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compiled from two separate entries on my BZP Blog So a while ago Lucina put up this excellent blog entry about a tantalizing piece of dialogue that we got from Makuta in Mask of Light, that never really went anywhere. It's a nice little piece of "what if" to consider, but ultimately the existence of the dialogue could be fairly well explained as another example of all of the weird nonsense that was going on at the end of Mask of Light. "We'll awaken Mata Nui, except we won't!" "All of the island's inhabitants must gather at the Kini-Nui and then come underground, except not really!" etc. Or at least, that's what I thought until Torsti put up the ISOs for the CDs in his BIONICLE Style Guide. There is an extremely interesting note made in the introduction: Quote Now, try to rectify that with the "bwahaha I will put Mata Nui to sleep and take over the world because I'm evil" Makuta we got. It's impossible. There is simply no way to cover both with one character. So I'm going to put forth a theory: it would seem that up to and through 2003, Makuta had a legitimate and potentially very interesting motivation for plaguing the islanders. By the point Legends of Metru Nui came out in 2004, the story team had rewritten him to be a more "kid-friendly" villain fitting into a black-and-white paradigm. But that leaves us to wonder what Makuta's original motivation was. The line from MoL explains why he is doing what he is doing, at least (he believes that Mata Nui's reawakening will cause him pain, and so he does his best to prevent the people trying to awaken him from achieving their goal). But then why does he believe that Mata Nui's reawakening will be to his detriment? Why did he send him to sleep in the first place? A lot of what Makuta says in Mask of Light gets obfuscated by his demeanor. He has a deep, rumbling voice, an oily, patched-together appearance, and he hangs out in a cave filled with thick green smoke and pillars holding creatures in stasis. On top of it all, he is very clearly the designated villain in what is a kiddy, direct-to-video film made to sell toys. Literally everything sets our expectations to "he is a bad guy," and we don't question it. But look beyond this external layer, and we find something rather different through a few curious hints. It begins in Makuta's first appearance. Before he releases the Rahkshi, he contemplates, I'm not sure how to frame this in any way other than as remorse at the idea of what he is about to do. So what convinces him? It comes back to Mata Nui. Makuta will do whatever it takes to ensure his brother remains asleep. This isn't a ruthless, power-hungry maniac bent on world domination - if that were the case, he would have no qualms with unleashing the Rahkshi. So the Rahkshi set out and start to terrorize the island, and Makuta sits back and observes. But something goes wrong - Kopaka manages to freeze the beasts within a lake, incapacitating them. Makuta can no longer rely on the fact that his sons will halt the coming of the seventh Toa, so he goes to plan B. Even though Takua himself doesn't know it yet, Makuta knows that the Matoran is right smack in the center of this matter. So he makes him an offer: If you stand down, give me the Avohkii so that Mata Nui can never be awakened, I will leave you alone. Your friends, the entire island, will be free from my grasp. Takua, like us viewers, don't think twice about calling Mukau droppings on him. Yeah, right. If you give the McGuffin to the bad guy, he'll let you off scotch free. That's likely. But what happens after Takua departs, when Makuta is left to himself, with noone listening? What does he say? Unless Makuta is in the habit of lying through his teeth to himself for no reason, his offer was absolutely genuine. With his last resort, the Rahkshi, evidently unable to stand up to the Toa Nuva, his hand was forced and he tried the next best thing to victory: ensuring that his brother could, at least, remain asleep and be spared the pain of conciousness. But Takua has none of it, so he does the next best thing: more Rahkshi. So by now, you may be asking: why? Why are all of these hints dropped in Mask of Light, of all places? What about the myriad of other story media leading up to it, why isn't it hinted at in any of it, too? For the answer, we have to dig a little into the past. If you are a longtime fan, then you might recall the earliest press releases for Mask of Light in 2002. They had familiar elements: two friends on a quest, the fate of the island at stake. But something else was mentioned in these synopses meant to strip the story to its absolute core: the island is crumbling into the ocean. Obviously, this plot element does not survive into the final film. And with good reason, because it ties into another major element of the film that was canned: the awakening of Mata Nui. Throughout the conclusion, wierd things keep happening. Everyone insists that they are descending into the Mangaia to awaken the Great Spirit, only for the matter to be forgotten once they literally do something that is supposed to awaken him. Takanuva instructs for all of the island's inhabitants to be gathered, and later brought underground, but we only get the Turaga (in the novelization, the island's population does in fact show up). This all makes sense only in the context of a film where Mata Nui does awaken; the islanders would need to be safely underground before Mata Nui could stand up and destroy the island. This explains the early island-crumbling plot. In the days before his awakening, Mata Nui is stirring, rocking the island and breaking chunks of it off. Incidentally this explains a scene that does make it to the final film: Jaller and Takua's reuniting. Jaller ends up vulnerable thanks to an earthquake, which you don't really question until you look at is specifically. An earthquake? Natural disasters like that never happen on Mata Nui outside that instance. Its a really weird anomaly in the mythos that seems solely an excuse to have Jaller mistake Takua for an approaching Rahkshi until you consider that it was originally part of a very relevant, ongoing series of quakes on the island. That also explains Jaller's wry response to the event - earthquakes were common. Otherwise, he might have been expected to be more "wow! an earthquake!" like Vakama in the Kikanalo scene in LOMN. So that's why we get all of these hints dropped regarding Makuta's true nature. Originally, Mask of Light was the BIONICLE finale, and the climax was to be the revelation of Makuta's true nature. Eventually, Takanuva is born and travels to the Mangaia. Makuta's last ditch resort is to keep his cool and challenge Takanuva for his mask, as without the Toa of Light Mata Nui cannot be awakened. This, too fails, and we get to that all-important dialogue first highlighted by Lucina: Naturally, Takanuva reacts with shock, confusion and denial. And then Makuta responds with what seems like a really strange non-sequiter. But despite how little sense it makes, it has a powerful effect on Takanuva. Suddenly, he is confident. He knows what to do. I feel like the implication here is that Makuta's badness is somehow tied to his mask (the 'real' him is 'behind' it). Takutanuva isn't, in reality, all that important in the final movie. He lifts the gate for everyone. But if, say, Makuta had been incapacitated, it seems entirely within reason that the Toa Nuva could've opened it themselves somehow. But in our supposed original version of the film, Takutanuva is all-important. He is the merged conciousness of Takanuva and Makuta. Suddenly, both understand each other, and they know what must be done to set things right. Cue the awakening of Mata Nui. Fin. So there you have it. What Mask of Light could have been.

I have another video, demoing a resolution patch and showing off that finally, all the panels have beem moved! As you can see, the message panel is now completely hidden. Don't worry about notifications, they appear in the left notifications.

[7:50 PM] Triangle717: If I bought a Mac, would that be called getting a new PC too? [7:53 PM] Alcom Isst: No, that would be called "why are you getting a Mac?".

Another game, another batch. Players: Someswedish and Ben24x7 The (Not so) wonderful things about winter Little bookshop of idiots Rock Raiders as amateur detective's L.M.Rage Explorers If dinosaurs DIDN'T go extinct Crude versions of our avatars King of the chickens King Potatoes castle

Bit of a side-step, this, but I figured out what the two GCB files are. They are essentially GDB-packs, and contain all the character parts. One is for the races, one is for the front-end. I switched the two files around, and voila! Here are some of the level select screens: Sadly, Royal Kings crown doesn't fare very well: Also, the high-poly models seem a bit more stiff. Cheers!

I'm sorry, but it just bugs me when people repeatedly quote the Infomaniac's intro speech incorrectly... Here's what it should be (Punctuation may not be right, but the words are...): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOUetK_8H6kSkip to 2:06 But you probably already knew that. In fact, I know you do! So why am I telling you!? Alternate ending to this post:

Thanks for your help, Cyrem!

That is a nice collection you got there. The exporter is pretty simple to use, you just open your save game, select the racer you want to export, click "Export Selected Racer" and save the file. This tool is so you can share a particular car build with other people, all they have to do is import your exported racer file.

GJ on the O2 bar

My aim is to recreate as many (old) minifigures in LEGO Racers. Right now I'm focusing on LEGO Space minifigures. This is what I already textured. Textures may look stretched at some times, due to the poses the minifigs take. Note that these textures may not be the final result. You can click on the images to enlarge them. Classic Space racers Blacktron racer Futuron racers M-Tron racer Space Police racer Blacktron Future Generation racer Space Police II racers Ice Planet 2002 racers (extra) Spyrius racers Unitron racers Exploriens racers Roboforce racers UFO racers Insectoids racers Texture Packs

I'm happy to announce that when Cafeteria 0.9 drop it will have it be the first LRR mod loader. No wad extraction nessesary, no messing with CFG's, just add cafeteria, put a few mods in your mod folder and run the game... A demo, showing first running a fresh install, then adding cafeteria + mods + custom level for the slot

In regards to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feMjp0fSk80 PeabodySam: Looking through the comments... be prepared for something around 31:20. jamesster: "I noticed that Bob was confused about something, so I turned around and, much to my surprise," jamesster: *chicken gives birth to egg that must be the size of a watermelon* PeabodySam: what PeabodySam: im laughing for real right now PeabodySam: oh god i need to see this jamesster: he just explodes in this high pitched cackling laughter jamesster: they're all dying jamesster: peabodysam jamesster: you have killed several people PeabodySam: Well then. PeabodySam: Nice knowing you. PeabodySam: Sorry, but I just remembered I have somewhere to go. PeabodySam: I think it's called "Hell". PeabodySam: You'll just have to let yourself out. PeabodySam: Toodle-loo! jamesster: haha jamesster: skipped to the end where they gave their reviews jamesster: they loved it PeabodySam: Sweet. jamesster: they just said it needed more blood and leonardo decaprio PeabodySam: That's good constructive criticism, I'll take it to heart.

Morbidly Obese Cardboard Corps [ew. Just ew.] Fatal Animal Fighter [Yeah! Fatality on the elk! Seriously sounds like something Capcom should have made.] Australian Chess Girl [oddly specific. Maybe it's chess interspersed with rabid platypuses and bird-eating spiders?] Ninja Banana Dystopia [This time, the ninjas haven't just taken President Ronnie. They've taken all our bananas. Now society has collapsed. ARE YOU BAD ENOUGH TO SAVE OUR BANANAS?] Obsessive-Compulsive Ping Pong Farmer [Farmville with simultaneously more and less reality added] Incomprehensible Werewolf Saga [probably some sort of "visual novel" for tweenage girls.] Creepy Square Dancing Babies [so much for sleeping tonight. *shiver*] Stoic Rugby Anarchy ["Senaca and Zeno start a ruck, but everything collapses into chaos!"] Wild West Manlove Saga [Just because The Dark Knight did well doesn't mean you should make a video game of every Heath Ledger movie] Neon Hillbilly in the Bayou [Fighting for the Southern Cause... with colors! Also includes revolutionary banjo based combat system. You need to catch the twang to defeat those yanks!] Holy Badminton Conundrum [Presumably a Batman game. Not too dark and gritty. After all, it has robin in it. Presumably, the full quote is "Holy badminton conundrum, Batman!"] Allied Ostrich Crusade [An Alternate History game where D-day was carried out by the Anglo-American Ostrich Cavalries. That or it's a game about Crusaders allying with Ostriches to take Jerusalem. Either way, I want that game.] Custom Breakdancing Odyssey ["Sing in muse muse, of the man of many moves..." Also known, as Iliad 2: Electric Boogaloo" Cosmic Croquet Warfare Nudist Lego - 3rd Strike [No. Just no.] Star Trek Banjo Romance [When a well established franchise tries to reach out to fringe audiences, madness ensues.]

New Version 0.8! Ok so it's been a while since the last version and I've had to come back and regather where I was, so I'm a little unsure about 0.8. Changes: - You can now start in Windowed mode ( requires your display still be 16bit) - Cafeteria should request Admin privileges on start, this is to avoid rights problems. - Debug param setting was removed because I found it doesn't work ATM with windowed mode on some computers. (You can still do this VIA CFG) - "No Menu Animations" does what it means now. - Added No FLIC Animation param. - Removed copy protected/not copy protected switch, I hopefully don't need this anymore. - Removed 'Apply Res Only' button, not really needed if the next point works as intended. - Cafeteria will wait until the Mode Selection screen appears before applying resolution instead of guessing, this should mean the window may only appear for a moment now instead of a few seconds. Download in OP. Hopefully it works.

A couple other points of interest. I love this game so much. :3

(Merdon = IcePlanetAstro) 7:04 PM - Merdon: Jamesster 7:04 PM - Merdon: i just 7:05 PM - Merdon: found something great 7:05 PM - jamesster: what 7:05 PM - Merdon: the MIPs are just renamed tgas 7:05 PM - jamesster: but I ran them through hyperripper and it whs kjbadwhat 7:05 PM - Merdon: but the palette is bad 7:06 PM - Merdon: so they can be loaded in paint when changed to .tga 7:07 PM - jamesster: ok I can see the texture sorta but what's with these colors 7:07 PM - jamesster: seriously what 7:07 PM - Merdon: they are all green n s*** 7:07 PM - jamesster: for me they're black, red, blue, and green 7:28 PM - jamesster: YES 7:28 PM - jamesster: AHAHA 7:28 PM - Merdon: uh 7:29 PM - jamesster: uncompressed TGA files can be renamed to MIP and the game loads them perfectly 7:29 PM - Merdon: you beat me to it 7:29 PM - jamesster: uncompressed, though - compression screws stuff up 7:29 PM - Merdon: mainly because i can't repack the gtc