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Ben_H

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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#1  Edited By Ben_H
@Godlyawesomeguy said:

@VinceNotVance said:

I'd prefer if they would hand over the reins to the community though, because there are some fantastic writers doing some excellent work for free; they could use the spotlight until BermanBraun figures out what they want to do with the site.

I think that's a pretty excellent suggestion, and if they were to do so, I'd definitely step up and start writing reviews regularly, as I already currently do. I don't want to see the Screened community wither out and die, and if that means contributing to articles, reviews, etc., so be it.

People have been calling for that on there. There's a number of excellent writers within the Screened community (especially litrock) who would do many magnitudes a better job than the current staff. The only one who wrote anything even coming up to half decent hasn't written anything in weeks and the others are terrible. 
 
 It sucks because I used to enjoy reading Screened and visited the site every day. Now there's no reason.
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#2  Edited By Ben_H
@PassiveKaerenai said:

I find it mega-weird that the new Screened people won't even show their faces, do a small podcast, whatever. It's a really impersonal place now.

That was what made me quit reading it. Everyone there was asking for any kind of background info on the new writers (other than the freelance guy,who still writes for them I think. People know him), and the new people flat out refused and just said that the site members will learn about them through their writing. So I just read the site for a couple days, discovered that even I can write better than one of the new writers (the other one is fine, but the one is TERRIBLE), and promptly stopped visiting that site.
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#3  Edited By Ben_H
@Venatio said:

Just forget about Screened, it's dead

I removed it from my bookmarks a long time ago

Basically. I tried to read it for a bit, but there's nothing good on it anymore so I quit reading it.
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#4  Edited By Ben_H
@Sooty said:
@Sgykah said:

I'm currently using a Nexus S and Transformer Prime. They required some work to get them the way I want them, but they're fast, they're pretty, they have widgets and live wallpapers, and I can use whatever music service I want to put whatever music I like onto my phone.

I had the first Transformer. I'd honestly rather have no tablet than an Android tablet ever again. There's just so many good iPad apps that Android either doesn't have or has a bad alternative of.   I don't feel app starved on my Android phone but the tablets...ugh. Horrible experience, blown up phone app galore.
I sold my Android tablet and bought an iPad. I had a Xoom, which was fine hardware wise (it wasn't slow by any means), but the tablet Android experience is abysmal. Literally the only things it has going for it is Flash and more file compatibility (which Flash doesn't even matter because most sites have HTML5 versions of videos now anyway). 99% of the tablet apps are garbage in that they either don't work well or are phone apps upscaled (half the time they don't even redo textures properly so you get grainy textures or even textures that don't fit correctly). The only games I've ever felt were well done on Android for tablets from all of those I owned were World of Goo, Osmos, and Sentinel 3 (which actually had a lot of UI goof ups, buttons not lining up and whatnot). The Android version of GTA3 is insanely unstable and looks worse compared to the iPad version and has serious graphical glitches.
 
From a user experience standpoint, the iPad is so much better than any Android tablet on just about every level. Sure you can't customize it as much, but everything works so smoothly and the quality of applications is significantly higher.  I thought iPads were garbage until I actually got to use one for a few hours, then I realized that how it does things is so much better than Android. There's no jank in any way, no wonkiness with the web browser (I'm comparing Safari compared to stock Android browser, Dolphin Browser, Opera Mobile, and Skyfire), and so many little ways it makes apps work well together (My favourite example is when I listen to the Bombcast streamed from the GB website while playing a game, not only does the game sense that I have a podcast playing so it mutes the music, but I can also pause the podcast from the little popup menu on the bottom of the screen accessed with a 4 finger swipe without having to switch back to Safari. The device can sense which app the media is coming from and you can pause it without having to access the app.), and allows you to switch between apps so quickly.
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#5  Edited By Ben_H
@mordukai said:

@Demoskinos said:

I'm Windows 7 because yeah.. I hate android. I'd go iOS but then I've gotta deal with iTunes for PC and fuck that because its horrible.

What's so horrible about it? I've been using on windows and it seems to be working the same way as on my macs.

You don't even need iTunes on a computer with iOS 5 and on. My iPad hasn't been connected to a single computer. You just log into your iTunes account from the device and you are set. I guess the issue comes if you want to put music on your device, which I don't with my iPad. 
 
My phone is Android, my next phone probably will be as well, but I must say I will never buy a non-Nexus device again. Android's such a mess right now. All of the manufacturer skins, UIs, and whatnot seem to break the phones over time and it just seems to be getting worse. Luckily, my carrier sells the pure stock Galaxy Nexus with no carrier apps unlike some US GN sellers seem to add to the phone.  However, if they aren't selling the Galaxy Nexus when I upgrade in a couple months I'm going to iOS or maybe WP7 (I really dig the Lumia 900). I'm not getting a Galaxy S 3, I've had enough of Samsung screwing up their phones with terrible UIs. 
 
And for people saying it's only low end Android that's awful, I have a Galaxy S, which was top of the line when I got it in 2010, and it is absolutely terrible two years in (In Canada we have 3 year contracts still, which a travesty in itself). It overheats, runs like a snail, and has a battery life of 8 hours unless everything is disabled (I have an app automated to do that for me now).  Android just moves too fast for the devices, and that combined with manufacturers screwing up the few updates they give with buggy UI changes and skins, it is killing the platform.  My phone can easily run Android 4.0 (there are functioning versions available) but Samsung insists it can't so I won't be getting anymore updates for it, and haven't since last summer.  Manufacturers do not support their phones for the normal contract length, and this is a huge problem.  Google needs to start forcing manufacturers to update or if they won't, allow users to have stock Android so they can keep it updated. It is unacceptable that Android does not have these standards when their competition has offered such smooth, unified updates across their devices.
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#6  Edited By Ben_H

Them, Atlus and Valve know how to treat customers right. I have multiple soundtracks from Atlus games.  I've also started buying stuff from GOG, which really likes giving away soundtracks, desktop backgrounds, and tons of other stuff with games, even Fallout, which I got for free. 
 
Edit: Also, GOG's installer plays really nicely with WINE programs on Mac. I literally just installed Fallout in 2 clicks. Props to them for actually caring.

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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

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Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#7  Edited By Ben_H
I will be buying a Wii U now. The Pikmin franchise is one of my all-time favourites.  There's something so satisfying about the Pikmin games that just isn't replicated in many other games.  There are 3 franchises that I would buy a platform for, Forza, Pikmin, and Viva Pinata.
 
I wonder if they still have the Duracell license? 
 
I always got attached to my purple and white Pikmin in Pikmin 2 because they were always so hard to find.
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

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31

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Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#8  Edited By Ben_H

If you can find it cheap used, either Viva Pinata or Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. I'm currently searching for the second game myself right now. The first one is amazing, and actually crazy stressful times. 
 
Also, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. MAXIMUM JET ENGINES GO

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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#9  Edited By Ben_H
I've been listening to a mixture of prog metal, avantgarde metal, early-mid 90s Trance (when they had sick acid lines and wasn't just created on a computer, it was almost all analog and it was AMAZING), 50s/60s Jazz and RnB, late 80s/early 90s hip hop and an artist that's called Solvent that I'm unsure what genre he counts as, he incorporates lots of analog instruments and creates this really cool electronic music that can fit a bunch of genres. I'll post some at the end.
 
More specifically I guess:  
- Symphony X (that Michael Romeo is a pretty good guitar player)
- Arcturus (Primarily their early Black Metal stuff like the album Aspera Heims Symfonia. You know, where they record vocals and play them backwards at varying speeds and whatnot. I really like the Sham Mirrors too, fun album.) 
- Caucasuss (Check out "Our Dream", one of my all-time favourite trance tunes)  
- De Tune (Check out "Acid Dream", a sick Acid Trance song from '94) 
- good ol' Dave Brubeck (If you haven't heard "Take Five" you are a bad person, he has so many good songs) 
- Fats Domino (I love his rendition of "Jambalaya" and of course, "The Fat Man") 
- Cannonball Adderley (I used to play saxophone so I love listening to really good sax players. I need to buy a saxophone and play again. I was actually half decent at it) 
- Eric B and Rakim (80s stuff is so much fun to listen to) 
- Compton's Most Wanted (because why not. Specifically the song "Compton 4 Life") 
- Wu Tang's "36 Chambers" because that album is classic 
 
And here's Solvent. This is probably one of my favourite songs of his because it's just so odd but so uplifting at the same time. A lot of his songs have this neat feeling, that when combined with all the analog synths make it really cool.  Also, I need finals over so I can play more synth, I miss it so much.
  
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Ben_H

4852

Forum Posts

1628

Wiki Points

31

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

#10  Edited By Ben_H

My ever-growing 80s/90s rap playlist on Rdio keeps playing The Notorious B.I.G when set to shuffle when I want to listen to Eric B. and Rakim or Brand Nubian. I might have to switch to two playlists instead. :(