Live Forever or Die Trying

G’day, I’m back with a new video!!

This one is a bit weird, and will sort of explain why I am not doing as many videos as I used to. Basically I am going to talk about something I find very interesting and that is the continuing growth of retro gaming, specifically adventure gaming.

This video is going to be like my retrospective video on the arcade era, as in in some ways it is just a video blog. Still I think there is some cool stuff in here and I feel the “article” came out pretty well. I am keen to hear your thoughts on this, as this is less a review and more a editorial or article you might get with a magazine.

Anyway, I’ll also be talking about retro gaming on modern hardware, like smart phones and pads. Demonstrating on my phone and pad the ScummVM and DosBox ports as well as even awesome Z-Machine emulator that is a shockingly fantastic way to play text adventures.

I’ll be showing off point and click adventures like Full Throttle, Discworld and Quest for Glory 4, as well as showing surprisingly great ports of text input adventures like Quest for Glory 2, Zork, Leather Bound Goddesses of Phobos and PlanetFall.

So I hope you like this vid and more “normal” stuff is planned and on the way. I would just like to take a sec to say thanks for all the comments on my vids and chan and all your support. I really appreciate it and hope to get more content to you guys as soon as I can.

Remember, Save often and Save Early
Happy Adventuring
–A4L

Hi there!!

No… .. . I am not DEAD, No… .. . I have not abandoned this hobby, I am just very busy with work and family and haven’t had to time devote to this channel. I know this is something you have heard all before, but there it is.. this is a hobby, not a job.. new vids will come as I get around to it. I do have some plans for some big reviews, and they will be coming soon!!

To wet your appetite I have done a real quick tutorial to add to the others on my channel. This time I am covering how to install steam games at any location on your computer you wish. As any steam user will know steam forces you to install your games in a certain location. You may fill up your C Drive and not have room to install any new steam games, even though you have gigs of space on a different drive.

Well this tutorial will show you how you can install / move your steam games anywhere on your computer, so you are not restricted to installing them in the default location.

I hope you like this quick little video, and please be patient, I’ll be bringing you some new “real” content real soon!!

Happy Adventuring
–A4L

mklink /D “(Steam Directory)\steamapps\common\(Original Game Dir Name Created by Steam)” “(New Location)\(Game Dir Name of your Choice)”

I get a lot of emails on my Adventure Review channel asking me how I make my videos.. So I thought I would make a tutorial on how to use FRAPS. I do not cover any “editing” of videos, but I do go into all aspects of FRAPS recording, form recording itself, to encoding, to sound mixing. This is mainly aimed at people making gameplay videos rather than full edited “movies” yet I feel it answered all the questions I have received in the emails.

Hope you like it..

Part 1
This tutorial covers the basics of using FRAPS to record gamevideos. It also goes though the setup for allowing the recording of in game audio, or no game audio but record microphone input for live commentary, and how to set up the system for recording of in game audio and your microphone at the same time for live commentary.

Part 2
This tutorial will go into how to use AviDmux to encode your large FRAPS recordings into manageable and uploadable high quality lossless video files. It covers, Stitching multiple FRAPS recordings together, encoding options for uploading to YouTube and the use of AviDmux for resizing and colour grading and other filters.

Part 3
This tutorial continues with some recording options as well as begins to talk about Audio Mixing. It covers splitting a large file into 10 minute sections ready for upload to YouTube. The use of AviDmux’s batch system for quing multiple video encoding jobs so you can go to sleep while your computer encodes, demonstrating the contrast filter as well as starting to explain a slightly different encoding options needed to make sound mixing more efficient.

Part 4
This video is the final video in my tutorial series. It talks about how to mix CD Quality audio tracks or commentary recorded after the fact directly into your video so you hear it and the original game audio. This covers the use of AviDmux’s copy function to transfer video or audio data in and out of files in a lossles way that requires no encoding, How to use FooBar2000 to rip audio CDs into wav files. How to use Audacity to record game commentary after the fact. load game audio and a CD track, or commentary and then mix them so both are clear and audible. Also I quickly over view some effects in audacity like fad in and out to give your audio a nicer feeling and remove harsh “cut offs” in the audio. Finally I show you how to use AviDmux to inject the new mixed audio into your encoded files with out the need to re-encode your video data. This is my last tutorial.. probably ever.. I think it was a bit of a failed experiment.. it ended up being nearly 40 mins long!! Anyway.. back to reviews .. expect an update soon.

Thought I would try something a little different this time. Instead of a review, I am giving a kind of personal account, and my own private musings on a era of computer games that was all about the Arcade. I think anyone that grew up with arcades in the 70-80s has a special place in there heart for at least a few arcade titles. For the arcade game is in many ways a lots art form, no longer developed. The game play mechanics utilized in arcade games responsible for producing some of the most fun and addictive games on the planet are simply abandoned now to the mists of nostalgic historical curiosity. Now the old arcade games stand unique among retro game titles, as simply playing them will never give you an understanding of how these games stood in context to those of us that lived, at the arcade.

This video came about as I am really busy at the moment, and whenever I’m busy I end up playing lots of mame. These recordings are of my playthough of Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (world). I used the xtra lives DIP switch as well. (4 instead of  2 extra lives. Also I am not super hardcore and had to resort to using save states on level 4).

Ghouls ‘n Ghosts is one of my fav classic arcade games and I hope you like this video.

I’ll get back to adventures for the next one I promise.

YouTube Direct Link MP4 – download
YouTube Direct Link 720p MP4 – download

Well it has been a while but I think the longer breaks between videos gives me the stamina to really try and do a more detailed video with better editing. The last few turned out a lot worse than they should have, as i was just sick of doing it….. So having a break is rejuvenating.

Also you may note this particular game is NOT an adventure game… heh heh.. hey it is my channel so there!! Seriously though, WC, WC2 and WC3 are all land mark games in computer gaming history that have left their footprints on all games that have ever come after them. While I still intend to focus in adventure games (my fav type of game) it would be criminal of me to talk about the FMV adventure games with out mentioning WC franchise. Then after i tracked it down and started playing it.. I just feel in love with it again and simple couldn’t stop. I have always thought that adventure games stand the test of time as they are purly story driven and stories never die, but WC1 and 2 have shown me that action orientated games can have a retro appeal long after there game engines have been immeasurably improved. I suppose it dose help that wc1-3 has such an epic and awesome story.

Well I hope you like it and I will be back soon with my next review (I tend to do them in 2′s) and this one will be a classic adventure game again…

So catch ya then

YouTube Direct Link MP4 (32meg) – download
YouTube Direct Link HD MP4 (152meg) – download

Well this time I thought I would try something a bit different to the normal reviews. I have always planned to address other areas of the adventure game scene and as my YouTube Chan gets a LOT of emails asking how I play these old games in windows vista or win7.. I thought I would do a video talking about scumVM, DosBox and Virtual PC.

Now most you you guys will prob not be into this one I guess as, well you probably all know about DosBox and scumVM and stuff… but you may be interested in it anyways.

This video discusses scumVM + Usage, DosBox + Usage and how to create ISO files from your original disks to use as virtual DVDs in your emulation

YouTube Direct Link MP4 (32meg) – download
YouTube Direct Link HD MP4 (152meg) – download

Part 2 covers virtualization and uses Virtual PC as a example.

YouTube Direct Link MP4 (13meg) – download
YouTube Direct Link HD MP4 (75meg) – download