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Drack

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Posts posted by Drack

    Sonic and the Secret Rings Final Boss

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It's not that hard. Here are some tips.

    -At the very beginning, shake right after you get a ring, let him hit you, so you can get the other rings rather than be vulnerable right at the start.

    -Whenever you're not dodging attacks, either shake, or jump. Jumping makes you go through the stage quicker, which makes you get the rich rings faster. Know the pattern of rich rings; the first one is on the left.

    -Memorize the pattern of his blades. To avoid his first few volleys, go center, center, right, right, right. You can shake here. For his later ones, if he's really pausing, he's going to do the cover the screen one. go a tiny bit right of center and hold steady to avoid this one.

    -You know how to hit him right? Speed break just before he throws the big ass ball.

    -I've beaten this guy without getting hit.

    No seriously, music elitists need to take a long walk off a short pier.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    A music degree doesn't amount to shit if you don't have creativity. Hell, the Ramones and ACDC could barely play their own instruments, and they made some amazing music.

    Basically, what I'm saying is: Take your music degree, your chromatic scales, and your ultra-dynamic meter changes and shove them up your ass.

    Anyway, on the whole punk thing - no one is born with a frikkin' mohawk. The kids may be emo or whatever, but they get beat up and called fags just like the old punks did.

    And there's no way to completely stand apart in this world. There will always be someone else that looks like you and can do what you can do.

    I think I disagree with every sentence here.

    -In my opinion, ACDC and amazing do not belong in the same sentence.

    -Knowledge of classical music conventions, theory, and many, MANY other concepts that fall under the umbrella os "Music Degree" help a tremendous amount in creating great music.

    -Punks ... that's their taste, however abnormal it may be. As for what's "real" punk, I'm not going to judge it because I dislike both modern and past punk styles.

    -No way to stand apart? You don't even have to look past this website. There are some incredible remixers here with unique styles. With a broader perspective, look at the game industry as a whole. You can't look at all the amazing, creative games, present and past, and say that there's no way to stand out. For example, Rare during the 1990s. Incredible gaming experience. Attention to every small detail. Features that are uncommon indeed in a lot of games.

    diddy kong racing anyone?

    in ReMix Requests

    Posted

    Why Hot Top Volcano?

    I'd like to see the music from Windmill Plains, or perhaps the Boss theme ...

    I might throw something together in the future - need to build a new desktop to put my EMU 1212m in before I can do any more music making.

    In the meantime, I echo the need for DKR mixes - It's a great game that's lacking in the OCR loving.

    Nintendo DS

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Just got it so I'll be playing it this afternoon!

    My R4 card is jam packed with tons of awesome DS games. Love it! Fans of the Point Blank series should check out Point Blank DS. It's pretty much exactly like the PS1/arcade games except you use the stylus obviously. Works really well though! It's a great pick up and play game.

    Anyway, I was wondering if there is any homebrew software for the DS you guys would recommend. Not really interested in games since I have more than enough of those (although if there is a homebrew game that really stands out, please do mention it!), but are there any apps or utilities that make good use of the touch screen? Maybe like a cool drawing program or something I'm not thinking of? Thanks.

    DS Homebrew is quite nice. Here are some nice examples:

    Moonshell: Plays music (mp3, nsf, etc...) and movies (any format, includes a converter program)

    DSFTP: Run your DS as an FTP server - Read and write to your flash card over wifi

    DSLinux: Run simple Linux command-line apps

    QuakeDS: Quake 1 on DS with multiplayer wifi to other DSs and computers running Quake.

    There are also emulators and other apps, even some homemade games.

    OCR SNES Tourney Round 2: Super Mario Kart!

    in Competitions

    Posted

    Are we allowed to pick special cup tracks like Rainbow Road and that one pain in the ass DK one?

    There are no DK levels in Super Mario Kart - you're probably thinking of Mario Kart 64

    For reference, the Special Cup tracks in Super Mario Kart are:

    Donut Plains 3

    Koopa Beach 2

    Ghost Valley 3

    Vanilla Lake 2

    Rainbow Road

    OCR music postmodern?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I don't think it's fair to generalize something as diverse as OCR.

    But if I had to, I definitely would not say that i's postmodern. If I had to use that terminology, I would say neoclassical.

    Even so, I think that OCR covers so many genres that any general classification will be at least a little inaccurate.

    Nintendo Wii

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    And no: whether a person enjoys it or not is not an issue of standards, but one of tolerance. I have both high standards and high tolerance for flaws. I see the flaws quite clearly, but they don't necessarily detract enough from my enjoyment to ruin any given experience.
    Did I say anything about enjoyment?
    It is indeed a good game. Great game? Depends on your standards.
    Enjoyment is not the same as whether you describe the game as a "good game" or a "great game" - you're defeating a point I didn't make!

    Nintendo DS

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yes, I nitpicked the hell out of the game. In its current state, especially if you turn the sound off, DKR DS is ... decent. Not appropriate homage to the original, but decent.

    I guess we can't hold Rare to the standards we did in ye olden days.

    Anyone want to netplay? Or even better, netplay the original using an emulator?

    Nintendo DS

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Drack's rambling review of Diddy Kong Racing DS

    Executive Summary: Diddy Kong Racing DS fails to impress.

    I replayed the N64 version all the way through about 2 weeks ago so it's fresh in my mind - That was a hell of a lot of fun by the way. What impressed the most me about DKR (N64) - And Rare in general during that period - was attention to detail. This is completely lacking in DKR DS.

    While DKR DS has somewhat preserved the cool trick used in DKR (and more extensively in Banjo-Kazooie) where the island's music would change based on location, but they overlooked the Dragon Forest entrance, and proximity to Taj changes to the island music. Speaking of Taj ... His voice sounds like a gay, emo teenager in DKR DS. In DKR N64 brake + slide in the car made you do an animation where two wheels would lift off the ground due to the shift in center of gravity - that doesnt happen in DKR DS. In DKR N64, if you kept holding brake after you had stopped, you would reverse. DKR DS requires you to let go and re-press the brake button to reverse after you stop. TT's voice is the only one that's remotely close to the original's voice acting. Honestly, why not just import the wavs from the N64 game? DKR N64 changed the color of boost flames based on what rank boost you had, and whether you let off the accelerator for a better boost ... DKR DS does not change the color of the flame. The music is worse than the N64 version - They kept the same note patterns, but they changed the samples, mostly replacing them with similar, though definitely worse, samples. The SFX are worse as well - the "whoosh" sound of the boost is gone, replaced by a rush of static. Also gone is the "bullet" sound your missiles made

    Even the "win race, get a gold balloon" animation is half assed. No 3D camera panning, no "This is for you!" no very well rendered golden balloon in your face ... Just a static camera watching Taj silently and linearly ride up to you, hover doing nothing a few seconds, and send a shrinking balloon UNDER YOUR CAR! WTF

    One thing that was done well was the conversion from 640x480 to 256x192 - the DS screen doesn't feel cramped at all and the graphics are fine.

    The missiles now upgrade single -> 5x -> Homing, instead of Single -> Homing -> 10x ... they also cause a much greater time penalty when you're hit, as do oil spills. Also, if you shoot a homing missile in first, you hit YOURSELF! The genie races are left unchanged - Still waaay to easy and if you veer so much as an inch off the path it immediately cancels the race. I'm not going to fault DKR DS specifically on that point though, N64 DKR was exactly the same way. A level 3 boost will no longer do the cool animation where it moves the camera forward temporarily.

    Even the characters are now unbalanced. Timber is the obvious all around choice - Diddy, Dixie, Tiny, and Bumper all have the same stats - Timber's, but with one less top speed. Why remove the diversity, and create unwanted characters? Also, why did they remove the skull on Krunch's jacket?

    If this game were a straight port, reusing as much code / content (and by content I mean samples, voice wavs, etc) as possible - It would be awesome. The only things DKR DS did wrong were the changes from the original - and while I am aware of the nostalgia bias, I still say this and can back it up

    This is not a port, it's a half-assed remake.

    Nintendo Wii

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    see bold

    I'm not liking this level-up stuff very much. It's a great excuse to replay missions yes, I hate constantly equipping for every mission. Also why do we need 4 skill rings?

    I only use one ring anyway. The skills do help a lot, but if I knew things like "quick jump when you're accelerating from rest" the game would be a lot more enjoyable from the start.

    EDIT: Nested quotes impossible in vB?

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