Best posts made by DIPSET

Look what my YouTube recommended told me to watch...

"Seeing him [Yu] able to tell his story touches me more than even my desire to continue the journey"

Youtube Video

GUYS LOOK WHAT I JUST FOUND!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzQsmhp9Auw
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I think EZA should be proud that of all the publications they could have put up, they have Easy Allies who are under 1 year old. You guys have put this brand out there and people are respecting it because they respect the Allies. It isn't like this is some big budget production at the moment. Somebody at Sony likely knows your work. It's all uphill in 2017!

@hazz3r

Thanks for sharing that channel cause I've also been looking for a good gateway into CKIII on a level where I kinda understand the systems better.

I voted for CK III as a HM but I'm no ambassador for the series. Basically, it was free on Game Pass. I hear Paradox make classic grand strategy games, and my buddy who is into these things told me it's a good time.

@HappyGaming - I am your example of having no experience with grand strategy but having a good time. I have 0% experience with this stuff. Not even Civilization (other than watching my buddy).

So I download the game and play the tutorial. It's about 60 mins and is pretty friggin straightforward. It definitely took some intimidation edge off. Likewise the game is full of pop up tips so I felt at least equipped to play.

What is really cool about CK III is that you can play co-op with a few friends and there isn't any goal so they can assist you, try to kill you, try to have sex with your wife. Whatever it may be, the possibilities are quite honestly endless.

So I hop on Discord with my friend who has experience with the game.

• I choose a King in Italy and he choses to play as a King across the sea in Croatia.
• We team up and have our kids marry each other (and make a bunch of incest babies).
• I take over Sicily but that would be my downfall because a Muslim kingdom used to live there and I sent my Bishop to convert them and it did NOT pay dividends in the future.
• My king lives until he's like 56 years old and dies in self imposed isolation in the mountains because he started to grow a little bid mad. My buddy says he's never even seen a king live to be that long so that was pretty fun.
• I pick up playing as my son in which my brother immediately starts war with me and the Muslims in Sicily revolt with him and I'm murdered with no heir to the throne.

That was 2-3ish hours of gameplay and my first go at Crusader Kings III and that storyline we made among ourselves was just etched into my mind despite my first failure. I think that is the magic of CK III—there is no point to the game whatsoever. Sure, "survive" is the surface level purpose but the actual point is to just have fun and make stories along the way.

I recommend people to give it a go, maybe with a friend, and just laugh your ass off at the possibilities this game presents you. I wish I played more but it's definitely a daunting task to get back into it after a failure. There are many systems at play so there is a lot to learn, but trust me, I'm a complete noob and had a blast for a bit.

I always disclaim that genres and labels are best for marketing and not necessarily best for critically analyzing a game.

With that out of the way, it seem like WRPGs allow for more player agency (but in recent example like Fallout 4, even then you don't have much say) as opposed to JRPGs that provide greater world context and you unfold the story as a more pre-determined protagonist. However, you still have agency in a JRPG. Your choice to explore, say, a village in such a way that limits story or enriches it, is entirely on the player.

You also RP when you choose what types of attacks or spells to use. Your version of the hero in Persona 4 can be drastically different from another persons.

Just my 2 cents.

I thought I was getting the hang of Discord when I started using it for in-game voice chats with my friends and the EZA Fantasy Critic League, but now that I've joined this active EZA Discord forum, I've come to terms with being way too old for this shit. I don't understand how anybody can keep up with 50 threads of conversations going by so quickly.

I also don't even know how to unlock the threads. I'll stick to these slow ass web forums.

@chocobop

I'm telling you... Fight Night Champion is a 10/10. I bet the demo is still available to download on PS3 and Xbox 360. That demo should be enough to help you see how cool this game is before you or anybody else casts their undecided votes. But I do suggest picking it up if you haven't played it.

We're talking about a full package video game here...

Unique Gameplay:

When you play a fighting game - you know a match is going to be over in a few minutes. A lot of people do longer tournaments but once an in-game round is complete, the slate is cleaned: full health, full reset. The x-factor in FN:C is that these boxing matches are 10 x 3min rounds. The slate isn't cleaned at the end of a round. If you took a beating one round, you might not recover and the next 180 seconds is all about survival. If I target a cut above my opponents eye, that cut will continue to bleed making their accuracy worse and increase their likelihood of getting knocked out or stunned with a heavy punch to that side. Or maybe if you throw too many punches, you'll burn through your stamina and never recover your energy again. A few body shots after being gassed and you're down. A lot to consider here.

Legacy mode:

Endlessly customize your boxer where you start as a complete scrub in a ghetto gym and work your way up the ladder to GOAT status. It's not like today where you have to pay $10 for a headband and a red shirt. You can really make your boxer look cool, have a cool personality, and even customize their entrance music. This is like the RPG-mode of the game where you go in and work on your fighter until they are incredible.

Champion Mode:

Imagine a fighting game if it contextualized the fights though a cinematic story. Sure that's somewhat common now, but it wasn't in 2011. The variety in gameplay and atmosphere is amazing here where you have everything from Olympic fights to prison fights. Some of the most memorable matches play like a boss battle where your opponent has a devastating left hook so you need to perfect your timing to bob and weave away.

Character Builds:

You can min/max your custom boxer in this game (to a degree). You want to put your points into speed, accuracy and jabs with an elongated 'sniper' boxing stance, then you can play that way. You want to go all in on power and dodging; Mike Tyson 'peak-a-boo' style - That's viable too. There isn't a definitive 'meta' to this game. Lots of viable builds.

Roster:

This is why boxing games are unique. This is a legacy roster with so many of the absolute legends of the sport being playable. They all play differently like they should. James Tony doesn't fight the same way Mike Tyson does. There is nuance to the playable boxers here. To name a few: Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao, Roy Jones Jr, Sugar Ray Leonard, list goes on. This is all before you get really great broadcast quality commentary by Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore (a few years before NBA2K started to up the ante with the in-game presentation). You can also tap into the custom boxers available for download from the community. This ranges from strikingly accurate portrayals of Harry Potter to Justin Bieber to Floyd Mayweather. I'm telling you there is nothing more hilarious than headbutting and punching Harry Potter in the balls.

Online Play:

Like I said, there isn't a definitive meta-game so boxing matches online feel competitive, fun, and fair. I've had some 10 round WARS with people online that went down to the judges scorecards. Custom boxers, different styles, and close skill levels. Not too many rage quitters either. People were in this to have competitive matches.

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I know lots of gamer-gamers scoff at sports games (despite there being endless classic sports games), but sports games are made by gamers and people who are passionate about making good games. EA Vancouver (formerly part of EA Canada / EA Blackbox / EA Burnaby) has gotten a lot of crap for some underfunded games over the years, but this studio has made some incredible games and when they get the opportunity to push it to the next level - they do (SSX, Need For Speed, Skate, NHL to name a few).

TL;DR - here is my thesis:

Fight Night Champion is actually one of the most fun games I've played PERIOD. I think people should look back at this game the same way people fondly look back on, say, SSX. It's deep like a fighting game, its graphically beautiful like a AAA game of that time, there are a few different modes to keep you happy for many many hours. Full package game.

So that's my Fight Night Champion pitch to people who might be unsure about their picks for this 2011. Again, try the demo on XBL & PSN.

Hello fellow Allies.

My assumption is that most of us in 2020 have a personal YouTube account with channels we subscribe to and watch on a weekly if not daily basis. I know lots of people in the gaming community prefer Twitch, but I still like my long form edited content.

Although I miss the good ol days of websites and communities within those websites (a la GameTrailers.com circa 2006-2013), I've somewhat succumbed to the homogenization of the internet back in like 2012. I've been building my YouTube subscriptions since then, with some channels I like coming and going over the years.

I'd like to share some of my interests and hopefully you can share some of the channels you like as well as I'm looking to find more interesting things. I'm looking for more photography channels that aren't just about settings and equipment, but something more interesting. Also, I don't subscribe to any women I can think of. I know women work on a lot of the more major channels I enjoy, but in terms of those personal YT channels, I don't subscribe to any. I'd like to find out about some female run channels. Maybe just write a little blurb about each channel you might end up linking so we know what what type of content they make.

Just a disclaimer - feel free to share whatever you like, but I really truly cannot stomach the "angry" or the "ranty" video essayists who just act outraged at everything in the gaming sphere with clickbait titles like "_______ Gaming Franchise is DEAD After This" (i.e. YongYea or whatever his name is)

Obviously, we already know about Easy Allies... ;)

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Gaming

Super GT
Youtube Video

Super GT (Steve Alverez) is a British YouTuber who is really popular for his GT Sport Daily Race videos as well as his live streams. He has a good self depriving sense of humour where he makes fun of his own racing abilities. If he was a golfer, he'd have a low handicap in Pro-Am tournaments. He's somewhere between a highly skilled amateur driver, and a pro level player. I've linked one of his most popular videos that shows how brutal Forza 7 online races can be. He also does real life karting videos which is a really cool sport in itself.

Game Brain
Youtube Video

Quick and easy interviews with developers themselves about how certain games and specifically levels in games came to be. He doesn't upload much but he's been doing a lot more lately. Some really interesting things can be learned from his interviews. I learned about how video game developers tend to scale the BG / props up 30% for a variety of reasons which is why scale is sometimes wonky in games. The COD MW level "Clean House" used 1:1 scaling which is why it might be one of the most intimate levels ever made.

Photography

Samuel L. Streetlife
Youtube Video

Street Photography is a type of candid photography that captures candid moments of humans on the street - mostly unplanned, random, and in busy public places. Samuel has lots of street photography videos. "On The Streets With" is a series where he meets other street photographers around the world and walks around and picks their brain. He also has "Street Critique" where he dictates a theme for the month and everybody submits their photos surround that theme and two photographers will critique submissions from the community. Lots of travel and beautiful candid moments here.

Sean Tucker

Youtube Video

Sean brings a more philosophical discussion to his videos where he approaches a topic from a variety of ways interesting ways and encourages a lot of self education. Where other photographers on YouTube like to just talk equipment and settings, Sean really speaks to photography and filmmaking in a personal way about growth, learning, and personal perspective.

Film

The Ringer

Youtube Video

Bill Simmons is a former Jimmy Kimmel writer, ESPN columnist, founder of the defunct Grantland, and currently the founder and CEO of The Ringer podcast network. They are an all-in-one entertainment channel with a major focus on sports. Simmons just sold to Spotify for $200 Million so expect to see more of The Ringer. I'll admit that their YouTube page is underdeveloped and you're better off searching for the audio versions on their website or Spotify, iTunes, etc.

My favourite show of theirs is "The Rewatchables" where they go through the most rewatchable movies of all time and break it down by: Most Rewatchable Scene, Aged The Worst, Deion Sanders Award for Heat Check Performance (being in the movie for one or two scenes but stealing the show), and more. They've done Rewatchables episodes like Happy Gilmore with the Safdie Brothers or Dunkirk with Quentin Tarantino.

Cinemassacre

Youtube Video

I don't even know where to begin with this channel. Cinemassacre is run by James Rolfe (aka Angry Video Game Nerd) and Mike Matei . They've been doing this for a loooooong time at this point. His AVGN videos were published on GameTrailers back in the day. I prefer his film related content though. His movie collection is massive, I love their video rental set where they just talk for 20 minutes about their affection for oddly specific movies.

You have to be able to see past the nerd humour, which I'll admit, is pretty dated today, but I just find his passion contagious. He also is rarely "angry" outside of his AVGN videos. His channel is always positive and unlike other "angry" copycats, James doesn't stoop down to being outraged by everything to pander to an audience of toxic juvenile adults. He just talks about movies he loves and has a good laugh about them sometimes.

Music

Todd In The Shadows

Youtube Video

Todd has three major shows:

ONE HIT WONDERLAND is a show, in his own words, "where I take a look at the full careers of bands and artists known for only one song. This series is a trip through music history, as seen through the prism of a particular artist who only had one hit before fading from memory. Why did they fail? Who came along to replace them? Were they any good? Did they deserve better?" I can say you will always come out of this one with some newfound and interesting knowledge. You'd be surprised how much history comes before and after a big one hit wonder.

TRAINWRECKORDS are, "retrospectives at legendarily disastrous albums that ended careers." Again, sometimes it's a joy to hear how asinine some of these albums are.

POP SONG REVIEW where "I take one current smash hit song and take it apart, break it down line by line, see what parts work and what doesn't, and analyze where it fits within both current trends and the artists' body of work."

Smack / Ultimate Rap League

Youtube Video

King of The Dot

Youtube Video – [10:22..]

Not really music but battle rap is a subculture of hip hop. It has gone through different eras over the years where the average joe might know about the freestyle battles of the past, but the current era stems from written battle DVDs out of NYC and Philly in the 2000s. Now we have battle leagues that run on YouTube with emphasis on writing and performance instead of insults. KOTD is a league from my city of Toronto and I've watched them grow over the years into something big.

Battle rap is hard to get into, and almost a chore to keep up on, but the performances with the major punchline moments where the room shakes is a contagious feeling. The second battle I linked has a ton of video game bars / jokes from Daylyt if you're interested. I linked directly to one particular part: "Face explode, punches, I land mine / we sock more mouths than Mankind / can shine, it's fire / I put Hell on his life / rounds flying everywhere, look like Sonic fell on a spike!"

You remix this type of thread every few months with the same uncompromising distaste towards the same games over and over. Just keep it to this one thread please...

With that said,

• Mario's smug aura mocks me and I don't find him cute at all.
• Majority of Twitch streams/streamers are insufferable.
• Uncharted series has achieved the feel and tone of the pulp adventure romp genre far better than any Star Wars sequel or anything alike has since maybe Romancing The Stone.

I haven't been as hot on 2010-2018 as I was 2000-2010, but the games I love this decade I really really like. I'd even go as far to say that some years are just plain lacking like how Journey (a very short indie game) was basically GOTY 2012. I've obsessed over the Souls series and ranking Bloodborne vs Dark Souls is painful, but they may as well both be my favourite game of the decade so far. Very few games have quenched me like Souls has since playing them originally. This list and it's order is mostly pointless. These are just the games that come to mind when I think about having a blast and for a long period of time. Most are filled with memories with friends which help their case.

The problem with this decade is that everything is so AAA and expensive. I miss my old batch of favourite games that aren't necessarily "the best" but they are insanely fun to play: SSX, Tony Hawk, Battlefront, LOTR Return of the King, Animal Crossing, Overlord, Stranglehold, Ninety-Nine Nights, Mercenaries 2, the list goes on. They just don't make these types of B-Tier games anymore. I feel like this discussion is worth a thread of its own.

1 - Bloodborne
2 - Dark Souls
3 - Uncharted 4
4 - Yakuza 0
5 - The Last of Us
6 - Persona 5
7 - God of War III
8 - The Witcher II
9 - Fallout New Vegas
10 - Dead Rising 2

HM's: Nier Automata, LittleBigPlanet 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Rocket League, Until Dawn, P.T., The Witcher III, Inside, Dark Souls III.

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I've been a day 1 patron of Easy Allies and this was always the goal I looked forward to the most. As a long time user of GameTrailers.com I was so disappointed that GT went away, but was extremely happy when I saw EZA was happening. There were compromises; a lot of the staff isn't here anymore, the website features that made GT great are non-existent, but at least the shows and core group remained. So glad they can bring that extra degree of quality that GT had into EZA come 2019.

@el-shmiablo

Man that YouTuber entitlement kills me. Just fan entitlement in general.

For example, my studio made a film that was funded through Indie Go Go. We were hired as a service company, it wasn’t our IP. It took a long time to release cause the budget was shoestring. Fans in the wait were like angry and violent - “I could have animated it in this time”.

Just shuddup -__-

But the provocateur youtubers are on another level...

This is news:

You don't have to know anything about fighting games to see this is wild a f

I don't know exactly what I think. My roommate and I talked for maybe 30 minutes about the industry in general as well as this. Here are some rambling loose thoughts.

I'm beginning to notice that as more people begin to use tech, kids and younger adults seem to be more and more tech illiterate instead of improving and Stradia is probably another example of profiting off of this. I'm 24, I'm the last group of kids born without PCs or internet in the household but most of us had them by 2004. I remember the early days of the internet, learning things from forums, and just learning about computers by doing. Converting mp4 to wmv so it can play on Media Player. Downloading music off of Kazaa, Napster, Limewire. Learning about computer tech from forums instead of magazines or books. That kinda thing.

Nowadays people don't want to learn about computers, they don't care about the prices they pay for "convenience", and they don't know what they are missing out on when they play video games on a potato phone instead of a good TV with a controller. People pay money to stream music when I grew up getting it free very easily. Same goes with video. People spend $1000-2000 on an iPhone that they pay to watch movies on and play video games on. They don't care that they're missing out on a big TV with proper surround sound. Just play it through your shitty phone speakers and watch through your scratched up screen protector.

The general masses don't care anymore, so why the hell should they care about the quality of their games? I don't think Google Stadia is for us gaming forum dwellers but for some kids who wanna play a game by pressing one button. People don't care that a PS4 is basically the best all-in-one media centre out there when they can have their Macbook or Amazon stick, and call it a day. I'll never and I mean NEVER compromise my entertainment centre. It brings me too much pleasure in life to have a nice TV, a nice set of speakers, a good game console, and a solid couch to sit on. I have friends that can live out of a backpack and I just can't do that. I need my cozy living room but they don't. They don't need anything more than a bit of space to sleep, their bag, toothbrush, bed, laptop, and phone. They don't care if the movie quality sucks on the laptop - its fine for them. I think the same goes for gaming. People in general don't care if it doesn't look as good or work as well.

Times are changing. I hate to admit it, but times are changing.

Being a relatively young adult, the only loss I’ve had to suffer was one of my best friends in 2017. Today, I’m feeling a similar sort of pain knowing my hero Kobe Bryant has died. Today has been a tough day to process losing somebody who’s been with me for so long.

I sometimes get disappointed that my generation of athletes growing up has retired and I won’t get to watch them again. I didn’t expect to have to mourn the loss of my generations' athletic hero.

I don’t want to take this passing lightly. I want to do great things just like Kobe did. I gotta make sure he continues to inspire me.

RIP Mamba 🏀💔

Re-releasing Hatred, especially after all the mass shootings and incels running over citizens, is completely tone deaf.

I sincerely beg of everybody to be as sensitive as possible with TLOU Pt II leaks out there. Please just don't say anything. There forums are generally safe and we're all vigilant, but NONE of us will be playing this game for MONTHS so we can't even play it to beat the spoilers.

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It really sucks that somebody would do this. I've worked with disgruntled employees. They usually quit, move on with their lives, and feel all the better for it in the end. I have some skepticism that somebody would intentionally ruin the game for the masses just because they were mad at their employer. They would obviously know that this hurts the fans more than your workplace. I feel like this narrative is too convenient.

I'll post photos later, but its nothing jaw dropping.

I just moved so my living room is waaaaaay more cozy, but my PC area / office / cold ass cantina den looking thing, is waaaaay less comfortable.

Living Room

• 55" Samsung Q60R - 4K HDR
• L/C/R Denton speakers (essentially stereo with a centre channel)
• PS4 Pro (w/ x3 variably shitty DS4 controllers)
• PS3 (with x2 boderline broken DS3 controllers, one is red)
• Sony record player (also shitty, old, and quasi broken)
• Dracaena trifasciata
• Guiana Chestnut
• Monstera deliciosa
• Bok choy
• Structube couch

PC Gaming Room / Office / Spare Room / Cantina

• 32" ASUS VA32AQ (1440p @60Hz) (not a good monitor, don't buy)
• Razer mecha-membrane keyboard (can't remember the model)
• Razer Deathadder Mouse
• Bose Companion 2 (2011 model)
• Nikon D780
• Mariah Carey "Rainbow" album poster
• A packed box of VHS tapes
• A packed bag with x2 N64's, a GameCube, a slim PS2, and a bunch of games
• Cold ass walls and floors
• Needs a carpet

PC Specs

• GPU - Geforce GTX 1080
• CPU Intel i7 6700k @4GHz
• RAM - 16GB DDR4

PC is nearly 3 years old and I haven't had any hiccups other than drive space. I use Lightroom, Photoshop, and Animate all with ease. I play games @ 2K resolution, 60fps with ease.

These GPU's nowadays don't really go bad for a long time.

Good call and good use of their platform. I think its important for those with power and privilege to use their own voices and platforms to move aside and give space to those who need it most.

Anything us with privileges can do to shine a light in the right direction is a good move. This shouldn't be a comfortable time, we need to help where we can. Even if its small.

I absolutely love Resident Evil 2 and it probably should have made my list but I offered up the spot to The Evil Within instead (which I don't think is gonna make it at this rate). Now don't get me wrong, RE2 and TEW are apples and oranges but if I have to make concessions in choosing a Top 15, I opted to go with TEW because it aimed for the sun, moon, stars, and Mars. That game is wild.

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Per RE2, I think we need a renaissance in game design and games like RE2, Spyro remake, and the extremely recent THPS 1 + 2 remake show how taking the fundamental game design of the past is still very commercially viable and importantly SUPER FUN by modern standards. Nobody picked this game up and said "Why am I running around this police station? Where is the XP? Why isn't this open world?"

However, some very specific people might've asked "Why can't I shoot the lights out" but that's neither here nor there.

Trend following can only get a series so far. And no longstanding gaming series is immune to following trends in one way or another, but Resident Evil 2 feels so fresh because it is unapologetically a PS1-era game with some quality of life features. These games are still great and I'm hoping that rather than remaking all of these games, developers start re-learning from them as they design new games.

EDIT:

I'd like to theorize that Resident Evil 8: The Village is doing just what I suggest - learning from the past to make an interesting game in the present. It seems as though it'll be heavily inspired from RE4 and as we saw with RE7, Capcom wasn't scared to revisit the old formula. As far as I understand, the game didn't sell as well as RE6 but it was still a commercial success.

I don't even know where to begin with Yakuza 0 but I love this game so much, I have such fond memories thinking back of playing it and everything surrounding that time. Yakuza is now a Day 1 must play series for me now.

First of all, 2016-2017 was one of the best years of my life: we won tons of awards for our thesis project, I had a summer love fling, I got a brand new job, and every video game was SO. DAMN. GOOOOOD! (UC4, DS3, Y0, P5, TLG, Neir Auto, Nioh, the list goes on).

So this game came out at the right place at the right time. My only knowledge of Yakuza came from Greg Miller's infamous IGN review of Yakuza 4 where he shit all over it and compared it to a watered down GTA. I don't mind Greg, but in hindsight, that is a really really bad take, especially considering the game wasn't trying to re-write the book between Y3 and Y4.

So next the Easy Allies, mainly Ben and Huber will NOT shut up about Yakuza 0 and I think Ben did a preview of it and it just sounded so awesome. I finally tried it and holy hell I wasn't expecting what I got.

I think what I love most of all is the tone. Every scene has this honourable machismo where Yakuza bosses and Patriarch's dominate a room with so much tension you can cut it with a knife. Then everything in-between the main story moments has this extremely lighthearted and fun-ness to it. I think about Mr. Shakedown - a brute who beats you up and steals your money, Nouveau Riche scrubs who try to fight you wearing sequin suits, or the NBA2K GM Mode style Caberet Club management mini-game.

I will NEVER get sick of absolutely smashing someones back against a railing, or picking up a motorcycle and fucking obliterating drunks who pick a fight with the god damn Dragon of Dojima (before he's the Dragon of course).

I almost love Yakuza 6 just as much, but the plot in Y0 with everybody battling over the empty lot is my favourite type of story trope and Y0 does it so good. I also think Y0 has better weight to it. The PS4 Dragon Engine Yakuza games feel a little bit floaty which removes that brutal IMPACT you get from Y0.

EDIT:

This was the Preview that sold me. Huber kills me!

Youtube Video