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jgthirlwell · 3 years

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2020 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2020

JG Thirlwell

Composer

Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

www.foetus.org

2020 was a troubling and disturbing year. I created a lot of music and experienced a lot of nights waking at 5am in a panic. I deeply missed the sacred experience of being able to see live music. In its absence of that I listened to a lot of music. It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2020, in no particular order.

Le Grand Sbam Furvent (Dur Et Doux) John Elmquist’s HardArt Group I Own an Ion (900 Nurses) Roly Porter Kistvaen (Subtext) Liturgy Origin Of The Alimonies (YLYLCYN) Clark Kiri Variations (Throttle) Dai Kaht Dai Kaht I & II (Soleil Zeuhl) Chromb Le livre des merveilles (Dur Et Doux) Horse Lords The Common Task (Northern Spy) Ecker & Meultzer Carbon (Subtext) Insane Warrior Tendrils (RJ’s Electrical Connections) Jeff Parker Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem) Jacob Kirkegaard Opus Mors (Topos) Tristan Perich Drift Multiply (Nonesuch) Bec Plexus Sticklip (New Amsterdam) Vak Budo (Soleil Zeuhl) Merlin Nova BOO! (Bandcamp) The The Muscle OST (Cineola) Zombi 2020 (Relapse) Regis Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss (Downwards) Rival Consoles Articulation (Erased Tapes) Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant (L.A.T.E.) Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Idles Ultra Mono (Partisan) Daedelus The Bittereindeers (Brainfeeder) Boris No (Bandcamp) Aksak Maboul Figures / Un peu de l’ame des bandits / Onze Danses Pour Cobattre La Migraine (Crammed) Noveller Arrow (Ba Da Bing) Felicia Atkinson Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press) Ital Tek Dream Boundary (Planet Mu) Author and Punisher Beastland (Relapse) Sparks A Steady Drip Drip Drip (BMG) Corima Amatarasu (Soleil Zeuhl) Code Orange Underneath (Roadrunner) Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists /Silly Symphonies / To Be Surrounded../ Love Lore(Joyful Noise) Sote Moscels (Opal Tapes) Run The Jewels RTJ4 (Jewel Runners) Oranssi Pazuzu Mestarin Kynsi (Nuclear Blast) Master Boot Record Floppy Disk Overdrive (Metal Blade) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith The Mosaic Of Transformation (Ghostly International) / Ears (Western Vinyl) Michael Gordon Acquanetta (Cantelope) Neom Arkana Temporis (Soleil Zeuhl) Rian Treanor Ataxia / File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu) Helm Saturnalia (Alter) Ivvvo doG (Halcyon Veil) Robert Normandeau Figures (Empreintes Digitales) Ben Vida Reducing The Tempo To Zero (Shelter Press) Beatrice Dillon Workaround (Pan) Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar (Domino) Sea Oleena Weaving A Basket (Higher Plain Music) Elysian Fields Transience Of Life (Ojet) Rhapsody Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II - The Dark Secret (Magic Circle) Duma Duma (Nyege Nyege) Ulla Strauss Tumbling Towards a Wall / Seed (Bandcamp)

Honorable mentions Carl Stone Stolen Car (Unseen Worlds) Nazar Guerilla (Hyperdub) Iwo Zaluski with the Children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley The Remarkable Earth Making Machine (Trunk) Nahash Flowers Of The Revolution (SVBKVLT) Cindy Lee Whats Tonight To Eternity (Bandcamp) Insect Ark The Vanishing (Profound Lore) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Declan McKenna Zeroes (Tomplicated) Layma Azur Zeii (Bandcamp)

FILM TV Succession ZeroZeroZero Escape at Dannemora 1917 Small Axe : Five films by Steve McQueen Pirhanas Monos The Hater Better Call Saul

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Drew Daniel

Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth

an alphabet of 2020 recordings

Arca “KiCk i” BFTT “Intrusive / Obtrusive” clipping. “Visions of Bodies Being Burned” Duma “Duma” Eilbacher, Max “Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly)” Forbidden Colors “La Yeguada” GILA “Energy Demonstration” HiedraH Club de Baile “Bichote-K Bailable Vol. 2” Ian Power “Maintenance Hums” Jeff Carey “Index[off]” Kassel Jaeger “Meith” Laurie Anderson “Songs From the Bardo” Mukqs “Water Levels” Negativland “The World Will Decide” O’Rourke, Jim “Shutting Down Here” Perlesvaus “These Things Below with Those Above” Quicksails “Blue Rise” Rian Treanor “File Under UK Metaplasm” Slikback “///” Terminal Nation “Holocene Extinction” Ulcerate “Stare Into Death and Be Still” Various Artists “HAUS of ALTR” William Tyler “New Vanitas” Xyla “Ways” Y A S H A “Summations” :zoviet-france: “Châsse 2ᵉ”

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Sarah Lipstate (Noveller)

With all live performances canceled, this was truly the year of demo videos and home studio recording for me. These are 10 pieces of gear that came out in 2020 that helped keep me feeling creative and inspired during lockdown. In no particular order:

EHX Oceans 12 Dual Stereo Reverb - The Oceans 12 ticks all the boxes for what I’m looking for in a great soundscaping reverb. I used the Shimmer and Reverse algorithms in conjunction a lot when I was composing music for a film score.

Chase Bliss Audio Blooper - While I don’t actually own a Blooper, I had the pleasure of borrowing one from Mike of Baranik Guitars after NAMM this year. He made an incredible Blooper-inspired guitar and I was completely charmed by them both. Chase Bliss always delivers pedals that push me creatively and the Blooper truly hits the mark.

Cooper FX Arcades - I love everything Cooper FX has released to-date so the opportunity to access those sounds in one pedal via plug-in cartridges is just awesome.

SolidGoldFX NU-33 - I was asked to do a demo of this pedal for its release and ended up being really charmed by this box’s approach to lo-fi nostalgia. I’ve used it a lot for film scoring and highly recommend adding it to your collection.

Demedash Effects T-120 DLX V2 - I LOVE a good tape echo and the T-120 Deluxe V2 ranks up there with the best I’ve tried. This pedal made its way to me this Christmas and I look forward to making some beautiful sounds with it in the new year.

Hologram Electronics Microcosm - The Microcosm is one of those pedals where you should fully read the manual before diving in but once you put in that initial effort you’ve got a massively powerful tool on your hands. It does glitch like no other. Definitely worth the homework

Azzam Bells MP019 - I discovered this unique instrument through a post on Reverb’s IG page and immediately looked it up and ordered one. These experimental percussion instruments are hand-made in Italy and they’re as beautiful visually as they are sonically. I used it for bowed cymbal and daxophone sounds on a film score and it was absolutely haunting.

Echopark Dual Harmonic Boost 2 - I love the control you have over dialing in the perfect amount of grit with these dual boost circuits. I use it a lot as a textural tool when I’m laying down drones or bringing in big distorted swells. It’s one of the most versatile overdrives in my collection and I love that.

Fender Parallel Universe Series Volume II Maverick Dorado - I was smitten with the Maverick Dorado when I first saw it at NAMM. It has a lot of the specs that I look for in a guitar and the body shape with the Mystic Pine finish just blew me away. I hope that I get to use it live soon.

Polyeffects Beebo - The Beebo is one of those pedals that I genuinely feel is smarter than I am. It’s like an entire computer in one small touchscreen box. I can’t claim to have mastered using it yet but the sounds that I have managed to get out of it so far have been brilliant. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this box in 2021

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HELM 2020 REVIEW

Let's get the bad stuff out the way first, 2020 was undoubtedly an awful year. I'm still not sure how to really respond to seeing a global pandemic bring the capital to its knees and everything I love and hold dear to a grinding halt. Our government fucked it's response, putting profit before people and killing tens of thousands. The Labour Party descended into farce with the newly elected leader Sir Keith revealing himself as a bland centrist with no opposition or ideas. On a personal level it sucked not being able to travel or see my friends in different parts of the world - or even the same country - who I am starting to miss a lot. However, I was fortunate enough to get through the year with my sanity intact. Music, art and culture once again being my main positive. I think I listened to more music than I have in any year ever. I read more books than I have done since I was a teenager probably. I also re-discovered the joys of walking long distances and am extremely thankful for living near a lot of incredible green spaces: Epping Forest, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Marshes, Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats...

Music. My favourite albums of the year.

Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi Wetware - Flail Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age Of Mirrors Necrot - Mortal Rope Sect - The Great Flood Private World - Aleph Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Pyrrhon - Abcess Time CS+Kreme - Snoopy Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Drew McDowall - Agalma Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss Nazar - Guerilla Zoviet France - Russian Heterodoxical Songs (and all the ZF reissues!!) Triple Negative - God Bless the Death Drive Permission - Organised People Suffer Actress - Karma & Desire Acolytes - Stress II The Gerogerigegege - >(decrescendo) Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills Flora Yin-Wong - Holy Palm Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyo The The - See Without Being Seen Prurient - Casablanca Flamethrower Henning Christiansen - L’essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando Subdued - Over The Hills And Far Away Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm Komare - The Sense Of Hearing Shredded Nerve - Acts Of Betrayal Jesu - Terminus Autechre - SIGN Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses Sparkle Division - To Feel Embraced Mark Harwood - A Perfect Punctual Paradise Under My Own Name Still House Plants - Fast Edit The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue Kommand - Terrorscape Haus Arafna - Asche Khthoniik Cerviiks - Æequiizoiikum Worm - Gloomlord Kraus - A Golden Brain Faceless Burial - Speciation

A shout-out to Jon Abby's AMPLIFY series on Bandcamp / Facebook, which I contributed a new piece of music to.

A shout out to the labels where most of the music I listened to seemed to come from:

The Trilogy Tapes Iron Bonehead Penultimate Press Dais La Vida Es Un Mus

Gigs. Despite live music being destroyed in 2020 I still saw a few unforgettable performances at the beginning of the year.

Graham Lambkin @ The ICA, London Puce Mary / JFK @ The Glove That Fits, London Demilich @ Finnfest, The Garage, London Container / PC World / National Unrest @ Venue MOT, London S.H.I.T / Asid / Chubby & The Gang @ Static Shock Festival, ExFed, London

Books I enjoyed. Most not published this year, but all read in 2020.

Joe Kennedy - Authentocrats David Balzer - Curationism Tom Mills - BBC: The Myth Of A Public Service Simon Morris - Consumer Guide: Special Edition Luke Turner - Out Of The Woods Various - Bad News For Labour Mike Wendling - Alt-Right Baited Area issues 1 & 2.

Film. Three good films I saw this year which I hadn't before.

Suspiria (Remake) Midsommar Cannibal Holocaust

Podcasts. I listened to a lot of these whilst walking.

We Don't Talk About The Weather Novara Media Tysky Sour & Novara FM Grounded with Louis Theroux System of Systems Red Scare loveline episodes Suite 212 NOISEXTRA Social Discipline CONTAIN

TV.

Didn't watch a huge amount and what I did was mostly trash. For some reason I rewatched both series' of This Life, a British drama from the late 90's about a group of young professionals house sharing and navigating their careers. Very cringey and has aged terribly, but it was perversely fascinating to revisit something from that time in the age of the pandemic. Following on from this I binge watched the entire series of Industry which was entertaining enough. A programme about a bunch of horny bankers with what felt like a confused ideology behind it. It seemed stuck between trying to criticise and glorify the culture around the industry, but also protect the industry itself from outside criticism by portraying anyone who may oppose as an insufferable wanker. Currently halfway through Succession which is OK. The Murdoch documentaries on the BBC were excellent and a rare respite from their descent into client journalism.

Thanks to anyone who listened to my music this year also. Best wishes to you all for 2021.

Luke Younger

http://hhelmm.com | http://alter.bandcamp.com

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Elliott Sharp

composer

1. My Nr. 1 lesson: patience. Whether it's bouncing through 30 seconds of severe turbulence at 39000 feet or slogging through 30 minutes of a interminable piece of concert music, one attribute I've tried to develop is the ability to see past the discrete and awaited ending, the exact framing of the immediate process, but put it into the context of a larger time frame. I've found that this year more than all others has demanded it. Breathing helps...

2. Books: revisiting old favorites from the realm of Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Dick (both especially relevant), digging into John Lomax's portrait of Jelly Roll Morton, the works of Colson Whitehead, random things off of the shelf…

3. Composing: with touring off the table, I focused on that which needed to be written, some requested and commissioned, some spontaneously springing forth. Composing requires that one open the windows wide to the world, which at this moment brought in grief, terror, uncertainty, anxiety, visions of plague and pestilence and incipient fascism. Okay, now shut the window and get to work! How to process, translate, transform? The work can be a comfortable and obsessive cocoon once one learns to handle the radioactive materials and put them into the creativity reactor.

4. Beans! We have long been a fan in our house of the wide world of legumes but this year brought two stars to the front: the black bean and the red lentil. The black bean commands the lofty peaks but the seemingly infinite variations of dal surround it. Ginger, garlic, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, onions, and olive oil form the basis then imagination builds.

5. Online teaching substituted for my canceled conduction of workshops in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Between the participants and myself, we built a temporary but very congenial space online to share concepts and music. In addition, private lessons brought conversation and music with new friends in Germany, Italy, California, Australia, Illinois, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Spain, Florida, Brazil.

6. What started out as "stress baking" (before I even had heard of the term) soon became a frequent practice that yielded very edible results. The twins preferred the sweeter forays into banana bread and chocolate cake. I tried to find a balance between tried-and-true techniques and experiments in texture and taste with yeasted pumpernickels, multi-grains, and seed breads.

7. While not the same as performing 'live ', online gigs proved that it was possible to generate a surprising amount of adrenaline even without the pheromonal handshaking of a room filled with receptive ears. As a corollary, online recording collaborations with friends worldwide proved to be inspiring and a suitable substrate for sonic experimentation, exploration of new instruments, tunings, effects programming, structures. In these realms, shout-outs to Helene Breschand, Mike Cooper, Henry Kaiser, Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, Dougie Bowne, Payton McDonald, Billy Martin, Colin Stetson, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Amendola, Roberto Zorzi, Jason Hoopes, Eric Mingus, Melanie Dyer, Dave Hofstra, Don McKenzie, Sergio Sorrentino, Veniero Rizzardi, Taylor Ho Bynum, Scott Fields, Bachir Attar, Karl Bruckmaier, Robbie Lee, Matthew Evan Taylor, Matteo Liberatore, Al Kaatz, David Barratt, Jessica Hallock, Kolin Zeinikov, Robbie Lee, Jeremy Nesse, James Ilgenfritz, Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo, Sandy Ewen, David Weinstein, Jim Whittemore, Chris Vine, Werner Puntigam, William Schimmel.

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Daniel O’Sullivan

(Grumbling Fur, Guapo, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, Ulver, Sunn O))), Æthenor, Laniakea, Miracle, Mothlite, and This Is Not This Heat.)

Music Richard Youngs - Ein Klein Nein Alabaster DePlume - Instrumentals Hildegard von Bingen - O Nobilissima Viriditas Francisco de Penalosa - Missa Ave Maria Peregrina Carlo Gesualdo - Responsoria 1611 Dirty Projectors - Five EPs Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal Brother Peter Broderick - Blackberry Richard Horowitz - Eros Of Arabia Duncan Trussell Family Hour Cocteau Twins in the bath

Books/comics Alexander Tucker - Entity Reunion II Derek Jarman - Chroma Stephen Harrod Buhner - Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm The Penguin Book Of Irish Poetry - edited by Patrick Crotty The Gospel Of Ramakrishna - translated by Swami Nikhilananda Lucretius - De Rerum Natura Plotinus - Enneads Ram Dass - Grist For The Mill Lisa Brown - Phantom Twin

Other Fasting / meditation / macrodosing Walks in freshly coppiced woodland (for the smell mainly). Plants / Foraging / Growing Traditional ferments Douglas Sirk movies Mandolorian Writing songs on the piano Rediscovery of Kenneth Graham via my kids

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Karl O’Connor (Regis)

01.Wolfgang Press - Unremembered, Remembered 02. Klara Lewis - Ingrid Live at Fylkingen 03. Jesu - Terminus 04. Dave Ball - Leeds Poly Demos 1979 05. Edwin Pouncey - Rated Sav X (the Savage Pencil Skratchbook) 06. The Bug - In Blue 07. New Order - Power,Corruption and Lies ( Writing Sessions ) 08. JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland - Oscillospira 09. FM Einheit and Andreas Ammer - Hammerschlag 10. Thurston Moore - By The Fire 11. Body Stuff - Body Stuff 3 12. Ann M Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials 13. Rob Halford - Confess (Autobiography)

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Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records)

Shirley Collins Hearts Ease Dehd Flowers Of Devotion Duma Duma Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens John Jeffery Passage Drew McDowall Agalma Sweeping Promises Hunger For a Way Out Colter Wall Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs Woods Strange to Explain

My Favorite 90’s Nostalgia Movie Rewatches

Colors Ghost Dog Menace II Society The Player Rounders Safe Starship Troopers Trees Lounge Vampires Waiting For Guffman

Most Culturally Bankrupt Year : 1997

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Charlie Looker

(composer, Psalm Zero, Extra Life, Seaven Teares)

Ten Things That Didn’t Happen in 2020

1. I didn’t write a ton of new music. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some. I always do. But mostly I focused on my new YouTube channel, essays, and on getting old recordings released. I haven’t even been working a day-job so I thought I was going to write my next Ring Cycle, but I really didn’t find Covid inspiring.

2. Trump wasn’t re-elected. Cool.

3. I didn’t lose anyone to Covid. I am, of course, profoundly grateful for this. But I feel pretty embarrassed remembering group-texting ten friends in March, “We are all going to see a loved one die. Every single one of us. Don’t kid yourselves”. I can get hysterical, and that was somewhat irresponsible of me.

4. No revolution happened. I don’t mean to be smug or cynical, or to belittle anyone’s participation in the protests. But, as far as I can tell, nothing happened in 2020 that promises to reduce police brutality or human suffering of any kind. We’ll see. That burning Minneapolis police station was exciting to watch at the time, if only on an aesthetic level.

5. I have a stack of unread books I bought this year, just staring at me, with nary a crease among them. These include:

Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (looks amazing, but I haven’t touched it) Marx, Grundrisse (it’s 1000 pages for fuck’s sake. Amazon also accidentally sent me two copies, and its double presence in the stack is just comical) Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (the first 15 pages blew my mind, then my mind blew it off)

6. I didn’t settle into living in LA. I moved here six months before Covid and I was just starting to cultivate some friendships and play shows. This was quashed and I still feel like I still live in New York. I still barely know the layout of the city here.

7. No brand-new buzzy musical artists burst onto the scene, that I can recall. No new hyped micro-genre of the moment. There was just no way for there to be a hot new trend. I’d say that was refreshing, but it wasn’t.

8. Tyson’s return was not awesome. Two minute rounds, ended in a draw. I’ve been getting way into boxing this past year. This fight was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Mayweather vs Logan Paul (LOL) because we know it’s comedy ahead of time.

9. For three weeks in July, I didn’t do a single thing other than watch street fight compilations on YouTube and Worldstar. That’s just grim.

10. There were no school shootings in March. Apparently, this was the first March with no school shootings since 2002. Not a single 7th grader got a hand job in March either. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be a kid now.

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Chuck Bettis

https://chuckbettis.com

Other People's Music released this year:

Coil "Musick to Play in the Dark" (Dais)

Duma "s/t" (Nyege Nyege Tapes) Twig Harper "External Boundless Prison/ in 4 parts EP" (self-release) I.P.Y. (Ikue Mori, Phew, YoshimiO) "I.P.Y." (Tzadik) Kill Alters "A2B2 Live Stream 11/13/2020" (self-release) Krallice "Mass Cathexis" (self-release) Lust$ickPuppy "Cosmic Brownie" (self-release) Doug McKechnie "San Francisco Moog: 1968-72" (VG+ Records) Merlin Nova "Boo!" (self-release) Omrb "Milandthriust, The Graths of Mersh" (self-release) Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda "gi n ga" (self-release) Yoth Iria "Under His Sway" (Repulsive Echo) Wetware "Flail" (Dais)

My own music released this year:

collaborations

Chatter Blip "Microcosmopolitan" (Contour Editions) Matmos "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form" (Thrill Jockey) Reverse Bullets "Dreampop Dsyphoria" (self-release) Snake Union "live at Roulette" (self-release) Snake Union w/ Hisham Bharoocha, Bonnie Jones, Heejin Jang, Matthew Regula "Three Arrows" (Rat Route) Thomas Dimuzio "Balance" (Gench Music) YoshimiO & Chuck Bettis "Live at the Stone" (Living Myth)

solo Chuck Bettis "Arc of Enlghtenment" (Living Myth) Chuck Bettis "Motion Parallax" (Living Myth)

compilation Various Artist "Polished Turds Vol.1" (Granpa)

Music Books read this year

"Intermediary Spaces" by Eliane Radigue/Julia Eckhardt (Umland) "Ennio Morricone In His Own Words" by Ennio Morricone/Alessandro De Rosa (Oxford University Press) "Free Jazz In Japan: A Personal History" by Soejima Teruto (Public Bath Press) "Rumors of Noizu: Hijokaidan and the Road to 2nd Damascus" by Kato David Hopkins (Public Bath Press)

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Maya Hardinge

(musician / artist)

list of things i liked this year

first ever solo road trip through new mexico and Texas right before lockdown experiencing manhattan with no cars on the road . having a car to escape in to nature. (which i craved so much) walks and bike rides with friends… FRIENDS! The web site ‘workaway’ that helped me feel that there were options for escape. playing games weekly on zoom during lock down teaching yoga weekly on zoom. Witnessing and being part of the BLM protests. witnessing and being part of the demise of T sitting on my couch at 6am drinking a cup of tea, appreciating my apt. making time to meditate. halloween without tourists .

some music I’ve bought and/or enjoyed this year Elvis Perkins-Black Coat Daughter Patricia Kokett -Soi soi Henning Christiansen - OP201 Bryce Hackford- Safe Svitlana Nianio and Oleksander - Snayesh yak? rozkazhy Brannten schnure - Sommer im Pfirsichhain Killing Joke - Nighttime David Shea - Tower of mirrors Shakey - Shakey Woodford halse tapes Coil - Musick to play in the dark

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BJ Nilsen

sound artist / composer

Work 2020

Despite Covid 19 lots of things actually did happen.

In Feburary I visited the only active nuclear plant in The Nederlands as part of my "Expanded Field Recording” project together with SML. In March revisited the Acousmonium at the Elevate Festival in Graz with an additional trip deep inside the Schlossberg recording old mining trains. In March and April I did two daily recording projects “Pending and Auditory Scenes” - both of Amsterdam during lockdown. In May did my first Zoom field recording workshop with the CAMP project. In June & July two research trips in Waldviertel, Austria with Franz Pomassl. In August recorded bells and organs in 10 different churches around Amsterdam for Jacob Lekkerkerker. In September recorded Kali Malone at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Performed at Heart of Noise Festival in Innsbruck and A4 in Bratislava. Also went ice-skating for first time in 20? Years. In November and December I travelled to Jeju island to record field recordings for a project by Femke Herregraven for the Gwangju Biennale, commissioned for 2021. Did lots of gardening, released two tapes “Call it Philips, Eindoven” and “Zomer 2020” with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. NOW! Looking forward to 2021.

http://bjnilsen.info https://soundcloud.com/bjnilsen/sets/auditory-scenes-amsterdam

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Vicki Bennett

(People Like Us)

Negativland - True False https://negativland.com/products/truefalse-cd (this came out last year but is so THIS year) Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/rough-and-rowdy-ways/ The Soft Pink Truth - We from Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase https://thesoftpinktruth.bandcamp.com/album/shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase Carl Stone - Stolen Car https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-car Porest - Sedimental Gurney https://porest.bandcamp.com/album/sedimental-gurney Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-consuming-flame-open-exercises-in-group-form Domenique Dumont - Miniatures De Auto Rhythm https://antinoterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/atn044-domenique-dumont-miniatures-de-auto-rhythm The The - See Without Being Seen https://www.thethe.com/product/see-without-being-seen-cd/ Ciggy de la Noche - Hold Tight HMRC https://soundcloud.com/ciggydelanoche/hold-tight-hmrc Neil Cicierega - Mouth Dreams http://www.neilcic.com/mouthdreams/

and my details: http://peoplelikeus.org/ https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/ pic: http://peoplelikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Welcome-Abroad-promo3-2-scaled.jpg

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DJ Food

Music - Type 303 - Sticky Disco / Analogue Acidbath 7" (45 Live) The British Space Group - The Ley of the Land CD (Wyrd Britain) Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello LP / Warp 10 NTS mix (Warp) dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (Modern Love) LF58 - Alterazione LP (Astral Industries) Robert Fripp - Music For Quiet Moments series (DGM) Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (BMG) Simf Onyx - Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7" (Delights) Luke Vibert - Modern Rave LP (Hypercolour) JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland - Oscillospira (Ipecac) Aural Design - Looking & Seeing 7" / DL (Russian Library) Luke Vibert - Rave Hop (Hypercolour) Clipping. with Christopher Fleeger - Double Live (Sub Pop) APAT - Terry Riley's 'In C' performed on Modular Synthesizer (YouTube) Field Lines Cartographer - The Spectral Isle LP (Castles In Space) Jane Weaver - The Revolution of Super Visions single (Fire Records) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G. LP (Flightless) Humanoid - Hed-Set - forthcoming on (De:tuned)

Film / TV - Inside No.9 (BBC) What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (Netflix) Tales From The Loop (Amazon) Keith Haring - Street Art Boy (BBC) John Was Trying To Contact Aliens (Netflix) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) The Mandalorian (Season 2) (Disney+) Long Hot Summers - The Style Council documentary (Sky Arts) Zappa (Alex Winter)

Books / Comics / Magazines Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell (Profile books) The Often Wrong - Farel Dalrymple (Image Comics) Edwin Pouncey - Rated SavX (Strange Attractor Press) Jeffrey Lewis - Fuff (all issues - really late to the party on this one) Rian Hughes - XX - A Novel, Graphic (Picador) Cosey Fanni Tutti - Art, Sex, Music (Faber) Caza - Kris Kool (Passenger Press) Dan Lish - Egostrip Vol.1 Electronic Sound magazine Decorum - Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image) John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine Simon Halfon - Cover To Cover (Nemperor)

Very few exhibitions or shows this year for obvious reasons

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33 notes · View notes

doopcafe · 3 years

Photo

Attack on Titan (進撃の巨人): Assassin’s Bullet (S04E08)

Summary: The Paradis Island crew leaves the city and Gabi kills a minor character (spoilers).

Comments: Right, so we open on Mikasa watching a fist fight between Reinar and Eren. Eren punches half of Reinar’s face off but Reinar manages to procure a used tampon from the ground, so he’s got that going for him at least.

Eren decides he’s done fighting for today so Mikasa carries him like a sack of dirty laundry back to their super-slow ass blimp where they meet up with Armin, Levi, and the rest of the crew (one of whom kicks Eren in the face). Jean, Sasha, and Connie are here (at least for now) and are busy extracting their troops.

Meanwhile, on the other racist, genocidal side of things, Magath is grateful the Eldians are finally leaving because he’s unsure how much more pounding his defiled ass can take. However, mini-Eren (Gabi) is pissed, picks up a rifle, and gives chase to Hanji’s super-slow ass blimp.

There’s a shot here of Gabi standing there with her rifle, just this enormous instrument of death in comparison to her tiny little body and it’s just... something that I’m sure has a real-world analog, but I’m gonna take a moment here and appreciate that “little girl holds gun” is not commonly a part of my daily reality.

Gabi explains to Falco that she’s had a shitty life (as an Eldian) and has tried so hard to show people that Eldians can be “good people.” So she’s pissed that Eren came into her city and murdered everyone made Eldians look bad.

In response, Falco thinks back to what Eren had told Reinar about Eren’s mum: Eren’s mum was eaten in front of him by a giant the Marleys created and unleashed on her. And Falco thinks that maybe they’re the baddies?

But Gabi does some next-level Fox News shit, asking if Falco actually saw (first hand) Eren’s mom get eaten by giants. Of course he says no and so Gabi declares that it must not be true. That’s so dumb I spent five minutes without success trying to find the name of the logical fallacy, but couldn’t, suggesting no one bothered to give that one a name?

Anyways, let’s talk about that ODM gear cable!

Right, so the plot here is that Gabi catches up to the super-slow ass blimp and encounters a single Eldian acting as a guard. This guy’s name is Lobov and he’s apparently a new recruit in the Recon Corps. Lobov chooses not to shoot a small child, costing him his life. Idiot! In AoT, you shoot children first and ask questions never.

Lobov’s corpse falls to the ground, trailing an ODM cable back to the blimp, like a Golden Shiny Wire of Hope for Gabi to climb towards her dreams of assassination.

In the scene where Gabi’s bullet kills Lobov and his body drops to the ground, we can estimate the approximate distance from the blimp to the ground from the height of the buildings and from Hanji’s previous comment about “flying low” over the city. Assuming Marleyan building standards can be approximated by our own, a building story is approximately 4.3 m in height. The buildings on either side of the street are five stories (including the roof elements), or 21.5 m in height. Assuming the blimp is flying twice that distance above the ground, the blimp is approximately 43 m above Gabi.

However, the super-slow ass blimp is also moving away from Gabi. Using the scene of the blimp flying over the city (in the previous episode), I would estimate an approximate speed of maybe like, 15 kph? Since the maximum running speed of a human is something like 45 kph (much less for a child), and Gabi catches up to the airship, this is probably a reasonable guess.

But Gabi spends approximately one minute speaking with Falco between the time she sends a bullet through the important bits of Lobov’s skull to the time she pulls the ODM gear trigger to begin her ascent. Therefore, in one minute, the airship would have travelled about 250 m. To this distance I’ll add, say, 100 m to account for the fact that, when Gabi shot Lobov, the airship was not directly overhead, but a little bit in the distance [Edit: I realized I could get a better estimate from the scene where Lobov’s corpse drops, but whatever]. The point is that the straight-line distance between one end of the cable to the other is approximately 350 m.

Let’s try to put that number into perspective.

We get a few close-up shots of the cable both with Lobov’s chubby hand holding the trigger as well as Gabi’s hand in comparison, so we can estimate a cable diameter of about 10 mm from these shots. The volume of the cable is then 0.027 m^3.

Assuming those cables are made out of steel (like their swords), we can use a material density for a standard steel, say, 8000 kg/m3 to calculate the weight (mass) of the cable: approximately 220 kg.

Which is about 485 pounds.

Uh...

Wait, I was talking about this show? You know, with a title like “Assassin’s Bullet” there’s not really any dramatic moment here. You’re just waiting to find out who it’s gonna be. Since Gabi and Sasha shared a “look” an episode back after Sasha sent bullets into the heads of Gabi’s friends, my easy money’s on Sasha. Honestly, I’m surprised her and Connie have survived this long.

After assassinating Sasha, you may be wondering how many rounds can be loaded into a standard-issue Marley rifle. Well, the commercial-break exposition is here to help! They’ve got five rounds. They hold five rounds and Gabi’s gone two-for-two so far. Returning from break, Gabi immediately reloads (nice) but Falco comes aboard and stops her.

There’s some dramatic moment here of Sasha bleeding to death surrounded by friends who are desperately wrapping her abdomen with bandages, but they must not have watched the previous episodes because they forgot to bandage her forehead. Without bandages around her head, Sasha soon dies.

We return to Pieck, possibly dying (?), explaining to Magath that the blonde-haired soldier with a beard that led her and Porco into the well was one of the soldiers aboard the first scout ship sent to Paradis after Reinar got back. And then... wHAT.

That’s how I originally typed “what” in my notes upon the reveal that Zeke defected, so I’m leaving it to better convey the type of delightfully surprised “what” that I felt at the time. But no seriously, hold up.

So the fake-beard person is named “Yelena,” who is loyal to Zeke, right? And Zeke has defected to Paradis Island? (Personally, after witnessing Mikasa and Levi fight I would have defected so I don’t blame the guy). And this was all a part of Zeke’s plan? To restore the Eldian Empire I guess? Anyways, it was well executed by the show.

Roll call!

Beast (Zeke) -> In good shape, defected to Eldians

Cart (Pieck) -> Serious injuries, unknown prognosis

Armor (Reinar) -> A bad case of the sads

Female (Annie) -> Cocooned

Attack, Founder, War Hammer (Eren) -> Once again rescued by his friends

Colossus (Armin) -> A bad case of the sads (over Sasha)

Jaw (Falco) -> Undoubtedly being wrung out into a bucket of bleach

No but seriously, how many people have died rescuing Eren over the course of this show?

In conclusion, Sasha’s dead and Zeke has defected.

Okay Zeke, I think we’ll take you, but you’re not allowed to do the “inject people with blood and transform them into giants” move anymore. We don’t do that type of twisted shit over here on Paradis Island.

My enjoyment: 4/5

#pie211-aot #aot #attack on titan #anime

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butterscotchbeluga · 4 years

Photo

Another design for my Golden Gear Syndicate, introducing the “Swamp Beacon”, an old mech designed for ocean salvage missions, mostly retired by the syndicate, but every once in awhile you’ll see a veteran still piloting one of these junkers. While battered and weathered, this colossus is still ready for a fight with their trusty anchor in hand. Swamp Beacon was chosen in reference to the fungi’s damp choice of habitat and the lights covering the construct.

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velethei · 4 years

Text

below is some general information on my eso verses, more in depth information & hc will be added to my docs.

THE TASTE OF ASH: before her soul was claimed for molag bal, this verse follows nivayne’s life on vvardenfell.

BAPTIZED IN BLOOD: free of molag bal’s realm, nivayne falls into the sea along the shore of the gold coast. pulled out by dockworkers, she soon meets a shadowy woman, amelie crowe. She finds sanctuary with the brotherhood, until a new threat emerges: the black dragon. this verse follows her first year post losing her soul, living on the gold coast. the war is just beginning, the lands quickly growing unstable. spanning the dark brotherhood quest line, becoming a vampire & her return to vvardenfell to confront her family.

OF PROPHECY: her family dead by her hand, she realizes she can no longer ignore the growing threat posed by both molag bal & the discord sewn due to the three banners war. traveling to the mainland she arrives in stonefalls, greeted by the prophet. this verse follows nivayne’s travels through all three alliances, working to mend the land & prevent more deaths while the leaders of each faction bicker among themselves. Includes all three factions, mages guild & fighters guild quest lines along with the main questline, final assault on coldharbour, & imperial city dlc.

KINGMAKER: upon invitation, nivayne travels to wrothgar. Facing both corrupt leaders, betrayal, & reachmen. follows nivayne through the events of the orsinium dlc.

ON GOLDEN SHORES: returning to the gold coast for a time nivayne discovers a serial killer is on the loose. follows all gold cost content outside of the brotherhood questline.

SAVIOR OF MORROWIND: following the prophet's guiding words nivayne reluctantly returns to vvardenfell. covers all events of the morrowind expansion.

WINDING OF THE GEARS: before her the clockwork city towers, in all its mystery. despite the technical marvel that it is there is darkness lurking within it’s brass halls. follows the events of the clockwork city dlc.

SHADOWS OVER SUMMERSET: following the trail of nocturnal & clavicus vile, nivayne ventures to the shores of the summerset isles. follows the events of the summerset expansion & psijic quest lines.

WALKING THE MIRE: grieving the loss of two dear companions nivayne welcomes the chance to leave summerset behind. venturing into black marsh she makes murkmire her new home. follows the events of the murkmire dlc

DRAGONS RISING: the halls of colossus have been broken open, dragons released upon elsweyr. follows the events of the northern elsweyr expansion.

PRIDE OF ALKOSH: the dragons still threaten elsweyr, nivayne ventures south to pellitine. follows the events of the southern elsweyr expansion

HEART OF DARKNESS: a new threat surfaces, vampires ravaging skyrim. nivayne turns her gaze back to the familiar lands of skyrim. covers all events in the skyrim expansion.

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satoshi-mochida · 5 years

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Some games on sale for the NA PSN’s Golden Week sale(full list/prices):

PS4

.hack G.U. Last Recode

2064: Read Only Memories(also on Vita)

428: Shibuya Scramble

Aegis of Earth(also on Vita)

Arslan: The Warriors of Legend

Asdivine Hearts II(also on Vita)

Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan 2

Away: Journey to the Unexpected

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk

Birthdays the Beginning

Black Clover: Quartet Knights

BlazBlue: Central Fiction

Blue Reflection

Chronus Arc (also on Vita)

Cladun Returns: This is Sengoku! (also on Vita)

Code: Realize: Bouquet of Rainbows

Code: Realize: Wintertide Miracles (also on Vita)

Croixleur Sigma (also on Vita)

Dark Rose Valkyrie

Dark Souls Remastered

Dead Rising

Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising Triple Pack

Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess

Devil May Cry HD Collection

Devil May Cry HD Collection & 4SE Bundle

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory (also on Vita)

Digimon World Next Order.

Disgaea 1 Complete

Disgaea 5

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

Dragon Ball FighterZ

Dragon Ball Xenoverse

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

Dragon Quest Builders (also on Vita)

Dragon Quest Heroes

Dragon Quest Heroes II

Dragon Quest XI

Earth Defense Force 4.1

Earth Defense Force 5

Exist Archive (also on Vita)

Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD

Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition(all DLC is on sale, too)

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

God Eater: Resurrection: God Eater 2: Rage Burst

God Eater 3

Gravity Rush Remastered

Gravity Rush 2

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2

Gundam Versus

Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition(PS2 Classic)

Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland(PS2 Classic)

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone Colorful Tone

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone Future Sound

Icey

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven

Kingdom Hearts Collection

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix

Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue

Labyrinth of Refrain

Little Dragons Cafe

Little Witch Academia

Mega Man 30th Anniversary Bundle

Megadimention Neptunia VII

Momodora

Monster Hunter: World

My Hero(Academia): One’s Justice

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4

New Gundam Breaker

Ni no Kuni II

Nier: Automata

Nights of Azure

Nights of Azure 2

Nioh

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere of Influence: Ascension

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir (also on PS3/Vita)

Omega Quintet

One Piece: Burning Blood

Persona 3: Dancing In Moonlight(also on Vita)

Persona 5: Dancing In Starlight (also on Vita)

Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness(also on Vita)

Resident Evil 0

Resident Evil

Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 6

Romancing SaGA 2

Saint Seiya Soldiers’ Soul

Secret of Mana(also on Vita)

Shadow of the Colossus

Shining Resonance: Refrain

Soulcalibur 6

Star Ocean: Till the End of Time(PS2 Classic)

Star Ocean 4

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

Steins;Gate Elite

Superbeat: Xonic(also on Vita)

Tales of Berseria

The 25th Ward: The Silver Case

The Disney Afternoon Collection

The Girl and the Robot

The Last Guardian

The Last Remnant

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince

The Lost Child (also on Vita)

The Quiet Man

The Silver Case

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs (also on Vita)

Tokyo Xanadu Ex+

Touhou Double Focus (also on Vita)

Touhou Genso Rondo

Touhou Genso Wanderer (also on Vita)

Touhou Kabuto V (also on Vita)

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

Toukiden: Kiwami

Toukiden 2

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st]

Utawarerunono: Mask of Deception (also on Vita)

Utawarerunono: Mask of Truth (also on Vita)

Utawarerunono: Mask of Deception and Truth Bundle (also on Vita)

Valkyria Chronicles Remastered

Valkyria Chronicles 4

Valkyria Revolution (also on Vita)

Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story

Warriors All-Stars

Warriors Orochi 4

Wild Guns: Reloaded

World of Final Fantasy(also on Vita)

Yakuza 6

Yomawari: Midnight Shadows

Ys VIII (also on Vita)

Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma (also on Vita)

Zero Escape: The Nonary Games (also on Vita)

PS3

Battle Princess of Arcadias

Castlevania Chronicles (PS1 Classic)

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence(PS2 Classic)

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1 Classic)

Demon’s Souls

Ducktales Remastered

Final Fantasy Origins (PS1 Classic)

Final Fantasy V (PS1 Classic)

Final Fantasy VI (PS1 Classic)

Final Fantasy VII (PS1 Classic)

Final Fantasy VIII (PS1 Classic)

Final Fantasy IX (PS1 Classic)

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (also on Vita)

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Legasista

Lost Dimension (also on Vita)

Mega Man 9

Mega Man 9 & 10 Combo Pack

Mega Man Legends (PS1 Classic)

Mega Man Legends 2 (PS1 Classic)

Persona 4 Arena

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Resident Evil 0

Resident Evil

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 6

Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny

Silent Hill (PS1 Classic)

Suikoden (PS1 Classic)

Suikoden II (PS1 Classic)

Suikoden 3 (PS2 Classic)

Suikoden IV (PS2 Classic)

Tears to Tiara II

The Guided Fate Paradox

The Awakened Fate Ultimatum

Way of the Samurai 4

Vita

7′scarlet

A Rose in the Twilight

Adventures of Mana

Bad Apple Wars

Code: Realize

Code: Realize: Future Blessings

Collar x Malice

Death Mark (also on PS4)

Deemo: The Last Recital

Demon Gaze

Demon Gaze II(also on PS4)

Disgaea 3: Absense of Detention

Dungeon Travelers 2

Mind Zero

Muramasa Rebirth

Muv-Luv

Muv-Luv Alternative

Nightcry

Norn9

Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy

Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy

Persona 4 Golden

Persona 3/5 Dancing Bundle

Penny Punching Princess

Period Cube

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly

Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortuneand the Dice of Fate

Sorcery Saga

Soul Sacrifice

Stranger of Sword City

The Longest Five Minutes

PSP

Dissidia Final Fantasy

Dissidia 012 Prologus Final Fantasy

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

Final Fantasy Tactics

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X

Ends May 7th.

#PSN Golden Week Sale #Final Fantasy #Mega Man #Persona Series #Utawarerumono

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echoes-of-the-clockwork · 5 years

Text

Book Two: Famine (Prompto x Reader) Chapter Ten

A/n: Didn't plan for this chapter to be 3,000 words since my target for each chapter is at least 2,500. I couldn't find a good place to end it and that's why this part is longer than other chapters. Hope you all enjoy! Love you all!!! ••••••••••••••••••••

Aranea runs off out of sight while Prompto and (Y/n) continue to stare in horror at the immense machine. "So that's the "new model"... And that means... he must be inside that thing," the boy mumbled, taking a few steps back. The snow crunches under his boots as he moved to stand beside Famine.

Then, Aranea pulls up beside the couple on a snowmobile. Unlike the one she drove to the complex, this one was mounted with a large machine gun on the back. "Hop on!"

(Y/n) promptly summoned Limos and mounted her, riding alongside the snowmobile. Prompto hops on as Aranea drives them away from the research facility with the Godslayer in hot pursuit. "Ready for round two?" The ex-mercenary questioned.

Prompto grabs hold of the gun's firing mechanism. "You bet!"

The Horseman maneuvers her body until she's standing on Limos' back. "Let's take this thing down!" (Y/n) easily kept her balance as her steed kept pace with the snowmobile.

When Prompto saw her position, he stared in amazement. "How're you doing that?!"

"Eighty years of practice!" She replied with a smirk. "Now focus on the target!"

"R-Right!"

Verstael speaks from within Immortalis as he pursues Prompto, (Y/n), and Aranea. "Long have I waited to smite the world that denied me the glory I rightly deserve-and now, all shall tremble before me, man and maker alike!"

"If that's really him..." Prompto began, resting his hands on the trigger of the machine gun.

"That maniac's taken "biological warfare" to the next level," Aranea finished.

"Then I want to be the one to take him down," Prompto declared.

"I'm right beside you, Chocobutt!" She yelled back with a giggle.

"Wha-not you, too!" He wailed at hearing the teasing nickname.

"Let's take down this oversized trash can!"

Prompto nodded, pushing the nickname to the back of his mind. "Let's do this!" He immediately began unloading bullets into the Godslayer, aiming for its core.

(Y/n) held out both hands, rotating them in a circle and creating a large fireball. She tossed it towards the machine, earning a bulls-eye. She mentally cheered but deflated when the machine disappeared underground. "Are you serious? Is it an earthworm?"

"Certainly looks like one," Aranea commented.

Suddenly, they felt the ground shake underneath them. (Y/n) squatted down to brace herself in order to prevent from falling off Limos. She glanced behind them just as the machine bursted from the ground. The Horseman returned to her normal height and prepared another fireball, listening to the rattling of the machine gun. Instead of the center, she aimed it at one of the seven drills encircling the core.

Prompto aimed at the drill she targeted and fired, destroying it and watching the small pieces crash into the snow. "Alright!" He cheered. "One down, six to go!"

"If we take out the components, it won't be able to burrow underground," (Y/n) spoke. Seeing as it would take too much mana to keep using her fire spell over and over again, she summoned her sword and mounted Limos properly. "Hope you're ready for some jumping, girl. We're taking the fight to that tin can."

Limos neighed and immediately turned around, charging at Immortalis. "(Y/n)!" She heard Prompto yell, but ignored his worried cry. With her blade at the ready, she placed all her trust in Limos' skills and allowed the horse to carry her towards the machine and find the perfect opening. Verstael, the ghost in the machine, switches its attention from the snowmobile to the horse. "Fall to your knees before me, Horseman! You are no match for my godly powers!"

"All I see is a can that needs to be kicked!" (Y/n) shouted back with a chortle. "I know humans who're ten times stronger than you! You're a parasite compared to them! And you know what the best kind of parasite there is? A dead one!"

Limos leapt into the air as the enormous machine dove towards them, dodging the six remaining drilling components. The steed jumped onto its back, running across the hardware. As she ran, lightning resonated from her hooves and roasted whatever it could. The simple shockwave through the system was enough the stutter the entire machine for a few seconds, allowing (Y/n) to impale her sword into it. She held the hilt of the sword tightly as Limos ran along the machine's back, creating a long and deep gash in the hardware.

Verstael growled and shook the Horseman and her steed off Immortalis' back. The machine dove underground, concealing itself once again. They could still feel its presence as the ground continued to shake. (Y/n) dug her heels into Limos' side and commanded her to return to Prompto and Aranea. She easily caught up with the snowmobile, Famine dispelling her blade. "Aranea, ride between the two peaks!"

"What's your plan?" She asked, keeping her eyes on the snowy trail in front of her.

"We're gonna lure him into a landslide!"

"Won't we get caught in it, too?" Prompto asked.

(Y/n) shook her head. "I'll make sure the only victim will be that damned machine. When its pinned underneath the rubble, shoot at the drilling components."

"Got it!" Prompto assured his girlfriend.

Famine threaded her fingers through Limos' mane and leaned forward. "Let's kick it into high-gear, Li-Li!" In the blink of an eye, the Horseman and her steed vanished out of sight and reappeared at the top of one of the twin peaks. Her eyes fell upon the machine as it emerged from the ground and pursued Aranea and Prompto exactly where she hoped it would. Summoning her sword, she charged it with lightning and aimed it at the adjacent mountain peak. Limos scraped her hooves against the rock, manifesting her own lightning.

"Once its right under us, let loose," (Y/n) spoke to her loyal steed. Limos neighed in response and watched the adversary with her crimson eyes. A few seconds passed and the Godslayer slithered between the two mountains. The Horseman and horse released their waves of lightning, bringing both peaks crumbling down on top of the machine. Limos jumped to safety before she and her rider became victims of the man-made landslide.

With the heavy stone being enough to pin the machine for a few minutes, Prompto aimed the machine gun and took out three more drills. (Y/n) heard him cheer as she and Limos returned to her companions.

Aranea maneuvered the snowmobile through a couple of trees before glancing behind her. "Nice work! But that's not gonna hold it for long!" As those words slipped from her lips, the Godslayer broke free from the rocks and continued its pursuit. Energy begins building at the tips of the remaining drill-like components. "Incoming-look out!" The ex-mercenary shouted as the machine started firing at them.

Prompto takes aim at the firing components and takes them out with the machine gun. "Sharp shooting, kid. Keep it up!" Aranea praised.

With help from (Y/n), Prompto disables all but the last of Immortalis' components. "This ends now." He delivers what appears to be the finishing blow to the last drill-like component, causing a violent explosion to erupt from the Godslayer. It lifts high into the air before crumpling across the snowy landscape in a mangled heap.

"Is it over?" (Y/n) questioned, eyes glued to the smoking machine.

Prompto's eyes narrowed when the core of Immortalis begins to glow red from within. The drill-like components become illuminated as well. "Not yet!"

Verstael's voice drips out of the machine as Immortalis rises and takes up the pursuit once more. "How can this be? I will not allow it!"

Prompto continues firing away at the Godslayer as it begins charging enormous amounts of energy to fire at the three of them. Combining his bullets with her magic, Prompto and (Y/n) were able to keep the machine away from them and take down all the components. With only the core left, the couple aimed their projectiles at it.

"This is it!" Prompto yelled.

With the killing blow, explosions rock the Godslayer and Verstael roars as his creation comes crashing to the ground in shambles. Aranea drives herself and Prompto away from the machine's ruin alongside (Y/n).

<----------<<<<<<<<<

Some time later, the trio stand in the snow looking out over the remains of the magitek colossus. Aranea glanced in Prompto's direction. "You alright?"

Prompto nodded. "Yeah. This is what I wanted."

"Then say it like you mean it. You did good, kid."

Prompto takes up a whimsical pose, and with an equally whimsical voice points at Aranea and (Y/n) while saying his next line. "Couldn't have done it without you, gurls!"

Aranea and (Y/n) exchanged glances before looking back at the blonde. He takes back up a normal stance and sober voice. "Seriously, though. Well, we'd better catch up with Noct and the guys. He's got a lot on his plate, and I figure he could probably use our help taking back the Crystal and all that. And who knows? Maybe we'll take it back before he does!"

(Y/n) smiled and crossed her arms. "Finally back to normal, huh?"

"'Bout damn time," Aranea scoffed. Prompto runs over to Limos and stands by the horse. The older woman walks over to him. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

"Honestly, I don't know for sure if they're going to accept me for who I really am. But I'll never know if I don't speak up, so I'm gonna tell 'em. And if they don't..." His cerulean eyes trailed over to Famine, smiling sweetly at her. "I won't be alone. I've got (Y/n) and she's all that I need."

Aranea smirked as she looked at the golden-haired girl. "The boy has become a man thanks to you." She reverted her eyes back to the boy. "Anyway, Gralea's straight ahead."

Prompto climbs onto Limos' back, running his fingers across her black and white hair. (Y/n) stood beside her steed, staring up at Prompto. It confused him as to why she was looking at him like that. "What?"

"You plan on steering?" She asked, smirking.

"Uh, no..." He scooted back and gave her enough room to sit in front of him. "I've no clue how to guide a horse without reins. I can barely do it with a chocobo..."

"Maybe I'll teach you sometime," (Y/n) commented as she mounted the horse.

"Really?" He gasped.

"If you really want to learn. Limos likes you. That'll make teaching you easier." Famine places her hands at the base of the horses neck, moving her hands up to tangle her fingers into her course mane. "Ready, girl?"

Limos neighed and bobbed her head a few times. Prompto wrapped his arms around the girl in front of him and pulled her body slightly back against his chest. Before they took off for the capital of the empire, the blonde shouted towards the ex-mercenary. "Aranea!"

She smiles at him. "Yeah?"

He smiled back. "Thanks!"

She shook her head and gestures to Famine. "Don't thank me. She's the one who you should be thanking. Turns out I was the tagalong the entire time."

Prompto's smile widens as he snuggles closer to (Y/n), tightening his arms around her waist. He leaned his head against hers, mentally thanking the Astrals for placing her in the middle of his path and allowing him to love her and to be loved.

"Hope to see you again, Aranea. It was a nice change of pace with you around," (Y/n) stated.

Aranea nodded in agreement. "Likewise. Take care of him."

"I always do," she smirked before tapping her heels against Limos' side and taking off across the snow-covered landscape.

<----------<<<<<<<<<

A day has passed since their departure from Aranea. Out of the snow and into a much warmer climate, the couple found themselves in the ruins of a town, staring at the clearly identifiable burn marks on the skeletal remains of the buildings. They hopped off Limos and examined the lifeless town.

"Do you think...?" Prompto's voice trailed off in sorrow.

(Y/n) sighed dejectedly. "Daemon attack. But, there aren't any bodies or blood among the wreckage. Maybe everyone made it out before the attack or this place was abandoned years before being attacked."

Prompto grabbed his crownsguard fatigues as he yanked the beanie off his head. "Whew, it's hot here."

"That's only because of what you're wearing," Famine snorted with laughter. "Go find a place to change. Unless... you need help," she teased with a wide smirk, her back facing Prompto.

The boy's cheeks ignited a deep red, going unnoticed by the Horseman. He hid his face with his clothes and shouted into them. "I-I can change on my own!"

(Y/n) spun around while laughing. "I know. I know. I just wanted to tease you a little. You're adorable when you blush. Also, you're fun to tease and make it quite easy." Prompto lowered his clothes only to reveal his eyes. Even though he was hiding his cheeks, she could tell they were blistering red by the tint of his ears. With a grin, she sauntered over to him with a small sway in her hips. She reached out and tugged on one of his ears gingerly. "You're too good for this world."

"I-I-I'm gonna go change!" Prompto dashed off in a desperate attempt to hide every inch of his embarrassment.

(Y/n) crossed her arms, satisfied with how much she could rouse him by simple words. "I'm a lucky girl, aren't I?" Limos neighed and scuffed a hoof into the dirt. The Horseman glanced over her shoulder and smiled at her steed. "Glad you agree, Li-Li."

While waiting for the sharpshooter, Famine explores the ruins of the once prosperous town. She could still smell the smoke that rose from the burnt wood. In the skeletal structure of one of the many houses, she stepped around a few piles of ashes and discovered small objects that remained untouched from the flames that consumed all. Bending down, she discoverer it was a pair of silver rings. Inspecting the jewelry, she found writing along the inside of both rings.

I'm His

I'm Hers

(Y/n) felt her heart ache reading the engravings. Deep down, she had always wanted to get married. Now that she has become a Horseman, she feared her dream would be impossible. She finally has the love she's dreamt of, but she wanted more than just a boyfriend. She wanted someone to devote her entire life to, but with being immortal, such a wish could never come true. For now, all she could ever want was to be with Prompto as long as possible.

Glancing between the two promise rings, the Horseman ignited a flame in her hand and melted the two silver bands. When they combined to make one puddle, she used a smidgen of ice to cool the metal and make it malleable enough to morph with her fingers. She remembers another thing Prompto dearly loves and transforms the former rings into a chocobo.

While adding small details, Famine was given a heart attack and nearly dropped the silver chocobo when Prompto screamed a loud "boo!" and frightened her. She placed a hand over her racing heart and hid the chocobo trinket behind her back, the present being unfinished. "Dear Six, Prom... You gave me a heart attack!"

The blonde boy offered an innocent smile as he rocked back and forth on his heels. "Sorry, but I couldn't resist!" He tried to peer behind her back, but she danced circles around him. "Whatcha got behind your back?"

"If you give me a few more moments, I'll show you," she smiles, turning her back and returning to adding the final details on the chocobo. Once adding the wings and the outline of the beak, she was done. Clamping it in her hands, she used more ice mana to harden the metal. Turning back around, she opened her palm and revealed what she had been hiding. "I made it for you, Prom. I remember when we were riding the gondola in Altissia, you said you love chocobos."

Prompto's eyes widen and glisten in adoration. He took the trinket and admired it. "I... I don't know what to say, (Y/n)." He placed it in his pocket and pulled her into a warm, tight embrace. "I love it!"

She wound her arms around his neck and hugged him back. "It was really in the spur of the moment. I'm glad you love it."

"I still love you a thousand times more than any chocobo, real or fake." He nuzzled his nose against hers, eyes sealed shut.

(Y/n) smiled gently and threaded one of her hands through his soft hair. "I love you, Prompto."

When Prompto went to reciprocate his feelings with a kiss, their happy moment was trampled when they heard the low roaring of engines above. Glancing up, they spotted three imperial drop ships hovering above their heads. "At a time like this?" Prompto murmured in cynicism.

"Maybe we can-"

A barrage of bullets tore through the air, silencing Famine. Prompto immediately dove to the floorboards with (Y/n) to take cover. MTs and soldiers hopped from the airships, weapons raised and beginning their search. Among them, they spotted the chancellor.

Ardyn sauntered through the middle of town, eyeing the ruins around him. He stuck his hands out, spinning in a circle slowly. "I know you're here with your bewitching Horseman, dear Prompto."

The young boy froze, his grip on (Y/n) still tight. She tried to break out of his hold and attack the man, but the sharpshooter snapped out of the paralysis and shook his head. She understood and lowered her hand, returning it to grasp onto his arm.

As they heard MTs and soldiers prowling the area, Prompto glanced down at (Y/n) as he hovered over her body. He stared into her (e/c) eyes as he moved one of his hands to her cheek, brushing his fingers across her skin. "I love you," he whispered before stealing a kiss and rushing out of the destroyed house.

Paralyzed, (Y/n) listened as he was captured with horror-filled eyes. She couldn't budge an inch as she heard Ardyn taunting the love of her life.

"You won't be needing this for I know she will follow shortly." The chancellor took the summoning orb form Prompto's pocket and placed it in his own. The blonde gritted his teeth as the soldiers pulled him aboard one of the drop ships.

Ardyn stepped aboard, staring down at the ruins and recited a haunting poem as the hatch sealed, which made Prompto's blood run cold.

Blasting Earth with scorching breath, acid rain falls from smoldering clouds, Beaten and lacerated with toxic skin, running and screaming are the crowds

Suns of deep crimson, gales of ice, Ripping our flesh, bewildering minds. Hair melting into molten mass, Eyeballs singeing, going blind.

The alluring stench of death, is floating aimlessly in the air. Not a single living thing is left, disfigured corpses are everywhere.

Four horsemen of the Apocalypse, War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. Are on the last hillside preparing, to watch mankind take its final breath.

#final fantasy xv #final fantasy xv x reader #ffxv #prompto x reader #prompto argentum

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grimtwin · 5 years

Note

Favorite game(s) per console?

I’ll just do the systems I’ve owned.

Nintendo -

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2

Tetris

Bubble Bobble

The Legend of Zelda

Double Dragon I and II

Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3

Super Nintendo -

Super Mario World

Super Metroid

Megaman X

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Chrono Trigger

Super Mario Kart

Final Fantasy VI

Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time

Yoshi’s Island

Donkey Kong Country 1 & 2

Mortal Kombat

Gameboy -

Tetris

Dr. Mario

Kirby’s Dream Land 1 & 2

Pokemon: Red, Blue, & Yellow

Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Pokemon Trading Card Game

Gameboy Color -

Pokemon: Gold, Silver, & Crystal

Pokemon Pinball

Playstation -

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, & IX

Legend of Dragoon

Resident Evil 2

Metal Gear Solid

Chrono Cross

Crash Bandicoot 1, 2, & 3

Spyro the Dragon 1 & 2

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2

Megaman Legends 1 & 2

Twisted Metal 2

Megaman X 4 & 5

Bust-a-Move

Legend of Legaia

Nintendo 64 -

Super Smash Brothers

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Perfect Dark

Pokemon Snap

Mario Party

Mario Kart 64

Playstation 2 -

Soul Calibur 3

Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3

Final Fantasy X & X-2

Shadow of the Colossus

Devil May Cry 3

Dragon Quest VIII

Dark Cloud 2

Kingdom Hearts

Star Ocean 3: Till the End of the Time

Resident Evil: Code Veronica X

Dynasty Warriors 4 & 5 + Legends and Empires

Dragonball Z Budokai 2 & 3

Gamecube -

Resident Evil Remake & 4

Tales of Symphonia

Metroid Prime 1 & 2

Super Smash Brothers Melee

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess

WWE: Judgement Day

YuGiOh: The Falsebound Kingdom

Gameboy Advanced SP -

Pokemon: FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald

Advanced Wars 1 & 2

Golden Sun 1 & 2

Yu Yu Hakusho: Tournament Tactics

Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland

Playstation 3 -

The Last of Us

Metal Gear Solid 4

Call of Duty 4 & Modern Warfare 2

Borderlands 1, 2, & Pre-Sequel

Valkyria Chronicles

Resident Evil 5

Devil May Cry 4

Soul Calibur IV

Dragonball Z Burst Limit

One Piece Musou 1 & 2

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Ninja Gaiden 3

Nintendo DS -

Pokemon: Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, White, Black 2, White 2, HeartGold, & SoulSilver

Fire Emblem Awakening

Nintendo 3DS -

Pokemon X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, & Ultra Moon

Playstation 4 -

One Piece Musou 3

Metal Gear Solid V

Red Dead Redemption 2

Persona 5

Horizon Zero Dawn

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Dying Light

Valkyria Chronicles 4

Tales of Berseria

Switch

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate

Celeste

Octopath Traveler

#Nintendo #Sony #Playstation

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sigmalied · 5 years

Text

Sig’s Anthem Review

Verdict

BioWare’s Anthem is a genuinely fun and engaging experience that sabotages itself with myriad design, balance, and technical oversights and issues. It is a delicious cake that has been prematurely removed from the developmental oven - full of potential but unfit for general consumption in this wobbly state. Anthem is not a messianic addition to the limited pantheon of looter shooters because it has somehow failed to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of its predecessors.

Am I having fun playing Anthem? Absolutely. Does it deserve the industry’s lukewarm scores? Absolutely. But this is something of a special case. The live service model giveth and taketh away; we receive flexibility in exchange for certainty. Is Anthem going to be the same game six months from now? Its core DNA will always be the same, but we’ve already begun to see swift improvements that bode well for the future.

Will my opinion matter to you? It depends. When I first got into looter shooters I was shocked at how much the genre clicked with me. They are a wonderful playground for theory crafters, min/maxers, and mathletes like myself who find incomparable joy in optimizing builds both conventional and experimental by pushing the limits of obtainable resources ad infinitum. The end game grind is long and at times challenging as you make the jump to Grandmaster 1+ difficulty in search of top-tier loot to perfect your build. This is what looter shooters are all about.

If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll probably drop Anthem right after finishing its campaign. But if you do like the sound of that, you might find yourself playing this game for years.

TL;DR: This game is serious fun, but is also in need of some serious Game & UI Design 101.

I wrote a lot more about individual aspects of the game beneath the read more, if you’re interested. I’ve decided not to give the game a score, I’m just here to discuss it after playing through the campaign and spending a few days grinding elder game activities. There are no spoilers here.

Gameplay

The Javelins are delightful. I’ve played all four of them extensively and despite identifying as a Colossus main I cannot definitively attach myself to one class of Javelin because they’re all so uniquely fun to play and master. Best of all, they’re miraculously balanced. I’ve been able to hold my own with every Javelin in Grandmaster 1+. Of course, some Javelins are harder to get the hang of than others. Storms don’t face the steep learning curve Interceptors do, but placed in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, both are equally as destructive on the battlefield.

I love the combo system. It is viscerally satisfying to trigger a combo, hearing that sound effect ring, and seeing your enemy’s health bar melt. Gunplay finally gets fun and interesting when you start obtaining Masterworks, and from there, it’s like playing a whole new game.

Mission objectives are fairly bland and repetitive, but the gameplay is so fun I don’t even mind. Collect this, find that, go here, whatever. I get to fly around and blow up enemies while doing it, and that’s what matters. Objectives could be better, certainly. Interesting objectives are vital in game design because they disguise the core repetitive gameplay loop as something fresh, but the loop on its own stays fresh long enough to break even, I feel.

The best part is build flexibility. Want to be a sniper build cutting boss health bars in half with one shot? I’ve seen it. Want to be a near-immortal Colossus wrecking ball who heals every time you mow down an enemy? You can. There are so many possibilities here. Every day I come across a new crazy idea someone’s come up with. This is an excellent game for build crafters.

But... why in the world are there so few cosmetic choices? A single armor set for each Javelin outside the Vanity store? A core component of looter shooters has always been endgame fashion, and on this front, BioWare barely delivers and only evades the worst criticism by providing quality Javelin customization in the way of coloring, materials, and keeping power level and aesthetics divorced. We’re being drip-fed through the Vanity store, and while I like the Vanity store’s model, there should have been more things permanently available for purchase through the Forge. Everyone looks the same out there! Where’s the variety?

Story, Characters, World

Anyone expecting a looter shooter like Anthem to feature a Mass Effect or Dragon Age -sized epic is out of their mind, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge the storytelling in a vacuum. This is BioWare after all. Even a campaign that flows more like a short story - as is the case with Anthem - should aspire to the quality of previous games from the studio. Unfortunately, it does not, but it comes close by merit of narrative ambience: the characters, the world’s lore, and their execution.

(For a long time I’ve had a theory that world building is what made the original Mass Effect great, not its critical storyline, which was basically a Star Trek movie at best. Fans fell in love because there were interesting people to talk to, complicated politics to grasp, and moral decisions to make along the way.)

While the main storyline of Anthem is lackluster and makes one roll their eyes at certain moments or bad lines, the world is immediately intriguing. Within Fort Tarsis, sophisticated technology is readily available while society simultaneously feels antiquated, echoing a temporal purgatory consistent with the Anthem’s ability to alter space-time. Outside the fort, massive pieces of ancient machinery are embedded within dense jungles in a way that suggests the mechanical predates nature itself. The theme of sound is everywhere. Silencing relics, cyphers hearing the Anthem, delivering echoes to giant subwoofers… It’s a fun world, it really is.

As for the characters… they might be some of the best from BioWare. They feel like real people. Rarely are they caricatures of one defining trait, but people with complex motives and emotions. Some conversations were boring, but the vast majority of the time I found myself racing off to talk to NPCs as soon as I saw yellow speech bubbles on the map after a mission. And don’t even get me started on the performances. They are golden.

The biggest issue with the story is that it’s not well integrated with missions. At times it feels like you’re playing two separate games: Fort Tarsis Walking/Talking Simulator and Anthem Looter Shooter. And the sole threads keeping these halves stitched together during missions - radio chatter - takes a back seat if you’re playing with randoms who rush ahead and cause dialogue to skip, or with friends who won’t shut the hell up so you can listen or read subtitles without distraction. I found it ironic that I soloed most of the critical story missions in a game that heavily encourages team play.

Technical Aspects: UI & Design

This is where Anthem has some major problems. God, this category alone is probably what gained the ire of most reviewers. The UI is terrible and confusing. There are extra menu tabs where they aren’t needed. The placement of Settings is for some inane reason not located under the Options button (PS4). Excuse me? It’s so difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. It’s ridiculously unintuitive.

Weapon inscriptions (stat bonuses) are vague and I’ve even seen double negatives once or twice. They come off as though no one bothered to proofread or edit anything for clarity. Just a bad job here all around. And to make matters worse, there is no character stat sheet to help us demystify any of the bizarre stat descriptions. We are currently using goddamn spreadsheets like animals. Just awful.

The list goes on. No waypoints in Freeplay. Countless crashes, rubber banding, audio cutouts, player characters being invisible in vital cutscenes, tethering warnings completely obscuring the flight overheat meter… Fucking yikes. Wading through this swamp of bugs and poor design has been grueling to say the least.

And now for the loot issues. Dead inscriptions on gear; and by dead I mean dead, as in “this pistol does +25% shotgun damage” dead (this has been recently patched but I still cannot believe this sort of thing made it to release). The entire concept of the Luck stat (chance to drop higher quality loot) resulting in Luck builds who drop like flies in combat and become a burden for the rest of the team. Diminishing returns in Grandmaster 2 and 3; it takes so long to clear missions on these difficulties without significant loot improvement, making GM2 and GM3 pointless when you could be grinding GM1 missions twice as fast.

At level 30, any loot quality below Epic is literal trash. Delete Commons, Uncommons, and most Rares as soon as you get them because they’re virtually useless. I have hundreds of Common and Uncommon embers and nothing to do with them. Why can’t we convert 5 embers into 1 of the next higher tier? Other looters have already done things like this to make progression omnipresent. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, BioWare. It’s already been done for you.

When you get a good roll on loot, the satisfaction is immense. But when you don’t, and you won’t 95% of the time, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it. We shouldn’t be spending so much time hunting for useful things, we should be trying to perfect what’s already useful.

It’s just baffling to think that Anthem had the luxury of watching the messy release of several other looter shooters during Anthem’s development, yet proceed to make the same mistakes, and some even worse.

Nothing needs to be said about visuals. They are stunning, even from my perspective on a base PS4.

Sound design is the only other redeeming subcategory here. Sound design is amazing, like the OST. Traditional instrumentals meet alien synth seamlessly. Sarah Schachner is a seriously talented composer.

I’m just relieved to see the development team hauling ass to make adjustments. They’ve really been on top of it - the speed and transparency of fixes has been top-notch. They’re even working on free DLC already! A new region, more performances from the actors... I’m excited and hopeful for the future.

#siganthem

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yoyocheese · 6 years

Link

I made a playlist with a bunch of chill video game tunes for getting work done. Thought I’d share it.

It’s far from complete. I try to update it at least once every day or two. I strongly recommend playing it on shuffle.

Games currently represented in some way on the list:

Final Fantasy I - XI, Crystal Chronicles, Mystic Quest

Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts, Secret of Mana, Xenogears

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Paper Mario, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Donkey Kong Country 1 - 3, Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario World. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Tetris Attack, Yoshi’s Woolly World

Metroid: Fusion, Prime, Prime 2, Super

MOTHER, Earthbound, MOTHER 3

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess

Pokemon: Black and White, Diamond and Pearl, Emerald, Platinum, Ruby and Sapphire, Snap, Sun and Moon, X and Y

Kirby 64: The Crystal Chronicles, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Kirby Super Star

Super Smash Bros.: Brawl, Melee, Ultimate

Art Academy, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade, Golden Sun, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Pikmin 2, Splatoon, Xenoblade Chronicles, Wii, Wii Fit

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Justice For All, Trials and Tribulations

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metal Gear Solid, Suikoden, Super Castlevania IV

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monster Coliseum, Falsebound Kingdom, Forbidden Memories

Soul Calibur II, Soul Calibur VI, Tales of Legendia

ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, The Legend of Dragoon

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Bayonetta, Celeste, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, Indivisible, Katawa Shoujo, Off, Resident Evil 2, Skies of Arcadia, Skullgirls, The King of Fighters 2000, Undertale

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leftwriteb · 5 years

Text

Industry Trend: Sony Drops Out. E3 Is Dying. Maybe That's a Good Thing?

Sony has decided it won’t have a showcase at E3 in 2019. Some see this as a terrible sign. However, even with this news, the expo has been slowly dying for some time. It might seem all doom and gloom but maybe this is all a good thing? We break down why the absence of the E3 Expo may do the industry some good.

It’s been a good few months since we all settled in to watch the events of 2018's E3 event unfold. We got to see what the beloved yearly showcase had to offer us whether it was news, surprises or cringe-worthy out-of-touch presentations. That said, the event came and went and it seems to have become largely forgettable already… Why? Because E3 is a relic of the past and something that probably doesn't need to exist anymore.

There’s no denying that E3 is a great time for video games and acts as both a celebration and showcase of what games can be, and how varied our medium is. With such a variety of genres and experiences at hand, we get to show the world just how great gaming can be and how it can resonate with people of all ages and origins. Make no mistake, that kind of event is incredibly important and is something that will always be cherished by game devs and players alike. I, like many others, absolutely love E3 week. For the past few years I’ve been able to book the time off for it so I can watch it all happen live as it happens. Sure, it usually takes place in the early hours of the morning for those of us in the UK but I don’t mind; some people go to watch their favourites sports teams or their favourite bands but this was the kind of event that could truly grab my attention.

To me, games are an important part of my life. Whether it be for the escapism of visiting weird and wonderful places, the friendships forged over multiplayer or the excitement shared leading up to a new release, there was a whole host of reasons games spoke to me and with E3 having become the golden boy of gaming conventions and shows, I always do what I can to watch.

The past few years worth of shows have had their fair share of memorable moments. 2015 gave us Bethesda’s first showcase, the Final Fantasy VII Remake and Cuphead. 2016 gave us the reveal of Death Stranding, Project Scorpio and Spider-Man. 2017 gave us Metroid Prime 4, the Shadow of the Colossus remake and a trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2. 2018’s E3 Expo, on the other hand, didn’t have anything that truly stood out for me. There were some surprises for sure but it all seemed to fade from memory within the space of a week. Some of the showcases given seemed almost pityful and lacking in content, with others arguably being dragged out longer than they should have been.

This isn’t something that’s unique to 2018’s show though; past E3 expo’s have seen an interesting shift and style as the landscape in which E3 sits becomes a more competitive one. E3 used to be the pinnacle of gaming events but that’s not the case anymore. As games have become increasingly embraced, more shows have expanded in influence and instead of having one huge blowout event to give us our news, we now have several. E3 is dying and, if you haven’t heard, Sony has recently hammered a further nail in the poor things coffin.

The news broke that Sony wasn’t planning on attending E3 2019 and that no presentation would be had either at the convention centre or elsewhere. Sony aren’t the first major player to turn their backs on E3 of course, with Nintendo opting to focus on their more polished Nintendo Direct presentations in more recent years. Presentations from the likes of Ubisoft, Square Enix and EA have been spotty at best and, to boot, PlayStation has an event of its own in the form of PSX. On top of all of this, other events are starting to step on E3’s toes. With so many events scattered throughout the year, there’s inevitably going to be a bit of a battle between them to see who can bring the biggest and best news to their own showfloors. PAX, EGX, GDC, Comic-Con, Paris Games Week, the Game Awards, Gamescom, QuakeCon, BlizzCon; everyone wants a slice of the pie. With so many shows in need of content and with only so much to go around, somebody has to draw the short straw.

One of the reasons so many events have sprung up and grown over the years is that it gives reveals a chance to breathe. Too often an announcement can be made and it is buried by bigger, better or simply more controversial news showing up immediately after. E3 is a prime example of this; with the conversation following such events always centering around a small handful of bullet-points, lesser known titles are being swept under the rug all too soon. By spreading out such things through the course of the year, it gives things a chance to hold the spotlight a little longer. What’s more, it also allows for more flexibility in release schedules; there’s often expectations attached to announcements and reveals that the content will surface within specific time frames afterwards. If you had the chance to reveal your game in January instead of June, people will instead have different preconceptions of when they will see more of the game and when it will release. A more flexible schedule allows for more flexible announcements and more flexible responses.

Why does this matter? Because game release schedules are getting more and more hectic. Just as they do within games conventions and conferences, releases are now battling it out for the best time to play their hand. Winter and Fall schedules are now home to countless big releases and all within a few weeks of each other. In years past we had Battlefield, Titanfall 2 and Call of Duty all surface within a matter of days. Both Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider took considerable hits in sales because they had been forced to face off against game releases that would unfortunately outmatch them. This year alone, we learned that Anthem, Days Gone and Crackdown 3 were all going to be released on the very same day in February of 2019 - something that has thankfully changed since.

E3 is arguably the largest of those gaming showcases and is seemingly shrinking. This may well open the doors to a more varied and well-balanced schedule for the plethora of conventions spread throughout the year and, in turn, the multitude of games we get to enjoy too. A less competitive peak period would also allow for games to get the focus they deserve in periods of the year we don’t often see larger titles. Would the original Dying Light have done so well if it had released in late 2014 instead of January 2015? Would the Witcher 3 have become the enormous hit it was if it had been released in the middle of the huge Fall 2014 releases such as Destiny, Fifa and the Grand Theft Auto V rerelease?

The absence of Sony at E3 next year also presents a unique situation for those who still plan on showing up. While it can be argued that Sony’s absence may well strike a significant blow against the game industry’s annual trade show, it does free up a significant amount of space for Microsoft and Nintendo to potentially occupy. It’s the first time in the event’s 23-year history that Sony hasn’t been there but with it being one of the strongest presences at the event it could prove an opportunity for others; maybe Nintendo could return to the E3 stage in full force. It’s also foolish to deny that Microsoft struggled during the first few years of this console generation. The Xbox has certainly come along way since and is in a stronger position than ever; Microsoft has done well to introduce new policies and features into their console infrastructure that have caught peoples attention. With the host of studios they have also taken control of, they may well be able to get of to a flying start in the generation to come. With an E3 stage next year that’s more spacious than ever, both Microsoft and Nintendo have the chance to grab it with both hands and show people what they’ve got that PlayStation hasn’t. More fierce competition brings fierce change.

With PlayStation having scrapped plans for PSX this year, there’s certainly a sizeable lack of Sony within the next year or so. Maybe they want to have PSX 2019 be one huge PlayStation celebration that’s topped with a PS5-shaped cherry? Maybe Sony just doesn’t want to have to be confined by the typical structure of games media year by year? Maybe Sony simply hasn’t got much to show off next year? Whatever the case may be, the gradual withering of E3 as the industry staple is actually a sign of something bigger.

We’re now spoilt for choice. While there was once a time where we had only one event to turn to, we now have a multitude of them. There is no longer just one celebration of the medium we love so much, there is a multitude of them. Gaming isn’t that hobby people didn’t understand like it used to be. Gaming isn’t seen as the cause of troubled youth like it used to be. Gaming isn’t the niche medium it used to be. We are now at a point where gaming is something that’s just part of nearly everyone’s day to day lives. We don’t need a single celebration of our industry because it’s celebrated consistently. While the slow death of E3 is certainly a shame, it symbolises more that the industry is getting bigger and better year by year.

The death of E3 might very well change the landscape of games media and the industry as a whole but it’s been allowed to happen because changes are already underway. Gaming media has embraced the culture of YouTuber’s, Twitch Streamers and Infuencers. It’s expanded into cross-media promotions. It’s working more closely with the fanbases that follow it. Games are forming passionate communities of players. Games are becoming services that are captivating players for longer than they used to. Games as a platform and medium have changed and so to must the means used to showcase them.

Sony has dropped out of E3. They’re undoubtedly gearing up for their next console and want to make sure that it surfaces with a far share games and revelations. Looking at the release schedule for big games going forward, they seem to all be releasing in the first half of 2019 or don’t have a solid date at all. Big changes are coming for PlayStation. Big changes are coming for gaming. Big changes are coming for E3.

E3 Is dying. Maybe that's a good thing? Change can be a good thing. In the next few years we will see new consoles, new approaches to gaming experiences and new ways that developers and publishers choose to interact with their players. For a group of people that love to spend their 1-UP’s and start things over, why not let our favourite trade show do the same…

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