Posts by Lace Sabatons

Honestly, Nintendo's decisions have been questionable going all the way back to the Super Nintendo, where they steered hard away from "adult" material like blood and violence. Since the growth of the VG market was mostly among teens and young adults, that meant Nintendo was starting from a position of weakness all the way back in the mid 90s. It only got worse from there. The N64 insisted on using cartridges and had that god-awful controller. And the gamecube was a joke. And all the while, third party support was dropping off.

And yes, the constant stream of Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon games is not doing Nintendo any favors. They've been alienating third party developers for years, and they don't seem to care that their game library is quickly becoming an inbred mess of iconic characters from 25 years ago.

I wish they would focus seriously on developing some new IPs.

Nintendo is doing a lot of fucky shit right now that may or may not lead to them eventually falling out of the gaming market.

But from a technical standpoint, they're currently the only company that actually offers anything of unique value to the consumer. For the most part, any decent PC can almost completely replace a PS4 or XBox One. Those two consoles are just PCs in fancy cases with proprietary operating systems. For 90% of releases, pick one of those three platforms and you're good to go.

Nintendo tends to have more exclusive games, and experiment with hardware in a way that nobody else does. As much as I hate to play games with the wiimote, it's a different kind of experience that nobody else can match.

Quote from Cressel

I haven't touched my PS3 in weeks now I need to finish FFXIII.

Is it any good? I haven't picked up an FF since X.

My parents still live in the house that they bought shortly before I was born, so I've only ever moved as an adult. And I've never moved quite so far that I couldn't move all my junk with me.

After my parent's place, I move into a small apartment about 2 hours drive North of where I grew up. The apartment was small, and my financial situation wasn't very good, but I enjoyed being out on my own. I spent most of 2010 living back with my parents trying to put my life back together, then I moved into a really shitty apartment about 20 minutes away from there. It was close to the job I was working at the time, and as shitty as it was, it was also really big and really cheap. So that kinda offset the fact that my neighbors were assholes and the plumbing kept breaking down. That's also where my ladyfriend moved in with me.

About a year ago now I moved an hour South of the shitty apartment into a pretty nice, secluded apartment.

I've been living more or less on my own since late 2007, and I've lived in 3 different places during that time (not counting the time I spent at my parent's place). I don't like moving much, but I do always enjoy exploring a new town.

The guy who writes Dresden Codak posted these on his tumblr a few years back. Personally, this outline is cool enough that I could actually see myself picking up a Zelda game for the first time in years.

What are your thoughts?

I assume all of us have a copy of Hyrule Historia, or at least have seen the Timeline somewhere. If not, here you go:

Does anyone actually like this timeline?

I'm of a mind that trying to fit all of the games into a single timeline is a bad idea. Some of them have relationships with one another (OoT clearly comes before MM, and WW clearly comes long after OoT) but I don't see any reason to try and force A Link to the Past to exist within the same space time continuum as Skyward Sword.

The games are variations on a theme. They don't need to have narrative connection.

Good job with the skits in that video! They were really good.

Of course I remember the Kokiri Kid! I don't think you and I ever spent much time together personally, but you were always a welcome presence around the forums.

Good to see you again.

Quote from Kaynil

I understand. It's been basically the same for me, except that even with ToH I wasn't too active or in contact. I left that post there hoping to reach someone so I am glad you found it!
It is also alright if you're not into like back in the day. I hope you enjoy interacting in this space. I would love if I could device some neat contests or activities for people to enjoy themselves here. Maybe even have awards like TSR. Those were fun back in the day.

I probably only peek in at ToH once a year or so. It's good luck that I happened to look only a month or so after you posted the link. I'm looking forward to some good discussions here.

Quote from Cressel

Have fun around bud.

Thank you. It's nice to meet you.

The other day I was watching some dumb videos online, and someone mentioned that Max Payne 2 was their favorite game in the series. It made me realize that while I do own MP2, I've never actually played it. So I decided to do that. But it'd been a few years since I played the original, so I figured I should start with that. And that's what I've been doing over this weekend: sitting in front of a fan and playing my old PS2 copy of Max Payne.

This fuckin' game holds up surprisingly well. The loading screens are atrocious, and there are maybe 2-3 platforming segments that can just go fuck off and die in a fire. But aside from that, everything about the game is still great after 14 years. The graphics are dated for sure, but they're confident in their own style, and they're clearer than a lot of PS2 graphics are. So they never really bother me. The fact that the cutscenes are comic panels, rather than animations, helps a lot.

The gameplay is simple and functional. Walk around, and kill people. The level design is completely linear, and the controls are simple. But within that framework, they manage to work in a lot of really engaging variety.

Though what really makes the game so worthwhile to play is the writing. The writing is pitch-perfect, self-aware, "gritty noir" in neon quotation marks. But the writing never crosses the line to being cynical about what it is. It knows what it is, it loves what it is, and if you pretend you're too classy to love what it is, then the game thinks you're a loser.

I've still got a little ways to go, but I'm eager to move on to the second game and see how things grew from there.

Depending on whether I currently have a game that's grabbing my attention, I normally try to make time for it on the Weekends, and possibly a little bit in the evenings. I really only play games on the PC, unless I'm going back to revisit something from the old days.

Well, I haven't had regular contact with the TSR gang since 2010, so it's been about 5 years. Though you and I bumped into each other on Twitter and g+ a time or two.

I confess I don't think about Zelda much these days, aside from replaying A Link to the Past every few years. But I've been missing hanging out on forums, and I've been missing my old friends. So when I saw your post about this place over on ToH, I figured I'd pop in and see how things are in Kaynilville.

There really weren't that many adults who played video games in the 80s/90s. At least there weren't any in my life. But my Uncle is only 10 years older than I am. So while he was an "adult" to me, he was actually just a teenager himself at the time.

I do have fond memories of the original LoZ. There was a certain magic to the shiny gold cartridge. It was obviously special. The gold cart Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask weren't quite the same. They were more of a matte dark yellow. The LoZ cart had a different kind of finish. Very shiney and glittery. I think a lot of us at that age played it just to find out why it deserved to have such a special case.

I'd spend hours in the basement during the hot summer months. Hiding away from the sun and playing on that NES. Good times.

My parents didn't like video games much, so I never actually owned anything myself until I was much older. However, my uncle let me borrow his NES when he got an SNES, and a buddy of mine let me borrow his shiny gold Legend of Zelda cart. So I did actually play LoZ way back in the days.

I never really figured out how to progress very far in the game, but I loved playing it. Every time I loaded it up I explored the world and fought the monsters for hours, without any kind of direction. Eventually I got one of the best pieces of equipment in the game without ever beating the first dungeon. I just kept killing monsters until I had hundreds of rupees, then bought the magic ring from the vendor beneath the Armos statue.

It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I gave the game a serious try. But it is difficult as all hell, with next to no direction for where you're supposed to go next.

My name is LS. I'm a huge fan of the Zelda games up through Majora's Mask, after which I think the series started to go pretty far downhill.

I'm a working writer. I spend most of my time working on Dungeons & Dragons stuff, though I've written some fiction here and there. I also write porn pretty regularly. None of my work really makes me very much money, but it makes me happy.

I mostly play indie video games these days. Though for the last few weeks I've been playing a lot of Civilization V. I've got some friends I want to play it with, but they're pretty good, so I'm trying to get my skills up so I don't hold them back.

I'm a big fan of the old Star Wars EU. It peaked in the '90s before Episode 1 came out. It slowly declined until Disney bought it, after which Star Wars became dead to me.

I've spent a whole lot of my life and career working with computers without learning much, though I do know a lot about water cooling. I don't get along with my parents, I do get along very well with my siblings.

Up until my 27th birthday I was a casual teetotaler. Now I drink quite often.

Picture of myself is attached.