Alright, I'll continue, too, 12Motion! And since you asked, I ain't nobody ;) .
todd: Chess hasn't been a major part of my life for a good time (this is the first opportunity I've had to talk shop in a while, you meet chess people in the weirdest places), so maybe I am remembering incorrectly, but I recall Kasparov saying he stopped playing the King's Indian not because he thought it was unsound but because he didn't have the time any more to study both the Najdorf and the King's Indian, and he chose to stick with the Najdorf. As to why most other top GMs don't play it ... well, most other top GMs shy away from highly tactical lines. Shirov and Polgar are the most notable exceptions, and Morozevich of course, but he'll play damn near anything whether it's garbage or not ;) . Fischer, too, loved to play the King's Indian against the fish of his era, but it's doubtful that he's in the top 10 of players any more, despite what slobbering fanboys say about his prowess!
When I have some time (which may be never, I still have to finish Sonic!) I'll try to go about comparing lines in the Muzio gambit against ChessMaster. I really think that line could be one of the best for a speedy defeat.
I enjoyed reading your answers, Josh! Anyways, here are the answers to mine:
1) [Secret!]
2) 359.
3) There really is no set answer to this or the previous #3. The first #3 (the one with all the periods) was a reference to a bug early in the game whereby you could drop anyone using a Korean version of the game by typing in a boatload of periods. Their Diablo 2 client would crash and everyone that remained in the game would get the message "So and so dropped due to timeout." "baba_zzang" was just a stereotypical Korean character name. It's common knowledge (whether it's correct or not) that Koreans started the trend of using the abbreviations "baba, soso, ama" and such. (Native English speakers tend to say "barb, sorc, zon" etc.) Koreans were also famous for their humorous appeals for items (again, the legends have far outgrown what actually occurred) and Americans soon began adopting the most outrageous speech patterns modeled loosely after real Korean words (gosu=good, zzang=king, etc.), as well as some of the more unusual errors Koreans committed when speaking English. "Itam" and "otam" became commons substitutes for item, "potal, portar, fotar" or anything similar became common substitues for portal, "prz" became a common substitute for plz, etc., etc., and the tilde (~) was appended to almost everything anyone imitating a Korean ever said.
4) Justice League Task Force. Condor was working on a Genesis port, while Silicon and Synapse was working on a SNES port. This loose affiliation through Sunsoft, the company behind Justice League Task Force, is how Blizzard and Blizzard North first met.
5) Callac, a barbarian of no small notoriety. Many people say Callac and his team "ruined leveling" by being the first group to introduce "sitter runs." To even try to keep up (which no one could, Callac was widely regarded as the fastest leveler on all the realms when he was still actively leveling), other top players were forced to follow suit, which very few could, or level for 3-4 times as long as Callac did each day. The VET clan chose the latter option, as they were famous for leveling 22 hours a day, and from what I could tell that number was fairly accurate.
7) A definitive answer will probably never be known, but it's probably 8-10.
Questions on some games...
1) In Toejam and Earl, there are five kinds of earthlings (not counting mailboxes) that don't hurt you. What do they each do? For bonus points, name the mermaid "hidden" in Funkotron.
2) In Phantasy Star 4, what is the first multi-character combo you (should) have access to, and what's involved in it? For bonus points, what's the first reason you'll stop being able to do it, and what changes when you're able to do it again?
3) In Cadash, what was taken out of the arcade version when it was ported to the Genesis? For bonus points, name how a fighter can get a ranged attack.
4) Of the four Working Designs games for the Sega CD, which one featured a (playable) character death? For bonus points, name the Master of Monsters clone for the Sega CD, which was minus the towers but plus towns with various mini-quests.
5) A pinball game for the Genesis could be best described as three-tiered, as three levels were stacked upon each other, with the ball easily moving between them. Name it, and for bonus points, both Japanese and English titles.
6) An EA sports series featured, instead of real teams and real players, entirely fictional teams with characters such as the skeleton, Bones Jackson. Name it, and for bonus points, the game that was promised in the second of the series but never arrived.
(edit: Is it really three in the morning? It shows in my grammar...)
Now you've got me curious about Kasparov and the KID :) I spoke as if it was a fact that he felt the opening was unsound, but now that I think about it, I've never read what Kasparov himself said. It's funny how our brains can let secondhand rumors eventually morph into facts! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything conclusive about Kasparov giving up the KID on the web.
Anyway, I'm glad you still follow chess (I can tell since you're familiar with Moro :)), and I am looking forward to the Sonic runs and quick ChessMaster kills! Good luck!
I believe in #5 nifboy is talking about Dragon's Revenge. That could make an interesting video if someone particularly skilled and knowledgeable of bugs and strategies were to play it.
I believe in #5 nifboy is talking about Dragon's Revenge. That could make an interesting video if someone particularly skilled and knowledgeable of bugs and strategies were to play it.
Here I was all ready to say you were half right when I find out Dragon's Revenge is the sequel to the game I'm thinking of, Dragon's Fury (also known as Devil Crash MD in Japan). You'd think it was the other way around, looking at the graphics. The ball in Dragon's Revenge is quite a bit more spastic, too, prone to skipping across the level in maybe three frames. Oh, and there's the crazy lady's moaning voices and crazy faces, both absent in Dragon's Fury.
As far as videos go, we haven't seen any pinball runs (Arkanoid comes close), and with good reason: In Dragon's Fury you need 999,999,990 points to reach the final boss, and beating all six bonus stages only nets you about a sixth of that total (including all bonuses from all the bonus stages), so you'd have to beat all six bonus stages six times...
I'm not sure how one beats Dragon's Revenge, though. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the three heroes you can rescue, but that's about it. It might be speed-runnable and still entertaining.
As a replacement question, there exists an Arkanoid "clone" with a number of modified features. For one, there are two paddles, which can be placed parallel or perpindicular to each other. In single-player mode, the second paddle by default stays at the bottom underneath the 1p paddle. Then, each level isn't a single screen, but many screens wide with scrolling as dictated by the ball, usually down one-way paths that occassionally split off. As you reach the end of each level you have to face a boss. The setting is midieval, and the story goes something like "Prince and Princess get turned into paddles by evil baddie, go kill evil baddie with ball." Name the game, since I can't remember the name myself.
The moaning is all the fun ;) .
As I recall, Dragon's Revenge doesn't require any point totals to beat the game, you merely have to progress through a series of bonus tables you access at different points on the main table.
nifboy: Too good, stumped me. I can answer #6 though.
The game in question is Mutant League Football, and the promised second game was Mutant League Hockey. There was actually a cartoon based on the latter, I remember it from my youth...
Oh man, that brought back memories of killing all the other teams's QBs. Wonder why someone doesn't try that idea nowadays, especially with exaggerated sports games being all the rage (NBA Street, etc.).
And I'll give a quick question of my own here: What company designed the gameplay engine of Def Jam Vendetta? Bonus points if you can name any of the past games they've worked on.
-Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Hm...maybe I am still owned then, because I never heard of a third game planned.
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Sorry, there *is* a Mutant League Hockey. Unfortunately, they took out the coolest race in Football, the Aliens (can't tackle but their passing game is sweet), as well as the superhumans (who really didn't belong anyway, imo).
I actually discovered this sort of on a whim. After you hit start on the title screen, there's the credits screen, and if you wait through all of it, you get this:
(Edit: Oooh, forgot the replacement question!)
In Shadowrun (Genesis) name the group that prevents you from getting a "game over" for the majority of the game. For bonus points, how much do they take off your credstick?
I'm still thinking about xebra's Stone of Jordan question, and here's what I've gotten so far: 40 (inventory) + 48 (stash) + 12 (cube which is in the cursor) + 2 (fingers). That would make it 102 per character, however according to xebra you can store 840 SoJs on one account, which would make it 105 per char.
For the life of me I cannot think of 3 more slots. I have also talked this over with my friends but we are all equally baffled. I'm going away for a few days now and I'll keep thinking about it. If I still can't solve it you're going to have to reveal the answer. Unless you want to be responsible for me being sent to a mental hospital, that is.
EDIT: Oh and you can store 2 more if you put them on and get killed, right? Then they would be on your corpse. Thanks to blip for this one :)
I'm still thinking about xebra's Stone of Jordan question ... I'm going away for a few days now and I'll keep thinking about it. If I still can't solve it you're going to have to reveal the answer.
Sorry to burst your bubble but since no one could figure it out, I posted the answer in this very thread 11 days ago, it's on page 4. Mental breakdown averted?
Also, you should know, your partial solution is absolutely incorrect and has a fatal flaw. How are you going to fill the four empty spaces in your inventory after you float the cube in your cursor? If you don't know, you cannot drop the Cube, or else everything inside of it will come tumbling out.
Silly me for noticing your explanation.
xebra wrote:
Also, you should know, your partial solution is absolutely incorrect and has a fatal flaw. How are you going to fill the four empty spaces in your inventory after you float the cube in your cursor? If you don't know, you cannot drop the Cube, or else everything inside of it will come tumbling out.
This can be done manually, using a third party program.
I don't know of a third party program that can do this, and it doesn't make sense that it is possible from a game design standpoint.
Additionally it is ... foolish? childish? stupid? ... to assume that because it wasn't said explicitly that you may not cheat (by using a third party program and violating the D2 TOS) that you may do so.
In Shadowrun (Genesis) name the group that prevents you from getting a "game over" for the majority of the game. For bonus points, how much do they take off your credstick?
That would be the DocWagon, which, no matter if you're on the street, high up in a office building, or deep in the wilderness, manages to arrive "within seconds, guns blazing", to pull your fat out of the fire and drop you off at Seattle General. I believe the fee is 10% to 15% of your total account.
(You forgot to ask what happens if you "die" in the Barrens at the beginning of the game--someone drags you into Little Chiba.)
(Edit: Oooh, forgot the replacement question!)
In Shadowrun (Genesis) name the group that prevents you from getting a "game over" for the majority of the game. For bonus points, how much do they take off your credstick?
