McMad

Um. X definitely has one of the better stories of the series. Well at least the people making Tales of Symphonia thought so. Edit: Also Kitase doesn't write much anymore - he mainly produces these days. He did direct VII and VI though. Not a bad track record really. Certainly more respectable than that of Stephanie Meyer.

It's been over two years. The glory days are gone man.

McMad's infallible list to the best games of the decade: The Orange Box Shadow of the Colossus Metroid 'Fucking' Prime Resident Evil 4 Silent Hill 2 Super Mario Galaxy Majora's Mask Gears of War Final Fantasy IX Rock Band Hell yeah fothermuckers.

VII's localisation was a lot worse than VIII's but the merits of it's writing managed to shine through anyway. Here's what I mean when I say VIII was poorly written: The plot lacks structure. From Disc 1 to Disc 4 there is no over-riding quest for Squall and his comrades. The story telling is much more episodic rather than being a whole, coherent piece of work. The game constantly throws new allies and adversaries at you (Edea is the primary antagonist for the first two discs, and the joins your party in Disc 3) instead of clearly establishing two opposing forces and creating a convincing fictional world. Throw in some silly plot twists which add nothing to the story and time-travel and you have a very messy plot. VII in contrast establishes Shinra and Sephiroth as the primary antagonists very early on and the main story can be either be seen as a group of eco-warriors fighting for the survival of their planet or one man's quest for revenge. Many video-game plots lack structure though. And sometimes a strong cast of characters can save a poorly structured plot. It worked for me and Final Fantasy IX. The problem is that the only developed character in VIII is Squall. Squall starts the game as a cold loner - emotionally scarred by the abandonment he suffered as child - but through the power of love he is able to begin trusting others once again and finds happiness. The boy becomes a man. The other characters seem like card-board cut-outs in comparison. In fact the majority of the main party except for Squall and Rinoa become irrelevant after Disc 2. Much of the main cast lack back stories, development and even motives. (apart from the fact that they're all on the payroll) They don't share interesting dialogue with one another and many players often find VIII's cast simply un-likeable. In fact Laguna and his trio were far more charming, in my opinion, than Squall and his party. Then there are the awkward set-pieces such as the train mission that defies physics and logic. The fact that Irvine would have been aiming at the back of Edea's float during the assassination mission. Time compression. And I'll let you lot decide whether the dual narratives complemented each other or not. I also find that the game also lacks themes apart from love and growing-up. VII was crammed full of themes: Life, Death, Mothers, Nature, Industrialisation, Identity and I'm sure there are others I've missed. In comparison there never feels like there's much point to VIII's story. And Sheikah I don't write VIII off because of the story. I just believe that it lets the rest of the game down. I've said it before: I love the Junction System and the game's style. I'd really love to debate about this but I'm not sure I will post in this thread again as typing all this up was horribly tedious. Maybe some kind forum poster will drop by now and kindly explain to me why I'm completely wrong - offering me some new perspective on VIII and consequently shutting me up.

No where near as silly as a group of childhood friends forgetting each other due to magical creatures affecting their minds though? Every Final Fantasy story is silly to some extent. But VIII simply had a poorly written plot. Which is a shame as I really liked the game's style and battle system.

Ignoring the bastardisation of Cloud's character in recent years (Kingdom Hearts, Advent Children etc.) he's actually a very likeable character in the original game with a lot of development. EDIT: Holy shit Killer Kirby. Quistis is a slut because she had a crush on her student? Take your bullshit character analysis and 4chan/neogaf fuelled 'opinions' somewhere else.

Well at least now you realise that you're the one with the problem. Not everyone else.

Oh gosh dwarf. You're completely right. You're impeccable reasoning has caused me to see the error of my ways. Jesus. How could I ever enjoy playing such a fantastic game like Super Mario Galaxy?

It's a good album but it deserves to be side-lined because Pull/Pulk and the alternate take of Morning Bell were silly ideas. If it helps you sleep at night hipsters generally tend to rate Amnesiac as the best radiohead album. (although that is due to its unpopularity )

Cheers for the birthday wishes guys. I may not post here much these days but this place will always mean a lot to me. Lots of love. x

Great article/post/essay there Segnit.

Bioshock - Presentation-wise games don't get much better than Bioshock. The problem for me was the gameplay. Plasmids were nothing special. The shooting was clunky. And oh boy was this game repetitive. Constantly having to hack machines became a depressing chore and the fights against Big Daddies weren't all that fun. It's a shame really because it's probably me that's the problem and not the game. I just couldn't get into it and because of this I've apparently missed out on one of the best games of the past few years. How dissapointing. Persona 3/4 - I don't know what I hate more about these games; the grinding, the shallow battle system or the fact that the main quests of each game demand between 50 and 75 hours of your life. The interesting characters and sharp scripts did not save these glorified dating sims for me. Metroid Prime 3 - The weakest link in the entire franchise. I don't particularly mind that the game strayed from typical atmospheric Metroid formula into more Halo oriented territory. It's the fact that it was so poorly executed which made the game taste so bitter for me. Combine that with the most uninspired environments in the Prime series and Wii controls that don't particularly add anything to the experience and you have one unspectacular game. Let's hope this isn't a sign of things to come Retro. Resident Evil 5 - I still don't quite understand how Capcom made such a mess of this game. World of Warcraft - Oh dear. A few months ago I would have probably put Final Fantasy VIII on this list as well but I decided to play it again after my exams in June and was plesantly suprised. The characters were still throroughly unlikeable and the plot was still a mess but I really liked the level of customization offered by the Junction System and the battles were pretty fun too.

I really don't play games anywhere near as much as I used to. The last game I bought for my Wii was Brawl. All I wanted was for Nintendo to make a reasonable amount of the games akin to the ones I loved on the N64 and Gamecube. I'm even becoming disillusioned with my Xbox 360. I play some Rock Band every now and then and I bought the new Silent Hill game for it (only to be a tad dissapointed) but there is simply not much else I want for it this year. I think it's mainly due to the fact that all I see on the shelves in gamestation these days are games - in one variation or another - that I have played before. Sequels, prequels, spinoffs and ripoffs.

If you're seriously thinking about committing your time to learning the guitar over the next year Gizmo then you should definitely get a few lessons or ask one of your friends to give you some pointers. Printing some tabs off and learning your favourite songs is always awesome (especially when the tabs are accurate) but more often than not your fretting/picking technique might be a bit sloppy as a result. (speaking from first hand experience ) Learning some basic chords/scales and practicing them everyday are always good exercises for improvement. And most importantly always make sure your guitar is in tune (EADGBe)!

Whatever floats your boat. Mellon Collie is not one of the best albums of the 90s though. There are too many bad songs. The lyrics and vocals van be very cringe-worthy and it doesn't inspire it's original concept (the cycle of day and night). While Mellon Collie has some pretty great songs it simply isn't a consistent album and therefore can not be objectively seen as one of the best albums of the 90s. Siamese Dream on the other hand is definitely well up there.

Dress as an Octopus and keep to the garden for the entire party.

Voodoo Child is clearly the superior song.

Can't really be called trolling when most people in this thread should know I masturbate to pictures of Colin Greenwood daily.

Radiohead are pretty crap though.

AS Results: English Literature: A Economics: A (only just) Biology: A History: B Critical Thinking: A Sweet.

Easily one of the most frustrating bands I've ever been hooked on.

That sure is some horrible box-art right there.

Nah Brutal Legend is simply 'Metal: The Videogame'. It's a shame there's no Maiden or Metallica on the soundtrack but 'Am I Evil?' alone makes it sweet enough. Let's hope this one sells Tim!

Nice, but I prefer the whole Collective.

It's actually possible to get 120 stars on Sunshine?! I gave up at around 117. I still have blue-coin related nightmares.