EC2151

Well, I think the more obvious point to a question like that is: Are there musical techniques that can only be achieved with chiptunes/trackers/etc.? Yes. Therefore, they have their own niche amongst all the other instruments and arranging techniques out there. Going by genre is an ultimately fruitless endeavor - bear that in mind. Speaking of instrument arrangements, sometimes I jokingly wonder if something like Zuntata's own remix of Daddy Mulk would be rejected around here because it sounds Which makes me wonder sometimes if someone likes using intentionally lo-fi sounds (like those great brass blasts in the songs), there's not some people out there saying WHAT THE HECK THOSE DON'T SOUND REAL

I'd never thought I'd ever see anyone around the internet who has heard of, let alone likes Gyorgy Ligeti. One of my favorite modern composers. As for something more gamey, you can check out these two tracks from RayStorm: Luminescence

As much as I'd prefer skill-based-unlocking, I see that as the most-viable (or rather, the least-onerous) compromise for the future.

(I tend to more or less instantly ignore any arguments made using Wikipedia articles but that's just me) I am trying to fathom AngelCityOutlaw's analogy but I just can't. I'll try sprucing it up a bit: "If video-game companies are making me pay for content that's all-ready on my disc, that is like me paying a car dealership to activate the break pedal on a vehicle that I had purchased from them."

You fool don't you dare reveal my plan!

So it's really bland and cheap? ba-zing!

Honestly, if you're in to "weirder" stuff (or at least, the non poppy-sounding), you cannot go wrong with ZUNTATA. They made some of the best and most progressive game music back in the late 80s and 90s. Stuff like Tamaya Kawamoto's work on and RayStorm (good danceable tracks), OGR's surreal masterworks in Darius Gaiden and G-Darius, Yasuhise Watanabe's jazzy synth-work in Metal Black and (though that last one is after Zuntata broke up... oh well it still counts)...You really can't go wrong with those three.

Don't feel bad. I've been watching a little bit of Mad Bull 34 (which is one of the greatest anime ever), and Dominion Tank Police, which has 3 episodes that are absolutely hysterical and enjoyable - both were dubbed by Manga UK, which had probably some of the most entertaining dubs back in the day (full of "edgy" profanity and cheesy New York accents... from England!). My older brother saw the 4th episode and said the series completely fell apart, not even being centered around Leona anymore. which sucks, because she was one of the most batshit crazy and likable characters on a show where everyone was crazy. Makes me apprehensive to finish, or start the "super grungy srs" sequel New Dominion Tank Police. Hm. At least the original had some really bitchin' tunes for the UK dub! That's how you do a dub! Replace boring J-Pop with funky house! I also want to get to a few other 80s OVAs, like MD Geist, the hilariously stupid (YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS STUPID JIN EI)As well as the more serious and actually-good-anime-film Whether for comedy or actual quality i'd recommend these OVA/movies. EDIT: Watching the final episode my older brother was more or less right. I was expecting worse, and there were a lot of good moments but halfway through it just kinda fell through and centered around the main badguy for no reason and really sucked the momentum out of the show. Oh well, it's still a series I'd very much recommend.

Well Bleck that's the ultimate logical conclusion but we haven't gotten there yet. Baby steps.

If you want a good series with speculative fiction and space pirates why in the heck do you not go and watch something like Outlaw Star? Oh wait but you didn't want action. Umm.....

Nah, it kind of feels like it would be the title of like, an episode of a cartoon network cartoon back in the 90s. waitaminute I was kind of hoping this news would be the long-awaited sequel of Sega's masterpiece GAME OVER YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, but I guess I'll have to settle for flash-tween central over here (just like the Rayman Origins trailer!).

While it is more or less easy for us to choose between NCR and the Legion, I feel like those guys are too easily painted as the "bad guys" of New Vegas, when it's a little bit more complex. Heck, Caesar used to be a Follower of the Apocalypse and still respected their ideals, which is kind of strange considering what the Legion believed. Yeah, Lanius was koo-koo-cachoo (but badass), but the reality is that while the Legion was a stone-age society, the Mojave was a stone-age, dog-eat-dog world. However, Caesar thought he had a chance to remake a world without strife and conflict and war if every single type of difference was erased; while it's a pretty barbarous way of dealing with things it's not without some benefits for people living in the lands controlled by the Legion (Legion lands were virtually safe from any raiders etc.). [[They're probably more easily painted as the "bad-guys" because there is only one ending you take where Lanius is NOT the final boss, and that's pro-Legion.]] House himself had the business know-how to bring the world back to a semblance of Old-World glory, but it would be a glory that is unscrupulous and unprincipled (he had a vested interest in keeping the rest of the region unsafe and unstable, as it would make New Vegas more profitable and lucrative) - so while he had the ability to revive the west, it would be an ability suited solely towards his own capitalistic interests (which kind of made him a bigger asshole to me because he didn't believe in anything; at least the Legion had a [maligned] vision for humanity). NCR, while it probably had the most decent people in its faction (though, humorously, most decent people in Mojave didn't want anything to do with NCR), still had strayed quite a ways from Tandi's presidency. Kimball was more of a war-hawk, and the Mojave was only really seen as a means for enriching the West (most of the electricity at Hoover powered California). Its prison system was woefully ineffective, and its expansionist impulses left its military stretched thin. --EXECUTE "END SIDE-TANGENT"-- While I would hesitate to say that that moron in that SFvT article speaks for the fighting community at large, it might be worth pondering whether his views are indicative of gaming culture, California culture, internet culture, or what-have-you. His line of reasoning "this isn't North Korea people can say what they want" makes me think he's particularly influenced by the latter, with its emphasis on "everything is a joke or opinion and those are always ok as long as they don't hurt people which they never do", but I might just be thinking too hard about it (wouldn't be the first time!). Though the continual entreaties to keep Street Fighter from becoming Starcraft are as mind-boggling as they are hilarious.

But NCR was corrupt, bloated, and imperialistic - in a sense they really weren't all that different from the Legion, but they had Old-World rhetoric of democracy and freedom to hide behind. All three factions in New Vegas were major assholes. At least up top. Kind of made for a better role-playing experience than Fallout 3, I feel. Fallout NV had a nice range of characters, at least in terms of sexuality (though Arcade was kind of whiny, but that has nothing to do with sexuality) - with Veronica, Arcade, and everyone's favorite bi, Cass. You might be able to complain about the large amount of hookers in New Vegas itself, but they are so glitchy and plastic-looking that the way they inhumanly glide around the place locked in their "sexy dance" animation is more endearing than anything.

Cultural standards and expectations for women in the U.S. have merely fallen to abysmal lows, you see. To counter my point though, some trash will always be trash. EDIT: A better way of stating my thoughts: While I believe that cultural standards and expectations for women in the U.S. have fallen to abysmal lows, there was and will always be trash.

wouldn't it really be Bass or Mega Man, since they are technically Robot Masters, that would actually be the biggest potential threats? Hell, techni - tecccchnically, X and Zero are the last two Robot Masters, so like, they're even above them on the threat level.

Bubble Man, because he is a serial rapist.

The Zero Suit, more than just about anything, is my least favorite development in the Metroid mythos to occur in the last 10 years. Hell, you can put her back in her weird-looking leotard with green hair and that will still be better than that skin-tight latex/plug-suit fetish junk. I suppose it makes a little sense in a sci-fi setting but it has yet to be handled in a decent way (I suppose in Zero Mission, arguably, but that was a pretty boring 15 minutes of the game, compared to the rest* - and don't get me started on the "high-heels" they added to it in Other M!). Samus was a lot like Ellen Ripley in the earlier years of the franchise -who by the way is one of my all-time favorite film protagonists male or female**- at least Alien 1-3 Ripley because lord knows what the FUCK was going on in Alien: Resurrection with all the goofy Ron Perlman stuff. Yeah people say "no character" but she was a female character that didn't need an overly big lame backstories or shit like that - she was another blank-slate character we projected our own kind of inner-fantasies and stories on to, like Link, or those early RPG heroes -her actions spoke louder than words and I feel that gamers all around felt a similar degree of respect that is not present for fans of Mario and (maybe) Zelda. The sheer amount of simply amazing fan-fiction of Metroid out there attests to the place she has in the hearts of gamers. *If it were up to me Zero Mission would have ended after Mother Brain and it would have been one bitchin' remake. It still is but Chozodia is a draaaaaag. **she is a good example of empowered female character to me (Sarah Connor is another, at least in the first film) because she is never heavily sexualized in any real way, unless you count the scene at the end of Alien where she's alone in her underwear when the xeno is in the escape pod (but I don't count that as heavily sexualized : / )... Or that fucking fucking AWFUL attempted-rape scene in Alien3 which is probably the single damn worst scene in the entire film franchise, worse than Hicks and Newt dieing and worse than all of Alien: Resurrection (and that movie was mega-shit). I don't care if it was immediately followed by Charles Dutton kicking some serious ass being a bad-ass preacher-man, I wish it never happened.

That's happened to me so many times that at this point it doesn't really faze me. To wit: double doors be double dealin' all over this bitch.

too bad the resistance in that game was like, the biggest useless pile of fucks in any Zelda game ever. I mean, no one in any Zelda game ever does anything except for Link, Zelda, and Ganon, but these guys did nothing yet the game treated them like they were huge heroes and a big help to Link. I actually kind of hoped that when the castle just up and exploded, the resistance was caught up in that explosion.

"Holy moly that question almost hit me that time!"

This is an interesting topic and one that I'll have to respond to more fully later, but that's all i have the time to say right now. EDIT ok one more thing: Samus in Fusion is my favorite depiction of Samus - mainly because the ending screens show her having the look of a confident, mature woman which is what she damn well should be by the time Fusion rolls around: (then again I am not a woman so perhaps I read these images the wrong way and they are actually incredibly sexist then whoops) And for what it's worth the Metroid Hunters version of the Zero Suit of all games is the only one that is bearable because it's the only non-hyper-sexualized depiction of the suit. Too bad that Hunters is one of the worst fucking games ever.

Good stuff! It sounds really nice and clean to my ears, production-wise (though I'll let others with better ears be better judges). I like the song, and the guitar playing fits in very well.

Going to have to put a vote into Killer7. Have to have f-ing SOMETHING with Masafumi Takada in it, and if you goof-balls can't see the greatness of God Hand's soundtrack might as well go with one of the next best things.

I feel that Kirby games are the perfect games for kids. The latest one, Return to Dreamland, would be a good choice. Plus it has cooperative single-player, so you can join the game with him. Epic Yarn will more than likely bore a kid at that age (and any older), because of the total lack of difficulty. Rayman Origins is good too. Difficult but not overly punishing. Same goes with Donkey Kong Country Returns. The whole Metroid Prime Trilogy might be good, but it would be tough going for an 8-year-old. Then again, I just speak from the personal experience of the game being tough-going for a 15-year-old! They are fantastic games, a lot more like detective games with some shooting elements thrown in. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) is also a good exercise in a more "cerebral" gaming experience of the Metroid games, though it is pretty actiony and blast-em-up.