Bahamut

Hey, can't be as bad as my first foray - the first metal band I've ever heard was Children of Bodom. I loved the guitar playing but I wasn't crazy about the vocals - I ended up appreciating them though, they do fit. If only the lyrics weren't so one-dimensional though... Nightwish really got me into metal in general though (and lots of other music across the board). So strange that I don't listen to them much anymore, even despite seeing them live and meeting them this past October.

Helloween is a power metal* band - big difference. The genre generally emphasizes fast melodic riffs, and technical instrumental playing across the board (including vocals). It is also very notable for clean vocals, although bands are not afraid of experimenting for the sake of concept - there are a few even famous for use of death metal growls and/or thrash tones, such as Children of Bodom. Concepts tend to be an important part of the genre as well, all stemming from Helloween, the second major pioneer of the genre and definitively the biggest impacter on it (the Danish band Pretty Maids started it). Some of the bands I've listed all have a rich history in the genre, such as Gamma Ray, founded by guitarist Kai Hansen, the former guitarist & one-time vocalist of Helloween. Blind Guardian also is pretty famous as well, melding speed & power metal together, although recently they've taken more of a progressive direction. Iced Earth is well-known for their melding of thrash & power metal (Schaffer's guitar playing is probably the most unique style you'll ever hear - it stands out the most of any I've heard). Sonata Arctica is originally known as a Stratovarius clone, although they are better than Strato in every way, and have grown into their own style (their latest album sucked though, but it was an anomaly, to paraphrase their description). Rhapsody interweaves symphonic elements a lot more, but are at their best in their faster & more aggressive songs - the band is based on telling one long tale, but they take it a bit too loosely and the concept seems unmanageable and thrown together. On the opposite end, DragonForce focuses more on speed & technical playing, but their songwriting is sorely lacking, hence the jokes about them having only one song. Kamelot is an American power metal band, but unlike Iced Earth, plays straight power metal and sports some strange but competent vocals - they made their mark with the album The Black Halo, a very good album. I could probably go on all day about bands in the genre, but I shouldn't (unless others want to discuss the merits & drawbacks about certain bands and their songs. I'll just say that Angra is probably one of my favorite bands with those two recommended albums though.

Angra Gamma Ray Helloween Iron Maiden (of course) Kamelot Symphony X To a lesser degree: Rhapsody DragonForce Edguy HammerFall Sonata Arctica Not quite sure what's the problem with the vocals you're having (Hansi's vocals for Blind Guardian, while in some ways a bit unusual, are clearly far different than death metal growls - listen to the Bard's Song - In the Forest for example). These bands I listed are pretty melodic though (Iron Maiden & Edguy to a lesser degree). If you want particular album recommendations, I say check out Angra's Rebirth and Temple of Shadows albums, Gamma Ray's Land of the Free, Powerplant, and Majestic albums, Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I & Part II, and The Dark Ride albums, Kamelot's The Black Halo (you probably won't like the first song on there, just a warning, but the others are well worth listening to), and Symphony X's The Odyssey. Edit: Wow, the first few bands I listed were in alphabetical order.

That was sarcasm . It sucked, and Skryp knows it.

He probably does, just that he's also probably spending the day with his wife. And what happened to working on your DKC 2 project track sephfire? Instead you got an early birthday present of your track being taken!

Well, we intend on giving ample time for the deadlines - our first deadline was 5 months after we kickstarted the project, and we haven't thought of when our next deadline should be yet. However, we are pretty stringent as to what is good enough to be on the project - the invites had the first dibs in the first place, and some great tracks opened up due to lack of wips or in someone else's case, lack of time. There are still a few other established names who are interested as well, although I'm sure they may be dismayed that some tracks they might've been sitting for got snatched up really quickly.

I doubt Sony is really dedicated to bringing back their older titles - they claimed that they were going to do so on the PS3, but we really haven't seen much come from their camp through the PSN. It really is against their interests to do so since they are more centered in letting the current gen stuff stay in the limelight. And Lost Odyssey stuff! So, I finished the Temple of Enlightenment sidequest after a grueling 3 or 4 hours in there! I missed one treasure chest near the beginning, but I'm not terribly concerned since the troubling part was when you had to get the two jewels to put into the altar, and figuring out everything. I'm pretty confident I got all of the treasures there, so the beginning section should be a cinch in comparison. I also got all of the spells finally, and I'm mostly through with the Backyard as well, although I stopped after getting stuck trying to figure out how to kill the dog for the secret condition in the second super heavy battle - that dog basically autokills you in one hit, and even with Persistence, puts you at 1 hp. The lack of spells, items, and skills allowed for that one is brutal too.[/spoilers]

This project will be going on at least for an year (I'd estimate a year and a half at least) - it's not like projects come out after a few months for the most part.

Offtopic, but I do recall q-pa doing a video game music set at MAGFest.

But it's the best. song. ever.

Because OCR women don't have enough of them.

What? She doesn't need anyone to "defend her honor"

How expensive would it really be? I remember when I was an i2hub representative, us reps got plastic cards that resembled credit cards with the raised numbers & letters and it looked pretty professional in general.

That's kinda funny, because everyone wanted Flight of the Zinger, but virt snatched it really quickly. If you REALLY need convincing of virt's quality, just know that he's the one who wrote Contra 4's soundtrack, amongst countless others (check out http://virt.vgmix.com ). I'm going to say this though - so far from what I've heard of the project, I'm pretty satisfied in general, with some I'm really looking forward to seeing completed versions of some of these rough sketches/wips. I won't let unsatisfactory songs go by without a fight!

I'm one of the rare ones on here who despises FF12 completely. The amount of gold needed for purchasing stuff got out of hand towards the second half of the game, and the traveling was too tedious for me. Not to mention that without a players guide, you likely won't get the best weapon in the game & very likely will struggle throughout the game in a negative way.

For some reason, Uematsu looks much different than I expected. As for that cab ride, the cab driver gave me a big discount too - normally he's supposed to charge ~$410 for that trip (not counting tip), so I was thankful that I was able to get back to my apartment that night, even beating the train, although I still do wish I didn't get screwed by Amtrak.

Yeah, I've clocked well over 50 hours (probably over 60, haven't checked in a while) on the game so far - I'm doing the sidequest stuff right now on the last disc, and it has just been so fun. I'm a bit annoyed though that I missed some spells and I'm not sure where to find them...I might have to go trudge through some dungeons again just to see what I've missed. At least as far as I can tell, the game didn't pull a bullshit Zodiac Spear ala FF12, and is perfectly reasonable as far as sidequesting is concerned, a novel concept in the age of the idiotic must-have-a-player's-guide RPGs. It may be too early to make such a claim, but so far I think that Lost Odyssey is up there as one of the best RPGs I've ever played.

I'd have put my info in the database awhile ago, but I forgot my login info for the database - my internet is unstable right now anyway because Comcast sucks though, so I haven't been able to play games online for a little while.

Oh, I missed saying happy birthday...here's a late one to you!

SnappleMan had it but he's busy atm with his Contra 4 project. And people, just because someone is making a wip doesn't mean you can't start one either - there's no guarantees that we'll approve a person's wip of a track.

So wait...you own a 360 & a PS3 right now? And yup, Lost Odyssey is great - on the fourth disc in a week.

This one has been in the works for a while though

So...I wish I went. After having dinner with Andy, Jill, Piano Squall, and some of the SquareSound guys, I went on the train on the way back to Union Station...only to find out that the train left a few minutes early and fucked me over. Greyhound was no different claiming that they sold out of bus tickets for the last bus, so I took a $300 cab ride back to Champaign. Amtrak can go fuck itself for that fuckover.

Oh joy, a thread to attract the fanboys of yore.

I've gotten around 600k before on Geometry Wars...I don't play it that much though.