Friday 11 November 2011

The original was better.

I'm back. Sorry for the delay.
Let's get right to it.

Complaining about remixes. Highly popular these days. These part few decades electronic remixes of any kind of music, be it classical our classic rock, converted into dance, trance or dubstep, have become increasingly popular. A notorious example is the baker street remix. Some consider it butchery, others call it murder. Many, of course, don't consider it anything but good dance-music. As it is. There are two reasons one would remix a song. The first is to improve a song that isn't very good. The second is what I imagine happened to baker street. A song, no matter how good, will only have a limited audience. I do not believe there is a single universally loved song. But there are many people who love an original song, and realize its potential. This song could, with adjustments, be enjoyed by others than the original demographic. This is hardly murdering an existing masterpiece. If anything, it gives others a taste of a style of music they would otherwise not come into contact with. And of course those who love the original do not enjoy the remix. They aren't supposed to. The song was remixed for an audience that isn't them.

I fear I have few rabbits on this phone, so no pictures to round off this time.

Sunday 21 August 2011

Greetings

from Ireland. :)

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Damn you Rockstar!

Look, I've complained about Rockstar before. Yes, I admit, the stupid kind of complaint, and the complaint I'm not really allowed to make: "Why do you guys keep making games this good?" I've told you people before how Red Dead Redemption was so good it made me cry, because it made me get attached to the characters. It made me care about the main character's plight so much, when the ending came, I was so incredibly moved. I explained this HERE.

However, their newest installment, L.A. Noire is completely different. The main Character, Cole Phelps, seen below, is someone completely unlike Marston. Marston's seen the true face of danger, was a dangerous criminal, and decided to leave that life, to become a family man, have a ranch. He's forced to become a lawman of sorts to hunt his old gangmates.


Phelps, on the other hand. Is a man with incredible ambition. He came from the war, where he was awarded medals for bravery. His friends hated him, however. Why that is, is only slowly revealed, but it was obvious his ambition was more important to him than anything.
When the war ended, he became a policeman, determined to become the most successful case-man L.A. had ever seen, in time having to hunt his old friends from the war.

The difference between Cole and Marston is that Marston wanted to escape the violence, and life his life happily. Phelps... It's not clear what he wants. He's stone-cold, like Mason, but more because of principle than because of his past. It's shown he was wound too tight before the war as well.

Then why is this game just as good RDR? Because of its story. RDR was a character-driven story. It made me want to continue for my own sake, because I, John Marston, wanted my wife and child back.
L.A. Noire is story-driven, but in such a way that the story fuels the emotions. After having seen the mutilated victims of a serial killer, you start hating him. Not as Cole Phelps, but as the player. And you're going to be the one to catch him, even if it kills you. And that gets stronger and stronger throughout the game, as Cole's character gets more and more 3-dimensional, so does the story. It's in the details. A house burnt down, with 5 people in it, and while searching through the wreckage, you find a family photo. An old baseball with just the slightest hint of a signature on it. And you just can't help but getting angry at whoever did this.

Another great game by rockstar. And they're working on the next Max Payne. I'm wondering how that will work out.

Sunday 29 May 2011

Dexter

Dexter, the new TV series, not the cartoon, is about a serial killer working as a bloodspatter analyst for the Miami Metropolitan Police Department. He grew up with a father who realized what he was, and taught him a code, so he'd never get caught, and would only kill killers.

Friday 20 May 2011

Power and perspective.

Aside from the 'long depression' of 2008 and the devaluation of money in general, the early 21st century has seen another inflation: the inflation of the value of information. Information used to be power, but with the advent of the internet, information became less and less valuable as it became available to everyone.
Many pre-internet adults have not realized this shift, or find it too difficult to adjust to it. Teachers are still convinced they are somehow better than their students because they know many things their students don't, but aside from those in advanced fields, they don't. I can conjure up the same knowledge as a 4th grade geography teacher. Sure,not off.the top of my head,but the internet has become an extension if my knowlege.
I believe that, as of now, power no longer lies in what you know, but in the application of it. After all, it is almost impossible to posses knowledge noone else is privy to. So your uniqueness lies in your perspective. Lateral. Out of the box. As a little thought experiment: make, in as few words as possible, a connection between nihilism and plastic wrap. Or make a drawing, pictionary-style, of "self-deprecating". Or make up your own exercises.
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Tuesday 17 May 2011

(There's no) satisfying the CoD crowd

If you've ever played a call of duty-like shooter, you will have noticed several things.
First, they seem to hate the game with a passion. They all agree that a previous one was better, but they all play the new one because everyone else is doing it.
Second, most of them are convinced that not only are they pretty good, they're better than their friends.
Third, many claim to have a sort of 'code of honour'. There's certain things they'll never do, except when they really want to or have to. Fourth, and the point of this post, is that they hate every other player who kills them. It disputes their belief in their own awesomeness. Those people,obviously inferior, must therefore have killed them in a way that doesn't count. Maybe there was lag, or maybe the other player broke the code (which, again,only applies to others). How do they break it?
1. Sprinting + firing from the hip. More effective than carefully aiming.
2. Running around with 2 shotguns/revolvers.
3. Staying in a single location, say, a building, securing it, and killing those who get close.
4. Staying on a rooftop, a while away, and sniping everybody to bits.
5. Quickscoping in close quarters.
6. Knifing.
7. Random grenades.
8. Aimed grenades.
9. Ditto flashbangs.
10. Rocket launchers, grenade launchers and claymores.
Basically, all you're allowed to do is hang around the frontline, while everyone else pretends not to use all of the above techniques to end you.
And I find the notion that you're not allowed to play the game the way it's written pretty silly.



Also, first post from my cellphone
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Thursday 5 May 2011

Dark

Morbid little poem. My blog, my morbid poetry. Oh, and in case you think I've gotten emo (lol), this was commissioned :D

Are you scared
of the dark, my friend?
You are, no need
to pretend, my friend.
You're unprepared
in the dark, my friend.
It will feed,
yes the dark, yes it will, my friend.

The darkness is alive, it's a thing.
It's old and strong and terrifying.
And it only wants you to sing,
my friend.
To sing and scream and plea,
my friend.

You are not prepared,
my friend.
and while the dark has got you scared,
my friend.... you're not nearly scared
enough.

The dark will fill your nose,
with ash and smoke, like a black perfume.
The dark will fill your mouth,
with tar and oil, like a final drink.

It will fill your lungs and cloud your eyes and seep into your ears.
It will wrap around your brain and clench it tight,
filling your mind and your eyes with tears
as it takes away the morning light.
And then it shows its teeth, in your mind,
black and twisted, bent like steel,
it will root and dig and grind and find,
a nightmare in your head and make it real.

Are you scared of the dark, my friend?

Tuesday 19 April 2011

More ranting about time

You know, I've been wondering something. We perceive there to be this moment called the 'now', which is between "back then" and "in a sec". Everyone recognizes this, as it is the moment where shit goes down, where decisions are made (after all, you can't make a decision in the past).

But this "now" we speak of, are we sure it's universal? If you look at your life as a timeline, you can say that the now is something that moves forward, like a track on itunes. But that doesn't make any sense. What's the speed of that progress bar? One second per second? Infinite nows/hour?

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Why Assassin's Creed is one of the saddest games I've ever played.

At first glance, Assassin's Creed is about people stabbing other people. However, there's more to it than that. Yes, the first two main characters that are introduced, Altair Ibn La Ahad and Desmond Miles are bland, so unidimensional you could say they're non-dimensional. But it's when Ezio Auditore da Firenze is introduced that, to me, the Assassin's Creed franchise not only picks up speed, but emotion and strength as well.


Friday 25 March 2011

Duality Post

Double post, to make up for lost time and stuff. First off is a review of splice. I'm not going to give you any spoilers, don't worry.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Decent Post

Hi there, all five or six of you. I think you've been wondering "Why are all these blogposts so crappy?" or "Why do I always look fatter when I'm looking down?". Well, it's because I don't have enough inspiration and you have low self-esteem. Something like that. Anyways. This is going to be relatively serious because I've been going through some things lately. I'm not going to delve too deeply into them, but let me just say that relationships are hard. And Women, capital W, are hilarious. I used to think I had women, and people in general, all figured out. I've had to 'update' my knowledge a lot, lately.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

I keep forgetting

what I was going to write.

It's annoying as hell! Every evening I'm like "Ooh, this is an awesome subject", something along the lines of 'why I'm back and wholahglahblabla', and that's as far as I get and bleh!

I'm going to try to churn out something asap.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

TronCraft

I'm working on a texture-mod for minecraft. Pics might follow later. it's late. I'm tired. Hippo.


Sunday 13 March 2011

Tumblr

My pictures, music and clips will show up there now :)

This is a link to eet.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Programming shortcuts and Reading Up.

You know what I want to learn when I start my new studies next year? An efficient way to alter character models in-game without just cutting through pre-rendered, pre-designed seams. Gibs used to be innovative, but these days it just annoys me to see that, in most games an some animated movies, they take cheap shortcuts. The first shortcut is the instagib or partial gib. Return a character to it’s giblets. Left arm, right arm, they all detach. Or just a single one, such as, for example, the head. Second shortcut is by way of texture-edit.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Catface

Stop whatever you think it is you're doing and watch this.


Wednesday 26 January 2011

True Selflessness

I've given this subject this subject some thought. I've always thought that there was no such thing as true selflessness.

Let's define a selfless act first: To do something without benefit for yourself.
I believe that benefit includes feelings. After all, you are not truly selfless if you feel that what you are doing is right and it makes you feel good. You have other motivations. Helping the other person is a side effect of making yourself feel good. People don't give money because they're selfless. People give money because they feel it is the right thing to do, and that satisfies their feeling of justice or whatever. Gandhi did what he did because he felt it was the right thing to do. Which must have given him pleasure. If he 'felt' it was wrong what he was doing, but knew it was the right thing to do, he wouldn't have done it, I think.

To give you an example: would you torture your sibling to save a million people? Would go at them with a knife and extend their suffering for as long as humanly possible, if it was the only way to save an entire continent? Would you murder hundreds and forsake yourself and your own self-respect if it meant saving a species? I know very few people who would say yes. And yet, I think that is selflessness. To forsake yourself, and your feeling of self, for the benefit of a thousand. This has come up loads of times in movies: sacrificing one for a million, or a hundred for a billion, is according to the movies, never right. Experimenting on the few for the benefit of the species is amoral and wrong. And yet, from the point of view of the species, is it really?
Is it not truly selfless to let this horror go on because you KNOW it will be for the benefit of the species? Ponder about this for a bit. I dare you. Could you do something you would never do if it meant the survival of everyone you know? That, I believe, is what it means to be selfless. Not giving a homeless man enough money to buy a differently faced coin of the same value.

Thursday 20 January 2011

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Black Ops and Modern Warfare are mutually exclusive

I know I talk about games a lot, but this is going to be a big rant. I know I also tell anyone I can get my hands on that games are the pinnacle of human storytelling. This has nothing to do with that. I am just going to bitch and whine about how one game is better than the other. But for good reason. But, you know, you've been warned. If this kind of thing doesn't interest you, I suggest you check out http://www.notquitewrong.com/rosscottinc/. It's awesome and a lot more funny than what comes after the jump.

Friday 14 January 2011

Oh Dear

Here's a conversation that took place in my head last night that got me slightly worried about my own mental health.

"You really need to stop talking to yourself. He needs to sleep."
"Stop referring to yourself as he. You're going to think you're going insane."
"You mean you are. I mean... I am."
"Stop this, I want to sleep. Good.

The following line was also worrying, but slightly less so:

"I should blog about this."

The thinking about thinking about my own thoughts is happening enough to annoy me. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Thinking something, then having a thought about just because that's the kind of thought you expect you're going to have, only to contradict yourself until you drown in a sea of voices and thoughts AND CAN'T FIGURE OUT YOUR OWN OPINION!

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Slow update

I've been busy with things like this