Sony Vegas vs Adobe Premier. A Short Comparison

I have always been an avid user of Adobe Premier. It was part of my Games Design degree and never really thought about using any other editing software. Well now that I am no longer a student, my Student version just doesn't cut it anymore. So I looked into other, more affordable software. A friend recommended me Sony Vegas, so I purchased a copy an here are some thoughts about it.

First off, I could buy it straight out. Adobe are really pushing the monthly plans, its a subscription service where you pay a small amount every month to gain access to a remote version of Premier and some cloud space. Personally, this doesn't do it for  me. I much prefer buying something straight out. Vegas cost 599, once off and done. Much more to my style.

Second, it is surprisingly easy to use. When I first started editing it was like looking into an engine of some strange machine. Vegas is very similar to Premier, the interface and even name of tools are very familiar to anyone coming over from Editing on other platforms. It is very intuitive, everything is laid out beautifully, and editing is a dream. 

I will say that Premier is better for certain things. It handles the rendering better and has a superior audio suite. But from purely editing of video, I find Vegas to be superior.  could go on for hours about the precise difference between the two softwares, but I don't have the time to currently type at the moment.

To summarize, Vegas is a great bit of Editing software at a more affordable price than Premier. Although it does have some drawbacks (rendering time and audio) I would highly recommend it.

Here is  a Clip I made in Vegas. Check it out.

Thoughts On Zekes Harbinger

Let me start by talking about Zekes Herald,. As a support player in League of Legends, Zekes Hearld was an item that was bought maybe 1 out of 100 games. The reason for this was because it was very situational. When the team was extremely AD heavy and most relied on Lifesteal, yeah it was awesome, it granted 20 AD and 10% Lifesteal. But it had a very low pick rate.

Now it has been replaced by a new item, Zekes Harbinger. This item binds together you and an ally, to generate 100 "stacks" that last for 8 seconds and granting damage will activate the stacks for 6 seconds, granting either 20% Ability power or 50% crit for both parties. Its a bit confusing, but hey, its a new item.

This next part is a bit wordy, but I feel this item will be picked almost every game. Purely for the 20% AP scaling. Crit is great for your AD carry, but giving your mage 20% extra AP for 6 seconds is huge.

Time for some Maths!.

Imagine this. The enemy team has a Ryze, lets say he has 6 items (Rod of Ages, Seraphs, Deathcap, Void Staff, Rylais and Sorc Boots) he will have approx 750 AP depending on runes and masteries. Now add an extra 20% on to that(150). Suddenly a 900 AP Ryze is barreling into your team for 6 seconds  As it is, Ryze can 100 to 0 a tank in 4 secs. With this I believe that he will be unstoppable.

Now apply this to most Mages, Veigar has 1200 AP?, cool lets add another 20% to that. I know Riot has done a lot lately to make Mages stronger, I love it, but I feel this will be a bit to oppressive. Especially for squishy targets such as the ADC.

I believe this item has a massive amount of potential, but have fun with it while it lasts, it will definitely get hit with the nerf bat in patch 5.15.

Patch notes can be found here, Check them out and let me know what you think about the new changes.

FNATIC, Chasing The Perfect Season

A perfect season, it has never been done in the League Championship Series. The closest anyone has ever come was Cloud 9 two years ago in the North American LCS, they went 13-0. But no one has come close since. Until now.

Fnatic are on fire this season. Dominating the first half of the season they have already secured a place in playoffs. But another prize is the teams mind, something that has never been done before, the perfect season, 18-0.

After beating H2K in a clutch comeback on Thursday, they managed to tie up the record, currently standing at 13-0. Only one obstacle stands in their way, Origen Esports.

Origen joined the LCS after dominating the Challenger Series in Spring.They quickly rose to the top tiers of the professional scene. Their roster consists of to former members from the Fnatic team , Soaz and Xpeke, so you can expect some major competition from this match up.

One thing is going to be certain. This game is going to be one of the best games we will see outside the play offs this season

Fnatic: Europes Only Hope?

Lets face it, Europe as a region has been lacking severely over the past few years on the Word Stage. Our three top teams from last year, Alliance, SK Gaming and the old roster Fnatic, did not even make it into the top ten at Worlds last year. Even the showing at IEM Katowice 2015, not a single European team made it out of the group stages. Is there any hope for Europe? The answer is yes, and its the new and improved Fnatic.

After the embarrassing show at Worlds last year, Fnatic essentially disbanded. All the old guard that have been there for multiple seasons left. Only YellowStar remained. He was tasked with rebuilding the team. What a monumental task this must have been, trying to rebuild a European powerhouse such as Fnatic. But he did a fantastic job in a short period of time. Bringing in two South Korean stars, Huni and Reignover, a Dutch mid-lane in Febiven and recently reintegrating the Swedish Ad carry Rekkles back into the squad, he created a team with unlimited potential.

And this new team has become a force to be reckoned with. Winning the Spring split in the EU LCS they went to the Mid Season Invitational on a high. Fnatic placed in the 3rd-4th position, the highest international position a European team has placed internationally in 2 years. They even gave SKT a run for their money in the semi-finals, which is no easy task. And all this after just a few months of playing together!

Now with a little bit more time playing together, Fnatic are truly coming into their stride. Setting a 14-0 record in the LCS this weekend securing their place the strongest team in Europe. They are showing that they are extremely well coordinated, showing no sign of slowing down.

Now something is happening that has not happened since season 2, Europe has a hope. A shining team that looks unstoppable. A team that Europe can send to Worlds with hope of winning. Will this year be the year that Europe takes back the World title? Only time will tell, but the signs are looking good.

PvP vs PvE in Destiny

Recently I have been playing quite a bit of Destiny. Whether it is playing in the Crucible or doing Raids/Strikes, or even Prison of Elders. But my mind set has really started to shift. 

 Initially I really loved the PvP (Player versus Player) side of the game, it is super competitive and games can be really challenging (and infuriating). There is so many cool things, little out plays or pulling off an incredible Super that made PvP so good. But now it kinda feels a little bit, well, meh. 

Don't get me wrong, it is still fun but it just doesn't have that little bit of magic that it once had. Even when playing the Trials of Osiris, the new 3 v 3 competitive mode, it gets a bit dull after a while. Its hard to point out what it is, but it is missing something. 

But there is something about PvE (Player versus environment) that really has gotten better. It feels more about having fun and less serious. 

Recently I did a play-through of the Vault of Glass raid. Gathered a team from /r/fireteams on Reddit and off we went. 6 completely random strangers just playing a game. We hoped on voice coms and it was some of the most fun that I have ever had in Destiny. We chatted, we laughed, we swore at Atheon as he handed us our ass for the 4th time. We just had fun. 

It is this sense of community that feels so much stronger in the PvE environment and I have to say, massive credit to Bungie for nailing this on the head. 

What Ever Happened To Video Games Based Off Movies??

Remember the good old days?, the days when we could have solid video games based off movies. Now I don't mean the kinda things like Cars the Game or Lego adaptations (which are fun). I mean high production games that would work to expand the universe that you spent two hours watching in the cinema.

There are two types of these games that fall into that category in my opinion. Games that are the movie only in video game form, playing through the movie only with extra action and levels based off different scenes. And games that are interactions with the movies, playing a scenario that isn't shown in the movie.

When I think of the first type, the one that really comes to mind when talking about these kinda games is Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers back on PS2. Now that was a game and a half. Not only did it manage to tie together the Fellowship and The Two Towers, it managed to do so in a massively entertaining way. In an article I read  that in that game all the actors from the movie chose to come in and spend time with the developers, either recording extra voice work or doing MoCap. The results were that you got a game that was almost the movies from a different perspective.

Now there has been a few attempts by the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) over the past few years, Captain America: Super Soldier for example. It is a solid example of how the second type of game I mentioned earlier can work well. Instead of basically playing the movie form a different angle, it took place during the montage in the middle of the film (the one where Cap and the Howling Commandos take out the Hydra factories). It was such a cleverly done interaction, it explained a part of the movie that was kind of glossed over, it enhanced the over all movie experience.

But with the exception of Cap, there has not really been any high production games based off movies. I think is a shame that there isn't more of these good games, could you imagine playing a Jurassic World based survival horror?, opportunity missed.

What is your opinion?, Have I been living under a rock and missed some great games or is it a trend thats more common?. Let me know in the comments section below.

Why Video Game Movies Are Going To Be The Next Big Thing.

This topic is something that came up yesterday while browsing Imgur. There was a post about John Wick (the movie), one of the comments that caught my eye, it was a comment about why cant video game movies be like this. And this got me thinking, well why not?

It is a solid action movie that makes sense (from an action stand point) The main character actually takes damage, slows down when he does so, reloads often and pulls off quite a few head-shots. Basically what most gamers would do if they were playing the "scenario". Probably the reason all my friends loved the action sequences so much.

Now there has been a few movie adaptations from the past decade or so, Resident Evil being one of the most popular. The story was far to heavily action based, didn't make sense and was basically "arrgh zombies", and they made 5 movies, with a 6th in the making, out of this. Made quite a bit of money but deviated from the source material heavily, which is where they go wrong. A perfect balance of action and story is what is needed in these adaptions.

And that is where games come in. They have a really epic stories as well as action, Red Dead Redemption and BioShock for example. The ending and twists in those two games had me reeling and are truly unforgettable. And the thing is, they would transfer phenomenally to movies. Imagine watching a spaghetti western with John Marston as the character as he battles to get his family back. Or a survival horror based in the depths of Rapture. Personally, I would pay to see those films before watching another Marvel/DC film.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the comic book movies, Avengers is one of my favorite films of the past decade. But they are going to get repetitive after we see Thor and Cap beat the bad guys for the 8th time. But even with the massive amount of super hero movie on the way, they are going to run out eventually.

When the comic universe is mined out and Michael Bay has run out of things to explode from our childhood I think games are going to be the next logical big cash pot that Hollywood will dip into to supplement their lack of original ideas.

What is your opinion?, will we be seeing Super hero movies for the next decade or will video game adaptations creep up there?