Activision are a corporate producer.  Corporate companies are run by investors who are out to make a profit. 

Mastergame I think I understand what you're saying, indie companies are looking for people to fund them when you'd like them to fund the game by themselves? 

As much as Id like to see indi devs fund the entire project themselves im sure they need help somewhere along the lines.  But if they sell their games for profit it would be good to see the people who have funded it get the equal amounting of funding>profit ratio given back to them. 

TouchMaster97 : I completely agree with you, some micro transactions which give you a personal customization of your game weapon etc arnt too bad.  Ive been skinning custom weapons in cstrike for the last 13 years, customization and personalisation is always fun. 

So much has changed in the last decade, technology has advanced incredibly fast.  A lot of the core foundations of gaming have changed along with this.  Gaming nowadays is not as simple as it used to be, with the heavy emphasis on online platforms.  Its all moving along so quickly that consumer input is almost ignored. 

So my question for everyone - what do you think is wrong with the gaming industry these days?  Is there something you'd change? 

Not just in general, it could be one game or dev in particular. 

For myself, growing up there wasn't a lot of things that bugged me with video games - apart from being able to afford them.  We resorted to video stores like blockbuster to rent them out, we purchased game magazines to inform ourselves about whats happening in the industry and to get demo discs from them.  What bugs me the most nowadays is games are rushed, updates are relied upon and micro transactions make me feel like I'm not purchasing a whole product when I buy a game. 

So come on, lets get a decent discussion going.  I don't post on here often - years ago this forum was great fun to have lengthy conversations and debates on topics. 

Ive had my samsung galaxy s5 for about 3 years now.  I refused to upgrade to the s6 and s7 because the battery became non removable.  Also the s6 chewed more power and came with a smaller battery than the s5.  

The intel laptop will run cooler and process more efficiently. 

The AMD laptop will have better graphics performance but will run HOT.  It will also chew more battery. 

Desktop... put it together out of some used and some new parts. 

CPU Intel I5 2500
12GB DDR3
GTX 960 4GB DDR5
2x 120gb SSDs
1x 1TB 7200 RPM HDD Black
Cougar 450w PSU
Deepcool Archer CPU fan
Fractal 2500 case

Running Windows 7 Ultimate

This may contain very low-level spoilers, however it's been out for quite a while now. 

I've just picked up a copy of The Taken King for PS4, I used to play Destiny vanilla, Dark Below and House of Wolves.  After taking a break and finally getting the new "DLC", I played the first mission which involved doing some recon on Phobos.  This first mission has remarkable similarities to Super Metroid on SNES (of which I spent a lot of my childhood playing).  The whole concept of the first mission involves flying to a location in an attempt to discover a distress signal of sorts, once arrived you discover the whole place is being wiped out.  As you make it further into the mission, past all the dead bodies and atmosphere of destruction, you get that same (cautious) feeling as you did playing the tutorial mission in Super Metroid. 

After moving your way through the cinematic-style entrance you encounter your first enemy; a boss, if you've never played destiny before and this is your first mission, it will seem over-whelming.  Once your altercation with the boss is finished, the game sets in an urgent ambiance and you need to evacuate.  The music kicks in, it has an uncanny resemblance to that of Super Metroid's music.  You make your way through the destruction to your ship and leave. 

This whole mission, whilst it had me intrigued with what Bungie had developed, I couldn't but help think of Super Metroid the whole time.  Did anyone else notice this when they played it?

EDIT:

Managed to track down the music;

Destiny - Spark of Light
Super Metroid - #27 - escape

Lazlo Falconi : If it's gaming hes after, an R7 240 is just about the bottom of the AMD barrel.  It struggles to play Battlefield 4 even on a low preset.  I run a small PC building business on the side and the lowest AMD I'd recommend for gaming is an R7 250 (has to be DDR5).  The CPU is still moderately good, quad core is only just becoming the minimum for gaming.  

Davideo7 : thanks, i might finish it off tonight.  Not sure of a name for the process, I call it the "kids are finally asleep, what do i do now" process.

EDIT:

Spent another 20 minutes on it when I got home from work, not sure if I can do any more to it.  




A bit more on the process now that I have a keyboard and not typing on my phone;  

I basically clipped around each face of an object, applied a solid colour brush which was close to the colour I wanted.  I duplicated that clipped area and turned it into a layer which allowed me to use the blending options on it.  Usually bevel, inner/outer shadow, gradient.  Once I did this to all/most of the faces of an object, I merged them together so I could work on the edges and blend them (I used smudge, dodge and burn mostly).  After that I used image adjustments like hue/saturation etc.  

I've never read any tutorials or books on photoshop, its just something I've experimented with over the years; so I'm not sure if the process is a good one or not, it just seems to work.  

Davideo7 : Just a few blended layers and I made a preset pattern for the console grill.  Once I was happy with the layers I merged them and blended what I needed with smudge, dodge and burn.  

Davideo7 : I take my hat off to you, I had a little crack at restoring the original because I thought it might be fun.  Instead of restoring it I unintentionally started remaking it into this lol

Davideo7 : Nice work, I see what you mean by poor images after doing a Google image search lol.  Photoshop is an amazing program, I use it quite a bit when I'm modding Counter-Strike.  Mostly creating raw textures from scratch and modifying some *cough* obtained *cough* textures.  

synovemarie :  We noticed a huge difference in our kids diets once we put them on formula, they seemed a lot healthier.  Another benefit we got out of it was myself being able to feed them.  Unfortunately that included middle of the night feeds lol.  

I think its perfectly fine for women to breast feed in public.  My wife did it with both of our children, she did it a bit more discretely than most with a thin blanket covering most of it up and used facilities whenever she could.  There were a few times when neither were available and the reaction of a few people upset her, I wouldn't stand for it though when I was with her.  Anyone game enough to make a bold reaction while they were walking by got a mouth-full from myself.  90% of them kept walking and I had a couple of loud debates with a few in a crowded food court.  There was one time in particular, while I was in a heated discussion, when a group of strangers stood up for us which was awesome.  

Mytheus : In the Retro Game Room, there's a side panel with popular searches, I pulled this link for Rom hacks from there.  The page I linked had mostly Pokemon hacks in it, so it's a good start I guess.  

SWTerra : I get headaches quite frequently, they usually occur when I need them the least lol.  I would suggest doing a bit of research on-line, there's quite a few pages that help pinpoint what type of headaches and how to prevent/cure them.  

In the meantime, there's a program called "Dimmer" (just Google "dimmer freeware", its usually the first page) I use this when I have headaches or my eyes get sore.  It allows you to set the screen brightness and stays out of sight in the quick-launch area.  It may help you out a bit.  

Jordanv78 : HAHA yeah PS2 is still a beast of a gaming system.  It's so hard to distinguish these days as there's a lot of brand new indi games which incorporate or are primarily based upon that older retro style. 

I downloaded Counter-Strike 1.6 from steam the other day (I've owned it for years but haven't downloaded it to play for a while).  It's still my favorite FPS even though I play it 20% and mod it 80% (make my own maps in Hammer and upload them to communities).  As for a completely new game, I got Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon in a recent Humble Bundle.  I remember having a demo disc for it when I was about 8 years old but never got around to playing it. 

Jordanv78 : Oh wow.  10 years is almost still "modern" in my books lol.  It raises a pretty good topic though; "When is retro applied?".  To me it has to be at least 20 years with an insane amount of difference from today's standards.  Look at me, im trying to hold onto the past which is another sign I'm getting older . 

Lots of things make me feel old these days.  I've been on Vizzed for 7 years, used to be a lot more involved but as the years went by I got married and had two kids.  I've been at the same workplace for almost 9 years and being 26 years old I've spent over 1/3 of my life there.  Aside from my personal life making me feel older, somehow NES, SNES, N64 and even PSX have turned into "Retro".  It only feels like a few years ago I was playing 4-way split-screen Goldeneye with my friends, in actual fact its been 19 years. 

Josiah825 : Your PSU has a sticker on it which tells you your max wattage, just take the side panel off and youll be able to see.  Also look at the sticker for amps on the 12v+ rail, your looking for at least 25 if you want a gtx960.  If it doesnt have a 6pin pcie connector you can get by with a molex adapter (most gtx 960 only need one).  The reason im suggesting a gtx 960 is becuase it uses very little power compared to anything more powerfull and most amd cards, also its on-par with your cpu.  I wouldnt worry about upgrading your RAM as 8GB is plenty, even for Fallout 4.