#shitty graphical fidelity

[unpopularly-opinionated]

I saw a game nominated at least once in TGA, and I’ve seen numerous comments online about how it should’ve been nominated for more, notably “Best Soundtrack”, and while I can’t comment on the soundtrack, I have to say it is probably one of the worst games I’ve seen as of late, which is saying a lot because these past few years we’ve had some real shit games.

I’m not going to name the game because I know of at least one person on here who follows me that somehow actually enjoys it and I don’t want to be mean, but my god, y’all should demand more from your games. They released a fucking tech demo level at full price and y’all ate it up worse than Pokemon fans eat up their latest half-assed job.

[femboty2k]

Every time I see a fucking "AI Machine learning upscale" mod that aims to make either a 20 year old game with low res textures or gods forbid a game with pixel art "HD" I die a little inside before going a absolutely feral.

I'm eternally fucking infuriated with how the ever growing movement of "graphics = quality/value" chokes the life out of art within the video game landscape. Modern conceptions of art have cheapened certain things to a frankly disgusting degree, so much so that I've genuinely heard someone say "it feels like they couldn't afford real art so they used pixel art" with their real human mouth. The idea that the more high fidelity something is the more value it inherently has both as art and as a project is reductive at best and fucking stupid at worst.

So many of these fucking mods and texture packs and filters and "remaster" projects create vapid facsimiles of whatever they're trying to "improve" or just flat out look like shit. The 20 year old texture you tried to replace with something a shitty AI site you paid for threw up has things like depth and shading built into it to assist with the limitations of its time as well as to match the game's art direction. All you've done is take a fucking butter knife to it and made it a flat confusing mess that barely looks like what it's supposed to anymore.

Look, I'm not against giving beloved old games new coats of paint. Texture packs and overhaul mods have always been a thing. But until recently they were made by people who fucking understood the inherent value of the art they were working with, and either aimed to give a new angle on it or change it all together into something new. And that's good! It's creativity! It's expression! What ISN'T either of those things is smoothing out all the beautifully placed pixels on a sprite from a super Nintendo game and going "ah yes now it looks like real art! So HD! So smooth!"

You cannot reduce the value of such a complex piece of art as a video game down to "well it's got 4K textures and 3D models with tons of polygons" to do so is insulting to the entire medium and the history of technology and skilled developers and artists who created them.

[empoleon-dynamite]

I know everyone seems to be saying this but bdsp are the absolute laziest and most embarrassing remakes I’ve maybe ever seen, they completely strip back most of the quality of life improvements of recent games and don’t even include those that were made over a decade ago with platinum

That on top of the cheap and expressionless art style which was definitely just done to save money, the poor graphical fidelity, camera glitches, and the fact that these remakes only exist to create buzz for legends arceus next year just proves to me that Pokemon as a franchise is washed out and honestly serves no purpose past money grubbing

Also they massacred the soundtrack, what’s with those shitty lifeless midi samples huh?? I remember hearing better fan remixes when I was a kid

I had hoped that they might listen to fan feedback after the mess that was gen 8, but nah I give up, this on top of their disgusting practices with Pokemon unite shows they’re content with ringing little kids dry of every penny they can w/out actually delivering high quality products, which when you look back at how much heart gens 1-5 especially had is just sad

And please don’t hit me with the ‘it’s just for kids why do you care’ argument. Don’t kids deserve high quality and enjoyable products? Especially at this price tag?? These games are the equivalent of putting gameboy style games on the ds back in 2007, or if zelda botw looked like ocarina of time, no one would have accepted that, so why should we be happy with this??

game freak, Nintendo, niantic, every company involved in modern day pkmn should be ashamed

(Don’t waste 60$ on a 16 year old game which you can get for free online, ds emulators are not hard to run)

[autosadist]

hot take that @teanne could articulate better than me but uh, the problem with AAA games and labor is NOT the art or graphics. crunch is not about finalizing art assets. the art assets for games are literally some of the first things that are completed

the problems with AAA releases are related to optimization and debugging, and optimization isn't an art-related issue in and of itself. two games can have identical visual fidelity, and one of them can be perfectly optimized for most GPUs while the other one runs like garbage on the same hardware

the problems people have with cyberpunk 2077 don't stem from its visual fidelity, they overwhelmingly stem from the bugs and shitty last gen console optimization. these have literally nothing to do with the game's graphics. the months of pre-launch crunch that AAA studios torture their employees through deal with trying to iron out tens of thousands of game-breaking bugs in a fraction of the time needed to get a game launch-ready

it hardly has anything to do with graphics. perfecfing graphics REALLY isn't the reason cdpr treats its employees like slaves. the more people talk about the graphics being what holds the game back, the less people pay attention to the actual reasons that so many AAA games are unplayable products of human torture at launch

as time goes on, the hardware needed to develop games with beautiful graphics becomes more and more accessible to independent developers, and many tools to create beautiful 3d art assets and games are either free or affordable to small teams with the money to put in - you don't need 100k dollars to set up an indie team with industry standard software and hardware. the bulk of the labor put into a game is NOT in concept art or 3d modeling or meticulously adjusting ass hair shaders, and to act like it is really distracts from the real problems with AAA games development

[cosmopoliturtle]

i saw your recent opinions on the National Dex, there are other minor but notable issues, SwSh still uses the same engine from the 3DS games, while the shading looks fine the old Pokemon have the exact same models, the graphics are ok but there lots of graphical nerfs like the "N64 tree", Game Freak doesn't even listen to the complainers!, i remember when Kingdom Hearts fans complained that KH3 was too easy but Square Enix ACTUALLY listened and we finally got Critical Mode.

Oh boy it’s time for my shitty opinions round 2!

I figured they were using the same engine but I didn’t necessarily see that as an issue. Something they’ve mentioned already is that they’re still designing this as a portable game, and while to a western perspective that may seem absurd, the Japanese market is still really huge on portability. One of their biggest demographics in Japan is workaholics who barely spend any time at home other than to maybe eat and sleep so it’s probably a big priority to Game Freak that the game runs as well as it can while in handheld. That’s why the biggest things in Japan are Pokemon and Monster Hunter, because portability is key to their market, and while Capcom took a risk for a big new console game and went off to try Monster Hunter World to appeal to a broader market, Sword and Shield isn’t that huge technological push forward I think people are assuming it would be— if it was we probably wouldn’t know about it yet since they’d be making a whole new massive project from the ground up. They know they sell well as they have been so I don’t think there’s a massive incentive yet to reinvent the entire game from the ground up.

I don’t really blame them for not listening to complainers because everything I’ve read has been super vitriolic and hyperbolic. I feel like more people are just attacking them than asking for answers or looking for solutions— I’m not saying those people don’t exist but it’s become such a cluster fuck of an angry mob that a lot of people are defaulting to boycotting the game and decrying Game Freak as the worst company ever. Apologists aren’t much better either since their argument is just “shut up it’s fine” which doesn’t get anyone anywhere.

In the case of Kingdom Hearts that’s a pretty okay complaint since the games were known for these in depth critical modes in the past and I’m happy players got what they wanted, but complainers aren’t always right. We recently had the big Sekiro drama where basically a bunch of entitled weirdos who barely play games demanded the game have an easy mode when that’s completely unnecessary if they actually tried playing the game and is also counter intuitive to the whole experience from an artistic standpoint, and when they didn’t get their way, they started using disabled people as a scapegoat and claimed Fromsoft is ableist which is absolutely disgusting behaviour on the part of the complainers.  

I still feel like the game should do updates after launch. It’s probably impossible for the game to be delayed since Nintendo just took a big financial hit with Animal Crossing being delayed, and also the Pokemon franchise has many wheels and asking them to also delay a card game, an anime, movies and merchandise is probably gonna fuck up a lot of people’s jobs and do more harm then good.

 I think they really need to look at games like Pokemon Go, Splatoon 2, and Monster Hunter World that have all done excellent work with patches and updates after launch. Even in their current main line of games, each game needs an update for Pokemon Bank to function properly with the game so I dunno why they can’t do something similar with Sword and Shield. I wish we could make the narrative more about that rather than just foaming at the mouth. I want to hear the reason why that can’t happen because I honestly can’t think of one. If the entirety of the fan base went in this direction, I feel like we could maybe get a productive discussion going, especially if Japanese fans start asking these questions en masse since they’re the market Game Freak is more likely to listen to because western fans are more known for this hate it or love it mentality. I’m not pigeonholing people and saying that everyone acts like this or that they’ll always act this, but this is just the current trend I’ve noticed.

I’m not gonna tell people what to do, and I’m not gonna white knight for a triple A game company but in all fairness, I still feel like we’ve seen basically nothing of the game outside of 2 trailers. I feel like there’s a lot more to digest and I’m not gonna write off what I see as a decent game company for one fuck up. It’s a really big fuck up for sure but like I said last time, I just want a fun game at the end of the day. If it comes out Game Freak has done something actually deplorable that harmfully affects people then yeah, I would be against them, but I think this is more a highly questionable decision on their part rather then a malicious one.

TL;DR - Japanese market loves portability so I understand why we aren’t getting full console, Breath of the Wild levels of fidelity. I wish people would focus less on aggressive tactics and try to communicate better to find solutions. I still have an open mind about the game but I’m not gonna tell anyone else how to feel, you do you. c:

[gwendyrose]

Graphics quality will never be able to compete with graphical fidelity, if realism is your bag. You can have the highest resolution textures and most ray-casty ray-casters out there, but that doesn't mean shit if the rest of it isn't on point.

The Crysis remaster looks like shit. They retextured everything, and remodeled some stuff, but most of the models are shitty, the animations look like ass, everything looks like painted cardboard and its awful. The only reason that it has the patented Crysis Frame Drops on the high settings is cus its optimized like as.

And this ties in to the "will always be beat by an inde game with sprite graphics" point too. Charming stylization is sooooo much easier and, broadly speaking, nicer, than realism anyway.

[tearasshouse]

Attack on Backlog 2017 - No. 9 

Final Fantasy XV

Breakdown: PS4 version at 80ish hrs for the Platinum. Plenty of post-game content left undone; plenty of pre-timeskip content left untouched; figure I’ll go back to the game someday (ha ha, not likely) and be like, oh wow, this single-player MMO still has a lot of questing left for me to do, cool (but that won’t happen).

Final Fantasy 15 is a big, beautiful, incomplete, incoherent but ultimately fulfilling and worthwhile experience that won’t disappoint if you have realistic expectations. So, it’s kind of like being in a relationship! Hah. Speaking of relationships, like the ones depicted in this game, and also like my own with the FF series...

TL;DR time! So far I’ve gotten as far as: 

Sephiroth’s fight in FF7 where I parked my characters outside of the crater and went, Nah, putting a stop to that glorious (ly pathetic) summer where I spent my 13th or 14th birthday leveling up Materia or something. Whew. Somehow I just lost the nerve to continue despite grinding for hours upon hours. I didn’t even have KotR, so naturally I skipped Ruby Weapon and that just made defeating Sephiroth kind of... pointless?

disc 3 in FF9, but because I’d neglected and refused to learn Tetra Master up to that point, I pretty much hit a roadblock and could not progress. Thanks a lot! Thanks a fucking lot. I really liked this FF. The soft limits on class specialization, with the way weapons conferred different skills to different party members, but everyone could use pretty much anything, the soundtrack, the characters; a lot of it was great. Ditto about the story tho, wasn’t paying attention ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

fhe first 5 minutes of FFIV on the NDS.

almost 50 hours into Bravely Default, but put it down because the storybeats were just too inconsistently delivered, the grinding, though greatly alleviated with some QoL features, was still a huge grind, and something about the game just... never clicked.

taking a glancing look at copy of FFX/X-2 HD and putting the thing down because I have commitment issues.  

the first 15 minutes of FF Type-0 HD.

and whoa, before I forget, Steam says I have 13.2 hours in FF13. So there’s that. Great music though! Paradigm Shifting is cool in theory too, I guess. But this game is just awful. And now I want to go back and play it. Why do I do this?

All in all a very poor showing from me. FFXV was, comparatively speaking, way easier to dig in. “A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers” they say. Well, I’m not sure if I fall into either of those camps. I guess I am a fan? Sorta? I couldn’t tell you about the lore, plot or characters of many of the games, but I do own one of these. And I used to listen non-stop to shitty low-bitrate .mp3s of Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtracks on my Walkman. And I had wallpapers of Rinoa and Yuna, and still own a really embarrassing FF8 wallscroll that was gifted to me?

So! As a casual fan then, I found this one... pretty good. I mean, there’s elements of every past Final Fantasy in its DNA. It feels like a Final Fantasy game, which is to say it feels like the ones which came after 12, which did the most to change up the ATB/turn based combat, and perhaps the composition/interaction of the characters, outside of maybe Tactics or 11. 

There’s so much to like here that I’m willing to forgive its shortcomings and missed potential, even if, by the end, the things it gets right is in equal measure to the things it misses the mark on or flat out lacks. It has so much charm and warmth that I’m willing to forgive Square’s misguided reach for critical mass market appeal what with its numerous marketing tie-ins and cross-promotions, or its divvying up of exposition to tie-in films and DLC. At least it gave us that ridiculous Cup Noodle quest line. At least it gave us that. I’m even willing to forgive Chapter 13, and I didn’t even play Verse 2.

I’ve not followed the game at all, so its understandable the ones who clamoured for something like Versus XIII would be a bit irked. All those amazing tech demos and trailers they’ve released over the years? I understand the pain, but ya’ll only have yourself to blame for buying into the pre-release footage. 

Yes, the Insomnia chapter was wholly underwhelming. Yes the pacing is weirdly rushed after you’ve hit Altissia onwards and becomes hyper linear. Yes Lestallum and Altissia are in general hilariously undercooked, non-interactive, tiny and I haven’t encountered something this disappointing since maybe hitting Markarth in Skyrim, where the magic of Skyrim’s first 50 hours really started to wear thin. We’ve truly hit a point where graphics tech has outpaced the ability and feasibility to render more organic, more reactive and believable AI simulation in towns and cities. Maybe all this increased fidelity strikes a dissonance with how we think worlds should be populated and behave? I don’t know. Witcher 3 looks incredible though, and perhaps that’s the game that shows you can have your cake and eat it too. Meaty, meaningful content that isn’t just throwaway Hunt quests, or helping some asshole with his car troubles for the umpteenth time. I’m of the opinion that all sidequests in RPGs devolve into kill or fetch quests, and the rare exception requires you to talk your way to success or solve some kind of puzzle and mechanically speaking there isn’t a whole lot you can do. So, that’s where good writing comes in. Fallout New Vegas, if I recall had fantastic writing in this regard. More recently NieR Automata had really rudimentary sidequests that were carried along with quirky written snippets that expanded upon the world. Then there’s the Witcher games and to a lesser extent the Yakuza series that construct entire stories around side content. Yes FFXV’s sidequests are... uniformly underwhelming. They’re all more or less MMO-like filler content for the sake of inflating the completion time and giving you some kind of incentive for exploring the world. And yes, Luna and Noct’s relationship is hilariously undercooked; she does her Aerith moment and it’s tits up from that point on. It’s a shame you can’t be with Iris though the game teases this; Aranea only shows up to do her thing and disappears; Cor straight up disappears; Gentiana does her thing and disappears, etc. People just disappear, for no apparent reason other than selling you DLC, or they didn’t know what to do with these characters because they are plot movers, nothing more. Sigh.

But you know what? It’s been awhile since I’ve played something like the first half of the game so yeah, sure, whatever. Throw on a podcast and go about overleveling past the main campaign. Go ahead and throw on that FF13 soundtrack and go pick up nutmeg (such a great soundtrack). 

Speaking of which, I loved the music. I might even call it majestic. I loved oddball world design of mashing what seems to be not-Southwestern & not-Pacific Northwestern USA with not-Venice, briefly not-Rivendell (Tenebrae?) & not-Tokyo. I loved playing grab ass with my boys after camping out in the mornings. I loved Ignis being the mom friend and the my headcanon where the guys store all their cooking and crafting ingredients in the same astral plane where Noctis keeps his weapons. I loved the photography feature and Prompto’s arc. I fucking loved fishing more than I thought would. I loved that there’d always be some kind of incidental dialogue when you’d go exploring or take up a quest. I loved that Bahamut had a creepy human face. I loved how dangerous and crappy the Reglia Type-F is to handle. I loved that Gladio would give Noct shit, even undeservedly at times. I loved that Regis and his crew went on a similar journey all those years ago. I loved that there’d be super high level mobs just chilling in the overworld and that level scaling isn’t a thing, but there would still be things that could one-shot you. I can appreciate a game that helps me with completing its campaign, even if it does so kind of forcibly, since open worlds tend to induce some kind of completion anxiety in me. Will you please go and fucking fight Ardyn already? 

About that fighting: I like it? I briefly tried Kingdom Hearts on 3DS and it was... It was not great. But I like the automation in this that allows for just enough player input where positioning and timing is more important than anything else. It’s not very strategic, and you don’t have much in the way of tactical forethought, but it looks cool! Props to Square’s animation team for blending all of it together into a somewhat coherent whole. It’s mostly flash, with just enough engagement to not be a entirely mindless affair. 

I think at the end of the day we all have some kind of preconception of what we wanted FFXV to be, and we were all left somewhat disappointed that it didn’t turn out to be that figment of our fancy. But it exists, its more than playable, there’s a lot to do and soak in and those post-credits scenes with Noct and the lads, and Noct and Luna with the photo you chose were enough to wash away the cynicism and disappointment. 

It feels like, with the completion of the Episode Ignis campaign and the successful rebirth of A Realm Reborn, Square might finally close the chapter on 13/Versus 13/15 and do things a bit better and more efficiently. Or maybe we’ll be subjected to a mobile hell and more games in 15′s mould, the latter of which wouldn’t be the worst thing? I keep saying it but I never follow through with going back to play the older mainline FF games. Now’s the time! Maybe.

[shemakesmusic-uk]

INTERVIEW: Katie Von Schleicher.

Fresh off the back of a UK tour alongside Aldous Harding, Katie Von Schleicher recently premiered her latest single, 'Sell It Back' which is taken from her self-produced and co-engineered debut full-length album, Shitty Hits, out July 28 via Full Time Hobby, where Von Schleicher confronts feelings of isolation and powerlessness. She is not tackling grandiosity, but mediocrity; the struggle of being deeply flawed and unmistakably human.

Katie Von Schleicher’s previous release Bleaksploitation was an accident, years in the making. While interning at Ba Da Bing Records, owner Ben Goldberg suggested that she record a cassette for the label to release. It could be anything, demos or a live performance, but she took it a bit more seriously than Goldberg intended. The result was her first self-produced and engineered effort, a strange, hazy, pop-laden tape. Doing her own press under a pseudonym and referring to it as an “album,” Von Schleicher garnered enough attention for Bleaksploitation to see it released on vinyl in the Spring of 2016.

Now on her full-length official debut release, Von Schleicher strikes again on the magic that comes from her warped and uncompromising sound. Shitty Hits channels the bright, sunny radio burners of the 1970’s - songs you drive to, carefree, and songs you can cry to.

We were lucky enough to have a chat with Katie about Shitty Hits, touring, who she would love to collaborate with and more. Check the interview out below.

So far we've heard the brilliant songs 'Life's A Lie', 'Paranoia' and 'Sell It Back' from your upcoming official debut LP Shitty Hits. Like your previous "accidental" release Bleaksploitation, Shitty Hits was home recorded but in what ways does it differ from Bleaksploitation? How do you think you have grown as an artist thus far?

"Shitty Hits comes from the same impetus as Bleaksploitation and is meant to lodge deeply somewhere in the region of one’s chest. Maybe you could call it ‘finding my voice,’ but it’s the idea of taking what I love, music that already exists, and trying to locate a gap, what’s missing for me, and fill it. I’m obsessed with deeply melodic and transportational music: Randy Newman, Elliott Smith, Carole King, The Beatles, Kate Bush, Arthur Russell, and a ton of lesser known pillars. So I always begin with that in mind. But production wise, I’m aiming for those songs to be presented with a deeply resonating and heavy, unapologetic dose of atmosphere and feeling. Basic, essential rhythms, but unplaceable, distorted. It’s hard to put into words! Thematically, Shitty Hits ventures inward whereas Bleaksploitation was less personal and intimate. And I felt far more ambitious in its sonic scope and fidelity. Bleak was done to a four-track tape recorder, and its possibilities were finite. It was a way to get my foot in the door. Shitty Hits has 40 tracks on a song, it was an open-ended challenge to myself."

Is there a particular reason why you've decided to tape-record your music and do you think this will always be your method of choice?

"I think it will continue as an element, at least. With this record we began with 8 tracks on each song to cassette tape, then transferred to digital. It’s not necessary, but I love putting drums and bass to tape. I’m prone to ritualizing this process, which can be so difficult to approach at its inception. The psychological importance of tape is that it adds an immediacy to each performance. Tape or not, I believe in doing a whole performance of a song vocally and instrumentally, rather than patching myself in on the second verse or something. Maybe that’s just for me, but I like it."

Shitty HIts is about you confronting feelings of isolation and powerlessness. Where did these feelings stem from and how important was it for you to be able to express these emotions through music?

"They come from observations I’ve made about myself and how I experience the world. When I get down, it feels like a loss of perspective. I’m fighting to have a sense of self again, which is also mirrored in the process of making a record, the self-doubt it incurs. It feels perverse to discuss depression sometimes, and of course it has its place, but it felt fairly important to bring it up in the music, if anywhere. These are the feelings I had while making the record, the feelings I had about making it. I was also thinking about the legacy of popular song, how there are so many brilliant tunes about heartbreak and pain, but rarely about its less poetic minutiae. So I tried to write songs in major keys, exuberant ones, but infuse them with the small details of feeling, a happy perversion."

The LP was produced and co-engineered by yourself. How important is it to you to have complete control over your music? What was your favourite part recording the album?

"It’s important to have control in what still feels like this gestation period I’m in. I’m new to this. Hopefully someday I’ll have more confidence to assert myself in company because I would love to collaborate more. My favorite parts are always the happy accidents. If I’m alone those happen more easily because I forget my body as well as the rules of being social in a group environment.  The recording process heavily shaped the outcome of a song like 'Midsummer,' because I took a strange guitar solo and then impulsively, during a take, sang over that guitar solo, sang a new part to the song. And it meant that leaving the first chorus the song takes off into a new intensity I hadn’t planned. The song 'Soon' was the most bang-our-heads-against-the-wall experience, we were lost on how to present it. I’m not even sure how this happened, but during basics we made the song a bit long, with extra sections. When I was finishing the record alone, I decided to have this melodic saxophone part that makes up the whole second half of the song. It was just a part I sang over it during a take. The moments I can’t even remember that yielded positive results are why I do it."

What has been your biggest challenge as an independent artist and how did you overcome that challenge? What advice might you have for other artist's out there that aim to have complete creative control over their musical output?

"The biggest obstacle has been my bias toward myself. I didn’t know what most pedals did, I didn’t feel like I could master these things that men around me had mastered at age 14, I felt stupid asking questions like “what is compression?” I didn’t listen to cool music in high school, I only got into what now moves me most deeply in college, so I felt like I was too late to the party, or that if I hadn’t found the White Album at age ten, I wasn’t authentically allowed to take part in its legacy. I say my bias toward myself, because I don’t want to make this about gender roles that have been placed on me, since on most occasions they are not. But sometimes I witness guys playing together and I see a belonging that I never quite felt, like this is a destiny. I didn’t envision myself producing albums when I was a kid, I didn’t think “I want to be Brian Eno.” Anyway, my advice would be to forget imposed regulations and do whatever the fuck you want, the scarier the better, especially if you’re of a gender, orientation or race that wasn’t represented by The Band. It’s never too late to take the reins, and anyone can do it."

We think that is excellent advice! You've recently returned from a UK tour with brilliant Aldous Harding. What was that experience like?

"It was incredible. First of all I didn’t have to drive, there was a tour manager. I’ve never experienced that before, and let me tell you, it’s the lap of luxury. Aldous Harding is the most formidable musician I’ve ever opened for, and it presented quite a challenge in that respect. I fell in love with London."

London is a wonderful place! What is currently your favourite song to perform from the new album?

"My favorite songs to play now are 'Midsummer' and 'Nothing.'"

Are there any new artist's that you're listening to right now that you think we should check out? If you had the chance to collaborate with another artist/band who would it be and why?

"I’m sure you’ve checked them out already! Aldous Harding, Andy Shauf, Big Thief. My labelmates Cross Record, Tiny Hazard and David Nance blow me away, and don’t have as much visibility as the aforementioned folks. Right now I’d like to collaborate with Zannie Owens, whose band Really Big Pinecone is based here, and Nate Mendelsohn, who has a band called Market. I’d like to try and do some random side project. I’d also love to produce someone else’s album. As far as big famous folks, uh, Randy Newman. Let’s make a fuzzed out Randy Newman album."

Is there anything you like to do outside of music that contributes to your musicality? For example a hobby you turn to in order to rejuvenate your creativity?

"I do graphic design and terrible painting. Used to write a lot of poetry but haven’t lately. I read a bit. Mostly I just get angry about politics and produce nothing with effect on that front."

Finally, what has been the best part of your journey as an artist so far and what are you looking forward to in the future?

"I’m surprised by the journey. That might be the best part. I’m so happy I’ve matched my desire to write songs with a desire to turn them, recorded, into something else entirely. I look forward to collaboration, to the next record, and hopefully touring the hell out of this one."

Shitty Hits is out July 28 via Full Time Hobby. Pre-order the album HERE.

[davythings]

I finished Persona 5

This was the most anticipated game of my life considering Persona 4 is my favorite game of all time so I'd be remiss not to give my thoughts.

Gameplay: It’s the best it has ever been, for any Megami Tensei game I would say. The graphics are stunning, really giving that high fidelity demons like Mara deserve. I think the biggest fault of the past 2 Persona games were easily the dungeon-crawling and turn-based combat aspect and it seems they’ve really taken that criticism to heart. Not only have they gotten absurdly creative with the mechanics but everything just oozes style. (See Woolie gasm’ing over the UI porn)

Music: Was there ever any doubt? It’s Shoji fucking Meguro. You know the soundtrack is the tightest shit to ever grace your ear holes. I will say I’ve preferred all the other Persona games’ music over this one but before this I’ve never really had an interest in Acid Jazz and now I think it’s swanky as hell so that alone is a testament to their skill.

Story: Now this is my biggest problem with the game, and it’s a shame because it sort of makes it the inverse of Persona 4 which I’ve previously lauded. While it has the best gameplay it seems to have weakest story of any of the previous titles. I honestly struggled to feel invested in anything I was doing because of how shallow the bosses were. 

The overarching theme is about abuse and rebelling against it so as a result your targets are various “shitty adults" and sometimes that’s all they really felt like. You and your teammates identify shitty adult, teammates generically comment on how shitty adult is shitty, you beat shitty adult, sometimes you reveal what made the shitty adult so shitty via their treasure/their last words but it’s never really profound, cycle repeats ad nauseum until you eventually fight God. (That’s hardly a spoiler, it’s a JRPG, from the most God-fighting JRPG series in the history of videogames)

Characters: They’re alright. Slightly above-average I’d say for a Persona game. It’s surprising that they managed not to make a definitive “worst girl” for this one. As any real fan would know, Persona is really all about talking shit about each other’s waifus but somehow P5′s boys and girls are all fairly agreeable. None of them are as offensively bad as Marie or as forgettable as what’s-her-name, the short music class girl.

Overall

With few reservations I can gladly say it’s a true sequel and a wonderful addition to the series. I can’t wait to see this game used as a stepping stone for further Megami Tensei games with the improved graphics and gameplay capabilities.

[designer166]

Project 3 Reflection

Of all of the projects, project 3 was the most challenging. It wasn’t a challenge in that it took a certain type of person... I think its difficulty was mainly due to the amount of time it took to make each iteration. 

With each project, there were different mediums to convey an idea: photos, graphics, and physical objects. The easiest design medium in terms of quick iterations is clearly project 2, as you simply use a computer program to make each change. Even though I had no experience with Adobe Illustrator at first, once I picked it up, I had all kinds of tools to bring my ideas to life (and I could do it all sitting in front of my computer!). For project 1, it was a bit more challenging, because you need to go out into the world to find design opportunities. Your iterations depend on not only chance of happening upon a relevant subject, but your own ability to apply the compositional techniques into your shots. 

As for project 3, when it comes to three dimensional design, you are in an entirely different realm. Sketching will only take you so far when you can’t sketch in 3D. And I don’t mean being able to draw cubes and perspective drawings. (I actually practiced a lot of perspective drawing just for fun on the week we had to turn in design sketches for our boxes, but honestly it doesn’t have much to do with the actual product. The sketches are mainly for conveying your idea, and even a disproportionate but simple sketch can be sufficient when done right.) Once you start to work with physical objects, that’s when you can clearly see the faults and successes in your work. I had some crazy sketches, but when it came to creating nets and trying to fit it all together using cardboard, it was a rude awakening. Every box you make can take an hour or several hours depending how complicated it is. (By the way, your high school geometry skills will actually come in handy after all! I often used the Pythagorean theorem and needed to add lengths using my phone’s calculator. It’s nothing too difficult, but just a fair warning for those of you who can’t stand math).

Anyways, main point here is that this project is TIME CONSUMING! I’m pretty sure most of my classmates and I pulled an all nighter the night before the box was due. All of this was quite frustrating, and I think if they had allowed us to use a laser cutter life would be much better... maybe in the future they will be more lenient about that...

What I found interesting while doing this project is that you can’t conceptualize in 3D. Humans aren’t really able to do this: when you look at a piece of origami, can you see exactly what the steps were to get to that finished product? Neither can I. Perhaps a professional origami maker could, but it still would be really difficult. I guess the lesson I learned is that you have to just practice and get comfortable with the medium to be successful. I made a ton of shitty boxes, but at least with each mistake, I was able to figure out what to do better next time. 

And now, enjoy some images documenting project 3!

This highlights how creating a low fidelity physical prototype can be even better than a sketch. Using index cards, I was able to quickly bring out an idea I had and see how it would look in the real world. It’s helpful having something you can hold and interact with, as you are designing an object someone will eventually touch, and not just look at.

I wasn’t joking when I said I would “get my hands dirty”!

And here is me working late into the night, all the way into the morning the next day when I had to turn in my box. I still remember thinking to myself, “ok, it’s 2:30 am, just one last part to finish, then I’ll sleep at 3 am...” the next time I looked at my phone it was 4:30 am!

[generationtechnews-blog]

Linksys Velop brings mesh Wi-Fi to Europe—but it’ll value you

A single node prices $199, a double-pack $349, associate degreed a triple-pack an eye-watering $499.'

Linksys is connection the apace growing assortment of mesh Wi-Fi devices with Velop—and in contrast to Google wireless fidelity, Plume, and Ubiquiti, it's coming back to the united kingdom and Europe (and the America, too).

Unfortunately, Linksys can charge you a fairly penny for the privilege. Velop, that is geared toward Wi-Fi novices, is accessible in 3 totally different packs, beginning with one unit that functions similar to the other wireless AC router for £199/$199. A double-pack prices £349/$349, whereas a triple-pack prices associate degree eye-watering £499/$499. that is plenty of cash to pay on up your Wi-Fi signal, significantly as our friends within the America will develop 3 Google wireless fidelity routers for a mere $299.

Still, Linksys claims the additional value is even. in contrast to all its competitors (with the exception of Orbi), Velop's mesh network may be a tri-band 802.11ac MU-MIMO system. wherever a typical mesh Wi-Fi network uses a dual-band system, with one in all the bands doubling up because the wireless link between every router (in theory, at a performance value to the user) Velop includes an obsessive third band to forestall any bottlenecks. every Velop router additionally includes 2 Gigabit local area network ports, ought to users choose to connect them along via cables.

Perhaps additional notable for the novices Velop is geared toward, is that it's extremely simple to line up, and in theory maintains itself. Velop is managed via associate degree iOS or mechanical man app (there is not any ancient browser-based interface), that guides users through plugging the router into associate degree existing ADSL, cable, or fibre electronic equipment, selecting a reputation for the network, and fixing a word for the default WPA2 secret writing. From there, users will still add additional Velop units via the app to make out the network (power users may also dig in and assemble all the same old things like firewalls, port forwarding etc., from the app).

Velop figures out the most effective approach for every node to speak to every different, whether or not that is directly point-to-point, via a star arrangement with every node connecting to a central node, a mesh, or via a tree topology. If a node loses association, the remaining nodes herbaceous plant and re-establish a web association through different nodes within the network. Up to 5 Velops is used on an equivalent network, that Linksys claims can envelope even giant homes with sweet, reliable Wi-Fi.

Velop solely broadcasts one network, too, with intrinsic  band steering guaranteeing that users move seamlessly between nodes, also as between a pair of.5GHz and 5GHz bands, counting on that the node thinks is quicker.

Under the hood may be a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, 4GB of flash storage, and 512MB DDR3 memory. There ar 2 Wi-Fi radios, and a 3rd 5GHz radio used solely as a backhaul link between nodes. Gigabit local area network, and a Bluetooth four.0 lupus erythematosus radio for initial device setup spherical out the specs. the entire ton is housed within a astonishingly Pieris rapae tower. And whereas i do not essentially believe Linksys that they are a daring style statement, they are pleasing enough to possess out on show, instead of hidden away in a very cabinet sort of a typical router.

Oh, and there is Amazon Echo and Alexa support, too. So, if you have ever wished to modify a guest network with a voice command, Velop's got you coated.

While full judgement can have to be compelled to wait till I've tested Velop, it's laborious to not be affected with the hassle Linksys has place into creating its mesh Wi-Fi system as simple as attainable to use. Sure, there is still an exact quantity of school ability needed to urge it up and running—at the terribly least knowing that the shitty Wi-Fi signal and speeds ar presumably right down to the router—but the graphical setup method and automatic connections between nodes ar a giant facilitate.

But that worth, though. £350 may be a ton, significantly for the networking neophytes that Linksys is targeting. After all, why pay that abundant for one thing a broadband supplier provides away for free? Hell, i am sold  on the thought of at-home mesh Wi-Fi, however i am still not convinced i'd volitionally pay that abundant for slightly higher speeds in my upstairs lavatory.

If you are willing to require the plunge, Velop is accessible to pre-order nowadays and can ship later in Gregorian calendar month.