[Coq de Combat]

Just FYI: The HP Elitebook 8570w actually has a quite capable sound card. I can't tell if it's a good DAC, AMP or a combination of them, but it drives my headphones actually quite well. I'd definitely say it's comparable to my fiio e10 - something my own vaio hasn't really been able to do. It's most probably not in the same league as some of the stuff you guys own, but it's good enough for me to leave the e10 at home when being at work.
 
Also, going crunchbang was a both good and bad experience. Crunchbang will always have a special place in my heart, and in a way it's a lot better than it used to be (the inclusion of install scripts impressed me), however, in some ways it's not. For example, for some odd reason I just wasn't able to install libssl0.9.8 which for some odd reason is used by spotify instead of more uptodate packages. This resulted in me not being able to use spotify without wine, which in and off itself created quite a few problems for me. I'm not sure if there actually was something wrong with my instance of Crunchbang, but I never had this much problems in the past with Crunchbang. Nimble, responsive, lightweight and OMGITSBEAUTIFUL, but ohmy did it not work well. Yep, Crunchbang isn't meant for beginners with every configuration being textbased and I have no problems with that. My gripe is with it not functioning at all as it should. As said, it's probably a case of a bad installation or a bad iso or something, but it just gave me too much of an unstable vibe that I won't be messing with it. Such a shame as I used to love crunchbang. However, time to move on.
 
Oh well, I can't decide on whether or not I should go with an I5 3570K, I7 3770K or an FX 8350. Two of them are reasonably "cheap" and probably more on par with eachother than is said on most forums. Oh well. 
 
Edit: I know I've asked before, but where is maverickronin? Has he moved on to effinringin full time or has he given up on forums all together or what?

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

 
When I ranked MGS4 as the best game ever, I didn't think of MGS4 alone. MGS4 is a game that ties up the loose ends of of its predecessors - the original Metal Gear 1 & 2 on MSX, MGS1, 2, 3, and Portable Ops - and brings a conclusion to the series. I don't know if you've played all these previous games before tackling the MGS4, but I have and I really don't recommend anyone from playing MGS4 if you haven't played the rest of them. Otherwise you'll be missing a lot of fun.

 
To clarify, I've played MGS 1, 2, and 3. I went into MGS4 well acquainted with the series.
 
 

Quote:

MGS4 answers every question, and wraps up the series in a cathartic way.

 
A lack of resolution was never really the issue for me. If anything, the attempt to tie up every single loose end is what resulted in said resolution being a bit weak for me. Oh, you can be sure everything will be explained. Down to every last excruciating detail.
 
I get that you're a huge fan of the series, and I can see how it would be satisfying as a result. It's a game for die-hard fans of the series. As it ought to be. I wish BioWare would have retained the same spirit with their games rather than making them "accessible" for people who have never touched a BioWare game before. The end of a series is no place for newcomers IMHO.
 
For me, it just felt like too much of a pastiche of its own impact on the gaming industry. Breaking the fourth wall is fine (and certainly nothing new). However it was too self aware for my liking. Hideo spent too much energy celebrating himself. For example, I felt he was overconfident in his ability to pull gags out of his hat at inopportune moments, thinking he could retain the dramatic pacing of the whole thing through his masterful story telling, so when it didn't quite work it caused the game to feel stilted and awkward. It's clear he deeply respects Snake, and he treats his characters like old friends when he has a go at them, but he needs to respect the player in the role of Snake more. Not just Snake who exists apart from the player.
 
I think the biggest issue with MGS4 is that it came out too late. By the time it was finally released, the industry moved well on, and the gameplay felt dinosauric. If anything Old Snake was the perfect metaphor for the series itself: a living relic no longer in his glory days. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with nostalgic gameplay. However the sneaking element didn't age well when brought into the immense arena of the fourth game, as it had to be too carefully doled out to the player to compensate for the massive narrative structure. And thus we come back to my previously stated qualm: too much of the game was shown to you in cutscenes and barely controllable set pieces.
 
MGS3 was the best in the main series from a pure gameplay standpoint for me. It mixed survival with sneaking, forced you to make gameplay decisions in a more significant manner.
 
MGS2 was the best in the series from a pure narrative standpoint. It got its pacing right. It has a much stronger sense of atmosphere. It used confusion to its advantage.

 
Just my opinion, nothing more.

 

[Sylverant]

Quote:

 

From what I've read in the "what is your job in real life?" thread, he's been working 50+ hour weeks lately.

To be honest I don't know anything about AMD processors, other than that their laptop cpu's can't seem to compete with intel lately. I'd hope that their desktop cpus are a different story. I have an i7-3770K but from what I've seen, if you went with the i5-3570K I doubt it would be the bottleneck in a high-end gaming computer.

 

[songmic]

Quote:

 
To clarify, I've played MGS 1, 2, and 3. I went into MGS4 well acquainted with the series.
 
 

 
A lack of resolution was never really the issue for me. If anything, the attempt to tie up every single loose end is what resulted in said resolution being a bit weak for me. Oh, you can be sure everything will be explained. Down to every last excruciating detail.
 
I get that you're a huge fan of the series, and I can see how it would be satisfying as a result. It's a game for die-hard fans of the series. As it ought to be. I wish BioWare would have retained the same spirit with their games rather than making them "accessible" for people who have never touched a BioWare game before. The end of a series is no place for newcomers IMHO.
 
For me, it just felt like too much of a pastiche of its own impact on the gaming industry. Breaking the fourth wall is fine (and certainly nothing new). However it was too self aware for my liking. Hideo spent too much energy celebrating himself. For example, I felt he was overconfident in his ability to pull gags out of his hat at inopportune moments, thinking he could retain the dramatic pacing of the whole thing through his masterful story telling, so when it didn't quite work it caused the game to feel stilted and awkward. It's clear he deeply respects Snake, and he treats his characters like old friends when he has a go at them, but he needs to respect the player in the role of Snake more. Not just Snake who exists apart from the player.
 
I think the biggest issue with MGS4 is that it came out too late. By the time it was finally released, the industry moved well on, and the gameplay felt dinosauric. If anything Old Snake was the perfect metaphor for the series itself: a living relic no longer in his glory days. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with nostalgic gameplay. However the sneaking element didn't age well when brought into the immense arena of the fourth game, as it had to be too carefully doled out to the player to compensate for the massive narrative structure. And thus we come back to my previously stated qualm: too much of the game was shown to you in cutscenes and barely controllable set pieces.
 
MGS3 was the best in the main series from a pure gameplay standpoint for me. It mixed survival with sneaking, forced you to make gameplay decisions in a more significant manner.
 
MGS2 was the best in the series from a pure narrative standpoint. It got its pacing right. It has a much stronger sense of atmosphere. It used confusion to its advantage.

 
Just my opinion, nothing more.

 
Cool, I completely respect your opinions as a fellow gamer of a great video game series. I can't deny that Hideo spent too much energy celebrating himself, he blatantly makes cameo appearances in several MGS games and makes references to his name.
 
I wonder if you play any video game series from Square Enix, such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest? While I consider MGS the best, the FF and DQ series hold a special place in my heart because I've literally grew up with them. Call me a hard-core fanboy if you will, but I've played and beaten every single - that's right, every single - FF and DQ game, including all prequels/sequels/spinoffs in the series, with the exception of MMORPG's like FF11 and 14, and even got to meet Mr. Nobuo Uematsu (the composer of most FF soundtracks) in person, and own several Final Fantasy albums in hi-rez FLAC for my daily Head-Fi listening. For what it's worth I think FF and DQ are the epitomes of JRPG, not to mention that they're some of the most influential video games in the entire video game industry.

 

[jgray91]

@everyone that chimed in, that's for the NDS titles. I'd be sure to get them later down the line.

 

[songmic]

On a side note, I've bought iRiver's Astell & Kern AK100 and its matching IEM, FitEar's AK100-111iS and fell in love with the combo.
 
Astell & Kern AK100 http://www.astellnkern.com/
FitEar AK100-111iS http://www.iriver.jp/product/iriver/ak100/ak100-111is.html
 
iRiver is a South Korean company that has been making mp3 players for over 10 years, in fact my very first mp3 player (and portable DAP) was an iRiver product, not an Apple iPod. I bought two more iRiver mp3 players before the AK100, so I have a lot of trust in that company. Last year, iRiver released a high-end DAP called Astell & Kern AK100 aimed at the audiophile market to save itself from bankruptcy, and fortunately for them it became a huge hit. I was one of the first lucky ones to audition it, and grabbed one as soon as it was available for pre-order.
 
It was later I heard that Suyama, the Japanese company well-known for its high-end IEM FitEar ToGo 334, made an IEM specially tuned for the AK100. It turns out that AK100 for some reason became an even bigger hit in Japan, so FitEar decided to develop an IEM specifically for the AK100. And I think they did a damn good job at it.
 
The AK100-111iS sells for less than 50,000 yen, significantly less than the ToGo 334. TBH I haven't heard the ToGo 334 but in terms of looks alone I think the 111iS is better aesthetic-wise.

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

I wonder if you play any video game series from Square Enix, such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest? While I consider MGS the best, the FF and DQ series hold a special place in my heart because I've literally grew up with them. Call me a hard-core fanboy if you will, but I've played and beaten every single - that's right, every single - FF and DQ game, including all prequels/sequels/spinoffs in the series, with the exception of MMORPG's like FF11 and 14, and even got to meet Mr. Nobuo Uematsu (the composer of most FF soundtracks) in person, and own several Final Fantasy albums in hi-rez FLAC for my daily Head-Fi listening. For what it's worth I think FF and DQ are the epitomes of JRPG, not to mention that they're some of the most influential video games in the entire video game industry.

 
 
Nobuo Uematsu's work is really grand. Meeting him must have been quite an experience!
 
I was into Final Fantasy more as a teenager, and I sort of lost track of the series after FFX. I've beaten FFIV, FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, and FFX. I've played FF, FFII, FFIII, FFV, FFXII, and FFXIII but didn't finish them.
 
When it comes to JRPGs, my favorites are the Suikoden and Shin Megami Tensei series. I also really enjoyed the Mother series (Mother 1 and Mother 2 aka Earthbound) and the Lunar games (Silver Star Story & Eternal Blue). I still need to finish the fan translated version of Mother 3.
 
The first JRPGs I played growing up were Ys III and Secret of Mana, so those sort of have a special place for me. Oddly enough, I've never been that into Zelda games. With the exception of A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, I just never really got into the series.

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

On a side note, I've bought iRiver's Astell & Kern AK100 and its matching IEM, FitEar's AK100-111iS and fell in love with the combo.
 

 
This is the first time I've heard about FitEar's 111is. Looks like a slightly different tuned version of their F111? Or maybe it's just the F111 but with the AK branding, sort of like the Musica Acoustics and Fujiya AVIC "editions" of the F111.
 
The F111 is a fantastic earphone. Some people have called it a "Super Etymotic" due to the way it's tuned, though there are some troubling reports that FitEar is tuning them to have more bass as time goes on apparently. I hope this isn't the case, because the F111 is a special device just the way it is. I've got mine coming in February.

 

[songmic]

Quote:

 
 
Nobuo Uematsu's work is really grand. Meeting him must have been quite an experience!
 
I was into Final Fantasy more as a teenager, and I sort of lost track of the series after FFX. I've beaten FFIV, FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, and FFX. I've played FF, FFII, FFIII, FFV, FFXII, and FFXIII but didn't finish them.
 
When it comes to JRPGs, my favorites are the Suikoden and Shin Megami Tensei series. I also really enjoyed the Mother series (Mother 1 and Mother 2 aka Earthbound) and the Lunar games (Silver Star Story & Eternal Blue). I still need to finish the fan translated version of Mother 3.
 
The first JRPGs I played growing up were Ys III and Secret of Mana, so those sort of have a special place for me. Oddly enough, I've never been that into Zelda games. With the exception of A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, I just never really got into the series.

 
A rather embarrassing picture of me (then long-haired) with the maestro himself, taken 3 years ago.
 

 
You can purchase two live albums of Final Fantasy orchestra music in 24/88.2 hi-rez FLAC here, for only 10 bucks each.
http://store.ffdistantworlds.com/album/distant-worlds-music-from-final-fantasy
http://store.ffdistantworlds.com/album/distant-worlds-ii-more-music-from-final-fantasy
 
If you've beaten 6, 7, 8, and 10, then you've pretty much beaten the best games of the series.
 
As I much as I like the classic music of Dragon Quest too, I cannot bring myself to meet Mr. Koichi Sugiyama (the composer of all DQ games) and smile like that because of political reasons. While I admit his music is truly great (Uematsu himself cites Sugiyama as an influential mentor), Sugiyama is a notorious denier of Japanese war crimes including the Asian Holocaust (whose casualties greatly outnumber that of the Nazi Holocaust and is considered to be far more brutal). He once tried to post a large advertisement in New York Times Square claiming that the Japanese war crimes are mostly fabricated, but was stopped by the US government from doing so. As a Korean whose ancestors were molested and ravaged by the evil Empire of Japan, I cannot tolerate such sick history-deniers as much as today's Jewish people cannot tolerate Neo-Nazi's.

 

[Coq de Combat]

Quote:

Quote:

 

From what I've read in the "what is your job in real life?" thread, he's been working 50+ hour weeks lately.

To be honest I don't know anything about AMD processors, other than that their laptop cpu's can't seem to compete with intel lately. I'd hope that their desktop cpus are a different story. I have an i7-3770K but from what I've seen, if you went with the i7-3570K I doubt it would be the bottleneck in a high-end gaming computer.

Well, AMD hasn't really been doing good these past years. It seemed as if their better CPUs were worse than simple I5's despite being 8 cores (and so on...) and as a result, you had a whole community of computer enthusiasts raging. Rightfully so. However, they have since released their FX 8350, while still not as good as an I7 in a lot of tasks, is actually not a bad CPU (aside from the power consumption/efficiancy). People were still raging though, and most people are still recommending the I5s over the FX8350. However, since then, some benchmarks have shown that AMD cpus aren't all that bad for gaming either (tek syndicate) and while there's a lot to be said about the testing itself, I think it's a jfair addition to the AMD vs Intel debate.
 
From my understanding though, AMD is quite good for multithreaded applications, and Intel is better suited for single threaded applications. Although, I think for most consumers, you can't get better than I7 3770K. Problem is that I'm actually not sure whether or not this rig will only be for gaming or how much development and other stuff I will do with it. All I know is that I want to game, but I also want it to be rather flexible. If it was cheap on top of that, that would surely benefit me. But as both you and me know - cheap doesn't always go hand in hand with performance when it comes to ... pretty much anything.
 
Also, something that is ruining it for me is that I am skeptic that it makes such a big difference what CPU/platform I choose, TBH. What some perceives as "besting another CPU" is probably what I see as a slight difference of a few seconds of waiting time when compiling or a few FPS when gaming. When it comes to the wonderful world of enthusiasts, whatever field they may be in, exaggerations and dysphemisms seems to be a part of it all. No, I don't think 5 FPS (especially if we're talking about 60+ FPS) is a lot, and no, a slight perception of better intricacy of detail, musicality or some other audiophile term is not what I'd consider the difference between a wonderful headphone and crap. Had I known back then when I was selling my M50s that buying Pro 900 or D2000 isn't going to change a whole lot, I'm not sure I would actually have done that jump. The power of forums, eh...?
 
LOL, oh and I might as well add that no, I'm not saying that there aren't differences between headphones and so on, I'm trying to make the point that sometimes, the exaggerations of enthusiasts make the difference seem a lot bigger than I'd probably think of it.

 

[MuppetFace]

If I were a CIEM, what CIEM would I be?

 

[jgray91]

If I were a CIEM, what CIEM would I be?

A very paradoxical one? One that, on the brief moment in auditioning, sounds quite simple and straight-forward, but on a deeper listening session would reveal that there's more nuance to it.

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

A very paradoxical one? One that, on the brief moment in auditioning, sounds quite simple and straight-forward, but on a deeper listening session would reveal that there's more nuance to it.

 
I really like your new avatar. 

 

[jgray91]

I really like your new avatar. 

Why thank you. She's the refreshing strong female lead I talked about, from Psycho-Pass.

 

[Idsynchrono_24]

Really, the only thing truly frightening about zombie games these days is how derivative and stale they've become. I've yet to play Zombi U, but it looks like it may be this generation's truest survival horror game, and the developers seem to have taken a road less traveled much to the chagrin of certain reviewers.

The original Dead Space for me is a different animal entirely. It's like the videogame equivalent of a three-day-long amphetamine binge: you're nervous, agitated, you've got this sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. You feel like you're starting to rot. Words like scary, creepy, frightening just don't apply to it. Disgusting, disturbing, unsettling, grotesque, and perverse seem more apt to me. It's like stumbling across some cache of guro porn back when the Internet was still something of a virgin spring to most people. It wasn't scary so much as upsetting. Dead Space has this same sense of unpleasantness (only the guro porn is running around trying to eat your face?), the sense that your environment is decaying and so is your sanity.

Resident Evil 6 was just... no. No

Also from a pure gameplay standpoint, MGS4 was pretty much a failure IMHO.

Yet in spite of all that, I do still rank it as one of the most significant gameplay experiences I've had in the last 10 years, and I think that says something about it. The series has transcended itself and become self-reflexive, a cultural icon, and as a whole I think it stands less as a videogame and more of an semi-interactive philosophical treatise.

The way I felt when Sonny was making those eggs and I could just listen to her singing instead of paying attention to some weighty mission exposition is something few games have ever induced. I felt like I was watching my whole career as a gamer personified making those eggs.

(I'm on an iPad so pardon my complete ignorance on how to pull off fancy pants multi quotes)

I'm not sure what's worse, that Dead Space 1 can be compared to guro porn or that I don't find myself scratching my head over it. I have played DS1 actually, for the total sum of 2 hours. It was recommended to me by a friend who thought I might appreciate it. I think... As with most things, hype ends up deflating the preliminary experience. I came in expecting to be reduced to a jittery mess but found myself mostly staring glassy eyed as I mouthed, "something's gonna burst out of that grating isn't it" and proceeded to bludgeon the gangly offender down. Maybe it's cause Isaac is too inhuman, moreso resembling a cyborg stricken with emphysema than an everyman like James Sunderland.

Maybe it's cause I found the game to be more Eli Roth than Takashi Shimizu. There isn't that slow burn of dread, of being quietly subsumed by the creeping unknown, instead, I'm immediately assaulted with a sledgehammer of grotesquery to the senses. I came for Alien and got Aliens instead I guess. But that's a kneejerk assessment. I haven't completed it, so maybe I'm being unfair, maybe the game as a whole is far more clever than I give it credit for.

Anyway, I totally agree with MGS4 being largely a disappointment. Kojima was basically shackled by his commitment to resolving the MGS legacy, and the game, as a result, eroded with every subsequent chapter. That in itself is the biggest disappointment as player agency is increasingly stripped from you until you're essentially reduced to holding forward through a corridor and engaging in QTE "gameplay". That would be cool were this Dragon's Lair or the latest David Cage title, but coming from the incendiary fight against the Boss in 3, it felt borderline offensive. You could argue that it's Kojima cashing in on the nostalgia factor, cause dammit I got goosebumps upon arriving at Shadow Moses, and that winking nod to MGS as you're squaring off against Liquid Ocelot high atop a battleship as Snake Eater plays? Hard not to crack a grin. But at the end of the day, pandering and fanservice is a lazy and cynical way to earn your marks when you've done better with previous efforts.

Edit - I meant to touch upon Zombi U but forgot to. Fear is a pretty complex emotion and there are many different factors that play into eliciting it. I think with most modern horror games, they removed the survival aspect from it which plays a crucial role in generating fear. If I'm a buffed up mercenary or some cybernetically augmented human with lasers and electric harpoons I feel quite empowered and badass. Contrast that with the helpless protagonist of Amnesia who has to fumble through the dark whilst teetering on cusp of losing his sanity and you can see why the latter is more successful in inducing fear. Zombi U has the right idea I think. I'm not sure how it is in play, but the ambience is convincing, and the roguelike elements will put you on edge. To further that thought, its kind of ironic that a game like Hotline Miami can bring forth more anxiety than a title with whiz bang graphics. I think Zombi U will be similar in that respect, as it was I'm D- Souls. And ehh, reviewers are always averse to anything that infringes upon their concept of "core" gameplay, and it's not the least bit surprising that some have taken to calling Zombi U gimmicky and annoying

You can purchase two live albums of Final Fantasy orchestra music in 24/88.2 hi-rez FLAC here, for only 10 bucks each.
http://store.ffdistantworlds.com/album/distant-worlds-music-from-final-fantasy
http://store.ffdistantworlds.com/album/distant-worlds-ii-more-music-from-final-fantasy

If you've beaten 6, 7, 8, and 10, then you've pretty much beaten the best games of the series.

Distant Worlds is so damn good man. Dat Jenova/Fisherman's Horizon/Dancing Mad. And no IX? You cray son. I feel like contemporary Final Fantasy hasn't aged well. The insurmountable angst, hamfisted dialogue, and giant space flea from nowhere style bosses test my patience in these post adolescent years. Still the PSX/PS2 era of *** still felt like someone with a human soul drafted the scripts. Toriyama's turgid work on the Fabula Novala chriswhatever series makes me want to chuck my PS3 out my window. On the whole, I much prefer the work that Atlus does for SMT/Persona/Catherine etc. The characters feel much more relatable which helps immensely when you're tasked with hours of dungeon crawling through bland procedurally generated environments before hitting the next plot juncture. And that's what fuels my frustration, because FF as a series is borderline unrivaled in terms of world design. It's so rich and beautifully envisioned, and it's supplemented by some of the most lovely music, but man, what I wouldn't do for a tale as resonant and heartfelt as Nier's to take place within that world.