Ramaniscence

XBOX Live has gone down for a WEEK before. Anyway, Sony deserves every bit of bad publicity they get right now. I feel no pity for them. Arrogance, followed by denial, followed by panic, followed by disaster, followed by a total lack of communication.

Just updated the first post with the line-up thus far. Some exciting acts this year included year including Arm Cannon, brentalfloss, Inverse Phase, and Metroid Metal

Aperture Science has a pretty prominent role in Episode 2. And its been said that Cell will have a standing impact on keu half-life characters

That's what I'm counting on.

I'm more disappointed in that when you play through Portal 2, it's pretty apparent Aperture Science is REALLY into testing. For like...no reason whatsoever. First they payed a lot of money for Olympians, Astronauts, and war heroes, then they wanted to save money and started hiring hobos, and then they started making employees do mandatory tests because they were free. At some point, they filled up huge reserves of test subjects, as shown when Wheatley talks about the people in cryosleep (either ten thousand, or tens of thousands? I don't remember, but it's a lot). I was suppose they're maybe prisoners given the orange jump suits, but who knows, that's beyond the point. The point is, they REALLY like to test. GLaDOS had core components that required her to test and build chambers and test and test. Wheatley had to do the same thing when he controlled the facility. They never seemed to have an access of test subjects. So then WHY would GLaDOS try so adamantly to kill Chell in the first game? I mean that's what started this whole thing. GLaDOS tried to kill Chell for no reason. Not the other way around. The only reason Wheatley even considered that as an option is because he found the robots. He'd NEVER have killed her otherwise because then he couldn't test. Seeing how they seeming put a lot of resources into preserving test subjects in those hotel room chambers, I really can't see why GLaDOS would try to kill a perfectly good, healthy, young, test subject whom generally performs pretty well (I mean let's be honest, Chell is able to dismantle the entire facility, twice, in only like 12 hours tops active time).

http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Aperture_Science I read through this last night. Most of this information is also reiterated here: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/03/24/aperture-science_3a00_-a-history.aspx But again...doesn't exactly add up.

WELLLLLllllll According to the timeline, this is hundreds of years after the the events in Half-Life 2. Granted, Gordon Freeman could've been put under again for a LONG time. From what I understand the events of Portal 1 take place right around the same time the Combine is invading. So HL2 and Portal 1 are taking place at relatively the same time. By the time Portal 2 comes along, the events of Episode 3 have already taken place, and it SOUNDS like humans won the war. Hinted by GLaDOS saying "I did see a human today, though". I'm not sure whether or not she can even see outside, but in the first game she tells you how grim it is outside, and I'd think she'd keep bringing that up if the situation was really still bad out there. But ya'know...that's assuming she has any shred of honesty in her at all. Anyway ALL THAT SAID, it's more likely that we'll see Aperture Science and what led up to Portal 2 mentioned a lot in Episode 3, rather than vice versa. ALSO: The Aperture Science timeline doesn't seem to line up with the Cave Johnson dialogue in the game...leaves me kind of confused I really do like how Portal 2 has an actual storyline where as Portal 1 was essentially puzzles, escape, and some implied story here and there. It comes off feeling like Portal 1 is a prologue to the real story that takes place here. I also agree that the credits, while still a great song, isn't nearly as quirky and memorable as the original. It's definitely clever, but no where near as clever.

Dynamic-ish in the sense that...the closer I get to this object, the louder it plays this repeating drumloop and bass line, I get closer to this object with an object in hand and it plays the same drumloop and bassline with another synth over it. It's nothing amazing, but it's definitely effective.

AFK getting the game in 14 mins, I'll tell you guys how it is when I beat the whole thing before it gets pre-released

Oh, I get it. it's like Chu Chu Rocket, but 3D

I was wondering if someone was going to say that. It's the most dead-pan obvious imho. Anyway, this one too: http://www.thesixtyone.com/TheGrammarClub#/s/cRbS73A39hb/ Can't find it anywhere on YouTube though because apparently Shael hates exposure.

Hey, i'm really excited about Portal, too. That's why I pre-ordered it from GameStop, and that's why I'll go pick it up when they get it on Tuesday...ya'know, the release date? What makes you think you deserve it more than I do? Especially if you're not willing to foot out a few extra dollars. Shit, I paid MORE than you did for it. And then I'll enjoy the shit out of it until it beat it in like 3 hours, and probably not play it again for 6 months.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath & Psychonauts are probably 2 of my favorite examples of this. Both were EXCELLENT games, however the former was single platform, so EA refused to do heavy marketing for it, because they weren't going to make the maximum amount of money off of it, so it more or less tanked, and the latter couldn't get a real publisher to save their lives because of the same problems, which resulted in limited exposure. Even so it was able to get some good exposure, especially once they got it on steam. The other end of this spectrum is equally tragic: Good game designers end up having to put neutered versions of good ideas into otherwise good gamings, MAKING them terrible. I'm going to sanitize this story as much as possible for the sake of the parties involved but I like to tell this story whenever I get a chance: A friend of mine was a developer at a major game company. This company was tasked with developing a sequel to an A list franchise. I was a huge fan of the franchise, and I knew his company had been working on a sequel for quite some time, so I asked him what the issue was once he had moved on to another company. It'd been some years since the last game in this franchise came out, and while the previous iteration was not without it's flaws, the fan base would've been more than satisfied with a version of the previous game with competitively improved graphics, a solid story line, and maybe a few minor gameplay elements from some more modern games in the same genre. Easy, right? You have a name to sell, a mechanic that works, put a good creative story behind it and bam. Block buster. Everything started out well and good. Everyone was motivated and excited. Moral was high. Suddenly another in the same genre was released that was a similar but used a slightly different camera angle. The higher ups saw the success of this game, and wanted their game to have this angle too. All well and good, right? Take the camera, move it, done, right? Wrong. All the levels had been designed for a totally different vantage point. now that you've moved the camera the context is changed, objects and holes are visible that were not intended to be. Everything has to be redone, rethought, recreated, right down to the art concept level. While they're working on all the changed to fit this change, yet another game came out in a different genre, but this game had open environments. The higher ups saw this, and liked that idea. So now instead of having a linear gameplay element, they wanted the game to have a more open, sandbox kind of environment. Again, everything has to be redone, rethought, and recreated, right down to the art concept level. At the same time all this is happening, a team of designers is working tirelessly to try to add new things that make the game feel unique, mostly in the form of "mini-games", but mini-games like say...hacking in Bioshock. or Lock Picking in Oblivion, or something along those likes. Micro-mini-games. Mind you, this franchise stems back for decades and doesn't really have a "solid" or "canon" story line. There are very few elements that need to go into this game to make it feel like it belongs to the franchise. There are very simple, tried and true concepts you can use to build on that, and again if you had a solid storyline to pull it together, then there'd be no problem. Finally, they've made countless changes, the game has gone through complete overhauls over the course of years, to the point now to where it's completely different from any previous concepts. ANOTHER game in a similar genre comes out...I really can't go into detail about this one, because it'd blow the roof off the whole "not mentioning specifics" thing, but this game had a very interesting mechanic, that worked pretty specifically only in the context of this game. Higher ups saw it, and thought hey, we need to have a mechanic that's similar, but not the same, and we'll make it the premise of our game. Now...we have 1 things here now. A is a game that just came out, with a very specific, excellent, fresh new game mechanic that..doesn't really translate into anything else. B is a game that, from the beginning, was an entirely different concept, had gone through multiple iterations, and was almost complete, but facing a complete overhaul once again. It was at this point that my friend decided this wasn't the job for him, and went on to another studio to make an even cooler game, and at the time of telling me this story, he didn't know the status of his previous employers game. Years later the game did come out, WITHOUT the final change. What should've been an excellent next installment to an excellent franchise, came and went without a thought to anyone. It disappeared from existence, and now probably sits in bargin bins somewhere. Years following THAT, his company was able to take that last, absolutely ridiculous idea, and flesh it out into it's whole OWN game...which did even worse. The moral to the story is...if you love video games, and think you have great ideas for video games, don't go into production for video games unless you want your hopes and dreams smashed. Make games for yourself, and don't quit your day job. If you make a hit, make some money, and game some attention, then you can start looking to go pro when you have some weight. Until then remember that good ideas are a dime a dozen, and good ideas don't sell copies of games.

a duh, then you wait until the day that it's supposed to be released? What about those of us who pre-ordered a PS3 copy so we'd get it on PC and console? HUH? WHAT ABOUT US? Seriously getting upset because a developer won't release a game before it's release date is the stupid reason to get upset that I've ever heard. Next thing you know, people will be asking for Duke Nukem Forever a month early! Edit: I did take this time to finally buy Super Meat Boy, only to remember my PC is dead until I get my replacement processor in. WOMP WAH.

Oh, yea, that one. Totally forgot about that one. Does that still happen?

How can you be a DJ for a major radio station of urban music and not be familiar with the whole Rhymesayers collective? I mean, that's just doing research of your industry, man. Ig'nance.

Step 1: better thread title. Step 2: Voting because I <3 Mellow Mushroom

Radio Free Hipster, by Z from Hipster, Please! plays many things relevant to your interested.

Absolutely. Quite enjoyable, indeed.

I find it even more hypocritical seeing as most of these songs are by dudes. So they're dudes singing about 60-70 y/o other dudes who's wives have died before them however statistically women live longer than men. I don't know of one song like this where it's a female country singer singing about an old lady who's husband has died, but that's just too likely. How's THAT for real, eh? Female country singers sing about dudes who are jerks, or dudes who are like omg totally hot farmers. Male country singers sing about girls that they lost via some mistake or death, or girls who are like omg totally hot. Never the other way around.

starla's car has no antenna and the ONLY STATION we get is the country station. I like country about as much as I like any other mainstream music scene. No more, no less. It just seems with country their big hits are few and far between so they hold onto hit songs for a lot longer than most other genres do. Obviously any part of a genre that's less "mainstream" than it's radio counterpart is much better, radio country is about as bad as other genres. The difference between country and rap is that rap is talking about drugs and bitches and street cred, and country is talking about old guys who's wifes day, and tractors, and farming. Seriously, someone tell me what the difference between these 2 songs is: The message is nearly exactly the same, and while it's more...moral(?) than rap music, it's equally exploitive of it's listeners. And those aren't the only 2 about that kind of stuff on the radio RIGHT NOW, either. tl;dr All genres have good and bad music. IMO it's relevant to how big your genre is and how many avante-garde scenes it can spit out. Country is no better or worse than anything else, but tries REALLY hard to be depressing and country.

One of my favorites! Anyway, now that the joke is over sometime this week I'm going to go through and PROPERLY tag all the songs. In case anyone hasn't noticed yet, if you want to know who to original artists are, just check the "composer" field for the Mp3s as JH said. Most are regulars of One-Hour Compo, along with some OC ReMixers and your expected ThaSauce players =P. And the wonderful album art was provided by the Otaku, because she's an amazingly talented artist.

starla makes some great points, and everything she said would drastically help any compo, I'd think. The real problem here stems from the fact that OCR doesn't have a real built-in compo system, and thus no real way to manage a compo, so that responsibility relies heavily on the organizer themselves. Does OCReMix NEED a compo system? Arguably no. Compos aren't really the focus of OCR, and while it would make things easier on the participants and the organizers, it's definitely not a priority. As starla said, ThaSauce has a compo system, and it's not perfect by any means, but it certainly helps to some extent. Really though the significant factor here hasn't the compo system, or where the thread is, but the organizer. There's a number of other tools the organize can use to promote, and give updates. twitter updates, Facebook Pages/Events, signatures, there's a lot that people can do to get the word out there. OCR could theoretically give compos more of a focus, but that's not really what OCR is about. I'd rather see OCR put more emphasis on Workshop remixes than compos, though they're both very helpful to the growth of musicians. Really this would require some research, and usability/design studies to REALLY nail it, because there's no easy answer right now for OCReMix, but there's plenty that the organizers and participants can do. There is also an RSS feed for every public forum as a default feature in vBulletin. That means that the compos forum has that as well. Edit: This doesn't seem to be working as intended. It defaults back to Discussion no matter what. Perhaps djp could give more insight on this. So what do you need to help compos with the resources that are available now? Make a signature promoting AND explaining the compo Make the compo AS REGULAR AS POSSIBLE Listening parties help artists get a sense of community and instant feedback on their work. Positive reinforcement will make them more likely to re-enter Facebook Fan pages with regular updates Twitter pages with regular updates Facebook events, through the Fanpage, made BEFORE the end of the compo (some people change the dates 1 event, but a lot of people hate that, so I don't recommend that) A templated FIRST POST for every compo, with your current round, description of the round, link to or description in the of the compo. Links to the twitter, facebook, and event A sticky/announcement of these kind of tips for compo organizers in the compos forums This is just the stuff off the top of my head. Surely other people could come up with more, new ideas, but EVERYTHING mentioned so far could help compos out on a USER level.

So THIS is why you stopped just shy of getting exalted with all the Goblin Cartels. A noble sacrifice.

I answered a question similar to this on Yahoo! answers recently: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ao3w0GEP.6c5.BTDTyIDB.3ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20110103131523AAcUhuu Using this thread as a reference: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1468