#the tablet apparently works for both pc and phone. honestly that's such a need for me. especially with how my computer could

[arklayraven]

Checking the xp-pen tablets, since some people recommended them after wacom recent fuck up of using ai art? lol

I think I found one I really want to have and try...but am broke...So will just have it on wishlist then to buy for myself in the future maybe one day.

[studyaroundthetokki]

Downsizing the Curated Collection of Stationary Part I... and advice for some folks about what to take & what not to take/get while teaching overseas since apparently I can’t stay on fucking topic

FFS i have way too much stationary. I’m using this as an opportunity to give away/re purpose/get rid of some of the ones I haven’t used. I figure a lot of people have trouble giving this kind of stuff up so I thought I’d post about it today while taking a break. note:  this is a really long post and there’s a lot of cussing once I start talking about living in South Korea lol.

I cleaned up a moleskine that I’d used like 3 pages out of and stuck it on my brother’s desk with a nice pen & fountain pen I don’t write very well with but is really nice. I’m filling up a good A4 size zip pouch full of school supplies/journaling stuff for my niece. Anything that looks businessy is going to my mom for her office. I love stationary & pens & studying and all that but this has gone overboard for way too long. I also realized that I need to pair down to what I actually am going to take with me if I’m planning on moving overseas again for a good couple of years (which is the plan). What good do dip pen samples do me in a box? It’s now out where I will use it. 

I have numerous boxes but for my birthday I finally settled on getting a few things (it’s not til April but some stuff was almost out of stock on a site that doesn’t get stuff in stock often):

1) One small sturdy travel container for my smaller stationary items (ink cartridges, washi tape, ect). I found a beautiful wood one that would be perfect. I have this weird fascination with small boxes anyway. The one I’m in love with but haven’t ordered is just slightly larger than my instax photos, which is also a reason to grab it. *cough*

2) Limiting notebooks to 1 per subject/project + planner + journal. The rest have got to go. Luckily I have a niece who’s just getting in middle school this year. I can let her mom know to come by and pick up a crapload of stuff (including my well worn Kanken mini.. hopefully she doesn’t mind pink. She’s going through a phase of saying she’s girlie but not *too* girlie with an extra emphasis on this.. though she squeals in delight over baby clothes and my pink stuff so I’m a little inclined to believe this is more to do with her friends than her own tastes). 

3) If I haven’t used it in 2 years, it needs to go. With the exception of some of my ink bottles. I have some lovely shades but didn’t have an ink converter until recently again. I actually need to get a 2nd one...This includes old textbooks that are getting moved into sturdy containers instead of keeping them and any books that I don’t *really* love are eventually going to get donated/given away/given to the library (they don’t always take them).

4) Do I *really* use it? I have some pens that I don’t use often. Like my TWSBI Diamond 580AL. It’s a beautiful pen but I don’t use it a lot. However, I’m not giving it up. My Lamy has now been stuck in my younger brother’s room. I used it frequently but I’m not in love with it. I use it because I feel obligated to. I recently gave away one of my favorite fountain pens to my cousin because she has the same issues with pain while writing that I do (we have the same chronic illness). I replaced it with a pen that is on the way. I used that sucker all the time. It was a cheap fountain pen but it wrote better than my 60$ pen. :| I have empty notebooks I”ve been holding onto for years and.. while paper that has aged is really pretty.. if I can’t think of a use for it, it’s going to my niece. 

5) Junk notebooks: I think it’s good to have some cheap paper just to doodle or write quick notes or practice sentences or write fuck on 5000 times on a bad day. However, I do not need more than one of these books at a time. *stares at stack of blank cheapo books* Sigh. 

6) If you really love it, keep it. There’s a difference between hoarding and keeping something because you genuinely adore it. I have one notebook that is for a *very* specific project. It’s still blank... because I haven’t started the damn project. I have photobooks that I haven’t gotten to. I will probably get rid of the album and instead get a new one since it was just a cheap dollar store book and it doesn’t reflect my personality. I also want a smaller one for my instax pictures which mean a lot to me since they’re one of a kind. This kind of momento stuff is important. My one book is expensive and has beautiful paper. I plan on making it my first “real” translation project for one of my favorite stories (Kiki’s delivery service). 

On Packing to Move Overseas: A few personal notes

Back to the topic of sorting with a mind of moving with only two suitcases and a backpack. This is part of why the downsizing is happening. These are more like additional notes rather than guidelines. Just as a reminder to myself in about 12-18 months.  Things I need:

1. ONE small pouch of pens/ink/tape/scissors/ect.

2. One book of personal grammar notes. I don’t need the textbooks, but I do need my grammar notes. 

3. Whatever textbook I’m currently working on and one notebook to go with it. No more. I do not need the old editions nor 5000 vocab cards. That’s what anki is for.

4. One set of nice stationary. I like to write home. I also like to visit stationary stores. I only need one freaking set to go with me when I move to write people. I didn’t have internet or a phone with rates that I could afford until about 3 months in last time. My mom is not so good with skype (somehow). 

5. A tablet. My brand new expensive gaming laptop I got for work & play burned itself out in two months. A good tablet will be fine for just about everything until I can get a PC/phone. Having something portable but with enough functionality that you can use it as more than an mp3 player is important. Google maps saved my ass many times in South Korea, and all the city subway lines had free wifi.. so yeah it was important when I got there to have this sort of thing. 

6. A sturdy case for my consoles. I mainly game on a switch and my 3DS. These things are pretty damn portable. Might have to get a new dock at some point but mostly I can just get a wall USB adapter to charge both. This is why I like these consoles, I already have a USB adapter for my 3DS, so I just need the wall plug now that I think about it lol these kinds of things are going to be on sale in most department stores maybe even Daiso I’d think.

7. Sturdy file folder that is non-descript to store copies of all important documents. Leaving this shit lying around your apartment while overseas just randomly.. which I totally did. Is dumb. Important documents includes both emergency and general contacts. Your phone might get stolen so unless you have Nana’s phone # memorized, you might want to get that shit down on paper. Same thing with next of kin, addresses, banking info.. it’s really important to have these and to store them well. 

(this post is getting ridiculously long, oh well, that’s why I use “read more” instead of just posting a fucking wall of text like a lot of people do).

8. While we’re at it: clothing items. Deodorant & toothpaste/toothbrush/ect are important enough that you want a month supply but you’re going to find big brands available in large cities. Like they had secret & dove in Korea. It was no big deal (though I think the anti-antiperspirant was weaker). You can find socks. Underwear/bras in western sizes are an issue. Shipping can be a pain in the ass, though someone noted to me that wal-mart ships internationally which is good to know. The climate may sound reasonable but it’s best to prepare for the worst. I heard rainy season and assumed they just meant heavy storms. I grew up in an area with a lot of flooding but I wasn’t worried. Three days in: We took a field trip, I had no umbrella, the water was fucking ankle deep in the street. I had no way of properly drying out for hours. Jeans were not the best choice. The day had started off sunny. I just was not prepared. The humidity is comparable to Mississippi in August. You have been warned. Winter: It wasn’t cold by my normal terms. Hoever, after living there for 5 months by this point, my body was like FK UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Layer-able clothing is a must. Gloves. Hats. Scarves. A decent jacket. GOOD SHOES. Don’t like hose and your work calls for it? Opaque leggins and socks in the same colour will work wonders for you. Fat as my 260lb ass? Leggings, oversized shirts, a-line skirts, stretch jeans, light t-shirts, camisole tanks under garmets to catch the sweat of simply living in the humidity that you just do not understandholyfuckitslike98%humidityiguessthedevilvacationsinasiaandturnsuptheheat.

*note: if your ass is moving overseas, please make sure to look into the cultural norms for “revealing” clothing. Shout out to busty girls like me, camisol tank tops under everything help with that “i turn anything into a peep show” cleavage problem. Hike that crap up, sew up the elastic bands. they also provide extra support when you’re running up and down those stairs, and help absorb the sweat. you do not understand how bad it is. i am a cleanly person but i’d come home looking like i just got out of a sauna in full snow gear. it’s BAD. Jesus christ this post is getting ridiculous. oh well. 

So yeah. Clothing. It’s important. You don’t want to bring 2 years worth of stuff, but just bring some extra variety. I made do off of just a few things. I did not *ever* wear the fancy evening dress I got “just in case” (it was cheap ok?) but I did wear the simple A-line dress I’d got to some formal diners.

GOOD SHOES. 

Anyway.. uh.. back to other things besides clothes. lol

WTF # was i on? sec. scrolling up.

9. A decent camera. I’m not talking about for youtubing. The biggest complaint I got from the fam & friend fam was that I didn’t post enough pictures (I posted like 200+ in a year so pfft).. but honestly I wish instead of investing in that computer I’d gotten a better camera. I have a good one now, it’s a nice little point & shoot. I’m not saying you need something that is worth 900$ or more. Just get a legit camera. I also have a HD video camera that I never fucking use. I thought I would, I may in the future (though it’s a little outdated by now I guess? shit records in 1080p so that’s good enough for me, fuck youtube & it’s 4K shit). Anyway, it’s important to document some of it. You’ll want to.

10. A good journal. I don’t even normally keep one, but having a planner and a journal as two separate books is a good thing. Even if you just write down “today sucked Eunji is a racist asshole” (that’s a whole other story) or “broke my leg. i now have 3 months off--that’s better than nothing because having a time frame of when this shit happened is important a few years down the road when your memory starts getting shitty. You don’t have to include what color the flowers were and what type they were in the gift that you got from the guy who’s face you won’t even remember.. but writing down the name of that cafe that had the amazing cake & espresso will bring the taste back in your mouth years later b/c fuckboys be bs but food is life. Taste & Scent & sound memory are real. You won’t regret it if you record that kind of stuff.

11. Last one for now cuz I got shit to do. Invest in good luggage. One good bag that you can actually lug around because you very well may end up pulling that sucker behind you when you’ve got 22 minutes to get cross town and get on that fucking train or you’re going to miss the god damn flight and it’s non refundable. Sobbing in the middle of a train station because you missed your train and you do NOT speak the language very well is uncomfortable for you and everyone around you. Jesus that day sucked. 

I strongly suggest something that doesn’t go past mid thigh. + 1 carry on that you can actually lift and a small shoulder bag that fits in the carry on until you are at the airport. If you can’t carry all of it yourself for at least a mile without dying, then you’ve over packed, it’s too big and you’re going to fuck yourself over. Leave enough room in it with the idea that you might be bringing some extra shit back actually that’s another bullet for this list

BONUS: DO NOT GET BUNCHES OF SHIT UNLESS YOUR ASS IS STAYING IN THE COUNTRY LONG TERM. I HAD TO LEAVE SO MUCH SHIT BEHIND AND ENDED UP FORGETTING THE SOUVINERES THAT I WANTED TO KEEP IN THE 24HR GET YOUR ASS OUT NOTICE I GOT FROM MY EMPLOYER WHEN MY CONTRACT WAS UP. 

Granted, my dumb ass thought I’d have gotten let go sooner than 5:30 on the last day since every other fucking teacher did. Nope Eunji the Assji decided that I would work from 7-5:30 down to the last fucking minute without so much as a “do you need help getting to the station”. -_-; That was on me. I should have known and prepared better. It didn’t matter that my colleagues got released with time to leave with some dignity and not lugging a 80lb set of luggage 1/2 across Busan. 

DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF. Ship stuff home if you have to, even if it costs a lot. Consider how hard it will be to take this stuff to the post office. Do not lug yourself down with a bunch of trinkets. Take photos, write journal entries. Remember that the stuff is just stuff and memories are way more important than stuff. One small box you can fit in your suitcase. Don’t take more than that. Really. 

[lostborderline]

Week Overview

This week has been relatively good to me honestly. I’ve probably had more good than bad happen. Even if I did stress out pretty bad sometimes. I’m going to start chronologically as much as possible. 

Friday: In the morning I was about to go to Target, and thought my boyfriend wanted to come because we always grocery shop together but he didn’t so I went alone. Which is fine, I enjoy shopping alone because I can take my time. While sitting in the parking lot, someone who lived in one of the buildings asked me for a ride to Stop and Shop so she didn’t have to take the bus. She is a very nice, old black woman and I’ve met her previously. I agreed to take her and we talked along the way. I suppose this was my good deed for the day. After I got paid, I ordered HTV sheets online for my shirts and it was a relatively good price and they were apparently way better quality than the ones I was using. I also ordered some skincare products from Elf because they’re products are not only amazing, but affordable too. It was only $15 for 5 products and I figured I needed some actual products and I want to care for myself more. I hung out with my cousin today as well, we went to BAM and I got a deck of Oracle cards and a set of citrine crystal earrings which are beautiful. We headed back to my grandma’s house and sat outside with my aunt, grandma, uncle, and cousin. My aunt mentioned that I should buy some crystals to go along with the deck of cards and suggested a place I completely forgot existed, Pandora’s Box. I took my cousin up there with me to Norwich and purchased selenite, black tourmaline, and black onyx as well as a mini satchel, and a depression aid kit. 

Sunday: I decided to make a mini jar of prosperity oil as I watched a video of someone else making one. I decided to make it my own because everyone has different ingredients. It is supposed to attract money and success into your life. The ingredients I added were: mint (money, prosperity), basil (money, success), cinnamon (prosperity, good luck, energy), sesame oil (creativity, passion, money, success), patchouli essential oil (money, wealth, prosperity, material goods), sugar (fast acting agent). It was recommended to leave the oil to sit for two weeks so it can absorb all the herbs within the oil. I also went to Walmart and bought a nice lamp and a daylight bulb so that I can do my makeup in my room without the shitty lighting. When I tested it out, it was amazing and I was obsessed. It is amazing for photos as well as doing makeup. Later on this day, I organized my desk area to accommodate space for my makeup, shop items, school items, and machinery. It felt really good to do this.

Monday: Today marked the start of my weeklong Summer break before going back August 31st. I also slept the whole day because I was really tired. When I woke up, I went to Walmart and bought a nice wok for only $6. It’s 14 inches and I made vegetable fried rice with it, it is a dream to cook on. 

Tuesday: Today my HTV sheets arrived. After work I went to Walmart and got a nice clothing rack to hang my products on, it was only $9 and was easy to assemble. I also assembled it myself while my boyfriend went out and did whatever. I also bought 6 shirts, 3 med, and 3 large. I tested out the HTV by printing one of my popular designs onto it and applying it with the heat press. It was a hot peel unlike my other transfer sheets which were cold peel. There was a definite quality difference and it was easy to use. I was very scared to peel it because I messed up every time before. At first, there was some product coming off but I put it back down and put the heat press on it again. Eventually it came out nice and it is currently hanging on the rack waiting to be sold. I started my bullet journal today with the one I bought a few weeks ago when I noticed my current notebook getting filled up. It’s initial intention was to be exactly like my current notebook, but then I decided I wanted to make it a bullet journal and (actually use it this time) and make it look really pretty. As always, if I don’t “vibe” with a journal or a notebook, I tend to not use it or want to use it. It originally was very plain blue with a quote on it. I felt that I would not vibe with this so I added some personalization to it with stickers I had and even added one of my own. Finally putting a use to all the unused stickers I have (that are not mine). I did also make some sticker designs because I’ve been putting it off. I made 3 sticker designs. I thought they turned out really nice. However, when I printed them, they didn’t have a nice quality. It was solely due to the fact of how I was creating them (my art software that does not have transparency, which is essential for sticker making). I attempted to use scissors to get rid of the nasty border and used an exacto knife for the insides, and I accidentally cut myself on it, so great. 

Wednesday: Today was a pretty good day actually. At work, things went smoothly. I was the order taker, and normally it feels like the shift goes by forever but it wasn’t that bad this time. I was the one in charge so I made sure everything was done for the next shift and that everything went by smoothly and answered any phone calls and whatever. Later on this day, I was fed up with my designs not being the best quality that it can be. I decided to check out the Apple website because I love seeing their products, they’re so nice and smooth. I ended up applying for an Apple Card (which before I was denied 3 times), I actually got approved this time which is amazing! So, due to that, I was able to finance a brand new iPad Air 2019 and the first gen Apple Pencil. It is only $47 a month for both so it really is not bad at all. I am planning on canceling my gym membership, because I don’t even go, and honestly I feel I am content with my body right now and I don’t need a gym to get exercise. I still have yet to come into PF to cancel because you can’t do it over the phone. To make things better, before purchasing, I did do all the math to make sure I was financially stable especially for the upcoming weeks because I have bills due on the second week of September. I made a plan to save all my change to deposit into my account and to limit eating out to only once a week. (it shouldn’t be that hard). As of right now, my bills in tips that I make I will be depositing into my joint account to help pay for groceries because we are a little behind. I also consulted my friend Rheanna about the iPad because she has one for her shop. She has a different version but she says it is absolutely worth it and that I should definitely do it. So, in conclusion, it is a great investment for my business. Also, I would be using it for more than just that. I would be taking notes for school, grocery shopping lists, calculator as well (because with wearing face masks in the store, it makes Face ID unusable so it is a hassle to open the calculator, and the iPad I got has Touch ID instead) and much more. It is portable so I can draw anywhere literally. With my laptop PC and graphic tablet I can’t do that. I am actually very glad I got this and my pencil is supposed to arrive Thursday while it will take the iPad 2-3 weeks to arrive unfortunately. 

Thursday: Today, I was actually at work on time. Work went pretty smooth and I got everything done, there was no yelling at all or complaints. My coworker invited me to his upcoming event where people can be vendors and sell their shirts and other products. Showcase their shops kind of. He said he is planning on getting the permit to host the event in New London (which is the perfect place). Originally he said it would be a cash only event, but I suggested that a lot of people only carry card, like myself. I suggested that we accept Cashapp, PayPal and even get those tiny Square card reader things that plug into your phone. I also gave some more ideas. He said he would be having food catered to the event and I suggested that the vendors should also make homemade food to bring to cut costs on the event, as it will be free to get in. I suggested that when the advertisement begins, that I would help advertise as I have a big following on Facebook and I even said I would create a banner with a piece of every vendor’s art to show potential guests what they are in for. Eventually he asked me to help with the event, to which I said yes. I actually am very excited for this as it will be good business for everyone. 

[wooderon]

So I went to EGX again this year. This would be the point in the article where, if I’d have been a real journalist, I’d have given a brief background into EGX. But I honestly can’t be bothered to make that kind of effort right now. All you need to know is that it’s a big video gaming and culture convention that take place in the West Midlands of the U.K. for 4 days a year.

It’s the third time I’ve gone in as many years and it’s pretty standard fare as far as these type of conventions go. A bunch of developers, large and small, show up and pedal their wares, so to speak. On top of that there are plenty of other attractions. People selling niche and retro merchandise based on video games, or other things the type of people who go to this type of event will probably like.

What I’m going to do it basically break down my day as it went and talk about the things worth noting at EGX and of course, what I saw in terms of upcoming releases and what I’m looking forward to.

The first thing I spent any major time at was the Virgin Media presents the Destiny 2 booth. Which was, quite frankly, hilarious. It’s not as funny as last year where Virgin had obviously also paid for a huge space to push Destiny, except Destiny was a two year old game at that point and why they needed to be there with such aggressive force was beyond me. The fact that it seemed to work and was a very busy booth was beyond me.

This year was a little different. There were loud and obnoxious, but strangely non visible, commentators hyping up the two groups of people who were playing both crucible and strikes, (using characters pre generated mind you, not their own.(For a game that’s already out.)) competing for the best time for some ill described grand prize. It was cool getting to see real life recreations of guardian armour and certain in game weapons though.

It was nice to see a game I am mostly enjoying being enjoyed by so many others though. Even if there two hours wait times to play it. (Again. A game that’s been out for three weeks already!)

That does bring me to my main sticking point with the day, just how long the waits were. The event was busy, but it was still a large enough space that I never felt cramped. But every single one of the big AAA or hotly anticipated games at the convention had a two to three hour wait to try them out. Maybe this is the old man in me, but I flat out refuse to wait two hours to play anything at an event like this, especially considering how much of a known quantity these games tend to be.

Let’s break down all the biggest queues of the day shall we. Assassin’s Creed Origins; Okay, it’s been a few years since the last one of these. But how different has one of these titles been from the next: Marginal at best. You mostly know what you’re going to get. If I could have waited 20 minutes and played it, sure I’d have done that. But when it comes to sacrificing a significant portion of your day I refuse on principal.

Oh yeah. Let's wait 2 hours to play destiny 2. A game already out.

A post shared by Richard Wood (@richs_real_snaps) on Sep 24, 2017 at 5:07am PDT

Then there’s Far Cry 5; again, it looks like more Far Cry, it’s hardly groundbreaking stuff. Call of Duty, Battlefront 2, Forza. They’re all games I feel I don’t need to put hands on to understand, and yet they were all amongst the longest queues of the day. There were a couple of games I am a little bummed I didn’t get the chance to try as a result of my self restriction though.

One of which was Mario Odyssey. I’m sure you can make the argument that Mario games are all essentially the same and it contradicts my prior argument. But there hasn’t been a true 3D Mario platformer since Mario Galaxy on the Wii, plus have you seen that thing? It looks nuts. I’d rather play a new Nintendo made Mario game than the biggest shooter of the year every time. I mean, have you seen that T-Rex with a moustache?

The other game I wanted to try was Sea of Thieves. The Xbox exclusive from Rare is something totally different and I was really curious to try it first hand. A multiplayer based game where you and other players work together to run a ship and complete other wacky assorted pirate based tasks. It looks like a really open and creative game. I was really surprised though that the game had a multiple hour wait to play it. I felt like most people would gravitate to the the big budget franchises, this game was getting a lot of attention and it makes me all the more excited to finally try it out upon release.

So if I would’t wait in any queues, what did I do with my day. Well having more time to explore meant I could spend more time discovering the lesser known and indie titles that were on display by the truckload. I ended up enjoying myself far more in the indie developer sections of the convention in comparison to the Ubisoft, Sony and Microsoft sections.

I got to try a number of little games, the standouts of which included an augmented reality tank game by the name of Smash Tanks, which was surprisingly really fun considering how early in development it was. It’s a game where you control a number of tanks on a surface in front of you, as seen through the lens of a tablet computer. You think it’s going to be a game similar to angry birds before you realise you’re flinging around the tanks themselves. It was good fun and I’ll keep an eye out in future.

The other game that really sticks out in my memory is called Phogs! I was drawn in straight away by the image above the single screen showing the game.

A strange game where two people share a side of a single controller, both moving one head of the.. uh. Phog. It’s a puzzle game where your verbs are biting things and making your body longer, or snapping it back to its original length. It was very charming, despite the small amount of time I spent with it and had me and my brother randomly saying Phogs! at one another for the rest of the day.

As well has having the large indie section, there were a lot of middle ground types of booths there too. Games that were much bigger than the tiny indie displays, but nowhere near big enough to get a giant stare of a drake made for them.

One of the main things I was real excited about at the con was that I finally got my hands on Dragonball Fighter Z. Dragonball fighting games have been a very mixed bag over the years and Fighter Z looks like it might be the best honest fighting game to come from the series. I’m sure the game is full of complexities that fighter experts could describe better than me. But as a total beginner I managed to pick it up and just mash it out. I was rewarded with a very pretty looking game doing very cool things on screen pretty consistently.

I tried to get hands on Cuphead, a game that has been shown at these events for years now and never seems to actually want to come out. There were only two screens playable and being lumped in with a lot of Microsoft’s other smaller titles, there was nobody to keep the queue moving along. The game looks like Contra, but has a very striking visual style. The game looks like a cartoon from the 1950s and draws your attention straight away. The game started out as a boss rush, but after demand to make it more of a platformer, the title was delayed for several years to meet that demand.

So after watching a couple of dudes die for the 5th time and not give the controllers up I decided to give it up. Because believe it or not the game is actually out this week. I’ve waited this long, what’s a couple days more.

After I managed to play most of the games I really wanted to try we stuck our heads in the retro arcade section that, once again, made an appearance.  It was pretty standard fare though as it was generally the same kind of stuff I’ve seen at events like these before. Filled with old consoles, arcade cabinets and pinball machines, they seem to serve the main purpose to show children how hard we had it before you could pal GTA on your phone. There were some cool things to take away for me though. I got to try an Afterburner arcade machine out, which was cool. Depite the fact that I had no idea how to not die straight away.

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Can’t get away from Sonic

No idea what this was, but the sounds coming out of it were amazing.

Outrun was there too

The machine was actually broken though, so I didn’t have the opportunity to be thrown out of it.

Afterburner is hard

The other cool story that came out of it was that I found myself playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles on an actual Mega Drive for the first time in my life. Considering I still own my old Sega Mega Drive and used to claim Sonic 3 & Knuckles was my favourite game of all time, I never played the game on its original platform before. I played it on the PC of all things. Weird. But after playing so much Sonic Mania these past few weeks, the original feels much more sluggish by comparison.

After we couldn’t get on a beanbag to play Micro Machines or Bomberman, we moved back to Sony’s stage to watch a guy from Capcom play the upcoming Monster Hunter World. I’m real excited to play this game, as are a lot of other people apparently. In Sony’s booth section there were only two screens playing Monster Hunter, and the queue was hilariously long compared to all of the others in the same section.

I got a bit fed up of playing Monster Hunter on a handheld, the game required more concentration and finesse than was easy on the small device. Plus, I couldn’t put the time I really wanted to in the device when it became painful to play after a time.

Monster Hunter World isn’t just coming to console, it’s coming to all consoles. I don’t think the series has seen a release on a non Nintendo console outside of Japan since the original game on the PS2. While it seems far more actiony and accessible than the series usually tends to be, I’m very much looking forward to trying it out. The game looks stunning and the new focus on accessibility might make it so the series finally gets as big here as it is in Japan.

It was getting towards the end of the day by this point. So we made our way to the rear theatre to catch a live orchestra playing video game music. It seemed like a cool thing to try and catch. It’s a shame the idea was far better than the execution. The theatre was a curtained off area towards the back of the hall, right next to the Cosplay stage, which was right next to the Street Fighter stage. So a lot of the quieter pieces were drowned out by cosplayers shouting at their audiences for them to cheer louder. They had to shout to be heard over the the guy getting real excited about his thousandth Street Fighter match of the weekend.

It was a real shame to be honest, and you could tell the orchestra themselves were pretty annoyed. They had to forgo the Ori and the Blind Forest section altogether because we would have had no chance in hell of hearing it. I had been looking forward to that as I always loved the music in Ori and the Blind forest. It’s probably for the best though as I would have been all the more annoyed by not being able to hear it. I’m not going to say anything was ruined here, but it felt like a bit of shortsightedness from the organisers.

By this point, the floor was only open for another hour and most of the big games had closed their lines to anyone new joining. So there wasn’t much more for us to play at this point, having missed our final chance at Sea of Thieves. So against my better judgement, I saw that the Sonic Forces booth was pretty empty and decided to give it a go.

Sonic Forces seems bad.

It feels really sad to admit that, but with what I’ve had to put up with as a Sonic the Hedgehog fan over the years, getting to play a really good Sonic game in Sonic Mania, following it up with this was somthing of a revelation.

The demo contained four stages; a classic Sonic stage and a modern Sonic stage, like we’ve seen before in Sonic Generations. It also had an “avatar” stage, the avatar being your self insert OC, and a team stage that included both Sonic and the avatar.

While the Sonic sections felt a lot like Generations, the stages involving the avatars were just plain bad. The action was much slower to make for use of the gadgets these characters revolve around, and the experience was not an enjoyable one. The platforming felt floaty and unresponsive. fighting enemies was tedious and required little effort behind pressing jump over and over.

There was one moment I couldn’t help but laugh at. As a team up attack occurred which had me mash a button for a while before the two characters started charging through the stage while some real old school cheesy rock started playing through the headphones like the Sonic Adventure era of games. It was the best thing I can say about the demo, and I only liked it ironically. I don’t have high hopes for Sonic Forces and I feel like the character might not have much of a life ahead of him outside of the retro throwbacks like Mania. Mania was both the best and worst thing that could have happened to that series.

Overall I enjoyed my day at EGX. While it would have been nice to go and play all the big AAA titles from the likes of Nintendo and Ubisoft, if you wanted to play three of them, then that’s almost your entire day gone. I can understand why some people make the full four days out of the event. But in the end I think I found a happy medium. Most of us know what these big games are going to be, and generally know if we’re going to buy them one way or the other.

The advice I’d give to someone if they’re thinking about going in the future is take your time. Absorb the atmosphere and strange costumed characters that show up to these things. Spend some money on stuff you’ll inevitably throw away. But mainly, stick to the indie sections. Chances are you’ll get to play dozens of games if you plan your day like this, and end up finding some little gems that will stay on your radar in the coming years. It’s what made me pick up Little Nightmares last year, as well as Snake Pass. And you can bet I’m going to be picking up Phogs! when it eventually gets a release too.

My time at EGX 2017 So I went to EGX again this year. This would be the point in the article where, if I’d have been a real journalist, I’d have given a brief background into EGX.

[baburaja97-blog]

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/ipads-android-and-the-rest-of-the-world/

iPads, Android and the Rest of the World

A truly tectonic shift in how we use computers is happening right now, and I’ll bet it’s happening within 30 feet of where you are while you read this.

What is this shift? Powerful, portable, user-friendly mobile computing in the form of a touch screen tablet PC. You can bet that no matter where you are in a developed country you’ll be no more than 30 feet away from someone with a touch screen device of some description.

And what’s more, given the recent advances in hardware and software, those people may actually be able to use their devices for something useful!

You see, it’s all about the power. well ‘power consumption’ to be more exact

Early attempts at true mobile touch screen computing were rather lacked luster. The Windows Operating system was used almost exclusively, and whilst touchscreen support was added to later versions there were two MAJOR problems.

1) The Windows desktop OS was a huge power-hungry monster… OK so maybe that is a little harsh. But the truth of the matter was that when you combined the Windows OS with the X86 platform it is tied too, you could not produce a thin, light and powerful device that could:

a. Provide decent video playback, let alone play HD video. b. Play any kind of proper 3D game.

This meant that most early attempts were either heavy, chunky hot slabs of processing power or they were completely underpowered and almost unusable.

2) Windows was never designed from the start as a touch screen OS for mobile devices. No matter how hard you tried it always felt that you were using an OS that had been forced onto a tablet PC, and had then had touch screen support bolted on like an oversized exhaust from you local motorist discount center.

The situation looked pretty grim and it was set to continue in this manner until the first iPad hit the shelves.

Apple had created a masterpiece. By not using the x86 platform (ARM Risk processors were used instead) and by designing an OS from the ground up, Apple had created a device that could do almost everything anyone could want on a mobile device.

You could browse the web, read your emails, watch a film, almost anything the average user could want to do they could now do on a handheld device that didn’t need it own portable nuclear reactor to power.

What’s more, the device was built to high standards and had a user-friendly and easy to understand interface. It was almost as if the device actually wanted you to use it. It was certainly years ahead of the previous attempts based on Windows.

The fact that it didn’t run windows would have been a problem for just about anyone other than Apple. Apple already had its own ‘Apple Universe’ thing going on and it could integrate the iPad into that universe. This universe has existed for years without needing to be compromised to work with Windows and its x86 architecture (although granted Mac OS can now run on x86 hardware).

The iPad represented a way for Apple to hook people into the Apple universe. The iPod, the iPhone, these devices too were all a way to hook people into the Apple universe.

For several years the iPad had been THE choice for a mobile touch screen device, with a slick front end and a quality feel.

The iPad owes it success largely to the fact that the platform is the sealed, tightly controlled and polished product of one organization. The whole platform is tightly controlled by Apple from the hardware spec, to the OS build and even to a degree the Apps that third parties write for it (via control of the SDK with a refusal to support any other runtimes like Adobe Flash).

But this is where the problems start; this control ends up restricting the platform. There is a reason one of the iPads catch phrases is ‘There’s an App for that’. It’s because there has to be an app for everything. If you want to watch BBC I-player you can’t do it through a browser, you have to use an App. The same is true of ITV Catchup service among others.

You can’t use any browser-based flash games, and you can’t access YouTube through the browser.

This control has also been turning software developers off of the platform in recent times, although the significant revenue’s that people can earn writing software of the iPad has kept this in check for the moment.

Into this picture emerges a very unlikely combination, one whose vague happening could have been predicted several years ago, but its specific form could not have been foreseen.

For years I have been saying that no one is ever going to break the dominance of Microsoft by tackling them head on. Apple has tried for years and they have hardly dented Microsoft’s revenues. In fact, Apple has probably helped Microsoft by giving Microsoft someone to hold up as an example of competition every time they are threatened with a break-up because they are too big.

Any rival will have to grow up in a parallel technology sector and then combine with others in the same position to generate the ‘critical mass’ required to take on Microsoft in its dominant markets.

Well, this is happening now, and who are these new players..? Google, Nvidia and about a thousand manufacturers of all different sizes and shapes.

For several years Nvidia has been working on a new hardware platform called Tegra 2. The Tegra platform has always been aimed at mobile hand-held devices with a slant on video performance. However, after seeing the success of the iPad and the potential for hand-held touch screen computing Nvidia shifted the Tegra platform up a few gears.

Nvidia teamed up with ARM to create an ultra low power, yet powerful processing platform.

The Tegra 2 platform is basically a dual-core version the iPad processor which has been advanced a generation on. In addition, it has been combined with an advanced graphics accelerator designed by Nvidia especially for the platform, as well as other specially designed processors to handle tasks like HD video encoding/decoding.

As a hardware platform, it blows all previous attempts at mobile touch screen computing out of the water… literally. It’s so far ahead that if the Tegra 2 platform was taking part in an Olympic race with the other offerings (Windows+X86 and Apple) then after the event it would be forced to take a test for performance enhancing drugs and have its gender verified.

Even the iPad 2 cannot compete on raw power with a Tegra 2 device.

What’s more, Tegra 3 has already completed design and it is ready to go into manufacturing, plus Tegra 4 is apparently in an advanced design phase. Tegra 3 (quad-core anyone?) is going to make Tegra 2 look seriously underpowered (even though it isn’t), and Tegra 4 seems to be verging on the edge of science fiction.

So surely that’s it then, any device based on a Tegra 2 platform is the best mobile device going and no one should bother buying anything else?? Well no, it’s not quite that simple.

Why isn’t it that simple? Well for starters Tegra 2, 3 and 4 are just hardware platforms, you need software to run on them.

That’s where Google and the Android OS come in… rise oh slayer of Microsoft! (A bit too ahead of the curve on that prediction? Let’s wait and see on that one then, but the potential is there).

Android started as an OS for Mobile phones. So it was designed (like the OS on the iPad) with as small a footprint as possible and touch screens in mind. It is also VERY flexible as it was designed to run on a huge variety of devices.

Unlike the iPad OS, it is also very open, with the source code being released to the public (otherwise known as ‘open source’). This flexibility has one big downside and one big upside.

On the downside, the Android OS is not as slick as the OS on the iPad. It’s a little harder to use and it always feels a bit cruder. In certain areas, it may even be a little slower to respond even though the hardware is hugely superior when running on Tegra 2.

On the plus side, the openness has strapped a big rocket to the development of the Android OS and the last 2 months has lit the touch-paper.

We now see a huge Android community growing up around Tegra-powered Android devices from all manner of manufacturers. We are going to see some major game releases for the Tegra + Android platform really soon (including direct ports of several PS3 titles), and there are quite a number of game studios that are backing Tegra + Android.

What’s more, there are a huge number of Apps available for both Android and iPad now through their respective markets. You can be fairly certain that no matter which one you buy, there is an app to do whatever it is you are looking for an app to do.

So what does all this mean? How could you fairly sum up the current state of mobile touch screen computing? Which device is best now? Which has the most promise and future potential?

If you want to recommend a device for your parents who just want a quality device to browse the web, read emails and play solitaire on, tell them to go and get an iPad. Its ease of use, solid quality and reliable performance just can’t be beaten at the moment.

If you are on a budget and you want a powerful and flexible device and you don’t mind a few rough edges then go and get a Tegra 2+Android 2.2 tablet like the Advent Vega or the Point of View Mobii. If you are willing to do some reading and explore what the android community offers to get the most from these devices (custom software including the Cyanogen ROM (android 2.3)and resources like and you will end up with a device that is FAR more capable and polished than its price tag suggests.

If you don’t want an iPad, but you still want something slick with a quality feel, then don’t buy anything now. Wait until the new generation of Android 3.0 tablets are properly released and have been out for a few months, then go and spend around 450 on one with a Tegra 2 chipset.

And if you want an iPad 2..? I honestly cannot think of any reason why you would spend that much money on an iPad 2, seriously I can’t. Unless perhaps you were just a huge Apple fan.

As for the future? Those of us old enough to remember the battle between Microsoft and Apple already know what’s coming. I firmly predict that Apple will make all the same mistakes again. They will put the ideology of the ‘Apple Universe’ and the perfection they aim for above openness and they will get left behind in the great tablet race.

For those that are too young to remember the Microsoft vs. Apple battle, watch this closely and you are about to see history repeating itself.

This will be a big shame because when it comes to ergonomics and ease of use apple is currently ahead, although this lead is shrinking a little each day.