❮ Journal ❯

Left 4 Dead vs. Left 4 Dead 2

February 19th, 2025 - an age old debate

I've been playing Left 4 Dead for years, ever since it came out. I LOVE Left 4 Dead. For those who don't know, Left 4 Dead is a cooperative 4 player PvE FPS zombie shooter. Was originally released in 2008, with a sequal released a year later in 2009.

Why am I talking about a now 16 year old game? Because recently I've been playing both Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2. Both of these games still hold up and in my opinion, can be consider some of the greatest video games of all time. The thing about Left 4 Dead 2 is that it actually contains all of the campaigns from the first game, content for content. So, what's the point of Left 4 Dead 1 if you can just play them in 2, and also have mod support, bigger playerbase, more weapons and equipment? Honestly, I kinda like Left 4 Dead 1, slightly more than 2.

L4D1 (Left 4 Dead 1), feels so much more barebones than 2. Of course, at the time, L4D1 was the only one of its kind, but when 2 came out, it seemed like there was really no reason to play 1, but this barebones feeling actually has a lot of quality to it.

For one thing, the creative direction of 1 feels more gritty, more dark, and more gloomy. Take the opening cutscene for L4D1 for example. (Youtube link) The music is dark, the scenario is frightening, and feels very serious. Compared to the L4D2 trailer. By comparison, 2's trailer feels more like an action movie with the music, and the cinematogrpahy.

Don't get me wrong! I love both games and both vibes they give. But I think it prefer the darker more gritty approach aeshetetically. I think with the fact that L4D2 is what people tend to play more, and with the mod scene being more active, it can leave the original feeling much less full of content and replayability, but maybe I like that aspect of it? To me the more barebones feel, feels much more cozy.

Not 100% sure how I wanted to approach writing this entry but the bottom line is, Left 4 Dead, both 1 and 2, are masterpieces of gaming in my honest opinion! The cast is interesting, the dialogue is memorable, the gunplay is dopamine, there's just so much to love about it.

Website silence

February 5th, 2025 - Updates coming!

It's been a bit quiet here on this website and I'd like to elaborate a bit on why.

This is my first website ever, and a lot of trying to get the layout to work here involved many hours getting used to the workflow of coding in HTML and CSS, looking at other people's websites trying to figure out how they were laid, trying to figure out CSS properties whatever.

Even though I'm actually really proud of the way the website looks right now, I would like to expand more on the functionality and interactability of the website. Here's a cool HTML list of various functions I would like to have on my website

I've even been reading the "HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies" book and it's got loads of information. Thanks for reading! More soon! (hopefully!)

-Revoltyx

The night sky is also blue

January 12th, 2025 - A rural town perspective

My birthday is tomorrow, January 13th, which also marks the next full moon. For some context, I live in a pretty small rural town now. I live somewhat on the edge of the town so I'm somewhat aways from the main town center. My street doesn't even have any lights on it and deer sometimes come into my yard.

I used to live in Salt Lake City. Densely populated and a lively night life, and the sky was always black. I grew up in SLC so, the nights were ALWAYS black, with the night being illuminated by the city lights. Suburban life just had that vibe to it, living on the edge of the city.

Ever since I moved out here though, around 2023, the night life has been different though. For the first time in my life, because of the lack of light pollution, I'm actually able to SEE the stars at night. I can actually see the big dipper for the first time! It's extremely quiet as well, you can hear dogs barking from across the town miles away, and there's such a lack of super late night life that there's almost no cars on the main road. And the most wonderful thing of all is actually experencing the illumination of the full moon

The full moon actually lights up the area, which is something I've never really experienced before. It's like in the game Don't Starve when there's a full moon, you don't need a fire to prevent shadows from getting you. It's still so cool to experience it every single month, and to top it off, the night sky actually does have a color to it. It's not just black, it actually has this deep blue graident that's impossible to see with light pollution. It's beautiful honestly, it's something I wish everyone could experience.

Grew up with the worst games

January 8th, 2025 - aka my childhood

Something I find absolutely hilarious sometimes, is the fact that some of the video games I grew up playing were actually the WORST entry of that series. I'll give you some examples

Megaman X7 was actually the first Megaman X game I remember playing and actually grew up with. We did have Megaman X4 but I hardly remember that one, it was X7 I remember playing the most, and also never beat it. (Screw you Red) The game was heavily criticized for being so bad compared to the other X games, and upon actually playing through the collections, it's SO BAD. But it still does have a place in my heart.

Continuing with Megaman, I grew up playing Megaman Battle Network 4 but didn't play any of the other ones. You know those games that you just had as a kid but had no recollection of ever getting? This was one of those games. Also as a little bonus, I also had Battlechip Challenge. BN4 was weird considering the ending of BN3, I guess it did good for Capcom enough to try to milk it, and I happen to own probably the worst entry in the series. It took me months, probably even years to actually playthrough and beat because for whatever reason I lacked the comprehension skills to actually like, read and understand what to do. I just liked shooting things. On my first play through I abused Dark Chips and discovered the hard way when New Game+ Started. Absolutely terrible. Compared to the other entries, 4 just aint it.

I guess this turned more into a Megaman rant, was just recently reminded of Megaman X7 and how terrible it is, and realized how unlucky I was to have played this entry instead of literally any of the other ones. The important thing was that I was having fun as a kid!

Holiday magic

December 30th, 2024 - where did it go?

Unfortunately, Christmas season just doesn't hit the same that it did before. I know fully 100% that being an adult has sorta diminished the magic a little bit. Now that I'm typing this up, it just feels like things in general, has lost their magic. Did parents experience this too when I was growing up? Or is it actually just the state the world is in right now?

Occasionally, I do get these moments where something feels "magical". Recently I installed Windows XP onto my former main PC, since it has the hardware support of it, and listening to my personal music collection I've had since 2012 was super nostalgic. My first PC was a Dell Demension that used to be the family computer. I spent a lot of time on it, trying to play emulators, downloading music, jailbreaking iPod. Seeing the bliss wallpaper and experiencing Windows XP as an operating system is honestly so comforting.

I guess I'm more or less, blinded by nostalgia. I wish I could experience some of these feelings again. I both love and hate nostalgia

this website, and what it means

December 26th, 2024 - doing other things

Building this website has been an interesting journey of creative expression. I've never really built a website before, so this is a completely new experience for me. I've been really looking forward to learning as much as I can to build a cool interactive center for my music and art. It's actually been something I've needed. I've never really been too satisfied about using various social media platforms. They just don't strike me as personalable or friendly.

There's something so satisfying about placing html tags in a document and watching it appear. I've always been somewhat interested in software and tech, but never found the thing that stuck for me. While this website stuff isn't software... It feels homey

I suppose the message I want to say is, perhaps the thing you're looking for is just around the corner. You might not see it right away, but if you keep going, you're bound to find it!

an interesting christmas tradition

December 24th, 2024 - "christmas morning"

When I was a kid our Christmas tradition was fairly interesting, and I didn't realize until it was pointed out to me by my partner. "Christmas morning" to me had a completely different meaning to it.

For whatever reason, instead of going to sleep Christmas Eve night, then waking up on Christmas in the morning to open presents, we would actually pull and all nighter and stay up and open the presents at midnight on Christmas! Yes that's right! We would eat dinner on the 24th, stay up until 00:00 on the 25th, and THAT'S when we would open up presents. It was super cool because, opening presets in the dead of the night with the light of the chirstmas tree was such a vibe.

It was one of the few times I was actually allowed to stay up much later than my normal curfew. As the night closed some of my family members would start to go to bed and I was usually one of the last ones to go to sleep, usually probably playing a new game I had just recieved.

Maybe try it out this year, it definitely feels different! I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

a new website!

December 23rd, 2024 - this is where the subtitle goes

Today is december 23rd, 2024, and I suppose this is my first post on my website? I got a cool navigation bar at the top, which doesn't really work right now of course, but at least I've gotten it to a point where I can type stuff here! Also, this extra bit here is just to test the text wrapping stuff.

If you don't know who I am, my name is Revoltyx! I'm 25 years old, I mostly make music, but I'm trying to dive into other creative works as well.

You can check out my music in the links below. Thank you for checking out my page and stay tuned for more!

Soundcloud

Bandcamp

Spotify