This place looks suspiciously familiar.

I haven't played Soldat for probably four years now, but I've had a few thoughts about it on and off over the past few weeks, mostly about how great #gwsoldat was back in the day and how much fun the game was to play with you folks. Those were really good times. It was even mentioned at RMN recently that the old GWers were "crazy-good" at Soldat, so someone out there also remembers the good times.
 
Obviously #gwsoldat and the servers it ran off aren't around anymore (unless I am horribly oblivious to something) and a good chunk of the people who made #gwsoldat so much fun aren't here nowadays. Are there any other former #gwsoldat regulars still lurking around here who think it might be fun to wipe that layer of thick dust off of the game and give it another spin, if even only for one day?
 
Mostly I just think it could be fun to partake in something we used to do around here back in the day.

So I was just thinking about the classes/roles of my characters in Blackmoon Prophecy and how to balance them and it gave me the idea for this topic, which I feel could benefit anyone who is having trouble knowing where to go with their character classes and such if the replies go the way I hope.

Basically, what class types do you feel are mandatory? Fighters, healers, wizards... Those are generally among the three most widely accepted and most used classes, but they are pretty broad, or perhaps vague, names for classes. A fighter could be anything. Berserker, brawler, knight, swordsman, and so forth. Most games seem to have at least two fighters, but I feel that the majority of RPGs have character rosters that are made up of about 75% fighter-type characters, but less than half of that 75% are flat-out sword and shield warriors and are instead fighters with diverse magical abilities and so forth.

When faced with adding several different characters that belong to the same class family (such as fighter), how do you decide which ones deserve to make the cut, and which ones are too similar to the ones you already have to be included? For example, "berserker" and "warrior" can almost be treated the same in some cases, so in a game that only has about 10 characters, it's rare to see similar classes together. Games such as Chrono Cross or Suikoden can get away with having "clone classes" due to their excessively large rosters, but it is rare to see clone classes in games with much smaller rosters.

Then there are classes that compliment each other. For example, if a game has a black magic user, you could bet your next pay that you'll also see a white magic user, and that they will compliment each other wonderfully in battle - even if their abilities do not directly affect one other. Having a black and a white magic user in the same team creates a sort of synergy, but are these the only two class types where this happens? What about fighter classes? I suppose they work well with characters that exist primarily to buff others. What about thief-like characters? Who do they form a sort of synergy with?

Ideally, we want our character rosters to be very diverse. Having several characters who all behave the same and are mostly only different from in each other in appearance, is extremely bland. On the other hand, a roster with many different class roles is exciting, especially when hybrid classes (a strong warrior class who has potent magic) are thrown into the mix.

So, let's say that our own fictional games that we are all working on have rosters of ten characters. How would you fill this roster? What class roles would you choose? Would they compliment each other, or create that sort of synergy that the black/white magicians do?

Blackmoon Prophecy is a fangame (or tribute game as I like to call this) that I began in 2004 which is based on the Final Fantasy franchise. I had abandoned it several times between 2004 and 2008 (the last time I think I worked on it before now) for various reasons. Sometimes I would mess something up that affected the entire game, or I'd simply lose motivation for one reason or another and give up.

I decided a while ago that I would stop working on this game, but since it is the only thing I've ever attempted that was almost well received by everybody who played it, I decided... Hey, why not just try to finish it?

So, that brings me to the actual content of this post!





Brief Story

Blackmoon Prophecy is the story of Vahn, a dragoon from the Branch Kingdom. A year has passed since the Crystal War which saw the King of Branch wage war on the worlds via crystal power. The King was defeated and the crystals returned to their rightful shrines across the world.
Now, something mysterious is clearly going on. Strange happenings have been occurring at the Water Shrine, and a local dragoon named Darius has been acting peculiar and defiant in many cases. Can Vahn get to the bottom of it all?



Information

What is it being made with?
RPG Maker 2003.

Why is it taking so long?
A few things over the years have caused delays. Sometimes it has been problems with the game itself, while other times motivation has been the issue.

How long is the game at the present moment?
For the average person, I would estimate between seven and nine hours. A recent play through by me clocked in at about seven hours, and that is with a lot of random battle skipping. Since I made the game and know it in and out and always know exactly where to go, I would expect my play time to be lower than average.

How big will the download size be?
Probably between 100 and 200 megabytes, due to the use of mp3s for music. I may make a midi version, but in this day and age I’m not sure if it would be a necessity. I’ll decide at a later date.

What makes this game a tribute more than just a fangame?
I make constant references to the fourth, fifth, and sixth Final Fantasy games throughout Blackmoon Prophecy. For example, there is one location called Branford Hollow, which is home to a mysterious girl who wants magicite shards. The girl was sprited to look like Terra in the form of a miniature Final Fantasy 4 sprite. I also bring Ultros in. Many item names reference particular games in the series. As well, Mystic Mysidia is ripped straight out of Final Fantasy 4. There are other little details, but I think it’s best for the player to find them rather than having me blab about every single thing.

How does it play?
Blackmoon Prophecy is meant to emulate the older Final Fantasy games in many ways. Walk speed, locations, battle system, items, character roles, and so forth are all emulated to an extent. Basically if you don’t like how Final Fantasy 4 plays, since it is the game I emulate the most, then this may not be a game for you. However, if you enjoyed that particular game in the series, then you may like Blackmoon Prophecy.



Characters

Vahn

The main character. Vahn is a dragoon from the Branch kingdom and utilizes unique dragoon/spear attacks in battle.

Oalston

A novice black mage, and the only one in the Branch Kingdom. Oalston uses black magic spells such as Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder.

Elina

A novice white mage from the neutral town of Mystic Mysidia. Elina uses white magic spells such as Cure, Holy, and Regen.

Vera

Vera belongs to the Four Swords of Ivalice, the four strongest generals of Ivalice. She is a caller, thus being able to summon espers.

Nobumasa

Nobumasa is a ninja from a remote island who seeks to train and grow stronger. He utilizes ninjitsu techniques such as katon and suiton.

Ami

An experienced traveler who knows the wilds of Northern Lenadia well. Ami is able to use blue magic, which is essentially the abilities and spells of monsters.

There are two other characters, but one is not in the game (does not even have a sprite yet) and the other is very important and significant, so they are left off of here for now.



Screenshots





Here is the overworld, which is largely WIP. Generally only the areas that look detailed or not blank are completed. There's still a long way to go with this map, even after four years.



Music/Videos

Here is the rocking title music that was composed by Brandon Abley (maladroithim) specifically for Blackmoon Prophecy. It is a remix of the Final Fantasy 4 battle theme. It was originally composed to be the game's main battle music, but I decided that it the cymbals and such made it feel too out of place in the retro 16 bit environment, so it became the title screen music instead.
http://file.walagata.com/w/uprc/Title.mp3

And a few videos for the curious.






Maintaining an authentic "old school Final Fantasy" feel is paramount to me and is what I have focused on more than anything else during the times I have worked on this since 2004. I mean, without that old retro feel, what would even be the point of doing this?

Since this game is six years old now, I started it when I was 19. At the time, I was perhaps a little more immature and it showed in the game's dialogue and, in some ways, the mapping. I revisit old areas of the game often to clean up the dialogue and make some areas less ridiculous in terms of difficulty or length.

Also, here's something pretty neat that I found once, fanfiction for Blackmoon Prophecy! It was pretty cool that somebody wrote a little piece about my game.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2577628/3/Game_log

Anyway, so that's that! I'll post updates and such here if there's an interest for it.

I'm kind of surprised that there is no topic about this yet since GW has a few devoted fighter fans. Anyway, obviously this is the third installment in the Marvel Vs Capcom series.

For those who do not know how Marvel vs Capcom games play:

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a fighting game where up to two players compete in battle using characters with their own unique fighting styles and special attacks. The game features the same tag-based team feature as previous installments of the series, where each player chooses three characters that can be swapped at any point during a match, and utilizes an order selection called "Evolved Vs. Fighting System", a modified version of earlier systems seen in other Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK crossover games. It is the first game in the franchise to feature three-dimensional character models as opposed to two-dimensional sprites, though gameplay remains restricted to two-dimensions, allowing characters to move only backward, forward, or straight up into the air.

There are supposedly going to be around 42 characters or so. Here are the revealed characters so far.

Capcom Characters
Amaterasu
Arthur
Chris
Chun-Li
Dante
Felicia
Jill
Morrigan
Ryu
Spencer
Trish
Tron Bonne
Viewtiful Joe
Wesker
Zero

Marvel Characters
Captain America
Deadpool
Dormammu
Dr. Doom
Hulk
Iron Man
M.O.D.O.K.
Magneto
She-Hulk
Shuma-Gorath
Spider-Man
Super Skrull
Thor
Wolverine
X-23

Here's the character page on the official MvC3 website, so if you don't know who the heck some characters are, this page should help: http://marvelvscapcom3.com/us/characters

Nobody is really sure who the rest of the characters are, but a lot of rumours point to a few such as Crimson Viper, Frank West, Haggar, M. Bison, Mega Man, Storm (X-Men), and Strider Hiryu.


Here are a few videos as well!




Marvel Vs Capcom 3 is due out early next year, most likely during March.

Alright, so it looks like there is definitely a bit of interest in making another chain game before GW becomes something different, so let's get the ball rolling.

Since GW is due to bite the bullet "sometime soon" and will be replaced by whatever Drule has in mind, I thought it would be sort of neat if GW ends the way it started - with RPG Maker. Basically, this will be one last stab at a chain game (separate from the attempts by Belross and Erave). It will simply be called The Gaming World Chain Game. This s hust a fun way for the active RPG Maker users to say goodbye to GW in a way.

I know that the last chain game that GW worked on (Chain Game 4) was never completed due to a few different problems, but I think that we could avoid the things that slowed CG4 down so much. For starters, if you take too long to finish your part, you're just out. No extensions.

Unlike with the previous chain games,there will not be a "schedule" like before. A lot of us can't predict how available we'll be a few weeks (or months) down the road, and this caused lengthy delays and problems in the past. Essentially, the chain game will just be handed off to those who are interested in furthering the chain game as soon as one person finishes working on their part. No waiting, no delays.

Ideally, I think people will only need two weeks to work on their parts. The game won't have to be very long like Chain Game 4 was shaping up to be, so nobody will have to pour their blood, sweat, and tears into their parts. The whole point is to have fun after all.

So here are a few guidelines/rules.

• Because RPG Maker 2003 is the maker which most people are (or were) most familiar with, we will use that.
• Don't make your part more "epic" than it needs to be. Keeping it between 20-30 minutes or so is about all that is needed. If you are confident that you can handle making more content in two weeks, then go for it. Know what you are capable of in the time you are given.
• Testing is important! Make sure your part works. If you are going to include minigames, make sure that they work properly. Two minigames in Chain Game 4 were quite buggy and unfair to the player. We don't really want that kind of situation again.
• Two weeks to complete your part. Don't go crazy and give yourself more work to do than is necessary. Have fun making your part and don't worry about trying to make something that will blow people away.
• If you cannot complete your part in two weeks, you will be skipped or someone else will finish whatever you started and were unable to complete.
• There is no need to plan ahead of time what you are going to do. Since Chain Games are fairly random, just build off of what the people before you established and further the game/story.

Pool of members interested in working on chain game:
AdderallApocalypse
big ass skelly
Blue Erdgeist
Bobberticus
bonzi_buddy
c0nfu53d
Corfaisus
ed
Hero Bash
jamie
Juris
Medieve
Mikemc
Puppet Master
Ragnar? (not sure if your reply was a joke, please clarify if you'd want to make a part)
Rone Rivendale
UPRC
Von Woofen

CHAPTER/PART INDEX
1. thecatamites (October 22 - November 5)
2. Terrorantula (November 6 - November 20)
3. Unguided (November 20 - December 4)



There is really only one thing that needs to be established however, and that is the THEME. So before we decide on who will start this thing off and such, I think that those who are interesting in working on this should pitch their ideas on the theme just so that we're all working on something that appeals to us.

My suggestion for the theme? Gaming World. Perhaps the rise and fall, or just the decline itself. There would be a lot of room to decide what happens with that. Anyway, that's my suggestion. Does anyone else have any ideas for the theme, or should we just let the first person wing it?

So I've been looking for some good freeware games to play, and not necessarily community games. I'm not looking for RPG Maker games or anything of the sort. Gamemaker games I am iffy about, but if they're really cool and original (like Laz's games) then I'd probably give them a go.

What I'm looking for are freeware indie games that are self coded and such. Cave Story is one example, as are the billions of space shooters that a few folks here were obsessed with last year or the year before.

Cave Story, Knytt Stories, Soldat (I count this), and Warning Forever are about the only ones I can think of that I have already played. I know that there are tons more and that you folks have played a plethora. Got any favourites that you'd care to suggest?

http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1118208p1.html

After nearly 13 years of development time, Duke Nukem Forever is finally complete.

The game was on display at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend in Seattle. Texas-based Gearbox Software confirmed they finished development of the title. Studio president Randy Pitchford said during a presentation the game is in the final polishing stages, and is coming in 2011 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. It will have a single-player campaign and competitive multiplayer.

"We couldn't let the Duke die," Pitchford told the crowd.

First announced in 1997, Duke Nukem Forever was originally planned as a sequel to the 1996 hit Duke Nukem 3D. Since then, however, the game has famously suffered from continuous development delays, leading many to wonder if Duke would ever see the light of day.

For nearly a decade not much was seen or heard about the project until things began to heat up in May 2009 when rumors surfaced of 3D Realms' closure. That same month, publisher Take-Two filed a lawsuit against 3D Realms/Apogee Ltd for breach of contract.

Studio co-founder George Broussard soon spoke out saying that due to a lack of funding the Duke Nukem Forever team was let go, but 3D Realms would remain open in a much smaller capacity. A courtersuit claim was filed against Take-Two a month later.

The lawsuit and countersuit were finally settled this past June, paving the way for the game to be released. Duke Nukem Forever again made headlines last month when rumors began that Gearbox Software had taken over control of the game.

IGN is on the show floor playing the game right now. We'll be posting our impressions later today.

I... I don't know if I want it to come out anymore, though! What else will I compare games that are in development for years to now?!

So, I watched the Tekken movie a few nights ago, and last night brought my external HD over to a friend's place because he was curious to see it too. He knew that it would probably be a silly movie (since it's based on a game and all), but anything that could possibly be bad about the movie was erased from his mind since we warmed up with some Tekken 6 before watching the movie. I didn't mind watching it a second time, but probably only because I was with a friend. I don't think it's good enough to sit through twice on your own. Anyway, I wrote a bit about the movie after watching it for the first time and I think that my opinions still stand after watching it two times.

I was not expecting much going into this movie, which is the way to approach Tekken. Do not have any expectations and you will not be disappointed. As a long time Tekken fan, I knew that the movie wouldn’t live up to the series it is based on, and as long as you accept this before viewing the movie then you shouldn’t be too let down.

Tekken butchers the plot and story of the video games. “Tekken” is a corporation in the movie rather than just being the title. The story says that there was a war or something along those lines and the nations of the world fell. Anarchy began to rise and chaos reigned, but then the world’s eight largest corporations stood up and took control of the situation, essentially taking over the fallen nations. The “Tekken Corporation” assumed control of the Americas, and is thankfully headed by Heihachi Mishima. Unlike the games, Kazuya Mishima rules Tekken with his old man, though Kaz isn’t too keen on being number two and would rather rule in Heihachi’s place.

Every once in a while, the eight corporations that now rule (which are collectively known as “Iron Fist”), hold a fighting tournament for… well, no apparent reason at all other than to stick it to the other corporations by beating the fighters that they enter. The protagonist, Jin Kazama, gets his lucky break and is able to enter the tournament after defeating a Tekken fighter named Marshall Law who, for some reason, also fights random people off the street. The fight between Jin and Law is televised, and the defeat of Tekken’s Law impresses Heihachi greatly, though Kazuya considers Jin to be nothing more than a lucky rookie. Steve Fox, a retired boxer who organizes fights with Marshall Law, decides to sponsor Jin so that he can enter the Iron Fist Tournament as Tekken’s representative in the tournament. Jin agrees to do so, but only because he seeks to kill Heihachi. Why? Well, watch the movie and find out. Along the way, Jin befriends fellow tournament fighter Christie Monteiro (if “befriending” is what you would call Jin making out with her) and Raven as they fight to stay in the tournament. Rather than giving away the entire plot of the movie, I’m going to stop right there and move onto something else.

Tekken’s best feature is undoubtedly the costumes. A few characters such as Anna Williams, Bryan Fury and Eddy Gordo (called Eddie in the movie) look pretty good while most of the others either look nothing like their video game counterparts or instead look like bad cosplayers. There are two costumes in the movie which are actually fantastic looking, and they are Raven and Yoshimitsu. Raven looks like he stepped straight out of the video game, which was very impressive. My only beef with the Raven actor is that his voice isn’t as deep as that of the character he’s based on. Yoshimitsu doesn’t speak at all and is a silent samurai. He looks pretty awesome, and I think his costume was inspired by his Tekken 3 appearance. This is great, since Yoshimitsu looked pretty awesome in that game. The silliest costumes are easily Jin and Kazuya, who look nothing like their video game counterparts. Kazuya with a goatee? Uh, no thanks..

The acting is pretty good for a video game movie. I drew a lot of comparisons between this movie and the 1995 Mortal Kombat film. Tekken easily takes the cake as the movie with better acting. A few characters were pretty lame in terms of acting, such as Jin and the Williams sisters. As a sort of Jet Li hero, Jon Foo does an okay job but his portrayal as Jin Kazama is hardly accurate.

Likewise, the Williams sisters are just bad. Nina resembles a broadway model and always has a silly smirk on her face, which is just not very Nina-like at all. Anna was essentially a mute throughout the entire film and didn’t even get a fight scene, so I can’t comment on her at all really. I never thought of Anna as quiet though, and I’m surprised that the writers didn’t make her resemble her typical flirtatious self. The Williams sisters do not seem like very serious characters in this movie at all, despite even having a scene where they try to assassinate a character together. The fact that they were both in bed with Kazuya at the same time early in the film takes the two characters down yet another notch. Speaking of that scene, what the hell? Does anyone know two sisters in real life who would jump in bed together with a guy? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Ian Anthony Dale as Kazuya was a bag of mixed nuts. I think that the actor himself is pretty awesome and I always love watching him, mostly for his cool voice. However, his portrayal as Kazuya is pretty questionable. I mean, it’s hard enough seeing past that frigging goatee, but the fact that Kazuya isn’t very ruthless or even truly evil in this movie is disappointing. Kazuya is just a whiny son who manipulates the situation so that he can control everything. I know that Ian Anthony Dale had to act the way in which he did, so I can’t be too hard on him. He did a good enough job, though a certain line he spoke after a warehouse explodes late in the movie was so bad that it was cringe-worthy.

I like Christie’s actress. I think anyone will like her performance as long as they overlook the fact that she’s clearly not Brazilian. She delivers some decent performances which are probably among the best in the entire movie. She is miles ahead of the other female characters in the movie with the exception of perhaps Jun Kazama, played by Tamlyn Tomita. Unfortunately Jun’s role is really only prominent early on in the movie, but she does a really good job and I liked her actress quite a lot. She never came across as being uncomfortable in her role, instead pulling off a very convincing performance. I really wish that she had been in more scenes, because she was definitely a very fine actress.

Bryan, Dragunov, Eddy, Law, Raven.. They did alright with their roles. Bryan is probably the best acted character out of the opposing fighters in the movie, but I suppose that may be because he gets a little extra on-sreen attention due to being the champion of the last tournament. Yeah, that’s pretty different from the games and I actually liked it! A tournament winner who isn’t a Mishima? I wish that the games would follow the same route for once.

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat movie, plays Heihachi. Like Ian Anthony Dale, I’ve always liked this guy. His acting isn’t top notch, but he’s so much fun to watch that you can ignore the fact that he’s not the best actor in the film. I always get the impression that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa simply loves playing the characters he ends up portraying. I really did enjoy him as Heihachi. His hair is really silly and he forces himself a bit too much with some of his facial expressions, but he’s just too damn likeable and fun to watch.

The only character I did not like would be Miguel. A character who was introduced in Tekken 6 has no reason to be in this movie, especially since he was essentially just a fodder character in the tournament. It would have made a lot more sense to have another Tekken tough guy such as Bruce, Marduk or Paul in place of Miguel. The fact that Miguel got into the movie over far better characters and didn’t even have a lasting role isn’t what bothers me most, though. My main complaint about the Miguel character is that he didn’t strike me as being Spanish at all. The actor looked American. He also sounded American. I was quite disappointed with Miguel and he is probably the only character in the movie that I just flat out couldn’t stand. He shouldn’t have been there. He didn’t even resemble the video game version at all. It was just really pointless to even have him in the movie. His fight scene wasn’t even impressive.

My favourite actor in the movie was undoubtedly Luke Goss, the actor who played Steve Fox. For some odd reason Steve is much older than he should be and is a retired fighter in the movie, and Luke Goss looks and sounds NOTHING like Steve should. Despite this, I still really liked him. Sure he wasn’t like Steve at all, but overall he was probably the most convincing actor in the movie and the quality of the movie’s acting seemed to leap up a bit each time he appeared on the screen. Luke Goss was definitely the best actor in the movie, being slightly better than Tamlyn Tomita.

The choreography for the fight scenes wasn’t too bad. Some of the fights were a little silly looking, but a few of them were pretty decent. Eddy and Raven fight early on, and I quite liked the film’s take on Eddy’s Capoeira style. I saw a few signature moves from the Tekken games throughout the movie as well, and they were blended into the fights in such a way that I didn’t even really notice most of them. Bryan nailing a character with his fist and watching them fly back several feet was immediately recognizable, even though I never learned the name of the move ingame. Christie didn’t seem to have any sort of defined fighting style in the movie, which was a little lame. She appeared to be a brawler mostly, but her moves and performance were somewhat convincing for an actress in a movie of this sort.

In terms of visual effects, it really looks like they tried with this movie and I assume that they actually had a decent budget for it. The facility where the tournament takes place looks pretty decent, and the special effects used to showcase the “stages” that the fighters are going to duke it out in are pretty neat. “The Anvil” is a very slummy city district that the first twenty minutes or so the movie take place in, and I found the slums to look quite good. There was a lot of detail put into The Anvil that made it feel genuinely realistic. It reminded me a lot of the cordoned off “humans only” areas in Surrogates, or the ruined city locations in Independence Day. There wasn’t anything too cheesy with the sets or special effects, and I think that they did a good job with what they had.

My honest opinion is that this is a cheesy action flick that is pretty average in many ways, but it’s not at all what I would call a bad movie. Just don’t be a Tekken fan with high expectations and this movie should be at least somewhat entertaining.

Overall, the movie is barely even coherent and the story is the furthest thing from the games that you could possibly imagine. Far too many things were changed from the games for this to be a good film representation of Tekken, but do you know what? As long as you don’t go into the movie as a sour Tekken fan with ridiculous expectations, you should have a little fun.

I’m going to be generous with this movie, since it just seemed like good fun, and give it a rating of B or so if I had to review the movie on a site like Yahoo Movies or Metacritic or something, which isn’t too bad. As a fan of Tekken, I certainly enjoyed it. As long as you don’t take the movie seriously, I think everybody else will too.

I know that GW has a few Tekken fans, and I would actually encourage you guys who enjoy the games to check out the movie.  It's not great, but it's not terrible either. If anything, you should get a kick out of spotting the differences and similarities between the games and the movie. However, if you're not a fan of Tekken at all or just don't like cheesy movies, then this is probably not something you would want to watch. I can almost guarantee that you would find it to be pretty damn stupid.

So is it a decent way to kill an hour and a half? Yes, definitely.

Hey folks.

I'm looking for some campy horror movies to watch. Ones that don't take themselves seriously at all and are almost comedies because they're so bad. I know that there are TONS from the 1980-2000 period, but all I have is House of the Dead, which is from around 2002 or so, and is also a horrendous movie.

Any recommendations?

Are 3D fighters with 2D gameplay about to become a new trend or something?


So two Mortal Kombat topics this week, I don't know what's up with that.

Anyway, looks like they're trying to make Mortal Kombat good again. Obviously they've been trying that all along, but they're going back to their roots this time with 2D gameplay. Perhaps they realized that MK's best days were also its early days?

I feel kind of conflicted. I have fond memories of the old MK games, but as a whole, the series has really rubbish gameplay and all of the characters control like drunks with zero reflexes.

They're trying to be somewhat new by throwing in a tag team feature. I guess they're trying to take what Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter, and Tekken all did best and then rolling it up in a Mortal Kombat wrapper.

Also the idea of Kung Lao's hat cutting through another guy's balls makes me feel very, very weak. I suspect that they're aiming for shock value over gore in this game?

Anyway yeah, that's that. So far the female characters don't look like transvestites and the gameplay doesn't look sluggish and awful (yet) so I guess there's a tiny bit of hope.

Check it out.


Nobody is exactly sure what this is yet, if it ties in to the next game or if it's a movie. This is just so radically different that I really hope that it's a movie. I've spread this around to a few people who really don't give a damn about movies based on video games, but they admit.. This could actually be pretty decent!

Thoughts?

I think that, at the very least, it will be decent and watchable. I'm not expecting any kind of award winner or smash hit, but this could really be decent. It looks like they really want to reinvent the MK franchise, sort of like what they did with Batman Begins/The Dark Knight.

Hopefully this turns out well. It would be cool if there was something Mortal Kombat related that was actually REALLY worth the attention of the masses. We haven't had such a thing in, well, almost twenty years! I'm actually really interested because it looks really dark and gritty, and it "looks" like it's trying to aim well above being a half assed video game movie.

Here's the deal.

I've been in a huge mood for movies for about a month now, and I've been trying to obtain all movies which are generally regarded as absolutely amazing and among the best movies of all time. I want to make sure I have a pretty comprehensive list, but I'll probably miss a lot of REALLY good movies on my own, so I'm asking you guys this - what are some of the all time greats that you can think of, or what are some personal favourites of yours that you believe can appeal to almost anyone?

I'm looking for movies from the 1960-2009 time frame. Currently I'm after Alfred Hitchcock movies, Pulp Fiction (no, I have not see this yet!!), and perhaps some Al Pacino films that are regarded as masterpieces (yes, I have Scarface).

So, hit me up!

I bet you clicked into this topic expecting something cool, something gritty. Well you're getting a topic about a deer hunting game. If you're not disappointed by that, then read on.


The Hunter was apparently released in March 2009 much to the anticipation of the two people worldwide who even cared. This game seems really low key, and I only found out about it yesterday when I was browsing The Escapist and found an article that they wrote up on it.

Developed by Avalanche Studios (lol), The Hunter throws you on a fictional island where you are free to take on hunting missions from Doc (a guide and instructor of sorts) or just roam around looking at the beautiful environment while searching for animals to blow a hole through without Doc's guidance. It's free to play, though you are able to subscribe to the game (meaning real cash) which will grant you premium hunting items, licenses to hunt other animals, and so forth. If you don't pay, then you just get to hunt a certain kind of deer and the number of items you can have are limited. This is a hunting game and not Call of Duty though, so it honestly doesn't matter that you're not carrying around several guns, explosives, and traps. At the moment, my hunter just has his rifle, scope, ammo, deer bleat lure, digital camera, binoculars, and the ever so handy HunterMate device.

I'm really enjoying the game so far, and I typically find hunting games to be boring. The fact that this game is extremely beautiful helps, and the ambient sound effects are fantastic. The game is frighteningly immersive, and when I find a deer (or track one) I really feel 100% involved in it. Deer behave extremely well, by the way. I've made a few kills so far, but I've botched a few others as well after letting deer get to close to me (which results in them scampering away) or by missing when I fire. I even hit one deer and it ran off, so I figured that I missed. A minute later, Doc told me that I had in fact shot it in a critical location and that it was dead now. He wanted me to go find the corpse. I was dumb and didn't think to look for a trail of blood, and my random wandering off in search of the deer carcus failed horribly. Also, there's a full day/night and weather cycle.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's some screenshots/videos showing off how nice looking this free game is.










The Website: http://thehunter.com

So, anyone catch any this year? I haven't looked around much, but I found this one and had a good chuckle over it. It's a mock-up trailer for Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown and it parodies basically every other fighting game franchise there is.



Anyone have any others?

Hey folks. I was just poking around on my clunky no longer used iPod, which doubled as a flash drive for me, and found an old interview with Don Miguel that I was conducting for the bold GW that was inevitably scrapped. After GW became little more than a blog, this incomplete interview just collected dust. It was unfinished, and I didn't get the interviewee to talk about as many non-RPG Maker related topics as I had hoped for, but here is what I had started to put together for GW.

Why did I choose to interview Don, of all people? Well, without him, Gaming World and many other sites that deal (or dealt) primarily with RPG Maker never would have seen the light of day, and when you think about that, a lot of friendships and very good times could have been missed, or at least could have happened differently. Don's timing of translating and releasing the RPG Makers is what brought a lot of people together back then. Sure, they would have been translated anyway by someone at some point in time, but even if that had happened several months later down the road, it still would have changed a few things and, perhaps, a few friendships and even moments of fame never would have happened. I'm not trying to build Don up to look like some kind of amateur game making messiah or anything, but it would be wrong not to at least owe the man a little thanks for helping to give birth to or inspire people to create the communities most of us dwelled in, even if many of us don't have as strong an interest in the RPG Makers and such anymore. He got the ball rolling for us, which is cool.

I figure I may as well let a few people know what "the man" Don Miguel had to say, so here's what I managed to put together in December 2008 and it is roughly only half of the questions I had wished to ask Don. I had also wished to clean up some of the text to make Don's English easier to understand, and I also wanted to add a few pictures and such for when it would have been placed on GW, but none of that matters and I'm posting what I had in Notepad. Anyway, here it is. If anyone enjoys it, cool. If nobody does, then oh well. I just felt like finally doing something with this interview that was meant for GW almost a year and a half ago.

When most people think of RPG Maker 2000's origins and beginnings, they do not think of the best games or famed game creators, no.. A well known Spanish internet alias is what comes to mind, and that alias is Don Miguel, the internet nickname of the popular Russian man who translated RPG Maker 95 and RPG Maker 2000.

These days, many people are not sure where Don Miguel resides. Some people believe he is, of sorts, a legend now due to his contribution to the amateur game making community, and due to him being the very reason that sites such as this were even created. As his deeds are well known, but the man himself is seldom seen. Well, I decided to do the RPG Making scene a favour by catching up with the elusive programmer and translator and asking him a series of questions.

In this interview, you will learn all about Don. From his reasons for not translating RPG Maker 2003 to his views on Gaming Ground Zero and to his favourite soft drinks, Gaming World is about to jump into Don Miguel's head and let me tell you.. It's certainly pretty interesting in there!

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UPRC: Don, let me just say that it's an honour to be interviewing you. Not only do you have a reputation as a legend in the RPG Maker scene, but from my own recollection, you've always been a pretty cool guy too so hey, why don't you tell the folks who you are and what you do? Give them this opportunity to "know" Don Miguel.

Don: I have to greet all the readers. Yo all!
I'm a programmer and translator. I've graduated from 2 universities so far. I started working right after the school and haven't moved from my place yet. It's very reliable and, well, fine to keep. Since 13, I always had a gamedev hobby. I continue making games for myself and sometimes I'll sell them. It doesn't bring in much, so it's just a hobby.
What do I like doing? Well.. I like visiting friends, like Japanese RPGs, books and anime... I plant cactuses, and I like cats. That's all I can tell you.

UPRC: You sound like a pretty laid back guy! That's pretty cool.

Don: My personality is just a mask on the internet, I think. But my real friends find me easy going and such.

UPRC: Anyway.. In retrospect, you're responsible for a lot of sites existing such as Gaming World, Gaming Ground Zero, RPG RPG Revolution, and so on. Even though someone else would have likely translated RPG Maker 95 and 2000 if you had not, how does it make you feel knowing that you've had such a significant impact on the hobbies and leisurely activities of so many people?

Don: I like the feeling of that impact. Some people have become game developers, designers and work in the game development industry. But I also regret that I spent so much time supporting the RPG Maker products Which were nothing more than warez. I made my own maker made in 1995, "Platformer maker".
And the fun fact is... localization isn't hard. I finished the RPG Maker 95 translation in two hours and made the RPG Maker 2003 translation in 2 days, I think. So it was easy for anyone with some experience.

UPRC: With experience, yeah. A lot of people who work with the RPG Makers really don't have that, so people like you really do them a large favour I would say. You say you regret spending so much time on the RPG Maker products.. Was this part of the reason why you decided not to translate RPG Maker 2003? What was the precise reason?

Don: I just waited for a letter from Enterbrain, it was like a nightmare... I mean, I used to put all my free time into the RPG Maker community in place of my own projects. So the letter was a good reason to stop. A few months later, I sold my commercial game. So it all was for good! I won't name my games though. It's not on topic with the question.

UPRC: So Enterbrain asking you to stop was your reason for not continuing?

Don: It was the last straw. So yes, it was the reason. I even believed them, helped them to gather some feedback from "future buyers" of the official English RPG Maker 2000, but they postponed the release. It doesn't matter now.

UPRC: Definitely a good thing for you to do, then.
A lot of people don't know what you're up to these days, and they seem to think that finding the legendary Don Miguel is a difficult challenge. For these people, why don't you tell us what you're currently involved in? Making a game? Programming anything?

Don: I have a bad habit here! I like coding game engines. My latest engine uses LUA (see http://lua.org) as a script language. The engine is very portable and it works on both PC and some ARM based handhelds.
Every year, in July, I teach children how to program at a summer school for young programmers. This school is going to be devoted to some sound effects library coding. It's my my own workshop.
I have three work in progress game projects, but I have to polish up my engine first before continuing them!

UPRC: Here's a thinker for you, Don. If you had not translated the RPG Makers, do you think that Enterbrain may have considered releasing them on their own? And if they had, do you think that they would have had as much success as they have had through your translations?

Don: Well, I believe that they would have never released it abroad. I don't count some Playstation stuff, those are not as serious as the PC RPG Makers.
I know some Japanese people in real life, and they say that domestic market of Japanese RPGs is devoted to "smart people". Who does the domestic market consist of? You know.
My translations and free advertising brought much attention to their products in many countries. They could have even released it in Russia despite the software piracy.
I don't know how much they had earned on RPG Makers abroad, but I believe the sum could be less without my "help". That's just my opinion. There are many similar (and more professional) products for game making, which became forgotten right before the release of the RPG Makers.

How ironic that back in the nineties I had so much trouble when my commercial games were pirated. I haven't covered my expenses, but I've got some "fame" because my products were wide spread. My next projects were pirated as well...

UPRC: So you rose to fame through piracy? Sounds more like infamy, eh?
Here's another RPG Maker question for ya. Don't worry, this whole interview won't focus on the RPG Makers. This will be the last question focusing solely on this subject.
What are your thoughts on the newer RPG Makers, XP and VX. You may not use them, but I'm sure you're aware of them? Do you think that they are a step forward, or a step backward? Is Enterbrain giving the amateur game designers the proper tools? I ask this because a lot of people are still using RPG Makers 2000 and 2003 despite these newer engines, and they are reluctant to change. What are your thoughts?

Don: I haven't used the new makers, but I've read about their features and I've seen some screen shots. They kept backward project compatibility, that's good. They added Ruby. That's good, too. However, I don't think they (new makers) vary much. So if people want to make games, they could use any tool.
One day users realize that the RPG Makers have their limits. They're good for starters, good for fun. Being a professional programmer, I still like the idea of RPG Makers. The key is in their simplicity.

UPRC: So you still have a soft spot for the RPG Makers?

Don: That spot is my friends, the friendships that I made through my work with the RPG Makers.

UPRC: That's pretty nice to here, but I suppose it was evident since after passing on RPG Maker 2003, you continued at your ezBoard for a bit, followed by staffing at Gaming Ground Zero and then, finally, ending up at Stifu's forum. You seem to have a close partnership with Stifu, even being featured as a playable character in his Mario Kart hack. How would you describe your relationship with Stifu, another well known figure from RPG Maker's past?

Don: I didn't pass on RPG Maker 2003. I just got a letter from Enterbrain and stopped distributing their products. I kept my forum online due to some friends of mine. It was the place to meet. Somehow I parted with GGZ (I never liked to be manipulated and such). It seems that Stifu is a very reliable man. Just look at his site. Stifu is my friend. For me, it's a honor to have such a friend and be a tiny pixel in his (and his pal's) project. I like Stifu's pixel-art talent. Our friendship has grown up from the fight. I hope we'll finish our cooperative projects and have some projects in the future.

UPRC: Well, I wish you luck! Now, remember that this interview is for Gaming World. Predominantly, we are an RPG Maker community. However, I know that there are a lot of people at the website who would undoubtedly try other makers or methods of making games if they had the chance. What route would you suggest these people try if they would want to branch out from RPG Maker?

And that is where things abruptly ended as Don's replies stopped coming. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's all he felt like saying?

Anyway, that's that.

I'm not sure what the fighting community is like at GW anymore and haven't really been since the Saikyo Dojo was removed a while ago. So that's why I'm making this topic. Who here has access to some fighters (PC or console) and is interested in some friendly matches?

BlazBlue, Street Fighter 4, and Tekken 6 seem to be the most popular at the moment. I have all three along with Virtua Fighter 5 (which I detest) and Soul Calibur 4, and Battle Fantasia (ugh...) all for the PS3.

Is anyone else into fighters on the PS3? PC would be fine too with Kawaks or whatever, but the novelty of playing arcade fighters on the PC wore off a while ago for me.


As far as my interests are concerned, Tekken 6 is the only fighter I'm probably not rusty at, since I play it for a bit every 2-3 days, so I'd be down for that if anyone's interested.

So, my Task Manager is missing the tabs up top.



It's been this way for months and I have no idea why, but it's starting to piss me off because I REALLY need access to the second tab (the one that lets you terminate processes and such). Anyone know what's going on here? Or what could have caused this?

Hey.

Last night before falling asleep, my computer worked fine in every way, shape and form.. But this morning, I woke up and hopped on. Heard all of the regular Vista boot up sounds, so sound was working. However, I went to YouTube to watch a video and there was no sound at all. My volume on YouTube was not muted or down all the way, so I didn't understand it.

I then checked my mp3s, and they all worked fine. I have sound and everything, but not in Firefox or something, I'm not really sure.


And yeah, just Firefox. I just checked as I was writing this, and I have sound on YouTube when I use Google Chrome, so it's a Firefox problem of some sort. Anyone familiar with this?

Okay, so here's the deal.

I've started Christmas shopping online this month just to get it out of the way now, and to avoid the holiday rush in November/December. Things are going pretty good and I feel like I have some pretty awesome gift ideas this year, however.. I am having trouble finding something that I am looking for.

One of the things I would like to get my brother is a decently sized ceramic/porcelain statue of some kind of mythical creature. Dragon or gryphon preferred. Now, I've looked all over eBay and couldn't find anything too remarkable. Most of it just looked like silly shit that you'd buy for a 13 year old fantasy novel reader. I don't want bright, happy looking dragons, nor do I want them to be small (as in being able to fit in one hand).

What I am personally looking for is a statue about the size of a standard computer tower which doesn't look like a shitty cartoon character or anything.

So here's my question, GW. Does anyone here know of any good sites with ceramic and porcelain statues, among other things? I want something that looks pretty good but isn't overly expensive (as in, I'm not paying $200+ for a statue of this size).

So if you guys have any links or anything, that would be pretty helpful!