SwordBreaker

Those who can't do play games.

lol...it's as if my post wasn't written at all. This is the internet after all. While I'm not making fun of the haters by any means, I've heard of this kind of talk so many times..."So, yeah, mainstream music sucks. Scandinavian Nu-Metal Vegetarian Progressive Grindcore bands is where it's all at." Honestly, I never get a valid reason that mainstream band X sucks. In this case, Creed and Limp Bizkit. The hatred of their frontmen blinds everyone so much. Again, I'm not saying that their music is the best ever, but both bands pumped out some pretty good tracks.

Old but recent news. I'm going to kill myself for bringing this topic up, since a lot of people think both bands are "overrated". So the original members of each band kissed and made up...and both are planning new albums and tours. I practically grew up with these bands...I love rock thanks to them. So I'm glad that they're back again, especially Creed. I'm sure millions of fans will be happy as well. Yeah, I know Fred Durst and Scott Stapp were HUGE asses back in the day, hence why a lot of people hate their respective bands. Looks like they've changed for the better, though. I mean, even their own band mates hated them. In the end, both singers are responsible for bringing their bands back together so they must know about their mistakes. Additionally, I don't like when people hate the material just because of the personalities of people who come up with it. Stuff like Durst being a "rap wannabe" and Stapp being an "Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam" imitator sorts of annoys me. I really don't see those as valid criticisms per-se; just backlash for hating how bad they acted. On the other hand, it's really hard to separate the person from what he does for a living...so I can understand why this backlash occurred with both bands. Mainstream music can rock...Creed and Limp Bizkit prove so. While they're not the greatest bands on Earth and not the most original, they were great back in the day and I love them. Can't wait for their new material. You can't deny that their band mates have a lot of skill even if you're not fond of the frontmen. Creed's Guitarist, Mark Tremonti, is amazing. Just youtube him and see him in action.

July 2009? That's so far off. Still worth the wait, though.

Nice, nice. I like, I excite.

http://www.projectcoe.com/sony/games/crisis_core.html?var1=sc3 I was extremely weirded out by the gameplay at first. But then it really grew on me despite the repetitiveness of it all. Missions started to become addicting and Materia fusion is pretty cool. All in all, this is the best PSP game I've ever played. The plot, storyline, and production values are just about perfect. There's a great balance between nostalgia and fresh scenarios, the latter blending extremely well into old plots such as the Neibelhem incident and Zack's escape. Really loved the amount of fan-service and backstory...not to mention the inevitable and bittersweet ending. Man, even the music is fucking amazing. Extremely addicting soundtrack that OCR should start remixing. The motifs are really cool and the live instruments (especially the guitars) are awesome. I know that zircon is a huge fan of a game so perhaps he can take a whack at it in his free time.

Funny song. I like it. So, newb question...who are these people in OCR and what did they remix?

Glad that they're pimping out OCR like that. Very nice performance, guys.

Really looking forward to this one. Train sounds unique gameplay-wise...not to mention adding more "modern" technology to the Zelda series is long-overdue. Interested in how they will tie-in this game in terms of storyline. Some of the new weapons in the trailer look really unique...very Minish Cap-like. Even though they're using the same game engine of Phantom Hourglass, the gameplay seems to be different enough. PH is the best portable Zelda game I've ever played and it has added a lot of innovative concepts to the series' traditions because of touch-screen controls. Personally, I think it's better than Twilight Princess in some respects since PH nicely takes full advantage of its system while TP Wii was kind of frustrating to control with the exception of its minigames. Moreover, I'm one of those people who loved the Temple of the Ocean King due to its challenging difficulty.

Wow...has it been a year already? I still remember the day you created this thread as if it happened yesterday or something. Very nice job with the fast and efficient progress, people. It's nice to know that good-quality fan albums can be produced as fast as this, feeding our appetite. Not that I don't mind waiting for this kind of stuff, but still... Happy Anniversary! Can't wait to give some of this stuff a listen, especially the track I participated in.

http://excalibur-swordbreaker.spaces.live.com/ My blog centers around my personal life, specifically gaming and my current journey through medical school. Updates for the gaming site I write for, Projectcoe.com, is covered in my blog as well.

Nice find. That test sort of depressed me 'cause my main character does seem to have some Mary Sue tendencies. I got a 33. On the other hand, I got some nice ideas from that test. Thanks for all the cool advice, guys. I read all your posts. Very helpful stuff. Keep 'em coming.

Yeah. Definitely. The novel I'd like to write is original work not fanfiction. I'm just contemplating the idea of devoting my innovative ideas to short fanfiction stories or keep them for my original novel. Fanfiction is still limited to online publications in sites like fanfiction.net. I know I'll be writing them just for fun, attention and positive reader comments. Thanks for the nice advice, RedTigrr.

One of my goals in life is to write and publish an original fiction novel. I have so many ideas right now, but haven't officially started yet. I remember writing a lot of stuff in a document once, but that got deleted for some reason. I've also been yearning to return to game-related fan-fiction thanks to continuing support and positive comments from readers to this very day on some of my old work a few years back. But each time I find a good idea for a short story on Zelda for example, I stop and start thinking that it's better to keep these nice ideas as a part of my fiction novel. You guys think this is the right way to think or not? See, the main concept of my fiction novel began as a small idea for a Zelda-related story I haven't finished nor published online. It's something cool and different. I'm just afraid that these ideas go to waste on fan-fiction rather than my novel plan. On the other hand, getting these ideas done on short fan-fiction stories allow me to modify and refine them or even write about other different things for my novel...in short, forcing me to brainstorm even cooler and better ideas. Plus, I don't get stale if I keep practicing on short stories. Thoughts? And while you're at it, any general advice on starting novels in general? It's such a huge project to undertake...and I'm not sure whether to begin writing the intro I'm envisioning right now or plan out the whole plot, characters, and timeline first then start writing.

Hell yes! Virt's take on it is just begging to be rocked out. Keep it up with the awesome teasers, man. As I mentioned before, I'm especially looking forward to "Waterfall" which is my favorite track in the album.

Very nice job with that demo reel. Especially LOVING what you guys did with the Jungle theme...sounds kick-ass. Here's hoping that the "hard theme" is covered as well even though it's technically from Contra 1.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/962/962480p2.html Reviving this thread 'cause reviews are starting to pop up. IGN gives it a 9/10 and calls it "The Best DS platformer since New Super Mario Bros." The music is obviously praised as well. "A nice mix of pseudo-orchestrated music and classic midi tones. Lance Banson’s music is legendary, and should be in every boss fight ever." "If I could have the music from Hatsworth's boss fight against Lance Banson (Sky Pirate Magazine's Handsomest Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year) playing on loop for every boss fight in any videogame ever, I would do it." The reviewer is referring to "Benson's Aria", which is my favorite track of the game. This is one of the rare moments in which I'm buying the game based on soundtrack feedback long ago from this thread. But luckily, reviewers are digging the Platforming/Puzzling hybrid. Mark your calendars to March 17th, people.

So, has anyone played SO4 yet? I've been ADDICTED for the past week. Everything SO3 got wrong, SO4 got right. This is a true sequel to the first two games. Micromanaging your characters is still awesome, but a lot more streamlined here. Battle system rocks and blindsiding is a cool addition. Item Creation is a lot more streamlined and less random than the first two, which is good in my book. Only thing that has disappointed me thus far is the Private Actions. The first two Star Oceans had a much better system, in addition to having all of them voice acted on the PSP, unlike this one where only some of them have fully voiced cutscenes. With SO4, I noticed that most of the scenes occur in the ship when you're warping to a new planet, so they're practically impossible to miss. With the previous Star Ocean games, you basically press "Square" next to a town in the world map to engage in a PA sequence. Some of these sequences are really tricky as you have to backtrack to certain towns in certain points in the story. Also, you have to actually look for the characters all over town. Not only that, but certain PAs get you new playable characters as well...which results in different arcs in the story therefore a lot of alternate endings with certain character pairings and affinities and whatnot. With SO4, I read that there's only one basic ending that doesn't change as much...you only get a couple of added cutscenes if you play some of the PAs right. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be any additional or optional playable characters here. Graphics are top-notch stuff. My only quirks are that some of the character animations are so last-gen and the facial expressions/lip-syncing are weak to nonexistent. To think that Final Fantasy X is a lot better than a next-gen RPG in that regard. Motoi Sakuraba is a fucking genius! Amazing, amazing music here! I can never grow old from his trademark and familiar themes 'cause they all sound so epic. The music playing in closed dungeons is synthy and addicting. Villages are relaxing. Space music is just as epic as Star Wars films, especially the track that plays inside your ship. Voice acting won't get any awards, and Lymele or whatever is one of the most annoying characters ever. She sounds like some mentally-retarded child with that monotone voice delivery. Some of the dialogue and localization is also on the weak side, which brings down some of the solid voice actors. Regarding the storyline, it's nice so far...nothing amazing. Pacing is kind of slow. I do like some of the references to the previous SO games, though.

Best. Video. Ever.

I was just going to plug in my link in spreading the word around...but I see you guys found the COE Podcast episode already. I plugged your stuff when we were finishing up our gaming discussions toward the end. I've downloaded the torrent a couple of days back but I always postponed listening to the stuff 'cause it's overwhelming. Right now I just finished the bonus stuff from Dawn of the New World and they're all great tracks. I was especially surprised with "No Better Time Than Now" 'cause the male and female vocals were really cool(despite being drowned out at times) and the music is very Sakuraba-esque. I'll continue giving some ongoing impressions here. Once I'm done perhaps I'll whoop up something for the gaming site I write for. Wrote a review of Voices of the Lifestream awhile back. http://www.projectcoe.com

I was lucky enough to listen to this track beforehand thanks to LuIzA. Oddly enough, the old version of this remix kicked ass...but the new version is much, much, much better. Indeed, both LuIzA and CHM did a great job in improving on what's already good. Even though I haven't listened to the full album yet, I can confidently say that this remix is one of the highlights, if not my favorite track already. The performances blend so well with each other it's hard to differentiate who did what...until that end bit when LuIzA goes all ska on us.

Congrats on the release, guys. Long overdue, indeed. I'm on dial-up right now so I'm going to check this stuff out as soon as my DSL comes back on. I'm sure that I won't be disappointed.

Man...used to LOVE this game back in the NES days, even though it was insanely hard and open-ended. I just like to experiment with the Blob and see what he turns to with different jellybean combination. I was SO looking forward to the DS revival back in 2005...but that got canceled for some reason. Now, it's getting revived again for the Wii. Can't wait. http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/03/first-adorable.html WOW. Looks beautiful. Everything is hand drawn like the new Wario Land for Wii. We have another good third-party Wii game here, folks. One of the screens towards the end pays homage to the original starting point in the NES game. Nice. Finally, in light of this revival, it's time for a cool OCR track of the old-school NES game: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00881/

Very nice playing there. Glad the album is getting released soon. Especially can't wait for the arrangement of the Waterfall level, which is by far my favorite track of Contra 4.

So...my friends and I played a lot of this game today. Impressions. The whole "here comes a new online challenger while playing offline Arcade" is great. Seamless and online gameplay is extremely smooth thus far. It's not perfect though. What really sucks about it is this pops up so frequently it gets frustrating. I wouldn't mind in intermissions between matches, but oftentimes you get this in the middle of the freakin' match...and obviously after you're done with your online opponent you're forced to restart the match. There should've been some sort of option to set the frequency of these online pop-ups or limit them to just intermissions. So the game itself is really smooth. I got into the game's new concepts immediately. Old SFII gameplay with new flavor still holds up to the best until of fighters this very day. Old characters are are a mixture of familiarity and freshness while the new characters I've seen are creative. Arcade mode is kind of repetitive, though. Was surprised that they didn't include any of SFII's cool wrecking mini-games or something. Difficulty is also pretty uneven. Normal can get really hard and even Very Easy can be a challenge at times. That's Street Fighter, though. Graphically, I see some really nice production values but it's not the best looking fighter ever. Smooth framerate. Nice effects. Great backgrounds. The biggest flaw here is the conflicting character designs. Each character has an in-game model, an official art model, and the anime cut-scene model....all of which are featured in the game and are really different from each other. There should've been more consistency with how each character looks. It's not that I hate the anime cut-scenes even though they're not the best quality in the world. It's just that I would've really preferred to see all these story scenes played out through the in-game engine instead...or even draw the anime cut-scenes and models to make them closer to their artwork models, just like what the flashy intro FMV shows off. Same problem with the in-game engine...to me, the character artwork have the best designs...yet there are some in-game models who don't look close to their artwork counterpart at all. Ryu and Ken are the best examples...their in-game faces look really, really weird. Don't like 'em at all. Finally, Seth is a horribly-designed character. Yuck. Looks like he came out of the freezer or something. Silver Surfer rip-off. Music is sweet stuff. Nice techno and really catchy beats. Remixes are pretty good as well, yet not near the diversity and creativity of HD Remix's soundtrack. English voice acting sucks. Japanese voice acting rocks.