Rummy

Mr.Edjamakated, you sure do make exceedingly good posts. As for the subject at hand, isn't technology growing/advancing and an exponential rate or something? Improvements in technology lead to improvements in technology, it's all built upon itself! I do find the information point quite interesting though, the idea that information is so readily available that when we don't know something we can look it up in about 10 minutes or so, an absolute fraction of what it would have taken say, 10-15 years ago? I find myself whiling away my time and days reading Wikipedia(let's leave reliability out of this shall we...unless the issue of fake or mistaken information is going to be brought up as a whole subject) and finding out about stuff I never would have normally. Is it just me though? In the future, will we become more lazy, to the extent that we NEVER read about things, and ONLY find out information about something once we deem it neccessary to know? When you read a book for a specific piece of information, you tend to find out other things surrounding it(and arguably that DOES happen with wikipedia due to all the links :p) but in the future will it become quite tailored and specific to our requests on the internet, that we JUST find the answer to our question, and nothing else? Will that in turn mean that we're learning less? I cannot picture the future btw, where technology will go, I tend not to think of things like that but rather just let them happen and go with the flow of it all.

It's a pretty game, it looks quite beautiful in places and namely on the whole. I must say, I rather liked some of the new items, the freshness of them. I do apologise I have bones to pick though, simply being pretty or good looking is not enough in a game for me, and I just wish they'd made the items more...applicable! I felt rather that each item had it's application to, and just shortly after, the dungeon it was found in, only to later not require much further use. I think the game had a pretty nice storyline too though.

I guess, yes, the problem is that it's all subjective. But did you feel magic in TP? Don't you miss the charm of the villagers of Market Town/Kakariko/Clock town, their evolutions over time? The minigames, their own variety, the prizes in place? The side quests? The trading sequences? I miss the faries random tidbits, too. And the scarecrows! Where's Darunia dancing to my HOT beat?! TP doesn't create anywhere near as many memories in my mind, cool looking gorons, the little kid who ran the shop...but not alot springs easily to mind like from the others, I barely even remember the minigames! As for Rosalina's Space Station compared to the Castle. Well, the former FELT much more hubby, the latter felt like a Castle full of secrets, especially with the Toads and their information, and Bowser's random ramblings. The ways to the Switch Palaces(for want of better names). The fact to progress you had to fight Bowser for a Key, then find the door to which it fit. I liked how levels would change depending on the star, and the fact that what you did in some levels affected the castle, and you'd fall into random bits of the castle out of certain levels! The worlds not hidden simply in Portrait; The Secret Slide, the Secret Water Level, Boo's Mansion, The twist of Big-Little Land, The mirror hidden Snowman's Land. The secret stars HIDDEN in the castle, the random little rabbit, the red coins in secret stages and palaces, the 100 coin stars. I feel Galaxy just held alot less secrets for me, I liked secrets, finding something hidden that I wasn't sposed to easily(though I guess, in the end, I was...otherwise it wouldn't be there!). The DS built upon all these, making it an excellent remake too. I explained my reasons for preference of the castle above. It had alot more effort put into it, imo. Tell me what was not true! I also disagree that the levels are harder than SM64, I've replayed SM64 in part since, and still find myself dying alot more in that than in Galaxy(I recall only dying a few times due to black holes, and on daredevil comets), AND you have more health in SM64! I find myself struggling to regain it more, too. You say you didn't like Galaxy btw, what were your reasons for that? Same for TP, don't just say it's the best game, tell me why you think it is! Because it's pretty? Has good graphics? Good gameplay? Funky music? Nice charm? What, what MAKES it a good game, if it's so good? For the record I'll restate, I think it's a fantastic game, a brilliant and very well made game, but as far as the Zelda series go, it's a lacklustre Zelda game, imo. For me, TP seems closer to what I know of the FF series than what I know of the Zelda series, though it could be argued that's due to my ignorance of the FFs :p I should hope so, it's a policy I wished they'd adopted a long time ago, because they never ever seemed to manage to stick to deadlines. I won't deny, my cynical self half thinks they announced stuff early just to keep the interest, I believe(as I may have already said here in this thread) Nintendo were rather down on their luck before the Wii and DS truly took off. I agree with Grazza too, I believe the TP delays were entirely tactical.

Where you planning on going to for the postgrad? I know a fair few guys up in and all over London, if I ever hear of a room near where you need to be, I'll give you a heads up! Assuming I don't go crazy and actually move out myself, that is :p

Aww, well, at least you're out on your own with a bit of independance in the world! More than I can say for myself, really How long you been living in Ealing? London's quite a fun little town(I've been all over alot lately, and I'm over in west london near Kingston alot, though I dunno how far that is from Ealing). What are the people at work like? I imagine it's never cool or easy moving to a strange new place, I'm sure you'll find your feet soon! EDIT:Stupid me, just realised you mentioned Birkbeck. How embarrassing.

Ah, I was wondering who'd bring that up, most glad it was you though. Now everything makes a tiny bit more sense. Where did you move from before London anyway, and what were you doing? How, in fact, did you get the job testing with SEGA! How is it, also? Got any sneaky gossip for us on some new and upcoming releases eh, eh?? Also, plus side of London means you can definitely make the next London meetup! Whenever it gets arranged. Someone, er, should look into doing that. Yes. Hohumdiddly. *runs* Molly?

I think this is Pista's fault. I was mosying round things, then tried to right click my sound icon then go for Playback Devices(which I did earlier, I swear) but then Windows said it detected a conflict or error due to the Audio Enhancements for my 'Speakers(Realtek Audio...)' I can't remember the exact name but basically it was the name of my speakers, or something. I'm mightily confused how this started, and how it's now fixed itself. I hope it stays fixed too, last week my speakers totally dissappeared and I had to do a system restore! But I'm wondering if anyone has ever experienced this, or knows what causes it? Not a stupid idea at all! Sometimes system restores are a nice, easy, and handy solution, I've turned to it a few times when thoroughly confused.

Whatever happened that you dissappeared! And does getting paid mean you found some sort of money gathering activity which the regular people refer to as a job? Not alot's been happening, really. Not that I'm aware of anyway, just the good ol' same ol' N-Europee

Some girl, just gave my number to a crazy girl(like actually crazy) and now I'm kinda like...wtf, why would you do that without asking me. Also, aforementioned(not crazy) girl, I kind of like, though things got crazy at the party the other day and she got with an old friend, which was weird, considering last time I spoke to her she told me she thinks she and him had something before(drunkness ensues) but she really regretted it. She's also insisting I go down and see her on the weekend, though she's also insisting both me AND aforementioned friend go. She also keeps apologising for the weirdness of it. It's a thoroughly strange situation, really. Yet, I probably will go, because I'm getting fed up with my own useless friends and need something to bring me up atm(due to them all being rubbish, and dodgy summer girl has just reared her head, basically to tell me I'm a bad person and she's immensely happy and in love with the guy she sold me out for), but it's nice to know I'm actually wanted somewhere at least, I guess

I'm not sure if I can say I'm procrastinating, but I sure as hell ain't doing anything with my life right now. I am STILL procrastinating that job app I aforementioned however. I'm in a bit of a shit way, so I'm lacking a large amount of motivation really, just want to be a bum and curl up in a ball in bed until summer arrives.

Ok, so earlier, I opened up winamp to listen to some musaks upon my craptop computeur(I dont normally listen to music on it due to the speakers being pants, and I can just stick the music channels on on TV). But anyway, my friend was doing her radio show and so she said she'd dedicate me a song to cheer me up, so I wanted to listen to it. I went to the site, got the feed, started streaming, all was well and good. This was about 20minutes before her slot. I then decided to run down and take the speakers off my currently defunct PC, so I could have some decent sound quality, so I did so and plugged them in. I noticed the sound was a bit crackly, so I wondered if it was just the stream. I clicked through my current playlist, which is round from a while ago and had another radio stream in it, upon clicking one it sort of timed out and went onto the next file in the playlist, as if it couldn't find it. Ok, I thought, probs now dead or something. But then I clicked through to a song that was on my computer, and realised that it just wouldn't start playing! Like, it sort of does something, but then acts as if I stopped Winamp. I tried restarting my computer, didn't fix it. I then tried updating winamp, didn't fix it. Then I came downstairs to brawl, brought the laptop, the speakers, and decided to fire up my music on WMP, but when I try to play a playlist I have in WMP...it doesn't work! No files play, they all seem to have a problem playing! I tried the WMP help, it just took me to this link; http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/webhelp/default.aspx?&mpver=11.0.6001.7000&id=C00D11B1&contextid=87&originalid=88890008 Which was totally unhelpful, tbh. Nothing there applied to me. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this happening or got any ideas why? I'm running Pista btw. EDIT:Forgot to add, youtube sound is fine, the little ding when I adjust sound is fine, MSN seems to have stopped dinging however.

Just to respond to this; I'll admit firstly, I don't entirely remember the delays of OoT, I was alot younger at the time and followed news and release alot less, the information was alot less readily available too. All I remember is waiting ages for it, and it arriving one day when I decided to mope in bed. It would seem(admittedly sourced from wikipedia) that both games took about 3 years for release from announcement. Also looks to be 6 years between LttP and OoT, and then 6 between MM and TP then 4 between WW and TP, which I guess put the both of them on even footing. However, I feel that TP did alot less in comparison to OoT(or even MM). How did they manage to bust out those two(OoT, MM) cracking titles so close to each other? WW followed just 2 years later after MM, too! I realise the game engine was practically exactly the same for MM and OoT, but they're still radically different games. I've stuck to single player, main quest type zeldas, and ignored the others in between due to not fitting this, and the oracles were made by capcom, not Nintendo(though a brilliantly done job, captured the zelda essence just as they should have). I feel TP, given it's dev time, did not do enough new and also somehow lost the Zelda charm it should have had. It was also a GC game in essence, not a Wii game, and I still expect to see a Wii one. Galaxy, level design and gravity? Whilst interesting new twists on gameplay, hardly revolutionary(the gravity wasn't even that big a deal) and the levels LOOKED good, but were they really all that different to SM64? They were worse imo, as they were just linear things the game ran you through, rather than the free roaming beforehand. The hub world style off SM64 was also sacrificed, the castle was an adventure in itself! It keep things mixed up too, with the switch palaces, and a few levels having a different way of entering them. Also as I mentioned before, the secret stars were another good addition, and stayed secret for longer than 30 seconds. The Rare point? Well, it wasn't so much a point, just I feel personally that Rare largely carried Nintendo through the N64 era, that's all. Alot of the cracking and best selling titles on the N64, were Rare made. It's also my point about Brawl at the end, it wasn't even developed by Nintendo, really.

I'm having some serious up and downage lately. I had a good friday night, and a good saturday night, but I also find myself spending half my time(or more, the times when im not busy) wondering...what is it all for? What's life worth right now? I feel like I'm losing faith in the world, in people, and in my friends. Nobody close/local/good friendy seems to arrange/do anything except me, yet they all apparently want to do things. I even got one person referred to me by another person the other day cos I'm the 'organiser' guy. They were discussing doing something and couldn't even make a fucking plan between themselves, to then invite me too. Nobody seems competent enough to do things by themselves, and more everyone seems to be doing their own thing too much to have time for me, and some of the things I get going. It's bugging me, and getting me down. I feel like I give so much to the world, what and how I want it to be, but get nothing back from it. I feel like nobody wants to have fun anymore, or I don't know, they've found some new kind of fun that I'm not on board with somewhere. Why are people so reluctant to do things these days? Why do I feel like nobody really cares anymore?

Happy Birthday! Probs on the kirby love, he's such an awesome little fella! (though the aforementioned cameltoe and also clown boots on that cake worry me somewhat)

So how exactly would this work? A movie a week and a book per month, right? Sounds intriguing, we just watch/read(i just like the idea of actually having to seek out a book/movie, might encourage some good movie nights!) said movie/book within specified time period, then we discuss it in this thread? Once signing up, we PM you our 1st and 2nd choice movie/books and eventually they get chosen? How long will the period of discussion be, and...what happens when movie/book overlaps? Though that's just made me think of an awesome plan to sometimes do a movie of a book, at the same time as the book! (As you can probably tell, I've never done anything book nor movie clubby before )

Sorry ReZ, I'll stop sending them.

Normally, I would recommend this game to anyone if they can find it for less than £20. However, my experience with this game was slightly different, and so I recommend it to EVERYONE who can find it for less than £20! Definitely worth it, just for the freshness of its originality! Which is good, mind! Excellent game, I dare you to find me someone who finds it unfun!

Happy Birthday man! And congratulations on having an awesome name! Chris is the name of champions!!

In from a slightly more stressful than expected night on the ward, and I'm working again tonight. To top that, the staffing situation is in a shit state, I said to one nurse I'd do tonight to help them out so they only have to look for one extra staff instead of two extra, though I hadn't intended on doing the shift. What does she do this morning when the shift is finishing? Decides she's not going to work tonight as time owing cos she has a course to do tomorrow. This leaves me and a nurse, both staff who are not permanent/regular on the ward, on the night shift, still needing a permanent nurse and another HCA to work. I am going to be seriously unimpressed if they haven't sorted this shit out when I arrive tonight.

Miyamoto directed OoT, but didn't direct MM? I actually think MM is at least on par with OoT, though both in different ways. Some days I actually think MM better, even.

I hope they don't. Dammit, didn't see EEVIL got there first.

Every 2 years? No. Every generation? Yes. A wait for 6 years between two major Zelda incarnations? Not cool. 4 years maybe wouldn't have been so bad, but even then, what pissed me off so fucking much is the false promise of the game. How early was TP announced, and promised! GUARANTEED for release, then delayed? Over and over. It's not even a fucking Wii game, it's a GC port. You know what makes it all worse? It's a shit Zelda game. Mind, I'm not saying it's a shit game, just a shitty shitty Zelda. It's rather lacking in the magic and charm that makes a Zelda game what it is, imo. I say imo, cos I know eventually it comes down to a matter of opinion, and know that one of you fools are gonna bust that out to try and cover your insistently blind asses. It's a good game, it's a shit Zelda. Then there's Galaxy. Whilst being a nice game, a kind of pretty game too, what did it really do? Where's the innovation in it, what new did it bring to the table? It's a poor man's 64. I say this, firstly because it is, but secondly because it annoyed me immensely. Here's why I liked 64; -A good hub world, realisitcally set in a castle with enchanted/magic paintings. -Freedom of movement. One brilliant thing about SM64 was the freedom and challenge in it, the stars weren't always obvious to find, but also there was nothing better than questing for one star...and accidentally getting another! They shat all over this in Sunshine, and made it even worse in Galaxy, it's such a linear game I just cannot believe. Even the original wasn't so damn linear thanks to the warp zones and little secrets, and the main concept of that game was to run in a straight bloody line, doing the same thing over and over! -Secret stars! Actually being kind of secret...for longer than 5 seconds before the game points it out to you. Basically, my issue seems to stem from linearity. Why do I believe these two games were rather linear? To hold the hands of the new casual market, to walk them through it all, in a nice, easy, straight line. Also, I don't know what it is, but in older games(zeldas, marios) I actually DIED sometimes, I seem to die alot less in the newer ones. No, it isn't cos I was a tarded child, I still die when I go back and play them now(though less so in the Zeldas). I've been saying it since both came out, and your almighty god Shigsy himself has even said it now. They just did not live up to what they could have been. Maybe relevant, maybe not, but I'm gonna throw it out there for people to try(no need to come telling me your results). Grab a piece of paper and write down your top 10 favourite titles from the N64. Now, open wikipedia up and look up each game. Count how many are Rare made, it's probably 4 or more. So to address the original question, has the wii/nintendo lost the hardcore gamer? Well, it depends on the definition of such a term, as people have astutely pointed out. I most like Marcamillian's definition as someone who loves games for being games, not just for having 'hardcore' content like GTA and some FPSs, though I think it still lacks something I can't quite place. Personally, I bought my Wii on release in 2006. Whilst being happy with it at times, I've mostly been dissappointed since(well, until Brawl arrived, which shattered my expectations and bettered Melee in so many ways, a feat I actually thought impossible without large cost). I bought it on Nintendo's part performance and promise(a large part of which was franchises like Zelda and Mario), and I think they sold it to me on those too. However, they've totally failed to live up to them imo. My biggest, primest, and most current example to support this? The fucking shoddy ass pisspoor 'effort' made with AC:CF(or LGttC, a stupider name). General online setup is a bit shoddy too, friend codes and all. I'm holding onto my Wii, which I've regretted buying sometimes since(though the price hasnt dropped so it's a silly regret), because I'm hoping they'll pull their fingers out of their asses, and also something decent out of the bag and blow me away again, as only they have managed to do before. My faith is small though, the biggest motivation is the tiny fanboy in me that won't ever sell my original consoles. I also expect more from a company than turned in excess of £2.5billion in PROFIT last year. What excuse is there for the lack of catering to my tastes with such monies, when they managed to do it before with so much less? Where is it all going to?! My final hope is that they're saving, they're storing up, they're preparing for something epic, they're going to put it into making the most awesomest, badassest console ever, and wipe the floor with the competition. I guess I can only hope, though. [/RAAAGE] EDIT:And oh yeah, meant to ask, Brawl technically wasn't even developed/made by Nintendo, was it?

You should already be used to this on the internet. Secondly, it's the sheer stupidity of it. It's not the fact he was vain, or the fact he was 12(though I'm sure I knew better at 12 too). It's the fact he managed to used so much to kill himself, and also the fact he managed to do it having already nearly killed himself before under the same circumstance. I'm not saying we should all be pointing fingers and laughing at a poor dead child, I'm just saying that's why people are. You may not appreciate, but I'll point you in the direction of the Darwin Awards. http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/

A useful survival phrase, appropriate and applicable to many situations in life.