Radd

Huh, wow. I tried to do a few minutes of Google research into this, found a few sources confirming that this happened, but nothing really explaining just what it was that the CCA found objectionable about his style. Maybe I'll have to see the specific comic they refused to approve, but if the art itself is anything like his work in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen then I can't fathom how they could justify the statement. Maybe it was "how O'Neill drew what he drew" for that particular book, and not actually a general complaint of his art style, but those at the CCA couldn't express themselves in a way that made any sense? I suppose it will remain a mystery.

I fail to see how complaining about things like this makes anyone a "hypocrite", as Roger puts it. Macross fans have long had to deal with HG making it more difficult, and more expensive, to purchase Macross merchandise, and outright impossible to purchase professionally subtitled/dubbed Region 1 DVD releases for anything beyond Macross Plus. Given that HG's claims have been highly questionable since the Tatusnoko v. Big West case indicated that Tatsunoko did not have the rights HG claims to have purchased from them, and situations since as the one described by TheLoneWolf were HG was asked to provide proof of ownership and declined to do so, it's really only given Macross fans all the more reason to be somewhat unhappy with the situation. That said, I really don't see how the Wendy's/mustard scenario is any sort of analogy at all to this topic. I do agree that BBTS did about as much as anyone can expect. They're a business, not any sort of defender of the fans, and this is hardly the free speech issue VFTF1 makes it out to be. I also agree that there are much more substantial issues to be outraged about, however I really don't see expressing outrage in an internet forum as being quite the caliber of protest we should demand of people in relation to these more substantial issues. One can complain considerably in internet forums and still be significantly active in more important matters. Also, simply because there are more important issues out there is no reason to suggest that people ought not to express any sort of opinion at all regarding more frivolous matters.

LoEG? LExG? Personally, I write the whole thing out on principle. There's a horrible movie named 'LXG', not to be confused with the wonderful books titled 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. Heh. Hmmm, the Black Dossier setting up a third volume kinda makes me want to put it off a bit longer. I'd hate to read it only to have years before the next volume of the graphic novel comes out. I know, not entirely rational, and I'll probably get around to reading it sooner rather than later anyways. Unfortunately, the comic book store is no longer located in the plaza across the street from where I work. I tried getting into the Dreamwave Transformers comics when they were coming out. Beautifully drawn and coloured, but very bland writing. I have a trade paperback volume of War Wtihin, mostly for the art. I really can't stand Simon Furman's take on Transformers. I know a lot of people seem to love his work but it just never sat well with me. He has the Tarantino/Kevin Smith problem, where every single character sounds like a mouthpiece for the same dialogue. ( Except, personally, I find that Tarantino and Smith manage to entertain despite this. ) I haven't checked out any of the more recent Transformers comics.

Concessions would have been made to make a good adaptation of the book, with a marketable rating. Or they could have done a completely original story and still done it well. I highly recommend the second graphic novel.

I should maybe take a look at the Golden Age Batman. I wonder if any of that was compiled into a trade paperback or if I'll have to go the digital route? And, ja, it's not just that the League movie was not as good, it was downright terrible. And shamelessly transparent in the way business decisions overrode anything resembling a good story. I'm still holding out hope that Moore wants to write a third League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume someday. I know there's a book, as in text with a few illustrations here and there, but I haven't gotten my hands on that, yet.

I've always loved Deadpool. I haven't been reading too many comics lately. Less so of the big title comics. I love comics like Maus, Transmetropolitan, Sandman, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Books where I know the characters are going somewhere. There doesn't seem to be a lot of that in popular american comics, where characters remain perpetually in their 20's-30's for 50+ years and manage to get worked over by a horde of different writers in that time. I have been meaning to nab a copy of Amazing Screw-On Head ever since catching the Sci-Fi channel pilot for the cartoon. Real shame that didn't get picked up for a series. I haven't been any more up to date on new stuff beyond what a co-worker of mine has been telling me after his weekly new comic feasts. He's mostly been reading Final Crisis Invasion, and that weird Batman story arch that's been going on.

Woot! Well, that's certainly good news.

I meant what I said, and said what I meant. "Expansions" in the literal sense, Rather than just a new game recycling existing assets, I'd love to take my existing character and go out to explore more. Broken Steel might be something like that, as it's supposed to progress past the end of the game, rather than drop you in another part of the world entirely. Some people are speculating that it will "fix" the awful, nonsensically forced ending Fallout 3 comes with. I suspect it drops you into a new character and lets the horrible ending of the game stand.

Clearly.

Indeed.

I'd love to see Bethesda release some expansions, just opening up and adding more to explore in the world. I'm rapidly approaching the point where I'll have seen pretty much everything one can see with a good karma character. I found you can actually get into the Jefferson Memorial very easily, and get Col. Autumn's uniform and custom laser pistol. No cheats or anything. I've been trotting all over the wastes with my stalwart ghoul man-servant, my trusty canine sidekick, and my super-mutant chum, using nothing but Autumn's laser pistol for my sidearm. Though I'm also looking forward to the liberation of Anchorage, and heading up to the Pitt.

Right, which is why I suggested Bethesda didn't expect people to go back there. You need to go to Vault 87 to complete the main story, but if you go back later you can find your way all the way to the Vault's main entrance, from the inside. However, if you open the door from the inside, there is literally nothing beyond it. A grey nothingness, and if you walk out into it, it deposits you back near the middle of the Vault's lab level. I've also found that you can get to the Vault's entrance from the outside, basically wearing the Advanced Radiation Suit and popping Rad-X and Rad-Away every single moment, but the door gives you an "Inaccessible" message. For some reason, with a game that is so incredibly open it's all the more frustrating when you run into things like that.

Maybe someone can replace the grey void past Vault 87's door with something, eh? I guess Bethesda never expected anyone would go back there to loot?

Mike, we clearly have different ideas as to what constitutes "nerfing", or you're misunderstanding me. Under the level structure I suggested, level 20 would be maybe marginally less powerful than the current level 20, if touched at all. Ideally I'd rather see the enemy encounters scale up a bit more. It's primarily the over 20 levels that would see fewer and fewer points to spread around, while simultaneously being more difficult to achieve. I'm not certain the main quest needs to be longer, but it would have been great to see the characters you meet along the way fleshed out a lot more. And also see the characters react more to situations, and how you come to do certain things. For example, I deliberately avoided the main quest on my first play through for the longest time. Eventually, I stumbled onto to part of it, finding a character important to the plot. All the dialogue trees I had with this character assumed that I had done all the previous story events, which left me a little confused. When I arrived at another location I met some people for the first time, but they were people I would have met earlier in the game had I followed the proper story sequence. Many of the dialogue options referenced things that had never happened. Also, I forget if it was this thread or elsewhere, if the sheriff of Megaton dies, the biggest change to the world is that everyone in town refers to him in the past tense. I know it's a tall order for a game already packed with so much, but it would have been nice if people reacted a bit more to things like that.

No, they do not wind up nerfing characters under level 20. I'm not at all certain how you come to that conclusion. My scenario primarily involves allowing people to level past 20, though with fewer points to spread around as they reach the highest levels. So there's diminishing returns as you level up further, and it takes a lot longer to achieve those levels, but there's still that feeling of advancement and reward, as well as attaining additional perks. Someone who only plans to run the main story with a moderate amount of exploration shouldn't be upset that they don't manage to hit the level cap.

I disagree. You can easily please everyone in this particular case. It's all about balancing the level structure and enemies one faces. Fallout 3 already does the latter, introducing more powerful enemies as you grow in level. Spreading out the amount one improves per level, and simultaneously raising the amount one can improve in total would keep it possible to beat the game at a lower level, for those just going through the main quest, while continuing to reward those who push to see the entire world. Make the highest levels, we'll say 30, increasingly more difficult to attain, pretty much requiring one to see the entire map to attain it, with fewer skill points to distribute do that it would still be impossible to max out all skills without a good combination of bobble heads and books. It would still be worth it to players for the additional perks.

For the record, I'd never played any of the previous Fallout games and the level cap bothered me. I don't believe it has anything to do with whether or not someone played the previous games. Lots of gamers simply love to explore when handed a nice, large sandbox world.

I walked in extremely skeptical, and now I can't wait to see more.

I fought one in the Captial Building rotunda. I believe there may be one or two more out there, too.

Been playing it constantly for a good two or three weeks now. Absolutely love it. I'm a sucker for exploration, and I still haven't been to all the areas on the map, even though I got the explorer perk a while ago. Not to mention all the little places that don't get listed on the map, and all the characters you randomly run across, like Uncle Leo. There really needs to be more games like this. It's like everything I liked about the GTA series, without the obnoxious parts. I do wish that the NPCs were more than dead-eyed mannequins. There's some decent voice actors, but that Oblivion-like way of handling character conversation, combined with the complete and utter lack of facial expressions or body language really kill any immersion as far as interacting with the NPCs go. Also, I wish they reacted more to things that happened. An important character in a town dies, and the biggest change is that everyone else in town starts referring to them in the past tense. Also, they really should have better balanced the way you level up in the game. I hit the level cap with more than half the game left in front of me. I understand why there's a level cap, I understand they didn't want someone to end the game completely god-like with all the perks and all their skills maxed out, but come on! Hitting the cap with more than half the game ahead of me? Maybe if you leveled up a bit more slowly, and they let you level a bit higher? I dunno. Gotta be a better balance though. Still, I'd love to see more games where there was just so much to explore. Also really wish someone would port the first two games to the DS. And totally looking forward to The Pitt expansion. I lived in Pittsburgh for years, and spent much of that time wishing I could see it burnt to the ground. Heh. I wonder how similar the city layout will be? Probably not so similar, given the differences between real DC and Fallout 3's DC. Would be great if game companies, when using real world locations, would stick more to the real layout of the place they're recreating. Bet a lot more people would be a lot more familiar with geography if they did.

If I recall correctly, when landing, the gun barrel splits to either side, like it does when firing, providing room for the landing gear to lower.

Assuming the scene is even in the movie, I really don't think it's important that the viewer knows why Kirk drives the car off the canyon, any more than the viewer needs to know why he was driving past the under-construction Enterprise, or why they were skydiving in that later scene, or why McCoy was talking to Kirk, or why Kirk and Spock were fighting. The point of a trailer is to get the viewer to want to see the movie to see these scenes in their context.

I really never got the impression that Fire Bomber was developing psychic powers, or any powers for that matter. I chalk the brightly coloured light show aspect of the music in with the "Saturday morning" direction of the series. Basara is just a regular guy who happens to be particularly driven and determined. Actually, I think that was one of the major points of the show. Otherwise I pretty much agree with the previous replies. I like the show a lot, honestly, but can see why many would recommend avoiding it like the plague. I would give it a solid 7 out of 10. I love the characters and themes, but really dislike the pacing and direction of the show. Mostly the direction. I don't need magical beams of light to get that someone is putting emotion into their music. And ja, I love Fire Bomber's music, but you will hear one or two of those songs repeated every episode for maybe 10-20 episodes until your ears bleed. Personally, I think Macross 7 would benefit from a DYRL style makeover more than any other part of Macross.

The short neck appears to be a mistransformation. As someone pointed out, earlier photos of the toy showed that the neck wasn't too short at all.

Hyperbole much?