The Gaming Den

Koumei wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:Cue people pointing out "Vampires are immune to mind affecting!" as if that matters,

People who aren't aware that AD&D2E isn't the latest edition will tell you how Illithid only have thermal vision and mind-sense, so can never "see" or "hear" undead. "And that's why the Undead Illithid are so mental, they're trapped in isolation because their own kind don't know they exist". I put it to you that the reason they're mental is they are mind flayers.

Well, admittedly, I only know that Mind Blast isn't a Mind Affecting effect because I had cause to look it up and worry about that recently. But, well, I don't know about anyone else, but if some asks me "which would win, D&D Monster A or D&D Monster B" I go and actually look at the stats. So even if I didn't know, I'd probably check. Just like I now know that vampires can't be autokilled by extract which is fucking retarded.

The naruto thing reminds me of why I finally stopped reading LFG. They started, and then barely referenced, this plot hook about Richard slowly turning human. They showed what people generally assume to be young, human, Richard, and never fucking mention it again, and he looks like the most innocent child you can imagine.

They introduce, out of the blue, some NPC called The Innocent. When Cale looks at it, he sees his young self. When Bennie sees it, she sees her dead adoptive father.

When Richard looks at it, after surrendering to two things he easily killed without his powers because he allegedly couldn't kill them with his powers simply because they would take him to see it, he sees.....

a giant fucking rose.

Not the child they showed and never explained but implied was him, or at least connected to him. Not a human him. Not even the joke of death and destruction that Bennie mentioned and would make sense as a joke with Richard. No, just some big fuck all flower, with no explanation whatsoever and no connection to anything.

Edit: I just caught up with LFG. The rose does not get explained. They do imply that Richard's power is dependent upon the destruction of innocence, as it's shown that the Innocent is a book of all the world knowledge. Richard wants to destroy it to power up because apparently his power is the rope in a tug of war with someone worse. If he destroys the book, he powers up, and the other guy weakens. Bennie and Cale chase after him, find him in Mount Doom (literally, two pages are wasted on a LotR reference gag. Richard pushes Frodo and Gollum into Mt. Doom, and drops the book to follow the falling ring. The next page is a pure white glowing Richard, wearing the One Ring, having a staring contest with Sauron). When that joke is done, the book still exists. Richard hands it to Bennie and takes his glove off, showing them that he's becoming human again. He goes off, deciding that if he can't destroy the book, neither can "Mysterious NPC Reference With No Real Significance #3452213" and that he'll find another way. Bennie, in gratitude, tells him about a zoo full of nothing but baby animals inexplicably in that mountain. Richard goes, references Babe, and the next page shows the flaming bones of animals flying out to the increasingly horrified reaction of Cale, until a dolphin hits him in the face. After that, they go to address the army surrounding home base, and Richard decides to "fly a kite" (riding a rope shot into a dragon tail with an arrow). I'm glad I stopped reading it.

I still follow LFG, but only out of momentum, not any real appreciation of the story. They alternate between having a story that isn't compelling and incredibly lame side gags that break any immersion the story was hoping for. I suppose that soon I will be able to break it off entirely.

I still follow Naruto and was enjoying it more recently mostly because Itachi was one of my favorite characters and he got more screen time from beyond the grave, but when they foreshadowed Tobi's identity inf the previous issue I thought, "Damn, that's stupid." The end of this issue just sealed the matter with a final "Durrrrrr."

Damn, people are still reading the Naruto manga? I thought that the flurry of stupid in the last third and a few chapters of the Second Konoha Invasion arc would have been a huge wake-up call to Not Read This Anymore.

I'm sorry, can I interrupt the Naruto thing?

So the guy behind the mask is the ancient big bad who predates Konoha right?

And yet he is also apparently What's his name Sensi covers one eye Grey Wolf's childhood friend?

How the fuck does that make any goddam sense at fucking all?

I blame moon Nazis.

Kaelik wrote:I'm sorry, can I interrupt the Naruto thing?

So the guy behind the mask is the ancient big bad who predates Konoha right?

And yet he is also apparently What's his name Sensi covers one eye Grey Wolf's childhood friend?

How the fuck does that make any goddam sense at fucking all?

No, he was pretending to be that ancient big bad and was revealed not to be when Madara was summoned by Kabuto instead. The only events Tobi was actually there for were 16 years ago or less (ninetail rampage and itachi's betrayal).

Is Naruto actually any good? Well, up until the point where you decided it had gone bullshit.

I keep thinking I should try reading some manga but I don't know where to start and where I can start reading without spending much (any) money. And I mean manga, not anime since my laptop's speakers aren't working. By the way- does anyone have any idea how to remove a broken off bit of a headphone jack from the port?

it's a hoax, but god i wish this were true
http://en.paperblog.com/samsung-pays-ap ... ns-294795/
it'd be trolling on a multi billion dollar corporate level . .

Parthenon wrote:Is Naruto actually any good? Well, up until the point where you decided it had gone bullshit.

What I like about Naruto the series is the variety of cool ninja powers. Sadly Naruto the character is one of the least interesting characters in that regard.

When Naruto gets the limelight, generally things are pretty lame. He used to be part of a team where he at least shared it. Nowadays, he makes copies and his hand-held blast ball. Neither of which has much staying power as being interesting.

But every now and then there are good fights, or match ups between different characters. The chase after Sasuke defecting to Orochimaru where all the B-list ninjas got their battles was enjoyable. More recently the big ninja war at least had lots of different match-ups.

There's just a whole lot of chaff between the interesting battles. I stick with it because I can quickly skim/ignore the crappy intermissions between good stuff. Bleach is pretty much the same, I liked the different arrays of powers and the more central Ichigo is to things, the less I like it. So I stopped reading that many months ago.

erik wrote:

Kaelik wrote:I'm sorry, can I interrupt the Naruto thing?

So the guy behind the mask is the ancient big bad who predates Konoha right?

And yet he is also apparently What's his name Sensi covers one eye Grey Wolf's childhood friend?

How the fuck does that make any goddam sense at fucking all?

No, he was pretending to be that ancient big bad and was revealed not to be when Madara was summoned by Kabuto instead. The only events Tobi was actually there for were 16 years ago or less (ninetail rampage and itachi's betrayal).

So Obito went from "dead" to better than his Sensi in like 5 years and simultaneously mastered the art of controlling magic beasts and mastered an eye justsu that didn't even exist.

Also, what about the part where he supposedly gave Pain his eyes? That was a long time ago.

Kaelik wrote: So [spoilar] went from "dead" to better than his Sensi in like 5 years and simultaneously mastered the art of controlling magic beasts and mastered an eye justsu that didn't even exist.

Heh, well there goes the spoilers. And yes, this is the bit that caused my reactions of "Damn, that's stupid" progressing straight to "Durrrrr". Because, damn, that's stupid. He wasn't just dead, he was incompetent and inept prior to death. I suppose Sharingan is teh unfairs, and if he survived he could learn a lot of techniques, which still would not explain his Rinnegan, but yeah, stupidity abounds.

Kaelik wrote: Also, what about the part where he supposedly gave Pain his eyes? That was a long time ago.

I thought Pain naturally had the eyes. I either need to go back and read again, or not bother because I don't know if I could sustain the further stupidity if that were the case. Damn. I'm sure they'll try and explain it with exposition and flashbacks in the next episode or two, but ugh, I am pretty sure it will just be insulting garbage.

[edit:tagfuckup]

erik wrote:

Kaelik wrote: So [spoilar] went from "dead" to better than his Sensi in like 5 years and simultaneously mastered the art of controlling magic beasts and mastered an eye justsu that didn't even exist.

Heh, well there goes the spoilers. And yes, this is the bit that caused my reactions of "Damn, that's stupid" progressing straight to "Durrrrr". Because, damn, that's stupid. He wasn't just dead, he was incompetent and inept prior to death. I suppose Sharingan is teh unfairs, and if he survived he could learn a lot of techniques, which still would not explain his Rinnegan, but yeah, stupidity abounds.

Kaelik wrote: Also, what about the part where he supposedly gave Pain his eyes? That was a long time ago.

I thought Pain naturally had the eyes. I either need to go back and read again, or not bother because I don't know if I could sustain the further stupidity if that were the case. Damn. I'm sure they'll try and explain it with exposition and flashbacks in the next episode or two, but ugh, I am pretty sure it will just be insulting garbage.

[edit:tagfuckup]

Pain naturally had the eyes.

After Pain died, Obito came looking for his body so he could literally take one of the eyes for his own eyes. He also had it out with Pain's woman, she hurt him, he killed her.

Turns out Pain--real name, Nagato--is a member of the Uzumaki clan. Which would make him a cousin of some kind to Naruto.

Now, it also turns that the Uchiha were descended from the guy with the Rinnegan--rather, one of his two sons. And one reason for the real Madara's badassery is that he developed the Rinnegan.

Aeanwhile, I've spent too many years checking this thing. I will finish it the fuck up. Same with Bleach.

Although Bleach's chapter was infinitely cooler. It opened with the Old Man burning all the meat off a dude's skull.

Maxus wrote:Pain naturally had the eyes.

After Pain died, Obito came looking for his body so he could literally take one of the eyes for his own eyes. He also had it out with Pain's woman, she hurt him, he killed her.

Maybe he was just lying, but during the battle with her, he specifically said "I came to take the eyes back. Because they always belonged to me. I gave him the eyes in the first place."

I mean, yeah, he could have been lying, but seriously, weird thing to lie about, since it's not like that was going to convince her to let him have them.

Parthenon wrote:Is Naruto actually any good? Well, up until the point where you decided it had gone bullshit.

I keep thinking I should try reading some manga but I don't know where to start and where I can start reading without spending much (any) money. And I mean manga, not anime since my laptop's speakers aren't working. By the way- does anyone have any idea how to remove a broken off bit of a headphone jack from the port?

The good parts do not make up for the bad parts. Don't waste your time.

Well, if you watch it the way i watch NGE, you could maybe enjoy it a bit . .
Fast forward between the fighting scenes and be done with it . .

Only posting this here because it didn't seem necessary to create a "moments when a piece of entertainment nearly made you spontaneously explode out of incomprehensible ragesanity and shame for the human race"

This exists:

Yeah, i saw that in Barnes & Nobles the other day.

Oldboy is getting a Spike Lee remake.

WTF, man? Seriously, WTF?

So a conversation with a co worker (who insists on talking to me about games I told him I don't like) got me curious as to exactly WHAT has been going on in the KH verse since I only bothered to play I and II and not the ridiculous spinoffs that keep adding extra (and useless) padding to the story. So with a trip down to the ole wiki I have to say that while I expected the extra stuff to be uselessly convoluted I didn't expect them to add more characters I legitimately don't care about then make them the focus of the story. I don't care about Terra, Aqua, Pyrowhatever. Why in the fuck don't they come out with the third damn game and quit streamlining this extra bullshit! I feel like it is FFVII all over again where the company is sucking the life out of the series and beginning to make me hate the original because of the stupid prequels and pre prquels that they keep releasing.

Personally, I like the new characters introduced past KH2 more than the original Disney/Squaresoft characters. With only a tiny number of exceptions, they generally have more depth and personality. Even the one-scene-wonder villains. I consider KH: Birth by Sleep the pinnacle of the series, really, even though KH2 comes very very close.

I played KH1 again and I forgot how mind-numbing and excruciating that game can be sometimes. If it wasn't for KH2 and me not then seeing through the veil of faux-awesome I would have given up on the series then and there.

I do agree with you that they're milking the property way too hard, though. Chain of Memories advanced the story but had excruciating gameplay. Re:Coded was so pointless it made me cry.

Speaking of faux-awesome:

Can anyone tell me what was/is so controversial and/or ground-breaking about Identity Crisis? The only thing that really kept me going was the moral dilemmas and psychoanalysis which never paid off in the narrative proper. The Dr. Light thing was exploitative and again had no payoff in the narrative but I don't get why that was particularly outrageous given DC comics' Women in Refrigerators crap having gone on for decades.

Overall, I found it potentially interesting but with way too much padding and sentimentality. It really needed a damn rewrite to tighten the progression of the story.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Speaking of faux-awesome:

Can anyone tell me what was/is so controversial and/or ground-breaking about Identity Crisis? The only thing that really kept me going was the moral dilemmas and psychoanalysis which never paid off in the narrative proper. The Dr. Light thing was exploitative and again had no payoff in the narrative but I don't get why that was particularly outrageous given DC comics' Women in Refrigerators crap having gone on for decades.

Overall, I found it potentially interesting but with way too much padding and sentimentality. It really needed a damn rewrite to tighten the progression of the story.

The controversial part is the gratuitous rape, the gratuitous murder of a beloved character, and the total character derailment of two others.
And yes, the Dr. Light thing was exploitative and had no real payoff. That was the point. It was created specifically to be exploitative with no real connection to the narrative. That was an editorial mandate. (I believe the exact phrase used was "we need a rape", according to a blogger who was there).

The entire point was to be shocking and edgy and exploitative in order to outdo Marvel, who was (and is) kicking their ass. The thing is, comics do't fly off the newsstands because they're well-written. Comics fly off the newsstands because they've got shocking gimmicks and exploitative covers. You get a loyal following by being well-written, but if you want a quick spike in sales there's nothing quite as effective as pandering.

Some industries just make that quick spike in sales their entire business model, like porn.

Prak_Anima wrote:Some industries just make that quick spike in sales their entire business model, like porn.

Isn't a lot of porn about quick spikes?

hyzmarca wrote:The controversial part is the gratuitous rape, the gratuitous murder of a beloved character, and the total character derailment of two others.

Oh man, there's a lot more than that. The whole thing is just awful writing: mischaracterization, plot holes, and continuity errors. The project's goal was the artistic equivalent of stripping for daddy's attention.

Prak_Anima wrote:Only posting this here because it didn't seem necessary to create a "moments when a piece of entertainment nearly made you spontaneously explode out of incomprehensible ragesanity and shame for the human race"

This exists:

Train wreck magazine wrote:>93% of women want to spice up their relationships with role play!
>with role play!
>role play

mfw the worst of two worlds colide