BardicKnowledge

Great VS match with all OCR folks last night. More of it!

If the server problems would go away completely, this would be the perfect game IMO. I'm still loving the co-op play, and probably won't get tired of it for some time to come.

This is incredible. Let's hope it sees a Stateside release!

congrats, OA!

Rondo gave us the best of both worlds: classic 2-d gameplay, WITH branching paths to explore. Symphony is the logical extension for a direct sequel, but I would have rather seen a return to form by revisiting Rondo's style, not sticking with the SOTN design for so long. As far as the six sequels since then, Aria IMO is by far the best of them. I think that Order of Ecclesia is a step in the right direction though: I really enjoyed the idea of multiple areas, and outdoor locations. What would people think about a return to Castlevania II's geography, utilizing a world map system like OoC? It would at least give the series some continuity: revisiting the CV2 town in Rondo was sweet for the same reason -- why not include the whole CV2 world map?

^His Carol of the Bells arrangement is the Mannheim Steamroller version -- which would you rather have?

This guy is incredibly good at arranging these. Mad props to him, and to sephfire for generously providing the linkage!

To put the nail in the 360 vs. PC coffin, you can do splitscreen play on your PC locally if you have a wired 360 controller! I don't know how / if this will work online, but at least you can have friends over to shoot zombies now.

Hahahah. This made my day. Thanks!

Midway's time seems to have come and gone -- the only thing they have coming out right now is MK vs DC, and that's released inbetween SSF2THDR and SF4...not a great time for other fighters to enter the arena. On the subject of old Midway games, am I the only person who really enjoyed the arcade version of Gauntlet Legends? I thought it was great, though the N64 version wasn't nearly as fun (because of the lack of HP drain more than anything).

As anyone who's played over Steam with me this past week knows, my mic is out of commission. It's working fine when I test it outside of Steam (with either the Windows Sound Recorder or the Creative equivalent) -- but ingame in generates this horrible feedback loop when I test it, and as a result I can't chat. Anyone have any solutions for me? Edit: While I won't know 100% until my next Steam session, I'm pretty sure I've fixed the problem. The issue is that EVERY recording device wants to be on at once, now that I'm in Vista x64 -- including my sound card's "What U Hear" option where the output gets thrown through the input. It's useful for things like making a wav from a midi file, or getting DRM-free music after I listen to it once. Not useful for things like communication, unfortunately. Disabling every recording device EXCEPT the microphone seems to be working. Hopefully I shoot zombies with a few people later on tonight to confirm it.

The only good times to use a smoker are if the group has to jump down somewhere they can't get back up (house in No Mercy 1, very beginning of No Mercy 2, No Mercy finale, and anything with trains in Blood Harvest). That and if you're grabbing someone who is trying to save a pounced person, or grabbing right before / after a Boomer. Smokers need good teammates to make up for their shortcomings...unless you've got one of those insta-kill zones. Also, despite Valve's patch, our game last night was still coming up with random difficulty modifiers -- does that just mean more witches/tanks are more points, or did they not fix it yet?

I'm ahead of the curve, and have already posted there for you! Will download sometime later this week...

If you're fast enough, you should be able to get through that level before the zombies respawn too many times -- I've only seen a tank on that level once before... Still though, that's awesome (and terrible).

Audix: No Christmas Epic for me to vote on this month? It's a shame it didn't make the cut, assuming you submitted it. Anyway, I think I look forward to hearing the crazy random pieces more than the pieces of the people I know (especially ones I've heard before). There's always at least one track that blows me away every month, and one track where I can't understand what the artist was thinking (or the voters that got them this far, for that matter).

While we're on the subject, does anyone know of a way to get Gradius IV running full speed in MAME? Mine has a ton of framerate issues, and I don't exactly know why -- my guess is some proprietary chip that isn't fully emulated. It's the only Gradius game I haven't finished...as long as the much easier SNES version of G3 counts. That arcade cabinet really chews up quarters! Something on topic: Unless you're a diehard fan of the series like me, I can't really recommend playing Gradius IV -- III and V are both much better, as is the PSX game.

You must have missed the earlier (and more awesome) Snake, Rattle and Roll for NES -- fun as hell to play for some reason despite the frustration it caused.

Will MAME run it? I realize that it's stealing and all, but this is a situation where you _can't_ pay to play it, and therefore shouldn't feel all that bad. Of course, this assumes that you can find a link to download the necessary files -- not always an easy task with arcade images.

^The article says he isn't compeltely satisfied with button layout, and is housing it in a pizza box because it allows him to play around with the layout until he settles -- then he's going to find a more permanent encasing.

^That's too bad, Jill! Still, I'm looking forward to hearing the tracks (downloading them now). Thanks for the awesome album, and have a happy holiday season!

I need to finalize travel plans, which will hopefully be done by the end of the week. We want to visit Philadelphia to see both my old house and the liberty bell / independence hall tour...but don't know if it'd be easier to do that before or after MAGFest. It's 13 hours to DC by car from home, and 14 to Philly. It'd also be nice to visit the Baltimore aquarium while we're in the area. Anyway, it's basically set that we need to be in DC on the 30th to spend time with Addie's relatives in the area before heading to the hotel on the 31st. That also ensures that we won't be too tired from travel to party on New Year's. We will probably leave Illinois on the 29th. Before planning it out with anyone else, I'm thinking my best bet is to drive the longer distance to PA on the 29th, visit Independence Hall on the morning of the 30th, eat an early lunch (wherever I can get a good cheesesteak...gotta ask andy ), and meet the relatives from DC at the aquarium in the afternoon. Now, the reason for me making this post: People from the EC area -- does this travel plan seem reasonable, assuming that we can do the 14 hour drive? Let me know if it'd be smarter to visit Philadelphia on the way back home to Minneapolis (my house) instead of driving there straight from southern Illinois (the parents place, where we'll be spending a few days post-Christmas). Finally, does everyone coming in from an airport have a ride to the hotel? I'll have my car and don't mind picking a couple people up if need be -- especially you crazy international people who are really shelling out the cash to attend.

Won't the Touhou games run via Parallels, or some similar solution? They don't take a huge amount of power to process, and the idea of playing Imperishable Night (PCB is good too...but IN is the pinnacle IMO) should motivate you... As far as non crazy bullet hell shooters, I've always enjoyed the Gradius series best (I haven't played Thunder Force -- should get on that), with Gradius Gaiden (PSX-J) as the highlight of the entire series. I don't have as much experience with vertical shooters, but Strikers 1945 (and the sequels) are great fun via MAME. Glad to hear that others enjoy crazy, adrenaline-filled games also! There's nothing like a good shmup to really focus your mind on gaming...

I've tried the demo, and I'll say that the music and art style are both great. The other Community game I've tried had no music, and no direction with its art style -- both you and Oscar have done a great job of making this into something beyond a Q-bert clone. Definitely picking it up asap. My only complaint: I have trouble doing the "low jump" without mashing the X button -- I wish that you could hold it down to force a lower jump.

Anyone who currently doesn't have a Live account: Microsoft offered my wife a free 1 month trial of Gold membership when she signed up for a Silver account. I don't know if everyone will get the same offer, but it's certainly something worth trying if you're interested in trying out the multiplayer (though if you're the main user of a 360, you really should have it already).

No -- only 320 points left! I'll get this asap though -- congrats, anso!