.hack//G.U. Vol.1 - Opening

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast of Mass Effect 2 to bring you a message from Za Warudo. A wild Let's Play of .hack//G.U. Vol.1 has appeared, marked by the opening video. I plan to get back to my original plans eventually (but hey, you never know), but something came up unexpectedly that grabbed my attention. I now have equipment that makes it much, much easier for me to do console game recordings (namely a TV right next to my PC, so I don't have to deal with that infuriatingly tiny and laggy preview window anymore). And I specifically picked up .hack//G.U. mostly because my cousin just started playing it for the first time. It was likely going to be either this or Xenogears, and talking about this in advance got me into much more of a mood for playing this. Besides, Xenogears is far too depressing for me to be in the mood for it right now. So, it's time to get started on another game I haven't played in years. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for console games I can upload, but this is the highest quality my current hardware can put out, so I'll still be staying away from the HD consoles. Unless I can get my hands on a fancy new capture card.... Now, just let me explain quickly, this is a slight upscale. Sure the PS2 native resolution is 480i, but that is with black borders all around the image, which I obviously cropped off. What this means is that, had I not upscaled it back to 480p, YouTube would've DOWNSCALED it to 320p. See, it doesn't matter if you're just 2 pixels short of one of their nice, well-rounded preset resolutions, YouTube will always round DOWN for the highest available resolution. And I'd much rather have it upscaled than downscaled. After all, upscaling doesn't affect the quality at all (as long as it's done right), only increases the file size and CPU usage, but downscaling destroys the image quality. Now, for my loyal subscribers, know that this is why, even though Fate is higher resolution than Tsukihime, the quality is actually worse. Tsukihime's native resolution is 480p, but Fate's is 600p. 600 is exactly halfway between 480 and 720, but of course, YouTube downscales it, which distorts and blurs everything. By the way, 600p happens to be an extremely common native resolution for PC games from that time period and for a while before it.... Note that, whenever the new Realta Nua patch is released, I will likely upload the new stuff upscaled to 720p so they can actually be viewed at full [and completely readable] quality for your viewing pleasure. It would be nice if YouTube would give an option to display videos in their original resolution if they don't fall under one of their nice, hand-picked presets and is still less than their maximum of 1080p, but hey, that would make way too much sense. By the way, my Mass Effect 2 videos were actually recorded in 900p (because that's my monitor resolution--my video card is capable of much more but that's my monitor's max), which, similar to with the 600p, is exactly halfway between 720 and 1080, but I downscaled them myself to 720p in order to save on file size, since YouTube was going to downscale to that anyway. The reason I did the opposite then as I am now, as recent as it is, is that most people can't even tell the difference between 720p and 1080p by eye anyway (many say they can, but it's all psychological really...). Heck, of all the people I know offline (that I've had an opportunity to check this with), other than myself (by the way, I can already tell the difference just between 720 and 900.. but I have very sharp eyes), not one of them could actually tell the difference at all (heck, my dad can't even tell the difference between 720 and 480...). In fact, of all the people I know offline, I am the only one who even has an HD monitor on his PC.... Note that the first 5 actual gameplay videos will be lower quality than everything else to follow, so please pay the lapse in picture quality no mind. I had a few bugs I had to work out. This video and the Terminal Disc videos are already at full quality, because I actually recorded them after, despite the upload order. SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/xerblade?sub_confirmation=1 TWITCH: https://twitch.tv/xerblade WEBSITE: https://www.xerblade.com TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/xerblade FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/xerblade I post Let's Plays regularly after streaming on Twitch, so be sure to subscribe here and follow there to keep up with what I'm playing next. I usually play indies or lesser known games from smaller developers, but you never know what I might pick.