Starting Afresh

Oh boy how I miss this blog!

To be fair though, i have no idea how many people with read this but i love the idea of some of our subscribers being able to read about us as people instead of Youtubers.

I just wanted to put up something as i put a bulletin on Youtube and i can imagine that some people will have clicked the link.

We will be updating this with news about the channel and some of the things that are going on in our lives.

Plus, when i am not lazy, i will put a link to this on the channel banner (dont hold your breath!)

Anyway, i hope you think that this is a good idea and i hope you like some of the things that get put on here

All the best

Dan

(Sorry for my terrible writing style)

=D

Day One..

Whats happening people?

Dan here and i am going to try and post a blog a day for... well... however long i can. It will be a good way to talk about some shit that happened throughout the day, What games i'v played, what things i'v done etc.

Today has only been about two things

Madden 2012 and Pokemon Yellow.

Bry purchased the newest installment of EA's NFL behemoth and we have spent many hours trying to guide the Green Bay Packers to back-to-back Championships (much to the dismay of the Colts fan in this duo).  I can speak for both of us when i say that it is the best NFL game to date (including Madden 2005 before you start). I think that the running game will feature heavily this year as it seems that momentum on the offensive side seems to count a lot when it comes to tackles. Saying that though, the tackling engine has been dramatically improved so it is still possible to 'bring the heat' as it were.

Now onward to my second talking point.

Pokemon Yellow is one of those games that i think is engraved in the mind of any gamer in my generation (stops to play The Who......)

It is a game that in my book introduced me to the 'play from morning til night' style of gaming that i still very much do today. Remembering back in the day, when you had to move to get better light on your Gameboy screen so you could continue that little bit further. The amount of times i can remember lowering the volume and pretending to be asleep while my parents came to check if i was asleep. Only to turn the volume back up so i could listen to the Pokemon center tune for a little bit longer. (This was obviously before i knew headphones existed)

But anyway, i have been playing this again on an emulator and, 4 hours, 10 Pokemon and 2 gym badges later, i still feel as in love with this game as much as when i was 10.

Now its time to beat Lt Surge and get this damn Squirtle

See you tomorrow


=D

The Long Road Ahead

As I lay in my bed looking at our subscriber count tick over 600, I am greeted with the feeling of intense pride of what we, as a community have achieved.

In the 10 months we have been working on this channel, I have become increasingly amazed by the support from all of you that follow us; Be it through the comments that have been left on our channel and videos, or through the many of you I have spoken to on Steam or Xbox.

But with the reflection of the last few amazing months, I turn my head forward to look at the long road ahead and the hard work that will be put in to keep this great thing moving.

As a company, I think more work can be done on all fronts to ensure the quality and quantity of the content is increased and, as a result, provide a greater viewing experience for you guys. We are also going to increase activity on our social networks so that everyone will be kept updated with the latest work from us and it will also provide you with a greater avenue of contact with us.

Individually however, I want to do more still.

I have been maintaining our 1 video per day schedule which, so far has been a success, but with the current games coming to a close and with the number of great titles coming out in the next couple of months. I feel that we could step it up to a new level to set ourselves apart further from the other channels out there.... Friendly rivalry is a good thing right?

I am also going to be coming on here more often too (Once every few days maybe?) to keep you guys updated from the inside and also to speak my mind to the few of yous that will listen :)

Thank you all once again and here's to 1000

Dan

Chapter 2 - Creatures of the Night

Chapter 2. Creatures of the Night

He pushed the cows face out of his and climbed out the water onto land. It stared at him stupidly. He shook himself dry and made sure that most of the water flew onto the cow. It backed away, annoyed and a feeling of satisfaction came over him.
Feeling a lot calmer, and annoyed after the wet wake up, he sat down on the grass cross legged and allowed the sun to dry him. He was staring at the ground thinking about nothing, allowing himself some time not to worry about anything.
After a time he let out a sign and stood up, stretching his legs that been to feel fatigued. He reckoned it was more mental then physical. He looked at the lake behind him. It wasn’t large only a stones throw to the other side, more of a huge pond then a lake. There was a huge tree on the other side with smaller ones around it. A river ran lazily into it from the east and there was a cave mouth which the lake exited into. The cave belonged to the cliff he fell off and there were no obvious ways of climbing back up. It seemed like his excursion to that mountain had to be called off for now.
It was a couple of hours before sundown and just before the idea of building a shelter came to mind he saw something on the other side of the lake. It filled him with something like the same anticipation he felt when he saw the holes in the ground but much stronger. He dove in the water and swam over to the other side. He climbed out of the water and stumbled over his excited feet toward the enormous tree. The wooden ladder that was pinned against the trunk of the giant tree looked fairly sturdy although it was slightly frayed on some of the ropes. He wiped at his forehead and looked at the top of the ladder. There was a complex looking tree house with a trap door at the top built inside the greenery. He clambered up and as he drew closer he couldn’t see any means of opening the door. Just as he stretched out his hand to push it open, there was a click and the door lifted up about an inch. He had stopped with his arm outstretched, he thought that there might be someone on the other side so he dropped down a rung on the ladder and the trap door lodged back into place. He frowned then put his foot back up a rung, the door clicked again. He was slightly impressed by the mechanism and with this realised this wasn’t built by a child, definitely not a cow.
He climbed through the door and looked around. The place looked like it hadn’t been used in a while, with some things that needed repairing as well. It was small and spartan, enough for one person to live. The door he climbed up from was in the middle and up against the wall. There was an unkept bed, to his left in the corner, with a chest at the foot of it, what looked like a carpenter’s or crafting bench to his right with the window above it that looked out at the lake. It was about 12 x 12 feet with a low ceiling. He was impressed. Although the tree was big it was remarkable how the builder had kept it hidden from the outside. There was nothing however that gave him any clues to the previous owner, except the thin layer of dust covering everything indicated that they had moved or worse.
It seems like I’m walking over footprints. Step by step.
He went over to the chest, feeling downhearted however, his luck wasn’t exactly favouring him. There was a squeak as he lifted it and the lid only went halfway up, the hinges must be rusty. He could still see inside though and made a mental note of what was in there.
1. Stone spade.
2. What looked like seedlings?
3. 2 Stone pickaxes.
4. A stone axe
5. A few arrows (no bow)
6. Leather leggings
7. And a stone sword

He dropped the lid shut and sighed. There was a slight feeling of disappointment at the bottom of his stomach but he was still glad he had a shelter, a shabby one at that. He decided he would give a look around the area once more and then go to bed just before nightfall.
Halfway through his descent a rung on the ladder snapped and he fell hard and his knees gave way and landed on his backside. He turned as he rubbed his lower hack and saw that the cow was grazing on the other side looking curious.
Only if I had a bow.
His search around the area proved uneventful, except a small area behind the tree he found which had a fence around it. There was a hole in the middle with water in it. The soil between the fence and hole seemed softer and had an idea what those seedlings may have been used for.
His mind flashed and a process of farming the seedlings rushed through him. If he could craft a hoe from the workbench he could harvest those seedlings here. He couldn’t remember anything before this strange day but the knowledge of farming was stored in his brain. He was feeling very fatigued at this point. The number of questions was reaching bursting point and a headache emerged from it. The sun had set so he trudged back to the tree house.
As he walked around to the ladder a noise came from the other side of the lake. It was hard to see the other side now but he knew it definitely was no cow. No, this sound was something more, something frightening. He heard a clatter then a shuffle somewhere behind him. A rapid tapping of legs and then a groan to his left and right. He was petrified. He didn’t think whatever these things were had seen him as they didn’t seem to be getting closer. Then there was snap, looking back it was possibly on a twig breaking, but at that time it might have well been the sky opening up and a bang of thunder echoing around him. Panic clutched at this throat and his body shot into action. He jumped for the ladder and hopped over the broken rung. Not caring about the creatures of the night hearing him. He clambered quickly up the ladder and dived up through the hole.
He violently forced open the lid which ripped off with a loud crack. He threw his hand inside and pulled out the stone sword. He was breathing hard now and looked out of the window knocking some tools off the workbench to look out.
The blackness engulfed everything. He could only make out the moonlight dancing on the lake as the water gently made its way into the cave mouth. He looked at his hand that was bleeding. It must’ve been from when he put his hand in the chest with haste, cutting it unnoticed. He dropped down from the window and crouched. He shuffled over to the trap door and laid his ear to it, straining to hear anything.
It wasn’t disappointment, or hunger that was filling his stomach like bile. But fear, cold, merciless fear. It made the blood in his ears pound, the sightless sound outside startle him, making him grip the sword tighter. Yes, it would be the thing that kept him awake, throughout that first night.

How long...

It's Bry here. I have been thinking lately about consoles, and each generation that is brought about. It's not unknown that consoles can often cost more than they sell for. A perfect example of this is Sony's PS3. It cost more to make the thing than they made selling it [1]. Perfect business sense? Well not at first no, but as technology becomes older, the cheaper it comes to produce, and therefore more profit can be made. A lot of hardcore gamers will buy this outright, and yes, the company will make a loss, (hey, you're killing the business, what do you think about that?) but with a lot of people not spending their hard earned money on a new console, and waiting for a while to buy into the market, (wait, what's that, the core gamers giving Sony/MS/Nintendo their biggest profit? Who's more valued eh?) they seem to balance everything out. At the same time, it makes you wonder if the red rings/yellow light, and overall delicate-ness of consoles is really a flaw, or something a lot more sinister/money-grabbing.
So far this generation has been around, starting from Xbox 360, from December 2005. That's about to be 6 years, with no announcement of a new generation. (Wii U is a Dreamcast, a mid-gen console -- don't kid yourself. Don't get me wrong, though, I fucking loved the Dreamcast ((possibly best console of all time? haha)))
Consoles have always brought about cutting edge technology (on release), and have been very costly to their producers. A story to be shared of such costly tech was from the Super FX Chip of the SNES, which was first named the MARIO Chip 1. Sounds silly eh? Mario - you know, that dick Italian plumber who's infatuated with a tease of a Princess, however, it's full name was Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation & I/O.
This chip was produced by Argonaut Games, who created a game on the Amiga called Starglider [2] using (at the time) complex wireframe polygons. Nintendo, seeing how impressive this technology was, decided to buy in their own version, thus being able to create the classic Star Fox, and a lot more. What was even more special about this chip was that it was actually IN the game, rather than having to be installed in the console itself. (Remember the "Expansion Pak" anyone?) The chip was a custom-made RISC processor, which was programmed to act as a graphics accelerator, that would draw polygons to a frame buffer in RAM that sat adjacent to it. If this makes no sense, you might as well ignore it.
More recent leaps in gaming technology would be the Cell microprocessor in the PS3. This, I believe will be a great legacy in gaming, as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will all agree that building a in-house processor will be a silly idea, and might as well leave the job to Intel/AMD, as nobody will be able to use the architecture of said processor well enough, as seen when most developers choose to create their multiplatform games on the Xbox and port to PS3. Before anyone gets up in arms about the PS3 exclusives, such as Uncharted, Killzone and Heavy Rain, I will agree that they are all well produced, and they are great at optimising their game using the Cell. However, anyone should agree that industry standards set by Intel and AMD should be good enough for all consoles, and using anything else will be too costly, blah, blah... Anyone into console wars have heard enough of this, so I'll leave it at that.
Back on point, I wanted to ask, how long before a new generation of console? Does it depend on when a company believes it's made enough from the initial loss it makes? Or do said comapnies simply milk the new generation of consoles until they simply cannot do any more? Does it depend on peripherals available, and their lifespan? (Kinect/Move) Or simply until a certain company shows the balls to introduce a mid-generation console, such as the Dreamcast. It certainly seems to be the case in this gen, with the Wii U being announced, then rumours of a 720/PS4 being in the works (although there were inklings of these beforehand). Who knows, obviously this is all speculation, but it's always quite interesting to ponder, and wonder what's next.

...Then again if you're a PC gamer, who the fuck cares? Upgrade to an i7, Xfire/SLI your cards, slot in some lovely DDR3, and water-cool that shit. You should then proceed to ignore anything said above, as you're already clearly technically ahead of this console shit.

[1] http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6128295/report-ps3-to-sell-for-399-cost-494-to-make
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starglider

Chapter 1 - Back to the Sea

He woke with a headache. Shards of glass were stuck behind his eyeballs. He was face down in some salty tasting grit. The pain in his head overshadowed his other senses so it took some time for him to realise it was sand. He lifted his head and spat it out. He rubbed his tongue and took the first look of his surroundings. He was on a small beach with his back to an endless sea.
He stood up slowly but kept his hand on the back of his head. The sand was hot almost unbearable. He looked down and was wearing blue jeans with a tatty looking shirt and no shoes. Both pieces of clothing were dry. He started to walk inland. He only had to walk thirty paces before the sand started to go green. The grass was sponge and felt good on his feet. It was wet and cool, which meant it certainly rains here.
‘Here?’ He thought to himself. He tried to remember how he got to that spot on the beach, nothing. He tried to remember where he was a day ago, nothing. Even where he grew up, nothing.
He was about to despair but when he looked further inland he noticed a stump. He rushed up to and laid his hand on the wooden decapitated tree. It was rough and slanted to one side. Someone had chopped it down. He looked around excitedly, the pain in his head was gone now.
He headed off into any direction away from the sea and began to look for any signs of life other then him. He must’ve walked for about an hour and was starting to give up hope, when he saw holes in the ground. They were about waist height and a metre wide. He jumped in and inspected it, it looked like a spade was used. He would have been excited except for the ground at his feet wasn’t fresh and loose. The soil was hardened and in some places grass had started to grow. He climbed out annoyed and sub-consciously put his hand on his stomach.
A strange realisation popped into his head. He wasn’t hungry, albeit he didn’t know the last time he ate and it had only been an hour since he woke up, but he wasn’t even thirsty. The sun had just past its zenith so surely he must be a little dehydrated. He mentally put this into the checklist of mysteries:
1. Woke up in unknown location
2. Have no memory
3a. Signs of life
3b. No actual life.
4. No feelings of hunger and thirst
A laugh was starting to build up inside, possibly out of hysterics. Pulling himself together he carried on walking. There was a small fairly dense cluster of trees to the East so he decided to go North-West where are large mountainous structure rose up. With no fear of starvation he pressed on with an absent mind.
There was the old tree and flower spread out. To his left the land rose a bit and eventually turned into a hill. If he walked around the base of the hill for a few hundred metres he would find himself in a straight line with the Mountain to the North-West. He followed it for some ten minutes with a thought entering his mind when an obnoxious sound came from his right, west.
He stopped. Listening hard for the invader of his thoughts, lack-there-of.
‘MOO!’
Excited by the fact that there was some living thing out there, he hurried as fast as he could toward the sound. There was a thicket of bushes he pushed himself through then a feeling of free fall. He was plummeting to the ground.
Panic quick as the wind that zipped by him, rose up his stomach and out his mouth in the form of a scream. He closed his eyes and expected the hard ground to shatter his body like goose egg being thrown into an obsidian wall. There was an immense slap on the whole of his body, then wetness. The shock made his mouth and eyes open and he took in a mouthful of water. He swam to the top and coughed out a lot of water. Spluttering and on the verge of drowning he began to kick his instincts into overdrive and swim toward the edge, if there was one.
Before his hand could slap dry land, his knees scraped along the rising bottom of the water. He stopped swimming, and lifted himself to his hands and knees coughing and attempting to breath. When he calmed down and his breathing returned to normal, he lifted up his face and his gut filled with hate and bitterness. He had locked eyes with one of the most ignorant, stupid, obnoxious creatures ever.
‘Moo?’

Total Annihilation

Hello all,

Back to work on creating the Total Annihilation Core Campaign Let's Play, I hope you all enjoy it. I love playing this game.

Also, we can now receive payment from these adverts that you can see dotted around this page. It would mean a  lot if you could click a few of them. We never ask you guys for money, so this way we both win =D

Thanks for all your suggestions for my next single player Let's Play.

Little hint: Its on sale on Steam =D

Have a good week

Dan

=D