Level 99

I don't care if the game was pure shit on top of a urine smoothee: I still wanted to play DNF. They started losing me at "land of the babes", but I even tolerated Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (me and my middle brother would spend hours sniping each other), and Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project (I still have my copy of it). Duke Nukem 3d was the Demotion Man equivalent to the FPS world: take common action cliches, make ridiculous characters and story, and set loose the destruction. One liners and hillarious sexuality abound, it so begged for the sequel, even 12+ years in the making. If it was all a vaporware joke, and I'll admit to having laughed at them along the way, it was a very cruel joke. I always kept the thought in the back of my mind whenever replaying DN3D that "one day, one day the sequel will come. It may be total crap, but it'll come." If it gets leaked or eventually released, great, but even if you thought 3d realms didn't deserve to stay open as long as it did, the bottom line that everyone can agree on is that now even more people are without jobs in this terrible economy. I'm going to go play some 360 arcade DN3d later...I just hope my controller doesn't short circuit in the tears I cry whilst freezing some aliens and then kicking their corpses into icicles.

He's fake, he's photoshoped. His reflections and shadows are all wrong. BTW glad to see another Prophet-helmed project gaining some steam! How's your present, anyways, you spoony bard?

Mad remixer spooning love on this glorious day. Be well and stop asking me if I have wood for your sheep, damnit!

I am so sorry I missed this. I had completely forgotten that the weekend it was happening overlapped a very important family gathering, and I wouldn't have been in a good state, financially or otherwise, to have come. Glad it ended up being pretty awesome though. I'll have to save my VR Trooper costume for another meetup...

I'm not sure what it's based on entirely, and I'm too lazy to check right now. It also has an option to download the entire HVSC to the phone for offline play, which is pretty f-ing sweet. I've found a few more tunes that don't play properly in the player, but again, with the sheer amount of track choices, I'm not really complaining. I had this hooked up to the car stereo over the weekend. I pulled up at a stop light next to a typical "street" car modded civic. The other driver was blasting some god-knows-what rap, and I just turned up my track of BMX Kids and smiled.

I was looking for ways to get chiptunes on the go as opposed to the task of converting them all to mp3 (let's face it - chiptunes are small and mp3s are big, plus there's time and effort involved ), when I stumbled upon an article stating the release of a SID player app for the iPhone and iPod touch. I may not have been that familiar with the C64's awesome chiptunes library before, but now I can't stop listening to them. According to the developer's website: "Sid Player Lite brings you the sound of the Commodore C64 to your iPhone and the iPod Touch. Enjoy game classics such as 'Commando', 'Arkanoid', 'The last V8' or listen to the music of 'Rob Hubbard', 'Martin Galway', and many others. Sid Player gives you access to an excerpt of the High Voltage Sid Collection (HVSC) consisting of over 35.000 songs from 1138 authors. Thanks to the unique sound aesthetics, Sid music is now considered an art of its own and there's a constant flow of new creations. A Sid file occupies only few kbytes, thus you can quickly download C64 music via EDGE or UMTS and listen for hours. The search function enables you to find your favourites in a blink." Unfortunately, the app itself is not free ($2.99 when I bought it) but honestly, I definitely feel it was worth it.

It is on this day of the year, and ONLY this day, that I will allow Mr. AeroZ to take me to Level 100. FOR THE KING OF SWEDEN!!! *Attacks Brad* Happy B-day, sexy cello-man

Oh jeez, that got my hopes up and then smashed 'em down like a Juggernaut Earthquake chain in MVC2! did I really just say that?

I've been playing guitar for over 13 years now, and I've always had a musical knack from childhood, though I was never traditionally trained to any extent. I had a few guitar lessons when I started picking the instrument up, and I've never had a vocal lesson, or piano lesson, at all. There are peaks and slumps of advancement along my musical path, some periods bearing more improvement than others, but it really all winds down to determination above all else: if one is dedicated, then it is possible to do nearly anything. I do not have a posted mix yet as of this date (to memory I only believe I have submitted two, and they were WAY back when in 2005 I believe), but I'm still working hard at it. One day, I'm sure it will pay off. Diligence, getting feedback, and working with others to improve and expand your musical realm are the best ways to get better. It's very hard to condense musical progression to a single timeline, as the amount of time you spend improving is not necessarily consistent on a daily/monthly/yearly basis. I can say that the time I spend working with others for projects and collabs help me improve more than if I'm simply messing around on my own in that same amount of time. *shameless plug of how OCR brings people together and makes everyone all better, just like happy little elves* To sum up this meandering and convoluted mess, I'd say it took me over a decade to get here, but the times are different for everyone. Good call on making this thready btw.

Ah, the birth of days. I wish you many more.

Humble thanks in advance to both qpa and Cerrax for offering possible shelter! I would honestly prefer to do it on the Saturday, July 11th date, simply because that means those of us trekking in wouldn't have to drive there and back in one day. Cerrax, I like you're idea of taking the trolley. I don't think I've ever been to Pittsburg so I'd much rather leave my car somewhere safe from getting towed, and cause riding a trolley would be le awesomeness. Alright, I've decided, count me in! Should we all buy our tickets together so we can all sit together like a big, nerdy, awesome family? Also, what the ^$*%(_! hell is an Eatn'Park? Perchance it might have something to do with eating, harboring a likelihood of also parking?

The judges are fake. They're photoshopped. The shadows are all wrong.

Heh well, Eino, I don't know if it's right for me to subject Brad to the finger-breaking stylings that might entail, but then again, I like seeing Brad struggle Brad - It'll be within the vibe, and DEFINITELY not Kenny G style. Think more Pink Floyd-ish, maybe a bit more aggressive than that even. It'll be fun and not boring, that I can guarantee you. Also, another quick question that comes to mind - is there a policy on using SFX from the original games in these mixes? Not ripping any musical FX or the like, but sounds like the swords and whatnot.

Seeing as that is one of the two closest places to me that VGL will be playing this year, I'd certainly love to experience it with some people from OCR. Count me tentatively down for at least one of those two days. Can someone check to see if there's an IHOP nearby? Hoo-boy, lots of traveling this year!

Prophet, might one ask for your saxaphone abilities for one's track? As per our convo last night, I started doing some writing and I think a mellow jazz-ish sax vibe would be a good counterpoint (I'm just reaching for musical terms here, lol) to the guitar melody. I'll try to get you another WIP with improved writing within the next two weeks. PS. LuketheXjesse, love the King Crimson Sig. One of my favorite albums of all time.

Stuff recently came up that has drained my finances. I'm hoping to still have enough saved up to go on this, but I wanted to let you know that it's a bit iffy now. Sorry, and I was/am still really looking forward to this!

I'm probably going to go to this. It's not far away from me at all, plus I'll try to gather some old friends that live in the area. Don't worry, Prophet, I'll carry you there in spirit. I didn't even know there WAS a gamer symphony orchestra, let alone this close!

Official Site: http://sgconvention.com/ Details are there. I'm starting this thread because I'm sure people are looking for carpools and groups to go with. I'll kick it off by seeing who in the Maryland area (I live in Towson) would want to carpool or, if on the severe offchance we have the cash, take a flight to the convention? AirTran had there and back at about $300 total-ish. Driving would probably warrant at least two other people because we'd need to switch off - it's a long drive. Any takers?

Actually, I may even consider attending if it is the April dates. Yeah, I'd fly in from MD cause this knocks out a couple of things on my to-do list: 1) I have a friend who recently moved out to Cali and a) I didn't get to say goodbye and she's new so doesn't know many people, so I'd love to pay her a visit. 2) Hangout more with Busta and whoever else could make it out (I've never been to an outside-of-magfest-ocr-meetup ) Magfest wasn't long enough to get in the full quality-hangout-time...it's NEVER long enough... 3) I've actually never been to Cali before! 4) Lucasarts+ tour?!? Umm, yes...yes... Question for Busta: Can you get rough price details for the activities we'd be doing? I also gotta price a flight potentially.

Two real fast from Katamari: King of Cosmos: "We are moved to tears by the size of this thing." King of Cosmos: "This sky is not pretty at all. It's rough and masculine. Possibly sweaty." and I think this was from a random baddie in Manhunt: "I'll paint his wagon red!"

Yo, I've been caught up with personal stuff, but I should have something in at least WIP or even PRE-WIP (If there is such a thing!) before next Thursday. Warning: If I make any updates between Feb 12th and Feb 24th take them LIGHTLY as I'll still be on meds following my Tonsillectomy. I will say I'm kind of interested in what I could come up with while taking those painkillers with a broken throat, hehe. Anyways, just giving you that head's-up Brad: my WIP is coming! PS. I had bad news yesterday. That game I was telling you about, the one I was writing the soundtrack for, got cancelled (technically put on indefinite hiatus) because the project lead got a job with another company that has a "no competition" rule with it's employees. What to do with a half-finished soundtrack, haha!

Happy birthday, Marzipan!!! I mean....DragonAvenger!!!!

I'm a terrible person for imagining the cover art depicting Japanese whalers hunting the Wind Fish to sell in supermarkets.... Seriously though, I like the rougher-style art that's been getting tossed around. I only played it in bits and pieces back in the day, but since the visuals weren't the highlight of the gameboy game, this kind of art displays a child-like drawing based on imaginations of the characters in the game. I don't know if that made sense, but it made sense to me! Keep it up, every-peoples