EvilDingo
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Nov. 5, 2009
  • The Last Ninja trilogy for the C64 :-) Well... It's not likely to have had a CD release, but the sid-files are widely available.  As for people mentioning Mass Effect and Oblivions soundtrack... Personally I found Oblivions soundtrack to be very generic and Mass Effects soundtrack to be tiring - But then again... I figure the music in any game you play in 50+ hours is bound to get on your nerves.
    2 days, 20 hours ago
Oct. 19, 2009
  • EvilDingo replied to the topic Your favourite albums ever?
    When I first read the topic title, I read it as "Your favorite album of all time" which would be ridiculously hard for most people to answer... Also I'm pretty split, since you might be in doubt whether albums you USED to listen to a lot have any place on such a list. Anyway I figure I can come up with a few albums that I feel *still* hold uå ...
    2 weeks, 5 days ago
Oct. 16, 2009
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  • EvilDingo replied to the topic Do you like tekken in the Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion board.
    @AgentJ said: " Tekken is good. It has one of my favorite button commands in the genre, with each button commanding a limb, but i don't feel it's as deep as it could be.  "This! I find the controls ridiculously intuitive because of this. I rant from time to time about the MK-series going away from something intuitive like that (HP,LP,HK,LK) to *just* 4  attack buttons. Seriously - Keep it logical...
    3 weeks, 2 days ago
Oct. 13, 2009
  • EvilDingo replied to the topic Disturbing bug in the PS3 demo in the Brütal Legend board.
    Well, just to set something straight: I didn't actually turn off the console with the switch on the back. ... By now however it's apparent to me, that this sort of stuff happens from time to time - However since it's never happened to me before I reacted accordingly :-)
    3 weeks, 4 days ago
  • EvilDingo replied to the topic Disturbing bug in the PS3 demo in the Brütal Legend board.
    @PeasForFees said: " @EvilDingo said: " So, I just played some of the demo yesterday and my play-session was put to an end by the game locking up. However the most disturbing part of this bug, was that when I turned my PS3 back on, my PS3 was completely unable to establish connection to my PS3 controller.I was likewise unable to use my controller to turn on my PS3. ...In fact I ...
    3 weeks, 4 days ago
  • EvilDingo replied to the topic Disturbing bug in the PS3 demo in the Brütal Legend board.
    So, I just played some of the demo yesterday and my play-session was put to an end by the game locking up. However the most disturbing part of this bug, was that when I turned my PS3 back on, my PS3 was completely unable to establish connection to my PS3 controller.I was likewise unable to use my controller to turn on my PS3. ...In fact I was pretty freaked out for a ...
    3 weeks, 4 days ago
Oct. 10, 2009
  • EvilDingo replied to the topic Gays should Marry?
    The thing is, that this really isn't a yes and no question. It is as much a question whether you interpret "marriage" as a religious union or a union that gives same-sex couples the same rights as traditional couples. Personally I find it hard to comprehend how anybody today could argue against the latter. The question of religion is a whole other can of worms, that I figure more is up to the individual ...
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Oct. 8, 2009
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Oct. 5, 2009
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Added by EvilDingo on Aug. 29, 2009

A while back I ran into a problem with my green pad becoming way to responsive and registering hits no matter which pad I hit. 
All available help on the subject deals with pads that aren't responsive enough, so I was in a bit of a problem. 
My original post describing my problem

I did however find a solution to this particular problem, and since I've not found this fix covered on the internets, I might as well share it :-)  
 

FIX 1

I noticed that the green pad (the pad that was way to responsive) was pretty wobbly, and I basically figured that if I could stop this wobblyness, It would stop registering hits from vibrations outside of the pad itself. I turn out this worked. 
 
Red Arrow: rubber-barb holding pad in place. 
Red Arrow: rubber-barb holding pad in place. 
I guess you could stop the wobblyness of the pad in a couple of ways, the way I did it however was first opening the drum-set and looking on the backside of the pad. 

Each individual pad is held in place by 3 rubber-barb. When you press upon the pad it becomes apparent that these may be able to "give" a great deal. up to 1 cm.
 
The only thing I had to do was displace this space with something else, to make the pad less wobbly. 
  
 
ordinary wire 
ordinary wire 
 
 
My choice to displace this space was some ordinary wire, which most people probably have lying around in an abundance. 
 
It's the kind wire that is found in pretty much every package of hardware to hold items in place in the package.  
   

  

The wire wrapped around the barb. 
The wire wrapped around the barb. 
 
 Then I simply wrapped the wire around the inner part of the rubber-barb to displace the space, to make the pad much less wobbly. 
 
... And this basically made the pad not pick up vibrations from the other pads.
 
 

  

FIX 2 

The second fix I've made was a bit more of a added function to the drum-set, I decided I might as well try out, now that I've already had my drum-set open and found it not looking too intimidating inside. 
 
I actually play Rock Band 2 a lot more that I play Guitar Hero, and anybody who has used the GHWT drums with Rock Band 2, may have been somewhat annoyed about the way the game interprets blue drum-pad. I know I have :-) 

The yellow cymbal on the set is almost always a cymbal in the game, but the blue drum is actually most often a cymbal in the game too. 

So I had the idea of just having the orange cymbal (which is ignored by RB2 anyway) double as a blue drum for use in RB2. A fix which actually was very simple. 
    
 Connecting a second wire to the blue drums connection.  
 Connecting a second wire to the blue drums connection.  


It's very easy to se where the wires for each pad is connected on the controller. 
It was really only a question about connecting another wire to the same connection as the blue drum, and make this wire connect to the orange cymbal in some way. 
 
Red arrow shows the blue drums connection. 
Blue arrow show the wire that I attached to the same connection.
I did not solder anything, it's pretty much hold in place with tape and faith. 
 
 The tale of two jacks
 The tale of two jacks
At the other end of the wire I simply have a mini-jack.  
 
Red arrow: The original "jack" that I connect, if I want to play games from the Guitar Hero franchise. 
Blue arrow: The new jack I connect, if I want to use the drums with Rock Band 2.
 
Please notice that I have a hole where others actually have a "holder" for the drums-sticks. 
It's basically a casualty of the first day of having the drums, where my arms may have been flailing around a fair bit - and as such hitting this "holder" and pressing it into the drumset. 
 
Even if your not as stupid as me and making a hole like that, I think you'll probably still be able to find a way to get the wire top-side. 
  
I believe this fix makes my Rock Band 2 experience that much better, since both the blue pad and the cymbal can be used as I see fit. 
 

FIX 3

This is my latest fix on the set, and the reason why I had the set open again, and made it possible for me to take these pictures. 
 
The red pad had begun behaving like my green pad used to do, so I figured it was the same problem again. 
This turned out to not be the case though. 
 
The problem this time was that the sensor on the pad had simply come of, and was touching the plastic. As such it registered any vibration done anywhere on the drums-set. I simply tried to use some tape to attach this sensor again. 
 
This didn't really turn out to work for much more that a couple of songs, before the tape came loose. This resulted in the pad registering multiple hits most of the time, again making the game unplayable. 
 
The solution I came up with was actually not so much my own idea. 
What I did was making a bit of a variation on these guys' solution. 
 
Instead of using a popsicle-stick, I simply rolled a piece of paper together in the needed length. Making a pretty solid "stick", that still is somewhat flexible to prevent the pad from registering multiple hits from "counter hit". 
Basically it is just supposed to hold the sensor in place and not push against it. So far it seems to be working. 
 
 
I hope somebody can make use of my experiences. At this rate I doubt I've done making fixes for the drum-set though. 
I figure that in about a years time I've got a drum-set solely held together by tape and other patches :-)


Added by EvilDingo on Aug. 6, 2009

 I actually think I've done something like this before...  

 Anyway, I just bought this: 
 
 
It's Bully for the PS2 and it was only approximately 4$. 
While it may not seem that overly cheap for americans, keep in mind that your 5$-bargain bins are more like 10$-bargain bins in my country (well, 9,5$). 
So considering how good this game is, this is actually a steal. 
 
The only thing is - I already have this game... So I can only wonder why I actually bought it. 
Actually, I've currently lent out my other copy of the game to my nephews, but I honestly don't think I'm going to replay the game, just because I have a new copy. 
... But I guess they can keep the game now. 
 
I recall I did this with "Devil May Cry" too once.
 
I'm just wondering if anybody else does stuff like this.    
Related to: Bully


Added by EvilDingo on May 13, 2009

Well, of cause it is...

But on the top of my head, there can be a number reason why someone would give game-mods a go:
  • You might seek more challenge for a game you've played to death.
  • If you have an older system, you might actually love the fact that you can expand the games you can actually run.
  • Mods can address game-breaking issues that really bother you.
  • You may just want to experience the game in a new way, without making the game not fun...

If a game is a few years old and have picked up a modding-scene, it is most likely someone have made an overhaul-mods, that is basically is a collection of popular mods. If you've either picked up an older game or just wanted to revisit one, one of those mods seem to be the way to go.
Except people who make these Overhauls seem to assume, that people seek more challenge out of the game.

I've been trying out some mods with the space-trade-sim Freelancer lately. More specifically the overhaul mods Crossfire and Discovery.
Both of these mods offer an expanded universe, with more ships, mechanics, improved graphics,the possibility to play with the mod online on their server... and enemy npc's that take FOREVER to take down because of "improved" AI - However, this just means that the have increased ability to heal themselves.

I've played about an hour of the mod Crossfire today before I got annoyed with this, and wasn't able to take out a single enemy in this frame of time. Be aware that the pay-off from any of these missions wouldn't have been correspondent to the weapon-costs used during battle. It's apparent that you start of with enough money on the game-server to buy some better weapons - however nothing in the system you start out in is expensive (or powerful) enough to match the enemies you meet in the same system. 

The enemies are in fact not more challenging - they are just more time-consuming to take down.
Personally I don't se the logic in adding a whole lot of ships and equipment to the gameplay, while effectively rendering a whole lot of ships and equipment useless from the start of the game. If you're trying to develop an online community around a mod, I wouldn't recommend alienating people who seek to play to... you know... just to have fun.

It seems to be a reoccurring theme among plenty of mods for several games. The mod Discovery for the same game is similar in that way, however I was able to take down some enemies. I just had to devote roughly 20 minutes per enemy - Since the amount of enemies that fly together in groups are largely the same as the original, you have to devote a lot of time to a single battle. I recall having played a mod for Pirates of Caribbean, which also added a whole lot of new and exciting enhancements... along with enemy ships that took forever to take down.

I'm currently waiting for Oblivion and looking to play this game with mods. I already have the game for PS3 but got very annoyed with how the level-progression is done. This is however something I've read that there are made mods to fix in different ways - Coupled with a mod that makes it possible to leave your alchemy-equipment at home for some home-brewing, this sounds like a sweet deal to me.

Now if I can just experience these enhancements without having to run into wolves 10 levels above my own level...


Added by EvilDingo on May 11, 2009

While this subject may seem a little late to the party - please keep in mind that I am european, and thus RB2 have only just been released here a few weeks back. 
This also means that I'm playing RB2 with the GHWT-drums since that's the game I acquired back in december - Seriously, as if I was going to buy RB1 (which just had been released at that time) knowing that RB2 had already been released in the States.
Most of my comments on the games are probably going to be drum-related, since that's what I'm mostly rocking now that it's the new thing.
Also be aware that I have the PS3-version of both games.

Having played quite a lot of Guitar Hero World Tour up to this point, and been playing Rock Band 2 intensely in these last 2 weeks or so , I wanted to share my observations on how I think Rock Band 2 compares to Guitar Hero World Tour.

Having never played RB1 I differently noticed some sort of timing difference between the two games. I feel that RB2 requires somewhat more precision.
However having overcome that, overall RB2 comes across as the better *game* to me. Anyway, I better start listing my main observations..

THE GOOD

  • I love how the whole career-mode is i RB2. The whole idea about gathering fans to progress work very well and the fact that each character earn money individual works pretty well too.
  • You're able to start a new band with other people WITHOUT being completely cut off from unlocked songs. You don't have to unlock songs again.
  • I loooove the whole using drum-fills to activate star power ...ehm... I guess that's "overdrive". I'm unable to count all the times in GHWT where I've broken a 4x streak trying to activate star-power and it didn't register. Actually I generally love everything about the fills. They actually come in meaningful places unlike GHWT, where I usually don't even bother since I seldom are able to drum anything naturally.
  • I think the fact that hits during fills DON'T count any points works to the advantage of the general gameplay. By not activating the overdrive you can make it through hard parts, using the fills as breathers between the hard part. However it's at the expense of points which can't be earned during these sections. Also since the fill-sections itself don't count towards your score, you don't feel "pressured" to perform the fill if you can't do a meaningful one.
  • It's a great idea that the bass-player is able to rack in a 6x multiplier. It adds to the importance of the bass in the songs.
  • The way overdrive is activated on the singers track seem superior to GHWT, where it often seem to activate accidently. The rhythm-sections are also superior to GHWT's "make some noise"-sections... seriously, who can (or would) even do that without just being annoying. The fact that the rhythm-sections are voluntary to take into account people, who actually have the mike on a stand and are willing to play an instrument AND sing is kind of awesome... I actually did this in GHWT :-)
  • Rocking a GHWT-guitar in RB2 is awesome simply because it ignores the input from the finger-smudged solo-pad. I don't know if I'm missing out not having a RB-guitar with solo-buttons, but to me it's a big deal that the stupid solo-pad (which I didn't EVER use anyway) doesn't suddenly give false inputs.
  • ... on that note. The blue solo-sections are a good addition - you get aware on sections where your instrument has a solo and is in focus - and although I don't actually have a RB-guitar, I can easy deduct that these solo-sections work a whole lot better with the solo-buttons on the RB-guitar, than the way GHWT can suddenly out of the blue throw some slidey-notes at you.
  • Multiplayer actually works... and it works well. Of cause I can't be sure if this just because I have the PS3-version of the games, but I've NEVER successfully got any online game going in GHWT... not that there is much reason to anyway. The way RB2 makes it easy to join and invite people in a band, has actually made me aware that there IS actually people playing PS3 online... Now it would just be nice if people had headsets too... Not that I have one either though.
  • That songs are compatible between Rock Band games is reassuring... And apart from that novel idea, the song selection is larger than that of GHWT and also cheaper. Go figure...
  • Although I've yet to use it - the "no fail"-function is a great idea.

THE BAD

  • The inability to change difficulty after failing a song is kind of annoying. This is especially the case when playing a 6 song set, just to discover that song number 5 is out of your league at that particularly level. I don't know how many are willing to burn through their fans by trying multiple times on the same song to HOPEFULLY beat it eventually. This pretty much leave you with an annoying choice on a multiple song setlist: Either play on the level you can beat most songs and risk failing one of them - or play it safe and play on the level where you can beat all songs, but will be bored playing most of them... That sucks! - It's all well and good that you're able to "save and quit" during a setlist, but this annoyance pretty much keeps me from giving the "Endless Setlist 2" a go...well... ever.
  • I not sure, but it seems you can go from green to failed very suddenly in RB2. I've sometimes died with "overdrive" to spare. GHWT seems more forgiving in that regard.
  • However singing seems to be VERY forgiving. I don't think I've EVER 100%'ed a song in Singstar on expert for example, and this is something I've managed to do in RB2... I'm differently not THAT good a singer.
  • It's not a big deal, but it would have been nice if the bass had open notes like in GHWT.
  • The 5-note pattern of GHWT seems superior, and the fact that the drum-controller itself clearly defines visual difference between the drums and the hi-hats is great. It's not likely to ever be addressed, since I'm well aware that the price for song compatibility between games, is that you can't change the original format.
Which pretty much brings me to my main issue with the game...
  • The GHWT-drums' compatibility with RB2...

The yellow hi-hat mostly represent a hi-hat in the game, so in for the most part that pad is well enough placed for use with RB2. In fact the only song that comes to mind where the yellow pad seems to represent is "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden... which incidentally was the first song I bought - and thus I noticed this problem.
However the interpretation of the blue pad annoys me immensely - it sometimes represent a tom and sometimes it represent a hi-hat... and the most annoying thing is, that I see no reason why the orange hi-hat on the GHWT-drums (which is left unused) couldn't double as blue note in the game. 
This simple adjustment would seriously solve my entire issue with the compatibility.
The occasional usage of the green pad as a cymbal doesn't really bother me all that much, because apart from the green note at the end of fill-sections, I don't notice this all that much.

This is pretty much what I've noticed and felt like commenting on - didn't actually mean to write a complete essay about it, but it became a fair bit longer than I anticipated.
It's probably apparent enough, but I find that the good outweigh the bad and I'm generally enjoying the game a whole lot.

Feel free to comment and tell me your take on the two games' differences.


Added by EvilDingo on March 3, 2009

While surfing for some retro game-music due to a recent thread on this board, I stumbled over this madness.
So what is it?

It's a rig consisting of 4 PC's and 2 Commodore 64's... and it's basically a project designed to automatically record every SID ever made.

The rig is automated and records the audio output of 2 C64's in real-time, and uploads the resulting mp3's to be available for download on SOASC.
The final result will require over 400 Gb of storage - which is a fair bit more than the 40-50 Mb of storage the entire collection of SID-files takes up.

The reason there is 2 C64's connected has not actually anything to do with speeding up the process, but is actually because that through the production of the C64, it was fitted with 2 different versions of the SID-soundchip. While the older version actually was buggy, it's generally considered to have a *warmer* sound. For this reason SIDS are generally programmed to sound "correct" on either the older or the newer soundchip.

Considering how small storage-wise the entire SID-collection is and how good current emulation technology for SID-playback is (win / osx), the insanity of this project becomes even more apparent. This is for purists who NEED the authentic sound.
I don't know who these people might be.

However I can't do anything but love the effort and the project.
Related to: Commodore


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Date Joined: July 21, 2008
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