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ireddeadredemption2pc-blog · 4 years

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Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Red Dead Redemption2 PC

The old west feels brand new again.

Oh Jesus Christ, what have you done? “Thomaschen 978 wants to know why a dozen carcasses and a couple of horse corpses are placed on rail tracks bordering the early industrial city and are the New Orleans stand-in St. Denis.” You killed half. village.” PC Games For Free

We are on round two of the recurring corpse pile. My poses got the idea to jump in front of the train after a few rounds of Lose Your Friends and Toss Them in the Sea in the Couple Friendly Strangers. Like GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 has its own bowling minima, we explain to Chen in a roundabout way that provokes his fear. Die in the shared open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and you’ll react fast enough to move your corpse around. Best RPGs games pc

The boy is in line with us. We should make it bigger. As the train comes around again, another pose tries to take us out. The chain defends us but does not bring it back to the tracks. He goes away screaming. Death of a true warrior.

Red Dead Redemption 2 could be the biggest, most humble videogame ball pit for an annoying story about impulsive children, the forced disintegration of the community, or simply a quiet and reflective hiking simulator. It’s just about what you need it to be, and it’s good at it.

Just hours before the corpse-bowling, I was alone through the icy forests, stepping into the long shadow cast across the snow by the rising moon. I heard a gunshot from a distance. The tracks of some wolves marked snow in the same direction. I saw them who won. Anytime I pay attention and look closely, RDR2 is the result of my curiosity. Best Racing games on pc

The mind-numbing expanse that makes up the vast world of RDR2 speaks to the creative force of a development team with an intense, obsessive dedication to realism (and all the money and time needed to do so). Like how my friends’ characters flare up when I fire a gun at them, how animal carcasses disintegrate over time, how NPCs react according to a sloppy or bloody outfit, how to stir through a doorway. Scares everyone everywhere.

It is hard to believe that RDR2 is so deep and wide and is also a harmonious, playable thing. I was already playing it for days worth the console version. This is why I am particularly disappointed that it ended up on the PC to some extent.

For every non-taught multiplayer adventure, disconnect or crash on the desktop, desktop. The rock star’s best storyline and character so far has been filmed through Frame Hutches’ slideshow and addressed over the launch weekend.

RDR2, one of the best Western games and one of the best open-world games I have ever released with enough stability issues, is recommended for the hard way until everything is completely smooth.

Morgan trail

EVERY PRETTY VISTA IS SOMETHING TO LOSE THROUGH ARTHUR’S EYES.

The story genre of Red Dead Redemption 2 follows the dying days of the Wild West. The sprawling industrial world faced the bandits and social downtrodden of Arthur Morgan’s small band, an imperfect but loyal, loving and self-reliant community.

Capitalism is reducing its value as resources to humans. Indigenous USA America is driven from the plains to make way for ‘civilization’ and commerce. The forests are brought down for timber, the hills are cut down for coal, and Morgan’s chosen family is caught in the middle, forced to flee, assimilate, or respond with violent protests is done. They do all three.

This is Rockstar’s most serious drama, and it’s really, really long. If you are running, the story ends after 40 to 50 hours and then continues for 10 to 15. The main story missions of Red Dead 2 feature distinctly rockstar fare: ride to a destination that is talking to everyone, tightly scripting though, entertaining things, riding, and chatting to the final destination.

Missions are often thrilling action sequences or artificially mundane pictures of wrench labor and trade, full of long-winded Bespoke animations, and outstanding performances. They are only hopelessly harsh, to the point where it feels like I am following the stage directions rather than playing the role of a vagabond in the Old West.

Step out of line in these campaigns and this is a failed situation. As opposed to Red Dead Online, there are very few of them that encourage players to think for themselves, each designed to advance the story. The RDR2 show is at least a spectacle of the slow pace of life in the Old West.

This is not the death and theatricality of a lifetime; My favorite missions include shoveling, drinking wine with a friend, proposing an old romance and riding a hot air balloon. Working through a greater rut, stricter tasks are considered meaningful in the end anyway, inspired by extraordinary, ambient world-building and characterization.

Side missions, minigames, small activities, and random world events — whether they hunt great guns, capture a play, or stumble upon a woman trapped under a horse — all set Arthur’s character and setting in subtle, rich ways. Please inform.

Nested in the third act of a fully animated and voice theatrical performance, something like 10 minutes, it is possible that the response button is pressed after an artist has included a telephone. Arthur would shout, “Hell with the telephone!” It is an optional activity, a long one, and an option is to react in that short window. I think most players will remember this, but this is Canad Response 1 through 3 because this is something Arthur would say, a rageless goofy set his way in the right way.

He would write complete, real diary entries about the 50-hour campaign, sketching memorable scenes and depicting the state of affairs of his chosen family, which people once knew changed their fortunes between hope and despair. It is meant to be a completely alternative reading, but a refreshingly intimate take on a masculine figure that unsettles many doubts and hopes as to the next person.

He sings himself on a lonely ride and lowers his old body in the mirror. He will have an exciting conversation with the horseshoe woman as he gives her a ride into town, both commenting on the troubles of working for wealthy, ungrateful men as a growing necessity. I feel it all. Best horror games on pc free

Hillbillies can capture him after making the camp, a couple may try to rob him after inviting him to dinner, a man with snakebite can come out of the forest by stumbling and tell him to suck venom is. These haphazard encounters portray brutal life on the fading frontier, as nature pushes back against inner poppers who want to change it. Arthur is the perfect vessel to see it

This is because Arthur Morgan is one of the darkest human characters I have played during a great turning point in American history, playing a playful, cruel and compassionate role according to differing theories.

The game world, beautiful as it is, is made more beautiful and tragic by how it is ready to play it on every occasion. Every beautiful vista has something to lose through Arthur’s eyes, power lines and train tracks, cut through the skies, and the rest of his life is slowly filling with factory smoke. Just about everyone sees a sad end in RDR2, too. This is a story that I might not sustain every moment, but I will not forget its brutal arc or the man in the middle of it all. God damn is it sad? An apocalypse that led to this.

Ren Der Reflection

Assuming that you are able to run it at high settings, the biggest strength of RDR2 is how it exquisitely renders the Old West setting on PC, drawing more attention to the nuanced details that make it. This is one of the best looking games I’ve seen and a rare experience that justifies a new GPU or CPU.

Better draw distance and a greater range of vegetation detail were added, making some vistas look photographic. Long shadows vary from walking or roaming between places to rides, to cute nature tours. Due to animal attacks, bullet holes, rain, mud, or rapid flow of blood, the markings on the clothes are caused by very high-resolution textures, which tell a very little story about your friends.

A new photo mode makes it easy to share those moments of amazement. The way the player rides on RDR2 for just sightseeing and sounds is an important feature. I am desperately trying to get an artistic portrait of my horse’s silhouette to sit against the moon, yet another self-proclaimed goal was tolerated by this ridiculously large complex game.

With 2080, i9-9900K and 32GB of RAM, I can run RDR2 mostly on ultra settings with some resource-intensive settings completely off or switched off. But some hardware combinations are proving troublesome for RDR2, leading to random crashes in some APIs and, more recently, to a hotfix, leading to hitching problems for some 4-core CPUs.

During the first weekend, I couldn’t spend more than an hour without crashing on the desktop, though Vulcan switched from DX12 (which gives me better framerates) back to static stuff. Sometimes the UI malfunctions and I cannot select a select or purchase option, the map fails to appear, or I get paged unexpectedly from game servers.

The graphics settings are almost too much as well, and probably confusing. In our test, only a handful of settings affected performance by more than 1-2 percent. Large residuals, the mapping between MSAA, volumetric lighting, and parallax occlusion, affect performance by 5 to 25 percent. Most of them don’t make a big visual difference anyway and are best left out.

The way the settings are presented is made to feel underdeveloped: a huge list with unclear presets that require tinkering to make RDR2 run in a satisfactory framerate. It is hard. The PC should be the best place to play, not the best place to play, after all, after a few patches. It’s a shame for a game to look good. upcoming pc games

Cowboy poetry Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Like in singleplayer mode, in Red Dead Online I can make my goals reasonable and watch them. The problem is, it is basically hamstrung by a frustrating multiplayer leveling system that locks basic equipment and cosmetics behind long XP requirements that can meet hours, perhaps days,

The option is spending gold, premium currency, items and clothing to unlock them immediately. A fishing pole is not available until level 14. A damn fishing pole in an outdoor recreation game. This is not spectacular and is a terrible way to invest players.

out a basic suite of tools (fishing rod, bow, varmint rifle, nice hat, etc.), Red Dead Online opened up widely. I have largely ignored traditional matchmaking modes such as gunfights and horse races, cheap thrills, I will play much better versions in different games, to have fun. It led to the most inventive, serene, real, and sometimes buzzing echo I’ve ever had.

I once walked into the middle of a fire in Blackwater and took the player corpses one by one to the church cemetery. Some were captured and participated in the ‘burial’ of their friends. A corpse thanked me for the gesture. Later, in an extended streak of criminal activity, my pose and I caught another player and instead of killing them on the spot, we rode into the swamp and threw them into the garter infected waters. I got the idea to act like a friend. Best pc games 2017

On a less absurd note, I set myself a constant goal of earning strictly enough money from hunting to buy cool-weather gear and a fine rifle. I am going to hike in the mountains and find the best way to hide there, a wild mountain man adorned with animal skins, which almost touches the floor.

In the meantime, I’m stopping gunmen across the city by running through the streets and calling for a parley. I am participating in an eight-player ballroom. I am living the life of a normal cowboy in the best shepherd game. I hope it clears up soon.

RDR2 PC System Requirements

OS : Windows 7 SP1 64bit

Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 280

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K / AMD FX-6300

Memory: 8 GB RAM

DirectX: Version 11 Or 12 Support

Storage: 150 GB

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guitareqprocessors-blog · 5 years

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Electric Guitar EQ

So this began off as an addendum to my piece on Guitar Pedal Tone Control Alternatives, yet then especially turned into an article in its very own right, and now goes before the article it should be a piece of. Most of guitar pedals as a rule have at least one tone control dials or changes to correct/tune the tone of said pedal. I began taking a gander at various types of tone control, before exploring what in reality were the key frequencies for electric guitar, and how was it best to control those.

I kind of have an inclination for pedals with an exemplary 3-Band EQ - for example Bass | Mids | Treble, and in a perfect world of the 'dynamic' sort where you can help just as cut those key frequencies. With your exemplary 'Marshall' Tone Stack you have 3 dials with fixed focus frequencies and regularly genuinely wide data transfer capacity/Q/Frequency Range. As tails I address some key recurrence bunches for electric guitars, and the various sorts of EQs/EQ pedals accessible at present.

The visual above is completely of my own creation, and should speak to a completely parametric 7-band EQ with Spectrum Analyzer show for expanded representation and clearness. At the top you have 7 double concentric pots which enable you to change/move the Center Frequency esteem and modify the Q | Bandwidth around the chose Hz esteem. I've practically duplicated the key qualities from my present most loved EQ - the Boss GE-7. In my visual the lift/cut dials sit underneath the Spectrum Analyzer, with a Level dial to one side, and 3 footswitches a la Boss/Eventide/Strymon. The 3 footswitches should speak to preset choice, however I've not by any means really expounded on precisely how everything functions and should be built. The key parts are the splendid vivid showcase, the parametric capacities and the presets! The innovation definitely exists as of now in segment parts, it's only an issue of who could put such a gadget into generation? Regardless the motivation behind the visual is to kind of feature the key purposes of this article.

Note additionally that inside a band setting this gets perpetually confused as every performer and vocalist works inside set ranges inside compositional setting numerous pieces of which cover - so that for extreme lucidity and constancy to be kept up consistently, noteworthy coordination is vital.

In case you're in a carport band situation, very commonly the yield sounds sloppy and misty in light of the fact that the bass and drums are covering frequencies, and same goes for guitars, keys and vocals. An OK stable specialist with a full blending work area can union, channel and slice frequencies to make even the most flimsy of groups sound better than average. So there are two key contemplations for 'EQ' - how great you and your instrument sound, and how extraordinary that sounds thusly inside the blend of the considerable number of artists inside the band/creation/game plan.

I won't broadly expound on the last mentioned, I am increasingly worried about tuning and sharpening my very own center sound - and would leave it to the sound architects and acing designers to deal with the more extensive cover and blend difficulties.

KEY GUITAR FREQUENCIES

Note that the underneath qualities are estimated, and depend to a degree on what hardware you are playing through, as specific pedals and impacts/circuits will as a matter of course emphasize certain frequencies and lift the recurrence extend tremendously from the spotless electric guitar signal/bed.

Key Audible Electric Guitar Range = c80 Hz - c7,000 Hz

(These are the frequencies a great many people can hear, most everything else is surface and climate.)

20 - 80 Hz : Deep Bass, can include suppress and sloppiness, can likewise thicken sound to a certain extent. 20 Hz for the most part lower kick-drum recurrence, low-end bass is around 60 - 100 hz. For electric guitar you would regularly cut anything beneath 100Hz

80 - 120 Hz : run of the mill low-end guitar frequencies - slice underneath 100hz to offer space to low-end bass and percussion

100 - 300 Hz : used to include totality of sound/thickness and body to guitar, only a little however as a lot here mutes and can make flubbiness/chatter

300 - 1,000 Hz : Liveliness/assault - includes some electrical sizzle

1,000 - 2,000 Hz : 'Blare'/nasally guitar sounds - lift or cut

2,000 - 2,500 Hz : great mid protuberance or scoop

2,500 - 3,000 Hz : boosting here gives you more snap/pick assault

3,000 - 7,000 Hz : Brilliance and Presence/Sparkle

7,000 - 11,000 Hz : Treble lift to complement contortion

10,000 - 20,000 Hz : kind of top of the line textural bubble or 'Air' - essentially quiet to most

OPEN/CLEAN ELECTRIC GUITAR STRING HZ - LOW TO HIGH

Here we have the Hz esteems each open string will create when culled - with a clearn signal:

E2 : 82.41 Hz

A2 : 110.00 Hz

D3 : 146.83 Hz

G3 : 196.00 Hz

B3 : 246.94 Hz

E4 : 329.63 Hz

Essential EQ

The most essential EQ you will discover on a pedal is a solitary Tone control, which is generally a kind of High Pass Filter which cuts frequencies over a specific range, by utilization of electronic limiters, for example, resistors. These solitary tone controls are great rack type EQs where their most extreme qualities are accomplished when channel isn't connected/off. This implies a solitary tone dial of this nature will regularly be set at around half in the center/focus position - completely off when completely clockwise, and completely on (max restricting) when completely counter-clockwise.

2-Band EQs will in general work along these lines - just with Low Pass just as High Pass Filters - focusing on lower frequencies likewise.

Focus FREQUENCY AND BANDWIDTH

The most essential tone controls will in general be of the rack type assortment or constraining channels as talked about. Each will have a range or transfer speed/recurrence group they target. All things considered we can dole out a 'Middle Frequency' worth to where the channel is most dynamic, and the encompassing recurrence groups are characterized as transmission capacity - implying that a low recurrence channel with an inside recurrence of 100 Hz will take out a specific measure of frequencies either side of that state +/ - 5 or 10, implying that you target 100% of 100Hz frequencies, and after that a lesser measure of 95 Hz and 105 Hz and so on in diving dimension of effect. Most Parametric EQs enable you to choose the 'Q' or bandwitch run - eithe by means of dial, or by method for 3-way smaller than expected switches. Basically the less the tone controls, commonly the bigger the data transmission connected as a matter of course.

Run of the mill THREE BAND SHELF EQ - Center FREQUENCIES

As we've referenced previously, the key frequencies for guitar length from 100Hz to around 7,000Hz - so part those into 3 key focus frequencies would mean the tops at either end for Low and High, with the key 2,000 to 2,500 for mid-bump/scoop as the no doubt ideal center worth.

Bass : 100 Hz

Mids : 2,000/2,500 Hz

Treb : 6,000/7,000 Hz

Sovereign THREE BAND PARAMETRIC EQ (+Q-WIDTH/RANGE)

Parametric EQs will in general have covering recurrence reaches to enable you to focus on your accurate required tone - clearly the less the controls, the more prominent the level of cover. For Empress' Parametric EQ, there is a gigantic range secured from 35 to 20,000 Hz. Ruler utilizes 3-way smaller than expected switches for modifying the bandwith run/Q esteems for every one of its 3 key controls.

Low : 35 Hz - 500 Hz

Mid : 250 Hz - 5,000 Hz

High : 1,000 Hz - 20,000 Hz

WAMPLER EQUATOR FOUR BAND EQ (PARAMETRIC MIDS)

Wampler's new EQuator pedal is completely dynamic with cut and lift at all dimensions, however just parametric on the two Mid-go controls. Somehow or another it gives better inclusion deeply Middle-band frequencies, however it comes up short on the Q controls of Empress' pedal just as the inside recurrence move for the highs and lows. It's a progressively smaller and simpler to utilize pedal, however not exactly as incredible.

Bass : 130 Hz

Mids 1 : 238 - 5,000 Hz

Mids 2 : 480 - 4,800 Hz

Treble : 7,000 Hz

(Mid-scoop = c2,200 Hz)

Plateau/BOOGIE FIVE BAND EQ

The Mesa 5-Band EQ you see on a considerable lot of its amps and pedals has the incredible advantage of being square on the 2,200 Hz esteem for one of its mid focus frequencies. The recurrence groups here have been all around painstakingly picked.

90 Hz

240 Hz

750 Hz

2,200 Hz

6,600 Hz

MXR M109 SIX BAND EQ

I extremely simply incorporated this for purpose of finishing truly - the MXR 6-Band EQ just cuts of the top recurrence of the Boss identical:

100 Hz

200 Hz

400 Hz

800 Hz

1,600 Hz

3,200 Hz

Manager GE-7 SEVEN BAND EQ

This is my present EQ pedal of decision - in its Alchemy Audio rendition - and 7 Bands is about appropriate for me, whereby by and large I am extremely content with how this pedal functions. Its key drawback in that capacity is that it doesn't have a recurrence band precisely inside the key 2,000 to 2,500 Hz register which is considered ideal for mid-mound and scooped tones!

100 Hz

200 Hz

400 Hz

800 Hz

1,600 Hz

3,200 Hz

6,400 Hz

SOURCE AUDIO EIGHT BAND PROGRAMMABLE EQ

I've since quite a while ago considered this 4-preset empowered 8-Band EQ as a substitution for my Boss GE-7, its incredible preferred position is in the presets. While I locate its general task a touch fiddly and the screen a litte little. Dissimilar to the GE-7 you can't impact prompt changes - looking through line by line or section by segment all things considered and change separately - while on the GE-7 you can move various sliders in a flash and all the while!For more detail click https://www.sustainpunch.com/guitar-eq-pedals/

62 Hz (discretionary)

125 Hz

250 Hz

500 Hz

1,000 Hz

2,000 Hz

4,000 Hz

8,000 Hz

MXR M108 TEN BAND EQ

I've attempted 10-Band EQs and I discover them somewhat over-fiddly truly. I ponder as much as I might want to play with, especially based on Parametric EQ. The two lower recurrence groups and the most astounding one workmanship kind of surplus to necessities for most electric guitar players to the extent I am concerned.

31.25 Hz

62.5 Hz

125 Hz

250 Hz

500 Hz

1,000 Hz

2,000 Hz

4,000 Hz

8,000 Hz

16,000 Hz

Last THOUGHTS

So I am comprehensively happy with my Boss GE-7 - it is outwardly clear, and fast and simple

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rewindfrequency · 6 years

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Geist Review

Developed by N-Space

Published by Nintendo

Played on: Gamecube

Not available on any other official platform

John Raimi, a scientist, joins a counter-terrorism unit tasked with investigating the strange happens at the Volks Corporation. Raimi is tasked with analyzing the technologies and processes of the Volks Corporation as his team attempts to rescue an undercover agent from the compound. Strange monsters and heavily armed guards block their path however, and Raimi and his team are forced to fight their way out. Just as they are about to escape, one of the team members is possessed and kills the entire team except Raimi, who is shot in the leg. When Raimi wakes up, he is in an experimental machine that rips his soul from his body turning him into a “Geist.” From there, he is guided by the spirit of a small girl named Gigi, who helps him escape the compound. It’s up to Raimi to find his body and stop the evil doings of the Volks Corporation.

As far as story goes that all I’m going to say. That is the first level in a nutshell. Geist is a first person shooter with action adventure game elements. Because it was advertized as an FPS in America, let's talk about those segments of the game first. This being a Gamecube game means that it has technical limitations, which is fine. But this game feels like a sloppy N64 shooter. The controls are downright insulting with only two preset layouts to pick from. The only difference between the two are that the first layout has the C-stick (the little yellow nub) control your field of view while the second layout has it control your movement. Normally the C-stick isn’t terrible for dual joystick games. But here it’s just horrid. The dead zone of the sticks, including the regular analog stick, are enormous, meaning you have to ram them in one direction to get a response. Even when pushing all the way to the side, Raimi will slowly turn like a fat man dying of obesity. How can I shoot three enemies in quick succession if I can’t even move my character around fast enough? But the problem only gets worse. In almost every shooter, whether it be modern or old, when you push up on the stick you look up, and when you push down on the stick you look down. Not here. The controls are inverted and there is no way of changing this. Many times I would try to arc a grenade by looking up, only to look down and blow myself up. Not to mention looking up and down is just as slow as turning left to right. Luckily left and right are still normal. Movement in this game is almost as bad with many characters moving at a breezy walk when “running.” But speaking of running, let’s talk about the bare bones abilities in this game.

I know that the Gamecube controller has fewer buttons than the other controllers of it’s day, but how the game compensates for this is ridiculous. You use the left trigger to use your special ability, which includes such ground breaking mechanics like crouching and sprinting. WOW, fuck Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, this is the first person shooter of the sixth console generation. Some levels in this game have little cover meaning that your only means of avoiding enemy fire are luck because many of the characters you play as can’t sprint because they can crouch. It’s a sad world when people’s legs are too weak to run but can be bent at 25 degrees in a pathetic attempt of avoiding bullets.

Even if you can somehow ignore all of the controller issues, and the fact that the game has barely any of the must have actions of other shooters, there are still a potluck of problems. I think it would only be fair to bring up the AI in this game because of how stupid it is. There are two types of enemies you fight; generic soldiers, who march to their deaths, and monsters from hell. Let’s start with the soldiers because 90% of what you kill is human. The highly trained soldiers you fight are about as smart as a brain dead five year old. They refuse to use cover even when it is available. They fire their weapons in random directions at walls, ceilings, and sometimes each other. I guess this is where all the people who can’t afford Ritalin got a job. I think the funniest, or maybe just the most obvious, issue is when the soldiers don’t even notice you. I counted at least five times when I walked up to an enemy who just sat there and didn’t do anything. How is that even possible? Even shit games have AI that reacts, even if that reaction is something ludicrous.

But now we have to talk about the monsters. They have far better AI than the soldiers do. They do really radical things like attack and respond to the player. And I thought that this game was behind the times? What was I thinking? But to be honest, they still have little intelligence to them. They tend to get very close to the player before attacking which allows the player to pick them off. Now this may have been intentional since the first monsters you encounter in the game are meant to be easy enemies, but nonetheless, it feels strange. The other monsters in the game are the same thing except they do more damage and take more shots to kill. Overall there isn’t anything noticeably vomit-inducing about the monster AI but at the same time it’s not doing anything revolutionary.

Now there is one redeeming quality to the FPS sections of the game, which is in the boss battles. At the end of each level there is a boss fight. The player has to move quickly and and think on the fly while playing these parts of the game. The bosses themselves react to the player and attack the player directly unlike the other opponents in the game. They require some good old exploit the weak spot to win mechanics but in a way that feels challenging and different. I don’t want to spoil any of the boss battles since they are one of this game’s saving graces, but if you want to check them out just go to YouTube because as I go on you’re not going to want this game.

We still have more gameplay to go through. The Action-Adventure parts of the game make up most of your time surprisingly. When Raimi had his soul ripped from his body he became a Geist, which makes him a kind of spirit that can possess others. All the puzzles in this game revolve around a central theme. Possess a soldier, janitor, cook, scientist, etc. and then perform an action to move on throughout the level and into the next. Before you can posses a person you need to scare them. Every person starts out with a grey outline which Raimi can see when he is wandering as a Geist. First you have to disturb them to get them a yellow outline and then scare them again so they have red outline. Once you have scared an enemy you can now possess them and continue the level. You can scare people by possessing inanimate objects around the world such as steam pipes, soda machines, TVs, etc. First you perform one action to disturb them, and then when they move to another part of the room you possess another object and then scare them again. This sounds like a fun mechanic but it’s actually a pain in the ass. You have to investigate an object first, which means clicking A and then reading some asinine piece of text before being able to possess it. This is a minor complaint I admit, but having to do this time after time is just ridiculous. But to really drive home the point that the designers didn’t have a creative bone in their body, you only have one way of scaring someone. You can’t just go floating around the room possessing an assortment of objects and scare the person the way you want. You have to first possess one specific object, and then possess another specific object. After a while you develop such an eye for this that they aren’t even puzzles any more. I have to admit that many of these puzzles are interesting to do because of what you can take control of. There are times when you get to possess a mouse or a bat or a set of robotic arms. But this is just a distraction from an otherwise tedious and poorly made 3d action adventure game.

As far as gameplay is concerned this is it. There are some cool sections such as a high speed motorcycle chase and a timed mission where you have to destroy certain objectives before the time runs out, but even these feel weak and boring. I have other complaints about the game so at least we can take time to address those. The first I would like to bring up is the soundtrack. There are only three tracks in the entire game. One for combat, one for cutscenes, and one for when Raimi is a spirit wandering the level. The one in the cutscenes is the most generic drama piece I’ve ever heard and the one when Raimi is wandering around is very quiet but sounds okay. The only one I liked was the combat track which sounded like a grand tune for battling the Volks Corporation, until you find out that it’s the same 20 second piece looped over and over until all the enemies are dead. You are going to be hearing this track a lot so you better like it.

Another issue I have with the game is its cutscenes. Each level starts and ends with a cutscene. Not only are all the cutscenes executed in the in-game engine, which makes them look like crap, they also look like they were directed by a cringy seven year old. The camera angles make zero sense because half the time you can’t clearly see what you’re suppose to be looking at. The story is a cliché piece of shit in itself, but the directing makes it even worse.

My last major issue with the game is probably the voice acting. All the cutscenes are fully voice acted for every character no matter how minor. But for some reason in the game when you talk to someone the only thing you hear is your name or some sentence that makes no sense out of context followed by a textbox of what the character has to say. Why couldn’t they just had the voice actors say the in-game lines? Was it that much of a hassle or did they change the story too many times?

Overall my experience with Geist was shit. It was so bad that I didn’t even finish the game. I know that as a reviewer I should have finished it but I felt like that would be unnecessary masochism. I could have said more about how this game looks like shit even though it was a Gamecube exclusive. I could have talked about how the story made me cringe so badly that I wanted to turn my console off. But what would be the point? The core of the game is terrible. The additional elements are even worse. Some nights I would apologize to my Gamecube as it cried because I put this flaming turd of a game inside of it. At the end of the day I don’t know how with so much support from Nintendo Geist turned out to be such a disaster. It could be the fact that N-space and Nintendo had constant disputes. It could have been because this was N-space’s first ever FPS. But at the end of the day all of this could have been solved if the developers at N-space possessed some people who were actually good at making video games.

I am giving Geist a 2 out of 10

Pros:

Some good boss battles

Cons:

Terrible controls

Boring exploration

Puzzles with little variety or choice

Downright idiotic AI

Vomit-inducing cutscenes

Just awful to look at

The worst soundtrack I’ve heard in a long time

The lack of in-game voice acting

#Game reviews #Gamecube #Nintendo #Nintendo gamecube #Action games #Adventure games #Worst nintendo games #Worst Gamecube games #Games #Gaming

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positivepsychologyinterventions · 5 years

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Dr. Epstein, Political Bias, & Google Search Results

I’m a little confused by claims made by Dr. Robert Epstein and his assertion, based upon a single study of 95 participants, that Google somehow intentionally biased the results shown before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And therefore, likely impacted the election results itself.

That’s a huge assertion to make. One would hope that an esteemed researcher such as Dr. Epstein would have the scientific data to back it up. Unfortunately, I don’t see it.

Science is only objective up until the point where a scientist acknowledges and accounts for her or his own biases. Science is not based on a preset agenda, or an attempt to settle a score. I’m not certain Dr. Epstein has done kept his own biases in check in his apparent witch hunt to take down Google for offering “biased” search results.

Search Engines Have Always Been Biased

Google has always offered biased search results. If you don’t understand that this has to be the case with any search engine, then you might need a quick refresher course on how search engines work.

There is no such thing as unbiased search results. All search engines use proprietary trade-secret algorithms to ensure you see what the search engine company believes makes for the “best” results. “Best” has — since the beginning of search engines online back in the early 1990s — always been a subjective term. There is no single objective ranking of websites that says, “Always show this website first for this search engine because it is clearly the best result.”

And guess what — people love that! That’s why Google is on top of the search engine pile, because it does indeed offer the results that are apparently the most relevant to most people. The minute Google stops offering such relevant results, a new search engine can and will take its place. (Anyone remember Alta Vista, Excite, or even Yahoo? [And no, Yahoo doesn’t do search anymore — its results are provided by Bing.])

What Does Bias in Search Engine Results Look Like?

Unbeknownst to many, search engines don’t show the exact same results to the same query asked by two different people. Most search engines, including Google, use complex personalization factors and a complex psychographic profile in order to further sort and present results it thinks are most relevant to you.

In practice, this means that my search for “depression symptoms” may return a different result set than your search on the exact same terms. If you don’t carefully control for this in your methodology, your results will be meaningless and tainted.

Epstein & Robertson (2015) found in a series of laboratory (not real-world) experiments, when they artificially manipulated search engine results pages, they could influence subjects’ voter preferences over a short duration of time. It did not research any actual search engine pages. And it ignored the layout and makeup of modern search engine result pages. Real search result pages feature multiple advertisements (that anyone can purchase) at the top of the page before any organic results.

These researchers’ results are not surprising in that they echo what any search engine optimization (SEO) expert would tell you — position matters on a search engine results page. Websites get tons more traffic if they are #1, #2, or #3 versus #9 — or worse yet, on the second page of results.

In a second laboratory experiment, the same researcher demonstrated methods (again, using a completely fake search engine — not Google) in which the effect they coined — the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) — could be suppressed (through timely alerts shown to users).

Google Helped Hillary Win?

In 2017, Epstein & Robertson weren’t content to demonstrate the obvious any longer — that ranking positions matter on search engine results pages. They took it a step further and conducted a study of 95 Americans (only 21 of whom identified as “undecided” in the upcoming presidential election) in 2016 and their search habits.

In a white paper published only to their own website, Epstein & Robertson make the extraordinary claim:

[…W]e have found that between May and November 2016, search results displayed in response to a wide range of election-related search terms were, on average, biased in Mrs. Clinton’s favor in all 10 search-result positions.

Published as a “white paper” and not a peer-reviewed journal study, this raised a bunch of red flags.1

There was little in the way of methodology explained in the study. This includes no information about what was done to limit the personalization of search results (since you want to control for that independent variable), nor what search terms they actually used. In fact, in reading the two previous studies these researchers published, it’s not even clear they’re aware how search engines work in terms of their monetization strategies, constant weekly algorithm changes, and personalization of search results.

There is also some apparent sloppiness in the researcher’s efforts, in my opinion. There is no rationale given for the specific 25-day period of time they used to examine in the study, versus any other period of time. And in fact, they acknowledge they didn’t really look all that closely at the majority of datapoints they had gathered. The researchers ignored 7 months’ worth of research data to focus only on the 3 weeks before the election.2

They also made the decision, post-hoc, to discard all Gmail.com based data because of anomalies in that data. Those anomalies happened to show no such bias, which they attributed to either a set of “bots” or — wait for it — intentional sabotage on Google’s part.

Since there’s a significant minority of legitimate users who use Gmail, these rationales to throw out all Gmail.com-derived data seem questionable at best. It is, in my opinion, a horrible research decision to have made, but one that coincidentally also ensured that the researchers found significance in their data.

But here’s the real kicker:

Extrapolating from the mathematics introduced in this report, in articles published in February 2016and thereafter, the lead author of the PNAS study predicted that a pro-Clinton bias in Google’s search results would, over time, shift at least 2.6 million votes to Clinton.

There is zero mathematics in their white paper. There are a bunch of descriptive statistics, but those statistics barely speak to what procedures or modeling the researchers actually used to arrive at the conclusions that they did.

The researchers’ “evidence of systematic bias in the 2016 presidential election?” A small sampling of modeling data based upon 95 Americans (minus the Gmail.com users whose data they tossed post-hoc).

In short, in my opinion this is exactly the kind of shoddy, shady, horribly-designed research that passes for “proof” in this day and age. Why would researchers conduct such a seemingly politically-biased study, and also draw conclusions that they have no actual direct proof of?3

Perhaps There’s an Axe to Grind?

Researchers are human. And humans sometimes have an axe to grind. You don’t have to go far to find one of Epstein’s possible particular axes.

Prior to 2012, Epstein showed little interest in search engines or how they worked. He published on a wide variety of psychological, relationship, and mental health topics and wrote about them for mainstream websites.

Then in early 2012, Epstein’s personal website was a recipient of a malware warning that appeared when users tried to access his site from Google. Google displays these alerts to steer users away from potentially malicious websites.

But this incident apparently got under Epstein’s skin in some way because suddenly he’s writing multiple articles in the fall of 2012 about the need to regulate Google. This from a researcher who had never written a single word about search engines before. I find the timing interesting.

In short, Epstein has been advocating for the federal government’s regulation of Google for the past seven years. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine a hypothetical researcher designing studies to support her or his beliefs.

The Upshot of Search Engine Bias

Search engines have always been biased, and always will be because they are subjective tools meant to help get users to information or entertainment. The minute big government wants to start overseeing my search results is the minute I turn to a search engine where such government filtering isn’t done.

It also helps to keep in mind hypothetical meddling versus real meddling in U.S. politics. While Epstein is insinuating that Google is manipulating its political search results to favor candidates it wants elected into office, we have actual proof of Facebook manipulating the 2016 presidential election through Russian-sponsored organizations purchasing millions of dollars of false advertising on its platform.

Interestingly, Epstein doesn’t seem to have much interest in that. Maybe that’s because Facebook has never wronged him as Google once did.

For further information

Politifact: Donald Trump wrong on Google manipulating election results

References

Epstein & Robertson. (2017). Suppressing the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., 1(2), 42.

Epstein & Robertson. (2017). A Method for Detecting Bias in Search Rankings, with Evidence of Systematic Bias Related to the 2016 Presidential Election. White paper published by AIBRT, Epstein’s organization.

Epstein & Robertson. (2015). The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and itspossible impact on the outcomes of elections. PNAS, 10.1073/pnas.1419828112

Footnotes:

When asked about the lack of peer-reviewed studies, Epstein replied to me, “I also have problems of both urgency and quantity: I’ve completed or have in progress so many different studies of new forms of online influence (I’m studying seven different types of influence at the moment — SEME and six others) that I’ve decided to summarize my findings in conference papers, white papers and, at some point, in book form, rather than spend what little time remains to me on the painfully slow academic publications process. When I stumble onto another new form of online influence, it takes me a year or two, at least, to understand and quantify it. (I haven’t even gotten around to beginning experiments on a half dozen new forms of influence I know about.) Adding another year or two onto that process to publish in a journal seems imprudent given my age and given how potentially important these discoveries are for humanity.”

The researchers claimed this was due to what they said were recruiting issues and refining their procedures. Which begs the question — shouldn’t their procedures had been refined in a pilot study first, as most researchers would have done?

Or, if you want to be pedantic, have minimal proof of based upon a tiny sample of just 95 users’ searches — minus some number of Gmail.com subjects — over the course of 25 days.

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