Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: Bled on February 11, 2010, 11:04:37 am
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Why has no one made this topic yet?
Just bought it the other day but haven't had a whole lot of time to play it yet. What little I did get to see last night was pretty awesome, though! Who else has this and what do you think so far?
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I too was a little surprised to see a lack of topic but I put it down to GamingW hating everything good.
I've enjoyed this quite a lot so far. I do know however that it's a lot harder than Bioshock 1. I've got it on Medium Difficulty and I've done nothing but die so far. I don't ever recall having this problem in the last game! I might have to put it down to easy to stop myself from dying so much. It's not that the enemies are very strong or anything, it's just I find myself to be really fragile! The environments are interesting, the atmosphere is creepy and it's all very nice to look at which is good.
As a game it isn't really any less than what I expected. I honestly don't think it's a significant step up from Bioshock to be honest but I'm not going complain about that because the original Bioshock is one of the best games I've ever played. I haven't tried the multiplayer yet (and probably won't for a while) because I don't think it'll be worth it. As a first person shooter the game isn't very well polished (as in the gun action isn't THAT well polished) and I don't think it'll translate well as a multiplayer. I don't really consider it an FPS, just a game in first person with a heavy emphasis on guns. (I'll probably get called an idiot for saying something so ludicrous and non sensical but I hope this makes sense to someone other than me)
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(I'll probably get called an idiot for saying something so ludicrous and non sensical but I hope this makes sense to someone other than me)
Yeah, it feels kind of like Penumbra but with a ton more guns. It IS an FPS, but it plays kind of like a first person horror game, just with a billion guns.
Haven't played this yet, I will probably see if I can get it for cheap soon though as I am curious now that you said it's hard.
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I have a friend that is selling an extra Bioshock 2 Key for Steam for 30 dollars.
otherwise, I have not started this game yet. I have it on my computer, though.
I actually never beat the first one, which is common apparently.
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I was pretty interested in Bioshock 2 at first, but then I realised I didn't even bother finishing the first one and from what people and reviews are saying it's more of an expansion than a sequel. I'll wait for it to go on sale in a few months and buy it for dirt cheap then.
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It's better in every way except story. But BioShock is one of those games where it's impossible to make a sequel because there is absolutely no way they could have brought that first time magic back.
I actually don't find it that hard. And the difficulty in this game is actually reversed. The beginning is really really difficult and gets easier as you progress. They throw a big sister at you (which btw is the hardest enemy in the game) at the beginning of the game when you have almost nothing. I'm not dying at all and I'm playing on hard mode.
IMO they shouldn't have made this game, but it's a better sequel than I thought.
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the "first time magic" in bioshock was actually stolen from a variety of games with real "first time magic"
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yeah like 90% of ss2
to be fair it's a lot better than the first, for me at least, hacking is a lot more interesting (remote darts) and there's a few sequences that are really interesting, i might actually finish this one unlike the first
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I've enjoyed this quite a lot so far. I do know however that it's a lot harder than Bioshock 1. I've got it on Medium Difficulty and I've done nothing but die so far.
I got a little further into it this morning. I definitely see what you mean about it being more difficult! The leadheads are still pretty easy to deal with, but the ones with firearms are becoming a quite a pain in my arse. I seem to remember the ones from the first one just sort of running around randomly and firing when they had an opportunity or even staying in one place out in the open. These new guys actually utilize cover and seem to work in unison with the lead pipe crazies who blindly rush you, which makes for some pretty dangerous situations. I have actually seen one intentionally avoid several traps I had placed in a hallway and set up behind a broken window to fire at me while the berserkers merrily blew themselves up and cleared a way for her to get closer.
I have now acquired the first couple of tonic upgrades so I'm going with Armored Shell and Extra Nutrition in an attempt to make myself a little less squishy. It seems as if the game is guiding you toward developing a more strategic and accurate approach as opposed to the run-n-gun madness of the first one. I'm probably going to invest in recoil upgrades for my machine gun next.
I haven't been far enough into the game to decide whether or not it feels like its own game or just an expansion of the first one. The setting is definitely very familiar, but the couple of new areas I have been to still invoke that familiar sense of wonder and urgency from the first one without feeling too tedious.
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the "first time magic" in bioshock was actually stolen from a variety of games with real "first time magic"
I didn't know there were other games set in rapture!
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I didn't know there were other games set in rapture!
that's really it, though. it's just a watered down version of system shock(lol)
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yeah, roughly 90% of things that made bioshock awesome was in system shock. it also steals a bit from fallout
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well I never even played system shock so shut up bioshock is wonderful...
stupid jaded gamers...
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that's really it, though. it's just a watered down version of system shock(lol)
lol
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I've been bitching about this game a lot to everyone that would listen over the last few days.
The thing that bugged me the most was the retcon of Sofia Lamb. She didn't exist, at all, in Bioshock but Bioshock 2 makes her out to be an even bigger threat to Andrew Ryan than Frank Fontaine was. That's just stupid. 2K Marin clearly had no grand story to set up for a sequel when they made Bioshock, so when it became a massive hit and the inevitable sequel was announced, they had to start from square one. I'm shocked so many reviews call Bioshock 2's story as good or even better than the first. It's not. Yeah there is something elementally endearing about the idea of a father fighting through hell and back for his daughter, but it's not enough, at least when when compared to the original, which I think was one of the best videogame stories I've ever seen. Bioshock 2 feels like a 12 hour setup with no payoff. I won't spoil anything, but the final level feels vastly longer than it needs to be and there's no sense of urgency despite their best efforts to create it.
Bioshock 2 feels like a game that never had to be made but was born anyway because of the overwhelming success the original was. It's Deus Ex 2 all over again.
I've got a number of complaints about the gameplay too. Firstly, I'm REALLY annoyed that you can't return to earlier areas. You could in Bioshock, taking that out feels like a tremendous step BACKWARDS. There is little in the way of gameplay innovations. You could argue that there's no reason to fix what isn't broken, but this is a sequel to one of the most original first person shooters to come around in years, and their only real addition to the gameplay is the ability to dual wield and a couple of new enemies. Instead of improving the Invention system, they opted to just remove it, and the game is possibly more linear than ever. You play as a Big Daddy, but you're actually weaker than Jack Ryan was in the first game, and aside from your hulking shadow and loud thumps when you jump, you'd never know you were a gigantic hulking genetically engineered golem. Sure, it's more challenging and balanced better towards difficulty, but rather than alter any of the core gameplay, they simply made you weaker and gave you fewer medkits to carry. BEING THE BIG DADDY was clearly more a story idea than gameplay innovation, and simply a nice feature to push in the press and bullet points on the back of the box. Oh yeah, and all that talk about walking on the ocean floor? Yeah, you do, about 3 times in the entire game, and while it's cool enough.. you only do it about 3 times. And for a grand total of about 15 minutes across those three times. You can find ADAM slugs... but there's literally only about 6 in the entire game, and the entire underwater sequences are incredibly linear and simply involve walking a straight line more or less. There's no combat, no exploration at all during these points. It's a gimmick.
Rapture is more of the same this time around. Great, if you loved the original, but don't expect many more surprises. You'll explore the usual mix of ruined living areas, bars, entertainment complexes... all shattered and leaking and generally dilapidated. Again, you could argue that they simply couldn't recapture the magic of the original, of finding Rapture for the first time when that Bathysphere window opened and you saw the city in all it's glory. So maybe you shouldn't have done the same thing. Part of the problem is that the original felt so complete. You rescued (or I did anyway) all the Little Sisters and had put the two darkest men of Rapture to rest. It was over. But 2K decided it wasn't so they cooked up Sofia Lamb and had her capture a bunch of new girls for Little Sisters. You couldn't recapture the magic of the original - so don't try. If they really had to make Bioshock 2, then do something different with it. Explore a different side of the city. Set it in 1958, pre-civil war. Set it in 2010, when god knows what has had a chance to evolve down there. But no, they set it 10 years later and cast a bunch of reskinned antagonists from the first game. You'll face mostly the same splicers, who look only slightly more messed up, and face most of the same set pieces (with a little more emphasis on static defensive battles). And you'll have endure a disembodied voice spouting repetitive idealogies for most of the game just before they vow to put you out of your misery at last and release a bunch of splicers into the room.
I could really go on and on, but there isn't much point.
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well I never even played system shock so shut up bioshock is wonderful...
This, except I didn't think anything about Bioshock was overly impressive other than the atmosphere. I just wish I could even get System Shock 2 to run on my comp. It crashes to the desktop as soon as I click Start, or New Game... whatever the option is. And Yes, I've tried the windows XP fix, and had the same problem. (now running Windows 7)
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playing system shock 2 should be compulsory education, it is truly awesome. bumblebee man, GET IT. GET IT. GET IT.
overall, im enjoying bioshock 2 though, even if it feels a bit like an empty shell to me.
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Oh yeah like rowain said, I found it funny you're a BIG DADDY but die in 2 hits to splicers.
But I know why they made it so you couldn't backtrack. They really wanted it story driven and there are lots of parts in the game where buildings EXPLODE so going back and having it all pretty again wouldn't make sense. It's also dumb though because secrets are littered everywhere in this game (imagine if you couldn't backtrack in castlevania or metroid). Sofia Lamb is dumb, but I think Sinclair is definitely one of the better characters in the game.
Also if you want the game to be a cakewalk, upgrade your drill and kill all the bosses with it. Big sisters will die in 15 seconds.
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Oh yeah like rowain said, I found it funny you're a BIG DADDY but die in 2 hits to splicers.
But I know why they made it so you couldn't backtrack. They really wanted it story driven and there are lots of parts in the game where buildings EXPLODE so going back and having it all pretty again wouldn't make sense. It's also dumb though because secrets are littered everywhere in this game (imagine if you couldn't backtrack in castlevania or metroid). Sofia Lamb is dumb, but I think Sinclair is definitely one of the better characters in the game.
Also if you want the game to be a cakewalk, upgrade your drill and kill all the bosses with it. Big sisters will die in 15 seconds.
Yes, the problem here is that the 360 version has a ton of achievements that are completely and VERY EASILY missed because they are level and enemy specific. There is one achievement that requires you research all enemy types to max and you only get the camera in like the fourth area and by the fifth you stop encountering Thuggish Splicers. For the rest of the game. It's just all Spider, Houdini, and Leadhead Splicers. So if you don't max research on Thuggish then you just outright miss that achievement. Diaries, Power to the People machines (which are pretty dumb and boring, wish they'd put effort into the weapon upgrade system) etc are all super missable if you don't explore each level COMPLETELY before moving on. And this can get really frustrating when you're bored of a level but don't want to move along because you know you can't come back. Neophyte, you have a point except that if I'm remembering correctly, the only level that "blows up" is Siren's Alley after you activate the Pumping station. Alright, so if you wanna make a setpiece like that, then don't fill it with missable stuff, and instead allow us to travel to all the other places as much as we want. I think like you said it was meant to be story driven, that you have that sense of urgency to rescue Eleanor and all other concerns are secondary, except that I honestly never gave a shit about Eleanor and it was just dumb from a gameplay perspective. I was just frustrated that they made the sequel even more linear than the original.
Haha, just look at their bulletpoint for the game:
New Game Mechanics - BioShock 2 contains many new gameplay mechanics. Just a few of these are: the ability to wield plasmids and weapons simultaneously; flashback missions detailing how you became the Big Daddy; the ability to walk outside the airlocks of Rapture to discover new play areas, and many more.
a) There are no "flashback missions", just a few moments where you're forced to stand still and listen to a voice over from Eleanor about yourself.
b) you can walk outside airlocks, but it's not optional, and there's nothing to explore or discover except the next part of the level that you HAVE to go to. And I can count the number of times with one hand!!!
It sounds like I'm being really harsh on the game. Well, I am, it doesn't just sound like that. But what can I say, I still beat the damn thing and I had fun for some of the time. Part of the reason I stuck with it though was to see if the narrative ever really developed and it doesn't. SPOILER ALERT: it never goes anywhere, no one does anything, and then it ends.
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that's really it, though. it's just a watered down version of system shock(lol)
haha. hundley did you like system shock?? i really enjoyed the half of it i played even if the story was a little wonky
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They should have just made backtracking available through vita chambers. They made up a bunch of shit in this game so I don't see why they couldn't add teleportation to the vita chambers and make some backstory up. Problem solved.
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I have no idea if system shock 2 is any good because when I tried to play it I had to do all this character customization shit and walk through a bunch of doors that would tell me A YEAR HAS PASSED and after like 5 of those I got to play but I realised I didn't want the character I'd made but I also didn't want to go through that process again. So it got uninstalled :(
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Linearity is the new open world. Just look at Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2. We're advancing backwards in gaming!
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Linearity is the new open world. Just look at Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2. We're advancing backwards in gaming!
At least Mass Effect offered you a ton of options where to go. Sure, when you got there all of them were more or less one path through, but there were so many to choose from!!!
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nah but i have it downloaded
gotta install my hd radeon 5750 in my pc first before i play it dont wanna play on this 9800gt
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such a beautiful piece of equipment
(https://legacy.gamingw.net/etc/i178.photobucket.com/albums/w253/nignogz/IMG00165-20100212-1915.webp)
(https://legacy.gamingw.net/etc/i178.photobucket.com/albums/w253/nignogz/IMG00164-20100212-1914.webp)
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Played this a bit more. Been finding this a little bit easier than when I started which is kind of good. You really have to use the plasmids more effectively this time round. Also, I don't find the game THAT Linear, there's plenty of exploration around places and you can do things your own way, it's just that you have to use the same entrance and exit each time. I have no idea where the idea of linearity being bad came from, because I really don't think it's as bad as a lot of people say it is.
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gotta install my hd radeon 5750 in my pc first before i play it dont wanna play on this 9800gt
I'll buy your 9800.
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I'll buy your 9800.
someones already claimed it bro sorry
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i dont sell my shit i give it away to charity
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... are you stupid? i can play Bioshock with my 8800ultra at max with res of 1650X1080 and no slowdown. meh whatever.
Any way i noticed that, i thought that playing as a big daddy would mean you had a differant play style (tougher but more opponents) instead it was like a hand gun would take out super fast. It doesn't make sense your supposed to be covered in freaking metal, your one of those big daddies, those great stonking behemoths that can very quickly destroy you, yet a handgun is all it takes to kill you quickly? Even for early game that's just ridicules.
from what I've been reading it feels like this game was made to just milk the franchise, they should have set the story with characters that came AFTER Bioshock that way it wouldn't matter if they did or didn't exist in the first one because it's set with characters that don't come into it till this point.
the other thing that didn't make much sense, unless they were re-programmed by the bad guys, why would other big daddies attack you and shove you away like your a splicer or something? i mean sure when you attack the big daddies for the sisters then yeah they should but they should at least recognise you as a fellow big daddie.
still with all that, I'm still finding the game fun and enjoyable (though it may be because i want to play differant challenges in the same universe).
p.s. did you know if you let your little sister gather Adam at the same time as another, they greet each other.
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I started playing it and it seems like an alright game.
Anyone know why there's no anti-aliasing in the PC version? It seems like that should be part of any modern game engine.
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for some reason HDR is incompatible with AA except by forcing it through the nvidia control panel and that only works on a few game engines. ati can't do it or something.
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for some reason HDR is incompatible with AA except by forcing it through the nvidia control panel and that only works on a few game engines. ati can't do it or something.
weird, you'd think some sort of advance would have been made to remedy this since this was a problem like four years ago with Oblivion.
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bioshock 2 is running on the same old engine as bioshock though.
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yeah but it's not out of the question to make improvements over a three year dev cycle!
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it's primarily for the xbox though. pc is totally secondary and i wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't made it for PC if it wasn't on unreal
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also yeah it's an engine issue and it might be very complicated thereby the devs didn't care too much about it.
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I don't get it, what's the HUGE deal with open-world games. Linear is perfectly fine with me if it's fun. I could never play a game like Oblivion where there's a billion less-than-engaging sidequests everywhere, so much so that you feel like you're just doing random stuff in the game. I remember in Dragon Age and Mass Effect (which were fairly streamlined so I appreciated this a bit), all the sidequests were pretty much the same to the point where I didn't even read the reason for me to go somewhere - I just went, killed stuff, and it said I completed the quest... do this a thousand times and it gets lame.
I'm looking forward to the extremely polished but apparently linear FFXIII (though I hear it opens up a bit midway).
Back to Bioshock, I never finished the first one... playing it right now actually, it's pretty good. Kinda dragging on a bit, they keep saying RYAN IS JUST OVER THE CORNER, and bam, another dungeon before I meet him. Saw the second one though, looks great albeit a bit too familiar.
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am i the only person who doesn't like how antialiasing looks
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I played it on my bro's Xbox360 and i beat the game like 6 days ago i think or what ever was the 2nd day from when it came out.... I picked the evil way yes she took my Adam and that bitch let me die as she said "sorry father but remember survive of the fittest." and how if she needs to hear me I will be inside her. Yha i know that quote wasn't the same of what she said but it was along those lines since I'm not playing it once more just to get the quote right.
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am i the only person who doesn't like how antialiasing looks
what.
This is a joke right.
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am i the only person who doesn't like how antialiasing looks
I like blocky low-fidelity graphics too bro.
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what.
This is a joke right.
It's just compensating for the lack of DPI on a screen. If in the future they had 300dpi screens with the same AA it'd look so much clearer but until that time they emulate clarity with AA.
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ahaha i just like how it lpooks without AA i don't know
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I like blocky low-fidelity graphics too bro.
i love this reply,
but yeah each to his or her own.
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I'm with you buttkiller. AA in a lot of games looks like poop.
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am i the only person who doesn't like how antialiasing looks
I don't care acbout aa either
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Is AA the thing that makes all games look really gross and shiney or is that bloom?
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AA = Anti-Aliasing, aliasing is the jagged edges you get in 3D games, this is because a screen is made of pixels which are square shaped so there are two ways to get rid of this with AA or higher res.
the reason why AA looks shit in a lot of games is because of the way it's done, the easiest method is to render the image at so many times the resolution and then downscale the image to fit the screen *E.G., 4X AA is 4 times the resolution) another method is actively search out those straight edges and change the pixels so that the it appears smoother, this is more accurate but is also the most computationally expensive, the last method is simply find all edges and blur them.
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BOTH!
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HDRL(Highj Synamic Range Lighting) is a method that simulates the iris of the human eye and from what i've read bloom is just a fake version of it, less to compute (it adds that glowy ness from bright areas into dark areas) although games make use of both to make some really nice effects.
EDIT: gross and shiney? i don't understand you.
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Is AA the thing that makes all games look really gross and shiney or is that bloom?
that's actually some weird thing with a lot of game engines that seriously mismanage bump maps
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ah if your talking about the actual surface, what governs what bits are shiney and how shiney is called specularity, bump maps are used to add detail to an object by offsetting the normal of a surface before light calculation so that when it shades it, it shades it as if it had those bumps like for example the bumps on an orange. A more complex form of it known as "Dot3 bump mapping" more commonley known as normal mapping is used to simulate bumps and dents as to add more detail without increasing polygon count.
the next form up from that is displacement mapping but that physically modifies and adds gemoetry to an object.
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that's actually some weird thing with a lot of game engines that seriously mismanage bump maps
i agree though lots of games either have badly done bumpmaps or the engine handles it wrong and it makes the entire world look like a bucket of lube was dumped on it
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... did you just reply to yourself?
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i agree though lots of games either have badly done bumpmaps or the engine handles it wrong and it makes the entire world look like a bucket of lube was dumped on it
i completely agree
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no with bumblebeeman. hahaha how are you doing that dragonx
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idk what you are talking about..........................
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dragonx posting template :
1. make bad posts
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your just jealous :(
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hurgh huuurgh, im sorry, i cant hear you over the sound of me barfing at your posts
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:(