Embracer group was never a game publisher/dev, they were an acquisition of game pub/dev, and really never had an interest in games themselves. They were just buying up IPs, inflating their stocks, to eventually do this.
But, sadly a lot of developers have suffered and we have seen a lot of IPs sit collecting dust.
I hope they stay out of the business, but wish all of the employees at these new companies the best. Hopefully they can get back to making games.
If you get hot ears, or uncomfortable bands. Do not discard them. You can now replace and remove most quality headphone earmuffs and headbands, and replace them with something better or better suited. They sale everything from natural fibers, to bamboo filling, to sheepskin leather, to many different foams. With steel spring bands to plastics, and coverings galore.
There is some headphone coverings that can slip over existing headphone earpads. And tons of videos to help.
@joecollin: That is true in regards to everyone's ears get used to what they think, should sound the best.
My family works with music recordings and have home studios. Once your ears are trained to what correct sounds and audio is.. or can be, you will never go back. One of the first things they teach you is how to listen to music. First you hear a small band or set, throw out some warm up music live, then listen to it back in earphones. Sadly most audio headphones are blown out with reverberating bass that drowns everything out, and the lack of highs with a set of dedicated tweeters means people are often hearing a very narrow spectrum of music. Like audiovox sound out of a mazda pickup in the 80s.
With a dedicated tweeters, mids, and subwoofer with warm lows you start to pick up sounds or notice the missing sounds from a live performance. People are often surprised to hear a live performance with drums, because they are so used to a narrow field of sounds. Like a monospeaker AM radio.. Sometimes when you expose someone to a 5.1 surround, or quality headset they say it feels lacking in bass, until they actually hear bass that is not just low end, but also warm, like real life. Soon they can even start to point out, the missing sounds from a live performance, like cymbals in a drum set.
high quality studio headphones or planar magnetic drivers, headphones are getting cheaper and cheaper. They are wildly better and better priced. With some great cans below $300. I would tell people that there is a fitting in period. Time for your ears to get used to quality sound. And games nowadays are not midi or even compressed audio, but incredible quality sounds tracks thanks to larger storage and more powerful hardware. Take new AAA games, that unapologetically throw in concert quality sound, and huge ranges of sound effects. From water dripping on floors, to a bombs concussion felt from distances away.
I personally am not a fan of steelseries, but they do use some of the best tech and materials. They also tend to purposefully curve their sounds down heavy to the floor, losing brights- both top and mid. Like this review here, https://www.soundguys.com/steelseries-arctis-7-2019-review-wireless-gaming-on-a-budget-24092/ I would go with seinheiser or sony studio cans with a discrete mic. With some good tuning apps, you can bring out a lot more range from headphones, if it allows. Slowly, audio is going from 'pump up the bass' to 'give us live performance sound'.
Well maybe this is not appropriate, but I am all for emulators for running games that consumers previously owned.
I took a 10" amazon tablet 1080p, new one with 4gb of ram, (21' model and 23' model about $100), and installed the PPSSPP psp emulator, along with PCSX2 emulator, and the Dolphin emulator. Along with some BR stretch controllers here https://a.co/d/cXr9uMR for 28$, sold out, but you can find others for around that price. And you have a very effective and good working handheld console/emulator machine for tons of games. It does require some effort and investigation to get this all up and running. You can also, use other tablets as well. They do need a relatively fast tablet processor, like an octa core processor, and ram 3-4 gbs. You have to install some third party software onto the tablets.
But again you have a much better performing solution then above, and at a lower price. With a nice big 1080p screen. I just do not do mobile gaming, and my coworkers son plays it way more then me. The only game I want to play is Final Fantasy Tactics, tactics ogre, and vandal hearts on mobile.
I mean, in a way... I would LOVE to see (Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and Lady of the Lake- especially) come to the screen in some way. While not perfect books, they have some great moments.
But, I could not get through the last half of the 3rd season, and have no desire to. Too much LOST, giving side characters way too much screen time, that have little to no importance, and frequently are just introduced to kill off a few episodes later. The entire, political scheming could be done in one half of an episode, and not 4. It just makes me want to play Witcher 2 and 3, again.
Unless season 4 gets reviewed incredibly well, I will not bother finishing s3. I am fine with diversity, women directors, and who plays Henry Cavils , Geralt, character. But these boring, non important side characters are just too painful to watch. A more episodic form that carries its over arcing story over a longer theme, was great for season one, and most of season two. There is so much great content out there, why waste your time.
I do not think Liam Hemsworth has the chops of Henry Cavils Geralt, but I do think that if they focus the show on the 3 main characters and what they are doing, it will make the series so much better. With the pandemic and Cavills injuries on set, it delayed productions too long. They filled it with side characters, and padding. Ruining the story telling. Maybe, with a refocus, it can pull it out for a decent swan song.
-Get em. They use a Sony type of planar magnetic driver, which sadly or gladly gives a bump in base, that some planar mag drivers do not have. But you do not need it. This crappy base in headsets is for kids. These buds still have studio driver sound, which is pretty awesome. Studio music fidelity will blow you away, and make you forget reverberating base, that budget headphones put out. Budget earbuds, and cans. The earbuds, gaming earbuds above are awesome for that price. They have a form of Logitech lightspeed latency, so they are great for fps, action, live service games.
Some years ago, my neighbor said I left a set of earbuds/case at their house. I said, no. He said take them anyway. I called him back a couple of days later and told him, "hey these are Samsung Galaxy tru wireless", like $200 earbuds. He said, keep em, if someone is looking for them, I'll send them your way. Well I will admit, the sound and memory foam earbuds were, every bit worth its asking price. It blew JBL, and Jellies out of the water, as I was always afraid I would lose earbuds. But now I cannot got back to budget earbuds, cheap drivers.
Now I sport, Logi G fits with lightspeed earbuds, and Sennheiser cans with my gaming setup. Or just use my edifier bookshelf speaker 2.1 with dedicated tweeters, mids, and base. It uses a hdmi pass through, along with adjustable levels and you use a microphone app to set the dens room sound. I find that the games I play have better sound, I can now hear it all, with better drivers in audio devices. It is like seeing colors in the game that were not there before.
$200 is a lot for just earbuds and sound, I understand. But truly, a great set of audio (devices) is as important as fps, or argb- it throws you in a game like magic. Especially a game like FF7Rb, Dragon Quest 11, and Baldur's Gate which have incredible soundtracks.
One of the problems with the pros versions last gen was the lack of developer support. Beyond some games implementing a % of better performance, there were really no games developer to the architecture to take advantage of all that power. Especially the xbox 8th gen. If you look up side by side performances on youtube, like the THE LAST OF US 2 - PS4 vs PS4 Pro Graphics Comparison & Frame Rate Test or Halo Infinite Campaign – Xbox One, One X & Xbox Series X performance comparison. There is a difference, is there enough of a difference that mass consumers would be willing to buy these new consoles, and more importantly is there a sales incentive for publishers to spend more money into actually taking advantage of the extra power, to really use it.
If we look at 8th gen that answer was NO. Beyond automated small % improvements, most developers really didn't improve anything enough to be worth the extra costs. It may be worth it for a very few, but the price to performance is poor.
Like most on here, I would like to see more high quality AAA 9th gen games. There is just too few publishers that can really pump out AAA games timely, in the gaming industry. This industry is bigger then movies, music, and possible tv combined, yet we have, maybe, a dozen publishers strong enough to pump out yearly quality games. Nothing like 4 th gen, 5th gen, 6, or even 7th gen. And we really need more players in the AAA games platform space. I would like to see 4 strong players. All competing as hard as they can.
These console refreshes will not push the gaming industry to give gaming consumers what they want, more games, better games.
The best part of the first movie was easily the father... damn he is a good actor and strong screen presence, as well as action fight scenes. No wonder he is such a big deal internationally. Also a lot of real action stunt work and fight scenes made it good. And Michelle Yeoh, also of course.
Well since we will not get back either, that is a shame.
Aquafina and his sister were a waste, both talented and with little to do beyond just reacting.
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Shang Chi has been around forever, and often had his own comic for a few runs when not grouped in a team. His best comics were violent and gritty parts of mob and assassin cities throughout Asian. There is plenty of good material to make more movies, but his best stuff would be R-rated, not that it is a must.
No more dragons and fantasy settings, have him do a serial killer detective thriller - where the serial killer is offing big time mob bosses and police detectives related to an old case of some kind. Keep the cgi as low as possible, having live stunts, along with some good car chases through hong kong or Taiwan. Make him really work for wins, with tough fights. Also have it with low stakes... no universe is ending, no world ending, just tons of Yakuza lieutenants, and a cyborg or two. Make the movie about the serial killer and the detective work. Jackie Chan's police story is still some of the best action movies in decades.
No kids in danger, no golden child, no sidekicks. Just straight action, almost john wick style, busting heads trying to get to this serial killer or antagonist/villain. Leave Aquafina out, and have Wong as comic relief or lightness as needed. Maybe even a buddy cop movie.
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