AngelCityOutlaw

So yesterday, I along with many other PS3 users were excited by the news that "omfg Soul Calibur Lost Swords is a free-to-play thing that's finally available and you can download it now!" So, I download and install the game only to discover, like everyone else, that the game is unplayable. You see, one requires an internet connection to play this single-player game. Upon pressing start, the game informs me that it will return to the title screen due to error 1098. Some people have reported slightly different error codes. Now, connection shouldn't be a problem - my internet and every other person experiencing this problem has a completely functional internet connection. Rather, Namco has confirmed this is an issue on their end, but refuses to say exactly what the problem is. To make matters worse, this confirmation only comes from the Soul Calibur facebook page, but a precise reason or "official" posting has not been provided. 24 hours later, we still have no fix. I'm fully aware that games are complicated things to design and that devs can run into Snafus they had no foresight of. However, this game has been in development for a long freakin' time now. Honestly, I just don't see how you can have a bug, glitch or whatever that renders the game completely unplayable for most, if not all users on the first damn day. From a company and series of this stature, this kind of thing is unacceptable. Where I'm going with this, is that it seems like more and more games have less and less quality control. From graphics and other bugs found in XCOM to this connection problem in Lost Swords, it seems like companies don't even bother to test for blatantly obvious issues in single-player games. It's like they just expect the consumer to be the free QA team and to patch issues only as players complain about them. What are your thoughts on patching single-player games, paid or free-to-play when the issues could have undoubtedly been fixed prior to release?

One thing that no one should ever and I mean EVER do is say this: "References available upon request". Where I work, we get a shitload of resumes every day and any that have this on it (and there always are) go straight to the garbage. There are few things less professional that you can say on a resume than this.

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you? Street Fighter Alpha's music was probably the first soundtrack that really caught my ear as a kid. Totally blew me away. The music just had this awesome groove and style that I hadn't really heard before. I'd say that the music is pretty much what made me a Street Fighter fan. 2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience? After Street Fighter I started paying attention to the music of every game I would play. Jet Moto 2 and Twisted Metal were the first discs I had that spent more time in my parent's stereo than in the Playstation. 3. How did you hear about OCR? I heard this epic Street Fighter 2010 remix on YouTube and I found my way here. 4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society? Insanely good artists hang out here, I've seen a dancer or two, writers, actors, voice artists etc. 5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life? It has actually affected my life immensely. Since hanging out here I've started composing in a lot of different genres, got to write music for some indie-games and an upcoming short-film, learned more about music technology, collaborated with some really talented people. Last year, I came to realize that what I was studying in college wasn't what I really wanted. I kicked around a lot of different ideas and I finally decided that life is too short to worry about studying "normal people" stuff and for the past month I've been studying digital audio/music production as well as music business and honestly it's turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made. I've learned a LOT in the past month. Video game music and the OCR community were definitely influential in making that choice. I've actually made a lot of friends just through an interest in VGM as well.

Nice work, man! Minus the electronic elements, this actually reminds me of Nox Arcana and Midnight Syndicate's music and I am a huge fan of that style. Actually, several years ago I wrote an album's worth of stuff like this with another musician - but we never finished recording it all. I really need to get back into this Gothic sort of music.

I'm no legal expert, but I've heard the answer enough times to know that you'd have to get some sort of license for the work from the developers who own it etc. If you just made a for-profit album of remixes and covers from a TV Show, film, game or whatever without some sort of legal permission - you are technically breakin' the law as Judas Priest would say. So either he has a license to do so or he just has the balls to see if anyone notices.

It was my mother's birthday today so I made her this hair-metal inspired arrangement of the tune this morning. She was the person who got me into music in the first place via bands like Ratt, Motley Crue, Poison etc. https://soundcloud.com/angelcityoutlaw/happy-birthday

Slaying drago- wait. No, I totally do that in real life.

Speaking of Audio, I record guitar stuff in Reaper. I shall have some new guitar takes to you tonight! The work around I had for this in FL Studio is to make a layout of all the tempo changes on the timeline using automation clips. Then, put in all the audio clips after the fact. Also, if it asks you to "re-stretch all channels now" or something like that, just click "no". Honestly this is the one thing that I realllly hate about FL Studio. They should just handle time sig and tempo changes like everyone else. They really have no excuse at this point.

I can't remember any music from The Avengers. In fact, I can almost never remember any music from films unless it was a main theme like Star Wars or Pirates of The Caribbean or if it was a licensed song they included on the soundtrack.

I'm at least 95% sure that the title has nothing to do with Captain America himself. I really think you guys are over-thinking the title. It's just named after the Winter Soldier himself...he's not exactly a new villain in the Marvel Universe. Any of the "connections" that Bleck or anyone else has pointed out are probably just coincidence or maybe inspirations for the Winter Soldier's code-name. Or maybe, they just went with it because it sounds badass and fits with him being a Soviet assassin.

If you people like epic orchestral stuff like Two Steps From Hell, I highly recommend this Ivan Torrent dude from Spain. "One of Us" is my favorite of his tunes.

OMG Someone else who listens to Powerwolf!

Good thread. Though he is a legend now, singer-songwriter Max Martin's old funk-rock band "It's Alive" was fan-freakin'-tastic. Check out This band has tons of great songs, but they only made it like two albums. However, the label kept Max as a songwriter and he went on to write such hits as "...Baby One More Time", "I Want It That Way", lots of Katy Perry tunes and just about every pop hit since 1996. Including that damn "Never Getting Back Together" song that Taylor Swift Sings.

Awesome that SF II Turbo HD was featured and that's the most epic way to play video games ever. That being said, this is one of the weakest installments in his Clueless Gamer series as far as witty commentary and comedy in general goes.

My hatred for Mega Man remains. Zero Suit Samus is badass, though.

I'm no mixing expert, but I'll try to offer some tips based on what I hear. 1. The hat feels a little loud and maybe panned slightly too much or maybe it just feels panned weird because of its volume. Actually, a lot of the cymbals seems to be way louder than your guitars. Perhaps adjust the levels a bit and/or add some compression? 2. Double track the rhythm - sounds like she's right in the middle the whole way through. 3. The silence at the beginning is unnecessary. 4. Not really a fan of the lead guitar tone. Perhaps try playing around with different amps, mic positions etc. real or virtual. The lead also sounds like neck pickup. A sound I generally hate on lead guitars personally (unless it's during a fast, bluesy run). 5. The track ends rather abruptly. Compose a better ending! Those are my thoughts thus far.

It was good, but am I the only one who feels like the overall plot actually had very little to do with the winter soldier?

I saw the original trailer in 3D in front of Winter Soldier (which kicked ass) yesterday and it looked great. This new trailer orlouge posted makes me even more stoked for this movie.

You sound different than I expected.

Thanks for the feedback man! I'll try making some of those adjustments.

Replaced the audio file with an extended version with slap bass, a wobble or two and stuff.

Although its length is short I'm honestly hoping the Phantom Pain is maybe 5x as long at most. I recently had the conversation regarding video game length with a film director and I think he made some interesting points. If you think about it, it's really only in the last 5 years or so that story has really been the selling point of some major games. GTA V, Last of Us, Tomb Raider and Arkham City being notable. The problem with some "story driven" games like Zelda: Twilight Princess or many JRPGS is that because it is still more "game" than narrative, you have all this gameplay in between that makes the story seem so much longer than it really is. The longer the story seems to go on, the harder it is to keep your interest. Quite often in older games, I found myself saying "Oh, it's that guy from 15 hours ago. He did something important....I think?" The problem with a lot of story driven games is that they have so much gameplay in between all the major plot points that the "story" goes on for 40+ hours and unless you're really dedicated, you'll lose interest. With so many gaps between the perceived "goal" of the game (to advance the story) you'll probably find some other game long before you reach the story's end. In my opinion, the game that nailed the whole story-length thing was Batman: Arkham City. It had a strong plot and it didn't take much more than 10 hours to beat. I can remember all of the main plot points quite clearly and because of a length that takes maybe a week or two to beat, I can and have played through it a couple of times now. Similarly to how I can watch a two-hour movie with a good story twice or more, I can play through a game with a good, ten hour story more than once. Plus, Batman has all kinds of open-world side missions and secrets that you can find at your leisure. Twilight Princess, despite being a great game...I doubt I'll ever play through it again. There was also an article on this subject a few days ago on IGN that found basically only a third of players actually finish most games story-lines.

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!