The Gaming Den

I played Super Mario 64 again today. Man that is a fun game.

I still remember for Christmas of 1996 when that game completely blew me away. I mean, just wow.

More recently, I have been playing Tag Force 3. There's an 'asshole' storyline mode where you get to throw in friendship and 'underdogs always wins' right into the faces of the other people of your school and completely humiliate them. Since Yu-Gi-Oh! has an unnaturally high retardation quotient (even for a card battle game) this was immensely satisfying.

I also need to watch Star Trek: TOS and Deep Space Nine. My dad, who normally doesn't watch TV, saw those series and said that they sufficiently rocked him.

He says TNG is just passable except for some real gems and VOY and ENT are mostly forgettable, though. But I have been wanting to watch Voyager again, if only for the 'So Bad It's Good' quality. The show was a favorite around the nerd faction of my ship so I got a good quantity of it since it came on Spike TV, especially seasons one, two, and six.

Speaking of which, SFDebris's Threshold review also completely rocked me. That was the best video review I have ever seen. Even better than confusedmatthew's Star Wars prequel reviews.

I get that feeling at least once a week from watching The Daily Show/Colbert Report.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Episode 1. "Holy shit, someone in media is using strategy."

Read or Dream TV, Episode 26. When the antagonists stand up and say "fuck you with your fancy powers, we're badass normal knight templars and we will win no matter what it takes." Also, when I realised that Wendy, formerly the tea lady, had taken a level in badass.

As much as I bitched about it in the "Lost You" thread, the early parts of Bleach were really a lot of fun.

I did a backflip when Ichigo fought the serial killer Hollow, and I really like Ganju--a guy who's tough, fairly smart, and knows how to use his gear and magic effectively to beat someone who's a lot stronger than he is.

Other good things:

-I got goosebumps when I first watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean. It had a lot of cool moments in it.

-The disappearing pencil in The Dark Knight. Also: "Do you know how I got these scars?"

-Honestly, I found out that Ursula Vernon has written fanfiction for Bleach and Neverwinter Nights. She's an artist, but I have immense respect for her writing talent. So I read them, and they're...well, they improve the average quality of fanfiction by a noticeable margin. I laughed my ass off at least once in four of the five. Especially at the idea of Zaraki'ing someone.

-And then there's books, yeesh. The last few paragraphs of Small Gods rocked me hard. So did a moment in Reaper Man.

I'm a BIG fan of the Berserk series, The anime being one of the first really serious anime I've ever watched with an ending that really stuck with me. (made me actually start reading manga)

-Bleach had me up until the end of the Soul Society Arc. (The story up till then had good pacing, memorable characters, and funny little diversions)

-Naruto before it came to America all the way up to the Valley of the End kept me entertained. (I'm a big fan of Rock Lee and Gaara)

-The movie Dogma literally changed my way of thinking.

-I don't even know why I like One Piece or why the dubbed version pissed me off so much.

-Eragon made me hate movies (no, I haven't read the book and I have taken an oath never to do so)

-Twilight and its unbelievable success makes me feel a kind of hate and malice I can't put into words. I can only describe it as Red.

-A number of Eberron's books were actually the first fantasy literature I ever read by choice. (usually stuck to sci fi)

-An episode of Dexter's Laboratory is actually what got me into playing DnD in the first place.

-The Marx brothers classics: Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera still leave my jaw sore from laughter on each repeat viewing.

Equilibrium had me at the awesome gun kata scenes, and was my first introduction to Christian Bale.

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya managed to make me laugh harder than any other anime before it.

Gurren Lagann completely overloaded my brain with awesome. Galaxy fuckin' shurikens.

Bleach also had me for a long while with excellent pacing and fights. Come to think of it, yeah, until the end of the Soul Society arc.

Agreed on Rock Lee/Gaara. Hell, Gaara was the only good part of the second movie. Besides making fun of the Gillette Fusion Rasengen.

Gurren Lagann- WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!!!111!!

TOZ wrote: Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya managed to make me laugh harder than any other anime before it.

Glad to hear it - it's on my "I want to see this" list.

Koumei wrote:Glad to hear it - it's on my "I want to see this" list.

Fave episode: Day of Sagittarius III. Two words. Dynamic. Entry.

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. The victory.

Koumei wrote:

TOZ wrote: Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya managed to make me laugh harder than any other anime before it.

Glad to hear it - it's on my "I want to see this" list.

I'll back him up, its actually quite clever.

Space: Above and Beyond, this is some nice sci fi. Ignore the crappy 1995 cg effects though. Its a shame the network cut it to one season from a planned 5.

Also, God of War for the epic battles and my favorite mook tactic "The Fuck You Button"(tm).

Before God of War was displaying titanic battles, Shadow of the Colossus for beautiful scenery followed by "holy shi- I have to fight THAT?!'

I forget which L.E. Modesitt book it was, but the prequel to the Recluce Saga. "Oh, so magicians are decended from space travelers who can tap into the 'neural net' of the world?" Best argument for sci-fi/fantasy links. "Signifigantly advanced science etc"

Kingdom Hearts 2

For managing to cram a decent space shooter (+ ship building system), a skateboard game, a couple dozen party games and an item creation system into a jump n slash action rpg platformer.

For epic cinematics. For having me fight 1000 enemies at once, on my own. For letting me jump on chandeliers. For having me fight a 50 foot shadowy giant before the game even starts. For letting me desperately parry Sepiroth's charge slash. For letting me run up skyscrapers. For letting me slice skyscrapers in half. In short, for letting me be awesome.

For having so much content the next achievement is always in sight. Damn addicting, let me tell you.

For never, ever getting in my way. For basically everything being optional. For having save points whenever I want to save. For having skippable dialogues and movie sequences.



Honorable mention: Morrowind
For being huge and utterly nonlinear.

+Kingdom hearts: For most interesting use of fucking disney characters (even at my age)

+Morrowind: For letting me make up my own fucking story.

TOZ wrote:

Koumei wrote:Glad to hear it - it's on my "I want to see this" list.

Fave episode: Day of Sagittarius III. Two words. Dynamic. Entry.

My favourite parts of that episode were the various ship crews. My favourite line from Haruhi as a whole, though, is "You need not move. I am fine." The next on that list is her explanation scene (in particular, the preamble).

MGuy wrote:+Kingdom hearts: For most interesting use of fucking disney characters

I didn't realize it was a hentai game, dang.

Heath Robinson wrote:My favourite parts of that episode were the various ship crews. My favourite line from Haruhi as a whole, though, is "You need not move. I am fine." The next on that list is her explanation scene (in particular, the preamble).

Took me a second to realize you were talking about the whole series. Yuki is megawin through the whole thing, and doubly so in the second season.

Well, okay, here's some more:

-The first Colossus on Shadow of the Colossus. The first time I fought it, I shot an arrow at it. And then hid behind a rock while mildly panicking while it going "OMG IT'S COMING TOWARDS MEEEE!"

-Tales of Symphonia...It's hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but I agree with my sister. If I could lose my memories of something, it'd be that game so I can play through it again for the first time. It's the only game I can say that for. What probably got me was how I had absolutely no idea where the game would end up.

-Sonic Adventure 2. The first level for Sonic. Running down the side of a building. The music. Nailing the level's obstacles almost perfectly the first time. And, much later, the final boss of the last story. Also, the Chao Gardens.

You know, I thought there was an entire enormous archive of this sort of thing at tvtropes. And there is.

Yes, but we're making one of our own so we can argue/agree with each other on the Den about it.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:You know, I thought there was an entire enormous archive of this sort of thing at tvtropes. And there is.

I like how Firefly, despite being only 14 episodes long, has its own page.

It was a good show (that I wish they had continued and had a good movie that despite being low budget was pretty damn good).

angelfromanotherpin wrote:You know, I thought there was an entire enormous archive of this sort of thing at tvtropes. And there is.

TVTropes thinks that everything is awesome, though.

The fact that shows Firefly and Naruto have their own goddamn pages should show why that page is worthless.

Also, I can do one thing here that you can't do on that website: criticize other peoples' entries.

I saw a few episodes of Firefly as well as the Serenity movie; I thought it was enjoyable as popcorn fair but I didn't think it was OMG awesome bring this show back! or anything.

Maxus wrote:-Tales of Symphonia...It's hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but I agree with my sister. If I could lose my memories of something, it'd be that game so I can play through it again for the first time. It's the only game I can say that for. What probably got me was how I had absolutely no idea where the game would end up.

Only the battle system of this game kept me going at times. It has some EXTREMELY aggravating parts, like putting the plot on hold to get a damn apple from the Llyr(sp?) forest or that long pointless chase by church knights or the entire reason why Lloyd got into the plot in the first place.

I mean, the whole Marble thing... that was so retarded and cliched that I strongly questioned whether I should continue playing or not.