Here Comes 2015

Well, a new year is just around the corner. Do I have any resolutions?

Nope.

All in all, it wasn't a half-bad year. I'm almost done my first major writing project (no, I'm not going to make it in time...sickness, work and general laziness prevented it, but man did I get a lot done). I have a couple of part-time jobs to keep me busy. I have a car. The only damage that's been done to it so far was not me and happened when I was parked...and upstairs sleeping (it's fine...we got it worked out). I finished...um, a lot of LPs. I think I have a list here somewhere. And another big thing happened a couple weeks ago, which I am very happy about.

I don't really do the sappy stuff, but I wanted to at least extend my usual thanks to everyone who watches and supports my video production endeavours. From the people who comment, give encouragement, tease me and even team up with me to do videos, I truly appreciate the experience. Creating videos and sharing them with both people I know and complete strangers has given me an outstanding confidence boost.

And seriously. If I can handle YouTube commenters, than I can handle anyone.

Back when I posted my first LP on this channel, Dungeon Siege, I was so nervous about people hearing my voice. Before any of this, I only did a couple text LPs (and everyone thought I was a man. It was pretty hilarious and I didn't bother correcting anyone. People still think I'm a pre-pubescent male at times). I'm not a bad speaker when I'm not scared out of my mind, but every time I started a video I would have to muster the courage to do so first. Now I can turn on the recording without a second thought.

I plan on continuing LPs next year. I have no idea what's in store for me (obviously), but hopefully I'll find some new elements to add to the LP table. Meanwhile, here's a little of what you can expect next year...starting in two days...

More Hunted, Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, Alien Isolation, Skyrim (Dawnguard)
Deus Ex, Thief 1, Dead Space 1, F.E.A.R. 1 (ORDER OF PLAY TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON)
Bioshock 2 (ugh)
More Gamecube titles (so far only Lost Kingdoms on the list)
Content featuring: Shauna/SerenityZero, Nick/Demidronik, GameVoyeur, IskatuMesk, GeneralDelta, Michael/Lamaxism (because I'm going to convince him to do an LP with me) and most likely a few others.
AND a couple of titles that I will be announcing in this video that I will hopefully finish tomorrow er...today. WHAT? HOW IS IT 1:30?

Anyhow...I'm not nearly interesting enough to do those AMA type things that are so popular these days, but if you have any questions or requests, feel free to comment here or send a message on YouTube.

Have a Christmas

Oh whatever else you celebrate. Or if you celebrate nothing then Have a Thursday.

I suddenly realized why scheduling content at my job was so messed up this week. Things are usually posted on Thursdays. Well then.

I'm not going to be uploading anything today, but I should have a preview video done sometime before the new year. Meanwhile enjoy a jittering santa. LOTR:TTA will resume Boxing Day...er Dec 26 and I will post a few more Hunted videos. Alien will resume in the new year because I'm still out of encoded video. I may also have some Left 4 Dead 2 videos for you. We'll see.

Too Sleepy for This

I ran out of Alien Isolation videos. I have about 5-6 videos worth of footage on my drives, but I haven't had time to go through and edit them. For the last couple weeks I've been like IT'S FIIIIINE, but then I looked and I'm like...well crap. I need to edit. So I will do that and hopefully have more up in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, enjoy the last of UT3, more of LOTR:TTA, and the beginning of Hunted. Also, if you haven't seen this, then you should go watch. I am quite happy with how this video turned out. It is acting as my year end recap video. I will be posting a preview of 2015 quite soon.

Also, I started my next LP that I put up a poll for. I will announce what the result was in the previously mentioned preview video.

Christmas Came Early

And I got 700 subs for it. I have a video to post to celebrate...which I was going to post for the holiday anyways, but now I'm posting it early. So um, I need to make a few minor changes, and then I shall post a thing.

I'm really tired. Like I might actually pass out on the keyboard. So I may post a thing tomorrow. But it is coming.

Yay you guys are all awesome.

End of the Year

Whelp, almost to the end of the year. I am unsure of how much recording I'll do this month, but I know for sure what I'll be releasing.

I am almost out of Skyrim videos. I have two more to post (some of my 60FPS tests) and that will be it for the year. You can expect more of those videos in the new year.

I have about seven more Unreal Tournament 3 videos, which I will probably post within the next week. Expect Hunted videos to begin next week (I estimate they will appear around December 15).

Alien Isolation will not be finished this year as we still have a lot to record. I will, however, continue to upload what I have. Shauna and I have been having trouble coordinating schedules due to work. I am excited for the episodes coming up. Some of my favourite parts so far have been in these next couple of episodes (including STAIRCASE MANOEUVRES and my solo adventure where I spend about 10 minutes freaking out alone).

And last but not least, I have Lord of the Rings the Third Age. These uploads will also run into the new year as I have about 45 of them...it was a long LP.

OH and I will have a special "year end" video that I am currently (kind of sort of) putting together. I'll be doing a little recap there and a preview of some of the LPs I'll be doing next year (or continuing in some cases).

Questions

Little girl comes up to the counter during a party and asks "are we allowed to hurt people down here?" I was really tempted to say "nothing is true; everything is permitted," just to see how she interpreted it. That said, I'm not ready to lose my job. 

Sometimes I wish, little girl. Sometimes I wish...

Meanwhile my coworker is trying to recover the leagues from a busted hard drive. He just screamed YES, I'M CREATING LOGIC, with no context and continued working.

Started the release of Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, yesterday. It is a long LP, so expect it to run into the new year. I also expect every single video to be flagged for minor copyright as it uses music from Lord of the Rings (duh). There's really nothing I can do about that though. Almost done with Unreal Tournament, and then I will start uploading Hunted. What we have done of Alien is almost fully edited and will continue to be posted throughout the month.

I have a couple of Skyrim videos left from the Dragonborn batch. I will be doing a few transition episodes before I start the Dawnguard DLC. I expect those to be posted in Jaunary however.

Oh yeah, I also have an entire Bioshock 2 LP. Cause...um...it's...

Yeah, actually I'm not sure why I subjected myself to that..

UPDATE: My coworker has started mumbling profanities. I'm pretty sure logic is no longer being created.

MAH FACE

Yeah still no better. Voice has managed to survive...mostly, but this cold is taking a lot out of me. I keep thinking it'll get better the next day and it just gets worse, no matter how much I try to sleep. It's probably cause I don't have time to rest. My extra shifts at work are almost over (today's the last day). Haven't been able to call in because NO ONE is available to work it. Yesterday I had to stay longer cause the one person who was supposed to come in called in sick. And then I had to go brush off a foot of snow from my car in -22 degree Celsius weather (plus windchill) and drive at half the speed limit on icy roads. At least traffic was low so it only took me an hour (the drive is usually 25-30 mins). Anyway, I have to work again today, so I'll just continue to upload. I forgot to publish some Skyrim stuff so I'll get to that today. Meanwhile you should check out the poll I made and vote:

Poll

Tell me what you want me to play. I think I got a request for a couple co-op/multiplayer options, but this poll is strictly for a solo LP that I'd do when I don't sound like my throat is trying to crawl up my nose.

Voice is Toasted

Again.

There has been laryngitis going around and it seems I may be getting it. I haven't COMPLETELY lost my voice yet, but I am preparing for it. I managed to record more Bioshock 2. It has become extremely entertaining...but not for the reasons the devs probably wanted it to be. I unintentionally broke a lot of stuff today. Ironically when I TRIED to break things, it didn't work as planned.

So my recording will likely come to a grinding halt. I'll either play things I don't plan on recording or just....write/edit. I'm thinking of what I will solo LP next. It will likely be one of the following:

Deux Ex
Dead Space 1
Thief 1
FEAR 1

I may put up a poll on G+ and let whoever is interested decide for me.

Laptop Officially Dead

Time of death 6pm this evening. Oliver called it. Yeah the charger port is shot so he's backing up the drive for me and that's that. It's still under warranty I think so I may be able to get a replacement. Still, I am a little sad this one only lasted two years. My last laptop lasted 5 and a half years...AND I WAS ENCODING ON IT.

So yeah. Sad about that.

UPDATE: Might have been caused by a faulty fan. Stopped spinning, power supply overheated, laptop toast. All the files are off the hard drive so no worries there. May be able to get it fixed because TECHNICALLY the two year warranty still applies.

New Hardware

So. A child peed on the floor at work today. That was fun.

I now have better hardware for playing games, recording and editing. I am very excited about this. I tried a couple of encodes and I have discovered I can produce videos 5 times faster than I used to (on average). I tested some recordings at 60fps. Super smooth and the video looks pretty nice. Actually Skyrim (game I was testing) ran perfectly at highest graphics settings and recorded with no lag at 60fps. Was a good test to give me an idea of what the computer is capable of. I will be able to stream no problem now...IF I get decent internet. And I'm in Canada which means that's ungodly expensive for someone currently working part time (I have been informed by General Delta that it's much worse in South Africa so I shouldn't complain XD). Apparently there's built-in Twitch on these graphics cards as well which is worth looking into.

I know very few people watch the videos regularly (and even fewer read these updates), but I wanted to apologize for the Alien Isolation mix-up. I posted part 10 after part 11 and 12. Granted, we don't get very far in part 10, but still there will be a confusing jump in events. They are all posted properly and in the right order on the playlist now. More of those videos will be going up soon (Shauna should be happy cause that's when the really silly stuff happens).

Skyrim, Alien Isolation and Unreal Tournament 3 are the priority now...but I will post other amusing things as I go. Check out the public drive for other random footage that I won't be posting to YouTube (at least not any time soon).

November was supposed to be the month I crack down and finish up some writing, but looks like my laptop charger port is shot (I'm still hoping it just needs a new charger). So it's out of power and there's no way I can access the files on there unless I get power to it or remove the hard drive. So that's all on hold right now. I have a back up of the one file I really want which at least lets me work a little bit. Just need to set it up...

American Grocery Stores Are Magical Places

You have like...40 flavours of pop and 20 different kinds of oreos. Pumpkin spice oreos. That is a thing. Oh and those Cheez-It things. Thanks for getting me hooked on those Voyeur.

So I've been back for awhile now, but video work has been slow as I've had...well an interesting last couple of days. Had a bit of a medical scare and it skyrocketed my anxiety, which isn't good for productivity, at least in terms of personal projects. Also, my boss at work has a family emergency which means I'll be working full time for the next couple of weeks. I will be tired and video recording and production will slow down immensely.

That said, I have a super entertaining line-up for the rest of November and December. First off, the next Gamecube game I plan on uploading is Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. I finished this LP well over a month ago...maybe two, but it is full of silly from what I can remember. It is cheesy, buggy and all around a good time. Except for the Rohan area. That was stupid. Also how it ended was really just...wtf.

My other single player LPs will include more Skyrim and eventually Bioshock 2, Half Life Episode 2, and Brigmore Witches. I want to finish these before 2015 and get them off my plate. Bioshock 2 is going to take a lot of willpower to finish. It's not very good. I will continue my Skyrim adventures with the Dawnguard DLC.

As for co-op/tag team LPs, I think we'll FINALLY finish Resident Evil 5 within the week. Voyeur and I are very close to completing it, and then we will be moving on to another game. I'm not sure what yet. Perhaps the Magicka DLC. Mesk and I continue to record Hunted. I expect these videos to start going up shortly before December. Depends on what I have to upload at the time. His videos of Hunted should be much more chaotic than mine as my netcode causes strange things on his end.

I've stopped work on Bioshock Infinite, mostly because Alien Isolation has a lot less issues and has been exceptionally entertaining over the last few sessions. There are things that happen in that game that really...I can't describe. Shauna and I are about halfway done the game. It's taking a lot longer because we're playing on hard...and it really is difficult. I still think that the low number of save points is a stupid idea though. We have some LPs planned out for when we finish Alien. I wouldn't expect to see these until like...February of next year though, so I won't bother announcing them.

So rest of November looks like:
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
Unreal Tournament 3
Skyrim
Alien Isolation

December will likely look like:
Hunted: Demon's Forge
Skyrim
Bioshock Infinite
And one of the following: Half Life Episode 2 or Brigmore Witches

Expect other random videos and clips. Keep an eye on my Public Google drive as well for access to unreleased video.

The Worst Kind of Escort Mission

I just realized what bothers me the most about Bioshock 2. It's not that it seems like someone's bad fanfic (though it really does), it's not all the laziness in texturing and level design (which there really is a lot of) and it's not the awkward interface (wtf did they do with the subtitles and weapons/plasmid system?)...it's that half the game so far is like the final mission in Bioshock 1, only more annoying. I don't think I'll play this game again, but I'll tough it out for the people who requested it...and put up with all the knowing laughs from the other people I've told.

So videos were released a little weird this weekend as I was out of town. I will be returning late tomorrow evening. Bioshock 1 is finished. I will finish uploading Unreal Tournament 3 and continue uploading Skyrim videos. I finished the Dragonborn DLC before I left.

Tuesday Nights

I really need the sleep, but coffee has a way of making me not sleep. Ever. This is not the case with tea...or really any other form of caffinated drink. I don't count energy drinks because they are disgusting and make my heart feel like it's going to explode (seriously I tried half a can once and it made my heart VERY uncomfortable).

But it helped me bowl a 352 (5-pin) a couple weeks ago so I can't complain.

Oh yeah LP stuff. So Bioshock 2 is making me quite upset about...everything. As I say in the videos, it's like someone's bad Bioshock 1 fanfic. It has some interesting and fun aspects to it but...well...you'll see when I play what my gripes are. I do play it on hard, which doesn't help the situation.

Co-op LP work continues with Mesk (Hunted), Voyeur (Resident Evil 5) and Shauna (Alien: Isolation). I am intending to do some recordings with General Delta and another person soon, but I don't know when.

I have some Half Life 2 Episode 2 sitting on my hard drive waiting to be edited and encoded (but it's not finished) and some Guild Wars 2 (that I need to edit up and post). OH and I keep forgetting to finish editing the Extra Life 2014 recap video. It's done I just need to do a last pass and edit a little bit. There will be a long version and a short version. Short version is 9mins and ready to be posted. Long version is like...an hour and not quite ready yet.

But, my priorities right now are not in the realm of LPing. I have two tasks I must complete before the year is over. 1) Complete my writing project (this is not an option I have decided) and 2) get a full-time job (it is long past due and I will really need the money soon).

I feel like I'm forgetting something.

I'm still so awake and it's 4am. Remind me (people in different time zones and Mesk) that LPing Tuesday nights/early morning Wednesday would be a good idea.

Sleepiness

Kathleen and I made it though the night. I think I fared a bit better, at least mid-morning before we finished as my sleep schedule is messed up anyway. I suffered Sunday and Monday though with exhaustion and super soreness. Dodgeball really...took a toll on my body. Last time I was that sore was "learning" how to snowboard (which essentially meant me falling on my ass over and over and over). Anyway, Kathleen's grand total for money raised was over $1200 (a few more donations may still come in). I am currently working on a recap video, which will go up once I figure out how to get the Twitch videos into my clutches.

Games played included:
Luigi's Mansion (nostalgic)
Fear Online (awful)
No Room in Hell (confusing)
Borderlands the Pre-Sequel (not bad, but super sensitive and clunky after playing Destiny so much)
Sonic Mega Collection (of which I remember little because I was so tired)
And we attempted Killing Floor but I actually broke it beyond repair. I have no idea how I managed this.


Also, I have Destiny now for PS4. Going it solo mostly + playing with randoms, but if you have it, you may add me on PSN: DrSchwa

A Bug Hunt

I am super impressed with how well my title fits this time.

FIRST - Alien Isolation continues. We are not done recording...I assume we are around the halfway mark, especially with the sudden difficulty spike. My thoughts so far? Not a bad game. It has...issues though. I don't particularly find the game scary. Now, listening to the videos, you will be inclined to debate this based on our reactions. But it's not scary like Outlast or Amnesia. It is tense. I am way more tense playing this game, and I was way more frightened playing the other games. Half of that tension just comes from whether the bloody Alien will show up and kill us before we can save and we have to do the same shit over and over again. Part of that tension just comes from the unpredictability. Also the game crashes. A lot. I don't even think I'm going to edit the crashes out to be honest. It's just business as usual between them because it's so common. So far in 8 hours of gameplay I believe we had 8 crashes. One crash per hour. gg. Also, the game is a little buggy. It uses Havok, so the physics objects are already hilarious, but the Alien itself is just...so broken. You should see a short clip on YouTube that I posted (two days ago?) that sums this whole experience up in about 45 seconds.

SECOND - Started Hunted: Demon's Forge with Mesk. We marathoned about...5 hours of it before we both got too tired to continue. So we are near the end of the second chapter and have already broken the game in new and exciting ways. We also recreated many of the old bugs he encountered with HKS back when he ran through it then. This will be...a different LP experience. I would recommend this one if you like seeing a lot of silly things (and don't mind that we take the time to see if we can push things to their limits). The game is actually decent though despite its major issues. It's super buggy, but gameplay is fun and interesting, there are tons of areas to explore, and the story itself isn't boring. I have been looking forward to this one. I've never played it before, but it is far from a blind LP as I've watched Mesk and HKS' videos (which can be found here). This LP should start going up on YouTube early November after Bioshock is complete.

THIRD - Extra Life reminder this Saturday. Kathleen reached her goal, but she's trying to stay in first for the Alberta Children's Hospital as she will have the chance to earn extra money for them (30k I think). So feel free to check out our streams on Twitch. I will post the links again on the date. I will be joining in the evening, so Kathleen will have a head start, so make sure to tune in to her stream while I'm off getting my fingers broken and my face crushed by large rubber balls. I'm uh...playing in a dodgeball tournament until about 4/5pm. I believe Shauna, General Delta, Mesk and Oliver may also join in.

Retribution

A bit of news today. IskatuMesk finished and released his audiobook Black Sun: Retribution today. It can be found on Campaign Creations along with a little background of the project and its history. I voice acted a minor part in it, so there's that. This is why there was a lag in videos today. I was doing some polish takes for the final project.

Also, I am fully finished with Unreal Tournament 3. I now have free space on my drives for the first time in months. WHAT SHALL I DO WITH IT?

Casting Lull

More like casting lol

I haven't been making any new videos for the past while aside for some Resident Evil 5 recordings and Alien: Isolation. I'm not too concerned as I have a ton of material to post that's in queue, but I will need to finish up Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Dishonored at some point. I won't be able to do more recording for a few days as I'm still sick and the condition of my throat will not allow me to speak for prolonged periods of time. I also have some voice work to do for a friend that I am very much behind in.

For the next couple weeks you will see more Bioshock, the first episodes of Alien: Isolation, UT3 and my first few episodes of the Gamecube games I played. I will continue to take suggestions for Extra Life, which is just under 2 weeks away.

List of Games

I am posting my list of games for Extra Life here. If you want me to play any, comment on this post (or message me somewhere on YouTube). I have more games than I did last year. Not sure how well they will all stream with OBS, but we'll see. So on Steam I have:

Age of Empires 2
Age of Empires 3
Alice: Madness Returns
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Baldur's Gate
Bastion
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Bioshock
Bioshock 2
Bioshock Infinite
Borderlands
Borderlands 2
Bothers - A Tale of Two Sons
Bulletstorm
Command and Conquer 3
Crysis
Crysis 2
Dark Souls
Dead Space (probably going to LP this so I'd rather not play it)
Dead Space 2 (see previous line)
Descent
Deus Ex
Dishonored
Dungeon Siege 3
Skyrim
F.E.A.R. (probably going to LP this as well, so I'd rather not play it)
F.E.A.R. 2
F.E.A.R. 3
Far Cry 3
Garry's Mod
Grand Theft Auto 3 and 4
Half Life 2
Half Life Episode 1
Half Life Episode 2 (LP will be posted on YouTube soon anyway so...)
Half Life Opposing Force
How to Survive
Just Cause 2 (includes the multiplayer mod...which is hilarious)
Kane and Lynch 2 (if you want to see a truly awful game)
Left 4 Dead 2
Limbo
Magicka
Max Payne
Max Payne 2
Max Payne 3
Miasmata
Portal
Portal 2
Prince of Persia (Sands of Time, The Two Thrones, Warrior Within)
Resident Evil 5
Saints Row 2
Saints Row The Third
Saints Row 4
Serious Sam 3
Civilization 5
Thief
Thief 2
Torchlight
Torchlight 2
Transistor
Trine
Trine 2
Unreal Tournament
VVVVVV
The Walking Dead
The Wolf Among Us

Off of Steam I have...
Neverwinter MMO
Neverwinter Nights
Fallout 1 and 2 (maybe 3? Can't remember)
Guild Wars 2
Morrowind
Oblivion
Diablo 1
Diablo 2
Warcraft 2
Warcraft 3
Archeage
And a ton of other old games I have in CD form.

I will also take requests for Gamecube and Wii. I can bring some of the Mario Parties and Mario Karts. I will also bring Sonic Adventure Battle 2, Sonic Adventure, Lost Kingdoms, Fire Emblem (the Gamecube and Wii version) and any other silly game I think would be amusing. OH I SHOULD BRING SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG. That game is so bad.

Let me know if you have challenges. I love challenges, even if they are tear-your-hair-out difficult.

Accidental "Success"

Note to self: "Fanny Trampling" is obviously a...thing somewhere (apparently Germany and Italy), because Bioshock Episode 2 got way too many hits in the first 24 hours (over 120...and most hits were less than 5 seconds). And yes, I knew exactly what I was doing at the time. The title was not an accident. Just the views. Seriously, I consider 15 views in the first 24 hours successful.

Plan to alternate uploading Bioshock and other videos continues. I will be entering a very unproductive stage soon, meaning I will probably be doing more recording than anything else...so thankfully I have a lot of videos prepared.

Otherwise...no new news really.

Soundtrack Thursday SPECIAL EDITION

I am actually back at my old workplace doing a one-shot project for them...AND IT IS THURSDAY. Couldn't have worked out better. I'll be listening to the soundtracks that tickle my fancy today, so I'll link you them and you'll be able to listen to these awesome tracks as well. Good plan yes?

InFamous: Second Son - I really do love this soundtrack. Compared with other soundtracks of similar music style, I'd say it's one of the best I've heard.

Destiny - Still debating whether I'd like to purchase/play this game. Tried it on Xbox, but I'm not sure...Really torn on this soundtrack. It has some super generic stuff...and some really good tracks. There are better tracks closer to the end.

Borderlands Pre-Sequel - Cause I listened to the other soundtracks and liked them fine.


I just realized my phone populated by phone book with my Google+ contacts. Now I have a bunch of random people in my contact list there...all under their aliases. Anyone looking for a phone number in there is going to be very confused...and possibly amused.

Opt for the Cliche?

Debating posting horror/creepy games for the month of October cause...Halloween? Meh, I dunno. Usually I just post whatever the heck I want. Maybe I shall post a higher frequency of such such videos for this month.

OKAY SO SCHEDULE.

Bioshock 1 begins uploading today. I will be uploading two Bioshock episodes every odd numbered day (ie. Oct 1, Oct 3, Oct. 5 etc.) At that rate, I will be done uploading the entire LP by the end of the month.

On even numbered days, I will be alternating uploads between: Guild Wars 2, Unreal Tournament 3, Haunted Mansion (Gamecube), Bioshock Infinite and Skyrim.

Expect Half Life 2 Episode 2 by the end of the month. Expect Dishonoured: Brigmore Witches early November.

Extra Life is on October 25. I am in a dodgeball tournament that day as well, so I will be joining in the video games after 5pm and pulling an all-nighter.

If I have free time, I will likely make some silly custom titlecards for YouTube. Top of the list for these is UT3.

As for co-op projects (holy crap I'm doing a lot of videos), I will continue Burial at Sea with Shauna before moving on to the new Alien game being released. I will continue playing Resident Evil 5 with Voyeur and I expect to start Hunted: The Demon's Forge with Mesk once he is done some of his other projects. That brings me to my next news...

I, uh, may or may not be voice acting a small part in an audiobook...heh...

I will post the link here when it is released...if it is released publicly.

Bioshook

As of five minutes ago I have finished Bioshock 1. I enjoyed it. I'll have a longer review in the video, but overall not a bad game. It has its issues with AI, interface and terrible escort missions, but the music, atmosphere and story were all good points. Oh and the physics objects. The amazingly random physics objects that launch you into the air and spring across the room like torpedoes. A+

Bioshock will begin uploading October 1. I will continue to add UT3 and Skyrim videos periodically. I need to focus on editing and encoding Guild Wars 2 and Bioshock Infinite in the meantime.

Ah yes, and we need to finish Resident Evil 5 Mr. Voyeur.

*prod prod*

IT'S OVER

The Penumbra Trilogy is now fully uploaded, and posted and stored away in the LP playlists. I can now wash my hands of it. Let us never speak of this ordeal again.

ONWARDS TO SORTING OUT THE MESS THAT IS BIOSHOCK INFINITE.

Also, there is a preview of a blind Bioshock 1 LP that will be release early October. This clip is...basically my experience of the game in a nutshell. Random, confusing and full of my poor aim and broken sound clips. Apparently my sound card can't handle the inanity.

Ahead of the Game

Also behind at the same time. I have a ton of video ready to release, and have recorded a lot of other stuff I've been meaning to go through. I finished UT3 last night, but unfortunately the game crashed on the last mission, and Mesk and HKS beat the level on that try before I could reconnect. Mesk will be giving me video footage to complete it. Over the last two days I have started Bioshock Burial at Sea with Shauna, continued Resident Evil 5 with GameVoyeur and started HL2Ep2 as well as Bioshock. Also thinking of future projects with Mesk and HKS, which will likely include Neverwinter Nights, Guild Wars 1 and Hunted: The Demon's Forge.

A list of prepared video:
-Unreal Tournament 3 (almost have the entire LP encoded and ready)
-Schwa Can't MMO content including: Guild Wars 2, Archeage, Neverwinter
-Skyrim (another three episodes)
-Haunted Mansion - Gamecube
-Lord of the Rings, The Third Age - Gamecube

A list of recorded video that has not been processed (and are mostly incomplete):
-Half Life 2 Episode 2
-Bioshock
-Bioshock Infinite
-Bioshock Burial at Sea Episode 1
-Dishonored, Brigmore Witches

I may pre-release some of these. You can find them on my Google Drive. I have made a public folder.

Extra Life 2014

I told Kathleen I'd make an announcement here and on my YouTube channel as well. Both Kathleen and I will be participating in Extra Life this year. I am promoting Kathleen's fundraising initiative, because I figure she has more connections willing to donate. The money would be going to the Alberta Children's hospital. Kathleen is trying to raise over $1000 dollars this year. So far she has just over $400 dollars.

I will be playing games for 24 hours as well, whether that will be at Kathleen's house or not, I am unsure. Regardless, I plan to stream off and on all day, so I will take suggestions on what to play. I can do Gamecube games as well thanks to my capture card.

Kathleen's Blog

Kathleen's Donation Page

I will add links to Kathleen and my Twitch accounts closer to the date (October 25th).

My Interwebs

My internet is so broken right now. Ever since the snowstorm last week that broke a bunch of trees in my city, it has been atrocious. It's really sad to think that these type of freak storms are going to happen more and more in the future. You can believe whatever you want about climate change, but after the last year and a half with freak floods, cold winters and storms that destroy half the trees in the city, there is no way you can convince me that we aren't in for a shitstorm of terrible weather in the future.

At any rate, a lot of online activities have become annoying. It will flip from being extremely slow and back to normal again in the span of an hour. Then it'll just drop for no reason. Therefore recording UT3 was especially aggravating. I have a good reserve of UT3 videos to upload as well as the final dungeon of Neverwinter. I also have a reserve of two Gamecube games recorded as well as a bunch of Guild Wars 2 I've been too lazy to produce. I'll have some new Schwa Can't MMO up soon, including a run of Archeage. Other than that, just have a ton of Bioshock Infinite to produce. Also, I ran out of Skyrim videos.

This week on YouTube:
-More UT3 missions (I'm so bad at this game)
-The final Neverwinter Dungeon (with my rogue not hunter)
-Penumbra Requiem (ugh)

What I need to do in terms of recording:
-Record more Skyrim
-Finish Dishonored DLC
-Record more Dark Souls
-Finish LOTR: The Third Age (this is...an experience)
-Continue Resident Evil 5 with Voyeur

September Snow

Yes, it is snowing outside right now. It was 26 degrees Celsius yesterday. Today it is snowing. Welcome to Calgary.

Not much to update at this point in time. I finished editing Penumbra Requiem and it is prepared for release. So that's a big deal. Shauna and I finished Bioshock Infinite a couple days ago, so that means I'll have more editing to do for that. I have more Unreal Tournament 3 and Guild Wars 2 to go through and Resident Evil 5 is still being produced with GameVoyeur.

My hands are killing me. A combination of games and editing video have made them extremely sore. I may have to alternate days to keep them from getting worse, especially because I NEED them to do most of what I do to keep myself occupied.

The good news is, you will have a steady stream of videos. I don't have a set schedule, but you will see more UT3, Skyrim and Neverwinter this week. I will save Penumbra and Guild Wars 2 for later. Meanwhile, Voyeur is uploading one episode of RE5 per week, so stay tuned on his channel for that LP.

I really want to finish up some of these projects so I can play Bioshock and Half Life 2 Episode 2.

Online Storage

Hmmm...

So I got an email informing me that I have 100GB of storage online on Google Drive. I'm debating what to do with this new resource. I have shared videos in the past with people through this tool, but some have had problems accessing it. What I may try, is post currently unreleased videos in a public folder and share videos with interested parties. These would be videos that I would unlikely post on YouTube as they are too long or of no interest to most people. That, and I can use add videos that may be rejected by YouTube for copyright reasons. One major issue with this is bandwidth. I already walk a fine line as it is.

Anyway, just throwing it out there. If you are interested, let me know.

A Little Bit of a Mess

Is the state of my videos right now. My hard drives are very full, which means a lot of work for me and a lot of video for you to watch. I spent the majority of the day here freeing up space. I am happy to announce that I have finally, completely, dealt with Penumbra Black Plague, and the final episodes will be available this week. I made a mistake and uploaded the segments out of order, and only realized it today when I was attempting to update the tags.

Meanwhile, I have begun recording Unreal Tournament 3. It has been...an experience. I am not very good...and we are playing on the highest difficulty. I will need to heavily edit the first two missions as we had to attempt them multiple times. We get better as we go though, so the rest of the videos should be full videos unless we hit problems again.

Right now my priorities are: Neverwinter (need to get that under control), Guild Wars 2 (not sure what I'll do with this yet), Unreal Tournament 3 (because it's taking up a non trivial amount of space) and Adventures with Boxes....I mean Penumbra Requiem (because it's...been a year). Thankfully, Requiem is short and does not take up much space.

I am likely only going to commit to those 4 projects for the time being, but I am still taking requests and I will eventually move on to other titles. I will keep a running list of the LPs that have been requested, or that I plan on doing at the bottom of this blog.

Halfway Mark

Still on holidays. It is glorious. I have been super lazy with updating video descriptions and tags a) because it is a pain in the ass on my phone, and b) because it is a pain in the ass on my phone. I will be returning at the end of next weekend, but I will be occupied for a couple days dealing with everything I missed, figuring out if I actually have a full time job or not, and ensuring I have enough room on my hard drive to begin recording UT3.

Meanwhile in the boonies it has...rained. And rained some more. Got a little bit of wind, and then a lot of wind, and then I think the sun appeared for about five seconds. So I am stuck in a cabin with four other people unless I would like to venture out and get cold and wet. I am tempted to go swimming in the waves, but last year when I did that in this weather I nearly got hypothermia. It's all good.

So I have been attempting to write and read through a friend's script/writing for an upcoming project of his. It has been slow in both counts, and I feel bad because one of the reasons for coming out here was just to read and write. Reception has been poor, but I have a window of internet usage here that I am taking full advantage of.

I still have four videos to give you before I am back. Thank you for your patience.

PS - Keep an eye out for Guild Wars 2 videos upon my return.

PSS - Never leave tea leaves sitting in your teapot for two days. Especially when that tea has chocolate in it. I cleaned it out and now my hand smells like curdled milk.

Gone on Vacation

As of tomorrow I will be gone on vacation. I will be back the first week of September. While I am gone, I will post videos from my phone on a semi-regular basis. 

You should see:

The rest of Penumbra Black Plague

Skyrim

Neverwinter Dungeons

Resident Evil 5 (posted by GameVoyeur on his channel)

Dishonored: Brigmore Witches (at lest the first few episodes)

And anything else I find that might interest you.

I don't know what internet or phone reception will be like, so if you message me and I don't reply, I'm not ignoring you on purpose. 

See you all September 2. 

The Next Few Weeks

Hey all, I won't be available to play any games for the next few weeks. I will be leaving on Monday for two weeks and in the time I have left at home I have two work shifts, a wedding, a friend visiting from out of town, a ton of last minute encoding and uploading, packing, cleaning, and running assorted errands. I will not have time to play games. I am sorry. In addition, it is extremely hot in this room (35+ degrees Celsius). I am Canadian and I live in a dry place where it rarely gets above 25 degrees for long periods of time. We have had a bit of a heat wave this summer. It is slowly killing me. I do not have air conditioning...just a little fan that blows hot air around. This means I will be getting very little sleep, but I still will be trying because I have been losing sleep because of a back injury. So all in all I will be a busy, tired and agonized individual for the next 5 days, and will be declining any offers to play games. Please do not take offense to this. Or do. I just won't care because I'm grouchy and I gave you fair warning. Now just imagine me grinning stupidly here.

I will however, provide you with videos this week and while I am gone. I may reduce uploads to once every two days so I do not run out of material or in case I miss a day because my internet/phone connection where I am going will be...patchy. This also means you probably won't be able to contact me easy, so again, I'm not ignoring you...I'm just out of touch. I will return August 31 and be available again for games a few days after (I have plans so far for September 1).

This has been a heat-induced public announcement.

PS - Capture Card arrived in the mail.

Anyone Seen My Brain?

Cause it's either missing or completely fried. I was already tired last night, and then I only ended up sleeping an hour before my back began hurting and I had nerve pain shooting through my leg. So that's fun. Managed to fall asleep somewhere around 5am but then I had to be awake for work and...well here I am. I should be able to leave in an hour, but until then, I'm stuck staring at my grilled cheese trying to remember how long it's been sitting there. So I apologize for this post and its coherency. This is what happens when I get 3ish hours of sleep...with medication for my back...and I was already sleep deprived. 

Here is a list:

1) Unreal Tournament 3 has a tentative start date for recording. We will be playing September 1 (or very close to that depending on when the other three gentlemen are available to play) when I get back from going to my grandparent's cabin out in the boonies. 

2) I started another LP with GameVoyeur. We are playing resident Evil 5. I literally retyped "resident" four times and the shift key wouldn't register to capitalize it. So it is staying like that. That's what you get for defying me resident. Now everyone is going to stare at it and be uncomfortable. Anyway, that's started to go up here. I will post the playlist on my channel when a playlist exists.

3) Guild Wars and Neverwinter Nights look like other likely co-op LPs/videos in the future. I have no idea what the timeline on those would be though.

4) Uh...I didn't record any more Dark Souls. This weekend was a little rough on me unexpectedly and I ended up quite busy. I still plan on continuing it, but you may not get many more videos before I go off the grid. 

5)Fallen Earth stuff is up. I have another video for it, so I will be posting that before I leave.

K I keep seeing the little bit of paper at the end of the teabag in my drink move and it's freaking me out cause I keep thinking it's a bug.

6) You will be getting a lot of Neverwinter, Skyrim and Penumbra in the next few days. I can't remember if I have anything else prepared. It'll be a surprise for you if there is.

Today is Monday so....

Monday - Neverwinter Dungeon, The Pirate King Part 3, Fallen Earth Horse Video

Tuesday - Skyrim Part 12

Wednesday - Penumbra Black Plague Part 3, Neverwinter Dungeon the ice mountain one that I forget the name of Part 1

Thursday - Neverwinter Dungeon the ice mountain one that I forget the name of Part 2, Skyrim Part 13

Friday - Penumbra Black Plague Part 4

Saturday - Uh...something interesting I'm sure

Sunday - I will get back to you after I have a nap

Monday - I'm disappearing into the wilds of Manitoba to become one with nature, though I'll have videos queued up while I'm gone. 

Oh god this is a terrible cover of House of the Rising Sun. Please make it stop. I can't handle this. 

THANKS GOOGLE

Ugh. Just spent an hour getting angry, then upset, then REALLY upset over YouTube's new uploading shtick. I woke up this morning and stumbled over to my computer to see that both uploads that I had started, had failed. The reason? Unsupported file format.

Wait. What?

Apparently, as of yesterday, .mkv files are no longer supported. I encode everything in .mkv format. For the past three years, I have encoded all of my videos, everything I've posted, everything I have not posted, in .mkv format. There are very few exceptions. Why is this a problem? Well, .mkv is a container. It is very difficult to covert the files back into a format I can work with and edit. This is additionally a problem because I delete the raw Fraps files as soon as I have encoded the videos properly to save space.

Beginning to see an issue here?

Let me show you something. This, is my computer:

This, is an example of one of the drives I use for recording:

And this is how much space an hour and a half of recording your average game takes up:

I have added two internals and purchased two external drives for this hobby. I know people who have more drives with larger storage capacity to do exactly what I do. This is why I encode in .mkv format. One of those .mkv files takes 134GB of video and turns it into 3GB.

All the videos you see on this page are in .mkv save one. This is where the bad and good news comes in. Here's the bad news first. All those videos in the top middle, were videos I had prepared in advance for YouTube. I'm leaving for two weeks...in a week. These were intended to keep my channel updated while I was gone. I cannot use them now. All those Dragonborn videos need to be converted. I do not have the raw files anymore. I deleted them two days ago. So I need to figure out a way to convert them if I want to post them, which will most likely mean a drop in quality. I will consult someone about this. The good news is I can start encoding in .mp4 format. Seems to have little difference in file size and the quality seems fine. I can start encoding all of the videos for YouTube that way. Life moves on. I'm over it now.

What I'm not over is that in my rage, I made the mistake of posting my complaint in the wrong place. I actually debated it knowing that a select few would be pricks about it, but I ultimately did it because it was cathartic. I then proceed to be lectured on how my problems meant nothing and that people are currently dying of disease and war in other parts of the world right now. A completely fair point. That said, I have control over my emotions, control over what's going on in my life, control over what I care about. This person didn't bother to ask what I do or think or care about in these situations. He just assumed I was being a selfish asshole. Yeah, maybe I was. For a single hour of a single day I dared to be angry about something relatively trivial in the grand scheme of the universe. Of course it means hours of work on something I don't have, especially when I've made promises to other people to make things for them. I can handle strangers being jerks. Most of the time if just makes me laugh. When it's someone I know personally, that hurts a lot more, because there is more meaning behind the comments besides being an asshole for the sake of making people mad. I'm over this, but now I get to feel like a terrible human being for the rest of the day, no matter what I tell myself or how much I care about what's going on in other places.

This is why I post videos. This is why I do LPs. Everywhere I go, everything I do, I feel like very few people take me seriously. Everyone else is more important, has worse shit to deal with, has a louder voice. I can sit, and talk and enjoy a game, for a few hours of my day, and not have to worry about the more pressing issues in my life and around the world in other people's lives. It helps me deal with confidence issues, depression, anxiety and all the abuse, names, bullying and manipulation I have been at the receiving end of for at least fifteen years (and why I am extremely lucky to know legitimately decent people these days). That was why YouTube's decision was a big deal to me, because for a moment I felt like something extremely important to my well-being was threatened, and I panicked. No one ever stops for the full story though.

So thank you for putting up with my rant. I'm over it and on to figuring out the .mkv issue. It's a challenge and I like those most the time.

Also, I'm going to attempt to bake cookies for a friend as she is leaving for grad school. This will end one of two ways: I will make a passable cookie...or I will burn the house down. Though, in reality, I'll probably just forget a vital ingredient again. I'm a terrible baker.


EDIT: The house is still standing and I have made a passable cookie.

SECOND EDIT: I have heard rumors of other people having similar issues and that it is a bug. I am praying this is true. Either way, I have spent the entire day being upset over essentially nothing. On the bright side, I now know that a) I say some dumb things and over-react when these things happen and b) I made a very good decision in 2009. I will leave it at that.

FINAL EDIT: It's fixed. Sigh...well this is a good lesson for when something like this happens again. Thanks to the people who put up with me yesterday and helped me feel better. You know who you are =p

Huehuehue

My house is peaceful and empty again as all the relatives that have been staying with us over the past 2 and a half weeks are gone. They're all nice people, but I'm glad we don't have so many people here anymore. Gets a little claustrophobic and it's harder to explain all the inane gibberish I spew while LPing to guests.

Well, I caved and got a capture card. This means two things. One: I can finally do the Gamecube LPs that I want to do. I have three specific games in mind, which I will leave a surprise as I have no idea how well this is going to work. Two: Shauna and I may be able to do more horror LPs since she wants to get some for her PS3/PS4. For now, we're going to work on completing Bioshock Infinite. And I'm going to...uh...finish producing Penumbra...which is kind of maybe over 8 months old now. Heh.

I will be recording more Dark Souls over the weekend as my brother is out of town and I can steal his gamepad for prolonged periods of time without him needing it. Lots of Skyrim videos are produced, so you can expect those for the rest of August. Looks like I will be starting another LP with Voyeur very soon as well (once we confirm what it is we are playing). Might also be adding to the MMO series with a new game "Fallen Earth," but I am unsure of whether I will be playing a whole lot. It feels a little stale and incomplete to me. Plus I got mad about the horse steering. Regardless, you can expect a video of that experience up within the week.

Coming up this week:
Skyrim - Likely two segments
Neverwinter Dungeon - The one from the Pirate Skyhold area. I'm too lazy at the moment to look it up
Dark Souls - One or two segments. We'll see
Fallen Earth - Another very silly video approacheth.
Penumbra Black Plague - Slowly but surely it will arrive.

Phantom Mooing

Yes, mooing. I'm back from vacation over the long weekend. I at least managed to post a few videos from my phone while I was away though editing tags and descriptions was a pain in the ass. So I didn't do it until I got home. I will now be in town until August 16, which means videos will upload regularly.

It was a good weekend. I was actually pretty relaxed out there despite the number of people that showed up. Regardless, I got some swimming in and I didn't get sun burned too badly. Aside from the party barge blaring AC/DC in the middle of one of the nights, and the phantom mooing and windstorms on another, it went fairly smooth. I was happy to get away after the shit-storm I had to deal with at work in the form of the most disgusting group of people I've had to deal with in a very long time. I honestly felt like I had been thrown back into Junior High. Of course I get home to find out one person in my household covered in bandages, another with stitches in her head and one recovering from a cold. Seriously guys, I was away for THREE DAYS. Usually having me around causes these sorts of problems...

Probably going to be starting up another LP with Voyeur in the next two weeks. Not sure what we're playing yet, but it's sure to be silly. A new channel trailer is uploaded, because the other one was getting a little dated. I still have a few other non-LP related videos to upload this week as well. Skyrim is coming along nicely. Dark Souls is...a lot slower. I also have a skiing video to create now that I have the actual videos in my possession. We'll see how things go. At the very least, I have Neverwinter Dungeons I can post.

UT3

All right, looks like we'll be co-op LPing Unreal Tournament 3 in September. One of the people playing is moving and must get settled first, so we will be starting a little later. This is now officially a fall LP. We're planning on playing on a hard (if not the hardest) difficulty, so prepare yourself for my terrible FPS skills and a lot of butt hurt on my end.

Maximum Silliness

Quick note: If you add me in Neverwinter (rins@drschwa is easiest), please give me the heads up before you do (on youtube, here or a message in game). There are a lot of bots and randoms that try to add me as a friend or to a party. I will decline the offer if I do not hear from you first.

A lot of videos planned for the next couple of weeks. I will be away again next weekend, but I will be in town until late August, then I am leaving for two weeks to the boonies. Internet is not certain in that case. My plan is to upload all videos and descriptions in advance and just post them from my publish them from my phone in that case.

Over the next few days you will see:
More of the Skyrim LP
The next Neverwinter dungeon (I think it's Grey Wolf Den...)
The first couple of Dark Souls videos (which means I'm committing to the LP aaaaaa)
Two special videos.

Also, I did a little reorganizing in some of the playlists on my channel. I now have a separate playlist for Neverwinter videos and compilations/random.

"Security"

Happy Monday I think. Super tired from staying up late to play skirmishes in Neverwinter, only to get no useful items from the rewards box. Ah well. At least we had a lot of interesting conversations, most of which I can't remember. A lot of game related, a bit of anime and Nick and Shauna spent an entire round testing the chat censor (the people we played with that round left in a hurry after it was finished). We even managed to break the skirmish one time, but it actually wasn't my fault for once.

So yeah, getting a bullshit security camera installed at my work right now. I'm watching them run the cable, giving them a dirty looks. Apparently they want to ensure that we monitor our "high risk" valuables and assets. This would include: a fridge with a small amount of alcohol in it, three computers (two that are over ten years old (one of which solely runs a program, copyright 1988) and one that's powerful enough to run an internet browser and some spreadsheets), a printer as old as I am, a laser printer no one would want nor could easily carry out of a BASEMENT, about 100 ratty old shoes and a coffee machine. Okay, there is a decent sound system down here, but it would take a long time to remove, meaning that they would have to come in the middle of the night not to be noticed by anyone else in the building.

I work it a bowling alley in a private club meaning there are cameras people would need to pass to get the goods out. There is one door they could escape out, but they cannot get IN that door meaning they would walk past those cameras and never come back. Not only that, they would need to be staff or a member to get through the security doors (they need a card). Now theoretically they could dodge a camera one way by using the back entrance, or hold the side door open for a person to come and meet them, but they would still have to walk by the cameras at a time that no one else is working or would notice them and the bowling alley is open later than most parts. There are a lot of hiding places here, so someone could hide until close and sneak around, but in that case why wouldn't they go after better stuff in other departments? If anything is stolen, it would likely be a staff member with unrestricted access who can hang around after hours without being suspicious. There are easier places to steal alcohol from which means that kids would be the only ones that would ever try and steal alcohol from here. The fridge is locked unless we are serving, and when we are serving we sit RIGHT in front of it. I do not believe kids are intelligent enough to steal alcohol from here without being noticed. The only thing a person I know has had stolen up here was a wallet and they left that in the middle of the curling area. The kids that took it took the credit cards, five dollars, the debit card and the air miles card (wtf). They made it to Jugo Juice, tried the card and when it failed, they ditched everything in a shoe store.

Point is, yeah, you could steal something from here. I could think of exactly how you'd do it, but it's too much effort for too little payoff. This is a way to keep an eye on us and try to cut jobs and hours by proving we don't need as many people down here. We're already short-staffed meaning we'd be screwed for large parties where half the people usually get drunk and do stupid things that we need to manage. So good job guys. Way to waste time, effort and money on something that will ultimately be useless and make us all uncomfortable. I only ever worked in one place with security cameras and I worked retail for 7 years. In this place, half the security cameras were fake so you could always find somewhere you're not being PEERED AT.

So bullshit aside. Knife of Dunwall has finished uploading. Neverwinter dungeons, Skyrim and soon, Dark Souls will be going up. I will be taking a few vacations at the end of July here and in August. My plan is to upload everything I want to post before I leave and then publish at regular intervals from my phone. Whether this system works or not will be an adventure in itself.


PS - Give my coworkers a week with that security camera running. They will find a way to exploit it. These are the people that used the monitor for an old security camera in an adjacent room (as we were responsible for it and didn't have someone there for operating hours) to set up a Nintendo system over the summer, used the stick designed to raise the bumpers to give people their shoes without getting out of the chair, spent a significant amount of time on pranks (such as jamming ever bowling ball in the alley behind lane 4 in a way that they would have to be moved, by hand, back to their lanes) and come up with elaborate zombie apocalypse strategies should it happen while we are in the bowling alley. Do not underestimate these people.

You Can Steak the Bus

One of the better typos of mine that I've come across. Took me a good amount of time to figure out what I meant, which is probably due to being tired rather than anything else. I am tired because it is hot. It is hot because the temperature outside has been ridiculous and my room traps heat. I also have a computer and a laptop, both of which are usually running. I have switched off my computer for the evening, so hopefully that helps. I just hope I don't burn out another fan motor.

Oh yeah and I hit 500 subscribers today. That's pretty cool. I do not have a video prepared yet, but I will post something...different...for the occasion. Not sure when it will be done, but I will be posting it soon.

Let's see...what can you expect out of the next few weeks...

-Half Life 2 Episode 1 is finished, so I will begin recording Episode 2 shortly.
-More Dishonored DLC. While it's not the most popular, it has been one of my favourite games that I've played over the past year, so I will be sharing those videos
-I will be making an attempt at Dark Souls once I get a controller hooked up. I will not be able to play on a keyboard. I took a look at the controls and it was...well disgusting to put it mildly. I hope to have some episodes up by next week
-More Neverwinter videos (montages and Schwa Can't MMO episodes). I will be posting two of the dungeons we completed (the ones I didn't have random crippling lag in) as we had a lot of fun playing them.
-I have Skyrim videos, so I will probably post those. It's not just clip shows either! It's an honest effort to try and LP some.

Alternator

Summer heat is getting to me a bit. Took a week off, binge watched Orange is the New Black, and worked on videos and writing. The phone I got to replace my old one (as it was beginning to fall apart) is defective (are you really surprised?) and so I must go and get that replaced. I expect the rest of this week to be filled with writing, uploading, encoding and trying to figure out if I should post anything special for 500 subscribers. I probably won't have anything ready in time, but we'll see. I have a couple ideas.

Half Life 2 Episode 1 and Dishonored DLC will continue to alternate. I will run out of Half Life videos first, so I'll probably start uploading some other content when that is finished. I still need to record Episode 2. I am just clearing off the Neverwinter videos off my drive and then I can start Dark Souls. I expect rage.

Got menaced by another dude in a truck yesterday. I swear I'm going to develop a nervous twitch every time I see a pick-up now. I pulled over to text message someone and figure out if I had the address right, and about 30 seconds later this man in a black truck speeds into reverse (seriously, he was going about 50km/hr in reverse) and accelerates towards my car and stops less than an inch away from my back bumper. So I'm effectively wedged between him and the car in front of me. Then he just sits in his car. At this point I'm freaking out because I had no idea what this person's deal was. I didn't do anything. I was actually going to leave before he did that, only I wasn't sure if I could still get out. Eventually this woman comes out from across the street, talks to the guy in the truck and then comes over and tells me I need to move to the loading zone. I told her I just pulled over to send a message and that I couldn't get out, but she wouldn't tell the truck driver to back off like AN INCH (he had like 5 metres to work with behind him...if he wanted to park where I was all he had to do was back off for a second at most). So I had to slowly inch my way out past the car in front of me, which I almost hit, and I got out of there. Seriously had no idea what these people's problems were. It wasn't an illegal place to park and the truck was faffing about in the street before I parked there. I hate downtown man.

White Trucks

White trucks and beaten up minivans are the source for most my woes on the road this past year. Well, perhaps trucks in general. Got run off the road yesterday by some idiot in a white pick-up because he didn't know how to turn properly. Turning onto a two lane road, he was turning right, I was turning left. I turned shortly after him, but for some reason he decided my lane was much better to turn into. So he turns and immediately drives into my lane, so I had to slam on the brakes and drive into the curb. He continues driving in my lane, and then takes off speeding AND THEN CHANGES BACK TO TURN RIGHT ANYWAY. Why? Cause he knew he nearly totalled my car and wanted to get out of there before I could get his plate (had he stayed left he would have been stopped by the light).

So yeah, there's a huge gash in my front wheel now. I can still drive on it for now as there is no air leaking, but it will need to be replaced asap or risk a blowout. So there's money out the window there. Then I learn my brother was rear-ended by a truck in the same car the day before. I was rear-ended by the minivan last year before I even had my full license...then we had to write off the other car because of another white truck in a parking lot. That and when we got the car serviced the mechanics FORGOT TO TIGHTEN THE FUEL LINE and it started leaking gas all over the damn place.

Incompetence everywhere. Calgary drivers suck. 

   

Summer Time

It's ridiculously hot here this week. It's supposed to be over 30 degrees outside today. It's only 11am and this room is like a sauna. My icy Canadian blood can't take it!

THE FAN DOES NOTHING.

So Transistor is fully uploaded and I'm working on getting HL Episode 1 out. I have a few segments produced, so I can post those whenever. The entire LP is finished (it was really short), so I'll transfer those files and start recording HL Episode 2 when it's not so hot and people aren't ripping a fence to pieces out back. I'd close the window but...

So on the schedule for this July we will have:
Dishonored DLC
Half Life Episode 1
Half Life Episode 2
Dark Souls
Any other random videos I come across when cleaning out my hard drive.

Also.

WHY AM I EATING SOUP?

My Bad

Uploaded some Miasmata to share after Transistor was done. Accidentally forgot to make part 2 Unlisted so...it was published without Part 1 and people have already started watching it. So I released it. They are longer videos, (45-51 minutes each), mostly because it is a single shot and we never finish the game together. I decided to encode and post it after finding the footage on my hard drive last night. Also wanted to give Shauna something fun to watch as she hasn't been feeling well the past few days. Anyway, enjoy the content that wasn't supposed to be released until next week!

Transistor is almost done uploading, so I'm rushing to make space for Dark Souls, Half Life Episode 1 anddddd maybe perhaps Skyrim. Maybe. Perhaps.

Coming up on 500 subscribers. Might do something fancy for that. Maybe. Perhaps.

Soundtrack Thursday 24 - The Master List

I almost typed "The Mast List" as a title. I have two days left until I leave this job, so this is my last Thursday here. I have some stuff lined up, but we'll see what happens. I'll miss working here...and soundtrack Thursday of course. I'm going to take 6 months worth of my favourite soundtracks that I discovered (or just in general) and listen to them today. I will post the entire playlist below.

Skyrim
Particularly: Dragonborn, The Road Most Travelled (Dragonborn DLC...because I love the throwback), Sovengarde, Ancient Stones
(and because I mentioned it and it is AWESOME...Dragonborn DLC full soundtrack)
And I'll throw in a Sovengarde Song for free.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Particularly:
Will and Elizabeth, Swords Crossed, He's a Pirate
Also: The Kraken (I know it's from Dead Man's Chest. Shhhhh, shhhh just listen, it's good)

Tron Legacy
Particularly:
End of Line, Tron Legacy End Titles, Castor,

Dishonored
Naturally:
Honor for All, Drunken Whaler
And a bonus Dishonored Song

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows - I can give WGN and INgrooves a few suggestions on where they can shove their copyright claims. They took down the good compliation. INgrooves tried to claim rights on one of my LP videos once because of the music once. There was absolutely nothing in that video what-so-ever that belonged to them.
Anyway...
Zu Viele Fuchse Fur Euch Hansel, Die Forelle, Romani Holiday

Transistor
Particularly:
Paper Boats, Water Wall, In Circles

InFamous Second Son
Particularly:
Scraping the Sky, Abigail Walker
Oh look another song - Fistful of Concrete

Amazing Spiderman 2
Particularly:
My Enemy

Borderlands 2
Particularly:
Hyperion, Jack Final Boss

This is Not the End

But unfortunately, that's all the music I can fit in for now.

Apologies if I have posted a link or ever mislabelled a song/composer. Please let me know and I can fix it no problem.

PS - All this said and done...I AM going to be working many Thursdays at my part time. I CAN play soundtracks there, but most people will probably want to listen to trashy current pop music and not movie/video game scores. We'll see.

PSS - Okay, not all the trashy current pop music is THAT bad. It's just fun to complain about when I know I'm going to hear the same songs 5+ times in a shift.

Forgot a Title

This is the final week of my contract job. I'll be sad to leave this place, but I have a summer of part-time work, catch-up with LPs and writing ahead. July approaches and I'll be around for most of it. This is what you can expect for the next couple of weeks:

Solo LPs

Transistor - Finish uploading by the end of June.

Half Life Episode 1 - Begin uploading this week (probably starting June 25 or 26)

Dishonored DLC - Alternate with Half Life Episode 1

Dark Souls - IT BEGINS EARLY JULY. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR RAGE.

Co-op LPs/videos

Really up in the air to be honest. 

Unreal Tournament 3 will be delayed until the people I plan on playing with get some personal affairs sorted out. 

Borderlands 1 - Might be an LP

Neverwinter - Not really an LP, but I'm recording enough of it that it theoretically COULD be.

Magicka DLC - Probably going to do this with Voyeur

Evil Within - Late Summer/Early Fall (whenever it's released) with Shauna

Just Cause 2 - Multiplayer MOD has apparently been "updated." Max potential for silliness.

EDIT - Offer still stands to join us on the Dragon server in Neverwinter. Rins@drschwa, SvetlanaMcnature@drschwa. If you join, I shall make you pants. 

Soundtrack Thursday 23

The final Hans Zimmer week. At least for awhile. I may continue to do this outside my job, but we'll see. I was a little disappointed to see that he didn't do the second How to Train Your Dragon movie. Went to go see it a couple nights ago. I'd recommend it, but it wasn't as good as the first. There were some good aspects to it, but the first story had more...impact. This story was basically rehashing everything we already knew, throwing in a little random death and a bunch of SHOCKING TWISTS that you could see coming a mile off. But the movie is adorable and has dragons and silliness, so overall I enjoyed it. That and I want to support one of the only other animation studios out there that can take on Disney. As much as I enjoy Disney, I do not want them to be the only source for decent animation. Seriously.

So we've exhausted a lot of YouTube's resources for Zimmer tracks, so we have to GO DEEPER. Oh wait, we already did Inception. Damn...um well

Oh hey, Divergent. Heard it was a decent movie (and book), but haven't seen or read any of it. I just got excited because I saw Hans Zimmer + JunkieXL.

Next I've got a Gladiator soundtrack. Another movie I haven't seen, but I've heard it's terribly inaccurate in terms of history. One of those turn your brain off movies I suppose. Also the soundtrack compilation appears to have large periods of silence. Maybe it's just me.

Crysis 2 - Oh here's a good one. Bear in mind that other composers produced the majority of the soundtrack, but Hans Zimmer was involved so it counts. We have this game for some system...actually I think I have this on Steam. I know Michael played it but I have no idea if he finished it.

FINALLY.

Some random compilations:
One
Two
Three

Hurray I can still count.


Also...I discovered this today. Here's a breakdown of my thought process before my thought process caused a breakdown:


Wait...what's this?

A new Imagine Dragons song? Let's see what the comments say about this!

Wait a minute...no. No that can't...be...

No. No no no no no.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHY IMAGINE DRAGONS WHY?

I'm going to go weep uncontrollably in a corner now.

*rocks back and forth* Why must we all sell out? Why why why why....

Oh god, oh god. I just checked. It's not a lie.

CURSE YOU MICHAEL BAYYYYYYYYYYY!






...this over-reaction brought to you by Michael Bay: Ruining your childhood and favourite bands with explosions, idiotic jokes, racism and rampant sexism for 5 years.

ugh

Summer Approacheth

Transistor will begin uploading tonight I think. Still have a little to recast, but that shouldn't take long if I actually sit down and just power through it. Or ramble through it in this case.

I may do some more Half Life Episode 1 recording over the next few days in addition to finishing the Dishonored DLC (heh). Other smaller, random projects will go up sporadically whenever I feel like it or happen to have relevant footage.

A lot of things are changing over the next while. I'm not too sure where we'll be, even a couple months ago, but I will say there are a few constants:

Videos will continue
Writing will continue
Cookies will be forever delicious.

As long as we have videos, writing and cookies, everything will be fiiiiiiiiiine.

Soundtrack Thursday 22

I meant for today to be another Retro games day, but then I saw Child of Light in my suggested videos sidebar and heard it was good soundtrack. So we're starting with that today and we'll see where it goes from there.

Going to follow the recommended videos further to Beyond Two Souls. Will be interesting to see if we have anything resembling a theme by the end of the day.

Next up is Tomb Raider, still navigating through the recommended videos of course. This soundtrack should get me to lunch, and we'll go from there.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is next up on the list, though I cheated a little by not following the recommended videos. I did however, get the idea from it as ACIII was a suggested video.

While I haven't played it, I hear that Metroid Prime is pretty good. We'll see what it sounds like music-wise. I may not listen to the whole compilation though as it is almost 3 hours long. Depends if it's really good or not I suppose.

It's too bad I already had Mirror's Edge and Transistor in previous soundtrack Thursdays. The point is to listen to new soundtracks, even though I've listened to these multiple times other days of the week since discovering them. I am sad that there aren't more games with female protagonists. Character creation games don't count in this case. Seriously.

In other news:

I have decided to alternate Transistor and Half Life Episode 1 after Dishonored is complete. Which will be soon. I shall post the Dishonored DLC periodically. Just thought I'd mix it up a little. Shauna, Nick and I are playing Neverwinter again. If you play, feel free to add me as a friend/join us. My username is drschwa.

My writing is beginning to stress me out, because I want to write these parts properly. They're going to end up as heaping piles of drivel bits, but if I go in with a different attitude, they will be smaller heaping piles of drivel bits. This summer could be it ladies and gents.

I'm starting a new(ish) job September 1. I have a whole summer of part-time work and video games ahead unless I find something else before then. I will likely apply for volunteer positions in areas of interest and write during that time.

New desk at work for my final few weeks. I was going to keep my old chair, but then I tried out one of the new ones and it has MEMORY FOAM. So I have adopted this new chair and am enjoying it a great deal. I like the window view. I do not like that every single person working in the room has to walk behind me to get to their desks. Visitors also constantly have to walk behind me. It stresses me out.

I found out if I wear my ear buds and drink a carbonated beverage, I can hear fizz inside my head. It sounds like pouring dry sand into water.

I can't remember where I put my damn lactaid again. That stuff is not cheap and I like ice cream too much. Ugh.

This news section has rapidly become more trivial.

Transistor

While uploading Dishonored I have been writing, playing Skyrim (shhh) and now, Transistor. I also keep thinking of "Transistor" as "Mansistor." Thanks for that one Mesk.

Transistor is pretty amazing (thanks Kristy, Oliver and random people I follow on Tumblr for encouraging me to pick it up). I am recording it and I'm not doing too bad. There is a distinct learning curve that I'm on. I can imagine the little graph in my head, but I'm having a lot of fun trying out a bunch of the combos. I eventually figure most things out, but the beginning might be a little cringe-worthy as I jump in knowing very little of the game. Like Bastion, this is a rare instance of me going into the game without playing any of it at all. Even in Dishonored I played a little bit of the first level for sound and recording tests. I will post these videos eventually.

I will finish Brigmore Witches this week, then I will continue recording Half Life Episode 1. Expect Transistor and HL EP1 to appear near the end of the month. I will start Dark Souls first week of July, because I will have ample time. I will start Bioshock around this time as well.

...

Also, I am really sad that I didn't think to name my Bulbasaur, Bulbafett in Pokemon Y. It's almost painful. These are the things I think of randomly when I'm in the car. I am pleased with my Pikachu's nickname of Zappy McGee however, so it all works out in the end.

PS - I am slowing down the recording a little bit. My wrist and hand are in rough shape.

Soundtrack Thursday 21

Coming up on our final Soundtrack Thursdays. I will be leaving my current job at the end of June as my contract has ended, so Soundtrack Thursday will be on hold until further notice. For now...

Transistor - I plan on playing this very soon as it's by the people that made Bastion, and I hear it's a good game.

The Last of Us - Played through MOST of the game and currently watching an LP of it. I like the game all right, but parts of it are....frustrating. The dialogue and storytelling element to it are quite good. I'd like to say it has a lot of movie elements in it. The music definitely has a similar style to a lot of other zombie games.

Halo Reach - Because I felt like Halo and it was linked as a related video on The Last of Us. I've always enjoyed the Halo soundtracks.

Mass Effect 1 - A series that I really need to get around to playing.

More Dishonoured episodes, as usual. I have about 10 segments left, plus the DLC. Thinking about my plans for solo LPs over the summer. I will come back with a more detailed schedule/idea of what's going on. Expect a lot more Retro gaming episodes.

Aches and Pains

Lots of projects underway and games to play. There's one problem that may slow me down, however. Last year I got pretty bad tendinitis in my thumb, and while it has a tendency to flare up, it hasn't been too bad since I gave it a break last summer. It's still doing all right, but I'm starting to feel pain in other locations in my wrist and in my far fingers from typing and gaming so much. It's been aggravated since I started playing console and handheld games again. I have still only played 1 hour of Watch Dogs because of this, so I've been watching my brother play instead because I'm curious. I will need to be careful as I need to use a computer and type to do my job at the moment, and I do not want to sacrifice the ability to be able to write (I'm on a roll with WMRR and I really do not want to slow down).

Dishonoured is about half finished uploading. I think after that I will be working on finding a good chunk of time for UT3. This has the potential to REALLY destroy my wrist and hand, so we'll see how it goes.

While I plan on releasing a few LPs over the next few weeks, I would like to say that I most of my energy for personal projects will be going into finishing my writing. I have worked on this bloody thing since I was 16 (9 freaking years) and has gone through many versions, but never a COMPLETE version. It may be shit, it may not go anywhere, I may have to rewrite it again, but I am going to finish one full rough copy and it will happen this year. The reason I bring this up is that I've had people message me to ask if I'd like to play some video games or join in LPs. My answer is I'd love to play more games, but with this and other things going on (like work and ageing grandparents and errands and trying to get my own vehicle), I can't currently give you a lot of my time. So please don't be offended if I say no. I just don't have enough time to do everything.

Quarter of a Century

I'd say longevity assumed, I'd be 1/4 through my life, but that can never be known so I'm going to forego all the "you're this much done your life" talk and just celebrate the fact that I have my pointy nails embedded into life for another year. Horray for solar rotations. 

I never posted any LP updates yesterday. Summer LPs will be ramping up soon. I'm excited. I've been posting Dishonored gradually over the last month. Those videos will continue as I prepare to play and record Half Life Episode 1 (already started), the last 2-4 hours of Brigmore Witches (I'm sorry, there's been so much to do lately...but we aren't even close to that yet in the LP so meh), Dark Souls (oh boy), Bioshock 1 and Unreal Tournament 3 co-op. 

Red-eye Retro episodes will go up on an occasional basis. I have tons of videos prepared for it thanks to WC2. I also plan to delve into Spelunker (pun intended), more Space Taxi, Commander Keen 4 and finish the Orc campaign in WC2 (which is a raging, hilarious, tired mess...like I have no idea how I managed to complete this one level). I may not be able to sleep sometimes, but hey, at least we all get silliness and nostalgia out of it.

One other random request concerned Skyrim. I've always been reluctant to play these games because they are so open-ended. If I do any long-term projects (ie not just silly clips) with Skyrim, I shall do the two DLC with the current character I have. I may need verify the cache on that game or something as I swear the number of broken objects and textures has exponentially increased. 

Ah crap I meant to bring the Doge card I got to work. Monday I guess. 

Soundtrack Thursday 20

I've done quite a lot of these now, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that enjoys them. I've collected a lot of good soundtrack music through this.

Might as well start with Watch Dogs as it came out a few days ago. Naturally, the soundtrack is already uploaded. My initial impressions of the game are below. The soundtrack is good. Reminds me a lot of  inFamous Second Son elements in some places.

Next up is Mirror's Edge. Never played the game, but after the soundtrack...I kind of want to. Nice background working music.

inFamous 1 and 2 in the same compilation for the next section. Clocking in at two hours, this should get me to the end of my work day.

So Watch Dogs. I have the PS4 version. It does not feel like a PS4 game. I wasn't super hyped about the game to be honest. My brother on the other hand, was excited, especially when he heard that people from Driver San Francisco were going to be working on the project. He's camping right now with his phys ed class. He might be a little disappointed when he gets back. I played some Watch Dogs last night, and while I've never played Driver SF before (it's on the list because Michael keeps nagging me to play), I doubt the cars in there drove like spazzy boats. I am terrible at driving in video games, and it looks like Watch Dogs will be A LOT of that.

Let's talk about my initial impressions. It's...not as good of a game as they were marketing. I played maybe about an hour of it, and while I started warming up to the controls and interface, I found a lot of elements confusing. They throw a lot of different controls and game mechanics in there. First off, I think it's got too much going on. You have: driving (ugh), third-person shooter elements (which I haven't encountered much of), tons of minigames that you can find and try (that I haven't tried), a side-quest element (a lot like AC where you can intervene in crimes and save people or follow people to get info), a perk element (which is actually laid out quite well), a crafting element (which...I'm a little unsure of), MORE MINIGAMES (which are actually essential to the game's missions such as following a trail of cameras and phones to open doors or get codes), freerunning (which results in some very silly glitches), and probably a lot more that I haven't encountered yet. It's like GTA meets Assassin's Creed meets Last of Us.

Now the game has positives. The perk system is neat, the premise and idea behind the game is brilliant, the traffic lights element (though incredibly broken and I'll elaborate on that) is hilarious, the dialogue is passable (neat that people are having actual conversations on benches etc.), the writing is cliché, but passable, the characters are interesting (though sometimes cliché and act...strange) and the voice acting is fine so far. Then the game has more negatives. The driving element is so bad. I don't know if I'm alone on this, I haven't read many reviews yet, but it's awful. The steering is the issue, and the AI is the issue. At some points they'll all be stopped at an intersection, and every direction has a red light, and the lights will never change (or at least I'm not patient enough to wait). Then if you hack the lights and make them all green, every person at that light will go ball to the walls stomping on the gas and careen into each other. No attempts to evade, just chaos. The cars you drive sway at the slightest touch. The only plus is that the acceleration and braking is realistic and responsive. The AI drivers are pretty terrible too, where they'll just run into random objects for no reason (and then the objects will bounce around like rubber). I spent an entire car chase giggling my face off because I hit nearly every single object on my path and things were bouncing all over the place. This was not on purpose. I can't go anywhere without causing millions of dollars of property damage. Then the god damned flower pots are immovable, indestructible objects. Why?

The graphics do not look next gen. One of the very first scenes you see is a shot of the city, and the buildings were low res, flat objects IN THE FOREGROUND. Two of the main buildings at least were blurry messes. Character models and textures were fine so far (despite the random jittering animations, but that's another issue). I just love that while watching the opening cinematic and these shots all I could think of was "wow, this looks like shit." The graphics are okay generally, but they look like PS3 or even PS2 graphics in a lot of cases. There are also seams everywhere. Huge, glaring, white seams. That and the running animations are taken right out of Assassin's Creed. A little bit lazy there guys.

Interface is a mixed bag. I mentioned the perks are interesting. I got the car stealing and driving ones right off the bat. I also anticipate combat will be a pain in the ass, so I got lower recoil initially. There are so many buttons to remember immediately. It crash-courses you through all the controls at the beginning in the first mission, but by the time I got to driving I forgot half of them. I'm at the point where I can't figure out how to put my gun away, so I'm just running around freaking people out. Or not. People are kind of oblivious sometimes. What really got me was that there were wheels inside wheels for selecting different devices, but then I couldn't figure out what was needed for crafting and what I COULD craft. I'm an hour in and super confused, and usually I pick up on game mechanics fairly quick, even if I am bad at implementing them. Not only that, you'll get a mission to do something like chase and take down a car. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to run the car off the road or hack something or shoot at them, so I just tried ramming into it and steering in front of it hopefully trying to stop them. If there was instruction on that, I either missed it or it wasn't there, and no mission details are repeated once you start them unless there's some way to access that through your phone...

I talked with Oliver this morning and he said other problems like impossible train tracks, inconsistencies with settings (sleazy biker bars with pretty flowers and friendly waving people outside) and reflections were all messed up. There are other bugs present as well. For instance, after a car chase and I FINALLY broke the dude's car, he jumped out and we played a game of hurdle jumping in a tunnel over barriers. I tried to jump one barrier and locked onto the dude for a take down instead. He was about 2-3 metres away from me. So I'm just swinging in the air and he's getting beaten up THROUGH THE POWER OF MY MIND. Then half his body fell into the barrier.

I will continue to play as I am interested in the characters enough and the game functions well enough to get used to. The game has an obvious lack of testing and tons of logic errors. Too many people working on too many elements without communication is my guess for what happened. That and I assume a good chunk of that massive budget got stuck into marketing instead of testing, graphics upgrades and making unique animations and elements rather than ripping them from other games. A lot of people were hyped, a lot of people bought the game, and I can see why people are upset. This is...pretty much par for the course on a lot of games lately.