At 4/22/08 04:06 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Seafood Watch Guide

There's always a few surprises on there... for example Shrimp is on the bad list because they drag nets across the bottom of the ocean killing everything.

They also have printable guides that fold up into a wallet that is regional to your area.

Very US centric. I wonder if there's a similar list for UK residents. Fish from your country would use oil and can't be fresh!

Anyways, only one kind of shrimp is on the 'avoid' list - the others are good, one is 'best'.
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/Se afoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?fid=19 1

I don't know the differences between some of these sub-categories of fish. All quite confusing. :-/

Anyways, good to be told I'm not doing any harm by eating mussels. Though I'm not 100% sure they're always farmed here or how they're farmed...

At 4/23/08 06:47 AM, Bezman wrote: Anyways, good to be told I'm not doing any harm by eating mussels. Though I'm not 100% sure they're always farmed here or how they're farmed...

Mussels are pretty plentiful, they grow in the muck at the bottom of the ocean. They are delicious. Someone get off the subject of seafood im bout to eat all the fish in jmtb's aquarium.

At 4/23/08 12:15 AM, jmtb02 wrote: Aquarium

Awesome. I went to an aquarium fairly recently, although I forgot where, there was a massive crab type thing which I have a picture of somewhere ;D

At 4/22/08 11:46 PM, Mogly wrote: Equally pressing issues such as human-tree people!

Is it not messed up to think that things like this and people like this exist in this world? I saw a documentary the other night called 'Half man half tree', this guy is really alive and walking around. Crazy.

I saw that. It was pretty good. Its amazing how that could happen. I missed the end though D:

You know what's a great show? Futurama. But you all know that anyway.

For some reason I have a fascination in under-water documentaries. Otherwise I never like documentaries.
Am I weird?

At 4/23/08 12:51 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: You know what's a great show? Futurama. But you all know that anyway.

Just bought the movie. Going to watch it tommorow on the plane ride to London. : )

At 4/23/08 12:54 PM, GuyWithHisComp wrote: For some reason I have a fascination in under-water documentaries. Otherwise I never like documentaries.
Am I weird?

I like the documentaries on sharks ;D
Do they count?

At 4/23/08 12:54 PM, GuyWithHisComp wrote: For some reason I have a fascination in under-water documentaries. Otherwise I never like documentaries.
Am I weird?

I usually hate things to do with water. Water scenes in films, water levels in computer games (especially water levels in computer games). The one exception was the film Waterworld - that was really surprising in that it's pretty entertaining. Explosions just over the surface of the ocean make for some pretty damn aesthetically pleasing colour arrangements.

Yeah I'm not too keen on water either.

At 4/23/08 01:33 PM, Paranoia wrote: I usually hate things to do with water. Water scenes in films, water levels in computer games (especially water levels in computer games). The one exception was the film Waterworld - that was really surprising in that it's pretty entertaining. Explosions just over the surface of the ocean make for some pretty damn aesthetically pleasing colour arrangements.

My god water levels are the worst. I never understood why they couldn't make a fun water level.

Maybe it's because water levels always involve moving slowly and lowering visibility and sometimes drowning, which really ruins a fast paced game.

There has to be a water level somewhere that I enjoyed though.... hydrocity zone in sonic 3 was ok (music was kickass though). Then again you could beat that zone hardly ever going underwater.

Yeah there are a few water levels on games that I enjoy however most aren't too good. Undertow on Xbox Live Arcade was pretty fun for a while.

At 4/23/08 01:50 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: There has to be a water level somewhere that I enjoyed though.... hydrocity zone in sonic 3 was ok (music was kickass though). Then again you could beat that zone hardly ever going underwater.

Nah, the only decent water levels I can think of are ones when you have a boat or something to speed through the water on :P

Actually, come to think of it, the sunken ship levels in Tomb Raider II were awesome. That was mainly because of the sense of isolation the water provided rather than the actual swimming, though. Those were some of the scariest, most atmospheric levels I can remember from my childhood :P

Water and ice levels suck. The water temples in Zelda games? Blah. Water levels in 3d Mario games. Frustrating.

The only really good water levels I can recall are those from the Megaman games. Things are a bit more floaty and slower, but it's still quick if you want it to be.

Water levels are fun to program but not fun to play.

House, MD

I love that show. House is one bad-ass doctor!

Yeah thats fairly amusing.

RE: Water levels
I found the water level in Metal Slug (whatever number) fun to play.. like that crab boss that shoots the bubbles is hella fun.
I think my main gripe in general with water levels is how slow the action is errr or purposely supposed to be.

Typing is fun againnn
I was mildly entertained by this website...
TypeRacer.... I'm a decent typer.. Im entruiged to take on patu1

Metal Slug water levels weren't bad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gftxfp1Ah NY

skip to 2:10 ish

At 4/23/08 03:03 PM, Luis wrote: TypeRacer.... I'm a decent typer.. Im entruiged to take on patu1

Damn that game is fun :). 78 WPM had me at first once and second place another time.

Come to think of it, the underwater level of the Wind Waker was fairly enjoyable, because, ironically, it was the only part of the game without any water.

Type racer is really addictive. I'm not sure what I got. It was around a 40wpm average. (I'm not very good at the 's and !s. Oh well

At 4/23/08 03:52 PM, tommattox wrote: Type racer is really addictive. I'm not sure what I got. It was around a 40wpm average. (I'm not very good at the 's and !s. Oh well

Yea im at 43 wpm... the capital letters fuck me up cause im so used to typing lazily that its unnatural for me to actually bother with em.

At 4/23/08 02:08 PM, CrazyChihuahua wrote: Water and ice levels suck. The water temples in Zelda games? Blah. Water levels in 3d Mario games. Frustrating.

I'm in two minds about ice :P I don't like anything which forces you to lose too much control, but I just find snow levels nice to look at. They beat deserts hands down.

That Type Racer game is super addictive. The highest I managed was 107 WPM, but I averaged out to 88 WPM. I love typing games, but the only problem is that after a while my hands get a bit shaky and I start making lots of mistakes :P

At 4/23/08 04:10 PM, Paranoia wrote:

At 4/23/08 02:08 PM, CrazyChihuahua wrote: Water and ice levels suck. The water temples in Zelda games? Blah. Water levels in 3d Mario games. Frustrating.

I'm in two minds about ice :P I don't like anything which forces you to lose too much control, but I just find snow levels nice to look at. They beat deserts hands down.

I enjoy ice levels, especially if the atmosphere about them makes you feel cold in real life. Zelda and metroid manage to do that pretty well (The ice house in TP was a very unique level and was pretty fun to play).

My favorite types of levels in games are the techno themed ones. Everything is mechanized and lit up and there's robots and stuff. It's especially enjoyable when one pops up in a game of mostly organic environments (metroid).

RE: Typeracer

Pretty fun, I must say :)

Although I think that I'm a pretty slow typer, I get around 45-50 wpm and that was enough for 2nd or 3rd place in every race that I played.

I linked it to a friend, and in the races that I ended up 2nd, he was the one that won >.<

At 4/23/08 04:34 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: My favorite types of levels in games are the techno themed ones. Everything is mechanized and lit up and there's robots and stuff. It's especially enjoyable when one pops up in a game of mostly organic environments (metroid).

I'm not too big a fan of techno levels. They're OK, but not the best.

I can't believe we're talking about favourite level genres. This is the kind of geekiness the topic needs more of. You can talk about the environment and fish and junk in real life :)

Anyway, so long as we're on this topic, here are my top five level types:

1. Snow/Icy - especially mountains
2. Medieval or gothic with castles and shiz
3. Lovely and grassy, or forested
4. River / stream
5. Weird - like the last few levels of Pandemonium 2 if anyone played that...

Although, I really like anything which conveys an atmosphere of isolation or weirdness. If you've played the very start of the citadel level in HL2, that did that really well. So do most parts of the first few Tomb Raider games.

The best level in any game ever made has to be the last few non-boss screens in MGS2, though. They just refined weirdness, isolation and destruction of the fourth wall to damn near perfection.

I'd say I don't really particularly LOVE the usual differentiated level types like the same patterns found in Donkey Kong games and Mario type games - the Lava levels/ Underwater levels/ Ice and snow levels - that sort of thing, but I do enjoy their importance to gaming as a whole and "transporting" the player into different worlds.

My favorite types of levels are the nice mix of the strange and real world - the most recent I can think of is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, it mixed the two really nicely (what I'm thinking of right now is the stage where there's a U-boat stuck in a waterfall ledge in the middle of a jungle). My all time favorites are probably the wacked out world's of Psychonauts and (if any one remembers it) Nightmare Ned. They were just so totally off-pace and incredibly different from the typical level design and feel. I also do really enjoy the planets from Ratchet and Clank, but those do follow the whole lava/ice/underwater formula, but they're different enough where it still feels fresh. While I'm at it, I also love the whole feel of the Sly Cooper series, but I could make a whole book out of that so I'll just leave it at that.

At 4/23/08 04:59 PM, Paranoia wrote: The best level in any game ever made has to be the last few non-boss screens in MGS2, though. They just refined weirdness, isolation and destruction of the fourth wall to damn near perfection.

Raiden! Turn the game console off right now!

Haha, that part creeped me out X)

The fact that Raiden was running around naked didn't really help either..

RONALDO! How did you miss that penalty?! shees...