CyclonatorZ

I must have not been bitten by the hat bug, because they're kinda low on the list of reasons I love Team Fortress. Shocking, right?

Fact: the number one cause of Tarakava extinction is Teal Bionicle MOCing.

We just went through this with one of our cats... or at least we thought we did, until my little brother found him cowering under the sofa from the noisy monsters in the attic (aka: my dad fixing the bathroom light).

Some forecasters are saying Sandy could make Katrina look positively wimpy in comparison, so yeah, it's not really surprising classes are canceled everywhere.

The fact that we have about a hundred bazillion emoticons that are arranged in absolutely no sensible order. Seriously, I don't remember it being nearly this bad on the old site, and since the transition I've almost completely stopped using them. You would at least think the first few emoticons listed (and thus the ones that appear below the text box along with the "show all" button) would be a variety of the more commonly used smileys. Instead, I'm greeted mainly with a collection of random kanohi masks.

Three words: Split screen multiplayer.

At least searches don't appear to be biased in favor of Microsoft anymore. I seem to recall that in the early days of Bing, searching for "Nintendo/Sony/Macintosh (insert product here)" would bring up a competing Microsoft product instead.

Alright, so it's a cruddy photo of a somewhat underwhelming MOC. But I still would say a piece with a technic hole is more useful than a piece without any connection points whatsoever.

I have no idea, because I had never even heard until now that the sets were repurposed. Now that you mention it though, it explains why the Kiril was used to represent the Pehkui instead of a brand new mold.

For the record, it's not my image, although I agree with it. The worst thing about this mold was that it used a unique connection on the inside, which along with its awkward shape makes it one of ther last pieces one would ever think to use in a MOC. Even Galidor parts are more useful, as the image's creator can attest, and at least the more recent giant creature parts use standard technic connection points.

I'd like to nominate this abomination:

It isn't really relevant to me. As I said, for as long as I've played video games, I've played them on non-HD video games on non-HD TV's, and thus screen resolution and polygon smoothness matter very little to me. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Yes. There is a reason FPS's that appear on the PS3 or X-Box 360 and also on the PC almost always have unconnected multiplayer modes: in cases where companies have allowed the two userbases to play matches together on their respective platforms, PC users generally dominate, for the simple reason that accurate aiming is much easier with a mouse and keyboard. It is also much harder to move rapidly and shoot with dual analogs, which is why camping is much more prevalent on consoles than on PC. The only exception thus far appears to be the Wii: I've read, for instance, that the Wii exclusive versions of Call of Duty, while having much smaller player bases than those on Xbox and Playstation, generally also featured matches with far less camping and far more fast-paced moving and shooting. The Wii U will likely be similar in this regard, and possibly better, providing that what I mentioned in my previous post becomes true.

What I mean is that many games released for HD systems like the X-Box 360 and PS3 still don't look nearly as good as some of the prettiest games on the Wii, for the simple reason that their artistic design is seriously lacking. For example, "Hardcore" shooters like Gears of War, Resistence, and Call of Duty, may have high polygon counts and smooth rendering, but they are (IMO) hopelessly bogged down in drab colors and unappealing enviroments. They certainly don't hold a candle to Retro Studios' amazingly envisioned worlds in the Metroid Prime series. Yes, great games can look even better in High Definition, but the difference the HD and non-HD isn't so large that it matters to me as much as you say it matters, providing that the art style is already fantastic. Personall, I think the only reason this is true is because so many of the popular multiplayer shooters this generation have been on systems that only support dual-analogue. That, actually, is probably is one of the biggest reasons why Wii U could be a game changer. Now that Nintendo has some of the big shooters like Call of Duty and Aliens: Colonial Marines coming to its new console, with graphics identical to the versions on competing systems, all could take is the realization that the Wii U versions control better and more accurately for otherwise uninterested "hardcore" gamers to invest. Now, I realize many gamers will still stick with Playstation and X-Box, especially if they are the type whose playstyle revolves around camping, auto-sniping, etc. ("techniques" that have long dominated dual-analog multiplayer, especially when compared to mouse and keyboard multiplayer). But if done right, the Wii U versions could carve a big enough chink in the other consoles' fanbase that even more hardcore-popular companies will start releasing their games on Nintendo's console.

Regarding the Wii's supposed lack of good games, it is true that from a third party perspective, the console did suffer. But the Wii was probably the best Nintendo console for first party games in quite a while. Off the top of my head: Donkey Kong Country Returns, two Kirby sidescroolers, Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Prime Trilogy (and even Other M, if you're the kind that likes that kind of game), Punch-Out, Excite Truck and Excite Bots, Batallion Wars 2, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and most recently, Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story. And that's without mentioning some of the great third-party titles that have slipped into obscurity (often because of low sales): No More Heroes 1 and 2, Boom Blox, Madworld, Red Steel 2, Monster Hunter Tri, De Blob, the Trauma Center series, Golden Eye 007, Little King's Story, etc. You may not like all these games, and not all of them deserve exceedingly high scores, but to say that the Nintendo Wii had almost nothing to play is positively ridiculous.Now, with the Wii U, this doesn't seem to be the case right now, at least with first party games. All we have so far is New Super Mario Brothers U, Pikmin 3, Nintendo Land, and Game and Wario. But there are also a surprising amount of second and third party exclusives that look excellent, IMO: The Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, ZombiU, Scribblenauts Ulimited, and even Lego City Stories. Add that to the new Monster Hunter game, and Retro Studios and EAD's secret projects, and it's clear to me that the Wii U is not nearly as devoid of games as people say it is. No, what is really insulting is that you're saying this without even considering whether people may even be able to afford an HDTV. Not everyone is made of money - and for that matter, not everyone feels that HD is necessary for full enjoyment of entertainment. I've played video games on outdated TV's for years, and never have I ever felt that I was missing out on something because the polygons were slightly jagged. Games like Metroid Prime and Super Mario Galaxy look good because of their art style, not because of definition, and there are many HD games that look far worse becuase of severe aesthetic defficiencies. Couldn't agree more regarding Dual analogs. I have never been able to really enjoy shooters on the PS3 or Xbox because of that type of control. Metroid Prime 3 was the first first-person console game I liked precisely because the Wii remote pointer controls actually felt natural. Heck, though it was otherwise average, I even enjoyed the Conduit because the controls were so great. And I expect that the Wii U controller will feel natural as well.

2, because Lego Alpha Team is my favorite Lego video game of the pre-Traveler's Tales era.

Exo Force was the first system theme I started collecting since TLC's Dark Age's ended, during which I was mostly collecting Bionicle. It still is one of my favorites, both for being the first official Mecha theme and for giving me quite a few useful pieces to work with. Unfortunately, the story wasn't nearly as good as Bionicle's, though there were some cool moments, and the 2007 wave (especially the summer) was somewhat lackluster. The initial wave was and is still awesome, though - it still amazes me how big Striking Venom was for its $50 dollar price. Heck, Lego in general was priced very nicely during that era, especially compared to today.Oh, and I can't forget all the fun I had reading one of the best BZP comedies ever: NNH's Exo-Farce. If you are a fan of Exo-Force and haven't checked it out, I suggest you search for it on the forum archives. It starts out a little slow, but once it gets going it just keeps getting crazier and more hilarious.

Just want to point out that Neoshifters are not what classify as a bootleg, as they were (at most) very loosely inspired by Bionicle and did not copy any of TLC's designs. There is a big diference between a clone brand and a knockoff, hard as it is for some people to understand.

The biggest problem I had with 2005 was how the timeline was handled. As in, there was no straight timeline, period. Between the comics, the books, the online flash videos, and the movie, there was no way of knowing the order in which all the various events unfolded. Worse, some plotlines were left unfinished - we never saw, for example the Toa doing anything with the Visorak Tower they reclaimed at the end of Bionicle Adventures #10, and we never saw just how Turaga Dume was rescued. This kind of confusion was understandable for 2001, when Bionicle was just begining to establish its world and had yet to establish a solid canon, but it was inexcusable for 2005, especially after how well the previous year was handled.That said, the books released that year were all great, and even though the Hordika sets themselves were a bust, I liked the whole "Call of the Wild" concept. And although the spinners were easily the worst launcher outside of the Barakki squid shooters, the whole idea of mutated elemental powers was quite neat. Overall, I'd say 2005 was full of great ideas that were altogether not handled as well as they could have been.

Well, considering all the deeper deviations from the official Bionicle universe Bonesiii has been hinting at (most notably, the revelation of Teridax's "True Plan" not being the canon Teridax's ultimate Plan), I think it's safe to say he has something much different and potentially bigger in store for the Paracosmos finale. Depending on who you ask, you might merely assume that he is using male pronouns by default because BE has no confirmed gender yet. I realize there's a lot of disagreement and controversy about this, but considering that there are very few gender-neutral pronouns in the english language (and none that can be used as easily as "he" or "she" without sounding awkward), some writers chose to use male pronouns when writing about such characters.

Since I only became a Valve fan a couple years ago, I haven't been waiting for Black Mesa nearly as long as everyone else. And since I've never played the original Half Life, there's no chance in Xen I'm not downloading this as soon as it comes out.

It's funny you say it that way, because from the begining, I had assumed that was always your intention. :PAnyway, I just read chapter 45, and boy was I excited to finally see my final Blue MOCs winner featured. And only just now, after glancing back at the contrest entry photo, did I realize that it obscured the shoulder spike on one of the arms. Ah well, the asymetricality makes her more interesting in writing anyway. Also, I'm not sure if I have said this before or if it is true, but it occurs to me that sadly, I may be the only contest winner who survived the BZP downtime and is actually commenting on the resulting epic.

I'm curious - how much control do the BZP admins have over the advertisements that appear between the site banner and the forums? The reason I'm asking this is that for the last couple of months, the quality has been pretty abysmal. For a while it was just one repeated ad for a lingerie company, and now its almost always one featuring ladies who "don't like young men." I've noticed the same problem and even the same ads on some of the other sites I visit, and I've verified that it has nothing to do with my personal cookies.

Honestly, we should have all seen this coming. It had been a good while since the last staff name gag, and since each suceeding one was crazier than the last, it was only a matter of time before the staff reached critical mass and threw any logic out the window. :rolleyes:You gotta love how far the secret stomachache message has come, though. That sad little spammer (who in the approximately eight-bazillion years since his fateful debut has hopefully gone on to a meangingful, happy life) probably has no idea how much influence he continues to wield upon the BZP masses.

One thing I'll mention is that it seems the variety of games has declined, if not the actual quality. One of the most glaring ommisions from current offerings is the "interactive narrative" game type that were very common between 2001 and 2003. Examples of these include the Adventurers "Curse of the Mummy" (as well as a sequel whose name I can't remember), the Alpha team games for the first two waves, and the Lego Island adventures. We have not had a game like these for any theme in quite a while, as TLC has gradually de-emphasized story in favor of pure gameplay.

Um, aren't we forgetting something here? Like, say, the little matter involving the Red Star, a not-so-dead Marvah, and an actual explanation for the multiple resurections during the climax of Mask Of Light?