Rumble and Odysee
15/03/2025
Okay, I couldn't leave it alone, I had to sort out the Rumble and Odysee channels. Spent the night rerendering the last few videos and uploading them. I really don't understand how the rendering works on Rumble, I upload the files in 1080p but for whatever reason, once rendered on Rumble, the quality is massively downgraded to 1Mbps. I don't know if that is normal, but I tried my best using Handbrake and rendering at a high bitrate, doesn't seem to make a difference though. Odysee renders a lower bitrate version in 1080, so I have no idea whats going on. If anyone has any advice on this contact me, because even Rumble's FAQ isn't helpful.

As always, the best versions of my videos will be on YouTube, but I'm happy to upload these lower quality versions to ALT tech sites for those that don't want to use YouTube. These sites also take quite a while to upload and rerender the videos, so if the video you want to watch isn't there, check back later.

Youtube | Rumble | Odysee

 

Fear Effect Retrospective
14/03/2025
Well, it's been three months, but it's finally finished. So, allow me to introduce you to the latest entry in the Game Vault series, Fear Effect for the PSX. I really did plan to release this last Friday, as I mentioned in my last post, but I just couldn't get a clean render last Thursday (any one whom uses Adobe Premiere will know what I'm talking about), so I decided to just spend a week improving some aspects. Just as well, because I found a bad spelling mistake in a title card, yes, being dyslexic sucks, but I truly believe this is the best version of this video I could make.

You can check it out on YouTube, and it's the first video I have made a dedicated page for on release, so you can check that out by clicking on the thumbnail. There is extra information there as well as downloads, a full bibliography and you can even watch the video there is you wish.

For now, I'm only uploading this to YouTube, been having issues uploading to Rumble, with the video only being rendering in 480p, even though I'm uploading a lower bitrate version of the 4K video as they require. I will look into it, but to be honest, I would rather work on new videos than trying to master the inner workings of these alt platforms. Updated links will be placed on the videos page if I get it sorted.

Youtube | Site Page

 

General Updates
28/02/2025
Hi all, I haven't been updating the site of recent, well, for a year, but who's counting, right? I have been hard at work on the Youtube channel. I will post more updates here more regularly, at least when I publish a new video as I have been made aware, people do actually visit this site.

The channel is going very well though of recent, I doubled my subs since Sep 2024 and can only thank anyone that subbed to the channel. In that time, I created a new series, The Game Vault, and released The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion, Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza and Doctor Hauzer retrospectives of which I haven't posted on here, but they can be found on the YouTube channel.


On top of that, I spent a lot of last year playing as many retro games as possible to get a better understanding to all aspects of the game creation process, hoping it would help improve my retrospectives, and I feel it has. I played and completed over 70 games in 7 months, most of which have been uploaded to my second channel in no commentary playthrough form.

I'm currently working on my longest retrospective yet, and while I wanted to release it tomorrow (Friday), I want to do some more work on it and will aim to publish it on the 7th of March. It's going to be around 2hrs long, so I guess I will see how well very long videos go down. It's by far my best edited retrospective up to now, using all the skills I have learnt over the past 3 years. I can't say it's my best video, thats not for me to decide. All I can say is I've put everything into this retrospective.

As for the site, I have recently installed SSL certs so browsers will no longer give a security warning, not that there was anything dodgy here, it's just how modern web design is, needing to pay to confirm your site is safe apparently. I did this because I want to start utilising this site more, adding additional content from my videos, sources, downloads, archives, and perhaps even article versions of my videos, we will see. I have added a section to the site listing all the videos I have made, I will continue to add more information and you can find the page here.

At the moment, this is purely an old skool HTML site I update manually with source code, but I was somewhat of a decent PHP/MySQL coder back in the day, so my plan is to brush up on my database coding skills, and turn this into a dynamically driven site. These are all future plans, the YouTube channel and getting to 1k subs is currently my top priority. I'll keep you abreast.

Anyway, thanks once again for the support I have received and heres to a great 2025!

Youtube | Rumble | Odysee | Second Channel (Critical Wranker Plays)

 

Tomorrow Never Dies Retrospective
26/01/2024
I'm fully committed to completing all the James Bond games, and with that being said, I present to you, 007 Tomorrow Never Dies, the third game in my A Review to a Kill series. This was an Exclusive PS1 release, tied to the story of it's movie namesake, with a very messy and interesting development cycle, being regularly compared against the N64 juggernaut, Goldeneye. I have no nostalgia for this game, as I never played it before, so I will be totally impartial here. In this retrospective, I tell the story of a "complicated" development, read magazine reviews from the time of release for context, break down every level, and of course, I Wrank it.
Youtube | Rumble | Odysee

 

007 Nightfire Retrospective
26/12/2023
It's time to return to the well that is, James Bond Games. It's been a while since 007 Racing, but after acquiring EVERY official Bond game, A Review to a Kill returns with 007 Nightfire. I played this back in the early noughties, and I had a great time replaying this classic. This is an in-depth retrospective of 007 Nightfire, and in the video, I go into my personal memories, context magazine reviews from the time of release, break down every level, and of course, I Wrank it.
Youtube | Rumble | Odysee

 

Support for ALT Tech
22/12/2023
I'm going to start trying to provide better support for ALT tech platforms. I already have Rumble and Odysee channels, however, I stopped uploading to them due to receiving next to no views. Recently though, I received an E-mail, with the sender telling me how they enjoyed my videos, and thanked me for uploading to other platforms.

I do think YouTube needs a competitor, so I will do my part, and take the time to render acceptable versions for other platforms. My channel is tiny, and this makes very little difference, but if we all ignore ALT tech, there will never be a genuine competitor.

Rumble | Odysee
 
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