raycevick

Q&A: December 2nd, 2020

The Great Leveler Asks
What's your favorite game you play to relax or play during VC and chill?

Halo, mostly because I can play it almost on autopilot. Team Fortress 2 is similarly compelling, in that it takes up enough interest for the game to not be boring, but not so taxing that there's no room for commentary.

Daniel Kasper Asks
Have you played any "Supergiant Games" games? (Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, Hades)

I have! Bastion...

Raycevick's Recommendations: RTPN - Self Titled

Quake II is a legendary gaming soundtrack... that I honestly don't go to much. I'm quite a bit more partial to the DOOM soundtracks, and even NIN's ambient pieces for Quake I (which I recommended in the past). However, I put my issues with Quake II's OST to technical constraints rather than in concept, because I love it in said concept...

And RTPN's self-titled album really gave me Quake II vibes, but with modern production. 

This album isn't mind-blowing, it's not in depth, ...

The Newest Video

I hate it.

But I don't hate it because it says things I don't care for, not because it's horribly executed, not because I'm Sparky1j. I hate it, because it does something unthinkable. Something horrible. Something I vowed to never do.

Reuse a template.

Fuck!

But seriously, dropping the sarcasm, it eats away at me, and I realized why. It's not so much the material itself, at the end of the day, it's a 3-4 second transition meant to keep the video flowing stylistically, ...

Q&A: November 25th, 2020

DaCody Asks
What is your favorite place to listen to music?

Bed, or the countryside.

The former's good for me while reading, because that even with a compelling book, I can't keep my focus 100% on the page. My brain's on fire, feeling like that ball from Lethal League at top speed, ricocheting in my mind. So booting up a playlist of atmospheric tracks tends to put me in a world removed from my own.

The latter's great for simultaneous wonder and u...

Raycevick's Recommendaitons: Ronin

During my childhood, action films were judged by car chases. So when Ronin was heralded as having one of the best, my Dad let me watch the car chases sequence. Not the rest of this R-Rated spy-thriller, obviously, but I didn't care, I was satisfied with that.

Seeing it on Netflix recently though, I thought "well, lets judge the rest of the movie." I didn't realize what a treat I was in for. Ronin is a great goddamn movie. 

It's cast is all-star, the dialogue, pacing, cinemato...

No One Cares About X Game

I read all my comments. Often, I'm questioned why by both fellow Youtubers and even by the commenters themselves. I can't say there's an explicit reason, I don't enter comment sections with a particular goal. It's just a place that's always generating new questions, thoughts, and debates that sometimes, I'm intrigued by.

Through this you pick up on regulars, and not always for positivity.

I'm the sort of person amused by the need of others to spread their misery, so when a regular...

Q&A: November 18th, 2020

DaCody Asks
What is your favorite halo song that wasn't composed by Marty?

You mean, Marty didn't create everything by the sweat of this brow?

Just kidding; going by childhood nostalgia, Blow Me Away is the definite winner, but I also love the Halo Wars OST by Stephen Rippy, and I've previously recommend Tom Salta's Halo scores here on Patreon.

Hammiam Asks
Thoughts on Codemasters being bought out by Take-Two?

....

What I'm Currently Doing

Hello everybody, just here to give a quick update about the Jet Set Radio video. I thought I had the audio all sorted out, but in an attempt to take a shortcut, I've fallen down a pit. Figured I'd take the audio from Premiere and refine it further in Audacity or Audition. However, doing that spawned multiple artifacts in the file.

I also made a stupid mistake in replacing the audio in Premiere, to the point where the "undo" history hit its limit, so I'll be spending tonight repeating ex...

Raycevick's Recommendations: Hover

I don't like MMO's. Their structure of constant loot, repetitive grinds, and lifeless characters, really dampens the enjoyment for me of games that would otherwise excel, especially those with really strong gameplay systems.

So it says something then that despite all of those issues, I still came away from Hover with lots of enjoyment. The MMO structure does bring down this game, severely, but not enough to stop me from encouraging you to at least try the superb movement, parkour, and m...

Low Settings

After waiting patiently... well, actually, quite impatiently, the new GPU's have arrived! AMD & Nvidia have both come out swinging with beefy high performance cards at both mid and high-tier, and the winners are consumers, whether they're buying a top of the line 6900, or a last-generation card finally at a low price.

Previously, I wouldn't have justified a high-end card but since doing Youtube, I wanna future proof them as much as a possible, and having prettied up games like the M...

Q&A: November 11th, 2020

Sandraincloud90 Asks
What are some notable instances of older games that "out-do" their modern incarnations in a significant way? (Whether it's in the same series or largely unrelated yet sets out to achieve a similar goal).

Funny enough, in my latest script here, I actually discuss how the original Tomb Raider, despite its tank controls and delayed inputs, actually have far more rewarding exploration and platforming than its latest titles, which take inspir...

Raycevick's Recommendations: Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow

Previously, I recommended a movie that doesn't have a whole lot to analyze, but has a whole lot of fun packed on-screen. Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow is very much in the same mold. It's the sort of movie you imagine would've been made in the 1930's if the black & white generation had access to this technology. Speaking of black & white...

WARNING: You must watch this movie in Black & White. Desaturated, the movie looks gorgeous in its shots, composition, and gloriou...

Being a Teenager (About Game Length)

Before the reputation of Platinum Games was firmly cemented by Nier: Automata, I played one of they're games at launch, unware of what was done and what was to come. Vanquish, and unknown to me at the time, designed by Shinji Mikami, lead designer of Resident Evil 4, though unlike many shooters of the time, Vanquish barely follows that game's blueprint.

Vanquish is one of the fastest games you'...

Q&A: November 4th, 2020

DaCody Asks
With all of the controversy surrounding Halo and Infinite; What is the one thing they can announce that will make you say "Now this game is worth it!"?

That's hard to answer, because I think 343's problem for the last couple years is they've been sacrificing too many portions of the community in the name of focusing their game. This is going to sound really mean spirited and I apologize, but a complete game at launch is what would grab my attenti...

Raycevick's Recommendations: Quake OST

So after years and years of waiting, Trent the Reznor at long last released the Quake OST Vinyl from its "Coming Soon" purgatory. Being both a fan of the mans work and the game this specific work of his is attached to, I must admit, it never really hit me how memorable the Quake OST is until listening to it.

It's filled with the heavy metal anthems that've been attached to ID's branding since Quake 2 and these days, DOOM. Instead, it actually hints at the mans future Film Scores, with p...

Status Report

Happy November everybody!

Hope you enjoyed Halloween, and I'm now reporting to you as a 26 year old. Still haven't processed that yet, and probably won't until the New Year. In the meantime, I'm writing this to say thank you for the continued support, as I've been working, but not as optimally as I wanted. 

The next video is coming together though, delays were a mixture of feeling unsure of the script, rewriting, and a load of really, really good video games coming out this p...

Underrated Soundtracks

Gaming scores have almost become their own genre. They spark communities, remixes, trends, and styles that drip into dedicated bands. Twenty years ago, it's strange to imagine a band would have a song that becomes forever attached to their identity due to a video-game, but that's been the case with Breaking Benjamin, HEALTH, and Amon Tobin.

So I've thought then, what are the quality soundtracks which don't have those 1+ Million Viewed songs on Youtube? Which ones don't endlessly praise ...

Q&A: October 28th, 2020

Dacody Asks
Amd, Nvidia, or Intel?

Picking between big corporations is a bit like picking between a line of cheap sodas, but if I have to root for anybody, I prefer AMD as they've consistently been smaller than both Nvidia & Intel. At the time of writing, AMD's GPU is going to go up tomorrow, I'm hopeful, but they've disappointed previously, so we'll see how it goes.

The Great Leveler Asks
What title that you enjoyed when you were younge...