=====
> Every time I hear someone say that Akane isn't super-increadible at martial
> arts, I think back to episode #2 where she's fighting all the guys from her
> school.  There's one part when about 15 guys - guys who are dressed in
> protective gear - all crowd around her to attack her, and she fights them
> off in about 2 seconds.  There's no way a normal person could do something
> like that every day.

Hmmm...There's a Ruroni Kenshin episode where Kenshin teaches that young guy
(can't remember his name) how to fight lots of opponents at the same time,
quoting lots of Musashi. It's really interesting, and applies to Akane too.

=====Evangelion:
>I'll stick with it since I've come this far, but it's become the
>Seinfeld of anime- it's really popular, but it's about nothing, and the
>creator ADMITS it's about nothing.  No amount of reading Hebrew or
>Judeo-Christian texts will give you anything more than a moderate
>understanding of what the words that they use (terminal dogma, the Magi
>names, the symbol behind Gendou's desk, etc), because there IS no deeper
>meaning behind their use.  There is too much left unanswered at the end
>of the series, and even the movies do nothing to solve this problem
>(from what I've heard).

Hey, I don't like that comparison. Evangelion is a good series. If nothing
else, it's about relationships and interactions between people. I just saw
tape 11; you can't tell me that those episodes were about nothing. There
was all that stuff about the mother and daughter Dr. Akagis, and Asuka trying
to come to terms with her memories. (Incidentally, that seems to be the only
Angel fight which I'm not sure the humans actually won. I don't think Asuka
was able to "Handel" her own memories. (snicker)) And I wish I could talk to
myself like Shinji does in a couple of episodes. That would be awesome.

=====This was about Drakuun:
>> Uh...you're reading something with half-animal characters...and you're
>> *suprised* that it's becoming a hentai-style series?
>
>Well yes, yes I am.

...I suddenly have this feeling, like I'm about to tell some little kid the
truth about Santa Claus...

=====
>>As a Christian< 
>Reallly? I was sure that my brother and I were the only christians on the ML.
>Huh. Go figure. It's a small world.

You have got to be kidding me. There's a lot of Christians around here.

=====And now, the huge FF7/PC thing:
>PCs cannot run games.

Sure they can. It's just that PCs have different strengths than consoles.

>Furthermore, the "games" on the PC are either crappy, or unoriginal.

There are crappy games on EVERY system. Also, nearly every game is unoriginal
in some way. Very few games are truly innovative. Most game designers don't
even bother trying to be innovative.

>How about the supposedly great Quake, that PC magazines shove in my 
>face. I mean Doom 2 (ahem), I mean Doom (ahem) I mean Wolfenstein 3D 
>(ahem) I  mean Wolfenstein. See what I'm getting at?

From Wolfenstein to Doom to Quake, the graphics engine passed several milestones.

Not to mention milestones in multiplayer capability. Did you know that if you
get it set up right, you can have 32 players playing at once on a Quake server?
Also, they were all by id Software, they have an excuse to steal from themselves.


>Aside from that genre ( which I personally don't like, but that's just 
>IMO), the old PC is somewhat at a loss to compete with machines THAT 
>WERE MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR PLAYING GAMES.

But the PC has a couple of things going for it. First of all, it has hard drives
and disk drives. You can store settings, configurations, saved games, and trade
them with other people. Also, you can modify parts of the game yourself. All the
code is right there on your hard drive. (Or you read it off a CD.) I mean, a
PlayStation memory card only has 128K of space, if I'm remembering right...
that's not a whole lot.

>Diablo Vs FF7.
>IMNSHO, FF7 grabs Diablo by the tonkers, slaps it upside the head and 
>kicks the stuffing out of it.
>Why? No, not because FF7 is PSX, and Diablo is PC,
>but because FF7 is an EXPERIENCE: I give a damn about the 
>Characters Tifa, Cloud and Aeris. I couldn't give a flying F*** in a 
>high wind about some randomly generated personalityless gimp who 
>wanders round a dungeon smashin' stuff up. 

That's odd. I never really gave a damn about any of the FF7 characters. I mean,
Vincent was a pretty cool guy, but I didn't really *care* about him. However,
I played FF7 obsessively (only stopping when I actually erased my game, which
really discouraged me). Why? Simple: The materia system. The materia system
is one of the most innovative game mechanics I've seen in a long time. I was
blown away. I love it. I'm trying to adapt it to other systems. It rocks.
Who cares about graphics when you can put together your materia in all these
different ways? I certainly don't. ...Of course, the music's cool, as always...

>FF7 is a story. Diablo is a system.
>Viva la difference.

Maybe you missed the Diablo quest system. Simple, yet elegant.

Vive la difference.

=====Brad on FF7:
>Except for the presentation/graphics it sounds rather
>standard.

As I said, the materia system sets it apart. Also, it has a good artificial
theology, about the Planet and stuff. (Okay, so that part of the story I liked.)

=====
>I played FF7 for the plot, the charcaters, the interaction. The first true
>"interactive movie". And I just *know* the PC version won't be the same.
>Maybe it'll have better graphics. Maybe it'll be bigger. Maybe it'll be an
>exact conversion. Whatever, it won't be the same. It'll be worse. No
>stopping it.
>
>Sorry, I hate PCs. They suck it big time.

This kinda bewilders me. Are you saying, you're going to force yourself to hate
it because it's on a PC, even if it's exactly the same? If so, I can respect
that...But don't you feel constrained, playing a game on a console, that there's
no way you can actually affect the game yourself? No way you can reach in and
see what's going on?...(And how the hell can you live in a house without a
computer where you can compile programs?)

                                      John

"I WANT to get ONLINE! I NEED a COMPUTER!"