What's on your mind?

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Be sure to back up your games often!
I haven't done it in a month, so I'm doing it right now.   

Too many of my friends have been getting their games corrupted lately, and I don't want to see it happen to you guys 

[Kain Nobel]

Ugh, I feel that way with most games these days, the whole "hallway" thing. Call of Duty seems guilty of this type of game play design, I think that's why they try to push multiplayer so hard. I don't know if Sniper Elite III had online, but as basic as that game was at least the level design was superb and gave plenty of options on how to get through areas. I don't know what it was about SE3, it was such a basic game, but it was executed very well with the various explosive trap tools and all.

Open world is nice, if the developers can provide it. Multiple paths and multiple ways to cut through an area should be a staple, something MGS5 : TPP did well. Making somebody go through a series of corridors with a bunch of barely distinguishable guns with different quirks... BORING. We're really bad at dynamic level design and strategic placement of enemies ready for multiple scenarios, but here, have some multiplayer maps! It's the best we can do folks...

Sorry, I don't mean to rant against COD but it's the first thing that came to mind. I've played 4 or 5 of 'em and finished the single player campaign in less than a day. The whole "capture the flag" and "you shoot me, I respawn, I shoot you, you respawn, rinse and repeat" cycle of online just isn't my cup of tea. As much as I like A.I. companions, I really don't want to follow a bunch of mindless automatons through most of the levels either. So I guess I'm not sorry about ranting against COD.

If somebody could make a hybrid of Sniper Elite III and Metal Gear Solid, mix in a little Syphon Filter, that would make an awesome game. Shooters are played out though; the further and further we go with 3D gaming technology, the more we turn everything into a shooting gallery. Watch Dogs II might as well take their bat and ball and go back home.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

With every sequel of Red Faction, I feel more and more disappointed in the series as a whole. I think it may be rant time.

The original game was INCREDIBLE, with cool Geo-mod technology so you could break through walls and stuff. Funnest part of the original Red Faction.
They changed Geo-mod in the next game to only apply to building structures and such, and the following game, Geo-mod was changed to be buildings where they have a more realistic falldown when you destroy parts of it, and to vehicles they added in. Fine. 
Then for Apocalypse they changed it to be only buildings, but the weapons are so destructive, pretty much everything is obliterated. And since you need to walk through those hallway areas, they gave you the Nano Forge to fix everything you broke with your million blaster weapons that you rapid-fire everywhere.
Geo-mod was destroyed and changed to nowhere near resemble the original game, despite Apocalypse's claims that Geo-mod "Applies to everything".
NOT THE WALLS, NOT THE MINES, NOT ANYTHING BUT THE BUILDINGS, BUB. STOP FALSE ADVERTISING TO ME AND GIMME MY TUNNELING BACK!

Okay fine, so let's move on to the music.
The original game's music was INCREDIBLE, giving you in every situation a great feeling. The music allowed you to enjoy the game even more, as you locked-on your rocket launcher to one guy and watched him try to dodge to no avail. (Ha, I'm such a bad person... in video games!)
The next game's music wasn't up to par, but wasn't TOO bad.
Red Faction Guerrilla's music was pretty meh, in the few times they cared to give music...
Red Faction Apocalypse's music was basically them admitting they weren't even trying anymore. It was so uninspired, so BORING, so... lackluster, so dull. They tried to nab a riff from the original game for nostalgia's sake, but the riff starts the single song off, then it goes into "Let's put the player to sleep" mode, where it doesn't even loop that riff anymore.
EITHER YOU'RE TRYING OR YOU'RE NOT, GUYS. COME ON.

Okay, well the music was off. So what? What about the story then?
Okay, LET'S GET INTO THE STORY.
The original Red Faction storyline was AMAZING. A miner on Mars looking to survive from the oppressive Ultor, who knew of a plague that was killing miners, and did nothing to stop it. Miners were dying, and they got tired of it, so they rose up from the grassroots. One miner in particular (Parker) goes through the mines, trying to find a way off the planet to Earth, away from Mars and Ultor. 
Red Faction 2 kinda rode off the success of the first, taking place 5 years after the original, and made the enemy a... dictator. That's alright, I guess. There were some twists and turns with the story, but the EDF is fully established here.
Parker? Who's Parker? A driver robot? I don't understand--
RED FACTION GUERRILLA. Let's get one thing straight: This story had SO MUCH POTENTIAL.
The EDF are now the enemies, 50 years after Red Faction 2. They've become what Ultor was, completely uncaring towards the people of Mars, especially the Miners. Okay, seems a little forced, but whatever. Bad guys now being the good guys is a decent twist... maybe. I mean, it's only been done thousands of times...
ANYWAY, there were a lot of great twists in this game, but the Nano Forge was just laying around in some old Ultor ruins, and turns out to be the most important thing you could ever get in video game history. (Kinda)
The Marauders and their role was interesting, but I wish they did more with the connections to the original game. You hear voices talking to Parker in the ruins at one point....... and that's it. Oh yeah, and places on Mars were named after the original Red Faction leaders, with the EDF headquarters named after the creator of the Red Faction. Is that all you're gonna give me? Fine...
RED FACTION APOCALYPSE'S STORY WAS SOOO BAAAAAAD.
Some random "Cultists" are trying to take Mars, while the somehow-established Red Faction try to defend. Cultists destroy the terraformer that gave the planet air and stopped the Mars storms, etc... Monsters are added in, because Syfy Games wanted monsters and the writers couldn't think of anything... you find out what the plague is, and the way the game ends is just ridiculous. The whole game plays out like a Syfy channel movie, and it might as well have been one, with how short the game was! 

Here's a quick synopsis of Apocalypse, obviously having spoilers: Terraformer is gone, forcing everyone into the old Ultor mines, hero's boob-displaying ex girlfriend is around with obvious love tension, dude gets tricked by the bad guys into unsealing the monsters from beneath the planet, people keep dying, people blame the hero and rise up against him, chase scene ensues, people die, hero gets the girl, the girl dies, hero gets mad at monsters for killing her and moves on to fight the Queen, Queen gets rekt but doesn't die completely, Ex Machina tentacles come out of the ground to lead him straight to the Terraformer, he brings back the Terraformer, the air from the Terraformer kills the monsters. The End.
That's about 8-10 hours of gameplay at best. (I did it in 8, and I took my time...)

Okay, FINE, so I didn't like the story. But what about the way the maps progress? Surely they're better with time?
The original was a bit linear, but always had multiple paths to go through, and it didn't feel linear at all. There were so many twists and turns, that even though you knew there was one way to go, you found yourself checking out all of the rooms on the side, destroying walls for possible secrets, etc.
It was done very well, and the Geo-mod really helped with the fun. (And the hilariously overdone screams when people die.... IT'S A VIDEO GAME, OKAY? I CAN LAUGH AT THESE JERKS IF I WANNA!)
Red Faction 2 didn't do so much with the map progression. You're not in the mines, you're in a city, so it has a different feel to it. Alrighty, so... the game stayed a it linear, taking away some of the fun Geo-mod stuff that made the original's progression funner.
Red Faction Guerrilla? It was OPEN-WORLD! If you went out of the areas you're supposed to be, you'll get chased by the EDF a la Grand Theft Auto until you went back to a safehouse. Personally, I thought the progression was pretty great. You went to every area in good time, with missions that were unique to each. The Marauders chasing you down was a great touch... Also, destroying things got you Salvage, which was used for upgrades and weapons, giving you a REASON to shoot that nuking weapon at that building, and not just for fun.
RED FACTION APOCALYPSE WAS SO LINEAR, AND YOU COULDN'T DO A THING.
Okay. You're trapped in the mines with a giant maul and explosive weapons... but you can't destroy any of the wall? And you're gonna make the progression "One room to the other to the hallway to the next room"?
No. 

I'd rant more, but this thing is lagging like crazy as I type this for some reason, so I'm done.   


TLDR; THE RED FACTION SERIES TOOK A BAD TURN AFTER THE ORIGINAL, AND NEVER GOT BETTER, ONLY WORSE.

[kyonides]

I don't even try to understand why people in Europe, China and sometimes even in the United States would care about reading some stories I posted about 7 to 10 years ago on a website, especially if they're all in Spanish and the only one I ever posted in English was removed long time ago. Nope, I haven´t posted my poems anywhere, just a few verses here and there.

Oh and I forgot to mention I kept writing poems, there's a long one handling stuff like my thoughts on modern day jobs. The rest of my verses are related to some girl...

@Siletrea
Child classes can be like puppies sometimes because a dog's puppies would inherit its traits, but at the same time child classes can be like a job specialty like the mother being a general doctor without a specialty and the daughters being a shrink or a surgeon.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Netz is cool, Netz is awesome.
Netz....



So anyway, I can finally get back into Youtube. I feel awesome, LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!
YEAH!

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Already got some videos edited up and ready to post! Productivity~   

Anyway, it bothers me how vague political commentators and pundits are on TV, yet they get paid so much for their Not-So-Expert opinions.
Example:

Pundit: "Candidate A will destroy this country!"
Interviewer: "How?"
Pundit: "With their reckless policies!"
Interviewer: "Okay, thanks. NEXT UP, MORE CANDIDATE A BASHING."

It's all day long non-stop, with the same buffoons saying the same vague things and getting paid big money just to show up. 

[Python Blue]

Sorry for my long hiatus, first of all.

It's been a pretty stressful time for me, especially as of late. I've officially felt it best to give up appealing to pop charts and music blogs because I've been excessively stressed over my statistics and how lacking practically all of them are.

This is not to say I'm giving up music completely, however: I'm still willing to consider soundtrack work, hence, my return to here. Thanks, Dervvulfman, for your patience and willingness to talk to me.

That's all on my mind right now.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Glad you're here, Python-sama! Your music is great, hope to hear more!   


Okay, what's on my mind?
Well...

BLUE RIDGE!   

Hahaha, they did great once again. I was having random interruptions with the digital service, so I had a technician come around. 
They came in between the timeframe (VERY early in the timeframe, too!) and they fixed the problem quickly after very quick diagnostics tests.
Very professional, very friendly, they explained exactly what the problem was, and fixed it... all in less than 10 minutes!

Bravo, Blue Ridge Communications. You are now a 2* company in my book.
Now, just increase your base internet speeds, and 3* may be in view... 

[MetalRenard]

Urgh, still on dialup, you crazy wolf. Get damn broadband you lunatic. :P <3

--
I invested in a new high end laptop to replace the one I sent back to Sony. i7 6700HQ, 16GB DDR4 RAM, NVidia 960M graphics card, SSD and HDD... Might not need to use my main PC much any more. Got it for £280 below the recommended price, too.

I got a beast because I'm planning on moving to Japan for a year or two (in 2 years) with my girlfriend so I needed something that would allow me to continue making music and playing games.

[DerVVulfman]

Moving to Japan? Sweeeeeet. All the problems you had with Sony, you can now complain in person.


But watch out. Those board meetings are murder.

And hey, dialup saved the forum.