JB0

The problem is that we all remember the unlicensed games and with the exception of Cyberball, they were nothing compared to Tecmo Bowl and the earlier Maddens (with real players). It is a lot more fun playing as Favre or Owens, seeing their faces and hearing the commentators discuss them than playing as 'generic' #4 or 'generic' #81. The thing that really sucks is that Visual Concepts was just getting the ball rolling with the casual gamers. Oh well, here's for another 5 years of mediocrity. Didn't Tecmo Bowl only have team names, not player names? Yes, they did... but as I understand, according to the licensing deal that EA made with the NFL, only EA gets players, stadiums, and TEAMS. So not even the Tecmo Bowl formula would fly now. I'm just saying, it's proof that real player names aren't needed, as that was insanely popular, and remains what many consider the definitive football game. Sounds good to me.

Sounds more like a good reason TO do it to me...

You can make the best, most fun football game ever, and you can have every major gaming magazine and internet site agree that it is so, and it will only sell a tiny fraction compared to the one with the license. This is because gamers might enjoy the flexability and creativity in a non-licensed game, but the majority of the football games seem to be bought buy people who's idea of channel surfing is going back and forth between ESPN and ESPN2 and who only buy sports games or even just football games. Even though I desperately hope Sega comes up with SOMETHING in place of their NFL games, lower sales will likely discourage them from doing that, and instead they'll most likely focus on what sports they do have licenses for (for now). Besides, what's the best non-licensed sports series you can think of? Am I wrong to suggest Mutant League? I might as well point out now that Mutant League is one of EA's properties. I was going to nominate Atari RealSports Football for the 5200, actually.

The problem is that we all remember the unlicensed games and with the exception of Cyberball, they were nothing compared to Tecmo Bowl and the earlier Maddens (with real players). It is a lot more fun playing as Favre or Owens, seeing their faces and hearing the commentators discuss them than playing as 'generic' #4 or 'generic' #81. The thing that really sucks is that Visual Concepts was just getting the ball rolling with the casual gamers. Oh well, here's for another 5 years of mediocrity. Didn't Tecmo Bowl only have team names, not player names?

Man, you people are crazy. EVERYONE knows that Jetfire is the best Valk ever. Him and Starscream.

YOU raped my childhood! Yes, you. Sitting behind your monitor, so smug and secure. I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!

I hope it curshes both. ... But it won't hurt either, as the people they market to don't give a crap. They believe you should take it up the rear and ask for more. And no, I don't just mean die-hard sports fans. Many many gamers believe that they have to roll over and accept whatever is offered to them, even when it is known to be a horrible product.

And yet some people still cling to the belief that there will someday be an MPC Beta. Hope and belief are diffrent things. No one EXPECTS it to happen, but a lot of people WANT it to happen.

What's all this about monopolies, and EA has killed the entire market for football games? Am I the ONLY person that remembers the days of unlicensed sports games? Just because you don't have XXX team's logo and Joe Blow's latest stats doesn't mean the game is any diffrent. In fact, they tended to be BETTER games because they were worried about making a good game, not one the licensor would approve of. ... Of course, they also weren't relying on names, stats, and graphics to sell. They were TRYING to sell games based on good solid gameplay. And at one point after licensing had taken over the sports game industry, unlicensed hockey games were considered superior to licensed ones because the NHL, in a brief attempt to clean up their image, forbade licensors to include fight sequences. In a subgenre where fight sequences were often more elaborate than the actual sport part of the game, this was a recipe for disaster. They relented when it became obvious that people EXPECTED fight sequences in their hockey games, and wouldn't buy ones that didn't have them. Fact: all this means is that next year's football games won't have "your" team's logo in there. Big deal, get over it. If it means that much to you, well, they'll almost GUARANTEED to include a logo designer anyways, so you can make your own logo, name your own team, and VOILA! You're playing as the Vice City MegaPimps or maybe even the boring old *insert REAL city/team here*.

Just mentioning it in case someone forgot/missed it. Personally, I'd like to see both shows out there again. With the option to view them in their original form. ... But then, I'd also like to see them show up in Super Robot Wars. And that won't happen either.

Didn't they also say there would NEVER be a remastered Robotech, that it wasn't possible, that all the edit lists had been lost? And that Director's Cut Robotech COULDN'T exist, as the televised version WAS the original cut? They have no credibility. Stuff they say can't or won't happen has a nasty tendancy to happen. Stuff they say will happen... doesn't.

I DO seem to recall wading into Hell. I don't recall having to die first, though. ... Wait... you DO get killed at the end of episode 1. Unless that's shareware only... It's been AGES since I've played Doom. Much less the full version.

By contrast, if I'd seen the movie first, I never would've looked at any other Ghost products. I didn't think the movie was just a bad Ghost in the Shell movie. I thought it as a bad movie.

If they want to handle the original works like they did Rawbooteck, we're overdue for a new version. I hereby predict that HG ordered them to cease production and begin work on a new, dubbed version.

That was done in the manual. Your guy was the comm officer or something. Everyone else went in while he stayed behind in the landing ship. Everyone else got maimed/mauled/killed/posessed/turned to shotgun-wielding zombies before you ever set foot on the ground. He peeked out to see WTF happened. Then went on a homicidal demon-killing rampage. And Doom2's story was as simple as the first. You didn't blow the poo out of the demons in time, and they invaded Earth. You must go on another homicidal rampage.

If I recall, the "creators" let the Dairugger 15 license lapse, and don't want to pay the asking price for a new one. So no vehicle Voltron ever. Sucks, don't it?

The manga is WAY better than the movie. For one, Major Kusanagi isn't a simmering pile of depressed suicidal angst. For 2, it's just massively better written. 3, They don't prattle on and on about one philosophical point. There's a lot of thought-provoking stuff in it, really. But it puts the ideas out there and lets you mull them over. 4. SEBUROS!!! 5. FUCHIKOMAS!!! Note that 4 and 5 are the ravings of a fan that read the manga first. While the Seburos are very neat handguns and the fuchikomas are fun characters, they are HARDLY constitute a massive diffrence. But long story short... Shirow needs to be involved in the adaptations of his work. He is not in the first movie, and it is painfully obvious. It's heavy-handed, preachy, and kinda WTF at several points. Also... the footnotes and end notes in the graphic novel(I ASSUME they kept them for the new edition...) are worth the price of admission alone, IMO.

tri-Ace's art is being messed with too. Not as much, true, but I think the combination looks pretty good, actually.

That's a good point, actually. The Cheyenne could fill a role that was supplanted by the VF-1.

I've never really used reviews for guidance, beyond genreal theme. I usually just rey on instinct. Amazingly enough, this mechanism serves me fairly well. I'm somewhat good at dodging the real stinkers and picking out the gems.

I have a question. WHY make a Doom movie to begin with? Think about it. It's one guy with a lot of guns shooting a bunch of zombie marines and demons. There 's no room for any character development or story advancement. It's just a gorefest. This is why game movies don't work, as a general rule. You either remain faithful to the material, and turn out a REALLY boring movie(watching a game IS NOT fun), or you rewrite things and alienate the core fanbase you're relying on for initial ticket sales.

Darn right. Never understood why it gets so much praise.

Napster killed nothing. The recording industry killed themselves by oversaturating the market with me too's and then charging damn near $20 for a CD that cost them next to nothing to make. CD sales were on the way down, file sharing or not. Actually, it WAS Napster. Sort of. When the RIAA attacked Napster, it started a boycott of CDs. Most of the Napster users were using it as a preview system, and actually buying CDs. So the users felt that it was an attack on legitimate purchasers. And legitimate studies up to that point had connected INCREASED CD sales to file-sharing. After that firstl lawsuit, it was all downhill. Boycott starts, CD sales fall, RIAA cites hard #s as evidence of file-sharing damage instead of just preaching their pet theory, RIAA is unable to shut down modern sharing programs due to their decentralized nature, so they commit PR suicide and directly attack the consumer, causing further reduced sales as they alienate their purchasers even more, reduced sales cause more lawsuits, lather, rinse, repeat.

Lenneth/Hrist is DEFINITELY an improvement.

Valkyrie Profile's a good game. Lenneth doesn't look quite right as a redhead, though(or would that be Hrist?...). And personally, I'd shift the feathers to white.