25. Opening our list of the Top 25 PS4 Platformers is Super Meat Boy This tough as nails platformer puts you in the life of a cube-sized creature trying to save his girlfriend, Bandage Girl.
A product of a once simple flash game, help him reclaim her girlfriend from 300 hazardous obstacles led by Dr. Fetus. Guide him as he escapes terrifying razor blades, brutal traps and epic bosses. Every level is increasingly difficult, making every encounter a nightmare for platformer amateurs. As for veterans, it’s a challenge worth taking. It’s gameplay requires careful timing, and patience. It was lauded for its slick controls, accurate platforming designs and fun replay value https://litemedia.info/. And not to mention a story so moving, it’d scar you for life. It has a PlayScore of 8.18 24. LittleBigPlanet 3 The PlayStation 4 is never a stranger to platformers. During the early days of their consoles, there was LittleBigPlanet. A simple platformer-puzzle dedicated for players with immense creativity. It re-shaped PlayStation forever. Creating communities after communities of pure imagination. This 3rd installment didn’t really change that much in terms of gameplay. The sandbox environment feels the same, but the emphasis on creation takes it to a whole new degree. They also added new characters to fray with their own unique abilities. Although a 4th installment feels like a long wait, this installment really gained positive acclaim due to its heavy focus on the creative aspect. However, it was also negatively received for its technical woes. It has a PlayScore of 8.21 23. Unepic Think of it as every nerd’s dream. Play as Daniel. A guy who just wants to live a normal life playing RPG games all day, all night. Apparently, a mysterious phenomenon transported him to a mysterious castle. No, it isn’t a hallucination. It’s real. He goes out in an epic adventure to stop this deluded fantasy. Utilize the game’s metroidvania style gameplay and create your own non-linear storyline. Use your set of melee and ranged weapons to survive a horrific gauntlet of enemies and dark magic. Reviews of the game were mixed. It’s fine points were its homage to the old school metroidvania games, but it was panned for its slow-paced scenarios. It receives a PlayScore of 8.23 22. Shantae: Risky Revenge - Director’s Cut The hair-whipping, belly-dancing heroine from the popular Shantae franchise is a godsend for PlayStation 4 users. Thei high-octane fun takes you to the shoes of the half-genie Shantae in her fun, if not risky adventures. Guide her through haunted wastes, burning deserts and more. This award-winning platformer dazzles you with enhanced pixel graphics, beautiful artistic backdrop, and tons of magic abilities to take down Risky Boots and save Sequin Land. Praised for its humor, creativity and fun factor, the Shantae series was a staple of Wayforward’s success and it’s port to Sony’s latest platform makes it all better. It has a Playscore of 8.24 21. Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime A couch-party game filled with neon lights. Shoot through space in a frenzied co-op mode with you and your friends. Take control of a huge neon battleship and control it together. Lead your crew of adorable neon creatures to various parts of the ship and clear areas dominated by enemies. Upgrade your battle stations and collect power-ups for maximum efficiency. According to their game, “Nobody gets left behind.” Critics and gamers loved how the game’s simple controls make it a deep experience. It’s fun when you’re with your crew and it doesn’t necessarily takes itself too seriously. What it needs is an online mode and then things will be better. It has a PlayScore of 8.24 20. The Swapper It’s rare when a platformer takes science fiction seriously. Developer Facepalm and Curve Studios’ manages to do it just fine. After the events of a mysterious incident. Control a female scavenger as she explores a derelict space station filled with a dark mystery. This puzzle-platformer oozes with creative metroidvania elements with a unique gameplay mechanic called “Swapping”. This enables the player to clone herself to various bodies scattered around its world. Your mission is to find out the unfortunate fate of these researchers. The game has its ups and downs. But most of the positive reviews stem from its engaging “Swapping” and challenging puzzle difficulties. It has a PlayScore of 8.24 19. Trine 2: Complete Story A sequel that exceeds its original. This puzzle game is an open-ended masterpiece that challenge you to make your own choices. Choose from its variety of characters and tools and bask in its gorgeous detailed fantasy world. Follow three heroes as they make their way through a dangerous fairy tale word. This complete story features an integrated Goblin Expansion and an unlockable Dwarven Caverns. It’s pretty much your definitive Trine 2 experience. The game was praised for its beautiful graphics, smart side-scrolling design and a fun adventure. It has a PlayScore of 8.30 18. Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight Follow the Priestess Kaho as she dispels an evil curse in this adorable pixel-filled goodness. This beloved 2D Platformer charms us with their beautifully animated visuals and satisfying combat. Combo your way through its magical world and restore hope to its decayed land. Most gamers call it a chibi version of Dark Souls. It’s the fourth Momodora entry and most players are calling it a hidden gem. It has everything a metroidvania game has to offer including fun boss fights, amazing soundtrack, and a story to warm the heart. It has a PlayScore of 8.30 17. Headlander Adult Swim and Double Fine games manages to bring together two unlikely genres: Metroidvania and Bullet-hell. Set in a 70’s version of dystopian nightmare, use your head to tear down a horde of futuristic robots in sci-fi fashion. Be the last known human in the universe and fend off animatronic threats. Decide the fate of humanity in its stylish side-scrolling fashion. Gamers are left astounded by the game’s sublime gameplay and explosive colors. It’s an unexpected take on the metroidvania genre, and it really works. It has a PlayScore of 8.41.
0 Comments
They had this cool idea that you couldn't take over a territory until you'd taken over the previous territory so you have this kind of moving battlefront and that's where I came up with node system. So you have to capture one node and destroy its power core before you could possibly attack the next one. Interviewer - "What was the name of the car with the blades out the side?" Oh the Scorpion?
*laughs* I don't remember whose idea it was to make those blades but that was pretty awesome just "kah-ching" and then you mow people down My favorite was the Manta because you could crush people you could fly over them and then we put this force in that would just smash down That's one of the things I think I really enjoyed about UT was there really weren't any rules. You could do almost anything Frostbite for Onslaught was the first map that I actually made. I was putting jumps and things all over the place like I love to ski and that was a snowy map so I just wanted to put little ski jumps everywhere, little kickers Dave was obsessed with SSX Tricky I played a lot more of the Amped snowboarding games or Tony Hawk 1 & 2 https://www.casinoslots.co.nz/. I love those so much just the expression of doing whatever you want He and i were really into snowboarding games and skiing games and stuff when you do flips and things like that so we wanted to do it with cars of course That makes sense. And one of the things that we did in that mode was we were coming up with cool mutators and one of the mutaters was a map called ONS Tricky it was just a big obstacle course it looked look like a monster truck rally with a big stadium and dirt ramps and stuff like that. So we did the typical snowboarding thing where you press a button in the car leans down in a way. And then you let go and the longer you held it the higher it flies up in the air. And then we made this complicated system for the mouse and keyboard so that you could flip and you could roll and you can try to get trick points or whatever And we thought that was fun. It wasn't super popular in the game but we had a lot of fun with it. Onslaught was really a proving ground for me. It was my big break and my big sort of "oh I proved that "I can do this and make something really popular" Dave and his team had learned a lot at Epic. They shipped the defining mode of Unreal Tournament 2004 And they developed their skills in things like vehicles, physics and networking. Plus there were some of the only people in the world who knew how to use Unreal's new engine. So he had an idea to spin-off his team and create a new studio that would help other studios create games in Unreal engine while using the profits from those contracts to develop original work I couldn't hire people in the industry because they were like "Who's Psyonix?" I'd say "No I made Onslaught!" They'd say "That's pretty awesome but I'm gonna go work for a really cool company So I hired interns I started in October 2006 about 10 years ago I was brought in with a round of interns 2007. Right after I graduated college so about 10 years ago. It's really 10 years ago because i was interned in 2006 but full-time 2007 I ran a competitive internship and said "Look I know" "everything about Unreal Eengine 3" "It's coming out it's gonna be big" "I'm big friends with Epic Games they're giving" "me contract work we're going to get" "new licensees will come in because" "Epic doesn't outsource expertise" "and we do and we're the only ones who know this" I made two rules. I said we're always going to keep the company stable we always need to have work coming in it's kind of our base. But we always have to have somebody working on original content. You go one way or the other and it can be pretty dangerous if you go to total, like, we want everybody constantly burning the candle and making money come in you're never gonna be able to make your dream game and if you just focus on your dream game well you know i'd seen so many other studios try this and you make your dream game but you usually need two or three shots at that and you blow all your money and then you're out of business so I'm like let's do a hybrid you know always stay stable but we always have somebody working on it and i'd seen other studios try this as well and they it's too tempting and they pulled their people off of it but you can't do that You have to keep people on that and the game that we kept it on was this trick game This trick mechanic with the vehicles that we pulled from our work at Epi We didn't know what the game was. We just knew it involved cars that can jump and trick around We started experimenting with lots of tracks and things like obstacle courses. "Get through this level as quickly as possible" and collect these pickups or something Cars that can shoot, so we tried a battle game we tried.... Capture the flag Cops and robbers mode We tried an obstacle course course that was really difficult to get through and there was one point where it had a grappling hook I mean some crazy stuff. We ended up with kind of that zany mode that we called a "Crash Course" for a while and then we used the name Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars because the game was so crazy the tricky part was the maps we had them playing on were almost like Swiss cheese And so just trying to keep them on the map like navigate the map and then also predict. Because you had to hit other players off the map so trying to get them to just predict where other players are going while also not driving off the map themselves that was pretty challenging. Interviewer - "It sounds like some sort of car-based American Gladiators?" Just about yeah! But at the same time we were still working on all of the contract work and you know working a lot for Epic. We worked on Gears of War We worked on UT3. A spattering of other titles Lots of really cool stuff The cars felt great they leapt and spun like skiers the physics were great too they were predictable yet felt realistic the game was just missing one crucial element One of the guys, it with Adam Beckwith, the brother of Ben Beckwith with who came with me from Epic He suggested that we throw a ball in there My brother Adam and I championed that at first because we loved "Deathball" we loved the physics, sport, and individual player aspect of the sport So we were like "Oh we can try it." It might make a cool side-mode And then I don't think for the next two weeks we got any work done because we were just playing this game and we were in the middle of Xbox greenlight actually and they had just greenlighted the game after much negotiation and were like "Uhhh, we want to change everything" And PlayStation at the time was actually being really open with their platform. You had to have a publisher to go on Xbox and we had that whole mountain to climb and the publishers were looking at our game saying "I don't get it at all" and we weren't making anything better by saying "Okay now it's soccer with cars" So we thought with PlayStation we don't have to answer to anybody we could just make our own thing and throw it on there so that's how Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-powered Battle Cars came to be Interviewer - "Where you in the naming meeting?" I was, I don't remember our collective insanity I think part of it was inspired by a Conan O'Brien bit where he was talking about embryonic rockabilly polka-dotted fighter pilots and I thought it was hilarious. So it's actually my fault I said what about Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars? We didn't really think about the fact that people wouldn't be able to tell their friends about the game. Like "I like this game" "It's called super something battle something" "and you'll never find it is buried in" "the PSN store but it's somewhere in there" Journalists didn't really like it either because they had to type it so much So yeah we took some heat on that Psyonix had worked themselves to the bone to finish Battle Cars and in doing so had spread themselves rather thin they didn't really have the capital to market the game all that well Now they had added a rather forward-thinking feature that allowed players to upload clips of the game directly to YouTube perhaps that would help spread news of the game perhaps it would have if the game wasn't called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars. Not exactly SEO gold is it? A lot of things that sabotage the first game we felt like we were just technical inefficiencies that we could improve on We had always played the game on PCs so we'd always played this game with no input latency at 60 frames per second on a LAN connection which was dramatically different than what you got going on playstation 3 playing on listen servers over the internet like they're actually very different games It did eventually make a profit but only because we spent so little on it in the first place but it took two years for it to actually make all of its money back and that doesn't pay payroll so we had to immediately go back and in fact it was a little bit of an emergency mode because i started to break a little bit of my rule It's very hard to ship games. When they really comes down to "we got to get this out the door" it's almost impossible not to be all hands on deck We pushed the company to the brink really at that time I think when you're a little more of a veteran it hits you a little harder when something you make not "fails" but isn't a huge success and at the time it was like our second thing we've done so it kind of felt like all of course we'll just move on to other projects. We had the same feeling going into Rocket League where it's like "this could be a big thing if people just get into it" and with the first game they just didn't so much, except for our super hardcore fans We had to take some projects pretty quickly afterwards that maybe we're not the most ideal terms and were really rough on us We had to push a lot harder than we normally did. We did a few updates for Battle Cars but i decided to strongly focus on studio building at that point. I'm like "we needed a bigger "studio we need more expertise at what" "we're doing. We're going to come back to" "this game" and we always knew that We always knew we were coming back to it at some point We were really good at multiplayer and we really good vehicles so a lot of our work ended up being around that and as we grew we'd gotten a stronger and stronger reputation on the multiplayer side of things. So everybody who was doing UE3 game that had a multiplayer side... That's why Mass Effect 3 came to us actually is a good example Mass Effect 3 was mostly just consulting and a little bit of work, and then others like Bulletstorm were like "Make our multiplayer mode" And then when Nosgoth came along that was a really big change for the studio it was a publisher saying "hey we want" "you to make this game" that was a big deal for the studio because it allowed us to expand a lot and build our art team in particular and become a really full featured studio that was at the same time we decided to reboot Battle Cars into to what became Rocket League It was sort of hard to talk ourselves into spending a bunch more money making the same thing again but it was always kind of like well our fans probably deserve an updated sequel at some point There was a very strong community around it We we're talkin these guys and we knew them super well. You know guys like Kronovi who was playing under his his dad's name at the time "Steve Bills". Gibbs, all those guys were there from the beginning and we knew all of them and we just wanted to do right by ourselves we want to do right by them You want to give contract work your all especially just to keep the company going, but you always have these outlets for "this is how we would do it if we were in charge" the first game was all the same pieces I think if you go back and play it now you'll see all the same things it just doesn't feel as good and we just knew from years of working on these big games like Gears and XCOM and all that. We knew how to make something really good all of a sudden. We knew how to take it that last 10% of polish that we didn't know how to before And we felt like that would push it over the edge maybe... Psyonix had evolved from a scrappy Unreal Engine coding house to a confident studio capable of self-publishing their own games. But they still hadn't have their hit what happened next would not only change the future of the studio forever but it would change the way we think about sports games forever too. In part two I talked to Psyonix about battle cars, melting servers and the terrifying feeling of giving your game away for free See you then When I started working with unreal I realized wow you know all the stuff that you need to make games are here it was a big shortcut and for a team that was the small as ours, just a handful of people that was really the only path I mean I kind of came out of the community of modding on 2003 and UT99 so that's really where that whole team was built He and I were really into like snowboarding games and skiing games and stuff where you do flips and things like that so we want to do it with cars of course. That makes sense. Everything was on fire nobody was sleeping for a week But at the same time it was super exciting because so many people were playing the game The reason we went for PlayStation Plus was a budget issue.
We didn't have any money to spend, our budget for marketing and PR was practically nothing. We just knew from years of working on these big games like gears and like XCOM and all that we know how to take it that last 10% of polish that we didn't know how to before Yes! Video Games! They allow us to do things we could only otherwise dream off like hunt bandits on the Wild West or score the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl or raid dead people's tombs. But to be completely honest I don't think many of us actually go to sleep at night and dream about doing this. I mean don't get me wrong this is this is pretty awesome actually but us gamers are picky bunch with so many experiences out there for us to choose from it's hard for strange new ideas to grab our attention But what if you stumbled across this idea what if you thought it would make an amazing game how long would you work on it to try and convince the rest of the world? Today on Noclip's look into the story of Rocket League we explain how Unreal Tournament 2004 mode evolved into a global sporting videogame sensation. And how it took almost a decade for any of us to notice. I think I was like six years old. My dad brought home a TI99 4a and a book about how to type in computer programs and I started typing them in and playing You know they would always have games in the back so that's what i wanted to type in then I started learning how you can change things there was a little sprite of a guy was like dancing back and forth and i'm printing the code and looking at it and could see the array of zeros and ones that would make up his pixels so I remember that sort of "Ah ha!" moment when I'm like how i can change this and i can turn him into a dog or another kind of character. It was awesome Long story short i dropped out of college started an Internet company doing web hosting and it did pretty well because I mean everything was booming at the time. But my real passion was in games and i used the sort of success of that company to start hiring people and building a game studio based on modding existing games When I started working with Unreal I realized all the stuff that you need to make a game is already here it was a big shortcut and for a team that was as small as ours - you a handful of people - that was really the only path I knew that Epic was interested in having vehicles in their game i was really a big fan of Halo at the time T thought mixing vehicles with a first person shooter was the greatest thing ever I'm like why couldn't i do this to UT it's a smaller chunk of something as opposed to us trying to make up a whole new game so basically made a game mode it was codenamed 'vehicle mod' we basically did the same vehicles that Halo had original five vehicles Showed it to them at the next GDC and they were blown away they're like "oh my god this is great" we want you to come and and work on this with us I basically worked out of Epic which was great because i got that inside scoop on what Epic was doing and learned all about how the real game companies do it "The rules of engagement have changed!" "Vehicular warfare!" "Aerial combat" "Unreal Tournament 2004" I mean I kind of came out of the community of modding on 2003 and UT99 And they kind of just brought in a bunch of community members because they were adding both Onslaught and Assault I just happened to get put on Onslaught and have worked closely with Dave ever since it was overwhelming at first getting there the first week and causing some big bugs and having Cliffy B come and give you a stern talking-to really kicks you in the ass It ballooned into a much larger team as I got there. A lot of people from Epic a lot of people in the community that they hired to come into work on it. And it was an amazing time because we were we were kind of siloed off from the rest of Epic in a lot of ways we were in a one great big room we called it the UT2004 war room. There wasn't a huge amount of deadline pressure we were all just just coming up with the coolest things we could and throwing them into the game as fast as we could Interviewer - "So how did you come up with the "mode of Onslaught because with vehicles" "in a game you can kind of go in any direction" You know I was inspired by Planetside actually. I knew I wanted vehicle in the game but i wanted a more interesting game type and I like this idea of territory control. Zazie Beetz is far from a household name, but her role in the upcoming Deadpool sequel just might change all that. In the scant five years that Beetz''s IMDb profile has been active, she's racked up a respectable number of credits. Here's why Domino from Deadpool 2 looks so familiar. Wolves Zazie started her career like most other up-and-coming actors in their mid-20s - by playing high school students.
Wolves is the age-old urban tale of a young man named Anthony, who uses his prowess on the basketball court to escape a far more complicated home life. Beetz is Victoria, Lee's love interest, whose arc revolves around her desperate desire to know all the parts of him that he keeps hidden. Shot during the summer of 2015, Wolves is the project that let Beetz give up her day job and pursue acting full time. The film took a one-way ticket to Highbrow Town by premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival before being picked up for distribution by IFC Films. Margot vs. Lily In 2016, Nike decided that a cute, diverse, and surprisingly well-made web series was the best way to promote their workout clothes, and Margot vs. Lily was the result. As part of the "Better For It" Women's campaign, this was Nike's first scripted show, and it got a nice amount of positive buzz in part because the commercial elements were integrated well into the narrative. "Allie! I think I might be jacked! Arms so sore, arms like Thor…" "Wow! I've never seen you like this in the morning." Beetz plays Allie, best friend and roommate to Margot, a snarky millennial with a chip on her shoulder who lives and plots in the shadow of her internet-famous fitness guru sister Lily. Easy This Netflix Original lacks the buzz or prestige of some of their other high profile shows like Stranger Things or House of Cards, but Easy does have that rambling indie quality that seems to fit nicely within Beetz's filmography. This sexy ensemble drama follows a chain of interlinking friends navigating the ups and downs of their intimate relationships; Beetz plays Noell, a sweet and supportive stoner who's dating an amateur brewer named Jeff - played by Dave Franco - who has ambitions of starting an illegal brewery with his more conservative brother. "Imagine you were pregnant and I didn't tell you about any of this. What would you do What would you do?" "I would freak out!" "Exactly!" Atlanta Much ink has been spilled about the groundbreaking Atlanta, Donald Glover's Emmy-winning MC Escher painting of an urban drama. Beetz plays Van, a young mother in love with Glover's Earn, the father of her daughter, who at turns she's completely enamored with and totally frustrated by due to his underachieving, spacey, charismatic brilliance. "Uh, you're doing that weird sad boy face you've got sometimes." "That's just my face." This role is tailor made to make use of all that Beetz has to offer as an actor, and is likely the reason she was on the Deadpool creative team's radar to begin with. Geostorm Even though her role is small, 2017's Geostorm marks Beetz's first appearance in a high-profile film. She plays Dana, a cybersecurity analyst and friend to Max, played by Jim Sturgess. The disaster flick was unfortunately reamed by critics, but Beetz was still able to inject some expositional technobabble and moments of levity opposite Sturgess — and when she appears in Deadpool 2, it won't be her first time at the blockbuster rodeo. The Boss If you can make it through this squirmy January 2018 dramatization of a real-life workplace harassment, you'll see Beetz go from an efficient and helpful professional to confused, then alarmed, then panicked as her boss proceeds to violate her space completely. This wasn't just another acting job — it's a PSA executive produced by Beetz' co-star David Schwimmer. It's among a series of short films released online designed to raise awareness about RAINN, the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization. Deadpool 2 Months before anyone got to see her in action as Domino, Beetz was part of the vast media machine surrounding the Deadpool sequel. Her casting was announced via Ryan Reynolds's Twitter with a character poster, and her arrival quickly generated a ton of buzz. In the world of comics, Domino, a.k.a. Neena Thurman, debuted in the pages of X-Force #8 in 1992. Her power to affect the probability of any event within her line of sight is the result of a government experiment. She's joined various mercenary bands and also rolled solo throughout her history. Beetz may seem an odd choice to play the pistol-packing, motorcycle-revving mercenary mutant — but her fresh take might be just what the role needs. Thanks for watching! Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too! In this video, we'll be hearing from Jean Scott, who is also known as the queen of comps and she'll, be giving us her tips on how to take advantage Of the casino comp system, Jean is the author of The Frugal gambler as well, so its sequel, More Frugal Gambling and her books give detailed information on how to get the most for your money when visiting any casino. Jean has appeared on many TV shows, including dateline, hard copy and 48 hours, as well as many travel and Discovery Channel documentaries. I'M sure you'll learn some great tips from Jean to help you better understand the casino comping system and how you can use it to your advantage. Now, here's Jean Scott, If you've been around casinos a lot.
You know what a comp is, but there's a lot of people who don't know what a comp is, and I hear you people say oh you're - going to get these comps at a casino. What is that A comp is short for complementary and it simply means something. That'S free and anything that the casino gives you that's free. We call that a comp Now, if you're just sitting at a slot machine, for instance, and the cocktail waitress, comes around and asks if you wanna drink, that's free and that's probably the most simple comp that you can get and then you maybe you've heard of High rollers that get free charter flights to the casino and bring their whole family and they have all these rooms and suites, and you have spa visits and so forth. Those are all comps Anywhere from something little to something big, but they all mean something. The casino has given you free People ask if both the table, player and machine players can get comps, and the answer is definitely yes, there's just a slightly different way that they get the comps a different system. When you have a players card and you're gonna play a machine, you put that there is a slot in every machine that you put your players card in and what it does. Is you start accumulating points and those points you can cash in usually for comps. Sometimes, for cash, sometimes for free play, but usually for comps and when you're playing the table games. Of course, there's no place no slot for you to put your card in https://www.casinoslots.co.nz/online-casino-welcome-bonuses. So what you do is you take your players card? You give it to the dealer whether it's the roulette table, the blackjack table, whatever game you're playing and the dealer gives it to the pit boss and they start rating you and that's how you get the comps on tables. We'Ve been talking about the slot club, the Players Club using your players card, and I should mention that that's one of the best ways to get comps because you can go after you play a while. You can go into the slot club desk and you can say I have this many points or they tell you how many points and you can see what comps you have earned. That'S the first way to get comps, particularly for somebody who's, not real, knowledgeable. A new player, but the second way to get compass. That'S perhaps one of the best ways, and that is when you join the Players Club they're gonna ask for your name and address, and you think why do they need that? And people say I don't want to give my name and my address & phone number and that sort of thing out. Yes, you do, I always say. Yes, you do want to give your address to a casino, because the casinos loved to send mail and they send mail that has offers in it, and particularly if you want to get free rooms, the mail comps, that's the best way to get them. The offers that come in the mail - and you might be surprised by how little you have to play, because when the casinos are in a slow period like the month before Christmas or whatever, they send out more offers, and they might send offers to almost everybody. That'S ever played in their casino, so it's very important to give your name and address to the casino so that you can get these mail offers and that's the second good way that you can earn comps. Some people think that if you just go in the casino, the casino is just going to give you comps offer them right and left. You would think that would happen. You would think they would want to make their customers feel good, but in actuality the casinos do not offer comps very often very rarely Other than what I mentioned earlier, that if they might offer you a free drink when the cocktail waitress comes around, that's about the Only thing that the casino is going to offer you that's why you have to join the Players Club. You have to use your card and then you have to go to the slot desk and say what kinda comps have. I earned Now some casinos make this easy. They have a little like a menu at the front of the Players Club and it says well, if you earned such and such a point, you earned a buffet. If you earn more, you get a coffee, shop, comp and so forth, But you have to go and get them and back in the old days, if you played table games, it was a little less structured and the pit boss saw you betting and if you were Betting kinda big for that casino. Whatever their level was, he might come up and say: hey can i buy you dinner? I don't see that happening nowadays as much unless you're, a really huge player. Usually, you've got to give your card to the dealer and then ask to be rated then, when you're ready to get up - and you want a buffet of you - want a gourmet meal or whatever you have to say. I'D like to talk to the pit boss, The dealer calls the pit boss over and you have to ask probably one of the most common questions I get is well Jean you're, the queen of comps. I want I wan na know where you play and then I wan na go play there cuz. I know you go play where you get the most comps and they want specific. I want. Should I go to this casino or this one and I have to say right away, I can't answer that question. For one thing I live in Las Vegas, so the way I get comps is entirely different from somebody who comes to Vegas for three days and they want different things and they do it differently or let's not talk just about Vegas. Let'S talk about how you, perhaps you live near a riverboat and how you get comps there may be different in the way than when you come to Vegas, so it depends on your goals. I'Ve already mentioned this. A good way to get food comps is to go use your points and then go to the slot club and see what you can get for your food comps. The best way to get room comps is, if that's what you need is room. Comps then give a lot of casinos your name address and see what you get in the mail, a local for instance like I am. I don't need rooms as much as an out of towner does I do get them sometimes because I have relatives or friends come, and i wan na get a room, but even then a lot of those comps that I get I get from mail offers because locals And whether you live in Illinois or new jersey or in Las Vegas, all the casinos are going to mail you offe offers. So that's the best way. I can't give you specific examples of where you should go. You have to kind of explore that for yourself Earlier, I've talked about two ways to get comps one. Is you use your card? You go through the Players Club, the second one. Is you give your name and address to the casino so that they'll mail you offers now I'm going to go to the third way and that is using a host and using the host system in a casino? Now this is a little advanced technique and it's not for a beginner, because it's a fairly complicated system, A host is someone who is in the casino and the job is, and it can be a man or a woman, and by the way you call a host The same you do not call a host a woman host a hostess, that's somebody, that's seats, you, a the restaurant, A host can be a man or a woman, and this person is the one they call that has the power of the pen. That means that they can write you out comps. This is a very complex subject. It took me pages and pages to cover this in one of my books called more frugal gambling and you should thoroughly learn how to do it through the Players Club and through the mail offers before you do this, but once you've played for a while in a Casino, you can ask to see a host now, a good way to ask to see a host is while you're playing at a machine to we're talking about machine players. Now, because the pit bosses take care the comps with the table games. But if you're a machine player and you wan na see a host because you think maybe you could get some comps without using your points or whatever reason, it's always good to ask somebody on the floor that you see. Could I speak to a host and choose a time when you're in front of a machine the highest denomination you usually play? I don't mean if you usually play pennies, you don't go to a five dollar machine and talk to a host. She or he is gon na - find out this pretty soon because they can go look at your records, but if you mix up your played for quarters and dollars, for instance, wait until you're wanting to play dollars anyway and then ask to see a host one thing: You need to remember is that there are different levels: casinos - and I sometimes say: do you wan na be a little frog in a big pond, or do you wan na be a big frog in a little pond? There'S the high level casino resorts they're, the ones with the spas and the big suites and luscious palm trees everywhere, and then there's the lower level. What you call maybe grind joints and then most casinos are kind of in the middle. If you wan na get more comps and you're a mid-level player, then you need to go to the lower or mid-level casinos, because they will appreciate your business more. Let'S face it. If you play quarters, even just even as much as six hours a day, there are some swanky resorts that aren't gon na give you too much for that, because they're giving all their comp out to the high rollers. On the other hand, if you're a a quarter player a solid quarter player, you could go to a lower level or mid-level, and and these mid-levels doesn't mean that they're grind joints or they have sawdust on the floor or anything. And you would be surprised how much that you will get from them. I'Ve had many many quarter. Players say to me. I didn't think I could get any comps, but you told me Jean to always use my card when I play you've told me to join several players. Clubs at different casinos give my name and address, and I'm amazed by the mail that I get offering me free rooms. I thought you had to be a high roller to get free rooms, you don't but they're, choosing casinos that are mid-level low or mid-level, meaning. Not quite so fancy One of the main pieces of advice that I would give anyone that's trying to use the comp system and maximize the benefits that they get from a casino is to never play just for comps Episte-what!?!
You know, epsitemology - the study of the nature of knowledge - and enology, the study of winemaking. Knowledge abounds in the viticulture and winemaking industry. Simple verifiable facts like red grapes have clear juice, leaves are green, and Pinot noir is superior. But what about facts like reducing tannins with the Wine Enhancer. Of course the Wine Enhancer is undisclosed patented technology that utilizes a unique combination of technologies, tapping into natural atmospheric energies, but can we be sure of its validity. Or - on a more serious level - several things are stated about viticulture or winemaking that often have little valid justification, despite the belief that the knowledge is true. I wish there was a little more epsitemology in winemaking, because then we may actually know something. I just finished reading a couple of articles in the most recent Wine Business Monthly and could not help but wonder how the authors arrive at some of the conclusions they make. Certainly some of the people they interview come from larger wineries where proper trials and tastings are conducted such that solid conclusions can be made. Yes, I reveal a bias toward the assumption that - at least in winemaking and viticulture - science is a wonderful avenue for the attainment of knowledge. Therefore I am leery of claims such as the following made in an article exploring the possibilities for Mourvedre in the U.S.: old vines have a certain smoothness and depth but lack some edges that make the wine interesting. I have a couple of clones, and they are definitely different. Definitely different? Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not making a comment about old vines versus young vines, or clonal selections. I am simply stating that often in the wine industry I hear people make claims such as this and can't help but wonder how they came to that conclusion. Were your different clones fermented the same way, aged the same way, did you taste them during fermentation and make this conclusion? After the wines aged for 1 year, 2, 5? Was it simply a test you did between two glasses side by side in the lab, with dinner? Or were they tasted separately and compared by memory? When imparting on the blog journey, my hope was to provide a forum for winemakers and viticulturists to discuss current industry trends and new scientific literature relevant to growing and making wine. Additionally I planned to post notes of the biweekly tastings I participated in with my colleagues. From the beginning the blog was intended to be for my personal learning and entirely separate from the winery employing me. Now naturally many of the topics I may discuss are on my mind because they may be something we have dealt with in our vineyard or cellar, but my opinions are mine, not HdVs. Sure, wines of HdV have been posted on this blog but simply because they were included in a tasting and I think it is plain to see that no special attention was given. The aforementioned is an attempt to convince you that I am not writing the following because I am trying to push HdV Chardonnay. I am not here to tell you what wine to drink, but part of the purpose of the blog is to publish our impressions of various imbibing and the 2000 HdV Chardonnay I recently tasted while playing online casino games. The flavor profile while aged (though not oxidized), still maintained some youth leaving the impression of extreme complexity. I didn't want to finish the glass so I could continue to take in the aromas. Yet I was conflicted, because I wanted to place the wine in my mouth to experience the texture over and over again. It was reminiscent of a 1999 Mt Eden Vineyards Chardonnay we recently tasted at HdV. The 2000 Chardonnay was made from entirely old vine blocks of Chardonnay from Hyde Vineyards, as our 2005 will be. And the 2004 (just released) has been billed as the best vintage yet for HdV. If the 2000 hints at the aging potential, well, I may be holding back much more of my allotment than I originally intended and will likely be purchasing some 00 and 01 to stock into the cellar. Hmmm Aged Chardonnay. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |