was going to take a 140 dollar game out with me to Alberta. When I get back home for good, this is going to be one of the first games I'm going to play.

I had a Valkyrie profile itch that I needed to scratch, so to compensate for not playing the original. I had played Valkyrie profile 2 because I knew it was a prequel so I thought to myself that this game wasn't going to spoil the first one for me. I was so fucking wrong. I had some stuff spoiled pretty bad, but its not going to deter me from playing the original. According to a lot of people, the first one is far superior anyway, so I absolutely look forward to playing this one in due time.

That's it for now folks.

I concur, I'm a little jealous I didn't think of something like that. Cool to see and read about the origins of the XBL Arcade Game (that I picked up).

Woah, Angel is really channeling Crash above

Sorry for the late addition to the thread, yesterday was the last day of finals. I was beat. But yeah, it's up now.

For those of you who haven't purchased my game, it's eight goddamn dollars at Gamestop. Don't waste such a good opportunity to try it.

I have the game, and thought it was decent. Only was at the beginning, but stopped playing it years back for some reason.

However, the Soundtrack for Dragon Quarter is absolutely brilliant for any of you who have not listened to it yet.

HEY GUYS HAVE YOU HEARD THAT ELECTRIC POWER BUILDING?

BoF V: DQ was actually my number two choice for this event. Probably my favorite thing about it is just the stark contrast that comes across for every aspect of it. Compared to past BoF games, it is a complete sea change, hardly identifiable as the same lineage. In its palette, same story. Everything you are involved with in the game is painted in gorgeous swaths of brilliance, but just outside your periphery waits an endless expanse of steel and dirt. The pictures you put within the Battle System section really capture this, and I am still often taken aback by how gorgeous this game is.

I agree that BOF: DQ was a pretty surprising game. I've been a fan of the series since I waited patiently for the first game to arrive at my local Sears store so I could spend a good 100$ of saved up allowance on it (it might have even been more,but I can't remember, I was 10 back then), and I always found that each installment brought a little something new to the genre without completely transforming it.

When I bought DQ though it was like they blew the top of the whole thing, but in a good way. I hadn't read any reviews of it so I wasn't expecting this at all. It really is a worthwhile game for anyone who likes them JRPGs.

Unfortunately, it seems (to me) that DQ often is fairly polarizing for fans of the series, as it is married to a series of games which were almost bastions of classic RPG gaming conventions. On one hand, I wonder how many people would have discovered it, had it not been attached to the BoF series, but on the other, it might have been received in a different light, without prior baggage.

I still don't get why you guys say BoFIV is so freaking hard. The only time I used SOL in that game was before I even finished the first dungeon and was trying to figure out what the heck it was about. You just have to fight every monster you see in the game. =\

If you try to fight every monster on your first run, you either run out of D-Counter or you get cast down by some of the tougher guys midway. At least, that's from my own experience trying to get a 1/4 on my first runthrough.

Skills has alerted me to the fact that there exists a PSP Outrun game. I'm not sure how exactly I glossed over that when I first read his post. FUCK YES.

To this day, I tell people I'm selling fine leather jackets. If they get that I'm referencing Monkey Island referencing Indiana Jones, I <3 them instantly.


Oh, and the whole "HANGING FILES OR NAIL FILES." I shit you not, just this year I said that within hearing of my opera director, and (even though he wasn't part of the conversation) I hear from across the room "YES." Without skipping a beat I replied "You bother me, boy."

I've been meaning to look up a way to play the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, and Sam & Max for years. Now here comes Deni providing all of them in one convenient torrent file. <3

Because if there's ever an entire game genre worth playing, it's the LucasArts adventures. I aim to please.

Speaking of which, I forgot to mention Vampyre Story. Going to alter.

... Ask me about LOOM.

Wow. You know a lot about LOOM.

Hmm, there are too few games regarding Pirates and the activities in which they partake in, I'll have to give these a try out later. Great music too, I think the second to last game's sample is my favorite.

In regards to the torrent, should I go with Speech versus non Speech versions or does it even matter?

It doesn't really matter, but hey. Speech, why not?

Oh ok, I thought perhaps it would be like "Well the Speech versions suck horribly but they are included for completeness sake", which is what I was thinking in my mind.

In that case, sweet.

Are those images playable on a Mac? I want so badly to play these games and I've never been able to load them onto my Mac.

Should be with the mac release of ScummVM

ScummVM :: Home

I don't think I say this to you enough, Deni. But I love you. <3

Always glad to help, fella.

Well, I didn't plan on posting a small bit and adding on to it slowly until it became the final edition, but I accidentally pressed Submit instead of preview partway through.

In any case, my entry is done. Screenshots of a GBA game seem underwhelming, so I wasn't sure what else to use to break up walls of text.

I'm SO not grabbing that complete torrent. I mean, I own the monkey island collection (still haven't played 4) and I'm currently playing through Grim Fandango on my jewel case version, but hey. It's got Full Throttle. Life is good. I'll need to burn a copy of that for my dad and get his computer to run it.


Also: Does ScummVM automatically read the CD images or just the games that weren't CD to begin with?

Curse and Escape both have fantastic voice acting. So yes. Play with voice acting. Dominic Armato does Guybrush Threepwood justice and then some. He loves the community to boot.

While Sacred Stones is a good game with likable characters, I think it's probably my least favorite of the Fire Emblems that have been localized. The branching promotion paths were nifty, but it's just so easy compared to the others. By the end most of my party were unstoppable gods, especially Tana the pegasus knight, and I didn't do any of that world map grinding. Of course, that also makes it a good game to start with for people new to the series.

Is it just me, or are all the music links broken? I can't get any of them to play. :(

Pretty much all FE games are easy by the end if you play them right. The only characters you should have to consider approaching cautiously by the end are bosses.

That said, FUCK YEAH TANA. FUCK YEAH PEGASUS KNIGHTS IN GENERAL. Marcia is the best and if you don't agree you are a suckers.

Marcia was decent, but who needs her once you've got Jill flying around, slaughtering everything that moves? Wyvern riders are where it's at when it comes to flying units.

Fool! Jill isn't a Pegasus Knight so she can't be the best. :mad: IIRC there's always been more ballin' Peg Knights like Sheeda than there has Wyv Riders.

The real thing is to combine them all into a flying death army. Jill and Marcia were always in my top 3 as far as units killed, with Mia (FUCK YEAH MIA) cleaning up the ground units.

Jill + Marcia + The Hawks (preferably Janaff because Ulki is slower. A Tibarn is fine too) = holy shit everything dies.

FUCK YES LIVE A LIVE. It's actually one of the games I was considering covering what with it being one of Square's most out-there games. Dispatching every enemy in the ninja chapter was a hell of a chore, though...

Last summer a really nice translation patch came out - it tweaks the script, adds a few polished graphical hacks and includes a new font for each episode. Definitely worth checking out; grab it here.

[05/29/09 - 01:05:54] <@CHz> also skills
[05/29/09 - 01:05:58] <@CHz> hawkeye just posted golden sun in the gamers month thread
[05/29/09 - 01:06:00] <@CHz> please fix this
[05/29/09 - 01:06:16] <+Mo0> not until someone fixes that godawful FFVI post
[05/29/09 - 01:07:03] <&Colonel_Skills> Well. I'm just glad he didn't post Lufia: The Ruins of Lore at this point.
[05/29/09 - 01:07:42] <&Colonel_Skills> Golden Sun is the least of my worries
[05/29/09 - 01:07:55] <&Colonel_Skills> alternatively since he lives in Winnipeg I can go kill him IRL
[05/29/09 - 01:07:58] <&Colonel_Skills> would that be sufficient
[05/29/09 - 01:08:46] <@CHz> Maybe, let me actually read this post first.
[05/29/09 - 01:09:16] <+Mo0> It's not very good.
[05/29/09 - 01:09:34] <+Mo0> I mean Hawkeye is a nice guy and all but I seriously think he may actually be 15 years old.
[05/29/09 - 01:09:56] <@CHz> "All things considered, Golden Sun has a very basic story." at least you admit it
[05/29/09 - 01:10:03] <@CHz> "The story doesn't seem terribly complex, but playing through Golden Sun, The Lost Age (the sequel to this game) explains a lot of the story and fleshes out the characters a lot better." no it doesn't
[05/29/09 - 01:10:11] <+Mo0> no it doesn't
[05/29/09 - 01:10:18] <@CHz> "Isaac and his allies come across various interesting people and cultures" no they don't
[05/29/09 - 01:10:42] <+Mo0> "I’m really not very good at reviewing games" we noticed
[05/29/09 - 01:11:03] <+Mo0> "for all intensive purposes" NO
[05/29/09 - 01:11:08] <+Mo0> THIS IS NOT CORRECT
[05/29/09 - 01:11:09] <@CHz> ^^^^^^^^^
[05/29/09 - 01:11:20] <@CHz> "I almost forgot. The music is awesome." no it's not; wish you had
[05/29/09 - 01:11:26] <+Mo0> ^^
[05/29/09 - 01:11:50] <+Mo0> "In conclusion, I think that I enjoy this game most for its simplicity." you don't sound very sure of that
[05/29/09 - 01:12:14] <@CHz> "I'd give samples, but doing so would be incredibly impractical and difficult due to the lack of preparation on my part." wrote this ten minutes ago
[05/29/09 - 01:12:30] <+Mo0> "The game is very linear, without too much for character development, story, complex puzzles, or any of the other things I usually look for in a game...this game is probably the one which sold me on the (J)RPG genre when I was younger." what
[05/29/09 - 01:12:34] <&Colonel_Skills> copy pastaing this into the discussion thread
[05/29/09 - 01:12:37] <@CHz> let me quote that again
[05/29/09 - 01:12:38] <@CHz> "The game is very linear, without too much for character development, story, complex puzzles, or any of the other things I usually look for in a game."
[05/29/09 - 01:12:52] <@CHz> here once more
[05/29/09 - 01:12:52] <@CHz> "The game is very linear, without too much for character development, story, complex puzzles, or any of the other things I usually look for in a game."

IT IS

FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES

NOT

FOR ALL INTENSIVE PURPOSES

GRAMMAR FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

fair enough. no one's ever actually said it slowly enough for me to be able to tell which it was.

Yeah, still mad about the FF VI thing.

Sorry, that particular common error is one of my pet peeves.

They're are a couple other errors that tend to be their with the other ones, but if you use English the write weigh I tend not to complain, so.

Screw you Skills, I loved Golden Sun. Sure it was a fairly basic RPG combat-wise, but it was still a lot of fun finding and combining the djinn. I remember playing GS to death back when I was in middle school, and I still regret not finishing Lost Age while I still remembered what was going on. One of these days I'll skim an FAQ to catch up and complete it.

Also, why is Hawkeye the one being mocked when Pang managed to ruin the perfect run of everyone posting on time?

Well, the last line is kind of bizarre. "I don't like this kind of game, but it sold me on JRPGs!"

Also I'm out of post ratings for today, Pang's getting a diss from me tomorrow.

Why are you yelling at Skills, all he did was post what CHz and I were saying.

This is why we check these things before we write them. I mean really, I could care less if we continue to take language for granite. It's sort of a mute point anyway. Then again, I could rapidly do a 360 on the subject and come to a new perspective. I may just be using Hawkeye as an escape goat, though. His usage of english literally makes my head want to explode though. Literally.

Oh, not going to argue about the last line. That was pretty amusing.

As for Skills, he's just an easy target. Shooting the messenger and such.

Despite if people thought Hawkeye didn't write a very good review, I'm just happy for the fact that he participated. You are a good member on this site Hawkeye, compared to some of the idiots that gone and went on this site.

I propped everybody who took time out of their day to participate in this event.

Golden Sun is actually going to be one of the next games I'm going to purchase. I had seen plenty of people play it and it also came across to me as a very enjoyable rpg for the GBA.

You know guys, with one day left, I am absolutely impressed with the dedication that each and every member did with their gaming review. I'm even more impressed that we managed to fill out every day for the month and I hope this is one event that will live on with GFF.

I don't necessarily think my review was particularly great, I can't really dissect games as much as you guys have and I think my review is still one of the shortest out of everybody's. I probably should of included pictures.

Regardless, all we have left is Pangalin's review but as he said; he has had a lot on his plate lately, and then we have Terra's review on the 30th.

I'll be writing some input, of the other games that have been mentioned, since my last post went only up to Valkyrie Profile. I just got home a couple of minutes ago, so I'll have plenty of time over the next 8 days to talk about some of the games that have been mentioned.

I have fond memories of Golden Sun. Not because it's a good game or anything (it isn't), but because it was one of the first GBA games I ever played. Back in my freshman year of high school, my friend Richard had a GBA and my group of friends and I would go to the library and play it in the mornings before class started. The only games he had at the time was Golden Sun and Tekken Advance (also terrible), but fuck, I didn't even care because a game was a game and I'd rather be doing anything other than dreading the school upcoming school day.

So we would sit there playing these clearly terrible games just because they were there. Golden Sun was definitely the lesser of the two, as it was the most generic RPG I had played at the time (and probably still is as of today). At least in Tekken, we had fun trying to beat each others' times in survival mode, but with Golden Sun, we had to suffer in solitude.

So you know what, fuck Richard. I have no idea where he is now, but fuck him and his terrible taste in games. And fuck Camelot for making this terrible game to begin with.

No offense is meant to Hawkeye for liking this game...unless he's Richard.

Combining: totally agree with you there; I spent a stupid amount of time messing with the djinn. I really do like the system, honestly, except for the part where it lets you defeat all non-boss monsters in one turn without getting damaged, making the random battles a terrible drag.

Finding, though, I'm glad you enjoyed combing for the random encounter djinn, because the rest of us hit GameFAQs instead of spending an interminable time entering battles on every square inch of the overworld trying to find things that the game never even gives you a hint of the location of.

While I'm posting, I will also agree with Hawkeye about the graphics being good, specifically the battle graphics. I'm honestly pretty surprised he didn't point them out, because when I was first playing the game, I was dumbstruck that visuals that good were coming out of a handheld system. Huge sprites with a bunch of different animations for different attacks, and my lord, the animations for the summons and higher level spells.

I will stand by the rest of my smarmy badmouthing, though, because not even those high points are enough to compensate for the horrendous blandness of the game in every other aspect.

Oh the irony.

You know the phrase is couldn't care less right?

Because otherwise you're indicating that you do in fact care quite a bit.

Which isn't what you were trying to say.

Glass houses, stones, I'll leave you to fill in the blanks sweetie.

I'm going to assume you deliberately put escape goat instead of scapegoat, which is one word and refers to a goat that was driven off, not one that escaped.

Wow, Shin. Just wow.

Maybe he's going, like, covert sarcastic. I don't see how he could have missed "take language for granite" if he himself wasn't joking.

...Maybe?

"Mute point", not "moot point"?

Better luck next time, Shin.

Look at mo0 pretending he's 100% punctual all the time

Hey man I was running SAUS too and I wrote my article

Don't hate

Point to note: Never did diss you

The GFF Gamers month is officially over except for Pang's review, but you know he's been busy and I totally respect that. It just goes to show you that I've completely lost my mind. I think its coming from working too much. 168 hours of work over a 14 day period can wear you down. I totally forgot that May had 31 days, and I had this gamers month set up for only 30 days. My bad.

I just want to take time to give thanks to the people that made this such a great event.

Colonel Skills: I had initially had brought this idea to him, and he gave me the go ahead and the confidence to actually go for the idea. I was kind of a bit skeptical at first if the idea would of panned out. He kept egging me on to go ahead with it. I probably wouldn't have went ahead with the idea if skills didn't think it was a good idea to begin with.

All The Members that Participated: An event is only as good as the people that put the time and effort into it. You know each article that got put into the thread each and every day during month showed us different perspectives into some of the games that we've actually played. Out of all the games that I've seen over the last month, there is quite a few I haven't played and judging by how other people have described them I'm definitely going to give some of them a whirl.

I just want to give some stories of the rest of the games that have been mentioned:

Supersonic's Game: I fell into the same trap that you did Supersonic. This game fell completely out of my radar, and I actually didn't get a chance to play this gem until 2001. I was chatting to one of my gamer friends, and we were having a conversation about the snes. I was telling him how much, I loved playing final fantasy III, and he asked me if I had ever played Chrono Trigger. I had told him that I have heard of people mentioning it before, but I had never played it before.

That comment pissed him off a little bit, he told me I couldn't have an appreciation for rpg's until I actually played this game. He went to his room and let me borrow his snes Chrono Trigger cart, and that I could hold onto it until I actually beat the game. I played it and it was yet again one of those rpg's that I couldn't put down.

I still don't think it is my favorite rpg for the snes. Final Fantasy III still holds that honor, but one thing I liked about this game is that it was incredibly well paced. Nothing ever felt forced or tedious. I don't ever recall any time in that game I ever had to do any grinding, there were a few boss fights i had a hard time with when I first played the game, but after the losing to them during the first try, I beat them after the second or third try. I think Magus was actually one of the fights I had a little bit of trouble with until I figured out his pattern.

It isn't even a very long rpg, and that's one of the reasons why it played at a very good pace. I was happy to see it get released for the DS, because it gave a new generation of gamers a chance to play this wonderful game. It was only within the last few months I managed to find a snes copy of the game. I own the snes version, the final fantasy chronicles version, and the DS version. It is a wonderful game and if anybody collectos snes games, it deserves to have a spot in that collection.

Tritoch's Game: A game that I don't own Tritoch, but a game that will eventually be added to ever increasing collection of anime style games. I have a lot of the shin megami tensei games, but none from DDS. It doesn't even concern me with how expensive they are, I will be getting the collectors box set for the first one, but one thing I'm wondering Tritoch, I've seen DDS 2 in two cases with different front artwork; Is one more valuable than the other.

GB's Game: It is the same thing with Tritoch's game. It is a game that i don't own, but one that I will definitely obtain. I had only ever completed the original breath of fire, and I have played a great portion of breath of fire III, but I hadn't touched the series ever since. I heard a lot of people give me mixed reviews about this game in particular GB, but with some of the things you have described with this game. It has got me interested in the breath of fire series again.

Krelen's Game: In my eyes the grand-daddy of any and all rpg gaming (personal opinion), but it has been my favorite rpg of all time and nothing has come close to dethroning it.

Words can't really describe how much I love this game, and the only reason I even bothered to play this game was because of my love of mecha style anime back in my university days. I had come across this game accidentally, I was just walking down one of the halls at my college residence, and passed by a guys room who had his door open. Didn't know him, and I was hearing really intense music from the game he was playing. I asked if he would mind if I actually watched him play. He said that he wouldn't mind, so I sat in this chair completely mesmerized by an rpg that had anime cut scenes, and was using giant robots.

He was playing the second disc on xenogears and even though I didn't see much gameplay, I sat in his room watching him play xenogears right up to the final dungeon. I was in his room for about 6 hours and he didn't mind one bit. I was completely lost in terms of the story. I didn't understand anything that was going on. He tried to fill in the blanks as best he could. The moment I watched him play this game, I never seen him play it again. I had watched him playing other games because i didn't have a video game system with in university during my first year back in 1999.

I had talked to one of my gaming friends about it a few days later, and he was telling me so many great things about that game. I never had a chance to own it until 2002. I had paid $150 for the black label version fo the game and the guide from ebay. I just wanted to play it so bad, and then I got to enjoy the story from start to finish.

Even though the game had its problems, some of the most horrible and off-sync dubbing I've ever seen in my entire life, and obviously the second disc was rushed it never for one second ruined my experience with this game.

The only dungeon I ever really hated in the game, was the sewer level, I found that level so confusing and really incredibly long. I was really happy to get out of the kislev prison once and for all.

I had thought that I had fully conquered this game, and there was nothing that I missed in that game. I believed that for almost 4 years, then I came across this youtube video.

YouTube Video

I thought you couldn't beat this guy. You had to intentionally lose this battle. Even if you defeat him I didn't think you could get a special item. So because of that I'm playing this game over just to kill this guy to get the slayer robe.

Above all else, it has some of the most beautiful gaming music I've ever listened to. Some of my favorite tracks throughout the entire xenogears soundtrack are Omen, Bond of Sea & Fire, and small two of pieces - restored pieces. As pathetic as this is, small two of pieces was the wedding song me and wife had our first dance as husband and wife.

That's it for now. I'll get the rest of the games over the next day or two. All the same thanks for everybody for making this such a fun and incredible event.

DDS2 has a reversable slip cover, so the two different artworks just mean that someone's turned it over. It comes with the yellow side out, showing all the main characters in demon form standing on a mound or something. Flipped its cover is similar to the first DDS' but with Sera instead of Serph.

ADDENDUM TIME!!!

So, since I posted my MI review, two new HUGE announcements in the series have happened. We're getting a new entry and a remake of the initial entry. I updated my review, but if you just want the links, see below:

Telltale Games - Tales of Monkey Island <-- New Entry
LucasArts.com | The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition <-- SE of Secret of Monkey Island