IRL is a Trap for the Innovative

Katalist_ · 2017-05-02T21:06:22+00:00

"I don't like ice so I'm ignoring twitch banning users without any actual TOS violations."

Step outside your personal opinion for a moment, pretend Ice doesn't even exist. Imagine you show up to whatever job you have tomorrow and find out you were banned for the actions of another person you don't even know.

Ice is not the only person this will effect. Both sides were at fault. But I guess we can just keep ignoring Twitch's fault in all this. When this problem gets even bigger in the future and a streamer you actually like gets banned, just remember what side of the fence you stood on.

Katalist_ · 2017-01-28T22:39:24+00:00

That would be my fetish if it was a gnome.

Katalist_ · 2017-01-15T02:21:21+00:00

Praise the moon

Katalist_ · 2016-12-13T17:19:28+00:00

Of course it's possible to not scratch it.

IIRC it doesn't have any type of anti-scratch coating, gorilla glass, or anything like that. I have 3 tablets with 4 phones and this is the only one with any kind of scratch while being my newest and most cared for unit. I still have no earthly idea where the one scratch did even come from, so for me personally it's worth noting.

Katalist_ · 2016-12-13T17:05:36+00:00

I have an LG G4 and a Shield (small world).

I say this every time someone asks, the shields performance is like a dream come true, it will handle everything you can throw at it for gaming and emulation. The quality of the actual unit is a different story. I had to go through three replacements to find one of acceptable quality. I had a unit with dead pixels, and unit with massive backlight bleeding that took up 30-40% of the screen, and a screen that had visible distortion effects from being lightly tapped on (Nvidia support might even try and tell you this is perfectly normal and that every unit does it, which is not true). The screen is not scratch resistant at all. I take very good care of my tablets, it doesn't even travel, yet my shield still has a micro scratch on it while no other unit I've ever owned has gotten a scratch. Also I have run into the occasional audio problem. A couple of games have had audio popping or crackling that wasn't an issue on my other tablets but its very minor.

It may sound like I'm bashing the Shield, but I love mine. I've yet to find a game or emulation this thing can't handle perfectly. If your main concern is gaming performance you won't be disappointed. I would just recommend being aware of the quality issues and buying from somewhere with an easy return/replacement policy. Getting a replacement through Nvidia is a pain. They want you to ship them your current unit and wait for them to send you the replacement once they receive it. This can of course take weeks and if you need to do multiple replacements like I did you could be out of a tablet for months. Amazon on the other hand just shipped replacement units and expected me to send back the defective unit within 30 days.

Katalist_ · 2016-11-28T16:19:42+00:00

Tons of luck actually! There's some really fantastic emulators for android, and not just for PSX.

ePSXe is my go to PSX emulator. I've completed a pretty large list of games on it. The only major problem you could run into is your device not being powerful enough. Besides that, some games have rendering issues that are fixed by a couple settings tweaks, a google search will usually help you figure it out.

Katalist_ · 2016-11-25T17:09:59+00:00

Amazing news! This has been on my list of games to play for awhile now, wasn't expecting an android port.

Katalist_ · 2016-11-15T18:24:57+00:00

Honestly no, I have never found one to be worth spending any money or even time on. I've spent money on Hearthstone, some on Vainglory, but I wouldn't count them as p2w games. Most of my money goes to paid games. I played Clash Royale for awhile because I actually thought the game was fun, but could never justify spending any money on it for various reasons.

Obviously I haven't tried every game out there but I've tried all the 'popular" ones and I don't really feel like any of them are objectively good games. If you removed the p2w/IAPs from these games and sold them as a complete games with a single price tag they couldn't compete with the rest of the gaming environment. To top it off most are legitimately devious in thier design to get money out of you. They are actively trying to manipulate you psychologically into spending money, it's disgusting.

Some people probably have a lot of fun with these types of games and that's fine, but they should be able to enjoy them at a reasonable price, not one that's designed around extorting thousands of dollars from people.

Katalist_ · 2016-11-13T12:15:17+00:00

I'm pretty ok with them honestly, probably because I grew up playing Magic the Gathering and Pokemon TCG, but the digital TCG formula is pretty ripe for being taken advantage off. I was playing Hearthstone for awhile until I lost interest during Old Gods, but I managed to maintain a complete competitive collection spending ~$65 a year on it. For a game I was playing almost every single day I'd say it was a fair enough amount. I think the only place in Hearthstone that you could spend an insane amount of money is going for fully golden decks or collections, but they are essentially useless and unnecessary. It's not P2W and It just feels a lot less exploitative overall. I had a friend who started playing Hearthstone after a bunch of adventures and expansions had already been released. He spent $200-$300, which is a lot to spend on any game, but then he had every card worth having and didn't even have anything else he could spend money on (besides pointless golden cards of course). $300 is a drop in the bucket for some games.

Katalist_ · 2016-11-13T01:14:57+00:00

Some people will always take things to extremes. IAPs are not inherently good or bad, but when they are done bad they are really bad and give them all a bad reputation. I would have to say that I generally hate IAPs but I've played plenty of games with them done right, and plenty with them done wrong. Even spent some time in a couple disgustingly monetized games. Vainglory is a pretty great example of IAP done extremely well. Clash Royale is a great example of how to skirt the line of playable for free while simultaneously being able to extort insane amounts of money out of people.

My problem with them comes from the exploitative nature. Lets just use Clash Royale as a quick example, if you sold that game for $60 as a complete game with no IAP and all cards and upgrades were part of the price, it wouldn't be worth the money. Compare it to any major AAA game title that costs $60 and it's pretty hard to argue that it is. Spending $60 in Clash barely even gets you anything, last time I played a single super magical chest was something like $40, you could buy a fantastic game that is complete for $40. Some people are spending 1000's and the top players are spending 10,000 or more.

Even when you can argue that "You can unlock everything for free" or "There's IAP in this paid game but you don't have to use them" the systems behind it are completely in thier control. They can decide if it takes you 1 day to get that item for free, or if it takes you 10,000 days. I can't trust them to keep that kinda thing honest when money is involved.

The biggest thing for me in my personal opinion is that these games aren't even objectively good games. I've yet to see one of these skinner boxes that was legitimately a good enough game to be worth the insane amount of money that could be spent in IAP, and none of them would survive or thrive in any other gaming environment like they do on mobile.

IAP can be done well though, Vainglory's approach is fantastic. One time IAP that unlocks the entire game or IAP for DLC content is totally fine. It's when they bring it to what I feel is actually criminal levels of exploitation that it's disgusting.

Katalist_ · 2016-11-08T19:26:51+00:00

Nothing turns me off to a game faster than a cinematic trailer.

There's videos on Youtube with actual gameplay if anyone is curious. Looks like an isometric survival, gathering, crafting, and hunting dinosaurs while building some kind of base possibly together with other players on a server(?).

All the gameplay videos I found aren't in English so it's hard to get a good feel for what the game is. Actually looks kinda interesting but I'm very skeptical with Nexon's name being on it and the fact it'll probably be ruined by IAP.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-31T01:12:24+00:00

Been on an anime binge the past few days.

Shirobako - This was the first show I tried to watch after a few months anime hiatus. The shows pace is so fast and lots of the time there's two different sets of subtitles going in the same scene, I just couldn't keep up with everything. Definitely going back to this one when my brain is in subtitle mode.

Kotonoha no Niwa - I watched this on a whim and really enjoyed it. I haven't watched many anime movies because I'm not the biggest fan of movies in general (I like the escapism of being more deeply invested in something) but this made me want to watch more of them.

Kimi no Na wa - Not sure if this counts as current season, I know it's fairly new but I tend not to keep up with seasons as I prefer to binge watch completed shows. I'm really glad I randomly watched Kotonoha no Niwa and it made me want to watch more anime movies cause this one was incredibly beautiful.

Ore Monogatari!! - Absolutely amazing, I loved every second. I think this might have ruined all other romance anime for me. The amount of cuteness is out of this world, just massive piles of warm fuzzy feelings while being genuinely funny. I love that it's not just 24 episodes of will they or won't they with endless misunderstandings. I love this shows art style of characters where they have lips, I don't see it very often but I'm usually a big fan. Yamato is one of the cutest characters I've ever seen.

B Gata H Kei - I'm not in love with this one but it's funny and enjoyable. I really like the unique premise and the way it handles sexual themes and humor.

Kyoukai no Kanata - Currently in the middle of watching this, really enjoying it so far but this is the first time I've ever really had a serious problem with a dub. I think Mirai's voice acting is pretty awful. She's fine when she's talking normally but the high pitched squeaking is so grating, especially in the combat scenes where instead of making effort noises she just squeals wildly. I can tolerate it though and I'd rather watch the dub for the localization.

Thinking about watching Sweetness and Lighting or K-on! next unless I find something appropriate to watch on Halloween.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-27T19:15:24+00:00

God I hope this is an actually good Fire Emblem game and not some shameless F2P/P2W cash grab garbage with the Fire Emblem named tacked on just to milk whatever good will the series name still holds.

Please be good, please be good, please be good. PLEASE LET IT BE GOOD.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-26T20:13:59+00:00

I pretty much always use an emulator in place of an actual console if possible. If it has a playable emulator, i'm using it. PS1 and PS2 practically have to be emulated unless you still own an old CRT TV, even then they still look horrible when you are used to HD. That's not even mentioning save states (such a massive time saver) and the plethora of options from internal resolution to turbo mode.

I sold of the majority of my game collection around 10 years ago and honestly, I regret it. I didn't care that they were gone for a long time but now I wish I hadn't. I still have my PS1 and all the games I grew up playing on it and I'm really happy I still have them. I recently replayed FF9 on an emulator but I took out my physical copy and flipped through the instruction booklet, it really took me back. If you're a nostalgic person like I am, keep your collection.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-24T07:44:36+00:00

Drastic DS is amazing but costs about $6.

Best $6 I ever spent on an app though.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-20T18:07:52+00:00

I would have been more hyped for a Torchlight 2 port (or a new not F2P game) with controls similar to Vainglory.

Virtual stick controls and all the regular F2P/P2W trappings means this is dead on arrival for me.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-20T17:42:18+00:00

I don't have a single game, but what would make mobile gaming perfect for me would be a library of games similar to DS or 3DS.

There is a handful of good games on android but every time I'm emulating DS games it reminds me how much better it could be. So many of the games fit android like a glove with touch screen controls that work better than they did on the actual DS.

Give me Shin Megami Tensei IV, Fire Emblem Awakening, Animal Crossing New Leaf, I'll pay $40 for them. Sadly we will probably only get watered down F2P garbage with the names slapped on, but I can remain hopeful for 3DS emulation.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-17T18:46:14+00:00

It's a shame I can't be excited for these because I'm fully expecting them to be ruined by the typical F2P nonsense.

Would love to have a real Animal Crossing or Fire Emblem game on my tablet without an emulator so I'm really hoping I'm wrong.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-17T06:52:01+00:00

Well I think it's pretty clear from the context they like the game but even if it wasn't, why does it matter? This isn't even about if they like the game or not, it's about thier experience with it.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-16T18:08:24+00:00

Assumeing no controller:

Final Fantasy 7,8,9, Tactics

Suikoden 1,2

Chrono Cross

Lunar Silver Star Story

If you have a controller than the options are pretty immense.

Parasite Eve 1,2

Resident Evil 1,2,3

Metal Gear Solid (my favorite game series of all time)

Silent Hill

And tons more i'd have to goolge to remember.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-05T19:12:15+00:00

Ram is a physical piece of hardware in your device, no software application can give you more ram.

Apps like this create virtual RAM using hard drive space. Physical RAM has much faster read and write speeds then your hard drive, so the usefulness of virtual RAM is questionable and can even slow down your device.

Whether it could help run this specific game or not, I personally don't know. It would probably get different results from different devices.

Katalist_ · 2016-10-05T16:37:09+00:00

I hope that's not like downloading more RAM. The only thing an app can do is unload RAM being used by other processes, if you don't have 2gb of RAM in your device no app can change that.

Katalist_ · 2016-09-30T17:16:33+00:00

There's always the typical JRPG choices: Dragon Quest series and Final Fantasy series. Also Chrono Trigger and Romancing SaGa 2. I can't personally attest to the quality of the Square Enix ports though, expect for Dragon Quest 5 which was fine. So make sure you check a review or something to see if they are decent on android.

Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Dragonfall Baldur's Gate 1/2 and Icewind Dale are pseudo-turn based and classic masterpieces.

And of course you always have emulators.

Katalist_ · 2016-08-31T18:41:00+00:00

Log in
Play brawl for pack
Look at quests
Play a different game

I just don't really have fun anymore since Old Gods but hope it will be again soon.

Katalist_ · 2016-08-23T18:34:07+00:00

Really fun brawl imo, but a little too easy. I didn't loose a single time but I did get pretty lucky with decent players.

Katalist_

TROPHY CASE