Strike911

A. I had quit band in middle school for two years, was forgetting how to read sheet music, and forgot how to play an instrument. I knew next to nothing about making music when I found OCR while in the middle of high school 8-ish years ago. Thought the idea of remixing my own favorite game tracks was a cool idea, so I taught myself a few programs after spelunking the OCR Forums. I'm no expert or anything, but OCR has been my central music hub. Not only in regards to production, but to interesting genres and artists I wasn't hip to. The community is responsible for my interest in music as well as showing me new ways to create (and refine) my music... ...which is why I stick around. haha. EDIT: I also seem to get good answers from people no matter how silly, strange, or noobish my questions are.

Man, that comparison between the Black Eyed Peas and Michael Jackson really hit the nail on the head. Yeah, some new tunes are catchy for a while, but the incredibly enormous amount of Michael Jackson's music was not only catchy, but it felt like the music itself had a soul. Combine that with the showmanship and... its something that I don't think any other musician could ever match. And for the record... MJ > Elvis There I said it.

... and here we all thought James Brown's post-death drama was the pinnacle of all circus shows...

Tim Burton makes some really weird, creepy things... ... but seriously, these pics take the cake... even beats out the Boogie Man from Nightmare Before Christmas, and that thing was weird.

Wow, this is really good stuff. Fun to listen to, too.

Man, it's weird. He's dead. Just weird.

Alright, well, thanks everyone. This thread has been enlightening as well as far too kind. I appreciate all the feedback, insight, and observations into everything.

All over the news with this story. Really liked his music. A lot of my favorite songs are by him. Bad times.

I got A LOT of mileage out of L4D with my buddies, so I'm really stoked, and will buy L4D2 at launch. Once or twice a week since last November me and my buddies meet up with our laptops and play L4D together. I couldn't care less about boycotts and who is vowing not to buy the game. All I know is that me and my buddies are chomping at the bit for some new content. Want to boycott it? No worries! Just know that come November I sure as hell am going to be killing zombies in hazmat suits with a freakin' chainsaw in sunny New Orleans. I got a lot of mileage out of L4D, and the SDK will add some custom levels and stuff. Come November though, I'm willing to pay 50 bucks for new official content. Easy as that. Stoked.

Okay... I need some answers from you music folks. I'm working on some audio for a little game. I made some jazzy, peppy music for it. Something fun with saxophones, bass guitars, a little brass here and there. So here's what happens: from multiple people I've been told that the few tracks I've produced "sound Japanese." I quote this because multiple people have said this. Now this confused me because I'm not trying to produce anything with traditional Japanese, ethnic inspired instruments or anything... in fact, it's almost entirely a jazzy mix of tunes with a few electronic pieces tossed in for good measure. I can understand that thematic and stylistic differences in music composition occur based on location, but it's to the point that I don't want to detract from the game because the music feels out of place. So I'm in the middle of trying to experiment with how exactly I can go about "westernizing" the music, or in the very least, creating something that doesn't blatantly stick out like a sore thumb. And again, part of me says F this. But the question in my mind remains, what exactly does "your music sounds too Japanese" mean?! I can't figure it out... much less how to fix ... it. (?) If it even needs to be fixed. I even came to point of saying "Look, I'm not being defensive, I appreciate criticism... BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?" And they can never answer me. It's like this criticism, or rather observation, that I can't necessarily prove nor disprove. So here's my question: what makes a piece of music, without ethnic instruments, sound either Eastern or Western? How are we capable of saying "Oh this sounds like its from a JRPG" or "Oh this sounds like a western game's music?" What are the constants and variables of these kinds of music that allow us to make this distinction? Is there a distinction? There must be. And are these distinctions even remotely valid or is it just a perception thing based on media experiences we've internalized to represent "eastern" or "western" styles? I know styles exist, but what exactly are they...? I hope I'm not over analyzing this. We're trying to develop this little game, and I want to make sure everything fits like it should. Again, part of me is like, "MEH, I'll produce what I think fits" but there has been such an overwhelming number of people that say "this sounds Japanese" that its making me wonder if I should be trying to figure out how to be more "western" with the music. For giggles, here's a link to a Youtube vid with a few songs I produced, if you're so compelled you can scroll through it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f18nRkXzyxI Thanks.

Hey I'm in the middle of a little MP3 album art thing. i'm trying to get all the album art embedded on my collection. It would be infinitely easier if I had a way to sort the files in a way that music that hasn't had the art embedded yet are separated from ones that have. Right now I'm just going down the list seeing if the art is there in Songbird and adding art when I find a file missing it. Any good MP3 tagging programs allow sorting this way? Again, what I'm doing works decently enough, although it would be nice to see how many more files I have to go. I'd say about 80% of my music is tagged properly w/ art, so any way to speed up this process would be awesome.

It's the separation from reality that makes us okay with watching the violence... because we know it isn't real. See, it's weird. Games are violent. I can handle seeing various body parts, blood, and organs flying around. That said, turn on the medical tv channel and make me watch live surgery OR or a documentary on war where real gore is shown and that makes me really uncomfortable, and it only takes a little too. With these Iran demonstrations going on, they had a photo of a kid that was shot and bleeding and it was hard to look at for me without getting very uncomfortable. I don't think these desensitization to violence arguments are entirely applicable at times. I've played violent games since I was a wee little kid, and I know some violence I'm desensitized to, and maybe I'm an exception or whatever, but some things I'm just uncomfortable with. Hell, maybe its a psychological thing about being able to separate reality from fiction. *shrugs*

Looking good. I have a lot of respect for people that take on remake projects like this. This kind of stuff is always a labor of love. Good luck man. Keep it on the down low until it's ready for release.

You know, now that I think about it ... Tetris honestly was one of the pioneers of casual gaming with mass appeal. You go Russia. ... and did you guys see those crazy Youtube Tetris tournament videos?!!!?! I was like O_O then I was like x_x

Don't get a 9500 if you seriously want to game. If you want a 9-series, you can get a beastly 9800 GTX on newegg for about $130. I bought two not too long ago from newegg. It came with a free copy of Call of Duty World at War... it's not modern warfare, but hey, free stuff is always fun. ha.

They should just give Link a MGS4 Solid Snake mustache. Problem solved. Need a sidekick? It's Link's talking mustache that doubles as a hookshot, boomerang, and musical instrument. The Mustache of Time. Heard it here first folks.

I really dig the new design. my old PSP busted on me and i was going to buy a 3000, but I think i'll hold out for this.. and the weight of the thing shocks me. That is a significant weight reduction to an already light handheld. What I want to know is the battery life.

I was playing Smash bros brawl with my buddies just recently. It was a high intensity match just for fun, we had items on, and we were fighting like no tomorrow. Real high intensity and then this happened: My buddy grabbed the slow motion item, and it came on right before I started a Falcon punch. My buddy was playing G&W and was positioned right in front of my Captain Falcon, so I felt like I was surely going to get pummeled for initiating such a slow move while slow motion was going on. So what happens? My buddy, instead of jumping around me and destroying me proper, just stood right in front of me and shielded for 3-4 seconds. Made absolutely no sense. For some unintentional reason he waited for the falcon punch to finish. I have no idea why... it took a few seconds. Me and the other guys playing in the round were laughing our asses off because it was so silly at the time. I think I fell out of my chair. I think it was the lull in intensity (in addition to the silliness of waiting to block a slow motion falcon pauunch) that made it funny. I guess since it was in the heat of the moment and unintentional also made it funnier.

The story in Portable Ops is canon. .... but then again I think Metal Gear Mobile is also supposed to be canon, although I admittedly know nothing about the story itself there... i guess I could load up the old the wikipedia and take a look, but naaahhhh. And Ghost Babel has a special place in my heart... that said, the game was really difficult for me. Fun none the less, a good Metal Gear Solid adaptation for the Game Boy Color of all things.

Well, actually Gray Fox isn't necessarily shown in much detail... the hair color, eye color, bandaged eye all match up to Jaeger. And Frank Jaeger wasn't exactly what I'd call overly masculine... there was never enough detail to really pin down exactly what he looked like as only bits and pieces of his face are shown in any of the games. Sure, there were Codec images back on the MSX, but the character design could very well be modified to fit in a new Gray Fox situation just based on how the other characters designs have changed and evolved over time... hell, Snake has looked different quite a few times since the original Metal Gear. Null had his face covered up... but now that I've googled his images and am taking a much closer look, he really could fit the bill if Kojima wanted him to be a pre-Raiden... he's not THAT much more masculine than Raiden, and his concept art (and codec pics) from older games could very well resemble this current "Raiden" teaser pic... again, if Kojima wanted it to. Hell, who knows at this point. This is all just my untrained eye, but looking at the design though of this new teaser art, the screws imply a rudimentary form of exoskeleton, especially when compared to Raiden's suit in MGS4. in MGS4 Raiden's skin is scarred and stitched looking, while this possible Gray Fox seems a little more harshly assembled. Hell, he has a tattooed barcode on his face... surely with nanomachine tech they could keep track of this guy that way. I wouldn't be surprised if Gray Fox is originally put in some kind of prototype exoskeleton of the one that Raiden has in MGS4... except *SPOILER* at the end of MGS4 when Raiden is reassembled and human again */SPOILeR*. Maybe Gray Fox's exoskeleton fails and couldn't be repaired at the time due to technology limitations and they opted to go with more of a cyborg body... the MGS1 Gray Fox, cyborg ninja we all know and love. I'm pretty sure it's not a vanilla Raiden though. Maybe its Raiden's son? Maybe Sunny and Raiden's son's son. Heh? Heh? And for the giggles: IT'S A RESURRECTED RAIKOV!! *serious face*

If there's one thing I've learned in my 24 years on this planet, it's that you'll find time to do what's important to you, for better or for worse.

Yeah, definitely. I'm completely cool with that. Solidarity. <3 Gray Fox. Raiden's parents are killed by Solidus in the 1980s, and I didn't really think about it, but Raiden is adopted by Solidus, very similarly to the way that Frank Jaeger adopted Naomi after killing her parents. I think there are a lot of parallels that can bolster the Raiden/Gray Fox connection (I mean, while leaving out the obvious "they're both tech enhanced ninjas DUH" argument). I wonder if there are more parallels to these two characters... So if Raiden is a kid in the 1980s. Null is a teenager in the 1970s. Frank would be... in his late 20s/early 30s by the time Raiden was born, which means he could lineup by either being a direct child of Gray Fox (which is probably unlikely) or being some kind of clone, which is probably what went down. Makes sense, and keeps that series' theme of cloning alive. Cool. Color me excited. That pic of Raiden/whoever with the black bandana over his eye makes the character look even more bad ass. Anyway, I like this Gray Fox/Raiden connection. If that's not how it is, I will be sad.

Okay, so I don't usually fanboy over-analyze teaser pictures, but tonight I am. I'm taking a look at the Famitsu scans... the one with Raiden and Big Boss on it. Raiden's eyes are blue in MGS4, but they're brown in the scans. Maybe its the lighting. Maybe its a retcon. Just saying. Maybe it's not Raiden? Maybe its Frank Jaeger. Probably too far of a stretch, but it'd be kind of cool if Raiden was some kind of derivative of Gray Fox/Null/Frank Jaeger. Maybe Kojima's dividing chapters by distinct passages of time rather than just locations this time... ... oh who the hell knows. All I know is that I'm officially excited.

Well, 2009 is almost half over; if it's going to be the year of the 360 it needs to get started. Sony's been pumping out consistent exclusives every month. There are too many AAA games coming out for the PS3 consistently to definitively say 2009 is Microsoft's. There are some great exclusives coming out for the 360, but not nearly enough to outshine the other console entirely. This article is mostly conjecture and speculation. Plus half of his guesses involve release announcements which wouldn't really apply to 2009 anyway, even if some his guesses were true. No sources either. And I lol'd at trying to guess what Kojima is going to do. Trying to understand that man is silly. I would argue that if there is going to be a year of the 360, it probably won't happen in 2009. It would be more likely to occur in 2010 if it even happened... honestly though, both Microsoft and Sony are getting their stuff together at this point in the console race. Both are releasing good content and while Microsoft is doing well in sales, Sony's releasing a lot head turning games lately. Honestly, I don't think we'll be able to say 2009 or 2010 is the year of the 360 or PS3.... just because they both have a lot going for them right now. I don't like wild guesses. I read a few of the articles on this site before, and he was making wild guesses just like this, months before. The same site a year ago was claiming how GTA5 was going to be a PS3 exclusive, which is completely ridiculous. I really wouldn't take anything this site says seriously unless you can find confirmation on other places on the net.

@ kittykar download the demo. At first you'll be like, "Psh, a 1 hour demo... try 15 minutes chump!" but then you'll keep playing it... and then you'll want more P vs. Z. *serious face*