About & Contact

 About me

I´m a gamer from Slovakia. I collect lots of stuff like magazines and figures. On 20th May, 2007 I have started my own YouTube channel with one crappy video of flying glitch. At that time I had no idea if my channel could ever be successful or have any views. 11 years later, it has expanded having 228 videos published and over 1600 subscribers, counting up to more than 1,5 million views overall. It was my vision to show you all those LOK secrets to everybody in a series of videos, which thanks to all you fans, was successful. I have finished Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance walkthroughs. I still have Blood Omen and Blood Omen 2 left, so I hope I will get to them.

In 2009 I wanted to complement my YouTube channel with a blog as I wanted to write about my observations in the form of articles.  First two years I had barely any readers, but this changed after I wrote the History of Legacy of Kain article and published the Soul Reaver Beta screenshot comparison. My latest additions were soundtracks to SR1, SR2 and BO2, since there were no in-game soundtracks published.

Legacy of Kain game series got my most attention thanks to its brilliant writing and execution. I also like reading books (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, encyclopaedias) and listening to (mostly) videogame music. My favourite bands are Linkin Park and Coldplay.

My Gaming History

I´ve played ever since I was about 5 years old. My very first console was an "atari" knockoff console with built-in games. I remember tennis and hike and seek to this day. It came with a joystick which my friend modified into buttons and it worked surprisingly well. Later I had something like Amiga or Commodore but for not too long because we bought a 486DX which we upgraded over time. That´s where I got to play all the great games like Lost Vikings, Wolfenstein, Doom, Heretic, Jazz Jackrabbit and lots of others. 

Playing for too long had its cost as my vision got worse in the third grade and I had to wear glasses from that point on. Later we sold our computer and instead I got a PlayStation in 1998. I have played my very first 3D game on it, Tomb Raider 3 as I only played 2D games prior to that and eight axis movement (aka tank 3D controls) was very new to me. It took me some time to get used to it. Later in 1998, I also started buying PSM magazines in which I first read about Soul Reaver in a preview. The concept sounded so interesting so I wanted to try the game out. In the next magazine there was a demo and a video which only convinced me further that this game will be something unique. When it came out in 1999 I was blown away by its complexity, new ideas and technical advances, which no game had in that time. I have played it over and over for hundreds of times, just like the demo before, and it quickly became my favourite game of all time. It also sparked interest in English language (and also thanks to a great teacher at my primary school) and expanded my vocabulary. 

When I learned of Soul Reaver 2 and saw first pictures, I was really excited but few months afterwards it was canceled for ps1 and instead developed for PlayStation 2. As it was really expensive as it just was about to launch, I was really sad and unhappy as I could not afford to buy it. However, by a lucky chance, my parents won in a contest and they bought me my ps2 together with Soul Reaver 2. I could not wish for a better present at the time. I have played it over like 55 times and was amazed how well the dialouge and lip sync where done. Also, the story got really tangled and it was interesting to uncover Nosgoth´s forgotten history. After that BO2 came out and I got my hands on it few years later after its release, just like with Defiance. They were hard to buy as there was no proper game store in my town and when they released, they were pretty expensive. I also got BO1 from ebay auction, which wasn´t cheap either.

Over the years I collected lots of ps2 games which can be seen in my collection article. Nowadays I buy games off Steam and GOG as I believe digital distribution is the way of the future. I ran out of space for physical boxes in my room so being only on hard drive is really beneficial. I do miss the era of thick manuals but we have to move on. If you want to add me on Steam, you can find me there under my nickname.

Contact

If you have any questions or want to contact me, email me at ancientvampire (at) centrum.sk or use the contact form on the right side. Thanks a lot for your support!

46 comments:

  1. Pěkné to tu máš. A to jsem myslel, že fanoušci LoK ve střední evropě již vymřeli ^__^

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    1. Díky :) Nevymreli sme! :D čakanie sa vyplatilo, konečne vyjde nová hra čoskoro..

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    2. Tak snad bude stát za to. Trochu se multiplayerovky bojím.

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    3. neboj, bude to okej :P onedlho sa uvidí...

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  2. You are one amazing person, hopefully you a great future find you, you are worthy XD

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    1. Ah, thank you so much Max :) We are legion! :D

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  3. hey what happened? How I can send you an email? Does your can not send me one? I do not know how to write your mail is that the translator puts me otherwise and I do not understand lol xD .... not about programming but I am a graphic designer, if I can serve and something ... I'm not very good the truth, but sometimes good things come out of the trash xD lol .... by the way my email is ... oh no shame, is tontix_ruths@hotmail.com ... regards

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    1. Sorry about the trouble, I´ve sent you an email.

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  4. hello! had no internet, I found your post, just to spend some skins that edits, will serve you not, but maybe give you some idea ... = D

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  5. send me a message, please xD ... not write your email as the translator so xD

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  6. I found something great Nosgoth is doing. Here is a link in case you did not know. http://www.nosgoth.com/blog/something-wicked-this-way-comes

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  7. hey raina, i fan of the soul reaver since 1999. can you get me the early of the sr1?

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  8. Hey raina, im loving the work your doing but i have a quick question! you see i too am trying to remake an old ps1 game but im told ill get in trouble with the original developers legal department what did you do to prevent this from happening?

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    1. Hello! Thanks a lot for the comment - I think the most important part is to require the players to own the original game, the game you are making must be for free and you must give credit to the original developers/publisher as well. However, whether they allow it or not depends on the company holding the rights... Which game do you plan to do?

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  9. Hi Raina, I wanted to say a big THANK YOU for all the great work you've done concerning this epic serie.
    I'm an old fan of LoK too (especially Soul Reaver) and I'm following you on Youtube for years now. I've always thought you were one of the developers of the game because you seem to know so many things about it. How did you manage to gather so much knowledges, files, tracks and stuff about the serie ?
    What are you planning on the future ? Releasing an updated version of SR1 ?

    Good luck and keep the work on !

    Regards from France ;)

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    1. Hello Remi!

      Thanks a lot for your comment! :) Haha, no, I'm not a dev, though I've always wanted to help with the games and now I got the opportunity with Nosgoth as Beta tester and as a Senior Mod on the offcial Nosgoth forums. I guess it just built up over the years - I've played the games so many times and read as much as I could about them (main inspiration was TLW), so decided to start out with my own YouTube channel and a blog with it. Thank you for support! It is highly appreciated. Yes, that is the plan - but might take a year or two to actually complete.

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  10. Lol bobafet against a chestbuster, heyhey! uh 1 question have you played fallout 1 or alien trilogy? because, dam thoose games are my childhood and i think this is more like a recommendation for ya (to play them, or at least watch walkthroughs because they are AAA games)

    PN:.T_T i couldn't be fan of soul reaver since 1999 because i was born at that year LOL (im kinda a retro kid)

    good luck, i'm still waiting for soul revenant !

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  11. Raina, you should post a picture of your tits. Would be greatly appreciated.

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    1. Here is a pair of great tits just for you, hope you appreciate them:
      http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/13609/5657.Great-Tit-and-juvenile.JPG

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  12. Hi Raina!! Thank you for this awesome project!! It's been years since i'm wishing for a reboot or at least an HD version of Soul Reaver and Blood Omen Saga! Even in these days I got my ps4 often covered and turn off and still prefer play my old psx Soul Reaver! All that graphics and no piece of action or true amazing adventure.. that's the problem of most of the games now... just horror or FPS games! :(
    Anyway I'm almost 37, italian web designer and member of a Ken Rage 2 fun mod project, so even if i'm not developer, i'd like to help you out with translation, tests and any other thing that could help you out to achieve the dreaming to see Raziel reborn form ashes! It's a shame that stupid square enix doesnt use a cool story like this it would be such an amazing game! Just a couple of questions: do you think it is possible to inject your modded files also into a psx iso of the game, or it would only be a modded version of pc game? and I know this would be asked thousand time... when would be possible to play a demo of this wonderful project?

    Thanx a lot and keep up the rocking Soul Reaver Saga!!

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    1. Hello! Haha, yeah, SR1 remains my favourite game still. Oh, that would be great, do you know own an Italian copy of SR1? If you can do the transcript of it, that would be great, as I plan to have subtitles in the game. Well, it is a difficult thing to make a game and they have certainly tried, believe me. The game is pc only as everything is recreated from scratch. I can´t give any dates on the demo, as we just started, sorry. I will let you know how the progress goes in the form of blog posts though :) Thank you for your support!

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  13. Nice to read your reply Raina!! Thank you! And yes I have the italian copy of the game so no problems if you need a hand I'm happy to help you as I can! Keep up the awesome job!

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  14. raina is hot! lol

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  15. Uz sa tesim ked bude Soul Revenant hotovy a zahram si jednu z najoblubenejsich hier s novou grafikou. Velmi tvojmu projektu drzim palec ;)

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  16. Hi, I've been trying to get soul reaver to work on a modern system for a while now, and through steam, I found your 'Soul Revenant' project. I must say, I'm most impressed! It looks awesome! I'm greatly anticipating playing it. You and I have quite a similar history of games, and I wish I had the knowledge to re-create my old favourites, the list would be enormous lol All the best to you. Andy, CRAZYBLADEZ666 on steam if u wanna play :) Raina...... you are worthy! x

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  17. hey i'm just wondering do this site have a chatroom or a place where you could just talk to other legacy of kain fans

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    1. Hey, unfortunately there is no chatroom, but if you want to talk, feel free to join me in one of the LOK groups on facebook :)

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  18. Is this project still alive? I've been waiting for it for a long time.

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    1. Hey! We are indeed alive. I will post only big updates from the game on the blog, all the smaller ones you can see on our fb page: https://www.facebook.com/SoulRevenant/

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    3. This was my favorite game from my childhood. I would love an updated version with better controls!

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  19. When will there be something that's playable? The wait is killing me haha

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  20. How many beta versions of Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver exist?.

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    1. Sorry for the late reply! There are more than 3 it seems. I wish I had them all :/

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  21. Hi Raina, just to say that im so exited to see the Soul Revenant project finish, and i got to say that i've been followin your work and your gameplays since ... i don't know, anyway, thank you for sharing all this with us the LOK fans and all that haha, Greetings from Mexico and sorry for my gramar xD

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    1. Hey Nathan!

      We are still working on SoulRev! Latest updates are found on the FB page of the project. Thank you for being a fan and supporting us! It means a lot :) Your grammar is fine, don´t worry! Thanks for stopping by!

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  22. As a long-time fan of LoK, I just wanted to thank you from the depths of my heart for this blog and your effort in providing all of us with the absolutely eargasmic soundtracks for BO, SR and SR2.

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    1. Thank you for the kind words! I laughed out loud at "eargasmic", haha! I am really happy that people still listen to these soundtracks almost 20 years later :)

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  23. First thank you very much for the work done, much appreciated by those who like this franchise. You already did a lot posting the sounds in Ogg, and I'm really grateful, but I would be even more thankful, happy and content to enjoy all these sounds in the format FLAC or wave. I know it was posted at some other time, on another link, if you can do it again, of course within your time, I will appreciate it very much. Thanks again for all the work of the site.

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    1. Hello,

      thank you for your interest and support! Unfortunatley, I did not keep those original files due to space issues so I only have OGGs left, sorry. The difference in sound quality is too small to warrant another 100h of recording just for that purpose.

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  24. Ok Raina, yet thanks for reply!

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  25. LOK games changed my life, I remember the very first time when Soul Reaver arrived to my old ps1, such an amazing plot, the music was simply perfect. I can't thank you enough when you uploaded all music files back then on YouTube, I was amazed there were people that share the same passion for LOK series. Your work is simply perfect. Thank you for your work, for everything!!!!
    Finally but not less important, sorry for my english.

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    1. Hey Javier! I am the same, Soul Reaver has changed everything - without it, I wouldn´t be where I am now. Thank you! I am glad that you like the soundtrack, can´t tell you how many hours I have spent on perfecting that thing, haha :D Thank you for your support, it means a lot. And don´t apologize for your English, it´s perfectly understandable! Merry Christmas!

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  26. what should we do to get a new soul reaver ??? i cant live frome 2003 the last game of the legacy of kain until now what should we do whyy they would't do a remake or some thing they did for many many old game even crash team raceing and many more they must do legacy of kain soul reaver if could travel to the compeny i would do but am frome egypt !!! i cant go this far away what shuld we do i cant wait mush longer plz if anyone can talk to them and make them see this huge old school fans they will do it

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