pieshark

@90
"I hate anti-fanboys. Competition is good."

Wait...those are two completely contradictory statements in this context. If most fanboys were to have their way, their chosen company would crush the others into the ground and there would be no real competition between the object of their undying affection and the "other companies".

Now, if you are somehow trying to assert that fanboys spur or cause competition, I have to argue with you there. Fanboys arent competitive. Competition implies that the other side could win and that you have to try to beat them. In the mind of a fanboy, they have already won (because their opinion is obviously superior) so all that is left to do is make an ass of themselves.
Ok well, I take that back. To be fair, fanboys come in two forms; those that are kind of enough to keep their enthusiasm under wraps, and those that feel the need to mindlessly bicker with everyone who does not see things their way. No one really minds the first type.

If anything, anti-fanboys spur much more competition...just not in the form of petty insults and illogical rants.

Mindless bickering is, in no way, a form of competition. So, unless you meant something entirely different with that comment ,in which case, please explain your point ;) , kindly STFU.

I just recently got a used Xbox off of a friend so my consoles now top out at : Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, PS-X, N64, and Saturn. If I grab a Dreamcast I think that fairly counts as 2 full generations.

From there I guess I could work backwards...I do miss my old Genesis. *drool*

The new gen still needs a little time to work up steam IMO.

Personally, I hate all-in-one devices, phones in particular. I don't want my phone to go online, I don't want it to take pictures and I dont want it to record video or have GPS. If I can get a cheaper phone without completely unneeded add-ons (that is what they are) then I will. If not, then I will just be bitter, and try to ruin the little camera lens out of spite.

Every time someone takes a picture with their phone, I die a little bit inside. Sure, it might be actually useful 1 in every 1000 times it is used, but, personally, I feel that the other 999 instances in which a camera phone is used just because the owner cant go 10 damn minutes without taking a picture of something or someone far outweigh any possible benefits.

Words cannot describe how much I hate all-in-one devices, and for no discernable reason in most cases. I realize that this has no true bearing on the discussion at hand because I present little to no actual greivances, but if I come back with a good point supporting my excessive hatred of such technological bundles, I'll be sure to post it.

end rant

Who the hell are they marketing this crap to?

Gamers?

Most gamers I know would be embarassed to know that their culture is represented, on national television, in such an outright crappy way. God damn, I hate award shows so much.

Oh Eric what have you done.

As it turns out, anyone who gives joystiq a reason to post anything just ends up being an unintentional flame baiter...because that is all you seem to get around here anymore. But I admire your bravery in bringing this before the illogically harsh joystiq populace. Combine that with the fact that 50% of people in general can't talk about their music tastes without sounding arrogant, patronizing, or elitist (and I really don't think I am exaggerating); you walk dangerous ground.

As for the video, it synched up real well with the song I thought, but, as many have said before, it doesn't really fit content-wise, unless you were going for the irony.

I think this game is exactly what the Xbox 360 needs, not only in Japan, but everywhere. Xbox has always been really really weak in the area of traditional RPGs, a genre that cannot be ignored.

Blue Dragon adds some much needs variety to a console library that, at a glance, appears to be flooded with FPSs and similar action games (or rather, the entire American game market is flooded with FPSs and similar action games).

I am planning on getting a 360 soon and I hope to see more titles like this in the pipeline for the console.

Wow, how is Ubi just bleeding money like that. For the most part, their games get a great reception and sell, if not like hotcakes, then at least like moderately warm cakes.

They must just be blowing money left and right on hugely ambitious projects...oh...wait a sec. They are. I mean, to be fair, their big titles are all big budget action games really, while other companies can easily make sales on licenced games like Cars, or on little spinoff franchises or remakes(SquareEnix, Nintendo, etc). I mean, unless Open Season sells a lot (raise your hand if you saw that movie...ok then). I guess if you are gonna play big, you have a to hit a homerun every time, which might not be possible.

I would really like to see a breakdown of what games, on an individual basis, sales/development and advertising costs, have been profitable for them. I am interested to see EXACTLY where they manage to lose all that money.

Question on the game itself:

For those of you that have played it I have a few questions:

1.I love secrets in Castlevania games (one of the many reason that I adore SOTN). I get sad when Castlevania has no secrets. Are there secrets in Portrait of Ruin (walls you can break, hidden-ish areas, etc)?

2.What is the difficulty like? How is it compared to Dawn of Sorrow or the GBA Castlevanias? (One of my biggest gripes with Castlevania games since SOTN would be that they are a little too easy sometimes, especially if your character is at a high level)

For anyone that has the game and is currently playing through it, your opinions would be appreciated. thanks.

@9 actually, Joystiq always takes one of the highest reviews, a middle range review, and one of the lowest reviews

it just happens that, for this game, all of the reviewes are clusters around the mid-80s to low 90s. I think there is a pretty good consensus established on the game based on reviews. By now, all of the major reviewers like IGN, 1up, Gamepro, Gamespot, Game Informer, etc.

The only big publication that I see missing from Gamerankings right now is EGM, so unless you consider their word to be law, or if you, for some reason, prefer reviews by all the little sites run by some gamer working from his basement, the reviews that we have right now are pretty much the consensus on the game from the online reviewing community.

And, again, take a look at Gamerankings and take a look at the metareviews that Joystiq does and you will see that they almost always try to pick a high score, a middle-range score, and a low score. There just hasn't been a lot of variation on this title.

Bah. For every person who votes for PA just because it is PA, there is likely someone who doesn't vote for PA just because its PA.

I even do that sometimes; not because I dont like PA (I've read the entire archives a good couple of times on boring nights - they have some hilarious stuff), but because there are so many good smaller comics out there that could use the tiny bit of publicity they may get from a Joystiq post declaring them winner of the poll, and I really appreciate seeing those comics, even though I still read PAs new comics and newsposts regularly.

Furthermore, if you take out PA, at what point do you have to remove VGCats, and at that point I guess you have to get rid of CAD, DA, DU, Fanboys, etc etc. Until a single comic starts winning every week for reasons obviously not related to comedic merit, there is no reason to suggest removing PA from the polls.