Using a teleprompter for reading chat isn’t new, but how about mirroring your webcam underneath it so you can see what you’re doing while looking into the souls of your audience?

I don’t stream regularly these days but when I did, one of the things I liked most about my setup was my teleprompter chat. It went through many iterations; from a simple phone mounted as close to my webcam as possible, to an actual beam splitter teleprompter with a DSLR camera monitor screen replacing the phone. I enjoyed the more intimate feeling of being able to simulate looking at the audience while talking to them, even though this feeling was strictly one-way.

One of the struggles with this setup though was in not being able to monitor my own framing/expressiveness while looking at the teleprompter. While this is certainly a skill that can be honed through enough practice and self-awareness of one’s own body kinetics, I couldn’t ever really get the hang of it. So while the “gazing lovingly into your eyes” aspect of my setup was working fine, I never felt fully confident about how my performance was coming across to the audience.

Not sure why I didn’t think of this solution before, but it’s really very simple. Similar to the concept of a smart mirror, I thought why not just overlay Twitch chat on top of my webcam so I can monitor myself while reading and talking to chat? I mean, duh, right?

So as a proof-of-concept I whipped up some custom CSS that makes chat teleprompter-friendly with a transparent background, slapped it on my face, and tried it out. It solved everything; I could easily read chat despite the small prompter size after enlarging the font and changing the colors to a more contrast-y hue, while seeing myself in real time, able to perfectly frame my gesticulations and adjust facial expressions.

Now yeah, this is a lot of words to say “I look at chat through a mirror” but I feel like even this small adjustment helps me be less distracted, act more natural, and ultimately be more engaging to anyone who might stumble in on the rare night I do stream. Hopefully this can help others too, despite how niche the teleprompter-chat thing still is, years after people were talking about it.

Video

Requirements

• OBS Studio
• Teleprompter
• Monitor for Teleprompter

I use a camera monitor plugged directly to my PC, if you plan to use a phone/tablet you will need to find a way to have your device show up as an external monitor on your streaming PC. I’ve also modified my teleprompter to be able to mount the monitor.

Custom CSS for Twitch Chat browser source

* { background-color: transparent !important ; }
div.stream-chat-header { display: none !important; }
div.chat-line__status { display: none !important; }
.chat-line__message { font-size: 9rem !important; padding: 3rem 2rem !important; }
section.chat-room { background-color: transparent !important; }
div.chat-line__message { background-color: #000 !important; }
span.chat-author__display-name { color: yellow !important; }
span.text-fragment { color: greenyellow !important; line-height: 8rem !important;}
div.chat-input { display: none !important; }

I’m not sure why the catch-all selector for changing the background color of all elements to transparent isn’t affecting new chat messages that come in, but this is easily worked around by using a chroma key filter to filter out #000000 in the browser source.

Hope you found this trick useful! And if you know a solution to getting the chat messages to have transparent backgrounds without needing the chroma key filter, please do let me know.

This is a genuine question of mine and no hate to Americans. Just the government, health care, economy and gun laws. Same as how foreigners were scared to come here during Duterte’s term. That’s a valid reason. Anyway, when I was a kid, I hear family members be so proud of another relative for being able to live in the US. But now, it looks like no one wants to move there even if they’re professionals and have the means to. I’m not quite sure tho. Maybe that’s just in my family. It looks like the American dream doesn’t exist anymore. If u ask people nowadays where they wanna move to they would say Canada, UK, France. Anywhere in the world except US. And to be honest, that’s my answer too. It started during the pandemic where a lot of asian people were attacked, plus i heard from an American friend that when someone is injured or something, they would rather take a cab instead of the ambulance because that’s too expensive. Like wtf? Also school shootings, there are crazy violent people everywhere regardless of the country that’s why not everyone can have a gun but in the US it looks like it’s very easy to aquire one. I know US is a first world country and most filipinos move there for better pay and opportunities. The thing is rent is very expensive there. You will get paid in dollars and higher than what you earn here in ph, but the cost of living there is also very high. Most of your money will go to food, rent, bills (just necessities). Vacation? Forget about it. But here in ph you can go on vacation with the little money you have. There are nearby beaches 3-4 hours away from manila. The tipping culture too, it’s crazy. Lastly, unhealthy food there is cheaper than healthy food. So poor people tend to become obese. With that being said, I don’t romanticize the US anymore. But do you think most filipinos still have the American dream?

I was initially hesitant to respond, but thought about how difficult it was for me to reconcile being both American and Filipino back in my younger years. Eventually, I posted this reply, copied below:

TL;DR: I did what I mostly do on Reddit and typed out the following and initially thought, nevermind, nobody cares enough to read this and I don’t really care enough to finish anyway, but figured it might be useful to add to the discussion an actual success story in the making.

Be warned that the following is a very personal anecdote and will be fraught with generalizations and conclusions drawn from one individual’s unique experiences. Your mileage, on this earth and in this life, may vary.

Inb4 sanaol.

---

Just moved to the US last August. In my 20+years as an employee in the Philippines, my highest salary was ₱22k. More than 50% of my PHP salary went to rent, followed by utilities (Internet partially subsidized by work at my last job), then groceries. I needed to maintain my gigs/sideline work in order to have anything left over for fun/savings, which I’ve been able to do naman; I don’t tend to sit idle.

My first job here in California pays monthly what I would earn in the Philippines over half a year. My rent has risen significantly too, but with all things accounted for, I can save significantly more living the same lifestyle here as how I lived in Manila. In fact, I have more spending money now and can easily upgrade my PC if I wanted to (whereas back in Manila, it would be a very serious decision to do so). I can eat more than 3 meals a day, if I wanted to, because contrary to popular belief, food here is cheap and plentiful if you’re able to buy groceries and meal prep for yourself. Yes of course fast food and restaurants are more expensive; you pay for rent and salary and brand name when you eat out, it’s no different anywhere else, but my grocery bill here vs in Manila? Same, and I get bigger portions.

My job, which pays me well, treats me well too. I’ve been able to fly back to visit my family in Manila three times since my initial migration. That’s three round-trip airline tickets. It took a huge chunk of my PHP savings just to buy that first one-way ticket out of Manila. Now it feels like if I wanted to I could just get on a plane to anywhere. The work policy at my company isn’t just “work from home,” it’s “work from anywhere.” As long as I get my job done, they don’t mind where I do it from. Full benefits, too. I’ve never seen that kind of respect for an employee and work/life balance from any company I worked for in the Philippines.

Never personally experienced racism here. Almost all my work colleagues are white, we get along perfectly fine in and out of the workplace. Same situation with my Caucasian neighbors. Most of my interactions with people in general here are with minorities though, interestingly enough. Funny observation: every time I’ve passed through immigration at the airports, my security check was done by Latinos or African Americans, and they’ve always been pleasant and said “welcome home” every single time. At NAIA I’d be lucky to even be spoken to by the immigration agent. US passport holder (dual citizen with ACR) here though, not sure if the Philippine passport holders get treated any better.

In fact, I’d say that as far as I can remember, the only times I’ve ever been treated unfairly in my life was in the Philippines (and maybe that one time in France too). I don’t know if it’s because of how I look, or how I sound, but save for a few close friends, Filipinos have never really accepted me into the flock. My blood is 100% Pinoy, mom and dad were both born in Manila, I speak both English and Filipino (one of them better than the other, guess which), I lived in the Philippines for longer than most r/phr4r Redditors were alive I bet, and yet I’m the one being looked at as the other. In general, my personal experience with humans during my short life on this planet has shown me that Filipinos are more likely to draw assumptions based on external appearances than Americans.

I do realize my current situation in America, with regards to work at least, is not the norm. Many companies are still stuck in the past, with a corporate/capitalist mindset that treats their employees more akin to slaves than actual people. However, I can honestly say that it’s not that much different in the Philippines when it comes to corporate work. Imagine, if you’re a company owner you can buy 1/3 of a human being’s daily life (1/2 if you account for the fact that most people need to sleep) for only ₱22k/mo. (even less in most cases), and you don’t even have to feed or clothe or shelter them? Sure, you have to ensure they pay their taxes and social security, but that can just come out of their paycheck. And since I’m a generous company owner, I can throw them some rice allowance, to show I’m not a complete monster. Oh but they want to take a leave to mourn their deceased relative? Sorry, that’ll cost a day’s wages. I’m not kidding when I say that sometimes I used to see people walking their dogs in BGC/Ortigas and felt like those pets lived a more pampered life than what I could offer my own children.

So the original question was, “do you think most Filipinos still have the American dream?” Well, if the dream is still that age-old idea that one could move to America on a wish and a prayer and have an equal shot at achieving success and prosperity through sheer fucking will and hard work, then I bet much doubt anyone, Filipino or not, truly believes that. The world has changed too much since 1931, when “the American dream” was first coined as such. There is a generational and societal malaise that has jaded much of the thinking population which prevents them from feeling such hope, whether to shield themselves from disappointment or to resolve the cognitive dissonance that occurs when they see it being realized by others. So no, I don’t think Filipinos or people in general still dream that dream. But I think it can still happen, and while I’m not yet quite living proof of it, I’m working towards making it my reality.

Hi r/PHGamers,

As promised, here’s the AMA! For those of you new to Reddit in general, an AMA (Ask Me Anything) is an online Q&A session where Reddit’s community asks a guest (or guests) questions. I’ve done one before on r/Philippines, but never in my own subreddit, and it’s been 9 years since the last one so why not.

Some of our new mods have also agreed to participate as part of the panel you can ask questions to, so feel free to direct questions to specific users or all of us as a group if you plan to drop by and ask something.

Because of the time difference (I’m based in LA) and to accommodate users throughout the day, the AMA will take place over the whole weekend. I have no idea how many questions might be asked (lol maybe it’ll just be crickets) but I promise I’ll try to address as many of them as possible. Feel free to stick to the spirit of an AMA and truly ask us anything, but know that I personally will prioritize questions of substance before any memey ones. Though I do love the memes.

I know not everyone is happy with the state of the subreddit and promise to try not shy away from questions no matter how critical, difficult, and/or personal. I only ask that you keep it clean, and keep it classy.

Your online janitor,
JP

Hi, thank you for your question. Writing for Game! Magazine was my first freelance writing gig, and it taught me a lot about the publication process. When you write your own blog, you have a lot more freedom to say what you want, how you want to say it, and when to publish. You’re your own editor, after all.

With Game! and I imagine most other publications, the topics, article length, deadline, and to an extent, tone and writing style, are all decided by the publisher. I had the pleasure of working with good editors, so none of those restrictions bothered me; I considered it just a different way of doing the same work.

The perks of working with a bigger publication house did include—as you suggested—opportunities to go to events and conventions, as well as accessing a wider audience, having reliable payouts, and networking within the game and publishing industries. Because of Game! Magazine, I was noticed by someone who would end up becoming my first boss at a mobile game studio. Thanks to that, my career spun off into the wild wild west of indie game development, and eventually to where I am now in livestream production.

Writing for Game! Magazine was also how I’d end up meeting the woman who’d become my wife.

Thanks for the feedback. It’s a long-overdue effort; I’ve wanted to steer the sub back towards its roots for a while now, but haven’t really had the time or support to put into taking a shot at it. It became possible now thanks to the help of u/lunassalunes from u/thePhilippinesMods and Global Advocate Program who helped organize the mod recruitment program and vet the applicants, so let’s acknowledge them as well.

The D&D show was called Dicecast, and if you look around you might still find remnants of it in this sub and on the wider web as a whole. It was a concentrated effort at putting together the first real, long-form, actual-play Dungeons & Dragons show made in the Philippines.

Through friends and friends-of-friends, I found like-minded people who were committed and willing enough to put up with my directorship and play weekly adventures in front of a camera for hours on end and no real promise of anything to follow. We managed 21 episodes worth of content, including a one-shot held at GGNetwork.TV’s content creator space in the TV5 studio, several on-location streams at event spaces in partnership with La Salle CSB, Adventurers Anonymous, and Gamers & GMs Philippines.

When it became unfeasible to continue running the game for various reasons—work, school, health, life in general, etc.—I continued running weekly livestreams with Marc, one of the campaign’s players. We played D&D-based or D&D-adjacent games like Baldur’s Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, and Divinity Original Sin 2 on a segment called Vidya Vvednesdays. We also hosted TableTalk, a weekly news show talking about all things tabletop-gaming. Most of these later Dicecast productions are still on the Facebook page.

Due to the experience I gained while learning how to run livestreams, produce shows, negotiate with partners/vendors/talent, etc., I was able to turn to freelancing as a livestream director during the pandemic. Many businesses and event organizers turned to running their events online, and I spun my experience with Dicecast into a service that could help these entities pivot to the new normal. And that experience is what I used to land where I am now, as a livestream production specialist for a marketing company. So even though we didn’t even earn enough from Dicecast to cover the cost of the equipment I paid for out of my own pocket, it ended up providing exactly what I needed to turn the hobby into an enjoyable, fulfilling career.

And it worked out well for my former partners, too; one of them is doing the same thing I am back in Manila, another was able to add it to their already long-list of personal livestreaming accomplishments, and a third found connections through Dicecast that helped propel their own personal interests. A couple of us got to meet and play Overcooked with Maria Ozawa, that was fun.

As for the games I worked on: when I was still a Game Designer, I dipped my fingers into various popular (at the time) IPs. Chain Chronicles by Sega I think was the biggest project, I did some character dialog/localization there. The same for Brave Frontier, and Lord of the Dragons. Some of the original IP and earliest work I did was for an indie studio called One Global Apps Inc., which unfortunately no longer exists and all the games were pulled from the various app stores they were in. There are a few videos still on their YouTube channel of games in beta stages though. This one was my favorite, and it won an award in a Samsung competition.

My feelings on this might seem controversial but I actually prefer less activity. I’ve said this before: I’m not actually comfortable with being “in charge” of large communities. I don’t like public speaking. Nothing about moderating or community management feels like it comes naturally to me, and it takes a lot of personal motivation for me to keep doing it.

When the userbase started growing, I was getting worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with managing it. But for the most part, y’all have been pretty good at self-managing what you do and don’t want to see. I’ve only had to step in fairly sporadically to remove obvious troll and spam accounts. In recent times though, it’s become more of a problem; hence the new moderator recruitment phase.

I believe in the saying, your vibe attracts your tribe. The kind of atmosphere we encourage in the sub reinforces the kind of environment it will grow to become. So it will take some time, but I think as long as we keep posting, upvoting, commenting on, and curating the content we want to see, it’ll eventually get there.

I think people generally underestimate the value of soft-skills like time management, interpersonal communication skills, the ability to find answers/solutions when you yourself don’t yet have the knowledge/tools to tackle problems, etc. These kinds of skills are absolutely necessary to function in most areas of the working world, especially when you’re working as part of a team. Communication skills are important even if you’re a solo freelancer; how else would you be able to secure clients, negotiate contracts, and get paid?

My capacity as a game designer and project manager in the studios I’ve worked at was equally divided between working on specific game systems, and working on my teams. Sometimes I’d be writing game design documentation, which is basically technical writing and diagraming of how a game should run. I’d use disciplines from game theory, UX design, sound design, basic word processing/spreadsheeting, and command of the English language to communicate clearly and concisely what exactly the game should look and sound and play like, most of the time even before any pre-alpha builds were made, let alone conceptualized.

Other times I’d be making sure programmers and artists were given everything they needed—instructions, training, tools, time, space, whatever—to finish their deliverables as close to “on time” as possible. If that meant making sure they were kept out of useless meetings (which means I’d attend in their stead, and give them the key points later), I’d do it. If that meant making the call to have people stay an extra hour after work to finish a build, I’d do it and stay with them. This ability to make judgement calls that take into account the needs of all parties involved (the company, the client, and the workers) is also often sadly overlooked.

If I were to pinpoint what kind of technical or knowledge-based skills carry over, it’d definitely be a general knack for problem-solving which I feel like was honed through stumbling through a lot of super basic coding/programming in the past. I am not a programmer; the code I’m most comfortable working with is HTML/CSS, and even then, only barely enough to have made https://old.reddit.com/r/PHGamers look halfway decent. But learning to code even just a little bit taught me the discipline and mindset needed to be able to take on all kinds of technical dilemmas.

Livestreams I’ve produced include global symposiums for the World Bank Philippines, Climathon Pasig, some book launches, one of Asian Forensic Sciences Network’s week-long annual meetings, all the streams for Dicecast and its partner groups that I mentioned here, and my own personal Twitch channels. I am currently producing livestreams for my company’s clients who I am not sure if I can disclose yet. I will say that one of them is a popular worldwide cosmetics brand.

Thank you. It took a long time of making ends meet from work I was unpassionate about (I used to be an ad copywriter, SNS handler, BPO agent, and a few other things I’ve already forgotten) before I wound up here. But the goal was always (and still is) to enjoy what I do for a living, so I slowly made that my reality until the right combination of skill, networks, negotiation, and luck made it happen.

My current job pays the most. It’s a full-time, salaried position, so not really a “gig” by the common definition. When I was still freelancing, being a livestream director was my highest-paying gig yet. I paid for my old RTX 3080 with one event alone.

When I contributed to Game! Magazine as a college student, they paid me a flat rate per article. Between PHP 500-1000. My blog & D&D show were not money-making ventures, just passion projects. Hosting review videos for UnboxGuru paid me a talent fee of about 5k per video.

“Best paying” is highly subjective though. Yes, livestream directing paid me the most, but it also has a higher startup cost and time investment cost to keep doing. By comparison, hosting videos and recording voiceovers was easy money for me; I just have to show up, nail the lines, and go. Yes, each recording session paid less than one livestream, but I didn’t have to attend so many meetings, run tech rehearsals for so many panelists, or even need any equipment at all.

You have to factor in what it costs you (both in terms of time and money) to buy equipment, to build a portfolio and network, market yourself, maintain equipment, educate/train yourself, etc. If you’re in your client’s budget (which is another thing to figure out, and knowing how to say no to lowballer clients is something every freelancer will need to learn too), they will pay your asking price. It’s your job to make sure you’re worth that price.

You and I could probably very easily have started a rugpull scam of some sort. Crypto, NFT, heck even just starting a crowdfunding campaign to make a boardgame/tabletop RPG campaign setting and just vanish it into thin air.

We’d come up with convincing details of the project, sell the idea to tech-hungry, money-hungry, and/or game-hungry nerds, and do just enough research to come off as knowledgeable in whatever we were scamming people on. I’d have used one of my foreign accounts to collect the cash, laundered it through a bunch of proxies and dummy transactions, and put it all into crypto wallets where they’d sit for a few years until the inevitable controversy over our exploits blew over.

Then, when the coast was clear and things quieted down, I’d cash in the crypto, split it with you, and buy a house.

The point of keeping piracy-enabling talks out of r/PHGamers is to protect it and its users from what happened to r/Piracy (even r/Piracy has a rule against discussing where to pirate specific titles). What someone or some company does outside of this subreddit is their business. But if referring to whatever shops or vendors you want to recommend to people causes users in r/PHGamers to also share links, information, instruction, or encouragement that can lead to the act of committing piracy, then at that point comments and posts will be removed.

In case you missed it, the subreddit’s rules on piracy discussions were changed a couple months ago. They are more relaxed than before, and we now actually tolerate the intellectual discussion of piracy. If you feel like extolling the virtues of software piracy as an ethical practice, you may. You can go ahead and tell the world you frequently sail the seven seas if you want to. As long as in your discussion, you do not write anything that could suggest to Reddit admins (and more importantly their advertisers) that this subreddit endorses, enables, and/or enacts software piracy. It really is that simple.

Now, I have no say on how other people will react to anyone’s piracy-related claims. Some people are a-okay with it, others vehemently against. They are free to agree, disagree, vote accordingly, report, block, ignore it completely, or even engage in good-faith debate. The sentiment of the individual should not be assumed as one shared by the subreddit as a collective, so at the very least don’t go around accusing r/PHGamers as a whole of hypocrisy if things don’t go your way.

TL;DR yes but remember that actions have consequences.

It might not be the answer, but I have an idea. Posted this before, but I think it’s worth repeating:

When we were younger, we were put in situations where developing friendships was inevitable. School being the biggest of course, but also clubs, birthday parties, etc. But aside from just being put into these situations, it was also easier for us to trust. At that age, in those situations where everyone was on a level playing field, you could—whether aware of it or not—more easily open yourself up to others and not expect to be punished for it in return. This environment and attitude makes it so much easier to grow new friendships.

Now as adults, we know life isn’t as easy as we had it as kids. We learn that people aren’t always kind or fair. We become painfully aware of the concepts of ulterior motive and manipulation. It teaches us to be wary, and to be more careful of whom we choose to trust. And as we get older, we also begin to experience the pain of loss. People who have been hurt generally aren’t willing to open themselves up again and show vulnerability to strangers, but that kind of willingness to put yourself out there is what it takes to build true friendships.

It can still be done, of course. Many working adults find new friends at their job site. Some of the strongest bonds are found among those in high-stress work environments like the military and medical fields, because shared trauma amongst colleagues is a very powerful equalizer from which to draw common ground. It’s also why sports and videogames are extremely popular for socialization; like any hobby, there are communities built around the intricacies of these activities with like-minded people who all, at some level, understand the jargon that identifies them as part of the in-group. It’s easier to befriend others with the same hobbies because, by being part of a community you already are interested in, you’ve already subconsciously vetted these people on some level.

I won’t presume to make any suggestions for you on how to use this information, because aside from this post I know nothing else about your life. But I hope it helps guide your thinking.

TL;DR: Don’t buy it unless you just want a cheap Xbox Elite Controller for the Switch.

Like most of you I bet, I’d never heard of Pojifi before they reached out to me and asked for this review. They sent me the product and I made no promises about skewing my bias in their favor for this, so despite me getting a free controller out of it, I’ll be brutally honest here.

The NS-2080 is an “original,” patented product by Pojifi. I put “original” in quotes because there’s something fishy going on in the firmware which I’ll get to later. It features all the standard things you might expect out of a third-party controller, plus a few more: turbo buttons, 2 *detachable* back paddles which can be bound to any other button on the controller or to programmable macros, 3 levels of vibration settings (low/med/high), interchangable thumbsticks (supposedly 3 sets but I’ll expound on this), adjustable thumbstick spring tightness (never seen this before, personally), and a carrying case.

The dealbreaker

I’m gonna start with the very very bad news. The joysticks are complete trash. Just look at this circularity test result from gamepad-tester.com:

An average error score of 21.5% is really terrible. For comparison, here’s an Xbox Series Controller’s circularity test:

Only 7.2%. You can even see the difference in the website; look how much more smoothly the joysticks in the controller diagram in the Xbox video move compared to the NS-2080’s.

While the circularity test doesn’t really affect gameplay too much (in fact, something similar happens with the Gulikit King Kong Pro 2 and 8bitdo Ultimate Bluetooth controllers that use hall-effect joysticks), the eagle-eyed among you might’ve noticed something else weird about the gamepad test. There’s some kind of strange hitching going on in the joysticks as they cross the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west). Almost as if the joysticks “stick” to those positions slightly. You’re not going crazy; it really does this.

This stickiness absolutely does affect gameplay. You will see your character, vehicle, camera, whatever it is you’re controlling, stick to the up/down/left/right directions as you attempt fine movements of either joystick. It’s maddening.

Original Product? Or just an original copy?

I mentioned earlier how there was some weirdness going on with how the controller firmware or hardware ID is detected. That’s because when I connected the Pojifi NS-2080 to my PC with a cable, Steam picked it up as an 8bitdo Pro+ controller.

Yeah, you could rename controllers on Steam’s controller settings page very easily, and I very well could have done that, but 1.) why? and 2.) this isn’t the first time I’m seeing a third-party controller from some random Chinese company using firmware from other brands.

I don’t know how it would present itself to other users. The only reason this caught my attention at all, is because the name that popped up, 8bitdo SN30 Pro+ (X-Input), is my custom name I attributed to my own personal SN30 Pro+ which I sold over a year ago. So, this Pojifi controller for whatever reason was detected as similar enough to my old SN30 Pro+ that Steam thought they were actually the same controllers. Others who might not have ever used an SN30 Pro+ could very well just see a generic Xbox 360 Controller description in Steam when they plug this in.

+1 for included case, -1 for useless mesh netting

The case is nice, but I feel like this is a design oversight. The mesh pocket should be placed on the other side of the inner top lid, because if you keep the USB cable where it currently sits, you can’t close the case.

Other random nitpicks

• Only one paddle button can be pressed at a time. Pressing M2 while M1 is being held, or vice versa, ignores the 2nd input.
• The controller randomly disconnects from PC. I’ve not noticed it disconnecting during actual gameplay, but when I open up Steam Input to configure bindings, or go out to the desktop, for some reason despite remaining connected according to Windows Bluetooth manager, the inputs no longer register.
• The on/off switch on the back of the controller doesn’t actually turn on/off the controller, it enables/disables the back paddles.
• The picture on the box suggests there are three complete sets of interchangeable thumbsticks: a short set of 2 sticks, a medium length set of 2 sticks with convex caps as opposed to concave, and a tall set of 2 sticks. Mine only came with the default short sticks already attached on the controller, 2 more short sticks with a wider concave cap, one short stick with convex cap, and one long stick with concave cap.
• The adjustable thumbstick tension spring (again, will touch on this later), while cool, is done in a way that makes it too easy to accidentally unscrew the thumbstick shafts which leaves the caps free-spinning.
• I couldn’t get the included 3.5mm audio jack to output any audio on PC, whether wired or wirelessly.
• No NFC/Amiibo support.
• Updating the firmware was kind of scary. It hung at 95%, for over 10 minutes, so I decided to just turn off the controller and reconnect which is usually a huge no-no in firmware updates. This seemed to fix it though.

The actually good things

I’m a big supporter of gyro-enabled gaming, so it’s an important feature for me to test and discuss. While one might be quick to assume that the controller will have a gyroscope just because it’s built for the Switch, that’s not always the case. Some third-party Switch controllers, like the PowerA Zelda-themed Switch controller, lack it completely.

What’s more, it seems like perhaps the gyroscope outputs at a higher polling rate than the first-party Nintendo Switch Pro controller: The NS-2080’s gyroscope polls at an average of 350+hz and a max of 525hz.

An average of 350+ hz on devicetests.com/mouse-rate-test is interesting, because my official Switch Pro Controller only manages 120hz max. A higher polling rate means smoother motion controls.

Adjustable thumbstick tension

This one was legitimately surprising. I’ve never seen this done in a controller before. Screwing the thumbsticks clockwise/counterclockwise will loosen/tighten the tension spring, allowing you to adjust how hard the recentering snapback force is, even disabling it completely.

While I don’t see this being useful in many situations, I think it’ll be an awesome feature for space/flight sims as a throttle axis. Preventing the thumbstick from recentering will allow such games to set an analog stick as a throttle/thruster with absolute as opposed to relative positioning. This lets it function more as a real throttle (as in, the T in HOTAS) with more fine control.

However, there is a caveat: it’s best used fully tightened either way. Unless the thumbstick spring tension is adjusted to be extremely loose or extremely tight, the thumstick shaft/cap (which must be screwed clockwise/anticlockwise) will spin freely while in use. This can be super distracting.

Other random hit-picks

• I like how the back paddles are removable.
• The macro system is decent, and you can even change the delays between button presses in 5ms steps in the app.
• The build quality is top-tier. There is absolutely no creaking as you handle/twist/molest the plastic shell.
• The dpad, despite looking like the Xbox Series Controller’s, doesn’t feel as bad. It’s less clicky, more mushy, which I prefer.
• Xbox-like shoulder buttons. They aren’t prone to sticking unlike the 8bitdo Ultimate Controller’s.
• Turbo feature has 2 modes, rapid-fire (rapidly presses the button while you hold it down) and constant (which just leaves the button continuously rapid-firing all the time even when you’re not pressing it). The interval is changeable in the app.
• It’s nowhere near the cost of an Elite controller.

Closing Remarks

I really wish this controller’s thumbstick issues were addressed. That’s the biggest reason I’m not recommending it. They are, after all, the most important feature of a controller meant for modern 3D games. The weird sticky deadzone is too distracting to get over, and despite fiddling with the app settings and even updating the controller’s firmware, it persists.

I don’t really care much for the replacable thumbsticks but it is a cool feature and one of the defining ones that set the Xbox Elite Controller, which Pojifi so obviously modeled the NS-2080 after, apart. Shame that the 3.5mm headphone jack doesn’t seem to work on PC, that would’ve been nice to use, maybe on an actual Xbox it does work but I have no way to test that.

Big plus points for the gyro feature that seems and feels improved over the first-party Switch Pro controller’s. Gyro gaming is a big thing for me and people at r/GyroGaming and we’re always lamenting how the Switch Pro Controller (and all third-party derivatives of it) has a lame gyro polling rate compared to the DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers, which also have analog triggers and a touchpad, making them the standard for gyro gaming on PC despite the Switch pioneering it.

Pojifi, if you want your sample controller back, send me a shipping label and I’ll have it in the mail ASAP. Thanks for the opportunity to review this, and sorry it’s probably not the result you wanted to hear out of me.

Just got these for $70 on sale across various onlone shops (Amazon, BestBuy, Target). James from LTT gave them a quick review. I just wanted to share and highlight the use case I specifically bought them for:

Hearing game audio from the Steam Deck (or Switch, or anything that it can plug into over USB-C) as well as Discord voice chat from my phone at the same time.

This does that, and it does it decently. This is what my voice sounds like with a good mic, and this it what it sounds like with the Soundcore VR P10. The recording was made while playing a game on the Deck, and the Soundcores kept playing the game audio while I heard myself talk to myself on Discord with an alt account.

Yes, the Soundcore’s mic is pretty tinny compared to an actual condenser mic (Audio-Technica AT875R for anyone who cares), but I’m hearing both the game, and the voice, and can talk to my party, all on the same pair of earphones.

I know you can run Discord on the Steam Deck as a flatpack, or through the browser. I’ve done this. I prefer having it on my phone so the Deck is just playing the game. This product lets me have my cake and eat it too.

I have these, they’re pretty good. I got them for the 2.4GHz transmitter, which is a rarity among TWS earbuds. I only know of two other products that do this.

You can swap between 2.4GHz and Bluetooth connections almost instantly, but you can’t listen in on both sources at a time. If you want that feature you could look into the Soundcore VR P10.

It’s great for ensuring your mic absolutely does not pick up any audio bleeding out of your headphones, which I find happens a lot even with closed-back studio headphones if you’ve got a condenser.

I have the Genki Waveforms as well. The case as a transmitter feature doesn’t allow simultaneous BT, unless there’s been a firmware update I don’t know about (my app says I’m on the latest version though).

I have many complaints with the Waveforms but ultimately still use them along with my JBL Quantum TWS.

The DualStream is what got me to Kickstart it. Imagine my disappointment when I find out it’s not actually simultaneous mixing of the audio sources, but switching between the two, like any other implementation.

The Genkis are notoriously hard to fit in a comfortable way. I’m not active in their Discord anymore but when I was, almost every other post was about how people are putting them on. One of the most recommended solutions is to get a set of larger Comply foam tips, an additional purchase. I have them on mine and they work, but the earbuds won’t sit flush in the charging case with them on unless you press down hard enough to deform the tips. I found a way to fit them comfortably in my own ear after much trial and error.

The sound quality itself is fine. Not the best I’ve heard (I give that to Galaxy Bud 2, but then again I’m not very picky when it comes to SQ), but it’s definitely no slouch. There is latency in both BT and dongle/case connection. And the mic is pretty bad either way (the case has a built-in mic in it which performs better than the in-ear ones, but it’s still not great).

Edit: Here’s my day-1 test of the Genki Waveform mics, switching back and forth between the in-ears and the case mic. And here’s VO of the same script, recorded simultaneously, on my AT875R, so you have an idea of what my voice should sound like on a good mic. It’s likely they sound better now, after a firmware update, but I don’t feel like doing another test right now.

Here’s to hoping that hypothetical perfect set of earbuds doesn’t cost more than $200.

My controller arrived today and I had ample time to play around with it. The TL;DR of this writeup is that I may end up returning the controller, but only because it lacked one specific feature I was hoping it would have.

First, the good:

1. It feels good. For its size, it feels surprisingly light. Much like the Google Stadia controller felt when picking it up out of the box. The back of the controller has a slightly ribbed (for your pleasure) texture that should help with the grip.
2. It’s comfortable. I have medium/large hands, and holding the 8bitdo Ultimate Controller for extended periods is no problem. Akin to holding a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller.
3. Switching connection modes is seamless. With the cradle (which contains the removable dongle) plugged in to my PC, and the controller itself paired to my Switch, swapping between the two devices is as easy as flipping the toggle. No need to re-pair every time if I want to play wirelessly on both machines.

But there are some minor issues:

1. The Hall Effect sticks don’t calibrate properly on PC. In Steam, they’re detected as if extending beyond the borders of the calibration GUI. On the Switch though, it’s fine. For now this is only a minor issue, however, because in-game (testing done in Monster Hunter Rise PC and Switch) I notice no difference in how either device actually parses the inputs.
2. There’s no discernible way to open the controller. The shell is probably held together with clips in the housing, but it’d be much less stressful to open and take apart if they’d just used screws.

And my biggest complaints:

1. Connecting to a PC via Bluetooth doesn’t work. While you can pair the controller to a PC/laptop and it’ll be detected as a “Pro Controller” in Windows like how the Switch Pro Controller shows up, in Steam it appears as “Unknown Controller” and frequently disconnects/reconnects (it disappears and reappears in the Steam controller menu). Edit: This is resolved with a hard reset of the controller, see edit details below.
2. You can only use it via the 2.4GHz dongle on PC as an Xbox Controller. This is the biggest reason I’m considering returning the Ultimate Controller. I wanted 2.4GHz but in Switch Pro Controller mode. This is because you can only use the gyro on PC if Steam detects the controller as a Switch Pro Controller. If it’s in Xbox mode, even though the controller has a gyroscope built into it, it can’t be used. Likewise, even though the controller has analog triggers, it will only be detected as digital triggers in Switch Pro Controller mode.
3. The controller doesn’t work on the Steam Deck with the 2.4GHz dongle. It just doesn’t. Could be a driver issue that Valve can fix, or maybe a firmware update on 8bitdo’s side, but as of now you can only connect the controller to a Steam Deck through Bluetooth.

I’m hoping these things could be fixed with firmware updates. While I can accept that maybe using it with the 2.4GHz dongle restricts it to Xbox mode on PC only due to hardware issues, it makes absolutely no sense to me why the “Ultimate” controller lacks the ability to be used as a Bluetooth controller on PC at all, let alone in Switch Pro Controller mode. The SN30 Pro, SN30 Pro+, and SN30 Pro 2 all let me do this. Why can’t the Ultimate?

For the record, I’ve tested pairing it to 4 PCs (2 desktops, 2 laptops, Windows 10 & 11) and they all behave this way. All 4 PCs pair with my first-party Nintendo Switch Pro Controller just fine, with Steam recognizing it right away.

I have a month to decide whether I’ll keep the controller or not. If firmware updates address these issues, it’s definitely staying with me. But if not, there’s a good chance I’ll be returning it and just getting 2x SN30 Pro+ controllers for cheaper than the cost of one Ultimate controller on my next visit to South East Asia (where 8bitdo controllers are often 25%-30% cheaper) in December. That way I could just keep one paired to my PC, the other paired to my Switch, and still be able to use it in Nintendo Switch Pro Controller mode on PC via Bluetooth. It’d just be such a shame to not have the performance of the 2.4GHz mode instead.

Edits

10/29/22 23:46 - The 8bitdo Ultimate Controller is not working on my Steam Deck, whether via Bluetooth or 2.4Ghz dongle with the Steam Dock. When connected to the Dock, the 8bitdo dongle lights up solid blue indicating it has a connection to the controller, but there is no response in the Deck when using the controller. When pairing to the Deck via Bluetooth, it shows up as “Pro Controller” and connects (similar to the behavior observed in Windows), but also doesn’t respond to any input (again, similar to the behavior observed in Steam on Windows). For the record, the first-party Switch Pro Controller does work flawlessly on the Deck.

10/30/22 12:55 - u/PookAndPie reported below that their own controller, after shutting it off and on again, exhibited no issues getting their PC to recognize it as a Switch Pro Controller over Bluetooth. Attempting to turn off/on the controller on my own end resulted in no change until I re-read the manual closely and noticed that there’s a way to force the controller off. I had assumed that when the LED light was off, the controller was off. That’s not necessarily the case.

After a force-shutdown of the controller and restarting it, my Windows desktop connected to the controller automatically over BT and Steam recognized it as a Switch Pro Controller. With the dongle connected to the same PC, I toggled the connectivity switch and sure enough, Steam on the same PC picked up the controller again, this time as an Xbox controller. And it worked fine again vice versa, toggling it once more to BT.

This was my biggest complaint about the controller so far and it seems to just be some kind of boot/initiation problem with the controller’s firmware, since a simple hard restart fixed it for me. However, I’d still love for a clarification on the Switch Pro Controller mode over 2.4GHz dongle option. The manual states this is possible on a Switch console, so why shouldn’t it be on a PC?

Unfortunately, this didn’t do anything to fix the controller’s inputs on my Steam Deck. Actually, now it works on my Steam Deck via BT. But it’s got a strange way of behaving: after pairing, I still don’t get any button inputs to register on the Deck, until I press the Home button on the controller. Then, it seems to “wake up” the controller (even though its LEDs were already on) and the Deck accepts input from it just fine.

10/30/22 19:15 - u/Natural_Design9481 requested checking the polling rate of the controller. I was only able to do this wired and with the 2.4G dongle, not through Bluetooth. If anybody can suggest how I attempt to get the polling rate through Bluetooth I can look into it. Here are the results:

I tested using XInputTest and attempted overclocking the controller’s polling rate using HIDUSBF. The results were the same (within ±5ms) no matter what polling rate was set in the software. Again, if anyone can suggest a way to test this using BT/Switch Pro Controller mode, I’m open to trying things.

* u/RuphusSpeaks gave some advice on how to test the polling rate of the gyroscope via BT. It uses additional tools (reWASD) to parse the gyro input and translate it as mouse input for reading on https://devicetests.com/mouse-rate-test. If anybody has other ways to test this with more accuracy then I’m all ears.

10/31/22 17:07 - I received a response from 8bitdo support regarding my inquiry. Here is what they say:

Greetings,

Thank you for the consultation!

1. Is there a way to use the controller via 2.4GHz dongle on PC and have the computer detect it as a Switch Pro Controller? So far, I’ve only been able to get Steam to recognize the Ultimate Bluetooth Controller as an Xbox Controller in 2.4GHz mode.

– There is no way to have the computer detect it as a Switch Pro Controller via the 2.4g receiver that comes with, if you connect the controller to your Windows PC via 2.4g receiver it will recognize it as an Xbox controller.

2. I have tried connecting the Ultimate Bluetooth Controller via Bluetooth to 4 different Windows PCs/laptops. While they are all detected as Pro Controllers through Windows’s Bluetooth UI, in Steam, they show up as “Unknown Controller” and are not usable. Is this intentional, or can it be fixed in a future firmware update?

– The Bluetooth mode of the controller is designed and expected to use on the Nintendo Switch only, if your try to pair the controller with the Windows PC on Bluetooth mode, it will show the “Pro controller” as the device name but you will not able to use it.

So it seems the connectivity limitations are by design and I think it may be safe to assume 8bitdo has no plans to enable switching of controller modes over 2.4GHz.

11/15/2022 9:50 u/PolygonKiwii reported that 8bitdo is working on firmware that allows switching input modes on 2.4GHz. This is huge news for anyone who wanted the speed/performance of 2.4GHz but the input scheme and features of the Switch Pro controller.

I’m a third fleet MH vet (MH Tri was my first), and I’ve played every single MH game and spinoff since that generation. So here’s my very opinionated take.

World is a more complete game. Rise is a more condensed game.

World will give you amazing cutscenes, graphics, a more fleshed out story, richer environments, and an overall more varied presentation for the price. You will spend hours even in base World (i.e. non-Iceborne) just exploring the maps. Each hunt can last you 45-minutes to an hour at the start as you learn the game’s mechanics and monsters’ behaviors, and that’s not counting the prep time (choosing your gear, item loadouts, food choice, etc.). And that’s just a single hunt. It was truly developed to be a console game you sit down and play for extended periods, and the endgame reflects this as well.

Rise is much, much, much faster. Cutscenes are few and to-the-point, the monster introduction videos are entertaining but short and skippable (nothing is skippable in World), maps are not necessarily smaller but are much more quickly traversible given the various methods of travel, there’s no longer a need to track & investigate monsters so you already know where they are from the start of a hunt, and hunts themselves last 20 mins even for a relatively inexperienced player (5-10 mins for a vet playing semi-seriously). It’s meant to be quick, the game was developed for the Switch first and foremost which is a half on-the-go mobile console. There’s even an Amiibo mechanic in the game which the devs couldn’t bring over to PC and didn’t bother translating into a different method.

That said, I prefer playing Rise, but I will never forget or regret experiencing World. World was the very first time MH was developed, marketed, and released simultaneously to the entire world. It was what opened the gates of MH to the rest of the world outside Japan, and the MH team knew this. So they put everything they had into it. And it shows.

That doesn’t make it better than Rise, just different. I have more play time in Rise+Sunbreak now than World+Iceborne, because it’s easier to pick up and put down. If 15 minutes is all I have to play, you bet I’m going to turn to Rise instead of World because in 15 mins I can finish 1-2 hunts in Rise vs half a hunt in World. I simply don’t have that much time to game these days so it fits my schedule better.

Take these into consideration if you only have the budget for one game. But in the end, know that you can’t go wrong with either one.

One thing I’d like to note is that there is no crossplay or cross-save for MH Rise between the Switch and PC versions. If you planned to mainly play MH Rise on it, I’d perhaps consider a Steam Deck instead so you can play games you already own on Steam on it, including MH World and Rise. However if you wanted to try the rest of Nintendo’s library of games, then the Switch is not a bad choice.

I’m an English lit graduate who went down this whirlwind of a career path:

0. Freelance writer for a gaming magazine (kept this up for many years as a side gig)
1. ESL Teacher
2. Copywriter at an ad agency
3. Community Manager for brand social media sites
4. Game designer/project manager at several mobile game development studios
5. General freelancer doing lots of odd jobs
6. Telephone communications assistant for the hard of hearing
7. Livestream director for an events company
8. Livestream production specialist for a marketing agency

So this is either completely irrational for people who believe Eng. Lit majors do so to become writers, teachers, lawyers, etc., or completely relatable for a large chunk of Eng. Lit graduates who take that Avenue Q song to heart.

Made this mostly for my own curiosity, as I wanted to hear what my Discord buddies might hear if I used the TWS mics only. The “control” audio is from an Audio-Technica AT875R shotgun mic.

Left Channel is the AT875R, Right Channel is the JBL Quantum TWS.

If you’re not listening using earbuds/earphones (to easily remove one bud from your ear to isolate the channels), you can do so in Windows by going to System > Sound, clicking on the arrow beside whatever your default output device is, and adjusting the Left/Right channel volume sliders individually.

The recording was raw input from both mics recorded using Reaper, without any additional audio processing or VST plugins/filters applied. As far as I’m aware, Discord has some audio processing done to all mic input, even with all the settings in the audio page (Krisp, noise removal, echo cancellation, etc.) turned off, so ultimately I’m not 100% sure how my audio sounds to my buddies.

That said, they didn’t complain about it last night, though they did remark that it was lower quality than my usual mic (the Audio Technica). I will ask a close friend of mine to record how I sound with the JBL Quantum TWS mics next time we’re both free. When I get to do this, I’ll reply here so you’re notified. Or you can add me on Discord and we can test the call later, if you’re comfortable with that.

You might suggest to record the output of the mic test feature on Discord, which I would have done. Unfortunately I’m suffering from a long-standing bug with Discord’s mic test that completely changes and misrepresents how my audio sounds to others in an actual voice channel, regardless of mic used.

Punching or zooming in on your facecams is nice and all, but if you forget to hit that hotkey, there’s no recapturing/reframing that moment except in post. Using a couple plugins on OBS, you can make sure to capture all those pogchamp moments by just screaming into your mic.

Requirements

• OBS Studio Version 27 and up
• Move Transition Plugin
• Stream FX Plugin (optional but helpful)

In lieu of the Stream FX plugin, duplicating your facecam can be done via scene nesting.

My Audio Move settings

Meter Type: Input Peak Sample
Easing: 99.21
Action: Source Visibility
Threshold Action: Enable Over and Disable Under
Threshold: 21.05

Use these settings only as a baseline for determining your own ideal settings. Each microphone, stream/recording location, and voice is different, and so requires tuning on a case-to-case basis.

Caveats

At the time of testing, I noticed a bug in Move Transitions that affects anyone using OBS in Studio Mode. Audio Move seems to affect scenes in the Preview window, but not in the Program window. I’ve reported the bug to the plugin author, and will update this post if it is ever addressed.

As far as Final Fantasy XIV registration goes, Square Enix believes only 3 countries exist in the entire world: North America, Europe, and Japan. If you try to create an account from any other region, not only will it fail, but Square Enix will flag your email address and lock it out from being used for 24h. This lockout refreshes every time you try, too, leading many people to believe they killed their chance at playing this cool game.

It’s not impossible to circumvent, though. I managed to help a number of people, some IRL friends and some through this subreddit, to get their Eorzea passports in order. These steps still work as of 3 months ago, and nothing has changed regarding the registration process so I have every reason to believe it still works now.

You do not need a VPN, a fake address, or even a US credit card. You only need mobile data and a smartphone, which Blizzard believes everyone owns so it shouldn’t be a problem for any of you.

1. First, turn off WiFi on your phone and enable mobile data. Globe or Smart, doesn’t matter.
2. When you’re ready, open your phone browser^† and, to be extra safe use this exact link to register: https://freetrial.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/
3. Make sure your browser doesn’t redirect you to another website. If it doesn’t say /na/ at the end, change it back so you’re in the North America site.
4. Fill in the account details normally and make sure your location is set to United States, so you don’t have to worry about region issues later on.
5. When you get to the email address though, make sure you’re using an email address that hasn’t already been flagged by Square Enix. This means don’t use any that you’ve already tried and failed to register with recently. If you already tried and failed with your main email address, you can use a dummy or secondary email address for now, and then change it later on (after 24h, by then your main emails should be safe to use again).

That should be enough to get you to login to your account. You can then change your associated email address through the Mogstation.

^† Yes, use your phone. As in mobile phone browser to do all this. For some reason, even if your desktop/laptop is connected to a mobile hotspot, the security flags it.

Bonus tips:

• The free trial is basically the entire core gameplay level-capped to 60, including the base game b(“A Realm Reborn”) and the first expansion (“Heavensward”). You can play this trial indefinitely, even upon reaching the level cap. And the level cap is per job class, so you can reach level 60 as a Scholar and then do it again as a Dark Knight, and so on until you cap out every single job.
• There are limitations with the free trial, mostly related to social features. You cannot create a party (however you can join one if invited, and can matchmake with others in dungeons using the Duty Finder). You cannot create or join a guild (called “Free Company” in this game). You cannot buy or sell in the player-driven market/auction house. You cannot recruit or dispatch Retainers.
• If you ever decide you want to buy the full game, you can keep your free trial account and progress. You can even buy the game from Square Enix’s storefront, hold onto the key that you get, and apply it only when you’re ready to upgrade to the full account. This makes it possible to take advantage of a sale while not feeling pressured to take full advantage of your free trial before the sale ends. I bought the game at 50% off last July and only activated the product key in October.
• The free trial “ends” as soon as you pay any amount of money to Square Enix. This includes buying and activating any of the full game upgrades, any items from the Mogstation, the “Crysta” premium currency, etc.
• Choosing a Datacenter will determine which servers you can create characters to play or guest on. So if you’re planning to play FFXIV with friends, make sure you coordinate on your chosen Datacenter and World. Maybe try to take advantage of any “Preferred World” bonuses that might be in effect. Generally, you’d want to play in the Japan-based datacenters to take advantage of its relative proximity to the Philippines (e.g. less lag).

I’m completely floored; nobody expected Xiaomi to RMA this monitor, but they did. I was completely prepared to repair the damage by myself using the suggestions provided by some very helpful Redditors in my previous post, linked above. Worst case scenario, I would’ve bought a replacement main board myself from Taobao. But the store (Technopop, a subsidiary of Kimstore) and Xiaomi pulled through.

I’m back in Team Ultrawide!

Gotta redo it because it’s not squared off, but I think this prototype works well! Don’t ask for how this affects thermals cuz I don’t have a computer inside of it currently, I’ll be migrating my parts over into it once my CPU arrives.

I’ve never worked with wood before (am more of a papercraft and soldering iron guy), but this was a nice learning experience. Will definitely do better for version 2.

It’s IO-side down, by the way, so when a GPU does get installed, it shouldn’t negatively affect thermals. But I’ll make sure to test before and after, once my parts go in the case. Cables get routed through to the back or sides via a hole in the base.

I was mounting my Mi Surface 34 to my monitor arm and figured I’d just reuse the same screws, which are a little long because the previous monitor that was on it had very long spacers.

One of the screws dug right into the Surface’s motherboard because there’s nothing protecting it from underneath the screw hole. It etched a couple copper traces right off.

It’s only been about 4 months since I ascended into ultrawidemasterracedom, but now I must descend back into regular old 16:9. It’s hard going back but I simply can’t afford to splurge on another UW again right now.

Edit: They RMA’d it!

Someone on Reddit asked why Half-Life should get a page in the history books of gaming. While gaming taste is certainly subjective, there are objective truths about the state of game development before and after Half-Life; clear, measurable changes that came about in the wake of its release. In any case I figured this was a teachable moment that I could actually give insight to, so I hope it helps the OP at least appreciate Half-Life a little more, if not consider playing HL games sometime.

The noclip documentary does a great job at explaining this while recounting the zeitgeist surrounding Half-Life’s development and release. They cover so much of what made HL such a groundbreaking game and can explain it better than I could, so I highly suggest setting aside the hour forty-five to listen.

In my own words though, what made HL an amazing experience for me was its writing, presentation, and modding scene.

Mark Laidlaw really put together such a rich world full of environmental storytelling as well as actually stimulating dialogue in an FPS game in 1998.

Every level was a setpiece for something new. The first time you see what a barnacle does to its unknowing prey, or the first time you witness a headcrab infest a scientist, are not just cutscenes but actual in-game events that you play through. You don’t just see the effect; you witness the cause, and in some cases, the victims of these horrible things that happened were NPCs you actually met prior.

And in my opinion there was no better time to get into PC mods than during the years shortly following Half-Life’s release. Games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Sven Co-op, Garry’s Mod, all got their start on HL’s engine. Well, maybe not TF but its popularity certainly was boosted and maintained thanks to HL. There were countless other smaller mods as well that made it such a golden age of modding, projects like Scientist Hunt, The Specialists, Pirates Vikings and Knights, Wanted… The likes of these games have never been seen since, so far.

If a lot of that sounds like, “so what” to you now, just keep in mind that there must have been a first time. And for a lot of today’s gaming conventions, you can trace their roots to Half Life. You asked, “If you and I are writing a history book about gaming…” Well, history books about gaming do regularly include Half Life in them for much of the same reasons. Examples include Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds by Jesper Juul, and First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game by Noah Wardrip-Fruin.

The Genki ShadowCast by Human Things is a capture card that fits entirely inside the shadow of the official Nintendo Switch dock, hence the name. It works just like any other USB thumb drive sized capture card, except for one thing: Human Things have developed specialized capture software customized specifically for the Shadowcast that they say reduces latency of the captured video to undetectably low levels, while using less system resources than alternatives.

Video

Summary

Here’s the gist of the raw data I gathered from my testing:

• Baseline latency of input from my Switch dock directly to my monitor averages to about 142.7ms. This is important to note, because the following measurements all take this latency into account. This is the actual latency one would experience when sitting in front of the TV or monitor. There’s a graph later on that shows the measured latencies minus this baseline, in case you want to get an idea of how much delay there is without factoring in input latency.
• Plugging in the Shadowcast and PC between the dock and monitor and using Genki’s Arcade app adds 206.75ms on average.
• Using OBS instead by adding the Shadowcast as a video capture device source added 183.85ms on average, and doing it as a window capture of the Genki Arcade app instead added about 285.95ms. There was a consistent delta of 27 frames latency (at 960 FPS; in 60 FPS this is less than half a frame) between the OBS and Arcade app.
• For comparison, capturing my Switch using my Elgato 4K60 Pro on Elgato’s 4K Capture Utility added about 390.55ms latency on average, almost twice that of the Shadowcast using Genki’s Arcade app.
• For some reason, when using the HDMI passthrough port on the 4K60 Pro, the overall latency it added when viewed through 4K Capture Utility was reduced to about 305.25ms. The passthrough feed itself had an average latency of about 183 frames (at 960 FPS; in 60 FPS this is closer to 11-12 frames) or 190.62ms
• And just for kicks I measured the latency of the Switch’s built-in screen undocked, which resulted in an average latency of 168.2ms. This is interesting because it’s higher than the docked result by about 25.5ms or 15-16 frames at 60 frames per second. I’m certain this is highly dependent on what TV or monitor is connected to the Switch dock.

Here’s what all that looks like when added to the average baseline latency of 142.7ms, as well as what that means in frames when considering 60 frames per second.

Caveats:

1. I don’t have an HDMI splitter to isolate video signal latency alone. The best I can do is record footage of the screen using a camera set to 960 frames per second and then manually count the frames. This means that all the measurements I take will inherently include controller input latency, which is not something that Human Things ever mentioned they control for in their Kickstarter campaign.
2. Because the frame counting is being done manually, it’s subject to human error. I try my best to make sure I’m choosing the best start and end points for every test scene, but some amount of subjectivity is to be expected with this method.
3. I backed the ShadowCast and ordered three units because I believe in the project, I have faith that Human Things are a stand-up company based on their past Kickstarters, and I have experience with other capture cards that all exhibit some form of video signal latency. So I didn’t hope the ShadowCast would be “latency-free” or even close to it, and accepted that if indeed it was slightly faster than what I currently own, it’d be a pleasant surprise rather than an expectation.

Genki claims 0-0.02s or 20ms of latency when using the Shadowcast with their Genki Arcade app. They do not specify whether this measurement is of total latency of the entire video chain, or if it’s a measurement of additional latency when adding their Shadowcast into an existing setup. In my opinion, it’s safe to assume that Genki meant the latter, because the testing method they showed in their campaign video was to use an HDMI splitter to split the video output from the Nintendo Switch dock to the Shadowcast and a TV simultaneously, and show the difference in latency by looking at the difference in in-game timers on each screen.

My testing differs in that I’m measuring latency by using a camera set to film at 960 FPS and then counting the number of frames that go by between fully pressing a button on my controller, and seeing a response on the screen. I’m doing it this way mainly because I don’t have an HDMI splitter, and partly because I feel like it’s a more accurate way to measure latency. Admittedly my tools are not the most precise, but I still think it’s a better way of getting the numbers.

Greetings commanders,

I recently wrote up this guide for my brother and figured why not share it with the rest of the Elite Dangerous community. Personally, I find it makes playing on controllers much more manageable when you want to do certain things like target wingmen, use heatsinks/chaff/ECM/shield cells, toggle night vision, or whatever other feature the game offers that don’t fit on the default controller bindings (even with classic context or default context controller options).

Initial setup takes a bit of work, but once you have the binds you want, you never have to think about it again. What’s great is it will even carry over across machines if you play the game on multiple computers, like if you have a desktop and laptop, thanks to it being linked to your Steam account. (This is notable because, for whatever reason, Frontier doesn’t offer a way to sync their own in-game keybinds across multiple installations of Elite Dangerous)

In my screenshots, you’ll see Steam displaying a Nintendo Switch Pro controller because that’s what I use, but it will work with any gamepad. Without further ado, here is the guide:

How to use Steam Input Radial Menu in Elite Dangerous [This is a Google Docs link]

For those who prefer a text-only guide without screenshots, or who are averse to Google, here it is:

How to use Steam Input Radial Menu in Elite Dangerous
By Ryvaeus

Prepare Steam Input recognition for Elite Dangerous

1. Right-click Elite Dangerous in your Steam library.
2. Go to Properties, then Controller.
3. In the drop list, select “Enable Steam Input.”
4. At the top-right of the Steam launcher, click on Steam > Settings > In-Game.
5. Check “Use the Big Picture Overlay when using a Steam Input enabled controller…”

Configure your controls within Elite Dangerous

1. Start the game and proceed to the Options > Controls menu
2. Make sure all of the options you want bound to the radial menu are set up
3. You can use modifiers such as Shift, Ctrl, and Alt (or any combinations of these) + any key to assign bindings to any supported function

Configure your Steam Input controls

1. Open the Steam Overlay (Shift+Tab by default) and proceed to Controller Configuration.
2. At the top, click “Add Action Layer,” give it a name, and click OK.
3. Decide which controller button you want to use as a trigger for the radial menu. Suggested buttons are Select/Back on Xbox controllers, the Screenshot/Capture button on Nintendo Switch Pro controllers, or R3/RS Click if you don’t use Headlook a lot.
4. Select the button you’ve decided on in the configuration menu. In this guide, it will be Select.
5. Click on “Show Activators” at the bottom.
6. Click on “Add Activator.”
7. Click on the empty box under “Binding.”
8. Click on “Action Set” binding. It is the first icon beside the text input field, highlighted in the screenshot.
9. Choose “Hold Action Layer,” and click OK.
10. Choose the action layer you just made, and click OK.
11. Click “Back” to return to the main menu.
12. At the top of the menu, click on the action layer you created.
13. Click on the box with the “Joystick Move” and “RS Click” bindings, which should be pointing to the Right Analog Stick in the configuration GUI.
14. Under “Style of Input,” change it to “Radial Menu.”
15. Click on the empty box under “Menu Button 1.”
16. Set your desired binding. Note that you can press the Steam Overlay command (Shift+Tab by default) to return to the options menu at any time, so you can refer to your Elite Dangerous keybindings at any time. Then, return to the Steam Overlay and you’ll be back exactly where you left off in the controller configuration menu.
17. If your binding requires the use of multiple keys, such as Shift+X, click on “Toggle Multi-button On” at the bottom of the binding menu.
18. Click on the Icon selection box at the right side of the binding menu, choose an icon and color, then click on “Back” to confirm the selection.
19. Click on “Back” again to confirm the binding.
20. Repeat steps 17–22 for as many commands as you wish to have in your radial menu. If you need more than 5 commands, click on “Additional Settings” to define up to 20 radial menu items.
21. Note that you can also set a command for clicking in the Right Analog Stick, by defining a keybind in the “Click Action” box.
22. When you have finished setting up your radial menu buttons, click on Back to confirm the configuration.
23. Click on Done at the bottom of the menu, then Return to Game.
24. Test the menu by holding down your radial menu toggle key (in this guide, it was Select) and moving the Right Analog Stick. You should see an on-screen GUI representing your selection choices appear at the right side of the screen.

Notes

1. The original function of your chosen radial menu toggle key will not be replaced by these settings. It will still function as configured by default. In the case of this guide’s selected key, “Select,” it will still function as a back button when in FSS/DSS interfaces as well as a Drive Assist toggle when aboard the SCV.
2. The position of a button on the on-screen GUI depends on how many buttons are configured.
3. The steps in part 1, Prepare Steam Input recognition, are required in order for the on-screen radial menu GUI to appear. If Steam does not think the game was launched in Big Picture Mode, it will not enable these Steam Input overlays. The settings in part 1 allow users to enable the Steam Input overlays even without launching Steam in Big Picture Mode.

Now that SWSquadrons supports TrackIR, this opens up the potential to play the game using various 3rd party software alternatives to the expensive TrackIR hardware. We’ve seen one solution so far that involves pairing a paid smartphone app with OpenTrack (one of these free open source headtracking solutions), but if you already have a webcam, even one built into a laptop, you can use OpenTrack with a different piece of input software: AITrack, which is free to use.

Requirements:

1. OpenTrack headtracking software
2. AITrack headtracking input
3. Pretty much any webcam with at least 640x480 resolution and 30fps capture. Higher resolution doesn’t matter so much but more fps will make tracking smoother. PS3 Eyecam is a good cheap way to get 75fps right off the bat.

If you don’t have a webcam, you can use DroidCam to turn your Android phone into a webcam, or a capture card or Camlink to input your DSLR/camcorder to your PC.

Alternatively you can spend the $10 to use SmoothTrack, the software I referenced in the opening paragraph.

Installation

1. Download and install Visual C++ Redistributable x64 in case you don’t already have it.
2. Download Opentrack from Opentrack’s releases page
3. Download the most recent version of AITrack from the releases page (.zip file) and extract its content.
4. Run Opentrack and make sure to select Input = UDP over network, then, click “Start”. Opentrack then will be for the data AITrack will send.
5. Run AITrack.exe from AITrack and click “Start tracking”.
6. Look around!

Video instructions are also available from the AITrack developer.

Configuration

As with any software-based headtracking solution, some configuration will be required in order to tune the tracking to exactly your webcam placement and room conditions. Just how much configuration is necessary depends on your specific setup and pickiness, but here’s some of the key options as well as comments on what worked for me:

1. First, familiarize yourself with the software. There is already an excellent guide to configuring OpenTrack on the IL-2S forums written by Francisco Bindraban. I suggest reading it through, but for the purposes of just setting this up for SWSquadrons, you can focus on these sections:

• Setting up your Opentrack > Options > Output
• Setting up your Opentrack > Options > Mapping
• How do you set your “curves”?

You will not need to worry about any other section of the guide or the OpenTrack software for the purposes of this game, but it helps to know the fundamentals of headtracking just so you’re aware of how it works and what you need to do in case troubleshooting is necessary.

2. Set up your curves. The best way to do this is to have Squadrons open in borderless windowed mode, go into the hangar, and have OpenTrack open on top of it with the curve editor up. That way, you can adjust the curves and look at the effect in game in real time, as the hangar accepts headtracking input. Below is an excerpt from Bindraban’s guide on the importance of curves:

Curves

When dealing with head-tracking, a glaringly obvious problem will present itself. To look towards the sides, backwards, and up or down, you need to turn your head. However, your monitor does not move with you when moving your head. This means that when you look back, you can’t see your monitor anymore. To solve this problem, a multiplier is used. For instance, when you move your head 5 degrees right, the game will move your head 30 degrees right in-game.

These multipliers can be tweaked to your liking. You might like a dead zone in the middle; a zone where your small movement will lead to no movement in-game at all (useful for looking down the sights).

The great advantage of these multipliers is that they can be tweaked to get different effects. For instance, if I want small movement when looking forward but large movement when looking back, then you can use curves. These curves are fully adjustable and should be set to your liking.

Keep in mind that it will take a little bit of time to get used to these curves. However, you get used to them quite quickly and then you won’t even notice it is there. It will feel natural.

Enjoy

All of this seems like a lot to take in, but these are just over-explained steps to a relatively straightforward setup. In all actuality it took me less than 10 minutes to get this all going, and this is coming from no prior experience with OpenTrack and AITrack at all (though I do have experience using a different head tracking software, FaceTrackNoIR, which for whatever reason isn’t working in Squadrons—hence the switch).

Of course, this isn’t a perfect replacement for hardware-based headtracking, and nowhere near the immersiveness of VR. But it is an easy and free way to get started on that path, as well as a good way to take advantage of everything you might already have in order to experience a feature in this game, and probably others that you already own as well.

When I first booted up my system with this board, I noticed WIFI did not work at all, and the adapter wasn’t detected in Win10 device manager. I had read handfuls of posts by users reporting faulty/intermittent connections with their WiFi on this board, but none that say it is outright nonfunctional.

The WiFi adapter was not seated properly. I had to take apart the IO cover/heatsink assembly and the WiFi module housing to see this.

I’m in the middle of transitioning to Ryzen, so it will seem a bit mismatched for now but here’s where I’m at and where I’m headed:

• i7-7700k -> r7-5800x
• Gigabyte Z270N-Wifi ITX -> ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3
• 32GB Gskill Ripjaws V 3200MHz
• PNY XLR8 RTX 3080 (previously Galax GTX 1070 Katana)
• Corsair SF600 Platinum -> Corsair SF750 Platinum (when prices become not stupid)

Right now the i7-7700k is being cooled by a Thermolab LP53 w/ Noctua A9x14 because at the time that was the best performing cooler that could fit in the case. However, since I’ve already cut into this chassis, I’m thinking I might as well get a tall tower cooler and go full hotrod in the CPU department when I get the Ryzen processor.

Believe it or not, this is even less janky of a setup than I previously had.

As for this workaround, it took a while because the case—a Dr. Zaber Sentry—has got some pretty thick steel, but I essentially just cut out almost exactly a perfect fit for the PNY 3080. That excess at the top needed to be cut out so the card could even begin sliding in to the slot.

I tried bifurcating (have a capture card that I wanted to use with it, like I did in this case with a single slot Galaxy GTX 1070 Katana, but unfortunately the heatsink of the 3080 is just so massive that even with a second riser cable in the bifurcated PCIe slot, it doesn’t allow the 3080 to plug in all the way. If the case was just a tad bigger I could have used a riser on both slots instead, but there’s just no room. Anybody know of a PCIe bifurcation riser cable that’s just 2 cables daisy-chained to each other without a rigid PCB? That would solve everything.

I do like how this turned out though. I might even delay my search for a new case to see what else the SFF community develops first.

Why SFF?

Console-looking cases are what got me started in the small form-factor hobby. The Fractal Design Node 202 came out in 2016 and set me down a rabbit hole I don’t see myself getting out of anytime soon. While that wasn’t my first SFF case, I got my feet wet by first trying out a big boy: the Bitfenix Prodigy ITX (which is really just an mATX case with fewer standoffs) was my gateway drug into SFF, to ease the transition.

Then I got a Silverstone Sugo SG05. Still a chonker, but a smaller footprint than I’d ever had before and it got me hooked. Look at all the room for activities!

Got the Geek M100WS after that because I wanted something to show off some RGB, but quickly grew out of that (not in small part because the M100 itself was kinda meh) and then ended up backing the Dr. Zaber Sentry, my current case, because it reminded me of the Node 202 that started me on this adventure while also being smaller, white, and reminiscent of the sentry turrets from Portal (which is where it got its name).

I got my brother hooked as well, building him a SFF PC in a Silverstone RVZ-02. He also doesn’t think he’ll turn back to mATX!

One thing I noticed while playing and streaming Star Wars Squadrons is how much of the viewspace is taken up by the player’s ship instruments and cockpit view. I like having a chat overlay on my streams and, with this UI design cramping the precious little verticle space, I wanted a way to dispaly the chat without encroaching on the viewport.

Video

Requirements

The only thing needed to use these lines of custom CSS is the Restream.io Chat browser source embed, and a way to set custom CSS in the browser sources imported into your streaming software. I only have experience with OBS, so I’m not sure if it works in Xsplit or other streaming software.

The custom CSS also assumes that you’re using the default Restream.io Chat appearance options and embed options:

• Compact Mode: Unchecked
• Theme: Default
• Message Alignment: Top'
• Scale: 100%

It’s safe to change any of the other settings including hiding messages after a set amount of time, but if you change any of the ones listed above, the CSS may not work correctly for you.

It’s possible there’s a way to do this on non-Restream.io chat sources, but the class names in these CSS selectors are specific to Restream.io’s implementation.

Custom CSS

.chat-messages > .message-item:first-child { 
  display:none;
} /* Optional. All this does is remove the "Ready to receive messages" chat from Restream */

.chat-messages.reversed { 
  flex-direction: row; 
  flex-wrap: wrap-reverse;
  justify-content: 
  flex-end; 
}

.message-info { 
  height: auto; 
  margin-bottom: 0; 
  left: -5px 
  !important; 
  display: inline;
}

.message-item {
  background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.5) !important; /* Feel free to adjust this color; it's the background of the chat message box */
  width: auto !important;
  max-width: 49%;
  margin-right: .5em;
  height: 190px; /* Set this to be the same height as set in the browser source properties */
}

.message-sender {
  display: inline;
  vertical-align: inherit !important;
  color: #D30595 !important; /* Feel free to adjust this color; it's the username of the chatter */
  letter-spacing: normal !important;
  font-weight: 600 !important;
  font-size: 1em !important;
}

.message-time { 
  display: none;
}

.message-text { 
  display: inline;
}

Caveats

The custom CSS works well if you don’t mind the following issues:

1. Long messages might not display the entirety of their content, due to the height and width limits set in the CSS. This is an aesthetic limitation and can be removed, but at that point you might as well just use the regular vertically-scrolling chat overlay.
2. There’s no way to set multi-line breaks while also setting a dynamic message item box width, as far as I know. So a medium-length chat message won’t break off onto a new line until it reaches 49% of the browser source width, no matter how much vertical space is actually available.

Hope you found this custom CSS useful! And if you’re able to suggest workarounds to the above to caveats, please do let me know.

System config:

• i7-7700k delidded, liquid metalled
• PNY RTX 3080
• 32GB Ripjaws V RAM
• Gigabyte Z270N-WiFi
• Corsair SF600 Platinum
• Geeek M100WS

My system used to be in a much nicer Dr. Zaber Sentry SFF case. However, the PNY 3080 is juuuuust a few mm too thick to fit in the graphics card partition.

I will be selling the Galax GTX 1070 Katana that used to be in this build. It’s a single-slot graphics card, so, perfect for mITX builds like mine used to be. I take it apart and clean it of dust and replace thermal paste & pads every year. Interested parties, DM me.

Edit: fuck it, I’ll Dremel out the side of the Sentry case.

Photos

Here’s what it looked like immediately upon opening up the laptop:

Here’s the year’s worth accumulation of gunk from one of the fans:

Here’re the clumps of dust I was able to extract, this doesn’t include the loose dust that was blown away:

I use my laptop elevated on a stand 100% of the time (I travel with the stand, it’s very portable) and despite that, this happened.

Benchmarks

Before

Anyway, immediately before cleaning, I ran an SotTR benchmark. These were the results:

And here were the CPU/GPU temps, fan speeds, and core clocks:

After

After cleaning the fans, replacing the thermal paste with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, and replacing the memory module thermal pads with Thermalright Extreme Odyssey pads, these are the benchmark results:

And here are the new temps, fan speeds, and core clocks:

That’s all I have to share. Hopefully this drives home the importance of cleaning your things. If you have any questions, please Google first and then ask me after.

Introduction

Portable gaming has come a long, long way from the gadgets of yesteryear. From the black-and-white days of Game & Watches and Gameboys, to the 3D-capable DSes and PSPs, and now to being able to play AAA games on pretty much any modern phone, it seems like all that’s left for people to figure out is how to render videogame graphics directly into our stimulant-starved retinas.

There is, however, a type of consumer who craves to relive the golden age of gaming—particularly that of the arcade era. For many of those retro purists, being able to play the classics like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Bubble Bobble on the go is great; but nothing replaces those super massive, mega flashy, coin-guzzling cabinets that look like they should belong in a museum rather than in a man-cave.

¿Por qué no los dos? US-based company “My Arcade” thinks they’ve got the perfect solution with their Micro Player line of products, and we have the GALAGA™ edition to check out right now on UnboxGuru.

Physical Description

With its diminutive size when compared to actual arcade cabinets, it’s immediately apparent that My Arcade’s Micro Player products all strive to poke at the nostalgia bone that seems to be a popular target for companies to aim at. We’ve seen these miniature classic console revivals by the likes of Nintendo, Sega, and Sony; and from the looks of it, these tiny time capsules are a hit among collectors.

My Arcade partnered with Bandai-Namco to release these Micro Players in the Spring of 2018. They stand at a perfectly average 6 inches and feature a full color, 2.75 inch screen. Its sides and face are filled with artwork inspired by the original cabinets, and the backlit coin traps (which function as the unit’s on/off button) are the Pac-Man-flavored cherry on top.

A cool feature on all of these units are the convertible d-pad/joysticks. The little joystick pegs can be unscrewed from the base, allowing users to play using only the d-pad if so desired. On the GALAGA™ model, the only other inputs are Start, Select, and a single button to fire the ship’s gun. Other models of the Micro Players have the appropriate number of buttons to fit their included games.

At the back are the volume controls and external speaker, a headphone jack, a battery compartment that takes 4 AA batteries, and a micro-USB jack as an alternative way to power the unit. Finally, the bottom of the unit has two large strips of rubber feet to keep the thing from slipping around—a much appreciated quality of life feature for those particularly intense play sessions.

Gameplay

Pushing in the coin trap powers on the Micro Player, and it’s ready to play right away. Hitting Start will immediately get you into the game as it blasts the GALAGA™ title song out of its tiny speaker, which is a little on the tinny side but, to be fair, doesn’t sound too bad. It should be noted that early production runs of this machine were reported to have issues with audio fidelity, but that appears to have been fixed since their initial release.

The buttons and d-pad/joystick feel surprisingly good to the touch. There’s a real tactility to the presses, and nothing feels mushy at all. The input delay and screen response time are imperceptible. It’s a good quality, modern screen with great refresh rate and no ghosting problems, but the viewing angles do leave something to be desired.

As for the game itself, it’s quintessential GALAGA™. While some may be disappointed about this not being the original 1981 arcade version, the port that My Arcade does use appears to be the much-revered NES version of GALAGA™ which is widely considered by aficionados to be the best alternative to the original.

One “feature” that is kept from the original arcade version, though, is the fact that high scores aren’t saved once the machine is turned off. Do keep this in mind if you’re the type who considers scorekeeping important, and plan accordingly if you intend to get the Micro Player. I’ve heard of an exciting new technology called pen and paper that’s supposed to be able to last practically forever, without even needing to charge anything.

Conclusion

That about wraps up our quick look at the My Arcade GALAGA™ Micro Player™. It’s an arcade cabinet you don’t have to hide in your garage or basement, and in fact can bring with you and keep on your office desk to proudly display to all that you’re a man or woman of culture. Gaming culture. If you’re watching this in “current year,” keep that retro spirit alive and consider grabbing one for yourself, or as a gift for the loveable geeks in your life. And if GALAGA™ isn’t quite your jam—or you’d like to build a collection of these adorable arcade accessories—you’ll be happy to know that My Arcade offers a large number of the Bandai-Namco collection in the Micro Player line, including Pac-Man, Bubble Bobble, Bad Dudes, and many more.

The neon haze of PC screens and mobile phones at San Juan’s FilOil Flying V Arena has begun to fade following the closing ceremony of the 30th Southeast Asian Games’s esports disciplines, but the fire still burns in the hearts of our national athletes—casting a bright light into the future of this burgeoning industry.

For a first-time showing in Southeast Asia, Philippine National Team Sibol came out strong. Out of six esports events, Sibol took home five medals (3 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze) which is the most out of all the competing countries, and is especially noteworthy given the context: these 2019 SEA Games introduced esports as a multi-sport medalled event for the first time ever, sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.

In the team-based games, the Philippines celebrates two groups for taking home the gold. On Dec. 8, the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang team claimed the nation’s first gold medal after a fierce display of tenacious perseverance as they pushed past Indonesia’s match point at game 3 of 5. Despite their opponents’ early lead, Sibol regained their footing by game 4. And with game 5 evening out the field at 2–2, Sibol-MLBB saw gold, rode their momentum, and sealed the deal.

The next day, Sibol-Dota 2 clashed against Thailand in their hard-fought battle. Mirroring their MLBB brothers from the day before, our Dota 2 competitors struggled in the early games of their series. Things looked grim for Sibol as the Thais won match after match, until in the final round of the series they reset their minds and switched tactics. After one fateful skirmish and a perfectly-placed Black Hole 39 minutes into the match, the tables turned and the rest of the game was defined as one that Team Philippines would win.

In the individual esports, all our delegates played their hearts out but only one secured the win. Sibol’s StarCraft II champion Caviar “EnDerr” Acampado lived up to his alias after ending Singapore delegate Thomas “Blysk” Kopankiewicz’s title bid, by winning 4–1 in the title match.

“I’m really happy and at the same time relieved that I didn’t disappoint our countrymen and all of our fans and supporters,” Acampado said after his historic win. “My opponents were really tough but fortunately my preparation along with the program we had prior to the SEA Games helped me a lot. This is for all who believed in us.”

Our bronze and silver medalists both came from the Tekken 7 discipline. Andreij Hosea “Doujin” Albar and Alexandre Gabrielle “AK” Laverez were both assured of at least the bronze after facing each other in the lower bracket finals. After defeating his Philippine teammate, Lavarez moved on to face Thailand’s bet, Nopparut “Book” Hempamorn, in the grand finals.

The battle was fiercely fought, and similar to our team-based finals, it was down to the last game. Unfortunately for Lavarez, Hempamorn was simply too tough a nut to crack. The Filipino fighters flanked the Thai champ, taking second and third place on the podium.

Their efforts are nothing to scoff at, though, as thanks to Albar and Lavarez winning bronze and silver on the last day of the 2019 SEA Games esports leg, the Philippines claims most medals overall, on top of most gold medals. We salute our athletes for securing the country’s place in the history books, and propelling its esports potential to new heights.

The 2019 SEAGames esports opening ceremony began at the San Juan Arena with a series of videos about the months of preparation leading up to the event, produced by official SEAGames esports partner, Razer. Opening remarks by Hon. Mayor Francis Zamora of San Juan City, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, Asian Electronic Sports Federation President Kenneth Fok, and Congressman Abraham Tolentino followed, and after Philippine representative Jia led the oath of sportsmanship, the virtual games began.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was the first game of the day, with Team Malaysia and Team Vietnam kicking off in the qualifiers. Malaysia took the first win at 11 and a half minutes, overwhelming Vietnam with a double-marksman draft and impressive map control. Vietnam fought back hard, coming out victorious after an extended 22:32 match.

Later on in the Group B matches, Team Thailand swept the first game completely, defeating Team Philippines at the 10:26 mark. Game 2 was a different story, though, with Team Philippines sorting out their draft issues and bringing home the win at 11:56.

It should be noted that for the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang games, the ultimate winners are decided via total points tally at the end of a best of 2 series.

The first of the Starcraft II games followed, with Chatchapol “KomCorx” Junthong from Thailand pit against Trần “MeomaikA” Hồng Phúc of Vietnam. The latter emerged victorious with a clean 2-0 sweep against the Thai competitor. Trần maintained dominance all throughout, managing a 3-base lead and even eking out resource-hungry Ultralisks.

In Starcraft II’s second group, Malaysia’s Jonathan “Nefarious” Wong surprised everyone by taking the first match’s victory against all odds, as the Terran player historically held a mere 21% win rate against Protoss players such as Singapore’s Thomas “Blysk” Kopankiewicz. The Singaporean was able to turn the tables completely, however, taking advantage of Wong’s overextensions and walking away with a 2-1 win.

Closing off the first day’s qualifiers was the Hearthstone discipline. Thailand’s Werit “Disdai” Popan used a Quest Druid deck and sealed the first match with a carefully-played Starfall against Indonesia’s Hendry Koentarto “Jothree” Handisurya, playing Combo Priest. In the second match, Popan’s Evolve Shaman deck didn’t fare as well against Handisurya’s good draws. The tiebreaker was an Evolve Shaman mirror match that went in Handisurya’s favor, who brought the victory to Indonesia.

The final Hearthstone matchup of the day featured Jacintha “Jia” Dee of the Philippines against Malaysia’s Weng Kean “wkyew90” Yew. Round 1 showcased another Evolve Shaman mirror match won by Yew who played a high risk, high reward 2nd turn Mutate. In game 2, Jia prevailed against Yew with a well-played Bloodlust and no shortage of minions. Unfortunately for Jia, the final Paladin mirror match left her with no breathing room as Yew switched to board control tactics and secured the win for Malaysia.

That wraps up the day 1’s qualifiers. Tune in to the 2019 SEAGames esports broadcasts today and tomorrow to catch the gold medal matches and ceremonies, as well as on Dec. 10 for a completely different esport discipline to watch: Tekken 7.

The SEAGames 2019 opening ceremonies played off to a rousing start last week, and challengers from all over the region—including some of our very own—have started claiming victories and medals in various familiar competitions. In just a couple of days, however, we will begin watching playoffs in the newest addition to this lineup of disciplines: esports.

Many of us are at least casually familiar with a few of the games that will serve as the virtual courts for our new breed of athletes. Titles like Tekken, and StarCraft are practically household names at this point; these three have had decades to cement themselves into pop culture and are staples at any arcade or internet cafe. By contrast, one of the biggest esport titles making an appearance in the SEAGames only made its Philippine debut just over a year ago.

Arena of Valor might sound like a mobile app with lofty ideals and nebulous goals, but one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover—or a game by its name. While it definitely is a mobile game, it’s not quite right to lump it into the same group as Candy Crush, Angry Birds, or Pokemon Go. There’s a reason why it’s been awarded “Best Competitive Game” at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards, and “Fan Favorite Mobile Game” at the 2018 Gamers’ Choice Awards.

Arena of Valor is a truly competitive title, where players must strategize, communicate, and adapt in order to emerge victorious against an opposing team. The game’s tempo and flow are so radically different from most mobile games that it’s fair to place it more in line with the likes of DOTA and League of Legends, two other esports titles that will be making an appearance in the SEAGames. In fact, Arena of Valor already made its debut as an official esport title once before, at the 2018 Asian Games held in Indonesia.

Considering the freshness not only of Arena of Valor but of esports as a whole, it’s understandable if not many viewers would be familiar with the rules or mechanics of this and other games in the esports SEAGames segment. For the benefit of those who want to follow along and support our contenders, but aren’t sure what to look out for, here’s a brief primer on how to spectate Arena of Valor.

Starting off with the most important detail: there will be live commentators during this and other esports playoffs. Even if nothing else sticks, you will get a general idea of the status of every match just by listening attentively to the hosts, also called “shoutcasters” in the context of esports. “Usually the casters bridge the gap between the game and the casual viewers,” says Cara “CaraCute” de Dios, professional Hearthstone player for Globe/Mineski’s Team Liyab.

“They should be able to tell or point out who is winning and who is losing and what needs to happen in order to win the game. So aside from checking out the scoreboard, just listening to the commentators will help a lot.”

Kevin “Gambit” Dizon, Team Liyab’s Arena of Valor captain, echoes that sentiment. “With the help of our local shoutcasters, it will be easier for Filipinos to understand the basics of the game. 

Getting into Arena of Valor’s finer details, we start to see just how deep the game can be. Teams in Arena of Valor consist of five players, each controlling one Champion which is usually fit to serve a specific role. Think of this as something akin to the positions filled by basketball players on the court. You’ll hear words like “DS lane,” “AD lane,” “bottom,” and “jungle,” or “warrior,” “tank,” “mage,” and “support.” These are the positions and roles that different team members can assume, and their goal is straightforward: destroy your opponent’s “core” before they do the same to yours.

Those of you familiar with MOBAs will feel right at home. Gambit adds, “For Arena of Valor, the objective is very simple and it is to destroy the enemy base which can be done through obtaining other minor objectives such as [attacking] towers, defeating enemy champions, and getting resources.”

Breaking down the terminology: “core” is fairly obvious, being the base of operations for our competitors’ characters, which are called “Champions.” “Towers” are obstacles which protect bases from attack, and must be circumvented in order to mount an offensive. “Resources” in this context refers to the gold points players earn through their actions in gameplay, which can be spent to improve their Champions in some way.

Gambit continues, “It’s important to see how many towers have been destroyed, the kills from both teams, and the gold difference as well because this determines how far each champion is with his/her items.”

It’s a lot to take in step by step, especially for new viewers. However, once the match begins, the flow of the game quickly becomes clear. And with each match lasting between 12–18 minutes on average, that flow will move faster than one may expect.

If it all seems too overwhelming, just remember to listen to the shoutcasters; or, even simpler than that, observe the reactions of the players during the game. Esports athletes are an emotive bunch and there’s bound to be plenty of drama for them to work with. And in the end, it’s precisely that human drama of athletic competition which makes all sports, including esports, an exhilarating spectacle.

You can watch and support Gambit and the rest of our athletes as they fight for the gold in the 2019 SEA Games. He will be competing under the Philippine Flag together with the National Team for Arena of Valor esports events on Dec. 7–9 at the FilOil Flying V Centre.

With SEAG 2019 set to begin in just under a week, expectations are high as representatives from all over the region fly in with the hopes of making their marks and bringing home the gold. The myriad of competitions—from archery, aquatics, and arnis, all the way to weightlifting, wakeboarding, and wushu—opens the gates to athletes of all shapes and sizes as they vy for a place on the podium of their sport. For this year’s games, the Philippines Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (PhilSGOC) in partnership with Singaporean-based Razer Inc. are adding competitive esports to that list.

Ever since this was publically announced last year, coverage of and around esports has picked up pace. But what really is esports, and what does it mean for the world of sports as a whole?

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor, Dota 2, Starcraft II, Tekken 7, Hearthstone; these are all video games—the kind that, not long ago, most people would just play at home. In the coming weeks, these games will be part of the global phenomenon of esports. The professional teams playing them in the SEAG 2019 will be witnessed by millions of viewers who, on the same screen mere days or moments before, will have just watched basketball, fencing, judo, and other traditional sports sharing the same staging grounds as these digital games.

It may seem surreal, but the writing has been on the wall. In 2017, 60 million people around the world watched the League of Legends finals. In 2018, the champions of The International—an annual Dota 2 esports tournament—took home their share of a USD 25 Million prize pot, which was crowdfunded by its spectators and fans. Just earlier this year, our very own Team Liyab, an esports team backed by Globe Telecom and Mineski, qualified for both the Arena of Valor International Championship in Bangkok as well as the Hearthstone Masters Tour in Bucharest. They will be competing again in SEAG 2019 under these games as well as in Starcraft II.

While Esports has an enormous audience as well as a mind-boggling amount of prize money to throw around, it also still does have a certain stigma which it’s been carrying around since before its very inception. Many people find it hard to consider esports as a real sport, or to put professional gamers on the same page as real athletes. It’s interesting to consider that, not only in the SEAG 2019 but also on ESPN, Chess is a featured sport. Its players are no strangers to physical stress, either; Chessmasters competing at tournaments sometimes find themselves losing 10 pounds and burning 6,000 calories just by sitting across from their opponents.

Regardless, Team Liyab’s Arena of Valor Captain, Kevin Dizon, admits this stigma “… will not immediately go away and we understand that.” He believes “It is up to us, the esports athletes and the different esports organizations, to prove that we deserve to be recognized as more than just play.”

Team Liyab certainly does put in the work to live up to the demands of professional esports. Dizon’s typical training day consists of a full 8-hours spent training—both in-game as well as physically—and analyzing matches. Team Liyab even makes sure that all the esports athletes are provided 3 meals a day with the essential fruits and vitamins.

Whether or not this is enough to convince the casual observer of esports’ legitimacy, Globe believes in its future. The telecom giant has already expressed an interest in starting up esports schools in the Philippines, and a company representative has stated that they “are currently tackling the education angle of esports though Esports AcadArena” which allows them to “engage with schools around both playing esports and learning more about it.”

Globe also launched their own Esports Center in UP Town Center earlier this year. They hope to put up more ESCs, with the aim of “legitimizing esports in the Philippines.” As lofty as this goal seems, Globe and Mineski are well equipped to form the vanguard of promoting esports as not just a hobby, but as a way of life. It’s an uphill battle which they have faith Team Liyab will win, and to them, SEAG 2019 is a chance to show the world that competitive video games can showcase the fighting spirit of an athlete as well as any other sport.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System may have been released almost 30 years ago, but nostalgia is ageless. Those who spent their youths wired to the venerable SNES/Super Famicom still fondly look back on those innocent days during the golden years of gaming. This is why Nintendo’s move to re-release its classic consoles as miniaturized, modernized versions is so brilliant; not only is there a captive market of consumers already familiar and enamored with those products, but that market is now 20–30 years older, with disposable income to spare, and children of their own to pass on this hobby to.

Full disclosure: I’m a Nintendo boy myself. I grew up on the SNES and still have it buried in boxes somewhere. But even I recognize that sometimes nostalgia in and of itself is no reason to be spending money. Before you decide whether or not you should buy in to Nintendo’s invitation back to a world before DLC, microtransactions, and day-one patches existed, here’s my honest review of the Super NES Classic Edition that should help remind you to leave those rose-tinted glasses behind for a second.

In typical Nintendo fashion, SNES Classic’s box is unsealed and easily unpacked; and the unboxing process is about as quick as the console’s setup procedure as well. In the box is the diminutive console itself (seriously, this thing is tiny), two controllers (wired, with 8ft long cables), an HDMI and micro USB cable, and paperwork. No game cartridges to be seen here; all 21 of the SNES Classic’s included games are saved in the console’s internal storage. There is a notable lack of any AC adapter here, however you should be able to use any USB port to power the console—even the ones build in to your TV.

Setup is incredibly simple: it only requires plugging in the two cables provided, and you’re done. The console is powered on by sliding the power switch up, and a red LED should turn on at the front of the console to indicate that you’re ready to game. Figuring out where to plug in the controllers tripped me up initially, as there wasn’t any obvious way to pull out the facia. However, you’ll quickly realize that with a bit of force (admittedly more than one might be comfortable exerting on such a small device), the entire front panel flips out and is held by a plastic ribbon. This opens up the controller ports, with Player 1’s controller plugging into the left and Player 2 taking the right port.

Once on, you should see video output displayed to your TV. One thing that immediately struck me and might happen to those of you with specific TV or home theater setups is that there was no sound output at first. Apparently this is a known problem with the SNES Classic, as it’s designed to output audio over HDMI only. If you encounter this issue, check to make sure the HDMI cable from your SNES Classic isn’t plugged into a port on the TV labeled “Analog” or “DVI,” or if you’re using a soundbar, try connecting the console directly to the TV instead. There are other issues related to audio which I’ll get into later.

After selecting the language and time settings for the console, you’re now presented with a choice of 21 games to pick from, and the list represents some of the best titles the console offered (despite the regrettable lack of Chrono Trigger). I won’t review each and every one of them here, as that would just be needlessly reinventing the wheel and this review is supposed to focus on the SNES Classic itself anyway.

From the game selection menu we also have access to the console’s options where you can pick between three graphics modes: 4:3, which is the way most of us remember playing these games originally; Pixel perfect, which doesn’t distort the view at all and renders each pixel as  perfect squares; and CRT filter, which is essentially 4:3 with scanlines.

You can also select different backgrounds to frame your games, which may or may not be desirable depending on how distracted you might be from seeing your 16:9 TV force black columns around the 4:3 picture. Most of the backgrounds are gimmicky static images, but at least one of them acts like bias lighting which changes color depending on the game scene. This mode was worth keeping on if only to help break the sharpness at the edge of the columns.

One thing that should be talked about is Canoe, the emulator being used in the SNES Classic to run the games. Nintendo deserves major credit on this point. Not only is it extremely fast when resetting or starting games, but more importantly there’s noticeably less input lag as well compared to other emulators such as Retro Pi or even SNES9x running on much more powerful hardware. This is a huge deal especially when playing fighting games, such as the included Street Fighter II Turbo. Disregarding everything else, this is low key probably the best feature of the SNES Classic.

The emulator also faithfully reproduces the original games more closely than any I’ve used before, down to their slowdowns and lag. You will notice, for example, that in stage 1-4 of Super Mario World, near the middle of the stage is a block containing a Super Star which when acquired will drop the game’s framerates quite considerably. No, this isn’t a glitch or a problem with the SNES Classic’s hardware; this slowdown is very much still present in an actual SNES with an actual Super Mario World cartridge.

Many other emulation software attempt to “smoothen” such trouble areas by taking advantage of modern hardware and programming workarounds, essentially “patching” the original 20+ year-old games. The SNES Classic eschews that, preferring instead to present these games in as close to their exact original state as possible. This level of authenticity may be frustrating for some, but for others, it’s incredibly charming.

That’s not to say there are absolutely zero modern conveniences though. The SNES Classic supports quality of life improvements such as save states (4 per game), which you perform by using the Reset button on the console itself. This takes you back to the game selection menu, where you can select the currently-played game and choose to save the current state of the game, no matter whether or not there’s actual save functionality or save points in the specific game itself.

Another new feature offered by Canoe is the “Rewind” function, where you can manually step back in 10 second or 1 minute increments (depends on the game) to a previous point in your play session. This is perfect for going back in time in the game you were just playing, to redo that boss run or try that jump again.

The emulation is not perfect, though. I mentioned earlier that there were other audio issues. The most glaring is that, for some reason, certain sound systems do not or cannot output specific instruments, tracks, or sound effects from certain games on the SNES Classic. It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly which sound systems or TV sets are problematic, however I can say that on my Samsung Plasma TV, the problem is noticeable while playing Super Mario World where the background music “drops” a track whenever Mario’s jump sound effect plays.

So, is the SNES Classic worth buying? If you’re looking for the nostalgia of playing a specific set of 16-bit retro classics, there is no faster, easier, or more legal way of doing so. And even if you do already own an original SNES as well as the cartridges to load into it, a good HDMI-Analog signal processor to play it on modern TVs is going to cost you (especially if you’re looking for a quality upscaler such as the Framemeister or Open Source Scan Converter); so even at PHP 5,000.00, it’s probably the cheapest option as well.

I woke up to Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: Loneliness today and almost felt personally attacked. It’s rare, but sometimes a YouTube video understands me more than I understand myself.

If 12 minutes and 30 seconds is too long to listen to, the video essentially explains the evolutionary reasons why loneliness is painful, and how chronic loneliness became an epidemic more deadly than obesity and on par with smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Most importantly, it talks about how the pain of chronic loneliness is self-sustaining; how in coping with loneliness, we can develop self-defensive social mechanisms that only serve to perpetuate it.

It sucks and it kills, so I guess what this is is just me trying to do a small part in helping others become aware of this basic human need to socialize, and to offer an inbox to write to if you need that feeling to be fulfilled. Or if you’re the type who needs a comforting voice to hear back from, you can also drop in and chat with me on my streams whenever I’m online. I love getting to know my viewers on a personal level.

Take care, everyone, and don’t forget to be awesome.

Green Bro gave me permission to post this after I used my Action to Aid and cast Healing Word, curing his depression Condition.

I followed this video to create the dice tower out of foam board and just added supports to make the webcam mount, an inch-long 1/4"-20 thread screw, bolt and washer to hold the C920 in place, and strip LED lighting to illuminate the whole thing. Now we have an actual physical dice camera for the show/stream!

So, it’s relatively easy to modify the Sentry to use a PCIe bifurcation riser. I’m using an Ameri-Rack ARC1-PELY423-C5V3 which I paid $58 for all-in.

I emailed Ameri-Rack ( Ameri-Rack Sales Department ), sending them this spiel:

Hi,

I was referred to your company by the users at Hardforum when inquiring about PCIe bifurcation risers, and came across two that I’d be very interested in purchasing. I hope you still sell directly to individuals.

I’d very much appreciate quotes for the following:

1x ARC1-PELY423-Cx

and

1x ARC1-PELY423-Cx (reversed)

And if possible, please show me the differences in selling & shipping to these locations:

CA

and

CT

Thanks!

They got back to me a couple days after with a quote and sent me a link to pay via credit card, and it arrived less than a week later at the CT address I specified (didn’t want to pay CA taxes).

Overall I’m very happy with the experience.

I just got my Xiaomi Mi USB-C 45W charger, and it works extremely well to power the Switch Dock. It supports the 15v 2.6a USB-PD profile required by the official dock, is more portable than the official AC adapter, and is more versatile, supporting a removable USB-C cable. This product is $22.90 on AliExpress and it shipped out to me within 23 days.

I wrote extensively about the CF003 in a previous post, and my opinions of it haven’t changed; it’s still my favorite alternative 3rd party Switch Dock despite its price, and paired with the Xiaomi charger, allows me to carry a complete Dock solution wherever I go (provided the venue has a TV and spare HDMI cable available).

I’m a pretty big fan of 3d-printing stuff for my Switch, and when I saw yesterday’s mockup of a joycon and smartphone grip combo done by /u/CubeGuy365, I immediately wanted to try my hand at it.

This wasn’t a single printed model; in fact, it’s just a quick cannibalization of some existing prints I already had:

Parts

• Nintendo Switch Con U v2 by artobot
• Nintendo Switch attachable grip by Brandon Mott
• Moto Z Style Mod (not a 3D print, just a spare shell I had lying around)

As an added bonus, those joycon grips can be slid into the Switch console itself for added versatility.

Video

I put this video together not only because I managed to fix my joycon on my own thanks to Thingiverse, but because a couple people have experienced a similar issue with the Joycon as I have so I figured if it could help them, it could potentially help others as well. Many thanks to Shapecloud.ph for providing 3D-printing services!

The CF003 is a recent revision of the infamous C-Force CF001, which many of you might remember as the dock which the SFANS crowdfunding project copied. I don’t care about any of that, I only care about whether the thing works. I’m happy to say that it does, and in possibly the smallest, most portable form factor so far.

I bought my CF003 from this Taobao listing. Yes, Taobao is entirely in Chinese. You can use Google translate to help, but it’s still a bear to navigate and figure out. They can ship internationally to select countries through their global consolidation option. Unfortunately I do not live in one of those select countries, so I enlisted the help of Bhiner.com, a 3rd party Taobao delivery agent.

Ordering the CF003 from China:

1. 

2. 

3. I received a parcel pickup notice from my local post office, and retrieved the order from there

I’m well aware that AliExpress now lists some Switch dock dongles as well, and for 1/3 the price (ouch…). However at the time I ordered this, that was not an option.

About the CF003 itself:

The dongle (I won’t call it a dock, because it isn’t, and dongle is funnier to say) itself is very small; only about 6.2cm×5cm×1cm, it easily fits inside a typical Switch carrying case. The plastic shell is coated with a rubberized finish which makes it nice to touch, but will also scratch quite easily. The ports included are:

• 1 USB-C power in
• 1 HDMI display in
• 1 USB-C display out
• 3 USB-A 3.1 ports

Its portability is greatly increased by the fact that the USB-C connector is removable, the standout feature of this revision which made me pull the trigger on buying it in the first place. It even comes with a nice, thick USB-C cable in the box.

Setting everything up was pretty straightforward, just plug in an HDMI cable and the official Nintendo Switch AC adapter in the back (no other USB-C PD adapters I have work with it), the Nintendo Switch itself via the included USB-C cable in the front, and any other USB peripherals you use into the other ports (in the photo, I plugged in my LAN adapter). During the initial plug-in process, I had a little scare because it didn’t look like the dongle worked; the USB LAN adapter was functioning, but I wasn’t getting HDMI out. It turns out the removable USB-C cable needs to be plugged in a specific orientation to the dock for it to work: sticker side up, so the arrows on the sticker and the dongle are pointing at each other. Once I matched those up, it worked perfectly.

Extended play results in the dongle warming up a bit. I played Splatoon 2 for an hour using the dongle and although it never became too hot to touch, it definitely was warmer than the official dock ever got. Though now I wonder if the official dock gets warm on its surface at all, given how much space there is in the enclosure.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the purchase. I wish other power adapters were compatible, but I can live with having to bring an official one around as it doesn’t take too much space anyway.

Edit: To clarify, using other AC adapters with the CF003 and plugging the Switch in will cause the Switch’s screen to turn off as if it detects that it’s plugged in to a dock with HDMI out, but no video is actually output to the TV. The Switch itself will still take Joycon input though; I tested this by going to the OS menu while undocked, leaving the selection cursor on top of the “News” icon, docking the Switch, and pressing “A” on the Joycon after the screen turned off. When I undocked the Switch to switch back to the handheld screen, I was in the News channels list.

Edit 2: The USB-C cable supplied with the CF003 seems to be special, as the dongle doesn’t output video when connected to the Switch with any other cable I have. I suspect the cable may actually be a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Full-Featured Type-C cable, meaning that it not only supports charging capabilities and basic USB 2.0 data, it also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 SuperSpeed for much faster data transfer with supported devices (10gbps), and also allows for the extra wires to be repurposed for Alternate Modes such as VESA DisplayPort. This cable should have 10 more wires than a standard USB 2.0 Type-C to Type-C cable to support the extra functionality.

Edit 3: I can confirm that this 3rd party USB 3.1 Gen 2 Full-Featured Type-C cable by IOGEAR does work to connect the Switch to the CF003. It is the cheapest Benson Leung-approved cable of its kind at the time of posting.

Item list:

• Folding stand
• Joycon+straps grip
• D-pad mod

Everything works very well, but the Joycon tend to slide out of the grip pretty easily. Not sure if there’s a way for me to lock them in more securely. The d-pad mod works so much better than I expected; there’s actually a half-sphere at the center of the bottom that simulates a ball pivot. The folding stand is pretty neat and fits inside my Switch carrying case, which is all I really required from it aside from providing enough clearance at the bottom to be able to charge while standing up.

This folding stand allows for charging while playing the Switch in tabletop mode. I downloaded the .stl file from Thingiverse and had it printed by Shapecloud.ph while they were exhibiting their services at their booth during the Rappler event in SMX yesterday. It cost me ₱1000, which by itself is cheaper than the cost of just shipping from Shapeways.

The print itself is very sturdy and fine. I plan to have several more Switch accessories printed by them, including a Joycon grip and d-pad mod.

Many thanks to all the fans and supporters of the show who’ve helped put it on the radar for bigger blogs like What’s a Geek to see! Really, I can’t overstate my appreciation; the reception has been warmer than I’d hoped so far. Until next time, ready your dice!

Materials

A full list of the materials used and where I got them:

• Vintage faux leather journals
• Assorted Pendants
• Assorted Charms
• Icosahedron earrings (repurposed into holders for the charms)
• Card stock (from local bookstore)

Total cost: about $10 per journal (I made 5)

Character sheet design

While waiting for the items to arrive from eBay, I worked on designing the character sheet based on the paper size listed in the journal description. It’s not quite A5, but also not 3x5" index card size. I tried researching other standard paper sizes but nothing turned up, so in the end I decided to just cut my own.

The difficulty of doing this though meant that I couldn’t use any pre-existing character sheet layout, so I had to design my own. I used PeterFitz’s A5 character sheet as a base from which I could modify my own to fit the unusual paper dimensions. I went through several revisions of the design before settling on one which balanced key information with limited availability of space.

On the other hand, having to cut my own paper also provided the advantage of allowing me to make some special design decisions. I’m quite proud of coming up with the idea of allowing the character sheet to unfold out to reveal more information. I could also choose any paper color and thickness I wanted, instead of having to buy just whatever standard size paper available. This influenced my decision to print on cream-colored card stock, for the aesthetic of imitating parchment rolls but the functionality of a durable material which can withstand repeated erasures and other pencil-related abuse.

Attaching charms

When the other materials did arrive (sooner than expected, I might add - they got here in less than 2 weeks, quite a feat considering they shipped from mainland China) I was pleased to find that the leather straps on the journals were easily removable. This made it possible to replace the stock charms with the other handpicked trinkets without needing to cut the leather. I just needed to untie the straps and slip on the pendants and charms.

Commissioned 3D print

If you took a look at the icosahedron earrings listing, then you might’ve noticed that there aren’t any additional loops at the bottom from where to attach the charms. I contacted the seller on Etsy to ask if he could have those printed on, and he agreed to do this at no additional cost.

After confirming the journals’ paper size, I printed and cut out the sheets, used a one-hole punch to manually punch in the binder holes, and voila! I just hope our DM doesn’t kill us off or else all those personalizations won’t make sense after rerolling.

Step 4: Print your card design

I used this card generator to generate the PDFs, which was the hardest part because you need to manually input the content (Wizards of the Coast cracks down hard on illegitimately distributed reproductions of their D&D IP).

Step 5: Stick to card stock

Then I printed onto glossy sticker paper and stuck entire sheets on to card stock (my printer can’t print on stock directly, but if yours can, you can skip this step). Finally, I sliced them out and sleeved them in generic MTG sleeves.

Makes gameplay go a lot faster because we’re not shuffling through the one PHB we share just to look up what our shit does. Good times!

In case you didn’t know, GG Network started a show called “Notice Me Senpai” back in Dec. hosted by Maria Ozawa. Here’s a Twitch VOD of her playing Mafia III with Miggy Chavez of Chicosci last week.

Aside from playing the game with her, I hope to be able to talk to her more about her Eurasian heritage and the unique challenges she’s faced as an individual of mixed descent, and possibly her relationship with her parents.

I used to think people were just getting unlucky with their Anne Pros, because even with a busted battery, mine exhibited no issues in the 6 months I’ve owned it - until now.

When I press the “Y” key, the board also registers keypresses on the Q, W, E, U, I, O, and P keys. In addition to that, it no longer connects via Bluetooth to Android devices that it previously was able to pair with.

It’s such a shame, as I’ve invested a lot of time and spare cash in the Anne Pro - from posting PSA’s about checking your battery on delivery and being able to use Datamancer-clone cases, to showing off labors of love such as hydrodipping the stock case and sanding off keycap tops.

Obins, to date, has not been of any help. I have an email chain with them dating from the moment I posted about the battery issues, which was July 7 of last year. I can’t approach /u/Banggood for assistance either, because I purchased direct from Obins back before the board was available on other sites.

It’s unfortunate, but it looks like my replacement will be something other than the Anne Pro. I’ll miss this little wonder for sure, but I’ll also miss being able to recommend it to people as a good beginner mech. It was a good learning experience, but I’ll be looking for something with better build quality next time. It’s gonna be tough, as I really really want a 60% Bluetooth KB with RGB, and the Anne Pro fit the bill perfectly.

Take care of your Annes, fellas. If she’s still treating you well, I hope she lasts much longer than mine did.

Edit: Will be opening up the case in a bit to inspect for possible PCB trace damage

Edit 2: Holy u/ripster Almighty, I couldn’t make this shit up, but look what just arrived in the mail!!! A little background to explain this. So as I mentioned in the OP, I’ve been emailing Obins since July last year about the battery issue. I was concerned about the leaked residues that made its way onto the PCB, so I asked for a replacement PCB only. They were more than willing to provide, so I waited. And waited. And waited. I’ve continuously followed up with Obins and they’ve been continuously trying to check on the delivery status, which I mistakenly assumed was a cover for them giving me the runaround. I should’ve had faith though, because IT ARRIVED TODAY OF ALL DAYS!

I know it’s so hard to believe, but short of posting the email threads and my own personal information contained within them, I don’t have much proof to go by. It did though, and I’m back on the Anne Pro train, baby!

Sanding off the top of keyboard keycaps can result in a pretty beautiful diffused RGB glow. I got the idea from Taekeyboards. One thing to note before committing to this is that the process of sanding the top coats down is very time consuming. If I knew about these at the time, I would’ve just bought them.

Video

Basic technique

There’s not much to say about my technique; I just wrapped some sandpaper around my finger, and kind of brushed the keycap over it along the length of my finger. Having the curve of my finger fit the concave of the keycap top helped cover as much surface area with as even and consistent a pressure level as possible without special tools. So I’d spend a minute or two on one keycap at a time doing this, just enough to rub off the coating. Once I saw white, I’d switch directions, brushing the keycap around the circumference of my finger, focusing on clearing off the coating from the edges of the concave, because they tended to stick.

I used 80 grit, pretty coarse but it still took more than a minute per keycap. I planned on going over them again with a finer grit but got super lazy. At almost 2 minutes of sanding per keycap and 61 keycaps… My fingers were sore for a couple days!

Texture

The caps have a rough texture too them similar to the feel of PBT keycaps now, which I much prefer. I also don’t have to worry about an oily shine accumulating on the keycaps tops, but I may have to apply a clear finish to prevent yellowing of the plastic. We’ll see.

Custom lighting

The per-key RGB customization and on-the-fly switching of settings is an Anne Pro feature. The manufacturer, Obins, offers an app for download on their site which is used for setting the colors and changing key functions. It works quite well, but requires a smartphone (Android or iOS) to connect to the keyboard via Bluetooth to get started. There is a third-party Windows PC app to customize the colors as well, but it still requires a Bluetooth connection anyway.

The Anne Pro is available from the manufacturer’s own Taobao store, or Banggood.com. I went through Taobao to get it, but plenty of people on r/AnnePro purchased through Banggood as well. There have been some reports of faulty boards though, so be prepared to test yours thoroughly so you can have it replaced ASAP in case it’s bad.

A few months ago I posted about working on something like this with some other like-minded creators who want to see local media diversify into geek culture with some semblance of production value. It’s starting to pick up, and we’ve started expanding from eSports into more niche categories. Let me or the rest of GG Network / D5 Studios know if this is the type of content you’d like to see. Thanks for watching!

I got this done by JuanDip Hydroprints, probably one of the best (and only) hydrodipping services here in the Philippines. It cost me PHP 1,000 and took just a little under 1 week to process (there’s multiple steps of painting including primer, dip, and clear coat, and I had to line up in their job queue).

So for anyone looking to customize the look of their keyboard case on the cheap in the Philippines, I highly recommend this vendor.

Membrane keypresses work when a conductive membrane bridges two contacts on the PCB. To make it work with mechanical switches, all you need to do in theory is replace the conductive membrane with the switch pins.

In practice, it’s quite tricky to hand-solder switch pins to a PCB surface contact that wasn’t specifically designed for soldering mechanical switches onto - or anything, for that matter. So I used some jumper wires to make it easier. ^{(Fig. 1.)}

I drilled holes in the plate to feed the jumper wires through. ^{(Fig. 2.)}

Some throwaway Kaihl blacks. Not my favorite, but better than membranes for sure. ^{(Fig. 3.)}

This was much harder than I initially thought it would be. I had to secure all the switches in place with hot glue too, because there’s nothing for them to latch onto here. ^{(Fig. 4.)} Because the spacing was really tight, I can’t use regular MX keycaps. So I repurposed the original numpad’s keycaps to fit instead. All I needed to do was dremel a cross into the cylindrical stem it originally used. Had to dremel off the sides though, as my alignment of the switches was far from perfect and the keycaps would keep bumping into each other. ^{(Fig. 5.)}

Now I can actually use the thing. ^{(Fig. 6.)}

I made this. ^{(Fig. 7.)}

Manny says “Hi.” ^{(Fig. 8.)}

The logical follow-up to the monstrosity r/mk loved to hate. Made for r/mtgawesome, this 100% Primo! Sculpey, hand-sculpted piece of shartisan was the result of taking a dare much too far.

When working with Sculpey modelling clay, you quickly realize that this thing attracts more fingerprints than an iPad after a buffalo wing dinner. I’m not an artist and I don’t have specialty tools for crafting, so all I did was cut up a used phone card so I could handle and shape the clay without leaving my identity all over it. ^{(Fig. 1–3.)}

I used a threading needle to sort of pencil in the details that I’d be working around later with a jeweler’s flathead screwdriver. ^{(Fig. 4 & 5.)}

Now it’s time to add some definition to your etching. Your approach will differ from mine depending on what exactly you’re trying to design, the tools you have available, and the amount of patience in your reserves. What I did was I used the jeweler’s flathead to just carefully push into the etchings in the clay to make the grooves appear deeper. This also causes the clay to deform outward, not just inward, so I had to regularly go back and use the plastic calling card cutouts to push Manny’s face back into shape. ^{(Fig. 6.)}

The exact temperature and time to bake your sculpture depends on your clay and the thickness of your work. For this project, I was able to achieve good curing by just blasting Manny with a heatgun at low-mid heat (I want to say about 130 degrees C?) for 30 minutes. ^{(Fig. 7.)}

I suggest using a spare keycap as a base to model your shartisan on, so you don’t have to worry about the stem and you can fairly easily determine the size constraints you have to work with. In my case, I had a spare keycap from Max Keyboard’s switch/keycap tester. It happens to be transparent, so there’s a nice backlighting effect. ^{(Fig. 8 & 9.)}

With help from /u/duynguyenle, I found out why my Anne Pro won’t work wirelessly: the battery had been punctured by the switch solder joints underneath the PCB.

Aside from his and my units, I haven’t seen this problem reported anywhere else. Still, it might be worth checking; this is a huge fire hazard and should be dealt with immediately

Edit:

I replaced the battery with one from my KC71 and now it works wirelessly. I’ve also snipped the switch pins directly above the battery to be flush with the PCB, and added extra foam for additional protection. Because the replacement battery is physically larger than the stock one, I had to dremel out some of the plastic struts inside the case to make it fit.

https://imgur.com/a/OcsZm

Just realized it might be easier for everyone if I posted an update to this in its own thread, instead of chasing each person down individually.

My takeaways from the meeting are these: the guys behind GG Network in the New Media department of TV5 are either super serious, or fucking crazy, or both; and, they have honestly, earnestly, and painstakingly done their homework. I was naive to assume that they were feeling around in the dark, not really knowing the community or our wants and goals. They are here amongst us, both literally and figuratively. You should stop lurking, /u/kommetgrau, and come out to face your future audience.

What is GG Network.TV?#

GG Network aspires to be two things:

1. A network of local streamers bearing the GGN banner, and
2. A multi-channel network much in the same vein as Machinima/Polaris that will also create its own content

Will they only cover eSports leagues?#

It will not focus only on esports, and though they do have plans to launch leagues, they intend for the content they put up to cover a wide variety of not just gamer-related themes, but creative and tech-related shows as well. They have a boardgame-themed channel in planning, just to show you how much they want to branch out.

What do they want with streamers?#

Their plan for streamers is simple: they want us to grow. From my time at the interview, I got the feeling that they honestly just want the Filipino gaming and streaming communities to get their heads out their assess and start working together to flourish and legitimize themselves. Those are my words, not theirs.

Specifically, they want to make it easier for game streamers to do what they love. They’re already partnered with Twitch, functioning essentially as Twitch Philippines. Streamers who sign up with GGN will have a much easier time getting Twitch Partnerships, and the benefits that come along with that. GGN will also be the “handler” of the streamers under their wing; in case sponsors want to tap the GGN pool of streamers, they will take care of pointing those sponsors to the talent that best suits their branding.

What do they get out of it?#

I won’t disclose what GGN asks for in return - they might want to keep that private for now, maybe /u/kommetgrau will disclose it when he drops by (if he does, I’ll edit this), but I get the feeling that it’s the same for all streamers - however I can say that it’s a good deal. A really good deal. For us.

One thing I will say is they have no intention of disrupting a streamer’s established (or not yet established) habits. They will not impose minimum/maximum streaming hours. They will not ask for streamers to wear revealing clothes or tone down their vulgar swearing. They won’t demand that specific games be played, or concessions be made, or anything else that compromises the streamer’s fun. GGN seems to be very adamant on staying out of the way. And content made by the streamer, remains owned solely by the streamer.

I have more questions!#

If you have any further follow-up questions, please ask them here. If I can’t answer them myself, I’m sure /u/kommetgrau - one of the men behind GGN I met earlier - will be able to. I for one am looking forward to what GGN can bring to the table.

Day 1: Washed ashore on some strange island. Can’t remember how I got here. Can’t remember who I am. There are creatures here that I have only seen in books and movies. Too many questions. I must survive to find the answers.

Day 3: Some of the animals show signs of intelligence. I’ve domesticated a small yet terrifying creature, reminiscent of those long-extinct birds from the old world. “Dodos,” I think they were called. It follows me around and carries my belongings. Perhaps others can be tamed in a similar way.

Day 7: I am not alone. Somehow, while I was sleeping in my newly-finished hut, some articles went missing in the night. I count three handfuls of berries, some animal hide, my spare waterskin, and three spears as lost. If it was just the food, I would have simply chocked it up to Dill (one of my Dodo friends, I have since tamed several more) finding a way into the storage. But the weapons are gone, and that fills me with a sense of unease deeper than the thought of being alone.

Day 14: RIP Dill. I will find who did this to you.

Day 16: My fears have become reality. I followed footprints that were not mine to an outpost deeper in the forest, away from the safety of the shores. There appeared to be at least two others, and they somehow have managed to tame beasts much more fearsome than Dill. Poor Dill… I shall camp nearby to learn their habits before deciding whether to make contact or not.

Day 38: I am finally free of that wretched prison! They found me, seized me in the night when my guard was lowered. My captors seemed to understand my words, but they never made any attempt to communicate in return. They drugged me, keeping me addled and unconscious with a bitter concoction of narcotics that tasted like foul, rotting meat. When I tried beating on their wooden walls, they shot me with poisoned arrows that achieved the same effect. Up to now I cannot fathom the reason they kept me in captivity. It was only by sheer luck that I awoke to find one of them sleeping close enough to my cell door that I could reach beneath the crack and steal a tool with which to escape.

Day 39: My hut… my dodos… I must put an end to their ravaging before they do the same to me.

Day 54: Safe and sound safe and sound now my friends are safe and sound

Aside from Ark, I have a library of almost 400 games on Steam. If you play any of these, let me know, and we might be able to team up.

PS. To those in the US: GMT+8 is exactly 12 hours difference from EST. So if you play around 11:00am-1:00pm, I should still be up. And on weekends, I pretty much marathon PC gaming so there’s not much meaning to timezones anyway.

Last night, I suffered a great loss. After server maintenance, I logged back in and went for a routine fly around the western area to pick up supply drops. Unfortunately, mid-flight I was caught by a sudden server outage. I frantically tried logging in again, and 2 minutes later the server was back up. My character awoke to Petra the pteranodon being slaughtered by a flock of raptors, and I shortly thereafter suffered the same fate.

Solo. Hardcore. I lost it all.

My pretties, your master has gone and left this mortal coil. If your AI has it in you, I implore you to return into the wild and live your short digital lives as happy as you can. Allow me to address each of you, to help me find closure in the loss.

• To my trikes, Beejay and Sara, I’m so proud of all the hard work you both achieved as berry farmers and pack mules.
• To my raptors, Blue and Charlie, you both were there for me in the most dire of times. I hope you continue to be strong, swift, and smart.
• To my carnotaurs, Carnak the Magnificent and Carnitas the Maleficent, we never got to ride together to lay waste to the land. You both are adults now. Go do it, if that is what you wish.
• To my parasaurs, Emerald, Bonehead, and Greenleaf, be careful out there. It’s a cruel, dino-eat-dino world. You know the drill; never stop running.
• To my dodos, Black Moa Chick and Queenie, the eggs you’ve provided were the best breakfasts a master could ever ask for. Now that I’m gone, you’re free to raise them into little hatchlings that I’m sure would do their parents proud.
• To my scorp, The Pacifier. I still remember how much trouble you gave me upon taming. It was a good fight. Now, go on and continue that fight on your own.
• To my phioma, Heiffer. Fuck you.
• To my dilos, all six of you, I am sorry I never bothered to give you names. You all did your jobs wonderfully. Truthfully, I thought of you as expendable. You’ve all gone above and beyond your call of duty, though, and even managed to outlive me.
• And of course, to my glorious beasts, Gustav the sarcosucchus and Crichton the spinosaurus. You were both never burdened by the weight of a saddle, and perhaps that is for the best. I had great, world-dominating plans for the both of you. Now, your lives are your own again.
• I almost forgot you, my dear pteranodon, Petra. You gave me my most exhilarating experience in the ARK. My first flight, and the farthest expeditions I’ve dared to take, were possible thanks to you. You died with me, and I’m sorry you had to. Your life was much too short. Come, let us ride through the gates of Valhalla together.

And to anyone who comes across Gyarados Dam and its inhabitants, I welcome you to take what you can or make use of the base however you see fit. There are a bunch of blueprints, including one for a pteranodon saddle which I used to make the first flying mount in the server. Lots of mats, 500+ narcotics, and other rare items to help you survive the danger of hardcore. Destroy it if you wish to claim the area for yourself, or die trying; my dinos were the best a master could ever ask for, and they seem to be bonded to the location even in the wake of my demise. They will not go down without a fight.

I’m at the SSS branch in SM Aura and they’re playing Chrono Trigger music over the PA system. Needless to say, it caught me by surprise!

I remember a few years ago during the televized UAAP games they’d play Final Fantasy battle music between commercials. Does anyone else have anecdotes about hearing game music out of the blue?

I’m posting this here because I received questions about this very topic from people who seem to think I’m a credible source of information. If anyone has anything to add or correct, please feel free to do so because this is for them, not me.

Let me preface this with the disclaimer that I moved here way back in 2000, and I was 12 at the time. Things are going to be different for you at this time and at your age, so please do keep an open mind and prepare yourself for the unexpected.

The first thing you’ll notice upon stepping out of the airplane is how hot it is here. Lucky you, you’re coming to the Philippines during the hottest month of the year, so dress accordingly (lots of tourists here just wear flipflops, t-shirts and shorts) and bring lots of sunblock if you burn easy.

Because of the heat, people sweat. It’s human biology, we expect it to happen so it’s no big deal as long as you’re mindful about it. If you sweat buckets, maybe bring a face towel instead of just a handkerchief. More importantly, though, make sure to shower at least once a day. Twice for comfort, if you can. We don’t mind sweat, but body odor is a big no-no. If you can smell yourself, so can we.

When you get to your relative’s house, make sure to greet them with a warm hello, hugs and kisses all around. They will probably teach you the “beso beso” which is a traditional customary cheek-to-cheek “kiss” shared between close acquaintances upon initial meetings (this is another reason to shower and care for your personal hygiene). We also do handshakes, bro-fists, high-fives, and pretty much every form of western hand communication. Americans have influenced us deeply.

Be open, and be prepared to tell a lot stories about your life in the States. People here generally love hearing about that sort stuff. Some sensitive topics include religion, abortion, politics, the usual. Use common-sense. If you’re openly opinionated, maybe reign it in a little until get know your audience better. We’re even more sensitive to hearing different perspectives than you’re used to, especially if they’re in direct opposition to our own.

Cultural things you may want to be mindful of: generally everyone here is pretty chill, but of course you have some prudes, elitists, zealots, nationalists, assholes, and pretty much every kind of undesirable out there. First thing’s first, Filipinos are people, too. Treat them, and even talk to them as if you would anyone else, and you’ll be okay.

More specifically: it’s ingrained in our society to equate foreign with rich, so act like you’re in Detroit whenever you’re not in a secure place; there will be street beggars on every major road you travel on, yes you’ll feel a painful stab in your chest the first few weeks but you need to ignore them - I’ve been told that there are syndicates controlling these beggar networks (some background on this provided by /u/agentlangdon), and you’ll be doing more harm than good by handing out alms; religion is pretty ubiquitous here with Christianity leading the way by a large margin, so expect to see and hear mentions of it every so often (we say “Merry Christmas” just as often as we say “Happy Holidays”); there’s a huge (in my opinion, misplaced) sense of national pride in all things Filipino, so try not to be too critical about our food, products, or celebrities around an unfamiliar crowd; traffic is terrible here and we all hate it, so it’s best to find a way to live with it sooner rather than later; make it a habit to leave for scheduled appointments much earlier than expected, as we don’t like latecomers - though we’re usually pretty lax about it ourselves.

When I go out and shop with my girlfriend, we usually spend about Php 9k-10k (USD 200-225) bimonthly for her family of 6+, but this is inclusive of other household needs (toiletries, feminine products) and exclusive of fresh meat products. If you’re buying for yourself, depending on how much you eat and where, I think you can comfortably live on less than Php 4k (USD 90) every time you need to go buy groceries. You said you’ll just be buying food and drinks, right?

Nightlife is very active here if you’re talking about bars and clubs. For adventures into places of ill repute, there’s plenty of choices as well. Overall I think you’ll find that there’s lots to do in the Philippines if you’re open-minded and patient (because traffic). A fair price for local beer (which is pretty good, as far as local beers go) at a hole-in-the-wall cantina would be maybe Php 30-50 (USD 0.70-1.15), which can go up to Php 60, or even Php 90 at super fancy restaurants. Imported beer (Stella Artois, Heineken, Hoegaarden, Leffe, etc) usually hovers between Php 120-280 (USD 2.70-6.30) per 335ml bottle. Some beers are more expensive, like Chimay or Delirium. Our local craft beers are around that price as well. /u/agentlangdon describes the practice of tagay, a drink-sharing custom that you may be expected to partake in if/when you go out drinking with friends. /u/Akocabs explains how the word is used in various sentences.

For a night of debauchery, you might spend as little as Php 2000 or even less, for 3 hours, 2 pops, no anal, no CIM. For higher quality and safer trips, don’t expect spending less than Php 4k for the same deal. Or so I’ve heard.

I think you’ll be alright, because in general Filipinos are pretty friendly and open especially to foreigners. Yes there are some crazies like the guy who killed that British tourist a few days ago but you get that everywhere. Just don’t treat anyone like they’re lower than you (even if you do happen to literally tower over them in height) and you’ll be liked.

Thanks to /u/j_- for getting the ball rolling. I’ve seen a couple others follow in his wake, and it does seem to be stirring up some good discussion in this subreddit. Hoping to promote more of the same here.

Not a throwaway, so here’s verification for anyone who cares about that shit.

I’m here for most of the day (work blocks FB, G+, Twitter, and most social networks except Reddit, hope it stays that way) so just ask away.

EDIT: Almost quitting time, but I’ve got Baconreader on mobile so I can check in until it’s time to sleep. Keep it coming!

Hello again! Hmm, I think the reasons are more sentimental than logical. Stockholm syndrome? Hahaha.

When I’m about to have kids, I may rethink this decision. Having been born in the US, and therefore being bestowed US citizenship, certainly has given me many opportunities. But I would want them to know this country as early as they could. There are many beautiful things to be found in the Philippines as well, and the ugly things are character-building truths that would teach them well.

The decision to return to the Philippines was originally made by my parents - I was a minor when we moved to Manila as a family - but I do admit it’s my decision to stay here rather than try my luck in the US. It’s all down to circumstance. I recognize that many Filipinos choose to work abroad as expatriates because they have family to support and there’s greater potential to earn outside the Philippines. That’s not my situation right now, so I feel no immediate need to leave.

Sending money into the country from the outside is great, but I think an even nobler thing to do is to help improve the country’s economic situation by working within it. It’s like disease; you can take medicine day and night, but the best cure is prevention, and that comes from building a healthy immunity within a healthy body. Call me an idealist, but I also believe that if you can do good here in the Philippines, you should. And call me arrogant, but I do believe I can do more good by staying here.

Abject poverty on the streets was a big one. I remember the first time I saw a panhandler begging for change on the road, knocking on car windows. According to my mom, I cried after being told we shouldn’t give money to them that way. I still don’t know whether or not to believe there’s a syndicate behind it all.

I was pleasantly surprised by the curiosity my classmates expressed over the fact that I’d lived in the US but am born from Filipino parents. Apparently I really look foreign. Must be the food.

I was 11 when my family moved here. We did it because my lolo was sick with cancer, and my parents wanted to spend the last few months he had on this earth with him. I assume they had plans of staying all along, because they sold our house in LA soon after leaving.

Right now, I work as a game designer at a mobile game development company in BGC.

Haha, thanks for the tip! I’ll try it out after lunch. I design mobile games for Android/iOS, but none have really gotten popular. I’ve worked in two mobile game development companies over the past few years and helped release about 8 games, none of which I expect anyone on Reddit to be familiar with. That’s probably for the best, to be honest.

I’m a game designer right now, though I’ve been in several industries over the years. I’ve never used my US citizenship to give myself an advantage in any of the jobs I’ve held; I have dual citizenship but always specify “FILIPINO” in employment applications.

However, my US Passport has made it easier for me to travel for work.

I’d probably be a lot fatter! Hahaha

Aside from that, I don’t think I’d be as relaxed as I am now. The Philippines is really slow-paced compared to where I grew up. If I’d stayed in the US, maybe I’d be more well off, but I’m not sure if I’d be as happy.

It’s a whole bunch of little differences between the cultures that add up. I’ll try to pinpoint a concrete example.

The people are more balanced here. Emotionally, physically, socially, spiritually, and maybe even financially. Nobody’s in a rush to do, or be, anything other than who or what they are at present (barring extreme cases). Stress may come and go from one or more aspects of life at a time, but Filipinos usually have a large margin before the stress becomes unbearable; partly because they can fall back on some other thing that relieves them, and partly because many can reconcile their stressful conditions fairly quickly. Many are content with their current living situation, even if they acknowledge that improvements can be made. I think ‘content’ is the best word, really.

Thanks man(tao)! I can’t share with you the resources we’ve developed in-house, but here are some things we’ve found useful lately. You might be able to use them to kickstart your own projects, or augment existing ones.

• UdpKit, a networking library for .NET/Mono/Unity
• Unity Sprites And Bones - 2D skeleton animation
• Stickybomb in Unity3d
• Quick Tip: Using Player Prefs in Unity to Store Data
• Flash Animation in Unity

Dude Unity is everywhere! (We’re using it for our little Digital Arts club at my Uni)

Haha, that’s right! Unity3d is really taking the mobile game development industry by storm. All the major devs are using it.

Do you know about the Global Game Jam a few weeks ago, and if so, did you participate in it?

I didn’t go myself, but some representatives from my company did. Heard the turnout was quite good.

Is there like a filipino unity dev group/site somewhere?

The only one I know of is on Facebook. Join up!

What’s the game dev scene like in the Philippines? You think there’s hope that indie games/AAA games would take off?

In my personal opinion, there aren’t enough Filipino indie developers who are truly passionate enough about game design and development to make a game that will stand out on its own. We have so many talented graphic designers and developers, but nobody who is willing to push the envelope and risk everything, everything, for the sake of making an excellent game. Until someone or a team comes along and makes that game, the Philippines will always be looked at as an outsourcing hub.

You work at BGC, do you make enough to actually live in BGC?

Not by a long shot. I make less than 30k monthly.

Can you speak tagalog? Do you have an accent if you try and talk in it?

I can, but my accent makes it difficult for anybody to take me seriously. :)

If you can, can you link some of your work?

Here’s one, but that’s from my previous company. How well did it do? Well, that company no longer exists. :P

Do you know of any game/animation studio in PH that’s working with 3D?

Yep! We make some of our games in 3D, but until we have the budget to start a project that we can dedicate lots of time to, we’ll still do most games in 2D.

Late reply, am on mobile.

I actually do not have a Filipino passport! Will have to rectify that.

I’ve been getting fat again lately, haven’t I? Haha

PS. You’ll see me again at The National concert this Thursday if you’re going

1. Super Mario World
2. Final Fantasy Tactics
3. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina in Time
4. The Secret of Monkey Island
5. Half-Life

I go in-depth on each of these, and 5 more, in this blog post. One day I would very much like to make games inspired by some of these titles, but for now I’ll have to settle with much simpler mobile games.

Good ones.

To be specific, I guess I’d focus at first on making casual games. Hear me out.

Casual doesn’t have to mean shallow. There’s a lot of very good, engrossing casual games out there. Plants Vs Zombies, Spaceteam, Bejewelled, 10000000, among others. Casual games do have to be accessible, though, and that’s as much their greatest asset as it is their worst shortcoming (at least, to elitist gamers anyway, it’s a bad thing). I think it’s a good thing that more people are playing games, even if they are casual players. It’s a gateway drug into bigger, better games. Even if they don’t play anything else their entire lives, they’ll at least be open to the reality that games are not something that should be so easily dismissed.

Ideally, I’d have my studio make a really, really good casual cash cow game. Then we’d use the funds earned there to make passion projects. Personally, developing a mobile game inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics, Front Mission, or Tactics Ogre would be a dream come true.

Saging. :) My friend uses this as his catchphrase. I believe it’s a line spoken by Erap? Please correct me if I’m wrong, I have no idea hahaha.

Source: http://storycorps.org/great-questions/

“These questions are merely suggestions for getting a good conversation going. We encourage you to use the ones you like and to come up with your own.” (Emphasis mine)

Great Questions for Anyone

Do you have any regrets?

Just one. I wish I had the courage to follow my heart earlier than I did.

Friends or Colleagues

What is your first memory of me?

You asked me a series of copy-pasted questions out of a Google search without any context, and made me work to pick out the ones that might be most relevant.

Grandparents

What was my mom/dad like growing up?

I have no idea, we’re not related.

Raising Children

What are your dreams for your children?

I hope that the world they grow up in is better than the one I did.

Parents

What advice would you give me about raising my own kids?

Teach your kids to love learning, that is, the act and joy of discovering new things for the sake of enriching themselves and not for getting high marks on a card.

Growing Up

Do you have any siblings?

I have two siblings: a younger brother and sister.

School

Are you still friends with anyone from that time in your life?

In fact, my only friends are the ones I’ve kept from high school and university. I’ve been employed at several offices, but for me personally, office relationships have never really stuck.

Love & Relationships

Do you believe in love at first sight?

No, not in the common sense. I believe in infatuation at first sight, or intense physical attraction, but that’s different from love. I’m quoting another redditor when I say the following, but this is what I believe in: “All you search for is someone you are compatible with, who makes you laugh, where both of you care deeply about each other, are loyal to each other. That’s all there is. Don’t break up with someone you have a loving, caring relationship because you wonder what else is out there. The spark that you feel at the start of a relationship isn’t love, and it does fade. But if two people love each other and are willing to work, you can always bring it back.”

Marriage & Partnerships

What advice do you have for young couples?

Aside from my answer in the previous question, there’s this: “Love is a conscious decision you make every damn day, not some flighty feeling that just happens to you.” Another redditor said this before me.

Working

Tell me about how you got into your line of work.

It’s a lengthy process, but it all boils down to me never losing sight of what I wanted to do in my professional life, and always being willing to take chances even in the face of rejection. I graduated with a degree in English Literature. I now work in the videogame industry. Never give up.

Religion

Do you believe in God?

No.

Serious Illness

Do you think about dying?

I used to think about how I would die, or what would be some good ways to go. Like, I’m pretty sure that if I had any control over fate, I’d like to die saving someone else’s life.

Family Heritage

What are the classic family stories?

Well, there’s the story of how my yaya almost drowned trying to save me from a swimming pool I didn’t need rescuing from…

War

Did you go to war?

Unless Battlefield: Bad Company 2 counts, then no, I’ve never gone to war.

Super Mario World

If I recall correctly this was the first videogame I played. Definitely not the oldest, but arguably one of the most influential of all time. I’d spend hours on this, and it was the first game I ever really beat. In those days, there was no GameFAQs.com and PRIMA Strategy Guides were expensive as hell, so I felt really proud about finding out how to access The Special Zone, and even more so for discovering how to unlock Top Secret Area. Up to now, I still remember many levels like the back of my hand. In my mind, it’s the pinnacle of game design and it’s the benchmark against which I hold my own games.

Super Mario Kart

Let it be known that “Nintendo Kid” does not equate “Non-competitive.” Super Mario Kart taught me about rivalry, strategy, grudges, trash-talking, cheating, and how to win - and lose - against another human being. If I taught about videogames, I’d make Super Mario Kart a requirement for learning how to take defeat like a champ and how to be a graceful victor, all within the ordered chaos of a game’s rules.

The Secret of Monkey Island

Yeah, I played Loom, Day of the Tentacle, and Dig. All were great, but none made me laugh as much as Monkey Island. With a protagonist named Guybrush Threepwood, how could you go wrong? I remember spending hours at a time just figuring out puzzles, learning how to think with the absurd kind of logic it took to create a game like this, and above all, memorizing insult swordfighting. I’ve yet to come across a game that featured a dueling system as enjoyable as TSMI’s.

Final Fantasy Tactics

This game was my chess, and the probably the first where I really got into metagaming. Even when I was out and away from the console, I’d be thinking about job combinations, party configurations, equipment builds, and all sorts of theorycrafting. If Super Mario Kart taught me about strategy, FFT taught me about optimization. I believe the lessons I learned thanks to this game have influenced the way I play every game since, including Dungeons and Dragons.

Super Smash Brothers

We all have wondered this before. Who’d win, Batman or Superman? Jet Li or Jackie Chan? Godzilla or King Kong? Whoever the combatants, the question of “who would win in a fight” is never far from the back of anybody’s mind. For me, it was between Yoshi and Pikachu. SSB fulfilled so many dreams I never even knew I had, and it was the first game I felt really comfortable with playing against other people. It taught me how to not take thing too personally, to just relax and have fun winning or losing.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

If ever there was a piece of fiction that made me want to learn more about the world it took place in, it’s The Legend of Zelda. Its history, lore, characters, races, gods, and everything else about it completely captivated me. Every time I played it, the game would reveal just a little tiny bit about the world, and I swear if Wikipedia had been invented at the time this came out I’d spend all our dial-up minutes on it. LoZ got me so into worldbuilding, at one point I attempted to make a Zelda-themed roleplaying system.

Half-Life

My first FPS, or at least the first one I consider worth remembering. I can describe it as being terrifying, exhilarating, frustrating, and ultimately satisfying enough to have cemented the genre as my new favorite one. Many of my favorite games after Half Life are first person shooters - Counterstrike, Quake II, Team Fortress 1 & 2, Rainbow Six/GRAW/SWAT4, Left 4 Dead, Borderlands 1 & 2, Battlefield: 1942/BC2, Star Wars: Battlefront II, and more - and countless hours of my life have been spent behind the 3D model of a gun pointed dead center at the screen.

SimCity 2000

Nothing, not even the sequels of this series, has compared to the original feeling of being able to build my own city from nothing but a power plant, a few roads, and small plots of residential, commercial, and industrial zones, into a successfully self-sustaining metropolis. And then letting lose a volcano, meteor, or monster right in the middle of it all

SimCopter

Well, nothing except flying through that very same city that I just made in a helicopter. Seriously, this has got to be one of the most underrated mindblow of the 90’s and arguably the early 2000’s. You could make your own city, and then drive or fly through the neighborhoods you built. I’m still waiting for the inevitable combination of SimCity and The Sims, complete with drivable vehicles. You can’t tell me this is an impossibility now when Maxis gave me a taste of it in 1996.

Terraria

Though lately I’ve become enamored with Starbound, I do have to pay respects to the game that made it possible. Even though Terraria followed Minecraft’s footsteps in the whole build-it-yourself sandbox craze, it was the first game that did it with style. Exploration and discovery was as big a part of Terraria as building and survival was, and there were certain intagibles that made this game all the more memorable for me.

This is a response to a pair of point/counterpoint articles, where two Lifehacker writers duke it out in two articles over a specific topic. If you want to see the counterpoints to this post, check out Why I’m a Console Gamer and Why I’m a PC Gamer.

Years ago, a more elitist version of myself would have scoffed at the idea of playing mobile games primarily. Why bother wasting time with games that are designed to last just five to ten minutes at a time, often relying on getting players addicted to the cheap bells and whistles of a game with the hope of instilling within them an urge to spend on petty in-apps purchases? Well, let me just state for the record that if you think that way, this article probably won’t change your mind; even the really good mobile games aren’t really the kind of games the dedicated PC/console crowd would play. That said, here are a few reasons.

The best console is the one you have with you

Yes, I’m ripping off a Chase Jarvis quote for this one, but only because it’s right on point. Let’s say you’ve got the best DSLRs money can buy, awesome lighting equipment, and a great studio to take the perfect shot—but you’re out on the field with just a point-and-shoot and a unicorn. Are you going to try and coax the unicorn to come back to your studio to take a few headshots (rhetorical question; everybody knows that unicorns disappear as soon as more than one person is looking at it, and how are you going to sneak a unicorn into your studio without it being noticed by another person?) or whip out your point-and-shoot for some in the wild photos?

Part of the reason why I have a huge game backlog is simply because I don’t carry my PC with me everywhere I go. I don’t spend a lot of time at home, and buying a laptop just to play games is out of the question. It should come as no surprise, then, that I’ll take advantage of my phone—which I do bring everywhere, and is powerful enough to play games on—for that quick gaming fix every once in a while. I put this reason at the top, but it should be considered as “rule zero.” It’s kind of a no-brainer, really.

Mobile games are designed with touch input in mind

People will mock mobile games for their focus on touch and accelerometer-based input for as long as they’re in use, but I just don’t see the point in doing so when there are examples of well-designed games that make the best possible use out of them. Games like Infinity Blade, Fruit Ninja, World of Goo, Ridiculous Fishing and Contre Jour come to mind. Even QWOP, which was originally a Flash game before it was developed for mobile, feels better on touchscreens than using the eponymous keyboard keys to control. A good game design won’t be hindered by touch input. A great game design will feel enhanced by it.

Mobile gadgets are pretty powerful

It doesn’t take a technophile to see that the gadgets we’re carrying in our pockets today are just as powerful, if not more so, than the consoles and PCs made just a decade ago. If you went back in time to just 2004 and you brought an iPhone 5S with you that had Infinity Blade III, Dead Trigger 2, Call of Duty: Strike Team, Asphalt 8: Airborne, and Deus Ex: The Fall, I’m sure you’d blow peoples’ minds.

If you are technically inclined, then the proof pudding is all the more delectable. Again, going with the 10 year difference (from Wikipedia):

While this of course doesn’t give us the whole idea of the exact difference in capability between the two, it does tell us that we’ve come a very long way in terms of what our gadgets can do. You’ve probably already seen it, but games like Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne—which made their initial appearances on the PS2 and PC—are oh so easily handled by many mobile devices today.

You don’t need as many accessories as you think

One thing that I hear often from people when I talk about mobile gaming is that the whole concept of “mobile” gaming is defeated when one considers all the extra accessories needed. To this I reply, “What accessories?”

Very, very few mobile games I’ve come across so far have required anything more than the phone or tablet the app gets installed on. I can only assume people think I bring around a controller everywhere I go just to play Punch Quest, or they think I need a good stand to prop up my phone for better viewing angles while gaming, or maybe they even have it in their minds that I carry with me a full bluetooth mouse and keyboard just for the occasional round of Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies.

That’s all nonsense. The most I carry along with me are things I’d likely bring even if I wasn’t going to use my phone for playing games. For a decent experience, nothing more than my usual pair of headphones is all I use, as sound quality is something that a typical phone speaker doesn’t quite deliver. If I really wanted to get into it, I’d bring my external battery pack for extended gaming. I have a CoolerMaster PowerFort 5600mAh (yes, CoolerMaster apparently makes accessories for non-PC gadgets!), which is more than enough extra juice to keep my Samsung Galaxy Note II’s 3200mAh battery topped up during an extended session of WazHack.

They’re three different beasts

So far, I’ve been defending mobile gaming by refuting some misconceptions about the idea. This next point will come off as more aggressive.

Why do I even need to state this? If you can’t understand that a not every mobile game will touch people the same way, or that PC games won’t click with everyone, or a console game’s universal appeal is out of your hands, then you probably are not a very fun person.

The other two point/counterpoint articles ended by highlighting the fact that PC and console gaming is difficult to compare, that they attract different kinds of people, that there are myths that should be debunked regarding both, and that at the end of the day it’s all up to personal choice. There’s really nothing more to be said, and it’s people who just can’t play and let play that ruin the experience for everyone.

I’m sorry you disagree with my playing Angry Birds, but it’s not my fault you’re offended.

A little bit of background on the topic: a game called No More Room in Hell was recently released on Steam Greenlight, and it contains zombie children. Players can attack these characters, just like they can attack the zombie adults, and they’re encouraged to - because both the big and little zombies will kill the players if they’re allowed to roam.

Cue the dissenting vocal minority, the official statement maintaining their stand, and the self-congratulatory back-patting of many fans. All this drama, and more, in here!

I don’t have much to add here, as most of what can be said about the issue has already been voiced in the 38+ page thread where it originated or among the various websites where it’s been covered. That said, this isn’t the first time children have been used in entertainment media for both the shock value as well as a means to portray the concept of total human annihilation.

If AMC knew their portrayal of zombie kids would get them in trouble, The Walking Dead wouldn’t have flopped. Oh wait…

Why stop at zombie kids? Babies are human, too. (I draw the line at zombie puppies and kittens though)

No More Room in Hell’s zombie kids aren’t even as graphic as Dead Space 2’s (Warning: Even I’m a little bit grossed out after watching this one).

Obligatory Minecraft reference.

Again, for me personally it doesn’t really matter whether a game has kid characters in it or not; and until they become marketed as actual notable in-game features, it’s really not a big deal. People choose to take offense in things, and can just as easily choose to avoid or ignore trivial offenses such as the topic of a book, content of a TV show, or characters in a videogame.

Granted, this list is almost three years old by now and many many new games have come out since then - some dealing with the topic in their own special way. Unfortunately for me, I haven’t been able to play much (gasp) anyway, so the titles I’ll bring up here are as relevant to me now as they were when this was first published. And hey, there were some pretty damn good games back then, so if anything, they’re worth remembering. Let’s get to it, shall we?

5. World of Warcraft

So you’re walking, and you’re walking, and you’re walking, when bam, all of a sudden you get ganked. C’est la vie in World of Warcraft, but apparently, c’est la mort as well, because right after you die in this game, you’ll likely be walking again – as a spirit, going back to your corpse, to rise again. Known as a “corpse run,” it’s similar to how Blizzard’s Diablo II handled player death. The difference is that since you walk around as a spirit, you won’t have to worry much about being killed again on your way back to your body. As a ghost, the world loses all color, and other players and monsters cannot be seen, unless they too are ghosts. “Spirit Healers,” ethereal angels that revive dead spirits, can only be seen as a ghost. It takes a lot of the pressure off of living when pretty much everyone can be resurrected this way.

4. Tied for 4th place: Soul Reaver & Prey

Although released seven years apart, Soul Reaver and Prey share similar concepts of death mechanics and in-game afterlives. In the former you play as resurrected vampire-wraith named Raziel, who was given a second chance at life/death by The Elder God. In the latter your character is Domasi “Tommy” Tawodi, a former soldier of the U.S. Army, who also happens to be of Native American descent – Cherokee, to be particular. Thanks to Raziel’s wraith-like existence, and Tommy’s highly spiritual ancestry, both these characters in their respective games can freely travel between the physical realm and spectral or spirit plane. This is necessary due to the fact that some things, such as puzzle-solving and travelling, are easier done as a ghost. Interesting to note is that for both games, recovery from death is done the same way; when killed, both Raziel and Tommy can collect energy from spirits in order to come back to life.

3. Shadow Man

Whenever voodoo is involved, there’s always bound to be uncanny elements infused in every detail. Shadow Man was released less than a month before Soul Reaver (which may be the reason not many have heard of it), and it involves a copious amount of the practice. You play as Mike LeRoi, an African American English literature student who – through a chain of tragedies before the actual game starts – ends up becoming the eponymous hero. “Shadow Men” are a line of African voodoo warriors who are bestowed powers by the gods to protect their tribe from evil spirits who attempt to cross from “Deadside” – the final resting place of every deceased soul – into the living world, “Liveside.” The fact that shadows are dark and African men are also dark is purely coincidental, so stop laughing unless you’re racist. Mike’s job is to stop an invasion from Deadside, using an arsenal of earthly, voodoo, and infernal weapons.

2. Afterlife

Released in 1996 to all of five people in the world, Afterlife by LucasArts is a god game that puts the player in the shoes of a deity known as “Demiurge,” whose job is to create a suitable afterlife for the souls of The Planet. With SimCity-like gameplay and mechanics, you have to manage both heaven and hell, preparing it for the EMBOs – Ethically Mature Biological Organisms – when they die. As soon as their SOULs – Stuff of Unending Life – travel to your afterlife, they will look for and reside in “fate structures” that suit the virtues or sins they practiced on The Planet. Your paycheck, Pennies From Heaven received from The Powers That Be, is affected by how well you manage the afterlife. Spend them wisely, because if you’re too deep in debt, the “Four Surfers of the Apocalypso” will be summoned to ride a wave of fire and destruction across heaven and hell, ending the game. Yeah, it’s that weird.

1. Final Fantasy X

Like Deadside in Shadow Man, Final Fantasy X has its own final destination for those who have been knocked down to 0 HP and not subsequently Phoenix Downed. The Farplane is where the spirits of those who have accepted death go to rest; if a spirit has not come to terms with its demise, as in the case of tragic or untimely deaths, they will need to be guided to the Farplane by Summoners performing a ceremony known as “the Sending.” If these spirits remain unsent, they wander the world and grow envious, eventually hateful of the living. These angry spirits latch onto the phenomenal “pyreflies” and use the energy to assume twisted, malignant forms known as fiends. It’s like that famous Yoda quote involving fear, anger, hate and suffering, but scarier; these fiends could have been someone’s own loved ones. To make matters even more uncomfortable, apparently strong-willed spirits can exit the Farplane on their own volition, attract pyreflies with their powerful emotions, and possess hapless individuals. Suddenly, Yuna, Rikku and Lulu don’t seem like enough of an incentive to live in Spira.

Creative has a long history of providing decent and affordable sound systems (remember these?), but I personally wasn’t aware they also made gaming headsets. The Sound Blaster EVO is their most basic entry in the “EVO” line of headsets, but is there more to it than the flashy red exterior?

I’ll be honest here. I don’t really know what to look for in sound quality. Aside from obvious variances in bass/treble levels and maintaining fidelity at loud volumes, my ears don’t tend to differentiate between headphones very easily. In a way, that can be a good thing; not many people I know are true audiophiles, so I assume the way I hear music is pretty much the same as anybody else’s. 

That said, the Creative Sound Blaster EVO made me hear little details of music that I never noticed before. I have a pair of Urbanears Zinken headphones that I use as my main listening tool, and they suit me just fine – as well they should. But with the EVOs, I heard more. Maybe it’s all in my head, or maybe it’s the “40mm FullSpectrum™ audio drivers” which “are capable of reproducing the full audible range of the audio spectrum.” It’s hard to pin down, but if I had to identify it I would say that the percussions in tracks seemed to have more bite, and vocals were clearer. Now, I’m no expert so please correct me if I’m wrong, but perhaps connecting the headphones to my PC and smartphone through USB rather than 3.5mm output jacks helped.

And yes, I was able to connect the EVOs to my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 through USB with the help of an OTG cable. With it, I could listen to music and movie audio, but not make calls; Android doesn’t have drivers to support external microphones over USB, so it just won’t work. As for audio quality, it’s pretty much the same as over PC. There’s a very slight hiss (unnoticeable except during complete silence) that kind of sounds like pre-amp noise when recording with unbalanced microphones, but that’s it.

Speaking of microphones. This is where, in my opinion, the EVOs shine.  First of all, you’ll notice something quite unusual for a headset. There’s no mic boom, which is great for several reasons: there’s nothing to get in the way of your face; there’s nothing to detach during travel, meaning you don’t have to worry about losing your mic boom; it looks like you’re wearing a regular set of headphones rather than walking around like a telecommuting call center worker. This mic test should help give you an idea of the quality; I’m trying my best to speak as close to a whisper as possible here, because I’m in an office where people are actually working:

Creative advertises the product as using “integrated dual beamforming microphones” and “advanced CrystalVoice™ technologies” that make you sound loud and clear to people on the other end. Unfortunately, because of the lack of an audio cable I didn’t get to test this out on the phone. However, I did get to talk to my buddy on Google Hangout, and he said that it’s probably the best, clearest VOIP experience he’s ever had, beating out the dual microphones integrated on my Logitech C920 webcam at home. He said it’s so clear and free of white noise that he could probably hear me fart. We didn’t get to test that out, but he did hear me whisper an obscene reply, and he appropriately called me out in response. Sorry, Marc.

But this is marketed as a gaming headset. How does it perform in games? Well, it’s hard to say. On the one hand, it’s functional. Playing Counter Strike: Global Offensive with them on enabled me to hear the footsteps of nearby enemies, from behind walls but I had some trouble pinpointing their exact locations – these aren’t surround-sound headphones, so that’s to be expected. Gunfire sounded really, really good, too; the reverberating bass exaggerated every shot, especially with the AWP rifle. On the other hand, I wouldn’t really say these are the best gaming headphones – just really good ones.

However, for extended gaming sessions, I can see these being a great purchase. Unlike my Urbanears Zinkens, the EVOs are very comfortable to keep on my larger-than-average noggin over long periods of time. Because the earcups go around my ears instead of over them (circumaural instead of supra-aural), and because the grip isn’t tight and vice-like, my ears don’t feel uncomfortable pressure. The EVOs are relatively light, and after a while it feels very natural to wear. The lightness shouldn’t be mistaken for flimsiness, though. This thing is durable, and underneath the headband’s faux-leather padding and plastic is solid metal.

Setup is a breeze; just plug and play on PC. Windows 7’s default audio and communications drivers are used, and any EVO-specific device drivers appear to be included in the headphones, so there’s nothing to download. You don’t have to install the suggested software to go with it, but apparently if you do you can get virtual 7.1 surround sound. I can’t vouch for the setup experience on Linux or Mac, though, so YMMV.

The Creative Sound Blaster EVO is a gaming headset that sounds as good as it looks – and because both audio quality and aesthetic design are both semi-subjective, allow me to clarify: These are pretty darn good. But are they worth the Php 6,999.00 asking price? Well, that’s really up to you. There are other choices in this price range, but each one is uniquely styled and has enough differentiating features to make them stand out from each other.

Here’s a picture of someone you may or may not know. On many levels, she’s just a girl who enjoys the occasional game of Super Mario, Pokemon, and Fable.

In the photo, taken by the guys at roboticrice.com (awesome site, btw), she’s playing DOTA 2. Just so you know, she’s not a “hardcore games or bust” elitist either; she totes around an iPad ready to play Dumb Ways to Die at a moment’s notice.

On other levels, she’s Megan Young. 

Being a beauty queen doesn’t change anything in the preceding paragraph. Someone’s title, trophies, or profession shouldn’t make a difference in what things she’s interested in on the side. Let Megan be the Young woman who plays Zombies Ate My Neighbors and watches Adventure Time.

Maybe I’m being a little bit preemptive. There aren’t any articles popping up criticizing her for being a girl gamer yet. The Internet will get around to that on its own time, in the same way traditional media outlets found a way to smear her image for being good-looking in a bikini (or out of one).

It’s ugly but it’s true; famous people will get bashed for every little thing they do or don’t do. When you stand in the spotlight, you take the heat. Take a look at our own president, for example. He’s running a country that’s tearing itself apart, trying to improve its dwindling economy while keeping international relations from sinking by saving hostages’ lives and claiming land. I think he’s entitled to a yosi and Playstation break once in a while.

So when political detractors can’t pin corruption on someone, they bash his habit of playing videogames? That seems fair.

Unfortunately, playing videogames is still seen as a childish and immature activity. Joyce Ann Burton-Titular, who wrote the article that discussed Megan Young’s videogame habits, feels it to be true.

“I totally enjoy playing computer games but don’t talk much about it—because when you say you are a gamer, people tend to judge you as childish or irresponsible or downright strange.”

— Joyce Ann Burton-Titular

Worse yet, when it’s not considered childish and immature, it’s talked about as poisoning the minds of the youth and turning kids into gun-crazy sociopaths. GTA V hasn’t even been out for two weeks and already mass media is playing the blame game with it as the star of the show. 

Well, I have something to say. Considering the expected audience of this website, this may come as no surprise to many of you.  For the rest, it’s this:

Everybody plays. 

Are any of the following apps installed on your phone: Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Cut The Rope, Muffin Knight, Plants Vs. Zombies, Jetpack Joyride, Temple Run, or any other app from the “games” category in your phone’s app store? Remember those days playing Monopoly with your relatives and then, after a miserable loss, you decided then and there that you’ll never play it again? How about those slow afternoons playing Pusoy Dos with your friends who always, always tend to put down a 5-card combo just when you were about to get rid of your pair 5’s? Were you active in sports such as basketball, football, or badminton? Did you ever play tag, hide-and-seek, or patintero? Congratulations, you’ve played a game, and most likely pretty recently too.

Don’t feel so bad. Play is human nature, both culturally and biologically.  It’s unnatural not to play; as the human race grew up, so did the purpose of our playing.

“We humans have inherited the basic youthful play characteristics of our animal ancestors, but in the course of our biological and cultural evolution we have elaborated upon them and created new functions. Playfulness in humans does not end when adulthood begins and it serves many functions beyond the learning of species-specific skills.”

— Dr. Peter Gray

I’m not about to lecture anybody on the theories of Peter Gray or Johan Huizinga – that’s way out of my league. But I do hope their efforts help people appreciate the fact that there is a lot of academic research going into playing games (and not just videogames). Much more effort has been put into things that are much less serious.

If we can accept even on just a theoretical level that play is a natural human activity, like eating, sleeping, socializing, and fucking are, then wouldn’t that make life a lot more fun? That’s not to say that there are problems with natural human activity; yes, there are people who over-eat, under-sleep, socialize needlessly and have sex with the wrong things. But even with those problems out and about in the real world, the correct way to address them is to raise awareness and seek rehabilitation. So far, considering the way videogames are so demonized, it seems there’s still a long way to go before that happens.

But I digress. It’s easier to just bash all videogames and people who play them, just like it’s easier to just bash all movies and people who watch them, or all books and people who read them.

Header image by roboticrice.com

Just to put into perspective how difficult it would be to achieve this kind of roll:

The purple dice are bad. They’re 8-sided dice, and only one side is blank (the best possible result on these dice, because that essentially means “nothing bad happens”). 

The yellow dice are good. They’re 12-sided dice, and the icon you see there is “Triumph.” The actual definition of a Triumph in the rulebook is as follows: 

So it’s like rolling a natural 20 on a regular icosahedron, except easier because there’s a 1/12 chance to score it instead of 1/20. But two of them consecutively?

Chances of a double blank on the challenge dice? 1/64. 

The chances of coming up double Triumph? 1/144.

How about both happening at the same time on the same roll? 1/9216, or 0.0108506944444%.

Here’s an idea of what else has roughly a 0.01% chance of happening: 

• Chance of forging a Precursor weapon in Guild Wars 2
• Chance of being diagnosed with Williams Syndrome
• Chance of finding a 4-leaf clover on the first try
• Chance of getting a Dead Man’s Hand on a 7 card draw
• Chance of getting a 4-of-a-kind on the flop
• Chance of having a lawyer in China 
• Chance of getting injured by your toilet this year
• Chance of condom failure
• Chance of dying from intentional self harm
• Chance of firing two proton torpedoes from a standard T-65 X-Wing Starfighter into a 2-meter wide thermal exhaust port without the assistance of a targeting computer

GM, we all should’ve earned free XP from becoming instantly enlightened after witnessing such a miraculous roll. 

I used to play loads of games with her. Diablo II, Terraria, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, lots and lots of point-and-click adventure games (sometimes she’d take the controls while I watched, other times I’d handle it while she criticized), and probably a bunch more that I’m forgetting at the moment.

Ever since the breakup, I’ve never even started those games up again. Initially it was because of the feels associated with her, but after picking myself up and moving on, I’m not sure why I don’t play those games anymore.

I asked r/GirlGamers if they felt the same. Their replies won’t be quoted here out of respect for their anonymity, but the link is still accessible at the time of writing.

So apparently this little indie card game is a viral hit. I completely missed out on it, and have thus been denied the guilty pleasure of laughing like an idiot over forming nonsensical subject-predicate pairs, hilariously unexpected direct and indirect objects, and generally making fun of impossibly silly situations.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game and think it sounds a lot like Mad Libs, you’d be on the right track; except the delivery is less like simple word association (give me a noun/adjective/verb ending in -ing) and more like putting together Scenes From a Hat cards.

It’s quick, simple, and fun; and is presumably more fun while played over drinks.  I mean, just take a look at some of the combinations people have come up with:

Thanks goes to Marc, who first showed me this game. After dicking around the Internets for a bit, we found a way to play it online (not nearly as fun, we think, as playing it in person, but that’s all we had at the moment) and, with another friend, we proceeded to play through the hardest round of Don’t Laugh at Work ever. Here’s a sample of the shenanigans that can be had while playing Cards Against Humanity:

Needless to say, even the online version is not exactly safe for work, but if you haven’t played yet, it’ll do in a pinch.

Cards Against Humanity is only available for purchasing in the US and Canada at $25 for a pack, but the creators have decided to distribute it under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 license which means you can download, play and remix the game for free.

Last June, former Boston Fire Chief Steve Abraira resigned from his post following public criticism about his response to the horrible Boston Marathon bombings, summarized in a letter signed by every other fire chief in the city department.

Last week, actress Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds, Red 2, R.I.P.D.) mulled over the possibility of walking out of the spotlight after repeated exposure to hateful blog and social media comments, personal attacks, and the “mean culture” of the Internet.

Yesterday, indie game developer Phil Fish (Fez) announced that he’s quitting the videogame industry because of “the negativity and criticism it’s brought.” This came after a particularly heated argument with known videogame, critic Marcus Beer.

Seriously. I would’ve loved a Fez 2 , even if I’d never played Fez myself. Why? Not just because it would be good for the videogame industry as a whole (yes, it would be, but fuck the industry). Not just because fans would love to see a sequel (maybe they do, maybe they don’t; fuck the fans). But because Phil Fish loves making games, and he shouldn’t be bullied into quitting just because other people seem to be more fond of ripping his work and public image apart rather than enjoying his creation.

That said…

Critics tend to be penises. Big, angry, throbbing penises. But that shouldn’t stop people from doing awesome things and making awesome stuff. And for every casualty of a critical hit, there’s another who rises to the challenge.

Take Michael Bay for instance. Critics hate the man.  Just check out Rotten Tomatoes for the ratings of the movies he directed. The Rock? 67%, his highest-rated film; also his oldest. The Island? 40%. Bad Boys and Bad Boys II? 43% and 23%. His three Transformers movies? An average of 38%. All critical flops. All earned millions. You’d think that moviegoers would spend a little less money on films that critics say aren’t any good.

Then there’s Amanda Palmer, a former Dresden Doll who seems to be getting more attention when she’s away from the mic than in front of it. Everything non-musical about her has been talked about, from her poetry to her husband, from her nipslips [NSFW] to her unshaved armpits. The Internet haters will find that there is no short supply of things to fuel their teeth-grinding engines, but perhaps the thing they hate most? The feeling that she probably doesn’t give a fuck.

That brings us back to games. Boy oh boy are gaming critics such hard-asses. It’d be too easy to go on and on about how critics have panned games whose developers went on to become hugely successful, so I won’t do that. Instead, let’s bring up some ancient history. People are unreliable, so criticism - to some degree - can be taken with a grain of salt. But numbers don’t lie, and for Hironobu Sakaguchi as well as the rest of Square way back in 1987, the numbers were telling a difficult truth. People were voting with their money, the most honest criticism of all, and sales were down. If Final Fantasy failed, two things would’ve happened: Sakaguchi says he would’ve quit game development altogether, and - according to Final Fantasy’s musical composer Nobuo Uematsu - Square would’ve gone bankrupt. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

So, Phil. Mr. Fish. Dude. You’re frustrated and discouraged and you hate the games industry more than it hates you. You’ve got a lot of reason to be; not everybody can attest to putting up with the amount of shit dealt your way. But at the same time, not everybody can say they’ve found the one thing that drives them. You found your passion, and moreover, you acted on it. Nevermind that it resonated with people around the world, that’s secondary (but Achievement Unlocked! anyway). You did it first for yourself, and you’ll only be denying yourself the pleasure of continuing to chase your dream by quitting.

Still, I ended up hitting the “Publish” button because being able to love something completely means to look at its ugliness along with the good side; and to accept the reality of its imperfection, while at the same time helping it achieve that impossible state in whatever way one can.

It’s true. The vocal majority of people on the Internet don’t think very highly of those who self-identify as “gamers.” Five seconds at Google will paint a general picture:

Well, at least we’re smarterer? Kidding and pseudo-proofs aside, it’s easy to understand the overwhelming disdain for gamers as a group (mob, really). Go to any popular videogame blog/site and check out the comments, but make sure the kids aren’t peeking over your shoulder. Some of the things gamers post in these public places are the meanest, most bile-filled things you’ll ever read online. There’s way too many people taking things way too seriously to leave any more room for fun.

Shit gamers have done 

I won’t even go into the kind of shit gamers say because enough has been written, recorded, and parodied about that - and also because that’s just the icing on the cake. When you get into some examples of things gamers have done, it gets really depressing:

Not just vidjagames

This isn’t isolated to console, PC, or videogamers, either. Friends who play in card gaming circles and tabletop role-playing groups have told stories that make me want to facepalm myself into a coma: people who stall an entire tournament just because of one slight calculation in the point system; friendships and relationships torn apart over a basketball game; grown men fighting over printed pieces of cardboard, or numbers on a sheet of paper.

I had a bit of a harder time finding specific examples of dickish gamer activity in tabletop and card gaming circles (maybe because the Print Screen for real life isn’t as intuitive as on PCs), but here’s a few:

• Geek elitism. There are, surprisingly enough, a few subcultures within what’s generally considered “geek culture,” and that these subcultures are often fairly competitive with large amounts of snobbery and elitism within them. Ironic?
• Yet another case of blatant sexism, this one at a Magic: the Gathering tournament. Will we ever escape this?
• A bit of reverse sexism, not as much an example of shameful gamer behavior as it is a case of gamer discrimination (which was negatively responded to by its sister site, heh) 

Don’t panic

It’s come to the point where some feel ashamed about admitting that they love games. This is extreme; nothing should ever get in the way of being proud to do what you love, and the truth is you probably won’t even let the existence of gamer assholes stop you from enjoying the next game you play. That’s great, and I hope you do keep playing! It wasn’t the intent of this article to make you ragequit and boycott games.

And even if being shown this ugly side of gamer horde mentality gets you down, keep in mind that for every story of malicious gamer behavior, there are just as many cases of gamers doing great things for each other and for charity:

• Funds like Child’s Play and Extra Life exist thanks to the donations of people who love games and believe that games, simply put, make life better. The money and goods raised by these two charities goes to children’s hospitals and therapy centers around the world, where they provide patients with vital distraction from an otherwise generally unpleasant experience
• Everybody’s heard of running marathons for causes, but not as many are familiar with groups that marathon videogames for a cause. Zeldathon and TheSpeedGamers are two communities that get together and stream live gameplay video to an audience to raise funds for different charities every month
• More specific cases of good-guy-gamers include one where a bunch of do-gooders compiled a step-by-step manual that would help a blind man finish Ocarina of Time, and the story of a man who spent 30 years of his life helping disabled gamers play games

It’s all about perspective

The truth is, every field has its share of fanatics, assholes, and just plain immature brats. That’s what happens when enough people get together and rave about something they all love. A fanbase is formed, and we all know how annoying fanbases can get.

When people lose perspective, they tend to do and say weird things. And when someone’s love for something - a hobby, a band, a person, a game or anything else - turns him or her into an unapproachable, unlikeable ass who can’t spend the extra effort to put some real thought into what they’re about to say and how it will make others around them feel, then perspective has just flown out the window. They’re no longer contributing to the development of whatever discussion they just took the train to crazy town from. People who don’t share the same (perhaps irrational) level of enthusiasm just won’t be able to keep up, and instead will lose interest at best and call the cops at worst.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being excited about gaming, and I’m the worst example for this; just thinking about when I can finally play Star Citizen is enough to reduce all productivity to zero (after typing this, I quickly checked their website to see if there was any news). But my excitement is not exclusive; raving about Star Citizen doesn’t cut me out from the rest of society, and the game is not something I feel is mine by rights (“it’s about fucking time someone made a decent space sim, god!”).

At the heart of it I do believe that most cases of overly-aggressive gamer misconduct is an unbridled passion for their beloved hobby. They’re too close to it. The moment they see something “not right,” the moment they sense a disturbance in the Force, their vision clouds, heart palpitates, and teeth grind - because they know Things Aren’t As They Should Be™. Unfortunately, their actions - done in the name of all that is good for gaming - end up becoming part of the problem, not the solution. 

One of their first articles explores the character of Lara Croft - her whole being and what makes her tick, not as a heroine or even as a female, but simply as a (virtual) human. Pamela was, like many who are familiar with the way Lara has been portrayed by media and fans alike, extremely skeptical about just how fairly this strong female lead would be represented.

The truth is, Lara Croft is more than just another videogame icon. Even early on during the development of the original Tomb Raider for the first Playstation, at least some of the developers knew what they were getting into and how important it was to take their character so seriously. One of the developers flat out refused to follow Eidos’s instruction to put in a code that would allow gamers to play as a nude Lara. Thank Gard. 

In the end, she puts the controller down at the game’s conclusion with a lot of feels.

I have to say that Tomb Raider 2013 is a must-play for everyone, especially if you’re a girl. It’s one of the most intense gaming experiences on the market, it’s one of the finest takes on an origin story that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and it’s solid proof that developers CAN make a female lead who can kick ass without being just another hot digital body for everyone to fawn over.

Go on and read as she tackles each of these experiences one by one here. And don’t worry, there aren’t any major spoilers, aside from the game being awesome (which you probably already knew).

And if you’d like to experience what Pamela writes about for yourself, know that for the next 35 hours from the time of this article’s publication the entire Tomb Raider collection (including the latest reboot being discussed in Pamela’s article) will be heavily discounted by 75% for the Summer Steam Sale.

Jed from OMGeek.net talks about System Shock as one of the golden standards of storytelling in videogames, and rightfully so: the game heavily inspired the Bioshock franchise (indeed, it’s considered to be the spiritual successor to System Shock) and also influenced the direction of Deus Ex - yet another PC game classic.

More than any other game before it, System Shock let me experience a well-written story at my own pace, and let me put things together and fill in the gaps with my own reasoning and imagination. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong genres in games today, but I hope this kind of storytelling challenge will still live on somewhere.

Having played System Shock myself, but not all the way through, Jed’s write-up makes me want to return to the game and appreciate its masterpiece of a story. I’m willing to bet that, after reading the article yourself, you’ll feel the same way. Check out the rest of it at OMGeek.net.

There’s hundreds of thousands to choose from across practically any platform you can think of gaming on, but in this article I’m going to shine the spotlight on just five upcoming indie PC games that I feel are worth keeping an eye out for.

Sarcia

Reminiscent of LucasArts’ classic adventure game LOOM, SARCIA will have players wielding the universal language of music in order to interact with the game’s world. Every playthrough promises to be unique, including character appearance and who you’ll interact with.

Cube World

A voxel-based exploration sandbox. Cube World looks to appeal to those who appreciate the openness of Minecraft along with goal-oriented gameplay via RPG-like quests. Aside from an art direction and open randomness reminiscent of Minecraft, it draws inspiration from other games including but not limited to: The Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana, Landstalker, and Monster Hunter in regards to style, gameplay, and overall feel; and Diablo or World of Warcraft for its RPG elements. It had a rocky alpha release due to a DDOS attack on its servers, but that should all be taken care of by now.

Owlboy

Owlboy is an old-school platformer where players can take to the skies and roam free to explore vast dungeons and engage in aerial combat with dangerous enemies. Its critically acclaimed pixel art is a nod to the classic games of yesteryear. As players explore, they will uncover a variety of useful items to assist on their journey. Some characters can even join the player and lend their aid. It’s been a long time since anything new has been heard from the developer, and we’re hoping that the game is still being worked on.

Starbound

Regarded as the spiritual successor of Terraria (indeed, one of Terraria’s former developers is working on this game), Starbound takes the 2D platforming creation genre up to the next level: outer space. Features endless fully procedurally-generated planets with randomized variables such as weather, gravity, difficulty, flora, fauna, and much more. It aims to expand upon its predecessor by adding a storyline which begins with the players’ characters fleeing their homeworld in a space shuttle, just as it’s destroyed by an unknown enemy. From there on out it’s up to the player and his/her friends - yes, the game will have full multiplayer support - to decide what to do and where to go next.

Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid is quite different from the usual strain of zombie games out there. The developers promise it to be the zombie survival experience we’ve been waiting for. They describe it as an “open-ended sandbox world – survival is your only goal, and we’re sorry to tell you… you WILL die eventually.” While the game isn’t finished yet, there is a playable demo that already shows off some of its main features, including: thousands of ‘proper’ zeds roaming the streets; scavenge food, craft items, construct barricades; day turns to night, electricity falters, hordes migrate, society is in freefall; develop skills through play, while fending off depression, boredom and addictions. And yes, multiplayer co-op is planned.

That about wraps it up for my first Top 5 list. If you have a list of your own to share, let me know in the comments below!

So yeah, that’s how we hype up games for ourselves. In other news, Star Citizen is an awesome space sim that aims to bring back all the classic elements of the genre and more. It’s amassed $12 million since it started its crowdfunding campaign, and rightfully so; the team making it is headed by Chris Roberts, best known for creating the excellent Wing Commander series. Considering the widely adopted opinion that Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance was the last great space sim (an argument can be made for Freelancer, which Roberts helped develop as well) and that was released in 1999, I do believe we’re long overdue for a good trip into the black.

Here’s an excerpt from his article: 

Possibly the newest contender on the list comes from the already infamous SimCity by Maxis and Electronic Arts. The facelifted franchise recently put up a new piece of DLC that features balloons. Yep, let that sink in for a moment.

Yes, balloons. Their newest pack adds hot air balloons and blimps to your city, along with some related structures like the hot air balloon park. Apparently, the balloons help increase the satisfaction of your little sims just by looking at them. It gives them the reassurance that you spent a whole $9 for them to gaze at majestic airships. Aren’t you just a peachy city overlord?

Here’s to hoping that the next DLC will be for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. You know what? I think I’d actually pay for that.

It’s a good read that’ll make you both think and laugh, so go ahead and pay Nathe and his friends a visit and read the rest of his article to find out what are the rest of their picks for top 6 most ridiculous DLCs.

Miner Wars: 2081 is a six degrees of freedom (6DOF) space simulator with free-roaming sandbox elements.

You operate an advanced mining ship in a fully destructible and open-world environment, which remains persistent as you complete missions or play online with others. It’s been a while since I recorded this footage, but it remains one of my favorite Let’s Plays that I’ve done so far. Unfortunately I never got to continue playing the game, but hopefully I’ll get the chance to come back to it soon. 

The game is available on Steam for $19.99, and there’s a demo available so you can try before buying.

The earliest gaming experience I can remember is of me sitting in front of a TV, connected to which was a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES is definitely not the first videogame console to hit the consumer market, nor was it the first console I played. But for whatever reason, it’s the one that sticks most fondly to the most basic recollections of my gaming nostalgia.

I was introduced to such whimsical characters like the brothers Mario and Luigi, their severely underprotected Princess Toadstool, and the hovercraft-riding Bowser; I saved worlds from total destruction by the hands of evil entities such as Lavos, Smithy, and Ganon; I kicked ass and took names as a Street Fighter, a Double Dragon, and a Ninja Turtle; and sometimes, I’d just appreciate the scenery from above the Kongo Jungle canopy , driving along the sands of Koopa Beach, or scaling the cliffs of Yoshi’s Island.

As early as then, I knew I wanted to be involved in games for the rest of my life. Of course when you’re as young as I was when that desire set in, you don’t really have a plan on how to achieve the goal, and it didn’t help back then that game development wasn’t exactly a very well-advertised course. So I made do with what was available in those simpler times: books, paper, and imagination.

The first game I ever created was a very simple choose-your-own-adventure. I was a huge fan of the Goosebumps books (Ermahgerd) and my school library was stocked with them, which is interesting to note because I went to a Catholic elementary school and the Catholic Educator’s Research Center isn’t exactly a big fan of R.L. Stine’s work. My own version was only 15 pages long and had just three endings - good, bad, neutral - but I remember how great was the sense of accomplishment I felt upon completing it. That small step into game creation solidified my aspirations, and I decided soon after that I wanted to write stories for games.

Now, years later, I’ve helped make a handful of games for iPhone and Android devices. Aside from lending a hand at designing most of them, I was also given the chance to write the story and dialog for some. These opportunities arose after a couple years of writing about games for a popular local magazine, a job which itself only came to me after several years of non-professional game-related journalism. To answer the Avenue Q song, this is one thing you can do with a B.A. in English.

What does that have to do with this website? Well, as it turns out, I’m not the only one whose life has been hugely influenced by videogames. There are others out there who can speak about the positive transforming power of games. Games have repeatedly been cited as sources of inspiration and motivation. For some, games have helped them come to terms with their depression, their worldview, even their sexuality. Even medically, games have shown their effectiveness as tools for physical rehabilitation.

This website may only be a few hours old at the time of writing, but the stories and experiences it will eventually contain have been in the making since people first started playing games.

This game. This. Game. I bring it everywhere; to work, to dinner, to the bathroom, walking on the street, riding in the car - only when at a full stop! - on the bed, on the phone, on and on and on…

It’s crazy how hooked I am, and I don’t even know how to play! I mean, how to really play. I’m no Nethack veteran - my roguelike of choice was ADOM way back when - so I don’t know all the little things that can be done in it yet (like, can you pour potions into other potions? How do you stop choking on food? How do you know if a lantern is magical? What is a fire and why does it, what’s the word, burn?) but it’s just so damn addicting that I don’t even care.

I just want to say: bravo, Waz. Bra-effing-vo. I bought it on Android, then bought it for my bro - we multiplay, it’s cool - and I’ll buy it for PC too once it gets greenlit on Steam. Do you still work on this on your own? That’s freaking amazing.

It’s not all positive, though. I encountered a bug, and a big fat squishy one at that. The pet dogs won’t go up ladders; only down. They don’t even climb down; they fall down as if there’s no ladder there, only air. Happens to both the Knight/Valkyrie and the Hunter/Fem.Hunter dogs. Makes dungeoneering a lot more lonely, y’know?

Also, completely beside the point: I’m so glad it’s on Android; you don’t know how tickled I am that it’s made on Unity, as I used to work at a mobile app development studio that works exclusively using that engine (they would’ve killed for a developer/designer like you btw). So if you need help with an iOS port, I can probably do that for you if a paid version of Unity isn’t required; gots a Macbook lying around somewhere.

Here are some of the games that, in my mind, surpass GotY and secure their place in history for the years to come.

Most Culturally Significant Games of last Generation

These games deserve mentioning first and foremost, because without them, it’s possible that the rest of the games on this list may never have been created – or if they had, they might not have turned out the way they are now.

Super Mario Bros. introduced videogames to the world on a massive scale, being the most-sold videogame franchise to date. To put that in perspective, the eponymous mascot of the franchise is more recognized than Mickey Mouse.

Tetris and Space Invaders both deserve a spot on the list for their ubiquity and seniority. If your parents played games in their youth, these were the Portal and DOTA gamesof their generation. To be recognizable by nothing other than monochromatic, pixelated shapes takes serious clout.

Pokémon, the youngest in this section, is also the only videogame franchise to have been the feature cover on Time magazine, and the only one to have its fandom perpetualized by mainstream media with its own specific name, “Pokémania.”

Commander Keen brought the popular platformer elements of Super Mario Bros. to the PC, while at the same time taking advantage of the then state-of-the-art EGA graphics on DOS. Thanks to this series, the brand new startup, id Software, went on to create…

Doom. No list is complete without it. Yes, Wolfenstein came first, but Doom revolutionized the FPS genre by introducing the entire sci-fi/horror genre, networked multiplayer, and customized content, now popularly referred to by PC gamers as “mods.” It also was the first game to use the term “Deathmatch.”

Wasteland is the precursor to the Fallout games, and in many ways to the entire lineup of good PC RPGs in general. It was one of the first cRPGs to feature smart NPCs (who could refuse to relinquish items) and a persistent game world.

Sam & Max Hit the Road was the 9th game to use the SCUMM engine, which ran such classics as Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. What distinguishes it from the rest is that it was one of the first games ever to have full voice acting.

Wing Commander did what its predecessor Elite couldn’t: bring space simulation games to a wider audience. It eventually came to inspire games like Descent: Freespace, Freelancer, X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter, the X series, and just about every space combat game ever released since 1990.

Best Anger Management Therapies of this Generation

These are the games that have caused a steady rise in hypertension conditions over the years. The idea of “competitive multiplayer” predates even the first videogame, and the truth is that it provides a challenge and satisfaction like none other. If you’re any good at it, that is.

Call of Duty just might be the social phenomenon that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick loves to talk about. Within 5 days after release, Black Ops sold better than any movie, book or video game sale, ever. At the end of the first day, the 2.6 million players who bought it spent more than 5.9 million man-hours cursing and yelling into their microphones.

Starcraft is more than a game. It was, in 1998, the RTS that all others would be compared to. It became the de facto game for professional cybersports tournaments around the world. It still is associated with the Korean identity, and perhaps 90% of those who play it would ragequit after the first five minutes against a Seoul sister half their age. Speaking of ragequit…

Team Fortress 2 predicted the severe amount of anger it would cause and helped turn “ragequit” into an accepted meme by making it of the Scout’s vocal taunts as well as a user disconnection message. Now that it’s F2P, TF2 matches seem to produce more QQ and less pew pew, which should not in any way hide its greatness.

Left 4 Dead helps redirect much of the competitive frustration away from human opponents and towards the mystical AI Director. It brings friends together as they race to revive their incapacitated comrades and drives them apart as they realize it’s easier to leave their less competent party members as zombie bait.

Best Mindgasms of this Generation

Just when you thought you had the game all figured out, it pulls a fast one on you. You might say you saw it coming a mile away, or scoff at the cheesiness of its big reveal, but we all know you felt that tingle down your spine, that telltale sign of your mind being blown away.

American McGee’s Alice is a twisted, chaotic, and wonderful rendition of a classic story. Alice, the once innocent and curious young girl, grew up insane after her entire family died in a house fire. Though sinister and macabre, the sequel, Madness Returns, is even darker.

BioShock’s plot twist is equal parts unexpected and foreshadowed, a blend that is difficult to achieve and probably not worth striving for in a medium where it would fly over many gamers’ heads. Would you kindly pay more attention to the story the next time you play this masterpiece?

Metal Gear Solid sold PSXs, PS2s, and PS3s everywhere as fans followed the series in attempts to both show their support for its continued development as well as figure out just what the heck was going on. Aside from all the craziness going on within the Metal Gear world itself, director Hideo Kojima isn’t the type to shy away from breaking the fourth wall to get at his audience.

Eternal Darkness went commercially unnoticed, partly because it was on the GameCube and partly because it was Nintendo’s first try at publishing an M-rated title. It puts MGS’s fourth wall-breaking efforts to shame. Depending on how low the “sanity meter” gets, effects such as camera angle-skewing, bodiless whispering and crying, wall-bleeding and ceiling-climbing happen; and sometimes, the game’s volume is reduced, with accompanying fake TV volume indicator.

Diablo 2 isn’t particularly known for its mind-blowing plot or atmosphere, but for the state of loot-driven lunacy it induces in its players. Seriously, no game since its release has had a random loot feature in it without being referred to as “Diablo-esque” or similar. For its item system alone, and the addiction it causes, it deserves a spot in this list.

Portal couldn’t have been more of a success even if it tried. It spawned a boatload of memes, a cult of cube-loving fans, and its own sequel, which makes it difficult to believe that it started out as filler for The Orange Box. Aside from the obvious brain crunching required in solving its puzzles, the fact that it was a sleeper hit made by a development team of 10 people – most of them fresh hires from the team that developed Portal’s independent inspiration, Narbacular Drop.

Best Games You’ve Never Heard Of this Generation

Some of the best games come from the smallest companies, or even individual people just doing what they love. Independent game development has picked up pace in recent years due to the increase in digital distribution platforms, so here’s a nod to the little guys.

Minecraft and Terraria were mentioned to you at least once, perhaps by that over-enthusiastic gamer friend or in that blog you never admit to reading. Both are adventure/exploration games with emphasis on crafting tools to shape the entire game world. Think Lego, but less expensive.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a terrifying, horrifying, depressing game. If you dare play it, you will be rewarded with one of the scariest experiences of your life.

Cave Story, on the other hand, is upbeat and energetic in execution, yet somber in meaning. In this platformer/shoot-em-up you control Quote, a robot who has lost his memory, as he strives to save the deceptively cute Mimigas. They look like bunnies, so you should play this game.

The Chzo Mythos / John DeFoe Series might be confused with H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, which would be a fair representation of how engrossing this series is. Spanning five games, each connected in some way, the series is the work of the infamous Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw of Zero Punctuation.

The game’s slogan is “A Survivor is Born,” and players will experience this not only in theme, but in mechanics as well. Lara won’t be doing acrobatics right away; these skills must be learned as players progress, opening up new areas to explore. A much more vulnerable Lara won’t be able to rely on the wealth her aristocratic privilege bestows, as she’ll wake up on the island with no weapons or equipment, prompting players to find or craft these tools for themselves. Combat will be emphasized by forgoing the previously used target-locking mechanic for a manual aim system. Lara is an adventurer at heart, though, and all these difficulties will be eased by her “Survival Instinct,” a sixth sense which reveals useful items and paths for the heroine.

All in all, Tomb Raider looks like an origin story that should not be missed. It’s not just a prequel, or even only a reboot; Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics, in an attempt to do the extraordinary, want to completely change our perceptions of Lara Croft. She’s no longer the perfect, pristine princess with the legs of a gazelle and chest full of ammo. Now, she tires, she trembles, and she bleeds, just like any human should.

Valve recently announced this at the end of its Uber Update, a week-long chain of patches which added to the already monumental amount of content in the game.

Players who have already purchased the game received a decorative proof-of-purchase hat, as well as a ‘premium account’ status. This grants players who bought the game - be it through retail or Steam stores, or who were gifted the game before it went free-to-play - increased backpack (item storage) space, access to all item blueprints (full crafting options), and the ability to give items to other players. Free-to-play players can upgrade to a premium account by making any purchase in TF2’s in-game store, but those who wish to receive a proof-of-purchase hat will have to find and buy a retail copy of the game.

In-depth details about what is offered to new players, how the update affects old players, and comparisons between free and premium accounts, can be found here: http://www.teamfortress.com/​freetoplay/faq.php

Valve has supported Team Fortress 2 with massive updates over the course of its 4-year lifespan. Aside from new maps, gameplay modes, and bug fixes, the TF2 dev team has constantly surprised the community with game-changing content such as new weapons and equipment, decorative items, the Mann Co. Item store, special holiday events and more. TF2 is considered by many gamers to be one of the most officially supported games ever released, and some fear that this recent change to a free-to-play model marks the end of that constant loving.

There is also the belief that with the increase of players that will come after opening up TF2 as a free game, profits from the item store will continue to encourage Valve to create new content such as the latest Uber Update. Over the course of its 4 years as a constant top-placer in online FPS gaming, TF2 has gone through several periods of sale prices and free-to-play weekends (at one point, the game was offered for less than $3). To Valve, whose Steam distribution service is still the biggest one on the Internet, fresh accounts may be just as important as new sales. With every new player the free-to-play update brings in, even if these players never spend a peso on paid content, Valve has a new customer to send advertisements to, receive demographics information from, and entice into spending money on promos and sales.

Any way you cut it, Valve wins. And given the amount of sheer, unadulterated fun that can be had from this gem of a game, so can you.

Free liberty and justice for all

City of Heroes, the first superhero MMORPG to hit the market, is forgoing its former monthly subscription fee in favor of the free-to-play model so popular with every MMO that isn’t World of Warcraft.

It’s getting a name change, too. “City of Heroes: Freedom” will still offer a subscription to players who want access to all the features of the game. Free-to-play players can still experience these features – including but not limited to additional storylines, character slots, archetypes, and (unfortunately) the ability to join super groups (guilds) – by purchasing them as individual add-ons. It may seem like a stretch limiting free accounts in this way (you can’t even send whispers or tells to other players without purchasing the add-on), but consider that prior to this pricing change, people curious about playing the game would have to rely on demo periods and free hours gifted by friends. Going free-to-play, even in this manner, allows anyone who ever had a heroic itch in their fingers to give it a go.

Freedom will launch for PC later this year. NCsoft promises that current subscribers will receive some additional loyalty awards, so those of you who currently play might consider extending your subscriptions at least until the launch.

Valve approves of the Wii U

No, there’s no Episode 3 news yet

Once upon a time, the folks at Valve were interested in the Wii. It was innovative, it was fun, and it was kid-friendly. The company made public comments about the possibility of developing for the Nintendo console. Things didn’t work out so well between the two, however, and we have yet to see a port of The Orange Box on the Wii.

The new Wii U, with its promise of being more powerful than the current generation of consoles as well as keeping up Nintendo’s trend of bringing new surprises to the table, has once again caught Valve’s attention. Valve head and co-founder Gabe Newell was one of the keynote speakers at the Games for Change Festival in New York last week. He commented on the scalability model used by Valve, and how Nintendo’s new console “fits better into the scalability in terms of graphics performance and CPU performance.”

Gabe also expressed a personal fondness for the Japanese company. “We’ve always loved Nintendo.” This sentiment was echoed years ago by Doug Lombardi, VP of Marketing at Valve. “… there’s a lot of desire internally to do something for the kids, do something on the Wii.”

When it comes to consoles, Valve doesn’t kid around. While ongoing troubles with Microsoft’s distribution service have presented difficulties to Valve in terms of keeping the Orange Box updated, they more recently made a huge push on the PlayStation 3 with their Steam integration efforts. If the interest is strong enough, you can bet on seeing the Valve logo on a Nintendo Wii U game box in the future.

TF2 Uber Update Unleashed

Another successful procedure!

Earlier this week, Valve began its latest massive update of their continuously supported hit FPS, Team Fortress 2. Collectively known as the “Uber Update,” every day will see new features, weapons, equipment, and other additions to the game. Valve has also promised a brand new animated short in its “Meet The Class” series. To date, all but two of the nine classes in TF2 have had their time in the spotlight; we’re waiting on the Pyro’s and the Medic’s videos, the latter of which will soon be available.

The update began on Mobster Monday, which decked out the Spy and the Heavy with Mafia-themed equipment and weapons. It also introduced a new Payload map, “Barnblitz, The Barn Capital of the World.”

On Timbuk Tuesday, the Demoman and Sniper received their trinkets from the Middle East, which Prince of Persia fans will enjoy. No new map was released that day.

World War Wednesday was met with a big update for the Soldier class, who received five new pieces of equipment against the other classes’ two or three.

The updates will continue until the end of the week, and judging by the title as well as the promised Medic video, will end with a substantial Medic upgrade. As an added bonus, Team Fortress 2 is free-to-play the entire week.

Next Fallout New Vegas DLC Announced

Bringing with it some of that old world blues

Bethesda Softworks recently announced the next downloadable content for Fallout New Vegas. Available after July 19, “Old World Blues” will place The Courier in the uncomfortable position of lab rat in an adventure that will reveal the origins of some of the Mojave mutants and monsters. Without revealing too much of the plot, players can expect to scour the pre-War research centers in the Big Empty in search of equipment and weaponry, and make the choice of either fighting against the Courier’s kidnappers in an attempt to escape the experiment gone awry, or join forces with them to combat an even greater, unknown threat.

Some details of the Old World Blues expansion include an increased level cap (by 5, as in past DLCs, but also included is a new character trait which will allow players to manually cap their level at 30), the ability to change The Courier’s appearance at some point in the game, fully-voiced home appliances, and a rudimentary home base. Equipment will reportedly not be stripped from the character upon starting the DLC, and as in past add-ons, companions will not accompany the hero into the new land.

Pricing for this expansion has not been revealed, however all past DLCs have been priced at $10.

Vita is what we’re calling Sony’s new handheld, and considering all that we know about it, the finalized name might just fit, as silly as it sounds.

Its technical features are nothing to scoff at. Sony has already confirmed two analog sticks (not nubs), a 5-inch OLED multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, a rear touchpad, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and Wi-Fi in b/g/n flavors. Powering the handheld is a 4 core ARM Cortex-A9 core processor and a 4 core SGX543MP4+ graphics processing unit.

In terms of input, it’s decked out with a d-pad, the classic PlayStation face buttons, L and R shoulder buttons, Sixaxis control via 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyroscope, a PlayStation button, and Start and Select. Additional hardware includes front and rear cameras, a microphone, 3-axis electronic compass, GPS, and 3G connectivity in some models.

Add in backwards compatibility with PlayStation Portable downloadable titles, PlayStation minis, PlayStation Suite games, PSOne Classics, videos, and comics from the PlayStation Store, and you get a machine already fully stocked with media upon launch, which is a stark contrast to Nintendo’s 3DS release. Up to now, Nintendo has yet to deliver the promised Netflix and internet browser capabilities for its handheld.

All of this is sweetened by the as of yet unconfirmed rumor of region-free gaming. When that rumor comes from Michael Denny, Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe, it tastes extra sweet indeed.

Expect the new handheld generation to be a fierce fight this time around. Sony’s PlayStation Vita will retail for USD $249.99 ($299.99 for 3G-enabled models) and will be available in the 4th quarter of this year.

Games confirmed for Sony PlayStation Vita:

• Bioshock NGP (tentative name)
• Dust 514
• LittleBigPlanet (tentative name)
• ModNation Racers
• Ruin (tentative name)
• Super Street Fighter x Tekken
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• WipEOut 2048

Lulzsec, who is also responsible for a recent US Senate internal data leak as well as compromising the user database of Pron.com, claims that they raided Bethesda’s servers but left the stolen credentials of over 200,000 Brink users unexposed because they “actually like this company and would like for them to speed up the production of Skyrim.”

What Lulzsec has apparently uploaded, however, is source code information on Brink servers. As they claim that the hack occurred “some weeks ago,” it’s possible that the stolen server data is no longer relevant. However, that’s beside the point. What is important to note is that once again we have an incidence where the security measures of a company were bypassed, and the time the company took to inform its customers was great.

Many argue that the rampant hacking has one good repercussion in that companies are now becoming that much more aware of and involved in data security. But at the cost of much anxiety, inconvenience, and the possibility of real theft, is it worth allowing hackerseven seemingly benign ones such as Lulzsecto keep sending these messages?

Admit it, every one of us who’s ever tried splitscreen gaming has at one point during a match looked at our opponents’ part of the screen. It’s an almost unavoidable consequence of sharing the same video display. Fortunately, Sony’s applied some pretty clever technology to deter this age-old form of cheating, and make splitscreen gaming an even better experience altogether.

Aside from the obvious PS3-inspired curves, Sony’s PlayStation TV looks like any other 24-inch 3D TV set, down to the ports available. When playing alone, you wouldn’t think it different or special in any way. When a friend comes to join in, however, the true purpose of the set becomes clear: Fullscreen splitscreened multiplayer.

It sounds impossible, but actually Sony has simply just utilized the technology already present in all 3D TV sets in a clever way. All 3D TVs process two sets of images which are alternately displayed, aided by a pair of glasses that are set to very quickly switch between the left and right lens. All done at a rate faster than the brain can process, the end result is the optical illusion of 3D perception. What Sony has changed is simply to let Player 1 view only one set of images, and Player 2 sees the other set. Each player’s pair of 3D glasses is configured to only display their respective “split” screen.

However, there’s nothing stopping a real, dedicated cheater to quickly set his pair of glasses to view the other player’s screen. No matter the technology, a cheater will cheat, and the only way to stop that is to repeatedly slap the back of his head.

Deeper and wider. Nintendo made a huge breakthrough with the Wii, introducing videogames to a demographic that had previously been untapped. However, the company is aware that it had estranged the previous core group of gamers with its focus on more casual play. With the Wii U, they now aim to provide the first console which can truly bridge the gap - one with a reach wide enough to grasp every kind of gamer, and deep enough to fully satisfy them.

Regarding features, the console does not seem to disappoint. 1080p HD is a go, and a beautiful one at that, if the Zelda tech demo Nintendo showcased at its Wii U unveiling is anything to go by. The controversial new monster controller admittedly looks a little bulky, but with 6.2" touchscreen, accelerometer and gyroscope, microphone, front-facing camera, speakers, and the ability to instantaneously stream video from the console it proves to be a very impressive piece of technology. While the console itself has only 8gb of internal storage, its disc format will support up to 25gb in capacity, and external HDDs can be connected via USB to expand the space if necessary.

This is just barely scratching the surface of the console, which is due between April and December of next year. All this was announced just on the first day of E3, so stay tuned for more information, such as the price, as they come.

THQ’s Huw Beynon called the original game, Metro 2033, a “flawed masterpiece,” referring not to the studio’s ability to craft a compelling, engrossing survival-horror atmosphere in a post-apocalyptic setting, but to the lackluster, bug-ridden combat system. In a move contrary to what is expected of big-name FPS games, 4A managed to perfect the storytelling and plot (the “first person” part), but botch the core mechanics such as combat, stealth, and AI (the “shooters” part).

To address this concern, Beynon announced that Metro’s gameplay has been redesigned from scratch to provide more tactical combat, smarter AI, better stealth and more balanced weapons. The changes are restricted to gameplay improvements, so there should be no worries about drastic changes to the dark tone of the game. Beynon states that THQ is “giving the studio complete creative freedom to tell the apocalypse their way.”

A4 is also reportedly working on implementing multiplayer into Metro: Last Light. Efforts were made to include this option in Metro 2033, but never finalized. At this point it is unclear whether the multiplayer plans are for co-op, deathmatch, team-based competition, or all of the above.

As for why the studios have decided not to go with the obvious sequential title for their sequel, the answer is simple: author Dmitry Glukhovsky’s actual sequel to Metro 2033 was called Metro 2034, but had little continuity with the original. It’s storytelling style was different from the former’s, which is not the goal of Last Light.

The game is meant to be a true sequel, with the player once more put behind the gas mask of Artyom, in Moscow’s hostile underground metro.

While gamers all over the Philippines get their FPS fix from the latest Call of Duty and Halo titles, one developer in particular has its sights set on honoring what was arguably the most influential PC game when the local LAN café business was still in its infancy. Though now going on 12 years, Counter-Strike and its prettier cousin Counter-Strike: Source are still the two most-played games on Steam, with daily concurrent users averaging the 50,000 mark. To give you an idea of how huge that is, the #3 spot lags behind at around 30,000 users, a rank held by the much more technically-advanced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Korean developer Zepetto recognizes this accomplishment, and implements some of the secrets for its success – extremely simple mechanics, customization options, well-balanced maps and various game modes to name a few – in its own free-to-play MMOFPS title, Point Blank. It seems to be working, as the game is already available in 42 different countries around Europe and Asia, including Thailand and Russia where it is distinguished as the #1 FPS, and Indonesia where it holds the current position of #1 online game with an amazing 100,000 concurrent users. The game has also recently been adopted into North American territory, where it’s known as Project Blackout.

Zepetto was wise to not create an exact replica of the hit mod, however, and made sure to give their game some original content of its own. While there is a noticeable lack of the familiar rescue (cs_) and less popular VIP (as_) maps, Point Blank offers more than enough other game modes to compensate, which seems to be its main selling point. Every map has some level of interactivity, with explosive cars and barrels, breakable glass ceilings, and in some cases destructible walls and pillars. There are more customization options available, for example, in terms of both weaponry and appearance. Headgear doubly serves the roles of protection – with various degrees of effectiveness – as well as personalization. The arsenal includes an adequate selection of pistols, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, melee weapons, explosives, flashbangs, and white phosphorus smoke grenades (yes, grenades that will both conceal you and your fire locations as well as kill any enemy stupid enough to breathe it in deep). Further adding to the personalization options is the ability to purchase skills which slightly increase various statistics in-game, such as running or reload speed. This introduces a slightly RPG-like feel to the experience.

Game Modes

The heart and soul of Point Blank lies in its array of game modes. Indeed, when Counter-Strike: Source was released in 2004, all pimped out with the then-new Source engine and pretty graphics, one of the major points of criticism was the lack of any additional ways to play the game. There’s none of that nonsense here, and even with the number of game modes already twice that of its idol, Point Blank promises more in the future with patches and updates. Dinosaur mode, anyone?

• Deathmatch – Hold your horses there, cowboy. Point Blank is a team-based FPS, so Deathmatch will always be a gang war rather than Rambo’s playground. It’s simple; the team with the most kills at the end of the round, or which reaches a predetermined number of kills first, wins. In this mode, Operators will respawn after being killed.
• Eliminate – Essentially the same as Deathmatch, however with no respawns; one life, one chance. You can expect more tense gameplay and tighter tactics here. The game goes on only until there are no players left alive on one team.
• Demolition – Here we have the classic target-bombing map (de_). One team must work together to plant a bomb, and the other must stop them or defuse the bomb once it’s planted. Of course, if either team eliminates the other, they win. This, compounded by the fact that respawning isn’t enabled in this mode, warrants coordinated teamplay.
• Defend – Similar to Demolition, however both teams have targets to destroy and protect. The first to destroy the opposing team’s target, or the team who deals the most damage to the target by the end of the round, wins. Split up into attack/defend forces? Bum-rush the target? The right choice made at the right time is key to victory. Because of the kamikaze nature of this mode, respawning is allowed.
• Destroy – Each team has an attack helicopter hovering around the map. The objective is to destroy the other team’s helicopter by any means necessary, whether by peppering it with small arms fire as you get to da choppa, picking up and using RPG launchers so conveniently scattered around the map, or spraying hot lead straight from your own helicopter’s side-mounted chaingun into the equally-equipped enemy whirlybird. Because fleshbags are much easier to put down than the gravity-defying chunks of metal (which is the only way to win this mode), respawning is enabled here.
• AI Challenge – Dumb bots, right? Wrong. Meant for training and warm-up, the AI-controlled team at high difficulty proves to be a tricky opponent even for pro players. For the truly godlike or madly insane, there is also the option to go solo versus a team of 8 mindless killer bots.

Every mode’s gameplay options are fully customizable, including the ability to change team size, time or score limit, enable or disable team balance, allow or prevent mid-game joiners, and even restrict certain weapon classes. It’s perfectly fine to have a snipers-only, or even a melee-only game.

Customization

The other big half of Point Blank’s promise of variety lies in the amount of weapon, appearance, and skill choices available. Perhaps just as important as the difference in firing speed, recoil, and damage of a gun is the secondary attachment on it, and each weapon has a unique one. Both teams each have four characters to choose from, and certain secondary stats such as running speed or defense vary slightly among them all. While not necessarily at Brink-levels of wardrobe or facelift options, there are a lot of helmets and masks to choose from which not only showcase your personality but function as protection or further stat boosts as well. Finally, the skill system, referred to as the A.C.T. System, satisfies whatever small RPG craving that might occur.

• Weapons – From the smallest pistol to the biggest machine gun, your style of shooting is covered. Attachments such as red laser dots, iron sights, dot sights, scopes, silencers and quick-swap magazines are weapon-specific. Some weapons can be used in different stances, such as in the case of wielding dual sub-machine guns. Weapons can be changed in-game, but only between similar types; you can’t switch from an assault rifle to a sniper rifle, but you can swap out a dot-sight-equipped assault rifle for a scoped one.
• Characters – Each team has four character choices with unique appearances. It’s not purely an aesthetic decision, however; characters can also have slightly modified base stats. Increased running speed, defense, and EXP or Credit gain are some traits which can be expected to vary. The choice between male and female characters also determines the voiceset, so if you’re annoyed by the sound of gruff men or distracted by a woman’s voice, you might want to consider choosing appropriately.
• A.C.T. System – Short for “Advanced Combat Training,” the A.C.T. System provides a way to improve your character’s skills or weapon proficiency. By earning EXP through battle and missions, players will progress in Rank. Higher Ranks enable different A.C.T. Titles to be purchased. Titles can be purchased with medals obtained by completing missions, which finally allows your character to equip the title and gain its benefits. Titles have different effects, including increasing speed, rate of fire, or accuracy. Depending on your style of play, you can equip up to three titles to augment your abilities.

Gravy

References to EXP, missions, and credits were made throughout the walkthrough which may seem out of context. The fact is, there’s a lot more to Point Blank than varied game modes and customization options. Zepetto knows that for an online game to be successful, there must be incentive for players to keep on coming back.

• EXP – Just like any other MMOG these days, Point Blank rewards continued gameplay with an experience system. EXP allows you to increase in Rank, which is displayed to all other players as an icon beside your name, and so functions as a method of determining skill level at a glance. Increasing Rank also unlocks higher-level A.C.T. Titles, which in turn unlocks better weapons for purchasing. It also feels really good to be called a Brigadier General rather than a Recruit.
• Mission Cards – EXP can be earned through normal gameplay, but completing missions gets you EXP faster than just completing map objectives alone. Missions are like in-game achievements or trophies, where you have to do a certain task to obtain mission completion. A typical task would be “Match: 3 Kills,” which means you have to kill 3 people in a single match. Completing one mission card, which is a set of 4 missions, gets you bonus EXP and medals, which are used to buy A.C.T. Traits. Completing a full set of cards, which is 10 cards or 40 missions, yields even bigger rewards such as weapons, Master Badges, and huge EXP boosts.
• Credits – The game is free-to-play with microtransactions, and so every customization must be purchased before use. This includes weapons, headgear, characters, and Mission Cards which allow A.C.T. Title progression. For those unwilling to shell out the cash to buy EP points from E-Games, Point Blank’s local publisher, credits can be earned through normal gameplay.

All in all, Point Blank is a fully featured game that brings back memories of the good old days of mindlessly simple yet madly entertaining FPS shootouts. With updated mechanics, graphics, lots of customization options and a payment model which allows it to be enjoyed spending as little as 0 pesos, it does so without impairing our vision with the infamous nostalgia-goggles syndrome. Beta-testing for Point Blank will begin soon, so those of you interested in having fun should keep an eye out for announcements by E-Games.

Kirby’s coming the Wii again in another epic title, but this time he returns in his former fleshy glory. Be prepared to absorb abilities and switch skins again, because he’s bringing back the classic power we all know and love.

So far, the project hasn’t been officially named yet. Judging from the trailer, though, it looks to be the Kirby that we missed out on in the last game. While Epic Yarn was a great experience in its own right, there’s just something about floating around, sucking and blowing all through levels to get to the end.

Meanwhile, at Nintendo…

There’s been one voice missing amidst all the buzz over Sony’s Next Generation Portable, and that’s Nintendo’s. While anybody would expect Sony’s main competitor in the handheld market to share a few choice words regarding their heavyweight contender, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has a very good reason for keeping quiet at the moment.

Around this time one year ago, Iwata made a comment about the Apple iPad. “It was a bigger iPod Touch”, Iwata told Associated Press, adding that the new device offered “no surprises”. “I didn’t say it with any positive and negative connotation,” Iwata remarked. However, the nuances of his statement were lost in translation between English and Japanese. “So then it became a story about how I trashed the iPad as just a bigger iPod Touch.”

This, of course, did not sit well at all with the iCrowd. “I read these remarks online and the situation had become almost surreal,” Iwata added. “So my view now is that it’s not good to even give my first impression.”

Did you hear that, Sony fans? Iwata says “it’s not good”!

Sources: Kotaku & Wall Street Journal

It’s either an exciting new game, or a trap

This little gem came up during a Nintendo investors meeting in Tokyo on the 28th. Aside from this photo, the website, and the spring release date, all we know about it is its title: Pandora’s Tower.

The subtitle reads “Until I return to your side.” Upon visiting the website, all that’s available is this same picture of a tattooed woman as well as a rather nice classical piano theme.

Considering the rather sparse list of confirmed Wii releases this year, perhaps Pandora’s Tower is worth keeping an eye out regardless of – or maybe even because of – its mysterious nature.

Source: Nintendo

March 27 is the due date for the glasses-free 3D handheld, so if you’re looking to buy one at launch – in the US, at least – you can expect to shell out a hefty $249 for the unit alone, and between $39.99 and $49.99 for every game thereafter. For a handheld, the price is high but not unheard of; the PSP retailed for the same price when it was first out in stores in 2005.

Converted into pesos at Php44.5 to a dollar puts the 3DS at around Php11,100. The games run from Php1,775 and Php2,200 using the same exchange rate, which is about the price of current PSP games (and some PC/console games for that matter). Whether or not the local stores stick to this price remains to be seen; when the PSP was brought into our shores, some establishments were gutsy enough to run them at Php15,000 – Php20,000 each, an unreasonably high tag for early adopters.

Sources: Kotaku & Kotaku

Wii + Math = Funducation

A fourth-grade math teacher has found a way to motivate kids into learning math, a typically deadpan class filled with as much fun as a can of beans. Thanks to a $300 grant offered by the Millville Board of Education, Robert Drewnowski hired a Nintendo Wii to be his new teaching assistant.

“We use it as an incentive in math,” Drewnowski said. “If the kids do all their work, they can play with the Wii. If you bring stuff like this in, it gets kids who never pay attention to pay attention. I want the kids to know they can have fun while they’re learning.”

Not only does the console provide a clear and needed motivator for his students, it also provides dynamic teaching material for Drewnowski to use during class. Wii Sports, Robert’s game of choice, outputs scores and other statistics which students are assigned to record. When playtime is over, work begins again as the numbers are plotted into and analyzed through different graphs and charts. The students also learn how to compute for the averages and gameplay statistics of their classmates.

“Three hundred dollars doesn’t sound like much, but it can go a long way if it’s used the right way,” Drewnowski said.

Source: The Daily Journal

Record ’80s-style video for $2 and an iOS device

In an age where megapixels are (unfortunately) on the rise and sensor size is (ideally) all the rage, the yearning for good old 8mm film is understandable. “8mm Vintage Camera” provides the means to dumb down that expensive, high tech little camera embedded in your iPhone/iTouch into something straight out of yesteryear.

The app provides options for changing between five different lenses (clear, flickering frame, spotlight, light leak, and color fringing), five types of film (1920, 70s, Sakura, Xpro, and Siena), and toggling the “jitter,” which is up/down displacement of frames in simulation of actual 8mm projectors. These settings don’t have to be preset prior to recording; they can be changed on the fly resulting in some very interesting effects.

If your device has both a rear and front-facing camera, the app allows you to choose which one to use for recording. There’s apparently no processing overhead while using the app, so it feels just as snappy as if recording video using the iOS’s built-in software. Just about the only thing the app doesn’t do in relation to 8mm film is to shoot stills. Hipstamatic, another $2 app, can do this for you if you’re so inclined to visit nostalgia avenue.

Source: Lifehacker

Newly-independent developer Harmonix Music Systems has announced on its forums that they will be dropping the Wii out of the Rock Band Network effective January 18, 2011.

“Next Tuesday, 1/18/2010, will also be the last scheduled batch of Rock Band Network songs brought over to the Wii,” Harmonix developer hmxhenry posts on the forum. “With the smaller online install base, limited demand for releases so far and the significant amount of work it takes for our producers and audio team to convert and process these additional tracks we’re no longer able to continue submitting RBN content to the Wii. Regular Wii DLC, and RBN releases for the 360 and PS3 will continue uninterrupted.”

Rock Band Network is a service which allows for bands to author, upload, and sell their own songs as DLC for the Rock Band games. Once uploaded, Harmonix staff prepare the songs and chart notes for various difficulty levels to make the tracks playable in-game. It’s likely that the recent sale of Harmonix from Viacom to Columbus Nova had much to do with this decision to drop Wii support on the Rock Band Network.

Wii Fit identifies Parkinson’s symptoms

Julie Wilks, British mother of two, couldn’t have known that a simple bout of Wii Fit with friends would break the news that something was not quite right with her body.

Despite performing excellently in many of the minigames, indeed netting a Wii Fit age 13 years younger than her actual, the game reported that her weight was being heavily distributed to the left side of the board, indicating an unbalanced posture. Though her friends laughed and insisted Julie was throwing the balance games on purpose, the event stuck in her mind.

After playing Wii Fit, Julie began to notice behavior which up until then seemed of little importance:

In the beginning the symptoms that I had were so subtle that I adapted myself without realising. I am left-handed but started texting on my phone and using the computer mouse with my right.

I started buying more sensible shoes with velcro and flat heels but never questioned why I felt odd in my stilettos and couldn’t walk safely in them any more.

When I knew something was definitely wrong I still didn’t get help because I thought I had sleep problems because of stress or vice versa.

I live alone so I had no one to notice I had a problem. At work I managed to muddle through but no one was sure what was wrong with me, apart from that I was always tired.

When Julie eventually visited a neurologist, her fears were confirmed as she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She remains optimistic, however, and is determined now to fulfill her dream of travelling Route 66. Julie has since set up a website asking for donations to help fund research to fight the disease.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/​health/article-1346557/Woman-​diagnosed-Parkinsons-noticing-​symptoms-playing-Wii-Fit.html

Playgerize

If you’ve owned an iTouch, iPhone, or iPad for any length of time in the past few years, you’ve probably heard of Gameloft. Founded by Michel Guillemot, brother of Yves Guillemot - the boss of Ubisoft - Gameloft has brought to the iOS quality titles worthy of the hardcore crowd. Finally, the Apple throng can play Gangstar: Miami Vindication, Starfront: Collision, and Shadow Guardian, games that are respectively similar to Grand Theft Auto, Starcraft, and Uncharted on their beloved mobile devices.

What’s the problem? Critics are concerned over how these games, and in fact all of Gameloft’s major iOS titles, are too similar to their inspirations. IGN questioned Guillemot about these claims of plagiarism.

The video game industry has always played around a limited number of themes. There is maybe one new idea a year," says Guillemot. He says that many games are just re-expressions of the same ideas and themes, such as the number of games that jumped on the Grand Theft Auto bandwagon or the rise in action games that are not entirely unlike God of War. (Incidentally, Gameloft has its own God of War-esque series, called Hero of Sparta.)

Guillemot defends Gameloft from this charge on two fronts. “If a type of game is not available, then you should make it. The damaging thing is if you do a bad expression of a good idea.

Two sides of the argument seem rooted on solid ground. On the one hand, copying ideas is a pretty low way for a developer to make a name for itself in the business. On the other hand, those games wouldn’t be available to a niche group if Gameloft hadn’t copied them. However, one thing seems evident: the quality of Gameloft’s rip-offs is good enough to believe that they could inject some originality in their releases, if they really wanted to.

Those of you waiting for a WiiWare version of the hit indie platformer Super Meat Boy (that means you two in the corner there), save yourselves the heartache; because of the service’s 40 megabyte file size limit, the game won’t be released on Nintendo’s virtual store.

The news came on Dec. 24 from Team Meat – the developers of Super Meat Boy – via their Twitter account. “ATTENTION: there will not be a Wiiware version of SMB. we are looking in to retail Wii, bit its also looking grim. still looking though.”

Confirmation about the maximum file size cap being the cause for cancellation came to Joystiq first. “There is no way to avoid the fact that if we released a 40MB version of Super Meat Boy it would be a shit version of the game,” Edmund McMillen of Team Meat told Joystiq. “It’s a lose-lose situation, but the fact of the matter is if we release a shitty game, we will have to live with that for the rest of our careers and have to cop to the fact that it is a shitty game.”

Among the cuts made in order to reduce the game’s size are high score leaderboards, Dark World levels, DLC support, and even music in boss fights and cutscenes.

It’s worth noting that while 40MB doesn’t seem like a lot to work with, some great games have managed to work with less. Nintendo 64 cartridges rarely held more than 32MB worth of data, and for a modern example, World of Goo – another indie underdog story – has already been published on WiiWare.

Yet another sports game for the Wii

Nintendo recently announced the release date of its latest compilation game, Mario Sports Mix. It’s slated to go on sale in the USA on February 7, 2011. Why not go for a Valentine’s Day release? Because Nintendo reserved February 14 for Dragon Quest VI on the DS, that’s why. What’s interesting to note about this particular minigame collection (because let’s face it, that’s what they are – small games) is that the team developing it isn’t Nintendo, but Square Enix instead.

The choice of developer involves more than just talent, but iconic characters as well. Aside from the usual lineup of Mario and the gang, playable characters include Ninja, Black Mage, White Mage, Moogle, and Cactuar. Sorry, ladies, no Cloud, Squall, or Sazh for you!

Mario Sports Mix pits up to four players against each other in basketball, volleyball, dodgeball, and/or hockey teams. Choice of multiplayer includes local and online flavors.

Lara Croft reboots on the iOS

Critically acclaimed Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light flips over to the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad after making her debut on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms earlier this year. How much of the original did Square Enix manage to cram into the portable iOS? Quite a lot, actually.

The isometric, action-oriented and arcade-inspired Lara Croft reboot translates quite well to the iOS’s sparse controls. On the consoles and PC, the primary actions – moving and shooting – followed a dual analog stick control scheme, with the left controlling movement and the right pointing the guns and firing. The secondary controls like jumping and dodging, however, fall prey to the usual problem of finicky, sometimes unresponsive on-screen buttons. Touchpad controls are never perfect replacements, and Guardian of Light is no exception from getting it only half right.

In terms of graphics, the game still looks stunning on the iPhone/iPod Touch, and it’s available in HD for the iPad, probably because the details are too small to be judged as critically as on the consoles. The reduced screen size does make it a pain to locate Lara sometimes, especially considering how small she was rendered in the console versions.

All in all, it’s a well-done port that falls prey to the usual problems of iOS games not designed with touchscreen controls or a 4-inch screen in mind. Thankfully, multiplayer via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on the iOS is provided right off the bat, something the console cousins have had to wait for.

Players assume the role of Martin Walker, captain of an elite Delta Force team, on a mission to save one Colonel John Konrad. Konrad, one of the Delta Force founding members, was stranded in Dubai following a series of devastating sandstorms. Walker and his squad must push through armed outlaws and brave the harsh elements to seek and rescue the Colonel, and to find out why a distress signal from him was detected by the army only after several weeks of silence.

Of all the features the game offers – the website states the usual pitches, including riveting action sequences, a mature storyline, unique settings and breathtaking graphics – perhaps the most novel is the dynamic sandstorms, which are generated in random locations with variable intensity. The shifting dunes can block off or clear up paths, or even open up chasms from right under the enemies’ – or the player’s – feet.

All in all, Spec Ops: The Line looks to be a solid game. At the moment, it seems to stick with the tried-and-true formula of Gears of War and Call of Duty, while providing a new and interesting mechanic with the dynamic sandstorms. This is a title for PS3, Xbox360, and PC gamers to keep an eye on.

Minecraft

If you haven’t yet heard of Minecraft, you need to visit more videogame sites. This is possibly the indie game that has produced the most noise of them all, in terms of publicity through blogs, trackbacks, and word of mouth. The popular explanation of Minecraft is LEGO with monsters, where you mine blocks and craft them into tools. Of course, this description does little to explain the technical masterpiece.

To get in-depth, imagine a world made entirely out of cube blocks. It doesn’t matter how you imagine it; every world is randomly and procedurally generated, so no two playthroughs are alike. Trees, leaves, mountains, water, even the animals and monsters that inhabit it are made of these blocks. And every single one of these blocks can be manipulated – destroyed, gathered, refined into other items, or replaced into the world – by you.

World of Goo

Creating a game that everyone enjoys is difficult enough. Creating a game that everyone enjoys, that wins numerous indie game awards, that gets noticed and published by Nintendo, and that is entirely about droplets of goo is a totally different beast. The premise is to guide these sentient goo balls (that look like creatures straight out of Spirited Away) into pipelines that lead to the next level, by organizing them into structures – bridges, towers, scaffolding – that conform to simplified laws of physics.

Developed by two ex-EA employees, had a rocky start. Kyle Gabler, fresh out of college, had a student loan of $60,000 to take care of. He and his partner, Ron Carmel, worked on the game entirely out of free Wi-Fi-enabled coffee shops. The budget for their work was also their living expenses. Yet, despite their financial woes, they remained “stupidly optimistic,” and World of Goo was the result.

Mount & Blade

There are some things that come naturally to married couples. Finishing each others’ sentences, sharing food and feeding each other, and raising kids all come to mind. It would be rude to call whatever spurred Armağan Yavuz, founder of TaleWorlds, and his wife, İpek Yavuz to create a videogame together as “unnatural,” but it certainly is delightfully rare.

Mount & Blade – and its sequel, Mount & Blade: Warband – is, in as few words as possible, a medieval combat simulator. Fans of the game praise its combat mechanics, which go beyond the normal “press A to swing horizontally, B to swing vertically” trend. Using mouse gestures and timed clicking to deliver lethal blows is strangely satisfying and refreshing.

Warband expands on the original’s singleplayer campaign with enhanced AI, an additional faction, and online multiplayer modes.

Rhythm Zone

Have you ever wanted to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero to songs like Harana, Tadhana, or Yugto? Maybe you’re a closet Glee fan (can’t say Gleek, it’s trademarked – wait, does that count?) and would love to play their renditions of Poison, Physical, or Toxic? For whatever reason, maybe the song you wanted to perform isn’t on one of these popular rhythm games. Well, you can’t always get what you want, but don’t stop believing, because the dog days are over.

Rhythm Zone, developed by indie company Sonic Boom Games – who also made other games you’ve probably never heard of such as Redneck Racing and Alice in Bomberland – allows you to load up your own personal music collection and tap to their unique beats. While it isn’t perfect (sometimes the note choices seem too random), Sonic Boom deserves credit for taking an obvious idea and going with it.

The Chzo Mythos

You may know Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw from his popular videogame review series “Zero Punctuation,” where he spews out line after line of criticism with nary a pause between words. As if that, and his trilby hat, doesn’t make him awesome enough, Yahtzee also wrote his own videogames once upon a time.

The Chzo Mythos is the collective name of four suspense/horror adventure games Yahtzee made between 2003 and 2007. They are, in order of plot, 5 Days a Stranger, Trilby’s Notes, 6 Days a Sacrifice, and 7 Days a Skeptic. Anybody with a Lovecraft bone in their body will take to these games, as there are elements similar to the Cthulu Mythos.

Yahtzee has won many AGS awards for these games, including but not limited to Best Story, Best Scripting, Best Dialogue, and of course, Best Game. The series is available for free on his website.

Dokutsu Monogatari (Cave Story)

What have you done during your breaks lately? Daisuke Amaya, known as Pixel, made one of the most beloved indie games on the Internet in over five years worth of free time. Since its release in 2004 it has slowly gained popularity, until finally reaching Nintendo who published it on their WiiWare service in 2010. It’s a platform adventure game with elements from Metroid and Castlevania, yet its size and scope dwarfs both.

Critically acclaimed for its compelling story and smooth, simple gameplay which – reminiscent of the classics – teaches without the need for tutorials, Cave Story is an excellent example of how a dedicated, passionate, and talented individual can still create a game that can stand beside giants. The game is available for free on the PC, and for 1200 Points ($12) on the WiiWare service.

Next year looks like a slow one for the Wii, especially compared to the first-party-filled 2010. Titles to expect include de Blob 2, Conduit 2, Lost in Shadow, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, LEGO Pirates of the Carribean, MLB 2K11, Mario Sports Mix, and possibly the highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - though Nintendo has yet to state an official release date. Note that this is not an exhaustive list.

Paltry as the list may be, bear in mind that Nintendo is mum about any information on their plans for holiday titles. Nintendo fans were pleasantly surprised by three major games this holiday season; namely, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Epic Mickey, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. Also remember that March 2011 is the release of the Nintendo 3DS, if the company keeps to their schedule. The opening lineup for the much awaited autostereoscopic handheld is impressive to say the least, and with hardware that supposedly eclipses the Wii’s, it’s within all expectations that developers who already have the 3DS SDKs are concentrating on the device. We’ll also get to see if the rumor about an HD-enabled “Wii 2,” which has floated around the Internet since September 2008, is anything other than hot air.

Breathe new life into your aging Wii

For many Wii owners out there, their pearly white consoles have been gathering dust in a forgotten corner of their room for quite some time now. The good games are too few and far between, and let’s face it; the Wii gets a bad rap most of the time for its SD graphics, even though it’s had a great run of highly entertaining and innovative games, some of them with beautiful art styles that simply work despite the lack of any HD capability.

Where the Wii lacks in power compared to its rivals, it makes up for with a strong and dedicated homebrew community. For those unfamiliar with the term, I won’t hide the fact that a large and essential part of the homebrew culture involves hacking. However, the intent of such practice is mostly benign, the heart of which is to simply push the limits of the console and enable it load software created by the community. For example, WiiMC (http://www.wiimc.org/) enables the Wii to function as a feature-packed media player capable of playing audio, video, online media (YouTube, SHOUTcast, Navi-X), and pictures loaded on either an SD card or through the Wii’s USB slots. On older Wiis (any Wii prior to the black model), the DVD slot can even be used to play DVD movies. There are many other examples of amazing homebrew software, including the ScummVM emulator, Riivolution (which patches games in realtime, allowing hacks such as custom levels for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, for example), and even some Linux distributions customized for the Wii.

The most comprehensive and simple guide for softmodding (software modification; hacking the Wii requires no hardware installation) your Wii can be found here (http://sites.google.com/site/​completesg/). The process is safe, however power interruptions and carelessness could potentially brick the console, turning it into an expensive paperweight. Do so at your own risk, and note that Game! does not support piracy.

iPad freebies for you and your cat

Are you a cat lover? Do you love your cat enough to lend it your iPad? If so, you may want to treat your feline friend to Game for Cats (http://www.ipadgameforcats.​com/), an iPad app specifically tailored for the preferably de-clawed pet. Self-advertised as “The World’s Best Video Game (for cats, not humans),” the app comes with two modes: Chase a Laser, which simulates all the fun of leading your cat on a merry goose chase using an ever uncatchable laser without any of the work; and Chase a Mouse, which one can only imagine to be infinitely frustrating for the cat who will never be able to satisfy itself with the kill - or the bloody mess that follows.

For those of you without cats (why don’t you have cats?), ZeptoLab has released a free version of their famous and addictive game, Cut the Rope, as a “thank you” to all the fans who helped keep the game at the top of the iTunes game sales charts. Available at the iTunes App Store (http://itunes.apple.com/us/​app/cut-the-rope-holiday-gift/​id406513121?mt=8) for an indefinite duration, Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift doesn’t require owning the original Cut the Rope, or any other ZeptoLab game for that matter. It features 25 additional Christmas-themed levels, achievements for those inclined to show off, and a new Portal-like mechanic, “Christmas Socks,” which catches candy in one end and spits it out the other for a new layer of puzzle-solving brain drain.

Whether you’re a cat, a cat-lover, or someone who couldn’t give a damn about cats (why!?), there’s something free for you at the iTunes App Store this holiday season.

If there’s one thing Nintendo does well, it’s taking care of their long-time fans. Get ready for a big serving of nostalgia cream pie, because the Ninty guys have continued in the same vein as the New Super Mario Bros. and the recent Metroid games in reviving their classics. As usual, there’s plenty of new flavor to complement the old spice that made the series so revolutionary in the first place.

The first thing that will bring back the memories of a golden age in gaming, right from the title screen, is the music. Every theme has been faithfully remade, so those familiar with the series should be taken right back to the SNES days, and newcomers are sure to get a taste of what made DK’s jungle beats so catchy in the first place. The sounds are colorful and vibrant, but occasionally DK does sound awkward even considering his apish ways.

Graphically, Nintendo has been pushing the limits of the Wii, and all their talents show in this game. Every single level is in full polygonal 3D, and beautifully textured. Everything moves, from the flowers to the tree canopies, even to the pillars of rock in the background. All of this lends to the smooth and fluid experience the game offers, down to the controls - although you can always rely on the ground-pound motion control to disrupt your chi if it ever gets too peaceful.

Whether playing solo or with a partner, the game is a challenge and a blast, definitely among the best Wii titles this year. 

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 5
• Sounds: 4.5
• Fun Factor: 5
• Replayability: 4
• Overall Score: 4.6

Ever since Goldeneye, few Bond games were developed beyond mediocrity.  Lately, however, the quality of games starring MI6’s superspy has been steadily rising. One may wonder if the new Bond face has anything to do with that, and rightfully so; Daniel Craig’s portrayal of the formerly debonair secret agent arguably translates into videogames with more fluidity and comes apropos to the genre.

For what it’s worth, Blood Stone has a good campaign mode. Its plot isn’t far off from what one would expect from a Bond movie, and all the traditional elements are there: the car, the girl, the smartphone (technically it should be a wristwatch, but come on, this is 2010), and the PPK. Fans will appreciate the effort put into making the game seem canonical to the Bond universe.

The gameplay relies on mostly tried-and-true mechanics. The cover system is responsive, which is necessary in a third-person shooter. There’s immense satisfaction to be had with the melee takedowns, and the Focus Aim system (exactly the same as Splinter Cell: Converson’s “Mark and Execute” system) is a welcome reward for the risk of going melee.

Monotony is abated via the car chase sequences, and there’s always the 16-player online modes to try out for replay value. That said, the game doesn’t break any new ground, which pretty much says it all about most things Bond-related.

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 3
• Sounds: 4
• Fun Factor: 4
• Replayability: 3
• Overall Score: 3.5

Any gamer worth their salt is wary of videogame-movie tie-ins. These games may have decent graphics and sometimes even enlist the voice talents of the actors and actresses starring in the film release, but more often than not the gameplay is lackluster. Notable exceptions include Goldeneye and the Chronicles of Riddick games, both of which are sometimes considered even better than the movies they were based on.

In all honesty, Tron: Evolutions is fine. It’s not as good as Spiderman 2 or Lego Star Wars, or even the previous Tron game, Tron 2.0. However, it’s definitely not as bad as Transformers: The Game or 300: March to Glory. At its worst moments, Tron: Evolutions is repetitive, frustrating, and just plain bland. However, it does have its shining moments. Fans of Prince of Persia and maybe Assassin’s Creed might appreciate the fast-paced combat and movement mechanics, which are heavily influenced by Capoeira and parkour respectively. Free running in this game even makes sense, where the digital landscape defies traditional architecture.

Perhaps the two biggest draws this game has are its story and multiplayer modes. While the plot isn’t spectacular – and in fact is very cliché – it does serve as a prequel to the events of the Tron: Legacy movie. Tron fans may be interested in checking the game out for that reason alone. Multiplayer modes include team and FFA deathmatch, CTF, and light cycle racing, which is worth a try at least once in a gamer’s life.

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 4
• Sounds: 4
• Fun Factor: 3
• Replayability: 3
• Overall Score: 3.5

If you’re looking for a stylish, sturdy, and straightforward laptop that features full HD and packs a Blu-ray Disc drive, then look no further. The 15.5” Vaio E comes equipped with all this and more, at a reasonable price per pound. With the latest Intel Core i5-460M 2.53GHz processor paired with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics accelerator, it’s definitely got the power needed to not only run those beautiful BDs, but the latest games as well. Unfortunately, with an advertised battery life of just 2 hours, this laptop won’t be straying far from an outlet most of the time.

If your on-the-go needs must be satisfied, try the

13.1” Sony Vaio Z Series (VPCZ137GG)

Sporting an Intel Core i5-580M 2.66GHz (with Turbo Boost up to 3.33GHz!) processor, an NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics card, dual 64GB SSD memory in RAID 0 configuration, and 6GB DDR3 RAM – upgradeable to 8GB, naturally – this is a seriously breathtaking piece of equipment, but it’s got that asphyxiating pricetag to go with it. Still, for those lucky enough to adopt one, the Vaio Z is as well-crafted as it is well-stocked; it’s fully armored in multi-layered carbon fiber, which looks great and helps keep it as light as the new Macbook Air. Add the chiclet-style, seamless aluminium keyboard with its subtle green backlighting and you have a machine that simply oozes sexiness. Can you smell the pheromones already?

Neither of these configurations are available in the Philippines yet (less impressive configurations are, however), so you’ll have to keep it in your pants – your wallet, of course! – until they get here.

Price:

Sony Vaio E: ~P70,000
Sony Vaio Z: ~P156,000

Price in peso: P2150.00

This game can be accurately reviewed with just a single word: “adorable.” There’s so much cuteness going on in here, you’d wonder if the entire dev team was celebrating Bring Your Daughter to Work Day every day for the duration of its development.  Unfortunately, since it simply won’t do to fill up this space with “cute cute cute, pink pink pink, desu desu desu,” a more in-depth review than “it looks like Yoshi’s Story” is in order.

Its “E” rating sounds about right; obviously the ESRB judges this by its graphic content, but I’m talking about overall playability. It’s incredibly friendly. Not “easy,” because even if something’s easy, failing is possible. The epitome of the game’s friendliness lies in the fact that Kirby cannot die. Nothing will kill Kirby to cause a stage restart, whether it’s falling, getting stabbed, or even inhaling dragon’s breath.

The controls are simple, too, in the same vein as classic platformers. Aside from the occasional motion control segments which only come out during some of Kirby’s vehicular transformations, there are only six buttons to worry about; up, down, left, right, 1, and 2. The controls are so straightforward that my sister, who has never played a videogame in her life, was able to complete several stages with me in 2-player mode.

Easy on the eyes as well as the fingers, the only thing left to decide is whether or not Kitby’s Epic Yarn is easy on the wallet. It’s definitely a must-see title for Wii owners.

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 5
• Sounds: 4
• Fun Factor: 4
• Replayability: 4
• Overall Score: Cute

Price in peso: P2,200.00 ($49.95), P3,100.00 Limited Edition ($69.95)

Not many people know about Stardock Entertainment, regardless of the critical acclaim the developer manages to accrue. Due to this, Elemental: War of Magic is a title you’ve not likely heard of, especially with it sandwiched between the releases of Starcraft II and Civilization V, among others. It’s also a title you likely won’t hear about again, because despite Stardock’s successes with their previous titles, Elemental: War of Magic just isn’t as polished as it could be.

To be fair, the game should have garnered more hype considering what it promised to deliver. A 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) game imbued with RPG elements and 16-player online multiplayer with varied game modes and randomized maps is a huge cake to bake, and the refreshing art style and fully customizable units – not just the heroes but the armies, too – makes for delicious icing. However, it’s the map, spell effect, and character editing tools supplied with the game that serves as the proverbial cherry on top. This all amounts to an enormous undertaking which few other games of this genre have even attempted to pull off. While not necessarily a lie, this cake simply is too big for any one company to handle.

It’s only been several weeks into release and the game has already been patched eight times. While the vast majority of PC games don’t ever reach eight patches, most of them don’t see the need for it. What this does prove is that the Stardock team is fast at work trying to stamp out the numerous bugs left in the game, and to actually release a working multiplayer portion (disabled and unavailable at the time of this review), which was and still is an advertised feature of Elemental: War of Magic. This does not, however, reverse the damage done by a poorly-planned release; only graceful, excellent PR can rectify this, which – to date – is something Stardock seems capable of doing right.

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 4
• Sounds: 3
• Fun Factor: 2
• Replayability: 3
• Overall Score: 3

Chief among those critiques were its Core 2 Duo CPU and no option for a matte screen. Alienware took note of these points and decided to release a new version of the M11x, which they call “Revision 2,” or R2. Only one of these issues have been addressed, and it isn’t the matte screen.

The R2 now comes equipped with Intel “Arrandale” Core i5/i7 CPUs, which means faster performance overall. However, these new CPUs are not ultra-low voltage, meaning reduced battery life should be expected. Also available with the new line of Intel processors is Nvidia’s Optimus technology, which allows for on-the-fly switching between the integrated Intel graphics and the Nvidia GeForce GT 335M video card. This means you can save the big guns for gaming and let the less intense integrated graphics take over for web browsing or word processing, saving battery life when the extra power isn’t needed.

While the lack of a matte screen option is disappointing, the fact that the M11x is, even up to now, one of a kind means that there’s still no contest in choosing an extremely portable gaming laptop. For what it was built to do, it exceeds expectations, capable of playing Left 4 Dead 2 at full settings and, yes, even running Crysis.

Price in peso: P900.00 ($19.99), P2700.00 for Four-pack ($59.97, 4 copies for the price of 3)

It’s been ten years since we’ve had a brand new 2D Worms game, so the new Worms: Reloaded by Team 17 - the series’ original developers - serves as a refreshing reminder of the simpler days of gaming, where the concerns were about how much fun one could have with his or her friends by blowing each other to bits instead of how high one’s graphics settings can be configured to without exploding the computer. In bringing about sweet pangs of nostalgia, Worms: Reloaded succeeds well; many of the classic weapons and voicesets return, and the team customization is even more diverse than before. The game faces the test of time by sporting high-definition graphics and slick, smooth animation, so - unlike trying to play old classics that have never been updated since their release - the nostalgia won’t fade away into disappointment.

Some may still be wary about Reloaded not holding up well against its predecessors, Worms: Armageddon and World Party. Much comparison to the older games has been published, but as a game on its own, it stands well. I’ll leave this as food for thought: as a fan of the series, Reloaded - with its classic formula of providing pure, unadulterated fun - satisfies my craving for that old-school, manic mayhem.

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 4
• Sounds: 4
• Fun Factor: 5
• Replayability: 5
• Overall Score: 4.5

Astute gamers would know that these last couple months see releases that can completely overshadow games released earlier in the year, and the same can be said about 2010’s holiday line-up. This year brings a lot of exciting new titles to the table, and hopefully there will be something for every gamer in this list.

First up is the highly anticipated, hotly debated Kinect by Microsoft. Its scheduled release date was announced way back in January, at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, so people have had plenty of time to talk about this new accessory. It promises a paradigm shift in the way games will be played, much like the way the Nintendo Wii was promoted, but on a larger scale; instead of remotes, Kinect utilizes a camera facing the player, which then captures and inputs his or her full-body actions into supported games. Although heavily marketed for the Xbox 360, it is supposed to be compatible with PCs as well. Kinect isn’t a game itself, but Fable III, coming out on October 26 for the PC and Xbox 360, has been announced to utilize Kinect in some way, and Microsoft has promised 15 accompanying launch titles for the peripheral.

While we’re on that topic, there are plenty of reasons to add Fable III to your shopping list even if Natal doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, thanks to a few significant extra features that should appeal to all its fans. Good and evil actions now have tangible effects; one major way this manifests itself is through the changing appearance and properties of your weapon depending on the character’s moral compass. Some tweaks to combat have been made, particularly in the magic system. All spells can now be cast at maximum power right from the start, and up to two spell gauntlets can now be equipped, resulting in unique spell combinations. Both these changes heighten the level of action and possibilities in the game. Multiplayer has also been overhauled in Fable III, which now allows another player to drop into your game using his or her own hero character, complete with equipment, inventory, and pet. The second player also no longer is restricted to stay within the host player’s viewing range and can freely explore the kingdom and world the host built. No longer relegated to henchman status, the two players’ characters can even marry each other, regardless of gender, and bear or adopt their own children.

On the Sony side of things, Gran Turismo 5 is being marketed as the season star, even potentially dwarfing the releases by Microsoft and Nintendo, but many have their eyes on Little Big Planet 2. Both games are to be released by mid-November, both are PS3 exclusives, and both games are on this list because of just how huge they are. The Gran Turismo games are beloved classics among racing fans, and - if you don’t count the Prologue version - GT5 will be the first version of the series to end up on the console. It boasts a long list of new features, including online multiplayer with up to 16 other people, optional stereoscopic-3D, and both mechanical and visible, physical damage to the car exteriors. Of course, the game also expands on its staple ingredients, offering 70 tracks, 20 locations, and an astounding 1000 cars. As if all this wasn’t enough, recently announced additions include “Course Maker,” - a simple yet powerful track editor, which means a potentially infinite number of tracks - and believe it or not, kart racing.

Little Big Planet 2 also promises a substantial expansion to the tools available in its first iteration, the most anticipated of which is the Direct Control feature. Using a tool called the Controlinator, buttons on the PS3 controller can be mapped to any object in the game level! This effectively allows level makers to create not just new levels, but entirely new ways to play the game; for example, instead of controlling Sackboy at all, a level could give the player command over a vehicle, turning LBP2 into a racing game. The toolset also includes customizable characters in the form of Sackbots, cinematic tools to film your own LBP2 machinima, custom voice-acting to narrate your own levels, and enhanced control over logic and AI. For LBP1 owners, worry not; all previous content - levels, costumes, and other DLC - can be used in the sequel, as it is fully backwards-compatible.

Let’s not forget about Nintendo, which has a couple of big names coming soon as well. Epic Mickey is Disney’s refresh of their entire franchise, bringing us back to the golden age of the studio with its classic - yet forgotten - characters. It shows us the more mischievous side of Mickey, and a darker, more twisted version of the cartoons of old. One way to describe it is as a Kingdom Hearts without the SquareEnix, with an improved version of Okami’s Celestial Brush mechanics. Preliminary trailers and videos exhibit Epic Mickey as a game with plenty of potential, and at the very least, Disney deserves some props for going back to its roots and veering away from the teenybopper, high school live action series they spam every year.

Last but not least on the list is Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which is the first time Nintendo’s adorable, portable black hole has visited a console since Kirby Air Ride for the Gamecube in 2003. Its pre-release won Best Graphics awards from several websites, despite titles such as Crysis 2, Gears of War 3, and Killzone 3 contending for the distinction. As the name suggests, the entire world and cast of this game will be illustrated in yarn, offering a unique visual experience reminiscent of Yoshi’s Story. Old and new fans alike will instantly fall in love with Nintendo’s pink protagonist once the game is released in October 17.

There are a number of additional titles which are bound to come out before the end of the year, so it behooves a prudent gift-buyer to shop around. It’s a shame that some big titles won’t be available until next year, such as Dragon Age 2 and, thanks to the mystery of Valve time, the recently delayed Portal 2. However, those are games to usher in a brand new year. For now, we can look forward to these six awesome releases in letting 2010 go with a bang!

Price in peso: 0.00 (Absolutely free, just download Steam)

Fresh on Steam is the free-to-play, action packed shooter, Alien Swarm. Reminiscent of Left 4 Dead, but with a bird’s eye view of the field, up to four players each control one of eight characters in bug-infested, objective-based missions. The characters, referred to as IAF marines, each belong to a class: Officers provide a passive damage boost to the team; Weapons Specialists can wield the awesome autogun, capable of single-handedly covering an entire flank from a bug horde; Medics keep the team healthy, with a group-healing medical beacon as well as a single-target medigun; Techs, often required by the mission objectives, are able to hack open doors and computers via a simple mini game.

Aside from the sheer thrill of having to survive through and endlessly-spawning swarm of alien adversaries, the game will keep you coming back with its class-based mechanics, level-up and promotion system, unlockable arsenal of no less than 40 weapons and equipment, and 64 Steam achievements. As if that wasn’t enough, the kind souls over at Valve have included the full source and SDK with the download, making it easy for modders and mappers to add maps or entire campaigns to supplement the official one, or even change the way the game works. Now that’s dedication for you.

Thousands of gamers have flocked to download this freebie already. Come on and join the Swarm!

Scorecard: (Rate using 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.)

• Graphics: 3
• Sounds: 4
• Fun Factor: 5
• Replayability: 5
• Overall Score: 4.5

• r/PHGamers re-opened in Restricted Mode
• r/PHBuildaPC re-opened, new head mod: u/its_ianph
• Last update: July 21, 2023 at 6:00PM PT
• For more up-to-date info, please inquire at the Discord server.

Background

Hello everyone, I’ll try to keep this short. As mentioned in our previous announcement, we intended to get Reddit’s attention on a subject that our team found extremely concerning. r/PHGamers & r/PHBuildaPC are joining a larger coordinated protest and signing an open letter to the admins found here.

The announcement was of exceedingly high API prices which is a thinly-veiled attempt to intentionally kill third-party applications (3PAs) on Reddit (Apollo, Sync, Reddit is Fun, Boost, Relay, etc.) Since that post, it has become clear that Reddit is not willing to listen to its users or the mod teams from many of its largest communities on this matter. Yesterday, all major 3PAs announced that they would be shutting down on the 30th of June due to these changes. There were no negotiations and Reddit refused to extend the deadlines. The rug was pulled out from under them and by extension all of the users who rely on those tools to use and/or moderate Reddit.

In addition to this, the AMA hosted by Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit—which was intended to alleviate concerns held by many users about these issues—was nothing short of a collage of inappropriate responses. There are many things to take away from this AMA but here are the key points. Most disappointingly it appears that Reddit outright misconstrued the actions of Apollo’s creator /u/iamthatis by saying that he threatened Reddit and leaked private phone calls, something done only to clear his name of another accusation.

So what’s happening? The TL;DR? Effective 24 hours from the publishing of this post, r/PHGamers & r/PHBuildaPC will be shut down indefinitely. In the unlikely scenario that Reddit ownership has a sudden change of heart and capitulates on their decisions, we will reopen. Until that happens, r/PHGamers & r/PHBuildaPC will stay closed. Many other communities have come to similar decisions and we support those who have decided to take a stand.

Short FAQ

Q: Where will we go?

A: I am looking into starting up an old-school forum-based solution for r/PHGamers and r/PHBuildaPC. As a self-hosted solution, the content and data contributed there will be completely self-owned (except for anything shared via offsite servers like Imgur/Facebook, of course). Development of this forum will take time. Until then, our Discord server remains open to accommodate any of those who wish to continue discussing amongst the community. Discord is not the end-goal; it, too, can and will present the same or similar problems that Reddit currently poses to us. Please bear with me as I work to prepare our new home.

Q: Won’t Reddit just remove you as moderators and reopen the subreddit?

A: This is a distinct possibility, Reddit has made it clear that the “health” of their site is more important to them than the people who built its communities. We as a team are prepared for this; none of us want to continue to volunteer unpaid hours for a company that disrespects the people who helped build it into the front page of the Internet.

Q: An indefinite lockdown? I thought this was only supposed to be for 48 hours?

A: The 48-hour blackout was largely adopted as the de-facto plan by many participating subreddits, however in the original announcement we made on r/PHGamers, it was left open-ended. Originally it was our intention to spread awareness of these issues, but over the past week it has become clear that Reddit doesn’t intend to act in good faith, and our role in the protest became clear. The owners of Reddit have taken their users, community developers, and their moderator teams for granted and used them to build up a multimillion dollar company which is now focused not on the community, but on how many commas they can get out of Silicon Valley investors.

Q: What can we as users do to support this protest?

A: The best way you can make your opinion known is by stopping your use of Reddit entirely. At the very least you can try and reduce your usage of the site, consider using alternatives such as Tildes which I’ve personally found to be a nice change of pace from the traditional Reddit experience. However, we realize this is a tall ask for a lot of you who also use Reddit for its other communities, research and information-gathering, and whatnot. I personally will not hold anything against anyone for staying on Reddit. You even have my blessing to create your own r/PHGamers2 or r/PHBuildaPC2, if you so pleased.

Goodbye

Thank you to everyone who has helped make r/PHGamers and r/PHBuildaPC such special places, was fun while it lasted. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Yours in truth,
JP

Participating Subreddits

• Plain Text List
• Pretty List
• Top Subs

Protest Information

• r/ModCoord
• r/Save3rdPartyApps

Announcements

Blackout and Reddit API in the Media

Giveaway Instructions

1. Find the gaming references made in the opening post you just came from (there is one in every single paragraph, 8 total)
2. List the games they refer to and post the list as a comment in the same post
   • Don’t be surprised if your comment is removed shortly after you post it; this is to hide the answers from other potential guessers
3. At the end of your comment, copy-paste this keyphrase: cakeday-giveaway-23
4. If you’re among the first 3 players to successfully name all 8 games correctly, your username will be immortalized below and you will be contacted to claim your prize

List of winners

Congratulations to the following Redditors who found this page and won the game!

1. u/ThighsEnthusiast77
2. u/decayedramen
3. u/notanavidanimefan
4. u/MierinEronaile (Consolation prize)