Melbu Frahma

^ Seriously, EC's Youtube channel is pretty much one of the only reasons I bother pulling up Youtube these days, between all three shows, and I'm really looking forward to getting introduced to some new remixers through it. I'm think I'm going to keep a running list of episodes in my first post too, just for the hell of it.

I don't even... what... I'm just going to go back to celebrating the green light over here.

Gotta agree wholeheartedly, although I thought The Avengers was close behind in second. They're really trying to do two different things, and they accomplish both well: Winter Soldier was a spy thriller (albeit a bit light on the "thrill"), a deep, meaningful movie exploring modern issues and the role of the state in security and controlling of our lives, whereas The Avengers is a have-a-lot-of-laughs, fun romp in the field with lots of explosions, lasers and witty one-liners. They both accomplish exactly what they set out to do; Winter Soldier just barely edged The Avengers out in accomplishing its goal as a movie.

So, the awesome crew from Extra Credits is apparently starting a new series called . I look forward to seeing many of y'all featured on there. EPISODE LIST

As long as you get to include clips of Will Smith shouting "Welcome to Erf!" in every song as a result of this new Bay partnership, I'm okay with this.

I think this is my only concern. On the surface, it sounds like a great idea, so long as you keep the OCR-level stuff separate from the WIP-level stuff. For me, as someone who's more casual about the Workshop (since I don't produce music, but can only offer listener advice) and has a very selective experience with game music, I think integrating the workshop into the database would allow me to contribute more to the art being produced in there. I feel far more qualified (and therefore comfortable) offering constructive criticism on remixes from FF7, or Might and Magic VI, or the first couple Pokemon generations, or Descent, than I ever would on Mega Man, Zelda, or any other game I've never played extensively. This seems like something that would make it easier for me to do that, rather than scrolling through pages of music from games I probably can't really offer much input on. On the other hand, I think it's vitally important to keep the two databases as clearly defined and separate as possible, because if they start to run into each other, some of the impetus to strive for track perfection and bettering oneself as an artist gets lost. I'd fear that some people would take the attitude of "I got lots of likes in the Workshop and it's in OCR's database somewhere, that's close enough for me."

I've gotta say, this concept for a war game is something I'd be very, very interested to see come to fruition.

That's about the gist of my thoughts. I think the shortness of the game bothered me pretty deeply, as I'm a staunch proponent of pricing games based on length - if I'm paying $60 for a game, I expect 25+ hours on my first playthrough, and replayability. Gotta say, though, the low difficulty level and OP items didn't bother me that much. I didn't truly expect it to be that hard, so maybe my low expectations helped in that regard; and while there were definitely some items that were OP, I didn't mind much because I spent most of my time using suboptimal items just for the amusement factor of their special abilities, particularly weapons. And the humor... I'm not the world's largest South Park fan - I only find the occasional episode good - but I still found the game hilarious, particularly the Canada segment and the game trope jokes. There was one fight scene in particular that I'm not going to call by name for fear of spoilers, that I literally had to stop playing for several minutes because I couldn't stop laughing.

Eh, what the hell. Added mine. Yeah, that's pretty true of me too, lol.

Anyone at OCR playing this? I've gotta admit, I'm enjoying the game so far, particularly its lampooning of gaming. It's got a pretty good, unique sense of humor, and I like that they're drawing heavily on the SP mythos in ways other than just "Hey, remember this? Hahaha, right?" They're actually expanding upon it. Plus, it's a well-put-together game, from what I've seen.

He's also a commentator for NBA games. Which, I'm sure, has kept him semi-current among basketball fans. Not that that will necessarily help him that much with selling the game, but still.

You mean THERE'S MORE? That makes me very, very happy.

Digging all that gold on the front page.

I feel like that title obscures the primary focus of the album. Namely, Nicholas Cage.

This is a fantastic idea, and I'm looking forward to what comes out of it. I'd particularly love it if one or more of the great town themes from got mixed somehow.Regardless, though, I know this'll turn out to be a great album.

One of the half dozen or so songs Pandora's introduced to me while at work that I haven't immediately thumbed down.

Yeah, I've been thinking this a lot lately. Really, about the only other field I can think of where this kind of thing is met with positive reactions is film/tv. A case might be able to be made for tech R & D, and maybe for sports (and teams don't close down, so it's a huge stretch there), but the headline for virtually any other field would be "Industry downsizing, jobs lost, what does this mean for the city they were based in," etc.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132317-Irrational-Games-to-Close-After-BioShock-Infinite-DLC-Update Can't say I'm too happy about this. Bioshock Infinite was one of the few games from last year I actually liked.

I play occasionally. It's good as it is, but I honestly feel like just a little more card variety would kick it up dozens of notches. (Of course, it's just beta, so maybe we'll get another three or four cards per class when it goes live.) Anyone else besides me really, really curious what the fourth slot on the main menu is going to be for?

This is a damn fine remix, just like his debut. I can't wait for his third!

I'm really excited to see what the two of you manage to create.

Oh no he di'int just badmouth Mass Effect's music! Time to get my shankin' knife! Knee-jerk response to Mass Effect being mentioned as bad music aside, I think he's generally correct to a point. Yes, game music in the modern era has lost a lot of its focus on multiple melodies a la Uematsu and Mitsuda, but that doesn't mean it's inherently worse. Yes, games like Battlefield, CoD, Tom Clancy, and their ilk don't have particularly memorable tunes, but then again a goodly amount of the players of those games don't even play the story campaigns, and - last I checked - the MP doesn't play music, so the need for good music isn't necessarily there as strongly. Some game genres, like sports games, have never truly bothered with great music anyway. It's important to note that most AAA games aren't necessarily writing music for just one game, either, and that many - like, as he mentioned, Halo - concern themselves more with writing music that can be recognizably identified as "Halo" across every installment of the franchise rather than as "that one map in Halo 2 where Master Chief did all the sniping and his friend died" (I've never played Halo, it's a made up example) the way that Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger music can be. That's part of why I take offense at him lumping Mass Effect in there, because yes, I may not be able to identify where, exactly, 50% of ME music occurs in the story, but you can play 95% of the soundtrack to me and I'll be able to peg it as Mass Effect. And there are certain tracks off of it that I'll always be able to recognize, like Suicide Mission from ME2 and the galaxy map theme. Plus, just because games don't concern themselves as strongly with strong locale/character themes, doesn't necessarily mean they're bad. I mean, hell, I'm an old-music lover more than the modern stuff, but you can't look at Bastion, To The Moon or FTL and tell me those have bad soundtracks. Are they vastly different from Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and Sonic in style? Yes. Does that make them bad? Heck no. This, and I think it's also important to recall that music - particularly in RPGs, but in other games as well - also used to carry a much, much heavier part of the burden of storytelling than it used to, back before the days of 1,000,000,000,000 pixel high def photorealism with real physics movie games. Game designers had to communicate more about the environment, the characters, and what was happening in the story (if there was a story) through music. One of my favorite examples is Descent: Destination Saturn. You really don't get a whole lot of story in that game - maybe a five-page intro at the beginning and another five pages' worth of "transmissions" throughout the rest of the game. It falls to the music to set the atmosphere, create tension, inform you about the environment, and it accomplishes it beautifully.

I'm loving this. I get a really strong Aquaria vibe from it, particularly in the midsection, and there is everything right and nothing wrong with that. Definitely going on my daily play list.

Nice work, Vig.