Faulken

Been a loooong time since I've posted ANYTHING on these forums, but been trying to more regularly post some artwork. OCremix music is always a big inspiration for nostalgic fanart, so I thought I'd share one of the most recent biro scribbles. Was idly listening to Balance and Ruin. One of my favourite tracks is BLiND's Slam Shufflin' remix. Between that track and memories of Zozo, this happened: I fondly remember going around the forever grim and rainy town of thugs and thieves with my brother and a notepad in our quest to get Edgar's chainsaw. Noticed there was an OCremix DeviantART group which I've submitted to join. You can find my art on Tumblr here: http://lifelivedinfiction.tumblr.com/ And DA here: http://faulken.deviantart.com/

When I go to search, it just comes up with a list of the 'descriptions' you can tag levels with after playing. I may be missing something though. None of them as far as I'm aware have been accused of 'stealing', all of which that have been taken down for recreating licenses have been copyright issues, which unfortunately is shakey territory at best. There are still loads of levels that pop up right away on the "Cool levels" page 1, thousands of hearted and play through for things like MGS and Mario, so obviously MM/Sony are only tackling a small handful of copyrighted stuff with martial law as a sort of warning/show of effort on their part. Seems likely to me that they'll just delete anything reported-I guess we'll see how minor/bad this situation is in coming weeks. It would suck for a level to be just deleted, but I've backed up mine with copies. It is annoying, but at the same time, I understand why they have to take this stance on it =/ I think there is some clause for 'parody', so I'm not sure about the stuff where (for example) instead of God of War, you have Sack of War or whatever. Anyone added me on PSN yet? I'd like to add some of you guys, check out people's created/hearted levels.

There's a bunch of really good music ones-the other one that impressed me was 'To Zanarkand' from FFX. There was a Hollow Bastion from KH, but it sounded a little off to me. There's also one of Sweet Child of Mine lol.

Edited out broken link above now that my friend's sorted it Mega Sack 2: Above the Clouds, as played by my friend Angelo Blaze, my PSN is Luketh for those willing to give it a shot! I'm not actually sure how you search for specific creators and their levels, short of having them as friends now that I think about it... :S As far as old school Mega Man tributes go, I've not seen any other on LBP yet, but would love to, so link me if anyone knows any! Hope you like mine! Only my first level, better ones to come at some point most likely. width=425 height=350

Ah Libidius? The name confused me, then I was like "Aaaaah-Gradius!"-hehe it was very clever, I'm still not entirely sure how he did some of the mechanics of it. I've finished my first level, the one loosely based on Airman with Mega Man themes. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Please track it down and give it a try my PSN ID is Luketh and the level is called "Mega Sack 2: Above the Clouds". Any of you guys have some levels I can track down yet?

If you go to level creator, tools bag and skim along to 2 from the end, all the music you've collected is listed with track name name and artist. And yeah, the music is pretty awesome-some tracks get a bit over used online, as is evident from that comment about the youtube videos all having the same track lol, but is unavoidable with user created content. The song seemingly stuck in your head from the post is called "My Patch" by Jim Noir it is amazingly catchy I am currently taking on the monumental task of building a level, loosely based on Airman's stage from Mega Man 2-adding to it with a Rush Jet mechanism, etc the most fun thing so far was building Airman's floating pink heads of doom xD Should finish it soon-hope some of you guys will give it a try!

WHAT?! 9000?! I will try to bash out a simple entry, but no promises-I lack much time to do anything half decent. I'm thinking Dedede doing the big gay Brawl dance.

I have yet to create a level yet, and am still having an absolute blast. Other peoples ideas for levels are so pleasing on their own sometimes-there are more than enough of them even already, and the actual offline 'story' mode features some brilliantly designed levels. It's just lots more fun to play than it looks, you should really give it a try at a friends or something-it won't neccessarily make you wish for a PS3 any more lol, but it is definitely fun. I think on paper, as an idea, it doesn't sound like much more than a glorified level designer-but the reality is VERY different. Something about this game really has an old school nintendo-ish vibe to me. Perhaps it's just the playfulness.

Guys who aren't sure what the fuss is about, have you played it? There's just something really fun about it, I'd reccomend at least giving it a go. Frankly, I'm amazed by this game. It has a nonstop excitement factor that I havn't had last long on a game for a long time. 4 player co op is just amazingly fun and often hilarious. Some of the things people have made online are absolutely genius-even the really simple (I heavily reccomend finding a level just called 'ramp'). I have toyed with the creator a lot, but have yet to actually create a proper beginning to end level. Me and 2 friends are going to spend like a day creating a half decent level soon, hopefully. My PSN ID is Luketh-feel free to add me and check out my 'hearted' levels, some awesome ones I've found there. Anyone else have good online level reccomendations to track down?

Well, I made it to VG Live for the first time this year, Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico's show with the English Chamber Orchestra and choir, Martin Leung (the video game Pianist) and for some numbers Tallarico leading on guitar. Anyone else make it to this show, either in England, or with tickets for when it returns back States side? I had tons of fun-they opened with Metal Gear Solid, had some pre-recorded 'codec calls' from David Hayter introducing the show, and a hilarious cosplayer of an MGS soldier, complete with a spring loaded ! that popped above his head during a dramatic part of the music. The little shows like that, the stuff playing on the projector screen and the random audience involvement for competitions really gave it a fantastically fun atmosphere on top of just the great music. Castlevania music made for an epic finale, with Tallarico leading on guitar. One Winged Angel and Halo renditions were amazingly epic live. Plenty of other stuff, but the other most noteworthy thing was meeting Tallarico, Wall and a bunch of other game composers in a panel after the show. The guy who did the Donkey Kong Country soundtracks was there, and Richard Jacques of Jet Set Radio and Sonic R fame was also there; I had a fairly long amusing conversation with him about Super Sonic Racing . Spoke to Tallarico himself, asking if they had any Mega Man stuff in the works for future shows, he said that they were working on a medley of music from 2 and 3 (including 2's Wily Castle). Also for his 250+ game soundtracks, highlighted Metroid Prime, saying I love the Phendrana Drifts music asking if he'd heard many mixes of his work, which he had. For one of the competitions they were giving away a dvd or CD or something with 500 plus OCremixes, which made me think about whether DJPretzel or the other head people around here like Zircon or LionTamer had anything to do with this event State side? Given how the show largely had the tone of promoting the cultural significance of game music, and how it's not just a bunch of beeps and bloops, it did seem very much in the same sort of vein as OCremix to me. I did think it was a shame there was no OCremix precense there for it here in the UK if that is the case, but I guess it can't be avoided-I don't even know if you guys have any direct involvement, or if any of your big mixers are my side of the pond. Oh and last but not least, while I was there, I picked up Video Games Live the album, Volume 1. Awesome stuff-Tallarico said something about that being actually surprisingly high in sales charts in America-did you guys get it on general release over there?

I'm not as blown away by it as I had thought from the previews. Some very nice arrangements, some strange interpretations on the robot masters levels, while others remain quite faithful to the tone of the original. After hearing Gecko Yamori's WIP of Tornado Man's music, I gotta say the arranged version kind of felt like a let down. Splash Woman's music is an adventurous and pretty decent mix and Hornet Man's music is strangely addictive. I think "We are the Robots", one of the Wily castles musics is probably my favourite arrangement. On a side note, any tips to beating Fakeman more quickly? I thought I was being super clever when I reflected his bullets at him with Jewel satellite, but not only is this fiddly and not massively damaging, but when he runs at you like one of the dark Mega Man enemies, you have to sacrifice the ammo for that round, meaning the tactic is fairly shortlived. Any major weakness?

Jewel satelite as stated here lets you dispose of the carrying robots at the right time. You can also avoid getting grabbed and make it across the one unjumpable gap with the aid of Rush Jet or a Concrete Shot block.

Ah see, looking at DS Lites now, they tend to go used for £60 (still sell at about £100 brand new) I figure when the DSi is out, I'd be lucky to get £40 for it, probably less with scratchings on the finish (not the screens). The same happened with the DS chunky, but worse. I kept mine in the end and gave it to my brother and his girlfriend. Unless I desperately need the cash, selling on old consoles just doesn't generate enough cash for my liking. Even when my GBA was made more or less redundant by the DS, the tiny amount of cash I'd have gotten for it seemed ridiculous. Moreso if you leave it until the new model is established/price cut. So if you upgraded to DSi and sold your DS Lite, would you have no way at all of playing GBA games? Also cobaltstarfire, there was a fairly big fuss over the lack of GBretro games: the precedent was set before, because the GBA featured backwards compatibility. People would assume in the same way that a DSi does everything a DS Lite does unless stated otherwise, that a GBA slot would do everything a GBA does. Hence complaints. Now that there are minimal big selling GBA games, and with the minimal even first party efforts to exploit the GBA backwards compatibility, I just think it makes financial sense to have backwards compatibility removed to be able to market an affordable, flashy new model. Casuals who buy the console new won't care, most hardcore interested in the upgrade will likely still have a way of accessing those old GBA games-that's all I'm saying.

Yes, but would you buy it without a 2nd thought if there was a GBA slot? You kind of ignored everything else I had to say except that one sentence Besides, what I meant with the quoted remark was not that "EVERYONE WILL BUY BOTH", but if you're going to buy it anyway for the pittance your Lite would sell for when the new model is out, you're more likely to keep it rather than eBay/trade in towards a cheaper DSi. Thus you'd still have access to a DS Lite GBA slot. To be honest, I think people being happy with their Lites until this is cheaper/the downloadable store content gets too tempting is going to be the bigger thing than a lacking GBA slot. I don't know about you, but I didn't think I'd upgrade from a chunky to a Lite, but when I did I was impressed with the difference. I never yearn for my chunky for a neatly fitting GBA slot. The screen quality and lighting alone made enough of an aesthetic difference to merit the upgrade for me, so I'll look forward to seeing how good the DSi's supposedly improved screens are.

In all fairness to everyone crying about the DSi lacking a GBA slot, everyone made a big fuss when the original DS lacked backwards compatibility with retro GameBoy games for the principle of it too. Hell, people moaned about the way the GBA games stick out of the lite, but everyone seems to have forgotten that now. Let's face it, if you're the sort of person to be bothered by these things and interested in the new hardware, you're likely to keep the old version AND buy the new. Yes it's arguably a bit stupid to cut it out, but I'm sure this is like the PS3, and cutting backwards compatibility will result in cheaper production costs, and thus a more reasonable price at the end of it all. It's nowhere near as inexplicable as, for instance, the GBA Sp lacking a headphone slot. I don't personally care, my GBA got tons of use back in the day, meaning I've played most of the best the GBA had to offer to death-only new GBA play through in the past year has been FF6 Advance. If I really feel a burning desire to replay through my GBA library, worse case scenario, I still have my SP lurking around somewhere. DS to GBA compatibility, has been minimal, I can count the amount of DS game GBA bonuses on two hands max; a lot of those unlocked content more easily that there were OTHER in game ways to unloock and only Pokemon provided anything more than a passing novelty. Actual GBA slot peripherals for DS games have been minimal and for the most part not very good (only significant loss is Guitar Hero, which pretty much sucks balls on the DS). Unless you were absolutely dead set on buying a DSi right up until they announced lack of GBA slot, I wouldn't complain too much. People complain about them not offering exactly what the DS Lite offered, then complain about not getting the new features on their Lite. Buy it or don't buy it, I'm sure nintendo won't care. Going by their track record, the DSi will continue to print money. But don't get all antsy if you weren't willing to buy one in the first place because you're missing out on the new features; they do have to provide SOME sort of incentive to upgrade. As for the actual press conference, the game reels were really encouraging. Lately all Nintendo had to offer was Animal Crossing for me in the coming year, but come 2009, there are lots of games on that trailer I'm looking forward to. Honourable mention goes out to the new handheld Mario RPG in the reel, with seemingly playable Bowser. And it's nice to see that DS Kingdom Hearts finally with something to show. I'm psyched for Punchout-style looks dead on, here's hoping it doesn't just turn into stylised Wii boxing+ though.