Chit-chat Thread (for off-topic or random posts only)

[David]

Yeah the PC route for Blu-ray is pretty affordable, I just don't like watching movies on my PC. Mine is geared for work, not entertainment. I could get a larger screen so I could sit back and watch from the sofa, but I hate working on a huge screen. My TV is SD so I'm still buying movies on normal DVDs even though I can play BD with my PS3. I might upgrade my TV eventually, but right now I just don't really care for the price.

I dropped the link to the home page when I upgraded the forums because I didn't think it was used much. I always just type "c" and hit enter myself. Everyone here knows the URL....right? <_<

The new comic only started this week, and the third one just went up. The early ones kind of establish the characters, but there's some really good ones coming up. Drawn entirely by my brother like last time, and I'm helping contribute a few ideas. Updates are planned to be thrice weekly.

CU Home Page

[Katanaboy]

Blu-ray on PC is great, they load super quickly, and I use AnyDVD HD to free me up of any weird regioning or copy protection issues that arise. There's nothing worse than actually paying good money for something, only for it not to work.

Why do you not like working on a large screen? Do you mean large as in a ~50" TV, or a ~24" or so monitor? I have a 24" and 19" dual monitor setup at home, and I'm finding it hard to get by on this single old 17" CRT here at dad's. I don't think I could ever go smaller than 24" now, I just need that screen estate! My next monitor will probably a 30" Dell or Samsung, at 2560x1600px.

I like the idea of playing a Blu-ray at it's native res, and having a good chunk of screen space around it :P

[Led Zeppelin]

I did a lesson on Nunchaku yesterday at Jiujitsu, and I bought a pair for myself. Hopefully I'll get really awesome.

[Katanaboy]

And not nut yourself.

[ka-panda!]

I did a lesson on Nunchaku yesterday at Jiujitsu, and I bought a pair for myself. Hopefully I'll get really awesome.

Yea! I learned a bit in my karate class! Those are so fun to use! I need to buy myself a pair.

[David]

Why do you not like working on a large screen? Do you mean large as in a ~50" TV, or a ~24" or so monitor? I have a 24" and 19" dual monitor setup at home, and I'm finding it hard to get by on this single old 17" CRT here at dad's. I don't think I could ever go smaller than 24" now, I just need that screen estate! My next monitor will probably a 30" Dell or Samsung, at 2560x1600px.

20" is about right for me. When my face is 2 feet from the screen I like to have everything within my immediate visual field. If I have to scroll my eyes to take in visuals on either side of the screen then the dimensions are too large for my liking. I could sit back further to accommodate a larger screen, but sitting back further just feels weird to me. When it comes to TV though, bigger is better so long as the resolution doesn't get fuzzy as a result. That tends to happen though. I was at someone's house and they had a $6,000 HD 50-something inch television and I have to say I actually preferred the screen quality of a smaller 38" HD.

[Led Zeppelin]

Yeah, my friend's brother has like a 50 odd inch HD TV, and I played Call Of Duty on it. I have to say, I prefer a 20 inch SD TV over that thing. Everything was so big a clunky, and I couldn't even see the whole screen at once.

[ka-panda!]

I just got a facebook..... I'm kinda upset with myself because I told myself I was never going to get one. AHH! I conformed! Dang.... Haha!

[BahamutTear]

My Zune HD came in the mail today. Got it fairly cheap directly from MS. I have to say, I really like it. Yeah even though it is totally like an iPod touch, I enjoy having the Zune more. It also came with one month of the Zune Pass thing they have going on. It is a lot like the pandora internet radio thing, but does a better job of pulling songs similar to those within your library from artists that aren't already in your library.

[Led Zeppelin]

I'm actually getting pretty decent with the nunchaku. I am getting a lot faster with the 4 or 5 basic moves that I have learned and I am working on switching hands during spinning, but it's tough. I've only hit myself a few times.

[Elle]

Anyone with a SD television get FFXIII yet? Is the text SD friendly? I don't want to pay $59.99 only to find out that I can't read the microscopic, blurry text :p

[David]

I'm playing on a 20" SD TV and while FFXIII's text is hard to read, it is actually readable with a good eye. On the brighter side, there really isn't much reading required. All dialogue is 100% voiced, including NPCs. So you've basically got menus and tutorials to read, and the tutorial text is a bit larger than the menu text.

[rovias_rumi]

Kind of a death sentence for an RPG to have unreadable text, huh?

[-SilentWyvern-]

Wow, just watched an AFV clip of a kid yelling the alphabet...inner city schools must teach the louder you are the smarter you are.

[ka-panda!]

I like your rabbit avatar, Elle! So cute!

[Elle]

I'm playing on a 20" SD TV and while FFXIII's text is hard to read, it is actually readable with a good eye. On the brighter side, there really isn't much reading required. All dialogue is 100% voiced, including NPCs. So you've basically got menus and tutorials to read, and the tutorial text is a bit larger than the menu text.

What do you think of the game so far? All I've heard from my friends is: the game is too linear/boring, the characters are boring and/or annoying and/or stupid and/or totally forgettable. And apparently Snow is engaged to a twelve year old? Don't know the story behind that one yet, lol.

[David]

Are your friends actually fond of the series or just among the crowd that like to complain about every game because it's the cool thing to do?

XIII is very linear, yes. You stick to one path and at 17 hours in I am so far unable to revisit any areas. Gaming started out linear (hello side-scrolling Mario), I don't know why that's become a bad thing. Maybe for the RPG genre it's of more importance, but I don't think it kills the game. I will say the first 8 hours of the game lingers in the same area/scenery for far too long and if someone hasn't played past that point I could certainly see how they'd have less than stellar impressions.

The characters are exactly what you can expect from every FF, half of them are cool, the other half you don't care if they die. Vanille is a 19-year old with the mind and voice of a 10-year old, but if you survived Selphie, Rikku, and Penelo you can survive Vanille too. Snow is engaged to Serah, who is not twelve. The XIII Ultimania Guide states her age is eighteen. Blame Square for modeling their characters after Japanese age appearance, where women look 10-20 years younger than they are.

XIII is easily the most linear in the series so far. Half of any RPG is battles though, and XIII's battle system is both fast and fun. I find Lightning, Sahz, and Fang to be enjoyable characters, the rest are average (or annoying: Vanille, Hope, Serah). The story is decent and there are frequent scenes to tell it. Square seemingly took the complaints of lack of story in FFXII to heart. Maybe I'm just easier to please than some people, though I can't remember a FF game that didn't have its own wave of complaints.

[Elle]

My friends are picky about their Final Fantasies. They basically consider everything since FFX blasphemy, lol.

The fact that you can't backtrack kinda sucks. FFXIII sounds more like a dungeon crawler than an RPG. However I'm not quite as picky as my friends. I've rented it for the weekend and I'll probably end up buying it. Hahaha.

[David]

Interesting. I'm willing to bet FFX was their first game then, because when it was released the current "fan community" of the time heavily criticized it for no world map, no controllable airship, bright ugly clothing, rock music, horrible voice work, and a main character that looks like a cross between every previous FF protagonist wearing Sion's (from The Bouncer) clothing. I even heard whining about linearity back then simply due to the lack of a world map. Nine years later and now FFX is fairly loved. The same cycle repeats with pretty much every game though.

I guess renting FFXIII is a good idea, though if you do get it you'll have to replay the drawn-out beginning all over again.

[Led Zeppelin]

FFX was probably the best in the series. Maybe. FFVII is good, but I think I am biased because it was one of my first video games.