BardicKnowledge

I highly recommend checking out Darksiders II -- Emily Reese over at MPR's Top Score really enjoyed it, and for good reason, as the soundtrack is vastly improved over the original game.

This is an excellent, unprecedented example of how to effectively integrate electronic sounds with an orchestra in a tonal environment. If a piece in this style isn't part of your portfolio as a composer moving forward, you should certainly consider one, even if it is this arrangement as opposed to an original work. Bravo! This is one of the most unique remixes of 2012, and is going to be one of the pieces I use to showcase the possibilities that await composers willing to work outside of common practice period instrumentation. I can't wait to hear what you've got in store for all of us next! All this praise not withstanding, Bobby, the challenge I set in front of you is this: How does one take this excellent music and transfer it to a live performance? Lastly, I rarely mention this, but this piece also boasts one of the most interesting judge decision threads in a long while, in case people reading this want to learn more about how the site functions musically. Personally I don't think the mix is too long at all -- on the contrary, I think that there is room for a 10-13 minute piece in this style that further develops the source material, expanding on some of the brief references made to other pieces throughout. I would suggest that 10-13 minutes is not outrageously long for a short form orchestral work, and part of some judge "no" votes stems from a lack of experience with longer musical forms, and the hegemonic position held by the 3-4 minute "radio length" piece not just here on OCR, but in popular music at large. I rarely find myself disagreeing strongly with the judges decisions, including those who have voted "no" on mixes I liked quite a bit; that being said, I'm very glad that Larry stepped in and argued for this arrangement, as this piece of music IMO represents what OCRemix is all about more than any other in quite some time.

E-mail sent, let me know!

If I wasn't having a baby in two weeks, I would love to take advantage of that budget computer, even if I had to cut the HD and put it what I currently have here. Alas, no money or cashflow atm until I hear about my funding for next semester. When I do finally get to upgrade though Brad, you're getting a call. Good work putting together these example rigs!

I'm also hearing that -- it's causing some awkwardness in places actually. Specifically when the bass changes to the 5th of the chord (example: F in a Bb chord), you should consider changing the bass there. This is because when we hear Bb D F or D F Bb (chord root or 3rd in the bass), we process that correctly as a C chord. When we hear F Bb D, human ears used to listening to Western music (the vast majority of people reading this) tend to hear that chord not as the tonic chord of the key of Bb (the key your arrangement is in) but as the IV chord in the key of F. In short, chords with the 5th in the bass tend to draw us out of the current key unless they are used as part of a sequence of the same chord (like hearing Bb D F; D F Bb; F Bb D in sequence isn't an issue) or at the close of a phrase (where the standard progression is to hear F Bb D; F A C (Eb); Bb D F).

This. Haven't agreed with Tensei this strongly in a while, haha.

Holding down the right arrow on the 2nd player controller in Megaman 3 gives you a permanent high jump ability. If you mess around with toggling this on and off in a pit, you can be in a living state with 0 HP, granting you immortality (until you hit a life energy capsule). Holding down the up arrow would put everything into slow motion, and holding Up and A freezes almost everything. Combos of these make the game a joke, but it's a lot of fun to fool around with the game in this debugging state. In case you're looking for a less "outright cheating" thing, the Gladiator ability in Final Fantasy V Advance allows you to get a 50% chance of 9999 damage every time you strike, in addition to an attack-modifier that rivals X-Fight. Totally broken.

Can't spend any more cash until after baby arrives in mid November, Andy -- congratulations on the success with the Kickstarter though! Looking forward to hearing the completed album when we can pick it up

Dave mentions Wagner in his writeup, and there's something in perhaps the most iconic Wagner prelude (Tristan and Isolde) that is notably absent here after reading the writeup. Music lesson time! If you read sheet music, click over to IMSLP and look at the first score under the Tristan and Isolde Prelude, item 2.1.3 -- we're talking about the first six measures or so. While that loads, queue up the . Note the ambiguity of the chords at measures 3 and 6 -- they don't resolve to something satisfactory...and won't for the entirety of an opera nearly six hours long. It's this combined with other forms of harmonic suspension that makes the piece so compellingIn the remix proper, the bass note does not move in the opening chords, and the harmony is not as complex. I think a Tristan-esque moment delaying the resolution of the sequence (which occurs on the 4th chord of the piece in the Dark World remix) might have created a more engaging introduction that demans we listen onwards, waiting for the appearance of a tonic chord. Here, because of the early resolution and resulting repetition of the four chord sequence, it becomes a little stale, as some of the judges have pointed out. The piece as a whole is good, but would be even better with a little more harmonic dexterity borrowed from Wagner (and Richard Strauss later on in the early 20th century, for that matter).

Yep -- you can have console-spawned items, so long as the char you don't want flagged doesn't access the console. Just make a level 1 throwaway character and have at it!

Thankfully, spawning respec potions in the console is ridiculously simple. I've got a big stash of them in case anyone wants one -- just hit me up on Steam sometime.

Yes, this -- Shoryuken should be able to point you in the right direction. Tweet at @MarkMan23 and some of the other FGC members who regularly travel to Japan and see if they can't help you out.

Thanks for posting the thread for this! Personally, I already have the vast majority of these games, so I'm passing on this bundle. It is a _steal_ for anyone that doesn't have at least 80% of them though. One of the best yet...

You can safely get around that flag by spawning respec potions on a throwaway character, and then putting said potions into the shared stash to be consumed by characters that need it later. Just don't access the console while a char you don't want flagged is loaded. Flags happen on a per-character basis, not a per-account basis.

Great piece! Hearing a theme against another in counterpoint might have been interesting; a couple transitions weren't as smooth as they might have been, but such is the nature of putting this many themes together. The orchestration is _phenomenal_ though -- a textbook example of how to do this effectively.

Ha, if only I could play that often during the week! So far, tanking is working pretty well, though I think if I would sacrifice my "absurd AoE fire dps" I could have more robots tank even more at the expense of functioning in solo play. Lots of options for characters thus far!

Because the game is completely mod-friendly, including online play, you will be able to patch your game such that the NPC's will sell you a respec potion at a reasonable rate in a couple weeks when the editor goes live. I also really like that many skills scale based on player level, allowing for diversity in skills...though there are definitely skills that benefit a lot from deep investment to unlock the Tier 2-3 bonuses.

I'll be up for games tomorrow morning -- from the 1.5 hours I got in last night it was amazing. Edit: I'm now at the beginning of Act 2, Level 20. Game is so much fun, haha.

Glad that someone is enjoying TTT2! I'd pick it up but am strapped for cash atm. I also don't get fighters on the first day anymore after SFxTekken didn't have couch co-op on the 360...among other giant problems w/ the game.

Addie and I won't be coming this year, gang -- for those of you who haven't heard yet, our first child is due in the middle of November, which makes travelling cross-country to a convention in January basically impossible. Have fun without us, and we'll look forward to seeing you next time around!

I'd argue that the Wii was designed to play Wii Sports. It might not seem like much of a game in hindsight, but it was as influential as any launch-date title and perhaps moreso. Note that I love both Zelda: Skyward Sword and Metroid Prime Trilogy, and can't imagine playing either of them without the Wii Remote (I strongly prefer the Wii controls for Prime). I agree that I am yet to see a game that works _because_ of the innovations present in the WiiU as opposed to alongside them, or worse, in spite of them.

I'm asking the community for some suggestions because I'm looking for help in finding a submission to a journal for my graduate work. Are there any Australian-made video games with interesting sound and/or music? The only thing I could come up with offhand was Beam Software's "Nightshade" for NES as precursor to "Shadowrun" on SNES...which is a bit of a stretch. Anything, even a bigger pool of Australian (or New Zealand) made games to check out would be helpful. Edit: Related: Does anyone have any idea of how the Australian censorship of games has impacted audio in Australian ports?

The tablet controller doubles as a Pro controller -- two analog sticks, buttons, etc. I'd love to see an option for fighters to have move lists on the tablet screen during the combat, for instance. It'd help address the massive accessibility issues faced by that community currently.

My favorite one is "Garden of your Mind" featuring Fred Rogers. Who do kids today watch now that Nye, Child, Rogers, Sagan, and others representing the best of our culture and science are either retired or no longer with us?

I would love more splitscreen games on PC -- it would mean that both my wife and I could play simultaneously. Or, on those occasions when we have a gaming couple come over (fairly often, since many of our friends game) it would be nice to be able to play four-player local. I shouldn't have to turn on the console to have four players playing in my home.