Is a fantastic, well acted, well written sci-fi movie with good characters trying to solve a scientific problem with the sun. It shows the limitations we as human beings have with space travel and puts the crew of Icarus 2 into situations that are believable based on potential travel to the sun.
And then in the last 1/3 of the movie it turns into generic slasher movie in SPAAAAAACE for some inexplicable reason. Just completely 2 different movies. But those first 2/3 are really good.
That Borders was the best place to use as a meeting point for someone that came in on the PATH and wasn't familiar with the area. And like you, I purchased several different technical books there when I worked in the financial district between 98 and 2000.
The Borders inside MSG that's above Penn Station can't go away fast enough though. Horrible location, horrible selection, horrible service.
See here's the thing about X-2...It was pretty dammed good as far as gameplay and customization go. Also it had a linear path throughout the game, but you weren't forced on that path at any time. You had the option of visiting almost every one of the different areas of Spira whenever you wanted. And believe it or not, I actually liked the story going on there: A group of true believers who would not give up their fallen religion facing off against a group of younger people who wanted to enjoy technology and not be ruled by that religion. Unfortunately once you get past that, the characters and the music suck so badly that it totally brings the game's overall playability down.
X-2 had a lot of potential, but they really screwed the pooch with all of the J-Pop and making what should have been a serious game into a light-hearted, fluffy disappointment.
The God of War series does something similar. There are 4 difficulty levels and if you keep dying at any certain point, you will be offered to continue on an easier setting.
I'm amazed at how well the MGS1 voice acting holds up. But if you're a fan and have a Gamecube or Wii, grab a copy of MGS: The Twin Snakes. Supposedly David Hayter(Solid Snake) wasn't happy with how his voice turned out in the first one, and asked if they could rerecord all of the dialogue. It turned out even better when they got rid of Hunter's fake Australian and Mei Ling's "Asian" accents.
Actually, Metal Gear probably has my favorite voice acting out of any game series. It got a little funky with MGS2, but they recovered nicely by the time MGS3 hit.
Sure, TPM was lame when compared to the original Star Wars trilogy, but it was never meant to please the audience of the original films. Its primary target was the little kids... progeny of the original audience.
That point is addressed in one of the later clips. If this movie is made for little kids, then why make it so complicated in regards to trade disputes, political arguments in the galactic senate and the machinations of someone trying to take power.
Star Fox 64 is an excellent update to the original. Good mix of sea, air, land and space battles. The game play is as much fun as the original and the graphics and sound are both very good to the N64.
Funny story, I was actually at a July 4th party with a group of people from work this year. An executive and an assistant PM that were attending both had Blackberry 8700s and were trying to find a way to upgrade them to either Pearls or Curves.
Well after a few drinks, I noticed a nice shiny 8700 flying through the air into the swimming pool. 2 minutes later, a second one went in the drink as well. The exec said to me, "Ok now we can get new ones." When I asked him what should I tell our telecom group, his response was: "Stress Tests Failed."
Ahh that would be "Stealth ATF" I loved the "stealth" feature. You hit the select button and were supposedly invisible to your enemies' radar. However, the price of using the stealth feature was that your radar went blind too. I always thought as a kid that that would be a pretty stupid design for the F-117.
And while I'm sure it's a great place to live on the weekends, driving in and out of there during the week is an absolute nightmare. You have 3 major highways, 80(yes, the one that goes to San Fran,) 287, and 10 all converging in town which is a major source of traffic. There are three other smaller highways(202, 46 and 53) that get jammed up as well. My friend that I work with lives 4 miles away and it can take him 40 minutes by car some days. He's more than willing to take his bike if it's not too hot or cold. I live 16 miles away and it takes me 20 minutes because I'm coming from the opposite direction of traffic.
Maybe they are saying it's nice because Intel has a large office on Rt. 10. Or they like the Jimmy Buff's that is in the next town over. Mmmm...Italian Hot Dogs.
The 4th wall also is broken when you are searching for Meryl to contact her for the first time. You have to contact Campbell and he will tell you to "look for her frequency on the back of the game case." It's 141.15, in case you were wondering.
I'm told casting Beserk on your characters works well too, but I haven't tried it.
Actually if you cast Berserk on him it works wonders. He stops changing his weaknesses and only attacks physically...No magic. That is, of course, until you beat him and he nukes you with Ultima. I didn't know about Life 3 until my second time through the game.
I used to grind that place to learn spells - you get good "spell experience" (I think it's AP?) in there. Taught everyone Ultima that way.:)
I go to the desert south of Maranda(I think.) You either fight Hoovers which give you 5 MPs or Cactrots which get 10MPs per battle.
The overall Advent Children fuckup might be the last straw for me. Didn't they say at E3 that it was going to be released on the same day in NA and Japan? And when they were called on it, they released a statement saying that it was not an "official" announcement. And then came the constant pushing back of the release date. From September to November to a Holiday release to where I'm at the point of not giving a shit if it's ever going to be released in the US because my fansub version works fine for me too.
I'm a Final Fantasy fan. Hell, I even enjoyed playing X-2 to an extent. Wasn't XII slated for a 2005 release? Well here's 06 and all we have is a 30 minute demo. Anybody have a guess to when that's going to be released? Let's not even discuss Dirge of Cerberus. But hey, we have that wonderful PS3 tech demo of the opening 45 seconds of Final Fantasy VII from last year to tide us over, right?
The problem with Icons is that it's too dammed short. How the hell can you condense everything about some of the best developers into 30 minutes? Shigeru Miyamoto? 30 minutes and done...Hironobu Sakaguchi? 30 minutes and done...Kojima? 30 minutes and done. Peter Molyneux? Get my point?
And to say nothing about the games. Let's put the Mario/Zelda/Metroid/Final Fantasy/Metal Gear/CS/GTA/Half Life franchises into a half hour wrap up. That will tell the real story of how these games came to be such hits!
I'm not slagging you for enjoying the show, I like the premise too. I just think that it can be so much better.
Oh my god, you have just described the exact situation that I'm in at my company right now. Except we've lost control of our Exchange Server in addition to the routers. On top of that we were running Exchange 2000 before the takeover, the parent company has migrated us to 5.5.
No you're not making anything up. One year the Toys R Us in my area screwed a bunch of kids over with that Voltron II bullshit. They stocked Voltron II after III and I ran out at Christmas time. Most parents had no clue to what Voltron was so they saw the name on the box and bought it. I was one of those kids. Three of my friends had that happen to them as well.
Voltron II had 3 "Gladiator" robots combining into one. Awful toy with no backstory for someone who like both of the other versions.
That motorcycle chase sequence kicks ass. I always use the M63. It's not that accurate, but hearing Snake let out a blood curdling scream as he shoots(think Rambo) is too much fun.
Funny enough, my boss and I were talking about our first home computers less than two hours ago. I had the kickass Atari 800 and he had an Osbourne-1 which he still has in his attic and is going to bring in next week.
If it's a business: $200 for me to walk in the door. $80/hr for any work that I do. I provide references for them most times too, so they know that they aren't throwing their money away before I even start any work.
Slashdot Mirror
Is a fantastic, well acted, well written sci-fi movie with good characters trying to solve a scientific problem with the sun. It shows the limitations we as human beings have with space travel and puts the crew of Icarus 2 into situations that are believable based on potential travel to the sun.
And then in the last 1/3 of the movie it turns into generic slasher movie in SPAAAAAACE for some inexplicable reason. Just completely 2 different movies. But those first 2/3 are really good.
That Borders was the best place to use as a meeting point for someone that came in on the PATH and wasn't familiar with the area. And like you, I purchased several different technical books there when I worked in the financial district between 98 and 2000.
The Borders inside MSG that's above Penn Station can't go away fast enough though. Horrible location, horrible selection, horrible service.
See here's the thing about X-2...It was pretty dammed good as far as gameplay and customization go. Also it had a linear path throughout the game, but you weren't forced on that path at any time. You had the option of visiting almost every one of the different areas of Spira whenever you wanted. And believe it or not, I actually liked the story going on there: A group of true believers who would not give up their fallen religion facing off against a group of younger people who wanted to enjoy technology and not be ruled by that religion. Unfortunately once you get past that, the characters and the music suck so badly that it totally brings the game's overall playability down.
X-2 had a lot of potential, but they really screwed the pooch with all of the J-Pop and making what should have been a serious game into a light-hearted, fluffy disappointment.
The God of War series does something similar. There are 4 difficulty levels and if you keep dying at any certain point, you will be offered to continue on an easier setting.
I'm amazed at how well the MGS1 voice acting holds up. But if you're a fan and have a Gamecube or Wii, grab a copy of MGS: The Twin Snakes. Supposedly David Hayter(Solid Snake) wasn't happy with how his voice turned out in the first one, and asked if they could rerecord all of the dialogue. It turned out even better when they got rid of Hunter's fake Australian and Mei Ling's "Asian" accents.
Actually, Metal Gear probably has my favorite voice acting out of any game series. It got a little funky with MGS2, but they recovered nicely by the time MGS3 hit.
Sure, TPM was lame when compared to the original Star Wars trilogy, but it was never meant to please the audience of the original films. Its primary target was the little kids... progeny of the original audience.
That point is addressed in one of the later clips. If this movie is made for little kids, then why make it so complicated in regards to trade disputes, political arguments in the galactic senate and the machinations of someone trying to take power.
Star Fox 64 is an excellent update to the original. Good mix of sea, air, land and space battles. The game play is as much fun as the original and the graphics and sound are both very good to the N64.
I graduated from Fairfield University, you insensitive clod!!!(and I still have a hat that says FU on it. Not sure if they still make them.)
Blast Hardcheese!
Funny story, I was actually at a July 4th party with a group of people from work this year. An executive and an assistant PM that were attending both had Blackberry 8700s and were trying to find a way to upgrade them to either Pearls or Curves.
Well after a few drinks, I noticed a nice shiny 8700 flying through the air into the swimming pool. 2 minutes later, a second one went in the drink as well. The exec said to me, "Ok now we can get new ones." When I asked him what should I tell our telecom group, his response was: "Stress Tests Failed."
3 days later, they had 2 new Curves.
That was the first thing I thought of as well. Great movie up until they enter Icarus 1.
Ahh that would be "Stealth ATF" I loved the "stealth" feature. You hit the select button and were supposedly invisible to your enemies' radar. However, the price of using the stealth feature was that your radar went blind too. I always thought as a kid that that would be a pretty stupid design for the F-117.
And while I'm sure it's a great place to live on the weekends, driving in and out of there during the week is an absolute nightmare. You have 3 major highways, 80(yes, the one that goes to San Fran,) 287, and 10 all converging in town which is a major source of traffic. There are three other smaller highways(202, 46 and 53) that get jammed up as well. My friend that I work with lives 4 miles away and it can take him 40 minutes by car some days. He's more than willing to take his bike if it's not too hot or cold. I live 16 miles away and it takes me 20 minutes because I'm coming from the opposite direction of traffic.
Maybe they are saying it's nice because Intel has a large office on Rt. 10. Or they like the Jimmy Buff's that is in the next town over. Mmmm...Italian Hot Dogs.
The 4th wall also is broken when you are searching for Meryl to contact her for the first time. You have to contact Campbell and he will tell you to "look for her frequency on the back of the game case." It's 141.15, in case you were wondering.
And one of the Exchange admins from my last company was named Harry Bush. I kid you not. I guess that's why he worked remote all the time.
I'm told casting Beserk on your characters works well too, but I haven't tried it.
:)
Actually if you cast Berserk on him it works wonders. He stops changing his weaknesses and only attacks physically...No magic. That is, of course, until you beat him and he nukes you with Ultima. I didn't know about Life 3 until my second time through the game.
I used to grind that place to learn spells - you get good "spell experience" (I think it's AP?) in there. Taught everyone Ultima that way.
I go to the desert south of Maranda(I think.) You either fight Hoovers which give you 5 MPs or Cactrots which get 10MPs per battle.
The overall Advent Children fuckup might be the last straw for me. Didn't they say at E3 that it was going to be released on the same day in NA and Japan? And when they were called on it, they released a statement saying that it was not an "official" announcement. And then came the constant pushing back of the release date. From September to November to a Holiday release to where I'm at the point of not giving a shit if it's ever going to be released in the US because my fansub version works fine for me too.
I'm a Final Fantasy fan. Hell, I even enjoyed playing X-2 to an extent. Wasn't XII slated for a 2005 release? Well here's 06 and all we have is a 30 minute demo. Anybody have a guess to when that's going to be released? Let's not even discuss Dirge of Cerberus. But hey, we have that wonderful PS3 tech demo of the opening 45 seconds of Final Fantasy VII from last year to tide us over, right?
The problem with Icons is that it's too dammed short. How the hell can you condense everything about some of the best developers into 30 minutes? Shigeru Miyamoto? 30 minutes and done...Hironobu Sakaguchi? 30 minutes and done...Kojima? 30 minutes and done. Peter Molyneux? Get my point?
And to say nothing about the games. Let's put the Mario/Zelda/Metroid/Final Fantasy/Metal Gear/CS/GTA/Half Life franchises into a half hour wrap up. That will tell the real story of how these games came to be such hits!
I'm not slagging you for enjoying the show, I like the premise too. I just think that it can be so much better.
Oh my god, you have just described the exact situation that I'm in at my company right now. Except we've lost control of our Exchange Server in addition to the routers. On top of that we were running Exchange 2000 before the takeover, the parent company has migrated us to 5.5.
No you're not making anything up. One year the Toys R Us in my area screwed a bunch of kids over with that Voltron II bullshit. They stocked Voltron II after III and I ran out at Christmas time. Most parents had no clue to what Voltron was so they saw the name on the box and bought it. I was one of those kids. Three of my friends had that happen to them as well.
Voltron II had 3 "Gladiator" robots combining into one. Awful toy with no backstory for someone who like both of the other versions.
P.S. Heard that this new Battlestar Galactica show was really good...people wearing tight clothing...
Well, you're in luck: The new BG doesn't have any of that.
I guess you missed any episonde that Number Six was in...
That motorcycle chase sequence kicks ass. I always use the M63. It's not that accurate, but hearing Snake let out a blood curdling scream as he shoots(think Rambo) is too much fun.
There was a Wing Commander Academy cartoon that aired on USA. Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, Thomas Wilson and Dana Delany all voiced characters.
Funny enough, my boss and I were talking about our first home computers less than two hours ago. I had the kickass Atari 800 and he had an Osbourne-1 which he still has in his attic and is going to bring in next week.
If it's a business: $200 for me to walk in the door. $80/hr for any work that I do. I provide references for them most times too, so they know that they aren't throwing their money away before I even start any work.
For house calls I usually bill $50-60 an hour.
For a friend: Beer or dinner is good enough.