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Nicktendo

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Posts posted by Nicktendo

  1. Day 18 - Best Mini Game

    Not much love for the game itself these days due to the trash frame rate and the awkward as hell controls, but hidden away in the depths of Jet Force Gemini was and extremely cool old-school top-down racer called Jeff and Barry Racing. Have great memories of playing this with my brothers at my Grandma's house on rainy Saturday afternoons before Soccer Saturday started. Great fun. 

     

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  2. 1 hour ago, will' said:

    I’m listening to the latest episode on my iPhone and it seems like the dialogue volume has been set really low. I’ve got my device on max volume and can barely hear it where usually I’ve had no problem. I’ve just upgraded to iOS14 so thought it might have been that, but other podcasts seem to be fine - not sure if there is anything you can do on that front but thought I’d mention it.

    Other than that, still really enjoying the show. I’m slow to listen to it so haven’t commented much, but keep up the good work!

    The main issue is that Audacity (what we use to record our audio independently) and Skype absolutely hate each other. There are various settings in both programmes that need to be adjusted so they don't mess with each other. With Sam being called upon at late notice, we probably didn't think of correcting everything before recording started and once it's done, you're basically screwed. 

    Sam's audio is famously low volume, but again, that's all down to settings and interference from other programs. You can set it up perfect when you start recording and in the background it will change unnoticed. To be fair, I only think about this stuff in editing, so probably wouldn't have mentioned anything to Sam until it would've been too late. Basically, it's a bitch to get everything to work right, even if you think you're ready to go when you start recording.

    Even now after 30+ episodes we have fluctuating levels every week, nothing is ever consistent. Sometimes Lee is loud, sometimes noticeably quieter, sometimes a little too quiet. It's a lottery. Greg's audio often peaks when he laughs (these aren't complaints by the way lads :laughing:). My mic constantly picks up tiny little knocks as huge thuds. Annoying. But anyway, we all have different set-ups and different quality mics, so that's a huge factor too.

    I've put about 20 hours into YouTube tutorials with Audacity, and obviously have over 100 hours experience using it now, so I can deal with most problems that come up. I can balance everything pretty perfectly now and can remove 99% of background noise (fireworks not included). It takes bloody ages to prepare everything and lay the groundwork so to speak before I actually start editing the audio and putting the transition tunes, ending music, podcast extras etc into it, but I've slowly been getting it down to a fine art. One episode takes around two hours now, whereas before it was closer to four. It's funny going back and listening to the first 1-5 episodes because the editing and the levels are appalling compared to now. Think I do a pretty decent job where we are now and it definitely sounds just as good as other (non-professional) gaming podcasts. 

    It hasn't gone unnoticed either, I told my boss about the N-E Cafe and she got me to do a podcast for her company (education website). Best part is that I actually get paid for that one :grin: Not as fun as talking about games though... but my editing exploits bore some fruit I guess. That's why I was absent from the latest episode, by the way. My boss went on holiday this week and we recorded 4 podcasts to cover that time on Friday and Saturday. Guess who had to edit them all? Couldn't cope with a fifth, especially on a Sunday :indeed: One week hiatus. 

    I'm proper grateful that Lee stepped in this week to edit. It's been ages since he had to edit a podcast and I think he did a great job at such short notice. 

    Edit: oh and I had no idea what the Transition Tunes were this week, Lee. Wanted to say Animal Crossing but I knew it wasn't. Tricky.

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  3. I really want to play this but no PS4. I hope it makes the jump to Steam in a year or two a la Horizon: Zero Dawn and Detroit Become Human. Get serious BOTW vibes from footage and an Assassin's Creed style game that isn't made by Ubisoft is pretty appealing in general. Looking forward to reading impressions. 

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  4. 30 minutes ago, Ganepark32 said:

    I'm interested to see how it will all play out anyway, especially in the broader sense of the industry. Will it push more AA development? Hopefully. Will it mean that developers of AAA focus on more refined and less bloated games? Hopefully to that too.

    I'll gladly pay more for a AAA game of high quality that is devoid of game-altering micro-transactions. Cosmetics don't bother me. Considering how much time I've put into the Nintendo big-hitters like Zelda, Mario Odyssey or Splatoon, I think a higher price is justified. I'd also hold a similar position with Sony and MS first party exclusives, or multi-plat smash hits like RDR2 and GTAV. 

    Something I mentioned on our podcast recently and want to iterate here though is that I draw the line at ports and "B-tier" or AA games, however you want to label them. I am not prepared to drop and extra tenner on a remake / remaster of an old game or something like a Yoshi or a Kirby title. While I DO enjoy those titles, they very rarely push the boundaries that games in the AAA space do. 

    I do think the industry would be in a healthier place overall if there was a bit more delineation or distinction in tiers between bigger and smaller budget games in the console space. A Yoshi game built on Unreal Engine 4, in my view, does not justify the same investment from the consumer that a new Zelda game 5-years-in-development and built on a custom engine from the ground up does. The investment and money put into these two products is not equal, nor is the amount of gameplay one could realistically expect from them, and therefore, I don't see why the end-user should be faced with an equal pricing choice when it comes to buying.

    I'd be happy with a bump in game prices at the high-budget end if a space opened up for the so-called AA games that were much more common on the PS2/XB/GC generation. I'd happily drop 30-40 quid on a game that tried something new, was more focused or was even a little rough around the edges compared to a AAA game. I guess we kind of have that in the indie space, which I think is great, but there is still room to deliver on that b-tier market that used to thrive a decade or two ago.

     

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  5. 16 hours ago, will' said:

    Great qualifying session! That weather really shows the top drivers from the rest. Looking forward to the race.

    Bernie had a point about sprinklers 😂

    That was great, well worth the wait. I know the race will be dry but with the mixed-up grid it should be fun to watch. 

  6. 19 minutes ago, Beast said:

    Tried to look for the definition of this on Google and yet again, couldn't find it. What is that? 

    That facts that don't suit the overriding agenda can be handwaved away and the person presenting them should be called into question for making "false equivalencies", "arguing in bad faith" and yadda yadda yadda :zzz:. That suggestions for progress that aren't based only on skin colour, gender and sexuality are not suggestions for progress at all. 

    That I have been presented with this binary choice:

    Quote

    Are you really going to tell me that is all pure chance? Or are black people or women people simply just incapable?

    It's either chance, or black people and women are incapable. Couldn't possibly be anything else...

    Extremely narrow view of the world and people who make opposing arguments. It's like those people who claim to want to listen to the other side of a discussion and then say "So what you're saying is..." before they inevitably put words in your mouth and misrepresent your point of view. 

    This is why it's a waste of time to argue with such people. 

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  7. 3 hours ago, Rummy said:

    Not gonna pick you apart by arghument Nicktendo but seeing a lot of disingenousness grom you throughout the thread. Lots and lots og wrguments stats etc put out by you and your instant 'nope im out!' at literally two words shows something I see in a lot of people who don't have much interest in *actually* progressing things.

    You're obviously intelligent(even if you insist on being foolish ;) ) but many of your arguments are riddled with flaws such as false equivalences or assuming perfect impartiality/exclusivity etc. When these gaping flaws have been pointed out to you you have merely just rambled off a load of other stuff.

    Lets for example take the idea of oppurtunity and how any black person(let alone the intersectional issues of a black female) can become president(of US). Or even that a female could become prime minister(of UK).

    Why has this throughout ALL the presidents and prime ministers only netted us to date Margaret Thatcher Theresa May and Barack Obama with no black Prime Ministers and no female Presidents so far.

    Are you really going to tell me that is all pure chance? Or are black people or women people simply just incapable? You cannot have it both ways. The bias definitely exists - and whilst people post here and articulate themselves to explain why your claims are incorrect you often ignore them and simply ramble some other stuff afterwards; implying because you have lots of stats videos claims etc. that they are therefore objectively more truthful powerful and correct.

     

    They are not. Again I won't redo the work of multiple others here but take that as the meta-critique of your work so far. I don't have an issue with your conservative views but it seems to have an impact upon your engagement and certain respect for certain people - and given the whole nature of this topic here and the idea of a blindness contributing to all this in society it's worth considering - even earlier when will' pointed out the racist nature of something you actually typed you took it to read he was saying YOU were a racist - I don't think others here were reading it the same.

    This is such a ResetEra response. 

    I've explained why it's a waste of time to engage with intersectionalists and this post is a pretty good example of why. Long-winded and says a lot without actually saying anything at all. Attack the character of the person ("disingenuous" - "are black people or women simply incapable?"), attach silly little commentary and labels like "false equivalence". Hence why engaging doesn't really serve any purpose. Tell my why my equivalencies are false. Is it the one where we should ignore some sections of society, like Indians and white working-class, and only focus on the ones which support our argument like Black British communities? Go a few pages back and you'll see my suggestion of how things could be improved in a way that doesn't burn society to the ground. I guess my suggestions are not the right way of progressing things. No interest in BLM's version of progress from me whatsoever, you're right. 

    Of the last seven British Prime Ministers, two have been female.
    Of the last seven US presidents, one has been black.

    Looks like representation is increasing, doesn't it? Not sure what point you're trying to make here. Progress has ONLY netted us much better representation in the last 50 years. But no, it's much better to measure from the beginning of history so it looks better for our cause! It really is all or nothing with the left isn't it? No progress will ever be enough. 

    So what have I rambled about? I've offered solutions. Haven't seen anyone else do that so far apart from Will and Animal (sorry, Beast) who actually considered my points and raised their issues with some of them, which I agree with. 

    Good job calling me out on using stats and adding videos of people who are better at arguing and making a point than I am. I guess statistics and academia really doesn't matter after all. Might as well do away with it all if we're going to embrace our socialist utopia! Then no-one will be allowed to disagree! I'll remember next time that people on the internet are objectively more truthful than research and respected scientists. I guess your videos are the only ones that should be watched because they back up your objective truth that society is racist. My bad.
     

  8. So I think I'm done with the Steam Sale now. I've added 40 games to my collection. Most of them are older titles I've been wanting to play for a while but never had the means to do so. I also picked up a few more recent and expensive titles. I got Sea of Thieves at full price because I've been waiting to jump in on that for a while. Also picked up Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Monster Hunter World (first time with the series), Final Fantasy XV, Titanfall II and a whole bunch of fairly recent indie games (new Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Hyperchage Unboxed and Disco Elysium). Think I spent around £120-130 overall. I'm hoping this keeps me well occupied until the next inevitable Steam sale. I just hope it happens before my Russian bank card expires in November :laughing:

  9. + 1 for Xbox One controller love. I've had mine for about a year now and it is easily the best controller on the market. It fits my hands like a glove and is great for a whole manner of games like FPSs, Racing (cough, analogue triggers, cough) and even Indie games which use the D-Pad. I've had no problems on Crypt of the Necrodancer, for example. I agree about the button layout though, going between Switch and Xbox is such a pain and I'm constantly getting A/B and X/Y mixed up. 

  10. 9 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

    Most Relaxing Navigation

    This one goes to Breath of the Wild for me. I don't think I fast-travelled once in my first hundred hours of that game, traversing that incredible openworld was just so much fun. I was a huge fan of the Deku leaf in The Wind Waker so I loved that they brought back the gliding mechanic. Climbing to the top of a tower, seeing something in the distance you wanted to investigate, gliding down, peaceful music, sound of nature all around you... :heart: 

    47686.gif

    Quoting for truth. Easily gets my vote too.

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  11. On 03/07/2020 at 10:00 AM, will' said:

    That’s interesting, I do remember liking the setting of 4 I could just never get into it for whatever reason. What did you think of the earlier 3D games in the series? At the time I loved GTA3 and Vice City, and San Andreas was awesome but maybe I had less time by then and so don’t remember it as fondly. I decided to run through them again a few months ago and found that now GTA3 for me is by far the most enjoyable, I could probably quite happily play through that once a year on a new system.

    I finished GTA3 with a friend in school and got less interested as the series went on. Though the atmosphere of Vice City sublimely captured the time, and the motorbikes were a great addition, I never had the desire to finish it. San Andreas went too far for me. I loved Los Santos but quickly became disinterested after it expanded out of there. I felt it was too big for its own good and too aimless at times. No surprise that I loved IV, it did away with the stuff I didn’t like about SA. 

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  12. 3D Platformer 

    Man this was so tough. At first I wanted to go with @bob and choose Banjo-Kazooie. It's not a secret that I loved it more than Mario 64 and I agree with him on every point. I Love both Mario Sunshine and Mario Odyssey and have particularly special memories of the former. Mario Galaxy has been beaten twice to 120 stars, the only Mario game I've 100%d, and is probably the most inventive platformer I've ever played (only played 3 or 4 hours of the second, to my shame).

    I think overall though, I'm going to go with @Ronnie. I just had so much FUN playing this game and loved the level design, the visuals and the OST. Hate that it gets so much criticism from some quarters because I just for the life of me can't see it. This was Nintendo reinventing the wheel AGAIN by blending 2D and 3D mechanics so seamlessly. Yeah, I know 3D Land did it first, but this perfected the formula. 

    Super Mario 3D World

    super-mario-3d-world-wallpaper-11.jpg

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  13. Local Multiplayer

    Like others, my best memories of local gaming is from the N64 era. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Smash Bros. 64 and Diddy Kong Racing all deserve a mention here, but I'm going to plump for Mario Party. Me and my brothers spent hours and hours playing this game and destroyed all three of our controllers in the process. 

    Best villain

    This is a tougher one. I think Wind Waker Ganon would probably take it for me too, superb re-imagining after Ocarina of Time. I think I'm going to go for this guy though. I really like his design and how different he is from other Nintendo bad guys. Has a lot of personality and an Emo hairstyle that hearkens back to the era he was conceived in. 

    699?cb=20110608165337

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