#I wasn't able to listen to the audio when I was enhancing it

[friendlessghoul]

Buster Keaton (Monte Collins behind him) Sidewalks of New York - 1931

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Rock 'n' Roll Hits of 1958 1999 Rock & Roll / Doo Wop

OK, well, this actually turned out to be a little bit of a surprise for me. Had this CD of hits from 1958 consisted of all original versions, I would've listed nearly all ten of its songs as highlights. But none of these tracks, as it turns out, are actually original versions; they are, in fact, re-recordings, which are, more or less, a bane of pretty much everyone's existence.

Re-recordings are just cheaply made imitations of original versions, usually done by an original artist when they're past their prime, and whenever anyone hears one, they're typically made upset by it, because it doesn't sound nearly as good as the original version that they remember. It's sort of like ordering your favorite dish from a restaurant that you haven't been to for a while, and then finding out the hard way that the chef changed up its ingredients. The dish still has the same name, but once you take that first bite, you realize that something's off, and then you're disappointed that you can't enjoy that same meal that you came for in the first place 😑.

And yet, I was prepared for this to happen. The cheap and generic album art template and the phrase, "10 big hits by the original artists!" are both dead giveaways. See, when you run into enough of these oldies releases, you know what careful language to look for, and that sentence there, rather than saying something like, "original hits from the original artists," really tells you all you need to know: that these are re-recordings.

But listening to re-recordings can also be like watching The Room; you know it's atrocious, but you get a big kick out of just how atrocious it actually is.

So, I was really all set to trash this whole thing, and then have some fun by singling out the absolute worst re-recording of them all, but then I came across what basically amounts to a four-leaf clover: a good re-recording 😮.

Lloyd Price's rendition of "Stagger Lee" here is definitely not as good as its infectious original—in fact, that original just might be my favorite hit of all from 1958—but it's still pretty decent. The audio quality's definitely not spectacular by any means, but whenever Price recorded this one, he clearly still had enough vocal chops to do it, which is not something that you can really say of most other re-recordings. Of course, he sounded a lot spryer in 1958 than he does here, and perhaps that's why the tempo's a bit slower now too, but on this he still has soulful passion, and his grizzliness feels charming rather than piteous. His backing vocalists also lend to the overall goodness of the song too, especially their repeated "ba-da-ba-da-ba-da"s that they rhythmically sing in tandem with the horns and drums. On the original, those "ba-da"s only appear a couple of times, but on here they're way more constant, and they really end up enhancing the track, overall, I think; as does the sax 😌.

So, with this CD, I was actually prepared for what some might think is the unexpected, but what I wasn't prepared for at all was something that should be even far more unexpected, and that is a genuinely good re-recorded hit. I can honestly probably count on one hand the amount of times that I've actually managed to run into one of these things over the years, so you should all consider yourselves lucky to have been able to bear witness to such a rare event, because this is real Halley's Comet stuff here, folks 🌠.

Highlights:

Lloyd Price - "Stagger Lee"

[captain-303]

Metro: Last Light REDUX Review

Yeah, it's pretty good.

STORY

SPOILERS AHEAD

I thought this game was a really good continuation of 2033's story, especially if you get the good/cannon ending in which the Red Line nearly takes D6 and just as Artyom is about to detonate D6 to save the rest of the Metro from THE MARCH OF COMMUNISM the baby Dark One who's been hanging out with you for a while comes back and is like, "hey bud, lemme handle this one" and then the adult Dark Ones turn up and absolutely demolish the Red Line and save the Spartans. I think this was really good because in the first game, Artyom (canon/bad ending, and spoilers) genocides most of the Dark Ones via a missile attack, but in this game if you play to max out moral points Artyom has essentially grown from a soldier that just follows orders to a soldier who thinks for themslves. Which is really neat!

I also liked that in this game instead of Reich and the Red Line just being obstacles that Artyom just has to shoot through they are both given more personality, especially the Red Line. Pavel, Moskvin and Korbut were all excellent antagonists; of the trio Moskvin is the least present, and although you don't interact with him much, you do (with the baby Dark One's help) look inside his mind, a literal corridor of communism - not very subtle, but quite funny! Pavel was also a pretty nice fellow, to quote Artyom, "I never liked communists much, but Pavel acted like a real hero" this made me really mad when he sold me out to his Red Line comrades! I did however spare his life at the end of the game, because although he may have been actively trying to murder me, I'm sure he wasn't all bad. Korbut however is all bad, first he manipulates Moskvin into poising his own brother so that Moskvin can become the new leader of the Red Line, then he blackmails Moskvin into being his puppet, then he embeds Lesnitsky (also a big ol' evil fella) into the Spartan ranks to steal a weaponised version of Ebola, he then orders this chemical weapon to be unleashed on a Hanza station, but in the conclusion he meets his end, fittingly, via the baby Dark One he had been hunting for the whole game.

Oh and Reich are just Nazis. They execute people, they are commanded by their Fuhrer, they measure people's heads to see if they're mutated. They're Nazis.

ATMOSPHERE

So I played the Redux version, which you can tell from the first line of this post, and I assume the graphics are better than the original, I wouldn't know because I haven't played the original! This enhances the graphics to be at points very dull (in a good way!) and others quite vibrant. The lighting especially adds to the sections within the Metro where there is no sunlight, all of it comes from lamps and fires. The audio in the game is also fantastic, what I believe is called Volumetric Audio (where you can pinpoint the direction of a sound by looking around and just listening to how the audio from your speakers changes). This was especially helpful at several points, especially when fighting Pavel as otherwise I think it would be nigh impossible to work out where he was going to shoot you from without his monologuing. I don't really have the words to describe the atmosphere of the game, but if you think about what it would be like to live in the Moscow Metro after a nuclear war, the Metro series nails that feeling.

GAMEPLAY

Usually I like to play games that make you feel pretty powerful, most recently the Crysis Trilogy, where you play as a supersoldier who can run super fast, jump super high, punch super hard, and turn invisible. Metro however puts you in the shoes of Artyom who is admittedly a pretty strong guy, being able to run while carrying a lot of stuff and can take a fair few bullets, he isn't exactly John Crysis though. The first game manages this feeling of weakness by making reloads and other weapon animations pretty slow to emphasise Artyom's inexperience. In Last Light Artyom is now a Spartan Ranger, and the gameplay reflects this with him being a lot better at handling weapons. Another pretty good way the game makes you feel helpless is the lack of hand holding along the way, throughout the game I used the Bastard as my main weapon of choice against human enemies (I reserved the sextuplet shotgun for mutants), I have no idea if the Bastard is a good weapon, it does the job and looks cool while doing it, but I was never told if I should use it over another weapon which I liked, made it feel more authentic than most games that give you funny little bars that go up and down when you switch weapon or change attachments, frankly to this day I still don't know the difference between weapon handling and accuracy - and frankly I do not care.

Similar to Crysis, this game features human and non-human enemies. Unlike Crysis I actually enjoyed fighting things that weren't human, apart from those weird water dwelling giant mantises. I thought the three bosses in the game; giant mantis, giant nosalis, and giant bear were also pretty good!

In conclusion

"Maybe the real Metro: Last Light REDUX were the friends we made along the way"

- John Metro, 2034

Honourable mention; I thought the fight on the moving train in the metro tunnel was so cool. It would be so awesome if they made a Metro game that was centered around a train!

[aurorialwolf]

WOOOO AN EXCUSE TO BLABBER ABOUT AN OC!!! ALSO I LIKE TOTALLY DIDNT SEE THE BIT ABOUT NON-REDACTED TIL I WAS DONE SO LIKE. ILL REBLOG THIS AGAIN WITH A NON-REDACTED OC I PROMISE LMFAO SORRY

I guesss I'll pick Aria bc she's my most detailed one so far and her story is set in the current timeline (her pronouns are they/she/he btw, I just use she in this so it isn't confusing to read ig??)

David: He thinks she's kind of shifty. Doesn't trust her that much, some kind of vibe she gives off idk

Huxley: She would attempt to help him dig a hole in the school grounds. He'd probably give her some tips on elemental control since she's not got a lot of practice in that field.

Vega: Ooh. Okay, so previous Vega, when he was much more sadistic, he would have totally picked her as an easy target to enhance vengeful feelings in. She's easily got roots for that for sure. Current Vega, not much would happen but he'd catch on to the vengeful feelings she already has, just wouldn't do anything with them.

Porter: OH okay so in the fan audios I've been making she actually has met him. She was trespassing in Wonderworld while he was on watch, and she'd put some of the vamps in the park to sleep, so he followed her to see if he needed to do something about her. She sent Dreamer (her listener) ahead to leave the park while she talked to Porter. He kind of implied a threat and told her to get out, which she did post-haste.

Geordi: Welllllll idk. She's dabbled a littleee bit in telepathy for her Labyrinth studies, so maybe she'd be able to tell something's up with him but otherwise they wouldn't have anything to talk about, but if he was with Cutie she'd pick up on some of the vibes of their relationship maybe?? Since he's informed maybe he could run into her via some of the dream design projects that utilize real ppl and occasionally unempowereds (that's smth I've just made up for my story, not canon afaik)

Blake: Oh shittttt dude yeah okay so. She would totally hate his guts, but at certain points in her storyline, depending on how he acted they might actually hit it off (this will make more sense after this next fan audio of mine releases). She believes in the autonomy of the dreamer when it comes to dreamscapes, and he doesn't seem to, so if they actually got to talk, she might pick a fight with him or smth.. definitely would be a bad time.

Hush: If Hush's anomaly-type stuff wasn't immediately obvious and was hidden, she'd probably be able to pick up on the fact that something's off. Not sure how he would act since Hush has only met like 5(?) people, 3 of which he killed so like. Idk maybe if she noticed and freaked out he'd assume she's a threat and kill her?? She's not got a lot going for her unless she's in a dream so like. Yeah. She's autistic though so maybe they could hit it off if given the chance.

@nevaroonie not sure if this is super interesting ?? but figured you might like to see it either way

ok cmere listen

take an oc you have from literally any universe that you have (other than redacted)

tell me what’s happening if they were to run into

- david

- huxley

- vega

- porter

- geordi

- blake

- hush

you can doooo as many of them as you want to

(this is just an excuse to hear about peoples OCs btw)