Malik
(6/29/12)
Yeah, I can finally have
a post somewhat game related. First off, however, I'm happy to say I
may have finally solved my Radeon 6970HD HDMI 2 channel and no
channel sound issues. When I had my Sony 7.1 receiver on the other
end of my HDMI cable, I would usually only get 2 channel audio, or
sometimes I'd get a perfect picture but no audio option ("this
device is not connected"). Well, I tried going with the Catalyst
Control Center (CCC) version 12.6 beta which was supposed to fix the
problems in 12.4 with HDMI. I also tried some new RealTek drivers,
including the HDMI module. Well, all of these together led to never
even getting 2 channel audio.
The solution?
Getting pissed off. I just uninstalled all CCC and RealTek drivers
and rebooted my PC. At this point, I had no audio even over my
normal green audio jack on my motherboard. After about 2 minutes,
Windows 7 jumped in and gave me generic drivers. I then put on CCC
12.3 (the version before the HDMI bug...and the lowest version that
runs 7900 series chips correctly). One more reboot of the PC and my
HDMI is looking very stable with 7.1 audio. I guess anger and rage
can be put to a good use when the time is right. My anger said to
kill everything (driver-wise) involved and start from scratch "to
teach them a lesson."
Ok...I mentioned
gaming would be in here. I guess it's not as much gaming as much as
seeing a company flop in some really lame ways. It's been four
months and Bioware finally released this week the Mass Effect 3
Extended Cut DLC. At a price of free, it's not bad. At a space size
of over 2GB, it's a bit insane in size. I guess this means a lot of
new content is in there. Wrong!
The extended stuff
adds mainly about five minutes of dialogue for the three main
endings. It also, supposedly, adds a few tweaked dialogue moments in
the attack on The Illusive Man's base. I didn't see any of that...I
just wanted to see the real ending. Well, the added stuff doesn't
really add anything, except for more disappointment after waiting
four months, losing all interest in this world, being dragged back
in, and then getting five minutes of dialogue to explain what
happened after the final events while showing some nearly still
images.
Wait, five minutes
of still images with some new dialogue (that doesn't play for the
entire five minutes; lots of long pauses) takes of 2GB! What the
hell? Does Bioware have that bad of a team for audio compression and
data compression? I mean you get less content per time unit than the
download takes to obtain.
I guess there are
two other new endings. Minor spoiler coming. Well, it's one new
ending, but you can jump into the final minute of it if you decide
to shoot the ghostly little kid before the dialogue
starts. I think that's a little nice since after beating the game, I
think everyone wanted to shoot the damned brat in the face to
retaliate for the failed ending.
Anyway, the
endings are not improved, and they just seemed like a bad way for
Bioware to once again drag players back to this disaster (PR
disaster) and once again look out of touch with what one would
expect from this game. I don't mean they expect a certain ending
(indoctrination would be cool to see), but they expected a good
ending that would really wrap up a three game epic that spanned well
over 100 hours.
Personally, I'm
feeling done with Bioware. I don't just mean because of one game
ending. I think their response to this was beyond pathetic. If they
left it as it originally stood, it would look less like they are
wavering on what their vision for ME is. I also have felt that
Bioware has been going downhill for quite some time. It's like I
feel with Sqaure Enix. As time has gone on, they have tried too hard
to cater to the casual fans and have steered away from the fans that
have loved them from the beginning. It started with Jade Empire
(that game was bad...lame setting, and one really pathetic combat
system when compared to the stated goals of a truly fluid and
complex combat mechanic). It then continued with the original Mass
Effect (good attempt, but broken game). Then they decided to make
Dragon Age 2 into some casual adventure of repeated environments
instead of a solid RPG epic like DA:O. Then came the Mass Effect 3
ending. Then came their response to it. Then came the execution of
their response. Bioware just doesn't seem to understand who they are
and who their fans are.
Anyway, if you
want to see how the red, blue, and green colors effected the
universe in a more expanded way (well, more expanded, but still
pretty shallow), youtube has them all. Just search for Mass Effect 3
Extended and you're set. I suggest adding "shoot" to see the
hologram brat get shot and enraged. At least that was a little
interesting. Also, try the new ending in which Shepherd rejects the
decision. It ends like the shooting of the brat, but has some nice
angry dialogue in it. I also think the rejection choice is fitting
since the fans rejected the original colorful lights and then got
the message that Shepherd gets when he rejects the choices; none of
it matters and the Bioware...I mean reapers will still continue to
take a crap on the Mass Effect universe.
Malik |