Darklink42

Yeah, it got lost in the pile of PM's I got that day. I apologize for that. 25 bucks sounds good. If paypal's an option, send me another PM with details and we'll call it a deal.

I'm going to agree with Rozovian on this one, and add that it would probably help to turn the volume on the snare drum down. It really drowns out what you're doing with the rest of the song. Also work on interpreting what you've got more. It really does sound like a loop, and at the four and a half minutes that can get pretty tough to listen to. I do want to say though that you've got a good transition at about :52. I know that the piano didn't actually disappear, but bringing it back with a fade-in during the absence of the other instruments was a good choice. I like what you've got going so far, so don't give up. Give it some variety and some interpretation, I look forward to hearing what you do with it.

That was pretty funny. I like the guy's expression when he looks down and finds the playboy. Good stuff.

It's priced that much because I'm assuring you the quality of the product, and also because I'm paying for shipping. You can take your chances with Gamestop if you desire, but I prefer not to support their ridiculous pick-pocketing more than is neccesary. I can guarantee they ripped off some poor bastard when they aquired it, probably gave him 10 bucks in-store credit. And by the way Pez, I'm still interested in the same games I was before, you never bothered to PM me... I shall continue to wait for your response

Already ready for it good sir. Just sitting here with my shades and my popcorn.

I third "Nighthawks" because it's my favorite painting. Also, van Eyck is really good as well, for instance "Wedding Portrait" and for a single person "Man in Red Turban". Albrecht Durer is also of note for "Knight, Death, and Devil". Michealangelo's Creation of Adam is a good one (It's Sistine Chapel). I believe Vilecat is refering to "the School of Athens" among the others as well, but that one is more like 20-25 people.

That was amazing. How long did it take you over all to make it? I did a series of short scenes once out of Homer's "The Odyssey" using Legos in stop-motion and it wasn't nearly that nice. Hope to see more from you.

I agree with Imagery and GAJK, although I see where Ubernym is coming from as well. But this is less a contest (Okay, so it is a contest, but we're not playing for a million dollars here.) then a freindly competition. It's important to manage your word count when it comes to a competition, but I think fudging a little when one has gone over by less than a hundred words isn't horrible and doesn't give an unfair advantage. My suggestion would be to have him see if he can trim it down to a satisfactory level before the deadline, but if he can't, I don't see any reason not to let him enter.

I believe it was metioned, yes... eight or nine times. But seriously, I don't know that I'd buy it. Maybe for the sake of getting my ass handed to me again, but after going through the hardest boss of all time, I don't know that I want to achieve that kind of greatness again. Makes my palms sweat just thinking about that damn level.

I don't know what the big deal is. I personally want to blow more money on buying the neweest iterations of a system, even if it only comes with extra flame decals. It's made by NINTENDO, dammit! I have to have it, and I don't care. In all seriousness though, it looks like they weren't kidding around after all when they said they don't care about the hardcore gamers anymore. We're really getting the shaft from these guys. Take the Nintendo Channel as a great example of that. I downloaded it because it came with a free chance to try demos for new games. What I didn't realize until recently is that it's not there for me, it's there as a saturation device. They've had the same listing of mediocre party games (brain age, flash focus, my little pony, etc.) up the entire time. Some of them never go away, others say they'll go away after a certain date, and don't. Every once in a while, I'll get a nifty tidbit like Ninja Gaiden, but those really do vanish after the deadline. I have a feeling downloads to the DSi will be the same way. Every once in a while, you'll get a juicy morsel for something you care about, and the rest will be mini games for those same mediocre titles they've had up on the Nintendo channel. Overall, I think the best summary I could give is that picture with the caption "It prints money!!". Nintendo has decided to go where the money is. We're not as important because we've lost the only thing that changes their mind. Every "hardcore" gamer could stop buying from them, and it will not make a dent. It is a stupid move to ace the GBA slot. But since when do casual gamers play Rock band and Tony Hawk? As a matter of fact, it can be proved that no one really cares about GBA games at all, because no one's really buying them. All part of Nintendo's strategy, of course, but it feeds itself. Release a lot of shovel-ware for the old system, people will get fed up and buy the new one. It's how they've always done it. They will make the old DS users jealous of all this shiny new content by giving us a bunch of crappy out-dated junk. Or by not giving us any of it at all. Ah well. Just like with the Gamecube, I'll take what I can get. When they actually try, they do make good stuff.

Ha, I see what you did there. And I agree with DS on this one, sigs shouldn't be obnoxiously huge. What can you say in a sig at two or three times the regular size that can't be said at a normal size anyways?

Really old news, but what about apocalyptica? The Unforgiven (click the link for this one)

Revelations Here's mine, I hope it's not too short. I wanted to do the whole story, but it's going to be too long for the competition anyways. And in case it's too hard to figure out (I was being purposefully vague) he got shot by the woman. That's why he's dazed and a little hard to follow.

The problem I've always had with the WIP forum is that a lot of the time, people do not know how to give a good critique. There are a couple of ways that it plays out, and I'd like to see more improvement on that side of things. let me give some examples. The Fixer. This is the one that bothers me a lot. They usually have great advice to give, and they know what they are talking about. But the problem is that they go beyond helping, and start mixing the song themselves. Their suggestions have suddenly turned them into the director of the piece. It's still the original musician's option to use or ignore those suggestions, but often it seems like the one person's opinion (being the most professionally based reply) is wholeheartedly embraced. My suggestion is to tone it down a bit. Yes, let them know what's wrong and right. But don't fix the whole song for them. Give them the problem, give them a nudge in the right direction. Otherwise they don't grow as artists, and we're not going to see improved WIPs on this board. The Coddler. Admittedly, there are less of these than there were before. I like that trend. But there are still these people that come on, and the only thing they have to say is that your piece is the best piece ever, and they don't see room for improvement. Keep those posts to yourself. They aren't helpful, and while encouraging, mean very little to the person who posted in an effort to improve the music. Obviously there is room for improvement, otherwise it wouldn't be a WIP. And the Faker. We had one guy a while back, something fox. Anyways, these are the people that pretend to know what they are talking about,and are usually wrong most of the time. There's not much that can be done about them, and no amount of suggesting is going to stop them from trying to sound like they know something. In this case, we need those professionals and established mixers to step up and point them out. Good stuff can come out of bad advice sure, but more often than not if all someone has gotten in terms of critique is a mixture of type 2 and type 3, then I feel like the board has let them down. My suggestions for improving critiques are simple. First off, let the person know what you liked and didn't like. Easy enough, people do this on a regular basis, not much needs to change. But, the second thing is, if you're going to give advice, try to make it helpful. Stuff like "the bass needs to be raised" or "I like the transition you made at 1:22". Don't start throwing out stuff like "Well, I'd change the instrumentation here" because, then you're telling the person how to do it as you'd see it. Sometimes it's what they need, most of the time it's not. Third thing is, let them explore their own talent. Leads back to the second point, but also it should be said that often times people post WIPs that seem to be confused about what style they want to be in. As a person giving the critique, it's your job to find the best in the piece and tell that person about it. Fourth and final, be serious about it. Lighthearted critiques are good every once in a while, it breaks up the serious amounts of red ink flying everywhere. But musicians that come here and submit something as WIP, for the most part, aren't looking to hear eight times about their choice of songs to mix being the best. If you're really going to offer a critique, go in with a mind to really look at the good and bad in a mix. I guess what I'd really like to say is that we don't need a WIPs judge, or superior individuals on the board. We all are capable of giving good advice. Giving a critique is the same as being a judge, only the opinion helps improve what we're listening to, not what gets on the front page.

I've still got my N64, an old genesis, and a PS1. Never touch the last one, given that all of the games are playable on a PS2, and the genesis pretty much stays in the closet, given it's age, but the 64 I still get a kick out of, because nothing beats Goldeneye and Mario 64 for hours of awesome replayablity.

Well, it's a vast improvement over the original, to be sure. However, I have to say that this sounds more like a sampler of different directions you could go in without having picked any one specificly. But you do have cohesion to it, and that's a good thing. That being said, pick one of the four styles you have going here and take the song in that direction. Honestly, it feels like half of the song is an intro. As a matter of fact, there was another WIP where I said the same thing, and it applies here. Chop that intro down, and get to the unique bit of the song or just make the song longer. Either way, this feels too short in it's content. I don't agree with Rosovian on all of his points, but bringing down the EQ on the louder section would also be recommended. I didn't get blown away the first time I heard it, but head-phones changed my opinion greatly. I'm pleasantly surprised you actually make music. For all the pretension and delays you put into this sort of thing, you actually don't do too badly. Get your act together and you might be a remixer yet.

I forget, can I use an excerpt from a short story I'm working on or do I have to submit the whole burrito?

Sorry, but it's not going to happen. They only made the final mix because apparently we got more than they did in the first place. Which means they'd have to keep re-releasing the game with new stuff to even the score instead of just being smart and giving everyone the same game. I'm just glad we get to play this one at all. I greatly look forward to it.

No. Just no. Douglas Admas ended his owns series (I hated the ending, but I always felt like it was a move on his part to prevent further asking about sequels.) I'm incredibly disappointed that anyone is making another one, because unless it's a member of Monty Python, no one is going to be able to muster up the kind of humor and amazing observation Adams had. Period. It will only hurt worse if the book really does turn out to suck too.

Wow. I really don't know what to say about that theme. I mean, it's good that they are taking on the styles of today, but at the same time it almost sounds disappointingly bland following after "You Know my Name" which was an awesome song by itself. The joke song was hilarious though. The best part about this one though is that it's out in November, which means for the second time I get to see a new Bond film on my birthday. I greatly approve.

I agree that the song is still too close to the source. You need to go back in there and make the song more unique to your instrumentation. Don't get me wrong, it sounds great. But it isn't very unique overall yet.

I like what you've done with this mix so far, and it's really cool to hear it played out in such unique instrumentation. That being said, I'd bring the EQ on the flute down a bit, because it's high notes are almost grating. I don't know that I agree with bringing the bass down, it sounded fine to me where it was. Good job on the transition between the straight techno interpretation and the more upbeat flute playing/Caribbean sound. The fade out was kind of a let down, because where it stands right now, your song is split evenly between the techno section and your more unique instrumentation. If you have to choose between the two, go for the flute playing. It sounds a lot more unique and is really fun to listen to.

I'd like to play any or all of them if possible. How does it all work though? Do I just get the game and that's that? I got the chance to play portal a while back, and have been itching to play HL since then.

The only thing about piracy that bugs people is the money, and honestly I think micro-transactions are easily going to start making up for that kind of loss. It's already pretty lucrative elsewhere. I don't really know where to stand on SecuROM and other DRMs. Frankly, it just sounds like a really stupid way to give companies a feeling of security. It's not helping them (obvious both by comments here and real world evidence that people would rather pirate it to get around said feature than deal with it.) On the same token, people quickly get upset when they find out that companies are acquiring their personal information when they get a game. It doesn't matter how. As long as their is internet, there will be piracy. As long as there is piracy, we will have people trying to thwart them. In the end, the only chance companies have of really making profit out of it is either to go the route of Itunes or adapting creatively to make money through other means: episodic content, extra content transactions, etc. But the overall finger shaking won't stop because piracy can't be encouraged by big companies. I agree though, that the best way to stop a company from doing stupid shit like this is to use the power of your wallet and by speaking out in mass. We are the ones that buy the games after all. The guys on Amazon did the right thing.

The last one is the music from Hollow Bastion in Kingdom Hearts.