Diem

As someone who's watched through all of Freeman's Mind multiple times, I generally know what's in each episode. But sometimes, I'm not sure, and trying to find the exact clip where something is said becomes difficult. Since there's closed captions for every video, I'd think that having the transcripts or closed captions for each episode being available on a separate page would be helpful. That way, if someone wants to find out what episode a certain line is from, they can just search for it, instead of poring over the videos second by second. Wouldn't be too difficult, unless the closed captions/transcripts aren't saved anywhere. Anyone else think the same?

Nah, they ran somewhere else, they didn't fight Freeman. Freeman's Mind has always been about picking apart how illogical the game world is. The Black Mesa facility made no sense from a design standpoint, and neither do City 17's sewers. If you were running from the cops in a sewer, and found no reasonable way to move forward because everything was caged off for no reason, you'd spend a little bit contemplating how the design makes no sense. I'm fairly certain Ross plans to stick to the game's story and isn't going to do anything extra, and I don't think Freeman capturing a civil protection unit would be in character.

"Dead Game WARS" That'd be a fun, odd idea for a little fictional series.

I don't think the video does full justice, though, especially for claiming to be the full "TRUTH." A few other things that make Freeman's Mind so exceptional: - The humor is genuinely clever and unique. So much humor throughout the past couple decades relies solely on vulgarity as opposed to actual comedy. You get actual interesting and unique jokes instead of just your stock sex jokes and curse words that make up 99% of humor nowadays. If the series was done by someone else on YouTube, you can bet that most of the jokes would be of that nature instead of what we have now. - Consistency. The original series spanned 7 years and still remained consistent from beginning to end. Compare that to many other shows that change dramatically over time, or even just from year to year. Red Vs Blue's first five seasons were pretty consistent, but after that it transforms into a different show over time. Watch an episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd from 2009 compared to 2016 and you'll see major differences. But watch an episode of Freeman's Mind from 2008 vs. 2014, and the quality is still there. Although I will say that I think the quality subtly goes up over time, especially past Episode 20 or so and definitely by the 40's to 60's, but that's a good thing. Of course, it helps that the show is technically the same thing over time. Commentary placed over the gameplay of a single campaign, so there's a solid sense of where things are going, unlike other shows that are written from absolute scratch one episode at a time, like AVGN. But even then, keeping that consistent--or even improving its quality--across 7 whole years of production is a huge accomplishment, and Freeman's Mind 2 is much the same in that regard. - Voice acting. I never really got into the other "Master Minds" like Barney's or Shepherd's because the voice acting just wasn't as good. I don't think the writing was as good, either, but the voice acting is more noticeably amateur. Ross is a talented voice actor and really brings the character to life, speaking the lines with conviction as opposed to sounding like he's just reading off a script. There's a reason why so many people now associate his voice with Gordon Freeman.

I was watching Did You Know Gaming, when something unexpected showed up at the end:

I don't think Ross and other people here are going against the grain in terms of disliking or hating the game. I've encountered many people that also hate the game, it's just a matter of demographics. The reason this game is as popular as it is, I believe, is because it taps into the hipster millennial/Gen Z demographic. It also taps into the Tumblr demographic (as you'll hear the game called "Life is Tumblr" quite often). These demographics aren't always gamers, or at least not always hardcore gamers that are buying the latest big releases each year (of course, because that's what hipsters generally are). And in media, they're not represented very often. They're not being represented or catered to with Uncharted or Dark Souls or anything overtly Japanese, but Life is Strange is very specifically tuned into that culture and environment. And since it has no competition, it was able to become as successful as it is, compared to, say, a budding first-person shooter game trying to squeeze into the saturated market. Furthermore, the game stars a young woman in high school, which is a very uncommon setting in games. Most games are action-oriented that take place in big fictional worlds, starring adults in positions of some authority or power. But the young girl in high school setting is a very popular one, just not among gamers. Think about all the teenage sitcoms/dramas about girls in high school that have existed on TV or film over the past two decades. Girls (and even some guys) love that stuff, but hat kind of story is rarely represented in games. So the game managed to tap into that demographic as well. It also helps that the game is very light on gameplay or depth, as Ross points out in the video, since these people aren't usually gamers. I happened to rewatch the Eternam episode last night, and Ross talked about how he's able to recommend graphic adventure games to people that aren't normally gamers, because they rely more on storytelling and puzzle-solving than action or arcade reflexes. The same applies here, except this game is much more barebones than traditional graphic adventure games, so it's able to reach an even broader audience. Which is helpful, since as I said, the demographics this game is targeting isn't likely to be hardcore gamers or people who play anything challenging. However, none of this is to say that the game isn't objectively bad. Ross did a good job of not only giving his own personal grievances, but also pointing out many of the objective flaws with the game, such as how it claims to be about your choices, yet you're forced into making certain decisions. Of course, a game can't give you absolute freedom all the time, since that'd multiply the amount of game/work exponentially, but this isn't an uncommon problem in games that advertise dynamic decision-making. They give an illusion of choice, where in actuality the outcome is the same regardless, or only slightly altered in an insignificant way. The director of Heavy Rain, perhaps the game that most popularized this kind of gameplay, has actually gone on record advising people to not play the game more than once, which is crazy. Usually you want people to replay your games, especially in ones where your decisions are supposed to drastically affect the story. Well, the reason he said that is because when you play Heavy Rain for the first time, you usually walk away pretty impressed and satisfied. But if you replay it, then you'll notice all its seams, and how certain decisions don't matter at all, among other things. This is a problem that has been carried forward in that studio's other games, as well as its imitators, such as Telltale Games. One game that has done a good job at this format, though, is the PS4 exclusive Until Dawn. If Ross could somehow get his hands on the game, I'd recommend he play it and do a video on it. It'd make a good Halloween episode, for sure. Back to Life is Strange, perhaps the biggest objective flaw in the entire game is the blue-haired character you see briefly in the demo, Chloe. Not only is her character both cringeworthy and totally unlikeable, the developers spend the entire game trying to force you to like her, despite how awful of a person she is. Now, again, maybe to the hipster, Gen Z, Pacific Northwest demographic, they would find this character likeable on some level, which, judging by the positive reviews and sales, many did, despite her being a huge scumbag. You can have fake choices and minimal gameplay, but if the story, characters, and writing are at least good and interesting, then there's still some form of payoff. Not here. This problem only escalates to insane proportions in the end. I'm going to spoil the ending, if someone hasn't already. I doubt anyone here cares, but I'll hide it just in case: The prequel that's currently ongoing apparently stars Chloe again, possibly in an attempt to redeem her/make her more likeable, but so far I hear that it's not really working. Disclaimer: I say all this as someone who is A) not a hipster/Gen Z/woman, B) has not actually played the game, and has only heard about it through discussions. So take my input as you will. I don't think the issue is that Max isn't cool or likeable. The issue is that she's either boring or unlikeable. A character doesn't have to be likeable in order to be a good character, they just need to be interesting or understandable. Max is neither of those things, at least to most people. Like I said above, the game is targeting a niche audience, so people in that demographic are more likely to connect to Max or the other characters. Yeah, but Call of Duty is at the least consistent, the gameplay is honestly fun and enjoyable, and it caters towards the casual audience that doesn't have time to be invested in videogames for hours a day, kind of like all of us really. Call of Duty knows what it is, and is trying to be nothing more than it is. Granted I haven't played any other Call of Duty after Ghosts, and consider the MW trilogy to be objectively good at what it does, so maybe I'm biased. Life Is Stange, along with similar toned games like Mirror's Edge and Until Dawn, just try way too hard to act smug and pretend that they are bigger than what they really are, and that's why they're worse. Also technically Grand Theft Auto is the most profitable game franchise, but still get your point. No, I don't think you're biased. From an objective point of view, Call of Duty games are some of the most consistently enjoyable, valuable, and functional games released nowadays. I say this in the sense that you know what you're getting when you buy it (a standard campaign, multiplayer, and zombies mode, sometimes even more), you get all that content for $60 (compared to many games that cost $60 for way less content or replayability), and you can know it's going to be quite bug-free compared to many other buggy releases. Subjectively, it's a different story, because not everyone likes the same things. And since few people nowadays know how to separate subjective opinion from objective evaluation, and then take their opinions to the extreme, they'll say "Call of Duty sucks" as an objective statement, and then claim that anyone who enjoys it is automatically casual or just has trash taste. Although, the last Call of Duty game I enjoyed was Black Ops III, and my all time favorite is Black Ops from 2010. I skipped Infinite Warfare because I tried the beta, didn't really enjoy it, and then I tried the campaign sometime after release, and it was entirely paint-by-numbers and uninspired. I'm also skipping the new WWII game because the beta wasn't very enjoyable, and the developers are being hypocrites by talking about how it was such an emotional project for them and how they put a lot of effort into historical accuracy, but actually aren't putting any effort into historical accuracy at all for asinine political reasons. 1) It was Wing Commander, not Starship Troopers, and 2) Democracy doesn't always work in cases of emergency. Sometimes you just need someone to just take full command and get stuff done. It's more effective than arguing over what to do. Oh well, I guess you can make up your own mind, but still though, Ross has some good points on a few issues. I could have sworn it was Starship Troopers, but I could be wrong. As for emergencies, dictators are notorious for emerging from emergencies, no pun intended. Not to mention that in an emergency, the minority has a legitimate fear of being sacrificed by the majority, so it’s only natural they want their views to be heard, democratically. The thing about democracy is that, even in a democratic setting, that minority could still be overruled by the majority. It's called "tyranny of the majority." That's why, in the US government (which is a democratic republic, not a pure democracy), things like the senate's two representatives per state and the electoral college exist. If they didn't, then the more populous states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, etc.) would all have complete power over, say, Wyoming, because they have several times its population. Or, more generally speaking, metro area populations having complete control over rural populations (which still does kind of happen anyways, but isn't as bad as it could be). Of course, in a democratic setting, tyranny of the majority isn't as likely to occur as just plain tyranny by one or a few people in power, since there's far more variables and more spread distribution of power. It's still always a danger, though, and as the world becomes more urbanized, rural people and their voices are going to become almost like second-class citizens. Still, as Winston Churchill said, "Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time."

I've considered the idea of emulating Windows XP or something, since I recalled Ross bringing that up to get some games running in the past. Problem is that I don't own a copy of Windows XP or the necessary software to emulate it. I also only have a little less than 60 GB on my C: drive, of which only 6-12 GB of that is free at any given time, so I don't know if that'd be an issue as well. I can say that I did use Dependency Walker as you suggested, and there's a very large number of messages saying "Error opening file. The system cannot find the file specified (2)." I'm guessing that'd be a good cause for why the game would crash at startup? But for good measure I checked out another game from the year prior, and it also has a bunch of errors. I also did it with a game from 2015 that I played yesterday, and it was much the same. Well, the odd thing about this is that I also bought the Spider-Man game that came out the year prior, and I installed it, started it up, and it worked flawlessly. Absolutely no problems from beginning to end, no extra tweaking required. I also have the game based off of Spider-Man 2, which came out two years after the one I'm having trouble with, and that one worked as well. It's just this one game that's being extremely difficult, and there's no documentation of the problem because it's from 2002 and not many people care about this game compared to some of the others. I figured Ross and maybe some other people here know how that feels, hence why I decided to ask here. Tried that as well, same problem, unfortunately.

I don't know if this is the right subforum for this, or if this maybe belongs in another thread, so if I'm in error here, please move this to the appropriate location. Thanks. Anyways, I've been trying to get an old game to run for a while. Not a terribly old one, but one that's still old enough and not popular enough to have much documentation. I figured since Ross is so good at getting older games to work, maybe someone here is knowledgeable as well and can help me out. It's Spider-Man: The Movie. That is, the game based off the first Spider-Man movie, obviously. As soon as I open the game, I get the message "steel_debug has stopped working" not once, but twice before the program actually closes. No compatibility settings fix it, and I can't find a single solution for it online. It's too old and not popular enough to warrant the attention, I guess. But I'm trying to work on a series where I go over a bunch of different Spider-Man games, and am hoping to get this one to work. I have a copy of the game on Xbox that I could always fall back on, but I'd rather have the PC version that I can get to look nicer. Any help is appreciated. For reference, my specs are: Windows 10 64-bit Intel Core i7-4820K CPU @ 3.70GHz Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Classified

DOOM's confirmed to run at 30 fps, and Wolfenstein 2 will probably be the same. Obviously that's counteracted by the fact that it's portable, so if portability > framerate for you, go for it. Just something to be aware of.

I've also heard that, say, if you upload, say, a 3 hour long video, you're harming your discoverability on YouTube. Because YouTube looks at if people stop watching a video before it's finished, and factor that into their algorithms. So if people watch a stream upload that's 3 hours long, and stop watching after an hour or so, that harms that video's discoverability and maybe the whole channel's. Doesn't matter how long it is, doesn't matter if they come back and finish it. Not sure exactly how much this would be determined and weighted. I could be wrong on this, I don't have a reliable source or any way to confirm it, but I could see it being true. Not much to be done about it given the video chats, but oh well.

Before the video, I noticed Ross's monthly donation amount was about $2500. Now, it's been almost doubled. Bet that's more than enough to counteract the demonetization for a while.

From that opening clip, I knew this was going to be special. The setting of the first part of the game is really well done. There's something timeless and appealing about old, creepy mansions with secrets. Doesn't matter how trite it may be, because when it's done well, it's excellent. The attention to detail in the mansion, as displayed in the video, is clearly very high. When you go deeper into the area with all the crazy statues and stuff, it's still good with a whole lot of detail. But once it goes into different dimensions and stuff, then everything looks wrong. The attention to detail is mostly gone and the environments take a turn for the generic. I guess it's a matter of taste, and I suppose for it's time it was okay and looked great, but we've had so many unique games and other media present alternate dimensions with genuine creativity that I just can't help but be disappointed. The best the game seemed to get was that one area where you climb down the ladder and enter into another dimension. That kind of inexplicit, drastic change in location is something that, when done right, is really cool, and I felt that here. The story is very disappointing, as stated. I didn't expect anything groundbreaking, but I did have hope. Instead it's just a generic good-vs-evil "the world is out of balance" story with all kinds of magic macguffins that exist only to be plot devices, filled with Biblical/theological references that don't really have any significance beyond being references, all capped off with a terrible ending. Though I admit I have higher standards for story than most people, and the presentation was really fun and unique for the time. The characters all came off as absurdly generic, too, and that Belial figure was only made interesting by the actor's remarkable performance. I looked up the actor, David Learner, and apparently he's best known for playing Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I myself haven't seen, so I can't really compare performances, but I imagine many here have. I love how you managed to set up a control scheme that's reasonable with all kinds of scripts and settings. That's dedication. Though at first I was confused, because I thought the game would be more survival horror, rather than an action shooter with all kinds of magical weapons. I think there's an issue in mood there, where the game maybe should have been one or the other. But I suppose survival horror hadn't yet been established as a genre, while shooters and adventure games were the majority of games at the time. That part in the pitch-black maze with mirrors and a psychedelic floor looks both incredibly interesting but incredibly tortuous. I can't tell if I'd enjoy it just for how absurdly and interestingly designed it is, or if I'd get genuinely frustrated. The thing that would definitely frustrate me is the adventure game puzzles that make no sense, which is why I don't tend to enjoy adventure games at all. I knew where the stinger was going as soon as I heard the name, and you did not disappoint. Absolutely perfect.

Zenimax just updated their lawsuit against Oculus to say that John Carmack actually stole Zenimax research and technology to use on Oculus, and that Palmer Luckey hardly contributed to the project himself, lacking the software expertise to develop the project. Oculus has so far gave the standard response that the allegations are without merit and will be handled in court. Article here: http://www.vrfocus.com/2016/08/zenimax-claims-creation-of-oculus-rift-in-latest-oculus-vr-lawsuit-amendment/ Legal document here: https://www.scribd.com/document/321898098/Zenimax-v-Oculus-Amended-Complaint#from_embed

Level 3 of this game is like what the general gaming public think Dark Souls is. Just ridiculous, unforgiving difficulty. In actuality, Dark Souls is a completely fair challenge (save for two or three specific scenarios that are genuinely poorly designed throughout the series). The difficulty and "Prepare to Die" memes are just clickbait details made up by journalists to get more views that was then picked up by Bandai/Namco's marketing to attract more attention. But that level of nonsense difficulty makes me think that you might've been doing something wrong unknowingly. Like, perhaps those enemies have a specific weakness that takes them out much faster. And maybe there's a way to be more resistant to that green poison. I've a hard time believing the development team sat down, played it, and said "Yep, this is finished," without using some other true strategy that's actually better. If not, then I suppose the only real way to make that level not a complete waste of time is to just cheat.

The Metroid Prime trilogy is a series of games with incredible soundtracks. Not only do I recommend that you listen to them, but it's the one I think should also be played. You would not regret it. Here's the soundtracks for the first, second, and third games. The Halo franchise also has consistently superb soundtracks. I own them all, and recommend all of them, but for the sake of length, here's just the soundtrack from Halo 5: Guardians, which released just two months ago: Although the best soundtrack of the past decade has to belong to Killer Instinct for Xbox One. Each track is a completely unique work with very careful thought and craft put into them. Spinal's track alone ("Warlord") was an intercontinental effort, including a Tibetan instrument called a kangling, a flute made from a human femur, and a choir of thirteen men singing in Swedish. A handful of the other tracks have lyrics, two in English, but they're exceptional all the same. Unfortunately, Mick Gordon, the composer, left after Season 2, but hopefully the new composers can step up to the challenge. There isn't a good non-YouTube site for this that I can find, but these soundtracks are available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon, what have you. So give them a listen and if you love them as much as I and many others do, go purchase them. Season One: Season Two: