I think I need a computer upgrade

Tried making a movie on GTA IV today, when I was rendering a clip the floor kept on disappearing. Plus it doesn't let me use a resolution higher than 800x600, that just might be another glaring sign.


A guide to BFD/Possibly BND Media for students

The reason why I wrote possibly BND media is because I'm still actually doing the course and of course, things may vary. I managed to get a distinction* whilst on the BFD course which is the highest possible grade you can get, so I'm hoping these tips will help any future BFD/BND students and just to make it easy, I'll do it in handy dandy bullet point form with unnecessary bolding where necessary. Wait, what? 

  • You know those boring things like release forms, actor contracts, recces and risk assessment forms? Do them. I cannot emphasise enough how much these forms boost your grade.
  • When writing essays, don't waffle. Make a point, explain that point, move on. If possible, provide examples.
  • Expect to do work for other people. Yes, people are lazy. More often that not if you are aiming for a distinction, be prepared to fill out paperwork that is designed for more than one person, is it hard work? Yes, will it be worth it? Yes.
  • Be confident. This is extremely difficult, but when making a presentation being a stuttering mess will drag your grade down, practice what you are going to say in private and keep practising it. 
  • Do assignments as early as possible, if anything this is the most important tip. Once you get one assignment you will probably get at least 2 more in the same week and if you keep putting them back you will end up rushing everything and your grades will suffer. It is absolutely horrible to be working when everyone else is lazing around, but 2 weeks later when you can sit back and relax and everyone else is running around like headless chickens you will feel incredibly proud of yourself.
  • Take initiative. This goes for everything in life really, but it seems like you have nothing to do you are fooling yourself, there is always something to do. Seek that work out and complete it to a good standard. 
  • Research is terrible right? Unfortunately it is the most important work you will ever do and will be the majority of your overall grade. Get used to it, learn to love Google and only use reputable websites.
  • Learn how to set cameras up properly, tripod, white balance and all that other funky stuff, you will need it! 
  • Use an external microphone when filming, the internal microphones on cameras are generally awful.
  • Normalize normalize normalize. Normalize the volume! Nothing is more annoying than thinking everything is perfect until you introduce another sound which is 3x the volume than the rest of your work ruining your radio show.
  • Read the assignments sheets whilst you are doing your work, this will stop you from going onto different subjects that won't get you any marks.
I will probably think of some more at some other point, I'm sure this won't be relevant to 99% of people that read this but hey, I hope it helps someone.

Wow, things is changed 'round here!

Lots of little additions around here have made the place look all swanky and fresh whilst I've been busy in the past few months! (Apparently playing Call of Duty and Torchlight if you look at my steam achievements) I'll make a few comments about what I've been playing recently.  
Modern Warfare 2 - You frustrate me like crazy with your bad map design, unbalanced guns, latency issues and overall horrible community yet I still come back time and time again. Why do I subject myself to this torture? I have no idea! 
Torchlight - I don't play this very often, but it has a charm that keeps drawing me back. I'm not a very high level and I'm pretty much hardly anywhere in terms of the storyline but there is something about it that I absolutely love, maybe it's the old Diablo fan in me waiting to burst out in an explosion of gore and guts?  
Dragon Age: Origins - I haven't even completed this game yet, it is that big. That and getting 3/4 through the story with one character and then deciding to scrap him and make a new one certainly doesn't help, but the decisions I made on the first character in terms of character development were absolutely terrible and left me with a character that was ultimately a bore to play so it was needed. But then again I have made many mistakes on this new character too, I accidentally left Sten to uhh, meet his fate and Liliana... Well, she doesn't like me that much any more, this has resulted in my party being incredibly bare. Oops.  
Grand Theft Auto IV - I'll just say my computer cannot run this, at all. It looks disgusting.  
Now I'll talk about life, in the rare case that anyone is actually interested in that! I'm on the second course after doing well on the first course and so far it is going well, even if I am sort of behind on assignments due to a couple of personal issues! But I'll catch up eventually. I'm with an amazing person that I absolutely do not deserve, I have no idea how it happened but I'm pretty damn happy I can tell you that. Apart from that, not much has changed! 
Music wise, I've been listening to Genesis an awful lot for some reason. I'll put up some reviews of random things sooner or later. Now that this uninteresting blog post is out of the way I hope to put some more interesting ones later about things I've been working on. Oh, I'll probably be whining about the absolute trash that goes on Facebook, it... No words can explain. That reminds me, I want Mass Effect 2! Why am I so broke?! 


Small random album reviews.

 Note - These reviews aren't very serious and are just a little overview of what the album is. Nothing to be taken in a serious manner. Serious. Serious.


My Dying Bride - The Angel and the Dark River (1995) - Distant, atmospheric metal with a focus on lengthy tracks and mournful sounding lyrics. This is an amazing album, fantastic rhythms on the drums, emotive guitar playing and consistent bass come together to make a very bleak album. Every single songs seems to scream out in pain, yet without being over dramatic.

Recommended tracks - Black Voyage, A Sea to Suffer In

Rating - ■■■■■

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985) - An artist I feel quite embarrassed listening to, but don’t really care because it’s damn fine music. The earlier albums were pretty bad, but this is where you can see that she has definitely grown up. Production on this album is pretty top notch, details floating in the background that boost the entire album onto the next level. Plus, I’m basing my best music video of all time on the video ‘Cloudbusting’ so that has to count for something, right? (College assignment for you Giant Bomb fellows)

Recommended tracks - Running up That Hill, Hounds of Love, Cloudbusting, Jig of Life.

Rating - ■■■■■

Gentle Giant - Free Hand (1975) - Hm, I’m torn on this one. One of my old favourite experimental progressive rock bands on their rockiest album yet, filled with strange instruments and instrumental passages. Yet the production on my copy is absolute pap, everything sounds muffled and terrible, I’m not sure if it’s just my copy or what because their previous album ‘The Power and Glory’ sounds fine. Nontheless, it’s fine music, a bit pompous but aren’t we all? 

 EDIT - It was my copy, it didn't rip properly for some reason. To 5 cube type star things with you!

Recommended tracks - Just the Same, On Reflection, Free Hand, Time to Kill, Mobile.

Rating - ■■■■


I'm gonna pick me up a PS2, need suggestions!

I had a PS2 when it was first released, but the only game I had was Burnout and I didn't have any money to buy any more games so, stupidly, I sold it. But hey, that was years ago and I was an idiot. (Still am, but hey ho) so I've been watching the Persona Endurance Run and it's got me thinking that I should really pick one up and play all of the games I missed. I need suggestions from every genre because I've missed a whoooole lot of games. 
Games like Persona would be a plus though, I normally don't like stuff like that but for some reason I really want to give those types of games a try seeing as everything I've been playing has been FPS FPS FPS FPS FPS FPS for quite a long time and I feel like a change. So yeah, fire away!



Been a quiet 2 weeks or so, no new games. Just been playing Battlefield Heroes and Jedi Academy, that's it really. No new music either so everything has pretty much come to a stand still, just waiting on college so I can get my creative juices flowing again! I actually feel terrible not having anything to work on, I thought 2 months off with nothing to do would be great but it seems that I actually need something creative in order to make me happy. Pretty odd I think!  I've been trying to think of something else to do, but so far my mind is at a blank, it seems everything I would like to do requires money which I don't have.  
Hmm, oh well. Night night Bomb!


It's been a while Giant Bomb!

Man, some crazy stuff has happened in the past couple of months. Noteworthy stuff; Finished my college course with the highest grade possible, split up with girlfriend a couple months back, quit WoW and uhh... That's it really! I haven't been up to much apart from that which is a bit of a shame, but recently I've been playing some awesome games that I missed all those years ago, namely Deus Ex and Neverwinter Nights. I'm not very far in either so far but big things shall happen! The AI shall learn to fear my Elven Monk and his flying fists of fury which miss 2/4 of the time.

I'm not sure why I haven't been on the website, suppose I just got caught up in work at college. It's all paid off, but the next course starts soon and that'll be two years of fantastically fun college work, of course now I have a year of experience I should have quite an easy time with the course if I just keep everything organized! 

Anyone got any tips on some new games to play? I swear I haven't seen anything worthwhile for the past couple of months except for Fight Night Round 4 which I don't even have anymore. Seems like everything is coming out later this year. The game I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to play is Star Wars: The Old Republic. I am pretty much going to be in-doors 24/7 when that game comes out and Bioware the master of teasing has already got me hyped up like a 10 year old kid before Christmas. 

The last blog I did on Street Fighter was a bit of a mistake, heh. I just sucked at the game. 

Street Fighter IV has become exactly like I thought it would.

Ignore this post!

Online play has become full of people who only play the most popular characters (Ken, Sagat, etc) using the same crappy combos over and over again, mixed in with people who can't seem to afford a connection that's better than 56k make it not even worth playing anymore. I knew this would happen eventually but I never expected it to happen THIS fast. Oh well, I'm putting it up for sale this week.