EC2151

Um, really? Number sixteen? I'm a fan of Uematsu to be sure, but um, there's a lot of really great "classical" and contemporary music out there that trounces Aeris' theme, of all pieces. Hell Uematsu has written better music.

I wish they did the same with Fallout 2! GOG's version doesn't need to be patched, unlike the steam version... I am still trying to find a hi-res patch for Fallout 2 that works.

Please tell me Action 52 is still slated for release this summer.

sounds like an interesting talk. I really liked zircon's panel "From Hobby to Profession" at like, a PAX conference or something, so I assume this is in a similar vein. Love techy talk. I'll have to give it a listen sometime tomorrow.

It wasn't really so much that there was an anime block on CN called Toonami - it was more that everything about it was presented in a really cool way. For one, it had this cool host that went around chilling all day in his spaceship, which is kind of neat to say the least. But the anime they showed was often really top-notch - I think you had DragonBall, Outlaw Star, Trigun - those really great early-modern anime. Then there'd be really interesting stuff like showing Gorillaz music videos on New Year's Eve and game reviews (still remember the Mario Sunshine review, ha ha ha) - it really amounted to an interesting and entertaining bloc of programming. Then it was followed by a then-impeccable anime line-up in adult swim, with Kikaider, Big O, Cowboy Bebeop, and more. I know people like to wear rose-tinted glasses with their childhood, but man, they had the rights to really damn good shows and knew how to use them back then.

wait, why did OCR remove all of its good mixes from the front-page?

I actually think the plan is to have the Wu-Tang Clan "seamlessly integrated" into the popular tracks, if I recall djpretzel's words correctly. I'm hyped, because every time I listened to those pieces of junk, I thought to myself "This shit needs more wu-tang"

Finally, these shitty remixes are now bearable to listen to. Thanks for doing something right for a change, OCR!

I think John K. has some insightful things to say, and can be helpful if you want to learn how to start drawing a bit more cartoonishly (which I did, a summer or two ago). Those moments are usually in-between a lot of stupid posts, though (at least on his blog). But this topic isn't about John K.! That sounds like a great birthday present - it's probably what I'll subtly suggest for my birthday come the summer. I would still love to get some stuff like Betty Boop, Popeye (the early Natwick stuff), etc., as well. UPA cartoons are kind of like seeing old New Yorker cartoons in motion. And the result is surprisingly watchable.

Prefatory remark: NOW I LOVE CARTOONS. http://www.cartoonbrew.com/dvd/upa-on-dvd.html And I know the date has long passed, but I had forgotten about it until my newspaper mentioning it yesterday. All the same, I'm pretty excited. UPA was a mid-century cartoon studio that really made some cutting-edge, stylistic modern cartoons that were unmistakably anti-Disney, and anti-WB! Artists and animators wanted to try something different in terms of style, so for about 6 years (until the studio closed down) they were on the cutting edge of cartoon-making in America, at the time Disney was settling into its long dark age (in which it never fully recovered) and WB was losing the last of its bright bright stars. SOME CARTOONS: Mr. Magoo and his funny comments on those darn drunk undergraduates. Rooty Toot Toot (the first picture) is arguably my favorite of what I've seen from UPA. It's the perfect zany, snazzy, jazzy, edgy cartoon that you wouldn't think have been made in the 50s considering how Filmation is just around the corner. At that point in time, cartoons still had bite to them. Now some, like John K. (of Ren and Stimpy fame) have argued that UPA is responsibly for the decline of American animation - which is odd since he seems to praise and emulate the UPA style in many of his recent commercial works. I would say not so (other factors are to blame, like the loss of larger budgets), and that the UPA cartoons are rather entertaining in their own, perhaps "sophisticated" way. That's not to say everyone can't enjoy them. They can. Personally, i love their heavy jazz and swing influence, their "modern" stylized look, and their way of portraying people that has a definite human touch (whereas you'd be hard-pressed to relate anything in a Disney cartoon to reality!). So if you are also a cartoon lover, like me, you might want to look into this. The Dvd can only be ordered off of TCM's website (meh), but it's a great opportunity to get a piece of animation history.

It reminds me of apologists for Other M, to be quite honest (the difference being that Other M wasn't even a competent game in comparison to ME3).

With a franchise as venerable as Wing Commander I'm surprised that there hasn't been a deluge of fan-games. Kudos to the team for making this - my coworker who has been gaming since the C64 days would probably love to give this a shot. And congratulations on what looks like a cool composing gig!

I thought the reason mostly everyone complained about the ending isn't Shepard's fate but because it comes completely out of nowhere and isn't explained or justified at all.

All right, if you guys like Metal Slug at all, you should check out Dominion Tank Police and New Dominion Tank Police. It practically is Metal Slug: The Anime (and Tank Police came out first so perhaps Metal Slug is Tank Police: The game) Just got to episode 2 out of 4 in New Dominion and seriously, it's so ridiculously awesome and entertaining that I was pretty beside myself. The dub by Manga UK really makes it what it is - balls-to-the-wall hilarious and badass. It's one of those silly, goofy, over-the-top anime like G Gundam that you love for all of those reasons, but with that nice "trying to be edgy by swearing a lot" touch that only Manga UK can provide! Also: usually, not knowing what Japanese means can sometimes mask the bad acting.

InuYasha was one of those guilty pleasure anime I watched when I was growing up that i knew was cheesy and contrived but then again, I have the feeling that along with pokemon it was everyone's "first anime." I think it's because Rumiko Takahashi's style before it got copied again and again by imitators is really appealing and fun.

I am always happy to find new soundfonts, especially when they are from such distinctive and memorable sets like the Metal Slug series! Thanks a bunch!

Tamaya Kawamoto, if I can guess anything about her from her compositional style, is that she is definitely a Euro-phile - or a Francophile to be precise : D A lot of her tracks sound like they'd fit right in with Euro dance music, and others sound heavily french (like Ceramic Heart - which has sampled French vocals ha ha). Though I think this particular track from Pengel is Italian - but I can't tell. >.> While I do admit to having an aversion to ZUN's works (aesthetics, but playing 5, 6, and 7 and thinking they were really boring wasn't going to see me trying the rest of the series to see if they've improved), I admit that the music is the best thing I can say about ZUN! EG, I've printed up some of the piano music to his work, like Byakuren's Theme and Septette for the Dead Princess. I don't deny there being good tracks out there. On the flip side of the coin, there are examples you've mentioned that are a bit bloated, and I feel the fact that he uses practically the same instruments every game makes everything sound samey despite any variational technique in composition.

I can't remember which track exactly, but it was an entirely chiptune remix of a Zelda song that after about two minutes just had a 5 minute solo that went nowhere and really didn't add all that much to the existing track. The term I used in my head when I heard that was "overly self-indulgent" - if you don't prefer visceral descriptions.

Ha ha, the less of ZUN's work you actually end up listening to, the better (I feel); if you listen to too much of his work you realize that they all kind of sound the same.

Older arcade soundtracks like The NInja Warriors and Zuntata albums often are pretty pricey - usually between $30-40 for their soundtrack releases. The games were from the 80s, so supply was a bit lower, as well as demand. There are periodic rereleases from time to time but they are still roughly comparable in price range. It's a pretty profitable niche market though because some crazies (I'm not far off from joining them) will pay many times for that type of stuff. That's what is great about sega saturn games (and I think Mega-Cd games) - redbook audio on all the games. Just pop in a Saturn CD and the soundtrack is yours for the ripping (E.G. for anyone interested my rip of RayForce's soundtrack*** - I haven't gotten around to ripping my other games in my moderate collection). For newer games I don't know - you never hear any press over the release of a game's soundtrack, outside of exceptional cases like Bioshock, and media darlings like Portal 2. ***If this is against site policy DO NOT HESITATE TO REMOVE THIS LINK - I am sorry if that is the case -in my defense I own the game and derive no profit from sharing its soundtrack!

[slight tangent] Personally, I think the C64 SID is the best "chip" sound in existence, with the gameboy being second afterward, but that's just me! Just hard to beat those from a good C64 SID chip![/end tangent]

Using that line of reasoning, you could say that 16bit pieces have "run their course" because more modern forms of production exist - in which stuff like GeckoYamori's FM synthesis remakes and stuff like the Castlevania Rebirth OST make compelling arguments against you! And it sounds like you've never heard any of the music from , or << If anyone else can make pictionary badass, I'd like to see them do it.btw these songs have examples of "reverb" and "delay" in their native format. If we only ever had stuff like Koji Kondo's work on the original Zelda, then yes, I could POSSIBLY agree - but even then it denies the specific place chiptune music occupies, as well as the very conditions the music is created in. You may have mentioned devs using the best tools at their disposal, but I think there's more to it than that - because that's what every single composer has ever faced in the history of composition! Are harpsichords obsolete? Are pipe organs obsolete? If you think the answer is "no," then square-waves, pulse-waves, and noise channels can't really become obsolete, either. I think if people craved "novelty and evolution" there would be a point where we would have completely discarded the instruments we have been using for the past several centuries by now. Yes, there is novelty, but there's continuity as well.

If you go to galbadia hotel and pick up the arcade soundtrack to the Ninja Warriors, you won't be disappointed - the remixed soundtrack is classic late80s-early90s greatness, with all its punchy snares and awesome synths. You are not a real man if is not in your iPod. Goes for the rest of you girly men on this site too!

heck i sent out a reply as well; as everyone knows I simply must make my opinion known all the time. Good luck with the project.