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outlustings · 3 years ago

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i saw you did Eddie and that was Top Tier takes... can you do naughty abc's for Miles? 👀 love reading your smut, it's *chefs kiss*

(my essays sitting in microsoft word with 40 words in them, watching me write porn: >:(

also thank you <3 haha i love writing smut because when i write fluff/angst/whatever people are like oh that's very nice but people lose their minds over some cock and balls and it gives me life.

also miles likes toys and public sex so if ur not into that sorry but skip this lmao!!!! ur loss babe.)

MILES UPSHUR NSFW ALPHABET

Aftercare | Miles is very attentive when it comes to aftercare. He'll spring up immediately (even if on wobbly legs) and go fetch some towels and get a bath running. Will constantly ask if his partner is okay, to the point where it gets annoying, but in an endearing way. But sometimes, when the fuck has been too good, he'll just lay there with a glazed over look in his eyes and a lazy grin, just trying to recover. Then it's his partner who has to do all the work and make sure he gets back to this world in an orderly manner. After cleaning up, lots of cuddles. Maybe takeout.

Body part | He loves a good, chunky ass. The more it jiggles when he fucks his partner from behind, the better. On his own body, he likes his legs. He has beautiful, defined calves. Would you believe me if I told you he runs a lot?

Cum | Let's just say Miles drinks pineapple juice on the daily. He likes to make sure his partner is craving for him to cum down their throat, begging for his musky, bittersweet, potent seed. Also, Miles cums a lot. Lots of precum, too. Quite the load to take.

Dirty secret | If his partner wears panties, he will want to masturbate with them. Something about the naughtiness of his partner's used panties wrapped around his cock as he pumps it on lonely nights, hoping he'd get caught and maybe - he'd get punished.

Experience | Miles has had a few boyfriends and girlfriends in his college times, so he knows what to do and is confident about it. Knows what works and what doesn't and a lot of techniques he's learned from here and there.

Favorite position | Doggy and reverse-anything. Pretty much every position where he can grab his partner's ass or pull their hair from behind, leaning in to whisper sweet, giggly nothings into his partner's ear as his thrusts grow sloppy and erratic as he's about to cum.

Goofy | Miles is very goofy and non-serious, especially when it comes to aftercare and even foreplay. When things get intense, he'll of course shut up (save for his moaning), but he'll be cracking jokes, making sure to ask if his partner's okay or if he needs to adjust that pillow under their hips before diving in - basically, Miles likes to keep the atmosphere light and loving with no shame or discomfort involved. Unless it's a roleplay situation or his partner specifically asks him to be serious, he'll be acting funny all the time.

Hair | Honestly, Miles likes everything to be neat and well groomed when it comes to his downstairs area. But he can sometimes get a little wild with it. He's definitely the kind of guy to run to his partner after the shower and drop his towel and present what wonky shape ("It's a heart, babe - does it really look like a triangle to you? What the hell?") he just shaved in on his pubes, razor burn and all. It's kind of adorable.

Intimacy | Miles is always very intimate and romantic, even when he's spitting in his partner's mouth or spanking them. He's always loving and kind of sappy, lots of compliments and sweet talk throughout, mixed in with little jokes.

Jack off | He masturbates pretty often. It's just a habit, especially if his partner and him live apart. Sometimes he just needs a good orgasm before going on with his day. He'll be kind of annoyed with his body, though, and will reluctantly pull down his jeans while spitting into his hand, but the frustration melts away as soon as he starts to deal with his little problem.

Kink | Exhibitionism, maybe a little bit of voyeurism, mutual masturbation and watching porn together, face sitting, clothed sex and frottage.

Location | His jeep, the bathroom of a bar, against the washing machine - the more unorthodox and semi-public (or very public) the more he likes it. Gets his adrenaline pumping. But he can't deny his soft and comfortable bed is probably the best for everyone's backs. And sanity.

Motivation | PDA. If his partner is all over him outside of the house, he's toast. He'll want to bend them over the nearest surface, even if it's out in public. Of course he won't, but it doesn't change the fact that he gets painfully hard if his partner teases him in public. Also just the usual lovey dovey stuff gets him going. Cuddling always turns into him being all handsy.

No | Petplay and ageplay. He thinks it's weird. Not up his alley.

Oral | When Miles needs to unwind for the day, he'll ask his partner if they can give him a blowjob. But in almost every other scenario, he prefers giving oral rather than receiving. Mostly because he doesn't really know what to do with himself when he's being blown - his hands will wander as he's basically just begging to touch his partner. He needs to be tied up if his partner wants to drain his balls with their mouth. Otherwise he'll just be too eager to return the favour.

Pace | Miles is quite fast, when he's very horny or otherwise pent up. Clothes flying off, sloppy, quick kisses, all that. But he'll slow down if his sweetheart asks him to. He'll blush and apologize profusely for being too fast - but once he's balls deep, all thoughts of taking things slow disappear from his mind.

Quickie | Quickies are one of his favourite things. He likes the casual nature of a good quickie, loves how his partner has to fix themselves up before leaving the room so that nothing's suspicious. Semi-public quickies, car quickies, things like that turn him on so much. It also comes down to the risk factor - will he be able to make his partner cum on his tongue before their lunch break ends? It's almost like a challenge to him and he loves it. Miles loves quickies.

Risk | Miles likes to experiment. And his exhibitionism is also very risky sometimes, as it is dependent on taking risks in public. So, overall, he enjoys a little bit of risk with everything he does.

Stamina | Miles has pretty good stamina. Especially with a cockring, he could go for an hour or so without getting tired at all. He can go two rounds at most before his body shuts down, though. He wants more but his brain tells him not to.

Toys | Miles owns so many toys. He'll definitely use them on himself as well as on his partner. He loves using toys on his partner because he thinks it's incredibly arousing so see someone lost in pleasure. In his opinion, toys exist to augment fantasies and make sex more enjoyable - and who doesn't want that? Miles loves those couple vibrators, too. And mutual masturbation with a whole arsenal of sex toys at his and his partner's disposal. He also loves writing reviews on them. Anonymously, of course.

Unfair | Teasing depends on Miles' mood. Sometimes, when he's feeling super frisky, he'll be very teasing and unfair in the bedroom. However, he also just loves giving in, having cuddly sex where no one gets teased.

Volume | Miles mostly lets out little grunts and groans here and there, but when he cums, he'll be very loud, hissing through his teeth, letting needy moans spill from his lips. Lots of swearing, too.

Wild card | He has a "sex playlist" on Spotify but he always forgets to put it on so it just sits in his library.

X-ray | His cock is a solid six and a half inches with a thick shaft and a somewhat smaller glans. Uncut. Firm balls. Curved, perfect for those hard-to-reach spots.

Yearning | Miles has a pretty high sex drive, but he'll respect his partner's wishes, if they have a lower libido. That's what all of his toys are for, not to mention his hand!

Zzz | Miles will not fall asleep afterwards, at least not very quickly. Miles gets a little boost of energy from his orgasm, but when it fades out, he'll feel pretty tired.

#damn i need to make a gif of miles struggling against his restraints i'm running out of gifs here #tragic #outlast #outlast fanfiction #outlast x reader #miles upshur #miles upshur x reader #not sfw #alphabet #gender neutral reader

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blastoisemonster · 4 years ago

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Pokèmon World Magazine: Porygon Net (Various Issues)

We’ve had a very long streak of Photoset posts lately, didn’t we? Let’s have a little break from anime and tie-in games and let’s go back to oldschool Pokèmon and my favourite childhood magazine, Pokèmon World!

This summer I'm working on my own portfolio site: it's getting built from scratch and, due to the kind of art it's going to showcase, I'm designing its layout to look like one of those old personal pages a lot of Internet users used to have back in the first 2000s. This choice was also influenced by one of my childhood dreams, which was, infact, owning a corner of the Net all for myself; without the right equipment or spare money to purchase a domain, though, the idea of having my page online was only hypotetical, so all I could do was designing some cute layouts on Microsoft Frontpage and admiring what others were doing. Of course, as Pokèmon was my main interest at the time, I found the Porygon Net section of Pokèmon World mag to be extra inspirational.

Porygon Net was a very small section with just a double page: every month, the magazine's staff would choose and review an italian site dedicated to everyone's favourite monsters. These online corners were, most of the times, built by fellow readers and fans who sometimes even wrote back either by mailing the staff or boasting about it on their site's news section, thanking for the feature and the subsequent wave of new visitors. As these places were built by teens or even kids (I may have seen some online pages managed by 10 year olds at the time o.o), their quality varied greatly depending on their web-making skills: some were very simplistic, other more orderly and neat, and some... showed potential, but needed more work. Pokèmon World's staff, though, never mocked these attempts, and instead also published suggestions to make certain parts of the site more functional and pleasing to the eye. I found this very encouraging, and I wonder if many of these people have continued with a career in the online world.

I went and browsed among my mag issues to find some sites to showcase: I mostly picked the ones that stuck in my mind since reading about them, or that I actually used to visit back in the day. Wayback Machine may have not been kind to the italian community, and I fear the majority of these sites are now lost; however, I'll post links if, surprisingly, I find them still alive!

Issue 4: Pokemon Mania

The pictures have been displayed in chronological order, but I still would've chosen to display this site first as I used to actually visit it before it was featured on Pokèmon World. Due to its easy and straightforward name, Pokèmon Mania was one of the first fansites to show up on the search engine if you ever looked for more Pokèmon content. It was managed by a guy with the alias of Professor Kao, and the whole feeling of the site was that of a Pokemon lab at the start of your monster journey. Though it wasn't exactly a marvel in terms of layout esthetic, the site aimed to amaze with content: it had simple browser fangames, a section dedicated to drawing tutorials (with pictures taken from japanese sources- which at the time were very scarce and hard to get!), many sections dedicated to the Cardgame (apparently, the main focus of Kao's Pokèmon interests) and its live tournaments, and one centered on the monsters' trivia. One very interactive section even proposed quizzes given by the webmaster himself that visitors could answer via mail: Kao would then contact winners and even send out special official merch like Pokèmon Center plushies or other branded toys. Generous! This site has been preserved in the Wayback Machine with a lot of snapshots, though unfortunately without many graphics. We can still navigate and read most of the sections!

Issue 20: Pokemon Museum

My second site of choice striked me with its very homely layout: even looking at the snapshot in its article feels like I'm viewing a cozy corner of the Net, in which the webmaster poured its personal thoughts and passions more than providing a service like PokèmonMania did. The issue is number 20 and quite some months have passed: online trends regarding these kind of pages had changed a bit and now people preferred to offer their own content instead of copy-pasting what Nintendo produced. Pokèmon Museum's graphics have all been drawn by the owner, Kabutops: the background texture, banner, and a lot of the graphics all around the sections! Kudos for being to prolific and precise during a period in which digital art still hadn't reached its peak popularity, and drawing tablets were only restricted to professionals. Going past the many sections dedicated to the anime, games and lore, one interesting aspect was the beginning of affiliates: fellow webmasters were starting communicating with eachother and sharing their visits by dedicating a little button to other sites. I loved the affiliates section because, once finished looking through a site, I could click on the cute little rectangle banners and find myself in another home without passing from Google searches! But webmasters wouldn't affiliate with everyone, and for the purpose of only interacting with other best Pokèsites, awards had become popular as well: graphics that people would exchange after rating a site and feeling impressed with their content, presentation, or popularity. Pokèmon Museum's magazine review focused on its affiliates and the awards, inviting fellow readers to have their site reviewed by Kabutops. Unfortunately, the site is not present on Wayback Machine. I'll never know if Kabutops came back updating its museum after summer vacations :(

Issue 35: TBPS

Let's have another jump of several months; issue 35 featured a page under the bigger domain Pokevalley and named itself The Best Pokèmon Page, rather narcissistic! This was one of those rare times Pokèmon World featured an english-speaking site. The layout doesn't impress me too much, yet the fact that the header reads "Crystal Water Version" conveys that the webmaster(s) used to periodically change aspect and palette of their site, an activity that proved to be very prolific for many page owners at the time: sites were often in construction, and people were experimenting with different colours or HTML code tricks to impress viewers and reviewers, have as many affiliates as possible and collect positive awards from other sites. Such was popularity, back in the day! The site has a long menu with many sections dedicated to the main games and movies; although, none of those pages were catching anyone’s attention anymore as everyone had the same copypasted guides and info; instead, what’s interesting is the hefty section dedicated to browser games, the big menu with pages concerning the site and staff themselves, and the oekaki board! Oekakis were very popular in that period, as it allowed fellow aspiring artists to meet eachother and show off their own skills by drawing live! If a site hosted one, they could quickly become a melting pot of creativity. Wayback Machine, sadly, doesn’t have anything concerning this site as well.

Issue 36: Arcywof

We’re back on italian sites with a page that definitely impressed even Pokèmon World’s staff for its pleasing graphics. When I first saw this among the magazine’s pages... my eyes lit up! I can’t hide that after seeing its beautiful palette, checkered background and condensed menu, teen me adopted Arcy & The Fire Pkmn as design guru: many of my subsequent mockup pages had exactly this layout, or variations of it. It’s too bad, though, that aside from the beautiful presentation, the site’s contents aren’t exactly interesting: the Pokèmon images are ripped straight from Nintendo’s official archives, and most sections are concerning the anime’s characters, episode plots, and broadcasting dates. However, Arcywof also offers a forum and a live chat, which definitely helped the staff build an interactive and affectionate community around it. Among all reviewed here, I’m most bitter that Wayback Machine hasn’t archived this site, because seriously, it’s a little jewel ;w; its pastel colours and checkered texture remind me of candy shops!

Issue 38: Pokemon Super Site

I wanted to finish this little jump in the past with a positive note and show at least one more saved address from Wayback Machine. Although not in its updated version originally featured in Pokèmon World Issue 38, Pokèmon Super Site has been archived and it’s more or less complete to explore. It’s too bad a lot of the graphics haven’t survived but hey it’s something! It’s 2003, and the trend has changed once again: forums are as popular as ever and considered one of the most successful ways to build a solid audience for one’s own page, which are now treated more like portals or an extension to the forum itself. Super Site’s sections are centered on game guides, nothing too special, but I do love the grey and white grid background on menus and header, as if we’re viewing a notebook page; reminds me of school days. I also really like the gifs section as featured in the review, all those old graphics bring back so much memories of scouting the net to save them all on hard drive!

If you stumble upon one of these sites in Wayback Machine, chances are the ever present affiliates buttons will still be working, allowing you to visit even more fansites. It’s a true trip to the past, and a never ending source of inspiration for me!

#Fandom

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guruji · 5 years ago

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Unstoppable Pop Ups

Do you remember unstoppable pop up? Ever figure it out? Or perhaps you spent hard earned money to purchase the program. Perhaps you don't have the program, but would like to know how it works. Read on. We will give it to you not for $97.95, not $67.95, not $24.95, not even $1.95 but Free!! First, however, there are a few things you need to know and understand.

Properly used the popup can dispense data, bring you extra visitors, collect e-mail addresses, and increase your revenue without being perceived as intrusive. On the other hand, abuse it and loose visitors as quickly as the pop up launches... visitors who will in all probability never return.

King Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the sun". What do you think has changed since Solomon's reign?

This neat effect has been important to websites and internet marketers since commerce and the public discovered the world wide web. There are at least two ways to accomplish the unstoppable popup. How do I know? Because some of our websites employ one or both concepts and to date both work equally well.

Pop up stopper programmers are working diligently as we speak to prevent the unstoppable pop up but have, so far, been unable to do so.

Before employing the pop up in any form webmasters must consider that there are reasons why pop up blockers are everywhere. The final nail in the coffin of the pop up was driven by adult web sites. People were tired of these sexually explicit ads popping up in mixed company, in front of their mother, on the church computer and as their children surfed the web.

According to Wikipedia, today anyway, "Opera was the first major browser to incorporate tools to block pop-up ads; the Mozilla browser later improved on this by blocking only pop-ups generated as the page loads. In the early 2000s, all major web browsers except Internet Explorer allowed the user to block unwanted pop-ups almost completely." Notice their caveat, "almost completely".

In 2004, Microsoft finally built one into their Windows XP SP2 operating system along with a fire wall and ad filtering as if it was not slow enough. Microsoft playing the role of a political hack tries to be all things to all people and while that is part of what propelled their operating system to prominence, it may prove to be their undoing in the final analysis.

Remote Helpdesk 1, back in the good old days, purchased Netscape and apparently like many others was incensed at continually having to download plug-ins for anything and everything you wanted to do. Along comes Microsoft with their operating system including a free web browser and the most commonly used plug-ins. Can you say, "jump ship!"?

Now everyone is jumping ship again. Back to the future springs eternal and Linux with its many editions is right on target. Download and install the basics and then get the plug-ins needed as they are needed. How many times have you heard your mother say, "what goes around, comes around"? And, it has been our experience that Linux (Remote Help Desk 1 and Computer Man Website Design use the Debian edition) blocks more pop ups and does much more to protect a computer than most other operating systems while maintaining open source integrity for the computer user.

Like almost everyone else, the Tennessee Mountain Man Computer Man hates to have research interrupted by the couple of seconds it takes for a pop up to launch and be dispatched especially if that intrusion (as often happens) has nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

That being said it is simply a matter of proper programming. Don't go reinventing the wheel until it no longer serves your purpose.

Option 1: Grab the pop up that occurs at http://remotehelpdesk1.com. Copy the code from the page source and change the information to meet your needs.

Option 2: Assuming you can prepare a standard pop up script, it should have about a 5 second delay, perhaps the easiest and maybe the best way in the end is to encrypt your source code. You can do this free of cost at

http://computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/free_webmaster_tools_of_computer_man.htm or http://remotehelpdesk1.com/html_encrypter.htm

There is a lot of hype that this or that retail (notice you have to buy it to test it and once software is opened it is yours) pup up blocker intercepts and stops all pop-ups. No... Not yet anyway!

Thanks and regards,

Guruji Softwares

#Unstoppable Pop Ups

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glapplebloom · 6 years ago

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Last week I had a heavy focus on Microsoft. This week, the more likely to be part of Smash Brothers.

Shantae

This Half Genie has been heavily associated with Nintendo for the longest, I was surprised to find out she wasn’t one of them. With her varying movelist she can provide a lot of fun as a playable character.

What Music Would They Bring: Tons from multiple games. And I dare say unique compared to the other franchises?

What Stage Would They Bring: I’m thinking Desert or Scuttle Town.

Do they have anything in Smash: She has two Spirits: Herself and Risky Boots. And

What are their chances: I still like her chances. Just because you have a spirit doesn’t mean your chances are gone. After all many of the playable cast can also be found in stickers. Why should Shantae not be considered just because art from one of her games is in Smash?

Rayman

Ubisoft and Nintendo have been having a close relation with each other. Nintendo allowed them to use Mario for a crossover and Star Fox for their Star Link game. Not to mention Rabbid Peach being in their Just Dance Game. I'm surprised he hasn’t been in the game yet.

What Music Would They Bring: Just Dance songs? I’m kidding, but I bet they got a bunch of games to draw from.

What Stage Would They Bring: That swamp could be fun.

Do they have anything in Smash: In 4 he was a Trophy, the second (behind CommanderVideo) to be in Smash without having anything else in it. Also in Ultimate he’s a spirit.

What are their chances: This is the year I believe an Ubisoft character will be included in Smash Brothers. But I sadly see the Rabbids entering before Rayman.

An Undertale Representative

Like it or not, Undertale is a big deal. Its been ported everywhere and even the “Sequel” Deltarune is coming to the Switch. It is one of the biggest indy games out there and with Shovel Knight and Shantae in the Ultimate games, there is room for the first Indy Representative.

What Music Would They Bring: I’m just foaming at the mouth on the idea Megalovania being in Smash. Not to mention a bunch of other songs from Undertale and Deltarune.

What Stage Would They Bring: It probably would represent whatever character they pick. Or maybe a travel through.

Do they have anything in Smash: Nope

What are their chances: Despite loving the idea, I highly doubt it. I mean Frisk would be the first choice since main characters are usually picked first but how would you make a move list for him?

Scorpion

Mortal Kombat is a very violent game. So violent you can’t even buy a Japanese Version due to their grading system. Despite that, it has appeared on numerous Nintendo Consoles, including the upcomming Mortal Kombat 11 for the Switch. Would be neat to see the SF/MK rivalry up close. And it won’t be like they haven’t toned down the violence before.

What Music Would They Bring: Maybe its just me, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Mortal Kombat Album be included. But of course they have plenty of music.

What Stage Would They Bring: Part of me wants to bring in the Pit. Either pit would do. Or maybe Shao Kahn’s Arena could be fun. Have an excuse to bring in Shao Kahn as a Boss Character too.

Do they have anything in Smash: Nada

What are their chances: While it would be neat, and Mortal Kombat has been toned down before, I don’t see it happening. Maybe they fear this would increase the game’s rating.

Crash And/Or Spyro

Crash and Spyro are back thanks to their remakes. They both have appeared on Nintendo Consoles. And their official crossovers are on the Game Boy Advance. Not to mention Nintendo did allow Bowser and DK to be in the Skylanders game. So that means Activision and Nintendo have had a relationship before.

What Music Would They Bring: So many, but one song comes to my mind...

What Stage Would They Bring: Would be nice to have a jungle theme that isn’t DK. Or a location from Avalar.

Do they have anything in Smash: Nada

What are their chances: I see them being pretty high. They were indeed rivals for Nintendo like Sonic was. Would be cool to see either or even both in Smash Brothers.

Lara Croft

The Survivor. The Legend. The Classic. Lara Croft is a gaming icon. And with Square owning the license, this could be their second representative into Smash. One that could donate a lot more than two music tracks.

What Music Would They Bring: That said, I have no clue. Pretty sure they have some tunes to use.

What Stage Would They Bring: She’s a Globe Trotter. Her potential on stage to bring is limitless.

Do they have anything in Smash: Besides fellow Square Enix Character Cloud, no.

What are their chances: It depends on why Final Fantasy has very little representation. If its because there are outside factors beyond Square’s control, then probably good. I see one other guy who would be more liked to be picked, but I think she has a better chance. But if it is because Square is stingy, then maybe not her.

Geno

People want him. Sakurai wants him. And it would be good to see Super Mario RPG return back home.

What Music Would They Bring: Obviously Geno’s Forest Maze. Not this version though.

What Stage Would They Bring: As mentioned, Geno’s Forest Maze could be a good stage to bring.

Do they have anything in Smash: Two spirits: himself and Mallow. He has also been a costume in the 4 version.

What are their chances: Again, this depends if Square is being stingy or not. This could be the year Geno finally becomes playable. Or it could be another year he isn’t here.

Sora

Rounding up the three possible reps of Square, Sora would be a likely choice. The Kingdom Hearts series have been major and have appeared on Nintendo Consoles before. Of the three, he is the biggest name among them. And he doesn’t need to bring in anything Disney either.

What Music Would They Bring: A bunch. My personal favorite would be the theme song from Kingdom Hearts 2.

What Stage Would They Bring: Traverse Town would be cool.

Do they have anything in Smash: Nothing other than a fellow Square Rep.

What are their chances: This I have to say, even if Square wasn’t stingy, would be the long shot. Apparently Disney owns Sora, but due to respect of the creator Nomura they don’t use him outside Kingdom Hearts. It could be possible only if Nomura wants him in Smash.

Heihachi

Behind Pacman, Heihachi is Namco’s go to guy for Crossovers. And Namco is heavily helping Nintendo with Smash Brothers

What Music Would They Bring: Pretty sure he got a good number of tracks. And if not, other Namco properties.

What Stage Would They Bring: While he could bring some Tekken stages, I could see him bringing in the Pacman Stage from Smash 3DS instead.

Do they have anything in Smash: In 4 he has a costume. In Ultimate, he shows up in Pacman’s taunt.

What are their chances: If Namco gets a second representative, I can see it being Heihachi. I doubt he really died in Tekken 7.

A Yakuza Representative...

This comes as a surprise to me too. While Sega is heavily known for Sonic, their A Team is working on the Yakuza series (they’re known as Sega CS1 while Sonic Team is under CS2). And while Joker is Sega owned since they own Atlus, having someone from the Yakuza series would show that this is Sega’s true bread and butter.

What Music Would They Bring: While I have never played the games, I’m sure there are plenty of choices.

What Stage Would They Bring: Its a big city. Pretty sure they’ll have stuff.

Do they have anything in Smash: Other than Sonic, nothing.

What are their chances: Sega could use a second representative that isn’t shared with Nintendo (Bayonetta). And of their franchises, Yakuza is their biggest and brightest. And its not like not having a game on the system stopped others.

#other

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dragonlizardjareth · 7 years ago

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Microsoft E3 2018 Report Card

Halo Infinite: Okay... so what the hell is it?

Ori and the Will of the Wisps: Meh, Cutisy game as ever.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: SUPERNATURAL SAMURAI! It does look interesting, we’ll have to wait and see a bit more before passing final judgement on this, But I might be able to get into it.

Fallout 76: It sure looks pretty, the Bethesda press conference is later tonight and I have no doubt we’ll hear more then.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit: I’m just not a fan of the Life is Strange games, but I am familiar with them to know… this doesn't seem to fit with the past games. At lest based on this trailer.

Crackdown 3: At this point… I don’t give a shit… It’s been delayed so many times I just… don’t care.

Metro Exodus: This game looks really cool, it looks a lot more interesting to me then the previous two games anyway.

Kingdom Hearts 3: Well that took me by surprise. Well I guess it’s about time Square brought this to Xbox. That said… the dubbing seems a little… meh. Gameplay does look solid and I’m sure fans will be happy to see the conclusion of the story.

Sea of Thieves: I SO WANT THIS GAME!

Battlefield V: I skipped Hardline and ONE, but if they can catch my interest with this one, I might thrown in a few bucks.

Forza Horizon 4: This is the first racing game to make me go OOOOOOO in a long time. I may very well pick this up because it is an Open world Racing game.

We Happy Few: Looks like the game is almost done and the story is look dark and EXCELLENT!

Player Unknown Battleground: Meh, sorry, but there’s just other, better and cooler stuff out there. This game had it’s chance, but it’s time has come and gone for me.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition: ANIME THE GAME! No thanks.

The Division 2: Nice to see them continue the story. Could be interesting to see the events continue in Washington D.C. Sadly after seeing reviews on how the first game was handled, I’m gonna have to wait awhile after launch before getting on board.

X-Box Gamepass: So… Netflix for X-Box games. I admit, It’s a neat concept, But I don’t feel like paying money to rent video games every month.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: I mean… it looks pretty and all… but it.

Session: Another skateboard game. PASS!

Black Desert: A new MMORPG, it does look interesting, let’s see where they go with it.

Devil May Cry 5: Well fan boys, looks like you’re all gonna have some fun with this one. Enjoy your fun, I’m not a real fan of this series.

Cuphead and the Delicious Last Course: Cuphead looked neat, and it’s cool to see it’s getting

Tunic: Top down Legend of Zelda… WITH FOXES!

Jump Force: It’s cool to see some of these anime characters fight in spectacular three dimensions… ALSO LIGHT YAGAMI!

Dying Light 2: I never really took much interest in the FIRST dying light, but the idea of a zombie game where your actions shape the world around you, could be interesting.

Battletoads: Oh hey... they were a thing... neat.

Just Cause 4: Never really had an interest in this series... but driving up to a tornado and FLYING INTO IT! Looks neat.

Gears Pop: Are the Pop Figureans getting into Videogames now? Because that would be a little much.

Gears Tactics: So Gears of War get’s it’s first true Spin off.

Gears 5: Yeah, another Gears of War game. I’ve never gotten into this series. Still, if your a fan of it, glad you guys have more games coming to ya.

Cyberpunk 2077: Well it looks nice. But like Crackdown 3 this feels like a game they’ve been talking about for awhile and we’ve STILL heard almost nothing on it. I’ll wait for something concrete before jumping on the hype train.

#microsoft #microsoft xbox press conference #e3 2018 #gears 5 #cyberpunk 2077 #Cuphead and the Delicious Last Course #sea of thieves #fallout 76 #halo infinite #devil may cry 5

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thathomestar · 7 years ago

Photo

the full report card, click here for a full size pic

looking forward to:

doom eternal

devil may cry 5

sekiro: shadows die twice

resident evil 2 remake

keeping an eye on:

spider-man

trials rising

my friend pedro

death stranding

ghosts of tsushima

babylon’s fall

skull and bones

smash 4 switch

where the fuck is

serious sam 4

wonderful 101 switch port

ace combat 7

quake champions release date

EA: it was fucking nothing

Microsoft: had arguably the best showing this year solely because of the sheer amount of multiplatform games shown off. the DMC5 reveal stole it for me, and i was never bored between games that much. lots of neat stuff throughout the conference. what the fuck is halo infinite. why did anyone think a funko pop gear mobile game was something anyone wanted. it was at the very least entertaining.

Bethesda: i came for one thing and one thing only: a sequel to new doom. they show me doom eternal. i am satisfied. besides that, bethesda had a neat lineup. the andrew wk thing was fucking hilarious. getting deets for fallout 76 was good, the TES phone mobile game is at the very least interesting. i’m still not interested in rage 2, but i’ll probably play it eventually anyway. starfield could be cool, and i’m glad TESVI is a thing.

Devolver: expected a meme, got a meme. i was really hoping they would show off more games (LIKE FUCKING SERIOUS SAM 4), but getting metal wolf chaos is an ok trade off.

Square Enix: it was fucking nothing

Ubisoft: i missed the first 20 minutes of the conference because of work, tuned in to see a guy ride a minibike to the stage and then destroy a podium. the new trials game looks good, i might actually pick it up eventually. the pirate game might be neat, but we’ll see. nothing else they showed was interesting to me. i’ve given up on ever liking assassin’s creed ever again.

PC Gaming Show: yakuza on pc was a nice surprise, even if they have denuvo drm tied to them. rest of it was a shitshow. i spent more time workshopping jokes in the discord voice channel then actually watching the show. long like the drake duck

Sony: the first half was a shitshow. i do not and will never give a shit about TLOU so the entire first part of the show was boring. guy on a banjo followed by an extremely scripted sequence of gameplay followed by 30 minutes of stalling on stream before they show the next game. thanks to audio issues on the streams, it killed the impact of ghosts of tsushima’s gameplay reveal. the rest of the show was okay i guess. RE2make looks fucking baller and spiderman looked better than it did last year. death stranding was neat to see but that just needs to come out already. i don’t remember anything else.

Nintendo: i seriously, legitimately would have bought a switch right then and there if they had showed wonderful 101 during this direct. but they didn’t. instead, new mario party and fire emblem! whee. smash 4.5 ft. ALL THE WARRIORS was cool to see. i appreciate snake being back. still not buying a switch until i see wonderful 101.

#e3 #e3 2018 #e3 report card

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spicyorzo · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on E3

Only saw bits and pieces of EA, apparently there was tons of sports games. I can’t really say anything on that

Microsoft. Fallout 76 looks, so far. Even if it ends up being a glitchy mess as usual, I’m still going to buy it. Holy crap! Cup Face is getting DLC. That’s pretty cool. What the fuck was with that “gamer chat” on the Division 2? No one fucking talks like that (stating the obvious, I know). If I played any of the Kingdom Hearts games, I’d probably be excited as hell for the 3rd game coming out. With that updated Elsa models, does this mean we’re going to get higher quality Elsa/Spidered-Mang videos? :DDDD. Jump force looks pretty cool. I’m interested to see what Light is going to be able to do. A huge improvement over last year, where they actually announced games one after another. Microsoft did alright. B-/10 Bethesda: first 20 minutes bored the living fuck out of me. I know nothing about Rage nor do I care for that Elder Scrolls card game. Oh fuck, DOOM Eternal got announced. I was kinda hoping they’d call it DOOM 5 but that’s minor. Prey looks pretty fun, interesting take on having it so that every death the player has influences the game, also spin me right round :DDDDD. Oh fuck yes! Wolfenstein gets a Switch release. Shooting nazis on the go is going to be good, but I get the strongest feeling it’s going to have a very rough start like the Switch port of DOOM. Oh my fucking god, best piss take on Skyrim ever. I’m really liking how self aware Todd was about his “fixation” to Skyrim. Fallout 76 has a interesting concept, thank god it’s not another Battle Royale game. Also friggin’ Elder Scrolls 6! Most of the games look really fun. I’d give them a B/10 Sony: Missed the first half, it showed Last of Us, which is neat. Holy fuck!!! Resident Evil 2 is getting remade! Well at least we got a better idea what Death Stranding could be, but c’mon! Give a release date. Spidered-Mang the game looks so damn fast paced. In a good way. There was so much games announced, but no release date. I’d give it a C+/10 Nintendo: That mech game looks fun, kinda like if Metal Gear Rising went for mechs instead of man vs tons of machines. Xenoblade 2: Electric Boogaloo: Torna. I’m very ://////// about it, the story to 2 was very dull to me, I don’t see myself getting the DLC. Fortnite coming to the Switch, I don’t really have a ton of faith in the internet connection on the Switch. I feel like it’s going to have a rough start. OH FUCK YES! DBFZ is coming over! Mayro Party, I haven’t played many games in that series, but something seems off. Not sure. Fire Emblem looks fun as fuck, I’m definitely getting that. And of course, I’ll be getting Pokemon: Let’s GO. Got tons of pokemon I wanna transfer from Pokemon GO. I’d give this part a C+/10 as well Smash Bros: I feel it deserves its own category. Oh my fucking god!! So much shit is coming over! Tons and tons of characters. Friggin’ Snake™ has returned! I legit thought he’d never come back because of how stupid Konami is now. Holy hell, so much revamping. The final smashes are touched up, new characters are appearing alongside them (Paula, Kumatora, Fiora, etc), and the attacks look really quick too. Some people might bitch about this, but I think it’s good they’re speeding this up, who really wants to run away from a player for like 15 seconds waiting for their Final Smash to end? No one. Though some attacks look like duplicates, I’m hoping I’m wrong about this. The stages have expanded, the Battlefield and Omega forms definitely adds more flavor. Oh my god, getting everyone’s trophy is going to be a nightmare. Also, durr! He’s too big >:PPPPPPP why is Scott Ridley there >:PPPP. Jk, holy shit, I’m surprised Ridley managed to fit in. Something I was kinda hoping was that there would be a new Mii Fighter Class. Like what? Maybe a Mage Fighter. Miitopia pretty much showed what a Mii can do in terms of fighting. Everything about the Smash Bros segment was just bonkers and I’ll definitely be getting it on release. I’d give this a 🅰/10.

#E3 #thoughts on it #initial thoughts #I didn't do much of an #analysis #I didn't see #EA #Square Enix #or #Ubisoft

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moist-rowlet · 7 years ago

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Moist Rowlet’s E3 Report Card: 2018 Edition

Another year means another E3 Report Card! This time around I’m dropping the whole Multiplatform distinction, as I felt that kind of just sucks most of the fun away. This time, I’m going off what they showed off, and if they showed it off first, then they get credit. Without further ado, let’s get started!

EA: F

Why did you have to do that to Command and Conquer EA? Just... why. Every year it’s the same nonsense of SPORTS AND SHOOTERS. The most notable thing was that they acknowledged that they messed up Battlefront 2. The bar was raised so low, and they still failed to meet it.

Microsoft: A

It took them a long, long time, but Microsoft finally realized that people don’t want long descriptions of services and promises of games, they just want games. And by god, they gave us games. Todd Howard is no long Todd Coward, since he actually showed up this time! They finally gave us a date for KH3 (also they gave it to Microsoft this time!), and while it’s sad that they delayed it to 2019, at least it’s early 2019. Between Cuphead DLC ft. New Waifu, DmC FINALLY COMING BACK, and Nioh but Dark Souls, there is a lot to behold, all things considered. And the final reveal was a long, long time coming. The conference made me forget that the Xbone was dying for just a moment, which is more than good enough for me. That’ll do Microsoft. That’ll do.

Bethany Esda: C

While not bad, I didn’t see much good either. At the very least, Todd showed up! That aside, I still don’t know why Legends had to change developers at all, and I’m a still bit confused as to why it was there to begin with. The rest of the announcements, like Prey Prop Hunt were okay. DOOT 2 is nice. Fallout 76 is... it kinda just looks like Fallout 4 with online slapped on, though the cryptid enemies look neat. The Todd Segment (tm) is a mixed bag overall I felt. Mainly because I’m still wary of his Sweet Little Lies. Also I WANT FUCKING BLACKMARSH TODD.

Square Enix: C

Short, but not impressive. Sure, most of it was in fact gameplay, but most of it was stuff that we already knew from the other conferences, which leads to the lower score I gave the conference. There was nothing bad, but nothing of note either. At least DQ 11 looks good.

Ubisoft: D

Coming off of their surprisingly decent show last year, this one I felt was very lackluster. The gameplay that we did see seemed to confuse more than it actually explained, and most of the upcoming content for current games isn’t very exciting either. Star Fox making a surprise appearance was nice, but aside from that? Not much else to comment on.

PC Gaming Show: B

While there was nothing bad, there wasn’t much good here either. Noticing a trend here? There were plenty of games to be shown though, which bumps up the grade a bit more than Square or Bethany Esda. The sheer volume was all they really had though, while the actual announcements themselves weren’t very impressive. So overall, it was nice, but not impressive, which is at least better than Square.

Sony: D

How... how did you fuck that up? You were given about an hour, and you used 30 minutes of it on one game, went to intermission, and then you blitzed through a combination of titles we already knew or trailers that merely acknowledged the existence of games. At the very least we can FINALLY CONFIRM THAT DEATH STRANDING IS A GAME THANK GOD. All in all, it didn’t really feel like an E3 conference. It failed in hype and it failed in quantity. You spent an hour on 5 new games? Utterly Unimpressive, two years in a row. Microsoft did Sony’s job better for them, and for that, they get the credit.

Nintendo: A

It’s a bit difficult to assess Nintendo from just their conference, because they usually spread their announcements throughout several days after the main Direct. Still, I can safely say that it’s a good deal better than a majority of the other conferences. Nintendo are the masters of hype, and they deliver once again, despite the small number of games actually shown in the conference. Of course, the major attraction is Smash, which completely blew away every single speculator since the first trailer, and for that, I gave them their corresponding score. Take notes Sony. This is how you spend 30 minutes on one game.

#e3 report card

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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I'VE BEEN PONDERING USES

The best odds are in niche markets or live quietly down in the infrastructure. Prestige is like a disk crash, except that your data is handed to someone else instead of being a novelist is not enough; you have to charm them. If you work too long on tedious stuff, it will at least encourage a habit of frugality. I came up with was: someone who doesn't expend any effort on marketing himself. At Viaweb, software included fairly big applications that users talked to directly, programs that pretended to be users to measure performance or expose bugs, programs for diagnosing network troubles, programs for diagnosing network troubles, programs for doing backups, interfaces to outside services, software that drove an impressive collection of dials displaying real-time server statistics a hit with visitors, but indispensable for us too, modifications including bug fixes to open-source software, and talk to them about what they needed. In fact there's a simpler explanation. But one thing that might deter you from writing Web-based software gets used round the clock, so everything you do is immediately put through the wringer. You can convince yourself, I don't care what he says, I'm going to start a new company using Lisp.

In Patrick O'Brian's novels, his captains always try to get upwind of their opponents. If you don't put users first, you leave a gap for competitors who do. Startups often want to show that all the programmers have to be working for an existing company for a couple of nerds with no business experience. If you want ideas for startups, because you're paying for the hardware, just as it had to be delivered. Venture capitalists know better. There are two ways to do it well, then the total addressable market, or TAM, of your company for y dollars, you're implicitly claiming a certain value for the whole thing as an experiment that we might call off at any moment. When I was trying to solve. What companies should do is go out and discover startups when they're young. If you can make your software very efficient you can undersell competitors and still make a profit.

Fortunately, Web-based software gives you unprecedented information about their behavior. Increasingly it will mean the people who had them to continue thinking about. It just made me spend several minutes telling you how great they are. And it was not just our price to earnings ratios by saying that technology was going to take two weeks to write few projects took longer, I knew I could see them thinking that we didn't count for much. Amazingly, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway. It can take years to learn how companies work. I think undergraduates are undervalued. Hacking is something you want to reduce economic inequality, you get something surprising. Because it needs no installation, you don't have to be big yet, nor do you necessarily have to be a contender again, this is true. I encourage every technology company to adopt it.

The professors all seem forbiddingly intellectual and publish papers unintelligible to outsiders. There's nothing like living abroad to teach you that. So I added a message at that point, telling users that they were effectively QA and to some extent marketing as well. Indeed, that's practically the same thing: that they wasted so much time in institutions. If someone breaks your software, you can do; and don't underestimate your abilities. Letting just 10,000 startup founders into the country each year could have a visible effect on the number of people who are mature and experienced, with a business background, may be satisfied with a demo and a verbal description of what you plan to do. At $300 a month, and make more than you spend, but as a guide to strategy, and even Lisp. When they think it's time to raise money is not when you need it, or when you reach some artificial deadline like a Demo Day.

And there is no possibility of piracy. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake when trying to convince investors of something very uncertain—that their startup will be huge—and convincing anyone of something like that happen here? Kids are curious, but the idea is very much alive; there is a safe option, that's the one a bureaucrat will choose. This change happened while no one was looking, and its effects have been largely masked so far. We've taken a nice, neat but wrong slogan, and churned it up like a mud puddle. If a startup fails, it will automatically push you away from things you think you're supposed to. That must also mystify outsiders.

Thanks to Marc Andreessen, Chris Anderson, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Dan Giffin, Steve Huffman, and Robert Morris for inviting me to speak.

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supremequeenmeme · 7 years ago

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Science class

It was that time of the day again, science class. I have science 3 hours a week and it’s gonna be the death of me. It’s not because I hate science that much. I mean, I don’t love science but there are some things that are way worse than trying to remember what number two on the periodic table is. It’s Helium but I’m not 100% sure, because my lab partner keeps distracting me. And that guy is the exact reason why science class is going to be the death of me.

I walked into the classroom and sat down on my usual spot, next to my lab partner. “Hey John” he spoke and he looked at me with that sly smile of his. “Hey Sherlock…” I said and I sighed softly. I put the papers and books I needed down on the table. Sherlock looked at the papers. “Did you finish all of your homework?” he asked, some of his dark curly hair falling in his face. I nodded. “Yeah” I said. “Neat, then I can copy it right?” he asked. I sighed and handed him my homework. “Sure…” I said. “Thanks John, you’re the best” he said and he copied my homework.

I sighed again and looked at him as he was copying my homework. The reason Sherlock is going to be the death of me is because he never does anything in class, even though he’s extremely smart. Well, doing nothing is the wrong way of putting it. He does something. And sure, it’s science but making a substance that makes you fall asleep and then put it in the teacher’s coffee mug doesn’t get you a higher grade. It just makes the teacher angry.

Sherlock looked at me and showed that sly smile of his again. “Thanks” he said and he handed me my homework again. “You know, Moriarty and I were thinking about doing something after class. Wanna come too?” he asked me. Jim Moriarty, a ‘friend’ of his. I don’t know why but they always refer to each other with their surnames. “Sure” I said, but the moment the word slipped from my mouth I knew I was going to regret it.

To be really honest, him not doing any work wasn’t the only reason he was gonna be the death of me. He was also extremely handsome. And the girls from our year knew that too. And if you didn’t notice it already on my sweaters and haircut, I’m pretty gay. And my stupid gay self, had to develop a crush on Sherlock.

The teacher walked into the classroom and immediately gave us an assignment. He didn’t even greet us, he just threw some papers on everyone’s desks with the assignment on it. I read the assignment and started writing down some stuff.

The class was over before we knew it, which meant I had to go somewhere with Jim and Sherlock next. Sherlock and I walked out of the classroom, towards the school’s front door. Sherlock was telling a random story about his dog or something like that, I didn’t really pay attention. He waved his hand in front of my eyes and chuckled. “Moriarty is waiting for us outside” he said. I nodded and a slight blush appeared on my face. Did he notice I wasn’t paying attention to his story that quickly?

We walked out of the school. Sherlock looked around for his friend. He sighed when he couldn’t find him. “I’m gonna call him, wait a sec” he said and he grabbed his phone. He called Jim and asked him where he was. By the annoyed look on his face I knew Jim’s answer wasn’t very good. Sherlock said goodbye and hung up the phone.

“Something came up, he can’t come” he said, looking very annoyed and maybe a bit pissed. “But we can still do something if you like” he looked at me. “Yeah, sure” I said, not really knowing what else to say. “Cool” he said and his face lit up immediately. It made me blush again.

“Do you like horror movies?” Sherlock asked. “Because there’s this new one and we can go watch it at the cinema if you want”. “Sure” I said. Another thing I regretted saying just after it left my mouth. I hate horror movies with a passion. Especially when I watch them in the cinema, because the music is way louder and you can’t really look away.

“Awesome” Sherlock said and he looked at me with a smile, a genuine smile for once. “I’ll pay for your ticket” he said and he grabbed my arm and dragged me towards a taxi. “I can pay for my own ticket” I said. “It’s not that expensive, unlike a taxi” I said. Sherlock looked at me and chuckled. “You’re funny John” he said. “T-thanks” I said, kinda flustered.

We got into the taxi and Sherlock told the driver to drive towards the nearest cinema. After a few minutes, we arrived. Sherlock paid the driver and we got out of the car. “Since you paid for the taxi, I’ll pay for the tickets” I said and we walked towards the cinema. “Okay, thanks John” Sherlock said and he smiled. Another genuine one. I didn’t know this guy could smile genuinely more than once a day.

We walked into the cinema and I paid for our tickets. I paid for tickets to a movie I didn’t even want to see. We bought some food and drinks and we walked towards the cinema room. We sat down at our spots. I looked at Sherlock and he looked back at me. “You know, my brother always said I shouldn’t watch this kind of movies in the cinema” he said. “Because the music makes it way scarier and stuff” he said and I nodded in agreement.

I sometimes forgot that Sherlock has a brother. A few months ago, there was this rumour going around about him. For some reason people thought his brother was named Minecraft or Microsoft or something and they thought it was hilarious. I, on the other hand, think it’s bullshit. No one would call his kid Minecraft, or Microsoft. It’s just stupid.

“The main goal of a horror movie is to scare you, so wouldn’t it be better, if you watched it in the cinema?” Sherlock said and he looked at the screen, which was now playing some commercials. “My brother can be an idiot sometimes”. I nodded again. “Ye-“ I got cut off by the lights turning off and the movie that started. I sighed softly and just watched the screen, hoping I wouldn’t die of a heart attack by some jumpscare or something like that.

After, like, two hours the movie finished. And to be honest, it wasn’t that scary. I jumped a few times and one time I grabbed Sherlock’s hand as a reflex but that’s it. I still feel kinda awkward because I grabbed his hand but I don’t let him notice it.

We walked out of the cinema. Sherlock stopped walking and looked at me. I stopped walking too and looked back at him. “You know John, I had a really great time today” he said. I nodded. “Yeah, me too” I said with a smile. “And if you want, we can go on dates more often” Sherlock said.

I looked at him, confused. Did he just use the word date? Did he say that on accident or does he just use that word weirdly? Sherlock saw the confused look on my face and laughed. “You did know this was a date, right?” he said. I shook my head, even more confused. “I was too awkward to ask you, that’s why I said Moriarty was going to be there too” he said.

“Ooh” I said, kinda understanding now. “But how did you know I had a crush on you?” I asked. He laughed in respond. “Well my dear John, it was obvious. The way you looked at me sometimes, your body language around me” he said and shrugged. “Then why didn’t you just tell me you liked me back?” I asked. “I was just too awkward and shy, I guess” he said and he shrugged again.

That sly smile of his appeared on his face. “Since you like me and all, you don’t mind if I do this, right?” he said then he kissed me. I closed my eyes in suprise and kissed him back. He pulled away after a few seconds and I opened my eyes again.

“See you in science class, John” he said and he walked off.

I watched him walk away, knowing science class will never be the same. I have no idea if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m gonna say it’s good.

#Johnlock #fanfiction #bbc sherlock #Sherlock #John Watson #Johnlock fanfiction #Fluff

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bmaxwell · 5 years ago

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Best Games of 2020

2020 was a lot. It will be remembered for many things far above and beyond video games. COVID-19 shut the world down in a way never seen in my lifetime. It changed day to day life for many of us, and cost many of us loved ones. It was also the year when the ugly parts of our capitalist society were shown in broad daylight. It feels like 2001 again in that our lives will be divided into pre-2020 and post-2020.

For me personally, I was able to keep my job and work from home, and no one close to us died to the pandemic. We stayed home as much as possible, wore masks, wiped down groceries, and did our best to control what we could. It can be hard to talk about stuff like video games and sports with the usual sort of fervor when the world feels like it’s falling apart around us. It feels like playing the violin aboard the Titanic. But self-care is especially important in times like these, and it’s healthy and necessary to close Twitter, or for-the-love-of-god fucking Facebook and get a breather sometimes. Finding a balance where I could stay informed without completely submerging myself in misery wasn’t always easy.

And so. 2020 was a pretty good year for games, though it must be noted that there is a cost to that escapism - the industry is rife with stories of abuse, burnout, and coverups from companies such as Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red, Naughty Dog, and many others. That can add an additional layer of exhaustion to what is supposed to be a relaxing escape. So I can understand the people who say they don’t want to hear about abuse in industry, they just want the games. But also, fuck those people. “I don’t care if you suffer to entertain me, I just don’t want to hear about it.” Fuck the whole entire way off.

But I digress. Like most years, I played a lot of games. I played a lot of coop beat-em-ups with my kids this year. Minecraft Dungeons and Streets of Rage 4 didn’t make the list, but I spent hours playing them with my middle child. And it wasn’t a 2020 release, but I had a blast playing River City Girls with firstborn. It was a good year for fans of tactics games with stuff like Gears Tactics, Troubleshooter, Wintermoor Tactics Club, and Fae Tactics. 2020 also saw new console releases, though the launch lineups were especially thin.

Gaming-wise, 2020 was the year of Xbox Game Pass for me. I spent most of this console generation (justifiably) dogging Xbox for their lack of platform exclusives, but I decided to pursue an Xbox Series X before a Playstation 5. Game Pass is the main reason for this. The “Netflix for games” thing has finally become a reality, and Sony just doesn’t have an answer for the bonkers value of Game Pass. We head into the new console generation with Microsoft leaning heavily on Game Pass subs, Sony still banking on a few console exclusives, and Nintendo, uh, doing their own thing over there. What a fascinating time for the industry.

Honorable Mention

It’s an honor just to be nominated.

Monster Sanctuary

If you start with Pokemon, strip away the anime, and mix in a healthy dose of metroidvania, you have Monster Sanctuary. This means there are monsters to collect, level, and evolve, and lots of combat revolving around elemental strengths and weaknesses. And I am here for that shit. A game like this lives and dies by its combat, and it’s very satisfying here. The game has plenty of choices about which skills to focus on for each monster, which gear to equip, and which monsters to keep in your active roster.

That said, between a couple of nasty difficulty spikes and some super-frustrating puzzle rooms, I was close to walking away from the game on multiple occasions. It’s a testament to the game’s quality that I kept coming back to it.

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is one of my favorite games ever. Each game in the series since the first has felt like a small incremental change from the original. I played Wild World on the DS quite a bit, City Folk a bit less, and A New Leaf not at all. I was thinking that maybe enough time has passed that I could get wrapped up in New Horizons, but I fell off it after a month or two.

I’m wondering what I would want from a new Animal Crossing game, and the answer is nothing. How much can you change the game and still have it be Animal Crossing? I don’t think the game is bad by any means. My whole family shared an island community for a couple of months. It’s impossible for a new game in the series make me feel the way that first game did.

The most memorable part of New Horizons is the museum. The museum is huge and absolutely lovely, with fish, bugs, fossils, and art each having their own wing. There were a few nights where the tranquility of the museum made for a nice end of the day.

Tell Me Why

My wife, firstborn, and myself have made a nice routine of playing through “choices matter” games together (starting last year with Detroit Become Human and following up with Life is Strange 2). Tell Me Why is the latest one one of these we tackled as a group. These game have created some memorable moments for us; who could forget their child yelling for them to “shoot the hooker”? (thank you, Detroit Become Human).

Tell Me Why was on my radar because it’s One of These, but also because it features a transgender protagonist. As a parent of a trans child, I was both excited at the prospect of this and also worried that it is such an easy thing to fumble. I’m pleased to report that DONTNOD handled the writing of the trans person very well without being hamfisted, preachy, or tryhardy with it. The character of Tyler is a believable trans man, and the topic is spoken of matter-of-factly without placing special focus on it; being trans is a part of Tyler’s story, but it’s not the entirety of his identity.

Less impressive to me was the story itself - especially the way it wrapped up its main conflict. The game trades in the idea of memory being imperfect, which is fascinating in and of itself, but I did not like it as a game mechanism. How did this REALLY happen? One character remembers it one way, and the other remembers it differently. Choosing between them felt cheap and hollow to me; I want you to tell me what happened, don’t ask me to choose. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game, and it feels like a step forward in mainstream storytelling for LGBTQA characters.

Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima is flat out gorgeous. Practically every area and every moment in the game is begging to screenshotted to the point where it can sometimes pull me out of the game world a little bit. That’s not necessarily a complaint because, as I said, the game is freaking beautiful. But every part of the world looking like a painting makes it feel more like it takes place in a fantasy world and less like a game from feudal Japan.

I also had some ludonarrative dissonance going on with the game; you play as Jin, one of the few surviving samurai in his homeland which has been invaded by the Mongols. His uncle is being held prisoner, and combatting the occupying force would be impossible without using dishonorable techniques like hiding, attacking from a distance, and ambushing from the shadows. I, however, have no qualms and savored every opportunity to catch my foes unaware. So Jin voices his doubts, then goes into a camp and proceeds to cut his enemies down from shadows as I cackle with glee.

Ghost of Tsushima also combines dark souls-esque* combat with Ubisoft-style open world gameplay where you’re hunting down icons on a map. That kind of open world game is hard for me top stick with, especially after I spent ~30 hours with Assassin’s Creed Origins early in the year. All of makes it sound like I’m pretty down on Ghost of Tsushima, which I’m not. I’m hoping I’ll come back to it at some point when I have more of an appetite for One of These.

Crown Trick

My Dungeons of Dredmor hole has not been properly filled in a long time. Chcocobo’s Mystery Dungeon is the closest I think. These games are what I think of as roguelikes, though the progression between runs makes them roguelites. *tips fedora*

Crown Trick is a turn-based dungeon crawler where the map is a grid, and each time you act, the enemies act. Add to this clockwork puzzle gameplay a good variety of weapons, relics, and events and you’ve got a lot of replayability. It doesn’t have Dredmor’s ridiculous combination of skill classes, but it does have a neat Mega Man-esque system where you defeat minibosses and add their skill set to your build.

Top 10

10. Star Renegades

Star Renegades was not on my radar at all until I heard Austin Walker talk about the game on Waypoint Radio. Two things gave me pause:

- It’s a sci-fi-ass game. It’s a setting I don’t care for. Star destroyers and aliens and galactic battlecruisers aren’t my jam. - Austin Walker’s enthusiasm is infectious. I’ve tried games after hearing him gush over them and those games haven’t worked for me.** That’s not an indictment, he and I just have different tastes.

Star Renegades ticks a few important boxes for me: it has a lot of characters to unlock, it’s highly customizable, and the combat is turn-based with a twist. Every action, whether friend or foe, appears on a timeline. Some attacks will push their target’s action back on the timeline, so there’s a puzzle element to the combat that keeps it feeling fresh. You can choose the makeup of your party on each run, which helped give the game a buttload of replay value.

It’s not flawless by any means. The writing tries a little too hard to be cheeky and ends up feeling tryhardy and a little flat. A decent run in the game would often take 2-3 hours, which makes it feel deflating when it ends in failure - which it frequently did. The sections of the game where you move between zones on an overhead map feels needlessly clunky, and sometimes I ended up with movement points I couldn’t spend because of how the game handles that system.

I enjoyed Star Renegades a lot, but my time with it was weird. The game has unlockable characters, so unlocking them all was my first priority. The game’s runs are pretty long, I was playing sub-optimally trying to unlock things, and the game is more difficult than I’d expected. It took me a long time to complete the unlocks, then I had a hard time actually finishing a run successfully. Eventually I was ready to be done with it and turned the difficulty down to easy**** just to finally get a W. Still, the positives far outweigh the negative here, and Star Renegades is one of my favorite games of 2020.

9. Immortals Fenyx Rising

Man, something happened to me this December. I’m currently finding myself playing a lot of Forza Horizon 4, Destiny 2, and Immortals Fenyx Rising. None of these is My Kind of Game. Immortals is probably the least surprising of these, because it at least has swords and bows and stuff.

Still, I dismissed and mocked Immortals Fenyx Rising when it was first shown. It was called Gods & Monsters back then, and the idea of Ubisoft making yet another open world game, this time aping Breath of Wild was not appealing at all. I only ended up with the game after trading in Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox credit and looking into Immortals because I was very surprised to see it on Game Informer’s game of the year list.

To get a few things out of the way, it absolutely recycles a lot from Breath of the Wild: you’ll be hang gliding, scaling walls as a stamina meter drains, finding shrines that contain puzzles and combat and climbing towers to get a vantage point and find points of interest on the map. The latter feels the most fumbled in this game - you can zoom in and survey the landscape, and your controller vibrates when you are looking near a point of interest. Move the cursor over it and press a button to reveal it on the map. They split the difference between Assassin’s Creed’s “all the icons pop in automatically” and Zelda’s wonderful “manually mark places that look interesting to you on your map” system and ended up with something neither functional nor interesting.

That’s where my complaints end though. The game’s art style is similar at a glance, but it’s vibrant and gorgeous, and never feels like Breath of the Wild. The combat is snappy, responsive, and challenging. The puzzle design is often creative, clever, and rarely frustrating; most of my frustration has come from my overthinking the puzzle solutions. There is plenty of gear to find, and the game’s cosmetic options are intuitive and welcome. The game’s narrative is better than I expected; it feels like a B-tier Disney movie. The writing has made me smile a few times, and made me roll my eyes a few times. Zeus as comic relief is a pretty major miss, but it’s fine apart from that. It helps that I’m already familiar with Greek mythology.

It’s a huge, beautiful world where traversal and combat feel great. It’s sometimes hard to get anything done because I am constantly distracted by tracking down an icon on the map, or just exploring because I saw something cool or strange. Not all of the puzzles and challenges work, but that’s okay because I can move onto something else. Immortals Fenyx Rising is this year’s Dragon Quest Builders 2: gaming comfort food where it feels good to sit back and check things off a list at the end of a long day. Still don’t like the name though. And fuck Ubisoft.

8. Atomicrops

The first mention of Atomicrops I remember was “What if Stardew Valley was a twin stick shooter?” which is bullshit, because the games bear no resemblance beyond “there’s farming”. Beyond that first blurb, what appealed to me is the idea that the game’s days take place in 2 phases: during the daytime, you go out and fight baddies to gather seeds, and at night the baddies invade your farm and you fight them off while planting and watering crops.

It’s also a run-based roguelike, and I am 1 of 26 remaining people who is still psyched to play those. Give me a challenge, mix up the details, let me upgrade stuff between sessions, and turn me loose. The game has a good variety of weapons and the challenge is satisfying and rarely feels unfair (apart from the bullet hell problem of too much stuff on the screen at times). I don’t love the art style, but the music sure makes up for it.

7. Wintermoor Tactics Club

A game needs more than charm to be memorable and enjoyable. Charm can go a long way though, and Wintermoor Tactics club has it in spades. It takes place at a small college, and you play as a girl named Alicia. She and her friends are members of the school’s tactics club, and much of the game takes place around a table littered with graph paper, rulebooks, and snacks. As someone who loved tabletop RPG’s in simpler times, and never had the traditional college experience, a prettied-up version of that appeals to me in a huge way. It’s not wholly idyllic though, and it touches on issues of discrimination and what it’s like to be an outcast.

The gameplay itself is pretty straightforward tactics stuff and it works fine but isn’t really the draw here. I was propelled through the game largely by a desire to meet the next character, get the next story bit, and keep basking in the game’s wonderful aesthetic and smart writing. There’s something lovely about sitting around the table and playing a game with friends, and this game really captures that.

6. Ratropolis

Ratrpolis is “A fusion of roguelite, tower defense, city-building, and deck-building!” which sounds like a hodgepodge of nonsense. And it kind of is. It’s a city building game where you are periodically being invaded from either the left or right side of the screen (or both). You choose from 6 leaders, each with their own pool of cards and play style, start with a basic deck of cards and slowly evolve it. The cards consist of buildings, military units, and various economic and military buffs. The major things that set this apart from favorites like Slay the Spire are that it happens in real time, and there is an economic aspect to manage. Tax money comes in every few seconds, and it’s possible to make poor decisions early on and not understand why you feel hamstrung later.

I spent a lot of games like that, not really understanding why I’d be doing okay and then get overwhelmed. I had a few rage quits early on, but I could tell that there was something there. I started approaching it with the mindset of building an economic engine in the early game, and I started having a lot more fun and success. Each of the 6 leaders feels distinct, and figuring them each out has been a lot of fun. Runs are usually no more than about 30 minutes, which feels about right.

5. Final Fantasy VII Remake

Despite identifying as a big JRPG fan, I’ve never enjoyed a mainline Final Fantasy game enough to finish it. This year I finished 2 of them: Final Fantasy XV and the Final Fantasy VII Remake.*** I played the original Playstation Final Fantasy VII release, I think I got through disc 1 and a little ways into disc 2. It didn’t resonate with me, so I came to this year’s remake with no reverence for the game. When many of the original game’s fans got upset with how much the remake changed the script from the source material, I didn’t have a horse in that race.

The remake is gorgeous, the combat and upgrade systems are engaging, and the story is interesting enough to keep me wanting to see what’s next. The 1997 release of the game had some stuff that isn’t going to play the same in 2020 like the scene where Cloud is crossdressing, the game’s themes of environmental activism, and, uh, the entire Don Corneo storyline come to mind. But the game handled all of this pretty well. I’m glad to say that this is one of the best RPG’s I played this year, and I look forward to the next entry whenever the hell it comes along. Cloud is still an unlikable punk though.

4. Monster Train

Slay the Spire was a surprise hit a couple of years ago, and inspired a lot of folks in the indie space to take a crack at the deckbuilding genre. Monster Train managed to to take inspirations from Slay the Spire but still feels like very much its own thing. Both games have you progressing through a series of encounters consisting of battles, shops, or small events trying to defeat the big bad at the end of a journey. You start with a deck of basic cards and upgrade them and add new cards along to way. You can’t really start a run planning on making a certain style of deck, you just choose from the cards available and watch the strategy form. The way this process tickles my brain makes these games endlessly replayable. The “one more run” is very strong here.

Monster Train differentiates itself in a couple of ways. First, where Slay the Spire was always just your one character battling one or more enemies, here you are summoning multiple creatures on the lower 3 levels of a 4-level train (I don’t know either). If the enemies reach the top floor of your train, they attack your core directly and eventually defeat you. This adds a strong spatial planning element - now you’re thinking about which combatants you want on each floor, and in what order.

The other notable difference between the games is that while Slay the Spire has four heroes, each with their own unique pool of cards, Monster Train has five factions. It’s one better. The first three factions feel pretty standard from a creativity point of view - red/green/blue are fire/nature/ice. The last two factions you unlock feel wholly unique though: there’s a faction that summons weak, cheap units and feeds on them for combat bonuses, and one that is made of candle beings who are powerful, but melt away. Okay, the real reason is that each time you play, you’re choosing a main faction (each has 2 champions to use from) and a secondary faction (you don’t get their champion, but you get access to their pool of cards). This makes each run feel unique and makes the game feel endlessly replayable. Even after unlocking all of the factions and their cards, and winning a run on the hardest challenge setting with each faction, I’m still playing Monster Train.

3. Spiritfarer

If Kentucky Route Zero is my “It’s Not You, It’s Me” game this year, Spiritfarer might be my “Love at First Sight” game of the year. The game’s striking visuals grabbed my attention immediately when I first saw the trailer at E3 2019, and it was billed as a game about saying goodbye. My only reservation was that it was coming from Thunder Lotus Games, whose previous titles (Jotun and Sundered) both fell flat for me.

Spiritfarer ended up being everything I was hoping for. You play as the newly-appointed ferryperson for the boat that transports souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Your ship acts as your base of operations, and you build living quarters, a kitchen, a forge, and lots of other facilities on it. The beings who join you on your ship are anthropomorphized animals, each with their own story. Your job is to help them be at peace, then send them to the next life once they’re ready.

In practical terms, you’re spending a lot of your time sailing from island to island to talk to people and find resources. There’s a plenty of crafting and time sinks in the game, and I appreciated the excuse to luxuriate in this game world. No game made me cry this year, but Spiritfarer (Alice’s story in particular) sure did try. It was the perfect respite for the nightmare that was 2020.

2. Yakuza: Like a Dragon

A lot of Yakuza fans were concerned over this game’s switch from the series’ usual brawling combat to turn-based RPG combat. I was not one of them. Everything about this game sounds like the sort of fan fiction someone like, well, like me would come up with on a late night drunken bender. “What if it was Yakuza, but like, JRPG battles? Why would that happen.....OH oh oh what if the main character was a big fan of DRAGON QUEST so he just, like, saw the world in those terms? You could have party members, and a Pokedex of all the weirdo scumbags you fight, and you could change jobs by going to a temp agency!”

All of that is in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. And I love it. The series’ producer says they decided to pivot to a turn-based combat system after positive reaction to an April Fools Day Yakuza RPG joke they put online. And there are some rough spots. Your party members get caught on the world’s geometry sometimes, and combatants are constantly milling around so AOE abilities feel like a crap shoot. The Yakuza series has always had about 30% too much combat, so translating it into a genre known for grindy gameplay feels like a perfect storm of sorts. Thankfully, I’m a fan of grindy RPG’s so all of this is directly in my wheelhouse.

This eighth game in the Yakuza series is the first with a new protagonist - goodbye Kiryu Kazuma, hello Ichiban Kasuga. Where Kiryu was very stoic, Ichiban is a hothead with the perfect mix of kindness, earnestness, and stupidity for a JRPG hero. He is an incredibly likeable and charismatic character, and I hope Ryu Go Gotoku Studio tightens up the battle system and keeps this iteration of the series running.

1. Hades

Hades seemed like a slam dunk. My favorite studio was making an action RPG based on Greek mythology. The announcement was the best possible version of “AND you can play it right now!” I bought it (in early access) immediately and played it a bit, but I didn’t want to burn out on it so I only briefly checked in on it every few months. As a result, my hype was pretty low when the game reached its 1.0 release.

Once I decided to fully engage with the game though, I was unable to put it down. SuperGiant’s games have the best writing, music, and voice acting in the business. That’s a pretty high bar to aim for, and they hit it once again with Hades. Both of their post-Bastion games (Transistor and Pyre) are games that I have to recommend with an asterisk though; the gameplay parts of each game is an acquired taste and will put some folks off.

Hades, however, I can give a full throated recommendation for. The gameplay is tight and the combat feels good. There’s a lot of variety in the weapons, so you can either find one that fits your style and stick with it, or do what I did and change it up every run. They also managed to achieve something incredible - they largely took the sting out of losing in a run-based game. There are things to unlock between runs as you’d expect from a roguelite. I found myself enjoying chatting with the denizens of hell as much as the moment to moment action gameplay. I’d respawn back home and make my rounds, taking to people and spending my cash. I had a route I’d travel each time, and that route ended with Skelly in the weapons room. Oh, the gauntlets grant a bonus if I use them this time....the door to start a new run is just right over there....okay I can do one more run tonight.

That personality and dialogue is sprinkled throughout the runs themselves too, in the form of the various Greek gods you talk to and get boons from. The variety in weapons and boons give the game tremendous replayability and give the game a deckbuilding feel. Every character in the game is incredibly well developed and well-acted. Zagreus is a likeable and relatable protagonist. He wants to get away from his disapproving father and find his estranged mother, and he and his father can’t see eye to eye.

The story and gameplay in Hades do equal lifting, the game is an incredibly complete package. The game also provided a couple of the most memorable moments of the year. Hades might just be SuperGiant’s best game. It’s certainly their most complete game.

*It’s very much on the lighter side of this gameplay style, akin to 2019′s Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Plus there are difficulty settings, which I appreciate.

**Invisible Inc, Dragon’s Dogma, and The Outer Wilds come to mind.

***Final Fantasy VII Remake is only the first installment in a series

****Cloaked in shame and failure.

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tech-battery · 5 years ago

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ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 15 REVIEW: POWERFUL PORTABLE GAMING

If you’re looking for the absolute most powerful gaming hardware out there... well, you don’t want the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15. You want a desktop or a laptop that weighs seven pounds, requires multiple power bricks, and is basically a desktop. But if you still want something you can realistically carry around, the Strix is about as powerful as it gets.

We’ve reviewed a number of Asus laptops this year that are members of the ROG Zephyrus gaming line — powerful, while still portable and attractive. You’d buy a Zephyrus if you want decent gaming results but also want an everyday work machine you could bring into the office or class. The Strix line eschews the latter role. These are gaming laptops. They are just for games. They’re not cheap, they’re not subtle, and they hold nothing back.

That’s where the Strix Scar 15 stands out. Every aspect is designed with the gaming enthusiast in mind, and there are a number of unique features for those customers. Of course, those also come with a few trade-offs — and folks who might need to use their machine for tasks besides gaming should consider other options.

The Strix Scar 15 starts at $2,199.99 on the Asus store. The base model comes with a Core i7-10875H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, 1GB of SSD storage, and a 240Hz screen. The model we’re looking at today is a significant step up from that: it costs $2,799.99 and is powered by Intel’s eight-core Core i9-10980HK and an RTX 2070 Super, which are joined by 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and a 1920 x 1080 300Hz screen (3ms response time). The 10980HK is a workhorse — it’s one of the most powerful mobile chips on the market — and 300Hz is the fastest display you can get on a 15-inch laptop.

If you clicked on this review, you’re probably most curious about the frame rates this laptop is putting up. Suffice to say: they’re good.

On CS:GO at maximum settings, the Strix Scar averaged 248fps. Thanks to this model’s 300Hz screen, the chips aren’t just rendering 248fps; you’re actually seeing 248fps. You’ll see a frame rate difference between this system and an identical one with a 240Hz display, albeit a small one. (But to folks who play a lot of esports and first-person shooters, a small difference can matter.)

Overall, CS:GO was a smooth experience. The Scar only dipped below 100fps once when I was running through a thick flurry of dust.

Not all titles are able to take full advantage of the 300Hz screen, unless you plan on bumping the quality settings down. The Strix put up 67fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s highest settings with ray tracing on Ultra. On Red Dead Redemption II (one of the most demanding games out there) cranked up to Ultra, the Scar averaged 54fps. Both games were quite playable on those settings, without any stuttering or slowdown. Those results are right on par with the MSI GE66 Raider (which put up 50fps on Red Dead and 70fps on Tomb Raider) and beat the smaller Zephyrus G14 by a significant margin.

It’s worth noting that while I was letting the Scar rip in Turbo mode (the highest power profile available) the 10980HK got quite hot throughout my gaming session, spending a chunk of time in the mid-90s and even hitting 99 degrees Celsius a couple of times. When I swapped to the regular Performance profile, the CPU spent more time in the mid-high 80s, and I only saw a 1-2fps difference as a result. So if you’re worried about frying your hardware, you won’t miss much if you stay on the Performance profile.

Moving on to other laptop stuff. Apart from its chips, what distinguishes the Strix Scar 15 as a gaming laptop is the design. It features a customizable per-key RGB keyboard, a luminous logo on the lid, and a bright LED strip around the front three sides. A glowing strip may seem obnoxious, but this one is actually more subdued than strips you may have seen on gaming rigs like MSI’s GE66 Raider. It wraps around the underside of the deck, so you don’t see it full-on; the effect is less garish gamer than the GE66 Raider and more fancy nightclub. (You can turn all of the RGB stuff off, of course. But then, what’s the point?)

Another cool thing is the deck design, which is printed with what Asus calls “Cybertext.” Basically, Republic of Gamers is written all over it in an urban-chic sort of font. It’s subtle and far from distracting, but it gives the whole product a subtle sci-fi vibe.

Speaking of the keyboard deck: the palm rests are coated in a unique “soft-touch paint.” It’s much smoother than your typical palm rest (you can very much feel the difference when you touch the rest of the chassis) and is quite nice to lay your hands on.

Asus keyboards are often among my favorites, and the Strix Scar’s keyboard is no exception. I love typing on this. I feel like my fingers are flying while using it. There’s a satisfying click with very little resistance. And I especially appreciate the convenient row of hotkeys at the top, which includes volume controls, a microphone mute, one that changes the performance profile, and another button that brings up Armoury Crate (Asus’ app where you can adjust various settings and features).

If you’d rather plug in your own peripherals, you have a good port selection at your disposal. There are three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports and an audio jack on the left side, while the back houses one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port (which supports DisplayPort, but not PD charging), the charging port, one LAN RJ-45, and one HDMI 2.0. That’s most of what you’ll need but there’s one glaring omission: Thunderbolt. Plenty of people may not care about this, but it’s a port I’m disappointed not to see on a $2,799 laptop.

On the right side is a Keystone II reader. A Keystone II is a physical key on which you can save personal settings. You can also use it to access a private storage space, which Asus refers to as a “shadow drive.” This can be encrypted if you have Windows 10 Pro. (Only this model ships with that operating system. You’ll need to upgrade from Windows 10 Home if you buy the base configuration.)

The Keystone II is a neat idea considering how many settings and profiles there are to keep track of on the Strix. In the ROG app GameVisual, you can choose between color presets for different types of games (FPS mode enhances brightness and contrast, RPG mode prioritizes vivid colors, etc.). In Aura Creator, you can customize your keyboard’s colors and animation. In GameFirst VI, you can prioritize bandwidth between the programs you have running; there are presets like Gaming First, Live Streaming First, and Multimedia First.

One more thing I like: the speakers. Music sounded great, with a nice surround quality. The Strix won’t replace a good external speaker and percussion was a bit tinny. But vocals were quite clear, and at maximum volume, I never heard distortion. The laptop’s fans get quite loud during gaming, but I had no trouble hearing my games’ audio over them. (You can also switch to the Silent profile if the whine is bothering you.)

There’s lots of good stuff on the Strix, as you can see. But there are trade-offs, too. Most of them aren’t super relevant to gaming (and thus, forgivable on a laptop like the Strix), but they’re worth bearing in mind nonetheless.

For one: there’s no webcam. It’s not a deal-breaker — streamers will be using their own equipment anyway — but it’s a big minus for anyone who would otherwise use the Strix for an occasional work meeting or virtual catch-up with friends.

I also have a couple of issues with the trackpad. It has discrete clickers, which require a bit more skittering around to press than integrated buttons. I like these particular clickers more than most, but they’re still easy to miss and I sometimes found myself whacking chassis when trying to click. Generally, I found it less responsive and less accurate than I wanted it to be. Occasionally, it thought I was clicking when I wasn’t, causing me to accidentally drag things everywhere.

The touchpad also has a nifty feature where it can morph into an LED number pad if you press an integrated NumLock button in the top-right corner — but I hit this button with my palm while typing and accidentally activated the Numpad several times. Unlike with Asus’ ZenBooks that also have this feature, you can’t navigate with the touchpad while the Numpad is up, so I kept having to interrupt my workflow to deactivate it. (You can disable the touchpad itself with F10, but there’s not an easy way to disable the NumPad without disabling the touchpad.)

The biggest downside, though, is battery life. I averaged two hours and 28 minutes of sustained multitasking and office work with the Strix on the Battery Saver profile with the screen around 200 nits of brightness. (With all the battery-saving features off and a slightly heavier load, I got as low as one hour.) The Strix is a gaming laptop, so I wasn’t expecting hours upon hours of juice. Still, plenty of competitors do better: The MSI GE66 Raider (also powering an LED strip and RGB keyboard) made it through four hours of that same workload.

AGREE TO CONTINUE: ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 15

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

As with other Windows 10 computers, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 presents you with multiple things to agree to or decline upon setup.

The mandatory policies, for which an agreement is required, are:

A request for your region and keyboard layout

Windows 10 License Agreement and Asus privacy agreement

A PIN

In addition, there is a slew of optional things to agree to:

Wi-Fi network

Microsoft account

Device privacy settings: online speech recognition, Find My Device, Inking and Typing, Advertising ID, Location, Diagnostic data, Tailored experiences

Customize your device for various purposes (gaming, schoolwork, creativity, entertainment, family, and/or business)

Link your Android smartphone

OneDrive backup

Office 365

Allow Microsoft to access your location, location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, messages, apps, and Edge browsing history to aid Cortana’s personalized experiences and suggestions

Asus member registration

Set up McAfee account

That’s five mandatory agreements and 16 optional ones.

Gaming on battery is possible, but not great. Red Dead ran mostly in the high teens and low 20s. I got an hour and 15 minutes of the game on a charge, but I started to see stuttering when the Strix was down to 60 percent (about half an hour in) and the game became unplayable at 10 percent. Realistically, if you plan on bringing the Scar anywhere, you’ll need to bring the massive 280W adapter and spend some time charging the device. (It took 45 minutes to charge up to 60 percent during very light Chrome use.)

Overall, these nitpicks emphasize Asus’ priority with the Scar. It’s not a laptop that’s meant to double as a travel companion or a work-from-home driver — don’t buy it to be your primary PC.

But that doesn’t mean the Scar isn’t great at what it’s supposed to be great at, which is gaming. Its results are on par with those of the best 15-inch rigs on the market, and it offers useful customization software with a unique colorful design to boot. If you need the best frame rates and the fastest screen, the Strix Scar 15 is a fine purchase.

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componentplanet · 5 years ago

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Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X Review: AMD Unleashes Zen 3 Against Intel’s Last Performance Bastions

Ever since April 2017, AMD has been steadily slicing into Intel’s desktop performance position, both in core counts and per-core performance. After an excellent parry in the form of Coffee Lake, Intel’s overall positioning weakened. The repeated delays afflicting the 10nm process node have kept the company iterating on the same architecture, a situation that won’t change until Rocket Lake arrives late in Q1 2021.

The story thus far (in picture form, anyway).

Up until today, Intel could still argue that it held a leadership position in areas like single-threaded performance and a number of games. Today, that support line has been cut. Zen 3 is now the fastest high-end desktop micro-architecture on the market in every category we test including (broadly) gaming. Intel’s HEDT line can still sometimes compete effectively against AMD CPUs thanks to AVX-512 optimization, but Intel’s consumer hardware still lacks this feature, which arrives with Rocket Lake.

I’m going to cut right to the chase: AMD claimed it would improve IPC by 1.19x. It has. AMD claimed that its new CCX architecture would significantly improve performance in gaming and that we’d see more uplift in titles than would typically be expected in a new CPU architecture, and that’s exactly what we see. While the improvements obviously vary from title to title, the gains across the board are real.

I’ll have more to say about Zen 3 in an upcoming article, but the news-in-brief on the CPU core is this: AMD rearchitected the entire chip, to the point that Zen 3 is effectively a new iteration of the core. Mark Papermaster and other AMD engineers we spoke to were clear about the degree of work that had gone into every aspect of the new chip.

These two slides offer a concise summary of what AMD changed when it went rummaging around in Zen 2 in search of optimizations. Branch predictor bandwidth is higher and AMD claims its zero-bubble technology reduces latency in the event of a mispredict. The execution units now have larger windows, reduced latency on some operations (this is probably not a major factor), and a six-wide dispatch unit, even though the FPU is still limited to retiring four instructions per cycle. According to AMD, the ability to burst up to six instructions produced better overall utilization of available resources. I’ll have more to say about the low-level changes in the not-too-distant future.

The biggest mid-level change to Zen 3 is the shift to an 8-core CCX. AMD also now uses a unified 32MB L3 cache rather than the 2x16MB cache structure it previously employed. The effect of these changes is quite noticeable in certain benchmarks.

Performance Comparisons

We’ve included data on the Core i9-10900K, the Ryzen 9 3900XT, Ryzen 9 5900X, and Ryzen 9 5950X. We have only partial results for the Ryzen 9 3950X — with two reviews this morning, I had to make tough choices about which chips I had time to test — but I included it where I could.

The 3900XT-5900X comparison is arguably more useful in any case. Both the 3950X and 5950X are constrained by the ~140W maximum power draw of the AM4 socket, where the 12-core has a bit more room to breathe. For the delta between the XT and the X part, just knock a few percent off the Zen 2 core.

Intel’s Core i9-10900K is the company’s current top-performing consumer desktop CPU, so we’ve included it as well. Intel will next update its desktop CPU family with Cypress Cove, the backported 10nm CPU design implemented on 14nm, arriving at the end of Q1 2021.

All systems tested using Windows 10 2004 patched up to the latest version. GeForce driver 457.09 was used on all three machines, along with a Corsair MP600 and an Nvidia RTX 3080. The Core i9-10900K was tested in an Asus ROG Maximum XII Hero (Wi-Fi), while all of the AMD CPUs were tested in an MSI X570 Godlike motherboard with 32GB of Crucial Ballistix RAM across four DIMMs, and clocked at DDR4-3600.

All of the CPUs we tested were capable of sustaining a DDR4-3600 clock without instability or other problems. As a reminder, AMD is pricing these CPUs somewhat higher than their predecessors, at $550 and $800 respectively. Launch prices on the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 9 3950X were $500 and $750, so we’ll be watching to see if the chips prove their price/performance ratios.

Performance Results

7Zip

We’ll kick off with 7zip, which used to be a benchmark that AMD and Intel split, with Intel leading in compression and AMD in decompression. In what will become a theme, that’s no longer the case, and the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X offers nearly double the performance of the Core i9-10900K.

Cinebench R20

In years past, we would see this benchmark divvied up between Intel and AMD, with Intel reliably claiming the single-threaded peak and AMD hoarding multi-threading glory. This arrangement is nearly preserved if you only look at the Core i9-10900K and Ryzen 9 3900XT, but then the 5900X and 5950X arrive and ruin things for everybody.

AMD claims a 1.17x improvement in single-threaded and a 1.16x improvement in multi-threaded at the 12-core point. The gains for the 16-core CPU are much lower in multi-threaded, possibly due to power consumption limitations. The 5950X still pulls off a 1.06x improvement over the Ryzen 3950X in MT and 1.2x in ST.

Indigo Bench

In Indigo bench, we actually see a performance regression between the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 9 5900X — I need to re-check this result — but the Ryzen 9 5950X still outperforms all other solutions, beating Intel by nearly 2x in the “Bedroom” scene. You would typically run these workloads on GPUs, but running the render on a CPU gives Ryzen a chance to flex its muscle.

Corona Render 1.3

Corona Render is an Intel-friendly benchmark, as evidenced by the Core i9-10900K’s very strong showing against the Core i9-3900XT. The changes to AMD’s core really help here — the 5900X is now as fast as the Ryzen 9 3950X, while the Ryzen 9 5950X takes just 82 percent as long as the Ryzen 9 3950X to complete the task.

Blender Render Benchmark 2.0.5

We tested Blender v2.9.0 using Blender Render benchmark 2.0.5, in all of the scenes distributed with the application.

The 5900X has an interesting pattern of differences from the Ryzen 9 3900XT — the gap between them isn’t static, but changes with the scene. The 5900X wins every comparison, however. The Core i9-10900K is outperformed both per-core and overall.

NeatBench 5

Neat Video is a video noise remover I’ve been trying to teach myself as part of my video upscaling work / DS9 project. The company also produces NeatBench, which tests the maximum throughput of CPUs and GPUs.

Again, AMD picks up 1.18x generationally from the 3900XT to the 5900X. Since the 3900XT is a bit faster than the 3900X, we can see AMD is landing in the ~1.22x range it told us to expect.

Scaling from the 5900X to the 5950X isn’t very good here. Either the application tops out around 12 threads, or the 5900X is soaking up the power budget with just 24 threads. Overall performance is well above Intel.

Qt Compile

Our Qt compile test is performed in Microsoft Visual Studio 2019. We see significant performance uplift from the 3900XT to the 5900X, with the workload rendering in 83.5 percent the time. Scaling from the 12-core to the 16-core is nowhere near linear, but AMD ekes out an additional 10 percent.

Game Benchmarks

AMD has boldly predicted its own ability to beat Intel in various games and resolutions, and we’re nothing if not obliging.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes kicks things off with wins for AMD at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. While a 5 percent gain from the Ryzen 9 3900XT to the Ryzen 9 5900X isn’t all that large, the fact that we’re seeing a boost at that resolution and Crazy detail levels speaks to some of the benefits AMD is getting from its new core architecture.

Assassin’s Creed: Origins

ACO is a narrow win for the Core i9-10900K, and while the gap is generally within the margin of error, it’s a gap that consistently favors the Intel CPU. AMD makes a few very small improvements here, but not all that much.

Borderlands 3

The 5950X has to do stand-in duty for game performance between the Zen 2 and Zen 3 architectures, but Borderlands 3 appears to be a game that doesn’t benefit from AMD’s new architecture. AMD wins 1080p here, while Intel narrowly takes 4K.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divded

Our Deus Ex testing method uses MSAA, which might as well be a boat anchor as far as its impact on GPU performance. Even the mighty RTX 3080 can’t shake loose any meaningful differences at any resolution.

Far Cry 5

But where Deus Ex failed, Far Cry 5 comes through with shining colors. Performance at 1080p Ultra with HD textures enabled is up a whopping 1.27x. Even 1440p gains 1.19x, and we don’t see things settle down until we hit 4K and become GPU-limited. It’s difficult to predict which games will and won’t benefit from Zen 3’s improvements, but the uplift can be substantial when it happens.

Final Fantasy XV

In Final Fantasy XV, the Ryzen 9 5900X wins 1080p and ties up with the Core i9-10900K at 1440p and 4K, while the Ryzen 9 5950X is a whisper behind. Performance is up about 5 percent over the Ryzen 9 3900XT and a bit more than that over the 3900X — again, not a bad showing in gaming, where CPU-related improvements are hard to come by.

Hitman II

We have two Hitman results to show you, one from each benchmark map.

Again, a nice 1.11x uplift for the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X in Miami, though the Mumbai map is much tighter. Intel and AMD each take home one map here. The Ryzen 5000 family doesn’t dispatch Intel in every single title or resolution, but it blows enough holes in Intel’s hegemony to leave the company’s claim to gaming dominance in tatters.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Another massive uplift in SotTR actually puts AMD above Intel by 10fps. Again, the Ryzen 9 5900X maintains a 9 percent uplift over the 3900XT at 1440p, with the game becoming GPU limited at 4K.

Strange Brigade

Strange Brigade is the test we tapped to illustrate performance in the Vulkan API. The result is a dead heat between all four chips.

Warhammer II: Dawn of War

Warhammer II has always been an Intel win, as you can see when comparing the Ryzen 9 3900XT against the Intel Core i9-10900K in the built-in Skaven benchmark. Here, the uplift from Zen 2 to Zen 3 is no less than 1.34x, and again, AMD now wins the benchmark. Warhammer II truly doesn’t like AMD’s Zen, Zen+, or Zen 2 micro-architectures, because the game still picks up an additional 1.08x at 4K. AMD leads Intel in the Skaven benchmark at both 1080p and 1440p before Intel ties things up at 4K.

Add up the game results, and AMD wins six benchmarks, loses three, and ties two. That’s enough to award the company overall leadership of the segment, particularly considering the size of some of AMD’s leaps. The gains often seem to come in games where Ryzen was disadvantaged against Intel to start with, but there are also several instances of AMD outperforming Intel in absolute terms.

Conclusion: AMD Currently Offers Faster Chips and Better Values

The last facet to this conversation, of course, is price. The enthusiast market wasn’t exactly thrilled when AMD announced it would be raising prices. Do the new Ryzen CPUs justify it?

In a word, yes, at least as far as the 5900X is concerned. In Cinebench R20, the 5900X was 1.16x faster than the 3900X and costs 1.1x more. In Corona Render 1.3, using the 5900X cut rendering time by ~1.3x for an additional 10 percent on the sticker price. Gaming is harder to predict, since it varies by title, but if you are a gamer, you’ve got a shot at some very nice performance uplifts provided you’re already using a fairly high-end GPU to start with. This is not to say that we wouldn’t still see uplift on a GTX 1080 or 1080 Ti, but I haven’t evaluated that question and cannot speak to it.

The 5950X is a bit tougher. Price/performance scaling is not expected to be linear at these price points, and the ~1.1x performance improvement the 5950X turns in over the 3950X in multi-threaded code is a worst-case scenario. I’d split the difference and say that the 5900X still offers a better price/performance ratio at a higher absolute price, while the argument for the Ryzen 9 5950X is a bit more situational.

AMD now leads Intel modestly in gaming and hammers it everywhere else, in part because Intel has chosen to keep its CPU per-core pricing relatively high. The Core i9-10900K is currently selling for $488 on Amazon, versus an intended $550 MSRP for the Ryzen 9 5900X. As our benchmarks show, the Ryzen 9 5900X is considerably more than 1.13x faster than the Core i9-10900K.

Intel will have a chance to reclaim its single-threaded throne four months from now, when Rocket Lake launches, but it will not reclaim a leadership position in consumer multi-threaded performance unless it moves HEDT CPU cores into the mainstream market. It’s not even clear if that’s possible given the restrictions of the LGA1200 socket, and we’d probably know if the company was planning anything so massive.

Rocket Lake, we now know, tops out at eight cores, while AMD will continue fielding up to 16 CPU cores in the Ryzen 9 5950X. Even with a 1.2x IPC improvement outside of gaming and, say, a 1.05x improvement specifically in gaming, Intel won’t be in a position to challenge the top of the consumer multi-threaded stack. We have to assume a 1.2 – 1.25x performance uplift to even hold Rocket Lake’s overall performance at eight cores steady against Comet Lake’s 10. Intel has given us no indication that we should expect a 1.4x – 1.5x performance uplift in multi-threading, and that’s what it would take for an eight-core chip to challenge a 12-core CPU like the Ryzen 9 5900X.

Zen 3 is an unparalleled success for AMD. The company has literally redefined what kind of performance is possible within a given desktop power envelope and price point over the past 3.5 years. With this new architecture, AMD expanded its leadership position over Intel in multi-threaded and single-threaded workloads, while surpassing it in gaming overall. Intel still leads in specific titles, but AMD can claim to be leading the industry.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a nap.

Now Read:

AMD Is Hitting Market Share It Hasn’t Held in a Decade

AMD’s Mark Papermaster Dishes the Goods on Zen 3

AMD Has Scaled Ryzen Faster Than Any Other CPU in the Past 20 Years

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/316943-ryzen-9-5950x-and-5900x-review from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/11/ryzen-9-5950x-and-5900x-review-amd.html

#Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X Review: AMD Unleashes Zen 3 Against Intel’s Last Performance Bastions

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josephlrushing · 5 years ago

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Jabra Evolve2 85 Headphones Are Perfect for the On-the-Go Professional

Jabra is world-renown for excellent headphones and productivity gear, and the latest Jabra Evolve2 85 headphones are no exception. They’re engineered to help keep you focused on your work with active noise cancellation and busy lights that let others see you’re on a call. Available in USB-A or USB-C, the Evolve2 85 are worth the investment.

I live my work life going from conference call to conference call, and a good pair of headphones is key to maintaining my sanity. The Jabra Evolve2 85 headphones have been a revelation for my workday. I’m working from home for the time being, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Evolve2 85 headphones have helped me focus on the task at hand. Thanks to Jabra’s great active noise cancellation (ANC) and the busy lights, I’ve been able to concentrate a lot more this past week.

I have two kids, 6 and 3, who love to barge into my “office,” AKA the basement, when I’m working. They’ve been pretty good about asking if I’m on a call, but the busy lights are a game-changer. They can peek downstairs, see that the red lights are on, and they turn around and go back upstairs. Even if I’m not on a call, I’m able to turn on the busy lights manually to ensure I’m not disturbed, and my concentration remains unbroken. I can’t imagine how helpful they’d be at my real office, where my co-workers could use the busy lights as a hint not to disturb.

A good look at the busy lights

These premium headphones feature 40mm speakers with the latest AAC codec for a premium sound experience inside the soft leather-feeling earcups that feel great on your ears after hours of use. They also use a really soft, ergonomic headband that increases the comfort levels. The biggest difference between my Jabra Elite 85h headphones and the Evolve2 85 headphones is the folding boom microphone arm, making my voice sound excellent on conference calls. The microphone angle is adjustable, so it’ll work with just about any head/face size. The boom arm itself has 4 microphone built-in for excellent call quality in the office while the headphones have another 6 microphones built-in for active noise cancellation and on-the-go call quality. That’s a total of 10 built-in microphones!

The rechargeable battery will last for around 37-hours of continuous usage, and Jabra will even sell you a handy little charging stand. The battery charges quickly too. You can get a full charge in just 2.5 hours, but the coolest thing is you can get 8 hours of battery life (a full workday) in a measly 15-minute quick charge. That’s super helpful for those times where you forgot to charge your headset overnight. Jabra has its new powerful chipset to thank for the excellent battery life. The same chipset also powers the digital hybrid active noise cancellation.

Microphone boom folded in

The Jabra Evolve2 85 headphones are compatible with all leading Unified Communication (UC) platforms, including Microsoft Teams, making these headphones great for almost any office environment. It comes with a USB dongle that’s already paired with the headphones, allowing you to connect to your computer at work right out of the box. The Microsoft Teams optimized version has a dedicated Microsoft Teams button that allows you to answer Teams calls, open Microsoft Teams, and more. The Evolve2 85 headphones also have Bluetooth connectivity, so you can wirelessly connect to any iOS and Android device to stream music or take calls.

The neat feature that should not go unnoticed is the fold-away boom microphone arm. While it’s great for using on conference calls in the office, when the microphone arm is folded away, the Evolve2 85 headphones look like any other premium headset. This allows you to seamlessly go from the office to the subway, train, bus, or plane while resting assured that you can take high-quality calls wherever you are.

3.5mm jack and USB-C jack

Jabra has PC and mobile phone apps available to customize your audio experience. The Jabra Direct app for the PC or Mac allows you to customize your headsets controls, update firmware, and change audio levels. The Jabra Sound+ app for iOS & Android allows you to do much of the same as the Jabra Direct app, just via your Bluetooth connection. You can update your equalizer settings, turn ANC on or off, and more.

ANC on/off button

In my testing, I’ve found the Jabra Evolve2 85 headphones to be some of the best I’ve used. They’re super comfortable, sound great, and the call quality is excellent. I’ve had zero complaints about call quality throughout over 20 hours of conference calls, except for when I forgot that the microphone was pointed away from my mouth instead of toward it. The battery life is perfect for typical office life, and the quick charge option is perfect if you forgot to charge it the night before. The fold-away microphone boom arm makes the Evolve2 85 the perfect headset for the on-the-go professional.

The Jabra Evolve2 85 headphones sell for $449, and they are available directly from the manufacturer as well as from other retailers including Amazon [affiliate link].

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample

What I Like: Excellent sound quality; Great microphone and active noise cancellation; Flexible for office or on-the-go; Amazing battery life and quick charge; Busy lights make it easy for others to tell when you are in a call

What Needs Improvement: Nothing I can find, though some might balk at the price

The post Jabra Evolve2 85 Headphones Are Perfect for the On-the-Go Professional first appeared on GearDiary.

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/10/05/jabra-evolve2-85-headphones-review/

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