What are you playing?

[PoolMan]

Zant over Ganon? You're mad.

MAD, sir.

[Al]

Ganon's got history on his side, but whenever Zant would show up, I'd get all tense and freak out a little bit. Maybe it's the Darth Vader thing he has going on.

[Head Mutant]

I've been looking forward to picking this up for GBA, although who knows when I'll have the time to play it:

gba.gamespy.com/gameboy-advance/final-fantasy-vi/764893p1.html

Now, when will they ever re-release Chrono Trigger for the handheld systems?

[PoolMan]

J, I was THIS close to getting FF6 the other day. My local EB was out of stock. So I upgraded my GalCiv2 to Dark Avatar instead. I'm happy with the decision, but I will definitely have to come back and scoop up the FF6 at some point.

[Spiderdancer]

Just ordered NWN2 online. So very excited. I can't wait to open it up and see what modding possibilities it allows - maybe the body meshes and anims won't be as hardcoded as they are in Oblivion. Here's hoping.

Uh... And playing it should be fun, too...

[PoolMan]

That's the part that always leaps out at me, Shalen. Do you ever just PLAY these games, or develop Orcish fashions for them?

[Spiderdancer]

Playing games is fun, but its interactivity is limited. If I'm going to spend hours at a time in an imaginary environment, I need to have my own imagination be part of it. At least, that's my explanation, because it sounds better than "I'm a control freak."

Seriously, though, male game designers largely suck at creating female items to wear. They're always either tin cans or midriff-revealing (or worse). And the Sims doesn't have enough violence. Nor does Barbie's Dream House. I don't think it even has a crossbow mod. ("Let's go shopping, Barbie!" "THUD" "Aagh, my spleen! WHY, Barbie? WHY?")

As it happens, I design for male characters, too. I just usually play female ones, and, er, some people have disliked my concept of male armor - apparently everyone isn't as keen on guys in floral kilts as I am:

[PoolMan]

Wow... can't imagine men not flocking to THAT avatar...

[Spiderdancer]

Comic relief; it was my first new mesh. A later one, male version on left:



It's not so much the not flocking as the teenage boys leaving messages like, 'ha ha that luks gay i am too stoopid 2 rite wurds in my natif langwij.'

[Hucklebubba]

A random modding question, pertaining to Morrowind: Is there any way to hack in or perform some equally dangerous-sounding action, and fiddle with the animations? I'm thinking specifically of how nice it would be to be able to fix the weird, hunched-over posture characters adopt when running.

[drew]

I'm not a big gamer, but my housemate has a MODed X-Box that has emulators and a ton of games for NES, Genesis, SNES, and N64 (plus the ability to burn X-Box games onto the hard drive). We realized recently that none of us have seen the ending of Super Mario Bros. 2, so we're working on that.

[Head Mutant]

poolman said:

J, I was THIS close to getting FF6 the other day. My local EB was out of stock. So I upgraded my GalCiv2 to Dark Avatar instead. I'm happy with the decision, but I will definitely have to come back and scoop up the FF6 at some point.

First of all, love the new avatar. You are now ready to travel back in time and join a 1999-era boy band. Smokin'!

I did find a copy of FF6 the other day, and have been enjoying it in little sessions at night, before I doze off to sleep. I'm amazed at the clarity of the GameBoy Micro screen, and how it's able to fit so much text on that teeny tiny thing. I never played FF6 before, so I'm going through it sans walkthrough, which is pretty fun except that the outdoor maps are HELL to navigate. I'm never quite sure where I'm going, and it doesn't help that the map is about the size of my fingernail, and transparent to the point of me needing a microscope and a six year old kid with much better eyesight.

[PoolMan]

Thanks for the avatar-related props! That would be a picture of me during this year's panto production, beard dyed black to play the villain and shaving cream from the COUNTLESS pies I was hit with rubbed up into a choice fauxhawk. Difficult to see from this angle: my amazing 6" sideburns that end in Nascar-like points!

I caved and bought FF6 on the weekend too. I'm really enjoying playing it again, but I won't ruin any of it for you. It's really the bridge game between the simplistic 2D games that more ambitious (if still enormously flawed) epic stories of the 3D games.

However, I can totally recommend (for this and any other GBA game) to get a GameBoy Player for the Cube. They're cheap now that the Cube is pretty much dead, and it ROCKS to play GBA on your TV... it's as close to a SNES as you can get with an active library.

[TheLuckyOne]

Justin, you're playing FF6 for the first time? Sweet. Enjoy, buddy... where are you in the game?

Meanwhile, I finished FFX-2 a month or so back and X-Men Legends last week. After another week or so, I'll probably start on another game, but I've got 3 I haven't played yet. What recommend ye all: Metal Gear Solid 3, Zelda: Twilight Princess (GameCube version), or Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories?

-D

[PoolMan]

Well, you know what I'd say... Zelda. For sure. I even played the Cube version too (left handed Link rocks!). Best since Ocarina for sure, possible since Link to the Past.