Rexy

According to the Royal Mail online tracker, the package has hit my recipient's country. Shouldn't be too long now!

Eh? I wrote it, he performed and produced it

And SENT! Amusingly the gift was cheaper than the actual postage, but frankly I don't care. I'm in good anticipation here in the "awaiting-receiver-response club".

I think I've almost got it - could even ship it by Friday if I keep at it. This may be one of my more challenging Secret Santas, but could still be very rewarding.

I remember complimenting this on Facebook when I saw it get approved by the panel. Might as well copy-pasta for significance - I'm very pleased with this outcome, Ben! Having transcribed some of the PS1-era Spyro MIDIs, I can understand the difficulty of being able to work with something more riff-driven, and Midday Gardens is what I feel is even more restricting than the rest of the soundtrack. But regardless of the outcome, I'm really glad we've got some Spyro love on OCR - big love there! (...and I'm sorry Larry for not stepping up my game on this yet =()

Bumping up to proudly say the album was RELEASED over the weekend! Same link as before. Missed the listening party? Go listen into the SMD Podcast with commentary on the entire album with myself and DJ EAR! Listen, before I hurt hedgehog-suited kittens.

Full speed ahead!

My bedroom now has new life as a non-musical workshop for this process. Gotta knuckle down!

That's the problem - I enjoy a good platformer, but the vast majority of them from the past 3-5 years or so really fail to hit the mark as far as jaw-dropping wowness is concerned. I absolutely adored Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (though obviously 1 was indeed the more novel of the two) and so having seen Nintendo's natural progression, I thought it would be natural that they would keep doing more crazy ways to step up what their tech is capable of. As for having an "alone opinion", Anyway, can we finally get away from this sudden break in the thread and go back to what we were on about in the first place? *_*

The argument is, 3D World and the NSMB Wii U games aren't the big Mario products that Nintendo are doing to persuade users to get a Wii U. I am not at all saying that Sonic's better than Mario or anything of the sort; we're past the 90s as it is; but I won't get a Wii U just to see how awkawrd Rise of Lyric was put together either. To sum it up: NSMB Wii = Not 'Fantastic' Super Luigi U = Not'Fantastic' 3D World = Not 'Fantastic' Rise of Lyric = A BROKEN SHAMBLES Do you get my message? Bottom line - both Sega AND Nintendo need to get their shit together to make sure they stand a chance in this gaming generation.

Not at all. It's just that after giving it more of a chance in the Wii era (and enjoying what I got), I'm expecting Nintendo not to go the cheap way out. The aforementioned three games may sound cutesy cutesy, but they are no way in hell going to convince me to get a Wii U because they aren't 'THE major Mario game every past console generation has had' to me

TRAILER: PREVIEWS: https://soundcloud.com/soundoftss/sets/sotss14-out-of-the-ashes-previews As the previous two TSSMA albums were promoted in Community in the past, I might as well go here too. xD As implied, there's going to be 2+ hours of remixed Sega / Sonic sources from the combined efforts of 20 musicians (including myself) that are either active or affiliated with the TSS. The TSSMA albums were fun to get onto the right foot, but EAR's consistent nit-picking particularly on the production side of things saw him as a good fit to make sure the albums had significantly more punch and cohesiveness in comparison to these previous two albums. Assuming this goes down well, this would mark the start of a new twice-yearly album with themes, so this is set to go down as a more artistic production to come out from the TSS yet! This week's SEGA Mixer Drive will also host a pre-release party for the entire event - this Friday, 28 November, at 4PM EST. Anyone free this Thanksgiving weekend are more than welcome to come on in! Thank you for reading in

Please explain what Mario games on the 3DS / Wii U are considered "amazing". Nintendo are supposedly meant to provide revolutions for their character through each gaming generation, but from what I can see, the Wii U in particular only had an NSMB Wii follow-up, an NSMB spin-off with Luigi, and a partner game to 3D Land like NSMB Wii was to the original. #DerailingTheThread

^ What Timaeus said. I received GSO's PM on the subject, but it would definitely help if I know what the arrangement is intended to be used for.

First of all, this competition looks pretty organised and clear - it's a nice idea to be able to give back towards the artists in monetary form as well as focus really well on emphasis on a single game score. However, if you're expecting 50+ people taking part, I'd recommend that you simplify the bracket considerably - Mercenary Kings isn't really a popular game for artists to cover, or if it is, it definitely isn't as iconic as Sonic, Mega Man, Final Fantasy or Shovel Knight - 4 other games which similarly had bracket styled competitions from these. So if there's any way you'd be able to revise your brackets for a potentially smaller turnout, you might be able to get a workable competition here. This is my tuppence on the whole thing *_*

Go Go Advanced Workshop! It'll be awesome to see how that'll get developed down the line.

My Amazon is ready.

Correction: we have that, AND a strong candidate for a future Awful Games Done Quick.

Whoops... Thanks Mirby. I apologise for getting my Alien series games wrong xD

That's what I'll do with the 3DS version. Can't do the Wii U as I don't have one and don't have a reason to set myself back by £200-ish either. Honestly, between what I had seen of the Wii U version on Youtube, what I had heard about the E3 demos being majorly fucked over, what I had also heard about Sega pulling down game footage prior to official release and what I noticed of Sega not sending advance review copies out, it tells me there's no confidence with the final product at all and that they're trying to cut back on marketing just to salvage any potential losses that may crop up from this venture. Still unsure? Think back to the release of Alien Isolation, another game Sega published. Irresponsible developer plus no advance review copies. I don't even need to remind you of the critics' reception, or how GearBox REALLY spent their development money. It to me would take a lot more than a misguided business outing for me to boycott future Sega products, especially as they introduced me to gaming in the first place. For ow, the best they could do is keep moving forward *_*

To be fair, I don't have a Wii U but from what I had seen on Youtube, I personally think it's made Sonic '06 look like Mario 3. And I was expecting better from a portion of the team that had worked with Crash and Jak... The cartoon, on the other hand, it's definitely silly but as someone who grew up with AoStH it's got my approval. Like Garrett, I don't watch much TV either, but I won't let that bother me. I am however interested to try that 3DS demo whenever that arrives here in Europe. Hopefully that shouldn't be anywhere near the levels of trainwreck as its major console brother.

You got the complementary "birthday mix playthrough" on tonight's SEGA Mixer Drive from me. Here's to more time within the community and helping others with blunt yet helpful feedback.

Yeah, I want this year to be my first attempt at doing something handmade as well. I'm super excited x)