NFS Underground continues... Part 3!

The next round of the walkthrough continues now! Enjoy!

NFS Underground - Round 2

Alright!!! Time for the long awaited next round of the NFS Underground walkthrough. I didn't went very smooth through it this time and I did mistakes. Enjoy the events 12 - 23! There are also some unique parts to unlock, and I highly recommend to get them ;).

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimater Racer Events 16 - 18 online

Alright! 3 videos of Ultimate Racer Events of NFS Hot Pursuit 2 are online! Enjoy!

The NFS Underground walkthrough is on!

It was time for another walkthrough. Since the success of NFS Underground 2 I have decided to do also one of the previous Need For Speed volume. How it all began on the streets is shown here! The first part is online now! You can expect a total of 10 or 11 parts for this walkthrough. Even the gameplay is shorter than in Underground 2, the total video length of it would be over 7 hours, which is too long for a single video. I have picked up the Volkswagen Golf GTI, which is the weakest car. The Mazda MX-5 ist the fastest starting car with the best handling. It is also a very common choice of a walkthrough. I don't think that I will change the car, since I enjoyed it to do with the weakest car. It's also very challenging with it. But enough talking now. Enjoy the fist part!

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer #15 - online

5 races, 4 cars, 1 winner. The European Invitational Tournament is on! For a change, I chose the Ferrari 360 Spider. The police is very agressive, so some crashes couldn't be avoided. Enjoy!

NFS Most Wanted 2 coming November 2012?

The next title of the Need For Speed Series has not been confirmed yet, but there were several rumors, that it will be a sequel of Need For Speed: Most Wanted which was published in 2005. It seems that Criterion, the creator of Burnout Series, will be working on this title. Eurogamer.net refers to an south african salesman who posted the title as pre-order by accident. Meanwhile the game has been removed from the product-page.

I have prepared a poll about the next title of the Need For Speed, which will come in 2012. Which one would you prefer? Vote now!

Sources:
Eurogamer.net
computerbild.de
pcgameshardware.de

New Design & new videos

I am excited to show you the new design of my blog. The background is now completely filled with pictures of Gran Turismo 5, which i created by myself in the ingame Photo-mode. I will also do some updates on the banner soon. Best view at 1920x1080.

You might have noticed that I had uploaded some more videos while my blog-absence. The time trials vol. #32 - #34 of GT5 are online and so do the Ultimate Racer events #13 and #14 aswell. You can expect soon more videos from the Need for Speed Series and also Gran Turismo 5.

NFS The RUN - AEM Challenge - Platinum Medal - online

Time to continue the challenges of NFS the RUN. Reaching Platinum medal in this challenge wasn't very hard. I also recommend not always to take red marked road. Sometimes the longer route is faster in the end.

If you want to unlock the AEM challenge series, go on extras, enter cheat code and type in "aemintakes".

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer #12 - online

From Island Outskirts Knockout to the Ancient Ruins K.O. in the evening, which is my favourite time of day. The PS2 had beautiful light rendering when it comes to the dusk time. This is also a single race like on the perevious event. I chose again the BMW M5. The cops are using everything they have: roald blocks, spike strips and the chopper. Transmission was set to "Manual" and the Handling to "Extreme".

Gran Turismo - Re-Do the License exams (UPDATED!)

Because there was a copyright claim by PIAS, I have redone all the license tests completely. I didn't care much about the time I reached for gold medal. The only music track this video contains is "my home" from the european version of Gran Turismo.

The B-License tests are redone now. Enjoy the video!

Update March 2nd 2012: The A-License tests are also online now.

YouTube - The Clean Up

On the next days I will clean up on my YouTube channel. A few of my videos have a Content ID match. Almost all those videos have "unauthorized" use of music / audio content which belongs to different companies. Even there are possibilities like the audio swap, which YouTube suggests, I will go a different way and probably delete all those videos. Some of them will be redone with removed music. I'd like to mention, that YouTube didn't force me to do something about it. It's my own decision.

YouTubes Content ID isn't always hitting the black spot if a copyright infringement is detected. Sometimes the "match" is false. So before i definitely delete these videos, I will do some research first.

YouTube - The best way to increase the views of your video

All information I am giving you now came from my longtime experience with YouTube. I have not copied any sentences from other sites and also do not intent any copyright infringement. I hope this information will help you with promoting your videos on YouTube. Now back on topic.

It has been discussed many times around the world and there are many tips to show you how to increase the views on your YouTube video. Sure, adding more tags, commenting videos of other people, sharing your video on different websites is nice, but that will increase the views only for a short time. I haven't studied Marketing or something similar, but if you have spent enough time on YouTube, you'll notice that something has become different. 

After YouTube was founded in 2005, there weren't so many videos around like now. It was easy back then to gain thousands of views in a few days. In a month you were able to get 100'000+ views for your video, even it wasn't the most interesting thing in the world. But then YouTube became more and more popular and the number of registrations increased rapidly and it got more and more difficult to promote your own videos. Why? Because many other people had a video about the same thing with an almost identical title, the same tags and a similar length. The competition was getting bigger and bigger and you always had to find a way to make yourself more interesting. So what happened after? YouTube launched a partnership program which makes it possible to earn money with your videos. As opposed to the normal user, a partner has many more features to promote his videos like having ads, a banner for your channel, upload a custom thumbnail for your videos and many more. At the beginning, it was limited to the United States only. After becoming a success it expanded to other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom and Czech Republic. There might be a few more countries, so I don't know all of them. Switzerland and Austria were and are still not involved into the program. The reasons are unknown.

If you as a normal user have the same video like someone else who is a partner, your chances to get more views than him would be slim. The reason is the thumbnail he has on his video. As a partner, you have the ability to use any picture you want as the thumbnail for your video even it doesn’t have anything to do with the subject. However, the normal user must accept one of 3 proposed thumbnails of your video which are chosen by YouTube. And most of them are really bad choices. As you can see, the title, tags, activity and embedding videos aren’t the only important factors; the thumbnail on the video is the probably most important thing to get many views for a long period of time. If your thumbnail doesn't look attractive enough, the visitor won't click on it! The thumbnail gives us the final decision to watch the video or not. Besides, a thumbnail can't simply be copied like titles and tags. It is something which will always remain custom and that's what the people want.

Let's make an example. I have here 3 pictures of one of my videos which were proposed from YouTube. Now assume that these pictures are of 3 videos which have the same title and tags except the thumbnail which looks different of course. On which one would you decide to click? You can leave a comment for your choice or send me a message, whatever you like. The choice is yours.

Gran Turismo 5 - Official Nurburgring Kart-Track in (hopefully) next DLC?

What do we have here? A Kart track at the legendary Nurburgring?  At first glance it looks tight, but when you see the many 180-turns, it would be a bit challenging and forming could be interesting for professionals. The straight line is about 80 meters long and can be achieved with a peak speed of 50km / h. That's good enough for a kart, right? The total length of the entire track is 400 meters and brings a great fun for young and old guarantee. Let us hope it will be coming in future downloadable contents for Gran Turismo 5.

Source: nuerburgring.de

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer #11 - online

The Knockout challenges continue on the next Ultimate Racer volume #11. For a change I have decided to take the BMW M5 and have to race with 3 other racers which are driving a HSV Coupe GTS, a Jaguar XKR and a BMW M5. The cops are now calling for road blocks and the chopper. As always i used manual transmission and set the handling on "extreme".

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Events #9 & #10 - online

I have released now 2 of the Ultimate Racer events in NFS Hot Pursuit 2 for the PlayStation 2.

As on previous event #5, you will be playing on the cops side and have to stop 3 racers within 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I didn't use the nitrous and won't use it for future pursuits.

The real action starts on the 10th event of Ultimate Racer. You are racing at Calypso Coast against 3 other HSV Coupe GTS. It is only a single race, but it is definitely worth watching this. I always avoid crashing into the traffic, but in a few situations it is to late to react since a traffic car appears in front of you. You can excpect a long single race with is over 12 minutes long and fear the power of the police. They are now calling for road blocks, using spike strips (starts at lap 3), and call also for the chopper, which is throwing many explosive canisters or placing "mobile" spike strips from the air to stop you.

Ulimate Racer Event #9:

Ulimate Racer Event #10:

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Event #8 - online

On this multi-track knockout challenge you are racing against other Opel Speedsters or Vauxhall VX220s. They are basically the same cars with only a few differences. The cops are also calling for road blocks on this event.

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Event #7 - online

This is a battle between the United Kingdom and the Australian manufacturers. I had luck that this is just a single race and not a knockout race like on previous event. It's not very motivating to do 3 races in a row, which contains only the same track. The cop skills are as usual. Road Blocks, Spike Strips and the chopper are all disabled. Enjoy!

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Event #6 - online

Which cars are better? This is a battle between the United Kingdom and the Germany manufacturers. Actually there are only 2 cars participating in this event: The Jaugar XKR and teh BMW M5. This event will be battled 3 times on the Natioal Forest course. I'd like to mention, that it is the shourtest and also the fastest track in the game. Enjoy!

Gran Turismo 4 in 1080p

Now that I have Gran Turismo 4 on all versions (NTSC US/C, NTSC-J, PAL), it's time to test the feature that was removed in the european version. I have captured a replay from the US version in 1080i and rendered it again in 1080p to have a video in full frame. The course I have chosen is one of my favourites, the "El Capitan" course, which isn't featured currently in Gran Turismo 5. Maybe it might come as a DLC or it might be (hopefully) in Gran Turismo 6, which is in progress after the release of Gran Turismo 5.

The 1080i mode is not in true High Definition. It is just an upscale from the horizontal lines. The vertical lines were not touched and remain in 640p. The upscale boosts a bit more of flickering and also sharpens more the image. It also takes effect only when you are about to start a race. The main-menus, options, garage and anything else is kept in 480i or 480p. 

Now enjoy the video.

Gran Turismo 5 - Special Stage Route X released!

After seeing so many videos about drag racing, Polyphony decided to bring us the new track, called Special Stage Route X. It is over 32km long. In exception of the Test Track in Gran Turismo 4 which is "only" around 12km long, this one is almost 3 times longer. The straights are 12km and the curves ca. 3km long each. It takes 3 minutes and 45 seconds of your patience for 1 Lap. :)

Here is a video which is a one make race between me and 7 other X2011 cars. Is includes also the transition from day to night. The timeer was set at 14:30 (2:30pm) o'clock. And the progression was set to 30. Enjoy!

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Event 5 - online

Now let's switch the side. This time I will be a cop and have to stop 3 racers within 2 minutes. That was very easy, I didn't use the nitrous and won't use it for the future pursuits. I'd like to mention that the cops have nitrous installed in their cars. Enjoy the pursuit. :)

Gran Turismo 5 - Time trials & NFS Hot Pursuit 2 Event #4

The newest time trial seasonal event is finally done. I recommend to chose a 4WD car beacuse the second race is going on rain. All-wheel cars have the best grip and are highly recommended on rainy tracks. Enjoy the race!

This event is a knockout race between the german and australian cars. The weirdest thing on this event is, that you have to do 3 races on the same track on the same direction accomplish it. Each race contains 2 laps. So because this event isn't so much fun, I didn't care much about doing clean laps. I chose the car Ford TS50 for a change, since I have already done the time trials with the Opel Speedster and the Mercedes CL55 AMG. The cops aren't calling for road blocks / spike strips / chopper, so it was an easy race. As always i use manual transmission and go on "extreme" handling.

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Event #3 - online

He it goes, the next delivery mission. The couse this time is very tight and has many sharp corners. The police is the same as in previous event. The cops are calling here for the road block also . Enjoy!

NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - Ultimate Racer Event #2 - online

Here we go, the next Ultimate Racer challenge featuring an Opel Speedster. It's also a Delivery mission. The police calls now for road blocks. Chopper and spike strips are still disabled. The track itself is pretty fun. You need only to be careful when use some of teh shortcuts. One mistake, and you'll hit the wall. Enjoy!

The handling was set to "Extreme" and the transmission to "Manual".

My new blog!

Hi all!

I'd like to introduce you my new blog. I've opened this blog to inform you about my future gameplays and perhaps other real-life stuff. If you go to my YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/GTRufus1),  you might have noticed my new background. So now for my first post, I'd like to show you how my new logo actually looks without the asphalt:

Any critics or suggestions are welcome.

I have returned to the classic Need For Speed Hot Pursuit for PlayStation 2. This time, I'll also upload the "Ultimate Racer" events along with NFS the RUN, Gran Turismo 5 and other games. There is a total of 32 challenges which can contain up to 8 races each challenge. Please don't expect 100% clean driving. Even I do mistakes and crash into a wall or a traffic car. My personal goal on all challenges is to never getting busted. On a few challenges you will be the cop and have to stop the other racers.

Enjoy the first challenge for now. It's a pretty easy one for the beginning. The cops on this challenge call for road blocks or spike strips or the chopper. I'd like to menton, that the Lotus Elise is the slowest car in the game.