BardicKnowledge

That guy has the ugliest Mii I've ever seen. Well, short of the "She-Thing" my fraternity brothers lovingly created for me when I went out of town.

Damn. There's one series of rooms I can't beat in Endless mode, and I'm therefore stuck at #6 on the leaderboards. I'm convinced that I've now seen every possible combination of rooms, unfortunately...it's rather limited. I was hoping they would be unique until 300 or so. Anyway, does anyone have any advice about the spike room with all those damn grabbers from Galaxy Man's level? I realize that not getting grabbed is the goal, but the one platform with three of them is just ridiculous.

While both games are excellent, the playtime per value you'll get out of the Orange Box is something that everyone here should experience. I've played more TF2 alone than most $60 games I buy -- getting HL2 (plus EP1/2) and Portal in addition to it is amazing, especially if you are yet to play through HL2 proper.

Glad to help! What's your high score? If you go to the leaderboards, you can always check out your gamertag's highest and how it compares to just your friends. My current is just over 100 screens.

Endless stage mode is surprisingly fun. Get it! Protoman plays like MM4 Mega (sliding + that version of the buster), except that he can only have two shots onscreen at once instead of three. Making up for that is that if you block shots with the shield, they reflect and kill things. Good stuff, but ultimately not as fun as endless mode.

Done. Get XBLA games! Between BCR and MM9 (Braid is good but not as replayable), you won't get more gameplay for $20 ever. My advice: Buy a 1600 point card, get BCR + MM9, and use the remaining $20 to buy some alcohol to enhance your cheap gaming experience. Also, college!

1) I do know about all of those, and occasionally will use the WIP review sheet IF I want to give a full-length review. Unfortunately, I don't feel qualified to comment on production issues at all, so I usually don't. 2) Any feedback is always welome. The only thing that I don't like receiving is when I specifically mention that something isn't done, and then get responses where they only mention how that one thing isn't done. ugh. 3) Game and familiarity with source tune usually motivates me. I'm trying to get into the habit of reviewing more often and titles I don't recognize. Classical genres get longer reviews from me because I feel like I'm more qualified there. 4) I would review more often if submitters would find "real" web-hosting for their WIPs as opposed to rapidshare etc. I like just clicking on a link and hearing the track. As for the whole board, I don't have anything to add to the discussion except to say that the front-page links to the forum are helpful. 5) People that have zero idea what they're talking about, or give ridiculous advice. Example: Telling a solo piano mix that it'd be much better if they'd just add instruments instead of leaving it as a piano solo!

I really enjoyed the way the two tunes play around with each other in this arrangement. I don't know the first thing about electric guitar however, so I'm not a good person to critique this style of arrangement (it sounds fine to me, but Rozo is right -- take it to guys who really know their stuff). I would advise not including the chiptune intro. It doesn't do the piece a lot of good if we know the source already (which now that you have provided a link, we do). If you want to use the chiptune at some point, I suggest a break in the middle of the piece, as opposed to an introduction. Hit us with the guitars hard and fast -- the moment they came in was great.

^I just saw the trailer to that. It looks absolutely incredible -- the instant it comes out, make a thread and get us linkage.

I don't know about the demo, as I bought it without playing it (my brohter had it, and I got to try it on his 360). The actual game's challenge mode is great fun in single player, and the crazy car physics make for excellent jumping and racing. I think of the game in terms of a racing platformer -- that's how much emphasis there is on jumping and screwing around. The actual race mode admittedly plays more like a racer; the platforming mostly applies to challenge mode and multiplayer (reverse tag and deathmatch especially).

That's a huge deal. Not being compatible with the games designed for the platform = failure. Nintendo has been slowly dicking over people for a while now -- they've just gotten enough new people into gaming that it isn't as big of an issue as it should be. Give it time. Note that I own both a DS Lite and a Wii, and love them both. It's just that Nintendo can't give us shoddy service (especially online...compare lag in Soul Calibur IV on 360 to lag on Smash Brothers -- it's terrible) forever and expect us to keep forking over the cash.

I had excellent results working with my voice professor in college -- if you're that age, I highly advise taking a semester of paid lessons to see if that style of learning is right for you. You definitely won't be any worse off trying it out.

^I'm still playing SC now and then. Invite me sometime if I'm on (it's MasterTenor). Also, more of you 360 owners need to buy Gripshift (from XBLA). Multiplayer GS is the best thing ever -- the only problem is that only one other person I know has it.

Just finished it this morning -- while it's definitely harder than most of the rest, I think that the difficulty is about on par with the revisited stages in 3 (as has been said above). Still, the list of challenges is going to keep me coming back to it for a long time. Double Trouble seems to be the easiest of the "whole game" achievements to do, so I'll start there this afternoon.

Other than picture-taking, it doesn't look like anything we can't already do with homebrew. "Better" speakers still won't be better than the majority of headphones. I'm not impressed, honestly. I scanned the article, but couldn't find anything on how the larger screen will affect older DS games... Still, Punch-Out is exciting, and DQ9 will be awesome as well. Edit: Totally forgot about that...not the smartest move, methinks.

I'm doing voting for everyone today. Wanted to thank Andy for writing a track that doesn't encourage lots of skipping forward like almost everyone else in his category thus far. Best of luck to you all!

Actually, MM3 doesn't have charge, so only three have charging. I'd rather have sliding back, personally -- I guess when Protoman comes out in a couple weeks, I'll get my wish.

Wow -- Internet is serious business, I guess... I'll admit that I feel slightly awkward having the info needed to track me down easily available both here and Facebook after reading this.

Thanks for letting us know, Audix! I'm at home all day tomorrow, so I'll take be sure to take care of voting during my off time!

Just finished it 100%, with all 60 treasures in GCO. Great remake, with enough subtle changes to keep things fun. The extra modes are a lot of fun as well.

Neo Samus, do you have Copy yet? It's on its own planet, hiding...

That's awesome. I've wanted that ever since playing the last level in Kirby's Adventure (the only one that comes close to SS).

Any comments from those that got it right away about extra modes or any bonus content?

Is there a better, easier to configure emulator for the PS1 than ePSXe? It works alright, but it isn't perfect and takes a hell of a time to set up. If there's a better alternative, please let me know. If there isn't, would someone with really good results let me know what plug-ins they are using?

If only I had more Wii points -- it looks like I'll have to wait until next week to get it for 360.