Topics

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Off Topic / FFVII: Advent Children

« on: September 12, 2005, 07:30:50 PM »

Well I came home from school today and was met by a magical fairy who gave me FFVII: Advent Children. I soon grabbed a 12 pack of coke and ran to my room like a little school girl. I think I had to change my pants twice. Freaking amazing graphics with some of the best action you will ever see in a movie period. Sry I am a Final Fantasy fanboy -_- Yea so anywayz when it comes out in November(i think) make sure you pick up a copy of this movie cause I know I still will.

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Off Topic / PS3 v Xbox 360 v Revolution

« on: May 17, 2005, 07:48:25 PM »

PS3 Stats:
Backwards compatibility with both PSone and PS2 games.
Will use Blu-Ray discs for media; also supports: CD-ROM, CD+RW, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, and SACD
Cell processor at 3.2GHz
2.18 teraflops of performance
512MB total: 256MB XDR system RAM at 3.2 GHz; 256MB of GDDRVRAM at 700MHz
Slot that supports a detachable 2.5in HDD
Six USB ports; Memory Stick Duo, SD and Compact Flash support
2 HDMI outputs, 1 A/V output, 1 SPDIF optical output, and a 1 gigabit ethernet port
Video chat, Internet access, digital picture, audio, and video viewing
Capable of handling seven Bluetooth controllers
WiFi capable
Graphics:
Chip is called RSX "Reality Synthesizer" by nVidia, runs at 550MHz
128 bit pixel precision and 1080p support
300 million transistors; 90nm process
Said to be more powerful than two GeForce 6800 Ultras

Xbox 360:
General
Controller 2.4GHz Wireless
Form Factor Console
Graphics Processor and Memory
Graphics Processor Custom ATI Processor
 Graphics Core Clock Speed 500MHz
 System Memory 512MB, 700MHz DDR
 Vector Units 1 VMX-128 unit per core (3 total)
 CPU Math Performance 9 Billion Dot Product Operations per Second
 System Memory Bandwith 22.4GB/s, 256GB/s to EDRAM
 Memory Architecture Unified Memory Architecture
 Shaders 48-way Parallel Floating Point Dynamically-Scheduled, 48 billion Operations/s
 Video Memory 10MB Embedded DRAM (512MB UMA)
 Fill Rate (pixels) 16 Gigasamples/s using 4X MSAA
 Fill Rate (triangles) 500 Million/s
 Product Identification
Manufacturer Microsoft
 Product Line Microsoft Xbox 360
 Video Output
Resolution 480p, 480i, 720p, 1080i
 Expansion and Connectivity
Digital Media Formats DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
 Game Media Format Dual-Layer DVD-ROM
 Other I/O Connectors 3 USB 2.0, 2 Memory Slots, Ethernet Port (RJ45)
 Controller Ports Supports up to 4 Controllers
 Plug and Play Storage 2-Memory Slots, Support Starting at 64MB, 20GB Removable Hard Drive
 Integrated Communications 802.11 A/B/G Wi-Fi
 Processor
Processor Core Spec 3 Cores, 2 hardware threads per core
 Marketing Performance Measurement 1 TFLOP
 Processor Clock Speed 3.2GHz (3 Cores)
 L2 Cache 1MB
 Processor Custom IBM PowerPC CPU
 Integrated Devices
Built-in Features Stands Vertically or Horizontally, Interchangable Face Plates
 System Memory
Main Memory Bandwidth 22.4GB/s
 Storage
Media Drive 12 x Dual-Layer DVD-ROM
 Audio
Decompression Channels 320 Independent Decompression Channels
 Surround Sound Multichannel Output
 Audio Performance 32-bit, 256 Channel
 Sampling Frequency 48KHz 16-bit

Revolution:
lol Silly nintendo

*My note* Out of the three I would pick the PS3. After watching the tech demo were a man used cups with a eyetoy device and picked up water from the 3d bathtub and have it splash around and trasfer it from cup to cup I was sold. That and there is a really funny MGS4 trailer. I still might get the xbox 360 just cause it will be awhile till the PS3 comes out. Now nintendo's console is just silly I think so what they made it smaller than a book woop-dee-do. The only game I am looking foward to is the next zelda but even that comes out for the gamecube.

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Off Topic / Kevin Smith Reviews SW:Episode III

« on: April 28, 2005, 03:08:25 PM »

BTW, Kevin Smith is the producer/writer of Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, Chasing Amy, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. According to the /. story, he was invited by George Lucas to see a preview of the film.

SOME SPOLIERS BELOW JUST TO WARN YOU SO YOU DON'T GO CRYING TO MOMMY

"Revenge of the Sith" is, quite simply, ****ing awesome. This is the "Star Wars" prequel the haters have been bitching for since "Menace" came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally see it, they're lying. As dark as "Empire" was, this movie goes a thousand times darker - from the triggering of Order 66 (which has all the Shock Troopers turning on the Jedi Knights they've been fighting beside throughout the Clone Wars and gunning them down), to the jaw-dropping Anakin/Obi Wan fight on Mustafar (where - after cutting his legs and arm off, Ben leaves Skywalker burning alive on the shores of a lava river, with Anakin spitting venomous sentiments at his departing mentor), this flick is so satisfyingly tragic, you'll think you're watching "Othello" or "Hamlet".

I saw a gorgeous digitally projected version of the flick, and lemme tell ya': this is a beautiful looking film. The opening space battle sequence is the best in any of the six "Star Wars" movies. Grievous and Kenobi's lightsaber duel is bad-ass, with Grievous rocking four sabers. The Clone Wars end rather early in the flick (about the halfway point), leaving the rest of the film to concentrate on Anakin's turn to the Dark Side, and the resulting slaughter of the Jedi.

Perfect example of how dark **** gets: remember the Younglings - the kid Jedis in training from "Clones"? As a result of Order 66, when Anakin invades the Jedi Temple with an army of Clone Troopers, he enters the Council room to find a gaggle of said younglings hiding behind the seats. They see Anakin and emerge, asking "What should we do, Master Anakin?" The query's met with a stone-cold Anakin firing up his lightsaber. The next time you see the kids, Yoda's sifting through their corpses on the floor.

Yes, it's just that dark - and rightfully so. This is the birth of Darth Vader we're talking about. The only comic moments in the flick are given to R2D2, and while good, they're all pretty few and far between; the order of the day is dark, dark, dark.

Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor steal the show, but Hayden Christensen silences any naysayers who wrote him off as too whiney in "Clones". This is the flick that feels closest to Episodes 4, 5, and 6, because - for the first time since "Return of the Jedi" - there is a clear villain. And for all the shadow-play Palpatine has been upto in the last two flicks, his treachery is about as subtle as John Williams' score in "Sith." Whether he's slowly drawing Anakin toward the Dark Side during an opera/performance art piece with his promise of the Sith's power of life over death, or he's engaged in a balls-to-the-wall lightsaber duel in the Senate with Yoda, his "Little, green friend" (his words, not mine - which I kinda dug, because, interestingly, I think it's the first time anyone's acknowledged that Yoda is green in any of the "Star Wars" flicks), this is the Emperor's movie.

The last fifteen minutes dovetail nicely into Episode 4 (or just plain "Star Wars" for you non-geeks), and the movie is full of link-up moments as well.

- At flick's end, Threepio and Artoo are given to Captain Antilles (with the caveat that the Protocol's memory be wiped).

- The twins, natch, are split up. Leia heads to Alderann with Bail Organa, and Obi Wan hands Luke over to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru (indeed, the closing shot is Owen holding Luke while looking out over the setting suns of Tatooine - mimicking the shot of the adult Luke doing the same in "Star Wars", complete with callback cue from Williams).

- After he succumbs to the Dark Side, Anakin tries to convine Padme that he can overthrow Palpatine, and together, he and Padme can rule the galaxy as husband and wife.

- Vader and the Emperor stand beside a younger Grand Moff Tarkin on the bridge of a Star Destroyer, overlooking the earliest construction stage of the Death Star.

- Yoda telling Obi Wan that, as he heads to Tatooine to hand over Luke and go into exile, that he should spend his time learning to commune with those who've crossed over to the next stage of life, as Yoda maintains he's been doing with Qui Gon (and Ben will later do with both Luke and Yoda, in "Empire" and "Jedi").

- And, hands-down, the best link-up to "Star Wars" moment that I enjoyed the most: Bail Organa and Yoda stepping into the hallway of the Rebel Blockade Runner that opened "Star Wars". Unlike all the high-tech CGI wizardry of the rest of the prequel Trilogy, this is a low-tech looking set, right out of circa '77, and for some reason, it really captured my imagination. I mean, this is the same exact hallway in which we got our first look at Vader, oh so many years ago, and I appreciated the hell out of Mr. Lucas including it - because it really felt like a nod to the hardcores.

Look, this is a movie I was genetically predisposed to love. I remember being eight years old, and reading in "Starlog" that Darth Vader became the half-man/half-machine he was following a duel with Ben Kenobi that climaxed with Vader falling into molten lava. Now, twenty six years later, I finally got to see that long-promised battled - and it lived up to any expectation I still held. I was sad to see the flick end, but happy to know it's not the end of the "Star Wars" universe entirely (I've read stuff about a TV show...).

"Sith" doesn't happen; "Sith" rules.

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Off Topic / Johnnie Cochran Dies at 67

« on: March 29, 2005, 09:20:24 PM »

The link to the article on his death is here.

It is sad to see him go  :wacko:  And with that I have one of his most famous cases here for you guys to listen to.

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Off Topic / Gmail = girly service! :D

« on: December 14, 2004, 07:59:50 PM »

Now don't get me wrong I still use my gmail accounts but how can you pass on a free 1 terabyte email?

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General / HalfLife 2: Bullet Time Mod

« on: December 04, 2004, 02:51:02 PM »

Wow. This is such a simple mod but it makes playing SP again really fun. What this mod does is give you more of a max payne effect to the game. While pressing 'b' (or whatever button you bind it to) you can slow down time ingame. Just try it out.

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Off Topic / Mel Brooks Writing Spaceballs Sequel

« on: September 29, 2004, 09:09:54 AM »

/orgasm

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=6547

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Off Topic / Half-life 2 Review In New Pc Gamer

« on: September 28, 2004, 09:59:08 AM »

The issue of it is December 2004 but subscribers are getting it sometime this week ( I forgot if I renewed my membership but if I do get the mag this week I will put up some you-know-what unless someone beats me to it).

http://homelanfed.com/index.php?id=26359

+ Half-Life 2 Fourth Pre-Load On Steam
+ Other confirmed magazine reviews http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread...&threadid=39635

All of this and you might think the game would actually come out soon but there hasn't even been word of a Gold release and the battle between Vinviddi(sp  :help: ) and Value goes on so who knows (I know f00l doesn't  :p )

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Off Topic / Wow Stress Test

« on: August 29, 2004, 08:31:21 PM »

I plan on playing the short WoW Stress test. If any other LMers want to get together and party leave a shout in this thread.