Leaderboard

Normally a post like this would be deleted, but in this topic, coming from you, it's hilarious. I'm keeping it.

This isn't a proper review or anything special; just a summation of thoughts about 35 hours of gameplay. I 100%'d LEGO Lord of the Rings today. I plan on doing similar for all of the Traveler's Tales games in a kind of morbid, painful adventure. As much as I hate the repetitive nature, there's things about the formula that appeal to me, such as the stories/licenses, the colours and the kind of mix-and-match gameplay that sporadically appears. I like Lord of the Rings, which is why I decided to play it first. Prior to this, my previous TT Game's experiences were LEGO Movie, Indiana Jones 2 and then the three Star Wars games. If it's not clear; this was really my first full experience of an open-world(-ish) TT Game. I can't be sure when they started, but I know that there were still things that weren't exactly right; the lack of a minimap, certain gates and doors remaining locked half the time you spawn in, a wide variety of clipping issues...but honestly, it was actually kind of fun to walk around Middle-Earth. Looking at the map, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a pain to get around (especially since you can't spawn in vehicles), but it's actually a lot smaller than it looks, which is good for easing in movement. The "parkour" challenges were made awful thanks to a unique bug that has spawned thanks to a prominent feature in this game; there's a "character wheel" which means that you can have a party of 9 or more characters at one time, and you can select which you want to play as (or in Free-Play mode you can also get the full character selector). That was actually really handy; what wasn't so handy was the fact that the game has a lot of trouble discerning between when I want to swap between 1P and 2P, and when I want to open the character wheel, since they're both tied to the same button. Many times, I would be at the top of a parkour challenge and needed to make a final swap to another character with a specific ability, when suddenly the game would pull the rug out from under my feet and switch me to 2P. 1P would then jump down to the ground, and I'd lose all progress. There were also weird instances where, upon selecting a free-play character, instead of just setting 1P to that character, the game would switch me to 2P and then switch my character. I can't even fathom how that works logically. There was a lot of bollocking in this game. The game is WAY too happy to steal the camera and point out the bloody obvious (I'm pretty sure even the kids the game is aimed at know what the f**** was happening and don't need it shoved into their faces for 20 seconds). Thankfully, it seems like the dynamic hints option wasn't as annoying as The LEGO Movie Videogame, but that might just be because I either tuned out. There's also a plethora of bugs; characters moving half-way across the map during QTEs, Gollum/Climbing characters moving into awkward positions if they touch a speck of dust while wall-climbing, items that can be collected multiple times (no benefit in doing so though), many AI pathfinding woes... Is it all just negative? Surprisingly, no. I nitpick because I really wanted to love this, and in the end I did kind of like it. The voice acting was just straight-ripped from the movies (aside from the Quest characters who were probably just people inside the studio), but at least it wasn't poor imitations. The animation work is almost flawlessly entertaining like always, and there's a lot of really satisfying polish (bits of vibration, camera shake, colour, sounds etc). While they did cut out some of the plotlines, they managed to keep the important stuff (and even add characters not from the movie; that's pretty damn good). The Bonus Level (and Sauron's attack) were very satisfying. Some sections of the game were actually really fun to play. Of course, it does get very tedious and repetitive at times. Certain sections edge along unfairly (such as any time you're requires to jump on the thin planks, thanks to poor invisible wall placement), and somebody was clearly taking the piss when they decided to keep doing that thing from LSW where you have minikits during the run-towards-the-camera sections (multiple times!). TT Games really haven't figured out the money problem, since the point at which you have more money than you actually need comes quite early in the game (especially if you get the red brick multipliers, which can total up to around x3800). There was also a substantial lack of fanfare for making the 100%, but I guess that's always been a bit of an issue. If I had more time or patience, I'd probably do a full review and breakdown of every bit of the game, but I wanted to give a kind of quick summary. I don't hate this one. Unlike LEGO Movie Videogame, it feels like this had a bit more time and a bit more love was put it into it. The problem is that Level Design clearly dropped the ball on many parts of the game, and while they get certain sections absolutely perfect, others they get terribly, terribly wrong. I figure that if they had just a few more months, a lot of the bugs and issues would have disappeared, and I'd be a bit more satisfied.

I leave town for ONE DAY and this is what happens. Kill me. /s

The thought process of the 12.5% of people who voted;

Track editor When the BMP format was finally cracked, I wanted to make a new GDB viewer that showed textures, and using WillKirkby's LibLR1 that wasn't too hard. But why not an editor? So here is my track editor! Current features: - View GDB files (3D objects), with textures. - View and edit SKB files (Skyboxes). - View and edit PWB files (Powerups). - View RRB files (AI paths). - View the static object part of WDB files. Planned: - Edit RRB files (AI paths) - (partially) View and edit WDB files (Static/animated objects). - View and edit startup positions and checkpoints Known bugs: - Dragging bricks acts weird from certain angles - Semi-transparent textures only work in native LR bitmaps, and are not yet depth-sorted. NOTE: You need to have XNA Framework 4.0 installed, otherwise the application will crash. Download: http://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/lego-racers-1/tools/track-editor-12-r59/ Current version: v1.2.0.365 New in this version: (full changelog included in download) Let me know what you think! Massive thanks to WillKirkby, for making LibLR1 and the original GDB_viewer and to Sluicer for helping with both GDB and BMP file formats.

As one can tell, flags work in mysterious ways.. and are the best items ever. LU certainly had some nice items.

I just purchased a sealed original Kopaka set for 10 bucks. I'm going to savor opening this. The outer layer on the canister has been removed, which I bet hurts resell value, so I'm just going to enjoy it since I'm probably never going to get another sealed Toa Mata set. I'm extra stoked because the Kopaka that survived my childhood is a little worse for wear.

Isn't it obvious?

All those years back my family would make the drive up to a bigger town every Sunday, to go to Barnes and Noble, get some drinks from the cafe, and read. And so every Sunday I'd head back to the children's section and search for the next BIONICLE novel. Usually I'd have to settle for something else, but those special days that the BIONICLE world expanded just a little were always my favorite. Today I don't really have the luxury of the serendipity of discovery like I did then. I knew Island of Lost Masks was coming long before it did, and I knew that I would be reading it the same day. I did make the attempt to stop by Barnes and Noble to pick up a physical copy, but they haven't got their shipment in yet. That's just how it goes, I guess. After 5 solid years of Farshtey its exciting to have a new author. If I'm being honest than Windham's writing history hasn't exactly inspired much confidence in me, but I've tried to go into this with as much of an open mind as I can. The first and probably most important thing that I want to bring up: I really, cannot thank Windham enough for maintaining consistency with the online episodes. I realize that for a lot of people that's probably a disappointment; a repeat of the same story content instead of something new. But I can't tell you enough how much I prefer that to the alternative that Greg (and Hapka)'s books opted with: making their own narrative at the expense of a coherent continuity. For example, Greg's depiction of this short differs fundamentally from the source material on enough points that he may as well have not referenced it at all. I get that he wants to do his own thing, but him doing his own thing at the expense of story coherence was really frustrating for me. Windham does not do this. He keeps true to what we've seen. And I deeply appreciate that. What is more, Windham does put forth the effort to make sure the characters are depicted consistent to their characterization in the episodes. We have a fumbling Kopaka too proud to admit his mistakes, a joke-cracking Lewa, an objective-driven Gali, and so forth. I didn't always feel his writing was quite up to the mark (Onua fumbling about Korgot being a girl got to be a little too verbose for him in my opinion), the effort is clearly there and, really, that's all that I expect of him as someone newly inducted into the BIONICLE mythos. The writing style is simple and straightforward, which is more or less to be expected from someone coming off of writing tens of Star Wars readers. It does the job well enough. I liked that some of the Protector's speech came across as more formal without being detached, echoing the style that MNOG often followed. Windham's got a nice sense of humor too, Greg's jokes never really hit me the right way but a few of Windham's original passages have genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. In general, I think it is a good start that has potential. The book doesn't strike nearly as hard as the online episodes, but then, it is an adaption - Windham is taking something that wasn't made for the novel medium and trying to get it to fit. I think the true test will come this winter with Revenge of the Skull Spiders, which, if the alignment of the stars hold true, will be an original story and Windham's first real chance to dig into the world and do things his own way. Before that though, he's got another BIONICLE writing debut coming up in the form of the first graphic novel - which is looking to be another retelling of the episodes. It will be interesting to see how Windham goes about attempting to breathe a unique life into them for a second time. He's certainly got his work set out for him.

I have condensed this experience into a 2D visualization:

What the title says. What character in the game would you most like to.... hold hands with? Be honest, I won't judge you* *I'll probably judge you a little also in case anyone took this serious I want to make it clear that this is a parody topic.

This is a project of mine of "remastering" the Game Boy Color version of the LEGO Island 2 soundtrack (which consists of different versions of the ones in the PC/PS1 port, and some exclusive ones.) PC/PS1 Ports: (x) LEGO Island Theme (x) Castle Island Theme (x) Adventurers Island Theme (_) OGEL Island Theme (_) Phanta Sea (PC Brick Dive) (x) Dark Forest (PC Whack-a-Bot) (_) Brickster Theme (PC Brickster's Palace) (_) Boss Battle (PC Mr. Hates Boss) Originals: (x) Title Screen (_) Cave(_) Jungle(_) New LEGO Island(_) Credits (x) Cards Menu [Soundcloud Link] (note: the songs don't loop, they only play once) As I make more of these I will update the thread. any comments?

Good entertainment.

You all know what I'm talking about. That logic defying enigma of the Adventurers theme, when Baron von Barron became Sam Sinister, and Sam Sinister vanished into the ether, his only subsequent appearances defaulting to his German name Slyboots. It's become more or less the punchline to the joke of the Baron's many names, which in itself was a symptom of LEGO's problem with leaving character names and specific story details up to each individual region at the time. It's tempting to chalk it up to some error on LEGO's part, but that's proven impossible thanks to ">this infuriatingly tantalizing MANIA Magazine page that bills the character "Sam Sinister (aka Baron von Barron). So the question is, why the heck did LEGO assign the name to another character? And why did that character later assume the dress of the original? I think I may have an answer. But first of all, to avoid things getting confusing really fast, I'm going to assign identifiers to each minifig that is pertinent to this discussion. This guy will heretofore be referred to as fig A, this guy is fig B and this guy is fig C. And now, for absolute clarity, here's a rundown of the known names that have been assigned to each figure: FIGURE A 1998: Baron von Barron, Evil Eye, Mr. Hates, Ulrich Unhand 2000: Sam Sinister, Sam Sanister, Alex Gluipstra FIGURE B 1998: Sam Sinister, Lizard Boots, Slyboots FIGURE C 2003: Lord Sam Sinister This theory hinges on one major assumption: That there was a massive miscommunication in 1998 regarding the identities of the Adventurers figures. I do not believe that this is too far-fetched - continuity and consistency were the furthest things from LEGO's minds at the point, and the names and personalities of figures were by and large only a small part of what they were doing - selling toys. Look at the awful confusion of Insectiods and UFO characters that we see all over the place - it is apparent that LEGO was not devoting too much energy to fig identity at the time. So what would this massive miscommunication be, then? It's comprised of a few parts. At the core of it, this theory assumes that in the original story treatment for Adventurers, Figure B is designated the 'big bad' while Figure A is designated his sidekick or hired help. This idea may seem unintuitive to us as fans long trained to think of Figure A as the definitive villain of Adventurers, but bear with me - this will make more sense as it goes along. In fact, we know with full certainty that the original US continuity did, in fact, have Figure B as the big bad - it just chose to shine more of the spotlight on Figure A anyway. Figure A is shown as the brutish and forward muscle of the team, with Figure B as the sneaky brains. This leads us to our first major proposition - the name Sam Sinister was always originally intended for Figure A, and the name Baron von Barron was originally reserved for Figure B. "Baron von Baron," while being distinctly tongue-in-cheek, is a name that carries overtones of dignity and aristocracy. In that regard, it is much more applicable to the tux-and-tophat clad Figure B, as opposed to Figure A, who is more rough-and-ready with proper desert gear. Now we turn our attention to the other continuities. The stories in the UK and Germany overlap almost entirely, with Figure A being the villain leader and Figure B being his hired help, a retired boxing champion. When was the last time someone said 'boxing champion' and you imagined a man in a tuxedo and spectacles? Contrast that with the powerful Figure A, with battle wounds and a silhouette made more powerful by bulking his shoulders with epaulettes. Figure A is also framed as the brute of the two in the US continuity. And so I propose that in the UK/Germany continuities, the names of Figure A and Figure B were not switched, but their identities were. If we go so far as to assume all of the above is true, things begin to fall into place. In 2000, with the advent of the Dino Island line, LEGO wants to bring back Figure A as the antagonist. Rather than pursue their now two-year-old blunder in naming him Baron von Barron, they use his proper, intended name and leave a note in MANIA magazine for any readers that might remember back to the 1998 issues. This ultimately creates a problem for third-party story developers like ATD when they worked on LEGO Racers - Figure B had had a name, but now it had been taken away from him. The solution, then, would be to look at other names that had been used for that figure and select one, (Slyboots). So a few years pass and LEGO gears up to reboot Adventurers as Orient Expedition. They want to bring back the original big bad, Figure B, as the antagonist, but they run into a problem: Figure A's presence in the Dino Island theme, and later the Johnny Thunder and the Adventurers animations in 2002, had solidified him as the definitive villain of the series. Bringing back Figure B wouldn't make sense to fans, especially considering the confusion with his name that would already have been apparent. So they compromised: use Figure A, but give him Figure B's garb to channel some of that energy. A nice idea on paper, maybe, but it's given people like us some serious headaches as we wonder what the heck is going on. And so the Sam Sinister switcheroo was complete, and two Sams became one.

This is an interesting theory, and one that makes a lot of sense. However, it does raise some questions. I think that "Baron von Barron" is actually a very fitting name for Figure A, and perhaps more fitting than if the names were switched: in addition to suggesting aristocracy (and that monocle sure seems aristocratic), it also could be a nod to the Red Baron, since Figure A was always the one flying the planes in the original desert line. In fact, there was a set that, in the USA, was called "Bi-Wing Baron." Of course, your theory is very probable--and rather unique in that it attempts to see what was going on behind the scenes. Most other theories I've seen are in-universe explanations--like mine, which posits that Baron Samuel von Barron somehow cheated Lord Sam Sinister out of his title and manor and assumed the styling of "Lord Sinister" for himself, since he is now lord of the Sinister estate. This fits in nicely with his MO of using and then ditching associates, etc. However, it's certainly nothing close to what Lego intended, so kudos to you for going more meta and reaching the most likely conclusion I've seen outside of "they just didn't care."

I am working on an update. Then it should be possible to export also the textures. But I do not know how noesis will react: I have updated the script in the first post!

Man, I tell you what. Getting Kopaka and popping that free CD into the computer. That changed my life. Probably a really stupid event to set as a pivot point, all things considered. But it was big. It was like a whole new world opening up for the first time. And I guess it was.

Yeah, the Star Citizen forum rubbed off on me a bit too much. Whenever there's a weird, mind-boggling thread like this on their forum, you end up seeing this person's face a lot.

didn't vote because the sexiest is actually my lego racers oc, truck driverette, who unlocks the truck driver cheat and is also a girl

I just...

That you exist baffles me, but I love you anyway <3

My reaction to everything in this thread.