Wayward Winds

Most modern comedies. As an example, I can't seem to tune into "Miranda" without cringing at how ridiculous it is and turning straight back to another channel. I'm well aware it's popular and there has to be a reason for that, but it's just not to my taste. On the other hand, old comedies like "Open All Hours", "Hogan's Heroes", "Red Dwarf", "The Thin Blue Line", "Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister" and many others are just fine. There just seems to have been a gradual shift over the years from comedies that used effective wordplay and creative plots to get their laughs, to a more slapstick physical comedy approach which to my taste is a bit on the "cringeworthy" side. You can occaisonally see it happening within a show - "My Family" seemed to gradually slide between the two approaches over its rather long life, getting more and more cringeworthy as it went on. It's definitely the style that bugs me though, because the resurrections of "Red Dwarf", "Birds of a Feather" and "Open All Hours" (not so much that last one, given that "Still Open All Hours" was mostly a retread of the exact jokes gone before) have been highly enjoyable for me, and they deliberately emulated the older style. That said, even old comedies can be cringeworthy. "Fawlty Towers" was generally enjoyable, but occaisonally Basil Fawlty (John Cleese)'s rants went over the top and into "start cringing" territory. I can see why a lot of people like the new style, but it's not for me personally. Hence why I get more amusement from "QI" and "Mock the Week".

Well, the Tower was rather... dull. Same tileset all the way up, and the maps tended to boil down to the same general design. Not to mention it was far too easy to abuse. Maybe there should have been a fee for entering or something. The Ruins? ...shudder. I never did finish that accursed place on a no-causalty run; I managed to get to the last level once, and then found Artur biting the dust because I couldn't clear out a safe zone amongst all those draco's. (My strategy - advance everyone in one direction so I'd have my back to a wall, then clear out the rest as they came for me. Everyone was 20/20, and even Artur's Slayer skill couldn't save him.) This was back on the GBA itself, so I couldn't use save states, and that loss pretty much ended my desires of clearing the place. It was doable right up until that last level, and then... not so fast Bucco, who's your sacrifice? No, the difficulty was just way too high. On the other hand, it did at least vary the maps to keep itself interesting. The no-doors-only-breakable-walls maze, poison traps, the occaisonal open level, a Water Temple level, some volcanic wasteland towards the end... and the Draco Zombie Altar of DOOM. Apart from the sadistic difficulty at the end, I enjoyed it a lot more than the Tower and the skirmishes. Oh, and yes, the inability to save was especially bad. I wouldn't have minded that last floor defeat if I'd had a save that allowed me to just try again. But twelve long floors with only the suspend/resume function was just cruel. Not as bad as the original Tactics Ogre, where you had to clear close to a hundred floors of the Palace of the Dead (no saving or quicksaving) in one marathon sitting, but still cruel. ...What Serenes needs is an option to select multiple answers in polls ("Tick all features of FE8 that you enjoyed"). Because I reckon the Tower and Ruins weren't that hated.

Tactics Ogre... Why did my PSP have to break? Still, might as well fuse that and another PSP game... Tactics Ogre and Patapon. The Dark Knights come up against a force more insidious than they thought possible. Drums in the distance, the ground begins to thunder with the approach of a massive horde. The Wallister Resistance must be more numerous than they'd thought. The Dark Knights Loslorien steel themselves for battle, watching the tips of spears appear over the crest of the hill- PON PON PATA PON! And one voice, Martel's, rises above the sound of the Almighty's drums. "...What the heck are those?" ...And the drama of the scene goes bye bye. Wonder who'd win.

...Oh, some of us are still watching/voting. I'm sure the numbers will go up again, people just need to notice this is active again.

FE: Geneaology, and Chrono Trigger. Sigurd just refuses to stay dead, and an evil alien parasite thing is wondering why the heck evolution is taking so long. And those incestuous louts aren't helping in that respect. Still, at least the Magus run Lopto sect is a little distracted from averting the Day of Lavos.

I prefer not to cheat. I can remember exactly three cases of me cheating in singleplayer. Apart from that, I don't cheat because it takes all the fun from the game. As for other people, it's up to them if they want to take the challenge from the game. But unless everyone has the cheats active (or it's an agreed unofficial 'Everyone against the Juggernaut' game, then they should keep it out of multiplayer.

I generally didn't need disciplining, unlike my sister. Every so often though, I got the slipper. Well, I had other incentives. Christmas and birthday presents were supposedly determined by how good my school grades were. Except, I never saw that actually make a difference...

Don't forget Sly 4: Thieves in Time! Not quite as good as the preceding games (the heists are a little underdeveloped for one thing), but still well worth a look! Also, I second Valkyria Chronicles. Great game! Others not yet mentioned that are worth a try: The Uncharted series (3 PS3 games, with #2 being my favourite) Binary Domain The Ratchet & Clank HD trilogy, also the Ratchet & Clank "Future" trilogy. Haven't played the games past that, so can't say if they're any good. ...And plenty more, but they're also available on other platforms - Portal 2, Bioshock, Borderlands, Final Fantasy 13 (yes, I actually liked that one, unlike most of FF13.2), that sort of thing.

Pleasant: Fresh air, freshly baked bread... and bacon. The last one's rather odd, given that I'm vegetarian. Horrible: A certain cat of mine (not the demon cat pictured below) makes the foulest smelling dung ever. She has an annoying habit of doing it immediately after we go to bed, and the ghastly retch inducing odour penetrates closed doors in seconds. We're only half joking when we say we should pack her off to the nearest bio-warfare lab. Oh, and she likes to sit herself right next to you, and amuse herself by passing wind. It's the same smell.

Uh, it depends on what you're telling me I can give up. I still remember those long summer holidays where you run out of things to do and... it just drags towards the end. The fact is that without something constant to do, you just end up bored after a few weeks. That's why you see people retire... and next thing you know, they're doing voluntary work three days a week. Uh, guys? The point of retiring is that you don't have to work anymore! "So what?", they respond, "It staves off the boredom, and I enjoy it. So sod off and let me work in peace." I could quite happily drop university and its assignments that refuse to let you have any free time to yourself. But there's no way I'd give up my voluntary work with my local country park. I enjoy it too much.

Not a gripe against the translation (which I much prefer to the original one), but I just activated the Tate and Juno C Support... and got Lalum and Geese spouting what I believe is their B Support conversation. I'm not using the most recent patch - the updated translation ends just prior to the Sacae/Ilia route split for me - but if you haven't touched Support conversation pointers since then, that's something you may want to look into.

Apart from putting vinegar on pretty much anything, my taste buds are fairly uninspired in their 'wants'. ...Though my cat will quite happily munch away at marmite on toast. Not what I tend to think of as 'cat food'.

...Just for the record, the word 'drugs' generally only means the illegal stuff here in the UK. Cocaine, heroin, that sort of thing. And I don't take anything like that. Pro Plus on the other hand, I quite often use. They're caffeine tablets in case you're wondering - I can't stand coffee, so that's my alternative. And I'll occasionally use decongestants if a particularly nasty cold decides to move in. Otherwise, nope, I'd rather let it blow over on its own thank-you-very-much.

That's a general glitch affecting everyone - only way to get to part 2 is to abandon all the goodies from part one.

Looks good, though that shaman's face seems to be angled wrong - makes the hood look awkward. Otherwise those portraits are lovely. Sounds like you'll need to think in terms other than survival chances to get through as well. ...Why has no one actually offered to proofread yet? Well, I'm free, though you may want someone with more of a track record...

The general misuse of the humble apostrophe. Unless the thing is proffesionally proofread, there's always a mistake in the document somewhere. It doesn't help that spellcheck likes to make stupid mistakes as well and can't be trusted. So even when it's actually right, people ignore it through scepticism.

My thoughts are similar to a fair few preceding answers. In general, I'm against it, BUT if the item in question is stupidly hard to get hold of (eg, games over ten years old, books/series over twenty five - these things are hard to get hold of even through second hand and and won't make the parent company any more profit anyway), or perhaps never legitimately reached your region anyway (or perhaps didn't even get translated), then the piracy might be justified. So, I'd consider pirating things like Valkyria Chronicles 3 (never officially translated), Hogan's Heroes (only ever released in USA and Australia, which is plain unfair for us Europeans)... but I'd still rather look for ways to get them legitimately than pirate the things.

Heh, yep, money and politics are the big ones. As much as money causes problems and is 'the root of all evil' (fun fact - 95% of money in circulation at present is in fact 'debt money', ie imaginary figures called into existence by a bank whenever someone asks for a loan. It's more of a virtual currency than something with actual, proveable value.), it would be just a little bit inconvenient to go back to the old barter system with all the myriad variables for exchange rates to depend upon. As for politics, well, there's an old saying which I'm going to cannibalise: "With politics, nothing works right. Without politics, nothing plain works at all!"

Temperate forest, preferably one without wolves wandering around. 'Course, I'd have to put aside my vegetarianism pretty quickly, because I don't think berries would support me for very long. ...There wouldn't happen to be a handy, long forgotten orchard nearby, would there? No wild carrots or potatoes? ...Guess I'll be living off Alexander tubers then.

...Back on topic... Serious: >"Some you win, some you lose. Your turn... will come." >"...Heh... Have you realised... yet..? I was only... the decoy..." >"...A worthy blade to fall to. I look forward... to our rematch in... the... af...ter...life..." >"Let... my death be... a warning. The fortune...teller... lies..." Silly: >"...No you can not do dibs on my stuff!" >"Curses! Beaten by a pack of meddling kids! After all those Scooby Doo cartoons too!" (Villain quote) >"Urk! What a time for the food poisoning to kick in!" (That one could also be done with a heart attack, but I like the idea of the team chef unintentionally taking his/her own side out...) >"Heh heh heh, HAHAAAAHAAAAA! YES! WITH MY DEATH THE ARMIES OF HEAVEN AND HELL SHALL BOTH FALL UPON Y- "... "...What? You're saying I'm not Mateus, Emperor of Palamecia? Sh****t!" (References Final Fantasy 2, where the villain doesn't just die, no, his soul splits into light and dark components (but both still evil) which take over Pandaemonium (Hell) and Arubboth (Heaven) respectively. Although only one of them gets a chance to lead his new army against the land of the living, the other gets killed off in the afterlife by the main characters who died in the game ...Hmm. There's an idea for a FE hack... face the final boss with your casualty list!)

...Hmm. Well that's not Aloysius (Farrel) Sarka's talking to, and I don't see a crown. I think we've just been granted a glimpse of this mysterious "Silvie"! ...Or Astra's trolling us... Hopefully NCFC will be fair this year, given what I've heard about last year's event.

...But Advance Wars Days of Ruin (or Dark Conflict as we Europeans knew it) ended with the most evil level ever. Damn Stolos (Caulder) and his poison bomb lobbing Owl Nest! My favorite campaign is a toss up between Homeworld 1 and Homeworld Cataclysm. They may be old space rts's, but they had atmosphere! Although the two campaigns of C&C Tiberian Sun: Firestorm were good as well, particularly as happenings in one campaign were often referenced in the other. Best level? Again, it's a toss up: The Cathedral of Khadesh fromHomeworld 1, and mission 6 from Homeworld Cataclysm. The former a frantic battle in the heart of a nebulae, Kadeshi Swarmers... uh, swarming in from all sides, a massive array of ion beams firing in all directions as their Multi-Beam Frigates join the fray, your own forces hurling out hundreds of mass driver rounds and the odd ion beam of their own in a possibly futile attempt to keep the enemy off your Mothership... ...And meanwhile, nearly lost amidst all this carnage, your unarmed Salvage Corvettes are quietly sneaking out, grabbing hold of enemy frigates and dragging them back to your Mothership for capture purposes. This battle was just epic, and then came the reveal at the end... As for Cataclysm's example, your simple mining ship, the only fully operational Hiigaran super capital in the area, has just survived an encounter with 'the Beast (an eldritch abomination creature that consumes anything it touches - ships, creatures etc. - into a twisted fusion being linked by a hive mind - and it gets worse, but that's getting off topic). A lone, damaged Carrier under your protection, your crew makes the choice to cross a nebulae in an attempt to shake pursuit. But, minor problem, turns out there's a not-so-friendly Taidan base hidden in here, with quite a large fleet at its disposal - and you have mostly anti-fighter craft at your disposal. It's a tense journey, having to clear out mines, watch out for enemy patrols that stumble upon you and eliminating them before they can report your presence, not to mention engage in a little sabotage when you find one of the meanest ships ever waiting for you. A relatively slow paced level, but enjoyable. Really, most Homeworld levels could fit in here.

I think anything related to the agruculture base needs to stay, because there's no way we could feed our current population without it (and seeing as the whole population is going to fight tooth and nail over food in a shortage situation, I can hardly treat that bit as irrelevant on a personal basis). Maybe keep the medical tech base around as well. Otherwise, everything can go, starting with my mobile phone...

Uh... (Starts chiseling away at own gravestone)

...Or, as I'm doing, splice, possibly recolour, minor hair and clothing edit to finish off. You'd (probably not) be surprised what, for example, can be done by using Igrene's head with Sonia's body, make the hair longer and more unruly, remove Sonia's hands and put a couple of clothing straps in, and make sure the whole thing is consistently coloured. If done right, you get a somewhat wild but unsociable looking character, which fits what I need. You can still see the Igrene elements, but no-one's going to mistake them for the same character.This is something even a newb like me can do. (Obviously though, this will lead to 'meh, it's okay' portraits at best, but at least they'll be original(ish). Next up; trying to convert a Tactics Ogre mug into FE7 graphics, just as long as I don't get inconsistent styles). But re-using existing mugs unedited can work too - look at Auster from Kitty of Time's latest League of Champions. Just the FE7 Marcus portrait until the next update, but it still works.